196 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
small voice” often made friends to Protestantism where the earthquake and thunder-storm produced only terror and convulsion.
Luther is greatest as a Reformer, Melanchthon as a Christian scholar. He represents in a rare degree the harmony of humanistic culture with biblical theology and piety. In this respect he surpassed all his contemporaries, even Erasmus and Reuchlin. He is, moreover, the connecting link between contending churches, and a forerunner of Christian union and catholicity which will ultimately heal the divisions and strifes of Christendom. To him applies the beatitude: “ Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.”
The friendship of Luther and Melanchthon drew into its charming circle also some other worthy and remarkable resi- — dents of Wittenberg, — Lucas Cranach the painter, who lent his art to the service of the Reformation; Justus Jonas, who came to Wittenberg in 1521 as professor and provost of the castle church, translated several writings of Luther and Melanchthon into German, and accompanied the former to Worms (1521), and on his last journey to Eisleben (1546) ; and Johann Bugenhagen, called Doctor Pomeranus, who moved from Pomerania to Wittenberg in 1521 as professor and preacher, and lent the Reformers most effective aid in translating the Bible, and organized the Reformation in several cities of North Germany and in Denmark.
§ 42. Ulrich von Hutten and Luther.
BockKINn@’s edition of ULRICHI HUTTENI equitis Germani Opera. Lips, 1859-1861. 5 vols. with three supplements, 1864-1870. Davim. FRIEDRICH STRAUSS (the author of the Leben Jesu): Gesprache von Ulrich von Hutten, tibersetzt und erldutert, Leipz. 1860, and his biog. raphy of Ulrich von Hutten, 4th ed., Bonn, 1878 (pp. 567). A masterly work by a congenial spirit. Compare K. Haaren, Deutschlands liter. und rel. Verh. in Reformationszeitalter, II. 47-60; RANKE, D. Gesch. I, 289-294; JANSSEN, II. 53 sqq. WERCKSHAGEN: Luther u. Hutten, 1888.
§ 42. ULRICH VON HUTTEN AND LUTHER. 197
While Luther acquired in Melanchthon, the head of the Christian and theological wing of the humanists, a permanent and invaluable ally, he received also temporary aid and comfort from the pagan and political wing of the humanists, and its ablest leader, Ulrich von Hutten.
This literary knight and German patriot was descended from an ancient but impoverished noble family of Franconia. He was born April 21, 1488, and began life, like Erasmus, as an involuntary monk; but he escaped from Fulda in his sixteenth year, studied humanities in the universities of Erfurt, Cologne, and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, law at Pavia and Bologna, traveled extensively, corresponded with the most prominent men of letters, was crowned as poet by the Emperor Maximilian at Augsburg (1517), and occupied an influential position at the court of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz (1517-1520), who had charge of the sale of indulgences in Germany.
He took a lively part in Reuchlin’s conflict with the obscurantism of the Dominicans of Cologne.! He is, next to his friend Crotus of Erfurt, the chief author of the Epzstole obscurorum Virorum, that barbarous ridicule of barbarism, in which the ignorance, stupidity, bigotry, and vulgarity of the monks are exposed by factitious letters in their own wretched Latin with such success that they accepted them at first as genuine, and bought a number of copies for distribution.? He vigorously attacked the abuses and corruptions of the
1 Triumphus Capnionis (κάπνιος = Reuchlin), a poem written in 1514, but not published till 1518 under the pseudo-name of Eleutherius Byzenus. Works, III. 413-447; Strauss, U. v. H., 155 sq.
2 First published 1515 [at Hagenau], and 1517 at Basel; best ed. by Bocking, in Hutten’s Opera, Suppl. i. Lips. (1864), and commentary in Suppl. ii. (1869); an excellent critical analysis by Strauss, l.c. 165 sqq. He compares them with Don Quixote. The first book of the Epist. is chiefly from Crotus, the second chiefly from Hutten. The comic impression arises in great part from the barbarous Latinity, and is lost in a translation. There is, however, a good German translation by Dr. Wilhelm Binder: Briefe von Dunkelmdnnern. Stuttgart, 1876. The translator says he knew twenty-seven Latin editions, but no translation.