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Philosophia symbolica:
Johann Reuchlin and the Kabbalah
Philosophia symbolica:
Johann Reuchlin an~ the Kabbalah

Catalogue of an exhibition in the

Bibliotheca Philosophica Bermetica
cammemorating Johann Reuchlin (1455-1 522)

Amsterdam 2005
Catalogue and exhibition compiled by Cis van Heertum, BPH Amsterdam
Exhibition designed by Marieke Meijers, BPH Amsterdam
Photography by MEM Productions (Michiel Bootsman), Amsterdam

Catalogue designed by Koningsberger & Van Duijnhoven (Utrecht) and printed

by Spijker (Buren)

VISITING ADDRESS BIBLIOTHECA PHILOSOPHICA HERMETICA

Bloemstraat 13- 19, Amsterdam
Telephone +31 20 6258079 and 6259096

POSTAL ADDRESS BIBLIOTHECA PHILOSOPHICA HERMETICA

Bloemgracht 31-35
NL-1 016 KC Amsterdam

E-mail bph@ritmanlibrary.nl
Web address www.ritmanlibrary.nl

OPENING HOURS
Mondays- Fridays 9:30-12:30 and 13:30-17:00
..
CONTENTS

Prefaee: Esther Oosterwijk- Ritman 7

Introduetion: Joost R. Ritman 11

Introduetion 15

I In the land of the highest priest of the souls: Reuehlin and Italy 21

IIa Speaking with God and the angels: Reuehlin and the Kabbalah 27

IIb 'The rare Hebrew works whieh I possess': Reuehlin's kabbalistie sourees 49

III Reuehlin and religious toleranee 63

IVa The library of Johann Reuehlin: pars pro toto 75

IVb Other works of Johann Reuehlin 81

V Reuehlin and Hermes inspire the new University of Göttingen 85

VI Inspired by the Tradition: Böhme, Fludd, Khunrath 91

Chronology 94

Bibliography 101

List of lenders; Aeknowledgements 107

 JOHANN REUCHLIN: PATRONDS LIBERTATIS

It is a great honour for the Bibliotheca Philosophica Bermetica to celebrate

the 550th anniversary of the birth of Johann Reuchlin by means of the
present exhibition and accompanying catalogue Philosophia symbolica: Johann
Reueh/in and the Kabbalah, compiled by Cis van Beertum. In Germany, where
Reuchlin was born, there have already been a number of commemorations. The
Leonhardskirche in Stuttgart, where Reuchlin is buried, has opened a permanent
exhibition on Reuchlin in April 2004. The Reuchlin Gymnasium in Pforzheim
compiled a Jubiläumsbuch commemorating not only Reuchlin's life, but also
the 1OOth anniversary of the school which was named after Pforzheim's great
humanist. In this Jubiläumsbuch Erwin Teufel, former minister president of
Baden-Württemberg, remarked that Reuchlin may be called highly topical in
an age in which the search for shared values in the world religions has become a
mission of world-political importance:

Reuchlin, applying Jewish, Pythagorean and Christian traditions, made the

effort - as unheard-of then as it is now- to open for his seeking fellow men
a common spiritual access to God. A gradual concentration on the inner
person would have to lead to the experience of God within oneself. Bis
confirmed Catholic faith does not in my opinion alter the fact that he sought
the more profound religious experience less in the context of the Christian
Church than in an association with the works of Christian, Jewish and Greek
mystics. People who experience God within themselves may obtain an inner
freedom which liberates them from the powers of this world and which lends
them an assurance which surpasses this world.

This theme is also a central issue in the carefully compiled exhibition on Reuchlin
which can beseen in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Bermetica from 7 November
2005 until 28 April 2006. Chapter III considers in some detail the battle which
Reuchlin had to fight from 1510 on account of his religiously tolerant views.
Although Reuchlin as a confirmed Christian believed in the necessity to convert
Jews to Christianity, he advocated religious freedom and managed in 1510-11 to
prevent the destruction of Jewish books by his single action. In his assessment of
Jewish learning and literature and in his defence of Judaism, Reuchlin was led by
the humanistic principle to go to the sources: 'Ad fontes'. The study of Bebrew he
considered prerequisite for any Christian and of the utmost importance for a true
graspof the Bible: it is from this souree that all theology is derived (Chapter IIa).

Reuchlin's interest in the Kabbalah was stimulated by his encounter with the
humanist Pico della Mirandola in Italy (Chapter I). Like the Bermetic corpus,
the Kabbalah was regarcled by the humanistsof the Renaissance as part of a
prisca theologia, a tradition which was ancient, pre-Christian and yet divinely
inspired. In consequence, the agreement which was perceived to exist between
the Kabbalah and Christian doctrine prefigured and confirmed the truth of

7
 Christianity, as Pico and also Reuchlin held. It is one of Reuchlin's great merits
to have been the first Christian Hebraïst in Germany to have committed himself
to the study and dissemination of Kabbalah, which he called a 'Philosophia
symbolica'. Reuchlin considered Kabbalah to be not just a philosophical system,
but Sophia, wisdom itself (Chapter IIa). He hoped the arcane kabbalistic learning
might contribute to bringing about a spiritual regeneration. His Hebrew grammar
and dictionary De rudimentis hebraicis (published in 1506) was instrumental in
mastering the language of the 'ars cabalistica', which he considered the key to a
better understanding of rnan's relationship to God and rnan's participation in the
divine plan.

Chapters Ilb, IVa indicate the extent of Reuchlin's learning and how diverse and
thorough his contacts were throughout Europe. He built up a considerable library
of Greek, Hebrew and La tin works. But it was mainly his own work (Chapter IVb)
which was to inspire many people after him and which lent him a legendary fame.
The work by Hermann von der Hardt in this exhibition described in Chapter V
may be called exemplary in this respect. Von der Hardt looked u pon Reuchlin
and Hermes Trismegistus as spiritual patrons of the University of Göttingen
which had been founded in 1737. To situate Hermes, he included an extensive
paraphrase of the La tin translation of Poimandres ( the first treatise in the Corpus
Hermeticum). The woodcut printed to accompany Poimandres (see illus. 4)
associates Jacob's dream with the vision of Hermes in Poimandres. It is remarkable
that the relevant passage from the Poimandres contains the celebrated sentence:
'Because of this, unlike any living creature on earth, man is twofold - in the body
mortal but immortal in the essential man'. In the first book of De verba mirifico, in
which Reuchlin extensively quotes from the Hennetic Asclepius, he seems to refer
to a similar passage in the seventh chapter of the Asclepius. Reuchlin says:

Although therefore man stands in no relation to God, yet both ... are not
different in the highest degree .... They are capable of melting into an
inexpressible oneness, so that one and the same can be judged both a human
God and a divine man.

Thus we have returned to the theme of Reuchlin as Patronus Libertatis. He

advocated religious toleranee and he was prepared to defend his belief on learned
principles. But he also believed in the individual freedom to experience God, in
being allowed to take a personal road to God. As such Reuchlin is definitely a part
of the tradition of the Christian-Hermetic Gnosis which is collected and made
accessible in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica.
The last chapter gives an indication of how important Reuchlin has been in
the dissemination of the Christian Kabbalah in Northern Europe. It linksus to an
earlier initiative undertaken by the Bibliotheca Philosophica Bermetica in 1990:
the exhibition Kabbale et philosophie hermétique, compiled by the outstanding
Kabbalah scholar François Secret.

8
 We would like to thank the lenders to this exhibition, who have contributed
with great enthusiasm and generosity: the Universitätsbibliothek Base! (no.
lla), the Oberösterreichische Landesbibliothek in Linz (no. 14b ); Ets Haim-
Livraria Montezinos in Amsterdam (nos. 24b, 25, 32a-b, 33, 35), the Stadtarchiv
Pforzheim (no. 34a) and the Universiteitsbibliotheek of the Universiteit van
Amsterdam (nos. 39a and 41). Ets Haim was prepared tolend a number of
valuable kabbalistic mmmscripts and other important works for the exhibition,
the Universiteitsbibliotheek of the Universiteit van Amsterdam offered Reuchlin's
grammar and a major work in the Reuchlin controversy, as did the Stadtarchiv
Pforzheim in the persou of Dr. Alfred Hübner, Director of the Kulturamt
Pforzheim, who generously offered the loan of Reuchlin's Augenspiegel. The
Oberösterreichische Landesbibliothek lent the copy of Reuchlin's De arte
cabalistica owned and annotated by Tobias Hess, while the Universitätsbibliothek
in Base! was willing to !end a truly unique loan: the autographof Reuchlin's
I
De verba mirifico.

Esther Oosterwijk-Ritman
Managing Director Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica

9
 KABBALAH - THE ALPHABET OF GOD'S CREATION

Kabbalah, which means 'reception', expresses the mysterious and uninterrupted

bond between God, his Creation and man.

Man in his original form, Adam Kadmon in the words of the Jewish sages, was
the Light Man into whom the power of grace had flown like a shower of sparks
from the divine creative fire, like an emanating revelation. The original creative
act works as an uninterrupted flow from the creative power of God, the life force
manifesting itself in a threefold way, spiritual, inspirational and revelatory.

The Jewish sage, contemplating the divine plan, saw this working of the divine
as the mirror image of the tree of paradise, the sefirot, ten in number. They are,
from below to above: mallcuth (kingdom), yesod (foundation), had (splendour ),
netsach (victory), tifereth (beauty), gevurah (power), chesed (kindness), binah
(understanding), cholcmah (wisdom), and leeter (crown), the sefirah nearest to
ein sof- the Ungrund ofJacob Böhme (see no. 50). They are divided into three
aspects, from below to above, ( 1) the visible world, represented by the figure four,
or the cube, (2) the world of the soul and (3) the world of the spirit, which is the
two-fold continuation of the number three, which is the number six, connecting
the base, the cube, with the soul shape, which in its threefoldedness encounters
the Lord face to face.

In addition to the number ten, symbolized by the sage Pythagoras as a tetraktys,

we find the literal expressive force sefirot in the Hebrew alphabet with its 22 •••
letters. They are the limbs of God, extending into the endless creation as a •••
••••
spiritual, inspirational and revelatory power.

The Kabbalah seeks to fathom number, weight and measure of things, how God
has brought forth the origin of life, the primordial form of revelation, as the
Genesis. How God the Creator has written down the character of nature in fiery
letters. And that no seeker can learn or understand this without having learnt
about these mysteries in a wisdom school. As explained by Moses in the Torah,
thereby to penetra te the mysterious origin, the Genesis. To behold the face of God
demands of the initiate a total smTender of the self. The conscious perception,
being found worthy of beholding the mystery of God, as the ineffable name.

In the study of the Hebrew language and the pronunciation of its letters lies
for the Jewish sage the outflowing of a profound creation mystery. The priests
of Egypt in turn expressed this mystery by recording the hieroglyphs, the two-
oneness of sound and image.

In the medieval Renaissance, we find a resurgence of this classical heritage in the

Kabbalah, flowering in the rich cultural area of Occitania, which stretched from
the south of France to the north of Italy and and the north of Spain, where Toledo

11
 became a centre of major importance. A number of the kabbalistic works to be
seen in the exhibition was written here.

The Kabbalah entered a new stage in the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth
century, when this mystical tradition was rediscovered in addition to the Corpus
Hermeticum, the wisdom of the Neoplatonists and early Christian sources.
The renewed interest in the Hebrew language stimulated a re-appraisal of the
Kabbalah. The Renaissance impulse resulted in a flowering of the arcane sciences,
the prisca theologia, whereby next to the Hermetica, mysticism, alchemy, astrology
and magie the Kabbalah, too, came to he written down and explained anew.

For me as the founder of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, this entire

classical heritage is like the reception of a divine seed, which must each time he
planted anew. To do this a garden, a library with many branches of knowledge,
had to be planted, existing like an oasis in the desert of modern society. In its
centre stands the life souree of the eternally flowing wisdom.

Just as the sefirot of the Kabbalists present a reality, similarly in the carefully
nurtured garden of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Bermetica a life tree began to
grow out of the planted seed, the Arbor Rosae Hermetis, the Herroetic Rosetree.
The branches of this tree of life, planted in the last century, yield the visible fruits
of a new spiritual development, which is the Christian-Hermetic Gnosis.

The exhibition Philosophia symbolica: ]ohann Reuchlin and the Kabbalah,

compiled by Cis van Heertum, relates to this development as an anthology of the
kabbalistic heritage of the past millennium. Side by side with the prophet Moses
stand Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras and Jesus of Nazareth in their appeal to
human conscience.

'He who thinks to find the primordial beginnings, the Ungrund, the ein sof, in the
manifoldedness of things is mistaken. The Oneness remains in itself.' Hidden in
the alphabet of God's creation, the Kabbalah, lies a deeper mystery. 'To find the
Oneness joining all of the limbs of God's Creation, and in which God himself is
the connecting, impelling link'.

We are standing in the dawn of the third millennium, as pupils of the school of
the Holy Spirit, and we are faced with a classical task, which is, in the worcis of
the Brathers of the Rosycross, 'to behold and fathom the ABC, the alphabet of the
school of the Holy Spirit, and to learn to speak and move in living deeds'.

12
To fathom the Creative Thought is to experience three active life principles:

A spiritual principle, creative

A life principle, inspiring
A material principle, revelatory

It is by fathoming the ein sof, the Ungrund of all things, that the significanee of the
Light Man will once more co me to occupy a central place in our society.

Joost R. Ritman
Faunder Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica

13
 Illus. 1: Woodcut of 'Johann Reuchlin' in Johann Nicolaus Weislinge r, Huttenus delarva tus, Konstanz &
Augsburg, Martin Wagner, 173 0 (ca t. no . 40)

14
 INTRODUCTION

Reuchlin! Wer will sich ihm vergleichen,

Zu seiner Zeit ein Wunderzeichen!

Die heiligen Bücher schloss er auf.

Doch Pfaffen wussten sich zu rühren,
Die alles breit ins Schlechte führen,
Sie finden alles da und bie
So dumm und so absurd wie sie.

When Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote these lines in Zahme Xenien, publisbed
in 1827, Reuchlin's reputation as one of Germany's most eminent scholars, as
a pioneering Christian Hebraïst and Kabbalist, and as the object of Dominican
persecution was already well established. In the early 18th century the Christian
Hebraïst and Kabbalist Hermann vonder Hardt had set bis predecessor a number
of literary monuments (see V); in 1955, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary
of Reuchlin's birth in Pforzheim, the proud city decided to institute a Reuchlin
prize in honour of the great humanist. One of the recipients was the outstanding
schalar ofJewish mysticism and Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), who
when he was awarded the distinction in 1969 said that were he to believe in the
transmigration of souls, he might perhaps imagine bimself to be something of
a reincarnation of Johann Reuchlin, the faunder of Hebrew studies in Germany.
(Scholem owned Pistorius' kabbalistic compilation of 1587 which contained De
verba mirifica and De arte cabalistica). Reuchlin also accupies a special place in the
Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. Two of bis major works, De verba mirifica
(first edition: 1494) and De arte cabalistica (first edition: 1517) are in the library
in first and in later editions, while bis affinity with the neoplatonic tradition of
the Florentine Academy as exemplified by Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola is another reason to devote an exhibition to this great humanist, 550
years after bis birth.

Johann Reuchlin was born on 29 January 1455 in Pforzheim, where bis father
Georg was employed as a steward of the Dominican monastery of St Stepban
- ironically the same order which was to cause bis son so much trouble later in
bis life. Reuchlin visited the La tin school in bis birthplace, but bis peregrinatia
academica took him further afield, to Freiburg, Paris, Basel, Orléans and Poitiers.
He chose to study law as a profession; in Florence and in Rome he also deepened
bis studies in Greek and Hebrew. In 1484 he received bis law doctorate from the
University of Tübingen, which had been founded less than a decade befare in
1477. Tübingen was also to bethelast stop in bis academie career: in the winter of
1521-22 he taught Greek and Hebrew there. When he died in Stuttgart on 30 June
1522 he was considered by the learned world to be on a par with Erasmus.
Reuchlin's early professional career was determined by bis proximity to
Count Eberhard ofWürttemberg, who took him into his service in 1481. When

15
 Eberhard died in 1496, politica! circumstances forced Reuchlin toflee from
Stuttgart to Heidelberg, where, however, he found a warm wekome in the
Sodalitas Literaria Rhenana, the humanist circle around Bishop Johann von
Dalberg. Johann Trithemius was associated with this German equivalent of the
Florentine Academy; Reuchlin and other memhers of the Sodalitas visited the
abbot of Sponheimand his library while on an excursion in July 1496. It was in
Heidelberg that Reuchlin wrote his two comedies Sergius and Henna. He was
also temporarilyin charge of the library of Johann von Dalberg withits many
Greek, La tin and Hebrew works - he already refers to Dalherg's famous library
in the prefacetoDe verba mirifica. When he returned home in 1499 after the
fall of Eberhard's unworthy successar as advisor to Elector Palatine Philipp, his
departure was greatly deplored amongst the humanists in Heidelberg. Nothing
stood in the way of a brilliant career: in 1492 Emperor Frederic III raised
Reuchlin to the nobility (Reuchlin's crest of arms is depicted in De rudimentis
hebraicis and on the title-page of the fint edition of De arte cabalistica). In 1502
he was appointed as one of the three judges of the Swabian league, an important
post in the judiciary. After 1510, the further course of Reuchlin's career was
chequered by the 'Pfefferkorn affair' (see III), which nevertheless did not deter
him from publishing a number of important works, most notably De arte
cabalistica in 1517 and De accentibus et artagraphia linguae Hebraicae in 1518.
Reuchlin was taught both Greek and Hebrew from the sources: among
his Greek teachers were the scholars Andronikos Kontoblakes, Georgios
Hermonymos, Johannes Argyropulos and Demetrios Chalkondyles, among his
Hebrew teachers the Jewish physicians Loans and Sforno. His humanist interest
in the three classicallanguages and his pedagogical concern with furthering them
are obvious from the grammars and lexicons he produced: the Vacabularius
brevilaquus, compiled for and printed by Johann Amerbach in 1478, a Greek
Micropaedia (never printed, which has not survived), and finally De rudimentis
hebraicis, printed by Thomas Anshelm in 1506. This Hebrew grammar and
lexicon did not actually sell well. Whereas there had been more than 20 editions
of the Brevilaquus befare 1505, in 1510 a considerable part still remained of De
rudimentis hebraicis out of theedition of 1,500 copies which Thomas Anshelm
had printed for Reuchlin, largely at his own expense. On 31 August 1512 Reuchlin
wrote to Johann Amerbach asking him to buy up his share of theedition at cost
price. Even in the face of commercial failure, he was conscious of the importance
of his efforts in Hebrew studies: 'If I am to live, the Hebrew language will be
advanced with God's help; when I die, I have yet made a beginning which will not
easily perish'.
Hebrew had a special status for Reuchlin compared to Greek and Latin.
The reason for this is expressed in a letter to Nikolaus Ellenbog, a monk in the
Benedictine monastery of Ottobeuren and an enthusiastic Hebraïst, to whom
Reuchlin wrote on 19 March 1510 that when he read Hebrew it seemed as if
God himself was speaking to him, Hebrew being the language in which God and
the angels communicate with chosen men. Reuchlin's interest in the Hebrew
language is attested as early as 1484 in a letter to Rudolf Agricola. Two years later

16
he was studying Hebrew with a Jewish teacher, because he noted in his copy of
Menachem ben Saruk's biblicallexicon Machberet that a eertaio 'Calman Iudaeus,
elementarius praeceptor Ioannis Reuchlin Phorcensis' had transcribed the work
for him in 1486. The manuscript, the earliest Hebrew work acquired by Reuchlin,
has been preserved and is in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (Cod.
hebr. mon. 425). In 1492 Jacob ben Jeehiel Loans, personal physician to Emperor
Frederic lil, was teaching Hebrew to Reuchlin, who referred to Loans with
admiration and respect as 'my most humane teacher and excellent Doctor' in De
rudimentis hebraicis. The short but affectionate letter in Hebrew which he sent to
Loans on 1 November 1500 was included in theedition of the Clarorum virorum
epistolae of 1514. When in Italy in 1498, Reuchlin received daily instruction in
Hebrew from the physician and Kabbalist Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno. It was
because of Reuchlin's acknowledged status as a Hebrew scholar that in 1509
Johann Pfefferkorn, a Jewish couvert with a mission, sought his participation
in the destruction of Hebrew books, an invitation which Reuchlin declined.
The report which he was subsequently commissioned to write in the wake of
Pfefferkorn's campaigu (the 'Gutachten', reprinted in the Augenspiegel in 1511)
contains statements on the religion of the Jews that are remarkable examples
of religious tolerance. That Reuchlin as a Christian hoped for the conversion of
the Jews to Christianity does oot alter the fact that in his 'Gutachten' at least he
defended the integrity and autonomy of their religious beliefs. In 1520 Pope
Leo X condemned the Augenspiegel and imposed 'eternal silence' on Reuchlin.

Philosophia symbolica
When in 1482 Johann Reuchlin translated a Greek passage ex tempore to an
expectant audience, the Byzantine scholar Johannes Argyropulos called out:
'Because of our exile Greece has now flown across the Alps.' An excellent
knowledge of Greek is not the only thing which Reuchlin introduced across
the Alps. Kabbalah, the Jewish form of mysticism and theosophy, had become
available to the humanists of the Italian Renaissance towards the end of the
fifteenth century. Reuchlin is the first Christian Hebraïst in Germany to have
committed himself to the study and dissemination of Kabbalah, which he called a
'Philosophia symbolica'.
Gershom Scholem described Kabbalah as 'a system of mystical symbols
reflecting the mystery of God and the universe'. In Major trends in Jewish
mysticism (1941), Scholem discussed the symbols used by the Kabbalists to
explain the relationship between man and God. God is ein sof (literally: without
end), the Infinite, unknowable, 'that which is not conceivable by thinking'. This
name for the unknowable God was devised by the Spanish Kabbalists of the 13th
century. Man cannot really know God, still God created man in his own image:
there is therefore a bond between God and man. Yet man, whose life on earth is
fini te, caooot be part of ein sof To explain this paradox, the Kabbalists proposed
the idea of tsimtsum: God constricted his Light, so that creation (of which man
is the crown) could take place. This idea was developed most fully by the famous
Kabbalist from Safed Isaac Luria (1534-1572):

17
 I

lll us . 2: Sefirotic tree in Cesare Evoli , De di vin is attributis, Venice, Franciscus Zill ettus, 1573

18
 After this constriction took place ... there was a place in which things could
be created ... He then threw a single thread from the Infinite Light .. . and
brought it into that vacated space .. . It was through that line that the Infinite
Light was brought down below.

The concept of tsimtsum is already present in one of the earliest kabbalistic texts,
Sefer ha Bahir, composed in the late twelfth century (see no. 23) . The processof
tsimtsum did not take place within God, but in his Light, the first thing which he
brought into being. There are two divine realms: that of ein sof, unknowable to
man, and that of the sefirot. The sefirot are ten in number and are stages through
which the divine life flows back and forth. They are not, as in Neoplatonism,
an intermediary stage between God, the One, and the world below. The sefirot
are part of God and their interrelationship is a process taking place within God.
God deseencis from the highest sefirah, called keter (crown), to the lowest, called
malkuth (kingdom), to reveal bimself to the world below. It is through the
contemplation of the sefirot, the ten stages of divine manifestation, that man may
approach God. As Reuchlin puts it in De arte cabalistica:

The human race abides on earth and yet surpasses all other species through the
gift of intelligence and mind (mens). There does not exist a divine gift more
desirabie than that of contemplation, nothing which is better suited to the
salvation of the soul, nobetter means to attain immortality: it allows the human
mind, in accordance with its nature, to attain deification. (Book I, fol. IIr)

Symbolically, the sefirot are often represented as a tree (see illus. 2). The middle
of the sefirotic tree is occupied by tifereth (beauty), and is linked to man, the
microcosm, who also occupies a mediatory position, with his feet on the earth,
but with his head aloft to contemplate the heavens and converse with the angels.
The tree of God in fact grows throughout the whole of creation: all created things
exist only because something of the power of the sefirot lives and acts in them:

This is the interpretation given by the Kabbalists to the divine

commandment in the book of Genesis: 'Let the earth bring forth living
creatures after their kind', that is, in accordance with the divine idea, which is
the world of the living, because the living God flows through alllife through
his name, Adonai, ... Therefore all that has life tencis upwards by instinct,
and all that gives life is directed downwarcis from above. (De arte cabalistica,
Book I, fol. IIr)

Briefwechsel (1999), letters 12, 105; BriefweeiJsel (2003), p. xiii, letter 162; Brod (1965), pp. 276-78; Christ
(1924), p. 26; Geiger (1962), letter 297; Geiger (1964), pp. 26, 106; Gilly (2005 2 ), pp. 341 -51; Ka plan (1990),
pp. xxi-xxv; Scholem (1954), pp. 12, 206-17, 238; Verzeichnis (2005), pp. 70, 177-82; Zika (1998), pp. 69-70, 101

19
~~~~~-----------------

I 'IN THE LAND OF THE HIGHEST PRIEST OF THE SOULS':

REUCHLIN AND ITALY

Late in his life Reuchlin recalled his first journey to Italy so vividly that he even
supplied the day he visited Florence: 'xii. Kal. Aprilis Anno Christi Mcccclxxxii'
( = 21 March 1482) in his dedication of De arte cabalistica to Pope Leo X. On that
first journey Reuchlin acted as interpreter for Count Eberhard ofWürttemberg,
whose service he had entered the year before. In Florence Eberhard and Reuchlin
were introduced to Lorenzo de' Medici, the father of the future Leo X, and were
shown his palace. When the bibliophile and book collector Reuchlin extolled the
wonders of Lorenzo's library, 'il Magnifico' replied that his treasure lay rather
more in his children (liberi) than in his books (libri). Reuchlin also listed the men
of learning Lorenzo had attracted to his court: Demetrios Chalkondyles, Marsilio
Ficino, Giorgio Vespucci, Cristoforo Landino, Lorenzo Valla, Angelo Poliziano,
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 'and all the other scholars of the world': the fame
of the Florentine Academy was certainly known to him.
Two more Italian journeys were to follow. During his second journey, in
1490, he deepened his Greek and Hebrew studies. Reuchlin stuclied Greek with
Demetrios Chalkondyles, who only two years before had provided the first edition
of Homer. After Reuchlin had returned to Germany, Chalkondyles sent him a
letter written from Florence on 16 June 1491, congratulating him on his mastery
of Greek. This is also the first letter in which Reuchlin is addressed as Kapnion,
the Graecized form of Reuchlin, a name which Philipp Melanchthon later claimed
had been invented by the Italian humanist Ermolao Barbaro. Whether Reuchlin
met Marsilio Ficino in person is not known, but the 'pater Platonicae familiae'
did write a letter to Reuchlin in 1491 (see no. 1). As Reuchlin had recommended
his younger brother Dionysius to Ficino's care, their personal acquaintance is
therefore not altogether unlikely. During his last Italian journey, in 1498, Reuchlin
obtained a great many Hebrew and Greek works, so manyin fact that the trading
firm of Jacob Fugger, which also had offices in Rome, Milan and Venice, was
commissioned toship the books he had bought from Rome to Germany. In 1498
Reuchlin also met Aldus Manutius and notwithout result: his Greek library,
according to the inventory described by Karl Christ (see IVa), contained 32 Aldine
editions (out ofthe 55 works listed).
In Italy Reuchlin thus met the leading Greek and Italian scholars, and at least
one learned printer, to whom he wrote on 23 April1499 that he had returned
from Italy to Germany to go straight to Emperor Maximilian: 'from the highest
priest of the souls to the highest ruler of the world'. But above all his encounter
in 1490 with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) is of great significance,
because Pico is considered to have stimulated Reuchlin's interest in Kabbalah.
Pico had probably begun his own study of Hebrew in the summer of 1486, a
few months before completing his Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalisticae et
theologicae, 900 propositions, including magical and kabbalistic ones, intended
to invite a scholarly debate on the harmony between the traditions of Antiquity,
Judaism and Christianity. This debate, however, never took place, and Pico's theses
were severely criticized by the Church, as a result of which he was temporarily put
under a Papal ban. 21
 At the time, Pi co's knowledge of Hebrew Kabbalah was mainly based on
the translations of kabbalistic works which Flavius Mithridates had made for
him between May and November 1486. Mithridates was a Jewish convert, and
therefore, according to the eminent Pico scholar Chaim Wirszubski, though
certainly a brilliant, not quite a disinterested translator: there are 'significant
differences of substance, emphasis and presentation between the extant Latin
translations and the Hebrew criginals of Pico's Kabbalistic sources', which
Wirszubski related to Mithridates' conviction that Kabbalah confirmed the truth
of Christianity. Before Pico, some Jewish converts had already interpreted the
Kabbalah in a christological sense, and often with a missionary objective, as for
instanee Abner de Burgos (1270-ca. 1348, named Alfonsode Valladelid after
his conversion around 1321). Others, like Pablo de Heredia (1405-ca. 1485)
produced falsifications aimed at proving the truth of Christianity in allegedly
geimine mystica! or kabbalistic works which were written in Hebrew or in La tin
'translations'.
Pico considered himself to have been the first to introduce the Kabbalah in
the Latin West (Apalagia, fol. 31r), sernething which Reuchlin repeated in his
De arte cabalistica, fol. XIIIr, where the praise of Pico is put into the mouth of
the Jewish Kabbalist Simon. Pico was in fact the first non-Jewish Kabbalist to
provide christianizing interpretations of existing kabbalistic texts, and he also
applied kabbalistic techniques to prove the truth of Christianity on the basis
of Hebrew works - the latter apparently a practice barely used before his time.
These kabbalistic linguistic techniques are: Gematria (whereby the meaning of
words and their analogies can be found by calculating the numerical value that is
assigned toeach letter of the Hebrew alphabet), Notarikon (whereby the letters of
a word form the beginning of others) and Temurah (an anagrammatical method
whereby the letters of any word are substituted by others according to fixed
alphabetical orders) .
Reuchlin explicitly referred tothese three practices in De arte cabalistica (fol.
LXXVv), and applied kabbalistic techniques as early as 1494. A case in point is
his explanation, basedon Notarikon, of the word bara (Hebrew: Nl.J), 'created',
in: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' (Genesis 1: 1). His
explanation of this word is that the first letter, beth (.J), stands for ben or Son, the
second, resh (1), stands for ruach, or Holy Ghost, while the third, aleph (N), stands
for av, or Father (De verba mirifica, Book III, fol. h4r). Reuchlin thus intended to
demonstra te that the truth of the Trinity is already proclaimed in the second word
of Sefer Bereshit or Genesis.
Pico commented on the Kabbalah in his Oratia de haminis dignitate (written
in 1486, first published in 1496) that 'in the parts referring to philosophy, we
think we read Pythagoras and Plato'. Reuchlin in De verba mirifica and especially
in De arte cabalistica elaborated the relationship between Kabbalah on the one
hand and Pythagoreanism on the other (see Ila). His letter to Leo X moreover
shows his awareness of the ground-breaking role he and his fellow pioneers
Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) in Italy and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (ca. 1460-1536)
in France played as mediators of ancient knowledge:

22
 In Italy Marsilio Ficino publisbed Plato, in France Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
restored Aristotle and I, Capnio, will expound to the Germans a Pythagoras
reborn through my work, which I have dedicated to you. This undertaking,
ho wever, would not have been possible without the Kabbalah of the Hebrews,
because the philosophy of Pythagoras can be traeed to the precepts of the
Kabbalists.

Briefwechsel (1999), letters 46, 97; Geiger (1964); Harmsen (2004), pp. 27-28; Wirszubski (1989), pp. 69, 168

1 Marsilio Ficino, Epistolae. Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 1497

Secondedition (first edition 1495) of the collected letters of Ficino. In 1491, a

year after his second Italian journey, Johann Reuchlin and Ludovicus Nauclerus
(LudwigVergenhans, ca. 1425/30-1512) drafted an epistle for Demetrios
Chalkondyles, Marsilio Ficino and Cristof01·o Landino to recommend a few
young men (among whom Reuchlin's brother Dionysius) totheir care. Ficino's
reply of 5 June 1491 from his villa at Careggi compliments Reuchlin and
Vergenhans on their eloquence and learning:

'Marsilius Ficinus Ludovico Nauclero & Ioanni phorcensi Germanis

iurisconsultis salutem dicit'.
You have written to us in your name that you will send the young princes of
Germany to Florence to be educated, as at an Academy. Yet you write this in
such an elegant manner, that it would appear you are sending your sons not
to but from an Academy, and that you are seeking the erudition which is at
home with you, among foreign nations. ( ... ) please let your princes know that Briefwechsel (1999),
the magnanimous Lorenzo . . . was happy to take the young men into his care. letters 40, 43

2 Marsilio Ficino, Della cristiana religione. Florence, Nicolaus Laurentii

Alamanus, ca. 1474

On 22 April1503 Reuchlin's friend Konrad Peutinger wrote to him to say that

his hookdealer had on offer a copy of Ficino's De christiana religione. The La tin
edition of this work, which Ficino composed simultaneously with Theologia
Platonica, came out in 1476; this is a copy of the first edition of the Italian
version. Ficino confronts Judaism and Islam with Christianity and defends the
pre-eminenee of the latter religion. Chapter XXXI is a confirmation of the Trinity
and the divinity of Christ 'per le cose giudaiche'- what Picotried to prove by way
of the Kabbalah is here attempted by means of a more conventional metbod of Briefwechsel (1999),
biblical exegesis. letter 124

23
 3 Jacques Gaffarel, Codicum cabalisticorum manuscriptorum quibus est usus,
]aannes Pieus comes Mirandulanus index. Paris, Widow of Hieronymus
Blageart, 1651

In the mid-seventeenth century Jacques Gaffarel (1601-1681), librarian to

Cardinal Richelieu, described 'the small kabbalistic library' which Flavius
Mithridates had translated for Pico in 1486. One manuscript inspected at the
time by Gaffarel is now lost. Among the texts Mithridates translated for Pico are
works by the German Kabbalist Eleazar ofWorms (ca. 1165-ca. 1230), the Spanish
Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia (1240-after 1290) and the Italian Kabbalist Menachem
Recanati (fl. C14). Especially Recanati's Commentary on the Torah (the five
Wirszubski (1989), Mosaic books) was an important souree for Pico's theses. Pages 42-43 describe part
p. 11 of Codex Vaticani Ebraici 189, which contains works by Eleazar ofWorms.

4 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Opera omnia. Basel, Sebastian Henricpetri,

1572-73

Pico's Con clusiones nongentae (1486) were integrally printed for the first time
in the Opera of 1557, and not in the Opera of 1496, even though the papal ban
against Pico had been lifted in 1493. According to the 22nd of the Conclusiones
magicae secundum opinionem propriam, the Hebrew language has a unique status:
only Hebrew words, or words derived from the Hebrew, are operative in natural
magie:

Nulla nomina ut significativa, & in quanturn nomina sunt, singula et per se

sumpta, in Magico opere virtutem habere possunt, nisi sint Hebraïca, vel
inde proxime derivata.

In fact the letters or the combinations of letters need not even have meaning in
themselves, because their 'ordinary sense' might distract in meditational practice.
This is explained by Abraham Abulafia in his meditational discipline which he
Scholem (1954), called Chokmat ha Tseruf, 'wisdom of the combination of letters'. Pico knew
p. 133; Wirszubski Abulafia through the translations of Mithridates. Reuchlin also referred to this
(1989), p. 189 magical thesis of Pico in De verba mirifico (see p. 34).

5 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oratio de hominis dignitate in Opera.

Bologna, Benedietos Hectoris, [1496]

Pico had meant to preface the Oratio to his Conclusiones nongentae, but the debate
which he had hoped to engender with his 900 propositions never took place. Pedro
Garda, Vatican librarian and later Bishop of Barcelona, who sat on the committee
installed to examine Pico's theses, attacked Pico in his Determinationes magistrales,
printed in Rome in 1489; he in turn was refuted by Arcangelo da Borgonovo in his
Apologia pro defensione Cabalae (Bologna 1564). The Oratio was first publisbed by
Pico's nephew Gianfrancesco Pico in his edition of the Opera of 1496. Pico explains

24
the origin and lineage of the 'old mysteries of the Hebrews', uncovered by him and
presented to Christian readers to underpin the holy Catholic faith. Moses received
on Mount Sinai together with the Torah also the Oral Law, with the injunction
to reveal it only to Joshua, whowas to pass it on to the high priests, and so on,
each time to a circle of wise initiates. (In the period of the Provencal and Spanish
Kabbalists, the Kabbalah was also known as chokmah penimit or inner wisdom).
Reuchlin also recounts the story of the oral transmission of the secrets of the Torah Gilly (1985), p. 104;
from Moses to Joshua and to the seventy elders in De arte cabalistica, fol. LXIIIv, Scholem (1974),
adding that this tradition is called Kabbalah, 'receiving', 'that which is received', the p. 6; Wirszubski
translation of the Hebrew word ïl'?::~p. (1989), pp. 122-23

6 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Apologia conclusionum suarum. [Naples],

Francesco del Tuppo, 1487

In 1487 an ecclesiastical committee appointed by Pope Innocentius VIII

examined Pi co's 900 propositions and eventually condemned thirteen of them.
One of the condemned propositions involved Kabbalah (and magie): 'No other
science affords us so much certainty about the divinity of Christ than magie and
Kabbalah'. The committee judged this particular thesis to be 'false, erroneous,
superstitious and heretical', a condemnation which prompted Pico to write his
lengthy Fifth Question in the Apologia: On Natural Magie and the Kabbalahof the
Hebrews. To defend himself, Pico distinguished between the revealed Kabbalah
as Moses had received it (the 'prima et vera cabala'), and two other kabbalistic
sciences, which he related to natmal magie. One of these, the 'ars combinandi', is
compared to the combinatorial art of Ramón Llull. On this page the blank space
following 'unam que dicitur' should have read, in Hebrew: ~Ul nmn ( Chokmat
ha Tseruf, the science of the combination of letters, see no. 4), but the printer did
not have Hebrew type at his disposal.
Reuchlin quoted Pico's thesis in his Augenspiegel ('es ist kain kunst die uns
mehr gewissmachtvonder gothait Christi dann Magia und Cabala', fol. Xllv), Gilly (2001'),
adding that a defence of the Kabbalah was unnecessary as Pico in his Apologia had pp. 266-68;
already demonstrated that the Kabbalah was a tool to be used in support of the Wirszubski (1989),
Christian faith (fol. XIIIr). pp. 122-25, 133

7 Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, De rerum praenotione. Strasbourg,

Johann Knobloch the elder, 1506-07

Gianfrancesco Pico ( 1469-1533) was highly cri ti cal of the prisca theologia so
admired by his uncle Giovanni Pico. He attacked the 'prisci magi', in particular
Zoroaster, Orpheus and Apollonius of Tyana. In a letter dated 5 Aprill505 and
written from Hagenau, where Pico was staying at the time, he informed Reuchlin
that he made honourable mention of him and De verba mirifico in the seventh
book of De rerum praenotione. In Chapter 6 of this book, Pico attacked the magie
of the Arab mathematician and philosopher Al-Kin di (801-873), particularly his
Liber de radiis, which explores the notion that allobjectsin the cosmos project

25
 - --- --------------

their nature to other objects through rays. The magus, understanding the laws of
Briefwechsel (I 999), the cosmie rays, is able to work magie. Only the name of Jesus works wonders,
letter 135; Travaglia Pico protested, which is the ineffable name of God, the tetragramrnaton (ill,l')
(1999), p. 28; Zika with the letter shin added, as Johann Reuchlin had demonstrated in De verba
(1998), pp. 150-52 mirifico (see p. 35) .

8 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Heptaplus. Florence, Bartolommeo di Libri,

ca. 1490

Reuchlin's friend Johann Streler wrote from Florence on 29 June 1492 to say that
Ficino's edition of Plato's Opera tagether with Ficino's Theologia Platonica, Pico's
Reptaplus and Angelo Poliziano's Miscellanea, would soon be delivered to him.
Pico avoided mentioning Kabbalah in this treatise, which Wirszubski considered
'perfectly understandable given that the Conclusiones were still banned at that
time'. But there is a noteworthy specimen of the kabbalistic 'ars combinandi' or
Chokmat ha Tseruf at the end of the seventh exposition, when Pico takes apart the
word 'Bresit' (Hebrew: n'lVNl.J, 'In the beginning') by means of Notm·ikon to prove
Briefwechsel (1999), what is obvious to all Christians: that the Father created in the Son and through
letter 56; Wirszubski the Son ('Notum omnibus christianis quid sit patrem in filio & per filium
(1989),pp.l72-73, 183 creasse') . Here, again, blank spaces where the Hebrew worcis should occur.

26
 IIA SPEAKING WITH GOD AND THE ANGELS: REUCHLIN AND
THE KABBALAH

Gershom Scholem described Kabbalah as 'a system of mystical symbols reflecting

the mystery of God and the universe', and kabbalistsas 'the main symbolists
of rabbinic Judaism', whose aim it was 'to discover and invent keys to the
understanding of this symbolism'. Both the mystical symbols themselves and
the means by which they were interpreted were embedded in the language of
the Torah, which, when explored with the kabbalistic techniques of Gematria,
Notarikon and Temurah, yielded a sheer infinite variety of meanings. Each
word in itself has meaning, but each word also consists of letters which, when
regarcled separately, can genera te new worcis and meanings, leading to a deeper
understanding and insight into the mysteries of the Torah. Fora Christian
Kabbalist like Reuchlin, for instance, the word 'Nl:J.' (bara, 'created', see p. 22)
proved the truthof the Trinity. It is in the preface to Leo X that Reuchlin calls
Kabbalah a 'symbolical philosophy', or alternatively a 'symbolical theology' (De
arte cabalistica, Book III, fol. Uv). Reuchlin considered Kabbalah to be not just
a philosophical system, but Sophia, wisdom itself: 'sophia ipsa, hoc est sapientia'
(Book I, fol. XVv).
The Kabbalah largely originated in Provence (Languedoc) in the late twelfth
century, where the early Kabbalists worked in a very fruitful religious and cultural
environment. Provence in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century was also
the home of the gnostic Cathar movement, especially Languedoc, where the first
kabbalistic eentres were to be found (there is, however, no evidence of direct
influence). Sefer ha Bahir (see no. 23), which was composed in Provence in the
late twelfth century, contains marked gnostic elements. It speaks of the 'fullness'
(Hebrew: ha male, Greek: pleroma) of God: 'the "fullness" is the blessing of God'.
Another image linked with the fullness is that of the cosmie tree, which is also to be
found in Bahir: 'I am the One who bas planted this tree in order that all the world
should delight in it. And in it, I spread the All. I called it All because all depend on
it, and all need it'. The cosmie tree is kept alive by the source, which is God, but
must also be sustained by man; as there is an intlux from above, so there is also
an intlux from below. These influxes flow through the sefirot (plural of sefirah, or
'counting'). The term sefirot first appears in the much earlier Sefer Jezirah, where
they are mythical and dynamic numbers. In the Bahir, they are the 'aeons' or
powersof God, and they arealso his attributes or qualities (Hebrew: middot).
There are ten sefirot, which issue from God- who bimself is ein sof, without
end, infinite, unknowable. The first three sefirot are: keter (crown), chokmah
(wisdom), binah (understanding), followed by chesed (kindness), gevurah
(power), tifereth (beauty), netsach (victory), had (splendour),yesod (foundation)
and malkuth (kingdom). Occasionally a few of the sefirot are named differently:
chesed is also known as gedulah (greatness); gevurah is also known as din
(judgement) or pachad (fear); tiferet as rachamim (compassion). The sefirot
mutually influence each other. An imbalance betweenthem creates a disturbance:
gevurah (power or judgement) which is not balanced by chesed (love or kindness)

27
 brings about injustice or evil. (Reuchlin in De arte cabalistica for instanee quotes
the Spanish Kabbalist Joseph Gikatilla: 'justice is made up of judgement and
kindness', De arte cabalistica, Book I, fol. XIXr).
The sefirot have macrocosmie and microcosmie dimensions: 'The ten sefirot
are in each person', Abraham Abulafia wrote in one of his kabbalistic treatises.
Charles Mopsik, author of Les grands textes de la cabale (1993) pointed out that
this idea, that man camprises within himself the ten sefirot, recalls the thirteenth
treatise in the Corpus Hermeticum, 'On being born again'. He quotes the passage
where Hermes Trismegistus instructs Tat in spiritual rebirth:

you have come to know the meaning of rebirth. The arrival of the decad sets
in order a birth of mind ( ... ) whoever through mercy has attained this godly
birth ... recognizes himself as constituted of the intelligibles and rejoices.
(CH XIII, 10)

In the Hebrew Kabbalah, this conneetion between the sefirot of the divine fullness
and the sefirot in man is an active principle: that which is performed below
has the power to set in motion that which exists above. If for instanee an act
of charity is performed on earth, it influences the ninth sefirah Yesod, which is
related to righteousness. This is why the influential Zo har, composed in Castile in
the late 13th century (see no. 29), writes, with a reference toPsalm 37: 3: 'Trust in
the Lord, and do good':

What does it mean, to do good? This is what we learn by it: actions below
set in motion actions above. It has been taught: 'and do them' (Leviticus
26: 3: 'keep my commandments, and do them'), that is to say, it is you who
perfarms them, because your actions which you perform below, will set in
motion the same above, therefore it is written: do good'. (Zohar III, llOv)

There is even greater power invested in man, because it is also stated in the Zohar
that when someone fulfils the commandments it is as if he creates God ('The
Holy One, blessed be He, says: 'It is as if he created Me', III, 113r). Isaiah Tishby
explained this extraordinary passage in his Wisdom of the Zo har as follows: 'Since
man continually renews creation in the upper world by sustaining the sefirotic
system, he is thought of as creating the Master of creation.' Moshe Idel has
suggested that this kabbalistic theosophical concept 'may have sarnething to do
with a polemic against the Hermetic theory of creating Gods here below, while
resorting to material components'. This points to the famous passage in Asclepius
23, where it is said that man is able to draw the gods into statues by means of
magical rituals. If this is a polemica! response to Hermetic views, there is also
evidence of more positive responses to Hermetic works by Kabbalists. Recently,
Moshe Idel and Fabrizio Lelli have been investigating the reception of Bermetica
in Judaism, ranging from the astro-magical interest of Abraham ibn Ezra (see no.
33) in the mid-thirteenth century to the interest in Hermetic magie ofYochanan
Alemanna (143 5-ca. 1504), one of the Jewish teachers of Giovanni Pico della

28
Mirandola. For Reuchlin, however, the Egyptian Hermes, although he is called
'the illustrious law-giver and most considerate author of the perfect teaching
to Asclepius', and is praised as an important witness to the prisca theologia, is
nevertheless subordinate to the Hebrew Moses. Likewise, Reuchlin also valued
the Pythagorean numbers above the Egyptian hieroglyphs. This was argued
very persuasively by Charles Zika in his Reueh/in und die okkulte Tradition der
Renaissance (1998).

The sefirot arealso represented in the image of primordial man (Adam Kadmon).
Man, the microcosmos (Hebrew: olam ha katan), is created in God's image
and is made up of the same cosmie elements, the sefirot, which camprise the
'body' of Adam Kadmon, a kabbalistic symbol which expresses the idea that the
cosmos itself has both a soul and a body very much like that of man. The fall of
primordial man impaired the flow of divine light through the sefirot, Reuchlin
writes in De arte cabalistica with a reference to Gikatilla's Sha'arei orah (see no.
30a). Each person helpstorepair the interruption through his or her actions.
Macrocosmos and microcosmos mirror each other, or as it is expressed in De arte
cabalistica:

The Kabbalists say that the things below are representations of the things
above, and what occurs below also takes place above. (Book III, fol. LXXIXv)

This saying of the Kabbalists is remarkably like one of the most famous sentences
in the Hermetic Tabula Smaragdina, 'that which is above is like that which is
below'. The enigmatic text of the Emerald Table continues: 'As all things came
from One, through the contem plation of the One, so all things arise from this one
thing by adaptation.' This statement has a neoplatonic flavour, and Scholem in
Kabba/ah (1974) compared the neoplatonic system to the kabbalistic conception
of the cosmos:

At opposite poles, both man and God encompass within their being the
entire cosmos. Ho wever, whereas God contains all by virtue of being its
Creator and Initiator in whom everything is rooted and all potency is hidden,
rnan's role is to complete this process by being the agent through whom all
the powers of creation are fully activated and made manifest. To use the
neoplatonic formula, the process of creation involves the departure of all
from the One and its return to the One, and the crucial turning-point in
this cycle takes place within man, at the moment he begins to develop an
awareness of his own true essence and yearns to retrace the path from the
multiplicity of his nature to the Oneness from which he originated.

The ideas of the Kabbalists spread from Provence to Spain, where from the
beginning of the 13th century schools of great and far-ranging importance came
into being which played an essential role in the establishment of the Kabbalah in
Spain (with eentres in Gerona and Toledo) and in the development ofkabbalistic

29
 literature. For the first time, kabbalistic books were here written which sought to
offer its ideas toa wider public. This is also the time when the Zohar (see no. 29)
was produced in the circle of Moshe de Leon. After the expulsion of the Jews from
Spain in 1492, other important kabbalistic eentres developed in the sixteenth
century in Italy (for instanee in Fen·ara, Mantua and Venice), Turkey (Salonika)
and the Holy Land (Safed).

The reception of Kabbalah in the Renaissance

Like the Hermetic corpus, the Kabbalah was regarcled by the humanists of the
Renaissance as part of a prisca theolagia, a tradition which was ancient, pre-
Christian and yet divinely inspired. In consequence, the agreement which was
perceived to exist between the Kabbalah and Christian doctrine prefigured and
confirmed the truth of Christianity, as Pico and also Reuchlin held. Pico probably
began his Hebrew studies expressly to learn to apprehend the Kabbalah, while
Reuchlin already had knowledge of Hebrew when Pico acquainted him with the
Jewish mystica! tradition in 1490. Reuchlin's Hebrew studies were not only part of
the humanist urge to go 'ad fontes', to the sources, he also considered knowledge
of the language to be prerequisite for a Christian:

Simple, pure, unspoiled, holy, brief and concise and abiding is the language of
the Hebrews, in which, as it is said, God spoke with men and men with angels:
personally and not through an interpreter, face to face . . . just as a friend is
wont to speak with a friend. (De verba mirifica, Book II, fols. c5v-c6r)

'And the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend',
Exodus 33: 11. In the letter to his brother Dionysius prefaced to De rudimentis
hebraicis, Reuchlin writes that knowledge of Hebrew is of the utmost importance
for an understanding of the Bible: it is from this souree that all theology is
derived. Reuchlin in fa ct valued the original text of the Hebrew bible above the
often erroneous Vulgate: 'Our text has this reading, but the Hebraïca veritas is
different'. There are also telling complaints against the theologians who have no
interest in the holy language: 'Our theologians are much more occupied with the
dialectica! sophisms of Aristotle than they are with the words of Holy Scripture'
(De verba mirifico, Book II, fol. d1r; all references are to the ed. 1514) .
Reuchlin's interest in Hebrew was strongly associated with what the
modern Reuchlin scholar Zika neutrally termed bis inclination towards mystica!
speculation. Reuchlin's 19th-century biographer Ludwig Geiger, himself a
representative of the Haskalah, considered it his 'Hang zum mystischen Grübeln',
his penebant for mystica] brooding. Reuchlin's letter to Nikolans Ellenbog (see
p. 16) is exemplary of the special status which Reuchlin accorded Hebrew, the
language which enabled men to communicate with God and the angels. And the
Hebrew Kabbalah withits enormons linguistic-mystical potential fulfilled the
needs of an erudite philologist with mysticalleanings, or as Sirnon the Kabbalist
puts it:

30
 Kabbalah is the symbolical reception of divine revelation, transmitted to us
to further the con templation of God and theseparate forms, which brings
salvation. (De arte cabalistica, Book I, fol. VIv)

Reuchlin hoped the arcane kabbalistic learning might contribute to bringing

about a spiritual regeneration. His Hebrew grammar and dictionary De
rudimentis hebraicis was instrumental in mastering the language of the 'ars
cabalistica', which he considered the key to a better understanding of rnan's
relationship to God and rnan's participation in the divine plan.
By contrast, he opposed the schalastic methods of the Aristotelian
theologians whom he termed 'theosophists' (rather than theosophers). Their
clever syllogisms do not bring men to the narrow path which leads to life, but
to the broad one which leads to death (fol. XXVv) . The 'theosophists' with their
rational discourse lead away from the adherence to God:

logical syllogism is the bitterest enemy and the worst threat against
knowledge of the divine, which is based on pure and simple faith. The
theosophists with the use of syllogism and through their impudence have
subjected God and the angels to man ... trying to discover, demonstra te and
bridle all with their rational discourse. (Book II, fol. XXIIIIv)

God can only be approached intuitively and not rationally, because:

divine things are beyond the graspof syllogism and cannot be understood by
the human rational faculties, nor can they be known through the senses, but
they depend upon a pure act of faith . (Book II, fol. XXVr)

The response to Reuchlin's advocacy of the Kabbalah in De arte cabalistica was

mixed. Nikolaus Ellenbag jubilantly wrote to Reuchlin on 12 August 1517 that
many scholars, following Reuchlin's example, had become Kabbalists. He even
wondered that the most glorious Hieronymus should have neglected or even
despised such a doctrine - even though many kabbalistic hooks had already
been written in his time. But Erasmus for instanee struck quite a different note.
In a letter to the Hebraïst Wolfgang Fabritius Capita (1478-1541), written on 13
March 1518, he urged him to spend more time on Greek than on Hebrew studies
('although I have no quarrel with the latter'). Buthethen proceeds to write about
the Jews:

I see them as a nation full of the most tedious fabrications, who spread a
kind of fog over everything. Talmud, Cabbala, Tetragrammaton, Gates of
Light, words, words, words. I would rather have Christ mixed up with Scotus
than with that rubbish of theirs.

'Talmud, Cabala, Tetragrammaton, Porta Lucis, inania nomina', was the apinion
of Erasmus, who had been sent a copy of Reuchlin's De arte cabalistica with the

31
 compliments of the author the year before. Later he would modify his views: in
a letter to the Christian Kabbalist Paulus Ricius, probably written in November
1520, Erasmus told him that one of Ricius' works had made him a little more
indulgent towards kabbalistic matters. One of Erasmus' correspondents, John
Colet, Dean of St Paul's, also expressed misgivings about the Kabbalah. He wrote
to him in 1517 after having perused De arte cabalistica:

I dare not express an opinion on it. I recognize my own ignorance, and

how blind I am in such a recondite subject and in the work of such a great
scholar. Notbut what, as I read, some things struck me as more remarkable
in language than in content. For, as he shows, there is sarnething mysterious
in Hebrew words, the way they are both written and put together. My dear
Erasmus, of books and knowledge there is no end. Nothing can be better, in
view of this brief life of ours, than that we use our best endeavours every day
to become pure and enlightened and perfected. These things are promised
us by Reuchlin's Pythagorical and Cabalistic philosophy, but in my opinion
we shall achieve them in no way but this, by the fervent love and imitation of
Jesus. Let us therefore leave these complications bebind us, and take the short
road to the truth.

For Reuchlin, however, the Kabbalah was remarkable in language and in content,
both verbal and real: the language of the Torah and the mystical philology of the
Kabbalah were instruments which provided a viabie alternative to the religious
and intellectual dominanee of the scholastics. He also had a sympathethic
understanding of ritual, which he did not consider to be empty and devoid of
meaning for the practitioner. Rituals are performed to approach the invisible
divinity, he wrote in De arte cabalistica, Book III, fol. LVIIr:

On this arcane basis all sacraments and rituals of ceremonies are based. We
take recourse to these signs, characters, to the voice, hymns and canticles,
drum and choir, stringed instruments ... In this way we conceive of an
intense and arduous love of God.

Reuchlin saw parallels between the Pythagorean number mysticism and

Kabbalistic alphabet mysticism. In the prefacetoDe rudimentis hebraicis, he
equates the 'arcane Pythagorean discipline' with the kabbalistic art; in a letter
written from Rome in June 1516, one of Reuchlin's friends tells him that
everybody was expecting bis 'Pythagorica' - meaning De arte cabalistica. In De
verba mirifico, the Epicurean philosopher Sidonius speaks of 'Pythagoras and the
renowned Pythagoreans, who refer to [the] tetragramrnaton as tetraktys' (Book II,
fol. e3v). The tetraktys (Greek tetras: four) is commonly presentedas a triangular
figure composed of ten points. It is the supreme Pythagorean mystical symbol,
symbolizing the harmony and order of the cosmos.
There are many more instauces in both works where the symbolism and the
mysticism of the Pythagoreans is equated with that of the Kabbalists, although

32
--~~~~~--~--~~~----~~--

there is a hierarchy: Pythagoras, says the Pythagorean schalar Philolaus in De arte

cabalistica, derived his excellent philosophy not from the Greeks but from the
Jews: 'he may justly be termed a Kabbalist, because he is "one who received"' (fol.
XXIv). Like Pico befare him, Reuchlin saw parallels between the Pythagorean and
the kabbalistic traditions because of this shared potential for inner reformation
through meditation and contemplation.

The prisca theologia of the Kabbalists and the Pythagoreans was putto work in
the Christian context: not only did Reuchlin intend to offer a spiritual tool for
his fellow Christians. He also hoped that Kabbalah, which he believed could also
demonstra te the truthof Christianity to the Jews, might be used as an instrument
to help further their conversion: 'And so all Israel shall be saved', as Paul had
written in the Epistle to the Romans ll : 26.

Brod (1965), pp. 276-78; Busi (1999); Correspondence of Erasmus, letters 593,636,798, 1160; Geiger (1962),
letter 220; Geiger (1964), pp. 121, 171; Gilly (2001 2 ), pp. 272-75; Gilly (2005 2), p. 213; !del (2003a); !del
(2003b); Lel! i (1993); Lel! i (2003); Mopsik (1993), pp. 13, 121,566, 570-75; Scholem (1974), pp. 5-6,42-44,
152; Scholem (1987); Tishby (1989), lil, p. 1160; Wirszubski (1989), p. 86; Wolfson (2000), p. 146; Zika
(1998), pp. 17,124,150-55,173,191

De verbo mirifico
Earlyin February 1493, a year before De verba mirifico was published by Johann
Amerbach, Reuchlin wrote to the Dominican Johannes Textoris. He had read
a letter written by Textoris to someone else and had been greatly moved by his
piety and clarity. He wondered why he feit urged to write to a man he did not
know personally, only from reading the contents of a letter, and explained his
sentiments in a metaphor: just as a magnet can fill the successive links of an iron
chain with its power, similarly there is a strong power inherent in words, which
eventually can be traeed to God, the souree of everything.
It is this neoplatonic idea of an unbroken chain leading from God to man
which animates De verba mirifico. God has placed man in the middle of the
universe, and so he participates intheupper and in the lower world (Book I, fol.
b3r). It is through word(s) (or the logos) that the communication between God
and man is effected:

God is breath (spiritus), the word the breathing (spiratio) and man breathes
(spirans). God is called logos. Logos also means word. 'Human reason'
likewise is expressed by this word. God is received through our mind (mens)
and is born through the word (verbum) . (Book II, fol. cSv)

In De verba mirifico, Reuchlin elaborated Pico's idea of rnan's central position in

the cosmos and that of deificatio, which Reuchlin conceived as a mutual dynamic
relationship between God and man. Man's position in the cosmos is determined
by his mind (animus humanus), which participates in the two worlds, above and
below. To demonstrate rnan's central position, Reuchlin quoted in full the passage

33
 from the Hermetic Aselephts which Pico had also referred to in his Oratio, but
more briefly: 'Magnum miraculum est homo'.
De verba mirifico posits that man, although a creature bound to nature, can
yet exceed nature and perform wondrous deeds through the power inherent in
words. It is in the final instanee through the spirit of God, however, that man
performs miracles, or rather, God performs miracles through man (Book II, fol.
c4v). Reuchlin in fact refers tosome of Pico's magical theses to stress that it is
through God that magie is performed:

Recently a famous philosopher in Rome proposed ... that in magical

operations which are allowed, no narnes possess magical power similar to
Hebrew narnes or narnes derived from Hebrew, because of all worcis it is
these very worcis which are formed by the voice (vox) of God. Magie is largely
performed by the voice of God. (Book II, fol. cSv)

The dedication to Johann von Dalberg, Bishop ofWorms and Reuchlin's host
in his Heidelberg exile, opens by stating that the seekers after the arcane powers
of worcis are generally misled or disappointed through misrepresentation of the
symbols of holy philosophy. But Reuchlin in tencis to restare the arcane knowledge
from the ancient sources. Three men take part in the conversations in De verba
mirifico, Capnion, a Christian, Baruchias, a Jew, and Sidonius, an Epicurean.
That Capnion will show the other two that the way to work wonders is through
the name of Jesus is already announced in the preface: 'Capnion out of all the
hallowed narnes chooses only the name Ihsuh [Jesus], on which the efficacy and
power of all operations rests' (fol. a2r) .
The title of De verba mirifico is reminiscent of Isaiah 9: 6: 'For unto us a child is
bom, .. . and his name shall be called wonderful' (et vocavit nomen eius mirificum).
This passage from Isaiah, which Reuchlin quotes in De verba mirifico (Book III, fol.
f2r) serves to place his kabbalistic interest in the context of Christian Kabbalah:
passages like these were interpreted in a christological sense. Although it is the
purpose of the tetragramrnaton to restore man to God (Book II, fol. e6r), the only
means by which this restoration can be achieved is through the pentagrammaton,
the name of Jesus, which is the wonder-working word of the title:

This is the word, these are the characters, with which the omnipotence is
invoked to perform operations which surpass the normal course of life.
(Book III, fol. g7r-v)

It was Reuchlin's conviction, not only that divine narnes could work wonders, but
that only the name of Jesus is able to deify mankind:

the divinity of this divine man, that is the incamate word, united with the leaven,
that is our nature, has raised us through the fermentation to such an extent that
... we become deified through the name of this son. (Book III, fol. f3v)

34
Reuchlin writes the name of Jesus (in Hebrew: Yl:!.l/.1') in the Roman alphabet as:
IHSVH. The tetragramrnaton (in Hebrew: .ll.l') is written as: IHVH; the addition
of the 'shin' (IV) in the middle of the ineffable name of God would yield the
pronounceable and wonder-working name of Jesus. In De arte cabalistica (Book
III, fol. LXXVIIIv) Reuchlin prints the name of Jesus in Hebrew as: .l iiV.l'. Before
Reuchlin's invention of the addition of the Hebrew letter shin (IV) in the middle
of the ineffable tetragramrnaton .ll.l', yielding the pronounceable name of Jesus
(,liiV.l'), others, like the Jewish convert Paulus de Burgos (ca. 1353-1435), had
also associated the name of Jesus with the tetragrammaton, although Burgos had
already pointed out that the nameendedon an ayn (y), nota he (a).

Briefwechsel (1999), letters 13, p. 49 n. 5, 57, p. 181 n. 20; Busi & Campan ini (199 5), p. LXX; Busi (1999);
Dall'Asta (2001), pp. 59-63; Leinkauf (1999), pp. 11 8-24; Secret ( 1964); Schmidt-Biggemann (2003a), p. 22;
Wirszt1bski (1989) p. 218; Zika (1998), pp. 29,49

9 Eusebius, De evangelica praeparatione, Venice, Bartholomaeus de Zanis, 1500

The Renaissance humanists derived almost all of the aspects of the prisca theologia
from Eusebius' De evangelica praeparatione. In Books X-XII Eusebius claims that
the ancient Greeks derived their philosophy from the much older theology and
philosophy of the Hebrews, and that Plato was dependent on Moses. Reuchlin
believed that all human and divine teachings and sciences originated with the Zika (1998),
Hebrews - Eusebius did not go so far. pp. 132, 158

lOa Pythagoras, Carmina aurea. Manuscript, Italy, middle of the 15th c.

(BPH 107)

Giovanni Aurispa ( 1369-1459), a collector of Greek manuscripts, discovered this

work with the commentary by Hierodes in Constantinople around 1418 and
brought it back to Italy, where he translated it into Latin; this is therefore a near-
contemporary copy of the Greek original of the Golden Verses of Pythagoras as
found by Aurispa. Another famous collector, Sir Thomas Phillipps, once owned
this manuscript.
Baruchias calls Pythagoras 'the sun of all arcane philosophy . .. because he
derives everything from the numbers. This teaching he has derived from us: it
is that ancient teaching from Syria and Chaldaea which he later, after he had
returned from there, explained in Greek words and concepts' (De verba mirifico,
Book I, fol. a6v).

lOb Hierocles, In aurea Pythagorae cannina commentarius. Strasbourg,

Matthias Schürer, 1511

The Carmina aurea are a short series of moral and ethical sayings attributed
to Pythagoras and intended to guide his followers in their conduct. The first
edition in Giovanni Amispa's translation was printed in 1474. The 5th-century

35
neoplatonic philosopher Hierodes of Alexandria in his commentary on the
Golden Verses denied that Pythagoras was the author. In De arte cabalistica the
Pythagorean follower Philolaus asserts he does not agree with Hierocles: he
believes that it was Pythagoras himself who wrote the Carmina aurea (Book II,
fol. XXIVv).

lOc Pythagoras, Aurea verba et symbala, in: Jamblichus, De mysteriis Aegyptiarum

& al. Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1497

First edition of this collection of neoplatonic works translated by Marsilio Ficino.

This copy of Jamblichus was once owned by one of Reuchlin's dosest friends and
supporters, the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530). Ficino included
his translation of Pythagoras' Carmina aurea in this edition (but not Hierocles'
commentary).
One of the sayings attributed to Pythagoras, says Philolaus ('ipse dixit') is
that man himself may become an immortal God (De arte cabalistica, Book II, fol.
XLVIIIv).

I la Johann Reuchlin, De verba mirifica. Autograph, before 1494

(Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms AN II 2)

The autographof De verba mirifica came from the estate of Johalm Amerbach,
who also printed the work. Reuchlin counted at least three printers amongst his
friends: Thomas Anshelm, Johann Amerbach and Aldus Manutius. Reuchlin's
friendship with Amerbach dates back to at least 1474, when both went to Basel,
where Johann Amerbach began his printing careerin 1478.
To demonstrate rnan's central position in the divine plan, Reuchlin quotes
in full the passage from the Hermetic Asclepius which Pico had also referred to
briefly in his Oratia: 'Magnum miraculum est homo'. Reuchlin makes a direct
association between the tetragramrnaton and this well-known Hermetic passage: Briefwechsel (1999),
Baruchias says that man is capable of becoming divine because the Name was letters 64, p. 201
revealed to Moses, after which the famous passage from the Asclepius is quoted n. 1, 136; Leinkauf
in full. In the La tin Asclepius, it is said of man: 'quasi ipse sit deus'- as though he (1999), pp. 116-24;
were himself a God; Reuchlin, however, writes: 'qua ipse fit deus' - through which Zika (1998), pp.
he himself becomes God. 54-55

ll b Johann Reuchlin, De verba mirifica. [Basel], Johann Amerbach, [ 1494]

Reuchlin was aware that the common spelling of the name Jesus was not in
agreement with the tetragrammaton. He has his own explanation for the
significant orthographical variant which he presented in Latin in De verba
mirifica and in Hebrew in De arte cabalistica, a spelling which aligns the name of
Jesus with the tetragrammaton. He claims that while there were several men in
the Bible by the name of Jesus (the name means 'salvation'), whose narnes were
spelled with 'different letters and syllables' (he here alludes to Numbers 13: 17;

37
Briefwechsel (1999), 1 Samuel6: 14; 1 Ezra 3: 2; Habbakuk 3: 18; Zacharias 3: 1 and Isaiah 45: 15) yet
letter 13, p. 49 n. 5; 'no one had ciared assume the name (,ll.l') as it contains the entire divinity' (Book
Schmidt-Biggemann III, fol. g3v).
(2003a), pp. 17-22;
Secret (1964), 12a Hrabanus Maurus, De laudibus sanctae crucis. Pforzheim, Thomas
Wirszubski ( 1989), p. Anshelm, 1503
218; Zika (1976)
'Believe me, there is no Christ without cross', Capnion exhorted Baruchias and
Sidonius towards the end of De verba mirifica (Book III, fols. g7v-g8r), adding
that Dionysius Areopagita in his Ecclesiastica hierarchia had made a few allusions
to how the cross is related to the greatest and most secret mystery of the wonder-
working word. Reuchlin was much impressed by De laudibus sanctae crucis
(Eulogy of the Holy Cross), as is evident from the prefatory poem which praises
Thomas Anshelm and the city of Pforzheim, and extolls the power of the cross of
Christ, which is more powerful than the brazen serpent which God commanded
Moses to set up so that all who looked upon it might live (Numbers 21: 6-9).
The first printed edition of this work on the mysticism of the cross by the
Benedictine monk Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780-856) is a typographical tour de
force and is also the first product of the collaboration between Reuchlin and
Thomas Anshelm, Pforzheim's first printer. Reuchlin was greatly involved in this
edition; Konrad Muth (Conradus Mutianus Rufus 1470-1526), one ofReuchlin's
most ardent advocates in the troubles that were to follow, wrote him a letter on 1
October 1503 to thank him for his work. He had long hoped to obtain Reuchlin's
friendship, as Johann Trithemius could confirm, and wrote to compliment him
on the learned work he had clone on De laudibus sanctae crucis. He concluded the
Briefwechsel (1999), letter with the hope that Johann Reuchlin might accomplish what Giovanni Pico
letters 122, 127 della Mirandola had once begun.

12b Dionysius Areopagita, De ecclesiastica hierarchia (and other works by

Dionysius). Manuscript, Italy, 2nd half 15th century (BPH 9)

Translation from the Greek by the Italian monk and humanist Ambrogio
Traversari ( 1386-1439) . Nicolaus de Cusa encouraged Traversari to translate the
work and was also instrumental in having it disseminated. Traversari's translation
was used by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples for his edition of Dionysius of 1498-99. The
Ecclesiastica hierarchia is the second work (fols. 52-90r) in this volume. Reuchlin
owned a manuscript of Dionysius Areopagita, entered as De divinis naminibus,
de coelesti et ecclesiastica hierarchia in the Inventory (see also IVa), where it was
Christ (1924), p. 72; described as very old and mutilated.
Gilly (2001 2 ), pp. Reuchlin greatly admired Dionysius and quoted from his works a number
174-77; Harmsen of times in De verba mi riftea and De arte cabalistica. In the latter work, Philolaus
(2004), pp. 33-34 typically suggests that Dionysius learned from the Pythagoreans.

38
13a Johann Reuchlin, Liber de verba mirifico. Tübingen, Thomas Anshelm, 1514

Two editions appeared of Reuchlin's De verba mirifico in his lifetime; the edition
hereshownis the secoud revised edition, printed by Thomas Anshelm, who
printed all of Reuchlin's workafter 1503. Further editionsin the sixteenth century
were by Jean de Tournes in Lyon in 1552 and in Pistorius' compilation Artis
cabalisticae scriptorum, which has Hebrew characters (the original edition of 1494
and this edition of 1514 do nothave Hebrew characters).
Reuchlin explained the word bara ('created' in Hebrew) according to the
kabbalistic practice of Notarikon as standing for the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost, see p. 22 .

13h-c [Petrus von Rosenheim], Rationarium evangelistarum. Pforzheim, Thomas

Anshelm, 1505 and 1510

Thomas Anshelm, Reuchlin's printer from the time of their first joint project on
De laudibus sanctae crucis (see no. 12a) expressed his attachment to Pforzheim's
great native son in his device. From May 1506 he added a bandelore, hearing
above the name of the tetragramrnaton and below the letter 'shin', yielding the Albers (1955),
pentagrammaton, the subject of Reuchlin's De verba mirifico. p. 211

De arte cabalistica
The main speaker in De verba mirifico is Capnion, the Christian philosopher
who exhorts Baruchias to abandon the Talmudists and Sidonius to turn away
from Epicure and Lucretius before he can begin to initiate them in the miracles
pertaining to the 'verbum mirificum'. In De arte cabalistica, by contrast, the main
figure is the Jewish Kabbalist Simon, who instructs Philolaus, a Pythagorean
philosopher, and Marranus, a Muslim, in the kabbalistic art. Drawn by his great
reputation, Philolaus and Marranus travelled to Frankfurt on purpose to learn
from the Jewish sage Simon. In Book I Sirnon puts the Kabbalah in a messianic
perspective when he explains the Kabbalah is an art concerned with:

nothing else but the restoration of the entire human race after the primordial
Fall. We call it ilYIIV' (salvation) while the Latins call it salus. (fol. Vllr)

Sirnon warns that the Kabbalah is not an art that is easy to master because
God, who is ein sof, the Infinite, is beyond the grasp of our rational faculties.
(Here Reuchlin also refers to Nicolaus de Cusa's notion of the 'coincidentia
oppositorum', which man is unable to fathom: 'a German cardinal and an eminent
philosopher demonstrated this some 52 years ago', fol. XXIv). The Kabbalist,
because of his faith, is able to vanquish the darkness and through various stages
approach the light in order to grasp, as far as is humanly possibly, what is the
true souree of the light. Concentration and authenticity are prerequisites for
kabbalistic practice; the Kabbalist must first be liberated from his temporal cares

39
 1\1ERCVRII TRIS'MEGISTI ..<EGYPTII
POEMAND ER.
Antiquiflimus & pereleg~ris mythus, chriflianre reinervos & fan-
, guinem p.equcundJs fymbolts effig1ans , in conltami infucatx virtutis ufu,
pro bomi11is dignitate. ·

Ad Jacobi effigiem , Tri.rmegijlus iu vffione ~ __dei reg~me1~ ill !J_omiue,. pro do71#?Jio in
carnem & fa nguinem, citrajerv1t11tem, 111 t'lrtutïS glor1am,
· · . . devote contcrnplatus. · •
A ~

Illus. 4: jacob's ladder in Hermann vonder Hardt, Antiquitatis gloria, Helmstedt, Paul Dietrich Schnorr,
173 7 (cat. no. 48a)

40
and must scorn worn sophisms. When he is taken out of himself he is transported
to the heavens by angels, and the angels will guide him when he returns:

Thus arises the intimate friendship between the Kabbalists and the angels,
thanks to whom, having learnt the divine names in their correct forms, the
Kabbalists sometimes manage to perform wonderful things (which people call
miracles) .... The kabbalistic art always tends to work towards the salvation of
men, while false magie leads to their downfall. ... Kabbalah operates through
the names of light and the blessed angels. (Book I, fol. XXIv)

In Book II Simon is absent because he keeps shabat, which gives Philolaus and
Marranus the opportunity to extol Simon, recapitulate what he has taught so far,
and also confirm the close proximity between Pythagoreanism and Kabbalah. In
the words of Philolaus: the objective of both traditions is to work towards human
salvation (fol. XXVIIv). Philolaus also expounds the number mysticism of the
Pythagoreans. The One produces the two, and from this is bom the trinity. Add
to these essence, and you have four, a quaternity, which is infinity, the substance,
perfection and end of all numbers, because one, two, three and four give ten and
there is nothing beyond ten. This is what Pythagoras called 'tetractys': in Greek
tetras indicates the quaternity, while actis, beam, is the formal aspect of the sun.
The word 'tetractys' is written with an ypsilon rather than a iota to mark its sacred
character (fol. XXIXv).
In Book III Simon explains that there is a reciprocal relationship between
macrocosmos and microcosmos:

We cannot see the sun unless the sun turns its glance towards us, similarly we
cannot perceive the superior world, which is in fact an eye more transparent
than the sun, if it does not see us. We see the sun thanks to the solar light and
we perceive divine reality thanks to the divine light. (fol. LIIr)

Simon discusses the 72 holy names of God and the corresponding names of the
angels to be found in the Psalms (also reproduced in Latin in De verba mirifico
but now printed in Hebrew and in Latin, fols. LIXv-LXr). By pronouncing the
names of the angels, they can be summoned (fol. LVIIIv). The number 72 is a
holy number for the Kabbalists because it is the sum of the tetragrammaton.
The 72 holy names of God were derived from three verses in Exodus (14: 19-21),
each containing 72 letters and producing 72 three-letter names of God. The holy
names were also to be found in the Psalms, as Reuchlin demonstrates.
The angels ascend and descend the ladder Jacob dreamt about (see illus. 4).
Reuchlin compared Kabbalah with Jacob's ladder, by means of which man may
undertake the ascent to God. In the words of Simon the Kabbalist: 'To use your
expression it deals with the Homeric chain, while we Hebrews ... refer to Jacob's
ladder, which stretches from the heavens on high to earth like a cord or a golden
rope thrown from the heavens to us' (fol. LIIr-v).

Busi & Campanini (1995), p. 180; Gilly (2001 2 ), pp. 196-200; Mahnke (1966), pp. 117-20; Wirszubski
(1989), pp. 63, 102; Zika (1998), pp. 152-54 41
 Termini scientiarum tesserae et symbola quibus filosophorum sectae ab
invicem distinguuntur. (The sciences have as their objectives the token and
the symbol, by means of which each philosophical school distinguishes itself
from the other.)

Tobias Hess and his circle will be discussed in the forthcoming first part of
the Bibliagraphia Rasicruciana by Carlos Gilly, to whom I owe all of the above
information.

15a Johann Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica. Hagenau, Thomas Anshelm, 1517

De arte cabalistica also describes kabbalistic magical practices. Sirnon explains

how Kabbalisis manufacture a talisman for someone who may encounter danger.
They take

a very thin piece of parchment, called 'virginal' because it is intact, pure

and immaculate, which symbolizes the purity of the bearer. Then they write
on the parchment the following characters n:niJY and on the outer, rougher
side these other symbols 1111:1. They teach that with the aid of this amulet
he who firmly believes in God, Creator of the Universe, need not fear the !del (1983), p. 196;
machinations of wicked men. (Book III, fol. L:XXVIIv) Zika ( 1998), p. 168

15b Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, De acculta philasaphia, Cologne,

Johann Soter, 1533

Agrippa (ca. 1486-1535) sent the manuscript ofthe first draftof De acculta
philasaphia to his friend and teacher Johann Trithemius in 1510, a year after he had
lectured on Reuchlin's De verba mirifica at the University of Dóle. The first edition
of De acculta philasaphia liber primus came from the pressof Johannes Grapheus
at Antwerp in 1530/31. All three books were printed by Johann Soter in Cologne in
1533. Agrippa made tacit use of Reuchlin's De verba mirifica and explicit use of De
arte cabalistica for his De acculta philasaphia. Reproduced in Book III, chapter 11 is
the amulet which is discussed in De arte cabalistica (see no. 15a).
Agrippa's verdict on the Kabbalah in his pessimistic De incertitudine &
vanitate scientiarum was of course negative. Surprisingly, he also associates the
gnostic sects of the Ophites and Valentinians with Kabbalah: 'From this Judaica! Perrone Compagni
ferment of cabalistical superstition, I verily believe the Ophites, Gnasticks, and ( 1992); Zika (1998),
Valentinians came' (English edition 1684, p. 125). p. 167

16a-b Johann Trithemius, De septem secundeis. Frankfurt, Jacob Syriacus, 1545

and ibid, Steganagraphia. Frankfurt, Johann Berner, 1608

'This abbot was a magus according to Johannes Wier', a former owner noted on
the title-page of the BPH copy of De septem secundeis. And indeed Wier in his
Liber de praestigiis daemanum reproduced with great disapproval the letter which

43
his death in 1522 (see !Va). According to the compilers of the Verzeichnis of
Reuchlin's Hebraica, Pistorius' interest in Reuchlin's kabbalistic works may
account forthefact that Reuchlin's biographer Johann Heinrich May was no
longer able to find any of them when he visited Reuchlin's library in 1687!
Kabbalah, Pistorius writes in his dedication, once a discipline greatly revered
by the Hebrews, has now fallen into oblivion and is neglected and abandoned
by all. Pistorius collected in this volume the works of Christian Kabbalists. In
his dedication he mentions only Paulus Ricius (see nos. 19a-b) by name, noting
that he has also 'added some other works': two of these are Reuchlin's De arte
cabalistica and De verba mirifico, the others are Gikatilla's Portae lucis, Leone
Ebreo's De amore dialogi tres, Arcangelo da Borgonovo's Interpretationes in
selectiora obscuriaque Cabalistarum dogmata and a translation of Sefer ]ezirah. It
appears from a letter which Pistorius sent the printer, Henricpetri, that he was Christ (1924); Gilly
consiclering a second volume if the first one was successful. It was to contain the (1977), pp. 65, 76;
works of the Venetian Christian Kabbalist Francesco Giorgio (Zorzi, 1466-1540), Verzeichnis (2005),
author De harmonia mundi (1525) and In scripturam sacram problemata (1536) . pp. 66, 148; Zika
The second volume, however, never appeared. (1998), p. 168

18 Giovanni Agostino Pantheo, Ars transmutationis metallicae. Venice, Johannes

Tacuinus de Tridino, 1518

In the Augenspiegel Reuchlin referred to a number of alchemical works in the

context of his defence of the Talmud: Geber's Summa perfectionis, Arnoldus de
Villanova's Rosarius, Lull's Codicillus and Liber vademecum, 'Johannes Stirus
anglicus' (i.e. Johannes Hastirius (... ) anglicus) Rosario, Liber de intentione
alkimistarum and Liber experimentorum (both attributed to Lull) and 'Arcturus in
arte' (i.e. Richard de Furnivall), to add that one finds inthem 'wondrously strange
words, and speeches .. . which might cause one to think a madman spoke them
in his dream' (fol. Xlv). However, Reuchlin continues, alchemical works, like the
Talmud, are purposefully obscure, and it is no cause to reject either.
Reuchlin also compared the 'verbum mirificum' with the philosopher's
stone, although the wonder-working word was of course by far superior to what
the alchemists in their misguided beliefs were searching for. His contemporary
Giovanni Agostino Pantheo, a priest from Venice, held a different view. He Augenspiegel
publisbed a short treatise on the transmutation of metals in 1518, promising (1999), pp. 45-46;
not only to reveal that which had been shrouded in mystery before but also Calder (1954);
explaining the alchemical process with the help of gematria. Pantheo was read Clulee (1988 ); Gilly
by a great number of authors, such as Cesare Della Riviera, author of Il magico (2005 2); Pereira
mondo (1603), and John Dee, wholater incorporated passages from Pantheo's (1989), pp. 75, 90;
works in his Monas hieroglyphica (1564). In his later work Voarchadumia (1530), Scholem (J 974),
Pantheo proposed to offer a 'Kabbalah of metals', presenting God's creation p. 187; Scholem
as an alchemical process, and the work of the alchemist as a recapitulation of (1977); Secrel
the creation. Ars transmutationis metallicae likewise begins with the account of (1964); Thorndike
Creation: 'Deus (,lln') ex hyle (p1wn lrJn) creata Caelos: & Terram formavit' (God (1941) , vol. 5,
created the heavens and formed the earth out of prime matter). pp. 537-40

45
 Trithemius ( 1462-1516) had written in 1499 to Arnold Bost, a Carmelite monk in
Gent, on the subject of steganography, the art of composing secret messages and
communicating them by supernatmal means. This letter, which never reached
Bost, would invest Tritheim with great notoriety. It was reprinted in every edition
of Trithemius' Polygraphia since 1518.
De septem secundeis (first printed in Nmemberg in 1522) is a book on the
'seven secondary causes' or angels governing the planets after the First Cause,
which is God. They are Orifiel, Anael, Zachariel, Raphael, Samael, Gabriel and
Michael. The work, which Trithemius finished in 1508, ten years after he had
begun his work on the Steganographia, also contains an astrological history of the
world, noting ominously towards the end: 'a great religious sect shall arise, and
will destroy the ancient religion' (D3r).
De septem secundeis implies that supernatmal forces influence the lives of
men; Trithemius' Steganographia, which was not printed until1606, although it
did circulate in manuscript copies, deals with putting these forces to work:

For the spirits of air, good and evil have been created by God on high for
om service and pro fit, through knowledge of whom all the secrets of this
art are revealed. ( . .. ) this deep and most secret art has its own peculiarity, in
that it may easily bring forth, I would suggest, a pupil incomparably more
learned than his teacher, provided only that he is by nature disposed to make
progress, and studious in those things which he has learned in the kabbalistic
tradition. (sigs. ):( 2v- ):(3r)

Trithemius was aware that his work might be considered offensive, but insisted
that he was not a sorcerer:
Brann (1999); Gilly
(2001 2 ), pp. 276-78, all the constituents of this science and art, the methods, diagrams,
Hannsen (2004), operations, traditions and changes, and everything that pertains to its
p. 54; McLean investigation, invention, pursuit, operation and practice .. . arises from
(1982); Secret true, catholic, natural principles. All arises with God, with a true consience,
(1964), pp. 157-60 without injmy to the Christian faith . (sig. ):( 4r)

16c Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, De occulta philosophia, Cologne,

Johann Soter, 1533

Bound in with this copy of De occulta philosophia are seals with the narnes of the
angels as they also occm in De septem secundeis.

17 Artis cabalisticae scriptorum. Tomus I, ed. Johannes Pistorius. Basel,

Sebastian Henricpetri, 1587

When Johann Pistorius (1546-1608) published this compilation he was advisor

to Margrave Jacob III of Baden-Hochberg, whose library included Reuchlin's
collection which he had bequeathed to the Stiftskirche in Pforzheim upon

44
bis death in 1522 (see !Va). According to the compilers of the Verzeichnis of
Reuchlin's Hebraica, Pistorius' interest in Reuchlin's kabbalistic works may
account forthefact that Reuchlin's biographer Johann Heinrich May was no
longer able to find any of them when he visited Reuchlin's library in 1687!
Kabbalah, Pistorius writes in his dedication, once a discipline greatly revered
by the Hebrews, bas now fallen into oblivion and is neglected and abandoned
by all. Pistorius collected in this volume the works of Christian Kabbalists. In
his dedication he mentions only Paulus Ricius (see nos. 19a-b) by name, noting
that he bas also 'added some other works': two of these are Reuchlin's De arte
cabalistica and De verba mirifico, the others are Gikatilla's Portae lucis, Leone
Ebreo's De amore dialogi tres, Arcangelo da Borgonovo's Interpretationes in
selectiora obscuriaque Cabalistarum dogmata and a translation of Sefer fezirah. It
appears from a letter which Pistorius sent the printer, Henricpetri, that he was Christ (1924); GiLiy
consiclering a second volume if the first one was successful. It was to contain the (1977), pp. 65, 76;
works of the Venetian Christian Kabbalist Francesco Giorgio (Zorzi, 1466-1540), Verzeichnis (2005),
author De harmonia mundi (1525) and In scripturam sacram problemata (1536). pp. 66, 148; Zika
The second volume, however, never appeared. (1998), p. 168

18 Giovanni Agostino Pantheo, Ars transmutationis metallicae. Venice, Johannes

Tacuinus de Tridino, 1518

In the Augenspiegel Reuchlin referred to a number of alchemical works in the

context of his defence of the Talmud: Geber's Summa perfection is, Arnoldus de
Villanova's Rosarius, Lull's Codicillus and Liber vademecum, 'Johannes Stirus
anglicus' (i.e. Johannes Hastirius (... ) anglicus) Rosario, Liber de intentione
alkimistarum and Liber experimentorum (both attributed to Lull) and 'Arcturus in
arte' (i.e. Richard de Furnivall), to add that one finds inthem 'wondrously strange
words, and speeches ... which might cause one to think a madman spoke them
in his dream' (fol. XIv). However, Reuchlin continues, alchemical works, like the
Talmud, are purposefully obscure, and it is no cause to reject either.
Reuchlin also compared the 'verbum mirificum' with the philosopher's
stone, although the wonder-working word was of course by far superior to what
the alchemistsintheir misguided beliefs were searching for. His contemporary
Giovanni Agostino Pantheo, a priest from Venice, held a different view. He Augenspiegel
publisbed a short treatise on the transmutation of metals in 1518, promising (1999), pp. 45 -46;
not only to reveal that which had been shrouded in mystery before but also Calder (1954);
explaining the alchemical process with the help of gematria. Pantheo was read Clulee (1988); Gilly
by a great number of authors, such as Cesare Della Riviera, author of Il magico (2005 2); Pereira
mondo (1603), and John Dee, wholater incorporated passages from Pantheo's . (1989), pp. 75 , 90;
works in his Monas hieroglyphica (1564). In his later work Voarchadumia (1530), Scholem (1974),
Pantheo proposed to offer a 'Kabbalah of metals', presenting God's creation p. 187; Scholem
as an alchemical process, and the work of the alchemist as a recapitulation of (1977); Sen·et
the creation. Ars transmutationis metallicae likewise begins with the account of (1964); Thorndike
Creation: 'Deus (,llil') ex hyle (IIIVI'Il liJn) creata Caelos: & Terram formavit' (God (1941), vol. 5,
created the heavens and formed theearthout of prime matter). pp. 537-40

45
 In general there is little affinity between Kabbalahand alchemy, as was
established by Scholem, who nevertheless found that the Kabbalist Joseph
Taitazak, who lived at the time of the Spanish expulsion, associated alchemy with
the Kabbalah.

19a Paulus Ricius, De sexcentum et tredecim mosaice sanctionis edictis.

Philosophica prophetica ac talmudistica. In cabalistarum seu allegorizantium
eruditione ysagogae. De novem doctrinarum ordinibus .. . oratio. Augsburg,
Johann Miller, 1514-15

Paulus Ricius was born in 1480 and converted to Christianity in 1505. He studied
philosophy and medicine at the University of Pa via. Fr om 1514 he was personal
physician to Emperor Maximilian I, and publisbed a number of philosophical
and theological works. He defended the Kabbalah as an allegorical interpretation
(notably in the Isagogae, one of the works in this compilation). The Isagogae are
also explicitly referred to by Reuchlin in De arte cabalistica: Simon recommends
to Philolaus and Marranus this workof the most learned Paulus Ricius, 'once one
of ours but now a Christian' to obtain a clear and concise understanding of the
sefirot (Book III, fol. LXIIr). In 66 propositions, Ricius sought to present the core
of the teachings of the Kabbalists or Allegorizers, as for instanee the 17th thesis:

Therefore, just as the microcosmos, man, reveals the pattem of the supreme
creator and macrocosm, the law of this microcosmos makes known the
eternallaw of the macrocosmos. And since this cannot be discovered in the
literal sense, you must acknowledge it to be drawn from the kabbalistic or
allegorical sense. (fol. aa5v)

In the revised edition of this work, included in Pistorius' compilation (see no.
17), Ricius had defended Reuchlin against bis chief Dominican adversary, the
Blau (1965), Inquisitor Hoogstraeten, whohad publisbed bis anti-kabbalistic and anti-
pp. 67 -75; Zika Reuchlinian Destructio cabale in 1519 (without having much knowledge of
(1998), p. 168 Reuchlin's De arte cabalistica).

19b Paulus Ricius, Talmudica novissime in latinum versa periocunda

commentariola. Natura/ia et prophetica de anima ... adversus Eckium
examinata. Lepida et literae undique concinna in psalmum Beatus vir
meditatio. Coneisa & arcana de modo orandi responsio. Augsburg, Sigmund
Grimm, 1519

Earlier Simon the Kabbalist referred to Paulus Ricius in combination with

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, both of whom had publisbed worles on Kabbalah
in La tin 'which were but little understood' (Book III, fol. LIIr) .
Paulus Ricius came into conflict with Johann Eek (1486-1543) over the
question whether the heavens were animated. Ricius defended this neoplatonic
concept against Eek, who is well known as one of the ablest opponents of Luther.

46
When Reuchlin stayed at the house of Johann Eek as his guest in 1520, he
prevented him from burning the books of Luther. Reuchlin's biographer Geiger Geiger (1962), letter
considered this to be a fine example of Reuchlin's respect for scholarly research 277; Geiger {1964),
and his uncompromising respect for freedom of speech. Reuchlin nevertheless did pp. 148, 354;
not want to be associated with Luther, although the latter called bimself one of his Hanmen (2004),
followers in a letter he wrote to him on 14 December 1518. p. 41

20 Johann Trithemius, De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis. Basel, Johann Amerbach,

1494

De verba mirifico was printed in the same year as Trithemius' ecclesiastical Who's
Who and by the same printer, Johann Amerbach. Prefaced to De verba mirifico is
a letter by the Cistercian monk and humanist Konrad Leontorius to the humanist
Jacob Wimpfeling (1450-1528), a friend of Reuchlin. Leontorius and Wimpfeling
had met and discussed Trithemius' De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, which was
about to go to press. Wimpfeling is urged in the letter to inform Amerbach that
Reuchlin should have an entry in Trithemius' bio-bibliographical work, since BriefweeiJsel {1999),
the omission would greatly marr Germany's reputation as a learned nation. De letter 68; Christ
scriptoribus ecclesiasticis indeed offers a survey of Reuchlin's original works and (1924 ), p. 3 1;
translations. Trithemius was also preparing a Catalogus illustrium virorum, which Hannsen (2004) ,
came out in 1495, with a greatly enlarged entry on Reuchlin. p . 53

47
 IIB 'THE RARE HEBREW WORKS WHICH I POSSESS':
REUCHLIN'S KASBALISTIC SOURCES

When Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, Pico's nephew and biographer, wrote
to Reuchlin in the hope of obtaining co pies of his Hebrew works, Reuchlin replied
that he had listed all the rare Hebrew works owned by him in De arte cabalistica
(letter of 30 June 1517), yet did not think he could find a Jewish scribe able to
copy them: Pico had better try bis luck in Rome. The relevant section in De
arte cabalistica is headed: 'The books used by the author to write this volume'.
Giulio Busi and Saverio Campanini, the Italian editors of De arte cabalistica,
have established that Reuchlin in fact used more kabbalistic books than the
ones he listed, nor did he actually quote from all of the works he enumerated.
As Reuchlin's kabbalistic library bas not survived (barring a few exceptions,
see the Verzeichnis der Hebmica in der Bibliothek Johannes Reuchlins, 2005) it is
impossible to establish whether Reuchlin indeed possessed all the works listed,
either separately or in compilations.
The first three titles mentioned by Reuchlin are among the oldest and most
influential kabbalistic works: Sefer ]ezirah (which he here attributes toR. Akiva),
Sefer ha Zohar and Sefer ha Bahir (see nos 22a-b, 29, 23). Sefer ha Zohar ('de
splendore'), the second kabbalistic work to be listed (but not used) by Reuchlin,
is accorded appropriate eminence, after Sefer ]ezirah, which is in fact also much
older than the Z ohar. Simon, the Kabbalist extolled by Philolaus and Marranus,
has a pedigree: he is presented as having descended from the legendary author
of the Zo har, Sirnon ben Yochai, who lived in the 2nd century. Philolaus tells
Marranus that Sirnon is the 'son of Eleazar of the ancient family ofYochai' (fol.
Iv), while Sirnon bimself lateralso refers to 'our Sirnon ben Yochai, my relative'
(fol. LVIr). Although he is definitely meant to be of the ancient lineage that
produced the reputed author of the Zo har, it is intriguing that Yehuda Liebes has
found that there was an actual family of Kabbalists in the sixteenth century called
Ibn Yochai, with the common first narnes of Sirnon and Eleazar.
An author greatly appreciated by Reuchlin was the outstanding Castilian
Kabbalist Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla (1248 -1325), an early student of
Abraham Abulafia and also a contemporary of Moshe de Leon, the main author
bebind Sefer ha Zohar (see no. 29), Reuchlin mentions and uses Gikatilla's chief
works: Ginnat Egoz (Nut Garden), Sha' a rei Orah (Gates of Light) and Sha'arei
Tsedek (Gates of Justice), although he does not attribute them to one and the
same person, writing that 'Ra bi Ioseph Castiliensis' wrote Sha' arei Orah, 'Rabi
Ioseph filius Carnitolis' was the author of Sha'arei Tsedek and 'Joseph Bar
Abraham Castiliensis' wrote Ginnat Egoz. In various manuscriptsof Sha'arei
Tsedek, Gikatilla's name is in fact written as 'Karnitol'. Ginnat Egoz, which
Reuchlin owned in a manuscript presented to him by Johann von Dalberg in
1495, was considered lost by Karl Christ, but is in the British Library (Cod. Or.
740, Ms. Add. 11416).
Although Abraham Abulafia regarcled his student Gikatilla as a continuator
of bis school, Gikatilla's later works hardly show any Abulafian influence. Gikatilla

49
 spanned two trends in kabbalistic thought and practice: in his early years, when
he wrote Ginnat Egoz, he adhered to the prophetic or ecstatic Kabbalah of
Abulafia, which sought to stimulate the deeper life of the souland free it from
ordinary perceptions through meditation and contemplation. The meditational
practices advocated by Abulafia concentrate on letters and their combinations,
in Hebrew, but also in any other language: 'every spoken word consists of sacred
letters, and the combination, separation and reunion of these letters reveal
profound mysteries to the Kabbalist'. The highest stage of meditation leads
to ecstacy, with the mystic becoming part of the divine world of light. When
Gikatilla came to write Sha'arei Orah, he was already a follower of the theosophic
Kabbalah, which is represented by the Zo har and which seeks to describe and
understand the divine realm, focusing on the sefirot. Theosophy, Scholem wrote,
'maintains that the mysteries of creation reflect the pulsation of the divine
life. Theosophists in this sense were Jacob Böhme and William Blake'. Gikatilla
was probably acquainted with the Zohar before 1293 and propagated its ideas,
especially in Sha' arei Orah; Moshe de Leon for his part in the same year referred
to 'the words of the wise in Sha' arei Orah' in one of his other works. The two
kabbalistic trends mentioned above were already discerned by Abraham Abulafia,
who distinguished between 'the knowledge of God by the pathof the twenty-two
letters' (of the Hebrew alp ha bet, the scientia shemot or science of names, which
is the ecstatic or prophetic Kabbalah) and 'the knowledge of God by the path
of the ten sefirot' (the meditation u pon the sefirotic tree, the scientia sefirot, the
theosophic Kabbalah). In practice, these two kabbalistic schools of thought were
never totally separate. Gikatilla's work was also very influential in the Christian
Kabbalahand Reuchlin quotes him often.

Rare Hebrew works

Before Sirnon unlocks the contents of his kabbalistic library for the benefit of
Philolaus and Marranus, he regrets he cannot boast, with the affluent Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola, of having been able to spend large sums on the acquisition
of kabbalistic books, even had these been preserved or were to be acquired.
Reuchlin bimself could speak from experience: he avidly searched for Hebrew
manuscripts and printed books, also asking others, for instanee his brother's
guardian Johann Streler in Italy, to find them for him. Streler wrote from Florence
on 8 August and again on 25 November 1491 that he had as yet been unable to
find a (complete) Hebrew printed bible. (In the end Reuchlin owned 6 copies of
the Hebrew bible.) In the 1490s Reuchlin also wrote to Jacob Margolioth, Chief
Rabbi of Regensburg, enquiring about the availability of Hebrew kabbalistic
books in his community. Reuchlin's letter, which apparently also contained
a wishlist, has notbeen preserved, but since Margolioth's reply was written
in Hebrew, it is likely that Reuchlin's own letter was also in that language.
Margoliath regretted he could not comply with Reuchlin's request. Kabbalah, he
wrote, is a sensitive and profound philosophy and one that is hardly studied. 'The
books you are seeking are not to be acquired bere.' Whether there was an actual
scarcity of kabbalistic works in Regens burg, or whether Margoliath was reluctant

50
to pass on the arcane knowledge of the Kabbalah is difficult to tell. Reuchlin
was at any rate aware that the secrets of the Kabbalah were only to be taught to
the wise amongst the Jews. In De arte cabalistica, fol. LXXIII, Sirnon apologizes:
'Please do not take this amiss. The assembly of our fathers has decided wisely
in consideration of the many perils which we are exposed to in our dispersion.'
Interestingly, there is at least one exception to this rule: the manuscript Ginnat
Egoz, which Reuchlin had been given by Johann von Dalberg. Reuchlin noted at
the end of the manuscript that the manuscript had been obtained from 'Magister
Jeshac Natione Rutlingen' of the synagogue of Worms.
Early printed Hebrew works are rather rare. Adri Offenberg, former curator
of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam, calculated that the total number
of Hebrew incunables was 'certainly no more than about one hundred and fifty
editions, which constitutes less than half a percent of the total production of
printed editions'. Greek incunables, also a language for which fonts were not
easily available from the outset, were incidentally even rarer: John Goldfinch,
Head of Incunabula of the British Library, notes that there are 62 recorded Greek
incunabula. One of the few kabbalistic Hebrew incunables is Bachya ben Asher's
Perush al ha Torah (Commentary on the Torah), printed in Spain around 1491
and in Naples in 1492 (see also no. 21). Most Hebrew incunables were printed in
Italy, where Reuchlin also managed to acquire a great many Hebrew (and Greek)
books during his third Italian journey of 1498.
The majority of the (kabbalistic) Hebrew works mentioned or used by
Reuchlin in De arte cabalistica were first printed in the late sixteenth or even
seventeenth century; Reuchlin therefore must have consulted his kabbalistic
works in manuscript form, either separately or in a compilation. In fact,
Gershom Scholem had a 'Feierstunde' in 1938 when he disavered that most of
the quotations in De arte cabalistica also occur in a kabbalistic compilation,
which is now in the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York (Ms. Halherstam
444). Reuchlin mistakenly named Todros ben Joseph ha Levi 'Tedacus Levi', an
error which also occurs in this particular manuscript. Moshe Idel upon further
examinatien of Ms. Halherstam 444 found various differences with Reuchlin's
kabbalistic quotations, which led him to assume that Reuchlin may have used a
variant copy of the manuscript. The recent editors of the Verzeichnis (2005) agree,
also arguing that it is hardly likely that Reuchlin, who habitually annotated his
manuscripts, would not have made notes in such an important compilation.

Barbierato (2002), p. 28; Briefwechsel (1999), letters 46, 48, 62; Busi & Campanini (1995), p. LIV;
Campanini (1999); p. 73; Christ (1924), pp. 37-39; Geiger (1962), letters 239, 242; !del (1988); Liebes
(2003), pp. 126-42; Scholem (1954), eh. 4, pp. 194-96, 206; Scholem (1969); Secret (1973), p. 74, n. 130;
Verzeichnis (2005), pp. 36, 70, 145-49, 147-48 n. 12

51
 xilit.
fl:riJ cui efl: infcrjptio 'n';"'~'"' de creatione ,'quem non p.arum licerati
q uidam affignant Magillro Akiba profeéto nobilil;ms fc~oliis orna
cum, ut qui alioqu iii exillat r.econditus& obfntrus.Eclibro ';tl"\''i"
de
fplendore,quemcom pofi.iit Simeo n filius lo!)ai CL)m Î!l qdail1uaào & te
nèbricofo fpecu quacuor & uiginti annos dditbit.Eclibro '; "''n~ de i'
Q<lndore qui a udtris Lucidarius dicitur.Sunt S(_(js ediditih Caqal~ illc T..
Abraham Alaphia,&infignes commcntarii Ramban,i1am ità colleéH.u.~·
noiatur Ra bi Moyfes filius Nehma ni fuR arcana Ie gis quê·appdlatis Ge
rundenfem,& Commencarii oium doétiffimi receptoris.Rabi IYlna!)em
Racanatfuper arcana RambatLEt liberf2plexorum Rampam;in fine pe.~
Mcm,id dl:RabiMoyflfilii Maimom quê uoGant Moyfe~ !'gy,priu.E.c !i
ber \',~ "'';)!''\V .i.port!' inf1icis quê cöfcripfitR~bilbfeph filius Cm~
t~itolis. Etliber '!"'\';~~ "i)!''\0 .i.poha luci~ Magifl:rilbfeph (ucfcruÓ,
Callilienfls in Hifpania.Btliher lii!A i"o~f'.i.de credulitatibus.,~~~iu~
au tor fuit in Afia Ra bi Saadia.Et liber 'I"'\ i it'l'l"'\ .,it:S de m; fierio lé
ois quem fapiet1s ille AbrahamAbrn Ezra confecïc.EfliBer R~bi bán~ai
G!ii Hanina qui dicitur doqilemiffitnorl1Î1l caput in Cabalaf&; 'eiufdtiÎi
autoris liber '~"')!''~"'\ id dt fpcculationis.Alius denitp liber \V~'i'o\tl
'i''\Di.,\' .i.cotmnentariu fanéèitatis,quem fcripfit Rabi Azat:iel.EtJi,
ber 'lii"a'\V.i.de noibus .Et liber cxplanationum alphabeti, cuius e~Hi
fcriptio~'li"':l~O'-,~'f' \Vi"';"'tl 'i~~ ex rabi'Akib,a .Et IL~c~
Rabi Ama û"','i'M i)i'\V de reconditis pfalmi und éuigdlmi. EcJi,
ber ,"'i'"''n .i.fingularis de unionc fcu colleétione ,cuius memit;it Ra bi
Abraham Aben Ezra de myfterio legis,capite primo.Ec liber ~,'1iö
.i.myA:eriórû.J3t liber qu~fl:ionum abllrufamm.Ec hoeilus Ca ba! a:: quë
edidic Azariel,aliis Oriel Garonenfls. Ec liber qui pr:xnotatur \i'1
.1'\';"'~~'n 1i,, 'nl,"a~'n de fide & expiatione,Etliber radi,
cumRabi Iofeph A lbo (Ui pariter Cabala:: titulum pra"fixerunt,quamuis
llle magis ethica commentetur Çj anagogica.Extatdemt!lll liber elegantif
fimus in Cab ala aduerfum philofophàfl:ros nomine Alkozer morë·ara
·"':I
bico,quem compofitit Ra bi Iuda Lcui, €UÎus h:xc ftint u erba ,"'~
(:li~'n ~';i' ûY ~~ ,i'~~\:) i'~~\'.i.Q;.nonfirCabai<Î
bona nifi cum corde bono.Vbi plurimummihi uifus eft fapient\ r a tan~
fanéèa èontemplatione malignos fophillas repuliffc,qui tanquam mufGi
·- ·- · - · D ii ''
.,

Illus. 5: Johann Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica, 1517, fol. XIIIIr (cat. no. 21)

52
21 Johann Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica in Artis cabalisticae scriptorum, ed.
Johannes Pistorius, Base!, Sebastian Henricpetri, 1587

In De arte cabalistica Reuchlin mentions a number of Hebrew works (mostly

kabbalistic, but also philosophical, see for instanee nos. 7, 11, 12 and 22
below), which Giulio Busi and Saverio Campanini have listed and described in
their edition of De arte cabalistica, also indicating whether they occur in Ms.
Halherstam 444. Benjamin Richler of the Jewish National and University Library
(JNUL) in Jerusalem kindly supplied the figures for the survival rate of individual
manuscripts before ca. 1500 of the works shown in the exhibition.

1 Sefer Jezirah (Book of Formation). At least 75-100 manuscripts dating from

before 1500 are known. The first Hebrew edition was printed in 1562, see no. 22a.
2 Sefer ha Zohar (Book of Splendour). About a dozen more or less complete
manuscripts and many more of various parts of Sefer ha Zo har dating from before
1500 are known. The first edition was printed in 1558, see no. 29.
3 Sefer ha Bahir (Book of Brightness). About 30 manuscripts dating from before
1500 are known; the first edition was printed in Amsterdam in 1651, see no. 23.
4 Unspecified kabbalistic hooks by Abraham 'Alaphia' (Abulafia, see also no. 27).
5 Nachmanides' commentary on the Torah (Perush al ha Torah). Reuchlin owned
a copy of the third incunable edition, printed by Joshua Solomon Soncino in
Naples in 1490.
6 Perush al ha Torah, by Nachmanides' pupil R. Menachem Recanati, first printed
in Venice by Daniel Bomberg in 1523.
7 Maimonides' Liber perplexorum. About 100 manuscripts dating from before
1500 are known of the Hebrew translation by Samuel ben Yehuda ibn Tibbon, see
nos. 24a-b. The first Hebrew edition was printed ca. 1473-74, in an unidentified
town.
8 Joseph Gikatilla's Sha'arei Tsedek (Gates ofJustice). About 22 manuscripts
dating from before 1500 are known. The first edition was printed in 1561, see no.
31.
9 Joseph Gikatilla's Sha'arei Orah (Gates of Light). About 50 manuscripts dating
from before 1500 are known. The first edition was printed in 1559, see no. 30a.
10 R. Sa' adia Gaon's Ha Emunat (On Matters of Faith). First printed in
Constantinople in 1562.
11 Abraham ibn Ezra's Sod ha Torah (Mystery of the Law). First printed in
Constantinople in 1529.
12 A kabbalistic work by R. Chamai ben Chanina together with his Sefer ha Iyyun
(On Speculation). This work remained in manuscript until the 19th century.
13 Azariel of Gerona's Perush Kadosha (Comment on Holiness). This work has
remained in manuscript, for Azariel see also no. 28.
14 Liber Shemot (On Names). The title of this work was toogeneralto be
identifiable.
15 R. Akiva's Seder Perush ha Alfabeta (a commentary on the alphabet). This
work, too, has remained in manuscript.

53
 16 R. Ama [Todros ben Joseph ha Levi Abulafia], Sha'ar ha Razim (Gate of
Secrets) on the mysteries of Psalm 19. First printed in the 20th century.
17 Ha fachid (The One), quoted by Abraham ibn Ezra in chapter 1 of the Mystery
of the Law. Never printed.
18 Sodot (Sect·ets), a title toogeneralto be identifiable.
19 A Liber quaestion urn abstrusarum, a title too general to be identifiable.
20 An unnamed kabbalistic work by Azariel of Gerona.
21 Derech Emunat ve Derech ha Kaftra (The Pathof Faithand the Pathof Heresy) .
First published by Scholem in 1942.
22 Joseph of Albo's Liber radicum. The first edition was an incunable, printed in
Soncino in 1485.
23 Yehuda ha Levi's Alkozer (Kuzari) 'more arabico'. About 15 mmmscripts of
Kuzari dating from before 1500 are known. The work was first printed in 1506,
see no. 26.
24 Commentaries on Sefer ]ezirah by Jacob Cohen and R. Isaac, entitled Perush ha
Shem ha Kadosh (Explanation of the Holy Name)
25 Tedacus Levi [Todros ben Joseph ha Levi] on the ten kabbalistic enumerations
(sefirot).
26 Joseph Gikatilla's Ginnat Egoz (Nut Garden). The first edition was printed in
1615.
Busi & Campan in i
(1995), pp. LV-LXX; Sefer Raziel is mentioned but excluded from this list, because Reuchlin considered
Christ (1924), p. 47; this a workof magie ('fictio magica'), but he certainly owned a copy of the Latin
Gilly (2001 2 ), pp. Liber Razielis. Not listed here at all is Pablo de Heredia's Epistolae de secretis, or
230- 32; Verzeichnis Sefer Iggeret ha Sodot, quoted by Reuchlin on fol. LXXVr of De arte cabalistica, the
(2005), pp. 35-58 only unauthentic 'kabbalistic' work in fact to be used in the entire book.

22a Sefer Jezirah. Mantua, Jacob ha-Kohen de Gazuolo, 1562

First edition in Hebrew. Reuchlin also owned a Latin translation made in Rome in
1488. In De arte cabalistica, he quotes from Sefer Jezirah a number of times. The
first printed La tin translation was by Postel (see no. 22b ); Pistorius (see no. 17)
also included a translation of the work.
The first references to Sefer Jezirah occur in the first century CE, and the
first commentaries on the book were compiled in the 10th century. The work,
which was probably written as a manual for meditative exercises, is traditionally
attributed to the patriarch Abraham, although Reuchlin also notes it is
alternatively ascribed to Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph (12 -132 CE). It is a very brief
text, which has 1300 wordsin the Short Version, while the Long Version has about
2500 words. The first edition of 1562 has as its basic text the Short Version and
contains the commentary by Donash ibn Tamim.
Th ere are 32 secret paths of Wisdom by means of which God created the
world, which are the ten sefirot added to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, as
it is here written on the right-hand page in larger font: 'Ten sefirot of nothingness
and 22 foundation letters'. The sefirot came into being when God, who is One,
began to create. One is without number, only with creation came plurality,
54
numbers: the sefirot. In the account of Creation in Genesis, one of God's narnes Busi & Ca mpanini
(elohim) occurs 32 times. The expression 'God said' (vayomer elohim) occurs ten (1995), pp. LV-LVI;
times, which is related to the ten sefirot. The other 22 times that the name elohim Glotzer (1992);
appears relate to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In fezirah the 32 paths Ka plan ( 1995),
are called, in Hebrew, netivot, which is a rare word. As the Zo har explains, the eh. l; Liebes (2001);
word nativ, path, implies that the path of wisdom is a personal road, which each Verzeichnis (2005),
individual must discover and follow for himself. p. 146

22b Abrahami patriarchae liber ]ezirah, ed. Guillaume PosteL Paris, for
Guillaume Postel, 1552

Ten years before the fi.rst printed Hebrew edition, the Orientalist Guillaume
Postel (1510-158 1) brought out a La tin translation, reproducing first the text of
Jezirah itself, foliowed by his commentaries. At the age of 26 Postel travelled to
the Orient for the first time, acquiring a number of kabbalistic manuscripts in
Constantinople. Upon his return he was appointed lecturer in Greek, Hebrew and
Arabic by François I, but was dismissed from his post in 1542. Postel also translated
other Hebrew kabbalistic works, including Bahir and Zo har. His commentary
shows that he saw in this oldest testimony of the Jewish kabbalistic tradition
proof of the truth of Christianity. The last passage which he annotated begins for
instanee in the Hebrew text: 'Three all. Each one stands alone'. The three stand for
the three 'mother' or primary letters alef, mem, shin. The mother letters in Sefer
!ezirah are the basis for the three columns in which the sefirot are arranged (see
illus. 7). The alef stands for avir, 'air', the mem stands for majim, 'water', and the
shin stands for esh, 'fire'. The three mother letters are associated with the first three
sefirot, from which the lower seven proceed, which is why they are called mothers.
Postel translates this passage as: 'Three are one' and continues: 'This is the great Glotzer (1992),
name of God. Potency, sapience, benevalenee in one', thus following Augustine's p. 15; Postel (1994),
association of the attributes potentia, sapientia, benevolentia with the Trinity. pp.8, 140

23 Sefer ha Bahir. Amsterdam, Judah ben Mordechai Benveniste, 1651

First edition. The author of Bahiris unknown, but the work was attributed to the
renowned first -century mystic Nechuniah ben ha Kanah, thus investing the work
with authority. The attribution is based upon the fact that it is he who opens
the text: 'Rabbi Nechuniah ben ha Kanah said: A scriptmal verse says: "And now
men cannot look u pon the lightning when it is bright (bahir) in the clouds"', a
quotation from Job 37: 21, which also lent the book its title. The text of the Bahir,
which was composed by Provencal Kabbalists in the latter half of the twelfth
century, is, however, anything but bright, but puzzling and mysterious, requiring
concentrated study. 'The way to clarity is to discover the mysterious'. Busi & Campanini
The Bahir discusses the sefirot, but also refers to another important (1995), p. LXIX;
kabbalistic concept, that of tsimtsum, or the self-constriction of God's light. The Kaplan (1998);
concept of tsimtsum is mostly associated with the younger Kabbalist Isaac Luria Scholem (1923);
(1534-15 72), but also occurs here. God, having created the Light, withdrew it, Zohar (2004), vol. 1,
forming a vacated space in which all creation could then take place. pp. xxxviii-xxxix

55
 24a Moshe ben Maimon, Doctor perplexorum, ed. Johann Buxtorf. Basel, Johann
Jacob Genath, 1629

Maimonides' pupil Samuel ibn Tibbon made a Hebrew translation of this work,
which the Jewish philosopher Maimonides originally wrote in Arabic. Tibbon's
translation, entitled Moreh nevuchim (Guide for the Perplexed), was seen and
approved by Maimonides. Reuchlin probably owned a Hebrew version of the
work, which he at any ra te knew very well. This is the first La tin edition of this
version; a La tin translation of another Hebrew version, made posthumously by
Jehuda al Harizi, was printed in Parisin 1520 as Dux seu director dubitantium aut
perplexorum.
Reuchlin calls Maimonides (1135-1 204) 'Rabbi Moses son of Maimon who
is called the Egyptian Moses'. Maimonides was commonly known as 'Moyses
Aegyptius' in the Middle Ages (Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas for
Busi & Campanini instanee referred to him as such), because he lived in Egypt during the last years
(1995), pp. LVII, of his life. The rational Maimonides may not seem the Kabbalist's first choice; it
48; Christ (1924), was in fact Pico's translator Mithridates whomade a Kabbalist out of Maimon.
p. 40; Wirszubski Reuchlin refers to Maimonides on a number of occasions in De arte cabalistica,
(1989), pp. 94, for instanee when he writes that the Talmudists and the Kabbalists agree that man
98-99; Verzeichnis is heir of two worlds, the world to co me (olam ha ba) and this world (olam ha ze),
(2005), pp. 44-45 'beloved above, longed-for below' (fol. XVr).

24b Isaac ben Moses ha Levi, Commentary on Moses ben Maimon's Moreh
nevuchim, 15th-century manuscript on vellum and paper
(Amsterdam, Ets Haim Hs 47 B 2)

The commentary is by the philosopher, grammarian and controversialist Isaac

ben Moses ha Levi (Profiat Duran, ca. 1349-ca. 1414) whowas born either in
Provence or in Catalonia. His commentary on Maimon's Moreh nevuchim was
first published in 1553.

25 Moshe ben Nachman, Tefilat ha yam she tikeen ha ramban z. l. al derech

ha kabbalah (kabbalistic prayer for sea travellers), Manuscript, 1680
(Amsterdam, Ets Haim Hs 47 C 12)

The philosopher and Kabbalist Moshe ben Nachman (1194-1270) or

Nachmanides was born in Gerona, where he also composed the larger part
of his Commentary on the Pentateuch, the printed edition of which (Nap les,
1490) Reuchlin acquired on 31 July 1498, and which he refers to often in De arte
cabalistica. Nachmanides also wrote a number of religious poems and prayers,
including this kabbalistic prayer for sea travellers. It was copied in 1680 for Isaac
ben Mattatiah Aboab, rabbi of the Portuguese community in Amsterdam.
There is a charming nautical metaphor on the effectiveness of intent prayer
in De arte cabalistica. While praying,

56
 let us trust in God and the angels as in an anchor. Sailors when they enter a
haven throw out a cable or a rope to pull the land towards them, even though
the land is immobile: in reality the power of the anchor enables them to
reach the land. (fol. LVIIr)

26 Yehuda ha Levi, Liber Cosri continens Colloquium seu disputationem de

religione, ed. Johann Buxtorf. Basel, Georg Decker, 1660

First La tin edition. Reuchlin eaUs the book Alkozer, and notes it was originally
written 'more arabico', in Arabic, and also 'against the bad philosophers'.
Completed in 1140, it was translated into Hebrew by Yehuda ben Saul ibn
Tibbon in 1167. Reuchlin's manuscript of Kuzari, which he bought in Rome on
29 June 1498, had been copied by Shabbetai Jeehiel ben Daniel and completed
on 28 February 1468. It has been preserved and is in the Württembergische
Landesbibliothek Stuttgart (Cod. Or. 20 2). Busi & Campanin i
Kuzari was written by Ha Levi (ca. 1075-1141) as a philosophical defence of (1995 ), p. LIX;
the Jewish religion. 'There does not exist any good kabbalah without a good heart', Christ ( 1924), p. 48;
are words from Kuzari ('Non enim prodest Cabala, nisi acceptetur corde bono'), Gilly (1985),
which Sirnon quotes with approval (fol. XIIIIr), adding that in this way, Ha Levi pp. 72-75;
'most wisely excluded the malevolent sophists from the con templation of sacred Verzeichnis (2005),
matters'. pp. 70, 150-59

27 AbrahamAbulafia, Chayyei ha olam ha ba. Manuscript, 17th-18th century

(BPH M406b)

Abraham Abulafia was the first to make the distinction between 'the knowledge
of God by the path of the twenty-two letters' (of the Hebrew alphabet, the
scientia shemot) and 'the knowledge of God by the pathof the ten sefirot'
(the contemplation of the sefirotic tree, the scientia sefirot), a distinction also
referred to by Pico and Reuchlin. Both paths, however, require meditation
and concentration. The present work, called in English: The Life in the World
to Come, was first printed in the eighteenth century and offers explanations
of the 72 letter name of God, partly illustrated by circular figures, with exact
instructions for mystical meditation. Por Abulafia, the pathof the twenty-two Busi & Campanini
letters was the supreme way of knowing God: 'Know that of all the holy sciences p. LXI, n. 32;
there is none like this science for it is the holy of ho lies, and it is the terminus Idel (1988), p. 1;
of all the ways that a pers on can apprehend knowledge of God' (fol. 50v of this Wolfson (2000),
manuscript). p. 164

28 Abraham ben Alexander, Ketershem tov. Manuscript, early 17th century

(BPH M207)

The 13th-century German Kabbalist Abraham ben Alexander of Cologne travelled

through the Spanish lands to visit the Jewish communities between approximately
1260 and 1275. This manuscript contains extracts from his Ketershem tov (Crown

57
 ~c ,I

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~~·~I'J'<'II ~~~1:-~~...J\t'~t~ "\liiW~~l)l ~· ~ ~t<p.r..~~...!IÛ f".Klt< "_,q" Y'~
"_?u-.bu,_-.Jl_l~I -M(.III~';~. ~ :,,2'1> rt• ~M< 1~ ' JY::il t-'•fJ>l< I'' '\<S~ ·ll(f~·~,:~ ;-l'\y._n,1
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\:..''Wt"' .2:) ~

.
Illus. 6: Ten con cent ric sefirot in Ab raham ben Alexa nder, Ketershem tov. Ms. 17th c. (cal . no. 28)

58
~~~~~.----------~~-~--- --

of the Good Name) and other kabbalistic expositions and secrets, explanations
of the ten sefirot, one of them in the form of questions and answers by Azariel of
Gerona (on fol. 40v). Azariel is also quoted a number of times by Reuchlin, for
instanee on ein sof 'He is the first without beginning and he is the last without
end', (De arte cabalistica, Book I, fol. XXIr).
The arrangement of the sefirot as ten concentric spheres, which can beseen
here, appears especially from the 14th century onwards and is related to the Scholem (1974),
geocentric medieval cosmology of ten celestial spheres. p. Sl

29 Moshe de Leon, Sefer ha Zohar. Cremona, Vicenzo Conti, 1558

Sefer ha Zo har was composed by the Castilian Kabbalist Moshe ben Shem Tov
de Leon (1240- 1305) and his circle towards the end of the 13th century. The
work was attributed to the famous 2nd-century sage Simon ben Yochai tolend
it authority; the text itself is largely written in a literary Aramaic, echoing the
language spoken in Simon ben Yochai's time. The Zohar made an immediate
impact: it was already commented on within a decadeofits initial circulation
and it has remained the standard kabbalistic text ever since. The first editions
were printed almost simultaneously, in a folio edition in Cremona in 1558 and
in a three-volume quarto edition in Mantua between 1558 and 1560. The next
edition was printed in Lublin in 1624 while the fourth edition came out in 1684
in the famous Christian kabbalistic centre of Sulzbach, which also produced the
Kabba/ah denudata (1667-1684). This fourth edition wastheresult of a fruitful
collaboration between Jewish printers and Christian Kabbalists.
The co re of the Zo har consists of mystical explanations of the Torah or the
five Mosaic hooks, in the form of brief or rather more elaborate commentaries.
It is such a vast, imaginative and intriguing worlc that single authorship was
considered impossible; Gershom Scholem nevertheless believing that De Leon
was the sole author, found encouragement for his belief in the parallel with Jacob
Böhme, who also wrote a similarly large body of mystical works alone. Modern
scholars such as Yehuda Liebes and Ronit Meroz now argue that although De
Leon was the main author, the Zo har was the product of a school of mystical
practitioners and writers rather than a single author.
The Zo har here lies open at the beginning of the fourth hook of Moses
(Numbers 1: 1): 'And the Lord spoke unto Moses in the wilderness'. The words
of R. Abba are then attested, who referred to the verse: 'And God created man
in his own image, in the image of God created he him' (Genesis 1: 27). Why the
repetition? Because:

what it signifies is a two -foldedness of grades, of male and female comprised

within man, which made him a duality of shape, so that he was complete in
all respects, and he contemplated in wisdom both what was above and what
was below. Busi & Campanini
(1995), p. LX; Huss;
The concept of the androgyny of the primordial man, Adam Kadmon, was also to Tishby (1989); Zohar
he developed by the German theosopher Jacob Böhme. (2004), vol. I, p.lvi

59
 J

Illus. 7: Sefirotic tree in Joseph Gikatilla, Portae lucis, Augsburg, Joha1111 MiJler, 1513 (cat. no. 30b)

60
30a Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, Sefer Sha'arei Orah. Mantua, Jacob ben
Naftali Kohen, 1561

This is the second edition, the first edition having been printed in Riva di Trento
in 1559. Gikatilla's Sha'arei Orah (Gates of Light) presents a discussion of the
ten sefirot and the conesponding narnes of God, but is also a clear introduetion
to the symbolism of the Zo har, which is often quoted in this work. Usually the
sefirot are described from the highest one (keter, or crown) to the lowest (malkuth,
or kingdom); in this work Gikatilla prefers an ascending order, which may be
still related to the mystical return to the One which was the focus of the ecstatic
Kabbalahof Abraham Abulafia, Joseph Gikatilla's first teacher.
The book is open at a representation of the three highest sefirot: from right
to left chokmah (,lmn), keter (lm), binah (,lJ'.:!), described in the fifth chapter (or
the fifth Gate of Light). Keter, the highest sefirah, is placed in the middle, and it is
through this highest sefirah that ein sof, God, the Infinite, can be approached.
Although Reuchlin nowhere mentions Gikatilla in De verba mirifico, the
opening of Sha'arei Orah, in which a teacher warns his pupil against wanting to
study Kabbalah for the wrong reasons, namely to manipulate the natural world, is
reminiscent of Sidonius' eagerness to be instructed in magie: how, Sidonius asks, Busi & Campanini
will philosophers otherwise be able to impress the uneducated masses, when they (1995), p. LV;
cannot perfarm miracles? In De arte cabalistica, Sirnon actually narrates the story Gikatilla (1994),
of a miracle performed by a Kabbalist, 'which is recounted in the beginning of pp. xxv-xxviii,
Portae lucis' (Book I, fol. XXIv). pp. 215-28

30b Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, Portae lucis, transl. Paulus Ricius. Augsburg,
Johann Miller, 1516

Reuchlin was sent Paulus Ricius' partial Latin translation of Sha'arei Orah by
the latter's son, Hieronymus, after Hieronymus had been given a letter to read
which Reuchlin had sent to his friend Konrad Peutinger. In this letter, Reuchlin
expressed great admiration for Paulus Ricius. Portae lucis was reprinted in
Pistorius' Christian kabbalistic compilation of 1587 (see no. 17). The Inventory of
Reuchlin's Hebrew works (see IVa) lists Porta lucis under no. 35; it is not certain
whether this edition is meant or a Hebrew manuscript, which Reuchlin also
owned.
This is the first representation of the sefirotic tree in print. From the 13th Busi & Campanini
century onwards, Kabbalists produced pictorial representations of the structure (1995), p. LV; Christ
of creation, generally called ilanot (trees) . Part of the terminology of the sefirot (1924), pp. 50-51;
was determined by 1 Chronicles 29: 11: 'Thine, Lord, is the greatness (gedulah), Geiger (1962),
the power (gevurah) and the glory (tiferet), and the victory (netsach) and the letter 221; Scholem
majesty (had) ... thine is the kingdom (malkuth)', which in the image in Portae (1974), p. 106;
lucis (from right to left) are, respectively, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth Verzeich11is (2005),
and tenth sefirah. pp. 38-39

61
 31 Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, Sha'arei Tsedek. Riva di Trento, Jacob
Marcaria, 1561

First edition. Sha'arei Tsedek (Gates of Justice) is a re-working of Sha'arei Orah.

Reuchlin also refers to this work a number of times, for instanee when discussing
the name of the Messiah, which is that of the tetragramrnaton with the letter shin
added. The numerical value of the letter shin is 300, the same value as the Hebrew
word be rachamim, 'with mercy': the Messiah is merciful (De arte cabalistica, Book
I, fol. XIXv).
The order of the sefirotic tree here printed on the last page compares to that
of the title-page of Portae lucis (although of course less spectacularly represented),
but the en urneration of the sefirot printed above follows the ascending order
Busi & Campanini preferred in Sha'arei Orah: the first sefirah is malkuth, and so on until the tenth
(1995), p. LX sefirah, keter. The conesponding narnes of God are also given.

32a Arba minim (kabbalistic treatise), 17th-century manuscript on vellum

(Amsterdam, Ets Haim Hs 47 E 50)

The feast of sukkoth, the annual Jewish festival celebrated in memory of the
exodus from Egypt is associated with four species (arba minim) of plants, the
etrog (citron), lulav (date palm), myrtle and willow. The Talmud explains these
as meaning that the Jewish people in all their variety will appear before God as
one people; this is a kabbalistic elaboration on the four species of plants which
accompany the seven days of sukkoth or Feast of Tabernacles.

32 b Ilan aroch (kabbalistic treatise), 18th-century manuscript on vellum

(Amsterdam, Ets Haim Hs 47 E 53)

This ilan aroch or long tree contains meditations on the sefirot made for the
private study of a Kabbalist in the eighteenth century.

33 [Abraham ibn Ezra], Sefer Goralot, 18th-century manuscript on paper

(Amsterdam, Ets Haim Hs 47 E 41)

A Sefer Goralotor Book of Lots is a treatise concerned with the casting of lots.
Th ere are various Books of Lots in existence, one is attributed to the poet,
grammarian and astronomer Abraham ibn Ezra ( 1092-1167). Part of the book is
arranged according to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The questions to be asked
from this book can be obtained by means of calculation, based on the principle of
geomancy.

62
 111 REUCHLIN AND RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

From 1510 Reuchlin became one of the protagonists in an affair which was to
reverberate throughout Europe. Another protagonist was Johann Pfefferkorn,
a converted Jew whose ardent mission it was to seek to win his former co-

I religionists over to Christianity. Pfefferkorn thought that the contiscation of

Jewish books would help bring about the required conversion of the Jews,
because it was through their adherence to the Talmud and other religious
works that they persisted in their errors. He expressed these and other, highly
inflammatory, views in a number of works with titles like!udenspiegel ( 1507),
Judenbeichte (1508) and Judenfeind (1509). The latter work was approvingly
accompanied by a poem of the Dutch humanist Ortuinus Gratins on the pertidy
and obstinacy of the Jews; his name, too, would become famous, or infamous, in
the 'Pfefferkorn affair'. Pfefferkorn did not act on his own, but was backed by the
Dominican Order in Cologne.
The industrious Pfefferkorn managed to obtain a mandate from Emperor
Maximilian I to contiscate Jewish books of an allegedly anti-Christian
nature in August 1509 and straightaway took more than lSO books from the
Jewish community in Frankfurt the next month. His zealous activity was
however checked by Archbishop Uriel von Gemmingen of Mainz, who felt
his archepiscopal authority was compromised. A new mandate was issued by
Maximilian in November, commissioning Uriel to carry out the work of detection
and destruction of]ewish 'anti-Christian' works. In May 1510, all contiscated
books were returned following a petition by the members of the Frankfurt Jewish
community, who were asked for, and delivered, a tinancial service. But Pfefferkorn
would not rest and turned to Maximilian once more; the Emperor eventually
ordered Uriel to institute a fact-tinding committee on the question whether the
Talmud and other Jewish works ought to be destroyed. Four Universities were
asked to subruit a recommendation: Erfurt, Heidelberg, Cologne and Mainz,
as well as three individual authorities: the Dominican and Inquisitor Jacob
Hoogstraeten, Victor von Karben, a converted Jew, and Johann Reuchlin.
Of the Universities, only Erfurt eventually sent a balanced response (which
has not survived), Heidelberg could not decide on a unanimous judgement at the
time, and Cologne and Mainz recommended contiscation (Mainz even suggested
that not only the Talmud, but also the Bible should be taken from the hands of the
Jews on the grounds that they were corrupting the text of the Bible on purpose to
reduce its christological potential). Victor von Karben and Hoogstraeten passed
similar judgements, while only Reuchlin's 'Gutachten', which he completed on 6
October 1510, was discriminating and positive about the literature and learning
of the Jews, for which he was sharply attacked by the committee to which all
reports had to be submitted. Gregor Reisch, author of the encyclopedie Margarita
philosophica and a member of the committee, for instanee suggested that Reuchlin
must have been bribed by the Jews to produce such a positive report.
The further course of the 'Pfefferkorn affair' was as turbulent as its
beginnings: Pfefferkorn distorted parts of Reuchlin's recommendation, which like

63
 the other 'Gutachten' had been meant for private scrutiny only, and publisbed
them in his Handspiegel of 1511, also insinuating that Reuchlin's Hebrew
knowledge was insufficient and that he had not written the Rudimenta himself.
Reuchlin was stung to reply in the same year in his Augenspiegel, which was
printed by Thomas Anshelm in time for the Frankfurt autumn book fair. He
reproduced the imperial and archepiscopal mandates, his original 'Gutachten',
elaborations in Latin and a rejoinder to 34 untruths Pfefferkorn had produced
in his Handspiegel. Among the events that were to follow were the confiscation
of the Augenspiegel by imperial order on 7 October 1512, heresy charges against
Reuchlin and the burning of the Augenspiegel at the instigation of Hoogstraeten
and the Dominieau party in Cologne, Reuchlin's defence against these
'theologistae' in his vituperative Defensio contra calumniatores suos Colonienses,
printed by Thomas Anshelm in 1513 and likewise confiscated by imperial order,
on 9 July 1513. (This, however, did notprevent Reuchlin from publishing a
second, slightly revised edition, the next year, see no. 34b). The actual trial of
Reuchlin and his Augenspiegel began when Inquisitor Hoogstraeten summoned
Reuchlin before his court on 15 September 1513 (Reuchlin excused bimself on
the grounds of ill health and sent a representative). It then took its course via
adjournments, Uriel von Gemmingen's dismissalof Hoogstraeten, who acted as
pmsecutor and judge at the same time, and an initial positive verdict for Reuchlin,
in 1514, by the Bishop of Speyer. The latter considered that the charges of heresy
were 'undeserved, inconsiderate, unjust and had been produced by silencing the
truth'. But the affair escalated and acquired European dimensions: Hoogstraeten
appealed to Rome and Reuchlin, too, had in the meantime sought the arbitration
ofthe Pope.
A letter campaign to defend Reuchlin ensued, with august letter writers such
as Maximilian I and Erasmus petitioning in his favour. The Clarorum virorum
epistolae, the first edition of which appeared in 1514, was a collection ofletters
by leading humanists brought together by Reuchlin and meant to underpin
his position. Reuchlin's own letter to the Jewish physician Loans, which he also
included, was incidentally condemned by Pfefferkorn as inadmissible preferential
treatment of a Jew by a Christian. Whereas the Clarorum virorum epistolae were
dignified and authentic, the uproarious and anti-scholastic Epistolae obscurarum
virorum were intendedas a satirical defence of Reuchlin. Johann Crotus Rubianus
(Johann Jäger, 1480-1545) and Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), one ofReuchlin's
most ardent and boisterous supporters, were the main geniuses behind these
'Dunkelmännerbriefe', the first part of which appeared in 1514 as Epistolae
obscurarum virorum ad venerabilem virum Magistrum Ortuinum Gratium. The
alleged correspondents, who show themselves to be among the more ponderous
and unwieldy representatives of the scholastic tradition and write in dog La tin,
seek Ortuinus' advice on the most absurd scholastic, theological and amorous
problems. Allusions to Reuchlin's battle against the Dominieaus are scattered
throughout the letters. The Epistolae were a resounding success in European
humanist circles, and all seemed to augur well for Reuchlin. In Rome one of the
judges appointed to consider the case against Reuchlin was Cardinal Domenico

64
Grimani from Venice, a Christian Hebraist interested in Kabbalah. Nothing
seemed tostand in the way of a definitive 'Triumphus Capnionis': in 1516 the
majority of the papal committee headed by Cardinals Grimani and Pietro Acealti
justified Reuchlin's Augenspiegel. But already in November 1518 Reuchlin in
a letter to his friend and pap al secretary Jakob Questenberg (ca. 1465/70-ca.
1542) expressed misgivings about the proceedings in Rome, and a later letter to
Willibald Pirckheimer, dated 10 February 1520, is a dark premonition: Reuchlin
learnt the Dominieaus were out to have the Speyer verdict quashed. Pope Leo X,
whohad adjourned the committee in 1516, indeed passed a verdict on 23 June
1520 which condemned the Augenspiegel, imposing eternal silence on Reuchlin in
this matter and ordering him to pay alllegal costs.

The Augenspiegel retlects the clarity and fairness of this Christian authority in
Hebrew whowas asked to advise whether Jewish books ought to be destroyed:
'Ratschlag ob man den Juden alle ire bücher nemmen, abthün und verbrennen
soU' (fol. Ir). Of these books, only Toledoth ]eshu (History of Jesus) and Sefer
Nizzachon (Book of the Victory) needed to be suppressed, Reuchlin wrote,
because they were defamations which were also condemned as such by Jewish
authorities. (Interestingly enough, Reuchlin owned a copy of Sefer Nizzachon,
which he himself obviously would notdestray- it survived until1942. Reuchlin
obtained the manuscript, enteredas no. 2 in the Inventory, from Johann von
Dalberg in 1494. It had been confiscated in Mainz from a Jewish owner named
Joel in 1478).
The Talmud, however, was an entirely different matter. It was generally
considered to be anti-Christian, but these beliefs were notbasedon an actual
acquaintance with the books of the Talmud, the contents of which Reuchlin
himself professed to be ignorant of at the time he wrote his 'Gutachten' in 1510:

Every sensible person, therefore, has to admit that no man has a right to
reject the Talmud when he cannot understand it ( . .. ). It is as if someone
would want to write against the mathematicians, and yet does not have a
clue about mathesis or mathematics, such people would become the butt of
derision. (fol. Vv)

'Ob aber die unverstendigen sich darab ergerten das were ir selbs schuld und nit
des buchs'- when it irritates the ignorant it is their own fault and not the fault of
the book (fol. IXv).
As for the charges of wilful corruption of the Bible by Jews, Reuchlin,
who must have been unaware that the University of Mainz was including this
allegation in their recommendation, wrote: 'Nun waiss ich kain nacion uff diser
erden, die mer achtung hab, die hailigen schrift recht zu schreiben, dann die
juden' (I know of no nation u pon this earth more heedful to copy the holy writ
correctly than the Jews, fol. XVIr); Reuchlin was undoubtedly familiar with the
scribal injunction, based on Deuteronomy 4: 2, to copy the scrolls of the Tor ah
with absolute care: 'Do not add to what I commanded you, nor take from them,
to keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I have commanded you.'
65
 -----------------

Apart from its sober and unprejudiced evaluation of Jewish literature and
learning, one of the outstanding qualities of the Augenspiegel is the insistence
on the autonomy of the Jewish religion. As a Christian, Reuchlin hoped for the
conversion of the Jews, a conversion, however, which he thought ought not to be
effected by force - as had happened in the Iberian peninsula only a few decades
before. Reuchlin advised the Emperor to appoint teachers of Hebrew at the
universities: 'and so I do not doubt but in a short time our students will become
so profleient in the Hebrew language that they can turn the Jews towards us
gently, with sensible and friendly words' (fol. XXr) .
But while they remain Jews, their religion ought not to be compromised and
their religious books are to be left alone - it is not the business of the Christian
Church to interfere: prayer books, song books for use in the synagogue: 'die
cristenlich kirch bat sunst nichts mit inen zu schaffen' (fol. XIIIIr) . Jews and
Christians differ in their religion, but Christians are not in a position to pass
judgement on the religion of the Jews: 'Und wiewol, rechtzureden die juden nit
seien haeretici, dann sy sind nit ab dem cristenglauben gefallen, die nie darin
gewesen synd' (And to speak fairly, the Jews are not heretics, because they have
not turned away from the Christian faith whowerenever in it, fol. IIIIr) . In fact,
it is only normal that Jews and Christians should agree to disagree: 'Dann was
den glauben antrifft, da haltten sie darfür, ir glaub sei gerecht, und der unsser sei
ungerecht' (fol. XVr). Jews are bound by the Mosaic law while Christians adhere
to the commandments of Jesus:

Man findt wo hl etlich juden, die do mainen, ain yeglich nacion mög in
seinem glauben behahen werden; und wie uns die gebott Moysi nit binden,
also seien sie den gebotten Jesunit underwürfig. (fol. XVv)

Jews do notbelieve that Jesus is divine, but that is because of their faith, with
which they do not intend to give offence: 'Darumb alles, das sie schreiben, darzu
diendende, dasJesus kain got sei, und alles das dar aus volgt das ist ir glaub,
und wöllent darmit nieman geschmecht haben' (fol. XVv). The most concise
argument for the autonomy of the faithof Israel is the observation that the Jews
in matters pertaining to their religion are not subjected to any other authority but
themselves, and no Christian bas a right to judge them. They are not members of
the Christian Church and their faith is their own business:

Aber die juden inn den dingen die iren glauben antreffen, sindt sie allain inen
selbs und susst kainem richter underworfen, soli auch darüber kain christ
mögen erkennen .... Dann sie sind kain glid der cristenlichen kirchen, und
gat uns ir glaub nichts an. (fol. XIIv)

This is incidentally also a remarkable shift from Reuchlin's earlier position in

bis missionary Tütsch missive warumb die ]uden so lang im eliend sind (German
missive why the Jews have lived in exile for so long), written in 1505 at the
request of a German prince, in which Reuchlin offers the traditional Christian

66
explanation for the duration of the diaspora: the Jews by denying that Christ is
the Messiah will remain in their present state of exile as long as they persist in
their errors. In consiclering the social position of the Jews, Reuchlin also brought
bis thorough-going legal background to bear on the matterand argued that
Jews and Christians were fellow citizens and equal before the law of the Holy
Roman Empire: 'wir und sie (sind) ains ainigen römischen reichs mitbürger'
(fol. Vr ). Earlier on Reuchlin had already insisted on the legal rights of the Jews
as citizens of the Holy Roman Empire 'die juden als underthonen des hailigen
römschen reichs sollent by kaysserlichen rechten behalten werden' (fol. Iv) . The
legal historian Guido Kis eh demonstrated in Zasius und Reuchlin ( 1961) that
Reuchlin in this respect adopted the views of the fomteentb-century Italian legal
commentator Bartholous a Saxoferrato (1313-1357), according to whom Jews
should be awarded a rightful place in the community under Roman law.
In the end, Reuchlin writes, what matters is individual responsibility before
God, the final arbitrator, who alone bas the power to judge the human soul, a
power which cannot be arrogated by any mortal man:

Der jud ist unsers herrgots als wol als ich, stat er, so stat er seinem herrn,
fallt er, sofallter seinem herrn. Ain yeglicher würd für sich selbs müssen
rechnung geben. Was wöllen wir aines andern seelen urtailn, got ist wol so
mechtig das er in mag uffrichten. (fol. XVIIIr)

When Reuchlin was stayingin Heidelberg as the guest of Bishop Johann von
Dalberg, he had hoped to hold lectures in Hebrew at the University, which,
however, was prevented by fierce monastic opposition, or, in the pregnant
phrasing of Reuchlin's biographer Geiger: 'das hinderte ... die Wuth der Mönche'.
Reuchlin's sober evaluation of Hebrew learning and literature and his defence
of Judaism are exemplary not only of bis individual integrity but also represent
a remarkable early episode in the tradition of religious toleranee in Europe.
Although Geiger writes that Reuchlin in the La tin elaborations in the Augenspiegel
moderated the statements he had made earlier, bis fair-mindedness in the original
'Gutachten' is striking. Reuchlin's position was a rather solitary one and also one
which was not wholeheartedly shared even by his advocates. His friend Konrad
Muth, whohad defended Reuchlin against the charge of taking bribes from Jews,
for which Reuchlin thanked him in a letter of 22 August 1513, was nevertheless
afraid that Reuchlin might injure the case of Christianity by up holding that of
Judaism. This view is reflected more sharply in the papal verdict against Reuchlin,
which condemned the Augenspiegel as 'a vexatious book, one that is offensive to
pious Christians and inadmissably favourable towards the Jews'.

Böcking (1864), pp. 177-79; Briefwechsel (2003), letters 159, p. 123 11 . 18, 171, pp. 162-63 11. 17, letters 181,
182-85, 187-88, 190-01 ; Geiger (1962), letters 271, 289; Geiger (1964), pp. 45, 451; Kirn (1989),
pp. 185-88; Kisch (1961), p. 8, chs. 2-3; Verzeichnis (2005), pp. 207 -14

67
 ;2>octor 'I<obannfen tzeucl~lin9
~ 1\. tll.alo~tf3{)ct·l3ógcn ;ü Q)Jlerreid) and) ll:l)m·
fijrf!ett \lil~ ftirJfert ~cn14Ütett ()un\'ltrtd)tero ittn
6d)wa6m warl)afftigc cntfd)ult>igung
ge gen \?IlO witm ain~ gceanfftCII iu\'!Cil
gmatlt pfeffctf..-,rn ~rn14ltl ~e
trud'~ "~~arlgctl \lllwm-l).tt
tigG F1)1llád)6iid)!itl

1lu~enfpiegel

~ 2tm ttltlbi~ro lïiîd)lills flnbttnat14Îil ~rrccnn· ct lid) er w6r~

ttt fó Îllll ()cm tmd' \'tTfèlJCilfÏil~ im taJtfd)Cll \?tlllt) l~ttill;ll~ich
tleC tlnrd) t>ic ~~ t>a· ~(etter .

Illus. 8: johann Reuchin, Augenspiegel, Tübingen, Thomas Anshelm, 1511 (cal. no. 34a)

34a Johann Reuchlin, AugenspiegeL Tübingen, Thomas Anshelm, 1511

(Pforzheim, Stadtarchiv, Treu 36 305)

'Man bedarff myr kein prillen auf die nasen setzen, ich kann wol sunder prillen
sehen'- 'nobody needs to put glasses on my nose, I can very well see without
glasses', was one of Johann Pfefferkorn's spiteful comments on the Augenspiegel
published in his Beschyrmung, which came out five years after Reuchlin's work
had originally appeared. Reuchlin had published his Augenspiegel in the autumn
Geiger (1964), of 1511 partly to expose Pfefferkorn, who in his Handspiegel earlier that year had
p. 378; Martin (1994), cricitized Reuchlin's defence of Jewish books and learning, insinuating that he had
pp. 294-353 been bribed by the Jews.

34b Johann Reuchlin, Defensio contra calumniatores suos Colonienses. Tübingen,

Thomas Anshelm, 1514

In June 1513 Reuchlin through the help ofwell-placed friends managed to offer
his defence against his Dominieau calumniators to the Emperor in person. In
spite of the personal presentation, the Dominicans of Cologne nevertheless
Breuer (1998), obtained a mandate from Maximilianon 9 July 1513 to have the Defensio
p. 76; Christ (1924), confiscated. It did not deter Reuchlin from bringing out a second edition the next
p. 36; Cortespon- year, which like the first edition was dedicated to Maximilian.
denee of Erasmus, Reuchlin begins by recounting the events which led him to write his Defensio,
letter 300; Dali' Ast a also lashing out at the humanist Ortuinus Gratius- 'whose name is Ortwinus, a
(2003), pp. 61-71; barbaric name designating that the man bimself is barbaric' (fol. H4v). Erasmus
Geiger (1962), wrote to Reuchlin in August 1514 to say that although he had enjoyed the
letter 161 Defensio, he wished he had notbeen so personal in his attacks.

68
Illus. 9: Tp. oftreatise Sanhedrin from the Babylonian Talmud, 1707 (Amsterdam, Ets Haim), (cal. no. 35)

35 Sanhedrin (Babylonian Talmud), Manuscript on paper, 1707

(Amsterdam, Ets Haim Hs 47 D 42)

In the Augenspiegel Reuchlin wrote that he had not read the Talmud, and he
doubted whether any other Christian in Germany had: 'ich hab mangel halb der
bücher den Thalmud nit gelernt, so wais ich kainen cristen menschen inn allen
teutschen landen der im Thalmud gelernt hab' (fol. IIIIr). The complete Talmud
was fi.rst printed by Daniel Bomberg in the years 1520-1523. An early fifteenth-
century copy of the treatise called Sanhedrin, which was first printed separately
by Gershom Soncino in 1497, was acquired by Reuchlin in 1512. He mistook it
for the Jerusalem Talmud: 'The Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, which Johannes
Reuchlin of Pforzheim bought in the Year of Our Lord 1512', he wrote in one Chris! (1924),
of the two copies he owned. Sanhedrin is one of the chief repositories of the pp. 36-37;
criminal law contained in the Talmud. For Christians, the treatise therefore held Preisendanz (1955),
partienlar fascination because of the light which it might be able to shed on the p. 55; Verzeichnis
trial of Jesus of Nazareth. (2005), pp. 139-44

36 Desiderius Erasmus, Das theuer und kuenstlich Buoeh/in Morie encomion, das
ist. Ein Lob der Thorheit, ed. Sebastian Franck. Ulm, Hans Varnier, 1534

Reuchlin's vehement attacks on the 'theologistae' in his Defensio earned him

the gratitude of Heinrich Urban, a friend of Mutianus Rufus. Urban wrote
to Reuchlin in 1513 to commend him for exposing the deep rift between the
'blathering theologists' on the one hand, and on the other hand the honest
theologians, who admired the Platonists and venerated the Apostle Paul,
Dionysius Areopagita and Origenes. In his Moriae encomium, Erasmus likewise

69
 attacked the 'theologists', with whom it was impossible to argue, because they
either put pressure upon their opponents to recant, or else threatened them
with heresy charges- two methods which Reuchlin, too, had been subjected to.
Erasmus, exposing the quibblings of the scholastic theologians, contrasted them
with the apostles, who

no doubt devoutly . .. consecrated the sacraments; yet, had they been asked
about the term 'de quo' and the term 'ad quem' . .. how the samebody can
be in several places at one and the same time; of the difference between the
body of Christ in heaven from that on the cross ... in what point of time
transubstantiation occurred ... they would not, I think, have been able to
answer with the same subtlety as the Scotists dispute and define it.
Briefweci1Sel (2003),
letter 223; Geiger Erasmus' Praise of Folly, which he wrote in 1509, was banned by the Universities
(1964), p. 273; of Louvain, Oxford and Cambridge as early as 1512; in 1559 it was placed on the
Oberman (1993 ), Index, together with other of bis works, where it joined Reuchlin's Augenspiegel,
p.SS De verba mirifica and De arte cabalistica.

37a Johann Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica. Hagenau, Johann Setzer, 1530

De arte cabalistica was not reprinted during Reuchlin's lifetime. The second
revised edition was brought out by the printer Johann Setzer, Thomas Anshelm's
son-in-law, who succeeded Anshelm in Hagenau.
Not surprisingly, there are several allusions to the Dominicans of Cologne
in De arte cabalistica. Reuchlin by way of Sim on disparages those whom
Cicero called 'calumnistae' (recalling Reuchlin's Defensia contra calumniatares
suas Calanienses), and compares them to the present -day 'theologistae' or
bad theologians (fol. LIIr). Giovanni Pico and Paulus Ricius (see nos. 19a-b)
had publisbed a few works on the Kabbalah which were little understood; the
'theologistae', not understanding anything, only distort the worcis and give them
a malignant interpretation against the author's intentions. There is also a very
direct allusion to the 'Pfefferkorn affair'. Before Philolaus and Mananus hope to
rejoin Simon on the third day, they discuss the goings-on between Reuchlin and
'Astarotus', or Hoogstraeten. Astarotus is the name of a demon in the Clavicula
Salamanis, the magical compendium which Reuchlin knew and disapproved of
(De verba mirifica, Book I, fol. clr).

37b Johann Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica in Petrus Galatinus, De areanis

cathalicae veritatis. Base!, Johann Herwagen the elder, 1550

Reuchlin ended his work on the kabbalistic art with an address to Leo X, with
which he evidently hoped to move the Pope to decide in his favour. For five years
now his Dominican enemies had been hounding him. Reuchlin complains of
their methods:

70
 I know that they do not stop whispering calumnies in your pious ears from
day to day, either through paid agents or through letters such as the one
they sent on 18 September last .. . It is not the University of Cologne but a
partienlar little group of enemies that proclaims falsehoods to Your Holiness.

Reuchlin concludes by expressing the hope that Leo X will restore him to the
peace of mind which he is entitled to in recompense of the many years of
suffering he bas endured for the orthodox faith. The Pope decided otherwise and
condemned the Augenspiegel and its author. In a letter written to Leo's successor
Hadrian VI in 1522, when Luther had already been plaguing Romeforsome years,
Reuchlin's friend and supporter Willibald Pirckheimer claimed that the wrong-
doings of the monks in Reuchlin's case were one of the reasons underlying the
aversion against the Papacy in Germany.
Reuchlin's De arte cabalistica (fols. ff4-u u8) is included in the 1550 editon
of De areanis catholicae veritatis (and advertised on the title-page). The censor
ordered its destruction after Reuchlin's works ('Ioannis Reuclini Speculum
oculare, De verba mirifico, Ars cabalistica') had been put on the Index librorum
prohibitorum of 1559, and soit is missing in a number of copies. The two copies Geiger (1964),
in the BPH are intact. pp. 451,370

38 Petrus Galatinus, De areanis catholicae veritatis. Ortona, Girolamo

Soncino, 1518

The Franciscan friar Pietro Colonna of Galatina (ca. 1460-ca. 1540) composed
this defence of Reuchlin at the request of a number of Cardinals, as he wrote to
Reuchlin in a letter of 1515. Reuchlin was already sent a copy of the manuscript
that year (it is no. 18 in the inventory of his Hebrew library, see IVa). Galatinus'
defence, presented in the form of a conversation between himself, Reuchlin
(Capnio), and the Inquisitor Hoogstraeten (Hogostratus), came out at a time
when Reuchlin's case still hung in the balance. Galatinus intended to prove in
twelve books the truth of Christianity on the basis of the Talmud and other
works. As such it underpins Reuchlin's defence of the polemical value for
Christians of rabbinic literature, which therefore ought not to be burnt. Reuchlin Christ (1924),
argued that the doctors of the Church, too, had profitably used the Talmud in p. 45; Geige r (1962),
their disputes, alluding in partienlar to the Spanish Franciscan Alphonso de letters 211-12, 216,
Spina, whohad written against the Jews in the third book of his Fortalitium Fidei 280; Geiger (1964),
(first publisbed ca. 1471). In this book he had successfully used the Talmud 'as if pp. 247, 399; Gilly
he wanted tostab the Jews with their own knife' (Augenspiegel, fol. IXv) . Galatinus (1985), pp. 79 -80;
not only used authentic Jewish works; he also made copious use of a spurious Preisendanz, p. 43;
work by Pablo de Heredia (see p. 22), Secreturn revelator (Revealer of Secrets or Scholem (1979),
'Galey Razaya'). pp. 34-35

71
 39a [Johann Crotus Rubianus & Ulrich von Hutten], Duo volumina epistolarum
obscurarum virorum ad Ortuinum Gratium. [Frankfurt am Main, David
Zöpfel], 1557 (Amsterdam, Universiteitsbibliotheek)

Reprint of the two volumes of the 'Dunkelmännerbriefe', the first collected

edition of which appeared in 1556. The first part of the Epistolae had originally
appeared in 1515 and contained 41 letters (the third edition of 1516 had 49); the
second part appeared in 1517 and contained 62 letters, with 8 more letters added
in a second edition. The epistles were largely written by Reuchlin's friends and
defenders Ulrich von Hutten and Johann Crotus Rubeanus. The main addressee
is the Dutch humanist Ortuinus Gratius (ca. 1482-1542), who taught literature
and philosophy in Cologne after 1506. He assisted Pfefferkorn in his anti-Jewish
campaign and also wrote an attack on Reuchlin in 1514. Gratius conceded that
Reuchlin was a very learned man, yet that counted for nothing: Hieronymus of
Prague, a friend of Johann Huss, had also been a very learned man, but he had
nevertheless been burnt at the stake.
One letter may serve as an example of the satire used against Reuchlin's
adversaries. Magister Bartholomaeus Kuckuck reports to Magister Gratius how
matters stand in the case against Johann Reuchlin. He has met the lawyer Martin
Groning, who is exerting himself on behalf of Reuchlin. He is not to be feared,
Kuckuck reassures Gratins: although Groning boasts he knows Greek, such
knowledge is of course of no consequence: 'and so you see we need notbother
about him, because Greek is not really essential for Holy Writ'. Kuckuck relates
how he defied Groning, who was carrying a book when he encountered him:

I intend to prove that you are an ass, firstly: Anything carrying a burden is
an ass, you are carrying a book, ergo you are an ass. I take the first part of the
syllogism to be proper, because you are carrying a book. And in truth it was
so, because he wascarryinga book given to him by Jacob Questenberg to use
against our Magister Jacob Hoogstraeten.

The debility of Reuchlin's adversaries and the syllogisms of the scholastically

trained theologians are ridiculed and there is an allusion to the present state
Böcking (1864); of affairs (Martin Groning had indeed been commissioned to translate the
Geiger (1964), pp. Augenspiegel earlyin 1515 to help present Reuchlin's case in Rome, and was in
314,321-22, 377; correspondence with him). Erasmus, who apparently fel! into a fit of laughter
Gilly (1985); when first reading the 'Dunkelmännerbriefe', u pon more sober consideration
Lettres (2004); deplored their publication precisely because of the highly vituperative personal
Münch (1827) attacks, which he feit harmed the case of humanism.

39b [Ulrich von Hutten], Ex obscurarum virorum salibus cribratus dialogus.

[s.l., s.n., 1519?]

This little pamphlet, most probably written by Ulrich von Hutten to attack the
Dominicans of Cologne, introduces 'three theologians from Cologne', amongst

72
whom Ortuinus Gratius, and 'three famous men': Johann Reuchlin, Desiderius
Erasmus and Jacobus Faber (Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples) . It is included in the
enlarged edition of the 'Dunkelmännerbriefe', but was also printed separately
earlier, in 1519 and in 1520. Böcking (1864), pp.
Jacques Lefèvre joins the theologians and the other two famous men, 30 1-16; BriefweeiJsel
Erasmus and Reuchlin, a little later in the conversation. Erasmus tells Lefèvre (2003), lette r 227;
that the theologians condemn what the humanists write, and also reject them as Correspondence
heretics. By 1521, Lefèvre, Erasmus and Reuchlin had all come into conflict with of Erasm us, letter
the theologians on various grounds. Like Erasmus, Jacques Lefèvre defended 300; Geiger (1962),
Reuchlin, who bimself had already written to the French humanist at the end letter 191; Geiger
of August 1513 to sollicit his support in the struggle against the Dominicans. ( 1964), pp. 285-89;
Reuchlin enclosed a copy of his Defensio for Lefèvre, so that the Theological Hannsen (2004), p.
Faculty of the University of Paris, which had been asked by the Cologne 53; Lettres (2004),
Dominicans to judge the Defensio, might deal favourably with him. But this was pp.673,697;~ünch

not the case, Lefèvre had to inform Reuchlin on 30 August 1514. (182 7) > pp. 309-20

40 Johann Nicolaus Weislinger, Huttenus delarvatus das ist: Warhaffte Nachricht

van dem Authore ader Urheber der verschreyten Epistolarum obscurarum
virorum Ulrich van Hutten. Konstanz and Augsburg, Martin & Thomas
Wagner, 1730

This historiography of the 'Reuchlinische Streit' by the Catholic theologian and

controversialist Johann Nicolaus Weislinger (1691-1755) polemicizes against the
Life of Ulrich von Hutten publisbed in 1717 by Jacob Burckhard (1681-1752), the
'Lutheran Professor', as Weislinger calls him, and later librarian of the Herzog-
August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. Burckhard had also meant to publish the
letters of Reuchlin in 1714, a project which he never carried out.
The portrait of Reuchlin is basedon a woodcut in Heinrich Pantaleon's
Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, Basel1570, which in turn wasbasedon a portrait of Briefwechsel (1999),
Martin Luther! Nor was it exclusively used for an idealized portrait of Reuchlin, pp. XLIV-XLV; Brod
but served to portraysome 20 other personalities, amongst whom Reuchlin's (1965), pp. 183,
friend Sebastian Brant. Th ere are no known contemporary portraits of Reuchlin; 336; Hannemann
a woodcut printed during his lifetime (in the Ristory van den fier ketzren (1955); Rhein
Predigerordens, Strasbourg 1521) is too vague and generalto count as a likeness. (1986), p. 51

73
 IVA THE LIBRARY OF JOHANN REUCHLIN: PARS PRO TOTO

When Reuchlin wrote about the books of the Jews that 'man ire Bücher ... nit
sol on iren willen nemen, dan bücher sind maniehem als lieb als kind' (one
should not take their books against their will, because to many books are as dear
as children', Augenspiegel, fol. XXr), it was a telling comparison fora man so
ardently building his own library of Greek, Hebrew and La tin works. Reuchlin's
great affinity for his library is for instanee obvious from the carehetook to
preserve it in times of war. The loss of his books would mean more to him than
the loss of his life: 'To await death were not so bad for me.' In November 1519
Reuchlin moved to Ingolstadt to escape the plague and war, but in the turmoil
he had to leave most of his library bebind, being able to take only the smaller
volumes with him. He felt reduced by the absence of his library: 'I had to leave
half my soul bebind.' During his life, his library was open to all scholars, as he
wrote in the Augenspiegel: 'myn Bibliotheca und Libery (ist) vir kainen gelehrten
man geschlossen'(fol. XXXVv). As was usual amongst humanists, friends and
relations who travelled to Italy were asked tolook out for books. In 1488 Petrus
Jakobi, who like Reuchlin had accompanied Count Eberhard to Italy in 1482,
wrote to Reuchlin from Pavia to say that he had scoured every bookseller's shop
in town for Greek works (without result). A few years afterwards Johann Streler,
Reuchlin's later colleague on the bench of the Swabian League, was also sent
shopping, this time with greater success.
As early as 1488 the Italian humanist Giorgio Merula marvelled about the
wealth of Reuchlin's Greek library, but his Hebrew collection was even more
famous: in 1513 the Christian Hebraist Cardinal Aegidius da Viterbo for instanee
requested a list of Reuchlin's Hebrew books (Reuchlin would also send him
a copy of De arte cabalistica) . A year earlier, Johann Trithemius, whose own
massive library held more than 2,000 volumes by 1505, had told Mutianus Rufus
about the wonders of Reuchlin's library. Trithemius owned more Greek works
than Reuchlin, but Reuchlin possessed more Hebrew works than Trithemius.
As for Latin works, in a letter of 12 September 1519 Reuchlin wrote he owned
more than 250 La tin volumes, which means that his collection of works by La tin
authors would have been of medium size. But it was not his La tin library which
he bequeathed to posterity: when he decided to donate his collection to the
Michaelsstift in Pforzheim he only left a part of his Hebrew and Greek books,
those books which he considered to be the most important. Reuchlin specified
that the books were to be freely accessible to scholars, but chained to the shelves,
so that they could not be loaned.
In 1565 the court of the Margrave of Baden, whose own collection of
books was also lodged in the church of the Michaelsstift and under whose
supervision Reuchlin's bequest fell, moved to Durlach. It is probable that around
this time an inventory of Reuchlin's Hebrew and Greek books was compiled, an
inventory which was found in Codex Palatinus 1925 in 1913 by Karl Christ, who
subsequently publisbed areconstruction of Reuchlin's Hebrew and Greek library
in 1924.

75
 The inventory contains 48 Hebrew and 55 Greek works, with compilations
entered as a single volume. Although it is odd, as Christ notes, that Greek authors
like Jamblichus, Plotinus and Origenes are absent from the inventory, it is probable
that Reuchlin knew the majority of these authors only in La tin translations, the
Greek originals being very rare. As a result, they are lacking in the inventory: La tin
translations were not included in the Graeci. 'It would have been strange if he, who
held the Neoplatonists in such esteem, had not possessed the Aldine fint edition
of Plotinus (1497), or the first editions ofJamblichus, Proclus, Porphyry, Synesius,
Albinus, Hermes and others.' The first edition of the Greek original of Hermes
Trismegistus' Poimandres, for instance, was not printed until1554.
Geiger listed the classical authors known by Reuchlin, amongst whom
Theognis, Hesiod, Theocritus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar,
Orpheus, Empedocles, Jamblichus, Porphyry, Plotinus, Gregorius Nazianzus,
Origenes, Eusebius and Dionysius Areopagita. He owned the Opera of Plato in
more than one edition (see nos. 46a-b), also Cardinal Bessarion's apologetica!
In calumniatorem Platonis in the edition which Aldus Manutius printed in 1503.
The works of Aristotle, who was pitted against Plato in the controversy between
Johannes Bessarion and Georgius Trapezuntius, he possessed in the original
Greek and in La tin translation. He also collected the works of more contemporary
philosophers, such as Nicolaus de Cusa (1401-1464), whom he greatly admired.
On 10 November 1509 Beatus Rhenanus requested any manuscriptsof Cusa
Reuchlin might have for the benefit of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, whowas
preparing his edition of the works of Cusa. (Rhenanus returned the borrowed
material to Reuchlin on 14 April1510). And Reuchlin was greatly interested in the
works of early Christian authors, whom he collected as much as possible in the
original versions.
For an 'ad fontes' scholar like Reuchlin it must have been very gratifying
to possess copies ofboth the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in fairly old
manuscripts. 'Biblia magna 2. 3. 4. 5. cum omnibus commentariis 6.', is the third
en try in the list of Hebraïca. One of the manuscripts (he also owned printed
editions) was the famous 'Codex Reuchlin 1', a twelfth-century Hebrew Bible
on vellum donated to him by Emperor Frederic III in Linz in 1492 through
the mediation of Jacob Loans. In 1623 the Rosicrucian and Hebraist Wilhelm
Schickard on a visit to Durlach saw the famous Codex, mentioning to his friend,
the mathematician Matthias Bernegger, that he was in possession of a copy of the
inventory of Reuchlin's library. From 1488 Reuchlin also had the use of a twelfth-
century codex of the New Testament on vellum, a permanent loan from the
Dominicans in Basel, and a codex of the Apocalypse. He prized this latter codex
so much that he was reluctant tolend it to Johann Froben, the printer of Erasmus'
edition of the New Testament (1516) . Erasmus mentioned in his preface how
difficult it had been to wrest the copy from Reuchlin. When Reuchlin originally
requested the loan of the New Testament codex from the Dominicans in Basel,
he commonsensically remarked that nobody over there could read Greek anyway
- the codex would be better off with him. It is noteworthy that the Dominicans
of Basel did not reclaim the loan, in spite of the acrimonious battle between
Reuchlin and their colleagues in Cologne.
76
 Karl Christ, discussing the vicissitudes of Reuchlin's donation to the city of
Pforzheim, wrote that a century after the books had been moved to Durlach a
considerable number of the books in the bequest had perished as a result of fire
or war: 'When J.H. May became familiar with the library in 1684, it had already
shrunk to the remnants presently in Karlsruhe', he wrote in 1924. Since then,
more Reuchliniana have been destroyed, in the Second World War. Karl Christ
specified eight Hebrew printed books then in the Karlsruhe library, at least five of
which were incunable editions. A Dutch reader annotated against five entries in
the margin of the copy of Christ's artiele held in the Universiteitsbibliotheek of Briefwechsel (1999),
the Universiteit van Amsterdam that they were burnt in the war. letters 20, 26, 97,
118; Briefwechsel
The following works serve as a pars pro toto of the library of the great humanist. (2003), letters 159,
All but one are to be found in the BPH in the same editions which Reuchlin 164; Christ (1924);
once possessed. Reuchlin's own works, the product ofhis Hebrew studies, were Dall'Asta (1999);
included in the inventory; four of the six Greek works in this section were printed Dörner (2001),
by Aldus Manutius, which reflects the important position Aldus occupied as p. 65; Geiger (1962),
a supplier ofbooks in Greek for Reuchlin's library. In a letter of 10 November letter 286; Geiger
1502, Reuchlin wrote to Aldus to say how happy he was with their friendship, (1964), p. 146;
and to obtain the Aldines directly from Manutius himself, and not through the Harmsen (2004),
local booksellers. Earlier, in 1499, he also exerted himself to assist Aldus in his pp. 28, 37, 40;
project to set up a 'Greek academy' in Germany to further the knowledge of Greek Lamoen (1990 2),
and Hebrew. Manutius would supply the high-quality books himself. Reuchlin, p. 51; Preisendanz,
however, did not give him much hope. 'We are not worthy of you', he wrote to pp. 35-82;
prepare Aldus for the probable failure of his plan. Verzeiclmis (2005)

41 Johann Reuchlin, De rudimentis hebraicis. Pforzheim, Thomas Anshelm,

1506, (Amsterdam, Universiteitsbibliotheek)
Christ (1924) no. 27: Rudimenta Hebraïca

Reuchlin was not the first Christian Hebraïst to produce a Hebrew grammar. The
Franciscan monk Konrad Pellikan (1478-1556), whohad largely taught himself
Hebrew and whomet Reuchlin in Tübingen in July and in Stuttgart in November
and December 1500 to study Hebrew with him, was compiling a grammar,
for private study, simultaneously: De modo legendi et intelligendi Hebraeum,
published anonymously in Strasbourg in 1504 as part of Gregor Reisch's
Margarita philosophica. Reuchlin's Rudimenta owed much to David Kimchi's
grammar, an edition of which Reuchlin acquired on 12 June 1498 (no. 7 in the
Inventory). Briefwechsel
The Hebrew alphabet, consisting of the 22 letters that play such a vital role in (1999), letter 109;
Sefer Jezirah, is what Reuchlin offers the students of his book first of all. Preisendanz, p. 75

77
 42 Philostratus, De vita Apollonii Tyanei. Idem libri latini interprete Alemano
Rinuccino. Contra Hieroclem. Idem latinus interprete Zenobio Acciolo.
Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1501-1504
Christ (1924) no. 13: Decem retores. Philostrati Apollonius. Eusebii contra
Hieroclem. Aldi

First edition. Reuchlin also owned a manuscript copy of Philostratus' Life of

Apollonius. Lucius Flavius Philostratus (ca. 170-ca. 245) wrote his biography
of the Pythagorean philosopher and miracle-worker Apollonius of Tyana, a
contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, around 220.
Reuchlin referred to Philostratus a number of times in De verba mirifico
Briefwechsel (2003), and in De arte cabalistica. In a letter to Jacques Lefèvre, in which he asked for his
letter 227; Christ support against the theologians of Cologne, who were seeking to destroy his good
(1924), pp. 56, 62; name, he referred explicitly to Philostratus' Life, alluding to the philosophers
Harmsen (2004), Socrates and Apollonius of Tyana, who also had to fight to preserve their
p.53 reputation against calumniators.

43 Orpheus, Argonautica. Hymni. Florence, Filippo Giunta the elder, 1500

Christ (1924) no. 23: Aesopus. Orphei Argonautica. Junta 1500, Florence

Reuchlin also owned a manuscript of the Orphic hymns, entitled 'Orpheos teletai
pros Mousaion'. He regarcled both the Orphic poems and the Golden Verses of
Pythagoras as the most profound revelations of religious mysticism. In the preface
to his translation of Athanasius' commentary on the psalms, printed in Tübingen
by Thomas Anshelm in 1515, he compared Orpheus to King David, appealing to
Christ (1924), Pico's 4th Conclusion: 'just as the hymns of David miraculously serve the work
p. 54; Zika (1998), of the Kabbalah, so the hymns of Orpheus serve the workof the true and allowed
pp. 134-35 natural magie'.

44 Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, ed. Johannes Lascaris. Florence,

[Laurentius de Alopa], 1496
Christ (1924) no. 27: Apollonii Argonautica cum scholiis. Florentiae 1496

On 18 August 1502 Aldus Manutius sent Reuchlin a list of editionsof Greek

authors which he was able to supply, amongst which this edition by De Alopa.
Reuchlin in his reply declined the offer, because he already possessed a copy
of this partienlar edition. Alopa's editio princeps was edited by the humanist
Johannes Lascaris, who also purchased works for the library of Lorenzo il
Magnifico, and apparently with inexorable success. Johann Streler, whom
Briefwechsel (1999), Reuchlin had urged to look out for Greek works for him while in Italy,
letters 48, 116, 118; complained in November 1491 that Greek books were not to be had from the
Christ (1924), p. 71 booksellers, and if there were any, they were snapped up for Lorenzo's library.

78
45 Pythagoras, Aurea carmina, in Theocritus, Idyllia. Venice, Aldus Manutius,
1495-96
Christ (1924) no. 33: Theocritus, Cato et alia. Aldi

Johann Streler wrote to Reuchlin on 8 August 1491 to say he had at last met
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in his house in Florence. He conveyed Reuchlin's
regards to the Count; Pico for his part recalled the questions Reuchlin had asked
about Orpheus the year before. Both Pico and Reuchlin advocated the prisca
theologia of Orpheus and Pythagoras; Reuchlin had the highest regard for the
Orphic hymns and the Pythagorean Golden Verses. There are various quotations
from the Carmina aurea in De arte cabalistica. When a just man dies, Philolaus
explains, his soul will aseend to the purest ether and he willlive forever, like a god Briefwechsel (1999),
amongst the gods (Book II, fol. XIIIIr). The last lines from the Golden Verses are letter 46; Thom
then quoted: (1995)

Th en, if you leave the body behind and go to the free ether,
you will be immortal, an undying god, no longer mortaL

46a-b Plato, Omnia opera. Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1513 and Venice, Sirnon de
Luere, 1491
Christ (1924) no. 36: Plato. Aldi

First Aldine edition of the works of Plato, dedicated to Leo X. Reuchlin also
owned an earlier edition of Ficino's translation of Plato, printed in Venice
together with Ficino's own Theologia Platonica, which Johann Streler had
purchased for him in November 1491. In a letter to his friend Sebastian Brant,
written from Tübingen in January 1513, when he was already being plagued by Briefwechsel
the Dominieaus in Cologne, Reuchlin suggested that one of Plato's many excellent (1999), letter 48;
sayings was: 'man is a campanion spirit to another man'. He himself had always Briefwechsel ( 2003),
abided by this saying, he wrote, and had helped his fellow men. The Dominicans, letter 214, p. 366
however, had dealt with him in such a way as to justify the negative connotation n. 2; Christ (1924),
of demon, being 'cacodaemon', bad spirit. p. 74

47 Aristophanes, Comoediae novem, ed. Marcus Musurus. Venice, Aldus

Manutius, 1498
Christ (1924) no. 41: Aristophanes. Aldi

Aldus had offered 'Aristophanis comoediae novem cum commentario' along with
other Aldine editionsin a letter of 18 August 1502, but Reuchlin in his reply of 10
November did not include Aristophanes in his list; he may have already acquired
a copy when he was in Italy in 1498 and met Aldus in person. That Reuchlin,
author of the highly successful comedies Henna and Sergius, would be interested
in editions of Aristophanes is not surprising. Aristophanes' last comedy Plutos, on
which Reuchlin was to lecture in Ingolstadt in 1520, was already referred to in De

79
 verba mirifico (Book II, fol. c3v). In De arte cabalistica Philolaus critically reviews
a passage in Aristophanes' comedy Birds (first performed 414 BCE):

Aristophanes wrote ... : 'in the beginning there was only chaos, darkness
Briefwechsel and black Erebus'. In reality this is poetic license, an allusion, in the style of
(1999), letters the Muses, to the birds, so that Eros couid be born from an egg, a true and
116, 118; Busi & proper plagiarism from Orpheus' Argonautica, which proposes the same.
Campanini (1995), (Book II, fol. XXIXr)
p. 86; Argonautiques
(1987), p. 104 The reference is to Argonautica, 419-426 (see also no. 44).

80
 IVB OTHER WORKS OF JOHANN REUCHLIN

Reuchlin included a number of his own printed works in his bequest to the
Michaelsstift in Pforzheim, exclusively works in the field of Hebrew studies: De
rudimentis hebraicis, De arte cabalistica, De accentibus et orthographia linguae
Hebraicae, De verba mirifico and In septem psalmos poenitentia/es interpretatio
(they are respectively entered under nos. 27, 31 and 33 in the Inventory of Hebrew
books). The three grammatica! works are closely connected: theseven penitential
psalms which Reuchlin brought out in 1512 were intended toserve the readers as
a practical campanion to the grammatica! rules offered in De rudimentis hebraicis
(1506) and to familiarize themselves with the vocabulary; Reuchlin's De accentibus
... linguae Hebraicae deals with the pronunciation and the rhetorica! and musical
accents of Hebrew. Reuchlin's pedagogical concern with furthering the study
of Hebrew is obvious from these three works; his first publisbed worlc (1478)
concerns a Latin dictionary, the Vocabularius breviloquus, which he compiled at
the request of his friend, the printer Johann Amerbach. His Greek Micropaedia
has not survived.
Although Reuchlin bimself did not like to read works in translation,
preferring to go 'ad fontes' whenever possible, he produced a great many
translations from Greek into Latin, a number of which Trithemius was already
able to list in his De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis (see no. 20) and in his Catalogus
illustrium virorum (1495). Most of these remained in manuscript, butsome
were published: Sermo Proeli Cyzicensis episcopi, printed in Tübingen in 1529, a
translation of a sermon by Bishop Produs of Constantinople (before 390-446)
defending the Virgin Mary as 'Theotokos', the Mother of God. Reuchlin had
dedicated this translation in 1488 to Jacob Lauber, then prior of the Carthusian
monastery in Base!, and sent him the sermon as an advance token of gratitude: he
hoped Lauber might be able to support Reuchlin's request for the loan of a Greek
codex of the New Testament (see !Va). A translation of a biography of Emperor
Constantine the Great, which Reuchlin had already made in 1496, was dedicated
to Frederic of Saxony with an altogether different purpose: Reuchlin hoped to
enlist his support against the Dominicans of Cologne. Emperor Constantine had
always hated calumniators and had defended their victims; Frederic, a worthy
follower of the Roman Emperor, would hopefully do the same for Reuchlin. The
La tin biography was printed by Reuchlin's printer Thomas Anshelm in August
1513: Constantinus Magnus Romanorum imperator. Reuchlin also translated
two works by Athanasius (ca. 300-373), the Bishop of Alexandria who is held
to be the most important leader of Egyptian Christianity in the fourth century.
The first worlc to be printed was Athanasius' commentary on the psalms, by
Thomas Anshelm in 1515: 5. Athanasius in librum psalmorum a Ioanne Reuchlin
integre translatus. Angelo Poliziano had translated this work before; in a letter
written 13 September 1515 to Jacob Questenberg, Reuchlin told him that his
own translation was superior and also more complete than that of Poliziano. The
other Athanasian work he translated was Liber de variis quaestionibus, printed by
Thomas Anshelm in 1519. Reuchlin's own, mainly grammatica!, comments far
exceed the actual text of Athanasius.
81
 Apart from the seven penitential psalms, Reuchlin also translated from the
Hebrew Joseph ben Channan Ezobi's Ka'arat kesef(silver plate). In his dedication
to the 'lovers of foreign literature', Reuchlin points to the 11 th book of Eusebius'
Praeparatio evangelica (see no. 9) in which Eusebius claimed that philosophy
and literature originated with the Jews and were brought to Greece through
the mediation of Pythagoras and Plato. The work, a wedding poem written by
the 13th-century Rabbi Joseph Ezobi for his son, was publisbed earlyin the
troublesome year 1512- and so Reuchlin could not resist pointing out that if
his calumniator, Johann Pfefferkorn, had had such an excellent father, he would
surely not have produced such horrible lies against him. In the dedication to
the Ulm physician Johann Stocl<er of another translation, that of the medical
treatise De praeparatione hominis by one of the Hippocrateses of medical history,
Reuchlin again leans on Eusebius to substantiate his claim of Jewish pre-
eminence, this time in the field of medicine.
Reuchlin wrote two comedies, one, Sergius vel caput capitis, first printed
around 1504 but written in 1496 while he was stayingat Heidelberg as the guest
of Johann von Dalberg. Dalberg advised against an actual performance of Sergius,
a comedy which satirized the cult of relics. Nevertheless, two editions of the first
version, and ten of the second version were printed before 1522, the year Reuchlin
died. In 1507 the humanist Georg Simler, a friend of his, publisbed an edition
with a commentary, which was printed by Thomas Anshelm. Simler's edition,
which also contained an index of words, underlined the play's potential as a La tin
exercise book for schools, and so even Reuchlin's satirica! play was putto good
pedagogical use. Reuchlin's other play, Scaenica progymnasmata (also known as
Henna) was expressly written for students. It was first printed in 1498, and there
were 25 editions before 1522. The play wasbasedon a French comedy, the Farce
de Maître Pathelin, composed around 1465. Reuchlin wrote the play towards
the end of 1496 or early 1497. This play was actually performed, in the house
ofJohann von Dalberg in Heidelberg on 31 January 1497- a list of players has
survived. Reuchlin's Henna was also often translated and copied.
Reuchlin's professional activities (in 1498 he was senttoRome on behalf
of Philipp) are reflected in his Oratio ad Alexandrum VI. pro Philippo Bavariae,
an address delivered before Pope Alexander VI to move him to lift a pa pal ban
imposed on his employer. Aldus Manutius printed the workin 1498; many of
Reuchlin's friends complimented him on the elegance of his style.
In 1502 Reuchlin found refuge in the monastery of Denkendorf after an
outbreak of the plague. To thank his host for the hospitality he and his wife had
enjoyed there, he wrote a brief manual for preachers, Liber congestorurn de arte
predicandi, printed by Thomas Anshelm in 1504. With his manual intending to
ameliorate the contents and presentation of sermons, Reuchlin preceded by some
thirty years Erasmus' expansive manual for preachers Ecclesiastes, which was first
printed in 1535.
Reuchlin's works which are the result of the 'Pfefferkorn affair', most
importantly his Augenspiegel (1511) and his Defensio (1513) have been mentioned
above (see III). The collected La tin, Greek and Hebrew letters of learned men sent

82
to Reuchlin over a number ofyears (first edition 1514, second enlarged edition
1519) were put tagether by him as a bulwarkin print against the calurnnies
of his Dominican adversaries. In spite of the turmoil, he found the time to
bring out an edition of Xenophon's Apologia pro Soera te, in fact his very first
literary translation effort, again printed by Anshelm, in 1520. The last edition
by Reuchlin during his lifetime is an edition of Demosthenes' and Aeschynos'
orations, printed in Hagenau in 1522, for the benefit of his students. Thus the
last publication which appeared in his lifetime is fitting testimony to Reuchlin's
pedagogical concern for his students, with which the wheel has come full circle:
one of the earliest letters by Reuchlin to have survived is concerned with the art
of writing letters, compiled for his students at their request, and written in Bas el
in 1477.

Reuchlin's biographer Benzing listed 155 printed editionsof the 18 works, 7

translations and 2 text editions which appeared within Reuchlin's lifetime.

Benzing (19SS); Briefwechsel ( 1999), letters S, 2S-26; Briefwechsel (2003), letters 192, 194, 220; Christ
(1924), pp. S, 31,48-49, SS, S8; Geiger (1962), letter 217, pp. 348-49; Rademaker (1990)

83
 ,.

Jl. d~JXf!l.?rJ· Sep~·

JOH. V.

Sunt rerum fontes, fatarum exordia prima,

Et Vitte & ?l!orii.r nuncia prima viris. ·
Fundum fi nefcis, ncfcis quogue vinmln longà
Temporis , &jufti te fi;Igit ordo decens.
RE v c HL r N v s ver i reél:i quoque conditor audir,
Detexit fonte.r, queis fluit una fa lus..
Sunt Mf!!i.r fonres, funt Cbrifli flumina larga,
.. Mortii_ dein vit~ pharmaca; NQ~e tuu~.

Illus. l 0: 'Fontes Reuchlini' in Hermann von der Hardt, Antiquitatis gloria, Helmstedt, Pa u] Dietrich
Schnorr, 1737 (cat. no. 48a)

84
 V REUCHLIN AND HERMES INSPIRE THE NEW UNIVERSITY
OF GÖTTINGEN

48a-b Hermann vonder Hardt, Septem columnae (and other works). Helmstedt,
Paul Dietrich Schnorr, 173 7 and ibid, Harmonia Reuchlini et Lutheri,
Helmstedt, Paul Dietrich Schnorr, 1717

The Christian Hebraïst, Kabbalist and biblical exegete Hermann von der Hardt
(1660-17 46) was appointed librarian (1688 ), subsequently also professor of
Orientallanguages at the University of Helmstedt ( 1690) by its patron, Duke
Rudolph August von Braunschweig. At the University of Helmstedt or Academia
Julia, which had been founded by Duke Julius von Braunschweig-Lüneburg in
1576, Vonder Hardt lectured on Halacha and Kabbalah amongst other subjects.
As a Hebraïst he publisbed a number of works, amongst which a Hebrew
grammar, the Gründliche Anweisung zur hebräischen Sprache, printed by Johann
Friedrich Zeitierand Heinrich Georg Mussel in Halle in 1698. In 1705 he brought
out Aenigmata Judaeorum religiosissima, a rare work on the practical Kabbalah,
printed in Helmstedt by Georg Wolfgang Hamm.
While at Helmstedt he also took a great interest in the Jacob Böhme
heritage which the University Library had acquired in 1695, possibly at his
recommendation. Von der Hardt wrote about this heritage in his 'Memorabilia
Bibliothecae Rudolpheae', published in Johann Andreas Schmidt's De bibliothecis
nova accessio collectione Maderiana adiuncta, Helmstedt, Georg Wolfgang Hamm,
1703, pp. 273-296. The majority of the Böhme manuscripts and autographs
had been acquired by the Amsterdam merchant Abraham van Beyerland and
were then still in the Dutch Republic, but part of the colleetien had remained
in Germany and was in the hands of Benedict Hinckelmann, a friend of Böhme,
and related by marriage to one of Böhme's supporters, Dr. Balthasar Walter.
Hinckelmann incidentally also put tagether an impressive colleetien of Hermetic,
theosophical, Paracelsist, Rosicrucian, magical and chiliastic works (by Johann
Valentin Andreae, Johann Arndt, Guillaume Postel, Julius Sperber, Valentin Weigel
and many others). These manuscripts were affered forsale in Wilhelm Ernst
Tentzel's Leipzig periodical Monatliche Unterredungen (pp. 258-274) in 1692 and
bought by the University of Helmstedt. (I owe the above information to Carlos
Gilly). In 1702 the dedicated librarian Vonder Hardt also managed considerably
to expand the library's holdings by persuading Rudolph August to bequeathe his
book collections to the Academia Julia.
When the University of Göttingen was founded in 1737 with educational
ideals similar to those of the equally progressive University of Halle, Hermann
von der Hardt was moved to write three festive inaugural works: Septem
columnae, Septem classes and Septem coronamenta Academiae regiae Georgiae
Augustae. Each of these three abundantly illustrated folio 'Festschriften' consists
of seven books, in which the spiritual patrons whom Von der Hardt wished u pon
the new University were introduced. The first to be thus presented, in Antiquitatis
gloria, is the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, who was placed at the head of the

85
Theological Faculty. To situate Hermes, Von der Hardt included an extensive
paraphrase of the La tin translation of Poimandres ( the first treatise in the Corpus
Hermeticum) . The woodcut printed to accompany Poimandres (see illus. 4)
associates Jacob's dream with the vision of Hermes in Poimandres. Von der Hardt
in his preface wrote that:

the name of Mercurius Trismegistus is held in great es teem by Paracelsus, the

Rosicrucians, alchemists and mystics, because he is praised as the author of
profound and secret theosophical and pneumatic doctrines.

It is also in Antiquitatis gloria that Johann Reuchlin is praised: there is a woodcut

referring to Reuchlin's coat of arms ('ara Capnionis') on the title-page, and on the
verso another illustration shows Reuchlin at the age of 57. The legend underneath
explains that the fame and learning of Reuchlin at the beginning of the sixteenth
century has now returned to lift up the newly founded Academy. Göttingen is
earlier also expressly associated with Reuchlin, because he is called the crown of
the entire Academy.
Bound throughout Septem columnae, the first of the three 'Festschriften',
are woodcuts referring to Reuchlin and his achievements and cammemorating
his battle against the Dominicans. Same of the woodcuts are supplied with
headings, such as 'Medicina Reuchlini', 'Domus Reuchlini' and 'Fontes Reuchlini',
respectively the Medicine, House and Sourees of Reuchlin (there are seven such
large woodcuts). They were apparently devised by Hermann vonder Hardt
himself, as the woodcut illustrating the 'Fontes Reuchlini' shows, which is
signed on the right: 'Cura Herm. vonder Hardt P.P. et P.M.' (see illus. 10). The
woodcuts refer to the month of September 1513, a fateful month for Reuchlin.
The dates printed in the woodcuts correspond to signficant dates in Reuchlin's
trial: 15 September 1513 for instanee is when the Inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraeten
first summoned him to appear befare his court within six days. This partienlar
woodcut, headed 'Domus Reuchlini' (see illus. 11) refers topsalm 15:

0 Lord, who shall dwell in your tabernacle?

He who walks uprightly and works righteousness,

and speaks the truth in his heart.

It is already obvious from the heading that it is Reuchlin, and not his adversary
Hoogstraeten, who dwells in the tabernacle of the Lord.
The woodcuts in the 173 7 edition are co pies of those used twenty years
earlier in works published by Hermann von der Hardt in the years 1715-1717
to celebrate his great predecessor Johmm Reuchlin. It appears from these
publications that festive commemorations in Reuchlin's honour had been held
at the University of Helmstedt. The woodcut depicting the Fontes Reuchlini, the
sourees probed by Reuchlin ('sunt Mosis fontes, sunt Christi flumina larga', the
sourees of Moses, the abundant streams of Christ) reads: 'Jubilaeum Reuchlini

87
 in memoriam mensis Septembri 1513 celebratum in Academia Julia mense
septembri 1713'. In September 1713, probably under the aegis of Hermann von
der Hardt, the University of Helmstedt therefore commemorated Reuchlin and
his battle against the Dominicans. The Festurn seculare Reuchlini in Academia
Julia, publisbed by him in 1715, also records that a festive day had been organized
at the Academia Julia on 9 October 1713 to commemorate the fact that Reuchlin
had been summoned by Hoogstraeten once more on that particular day two
hundred years before.
The woodcut showing the Sourees of Reuchlin and the other six mentioned
'·
above also occurred in Vonder Hardt's Moguntina Reuchlini historia, A. 1513
mense Septembri in Germania, Gallia, et Italia celebris, illustrata anno seculari
1713 mense Septembri in Academia Jul ia. The work, which was printed by
Salomon Schnorr in 1715, explains the seven woodcuts in seven conesponding
chapters. They are meant to illustrate the particulars of Hoogstraeten's trial
against Reuchlin in September and October 1513. Por this work, Vonder Hardt
relied on an extensive letter written by Reuchlin to his friend Jacob Wimpfeling,
dated 30 November 1513, and the Acta judiciarum of 1518, a collection of legal
documents printed by Thomas Anshelm in support of Reuchlin. In Moguntina
Reuchlini historia, Reuchlin is pitted against Hoogstraeten as a heroic philologer
who has explored the Hebrew sourees for the benefit of Christendom. While
the great humanist Erasmus had provided an edition of the New Testament,
Reuchlin had managed to make accessible the abstruse sourees of the Hebrews
(p. 54). Hoogstraeten and his party meant to destray the Talmud, ancient
Hebrew rituals, chronicles, rabbinical commentaries, but Reuchlin put a stop
to this. In Moguntina Reuchlini historia, Hermann von der Hardt seems to have
applied curious calculations, apparently based on an idiosyncratic gematria
(both Irene Zwiep of the Universiteit van Amsterdam and Boaz Huss of the Ben
Gurion University of the Negev have noted its highly individual eh araeter). Von
der Hardt's intention was to prove that God was on Reuchlin's side and would
prevail against Hoogstraeten: 'Liberatio Reuchlini e manibus Hochstrati decreta
divinitus', Reuchlin's liberation from the hands of Hoogstraeten was decreed by
God (p. 170).
Other woodcuts included in the 173 7 edition of the Septem columnae were
also used previously, this time in Von der Hardt's Jubilaeum Reuchlini symbolicum
in memoriam anni 1512 ... cum figuris, printed by Salomon Schnorr in Helmstedt
in 1715. This work contains 12 woodcuts, mainly depicting biblical themes which
are all related to Reuchlin's troubles with the Dominicans. The third woodcut for
instanee narrates the story of James the Just, brother of Jesus (martyred ca. 62 CE)
as found in Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica. James the Just is of course Reuchlin;
the Inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraeten would probably have been beyond bimself
to find that he is cast as a 'rabbi standing in the shadows'. The woodcut used for
Poimandres, incidentally, also occurs in this work, and is again associated with
Reuchlin.

88
 Martin Luther is here expressly linked with Reuchlin, they are the 'spes
philologiae & exegeseos', the enduring hope of philology and exegesis. Von der
Hardt also presented Luther and Reuchlin as two reformers in a laterworkof his:
Harmonia Reuchlini et Lutheri A. MDXVII, even though Reuchlin himself had
resisted the association during his lifetime (see no. 19b). The woodcut portraying
Reuchlin used for the 173 7 edition is also to be found in this work of 1717; it may
have contributed elements towards the engraving by J,J. Haid which appeared in
J. Brucker's Ehrentempel der deutschen Gelehrsamkeit, printed in Augsburg in 1747
and reproduced in Kurt Hannemann's artiele on 'Das Bildnis Reuchlins' in Manfred
Krebs, ed., Johannes Reuchlin 1455-1522. Festgabe seiner Vaterstadt Pforzheim zur
500. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages, Pforzheim [1 955], p. 195.
Hermann von der Hardt was an unstoppable author of festive documents,
finding in 1721 another cause to celebrate Reuchlin in his Festurn Reuchlini
fcti 66. annorum senis, in academia Tubingensi, printed in Helmstedt by Paul
Dietrich Schnorr. In this work he commemorated the bicentenary of Reuchlin's
appointment to the Chair in Hebrew at the University of Tübingen in the winter
of 1521. On a more documentary note, he also re-issued works pertaining to
Reuchlin's battle in his famous Ristaria literaria Reformationis (Helmstedt,
1717), amongst which Reuchlin's Augenspiegel (1511), the Defensio (1513) and
the Acta judiciarum inter Hochstraten & Reuchlin (1518). The number of works
he produced in honour of the pioneering Christian Hebraist is not exhausted
with these titles. Hermann vonder Hardt in his commemorative fervour even
hoped that the class of 1813 at the Academia Julia would still have cause to
celebrate Reuchlin and condemn Hoogstraeten and his party 'cum tota prole
barbari' (the barbarians with all their offspring). But he re the course of history
checked Von der Hardt's dreams for the future: the University of Helmstedt was
abolished in 1810.

The Christian Hebraists of the early eighteenth century ho noured Reuchlin as the
founding father of Hebrew studies. Von der Hardt's festive works for the newly
instituted University of Göttingen are remarkable in many respects, not in the
least because he presents Reuchlin, who 'worked righteousness and spoke the
truth in his heart', as an ideal inspiring force for the new academy which he hoped
would also follow the ways of Hermes.

Briefwechsel (2003), letter 231, p. 460 n. 2; Dörner (2001), pp. 51-54; Dörner (2005), pp. 90-91; Geiger
(1964), p. 290; Gilly (2005 2 ), part II, no. 78; Lamoen (1990 2), p. 89; Scholem (1974), p. 202; Volkmann
(1998), pp. 74-75; Wilke (2001), p. 17

89
 VI INSPIRED BY THE TRADITION: BÖHME, FLUDD,
KHUNRATH

As a Christian Kabbalist, Reuchlin contributed elements towards a tradition

that was to inspire Hermetic philosophers like Robert Fludd (15 74-163 7) and
theosophers like Jacob Böhme (1575-1624). It is the achievement of Reuchlin
and the other early Christian Kabbalists, for instanee Giovanni Pico and Paulus
Ricius in Italy, to have made available a fountain of knowledge which had
largely remained inaccessible until the end of the fifteenth century. Nor did
Reuchlin's contribution go unnoticed or unappreciated: Tobias Hess, the great
inspiring force behind the Tübingen cirde that was to produce the Rosicrucian
Manifestoes, highly esteemed the works of Reuchlin. The copy of De arte
cabalistica which he annotated (see no. 14b) proveshow carefully Hess stuclied
Reuchlin. The theosopher Heinrich Khunrath, too, often drew u pon Reuchlin in
his Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae and praised Reuchlin and the Kabbalah
in his Vom hylealischen Chaos. In his own struggle against the theologists and
sophists, Khunrath took heart from the fact that before him, eminent men like
Reuchlin, Agrippa and Paracelsus had had to do battle with similar opponents.
As such, Reuchlin can be seen as a pioneer of the new understanding which was
to develop and find expression in the Rosicrucian Manifestoes, the works of
Heinrich Khunrath and those of Robert Fludd.

49 Heinrich Khunrath, Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae. Magdeburg, Levin

Braun, 1608 [= Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius, 1609]

Pico della Mirandola wrote in his seventh Condusion: 'When Solomon said in
his prayers in the Book of Kings: "Hear, oh heavens, by the word heavens we need
to understand that it is the green line, which encompasses the universe"'. And in
the 29th Condusion (second series): 'That the Kabbalists say that there is a green
line encompassing the universe is in accordance with the final condusion we have
offered according to the spirit of Porphyry'. And that Condusion, the twelfth, says:
'God is everywhere, because he is nowhere. The intellect is everywhere, because it
is nowhere. The soul is everywhere, because it is nowhere. But God is everywhere
and nowhere in regard to all which comes after him. The soul is in the intellect
and in God, but is everywhere and nowhere in regard to the body.'
This celebrated theme is to be found in the Amphitheatrum sapientiae
aeternae of Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605). A greenness which Khunrath
also found in the Tabula smaragdina: 'Hermes in the Table which the Venus of
philosophers has instituted through the fecundity of her blessed greenness, and
which for that reason is called the Emerald table'. And Khunrath placed that
'green line' in the centre of the engraving. We find that in that centre the 'green
line' is evoked. It is in the triangle: (1) [Iobileus] aeternus; Sabbathum magnum.
(2) Finis hominis, verurn ac summum bonum. (3) Frui YHWH paterno, fraterno,
atque amico. Below (1) Girans ANIMA universum. (2) Linea SPIRITUS viridis
(3) Cabali- CORPUS-starum and finally (1) Quaerite primum regnum Dei, (2)
et iustitiam eius; et haec (3) omnia, adiicientur vobis. (Eternal Jubilee; Great
91
Translated Sabbath, the end of man, the supreme and true good is to rejoice in YHWH
from: François father, brother, and friend. The green line (SPIRIT) of the Kabbali- (CORPUS)-
Secret, Kabbale sts, which encompasses (SOUL) the universe. First find the Kingdom of God and
et p!Jilosopllie his justice, and all things will be given to you) .
!Jennétique.
Amsterdam 1989, 50 Jacob Böhme, Theosophia revelata. [Leiden?], s.n., 1730
pp. 24-27
When F.C. Oetinger, a follower of Jacob Böhme, asked the Jewish Kabbalist
Koppel Hecht how he might best gain an understanding of the Kabbalah,
Hecht referred him to Jacob Böhme as an author whose metaphors bore a close
resemblance to those of the Hebrew Kabbalah. The German theosopher Jacob
Böhme called the first principle the Ungrund, comparable to the ein sof(Infinity)
of the Kabbalists or the Bythos (Depth) of the Valentinian Gnosis.
One particular image of Böhme, in the 18th chapter of Mysterium Magnum,
was probably inspired by Reuchlin's De arte cabalistica, as Wilhelm Schmidt-
Biggemann notes, who pointed to an added annotation in the 1730 edition
of the collected works of the German theosopher. Böhme's idea of the two
globes on which the Law had been inscribed, it is there written, 'sterns from his
conversations with Dr. Balthasar Walter, who lived with J.B. for the best of three
months, and who had read this in Reuchlin. Because Reuchlin writes in his third
Lamoen (1990), book of the kabbalistic art ... as follows: The Kabbalaei believe, that God first
pp. 85-86; Schmidt- wrote his Law with fiery dark letters on the back of a white fiery globe'. (Book lil,
Biggemann fol. LXIIIv: 'At first, the Kabbalists assert, God wrote his Law on a fiery globe, with
(2003b),pp. 158-59 dark fire on white fire'.) Reuchlin here refers to Nachmanides' Perush al ha Torah.

51 Robert Fludd, Philosophia Moysaica. Gouda, Pieter Rammazeyn, 1638

The engraving on the title-page can be understood from the text (fol. 22v): 'Hinc
etiam ait egregius ille cabalista Ruclinus ex consensu aliorum: Scribitur, inquit, in
libro Batur: Nihil est principium, nisi sapientia, et haec est infinitudo ipsa triurn
summarum Cabalisticae arboris numerationum, quas vos tres in divinis Personas
appellare consuevistis, quae est absolutissima Essentia, quae cum sit in abysso
tenebrarum retracta et immanens otiosaque, vel (ut ajunt) ad nihil respiciens
AYN id est. Nihil, sive non. Ens ac non finis, quia nos tam tenui erga res divina
ingenij paupertate multati, de ijs, quae non apparent, haud secus ac de revera
subsistat, turn Aleph Tenebrosum in Aleph Lucidum convertitur.. .'
This is to be found in De arte cabalistica (1517 ed., fol. LXII) minus the
printing-error 'Batur' for 'Bahir', corrected in the transcription of the same
passage fol. 69v of Philosophia Moysaica.
In Reuchlin's translation: 'It is written in the Book of Bahir: "There is no
beginning without wisdom." I think I am right in replying that infinity itself exists
in the three summits of the Kabbalists' tree of ten sefirot (which you usually call
the three divine Persons) . Infinity is the most absolute Essence, drawn back in the
deptbs of shadows, and, lying or, as they say, reliant u pon nothing, is hence called
'Nothing' or 'Not being' and 'Not end' (ein sof) because we are so damned that we

92
judge things that are not apparent in the same way as we judge things that do not Translated
exist. But when it showsitself and becomes sarnething and actually subsists, the from: François
dark Aleph is changed into the bright Aleph'. Secret, Kabbale
As Reuchlin already said towards the end of Book I, summarizing Azriel's et philosophie
conception, and citing in confirmation the 'coincidentia oppositorum' of Cardinal hermétique.
Nicolas de Cusa, as G. Scholem (Les origines de la Kabbale, pp. 463-64) has Amsterdam 1989,
evaluated. p. 83

93
 CHRONOLOGY

Sefer Jezirah, oldest known kabbalistic work. 1st c. CE

Yehuda ha Levi (ca. 1075- 1141), philosopher, ca. 1075

author of Kuzari.

Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides, 11 35- 1204), 1135

philosopher, author of Guide for the Perplexed.

Eleazar ofWorms (ca. 1165- 1230), Gennan 1165

Kabbalist, author of various kabbalistic works,
amongst which Sodei Razayya (Secret of Secrets) .

Sefer ha Bahir composed around this period 1170

in Provence.

Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides, 1194- 1194

1270), philosopher and Kabbalist, author of a
famous Commentary on the Torah.

Abraham Abulafia (1240-after 1290), Spanish 1240

Kabbalist, exponent of the ecstatic Kabbalah.

MoshedeLeon (1240-1305), Spanish Kabbalist, 1240

chief author of Sefer ha Zo har.

Joseph Gikatilla ( 1248-1325), Spanish Kabbalist, 1248

author of Ginnat Egoz, Sha'arei Orah,
Sha'arei Tsedek .

Abner de Burgos (1270-ca. 1348), Jewish 1270

convert, anti- Jewish polemicist.

Pa blo de Heredia, Jewish convert, anti- Jewish 1405

polemicist, author of spurious kabbalistic works
aiming to prove the truth of Christianity.

Marsilio Ficino (1433- 1499), member ofthe 1433

Academy of Florence, author of De christiana
religione and Theologia Platonica, De triplici vita.

Fall of Constantinople, dispersal and 1453

dissemination of Greek manuscripts and
scholarship in Italy.

94
 1455 Johann Reuchlin born 29 January in Pforzheim, the
son of Georg and Elisabeth Reuchlin. Educated at the
elementary and La tin schools in his birthplace.

Johann Trithemius (Johann von Heidenberg), 1462

1462-1516, abbot of Sponheim, author of
Steganographia.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), 1463

introduces Reuchlin to the Kabbalah.

Francesco Giorgi (Zorzi). Christian Kabbalist 1466

and author of De harmonia nnmdi (1525).

Desiderius Erasmus (ca. 1467-1536), supports 1467

Reuchlin in his battle against the Dominicans.

First edition of the Hermetic Asclepius in the 1469

Opera of Apuleius, Rome, Konrad Sweynheym
and Arnold Pannartz.

1470 Matriculation in the University of Preiburg im

Breisgau on 19 May as a student of the 'artes liberales'.
First edition of Ficino's translation of the Catpus 14 71
Henneticum at Treviso by Gerardus de Lisa.

1473 First trip to Paris, to accompany Friedrich von Baden;

study at the Sorbonne.

Isabella of Castilia and Ferdinand of Aragon, 1474 Matriculation in the University of Base!, obtaining the
the 'most Catholic king', aseend to the throne degree of Baccalaureus Artium in September 1475,
in Spain. degree of Magister Artium in 1477. Friendship with
Sebastian Brant.

1478 Second stayin Paris. Further Greek studies, begun in

Base!, under Georgios Hermonymos. Vocabularius
breviloquus (Base!, Johannes Amerbach, 1478), a
widely used Latin dictionary (more than 20 editions
before 1504).

1479 Matriculation in the University of Orléans in

January to study Roman law, obtains the degree of
Baccalaureus Iuris.

95
 Paulus Ricius (1480-1541), Christian Kabbalist,
translated part of Gikatilla's Sha'arei Orah as Portae
lucis (1516), defends Reuchlin against Hoogstraeten.
Institution of the Spanish Inquisition: Tomás
de Torguemada is appointed by Ferdinand and
lsabella to investigate and punish conversos:
jews and Muslims professing to have converled
to Catholicism but continuing to practise their
own religion in secret.
Martin Luther (1483 -1546), tries to win )ohann
Reuchlin over to his cause.
1484-85
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (ca. 1486-1535 ),
Christian Kabbalist, author of De occulta
philosophia; Pico takes his 900 theses to Rome.
Conquest of Granada by the Spanish Monarchs,
end of Muslim domination in Spain and
expulsion of the jews from Spain.
96
1480 Further legal studies at the University of Poitiers.
Lectures in Greek at both Orléans and Poitiers.
Compiles the Greek Micropaedia (which has not
survived).
1481 Licentiate in Roman law 14 June 1481 from the
University of Poitiers. Matriculation in the University
of Tübingen on 9 December.
1482 Count Eberhard ofWürttemberg invites Reuchlin to
enter his service. First trip to Italy from February until
April to accompany Eberhard. Negotations with Pope
Sixtus IV about the University of Tübingen (founded
1477). Eberhard and Reuchlin are received by Lorenzo
de' Medici in Florence. Greek studies under Johannes
Argyropulos in Rome.
1483
Sent by Eberhard as an envoy to Munich, Eichstätt,
Landshut and Pforzheim, appointed Eberhard's advisor.
Law doetorate from the University of Tübingen. First
marriage, to a daughter of Hänslin Müller.
1486 Reuchlin is sent to the Reicbstag in Frankfurt as
Eberhard's envoy, and is also present at the coronation
of Maximilian I in Aachen. Reuchlin is taught Hebrew
by a Jewish teacher, Calman.
1490 Second Italian journey. Encounter with Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola. Ermolao Barbaro gives Reuchlin his
humanist name Capnio (after 'Kapnion' Greek for
fumulus, little smoke, cf. German Räuchlein) .
1492 Sent by Eberhard as an envoy to Emperor Frederic
and King Maximilian to consult in politica! matters
concerning Württemberg and the Swabian League.
Cantacts with the humanist circle at the imperia!
court at Linz. Hebrew studies under the imperia!
personal physician, Jacob ben Jeehiel Loans. Awarded
the hereditary title of Count Palatine by Frederic lil
on 24 October.
 1494 Editio princeps of De verba mirifico, Basel, Johann
Amerbach, dedicated to Johann von Dalberg, Bishop
ofWorms.

1495 Count Eberhard is created Duke ofWürttemberg and

Teek by Maximilian I on 21 July. Reuchlin presents
Eberhard with his German translation of Lu cian's
twelfth Dialogue of the Dead.

1496 Death of Eb er hard, who is succeeded by Eberhard

the Younger. Reuchlin leaves for Heidelberg to escape
the latter's misrule. He bec01nes a member of the
Sodalitas Literaria Rhenana.
Reuchlin visits the abbey of Sponheim and
Trithemius' library. First comedy: Sergius vel caput
capitis.

1497 Reuchlin appointed advisor byElector Palatine Philipp,

and as the latter son's mentor on 31 December.

1498 First edition of Scaenica progymnasmata (Henna),

a re-working of a French comedy, Maître Pathelin.
Third Italian journey on behalf of Philipp. Continnes
his Hebrew studies with the physician and Kabbalist
Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno. Reuchlin addresses Pope
Alexander VI on 7 August, this Oratio ad Alexandrurn
VI. pro Philippo Bavariaeis printed by Aldus
Manutius in Venice. Return to Germany in September.

1499 Return to Stuttgart from his exile after the fall of

Eberhard (28 May 1498). Further Greek and above all
Hebrew studies.

ca. 1500 Death of his first wife.

1502 Elected as one of three judges for the Swabian League.

Second marriage, to Anna Decker. Plague in Stuttgart,
Reuchlin and his wife find refuge in Denkendorf
monastery at the invitation of Provost Peter Wolff.

1503 Return to Stuttgart at the beginning of the year.

97
 1504 First edition of Liber congestorum de arte praedicandi,
by Thomas Anshelm in Pforzheim, written in 1502 in
gratitude for the hospitality enjoyed at Denkendorf
monastery. First edition of Sergius vel capitis caput.

1505 Tütsch missive, warumb die fuden so lang im eliend

sind, printed by Thomas Anshelm.

1506 First edition of De rudimentis hebraicis by Thomas

Anshelm, the first systematic grammar of Hebrew by
a Christian schol ar.

The jewish couvert johann Pfefferkorn 1507-08

publishes th e first of his anti- )ewish pamphlets,
]udenspiegel, in Cologne. Several editions: two
in La tin, one in Low German and one in High
German.

Pfefferkorn, ]udenbeichte (malicious parody of 1508

penitential ceremonies of the jews).

Pfefferkorn, Osterbuch, ]udenfeind (a summa 1509 Melanchthon (Philipp Schwartzerdt), visits the Latin
of the preceding anti-jewish pamphlets) . School in Fforzheim and is given his humanist name
Pfefferkorn obtains a mandate from Emperor Melanchthon (Greek for: black soil) by Reuchlin.
Maximilian I to confiscate jewish works in Reuchlin in Base! to work on the edition of
August and prepares to begin his campaign in Hieronymus printed by Joha1111 Amerbach.
Frankfurt. Pfefferkorn visits Reuchlin to gain his
support, which the latter refuses.
Agrippa lectures at the University of Dóle on De
verbo mirifico, with the support of th e University
chanceHor and Archbishop of Besançon, Antoine
deVergy.

First edition of Erasmus, Moriae encomiu m,

which attacks the excesses of scholasticism and
satirizes the scholastic theologians.

Maximilian decides to obtain advice from 1510

Universities and experts regarding the destruction
of jewish books. Reuchlin's 'Gutachten' (finished
6 October 1510) is the only ad vice opposed to
wholesale destruction and confiscation.

98
Pfefferkorn attacks Reuchlin in his Handspiegel, 1511
which contains a tendentious reproduetion of
parts of his 'Gutachten'. Reuchlin's rejoinder
Augenspiegel is printed in Tübingen by
Thomas Anshelm in the autumn. Start of the
acrimonious controversy between Pfefferkorn
and the Dominicans and Reuchlin. Reuchlin
obtains an audience with Maximilian I on
29/30 April. Guillaume Postel born in Baren ton ,
Normandy.

Maximilian bans the Augenspiegel. 1512 First edition of translation of Joseph Ezobi's Ka'arat
kesef(silver plate), Tübingen, Thomas Anshelm.
First edition of In septem psalmos penitentia/es
hebraicos, printed by Thomas Anshelm in Tübingen.

Giovanni de' Medi ci is elected pope Leo X. 151 3 Def ensio contra calumniatores suos Colonienses,
Tübingen, Thomas Anshelm, a copy of which
Reuchlin presented to Maximilian I in person in June.

Trial against Reuchlin's Augenspiegel in Mainz 1514 Clarorum virorum epistolae, Tübingen, Thomas
and Speyer. Reuchlin is cleared of all charges; Anshelm. Second edition of De verba mirifico, by
nevertheless th e Cologne Dominicans burn Thomas Anshelm.
Reuchlin's book in public as 'heretical'.

Publication of the satirica! Epistolae obscurarum 1515-151 7

virorum ad venerabilem virum magistrum
Ortuinum Gratium, probably by Ulrich von
Hutten and )ohann Crotus Rubeanus.

The papa! committee in Rome passes a 1516 (or 1519) Death of his second wife Anna Decker.
favourable verdict on the Augenspiegel; the Pope
suspends the committee. Greek translation of the
New Testament byErasmus printed in Base! by
)ohann Froben. Death of Johan Trithemius.

Martin Luther posts his '95 Theses' in 1517 Editio princeps of De arte cabalistica, Hagenau,
Witten berg. Thomas Anshelm.

Defen ces of Reuchlin: Giorgio Benigno,

Defensio ... Joh an nis Reuchlin, Cologne;
Willibald Pirckheimer, Epistola apologetica.

99
 Hoogstraeten publishes an Apalagia aga inst
Benigno; Ulrich van Hutten publishes his
Triumphus Capnianis; Petrus Galatinus his De
areanis cathalicae veritatis.
Hoogstraeten publishes his Destructia
cabale, dedicated to Leo X. Second edition
of Hoogstraeten's Apalagia with responses to
Reuchlin's own attacks in De arte cabalistica.
Erasmus publishes his Apatheasis Capnianis in
honour of Reuchlin.
100
1518 First edition of De accentibus et ortographia linguae
hebraicae printed by Thomas Anshelm in Hagenau.
Reuchlin, having declined the invitation to teach
Greek at the University of Wittenberg reeommencis
his relative Philipp Melanchthon instead.
1519 To Ingolstadt to escape the warring factions of Duke
Ulrich von Württemberg and the Swabian league.
1520 Reuchlin is appointed Professor in Greek and Hebrew
at the University of Ingolstadt on 29 February.
Papa! condemnation of Augenspiegel on 23 June;
Reuchlin is condemned to sitenee and is forced to pay
the !ega! expenses.
1521 Plague in Ingolstadt. Reuchlin is appointed Professor
in Greek and Hebrew at Tübingen.
1522 Death of Reuchlin in Stuttgart on 30 June.
He is buried alongside his sec011d wife in the
Leonhardskirche in Stuttgart.
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 LIST OF LENDERS
\

Amsterdam, Ets Haim- Livraria Mon tezinos

Amsterdam, Universiteitsbibliotheek of the Universiteit van Amsterdam
Basel, Universitätsbibliothek
Linz, Oberösterreichische Landesbibliothek
Pforzheim, Stadtarchiv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my colleagues in the library for their enthusiastic support:
José Bouman, Carlos Gilly, Theodor Harmsen, Frans A. Janssen, Marieke Meijers
and Esther Oosterwijk-Ritman. Thanks also to Jan Klerkx, Frank van Lamoen,
Yehuda Liebes of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Benjamin Richler of the
Jewish and National University Library in Jerusalem and Abraham Rosenberg
of Ets Haim-Livraria Montezinos in Amsterdamfortheir constructive remarks.
The two volumes of Johannes Reuchlin Briefwechsel (1477-1505 and 1506-1513)
which Matthias Dali' Asta and Gerald Dörner of the Reuchlinforschungsstelle in
rforzheim have edited to perfection were a tremenclous help. Thanks especially to
Matthias Dall'Asta for his spontaneously affered and much appreciated editorial
and Reuchlinian scrutiny!

Cis van Heerturn

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