RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Reublin Reuchlin
idem, Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Zilrcher Reformation, ib. 1879; J. Beck, Geschichtsbilcher der Wiedertaufer in Oesterreich-Vngarn, Vienna, 1883; L. Keller, Die Reformation und die alteren Reformparteien, Leipsic, 1885; R. Nitsche, Geschichte der Wiedertaufer in der Schweiz zur Reformationzeit, Einsiedeln, 1885; C. Gerbert, Geschichte der Strassburger Sektenbewegung, 1524-35, Strasburg, 1889; A. H. Newman, Hist, of Anti-Peddbaptism, pp. 105 sqq., Philadelphia, 1897; A. Hulshof, Geschiedenis van den Doopsgezind en Straassburg, 1525-57, 1905. For Reublin's justification of himself and complaint of ill-treatment at the hands of the Moravian communists cf. his letter to Pilgram Marbeck in C. A. Cornelius, ut sup., vol. ii., Beilage.
REUCHLIN, reiH"lin' (CAPNION), JOHANNES: German humanist; b. at Pforzheim (24 m. n.w. of Stuttgart) Feb. 22, 1455; d. at Bad Liebenzell (20 m. w. of Stuttgart) June 30, 1522. After a brief course at the University of Freiburg, where he was matriculated May 19, 1470, he was a chorister in his native town and then gained a place at court in the chantry of the Margrave Charles I. The latter sent him as companion to his son to the University of Paris, where he began the study of Greek. In the summer of 1474 he worked at Basel (B.A., 1475; M.A., 1477), still continuing his study of Greek. At this period he composed his Vocabularius breviloquus (1475), but his teaching of Aristotelian philosophy brought him into conflict with the " sophists " of the university. He accordingly returned to Paris and resumed his Greek studies, then went to Orleans in 1478 to study jurisprudence, receiving his degree in law in the following year and supporting himself by teaching. He continued his legal studies at Poitiers and became licentiate of law in 1481. Reuchlin then returned to Germany and intended to lecture at Tubingen, but was requested by Count Eberhard im Bart to accompany him to Rome. After his return to Germany he was the counselor of the count and also practised law in Stuttgart. In 1484 he received a seat among the court judges, and two years later was Eberhard's envoy to the Diet of Frankfort, besides attending the coronation of Maximilian at Aachen. Meanwhile Reuchlin had begun the study of Hebrew. He visited Rome a second time in 1490 as the companion of the natural son of Eberhard, and two years later the count sent him to the court of the Emperor Frederick at Linz on a diplomatic mission. The emperor honored Reuchlin by conferring on him the title and privileges of a palsgrave, and here he secured instruction in Hebrew from the emperor's physicianin-ordinary, the learned Jew Jacob Loans. He now devoted himself to the mystery of the Cabala (q.v.), and in 1494 his De verbo mirifico appeared, in which he sought to show that God and man meet through the revelation of the mysteries contained in the marvelous names of God, especially in the tetragrammaton, the ineffable first becoming utterable through the most marvelous of all names (which he transliterated Jhovh, Jesus, recalling the tetragrammaton Yhwh), wherein man is united with God and
The death of Eberhard (Feb. 24, 1496) brought Reuchlin in peril of his life from the unbridled Eberhard the Younger and the Augustinian Konrad Holzinger, who were opposed to him. He fled from Stuttgart to Heidelberg and was appointed coun-
selor and chief tutor by the Elector Palatine Philip, Dec. 31, 1497. In 1498 Reuchlin again went to Rome on a mission for his patron, finding opportunity to continue his Hebrew studies with a learned Jew, Obadiah Sforno, and meeting Aldus Manucius at Venice. In Apr., 1499, he was again at home. During the period of his residence at Heidelberg, which was now to end, he had written, besides Latin poems and epigrams, two Latin comedies in imitation of Terence, Sergius, and Henno.
Meanwhile Eberhard the Younger had been deposed in Wurttemberg, and it became possible for Reuchlin to return to Stuttgart, where he was one of the three judges of the Swabian alliance until the end of 1512. In the midst of his official duties and his private practise, he found time to publish at Pforzheim, in 1506, his De rudimentis Hebraicis. This was followed in 1512 by a Hebrew edition of the seven penitential Psalms with a literal Latin translation and grammatical explanation for the use of beginners; and in 1518 by his De accentibus et orthographia linguae Hebraicce. In the mean time he had published in 1517 his De arte cabbalistica, in which the cabala was held to have been revealed to Adam by an angel and to have been preserved in unbroken tradition to the time of the great synagogue and then transmitted by it to the writers of the Talmud. The cabala was further asserted to be in harmony with the Pythagorean philosophy, which had drawn from Egyptian, Jewish, and Persian sources. The esoteric doctrines of the cabala were emphasized and the various methods of gematria were explained and exemplified.
During this period Reuchlin became involved in the controversy which was to embitter the closing years of his life. As early as 1505, in his missive, Warumb die Juden so lang im elend sind, he had held that the wretchedness of the Jews was a punishment for their rejection of the Messiah and their stubborn unbelief. At the same time, he did not wish them persecuted, but prayed that God might enlighten them. But Johann Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew, acted differently. He sought to compel the Jews to surrender all books contrary to the Christianfaith and to attend sermons preached for their conversion. Pfefferkorn's course won the approval of the emperor, who, on Aug. 19, 1509, issued a mandate requiring compliance with his plans. Reuchlin declined to cooperate with Pfefferkorn, while Uriel, archbishop of Mainz, forbade Pfefferkorn to work in his archdiocese until further notice. Meanwhile the Jews of Frankfort had complained to the emperor that Pfefferkorn was ignorant in these matters, and Maximilian placed Uriel in charge of the confiscation, at the same time directing him to assemble certain scholars and others, including Reuchlin, and then to decide the matter. But Uriel delayed, and on July 6, 1510, Pfefferkorn obtained from the emperor a new requirement that the archbishop should merely secure the written opinions of those he had before been directed to consult, these decisions being intended for the emperor's consideration. On Oct. 6, 1510, Reuchlin accordingly delivered his opinion. He distinguished between obvious impieties, such as the Nizahon and the Toledoth Yeshu, which should be destroyed after legal investigation
Reuchlin