Lecturing on Isaiah he condemned current ecclesiastical abuses, and in a public disputation (loth of August 1523) was so successful that Erasmus writing to Zurich said "Oecolampadius has the upper hand amongst us."
In Oxford he was allowed to hold a disputation with some learned doctors on the rival merits of the Copernican and so-called Aristotelian systems of the universe, and, according to his own report, had an easy victory.
He hid himself in the Dominican convent at Leipzig in fear of popular violence, and died there on the 4th of July 1519, just as Luther was beginning his famous disputation with Eck.
The king even inclined to him, till in a great disputation the Magians gained the predominance.
On his return from Rome, Hildebert had a public disputation with Henry, in which, according to the bishop's Acta episcoporum Cenomannensium, Henry was shown to be less guilty of heresy than of ignorance.