Karl Josef von Hefele (March 15, 1809 – June 6, 1893) was a Roman Catholic bishop and theologian of Germany.
Biography
Hefele was born at Unterkochen in Württemberg and was educated at Tübingen, where in 1839 he became professor-ordinary of Church history and patristics in the Roman Catholic faculty of theology, while collaborating along with William Robinson Clark to his major work.
From 1842 to 1845 he sat in the National Assembly of Württemberg. In December 1869 he was enthroned bishop of Rottenburg. His literary activity, which had been considerable, was in no way diminished by his elevation to the episcopate. Among his numerous theological works may be mentioned his well-known edition of the Apostolic Fathers, issued in 1839; his Life of Cardinal Ximenes, published in 1844 as Der Cardinal Ximenes und der kirchlichen Zustände Spaniens am Ende des 15. und am Anfange des 16. Jahrhunderts (Eng. trans. by John Dalton, 1860); and his still more celebrated Conciliengeschichte (History of the Councils of the Church), in seven volumes, which appeared between 1855 and 1874 (Eng. trans., 1871, 1882).