It is true that then, as after the sarcasms of the age of Augustus, and as in our own times, after those of the last century, a new Platonic philosophy sprung up and attacked that irrational incredulity, seeking, like the philosophy of the present day, to inspire some respect for Christianity, and restore the religious sentiment to the heart. The Medici at Florence favoured these efforts of the Platonics. But no philosophical religion will regenerate the Church and the world. Proud, disdaining the preaching of the cross, and pretending to see nothing in Christian doctrines but figures and symbols, which the majority of men cannot comprehend, it may bewilder itself in a mystical enthusiasm, but will always prove powerless, either to reform or to save.
What then must have happened, had not true Christianity re-appeared in the world, and had not faith filled the hearts of men anew with its power and its holiness? The Reformation saved religion, and with it society, and, therefore, if the Church of Rome had had the glory of God and the good of the people at heart, it would have welcomed the Reformation with delight. But what were such things as these to Leo X?
However, a torch could not be lighted in Italy without sending its beams beyond the Alps. The affairs of the Church established a constant intercourse between the Italian Peninsula and the other parts of Christendom, and the barbarians being thus soon made to feel the superiority and pride of the Italians, began to blush for the imperfection of their language and their style. Some young noblemen, a Dalberg, a Langen, a Spiegelberg, inflamed with an eager desire of knowledge, passed over into Italy, and on their return to Germany, brought back learning, grammar, and the classics, now so eagerly sought after, and communicated them to their friends.89 Shortly after, Rodolph Agricola, a man of distinguished genius, appeared, and was held in as high veneration for his learning and genius, as if he had lived in the age of Augustus or Pericles. The ardour of his mind, and the fatigues of the school, wore him out in a few years; but not till noble disciples had been trained, through intimate intercourse with him, to carry their master's fire all over Germany. Often, when assembled around him, they had together deplored the darkness of the Church, and asked why Paul so often repeats that men are justified by faith and not by works.90
Around the feet of these new teachers soon gathered rustic youths, who lived by alms and studied without books, and who, divided into sections of priests of Bacchus, arquebusiers, and many more besides, moved in disorderly bands from town to town, and school to school. No matter; these strange bands were the commencement of a literary public. The masterpieces of antiquity began gradually to issue from the presses of Germany, supplanting the schoolmen; and the art of printing, discovered at Mayence in 1440, multiplied the energetic voices which remonstrated against the corruption of the Church, and those voices, not less energetic, which invited the human mind into new paths.
The study of ancient literature had, in Germany, very different effects from those which it had in Italy and France. Her study was combined with faith. In the new literary culture, Germany turned her attention to the advantage which religion might derive from it. What had produced in some a kind of intellectual refinement, of a captious and sterile nature, penetrated the whole life of others, warmed their hearts, and prepared them for a better light. The first restorers of letters in France were characterised by levity, and often even by immorality of conduct. In Germany, their successors, animated by a spirit of gravity, zealously devoted themselves to the investigation of truth. Italy offering her incense to profane literature and science, saw an infidel opposition arise. Germany, occupied with a profound theology, and turned inwardly upon herself, saw the rise of an opposition based on faith. The one sapped the foundations of the Church, and the other repaired them. Within the empire was formed a remarkable union of free, learned, and noble-minded men, among whom princes were conspicuous, who endeavoured to render science useful to religion. Some brought to their studies the humble faith of children, while others brought an enlightened and penetrating intellect, disposed, perhaps, to exceed the bounds of legitimate freedom and criticism; both, however, contributed to clear the pavement of the temple from the obstructions produced by so many superstitions.
The monkish theologians perceived their danger, and began to clamour against the very studies which they had tolerated in Italy and France, because in those countries they had gone hand in hand with levity and dissoluteness. They entered into a conspiracy to oppose the study of language and science, because they had caught a glimpse of faith following in their rear. A monk was putting some one on his guard against the heresies of Erasmus. "In what," it was asked, "do they consist?" He confessed that he had not read the work of which he was speaking, but one thing he knew, viz., that Erasmus had written in too good Latin.
The disciples of literature, and the scholastic theologians, soon came to an open rupture. The latter were in dismay when they saw the movement which was taking place in the domain of intellect, and thought that immobility and darkness were the best safeguards of the Church. Their object in contending against the revival of letters was to save Rome, but they helped to ruin it. Here Rome had much at stake. Forgetting herself for an instant under the pontificate of Leo X, she abandoned her old friends, and clasped her young adversaries in her arms. The papacy and letters formed an intimacy which seemed destined to break up the ancient alliance between monasticism and the hierarchy. At the first glance the popes perceived not that what they had taken for a whip was a sword capable of inflicting a mortal wound. In the same way, during the last century, princes were seen receiving at their court political and philosophic systems, which, if carried into full effect, would have overturned their thrones. The alliance was not of long duration. Literature advanced without troubling itself about the injury which it might do to the power of its patron. The monks and schoolmen were aware that to abandon the pope was just to abandon themselves; and the pope, notwithstanding of the passing patronage which he gave to the fine arts, was not the less active when he saw the danger, in adopting measures, how much opposed soever they might be to the spirit of the time.
The universities defended themselves as they best could against the invasion of new light. Cologne expelled Rhagius; Leipsic, Celtes; Rostoch, Herman von dem Busch. Still the new doctors, and with them the ancient classics, gradually and often even by the aid of princes, made good their footing in these public schools. Societies of grammarians and poets were soon established in spite of the schoolmen, and every thing, even to the name of the Literati, behoved to be converted into Latin and Greek; for how could the friends of Sophocles and Virgil have such names as Krachenberger or Schwarzerd? At the same time, a spirit of independence breathed in all the universities. Students were no longer seen in schoolboy fashion, with their books under their arms, walking sagely and demurely with downcast eye behind their masters. The petulance of a Martial and an Ovid had passed into the new disciples of the Muses. It was transport to them to hear the sarcasms which fell in torrents on the dialectical theologians, and the heads of the literary movement were sometimes accused of favouring, and even of exciting, the disorderly proceedings of the students.
Thus a new world, emerging out of antiquity, was formed in the very heart of the world of the middle ages. The two parties could not avoid coming to blows, and the struggle was at hand. It began with the greatest champion of literature, with an old man on the eve of finishing his peaceful career.
To secure the triumph of truth, the first thing necessary was to bring forth the weapons by which she was to conquer, from the arsenals where they had lain buried for ages. These weapons were the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It was necessary to revive in Christendom a love and study of sacred literature, both Greek and Hebrew. John Reuchlin was the individual whom divine Providence selected for this purpose.
A very fine boy's voice was remarked in the choir of the church of Pforzheim, and attracted the attention of the Margrave of Baden. It was that of John Reuchlin, a young boy of agreeable manners and a lively disposition, son of an honest burgher of the place. The Margrave soon took him entirely under his protection, and in 1473 made choice of him to accompany his son Frederick to the University of Paris.
The son of the bailiff of Pforzheim arrived with the prince, his heart exuberant