Johann Reuchlin
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Johann Reuchlin (German:
Early life
Johann Reuchlin was born at Pforzheim in the Black Forest in 1455, where his father was an official of the Dominican monastery.[2] According to the fashion of the time, his name was graecized by his Italian friends into Capnion (Καπνίων), a nickname which Reuchlin used as a sort of transparent mask when he introduced himself as an interlocutor in the De Verbo Mirifico. He remained fond of his home town; he constantly calls himself Phorcensis, and in the De Verbo he ascribes to Pforzheim his inclination towards literature.[2]
Here he began his
Teaching and writing career
At Basel Reuchlin took his master's degree (1477), and began to lecture with success, teaching a more classical Latin than was then common in German schools, and explaining Aristotle in Greek.[2] His studies in this language had been continued at Basel under Andronicus Contoblacas.[3] In Basel he made the acquaintance of the bookseller Johann Amerbach, for whom he prepared a Latin lexicon (Vocabularius Breviloquus, 1st ed, 1475–76), which ran through many editions. This first publication, and Reuchlin's account of his teaching at Basel in a letter to Cardinal Adrian (Adriano Castellesi) in February 1518, show that he had already found his life's work. He was a born teacher, and this work was not to be done mainly from the professor's chair.
By 1477, Reuchlin had left Basel to seek further Greek training with
From Poitiers, Reuchlin went in December 1481 to Tübingen with the intention of becoming a teacher in the local university, but his friends recommended him to Count Eberhard of Württemberg, who was about to travel to Italy and required an interpreter. Reuchlin was selected for this post, and in February 1482 left Stuttgart for Florence and Rome. The journey lasted but a few months, but it brought the German scholar into contact with several learned Italians, especially at the Medicean Academy in Florence; his connection with the count became permanent, and after his return to Stuttgart he received important posts at Eberhard's court.[2]
About this time, he appears to have married, but little is known of his married life. He left no children, but in later years, his sister's grandson
In 1490, he was again in Italy. Here he saw
In 1496, Duke Eberhard I of Württemberg died, and enemies of Reuchlin had the ear of his successor, Duke Heinrich of Württemberg (formerly Heinrich Count of Württemberg-Mömpelgard). He was glad, therefore, hastily to follow the invitation of
At Heidelberg, Reuchlin had many private pupils, among whom
Hebrew studies and advocacy
For many years Reuchlin had been increasingly absorbed in Hebrew studies, which had for him more than a mere philological interest. He was interested in the reform of preaching as shown in his De Arte Predicandi (1503)—a book that became a sort of preacher's manual; but above all, as a scholar, he was eager that the Bible should be better known, and could not tie himself to the authority of the Vulgate.[2]
The key to the Hebraea veritas was the grammatical and exegetical tradition of the medieval rabbis, especially of David Kimhi, and when he mastered this, he was resolved to open it to others. In 1506, appeared his epoch-making De Rudimentis Hebraicis—grammar and lexicon—mainly after Kimhi, yet not a mere copy of one man's teaching. The edition was costly and sold slowly. One great difficulty was that the wars of Maximilian I in Italy prevented Hebrew Bibles from coming into Germany. But for this also Reuchlin found help by printing the Penitential Psalms with grammatical explanations (1512), and other helps followed from time to time. But his Greek studies had interested him in those fantastical and mystical systems of later times with which the Kabbala has no small affinity. Following Pico, he seemed to find in the Kabbala a profound theosophy that might be of the greatest service for the defence of Christianity and the reconciliation of science with the mysteries of faith, a common notion at that time. Reuchlin's mystico-cabbalistic ideas and objects were expounded in the De Verbo Mirifico, and finally in the De Arte Cabbalistica (1517).[2]
Many of his contemporaries thought that the first step to the
In 1510, Reuchlin was appointed by Emperor Maximilian to a commission that was convened to review the matter. His answer is dated from Stuttgart, 6 October 1510; in it, he divides the books into six classes — apart from the Bible which no one proposed to destroy — and, going through each class, he shows that the books openly insulting to Christianity are very few and viewed as worthless by most Jews themselves, while the others are either works necessary to the Jewish worship, which was licensed by papal as well as imperial law or contain matter of value and scholarly interest which ought not to be sacrificed because they are connected with another faith than that of the Christians. He proposed that the emperor should decree that for ten years there should be two Hebrew chairs at every German university, for which the Jews should furnish books.
Maximilian's other experts proposed that all books should be taken from the Jews; and, as the emperor still hesitated, his opponents threw on Reuchlin the whole blame of their ill success. Pfefferkorn circulated at the Frankfurt Fair of 1511 a gross
In 1513, Reuchlin was summoned before a court of the inquisition. He was willing to receive corrections in theology, which was not his subject, but he could not unsay what he had said; and as his enemies tried to press him into a corner, he met them with open defiance in a Defensio contra Calumniatores (1513). The universities were now appealed to for opinions and were all against Reuchlin. Even Paris (August 1514) condemned the Augenspiegel, and called on Reuchlin to recant. Meantime a formal process had begun at Mainz before the grand inquisitor. But Reuchlin managed to have the jurisdiction changed to the episcopal court of Speyer. The Reuchlin affair caused a wide rift in the church and eventually the case came before the papal court in Rome. Judgment was not finally given till July 1516; and then, though the decision was really for Reuchlin, the trial was simply quashed.
And while the
Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen did all they could to force Reuchlin's enemies to restitution of his material damages; they even threatened a feud against the Dominicans of Cologne and Spires. In 1520, a commission met in Frankfurt to investigate the case. It condemned Hoogstraaten. But the final decision of Rome did not indemnify Reuchlin. The contest ended, however; public interest had grown cold, absorbed entirely by the Lutheran question, and Reuchlin had no reason to fear new attacks. When, in 1517, he received the theses propounded by Luther, he exclaimed, "Thanks be to God, at last, they have found a man who will give them so much to do that they will be compelled to let my old age end in peace."[9]
Influence on Luther
Luther's comment that justification by faith was the "true Cabala" in his Commentary on Galatians[12] has been explained as relating to Reuchlin's influence.[13] While Luther had consulted Reuchlin as a Hebrew expert and used De Arte Cabalistica as support for an argument, Luther took objection to Reuchlin's comment in De rudimentis hebraicis that the Hebrew letters for Jesus' name meant "the hidden God," which Luther found contrary to Matthew, Chapter 1:21, which describes the meaning as being about "he would save His people from their sins."[14]
End of life
Reuchlin did not long enjoy his victory over his accusers in peace. In 1519, Stuttgart was visited by famine, civil war and pestilence. In response to concerns about growing religious controversies
Reuchlin died in Stuttgart and is buried at St. Leonhard church.[17]
Publications
- De Verbo Mirifico (The Wonder-Working Word, 1494)
- De Arte Cabbalistica (On the Art of Kabbalah, 1517)
Notes
- ^ Ivo Volt, Janika Päll (eds.), Byzantino-Nordica 2004, Morgenstern Society, 2005, p. 94.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Smith, William Robertson (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 203.
- ISBN 3-7965-1734-X.
- S2CID 164492084.
- ^ Deutsch, Gotthard; Frederick T. Haneman. "Pfefferkorn, Johann (Joseph)". Jewish Encyclopedia.
- ISBN 0-300-08410-2.
- ^ Reuchlin, Pfefferkorn, and the Talmud in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries in The Babylonian Talmud. The History of the Talmud translated by Michael L. Rodkinson. Book 10 Vol. I Chapter XIV (1918) p.76
- New International Encyclopedia(1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
- ^ a b c This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). . Encyclopedia Americana.
- ISBN 0-415-25409-4.
- ISBN 978-0-8020-8484-2.
- ^ Latin: Commentarium in Epistolam S. Pauli ad Galatas: 2 By Martin Luther, Google Books, also English, though the word Cabala is lost in translation: A Commentary on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians
- ^ Philosophia Symbolica: Johann Reuchlin and the Kabbalah : Catalogue of an Exhibition in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica Commemorating Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) Cis van Heertum, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, 2005
- ISBN 0801038847William J. Wright, Richard Muller - 2010
- ISBN 978-0-231-08850-3. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
- ISBN 978-0-19-539421-4. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
- ^ Posset, F (2011), "Reuchlin, Johann (1455–1522)", The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization.
References
- Johannes Reuchlin and the Campaign to Destroy Jewish Books, by David H. Price, Oxford University Press, 2011
- public domain: Smith, William Robertson (1911). "Reuchlin, Johann". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 203. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Reuchlin, Johann von". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
External links
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
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- Löffler, Klemens (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. .
- Johannes Reuchlin and the Jewish Book Controversy Archived 2018-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
- Johann Reuchlin at the Mathematics Genealogy Project