Note 26 — III.

The extraordinary influence which Reuchlin’s Kabbalistic Treatises exercised upon the greatest thinkers of the time and upon the early reformers may be judged of from the unmeasured terms of praise which they bestowed upon their author. The Treatises were regarded as heavenly communications, revealing new divine wisdom. Conrad Leontarius, writing to Wimpheling on the subject, says—“I never saw anything more beautiful or admirable than this work (i.e., De Verbo Mirifico), which easily convinces him who reads it that no philosopher, whether Jew or Christian, is superior to Reuchlin.” Aegidius, general of the Eremites, wrote to the holy Augustine “that Reuchlin had rendered him, as well as the rest of mankind, happy by his works, which had made known to all a thing hitherto unheard of.” Philip Beroaldus, the younger, sent him word “that Pope Leo X had read his Pythagorean book greedily, as he did all good books; afterwards the Cardinal de Medici had done so, and he himself should soon enjoy it.”26 Such was the interest which this newly-revealed Kabbalah created among Christians, that not only learned men but statesmen and warriors began to study the oriental languages, in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of this theosophy.