Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/177

Rh freshness by which it had been characterized during the years of strife and fermentation, and the more theology was developed, the more it relapsed into subtleties fully on the level with the scholastic methods of an earlier day. In this field the censure was particularly able to exert its influence so detrimental to all healthy intellectual growth, and from the theological domain it also invaded the field of secular knowledge, becoming increasingly oppressive with the lapse of years. The dread of being denounced as a heretic compelled all scientific research to move in one definite approved groove, and woe unto him who dared to depart from it.

Niels Hemmingsen (1513-1600), Denmark's greatest theologian in the sixteenth century, had bitter experiences in this respect even in his time. He was the son of poor peasants on the island of Lolland, and, having lost his father, he was as a mere boy adopted by his paternal uncle, who was a village smith, and there he was to learn his uncle's trade. Meanwhile his love of books was so great that he overcame all obstacles and succeeded in getting into school. When he was prepared to enter the university, the Copenhagen University had become utterly broken up. He therefore continued his studies three years longer in Lund, where the rector happened to be one of the most celebrated humanists of Denmark, and under his direction he enjoyed exceptional opportunities of getting a thorough knowledge of Greek, and thence he went to Wittenberg in 1537, where he attended the university for five years and took the master's degree. By his industry and talents he won in a high degree the favor of Melancthon and on his recommendation he was made professor of Greek and afterward of theology at the University of Copenhagen. He published numerous theological works, mostly in the Latin language, and only one of his larger works, a volume on Christian dogmatics, "The Way of Life," was written in Danish. As a theological scholar who early received the cognomen, "The Teacher of Denmark," and who gathered around him a school of grateful disciples,