Steganography Vindicated, Unlocked and Illustrated

How many insults did the innocent youth suffer from his stepfather? How many showers of tears did he pour out in his distress before he could escape a yoke more cruel than any slavery? At last, he fled his step-family’s house original: "domum novercam," literally "stepmother's house," though context emphasizes his stepfather's cruelty., just as the Israelite multitude fled Egypt, and for the love of letters, he completed a three-day journey through the wilderness. He traveled first to Trier, then to the lower regions, and finally to the town of Heidelberg. Thus, having completed his three-day journey in a foreign land, he finally offered himself at the Monastery of Sponheim as a perpetual burnt offering original: "holocaustum;" here used metaphorically to mean a total, living sacrifice of himself to God's service. to the Lord God.

CHAPTER III.

THE ENTRANCE OF TRITHEMIUS INTO THE MONASTERY OF SPONHEIM.

In the year of the Lord’s Nativity 1482, Johannes Trithemius became a monk of the Monastery of Sponheim quite miraculously and against his own original intention. It happened in this way: when he had set out on a journey from Heidelberg with a fellow student toward his homeland, he entered the Monastery of Sponheim (because it was on his way) merely to visit. This occurred on the eighth day before the Calends of February January 25th. in the morning around the ninth hour. After they had finished their midday meal, thinking of nothing less than joining a religious order, he departed to continue his planned journey.

However, being ignorant of the roads, when they both reached the mountain adjacent to the small village of Bockenaw, a massive heap of snow and a thick storm of clouds suddenly began to rise. This not only covered the path of the roads but, blowing directly against them, nearly blinded their eyes. When his traveling companion urged him to return to the monastery since they could not go forward, Trithemius replied: "It is too shameful to turn back; let us rather go forward as far as we can." But as they waited three times under the shelter of trees for the storm to end, and it only grew worse, Trithemius said to his companion again: "We must return to the Monastery; behold, you will see me staying there." He said this under the inspiration of some Divine power—though he knew it not—for even as he spoke those words, he was still not considering entering the religious life.

Thus, having returned to this place unwillingly but by necessity, he was destined to remain according to the words he had unknowingly spoken. Led by the persuasion of Henry of Holtzhausen, who was the Prior Prior: the deputy head of a monastery, or the head of a smaller religious house at that time, he changed his mind. On the day of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary February 2nd; also known as Candlemas., he cast off his secular clothing at exactly twenty years of age. Later, on the day of our Holy Father Benedict March 21st, the feast of the founder of the Benedictine Order., he became a novice, and in that same year, on the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin November 21st., he made his profession profession: the formal act of taking religious vows to live according to a monastic rule according to the Rule along with three others. Having become a monk, he lived among the brothers without cause for complaint; he preferred the study of letters and the solitude of the cell to all the delights of this world, and he seemed to thirst for nothing more in this life than the knowledge of the scriptures.