Johannes Pfefferkorn

Johannes Pfefferkorn , originally his Jewish first name was Joseph (* 1469 probably from Moravia ; † October 22, 1521 in Cologne ), was a German Jew who converted to Christianity. He took an anti-Judaist stance , for example he advocated the burning of the Talmud and wrote diatribes . Pfefferkorn was best known through his conflict with Johannes Reuchlin .

Life

The place of birth of Johannes Pfefferkorn is uncertain. It will Moravia , but also Nuremberg suspected. According to his own account, he received instruction in the teachings of the Talmud from an uncle named Meir Pfefferkorn in Prague . In his opinion, the attitude from the Jewish religion would prevent the realization of a messianic kingdom of God. Pfefferkorn lived in Prague around 1491 and in Dachau around 1504 . He was probably a money lender and representative of the Jewish community in Dachau. Since 1504 he was married to Anna Pfefferkorn, who also converted to Christianity, her son was Laurentius Pfefferkorn. The Pfefferkorns were baptized around 1505 .

According to a document from Heinrich von Gutenstein dated October 24, 1509, Pfefferkorn stole from a fellow citizen, was imprisoned and was pardoned for a payment of 100 Hungarian guilders . This is contradicted by the fact that the city of Dachau issued Johannes Pfefferkorn with a certificate of good repute in the document of January 21, 1510 . In this document, the city of Dachau denies on the one hand that Johannes Pfefferkorn was convicted as a thief, on the other hand that he was a butcher.

After a troubled life Pfefferkorn came to Cologne , where he under the influence of the Dominicans in 1504 with his family from the Jewish faith to Christianity converted . In 1513 he is named as the hospital master of St. Ursula / St. Revilien and salt knife of the city.

As a tool of the Cologne Dominicans in their struggle against Judaism, he published diatribes against the Jews , including the Judenspiegel , “Speculum Adhortationis Judaicæ ad Christum”, “How the blind Jews keep their Easter”, “Jewish confession” (all 1508) and "Jew enemy" (1509). At the instigation of the Dominicans, in 1509 he received a mandate from Emperor Maximilian I to confiscate all Jewish writings. In Frankfurt am Main, Mainz, Bingen and in other cities in the Rhineland, the order was carried out amid considerable unrest among the Christian population. The Archbishop of Mainz, Uriel von Gemmingen , and the Council of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt protested against Pfefferkorn's actions.

The emperor ordered the restitution of the confiscated books at the Diet of Worms in 1510 and at the same time set up a commission of inquiry with Uriel von Gemmingen as chairman. Johannes Reuchlin , who was appointed to the commission , objected to Pfefferkorn's actions in an expert report and advocated the fact that Jewish life and literature should be studied in a manner willing to learn. In the dispute between the parties, which was carried out with writings and counter-writings, Reuchlin was supported by his humanist friends, especially by Erasmus of Rotterdam . Pfefferkorn had support from the Cologne Dominicans and found support from the inquisitor Jakob van Hoogstraten and also from the University of Paris .

In his hand mirror , published in 1511, Pfefferkorn tried to refute Reuchlin's positive opinion on the Talmud, and he also attacked Reuchlin personally in his work. In the same year Reuchlin defended his position in the ophthalmoscope . The dispute intensified and did not end despite the imperial command of silence from June 1513 and the papal vote for the position represented by Reuchlin in March 1514. In the " Obscure Letters " after 1515, the dispute finally escalated and deviated from the original goals .

Works

• For what the blind Jews think of Easter . 1509 digitized version
• I am ain Buchlinn, the Jews is my name . 1509 digitized version
• Explicatio quomodo ceci Judei suum pascha servent et maxime quo vitu paschalem cenam manducent. Expression preterea judaeos esse hereticos et desertores veteris et oppugnatores novi testamenti . 1509 digitized version
• In laudem et honorem illustrissimi Maximiliani dei gratia Romanorum imperatoris . von Neuss, Cologne 1518. ( Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf )

literature

• Paul Gerhard Aring:  Pfefferkorn, Johannes. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 1359-1360.
• Ludwig Geiger:  Pfefferkorn, Johannes . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 621-624.
• Karl-Heinz Gerschmann : On Johannes Pfefferkorn's 'translation' of the Gospels. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 21, 1969, 166–171.
• Heinrich Graetz : History of the Jews from the exile of the Jews from Spain and Portugal (1494) to the permanent settlement of the Marranos in Holland (1618) . 4. through Ed., Oskar Leiner, Leipzig 1907, pp. 477–506 (the same: History of the Jews from the oldest times to the present. Revised from the sources . Vol. 9)
• Hans Martin Kirn: The image of Judaism in Germany in the early 16th century, depicted in the writings of Johannes Pfefferkorn. Mohr, Tübingen 1989 ISBN 3-16-745354-0 (Texts and studies in medieval and early modern Judaism 3).
• Ellen Martin: The German writings of Johannes Pfefferkorn. On the problem of hatred of Jews and intolerance in the pre-Reformation period. Kümmerle, Göppingen 1994 ISBN 3-87452-849-9 (Göppingen works on German studies 604).
• Ellen Martin:  Pfefferkorn, Johannes. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 311 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Avraham Siluk (editor): The Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn dispute over the Jewish books . In: Privileges, Pogroms, Emancipation. German-Jewish history from the Middle Ages to the present. Model project in the Leo Baeck program, ed. by Reinhard Neebe online

Web links

Wikisource: Johannes Pfefferkorn  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Johannes Pfefferkorn in the catalog of the German National Library
• Pfefferkorn, Johannes. Hessian biography. (As of May 9, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
• Pfefferkorn, Johannes in the Frankfurt personal dictionary
• Robinson (1918): Reuchlin, Pfefferkorn, and the Talmud in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
• Reuchlin , Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Calvin College
• Norbert Flörken (2014) The dispute over the books of the Jews

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nuremberg is also assumed to be the place of birth. His original profession as a butcher is also uncertain
2. ↑ Cf. Robert Jütte : "Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) and the 'social question' of his time - a contribution to the conjectural history", in: The world in the eye mirror. Johannes Reuchlin and his time, ed. v. Daniela Hacke u. Bernd Roeck. Stuttgart 2002 (Pforzheimer Reuchlinschriften 8), pp. 29–42, here p. 42.
3. ^ Heinrich Graetz, p. 65.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Johannes Pfefferkorn In: Catholic Encyclopedia (English)
5. ↑ Kurt Schubert: Christianity and Judaism through the ages. Böhlau Verlag Vienna, 2003, ISBN 3-2057-7084-6 , p. 121
6. ^ After Heinrich Graetz around 1505. (p. 65)