commanding presence, social culture, charming manners, and princely liberality.^550 He constantly
entertained distinguished strangers at his hospitable board. Nürnberg was then the first German
city in politics, industry, and commerce. He made it also a centre of literature and illumination. At
Venice there was a proverb:, All German cities are blind, except Nürnberg, which has one eye."
Pirkheimer hailed the beginnings of the Reformation with patriotic and literary enthusiasm,
invited Luther to his house when he returned utterly exhausted from Augsburg in 1518, distributed
his books, and, with his friends Albrecht Dürer and Lazarus Spengler, prepared the way for the
victory of the new ideas in his native city. He wrote an apology of Reuchlin in his controversy with
the Dominicans, contributed probably to the "Letters of Obscure Men," and ridiculed Dr. Eck in a
satirical, pseudonymous dialogue, after the Leipzig disputation.^551 Eck took cruel revenge when
he published the Pope’s bull of excommunication, by naming Pirkheimer among the followers of
Luther, and warning him through the magistrate of Nürnberg. Luther burnt the Pope’s bull; but
Pirkheimer helped himself out of the difficulty by an evasive diplomatic disclaimer, and at last
begged absolution.
This conduct is characteristic of the humanists. They would not break with the authorities
of the church, and had not the courage of martyrs. They employed against existing abuses the light
weapons of ridicule and satire rather than serious argument and moral indignation. They had little
sympathy with the theology and piety of the Reformers, and therefore drew back when the Reformers,
for conscience’ sake, broke with the old church, and were cast out of her bosom as the Apostles
were cast out of the synagogue.
In a letter to Erasmus, dated Sept. 1, 1524, Pirkheimer speaks still favorably of Luther,
though regretting his excesses, and deprecates a breach between the two as the greatest calamity
that could befall the cause of sound learning. But soon after the free-will controversy, and under
the influence of Erasmus, he wrote a very violent book against his former friend Oecolampadius,
in defence of consubstantiation (he did not go as far as transubstantiation).^552
The distractions among Protestants, the Anabaptist disturbances, the Peasants’ War, the
conduct of the contentious Osiander, sickness, and family afflictions increased his alienation from
the Reformation, and clouded his last years. The stone and the gout, of which he suffered much,
confined him at home. Dürer, his daily companion (who, however, differed from him on the
eucharistic question, and strongly leaned to the Swiss view), died in 1528. Two of his sisters, and
two of his daughters, took the veil in the nunnery of St. Clara at Nürnberg. His sister Charitas, who
is famous for her Greek and Latin correspondence with Erasmus and other luminaries, was abbess.
The nunnery suffered much from the disturbances of the Reformation and the Peasants’ War. When
it was to be secularized and abolished, he addressed to the Protestant magistrate an eloquent and
touching plea in behalf of the nuns, and conclusively refuted the charges made against them. The
convent was treated with some toleration, and survived till 1590.
(^550) Unfortunately his moral character was not free from blemish. He became a widower in 1504, and lived in illicit intercourse with his
servant, who bore him a son when he was already past fifty. Christoph Scheurl wrote: "I wish Melanchthon knew Pirkheimer better: he
would then be more sparing in his praise. With the most he is in bad repute." See K. Hagen, l.c., I. 347, and Drews, l.c., 14 sq.
(^551) Eccius dedolatus (Der abgehobelte Eck). Auctore Ioanne Francisco Cottalambergio, Poëta Laureato. 1520. See p. 182.
(^552) Bilibaldi Birckheimheri de vera Christi carne et vero ejus sanguine, ad Ioan. Oecolampadium responsio. Norembergae, 1526.
Bilibaldi Pirckheymeri de vera Christi carne, etc., reponsio secunda. 1527. I give the titles, with the inconsistencies of spelling from
original copies in the Union Theol. Seminary. Pirkheimer calls Oecolampadius (his Greek name for Hausschein, House-lamp)
"Coecolampadius" (Blindschein, Blind-lamp), and deals with him very roughly. Drews (pp. 89-110) gives a full account of this unprofitable
controversy.