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He was educated under the auspices of the celebrated Greek scholar Reuchlin, who was also a relative. At twelve, he was sent to the university of Heidelberg; at fourteen, was made bachelor of arts; and at seventeen, doctor of philosophy.
It is not without precedent. When you were at Worms, in Germany, do you remember in the Luther Memorial the superb figure of Reuchlin, on one of the outer corners?
Many other humanists devoted themselves before Reuchlin to the study of Hebrew, among them Pico della Mirandola, who was not satisfied with a knowledge of the Hebrew grammar and ScriptureS, but penetrated into the Jewish Cabbalah and even made himself as familiar with the literature of the Talmud as any Rabbi. Among the Oriental languages, Arabic was studied as well as Hebrew.
But now Hutten came to recognize in Luther the apostle of freedom of thought, and in that struggle of the Reformation he found a nobler cause than that of the Humanists in Luther a greater than Reuchlin. And Hutten never did things by halves. He entered into the warfare heart and soul. In 1520 he published his "Roman Trinity," his gage of battle against Rome.
At present war was being waged in a much wider field: for or against Reuchlin, the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors of the Epistolae obscurorum virorum had so sensationally taken up the cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded with the same suspicion with which he distrusted Dorp and the other Louvain divines.
Their kind friend Reuchlin had prepared the way for them; and when the assembly took their seats, a solemn silence ensued. John Yeardley and "Brother" Kölne addressed the meeting, and the former supplicated at the conclusion.
Reuchlin had learned Greek at Paris and Poitiers; at Florence he studied the secrets of the Cabala with Mirandula; and he perfected his Hebrew at Rome, where he acted as an envoy from the Elector Palatine. Reuchlin for many years led a peaceful life at Tübingen, an oasis of freedom, in which he could print or read what he pleased.
He first took up the cudgels against the obscurantists on behalf of Humanism as represented by Erasmus and Reuchlin, the latter of whom he bravely defended in his dispute with the Inquisition and the monks of Cologne, and in his contributions to the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum we see the youthful ardour of the Renaissance in full blast in its onslaught on the forces of mediæval obstruction.
When the Humanist John Reuchlin, then the first Hebrew scholar in Germany, was declared a heretic by zealous theologians and monks, on account of the protests he raised against the burning of the Rabbinical books of the Jews, and a fierce quarrel broke out in consequence, Luther, on being asked by Spalatin for his opinion, declared himself strongly for the Humanists against those who, being gnats themselves, tried to swallow camels.
In addition to this he put into their hands another manuscript, which had been borrowed from Reuchlin; presumably to help them in case they should have any difficulty in deciphering the first. However, after a time he discovered that they were taking liberties, and following the text of the second manuscript, wherever they preferred its reading: as though the editing were in their own hands.
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