REUCHLIN, JOHANN

German humanist, Hebrew scholar; b. Pforzheim, Feb. 22, 1455; d. Bad Liebenzell, Germany, June 30, 1522. He studied liberal arts at Freiburg im Breisgau, Paris (beginning Greek there), and Basel, and then law at Orléans and Poitiers (licentiate, 1481). Next he accompanied Duke Eberhard of Württemberg to Italy, where he met Marsilio ficino. He received a Doctor of Laws degree from Tübingen and remained in the service of Duke Eberhard. In 1490 he made a second Italian trip, meeting pico della mirandola. On a mission to the imperial court at Linz (1492), he continued his study of Hebrew. The accession of an unfriendly duke drove Reuchlin to Heidelberg (1496), where he associated with humanists such as Jakob Wimpfeling. In 1498 he made his third Italian trip. He next became judge of the Swabian League (1502–13). Later he held professorships at Ingolstadt (1520–21) and Tübingen (1521–22). Despite his busy public career, Reuchlin was always the humanist. In 1475 he published a Latin dictionary, and later he made translations from Greek. At Heidelberg he wrote two Latin comedies, Henno and Sergius. He was seeking to recover ancient wisdom, but in his view all true wisdom stemmed ultimately from the Hebrew revelation. Hence he was one of the first to attempt mastery of Hebrew. He not only succeeded in learning it, but also produced the books that firmly established Hebrew studies in Germany: De rudimentis hebraicis (1506) and De accentibus et orthographia linguae hebraicae (1518). He was seeking ancient wisdom and thought he had found it in Jewish ca bala, which inspired his De verbo mirifico (1494) and De arte cabalistica (1517). These two works, though tending toward a potentially dangerous syncretism, aimed to demonstrate the truth of Christianity with the aid of Cabala. The most famous episode in Reuchlin's life was his controversy with the converted Jew Johannes pfefferkorn and the Dominicans of Cologne. Pfefferkorn had urged the destruction of all Hebrew books. Consulted by the emperor, Reuchlin argued (1510) that such a measure would be both unjust and disastrous for Christian scholarship. Pfefferkorn denounced him in Handspiegel, and Reuchlin replied bitterly in Augenspiegel (1511). The issue broadened when the inquisitor Jacob van Hoogstraten, OP, tried to convict Reuchlin of heresy. In 1516 Pope Leo X suspended the case and enjoined silence. After the Reformation had created a new mood, Leo issued a mandate (June 20, 1520) condemning the Augenspiegel. Long before this, however, the case became the symbol of a bitter struggle between conservative scholastic theologians and defenders of the new humanistic studies. Reuchlin called the humanists to his support (see humanism, christian). The result was a flood of pamphlets, of which the most famous was the savage satire epistolae obscurorum virorum. Despite his difficulties with the theologians, Reuchlin was consistently obedient to Rome and cool toward Luther and toward his own nephew melanchthon.

Bibliography: j. reuchlin, Briefwechsel, ed. l. geiger (Tübingen 1875). l. geiger, Johann Reuchlin: Sein Leben und seine Werke (Leipzig 1871). l. w. spitz, The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists (Cambridge, Mass. 1963) 61–80. m. krebs, ed., Johannes R., 1455–1522: Festgabe seiner Vaterstadt Pforzheim zur 500. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages (Pforzheim 1955).

[c. g. nauert, jr.]