His last letters, like those of Erasmus, breathe discontent with the times, lament over the
decline of letters and good morals, and make the evangelical clergy responsible for the same evils
which he formerly charged upon the Roman clergy and monks. "I hoped," he wrote to Zasius (1527),
a distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Freiburg, who likewise stood halting between Rome
and Wittenberg,—"I hoped for spiritual liberty; but, instead of it, we have carnal license, and things
have gotten much worse than before." Zasius was of the same opinion,^553 and Protestants of Nürnberg
admitted the fact of the extensive abuse of the gospel liberty.^554 In a letter to his friend Leib, prior
of Rebdorf, written a year before his death, Pirkheimer disclaims all fellowship with Luther, and
expresses the opinion that the Reformer had become either insane, or possessed by an evil spirit.^555
But, on the other hand, he remained on good terms with Melanchthon, and entertained him on his
way to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530.
His apparent inconsistency is due to a change of the times rather than to a change of his
conviction. Like Erasmus, he remained a humanist, who hoped for a reformation from a revival of
letters rather than theology and religion, and therefore hailed the beginning, but lamented the
progress, of the Lutheran movement.^556
Broken by disease, affliction, and disappointment, he died in the year of the Augsburg
Confession, Dec. 22, 1530, praying for the prosperity of the fatherland and the peace of the church.
He left unfinished an edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, which Erasmus published with a preface.
Shortly before his death, Erasmus had given him an unfavorable account of the introduction of the
Reformation in Basel and of his intention to leave the city.
Pirkheimer made no permanent impression, and his writings are antiquated; but, as one of
the most prominent humanists and connecting links between the mediaeval and the modern ages,
he deserves a place in the history of the Reformation.
§ 75. The Peasants’ War. 1523–1525.
I. Luther: Ermahnung zum Frieden auf die zwölf Artikel der Bauernschaft in Schwaben (1525);
Wider die mörderischen und raüberischen Rotten der Bauern (1525); Ein Sendbrief von dem
harten Büchlein wider die Bauern (1525). Walch, Vols. XVI. and XXI. Erl. ed., XXIV. 257–318.
(^553) Comp. Döllinger, Die Reform. i. 174-182.
(^554) Hans Sachs (in his Gespräch eines evang. Christen mit einem katholischen, Nürnberg, 1524) warns the Nürnbergers against their
excesses of intemperance, unchastity, uncharitableness, by which they brought the Lutheran doctrine into contempt. Döllinger, l.c., I. 174
sqq., quotes testimonies to the same effect from Konrad Wickner and Lazarus Spengler, both prominent Protestants in Nürnberg, and
from contemporaries in other parts of Germany.
(^555) Döllinger, I. p. 533 sq., gives this letter in Latin and German, and infers from it that Pirkheimer died a member of the Catholic
Church.
(^556) This is substantially also the judgment of Drews, his most recent biographer, who says (l.c., p. 123): "Pirkheimer ist jeder Zeit
Humanist geblieben ... In der Theorie war er ein Anhänger der neuen, gewaltigen Bewegung; aber als dieselbe anfing praktisch zu werden,
erschrak er vor den Gährungen, die unvermeidlich waren. Der Humanist sah die schönen Wissenschaften bedroht; der Patrizier erschrak
vor der Übermacht des Volkes; der Staatsmann erzitterte, als er den Bruch mit den alten Verhältnissen als eine Notwendigkeit fühlte.
Nur ein religiös fest gegründeter Glaube war im Stande, über diesen Kämpfen den Sieg und den Frieden zu sehen. Daran aber fehlte es
gerade Pirkheimer; alles theologische Interesse vermag dieses persönliche religiöse Leben nicht zu ersetzen. Wohl besass er ein lebendiges
Rechtsgefühl, einen ethischen Idealismus, aber es fehlte ihm die Kraft, im eignen Leben denselben zu verwirk-lichen. Ihm war das Leben
ein heiteres Spiel, solange die Tage sonnenhell waren; als sie sich umdüsterten, wollten sich die Wolken weder hinwegscherzen, noch
hinwegschmähen lassen. Ein religiös, sittlicher Charakter war Pirkheimer nicht, ’Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt,’ diese Worte hat
er unter sein von Dürer gezeichnetes Bild (1524) gesetzt. Sie enthalten das Glaubensbekenntnis Pirkheimers, das Geheimnis seines
Lebens."