D’Jara on Johann Reuchlin

Johann Reuchlin (January 29, 1455 - June 30 1522) (D'Jara Culpepper)

Born and raised in Pforzheim, Württemberg (Germany), Reuchlin began his Latin studies in the Dominican monastery school where his father worked. He began his Greek studies at the second university he attended, University of Paris, which had only recently began offering Greek at the time. Here, he attached himself to the leader of the Paris realists, Jean à Lapide (d. 1496), whom he followed to the new university of Basel in 1474. Reuchlin continued his studies in Greek at Basel under Andronicus Contoblacas.

He also formed the acquaintance of the bookseller Johann Amerbach, for whom he prepared a Latin lexicon (Vocabularius Breviloquus, 1475-76), which ran through many editions.

After gaining his master's degree in 1477, Reuchlin began to lecture with considerable success, teaching a more classical Latin than was common in German schools during his time and explaining Aristotle in Greek. His long-term profession choice was law, however, and he went on to attend the school of Orléans (1478), and finally to Poitiers, where he became licentiate in July 1481. After attending Poitiers, he accepted a temporary post as an interpreter for Count Eberhard of Württemberg, who was about to journey to Italy.

Including his time of interpreting work, Reuchlin traveled to Rome several times, the second and third times sparking and focusing his interest in studying Hebrew. During his second visit to Rome (1490), Reuchlin became acquainted with Pico di Mirandola, who sparked the interest in Hebrew by teaching him about the Cabala. He began learning the language officially in 1492, and he returned to Rome to continue studying Hebrew under Obadiah of Sforno (1497-99).

In 1494, an account titled De Verbo Mirifico ("On the Miracle-Making Word") was published, which was a supposed dialog between an Epicurean, a Jew, and a Christian, the latter being Reuchlin in his guise as "Capnion" (nickname from Pforzheim).

This work enhanced his reputation but also aroused suspicion in conservative quarters due to its sympathetic treatment of humanistic ideas and Jewish mystical themes. Similar controversy emerged in 1509-1510 due to a Jewish-Dominican convert, Johannes Pfefferkorn. Pfefferkorn successfully convinced Emperor Maximillian of Germany into ordering the destruction of all Hebrew books that belong to Jews of Cologne and Frankfort in 1509. The Jews appealed, and when asked, Reuchlin gave a report that was favorable to the Jews in 1510.  He divided the Jewish literature into seven classes, in one of them being the Old Testament; and, judging these classes singly, he arrived at the conclusion that any books that were useful for theology and science and contained no heresy within them should be spared but considered books blaspheming against Jesus, such as the "Toledot Yeshu," worthy of destruction. The emperor rescinded his edict of destruction on May 23, 1510. Because of the rescission being mainly a result of Reuchlin's report, a prolonged conflict between him and the Dominicans followed—humanists sided with Reuchlin while clericals (especially the universities of Louvain, Cologne, Erfurt, Mayence, and Paris) sided with the Dominicans. Pfefferkorn published in 1511 his "Handspiegel," attacking Reuchlin, who answered it with his "Augenspiegel.”

Due to universities condemning the Augenspiegel, Reuchlin was ordered to appear before the Dominican court at Mayence in 1513 to defend himself against the accusation of heresy, based upon the publication.  After a suspension of the hearing (1513) and an initial decision in favor of Reuchlin in 1514 by the pope and again in 1516 by the Lateran Council, the Augenspiegel was condemned in 1520, the decision influenced by the political reasoning of the French and German rulers siding with Dominicans against the spread of the Reformation.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johannes-Reuchlin

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Johann_Reuchlin

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12708-reuchlin-johann-von