Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/165

Rh and when the Copenhagen University had again been opened (in 1537), he resumed his teaching and lectured on the Hebrew language until 1541, when he was made Bishop of Ribe. Here he continued his literary activity and also translated the whole Bible from the original text, a work which has not been published and which with other of his productions is now lost.

Besides the persons already named who strove to promote and establish the Reformation by their writings, there were, of course, many others who were of no small significance to their age, but who sink into comparative insignificance when compared with those great characters. Among their adversaries there was only one prominent individual, Povel Helgesen (Paulus Eliæ). He was born about the year 1480 at Varberg, in the present Swedish province, Halland. His father was a Dane and his mother a Swede. For some time he was a monk in the Carmelite convent of Helsingör, but later in the reign of Christian II he became a lector in the University of Copenhagen. He is known by the nickname "Vendekaabe" (Versipellis, turn-coat), because he at first enthusiastically favored the ecclesiastic reform, but when it came, he assumed an attitude of hostility toward it. He was one of the first to oppose the objectionable sale of indulgences, even anticipating Luther himself, with whom he agreed in many respects. It is also said of him that when Magister Martin Reinhard at the summons of Christian II came from Wittenberg to Copenhagen to preach the new doctrine, he served the latter, who was ignorant of the Danish language, in the capacity of interpreter of his sermons to the people; but there are no conclusive proofs of this. At all events it seemed at one time as if this man, whose learning and eloquence had deservedly given him a wide reputation, and who was regarded as one of the ornaments of the Danish university, would become one of the leading spirits of the Reformation. But it was not long before Helgesen relinquished the cause which he had so ardently supported in the beginning.