JOHN REUCHLIN.

PART THE SECOND.

LIFE OF JOHN REUCHLIN TILL THE YEAR 1509; HIS INFLUENCE UPON THE REFORMATION, BY THE PROMOTION OF LEARNING.

BEFORE the manifestation of Christianity, individuals were appointed by God to prepare men's minds in various ways for its reception. In this, as in other things, there appears a certain analogy between the epoch of its commencement and that of the Reformation.

The spreading corruption had raised an opposition, and through the strife, truth, which by separate instruments in different manners works to a single aim, pressed forward with new force. The lives of such gifted and apostolic characters open to the enquirer an extensive and profound view of their times, and each biography is more or less the history of a cycle. The combat in which the champion of righteousness stood forth, brought him into contact with many friends and enemies, whose style of thought and action may often be traced even to minute particulars in his personal history. Such a distinguished man in the period preceding the Reformation, whose

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ASPIRATIONS AFTER TRUTH.

P. II.

life represents to us that of a great multitude, was JOHN REUCHLIN.

The narrative of his experience contains an abridgement of the history of learning in Germany, at the beginning of the Reformation. Therein is mirrored the whole state of religion, of the cultivation of literature, of the manners and customs of the era. His long influential career, which lasted almost till the outbreak of the Lutheran controversies, contributes the not inconsiderable portion of half a century towards the knowledge of periods which were important, through manifold disputes. No other biography but that of Reuchlin thus comprehends the days previous to this religious revival, or is so connected with its contests in different directions, both singly and in the aggregate. Erasmus, a most powerful instrument of Providence in preparing for this new illumination, lived later, and was so much acted upon by the Reformation itself, that his life cannot give so striking a picture of this moral revolution. It is true, that in him likewise, opposition to the corrupt world is clearly manifest, but it is neither so important nor so influential, because it is not so open, and appears only in particular instances. The biography of Reuchlin is not only valuable and instructive on account of the knowledge to be obtained from it of his age, but also for the power he exercised over his own and succeeding generations. The true foundation of this sway, however, is to be traced in the animating principle of his era, which he expressed strongly and simply in word and deed, being called forth by antagonism, by depravity, and strengthened by the battle with them in his disposition to aspire after truth, to which in Reuchlin all else was subservient, and which he sought to acquire and to purify, not only for himself, but also that he might confer it upon all his contem

P. II.

REUCHLIN'S BIRTH.

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poraries. Here we find the key to his entire life and actions, and here is exhibited his greatness and his authority.

Reuchlin's early education gave him the direction which his vigorous active spirit plainly required; therefore it is much to be regretted, that so little is discoverable concerning his elementary instruction and his domestic circumstances. He appears first in history as a well-established youth, whose exertions and conduct lead to the inference that he was respectably brought up. Reuchlin was born at Phorzheim in the year 1455', on the 28th of December 2, and educated by his virtuous and honest parents, George and Eliza Erina, together with a younger brother, Dionysius, and a sister, Elizabeth, if not in affluence, at least not in great poverty.

Gehres, in the description of the curiosities of Pforzheim, mentions a chronicle, in which he found that the father of Reuchlin had been a common messenger. This information seems to agree well with the later somewhat necessitous circumstances of Reuchlin.

Sent by his father to the then flourishing Latin town school, Reuchlin there learned the rudiments of language and music. His active industry, and consequent successful progress, raised much expectation. His serene spirit, his lively social disposition, united to gentleness, gained him the love of his teachers and

1 Crusius, in his Annalen der Schwäbischen Geschichte, gives it 1445: Melchior Adam, in his Vitis Philos. Germ. s. 17, Frkf. 1705, fol. 1454; but on the contrary, there is Reuchlin's own account in his letter to Cuspinian, in the Sammlung der Briefe des R. und an R., Hagenau, 1519, s. 83.

2 Bartholomæus Sastrow in his life (published by the Hrn. Consistorial-Rath Mohinke Greifswald, 1823), part i. vol. vi. ch. iii. gives a striking simple description of Phorzheim on the confluence of the Würm, and the Nagold in the Enz, upon whose rise Reuchlin (de Verbo Mirifico, lib. i. cap. i.), Melanchthon (Oratio de Capnione, in the third volume of his Declamations), and Majus (Vita Reuchlini), tell various tales,

E

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EDUCATION.

P. II.

schoolfellows. Among many other talents, the youth had that of song, to which the natural gift of a good voice contributed much. It was well cultivated, and this very accomplishment smoothed his path towards further improvement. At the end of his 17th or the beginning of his 18th year, he was called to the court at Baden, and received among the court-singers or choristers. His whole character, his sprightly mind, and sufficient advance in grammar, caused him to be remarked, so that at the commencement of the year 1473, he was sent with the young Margrave Frederic (eldest son of Charles II., afterwards from 1496 to his death 1517, bishop of Utrecht), who was nearly of the same age, to the high school of Paris 3. This was one of the most famous academies of the west, to whose rise Petrus de Alliaco, (Pierre d' Ailly,) and his celebrated pupil John Gerson, head of the council of Constance, as also Nicolas de Clemangis, had especially devoted themselves with much success. this time, after the taking of Constantinople (1453), some fugitive learned Greeks went to Paris, and transported thither, with many other literary treasures, the Hellenic language, which for many centuries had been wholly unknown. Thus Reuchlin learnt from the pupils of Tyfernas (not from Tyfernas himself, as Melanchthon, and others who follow him therein, erroneously give out) the principles of Greek literature, and was afterwards the first German who communicated them to his countrymen.

At

He endeavoured now to improve in Latin, which hitherto for want of sound teachers and assistance he had acquired but superficially, and therefore in Paris he attended the lectures of the famous grammarian, Johann de Lapide, doctor of the Sorbonne, upon Valla's Elegantiæ Latini Sermonis. This man was a German,

3 Melancht. in Oratione de Johanne Capnione, in his Declamations, vol. iii. R. Brief Seg. p. 155.