Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 30:119 (Jul 1873)
Article: John Reuchlin, The Father Of Hebrew Learning In The Christian Church
Author: Selah Merrill

BSac 30:119 (July 1873) p. 573

John Reuchlin, The Father Of Hebrew Learning In The Christian Church

Rev. Selah Merrill

That was a most interesting period in history when Germany was awakened from a long mental sleep. She seemed to become suddenly conscious of her condition and needs, and at once set herself resolutely to work to remedy her defects. It was within the period of deadness and darkness that Reuchlin was born at Pforzheim, in 1455, — when Germany lacked libraries and books, learned men, efficient teachers, and respectable schools, and, most deplorable of all, the consciousness that such things were at all necessary to the completeness of national life and character. But all this was changed; and when Reuchlin died, in 1522, in his sixty-seventh year, the national mind was characterized by a passionate eagerness for truth in both education and religion. Learned men had arisen; character had been given to the schools; education had been established on a sound basis; printed books had accumulated; Latin, Greek, and Hebrew had come to be studied according to scientific methods; a fair critical spirit had been developed; and, withal, light had begun to dawn

BSac 30:119 (July 1873) p. 574

on the spiritual world. The subject of this brief sketch was one of the most prominent actors in these rapidly shifting scenes. He was preeminently a man raised up by God to do a great work for the race. His works have now no value, and are quite forgotten; but his life and labors form an epoch of great moment in the history of the human mind and spirit. Reuchlin was a man of rare gifts. He was an eminent jurist, a master of pure Latin and Greek, the great light of his age and country (in the Christian church) in Hebrew, a man of liberal culture, a polished gentleman, the ambassador and companion of kings, a writer who commanded respect in his own age, a man of indomitable energy, of plodding perseverance, of exceeding fairness and soundness of judgment, a most earnest seeker for truth, who said of himself: “I worship truth as God,” and whose name was praised and whose advice was sought by the scholars of every nation, both on account of the degree of his attainments, and also on account of the integrity and purity of his character. We have to do, certainly, with a rare man, and the complete story of his life is one of exciting interest. But, in this sketch, we must consider him chiefly in the department of Hebrew learning, to which the book before us confines its notice of him.1

1. His struggle to master the Hebrew, and, Ids attainments in the same,— During the first half of Reuchlin’s life manuscripts were expensive, and printed books did not exist. Also, capable instructors in Hebrew were quite as n...