THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Bibliography: A. Wiener, Die jildUchen Speisegesetze, Breslau, 1895; J. D. Michaelis, Mosaiaches Recht, iv. 125- 126, Biehl, 1777; H. Ewald, Die Alterthumer des Volkea Israel, pp. 192-212, Gottingen, 1866, Eng. transl., pp. 144-165, Boston, 1876; W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 3 vols.. New York, 1881-86; H. L. Strack, Das Blut im Glauben und Aberglauben, Berlin, 1900; DB, ii. 27-43; EB, ii. 1538 sqq.; JE, v. 431-433; and the literature under Defilement and Purification, Ceremonial.
DIETENBERGER, JOHANNES: German Roman Catholic Bible translator; b. at Frankforton-the-Main c. 1475; d. at Mainz Sept. 4, 1537. He entered in early life the Dominican order, and in 1510 became prior of the Frankfort monastery. This office he held till 1524. In 1526 he became prior in Coblenz. He was among the theologians chosen to refute the Augsburg Confession in 1530. He was also one of the Dominican inquisitors, and as such had a part in the Reuchlin investigation. From 1533 till his death he was professor of theology at the University of Mainz. He is spoken of by his contemporaries, both Roman Catholic and Protestant , as one of the foremost men of his time, but he has been so much forgotten that the details of his hfe are not known, and the way in which the outline that is known has been stated is usually erroneous. He was a prolific author. Most numerous are his ascetic and polemical writings, but of greater permanent value are his translation of the entire Bible, for which his scholarship in Hebrew and Greek qualified him, but which was fiercely attacked by the Protestants as nothing more than a transcript of Luther's translation, and particularly his catechism, which was one of the earliest of the kind known. The Bible version (Mainz, 1534) is of course from the Vulgate. It passed through forty editions. His catechism (Mainz, 1537) was also very popular and received the indorsement of numerous church bodies.
Bibliography: H. Wedewer, Johannes Dietenberger, Freiburg, 1888; C. Moufang, Die Maimer Katechismen bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, Mainz, 1878.
DIETRICH, di'triH, OF APOLDA: Author of a life of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia and another of St. Dominic. He is undoubtedly identical with Dietrich of Thuringia, but of his life is known only what may be gathered from the prologues to his works — that he was born probably about 1228 in Apolda, and became a Dominican in the monastery at Erfurt in 1247; he most likely died there after 1296. His two biographies are written not without skill, and display painstaking search after oral and written sources. The Vita S. Elisabethce was written 1289 and printed in Canisius, Lectiones antiquw, ed. Basnage, iv (Amsterdam, 1725), 116-152; it adds nothing to our knowledge of the saint's life, and the same is true of his Vita S. Dominici (latest ed. by A. Cure, Paris, 1887). Begun at the request of Munione da Zamorra, general of the order, Dietrich finished it under Nicholas Bocassinus, general 1296-98. lie has incorporated oral tradition from Sister Cecilia in Rome, and the Ofrman provincial (icrard, .'ind has used the older biographies of the saint by .Tordanus, Constantino, Ilumhfrt, Gerhard of Frachct, and the acts of the canonization.
(G. GRijTZMACHEK.)
Bibliography: J. Qu(5tif and J. iSchard, Scriptores ordinis pTcedicatoTum, i. 413 sqq., 453 sqq., Paris, 1719; G. Boerner, in A^^, xiii (1888), pp. 472-491 (pp. 491-493 contain an edition of the Vita).
DIETRICH OF NIEHEIM (NIEM): Roman Cathoiic Reformatory writer at the time of the great Western schism (see Schism); b. in the diocese of Paderborn in Westphalia, probably at Nieheim (18 m. e.n.e. of Paderborn) between 1338 and 1348; d. at Maestricht Mar., 1418. A very industrious man, he labored for the removal of the schism and, hke Pierre d'Ailly and Gerson in France, lifted up his voice in Germany in favor of a thorough reformation of the Church. At the time of the Council at Constance he was the greatest ecclesiastico-political publicist using the German tongue. All his life he is designated as a cleric of the diocese of Paderborn. He was not of noble birth, was educated outside of his native land, and traveled through Italy. Having studied jurisprudence, he obtained a position in the curia. In 1370 he was an officer in the papal court at Avignon, and in 1377, as notarius sacri palaiii went with the curia to Rome. Under Urban VI. he obtained the important and lucrative offices of abbreviator and scriptor in the chancery. After the outbreak of the schism in 1378 he shared the vicissitudes of Urban VI., but he obtained rich livings, and under the next pope, Boniface IX. (1389-1404), he was appointed to the episcopal see of Verden on the Aller, in his native Lower Saxony. He occupied the see from 1395 to 1399, when he had to resign. In 1 403 he was again in Rome and interested in the newly founded German Hospital dell' Anima. He took no part in the Council at Pisa (1409), as certain business took him to Germany. But he remained in the service of the curia till the flight of John XXIII. from the Council at Constance in 1415 induced him to sever his connection with the pope. At the Council of Constance he played officially no important part, but exercised considerable influence by his writings. It may be taken for granted that he composed at Constance the passionate libel which its first editor entitled Invectiva in diffugientem Johannem xxiii. In this he holds
before the pope a fearful list of sins committed, and destroys his moral character irretrievably In his official position Dietrich had the chance of observing the doings of the curia from 1377 to 1415, and, as he was well educated and strove to be honest, his records have almost the value of a source. There is at present no agreement concerning the genuineness of the writings attributed to him. The most important may be: (1) Ncmus unionis (first printed Basel, 1566, as bk. iv. of the following work), treating of the union of the church; (2) De schismate (Nuremberg, 1536), a history of the schism to 1410; (3) Historia dc vita Johannis xxiii. (Frankfort, 1420), also a history of the Council of Constance and Dietrich's daybook to 1416; (4) Privilegia et jura imperii (Basel, 1566), a history of the Holy Roman empire, after the fashion of Dante's political dreams. According to Erler, Dietrich did not write the works De necessitate reformationis ecclcxia-, De modis uniendi ac reformandi ecclesiam, and De difficultate