NIHILISTS
95
NIKODIM
Vogt, Mi)leschott, Blichner, and others, whose writings have had a pre-eminent influence in their doctrines. Tlie most influential promoter of these principles was Alexander Herzen, who in 1834, while a student at the University of Moscow, was arrested, with some of his associates, on account of their socialistic tendencies. He left Russia in 1847, and established a publishing-house in London for printing Russian translations of the writ- ings of Louis Blanc, Mazzini, and kindred authors. Al- though not strictly the leader of the Nihilists, yet it was unquestionably he who gave the chief impulse to political and social radicalism in Russia. The leaders of this school or party were very greatly influenced also by the writings of the French Socialists, Saint-Simon, Pierre Leroux, Proudhon, Louis Blanc, and especially by those of Fourier and our own Robert Dale Owen,
These Nihilists believe that in human progress it is not only possible but absolutely necessarj^ to begin at once with the present complicated social phenomena, in the waj' of a sudden and complete social reform, or with a revolution. They believe that this has precedence over all other agencies of progress. In regard to polit- ical questions, they regard the idea of federalism with favor, but are very decided in their antagonism against the extreme patriotic pretensions of the Panslavists, and against the principle of nationality as a special po- litical theory. During the demonstration by the stu- dents of St. Petersburg in February and March, 18G9, the radical political platform of the Nihilists was pub- lished in revolutionary proclamations, following each other in great numbers, with very nearly the same form and contents. Socialistic and revolutionary circulars greatly excited the more educated Russian youth, and tinally aroused the government to persecutions, which began with the arrest of the chief instigator of the St. Petersburg disturbances, Sergius Netschajew, the in- structor in religion at the Sergiewski church-school in the city. About the same time young men made jour- ne3's into the interior, in order to study the "real wants" of the people, and to influence them by their advice and sj^mpathy. In the cities they joined the " Sunday-school movement," and ofiiciated in organiz- ing schools, and in teaching and in giving lectures and exhibitions for their benefit, until they were closed by the government. In St. Petersburg, in Moscow, and in the larger provincial towns, the nihilist associations pro- tested against the action of the government and of the nobility in the matter of the emancipation of the serfs. In consequence of this the government at various times undertook persecutions against the Nihilists, In Au- gust, 1871, after an extraordinary trial, Netschajew and many of his associates were convicted, and the political activity of the party nearly suppressed. Yet towards the close of that year traces of nihilist conspiracies were thought to have been discovered, and numerous arrests were made. (II. P, C.)
Nihilists is the name given to a sect of German mystics who flourished in the 14th centurj', and, accord- ing to Ruysbroek, held that neither God nor themselves, heaven nor hell, action nor rest, good nor evil, have any real existence. They denied God and the work of Christ, Scripture, sacraments — everything. God was nothing ; they were nothing ; the universe was nothing. "Some hold doctrines such as these in secret," adds Ruysbroek, " and conform outwardly for fear. Others make them the pretext for every kind of vice and inso- lent insubordination." See also the article Nihilism, Sometimes the term Nihilists is used to A¬e Annihi- lationists (q. v.).
Nihus, Bartiiold, a learned German theologian, a convert to Romanism, was born in 1589 at Wolpe (duchj' of Brunswick), of poor parentage, and after having fin- ished his preparatory studies entered the service of Corn. ]\Iartin, professor of theology at Helmstiidt, who obtained for him a pension which enabled Nihus to pur- sue his studies at the university. The violent disputes
of the Protestant theologians inspired in him an aversion to Lutheranism, which was to him Protestantism. In 1616 he accompanied two young gentlemen to the uni- versity of Jena, and some time after was made precep- tor through the favor of the duke Bernhard of Saxe- Weimar. In 1622 Nihus went to Cologne, there em- braced Romanism, and entered into orders. After hav- ing for some time directed the college of the prosel3'tes of that city, he was ui 1629 nominated abbot of Ilfeld. At the approach of the Swedish army he retired to Hol- land ; later he became bishop of Myre and suffragan of the archbishop of IMayence. He died in Erfurt, INIarch 10, 1657. We have of his works, Disjmtationes logicoe (Helmstlidt, 1612, 4to) : — De rerum puhlicarum formis (ibid. 1616, 4to) : — Episiola philolo(/ica excutiens narra- tionein Pomj). MelcB de navigatione (Hanau, 1622, 4to) : — A rs Nova, dido Scriptura unico lucrandi e pontificiis plurimos in jjaiies Luiheranorum, defecta non nihil et sur/yesta theologis Ilelmstetensibus (Hildesheim, 1633); a work which drew the author into a violent polemic with George Calixtus: — Epigrammata (Cologne, 1642, 12mo) : — Anticriticus de fahrica criicis dominicce (ibid. 1644, 8vo): — De cruce ejnstola ad Bartholinwn (ibid, 1647, 8vo): — Hypodichma quo diluuntur nommlla contra Catholicos disputata in Corn. Martini tractatu de analysi logica (ibid, 1648, 8vo) : — Tractatus chorographiais de nonnullis AsicB p7'ovinciis ad Tigrim, Euphratem, et ]\fedi- terraneum et Rubrum maria (ibid. 1658, 8vo). Nihus, who published several other works of controversy against Wedel, Hornejus, etc., also edited several articles of Leon Allace, to which he joined dissertations of his own, such as Adnotationes de communione Orienfalium sub unica specie, etc. See Bayle, Ilisf. Diet. s. v. ; Roter- mund. Supplement to Jocher, Gelehrten-Lexikon, s. v, — Hoefer, Noitv. Biog. Generale, xxxviii, 78,