Desiderius Erasmus, Johannes Reuchlin and the Hebrew Language / Nathan Ron
According to Reuchlin, only the Jews draw from the sources and therefore the Hebrew language “must be kissed tenderly and embraced with both arms,” by Christianity. Contrarily, in 1504 Erasmus wrote to a colleague, “I have been wholly absorbed by Greek…. I began to take up Hebrew as well, but stopped because I was put off by the strangeness of the language… and the limitations of human nature will not allow a man to master too many things at once.” The positioning of the two greatest humanists north of the Alps against each other can facilitate a distinctive observation of Erasmus and a sharper comprehension of his prejudices concerning the Jews, their language and books— as much as to convince us to appreciate, with greater vigor, the outstanding intellectual and defender of the Jews that Reuchlin was.
