§ 69. REUCHLIN AND ERASMUS. 625
under his guidance, gained the reputation of a learned academy. He gathered a library of 2,000 volumes and wrote a patrology, or encyclopjedia of the Fathers, and a catalogue of the renowned men of Germany. Prelates and nobles visited him to consult and read the Latin and Greek authors he had collected. These men and others contributed their part to that movement of which Reuchlin and Erasmus were the chief lights and which led on easily to the Protestant Reformation.^
§ 69. Reuclilin and Erasmus.
In his fresco of the Reformation on the walls of the Berlin museum, Kaulbach has given a place of great prominence to Reuchlin and Erasmus. They are represented in the group of the Humanists, standing side by side, with books under their arms and clad in scholar's cap and gown, their faces not turned toward the central figure on the platform, Martin Luther. The artist has presented the truth of history. These two most noteworthy German scholars prejpared the way for the Reformation and the modern study of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, but remained and died in the Roman Churcli in which they were boj:n. Rightly did Ulrich von Hutten call them " the two eyes of Germany." To them, and more especially to Erasmus, did all the greater Reformers owe a debt, Luther,Calvin,Zwingli,(Ecolampadius,MelanchthonandBeza.
John Reuchlin, 1455-1522, known also by the Latin name Capnion,^ was born in Pforzheim and studied at Schlettstadt, Freiburg, Paris, Basel, Orleans, Poictiers, Florence and Rome. He learned Greek from native Greeks, Hebrew from John Wessel and from Jewish rabbis in Germany and Italy. He bought many Hebrew and rabbinical books, and marked down the time and place of purchase to remind him of the happiness
1 Among the other German Humanists were Crotus Rubeanus, 1480-1540, Georg Spalatin, 1484-1545, Beatiis Rhenanus, 1485-1547, Eoban Hesse or Hessus, 1488-1540, Vadianus, 1484-1551, Glareanus or Loriti of Glarus, 1488- 1563, and Bonifacius Amerbach, 1495-1562, the last three from German Switzerland.
2 From k6.wvi.ov, i.e. little smoke, the Greek equivalent for Reuchlin, the diminutive of Bauch, smoke.
2s
626 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
their first acquaintance gave liim. A lawyer by profession, he practised law in Stuttgart and always called himsetf '?g^l?.m doctor.. He was first in the service of Eberhard, count of Wiirtemberg, whom he accompanied to Italy in 1482 as he later accompanied his son, 1490. He served on diplomatic missions and received from the Emperor Maximilian the rank of a count of the Palatinate. At Eberhard's death he removed to Heidelberg, 1496, where he was appointed by the elector Philip chief tutor in his family. His third visit to Rome, 1498, was made in the elector's interest. Again he returned to Stuttgart, from which he was called in 1520 to Ingolstadt as professor of Greek and Hebrew at a salary of 200 gulden. In 1521, he was driven from the city by the plague and was appointed lecturer in Tiibing.en. His death occurred the following spring at Liebenzell in the Black Forest.
Reuchlin recommended Melanchthon as professor of Greek in^the University of WittenTjerg, and thus unconsciously secured him for the Reformation^ He was at home in almost all the branches of the learning of his age, but especially in Greek and Hebrew. He translated from Greek writings into Latin, and a part of the Iliad and two orations of Demosthenes into German. His first important work appeared at Basel when he was 20, the Vocahularius breviloquus, a Latin lexicon which went through 25 editions, 1475-1504. He also prepared a Greek Grammar. His chief distinction, however, is as the pioneer of Hebrew learning among Christians in Northern Europe. He gave a scientific basis for tlie study of this language in l^is Hebrew Grammar and Dictionary, the Be rudimentis hebraicis, which he published in 1506 at his own cost at Pforzheim. Its circulation was slow and, in 1510, 750 copies of the edition of 1,000 still remained unsold. The second edition appeared in 1537. The author proudly concluded this work with the words of Horace, tliat he had reared a monument more enduring than brass. ^ In 1512, he issued the Peni-
1 ^^ Stat [exegQ monumentum cvre pereniiiiis.'''' Reuchlin also explained the difficult theory of Hebrew accentuation, in De acrentihus et orthor/raphia liwjuce hebr., 1518, Comp. Geiger, Das Studiian der liebr. Sprache in Deutschland V. Ende dea 15ten his zur Mitte des IGten Jahrh., Breslau, 1870, and his Reuchlin, 101, etc.