In 1515, Erasmus took time from his literary work to interest himself in behalf of his friend, the learned and high-minded Reuchlin, the greatest Hebrew scholar of the age. Reuchlin had fallen under the persecution of the Dominicans, led by the ignorant and bigoted Hochstraten, for his opposition to the diabolical proposal to destroy all existing Hebrew literature, the Scriptures alone excepted. He had defended himself in a book entitled _The Eyeglass_ (_Speculum Oculare_), and on a mandate being issued by Hochstraten to burn this, Reuchlin had appealed from the Inquisition to the Pope.[107] The Bishop of Speyer, to whom Leo committed the case, gave judgment in favour of Reuchlin, and imposed on his enemies perpetual silence, a sentence which proved difficult of execution. Reuchlin was condemned by the Universities of Mayence, Erfurt, Louvain, and Paris, although there were at the time professorships of Hebrew both in Louvain and in Paris. The matter, in some fashion, was again brought before the Pope. Erasmus made an earnest and eloquent appeal to the Pope on behalf of his friend, and the support of the Emperor Maximilian was also secured for the aged scholar who had done so much to bring honour upon the cause of learning in Germany and in Europe. The Pope finally confirmed the previous decision in favour of Reuchlin, a decision which rescued from the status of heresy, in which it had been placed by the Dominicans and the learned Faculties of the universities above specified, the language of the Hebrew Scriptures and the literature of the chosen people of God. Reuchlin’s books were rescued from the ban and their learned author was saved from the risk of the stake. He continued to teach Hebrew in Tübingen and in Ingolstadt, and published in 1520, in Stuttgart, the first Hebrew Dictionary issued in Germany. In the appeal made to the Pope by Erasmus, he is shrewd enough to emphasise the importance of the collaboration rendered by Reuchlin in the preparation of the _S. Jerome_, a work which had been fitly spoken of as an enormous service rendered to the Church, and which the Pope himself had specially commended.