§ 14. WILIBALD PIRKHEIMER. 437
when he returned utterly exhausted from Augsburg in 1518, distributed his books, and, with his friends Albrecht Diirer and Lazarus Spengler, prepared the way for the victory of the new ideas in his native city. He wrote an apology of Reuchlin in his controversy with the Dominicans, contributed probably to the “ Letters of Obscure Men,” and ridiculed Dr. Eck in a satirical, pseudonymous dialogue, after the Leipzig disputation.1 Eck took cruel revenge when he published the Pope’s bull of excommunication, by naming Pirkheimer among the followers of Luther, and warning him through the magistrate of Nurnberg. Luther burnt the Pope’s bull; but Pirkheimer helped himself out of the difficulty by an evasive diplomatic disclaimer, and at last begged absolution.
This conduct is characteristic of the humanists. They would not break with the authorities of the church, and had not the courage of martyrs. They employed against existing abuses the light weapons of ridicule and satire rather than serious argument and moral indignation. They had little sympathy with the theology and piety of the Reformers, and therefore drew back when the Reformers, for conscience’ sake, broke with the old church, and were cast out of her bosom as the Apostles were cast out of the synagogue.
In a letter to Erasmus, dated Sept. 1, 1524, Pirkheimer speaks still favorably of Luther, though regretting his excesses, and deprecates a breach between the two as the greatest calamity that could befall the cause of sound learning. But soon after the free-will controversy, and under the influence of Erasmus, he wrote a very violent book against his former friend Ccolampadius, in defence of consubstantiation (he did not go as far as transubstantiation).?
1 Eccius dedolatus (Der abgehobelte Eck). Auctore Ioanne Francisco Cottalambergio, Poéta Laureato. 1520. See p. 182.
2 Bilibaldi Birckheimheri de vera Christi carne et vero ejus sanguine, ad Joan. Gicolampadium responsio. Norembergae, 1526. Bilibaldi Pirckhey-
488 THE GERMAN ἜΡΞΡΕ Ὡγ τ ἘΠῚ A.D. 1517 τὸ 1530.
The distractions among Protestants, the Anabaptist disturbances, the Peasants’ War, the conduct of the contentious Osiander, sickness, and family afflictions increased his alienation from the Reformation, and clouded his last years. The stone and the gout, of which he suffered much, confined him at home. Diirer, his daily companion (who, however, differed from him on the eucharistic question, and strongly leaned to the Swiss view), died in 1528. Two of his sisters, and two of his daughters, took the veil in the nunnery of St. Clara at Nurnberg. His sister Charitas, who is famous for her Greek and Latin correspondence with Erasmus and other luminaries, was abbess. The nunnery suffered much from the disturbances of the Reformation and the Peasants’ War. When it was to be secularized and abolished, he addressed to the Protestant magistrate an eloquent and touching plea in behalf of the nuns, and conclusively refuted the charges made against them. The convent was treated with some toleration, and survived till 1590.
His last letters, like those of Erasmus, breathe discontent with the times, lament over the decline of letters and good morals, and make the evangelical clergy responsible for the same evils which he formerly charged upon the Roman clergy and monks. “I hoped,” he wrote to Zasius (1527), a distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Freiburg, who likewise stood halting between Rome and Wittenberg, —“ I hoped for spiritual liberty ; but, instead of it, we have carnal license, and things have gotten much worse than before.” Zasius was of the same opinion,! and Protestants of Nurnberg admitted the fact of the extensive abuse of the gospel
meri de vera Christi carne, etc., reponsio secunda. 1527. I give the titles, with the inconsistencies of spelling, from original copies in the Union Theol. Seminary. Pirkheimer calls @colampadius (his Greek name for Hausschein, House-lamp) ‘‘ Coecolampadius’’ (Blindschein, Blind-lamp), and deals with him very roughly. Drews (pp. 89-110) gives a full account of this unprofitable controversy.
1 Comp. Déollinger, Die Reform. i. 174-182.