Jt/
c
HEROES OF THE REFORMATION.
I. Martin Luther (1483-1 546). THE HERO
OF THE REFORMATION. By Henry Eyster
Jacobs, D.D., LL.D.
II. Philip Melanchthon(i497-i56o). THE
PROTESTANT PRECEPTOR OF GERMANY. By
James William Richard, D.D.
III. Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1 536). THE
HUMANIST IN THE SERVICE OF THE RE
FORMATION. By Ephraim Emerton, Ph.D.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Ifoeroes of tbe TRcformation
EDITED BY
Samuel flDacnulev Jackson
PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY, NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY
Aioipe'creis \opto-fiaTioi', TO Si airrb irvf
DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS, BUT THE SAME SPIRIT.
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS BY HOLBEIN.
ORIGINAL IN THE LOUVRE.
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
OF ROTTERDAM
BY
EPHRAIM EMERTON, PH.D.
WINN PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN HAKVARD
UNIVERSITY
O Erasme Roterodame, wo wiltu bleiben ? Sieh, was vermag die
ungerecht tyranney der weltlichen gewahlt, der macht der finsternuss?
Hor, du fitter Christ!, reith hervor neben den herrn Christum, beschiiz
die wahrheit, erlang der martarer cron.
A. DORER'S DIARY, 1521.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS . 2^
NEW YORK AND LONDON * X,
1?nicherbocfter press ^ x <v\
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
JUL 2 1 1947
Cbc RnCcherbocfeec prea?, Hew
PREFACE
A COMPLETE and satisfactory life of Erasmus
of Rotterdam still remains to be written. Its
author will have to be a thorough student of the
classic literatures, a theologian familiar with every
form of Christian speculation, a historian, to whom
the complicated movement of the Reformation is
altogether intelligible, an educator, a moralist, and
a man of humour. Only to such a person if such
there ever were could the writing of this life be a
wholly congenial task. The subject has been ap
proached by different writers from all the points of
view indicated, but no biography has yet shown the
whole range or value of Erasmus' varied activities.
The limitations of the present volume have fortun
ately been clearly defined by the title of the series
in which it forms a part. Its function is to deal with
Erasmus as a factor in the Protestant Reformation
of the sixteenth century. With the very peculiar
and often elusive personality of the man it has to
do only in so far as it serves to suggest an explana
tion of his attitude towards the world-movement of
his time. I say " suggest an explanation " rather
than " explain," because, with all diligence, I can
not hope to have made clear all of the many pro-
iv Preface
blems involved in the inquiry. At every stage of the
study of Erasmus one has to ask first what he be
lieved himself to be doing, then what he wished
others to believe he was doing, then what others
did think he was doing, and finally what the man
actually was doing. And all this has to be learned
chiefly from his own words and from his reports of
the words of others.
His life was full of strange incongruities, and any
story of his life which should seek to cover these in
congruities by any fictitious theory of consistency
would but ill reflect the truth. And yet, with all
its pettinesses and weaknesses, its contradictions
and its comings-short of natural demands upon it,
this life has, after all, an element of the heroic. If
there be a heroism of persistent work and cheerful
endurance, of steady exclusion of all distractions, of
refusal to commit oneself to anything or anybody
which might impede one's chosen line of duty, then
we may gladly admit Erasmus into the choice com
pany of the Heroes of the Reformation.
Such a distinction would vastly have amused him.
He would have seized his pen and dashed off to
some friend, who would spread the word, some such
disclaimer as this: " Well, of all things in the world,
now they are calling me a hero! If you never
laughed before, laugh now to your heart's content.
I a hero! a man afraid of my shadow, a man of
books, a hater of conflict, a man, who, if he were
put to the test would, I fear, follow the example of
Peter and deny his Lord. And, not content with
this, they add ' of the Reformation.' I, who never,
Preface v
by word or deed, drunk or sober, gave so much as a
hint of belonging to any of their accursed ' move
ments ' ! Well, no man can strive against the
Fates."
I have chosen the chronological method because
it serves best to illustrate the development of the
man in his relation to his time. Such selections
from Erasmus' writings have been chosen for de
tailed examination as bear most directly upon the
main objects of the book. It has seemed wiser to
make them long enough to show their true meaning
rather than to use a greater number of mere scraps,
which might in almost every case be contradicted by
other scraps. So far as possible the merely contro
versial has been avoided. For example, I have
barely alluded to the prolonged discussions with
Archbishop Lee, the Frenchman Bedda, the Span
iard Stunica, and the Italian prince of Carpi. The
detail of these controversies tends rather to confuse
than to illuminate the point of chief interest to us.
Yet no treatment of Erasmus could escape entirely
the tone of controversy. He set that tone himself
and the student of his writings inevitably falls into it.
The translations have been kept as close to the
originals as was consistent with a freedom of style
somewhat corresponding to Erasmus' own. It
would be hopeless to attempt, by any paraphrasing
whatever, to improve upon the freshness and vivac
ity of the author.
My thanks are due to many friends for kind assist
ance and suggestion, but especially to my colleague,
Professor Albert A. Howard of the Latin depart-
vi Preface
ment of Harvard University, to whose careful revis
ion the accuracy of the translations is chiefly due.
References to the Leyden edition of Erasmus'
works in 1703-1706 are given simply by volume,
page (column), and division of the column, as, e. g.,
iii. 1 , I57-B.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE iii
INTRODUCTION . xi
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ...... Xxi
CHAPTER I.
SCHOOL AND MONASTERY. 1467-1490 ... I
CHAPTER II.
PARIS AND HOLLAND. 1492-1498 ... 26
CHAPTER III.
FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 1498-1500 ... 62
CHAPTER IV.
PARIS THE " ADAGIA " THE " ENCHIRIDION
MILITIS CHRISTIANI " PANEGYRIC ON PHILIP
OF BURGUNDY. 1500-1506 .... 87
CHAPTER V.
RESIDENCE IN ITALY THE " PRAISE OF FOLLY."
1506-1509 ....... 122
CHAPTER VI.
ENGLAND (1509-1514) THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE " DE COPIA VERBORUM ET RERUM." . . 179
vii
viii Contents
CHAPTER VII. PAGE
BASEL AND LOU VAIN THE " INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS
CHRISTIANI." 1515-1518 .... 2l8
CHAPTER VIII.
BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION CORRESPOND
ENCE OF 1518-1519 ..... 268
CHAPTER IX.
DEFINITE BREACH WITH THE REFORMING PARTIES
HUTTEN'S " EXPOSTULATIO " AND ERASMUS*
"SPONGIA." 1520-1523 .... 336
CHAPTER X.
DOCTRINAL OPPOSITION TO THE REFORMATION
FREEDOM OF THE WILL THE EUCHARIST
THE "SPIRIT." 1523-1527 .... 380
CHAPTER XI.
FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES NEW TESTAMENT PARA
PHRASES CONTROVERSIAL AND DIDACTIC
WRITINGS REMOVAL TO FREIBURG LAST
REFORMATORY TREATISES RETURN TO BASEL
DEATH. 1523-1536 ..... 420
INDEX 465
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ERASMUS ..... Frontispiece
From the portrait by Holbein in the Louvre.
STATUE OF ERASMUS AT ROTTERDAM ... 2
HOUSE AT ROTTERDAM IN WHICH ERASMUS WAS
BORN ... ..... 4
From Knight's " Life of Erasmus."
PARISH CHURCH AT ALDINGTON, KENT 2O
From Knight's " Life of Erasmus."
HOLBEIN'S STUDIES FOR THE HANDS OF ERASMUS . 48
THOMAS MORE ....... 64
From the portrait by Holbein in Windsor Castle.
JOHN COLET ........ 70
From the portrait by Holbein in Windsor Castle.
HENRY VIII. AND HENRY VII ...... 78
Fragment of a cartoon by Holbein in possession of
the Duke of Devonshire.
FRONTISPIECE AND TITLE-PAGE FROM
DE LA FOLIE," PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN IN 1715, 124
ALDUS P. MANUTIUS ...... 134
From an old print.
CARDINAL REGINALD POLE ..... 146
From " Erasmi Opera," published at Leyden, 1703.
CARDINAL PETER BEMBO . . . . . . 154
From " Erasmi Opera," published at Leyden, 1703.
x Illustrations
PAGE
HOLBEIN'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE " PRAISE OF
FOLLY" 158
HOLBEIN'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE "PRAISE OF
FOLLY "........ 162
HOLBEIN'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE " PRAISE OF
FOLLY " 166
TITLE-PAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 1519 . . l8o
WILLIAM WARHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY . 184
From a painting by Holbein in the Louvre.
QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE .... 190
From Knight's " Life of Erasmus."
JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER . . . 194
From the portrait by Holbein in Windsor Castle.
CARDINAL XIMENES 2OO
From a portrait by C. E. Wagstaff in the Florence
Gallery.
DEVICE OF THE HOUSE OF FROBEN .... 204
DEVICE OF FROBEN 206
PORTRAIT OF FROBEN BY HOLBEIN. EPITAPH BY
ERASMUS FACSIMILE OF HANDWRITING . . 232
From Knight's " Life of Erasmus."
BONIFACE AMERBACH OF BASEI 236
From " Erasmi Opera," published at Leyden, 1703.
CHARLES V 262
From an engraving by Bartel Behain, 1531.
PHILIP MELANCHTHON 280
From the portrait by Holbein in Windsor Castle.
FRONTISPIECE (ERASMUS SEATED) TO " ERASMI
OPERA," PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN, 1703 . . 296
Illustrations xi
PAGE
ERASMUS WITH " TERMINUS " . . . .314
From a woodcut by Holbein in the Basel Museum.
ERASMUS 334
From a copper engraving by Albrecht Dtirer.
FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ERASMUS TO JOHANNES
LANGE 342
ULRICH VON HUTTEN 362
From a contemporary woodcut.
BILIBALD PIRKHEIMER OF NUREMBERG . . . 414
From an engraving by Albrecht Diirer, in " Erasmi
Opera," published at Leyden, 1703.
TITLE-PAGE TO THE "COLLOQUIES OF ERASMUS,"
PUBLISHED AT AMSTERDAM, 1693 . . . 424
Portrait of Erasmus and others.
TITLE-PAGE TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION OF THE
" APOPHTHEGMS OF ERASMUS," TRANSLATED BY
UDALL, 1542 . . . . . . . 450
INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMB OF ERASMUS, AT BASEL, 460
From Knight's " Life of Erasmus."
INTRODUCTION
THE student of Erasmus is at first overwhelmed
by the abundance of the material before him.
A man who has left to posterity enough to fill eleven
folio volumes would seem to have made a biographer
unnecessary. Especially when two of these volumes
are filled with personal letters, more than eighteen
hundred in number, and addressed to some five
hundred correspondents, it might well seem that the
best biography would be a faithful transcript of
what the man himself has given us. And, in fact,
almost all that we know about Erasmus comes
through himself. The singular thing is that with
this great mass of material we know so little that is
definite about him.
He lived in one of the most eventful periods of
the world's history, and was in some kind of per
sonal relation with its leading actors; and yet his
life, from beginning to end, has not one event more
important or stirring than a journey in winter, an
attack of illness, a quarrel with some fellow scholar,
or a change of residence. Our whole knowledge of
his early life up to the period of production is de
rived from a very brief record made by himself
many years afterward and made obviously with both
a literary and a practical purpose.
xiv Introduction
His letters were largely collected and published
by himself long after they were written, and were,
so he himself tells us, freely altered for publication.
Their chronology is hopelessly confused. Erasmus
says that he supplied many of them with the day
and year when he came to edit them. He was him
self at all times curiously indifferent to the merely
historical. It was always subordinate in his mind to
the broadly human and philosophical. The letters
must therefore be read with constant reference to
their immediate purpose, and few of them are with
out purpose, though it would require a bold man
indeed to be always sure just what it is. Luther's
judgment upon them was unjustly severe: " In the
epistles of Erasmus you find nothing of any account,
except praise for his friends, scolding and abuse for
his enemies, and that 's all there is to it." The
principles which governed Erasmus as editor of his
own correspondence are indicated in a letter ' of 1520
to Beatus Rhenanus.
He represents himself as driven to edit them in
order to check the publication of unauthorised edi
tions, of which several had certainly appeared before
1519. He determined to make at least a selection
and judiciously to modify the contents. " With
this purpose I revised the collection. Some things
I explained, which certain persons had interpreted
unfavourably. Some, which I found had offended
the oversensitive and irritable tempers of certain
persons, I struck out.. Some things I softened."
But, after all, he says, as time went on, he repented
Introduction xv
him of his plan and urged Froben, to whom he had
sent the " copy," to suppress it entirely or put it off
to a more fitting time. But the work was so far
along that Froben declared he would not throw
away all that expense, and Erasmus just had to
humour him. " I had to give way to him and incur
myself perhaps the risk of my reputation in order to
save him the risk of his money."
Erasmus shared with most scholars of the Renais
sance the cacoethes scribendi. He says of himself that
his words were rather poured out than written.
When he took his pen in hand it became an inde
pendent force, against which he had to contend lest
it run away with him altogether, and it is one of his
claims to greatness as a writer that on the whole he
kept the mastery over it. This essentially literary
quality must be constantly borne in mind by the
historian and he must always be striving to fix the
line where history ends and literature begins.
Again, and here also Erasmus was eminently a
Renaissance man, he felt himself to be the centre
of the world. In a sense that is, of course, true of
every thinking man ; but in Erasmus this newly
awakened individual consciousness took on a form
of acute personal sensitiveness which affected his
relation to all persons and all things about him.
Especially it reacted upon his writing. He could
not be objective upon any question into which his
personality entered ever so slightly. Whatever
touched him as a man, as a scholar, a theologian, a
churchman, or a citizen, began at once to lose its
1 See also the long treatise, de conscribendis epistolis, i., 341-483.
xvi Introduction
true perspective. He saw it only in its relation to
himself, or at best to the cause of pure learning,
which he always felt to be embodied in himself.
No writer upon Erasmus has failed to notice these
qualities. The singular thing has been that, recog
nising them, the biographers have not tried in any
consistent fashion to measure them as affecting the
value of our sources of knowledge. It has generally
sufficed to refer to them and then to treat the sources
as pure historical information. Plainly the solution
is not an easy one. If we should reject, for example,
the letter to Grunnius ' or the Colloquy on The Eat
ing of Fish * as sources for Erasmus' early life, we
should have very little left. If we should accept
them as history we should be mingling fact and
fancy in altogether uncertain proportions. The
only safe method is, therefore, to try in each case
to weigh the value of the text before us with fullest
reference to all the circumstances.
This rule applies as well to the treatises as to the
letters, whenever the personal element enters into
the account. Where no such issue can be raised,
as, for example, in the purely philological essays or
in the treatises against war, or in abstract moral or
didactic writing, we are often forced to admire the
vigour and decision of Erasmus' utterance. But if
his personal judgment was assailed, as it frequently
was, then even on a merely grammatical question
his sensitive temper was readily roused to a kind of
defence which we find very difficult to accept as a
calm statement of fact.
'Hi. 8 , 1821. 8 i., 787-810.
Introduction xvii
Another source of confusion is Erasmus' amazing
command of classic literature and his cleverness in
utilising, not merely the forms, but at times the
ideas and even the phrases of ancient authors. How
much of what he says, for example, in his descrip
tions of persons, whether favourably or unfavourably,
is really his own and how much borrowed is often
quite impossible to discover. This borrowing or
adapting is so much a habit that he obviously bor
rows from himself, using under similar circum
stances what seem to have become almost formulas
of his thought. He must be literary ; he might be
accurate.
Of contemporary biographical attempts we have
almost nothing. Erasmus' younger friend, Beatus
Rhenanus of -Schlettstadt in Alsatia, one of the
Basel circle of scholars, has left us two fragments,
one a dedication to the Emperor Charles V. of the
1540 edition of Erasmus' works, and the other from
the dedication to an edition of Origen in 1536 with
Erasmus' revision. These two brief sketches fill
but six printed folio pages. They are disfigured by
elaborate panegyric, not only of Erasmus, but of
the emperor as well, are obviously drawn from Eras
mus' own account of himself, and contribute little
original material to our knowledge.
In regard to his writings, Erasmus on two occa
sions made attempts to summarise his work, once in
1524 at the request of John Botzheim, a canon of
the church at Constance, and again, during his resid
ence at Freiburg, in reply to an inquiry from
Hector Boethius of the University of Aberdeen.
xviii Introduction
The latter is a mere table of contents for a possible
complete edition of his works, but the former in
cludes a great deal of description of the circum
stances under which many of the works were written.
These descriptions are at times so trivial that they
can hardly command our respect, and yet it would
of course be impossible to deny that a work of great
importance may have had a trivial suggestion. This
longer catalogue gives us also a good many side
lights upon Erasmus' personality and movements.
The general arrangement and division into volumes
suggested by Erasmus himself were followed in the
first Basel edition of 1540, and have been preserved
in the Leyden edition of Leclerc in 1703-1706 which
we have used.
That the following pages will give a clear and con
sistent impression of Erasmus' motive at each stage
of his career is more than we can hope for. The
best we can offer is an honest appreciation of his
great service to the cause of reform, often in ways
he little expected or desired, often very indirectly,
and always without relation to any definite scheme
of action. We may, however, fairly hope that as
each occasion arises, we have so plainly set the pos
sibilities before the reader that he may form an
intelligent judgment as to the probability.
The most serious problem at every step is what
weight to give to Erasmus' statements about him
self. The only reasonable test is to be found in
what he actually did. If, for example, he professes
undying love for the city of Rome and an uncon
trollable desire to end his days there ; at the
Introduction xix
same time protests that everyone at Rome is long
ing to have him there, and yet takes no steps to go,
we are forced to inquire what were the reasons which
kept him away, and may have to conclude that all
this was a bit of comedy arranged for some effect
which we, as plain historians, should be glad to
understand.
In applying these tests to Erasmus' declarations
about the Reformation we find the largest scope for
the critical method. All that is mysterious in his
personality up to that time becomes doubly so when
he finds himself he would have us believe quite
against his will thrust forward into prominence as
a rebel against the existing order. Several courses
of action were open to him : First, and most obvious,
to keep silent; second, to join with the party of re
form, try to hold it to the essential things, and supply
it with the weapons of learning which none could
prepare so well as he; third, to denounce the re
form, seek his safety in close alliance with Rome, and
then try to moderate, as far as he could, the ex
tremes of Roman abuse. No one of these methods
commended itself wholly to his judgment or to
his nature. He could not be silent ; he would not
lend himself to what he called " sedition " ; and he
neither could, nor did he quite dare, trust himself
in the hands of the Church he professed to serve,
lest he find his liberty of action restricted beyond
endurance.
The world into which Erasmus was born was a
world of violent contrasts. The papal system, hav
ing come victorious out of the struggle with the
xx Introduction
conciliar movement of the fifteenth century, seemed
to control without resistance every current of ec
clesiastical life and thought. Yet the deep and
steady flow of sincere and simple faith best repre
sented by the mystical writers, individual and asso
ciated, was gaining in force and was making Europe
ready for a revolt they never even thought of. The
spirit of modern science, which is nothing more than
a desire to see things in their true relations, was
making itself felt in invention and discovery and in
the revelation of Man to himself as a being worth
investigating. Yet over against this spirit of light
and liberty hovers the dark shadow of the Inquisi
tion and its kindred manifestations of an exclusive
claim to the knowledge and control of the Truth.
Vast political powers were contending for the pos
session of long-disputed territories, while within
their borders great social and industrial discon
tents were gathering to a demonstration whenever
the strain of these dynastic struggles should become
unbearable.
There were men in this vast conflict of ideas to
whom it was given to lead others along some visible
and definable road to some determinable end :
Thomas a Kempis along the way of faith to the
haven of religious peace; Luther and Calvin along
the way of doctrinal clearness through ecclesiastical
revolution to deliberate reconstruction ; Descartes
through a single, all-inclusive philosophical proposi
tion to ultimate certainty of thought; the great
artists through " painting the thing as they saw it "
to a new basis of aesthetic judgment. The special
Introduction xxi
function of Erasmus in the Great Readjustment was,
as he conceived it, to bring men back to the stand
ards of a true Christianity by constant reference to
the principles of ancient learning, and by an appeal
to the tribunal of common sense. His activity took
many forms; but he was always, whether through
classical treatise or encyclopaedic collection or satiri
cal dialogue or direct moral appeal always and
everywhere, the preacher of righteousness. His suc
cesses were invariably along this line. His failures
were caused by his incapacity to perceive at what
moment the mere appeal to the moral sense was no
longer adequate. His services to the Reformation
were warmly recognised even by so violent an op
ponent as Hutten; his personal limitations were in
danger of making those services of no avail, and
there was the point where he and those with whom
he ought to have worked parted company.
Our work divides itself naturally into two parts:
First, the development of Erasmus up to the out
break of the Lutheran Reformation in 1517, and sec
ond, his relation to the leading persons and ideas
of the next twenty years. In treating the former
period we shall examine the traditional story of
Erasmus' early education, and shall illustrate by
selections showing as fairly as may be what proved
to be the dominant traits of his mind and character.
In the second part we shall endeavour to show how
the traits thus formed determined his attitude to
wards the unexpected demands of a new time.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
IT would be idle to attempt here an Erasmian
bibliography, since the elaborate undertaking
of the University Library at Ghent in 1893 l has
placed the material available up to that date in a
form accessible to every reader. The same editors
are now engaged upon a still more stupendous enter
prise, a bibliography, 2 in 16 form, giving complete
titles of all known editions of every work. Begun
in 1897, it thus far includes only the editions of the
Adagia. I give here, therefore, only the sources
likely to interest the general reader and especially
such as I have consulted in the preparation of this
volume.
I have used constantly the Leyden edition of
Erasmus' works 3 based upon the Basel edition of
1 540. The arrangement is roughly according to the
nature of the material. The editorial work is meagre
and careless. The indexes are elaborately and ex-
asperatingly useless. In the case of the letters,
1 Bibliotheca Erasmiana ; Repertoire des aeuvres d' ' Erasme. Ghent,
1893.
s Bibliotheca Erasmiana ; Bibliographie des ceuvres d' Erasme.
Ghent, 1897.
3 Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opera omma, emendatiora et
auctiora, etc., ed. Johannes Clericus (Jean LeClerc), 10 vols., folio.
Leyden, 1703-1706.
xxiii
xxiv Bibliographical Note
though the editor is perfectly conscious of false
arrangement and dating, he leaves them as he finds
them, and the reader is compelled to discover the
inaccuracies for himself. Professor Adalbert Hora-
witz of Vienna was preparing to write a Life of Eras
mus when he was interrupted by death in 1888. His
preliminary studies ' have supplied much new ma
terial and given us many valuable critical sugges
tions. In 1876 Professor W. Vischer of Basel, acting
on the suggestion of Horawitz, published a series of
very interesting documents which he had discovered
in the Basel University Library, and which throw
much light upon several obscure points in the life of
Erasmus.* An article by the late Dr. R. Fruin,'
which came to my knowledge after the completion
of the manuscript, quite confirms my view of the
utter untrustworthiness of Erasmus' accounts of his
early life. Jortin's Life of Erasmus, first published
in 1758-60, 2d ed., in 3 vols., 1808, is little more
than a translation of LeClerc's Vie d'Erasme*
which was published as a kind of rsum6 and adver
tisement at once of the Leyden Opera. Jortin gives,
however, in addition, a good many documents and
a mass of more or less relevant remarks.
1 Horawitz, Adalbert, Erasmiana ; in Sitzungsberichte der K.
Akademie der IVissenschaften. Vienna, 1878-1885. Text and
documents. Ueber die Colloquia des Erasmus ; in Raumer's ffis-
torisches Taschenbuch. 1887.
* Vischer, Wilhelm, Erasmiana. Basel, 1876.
8 Fruin, R., Erasmiana; in Bijdragen voor va der lands c he ge-
schiedenis en ouheidkunde, new series, x., 1880 ; 3d series, i., 1882.
* Jean LeClerc, Vie d' Erasme tir/e de ses lettres, etc., in Bibli-
othtyue choisie. Amsterdam, 1703 sqq.^ vols. i., v., vi., viii.
Bibliographical Note xxv
Of more recent biographies, that of R. B. Drum-
mond ' is, all things considered, the best ; careful
and serious, but showing the almost universal tend
ency to take Erasmus at his word, even while ad
mitting his incapacity to tell the truth.
Durand de Laur" gives in his first volume a sketch
of Erasmus* life with little critical sifting of evidence,
and in the second an interesting examination of his
achievements in the several lines of his activity.
Froude's Life and Letters * illustrates the author's
familiar qualities, his remarkable distinctness of
view and his complete indifference to accuracy of
detail.
Samuel Knight's Life* 1726, is still readable. It
deals chiefly with the relations of Erasmus to Eng
land, and gives a great deal of " curious informa
tion " about persons incidentally connected with
him.
Other works likely to be of interest to the reader
and student are :
Altmeyer, J. J., Les pr/curseurs de la Re"forme aux Pays-bas,
Brussels, 1886. Erasme et Its hommes de son temps, vol. i., pp.
258-343.
Amiel, Emile, Un Libre-penseur du XVI siecle : Erasme. Paris,
1889.
1 Drummond, Robert B., Erasmus, his Life and Character as
shown in his Correspondence and Works. 2 vols. London, 1873.
* Durand de Laur, H. Erasme, prfcurseur et initiateur de
I' esprit moderne. 2 vols. Paris, 1872.
3 Froude, James Anthony, Life and Letters of Erasmus ; lectures
delivered at Oxford, 1893-94. London and New York, 1894.
* Knight, Samuel, The Life of Erasmus. Cambridge, 1726. With
many valuable documents.
xxvi Bibliographical Note
Burigny, J. L. de, Vie d' Erasme. 2 vols. Paris, 1757.
Butler, Charles, Life of Erasmus. London, 1825.
Feugere, Gaston, Erasme, Etude sur sa vie et ses ouvrages.
Paris, 1874.
Hartfelder, Karl, D. Erasmus von Rotterdam und die Pdpste seiner
Zeit; in Raumer's Historisch.es Taschenbuch, 1891.
Hartfelder, Karl, Friedrich der Weise und D. Erasmus von Rot
terdam ; in Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Literaturgeschichte, etc. ,
new series, iv., 1891.
Janssen, Joh., Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang
des Mittelalters. Freiburg, 1879, and in repeated editions. On
Erasmus in vol. ii.
Kammel, H., Erasmus in Deventer ; in Jahrbucher fur classisc he
Philologie, vol. ex.
Mtiller, Adolph, Leben des Erasmus. Hamburg, 1828.
Nolhac, Pierre de, Erasme en Italie ; e'tude sur un Episode de la
Renaissance avec douze lettres ine"dites d' Erasme. Paris, 1888.
Pennington, A. R., The Life of Erasmus. London, 1875.
Richter, Arthur, Erasmus-studien. Dresden, 1891.
Seebohm, Frederic, The Oxford Reformers of 1498: Colet,
Erasmus, More. London, 1867 ; 3d ed., 1887.
Staehelin, R., Erasmus' Stellung zur Reformation. Basel, 1873.
Stichart, F. O., Erasmus von Rotterdam, Seine Stellung zu der
Kirche und zu den kirchlichen Be-wegungen seiner Zeit. Leipzig, 1870.
Woltmann, A., Holbein und seine Zeit. Leipzig, 1866-68, 2 parts ;
2d ed., 1874-76, 2 vols. English translation, Holbein and his 7'ime.
London, 1872.
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
CHAPTER I
SCHOOL AND MONASTERY
1467-1490
IN a letter 1 written by Erasmus, in 1520, to Peter
Manius occurs a passage so characteristic of the
writer that one can hardly have a better introduction
to the study of his life. Manius had urged him to
declare frankly that he was not a Frenchman but a
German, in order that Germany might not be de
frauded of so great a glory. Erasmus replies:
" In the first place it seems to me to make little differ
ence where a man is born, and I think it a vain sort of
glorification when a city or a nation boasts of producing a
man who has become great through his own exertions
and not by the help of his native land. Far more pro
perly may that country boast which has made him great
than that which brought him forth. So far I speak as if
there were anything in me in which my country might
take pride. It is enough for me if she be not ashamed
of me, though indeed Aristotle does not wholly disap-
"iii. 1 , 582-0.
2 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
prove that kind of pride which may add a spur to the
pursuit of a worthy aim.
" If there were any of this kind of pride in me I should
wish that not France and Germany alone should claim
me, but that each and every nation and city might go into
the strife for Erasmus. It would be a useful error which
should incite so many to worthy effort. Whether I am
a Batavian or no is not even yet quite clear to me. I
cannot deny that I am a Hollander, born in that region
which, if we may trust the map-makers, lies rather to
wards France than towards Germany; although it is
beyond a doubt that that whole region is on the border
land between the two."
Erasmus cared not where he was born and cer
tainly was in no way identified with Rotterdam, his
native place. He often speaks of " us " and " our
people," referring to Low Germans generally, but
he preferred to be called a citizen of the world, and
his whole life is the illustration of this indifference.
Though born a Dutchman, it has been doubted
whether he could speak with readiness his native
tongue, and it seems certain that no other modern
language came as readily to his lips as did the
speech of ancient Rome. 1 During a long life he
was continually in motion, never resting more than
a few years in any one place, always seeking more
favourable conditions for the work he had in hand.
1 I quite agree with Dr. A. Richter, Erasmus- Studien, 1891, that
Erasmus cannot be accused of any contempt for the vulgar tongues
or any lack of sympathy with common human life, but I do not find
his arguments for a thorough command of any modern language alto
gether convincing. That he could speak French enough for travel
ling purposes and.write it, as he says himself, " badly," is probable.
MUS AT ROTTERDAM.
School and Monastery 3
Holland, Belgium, England, France, Switzerland,
were equally his homes, " ubi bene, ibi patria." If
he had a preference of sentiment for any country it
was possibly for England, but the demands of his
work and the pressure of untoward circumstances
carried him hither and yon, so that his visits to
England seem rather like busy vacations in his
arduous life. Patriotism, citizenship, loyalty to a
place, seemed to him like so many limitations upon
that dominant individuality which was the key-note
of his character.
As he was indifferent to the place, so was he also
to the time of his birth. It is even probable that he
did not know precisely when he was born. At all
events he nowhere tells us, excepting that the day
was the 27~28th of October. As to the year we are
left to later conjecture, and 1467, the date placed
by the citizens of Rotterdam upon their monument
to his memory, is as likely to be correct as any
other. 1
In regard to his family and the circumstances of
his birth, Erasmus was also reticent to the point of
obscurity. That he was born out of wedlock is
clear. His enemies made what little they could out
of the fact, and he never took the trouble to deny
it. We may safely conclude that he cared as little
to what family he belonged as to what land he owed
his affection. Our actual knowledge on the subject
1 The careful inquiry of Dr. Richter into the birth-year of Erasmus
attempts to fix the year 1466 as the correct date, but rather succeeds
in showing the hopeless confusion of our material, and the evident
ignorance and indifference of Erasmus himself on the subject.
4 Desiderius Erasmus [i 4 6 7 -
is limited to the pathetic little opening paragraph of
the very brief Compendium Vitce, which he sent,
under the impression of approaching death, to his
intimate friend, Conrad Goclenius, Latin professor
at the University of Louvain. " Nothing," he says
in the letter accompanying it, " was ever more un
fortunate than my birth, but perchance there will be
those who will add fictions to the facts." ' My
father Gerard," he writes, " had secretly an affair
with Margaret, daughter of a physician of Zeven-
berge, in the hope of marriage, and some say that
they had plighted their troth (intercessisse verbd}."
The marriage was delayed by the desire of Gerard's
parents that one of their family of ten sons should
be devoted to the Church and by the jealousy of the
brothers lest their property be diminished. Mean
while Gerard, " as desperate men are wont to do,"
took himself out of the way and wandered to Rome.
Our Erasmus was born after his departure. The
relatives, learning Gerard's whereabouts, sent him
word that Margaret was dead, and the poor fellow,
who had been earning his living as a copyist and
decorator of manuscripts, sought refuge in ordina
tion as a priest. On his return to Holland he dis
covered the fraud, but lived the short remnant of
his days faithful to his priestly vows.
One or two obscure references in later writings
give some reason to think that Erasmus had an older
brother, who figures also in the letter to Grunnius
mentioned in the Introduction. This brother can
interest us only as affecting the question of the re
lation between the father and mother of Erasmus.
HOUSE AT ROTTERDAM IN WHICH ERASMUS WAS BORN.
FROM KNIGHT'S " LIFE OF ERASMUS."
i 49 o] School and Monastery 5
His appearance in the letter to Grunnius reminds
one so strongly of the characters introduced by
Erasmus in his Colloquies to serve as foils for the
principal speakers, that one can hardly help suspect
ing a similar device here. At all events the brother
is too shadowy a personage to warrant us in drawing
from his previous existence any instructive conclu
sion as to the origin of Erasmus.
In spite of so unfavourable a start in life, the early
years of the lad seem to have been as well sheltered
and cared for as could be desired. The little Gerard,
as tradition would have him called during his child
hood, was early sent to school in Gouda (Tergouw),
his father's native place, to an uncle, Peter Winckel
by name, and served for some time before he was
nine years old as choir-boy at the Cathedral of
Utrecht. 1
He says of himself at this tender age, that he
" made but little progress in those unattractive
studies for which he was not made by Nature,"
but we are hardly warranted in drawing from this
phrase the conclusion that he was ever a backward
scholar.
At nine he was sent to the famous school at Dev-
enter. His mother accompanied him and cared
for him as before. Of the Deventer school Erasmus
1 A papal brief of the year 1517, found recently at Basel, is en
dorsed : Dilecto filio Erasmo Rogerii Roterodamensi clerico. The
editor, W. Vischer, believes, on this evidence, that the family name
of our scholar was Roger and his baptismal name Erasmus. He
thinks it probable that Erasmus had been more frank in his state
ments to the Pope than he usually cared to be and had given his true
name in the petition to which this brief is the answer.
6 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
says that it was " as yet a barbarous place," by which
he means that it had not yet been reformed in the
direction of the New Learning. The boys had to
learn their ' 'pater meus" l ( ?) to conj ugate their verbs,
and to master their Latin grammar in the text-books
of Everard and John Garland. It was a dreary
method and Erasmus' recollection doubtless made
it seem worse than it really was. The error of it to
his maturer mind was that it was rather practical
than scientific, especially that it did not introduce
the pupil from the outset to the models of Latin
style, which the great classic authors alone could
furnish. He looked back upon these, as indeed
upon all his years of pupilage, as to a time of
struggle and hardship. Yet the fact is that he was
making rapid progress, and at the close of his four
years at Deventer he found himself the equal in
learning of many older lads.
The head-master of Deventer at the time was a
German, Alexander Hegius, from whom and from
John Sintheim, one of the teachers, Erasmus says the
school was beginning to get a glimmer of the great
light, which, spreading from Italy, was enlightening
the world. Erasmus' younger friend and biographer,
Beatus Rhenanus, speaks of this Hegius as a man
1 H. Kammel, " Erasmus in Deventer," in Neue Jahrbiicher fur
Philologie und Paedagogik, 1874, Bd. no, p. 305, quotes from Wm.
Bates, an English editor of Erasmus" Compendium Vita in 1687,
the desperate conjecture that this phrase refers to some manual pre
pared by the father of Erasmus ! I suspect assuming that we have
a correct text that the reference is to some forgotten Latin phrase-
book, beginning perhaps with the words ' ' pater meus. " ' ' Tempora "
can hardly refer to anything but the tenses of the grammar.
i 4 go] School and Monastery 7
of very moderate learning, who knew no Greek at
all, but says that he was open to the merits of the
learning he did not share and gladly accepted the
instruction of the younger German scholar, Rudolf
Agricola, who had just returned from Italy fresh
with the eager enthusiasm of that land of all promise.
Erasmus fancied that the most he got out of his
Deventer days was a " certain odor of better learn
ing " which came to him from his older mates, who
enjoyed the direct teaching of Sintheim, and from
the occasional hearing of Hegius, who on feast days
lectured to the whole school. There can be no
doubt, however, that he had got on famously in
Latin and made at least a beginning in Greek. 1
Beatus tells a very pretty story of Sintheim, that
having heard Erasmus recite, he kissed him and
said, " Go on, Erasmus, you will some day reach
the very summit of learning."
After four years at Deventer an outbreak of the
plague carried off the faithful mother and within a
few weeks the father also, both just over forty years
of age. Gerard, so Erasmus says, left a modest
fortune, sufficient, if it had been properly husbanded,
to provide for his own education at a university.
The guardians, however, to whom he had intrusted
his little property, the uncle Peter Winckel espe
cially, were determined not to give the boy an
academic training, but instead to turn him into the
monastic life. Beatus speaks of Deventer as " a
most prolific nursery of monks of every kind," and
Erasmus employs this phrase, with every shade of
1 See in ii., 166, 167, the adage, " quid cani et balnea"
8 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
anger and contempt, for the next institution in
which his lot was to be cast.
This was a house of the so-called " Brethren of
the Common Life " at 's Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-
Duc). This widespread organisation had for more
than a century played a large part in the religious
life of the Low Countries. Founded by one Gerard
Groot of Deventer, about 1380, it had come into
existence as above all else a protest against the
dominant monasticism of the Middle Ages. It was
not an " order " in the stricter sense; the brethren
were not bound by irrevocable vows; they were not
regularly chartered by the authority of the Church.
It was a free association of men who simply came
to live together, giving up their private property, in
order that they might the more effectively, as they
believed, live the life of the Spirit.
Their chief occupation was the copying of sacred
writings, but they professed to support themselves
by manual labour. Without calling into question
any of the teachings of the Church, their greater
lights, Gerard himself, Thomas a Kempis, John
Wessel, had given to them a deeper spiritual mean
ing. They had sought to emphasise rather the in
ner life of the individual than the outward, visible
institutions of the Church. Naturally they had
from the first been suspected by all those elements
of the Church organisation which saw their future
thus threatened ; the regular orders, the Inquisition,
the secularised priesthood, had each in its turn
sought to check this growing protest against their
peculiar interests. On the other hand, the com-
i 4 go] School and Monastery 9
munities in which the brethren had established
themselves had come to value them as examples of
piety and types of a virtue which did not tend to
separate men too widely from the life of the world.
Now all this would seem to point precisely in the
direction towards which all the thought of Erasmus
naturally turned. Of the two early instructors who
chiefly impressed him, Hegius and Sintheim, the
latter was certainly of the Brethren. The school of
Deventer, while probably not directly under their
control, was profoundly influenced by them. Yet
we find in his writings repeated reflections upon
their houses as training-schools for the monasteries
and upon themselves as enemies of sound learning
and practical virtue.
At 's Hertogenbosch he spent or, as he himself
says, wasted about three years. Yet he admits
that at the end of that time he had made good
progress, had acquired a ready style, and in some
good authors was " satis paratus" We may be
quite sure that he would not have exaggerated
any attainments he might have made under such
circumstances. His residence at 's Hertogenbosch
was cut short by an illness, a quartan fever, as he
describes it, to which he seems to have been sub
ject. He was thrown back upon his guardians and,
if we may believe his own later testimony, he
found the whole world in a conspiracy to force him
into the monastic life. The uncle Peter, whom he
describes as a man of good outward reputation, but
selfish, ignorant, and bigoted, was especially deter
mined on this point. Erasmus makes what he can
io Desiderius Erasmus [i 4 6 7 -
out of the ruin of his little fortune as a motive for
getting rid of him, but rather spoils the force of his
argument by representing Peter as upon principle
devoted to getting his pupils into monasteries.
" He used to brag about how many youths he had
captured every year for Francis or Dominic or Bene
dict or Augustine or Bridget."
That the effort of the guardians was to persuade
Erasmus to become a member of the Brethren of
the Common Life is made probable by his use of the
term " Fratres Collationarii." This was one of the
popular names for the Brethren, derived from their
peculiar practice of giving moral instruction by
means of conferences (collationes). Erasmus in
cludes them all in his sweeping denunciations of all
schools and monasteries as " man-stealers. " " For
merly," he says, " they were not monks at all; now
they are a half-way kind of people, monks in what
suits them, non-monks in what they don't like."
' They have nested themselves in everywhere and
make a regular business of hunting up boys to be
trained." A clever lad of quick parts was an espe
cial prize. ' They ply him with torments, break
him with threats, reproofs, and many other arts, and
call this ' training.' Thus they mould him for the
monastic life. If this is not' man-stealing,' what
is ?"
One might have supposed that the more stupid
the boy, the greater the reason for urging him to a
life whose essence is described as stupidness; but
Erasmus declares the opposite and makes himself
the illustration. All these devices were tried upon
School and Monastery 1 1
him. Violence worked as badly with him then as
ever afterward, and so one of the teachers, for
whom he shows some real affection, was set to try
the method of persuasion. Erasmus, however, de
clared that he was too young, that he knew neither
the world nor himself, and that it seemed much
wiser for him to pass some years yet in the study of
good literature before making so important a de
cision. These were not bad people; they were
simply ignorant men, shut up in a corner, always
comparing themselves one with the other, but never
with men of the world what could be expected of
them but narrowness and bigotry ? In the reflected
light of later years the great scholar saw himself
already at fourteen the champion of pure learning
as against the benumbing influence of the schools.
A final assault was made by one of the guardians.
Erasmus and his elder brother we are following
the Grunnius letter had prepared themselves by
an agreement to stand by each other. The younger
was to be spokesman and was very doubtful of the
elder's firmness of purpose. The guardian came in
all kindness to congratulate the boys on their good
fortune in having, through his good offices, obtained
a place among the canons. Erasmus thanked him
kindly, but said, as he had said to his teacher, that
they had decided not to venture upon this unknown
way of life until they should have gained in years
and knowledge. The guardian, instead of being
pleased with the manliness of the answer, " flared
up as if someone had struck him, could hardly keep
his hands off them, and began to call names,"-
12 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
" you recognise the voice of the monks," Erasmus
adds slyly to the papal secretary. The end of it
was that the guardian threw up his trust, declared
that the boys' estate was all spent and they might
see to it how they got on in the world. ' Very
well," Erasmus heard himself saying through his
tears, " we accept your resignation and release you
from all care of us."
Then the guardian sent his brother, a man famous
for his gentle ways. He invited the lads into the
garden, offered them wine, and with all gentleness
entertained them with the marvellous charms of the
monastic life. " Many a lie he told them of the
wondrous happiness of that institution." At this
the elder gave way, and this gives Erasmus a text
for an assault upon the good name of his dead
brother supposing this brother to be a real person.
He was a dull fellow, eager only for gain, sly, crafty,
a wine-bibber and worse " in short, so different
from the younger that one might think him a
changeling; for he had nothing in common with
him but his evil genius."
Hereupon follows Erasmus' famous description of
the pressure which finally drove him into the mon
astery. It is plainly a work of literary art, with
little of the directness of simple truth; but we have
no reason to doubt that it fairly represents one side
of the impressions under which a youth of Erasmus'
tastes and condition would naturally be brought.
He describes it as a conspiracy deliberately set in
motion by a hostile guardian, but one hardly needs
this explanation to account for the fact that a lad
i 4 go] School and Monastery 13
in the year of grace 1483 should hear every manner
of description of the monastic life. These things
were in the air. To be a scholar had, up to that
time, been almost the same thing as to be a monk,
and if Erasmus desired to be a scholar, here was,
apparently, the line of least resistance.
The youth was at that crisis which comes to every
young man, when for the first time he is called upon
to decide for himself, with such help as he can get
from others, what course of life he ought to follow.
He describes himself as just entering upon his. six
teenth year, without experience of the world and
by nature disinclined to everything but study; of
frail body, though strong enough for mental occu
pation. He had passed all his life in schools and
believed that the low fever, from which he had
suffered more than a year, was the consequence of
this narrow and dreary training. Deserted on every
side, with no one to turn to, was not this enough
to break a tender youth like him ?
Still he held out, and then began a new series of
persecutions. " Monks and semi-monks, relatives,
both male and female, young and old, known and
unknown," were set upon him.
" Some of these," he says, " were such natural born
fools that if it had not been for their sacred garments,
they might have gone about as clowns with cap and bells.
Others sinned through superstition rather than through
any ill-will, but what matters it whether one be choked
to death by folly or by evil intention ? One painted a
lovely picture of monastic repose, picking out only the
14 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
most attractive features; why, the quartan fever itself
might be made attractive after this fashion."
Another gave an overdrawn picture of the evils of
this world as if monks were not of this world ! In
deed they do represent themselves as safe on board
ship while all the rest of the world is struggling in
the waves and must surely perish unless they cast
out a spar or a rope. Another spread before his
eyes the frightful torments of hell as if there were
no open road from the monasteries into hell !
Others sought to alarm him with " old wives'
tales" of prodigies and monstrous visions. They
praised the monkish communion in good works, " as
if they had a superfluity of these, when really they
need the mercy of God more than laymen." In
short, there was no engine of any sort that was not
set at work on the poor lad, and they spent upon
him as much energy as would go to the taking of
an opulent city. So he hung " between the victim
and the knife," waiting for some god to show him
a hope of safety, when by chance he met an old
friend who had been from his earliest years an in
mate of the monastery at Steyn, near Gouda. This
Cantelius, or Cornelius, whom Erasmus describes as
driven into the monastery partly by the love of ease
and good living, partly as a last resort, because he
had failed to make his fortune in Italy, conceived
a mighty affection for the boy and joined in the
chorus of exhortation. Especially, knowing his
taste, he dwelt upon the abundance of books and
the leisure for study until " to hear him one would
School and Monastery 15
suppose that this was not so much a monastery as a
garden of the Muses." Erasmus returned this
affection, " ignorant as yet of human nature and
judging others by himself." Cornelius left no stone
unturned, but still Erasmus resisted, until finally
some " yet more powerful battering-rams " were
applied. What these were he does not precisely
say, but only enumerates again the loss of property
and the pressure of his friends. At last, " rather
tormented than persuaded," he goes back to Cor
nelius, " tantum fabulandi gratia," whatever he
may wish to imply by that, and consents to try the
experiment, without, however, committing himself
to remain permanently. His only condition was
that he would not go to " the filthy, unwholesome
place, unfit for oxen, which his guardian had recom
mended."
Still Erasmus cannot help fancying himself abused.
He was charmingly treated ; no duties were pressed
upon him ; everybody flattered him and coddled
him to his heart's content. He had a capital chance
to read all the " good literature " he wished, for
Cornelius soon came to regard him as a kind of
private tutor and kept him at it whole nights long,
much to the injury, he says, of his poor little body.
After all," thought Erasmus, " this was what the
selfish fellow wanted me here for." In a few
months the friends had thus read through the prin
cipal Latin authors; so that this novitiate must have
been for Erasmus a time of great profit along the
very line for which he professed unlimited en
thusiasm.
1 6 Desiderius Erasmus [i 4 6 7 -
As the time drew near for putting off the secular
and donning the " religious " garb, the same con
flict is repeated. Erasmus, looking back upon his
youth, says that his only ambition was for scholar
ship, pure and simple, and that, therefore, his natural
wish was to go to a university. His experience in
the monastery had made it clear to him that this
was not the life he wished to lead, but precisely
why, he does not satisfactorily explain. Reasons,
indeed, he gives in plenty : his health was not
good ; he needed plenty of good food and at regular
intervals; he could not bear to be broken of his
sleep, and so forth. His delicate constitution was
plainly a source of pride to him as evidence of a
finer spirit than those about him possessed.
" All these things are a mere joke to the coarse-bred
beasts who would thrive on hay and enjoy it. But skilled
physicians know that this delicacy is the peculiarity of a_
specially refined body and of the rarer spirits, and pre
scribe for them food cooked so as to be digestible and
eaten frequently but sparingly; whereas you will find
others who, if you once fill them up, can hold out a long
time without inconvenience, like vultures."
Especially against fish, Erasmus says, he had such a
loathing that the very smell of it gave him a head
ache and fever.
These objections are highly trivial. They agree,
for one thing, very ill with Erasmus' charges against
monks, for of all things he accuses them most often
of easy and luxurious living. There were ways
enough, as he found out afterward for his own con-
i 4 go] School and Monastery 17
venience, of getting around the burdensome require
ments of the cloister and, on the other hand, out of
these very restrictions there had gone forth many a
vigorous leader of human thought and action. The
fact is, probably, that Erasmus felt already stirring
within him that restless impulse towards the free,
unfettered development of his own individuality
which was to be the guide and motive of his life.
He accepted the monastery because under the cir
cumstances there was nothing else to do ; but it
could not satisfy him.
Such, at all events, is the impression he desired to
produce when writing this account. He says:
" In such a place learning had neither honour nor use.
He [meaning himself] was not an enemy of piety, but had
no liking for formulas and ceremonies in which pretty
much their whole life consists. Besides, in an association
like this, as a rule the dull of intellect are put to the
front, half fools, who love their bellies more than letters.
If any exceptional talent appears among them, one who
is born for learning, he is crushed down lest he rise to
distinction. And yet such creatures must have a tyrant,
and it generally happens that the dullest and wickedest,
if only he be of sturdy body, is of most account in the
gang. Now then, consider what a cross it would be for
a man born to the Muses to pass his whole life among
such persons. There is no hope of deliverance unless,
perchance, one might be set over a convent of virgins,
and that is the worst slavery there is."
Here indeed we may see what was really troubling
Erasmus. It was not any special hostility to the
1 8 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
monastery. It was a dread of anything and any
body that could make any lasting claims upon him.
The monastery simply came in for a larger share of
his abuse because its claim upon him was more
burdensome and more evident. It was not true
that a man bred a monk could not rise to almost
any distinction in almost any field. The times just
before Erasmus were filled with examples of men
who, through their own talent and energy, had made
their monastic connection the ladder by which they
had mounted to far-reaching usefulness. Even
Luther, fiery spirit as he was, worked his way to
liberty along the path of monastic conformity.
For Erasmus a thorough-going conformity to any
thing was an impossibility. Making all allowance
for the effect of later experience upon his record of
youthful feeling, we may well believe that he really
felt at the moment of his struggle something of
what he puts into his defence :
" What could such a mind and such a body do in a
monastery ? As well put a fish into a meadow or an ox
into the sea. When those fathers knew this, if there had
been a spark of true human love in them, ought they not,
of their own accord, to have come to the aid of his youth
ful ignorance or thoughtlessness and have advised him
thus: ' My son, it is idle to make a hopeless struggle;
you are not suited to this way of life nor this way of life
to you; choose another while as yet no harm is done.
Christ dwelleth everywhere, not here alone; piety may
be cultivated under any garment, if only the heart be
right. We will help you to return to liberty under suit
able guardians and friends, so that in future you may not
School and Monastery 19
be a burden to us, nor we prove your destruction.' '
That would have been a speech worthy indeed of pious
men. But no one gave a word of warning; nay, rather,
they moved their whole machinery to prevent this one
poor little tunny from being drawn out of the net."
Above all, he says, they worked upon his acute
sense of shame. If he should turn back now he
would be disgraced in the sight of God and man.
His friends and guardians again joined in the cry
and finally
" by baseness they conquered. The youth, with ab
horrence in his heart and with reluctant words, was com
pelled to take the cowl, precisely as captives in war offer
their hands to the victor to be bound, or as conquered
men go through protracted torments, not because they
will, but because it pleases their master. He overcame
his spirit, but no man can make his body over new. The
youth did as men in prison do, consoled himself with
study as far as it was permitted him; for this had to be
done secretly, while drunkenness was openly tolerated."
It has seemed worth while to follow rather closely
this account of his early years, as given chiefly by
Erasmus himself, partly because it is almost our
only source of information and partly because it
gives at the outset so good an illustration of his way
of dressing up every subject he touched to suit the
occasion.* His biographers have generally done
little more than copy out the Grunnius letter as an
1 Compare page 27.
* On the question of the value of Erasmus' letter see note to p. 223.
20 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
authentic record of his early experience, and its con
tents have become the common property of our
books of reference. It must, however, be carefully
studied in view of the circumstances under which it
was written and by comparison with the little we
can learn from other sources. Especially must all
Erasmus' later criticism of the monastic life be re
ferred to one of his earliest literary performances,
the treatise, On the Contempt of the World (de
contemptu mundi), written, probably, while he was
still at Steyn, and when he was about twenty years
old. This is an essay on the charms of the monas
tery as compared to " the world." It purports to
be written by a monk to a nephew who was con
sidering how his life should be spent. Excepting
in the concluding paragraph there is hardly an indi
cation of even a question as to the superiority of
the solitary life over the life of society. The tone
throughout is serious to the point of dulness. There
is hardly a trace of the sparkle and liveliness which
marked most of Erasmus' later writing. He be
gins with the same laboured comparison between
human life and a troubled sea which he later ridi
cules : the sea with its storms, its hidden rocks, its
violent alternations, its siren voices luring the sailor
to destruction. There is danger on the land, but
one is far nearer to it on the sea. Life offers many
joys, but none to compare with safety. Earthly
joys are so hedged about with miseries that they
lose their proper charm.
" Oh, bitter sweetness, so walled in before, behind and
PARISH CHURCH AT ALDINGTON, KENT.
FROM KNIGHT'S " LIFE OF ERASMUS."
School and Monastery 21
on every side with wretchedness. I said just now that
man was coming to the condition of the brutes; but here
I think the brutes have greatly the advantage of us; for
they enjoy freely whatever pleasures they will. But man,
good God ! how brief and how low a thing is this tick
ling of the throat and the belly! "
Marriage is all very well for those who cannot live
otherwise, but it is a necessary evil. Earthly honours
are vain and fleeting. If the great king Alexander
himself could look upon the present world he would
unquestionably warn us that even his unparalleled
powers and dignities were as nothing compared with
the victory of the man who knows how to govern
himself. Death makes an end of all and does not
wait for all to come to maturity, but cuts down
many in the flower of their youth.
Then the argument turns to the positive attrac
tions of the monastery and these are chiefly three :
liberty, tranquillity, and happiness. As to the last
two the line of defence is tolerably obvious; but to
represent the monastery as the abode of liberty re
quired no little ingenuity. Erasmus solved the
difficulty by showing that all the relations of human
life were but so many restraints on personal free
dom, while the life in the monastery, imposing
limits only upon the body, allows the soul to enjoy
the highest kind of freedom.
Now which of these documents, the de contemptu
mundi, written at the time, or the Grunnius letter
written perhaps thirty years afterward, represents
the true Erasmus as he was at the age of twenty ?
22 Desiderius Erasmus [1467-
If one tries to form an opinion from facts rather
than from words, one must feel that there is at
least room for the question. Erasmus speaks in the
letter as if his intellectual life had been utterly
crushed by the discipline of the monastery, but on
the other hand there is every indication that he had
all the opportunity for study that he could desire.
Even if we think of the de contemptu mundi as a
mere piece of sophomoric composition, it shows a
very great acquisition, both of knowledge and of
power, in a lad of twenty. It cannot have been
written to please any teacher, for he was at this
time under no regular instruction.
He was no longer at school, but was simply edu
cating himself by the only pedagogical method
which ever yet produced any results anywhere,
namely, by the method of his own tireless energy in
continuous study and practice. This essay shows a
command of classic literature in quotation and allu
sion quite inconceivable except as a result of per
sistent study. Almost as much may be said of the
style. If it lacks much of the vivacity and person
ality of the later Erasmus, it has already gained a
very considerable degree of correctness and force.
The conclusion is irresistible that the description of
the charm of the monastery as a place of refuge
from the distractions of the world, and as affording
leisure for the higher life, is a fair reflection of Eras
mus' own experience up to that time. The monas
tery had served his purpose and now he was ready
for something wider and freer, but he could not
justify his quitting the monastic life without piling
i 4 go] School and Monastery 23
charges upon charges against the institution that
had tided over for him, as gently as its conditions
permitted, these years of helplessness.
Nor had his life been by any means a solitary one.
He had formed an intimate friendship with a cer
tain William Hermann of Gouda and with him
he spent," says Beatus, " days and nights over
his books. There was not a volume of the Latin
authors which he had not thoroughly studied. The
time which their companions basely spent in games,
in sleep, in guzzling, these two spent in turning over
books and in improving their style."
Another friendship dating from this period was
that with Servatius, a fellow-monk and afterward
prior of Steyn. No one of Erasmus' correspondents
seems to have stood nearer to his heart. The group
of letters addressed to him, probably just before
and just after the writer had left the monastery,
show a warmth of affection and a real desire for
affection in return which bear every mark of sin
cerity. Even long after their ways had parted for
ever Erasmus writes to Servatius with a respect
which has no tinge of bitterness in it. If his hatred
of monasticism had been as furious as he would
often have men believe, hardly anyone would have
been a more natural victim for him than this prior
of the house where he is popularly believed to have
suffered such a grievous experience.
So far as the two things which he always described
as the requisites of a happy life, books and friend
ship, could go, the life of Erasmus at Steyn ought
to have been a happy one.
24 Desiderius Erasmus [i 4 6 7 -
Let us add one more contribution to the problem,
a letter ' written at the age of sixty to a certain
monk who had grown restless during the stirring
time of the Reformation :
" I congratulate you on your bodily health, but am
very sorry to hear of your distress of mind. . . .
I fear you have been imposed upon by the trickery of
certain men who are bragging nowadays, with splendid
phrases, of their apostolic liberty. Believe me, if you
knew more of the affair, your own form of life would be
less wearisome to you. I see a kind of men springing
up, from which my very soul revolts. I see that no one
is growing better, but all are growing worse, so far at
least as I have made their acquaintance, so that I greatly
regret that formerly I advocated in writing the liberty of
the spirit, though I did this with a good purpose and with
no suspicion that a generation like this would come into
being. . . .
" You have lived now so many years in your commun
ity without blame, and now, as you say, your life is in
clining toward its evening you may be eight or nine
years my junior. You are living in a most comfortable
place, and in a most healthful climate. You derive great
happiness from the conversation of learned men; you
have plenty of good books and a clever talent. What
can be sweeter in this world than to wander in such
meadows and taste beforehand, as it were, the joys of the
heavenly life ? especially at your age and in these days,
the most turbulent and ruinous that ever were. I have
known some, who, deceived by the phantom of liberty,
have deserted their orders. They changed their dress
and took to themselves wives, destitute meanwhile, living
1 iii. 1 , 1024.
1490] School and Monastery 25
as exiles and hateful to their relatives to whom they had
been dear. . . .
" Finally, my dearest brother in Christ, by our ancient
and unbroken friendship and by Christ I beg, I beseech,
I implore you to put this discontent wholly out of your
mind; and to give no ear to the fatal discourses of men
who will bring you no comfort, but will rather laugh at
you when they have trapped you into their snare. If
with your whole heart you shall turn yourself entirely to
meditation on the heavenly life, believe me you will find
abundant consolation, and that little restlessness you
speak of will vanish like smoke."
CHAPTER II
PARIS AND HOLLAND
1492-1498
IT may well be doubted, especially in view of his
later experience, whether a residence at Paris or
at any other university during just these years of
probation would have been more profitable to Eras-
mus than his life at Steyn. He had been learning
the invaluable lesson of self-education, and all his
life was to be the richer for it. No doubt he was
beginning to be restless under restraint, and think
ing, as any monk had a perfect right to do, of how
he might widen his opportunity.
He says, we remember, that there was no way out
of the monastic life except to become the head of a
nunnery, a remark so obviously foolish that it is
worth recalling only to notice how completely his
own experience contradicted it.
The Bishop of Cambrai, planning to go to Italy,
wanted a young scholar of good parts to help him
out with his necessary Latin. He had heard of
Erasmus, how we do not know, and invited him to
join his court and make the Italian journey with
him. This may well have seemed to the young
man a glorious opportunity. Italy was then, even
26
1498] Paris and Holland 27
more than it has ever been since, the goal toward
which every ambitious youth of scholarly taste
naturally turned. Doubtless, also, in the larger
liberty (or bondage) of the great world, his monastic
experience seemed narrow and sordid enough. He
calls the Bishop his god aVo /t^xav^s. " Had it not
been for this deliverance his distinguished talent
would have rotted in idleness, in luxury and in
revelling." Evidently he would have had no reason
to dread the severity of discipline for which he
fancied his health was too delicate. The Bishop
made sure of his prize by securing the approval of
the Bishop of Utrecht, in whose diocese the monas
tery lay, and also of the prior and the general of the
order. The excellent prior himself had long been
convinced that Erasmus and the monastery were
unsuited to each other and had recommended him
to take some such opportunity as now offered. 1
This was the kind of especially unreasoning beast
whom Erasmus says the monks were wont to choose
for their tyrant !
The relation into which Erasmus now entered
with the Bishop of Cambrai was one of the most
agreeable that could present itself to a young
scholar. It demanded of him but small services,
and those of a kind most attractive to him, and yet
it gave him a sense of usefulness which saved his
self-respect. As a member of the Bishop's house
hold his living was provided for, and leisure was
secured for the studies toward which he was now
eagerly looking forward. Once for all we have to
'Hi. 9 ; I52Q-D.
28 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
bear in mind in studying the life of a scholar, that
pure scholarship is never, and never has been, self-
supporting. The only question has been how to
provide for its maintenance in ways least dangerous
to its integrity and least offensive to its own sense
of dignity. In our day we are familiar with endow
ments by which the earlier stages of the scholar's
life are made accessible to talent without wealth,
but in its later stages scholarship is held to a pretty
strict account and is expected to give a very tangible
quid pro quo for all it receives.
In Erasmus' time this dependence of learning
upon endowment was more frankly acknowledged,
and might be indefinitely prolonged. Undoubtedly
the easiest form of such dependence was the monas
tic. There is no doubt that Erasmus' de contemptu
mundi gives a perfectly fair ideal picture of the
normal monastic liberty and its suitableness for the
scholar, but for him this life had also its dangers
and its limitations. Next to the endowment through
the monastery there was provision by private patron
age. It had come to be more than ever before in
Europe, the duty and the pride of all princes, lay and
clerical, to devote some part of the revenue which
came from their people to promoting their higher
intellectual interests. Scholars were thought of as
a decoration as indispensable to the well equipped
princely court as was the court jester or the private
religious counsellor.
With the progress of a new classic culture, all
public documents were taking on a higher tone and
demanded a more highly trained body of scholars
1498] Paris and Holland 29
for their preparation. But such a position might
become laborious, too mechanical and professional
for men of real genius. Then there was the alter
native of teaching, either privately in the employ
of some rich family, or publicly at a university. In
Erasmus' time we find traces of university freedom,
but they were not significant of the normal con
dition of things. The university was a great cor
poration with a reputation to keep up, and compelled
to preserve at least a decent uniformity in its in
struction. A man of independent genius could
hardly have found himself entirely at his ease there,
even if he were able to win one of the endowments
by which to live. We shall see that Erasmus was
not attracted by the university career, and only re
sorted to the method of private tutoring when other
resources failed.
Another form of endowment of scholarship was
through the application of church foundations to
this purpose. Of course this was in a sense a per
version of trusts, but there were many excuses for
it. For one thing, the ends of religion and of edu
cation have always, under Christianity, been largely
identified. Even in our own country, and down to
the present moment, endowments for education
have been almost primarily thought of as made in
the service of religion. The prime function of
Christian scholarship has been the maintenance of
the religious tradition. So that, when a man was
given a " living " out of church funds, it was felt
that he might properly make use of this income to
carry on his personal studies. Especially if, as a
30 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
result of those studies, he produced works of re
ligious edification, the purpose of the endowment
was not thought to be violated. Furthermore, if
with this endowment there were connected distinct
duties involving the " cure of souls," no one was
shocked if the scholarly holder of the "living"
hired a lesser talent with a small percentage of the
income to perform these duties, while he himself
devoted his leisure to the higher studies for which
he was fitted. Such a living may fairly be com
pared to a university scholarship in our day as in
fact the majority of our American scholarships will
be found to have a religious origin.
It must have required an unusual sense of the fit
ness of things for a man of Erasmus" time to decline
so easy and so honourable a means of subsistence.
What his own real views on the subject were we
shall have occasion to see later when the temptation
comes to him. Enough to say here that, at least
so far as the cure of souls was concerned, it seemed
to him, in his better moments, a scandal that the
man who did the work of a " living" should not
receive at least a large part of its emoluments.
Doubtless, also, the sense of confinement, always
an unbearable one to Erasmus, had its part in mak
ing a church benefice unacceptable to him. Another
consideration no doubt had its weight. The medi
aeval scholar had served the cause of religion by
agreeing in every detail with its traditions as the
organised church handed them to him. The scholar
of the Renaissance, though he might be equally de
voted to the religious system, thought of his learn-
1498] Paris and Holland 31
ing as something having an independent right to
existence, and might well hesitate to commit him
self to such obligations toward the traditional views
of religion as were implied in the holding of a cleri
cal office.
Distinctly the most agreeable form of support for
the scholar of the early Renaissance was a regular
pension from some rich patron. He had no need
to feel himself humbled by this relation, for he could
always fall back on the pleasant reflection that he
was giving back to his patron in honour quite as much
as he received from him in money. In fact, this
was the very essence of such patronage. The rela
tion was quite different from that of the public
official, clerk, secretary, or what not, hired to per
form a definite kind of service. It was a relation of
honour, not to be reduced to commercial terms.
The money given was not paid for the scholar's
services; it was given to secure him the leisure
needed for the proper pursuit of his own scholarly
aims. It bound him only to diligence in pure
scholarship, not to a servile flattery of his patron,
nor to any direct furtherance of the patron's ends.
Plainly this system was open to abuses; but so is
every relation of honour between men, and even the
more exposed to abuse in proportion as it calls
upon the principle of honour and not upon that of
commercial equivalents. The quid pro quo is the
scholar's devotion to the highest aims of scholarship,
and if he fulfils his part to the best of his ability he
may hold up his head in the presence of any man,
even in an age of exclusively commercial standards.
32 Desiderius Erasmus [1492-
All these forms of support were at one time or
another employed by Erasmus. He seems to have
disliked teaching, both public and private, though
the evidence points towards his success, at least in
the latter kind. The cure of souls he never under
took, but was willing to accept livings, if he were
permitted to resign them for a handsome percentage
as pension. Excepting with the bishop of Cambrai
he never stood to any patron in the relation of
secretary, clerk, librarian, or in any other similar
form of service. His choice was a good liberal pen
sion, and as to the quid pro quo, there was never in
his case any room for doubt.
Whatever else Erasmus was, he certainly was not
lazy. The impulse to produce was in him an irre
sistible one. All he asked was opportunity, and the
several patrons who, from time to time, contributed
to his support must have felt that on his side the
point of honour was fully met. One other consider
ation will perhaps help us to understand the exact
feeling of Erasmus in entering upon what seems to
us, perhaps, a condition of personal dependence.
How, we may ask, could any man have that confid
ence in his own talent which would assure him
against the dread that after all he might prove a
bad investment ? The answer is twofold : the man
must have a profound confidence either in the
greatness of the cause he stands for or in his own
surpassing merit. In Erasmus both these elements
of assurance were united. He always thought and
spoke of pure scholarship, when applied to the
advancement of a pure Christianity, as the noblest
1498] Paris and Holland 33
occupation of man, and he shared in a high degree
that exaggerated sense of personal importance which
is the especial mark of the Renaissance scholar.
The acceptance of a pension from a private person
was, then, the most untrammelled form of financial
dependence which a poor scholar could assume, and
it is the form chosen by Erasmus whenever he had
an opportunity of choice. His first relation to the
bishop of Cambrai was, indeed, intended to be one
of actual, definite service. He was to go with him
to Italy as his Latin secretary, and might well feel
that he was to give a fair equivalent for his support.
The journey to Italy, however, was indefinitely post
poned. Erasmus says the bishop could not afford
it. Meanwhile the young scholar lived at the epis
copal court until, as the Italian plan seemed to be
abandoned, the bishop gave him money enough to
get to Paris. He promised a regular pension, but
it was not forthcoming: " such is the way of
princes." '
As to further detail of the life of Erasmus with
the bishop we are quite in the dark. Even how
long he was there is not clear and is cheerfully dis
regarded by most recent writers. It would probably
be safe to conclude with Drummond that it was not
more than about two years and that Erasmus' resi
dence at Paris, therefore, began about 1491 or 1492,
1 It was at the same time that he received from the bishop of
Utrecht ordination as priest. Strictly speaking, this ordination was
uncanonical, on account of his defect of birth, but we have no reason
to think that it caused him or anyone else any scruples until many
years afterward, when the point is distinctly covered in a papal
dispensation of 1517. W. Vischer, Erasmiana, pp. 26, 27.
34 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
when he was about twenty-five years of age. As he
had up to this time consistently complained of every
situation in which he had found himself, we shall be
quite prepared to find him making the worst possible
of a manner of life which at the best cannot have
been too attractive to a lover of ease and comfort.
The organisation of the University was such that
the instruction was largely separate from the detail
of discipline and maintenance of the student. Each
student lived as he could, sought the teaching of
such masters as suited his immediate purpose, and
presented himself for academic honours whenever he
was ready. A student of means lodged at his own
cost in a private house or private Hall, and lived
subject only to the general discipline of the Uni
versity and the town. For poor students there ex
isted, as in England, " colleges" i. e., primarily
lodging- and boarding-houses under a stricter over
sight. These colleges were not primarily intended
to provide instruction, a function which was only
gradually assumed by them as their endowments
grew to be larger than were needed to provide the
ordinary necessities of living. Their teachers were
rather tutors or " coaches " than men of independ
ent scholarship; their function was to supplement
by repetition and personal attention the public
teaching of the more eminent university professors.
The College Montaigu, into which Erasmus en
tered, was a foundation of some antiquity, but
during the previous generation had fallen into com
plete decay, so that nothing was left of it but the
buildings. About 1480 it had taken a new lease of
1498] Paris and Holland 35
life under one John Standonch, 1 who devoted him
self to its service. As master of the college he
could make something by teaching, and gradually,
through his own activity and that of his fellows,
had got together enough so that he could give
lodging and partial board to a certain number of
poor students. By the year 1493 he was thus par
tially maintaining over eighty. The rest of their
support they got as they could, by begging or
otherwise.
Erasmus was, then, a charity boarder and ought,
in all reason, to have been grateful for even this
poor opportunity of enjoying the privileges toward
which he had for years been looking forward as the
summit of his hopes. Yet he can nowhere mention
these Parisian days without the most doleful com
plaints of his sufferings from foul air, bad food, and
severe discipline. The most famous of these dia
tribes occurs in the Colloquy called l^vo^ayia " The
Eating of Fish. ' ' Erasmus' theme is here the exces
sive devotion to formal rules and observances in
religion to the sacrifice of more important things.
The eating of fish is only a text on which he hangs
extremely bold and acute criticism of would-be re
ligious persons, who for their lives would not violate
the rules of the Church against the eating of meat,
but were ready on the other hand to run into any
1 Car. Jourdain, Index chronologicus chartarum Universitatis
Parisiensis, 1862, p. 301, n. I cannot quite adopt Mr. Rashdall's ren
dering that Master Standonch "took rich boarders and made them
support the ' Pauperes' " H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe
in the Middle Ages, 1895, i. ( 512, n.
36 Desiderius Erasmus [1492-
excesses of fleshly dissipation. The speakers are a
butcher and a salt-fishmonger. After they have
gone on matching stories for a long time, the fish
monger suddenly breaks out:
1 " ' Thirty years ago I lived at Paris in a college which
has its name from vinegar (acetunf).' [The Latin form
of Montaigu was Mons acutusJ] The butcher answers:
' Well, that is a name of wisdom ! What are you giving
us ? A salt-fishmonger in such a sour college ? No
wonder he 's such a keen one at quibbles of theology !
For there, as I hear, the very walls have theological
minds.'
" Fishm. 'You 're right, but all I got there was a
body infected with the worst kind of humours and a
plentiful supply of lice. But let me go on as I began.
The college was at that time governed by John Stan-
donch, a man whose disposition (affectuni) you would not
condemn, but in whom you would like to see more dis
crimination. For you couldn't help greatly approving
his regard for the poor, mindful as he was of his own
youth passed in extreme poverty. If he had so far re
lieved the poverty of youths that they might go on with
honest study, yet not so far that abundance would have
led to extravagance, he would have deserved praise.
But he went into the thing with beds so hard, food so
coarse and so scanty, vigils and work so severe that
within a year the first trial brought many youths of excel
lent parts and of great promise, some to their deaths,
some to blindness, some to madness and not a few to
leprosy. Some of these I knew myself, and surely not
one escaped danger. Now can't anybody see that that
1 Colloquia Fam., i., 806.
1498] Paris and Holland 37
is cruelty to one's neighbour ? And not content with
this he put on (them) hood and cloak and took from
them all animal food and then he transferred such
nursery-gardens as this into far-distant regions. If every
one should indulge his impulses (affectus) as far as he did,
the result would be that the like of these people would
fill up the whole world. From such beginnings arose
monasteries, which now threaten both kings and pontiffs.
It is a pious deed to boast of bringing one's neighbour to
piety, but to seek for glory by one's dress or one's food
is the part of a Pharisee; it is piety to relieve the want of
one's neighbours, and to see to it that they do not abuse
the generosity of good men by excess, is good discipline.
But to drive your brother by these things into sickness,
into madness and death, that is cruelty, that is murder.
The intention to kill is perhaps wanting, but the murder
is there all the same. What forgiveness shall these men
have then ? The same as a physician, who, through
notable lack of skill, kills a patient. Does anyone say:
" but no one forces them into this mode of life; they
come of their own accord; they long to be admitted and
are free to leave when they are tired of it " ? Ah! An
answer worthy of a Scythian. They do ask this, as
youths who know what is good for them better than a
man of years, full of learning and experience! Thus
might one excuse himself to a famished wolf, after he
had drawn him into a trap with bait. Can one who has
put unwholesome or even poisonous food before a fright
fully hungry man excuse himself by saying: " Nobody
compels you to eat; you have willingly and gladly de
voured what was set before you " ? Would he not pro
perly reply: " You have given me not food but poison " ?
Necessity is a mighty weapon; hunger is a terrible tor
ment. So let them do away with that high-sounding
38 Desiderius Erasmus [1492-
phrase: " the choice was free," for he who uses such
torments is really using force. Nor has this cruelty
ruined poor men alone; it has carried off many a rich
man's son and corrupted many a well-born talent.' '
So Erasmus goes on to tell other details of student-
life at Montaigu. In the depths of winter a bit of
bread was given out for food and they were obliged
to draw water from a polluted well. Some of the
sleeping-rooms were on the ground-floor and in such
close neighbourhood to the common resort that any
one who lived there was sure to get his death or a
dangerous illness. Frightful beatings were inflicted
even on the innocent, " in order, as they say, to take
the ferocity out of them, for so they call a noble
spirit, and break it down on purpose to make them
fit for monasteries. How many rotten eggs were
devoured there ! What a quantity of foul wine was
drunk! "
And then, having made his fishmonger say all
the vile things about Montaigu that he can think of,
Erasmus, true to his nature, begins to hedge. Per
haps these things have been corrected since, but this
is too late for those who are dead or are carrying
about the seeds of disease in their bodies. Nor does
he say all this from any ill-will to the college, but
only to warn against the corruption of youth through
the cruelty of man under the disguise of religion. He
protests that if he could see good results from the
monastic life he would urge everyone to take the cowl.
In fact, however, he seldom goes into a Carthusian
house without finding there someone who is either
1498] Paris and Holland 39
gone silly or is a regular madman. There can be
no doubt that the rules for the College Montaigu
published by Master Standonch in 1501 were suffi
ciently harsh. They were so made in order to check
the abuse of too great freedom for the very young
boys admitted to such foundations. In confirma
tion of Erasmus' picture of the horrors of Montaigu
we find regularly quoted Rabelais' famous passage *
in which the youth Gargantua on his return from
Paris combs cannon-balls out of his hair and thus
gives occasion to his father and tutor for an attack
upon this same " college of vermin " as the haunt
of cruelty and wretchedness. When Rabelais wrote
this passage he had not yet been at Paris. It is
practically certain that he was acquainted with the
writings of Erasmus, and the conclusion seems ob
vious that he borrowed his illustration directly from
the IctJiyophagia.
This description of " Vinegar College " has been
almost universally taken as a serious account of
Erasmus' own experience in Paris, and probably it
has its foundation of truth. The commonest laws
of sanitary decency are a thing almost of our own
day, and not much more can be said of the principles
of proper food and care of the body. No one could
expect much from a charity-school in the fifteenth
century. But these stories must be considered in
their context. They are introduced, not as actual
autobiography, but as illustrations of one of Eras-
1 Garganttta, i., 37. See also H. Schonfeld, " Rabelais and Eras
mus," in Publications of the Modern Language Association of Amer
ica, viii. I.
40 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
mus' favourite themes, the evils of monasticism, and
especially they are made to bear on an idea which
seems to have been almost an id^e fixe with him,
that all the powers of religion and learning were in
league to drive young men into monasteries. As
before in his recollections of Deventer and Steyn,
so now here in his memories of the College Mon-
taigu, this spectre still, after thirty years, haunts his
imagination. He forgets that he was enjoying the
fruits of the devotion and self-sacrifice of the founders
and interprets all their actions by this same govern
ing motive. He had called his schools " seminar ia "
for monks; now he calls his Paris college a " plan-
tarium " for the same kind of a crop.
In fact, these early studies at the University were
full of profit to Erasmus. He was at the centre of
the best culture of the earlier time and the reviving
spirit of the new classic learning was beginning to
make itself felt. In his references to this experience
it suited his purpose and his disposition always to
throw contempt upon his teachers and upon all
learning except that which seemed to him to reflect
the glory of antiquity. Indeed, if he had been
forced to content himself with the dry quibbling of
the" Scotist " theologians who were still the domin
ant party at Paris, he would have found himself in
dreary company enough. But we find no reason to
think that there was any compulsion upon him to
take any teaching he did not like. Greek had
already begun to make its way as an attainable
subject at Paris, and Erasmus was beginning to
feel the charm which this, the choicest vehicle of
1498] Paris and Holland 41
human expression, was to exercise upon his whole
life.
His first Paris residence was interrupted by ill
ness, in consequence of which he returned for a
time to the bishop of Cambrai. The bishop seems
to have been willing to keep him indefinitely at his
court, but not to have provided for his further
maintenance elsewhere. With restored health Eras
mus was back again at Paris and now, for the first
time, on a really independent footing. For the
moment he ceased to consider the question of
patronage and began to give lessons to private
pupils. Beatus, unquestionably prompted by Eras
mus in all details, says that " the Englishmen at the
university could find no one among the professors
of liberal study in the whole place who was able to
teach more learnedly or accustomed to teach more
conscientiously." And then he goes on to make a
comparison between this youth and the two best-
known professors of literature at the time in Paris.
One of these, Faustus Andrelinus, was evidently a
type of the gay, reckless spirits who found in classic
study an enjoyment purely intellectual and who
used its moral standard as an excuse for all loose
ness of life. His manner of teaching was ' ' popular ' '
to the point of flippancy, designed rather to catch
the applause of the crowd than to merit the approval
of the learned. It is to Erasmus' credit that he did
not allow his classic enthusiasm to carry away his
judgment of this person. The other teacher, Ga-
guinus, was a more serious scholar, but not so far
advanced and not yet regularly teaching publicly.
42 Desiderius Erasmus 1*492-
So it appears that, in spite of his doleful stories,
our scholar had as usual been making the most of
his time, and we come now happily to a point where
evident facts and the testimony of other men can
be made use of to show his growing value and
power. There seems little reason to doubt that he
was now a distinctly popular figure in academic
circles. He was in steady demand as a private
tutor for young men who could afford to pay well
for his services. Among such youths Englishmen,
then as ever since, were naturally most prominent,
and it is through this relation to English pupils at
Paris that the way was opened for Erasmus to many
of the most interesting and important connections
of his later life.
During this second Paris residence, Erasmus evi
dently got into some rather serious scrape, of which
we get only vague suggestions in his correspond
ence. What it was and precisely the nature of the
charges it brought upon him we cannot say. It
seems to have had some connection with his relation
to a mysterious personage, who has been supposed
to be almost every possible person from the bishop
of Cambrai down. Froude, in his hit-or-miss fash
ion, suggests that this person, whom Erasmus al
ways refers to as senex ille, was the aged Marquis
of Veere in Holland, son of a bastard of Duke Philip
of Burgundy. Unfortunately for this theory, the
Marquis of Veere was already dead and is of interest
to Erasmus only on account of his charming widow,
who at about this time begins to dawn on his horizon
as a possible patroness. Beatus tells us with a word
Paris and Holland 43
that Erasmus after his Montaigu experience went
over (emigravif) to a certain noble Englishman who
had with him two noble youths, of whom Beatus
thinks Lord Mountjoy was one. This Mountjoy was
certainly a pupil and afterward a faithful friend of
Erasmus, and we have references to the " old man "
in letters to Mountjoy which show plainly that the
young nobleman was a confidant of the writer in the
Paris unpleasantness, whatever that may have been.
The same is also true of the other English youth
whom Erasmus now met and learned to love, Thomas
Grey, son of the Marquis of Dorset. An extract
from a letter to him will give us an indication of
how our scholar had got on in the art of vigorous
expression. The letter 1 is dated at Paris, 1497 (?),
and was evidently written soon after the trouble of
which the old man is the alleged cause. It begins
with extravagant expressions of affection for Grey.
" Of the whole race of men none is dearer to me
than you." He would have written him earlier, but
dreaded to open up again the wound which he was
just hoping would begin to heal.
" Nothing is more intolerable," he goes on, " than
abuse in return for kindness. Would that I might drink
so deep of the waters of Lethe that that old man and his
insults might wholly flow forth out of my mind. As often
as I think of him I not only fall into a rage, but I marvel
that so much poison, so much envy, treachery and faith
lessness could dwell in a human breast. So help me
God! when I think of the scoundrelly soul of that man,
the Poets, men so keen, so eloquent, in describing human
Mil. 1 , i8-B.
44 Desiderius Erasmus [1492-
nature, seem to me either never to have seen poison of
this sort or to have been unequal to its description. For
what panderer so false, what ruffian so boastful, what old
man so ill-conditioned, or what monster so envious, so
full of bitterness, so ungrateful, have they ever dared to
depict, as this old humbug, who even sets up for a pietist
and invents fine names for his very vices ? You bid me
not to be distressed, and indeed, my dear Thomas, I am
bearing the thing patiently when you think how horrible
it is. So unexpected misfortunes can but grieve one.
How ever could I, in return for my frankness, my kind
nesses, my faithfulness, my almost brotherly affection,
expect from a man so venerable as he appeared, so
noble as he boasted himself to be, so pious as he pre
tended, such extraordinary abuse ? I supposed it to be
basest ingratitude not to return favour for favour. I
had read that there was a kind of men whom it was
safer to offend than to oblige by kindness. I did not
believe, until I had learned it by experience, that it was
far more dangerous to do good to evil men than evil to
good men. For when the ungrateful rascal found that
he was under greater obligations to me than he could
repay, he turned his attention away from literature, which
he had been wretchedly tormenting up to that time, and
bent all his energies to ruining me with his infamous
tricks. And when he despaired of doing this by his ac
tions (laboribus) he sought to crush me with his tongue
steeped in the poison of hell, and he did it, too, as far
as he could. That I am alive at all, that I have my
health, I ascribe to my books, which have taught me to
give way to no storm of fate. It is a blow to a man thus
born to crime to find that he does but little harm.
" But not satisfied with raging against me with such
fury when I was present, he pursued me when I had fled
1498] Paris and Holland 45
from him and, out of hatred to me, rages against you,
the dearest part of my soul rages, I say, with that most
terrible of human weapons, with slander. O poison of
snakes, worse than any aconite, than any froth from the
fangs of Cerberus! That a monster like this should gaze
upon the fair light of the sun, should breathe, nay!
poison the vital air! That our common earth should
bear such a disgrace ! The imagination of the Poets was
never able to conjure up a mischief so horrible, so pestilent,
so accursed that this monster would not easily surpass it.
For what Cerberus, what Sphinx, what Chimaera, what
Tisiphone, what hobgoblin can rightly be compared with
this evil thing which Gothia [?] has lately spewed out upon
us ? What scorpion, what viper, what basilisk has its
poison handier ? Venomous things seldom give forth their
poison except when irritated. Lions repay kindness with
kindness; dragons grow gentle Under kind treatment;
but this old man is made mad by good-will. There is a
poisoned soul for you!
" Now that you may see how solid is my proof; if
one marks carefully his savage face, the whole habit
of his body, does not one seem to see as it were the
very image of all vices ? And herein is the wisdom
of Nature to be praised, that she has pent this soul
of deformity in a fitting body. Beneath the bristling
forest of his eyebrows lurk his retreating eyes with
their savage gaze. A brow of stone, that in his evil
doing no blush of shame may ever be seen. His nostrils,
filled with a grove of bristles, puff out a polypus. His
cheeks are drooping, his lips livid, his voice belched out
rather than breathed out such is the man's impotence
you would think him barking rather than speaking.
His twisted neck, his crooked legs nothing that Nature
has not branded with some stigma. So we brand crimi-
46 Desiderius Erasmus [1492-
nals and malefactors; so we hang a bell upon a biting
dog; so we mark a vicious ox by the hay bound about
his horns.
" To share my learning with this base monster! for his
sake to waste so much time, talent and energy! If this
had gone for naught, I should be less wretched, for now
I see that I have sown the dragon's teeth and they are
springing up to my destruction."
This is about one half of the letter. It is evident
that Erasmus was in good training for the choicest
specimens of personal abuse which he was later to
produce. The remainder of the letter is filled with
flattery of young Grey laid on with as liberal a hand
as was the abuse of the unfortunate " old man."
The burden of this part of the letter is to console
Grey for being still under the power of his tor
mentor, and to urge him to new effort and to self-
reliance in his studies. Out of the confusion of
vague references and later surmises as to who this
unpleasant being was, one can get a certain unity
and form such conjecture as one will. It seems
probable that he was some Englishman of mature
years and of good family who had been sent over to
Paris as a guardian for the two young noblemen,
Mountjoy and Grey; that he had engaged Erasmus
as tutor, to live at their lodgings and to include
himself in his instruction ; that some cause, perhaps
some looseness of morals on Erasmus' part, had
brought them to a quarrel, in consequence of which
Erasmus was forced to throw up his engagement.
On the other hand, it is clear that no father would
have intrusted his son to such a monster of physical
1498] Paris and Holland 47
and moral deformity as is here described. Just
what Erasmus means by saying that " Gothia " was
responsible for him I cannot make out. The whole
episode is interesting only as throwing light on
the development of our scholar in his style and his
character.
That Erasmus, eager and diligent student as he
surely was, did not entirely escape the allurements
of the Latin Quarter is plain from later references
of his own. Probably he is referring to some such
experiences in a letter * written about this time to
the friend whom Mr. Froude jauntily calls William
Gauden, and who is the same William Hermann of
Gouda to whom we have already alluded. This
William had evidently written him a reproachful
letter, but we do not learn clearly the grounds of
his reproof. Erasmus ascribes his irritation to the
tattling of some enemy and beseeches him at great
length to trust rather his own personal knowledge
and his memory of their lifelong friendship than
any such calumny. He represents himself as
plunged in the depths of misery. He would rather
die than endure longer the burden of such a life.
It is not life at all ; it is mere existence. Doubtless
this is mostly rhetoric, but the true state of the
writer's mind seems to come out in a passage in
which % he refers to certain definite persons well
known to the receiver, though obscure to us. The
upshot of his gloomy reflections is :
" This is the kind of a moral atmosphere (tnoribus) we
m. 1 , 13.
48 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
have to live in; and so we have to follow that saying of
Chilo: ' So love as if thou wert one day to hate, and so
hate as if thou wert one day to love. ' '
This letter illustrates well traits of Erasmus which
were to become very marked in his future work.
He was already showing that joy in the idea of be
ing persecuted which later seems to have reacted on
his memory of his earliest years. It flattered his
vanity to think that men cared enough about him
to abuse him, and such abuse gave him an added
claim upon the devotion of his friends. His nature
demanded affection and admiration, and he was
ready to repay them in kind, so long as he thereby
incurred no lasting or burdensome obligation.
These singular contradictions of Erasmus' nature
are most clearly brought out in his early corre
spondence with his friend Battus, a young man
whom he met at Cambrai, and who became tutor to
the son of the Marchioness of Veere. In connection
with Battus, also, we learn to know Erasmus for the
first time as a suitor for patronage. The Battus
letters, some score in. number, cover the period just
before and just after his first trip to England, that
is, about the year 1500. We are to think of him at
this time as firmly fixed in his determination to be
a scholar and, to this end, to get to Italy as soon
as ever it might be possible. He wanted to take
his doctor's degree there, and thought of Italy as a
scholar's paradise. But to gain this great privilege
he was not prepared for every sacrifice. One is apt
to think of Erasmus as a wanderer, and with good
HOLBEIN'S STUDIES FOR THE HANDS OF ERASMUS.
1498] Paris and Holland 49
reason, but after all he had little of the typical Bo
hemian in him. He was, it is true, a poor youth,
but his poverty was always a comfortable poverty.
There was nothing, apparently, to prevent him
from taking his staff in his hand and making his
way on foot, if need were, as many another poor
scholar had done, to the goal of his desires. That
was Luther's method of seeing Italy, under a very
different impulse. Probably nothing would have
done so much to chase away the megrims that were
always pestering him. He would have had less
reason to complain of his digestion and his bad
sleeping but if he could not have complained he
would, perhaps, have been unhappier still. Mean
while, he had to have books, he must eat only just
such food as seemed to suit him, he kept a horse,
and could not think of a journey without at least
one servant and two horses. Italy seemed in
definitely far away. Private tutoring was a slippery
source of revenue; frequent visitations of the plague
scattered his pupils and he had to cast about him
for ways and means. There were two resources: a
place with an income and, presumably, with duties
attached to it, or a patron. For obvious reasons, he
preferred the latter.
Battus, his dear Battus, was pretty comfortably
fixed at the castle of Tournehens on the island of
Walcheren, the residence of the Marchioness of
Veere. He was a good fellow and might be counted
on to do his friend a good turn. We have Erasmus,
then, in the Battus letters in an entirely new charac
ter, as the flatterer of the great for his own per-
50 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
sonal advantage. The earliest indication of relations
with the marchioness is in a Paris letter ' to Battus,
which begins:
"I can quite understand, Battus, best of men, how
surprised you are that I don't fly to you at once, now that
our affair has turned out so much better than either of us
dared to hope. But when you know my reasons you will
cease to wonder and will see that I have consulted your
advantage no less than my own. I can hardly tell you
how delighted I was at your letter. Already I am seeing
visions of a happy life with you. What freedom to
chatter away together! How we will live in common
with our Muses! I just long to be free from this hateful
slavery. ' Why then hesitate ? ' you say. You will see
that I do so not without reason. I had not expected
your messenger so soon. There are some little sums
due me here, and you know very little is a great thing
for me. I have unfulfilled obligations with certain per
sons, which I could not leave without injury. I am just
beginning a month with the count; I have paid my
room-rent," etc.
Then follows an account of some troubles about
certain manuscripts and money lost by unsafe mes
sengers, and then he returns to the subject of the
marchioness.
" I don't need to urge you, dear Battus, for I know
your loyalty and your affection, to consider at once my
profit and my dignity. I am not a little in dread of a
court and I am very conscious of my unlucky star. I
rejoice greatly that the Lady is so favourably disposed
l iii.', 27-F.
1498] Paris and Holland 51
towards me, but what says the antistes? what hope does
he offer ? Was ever anything colder ? I would rather
you had named a fixed sum than talked about a great
one. I will not remind you of Vergil's line
1 ' . . . varium et mutabile semper,
Fcemina . . .'
for I count her not among common women, but among
those of manly quality (viragines). Yet how many are
there in that place who care for my writings ? or is there
anyone who does not hate learning altogether ? My whole
fortune depends upon you. But if which Jove forbid!
the affair should fall out contrary to both our wishes,
you, burdened with debt as you are, will be worse off in
that respect, and what help, pray, can you be to me ?
" I will not admit that your zeal for me is any hotter
than mine for you; but I am sure we ought to take the
greatest care not to be too eager in this matter. I write
this not as having changed my opinion or as being fickle
in my intentions, but to rouse your watchfulness; for we
are both in the same position. Now if I had n't so high
an opinion of your loyalty, your prudence and your care
fulness that, when I have turned the thing over to you I
feel that I can sleep on both ears, I might be alarmed
at this beginning of the business as at a very unfavour
able omen. They have sent me a two-for-a-cent hired
nag and an allowance for the journey that is just about
nothing at all. Now, my dear James, if the beginning is
so cold will the end be likely to boil ? When will there
be a more honourable or more fitting chance for you to
ask a favour in my name than now, when they will have
to get me away from this city and from such favouring
circumstances ? With such a pittance I could hardly
come on foot; how should I manage it on horseback and
52 Desiderius Erasmus [1492-
with two companions ? If the affair is to be paid for with
my Lady's money, as I suppose, this beginning does n't
suit me; but if it is at your expense, I like it still less,
for it would not only be unfair, but it would have to be
done with borrowed money. What is more unlike the
man you have always taken me for, than to come flying
at the first nod and especially under such conditions ?
Who would n't think me either a greenhorn or a knave
or at any rate in the last extremity ? Who would n't de
spise me ? If I were n't so awfully fond of you, Battus,
my dear fellow, so that to live with you would repay me
for any inconvenience, these things, might turn me from
my plans; but they don't move me in the least. I am
only warning you to keep up my dignity with all dili
gence. Now you ask my opinion and here it is: I will
arrange my affairs here, collect my writings and settle up
my business. Meanwhile you will be copying out what
I send you. Write me, by the lad who they say is shortly
coming hither to study, precisely how the land lies; then,
when you have copied the Laurentius, send by the same
lad who brings it I mean Adrian an allowance for the
journey and some very definite statement; an allowance,
mind you, suitable for me. I can't come at my own ex
pense, dead broke as I am, and it is not right that I should
leave my present fair enough position. Besides I want
you to send me a better horse, if you can. I am not
asking for a splendid Bucephalus, but one that a respect
able man would not be ashamed to ride; and you under
stand that I need two horses, for I am determined to
bring my servant and I intend this second horse for him.
You will easily persuade my Lady of all this. You have
an excellent case and I well know you are clever enough
to make a good case out of the very worst. If she refuses
to do this well then, I pray you, how will she ever give
i 4 g8] Paris and Holland 53
a pension if she would refuse my travelling expenses ?
Now, then, you understand why I had to postpone our
writing, as I said at the beginning, and I am sure you
will approve it. I have told you how to keep up my
dignity and all you have to do is to push the thing as fast
as you can. I '11 not be napping here; do you keep on
the watch there."
This letter is one of the most important revela
tions of Erasmus' methods of providing for himself.
Battus, his friend, had apparently held out to him a
prospect of -nothing less than a regular settlement
at the court of the Marchioness Anna. Erasmus
speaks especially of a settled life of study, with
Battus as the chief attraction. But he is not going
to give himself away too easily. He admits that he
is at the end of his resources, but it would never do
to let my Lady know this. His cue is to raise his
own value in her eyes. So he delays, on the plea
of important engagements ; he reminds Battus that
his stake in the affair is the same as his own though
one hardly sees why and he urges him to caution
lest he seem too eager in his suit. He flatters him
with praise of his eloquence and with expressions of
entire confidence. It is not a guileless youth whom
we meet here, but a man of the world, conscious of
himself to the point of morbidness, and yet willing
to go pretty far along the road of sycophancy to the
great.
The journey to Tournehens took place in the
winter of 1497. In his account of it in a letter 1 to
'iii. 1 . 5.
54 Desiderius Erasmus
Mountjoy, Erasmus figures himself as the especial
victim of hostile gods. He might have been Han
nibal crossing the Alps, so magnificent is his lan
guage. Even the testimony of the oldest inhabitant
is not omitted in proof of the terrors of the way. It
is worth noticing that the gorgeous spectacle of trees
encrusted with ice, the deep-drifted snow, the castle
gleaming in a complete icy shroud, roused in Eras
mus no sense of beauty or of grandeur. He was
occupied solely with his own discomforts and de
scribes all this as so much evidence of a malignant
fate.
" We reached the princess Anna of Veere but just
alive. What shall I say of the gentleness, the kindness,
the liberality of this woman ! I am aware that the ex
aggerations of fine writers are wont to be suspected,
especially by those who have some skill at such things;
but I beg you to believe that I exaggerate nothing; nay
rather that the truth goes beyond my skill. Nature never
brought forth a being more modest, more clever, more
spotless, more kindly. To put it all in one word: her
kindness to me was as far beyond my merits as the malice
of that old scamp was contrary to my deserts. She, with
out any effort of mine, loaded me with as many kind
nesses as he, after my endless kindness to him, heaped
insults upon me. And Battus, dear fellow, what shall I
say of him, the simplest and most affectionate soul in the
world! Now at last I really begin to hate those ingrates.
To think that I should have been the slave of those mon
sters so long ! "
We seem to have here a reference to his b$te noir,
1498] Paris and Holland 55
the Paris persecutor, with whom Mountjoy was in
some way associated.
The same tone of extreme laudation is kept up in
a short and hurried letter ' sent back to Battus from
Antwerp on his way home. He has evidently been
well treated, but is not yet at his ease about future
favours from the lady. " I will fly back," he writes,
" as soon as ever I can, if the gods permit." The
remaining letters of this correspondence may belong
to a later period, but will serve here to show how
Erasmus continued his suit. While he is exhaust
ing the language of flattery about his fair patron,
he makes mysterious allusions to possible checks
upon her liberality. She is in trouble; there are
demands made upon her by unworthy persons.
Finally it appears that she married someone quite
below her station. The burden of Erasmus' song
is that Battus ought to get ahead of these other
claimants on the lady's bounty and make sure of
his case before it is too late. One letter* shows
downright ill-temper towards his dear friend, which
he partly excuses on the ground of continued ill-
health. Battus, it seems, had been urging him to
write something, probably as an equivalent for
favours to come. He replies:
" I hope to die if I ever in my life so hated to write
anything as I did those trifles, nay, those Gnathonisms,
which I have written for my Lady, for the Provost and
for the Abbot. I know you will say this is my ill-temper;
but you won't say that, Battus, if you think of my con-
1 iii. 1 , 6. 2 iii. 1 , 46.
56 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
dition or if you consider how hard it is to force the mind
to the writing of a great work, and how much harder yet,
when it is all in a glow, to have it called off to other
and trifling things. Because you have n't tried this your
self you fancy that my mind is always in perfect order,
always on the alert, as yours is when you are enjoying the
greatest possible leisure. Don't you understand that
there is no worse burden than a mind wearied by
writing, and don't you think I am doing enough here to
satisfy those whose favours I enjoy ? You are asking
me for bales of books, but you don't help me to get the
leisure which the writing of books demands. It is n't
enough for you if I shall some day immortalise our friend
ship and the favour of my Lady by my books, but I must
be writing you six hundred letters every day. It is now
a year since you promised me money and meanwhile you
send me nothing but hopes: ' I don't despair, I will push
your case with all zeal.' This sort of thing has been
crammed into my ears too long; it makes me sick. And
finally you lament the hard fortune of your mistress.
You seem to me to be ailing with another's sickness. She
neglects her fortune; you feel the pain! She fools and
trifles with her N. and you snarl out : ' She has n't any
thing to give.' Well! the only thing I see clearly is that
if she gives nothing for these reasons she will never give
anything, for reasons of this sort are never wanting to
the great. How little it would be, with such vast wealth,
fairly running to waste, to send me two hundred francs.
She has plenty to keep those cowled whoremongers, those
low-lived wretches, you know whom I mean, but she
has nothing to provide leisure for a man who might write
books worthy to live if I may brag a little of myself.
She gets into many a tight place, but it 's her own fault,
if she prefers to keep that pretty fellow rather than a
1498] Paris and Holland 57
grave and serious man, as becomes her age and sex. If
she does n't change her mind I foresee still greater
troubles; and yet I am not writing in anger against her,
for indeed I love her as I ought, considering what she
has done for me. But, come now, how can it hurt her
fortune if I -get two hundred francs? In seven hours
she will never know it. The whole business comes to
this: that we get the money out of her, if not in cash,
then from her banker, so that I can draw it here at Paris.
You have been writing letters and letters to her in this
affair, asking, hinting, going round about; but what
could be more useless ? You ought to have watched
your chance, gone at it carefully and then put it through
boldly; now the same thing has got to be done, but too
late. I hope to die, but I believe you might have carried
it through as I wish, if you had only taken hold of it with
more spirit. You can be a little more pushing in your
friend's cause without offending my modesty. . . .
Good-bye, my dear Battus, and take in good part what
I have written, not in temper nor in a panic, but as to the
man who is the very dearest of all men to rne."
Another letter, 1 written from Orleans after his re
turn from England, begins with similar references to
some misunderstanding and goes on to the most
barefaced of all Erasmus' begging efforts. Here
occurs his first appeal for a church living, and this
plainly not as a makeshift, but as the beginning of a
regular speculation in livings :
' Then persuade her to look out for some church
living for me so that when I come back I may have
1 iii. 1 , 86.
58 Desiderius Erasmus [i 492 -
a quiet place to devote myself to my books. And not
this only; give her some reason, the best you can make
up for yourself, why she should promise me the first
of the many livings she has. A pretty good one if
not the best, and one that I can change for a better
whenever it turns up. Of course I know there are
many seeking for livings, but say that I am a man
apart, one whom, if she compare him with all others, etc.,
etc. you know your good old way of pouring out lies
for your Erasmus. See to it that your Adolphus writes
the same things, most seductive petitions namely, at your
dictation. Keep it up until the promise of a hundred
francs, be fulfilled and if possible let it be handed over to
your Adolphus, so that if, which Heaven forbid! any
accident should take away the mother, I may get it from
the son. Put in at the end that I have complained in my
letters that I am suffering as Jerome often complains he
suffered, from loss of eyesight and that I look forward to
beginning to study as Jerome did with ears and tongue
alone. Persuade her, with what elegant words you can,
that she send me some sapphire or other gem that is good
for strengthening the eyes. I would have written her
myself what gems have this power, only I have n't my
Pliny by me; do you find out for yourself from your
medical man."
We have but one letter ' from Erasmus to the lady
of his hopes. It was written after his return from
England and is an excellent illustration of the type
of literature it represents. It is really an essay in
classical composition, with its object, the getting of
money, partly concealed under the cover of literary
'Hi. 1 , 83.
1498] Paris and Holland 5$
digression. This was probably the kind of thing
which Erasmus liked to call nugce and which he
affected to consider a waste of time. He begins
with a fantastic allusion to three other Annas, the
sister of Dido, the mother of Samuel, and the grand
mother of Jesus. These have all been sufficiently
lauded by great writers. He will now proceed to
add her as a worthy fourth to the list. We may
spare ourselves his fulsome eulogies of the woman
whom he has treated in his letters to Battus with
something pretty close to contempt, and will quote
only a specimen. He has shown how the great men
of antiquity favoured the scholars of their day:
" But I, thou muse of mine, would not change thee
for any Maecenas or any Caesar. As for what I can give
in return, I will strive, as far as this little talent and this
manly strength of mine may go, that future ages shall
know my Maecenas and shall marvel that one woman at
the ends of the earth strove to revive by her benevolence
the cause of letters corrupted by the ignorance of the
unskilled, cast down by the fault of princes, neglected
through the indolence of men ; that she would not suffer
the labours of Erasmus, deserted by splendid promise-
makers, despoiled by a tyrant, buffeted by all the blows
of fortune, to fall away into poverty. Go on then, as thou
hast begun. My writings, thy foster-children, stretch
forth suppliant hands to thee and beseech thee by the
fortune which thou spurnest when favourable and bearest
bravely when hostile, by their own ever hostile fates,
against which they stand by thy favour alone, and by
the love of that excellent queen I mean the ancient
Theology whom the divine Psalmist (as Jerome inter-
60 Desiderius Erasmus [1492-
prets) says stood at the right hand of God, not in foul
rags as she is now seen in the fooleries of the sophists,
but in golden vestments, girt with varied colours, to whose
recovery from the mould all my vigils are devoted."
Then he becomes more explicit : two things he
must have, the trip to Italy and the doctor's de
gree, both of them really follies ; he says :
" for it is quite true, as Horace tells us, that no one
changes his intellect by running over the sea, and the
shadow of a big word will not make one a hair's breadth
more learned; but one must fit one's conduct to the
times as they are and nowadays, I will not say the
vulgar, but even those who are at the very top of learn
ing, think no one can be truly a learned man unless
he is called ' ' magister noster, ' ' though Christ himself, the
prince of theologians, forbids it. In former times no
one was called "doctus " because he had bought the title of
Doctor, but they were called Doctors who by putting
forth books had given evident witness of their learning."
A very apt and pretty comment on the doctor-
fabrication of our own day and land.
He concludes with certain definite statements as
to the work he has in hand, which show that in
spite of all his complaints he was going steadily on
with his studies and with his production as well.
They show further that he was perfectly sincere in
his declarations that he needed money in order that
he might do a kind of work from which he could
hope for little pecuniary profit excepting in the form
of payment for dedications. The Veere episode
1498] Paris and Holland 61
throughout is full of mysteries. We have no means
whatever of knowing how long it went on, how
often, or for how long periods, Erasmus was a guest
at Tournehens, nor how much help he actually re
ceived from his noble patroness. The only date
which clearly connects this correspondence with
other events is a reference in the letter to the Mar
chioness to the anniversary of his departure from
England, and that is, on other accounts, extremely
uncertain. We may safely guess, however, that
this connection covers several years just before and
just after 1500. Battus died in 1502 and by that
time the Lady Anna had contracted a marriage
' ' plusquam servile. ' ' The letter ' which tells these
facts was written the same year at Louvain, whither
Erasmus says he had fled from the plague. He
complains that he has little chance of earning any
thing there and yet says he had declined an offer of
a place to teach made to him by the magistrates.
I am wholly devoted to the study of Greek and
ha>ve not been playing with my work; for I have
got along so well that I can write fairly in Greek
whatever I wish to say, and that ex tempore.
Mii. 1 , 1837. The approximate date is fixed by a reference to the
death of the Bishop of Besar^on, Francis Busleiden, on the twenty-
third of August, 1502, in whom Erasmus says he had the highest
hopes.
CHAPTER III
FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND
1498-1500
MR. SEEBOHM, in his amiable study of the
Oxford Reformers, 1 is inclined to find the
motive of Erasmus' first visit to England in his de
sire to pursue his studies, and especially that of
Greek, under circumstances more favourable than he
could find elsewhere; but connecting this visit with
his earlier experiences and especially recalling the
struggle for maintenance in which he was just then
engaged, we can hardly fail to find at least sugges
tions of other motives. That his visit did, in fact,
powerfully influence his study and his thought
there can be little doubt.
The immediate occasion of the journey, which we
may safely place in the summer or autumn of 1498,
was an invitation of young Lord Mountjoy. Of all
the English youths whom Erasmus had known in
timately at Paris, Mountjoy was the favourite. He
seems to have been sincerely attached to his teacher
and to have done his part in making easier for him
the rugged path of pure scholarship. Writing from
1 Third ed., 1887.
62
1498-1500] First Visit to England 63
England to Robert Fisher, another of these young
men, who was then in Italy, Erasmus says ' :
" You would have seen me there, too, long since had
not Lord Mountjoy, even as I was girded for the jour
ney, carried me off to his own England. For whither
would I not follow a youth so cultivated, so gentle, so
amiable ? I would follow him, so help me God ! to the
infernal regions."
The English trip must be regarded in a way as a
substitute for the Italian. He was "girded" for
Italy in every way but one. He could not find the
money, and he took this chance of living on that
English generosity of which he had made so suc
cessful trial at Paris. Nor was he in any way disap
pointed. During the year and a half, perhaps, of
his first visit he was entertained by one and another
of the patrons of English learning, or by some of
the English scholars themselves for scholarship in
England was taking on that character which it has
ever since maintained, of being joined with wealth
and station. This was a type of scholarship so far
unfamiliar to Erasmus and it made its due impres
sion upon him. He liked everything in England.
He writes to Fisher:
" You will ask me how I like your England. Well, if
you ever believed me in anything, my dear Robert, I pray
you believe me in this, that nothing has ever pleased me
so much. I have found here a climate pleasant and
healthful, and such cultivation and learning, not of the
1 Hi. 1 , is.
64 Desiderius Erasmus [1498-
hair-splitting and trivial sort, but profound, exact and
classic, both in Latin and in Greek, that now I feel no
great longing for Italy, except for what is to be seen
there. When I hear my friend Colet I seem to be listen
ing to Plato's self. Who does not marvel at the complete
mastery of the sciences in Grocyn ? Was ever anything
keener, more profound or more acute than the judgment
of Linacre ? Has Nature ever made a more gentle, a
sweeter or a happier disposition than Thomas More's ? "
There is a touch of sincerity about these expres
sions, in spite of their conventional form, which is
borne out by the whole future relation of Erasmus
to the English group of scholars. For the first time
in his life he forgets to grumble and has no occasion
to beg.
In England, too, Erasmus found himself, for the
first time, in relations with men who he had to con
fess were his superiors in many ways. We know
nothing of the circumstances of Erasmus' arrival,
but it seems that Mountjoy soon sent him on to
Oxford and that he was received there in a college
of Augustinian Canons known as the College of St.
Mary. So far as any place could be called his Eng
lish headquarters, this was it. The prior of the
college, Richard Charnock, was far from being the
kind of person Erasmus became so fond of represent
ing as the natural head of a monastic establishment.
He was a cultivated gentleman and sound scholar
after Erasmus' own heart and in the friendliest re
lations with the most " advanced " of the early
English humanistic scholars. On just what terms
Erasmus lived at St. Mary's is not quite clear. He
THOMAS MORE.
FROM THE DRAWING BY HOLBEIN, IN WINDSOR CASTLE.
First Visit to England 65
refers often to the Prior's " hospitality," but we
find him asking Mountjoy to send him ' ' his money "
(pecunias meas) at once that he might repay Char-
nock his many obligations. Erasmus was very
careful in his use of all the parts of speech except
adjectives, and this phrase seems to indicate on the
one hand that he was a boarder at the college, and
on the other that he had some regular understand
ing with Mountjoy as to a supply of money.
Through prior Charnock, probably, Erasmus was
introduced to the leading scholars of the University.
Among these by far the most interesting to him was
John Colet, a young man of just his own age, who
was living at Oxford as a private or independent
teacher. He was a man of admirable character, of
rare acuteness of mind, already well out of the fogs
of mediaeval scholasticism which were still clinging
around Erasmus. Colet seems at once to have im
pressed himself upon the visitor as a new type. He
was, first of all, a man of fine culture, the son of a
Lord Mayor of London, reared in ease and plenty
and given from the outset that wider outlook into
the world of thought which Erasmus was just be
ginning to get for himself. He had enjoyed the
great advantage of the Italian journey with all that
it implied by the way. He was a theologian, but as
far as possible removed from the quality which had
made the very name of theology hateful in Erasmus'
ears. At Paris, as he continually complains, theo
logy still meant the futile struggle of hair-splitting
schools of a pseudo-philosophy to explain the how
and the why of Christian truth. For the truth
66 Desiderius Erasmus [r 49 8-
itself they seemed to have little comprehension and
little care. New light was coming into theology, as
into all science, through the larger and freer dealing
with ancient learning ; but how to connect this learn
ing of antiquity with the present problems of religion
and of life that was the all-important question to
every serious mind.
That the very clever mind of Erasmus was already
fixed on serious things there can be no doubt. He
was thirty years old ; he had largely overcome the
mechanical difficulties of the scholar's work. He
had read the vast mass of the Latin classic authors
with great diligence and with profound personal in
terest. He had had his fling as well as his trials at
Paris. If he had aimed to be merely a classicist he
was well fitted to join the great army of those flip
pant scoffers who had already brought discredit upon
learning by failing to give it a serious and a modern
content. Learning, divorced from life, was already
beginning to lose its hold upon many circles of
European interest. Every such failure was only
another argument given to the surviving mediaeval
methods why men should not desert them until
something better had been found.
And if Erasmus was fitted by his training to im
itate the gay and brilliant shallowness of the Italian
Humanists, he was perhaps still more drawn their
way by the natural cast of his mind. He liked
bright things and bright people. He was fond of
ease and comfort. His interests were largely bounded
by his own personality. He loved praise and could
not endure reproach. He demanded friendship, but
First Visit to England 67
would not be bound by any ties that threatened
his own convenience. His vanity called for continual
food, and he often provided it by protestations of
modesty which called forth devoted expressions
from his admirers. The impression of his quality
at this time is not a lovely one, and yet he was
plainly more attractive in person than he is to us in
his correspondence. He made friends and, on the
whole, considering his motto, " to love as if thou
wert some day to hate and hate as if thou wert
some day to love," he kept them remarkably well.
The English visit was a critical time to Erasmus.
His mood in the months just before had been one
of discouragement, just the mood which might well
have turned a man of his tastes and apparent char
acter into a life of brilliant literary flippancy. A
glimpse into his own reflections on this point is given
in the letter l to Mountjoy above quoted, written
from Oxford :
" I am getting on here splendidly and better every day.
I can't tell you how delighted I am with your England,
partly through custom which softens all hard things,
partly through the kindness of Colet and Prior Charnock;
for there was never anything more gentle, sweeter or
more lovable than their characters. With two such
friends I could live in farthest Scythia. What Horace
wrote, that even the common people see the truth some
times, experience has taught me: you know his well-
worn saying that things which begin the worst are wont
to have the best ending. What was ever more inauspic
ious than my coming here ? and now everything goes
1 iii. 1 , 41.
68 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
better from day to day. I have cast away all that de
pression from which you used to see me suffering. For
the rest, I beseech you, my pride, as formerly, when my
courage failed, you supported me with your own, so now,
though mine is not lacking, let not yours desert me."
Erasmus in England found his better self awak
ening to renewed courage and exertion. Even be
fore he came over, he had begun to see that perhaps
a solution of his life-problem might be found in a
deliberate rejection of the mediaeval method in
theology by throwing it all away and going straight
back, first to the original documents of Christianity
themselves, and then to the early commentators on
Christianity who had expounded these documents
under the direct influence of the classic culture.
Jerome, especially, seemed to him worthy of the
most careful study and of a new and scientific
edition. This was the " great work " to which he
refers in his correspondence with Battus as being
interrupted by Battus's trivial demands for some
show-pieces to please their patroness.
Underneath all his thought there lay continually
this purpose to apply his learning to making clearer
the ways of God to man. The Oxford friends were
eminently men to strengthen his intention, and we
may feel sure that here was the real source of Eras
mus' higher content in England. Let us try to
make acquaintance with them through Erasmus'
own words; and first with Colet, beginning at the
point of their first meeting. In a long letter bearing
date 1519, just twenty year's later, and written under
the first shock of Colet's death, Erasmus gives a
t 5 oo] First Visit to England 69
short but feeling sketch of his friend's life. This
sketch ' forms the basis of all subsequent treatment
of Colet.
" On his return from Italy he chose to leave his home
and go to Oxford, and there publicly, and without pay,
he expounded all the epistles of Paul. There I began
his acquaintance, sent thither by some divine leading.
He was then about thirty years old, two or three months
younger than I. He had never taken nor tried for a de
gree in theology and yet there was no doctor in the
place, either of theology or of law, and no abbot or per
son of any rank whatever, who did not go to hear him
and even take his note-book along, a credit alike to the
learning of Colet and to the interest of those hearers,
that old men were not ashamed to learn of a younger one
and doctors from one who was not a doctor. The doctor
title was voluntarily offered him afterward and he ac
cepted it rather to please his friends than because he
really cared for it.
" From this sacred task he was called to London by
the favour of King Henry VII. and made Dean of St.
Paul's, president of his congregation, whose writings he
so dearly loved. This is the highest dignity in England,
though there be others with more ample revenue. This
man, as if called to the labour, rather than to the dignity
of the office, restored the decayed discipline of his con
gregation and, a novelty in that place, undertook to
preach on every holy day in his own church, besides the
extraordinary sermons which he delivered in the royal
chapel and in various other places. In his preaching he
did not take his subject by fragments from the Gospels
or the apostolic letters, but he proposed some one topic
'iii. 1 , 45i.
70 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 a-
and carried it out to the end in successive discourses: as
for example the Gospel of Matthew, the Creed, the Lord's
Prayer. He preached to crowded audiences in which
were generally to be found the foremost men of the city
and of the royal court.
" The Dean's table, which had formerly under the
name of hospitality degenerated into luxury, he brought
within frugal limits."
The occasion of eating was improved by learned
and serious conversation.
" He delighted especially in friendly discussions, which
he often prolonged until late into the night, but all his
discourse was of learning or of Christ. _He often asked
me to walk with him and then he was as gay as anyone,
but ever a book was the companion of our walk and our
discourse was still of Christ. He was impatient of all
uncleanness and could not bear to hear language ungram-
matical and defiled with barbarisms. All his household
furniture, his dress, his books, he wished to have per
fectly nice, but did not strive for show. He wore only
sad-coloured garments, whereas priests and theologians
there are generally clad in purple. His outer dress was
always of plain woollen, lined with fur in winter. The
whole income of his see he gave over to his agent to be
spent in household matters and gave away his own ample
income for pious purposes."
Then follows an account of the endowment by
Colet of the famous St. Paul's school, to which he
gave the best energies of his later years.
" While everyone approved this work, many wondered
JOHN COLET.
FROM THE DRAWING BY HOLBEIN, IN WINDSOR CASTLE.
i 5 oo] First Visit to England 71
at his building a splendid house on the grounds of the
Carthusian monastery near the king's palace at Rich
mond. He used to say that he was preparing a retreat
for his old age when he should be unequal to his work or
broken by disease. It was his intention to live there
the philosopher's life with two or three choice friends,
among whom he used to count me, but his death came
too soon."
The careful analysis of Colet's character which
concludes this sketch is quite different from Eras
mus' usual undiscriminating praise of what suited
himself. He presents Colet to us as an eminently
human personage, inclined by nature to all the joys
of earthly life, and yet subduing all lower tempta
tions by the force of his unconquerable will. He
was a man of strongly marked individual opinions,
yet so careful of the feelings of others that he
avoided discussion excepting among friends or when
it was forced upon him. At such times, however,
he spoke as one compelled by an inner impulse of
which he was no longer master. In the first inter
view of which we have any record, at a dinner at St.
Mary's, in Oxford, a discussion arose on the very
speculative question of the meaning of the story of
Cain's sacrifice. Erasmus and an unknown theo
logian took sides against Colet ' :
' Not Hercules himself can prevail against two ' say
the Greeks, but he alone conquered us all. He seemed
to be intoxicated with a sacred frenzy and to utter things
more lofty and more noble than belong to men. His
'iii. 1 , 42-F.
72 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
voice took on another sound, his eyes a different expres
sion, his face and figure were changed; he seemed to
grow larger, and at times to be inspired with a some
thing divine."
So in this later, more careful account Erasmus
refers to Colet's view of Thomas Aquinas. He
himself, it appears, had come to have some respect
for Aquinas and had made various attempts to draw
out Colet on the subject. He had so far failed, but
one day, returning again to the charge, he found
Colet's eyes fixed upon him,
"as if watching whether I were in jest or in earnest.
But when he saw that I was speaking from my heart,
he cried out, as if inspired by some spirit: ' Don't speak
to me of the man ! If he had not been a most arrogant
creature he would not have defined all things with such
boldness and with such haughtiness. If he had not had
something of the spirit of this world, he would not so
have corrupted the whole teaching of Christ with his
profane philosophy.' '
The result was that Erasmus looked more care
fully into his Aquinas and greatly revised his judg
ment of him.
Remembering that this sketch of Colet was writ
ten two or three years after Luther had nailed his
Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, we may
gain from it a good insight into the views not only
of Colet, but of Erasmus as well, upon many of the
doubtful questions of the early Reformation days.
Nowhere, perhaps, in Erasmus' writings do we find
more temperate and cautious suggestions. Already
i 5 oo] First Visit to England 73
we may discern in clear outline the determining
motives of his position in the great struggle. In
his pet abhorrence, the monastic system, Colet went
with him to the point of free criticism of faithless
and irreligious monks, but, like Erasmus himself
when he was, so to speak, in the witness-box, he
had nothing to say against the monastic life in itself.
He had little to do with monks and gave them
nothing at his death, but he professed great affec
tion for the life of seclusion and often declared that
he would enter it himself
"if he could find anywhere an order really devoted to
apostolic living. When I was setting out for Italy, he
commissioned me to inquire on this point, saying that
he had heard that in Italy there were some monks really
sensible and pious. For he did not follow the vulgar
opinion which calls that ' religion ' which is sometimes
only weakness of intellect. He used to say that he no
where found greater virtue than among married people,
since they were restrained from falling into many vices
by their natural affections, by the care of children and by
their household duties.
" On this account he was more charitable towards the
fleshly sins of the clergy. He used to say that he hated
pride and avarice in a priest more than if he kept a hun
dred concubines. Not indeed that he thought incon
tinence in priest or monk was a trifling fault, but that the
other vices seemed to him farther removed from true
piety. There was no kind of person more hateful to him
than those bishops who acted more like wolves than like
shepherds, commending themselves to the crowd by their
sacred offices, their ceremonies, their benedictions and
74 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
indulgences when really they were heart and soul de
voted to this world, to glory and to greed.
" From Dionysius and the other early Fathers he had
learned certain things which he did not so far adopt as
ever to go against the laws of the church, but yet far
enough to make him less opposed to those who did not
approve the worship everywhere in the churches of im
ages painted or in wood, stone, bronze, gold and silver.
He had the same feeling toward those who doubted
whether a priest openly and plainly wicked could pro
perly perform the sacraments; not by any means that he
favoured their error! but in wrath against those who by
a life openly and every way corrupt gave ground for such
suspicions. The numerous colleges, founded in England
at vast expense, he used to say only stood in the way of
good learning and were nothing but so many enticements
to laziness. Nor did he have a very high opinion of the
Universities where the all-corrupting ambition and greed
of the professors destroyed the integrity of all science.
" While he strongly approved the auricular confession,
saying that nothing gave him such comfort and good feel
ing, yet he as strongly condemned its too anxious and
frequent repetition. While it is the custom in England
for priests to celebrate mass almost every day, he was
content to do so on Sundays and holidays and very rarely
onjDther occasions. . . . Yet he by no means con
demned the practice of those who go daily to the Lord's
table. Although he was himself a most learned man, yet
he disapproved of that painful and laborious learning
which, gathered from a knowledge of all branches and
the reading of all authors, is as it were lugged in by
every handle. He always said that in this way the native
soundness and simplicity of the mind were worn away
and men were made less sane and less adapted to the in-
i 5 oo] First Visit to England 75
nocence and to the pure affection of Christianity. He
greatly admired the apostolic letters, but so reverenced
the wonderful majesty of Christ that compared with this
the writings of the apostles seemed to become as it were
defiled. . . . There are countless things Accepted
to-day in the universities from which he greatly differed
and which he used to discuss at times with his intimate
friends. With others, however, he concealed his views
for fear of two evils, first, that he would make the matter
worse, and second, that he would ruin his own reputation.
There was no book so heretical that he would not read it
carefully, saying that he often got more profit from it than
from the books of those who make such fine definitions
and often come to worship the leaders of their school
and sometimes even themselves."
In this affectionate, but at the same time discrim
inating, review of Colet's life and character we may
easily see outlined certain ideals of Erasmus himself.
He admires in his friend a quality of discretion,
which, under some circumstances, might come pretty
near to duplicity. On many matters he had two
opinions, one for himself and his intimate friends,
and another for the public. That is a condition of
mind that will do very well so long as the great issues
of a dispute are not brought out into sharp relief. In
the times that try men's souls, when events will no
longer bear nice distinctions, but demand that men
shall stand up and be counted yes or no on the
question of the hour, then this quality of discretion
may be the ruin of a man. It was toward precisely
such a crisis that the affairs of the Christian Church
were rapidly tending when Erasmus learned to know
76 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
John Colet in the delightful intercourse of the college
at Oxford. Colet had the good fortune to die (in
1519) before the supreme test came to him. Eras
mus was to spend the best energy of his declining
years in the struggle to live up to the difficult stand
ard of having one opinion for himself and another
for the world.
In the several subjects touched upon in the review
of Colet's opinions we hear plainly the echoes of dis
cussions, growing ever more intense, upon the sec
ondary issues of the Reformation. Colet approved
of monks, of secret confession, of an elaborate cere
monial, of a priesthood resting upon divine conse
cration, and he would not for the world question the
validity of recognised church law. Yet he was
ready to deal fearless blows at faithless monks, at a
superstitious repetition of confession, an overdoing
of the ceremonies of worship, and the worldliness of
the parish clergy. He approved of all learning, but
he condemned the application of learning to a fruit
less definition-making.
The first letter we have from Colet to Erasmus is
an address of welcome to England, a graceful little
note, as full of flattery as any of Erasmus' own and
of interest to us chiefly as showing that the visitor
had not come to England unknown. He had, it is
true, written nothing of consequence, but Colet had
seen some little things of his at Paris, and Erasmus'
acquaintance there with young Englishmen of high
social rank could hardly fail to have carried at least
his name across the Channel. The same impression
of a reputation already grounded is embodied in the
i 5 oo] First Visit to England 77
well-known story of Erasmus' first meeting with
another Englishman, with whom his relations, at
least by correspondence, were to be still more intim
ate, Thomas More. The incident is told in the
life of More by his great-grandson as follows ' :
" it is reported how that he, who conducted him in his
passage, procured that Sir Thomas More and he should
first meet together in London at the Lord Mayor's table,
neither of them knowing each other. And in the dinner
time, they chanced to fall into argument, Erasmus still
endeavouring to defend the worser part; but he was so
sharply set upon and opposed by Sir Thomas More, that
perceiving that he was now to argue with a readier wit
than ever he had before met withal, he broke forth into
these words, not without some choler: ' Aut tu es Morus
auf nullus.' Whereto Sir Thomas readily replied, 'Aul
tu es Erasmus aut diabolus,' 1 because at that time he was
strangely disguised, and had sought to defend impious
positions. . . ."
This story plainly implies a considerable degree of
reputation for both persons concerned, but as More
was at most twenty years old and known only as a
very bright young student at the time of Erasmus'
arrival, we are compelled either to give up the story
or to place it some years later and suppose that Eras
mus did not meet More at all during his first visit.
This latter supposition, however, is quite impossible,
since Erasmus speaks plainly of More at this time as
among his most valued friends. The author indeed
1 The Life of Sir Thomas More, by his great-grandson, Cresacre
More, 1828, p. 93. This life is largely made up from earlier sources.
78 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
prefaces the anecdote with the statement that the two
scholars had long known and loved each other and
that their affection " increased so much that he
[Erasmus] took a journey of purpose into England
to see and enjoy his personal acquaintance and more
entire familiarity," most of which lacks support in
known facts. 1 We can only accept so much of it as
implies previous acquaintance by correspondence,
and that may well have taken place while Erasmus
was at Oxford and More in London working with as
much zeal as he could command at his preparation
for the bar. If we strip off the decorations and sup
pose the meeting to have occurred during some visit
of Erasmus in London from Oxford, this very pretty
story is not altogether improbable. At all events it
strikes the key-note of a friendship which was to last
as long as life. The disparity in age (eleven years)
was more than made 'up by the great activity and
originality of More's mind and the singular charm
of his engaging personality. During this first visit
to England we have no specific record of Erasmus'
relations with More, except this one anecdote of the
dinner and another of a visit paid by the two friends
to the children of King Henry VII. at the royal
villa of Eltham, near Greenwich. Erasmus' accouut
1 The earliest known letter of Erasmus to More (iii. 1 , 55), a mere
note, bears date Oxford, Oct. 28, 1499. It refers to former corre
spondence, and Mr. Seebohm, anxious to save the anecdote of the
dinner, is inclined to imagine an even earlier date and, of course, a
place other than Oxford. My impression is that the date is correct,
that Erasmus heard of More first at Oxford, then began to correspond
with him, and out of this correspondence saved only the little note
in question.
HENRY VIII. AND HENRY VII.
FRAGMENT OF A CARTOON BY HOLBEIN, IN POSSESSION OF THE
DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.
First Visit to England 79
of this visit, given many years afterward, 1 is an ex
planation of how he came to write an ode to the
young prince. He was dragged into it, he says, by
Thomas More, who came to him while he was staying
at Lord Mountjoy's in Greenwich and invited him
to take a walk for pleasure into the neighbouring
village.
" There all the royal children were being educated,
with the exception of Arthur the eldest. ... In the
centre stood Henry, a boy of nine, but already with a
certain regal bearing, that is a loftiness of mind joined
with a singular courtesy of demeanour. At his right was
Margaret, then about eleven, who afterward married
James, king of Scotland. At his left Mary, a child of
four, was playing, and Edmund, a babe, was carried in his
nurse's arms. More and his friend Arnold, having paid
their respects to the lad Henry, under whose reign Brit
ain now rejoices, offered him some writing I know not
what. I, expecting nothing of this sort and having
nothing to offer, promised that I would prove my devo
tion to him in some way and at some time or other.
Meanwhile I was vexed with More, because he had given
me no warning and especially because the youth sent me
a note at dinner, challenging my pen. I went home, and
though the muses, from whom I had long been divorced,
were hostile to me, I produced an ode in three days.
Thus I avenged the affront and patched up my chagrin.
It was a task of only three days and yet a task, for it was
several years since I had read or written any poetry."
This rather silly tale is of interest only as giving
1 In Catalogus omnium Erasmi Rot. lucubrationum ipso autore.
Basil, 1524, i., ad init.
8o Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
the first hint of any connection of Erasmus with the
English royal family, a connection not wholly with
out influence on his future. If More was playing a
joke on his friend, as has been generally assumed, it
was certainly a very poor one. Other indications
of Erasmus' occupations in England are found in a
famous letter to his former teacher in Paris, Faustus
Andrelinus. It is a merry letter to a merry fellow
and must not be taken too seriously. 1
" I, too, in England have gone ahead not a little.
That Erasmus whom you used to know is almost a good
hunter, a horseman not the worst, and no slouch of a
courtier; he knows how to salute more gracefully and
smile more sweetly and all this with Minerva against
him. How are my affairs ? Well enough. If you are
a wise man you will fly over here too. Why should a man
with a nose like yours grow old in that Gallic dung-heap ?
But then your gout bad luck to it, saving your presence!
keeps you away. And yet if you knew the delights of
Britain, Faustus, you would hurry over here with winged
feet, and if your gout would n't let you, you 'd pray to
be turned into a Daedalus. Why, just to mention one
thing out of many: the girls here have divine faces;
they are gentle and easy-mannered. You 'd like them
better than your Muses. Besides, there is a fashion here
which can't be praised enough. Wherever you go
everyone kisses you, and when you leave you are dis
missed with kisses; you come back, the sweets are re
turned. Someone comes to see you your health in
kisses! he says good-bye kisses again! You meet a
person anywhere, kisses galore! so wherever you go
1 iii. 1 , 56.
i 5 oo] First Visit to England 81
everything is filled with these sweets. If you, Faustus,
should just once taste how delicious, how fragrant they
are, you would long to travel in England, not like Solon,
for ten years only, but to the end of your days. The
rest we will laugh over together, for I hope to see you
very soon."
Two other Englishmen, both his seniors by some
years, became friends of Erasmus during this first
visit, William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. Grocyn
was primarily a scholar and teacher, versed especially
in Greek. Linacre was a physician of the highest
repute in his day, and identified with the whole
future of medical science in England through his
foundation of the London College of Physicians.
Both had studied in Italy and there had put them
selves under the influence of the leading personages
in the later humanistic generation. Both had be
come skilled in Greek learning, and were doing their
parts, each in his own way, to further the advance
ment of Greek study in England. Grocyn was pro
bably teaching Greek at Oxford when Erasmus came
thither, and so far as he ever acknowledged obliga
tions to any teacher, the younger man admits the
great profit he derived from this riper talent. In
regard to Linacre he notes especially a severe and
painful accuracy which was, probably, the reason
why he left so little behind to attest his scholarship.
He could not satisfy his own exacting standards.
With both these men Erasmus seems to have lived
on terms of affectionate intimacy. There are indic
ations that they were at times rather tired of his
persistent begging, but this did not interfere with
82 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
their friendly interest, which ended only with their
lives.
Delighted as he plainly was with everything and
everybody in England, better treated than he had
ever been in his life, why did not Erasmus take his
own advice and settle down there in some regular
occupation ? So cosmopolitan a genius as his could
hardly have dreaded a change of residence; the
scholar's home was wherever the sun shone, and cer
tainly never was man more free to follow the bent of
his own wishes than was Erasmus. That the idea
was not a strange one to him is clear from many in
dications. Especially was it forced upon him by a
suggestion from Colet that he might stay on at Ox
ford and join him in what seemed then likely to be
his life-work of expounding the fundamental docu
ments of Christianity upon the ' ' new' ' basis of science
and common sense. What Colet's arguments were
on this point we can only guess from a reply of
Erasmus, but they seem to have been such as would
come naturally from one scholar to another in whom
he thought he recognised a spirit kindred to his
own. Colet lived in that new world of thought
which was the old, and saw before him the mission
of clearing away the mediaeval rubbish that had
piled up in the long interval between the really old
theology of the Greek Fathers and the new thought
of his own times. And here he seemed to have
found the man of all others best fitted to help him
young, learned in the language and filled with the
spirit of the ancients, free from all ties of family or
home and, apparently, deeply serious in his interest
i 5 oo] First Visit to England 83
in religious things. Colet had had a test of his
quality in several active discussions on points of
theology, which had brought out at once his learn
ing and his desire for truth even at the sacrifice of
his own less well-considered opinions. Erasmus had
shown a docility in revising his judgments in very
marked contrast to his firmness when dealing with
other opponents. The difference was, that in facing
Colet he found an opponent who was using his own
weapons with equal skill and even greater courage.
In the letter of Erasmus declining to remain at Ox
ford we hear nothing of the question of ways and
means. It is impossible that it should not have
been in his mind, but there is every reason to sup
pose that it did not influence his decision. The
only trustworthy patron he had yet found was an
Englishman ; there was a chance of a university ap
pointment, and, failing this, the prospect of private
pupils was better in. England than anywhere else.
We are told ad nauseam of a considerable money
loss which he suffered on leaving England. So that
we are sure almost beyond a doubt that his reasons
for declining what must have been a very tempting
proposition were somehow connected with his larger
scholarly ambitions. ' Of course he makes as much
as possible of his own modesty : Colet " is (to quote
Plautus) asking water of a rock." How should he
have the face to teach what he has never learned ;
how warm the frost of others when he himself was
all of a shiver with fear ? He praises Colet for his
courage and zeal in the cause of the " ancient "
1 Ep. ad Coletum, v., 1263-1264.
84 Desiderius Erasmus [r 49 8-
theology as against the " new-fangled race of theo
logians, who spend their lives in mere arguments and
sophistical quibbling. ' ' Not that he altogether con
demns these studies, for he approves of every kind
of study,
" but taken by themselves, with no admixture of more
refined and ancient letters, they seem to make a man a
conceited and disputatious fellow whether they can ever
make him a wise man, let others decide. For they seem
to exhaust the mind with a kind of crude and barren
subtlety; there is no sap in them, nor any real breath of
life.
" I am not speaking against learned and approved pro
fessors of theology, for I look up to them with the greatest
respect, but against that mean and haughty herd of
theologians who think all the writings of all authors are
worth nothing compared to themselves. When you,
Colet, went into the fight against this unassailable horde
that, so far as in you lay, you might restore that ancient
and pure theology, now overgrown with their thorns, to
its early splendour and dignity, you took upon yourself,
so help me God! a task in many ways most admirable,
most loyal to the name of Theology itself, most whole
some for all studious men and especially for this bloom
ing University of Oxford but, I don't conceal it, a task
full of difficulty and of opposition. Yet you will over
come the difficulty with your learning and your industry,
and your great soul can afford to overlook the opposition.
There are, too, among those theologians not a few who
are both willing and able to help such honest efforts as
yours. Nay, there is no one who would not join hands
with you, since there is not a doctor in this famous
school who has not listened most attentively to your
i 5 oo] First Visit to England 85
lectures on St. Paul, now going on for the third
year. . .
" I am not wondering that you should take upon your
shoulders a burden to which you may be equal, but that
you call me, a man of no account whatever, to share in
so great an enterprise. For you ask me nay you urge
upon me, that as you are lecturing upon Paul so I, by
expounding the ancient Moses or the eloquent Isaiah,
should strive to rekindle the studies of this school
chilled, as you say, by these long months of winter."
He goes on to protest his unfitness for the task and
especially to defend himself agajnst the charge that
he had given Colet reason to believe he might accept
his suggestion.
" Nor did I come hither to teach poetry or rhetoric,
which have ceased to be agreeable to me since they
ceased to be necessary. I refuse the one, because it
does not accord with my plans, the other because it is
beyond my powers. You blame me wrongly in the one
case, my dear Colet, because I have never had before
me the profession of so-called secular literature, and you
urge me in vain to the other, because I know that I am
unequal to it. Besides, if I were never so fit, I could
not do it, for I must soon go back to my deserted Paris."
We seem to find here a suggestion that Colet had
laid before him two propositions, one that he might
become a teacher of the classic literature in which
he was already a master ; the other that he should
join with himself in setting the meaning of Scripture
free from the absurd trammels which the scholastic
methods of interpretation had laid upon it. Either
86 Desiderius Erasmus [i 49 8-
of these tasks, with a reasonable prospect of support
and the delightful intercourse of academic life, would,
one must suppose, have been a supreme attraction
for Erasmus. The only possible explanation of his
refusal is his dread of putting his neck into any yoke
whatever, no matter how easy it might be. A pos
sible suggestion of this motive is found in the some
what enigmatic sentence that " poetry and rhetoric
had ceased to interest him since they had ceased to
be necessary. ' ' This may have meant that literature
in itself was important to him only as a means of
livelihood, and since he was, at least temporarily,
provided for, he did not care to teach it at Oxford.
Literature was henceforth to be a means to the
higher end of redeeming theology, the regina disci-
plinarum, the " queen of sciences," from her present
degradation. But for this latter work he was not as
yet prepared. If we ask why he did not choose to
continue his preparation under the very favourable
conditions at Oxford, we may perhaps find a partial
answer in his deep-seated dislike of the work of
teaching. He could talk beautifully about it, but it
seems pretty clear that he always hated it. So Ox
ford lost a professor, but the world gained a man.
CHAPTER IV
PARIS THE "ADAGIA" THE "ENCHIRIDION MILI-
TIS CHRISTIANI " PANEGYRIC ON PHILIP OF
BURGUNDY
1500-1506
HIS " deserted Paris," " that Gallic dung-heap,"
was calling to Erasmus, perhaps with the same
siren voice that has drawn thither so many another
homeless genius, and he went. He was, if we may
believe his later wails, pretty well supplied with
money, which he had turned into French coin. He
is very careful to insist that he had not received this
money in England, but if not, it is difficult to im
agine where it could have come from. He was
aware of a law forbidding the exportation of gold
from the realm, but had been advised by his friends
that this law applied only to English coin and so
felt safe. The customs officers at Dover, however,
took another view of the matter and left him nothing
but the small amount allowed by law, nor could his
connections in high quarters ever avail him to make
good his loss.
An account of the affair, written, so Erasmus says,
unless he is mistaken," twenty-seven years after
ward, brings this incident into direct connection
87
88 Desiderius Erasmus [1500
with the earliest piece of writing in which Erasmus
presented himself to the world in his true character.
Speaking l of his mishap from the lofty position of a
famous scholar before whose biting satire the great
ones of the earth might well tremble a little, he gives
himself great praise for not having taken immediate
vengeance on the king and the country which had
used him so badly, by writing something against
them. He refrained partly because it seemed an
unworthy thing to do, and partly because he would
not be the means of bringing down the royal wrath
upon his dear friends in England ; and so, having no
resources, he determined to publish something that
might pay. He had nothing on hand, but by read
ing hard for a few days he " got together in haste
quite a ' forest ' of adages, thinking that a book of
this sort, whatever its quality, would, by its very
usefulness, go into the hands of students."
This account of the origin of the famous Adages
of Erasmus seems in the main reasonable. It was
in the strictest sense a bread-and-butter undertaking,
calculated to meet a demand which every writer of
that day must feel and for which there was no ade
quate supply. The scholar, no matter how great
his claim to individuality, could not get on without
continual references to classical literature. They
were, so to speak, the certificates of his scholarship ;
they took the place of the references to the Christian
and Hebrew Scriptures by which the mediaeval
scholar had at once supported his views and demon
strated his learning. Of course such decoration
1 Catalogus lucubrationum, op. i.
1 5 oo] The Adagia 89
ought to come naturally as a result of the writer's
own wide reading and profound reflection in the
classic literature, and during the really great times
of the Revival of Learning, while scholarship was
confined to comparatively few men, and these men of
really commanding powers, such had been the case.
By the time of Erasmus, however, the new learn
ing was falling rapidly into its second stage ; it was
becoming more widely diffused and, naturally, was
drawing to itself ever more and more second-rate
material. Learning was coming to be fashionable,
and at just that stage all aids to a ready acquirement
of at least the appearance of scholarship were sure
to be in demand. It is an evidence of Erasmus'
practical good sense that he was ready to advance
his most serious purposes by contributing to this
popularisation of learning.
Erasmus was always fond of telling how rapidly
he worked, but in the present case we have every
reason to believe that his work was hasty and
experimental in the extreme. Nothing more un
scientific in form can well be imagined than this
collection of scattered sayings from the writings,
chiefly, of classic authors. The method, practically
unchanged in the many later editions, was simply to
jot down at random some verse of poetry or some
word having a peculiar meaning and then to give a
very brief explanation of its origin and value; then
if the occasion warranted, upon this as a text
to write a little essay. In this personal and in
dividual comment lies the real importance of the
Adages, in giving us an idea of their author. It
90 Desiderius Erasmus [1500
was this personal element also which appealed most
strongly to those of his own time who were capable
of valuing it, but it was not this which commended
the Adages, probably, to the widest circle of readers.
To the great mass of young students and to the in
creasing numbers of men everywhere who were
trying their hands at Latin composition, the book
was rather an encyclopaedia of classical quotations,
from which they could select the needed decorations
of their style without the trouble of going to the
original sources.
To these two lines of patronage the Adages owed
their great and immediate popularity. The first
edition was printed at Paris in 1500 and contained
about eight hundred selections. As to the method
of the future editions Erasmus gives us some in
formation. When he saw that the book was received
with gratitude by scholars and was apparently going
to live, and moreover that publishers were vying with
each other in printing it, he kept enriching it from
time to time as his own leisure or the supply of
available books gave him opportunity. What he
regarded as the final edition was printed at Basel
by Froben in 1523. After that he merely annotated
previous editions, " rather as giving to others ma
terial for a future work than as really making a new
book with proper care." This first edition of the
Adages was dedicated to Mountjoy. Without the
later additions it must, one would think, have been
as dry reading as could well be imagined, but the
fact of its popularity is unquestionable. Edition
1 Catalogus lucubrationum , i.
i 5 oo] The Adagia 91
after edition appeared with great rapidity, so that
we are now able to record no less than sixty-two
within the author's lifetime.
As for the pecuniary rewards which Erasmus may
have had in view, there is no indication that they
were immediate or considerable. The ethics of
book-publishing were at that time in a highly rudi
mentary state. So far as one can see there was
nothing to prevent any printer from putting forth
any writing that by any chance got into his hands.
Erasmus in a dedicatory letter to Mountjoy with a
later edition says that his reason for the new
publication was that the earlier editions had been
printed so badly that one might suppose the er
rors had been made intentionally. In another
place * he says, with an unusual effort at accuracy,
that the first edition of the Adages was published
on the 1 5th of June, 1500, while he was absent from
Paris. This date is certainly a very early one, and
we have to bear in mind that Erasmus' object in
giving it was to prove that he had got ahead of
a rival compiler of proverbs who had accused him
of stealing his thunder. It agrees, however, with
our other indications. The most singular thing
about it is that a young author, putting forth his
first ambitious publication, should have been will
ing to absent himself from the place where the work
was being done. The fact was, probably, that Eras
mus was frightened half out of his wits by the
presence of the plague in Paris, and this impression
57.
92 Desiderius Erasmus [1500
is strengthened by the pains he takes to convince
his friend Faustus Andrelinus of his uncommon
freedom from the vulgar emotion of fear. He was
at Orleans and Faustus had urged him to come back
to Paris; had even, so Erasmus says, called him a
coward by the mouth of his own servant.
" This reproach would not be endured even if made
against a Swiss soldier; against a poet, a lover of ease
and quiet, it does n't stick at all. And yet, in matters
of this sort, to have no dread whatever seems to me rather
the part of a log than of a brave man. When the fight is
with an enemy that can be driven back, whose blows can
be returned, who can be conquered by fighting, then if
a man wants to seem brave, let him, for all I care. The
Lernean Hydra, last and hardest of all the labours of
Hercules, could not be overcome with steel but could be
beaten by Greek fire; but what can you do against an
evil that can be neither seen nor conquered ? There are
some things which it is better to run away from than to
conquer. The brave ^Kneas did not go into battle with
the sirens, but turned his helm far away from that shore
of danger. ' But,' you say, ' there is no danger ' well,
meanwhile I, on the safe side of danger, see a great
many persons dying. I imitate the fox in Horace: ' I
am alarmed at the footsteps, so many leading towards
you and so few away.' In this condition of things I
would n't hesitate to fly, not merely to Orleans, but to
Cadiz or to the farthest of the far Orkneys; not because
I am a timid person or of less than manly courage, but
because I really do fear not to die, for we are all born
to die but to die by my own fault. If Christ warned
his disciples to flee from the wrath of their persecutors
i 5 oo] The Adagia 93
by straightway changing their residence, why should I
not evade so deadly a foe when I conveniently can ? "
Yet he is not happy at Orlear.s; the Muses grow
chilly in that city of law-books; he means to come
back, and meanwhile he begs Faustus to write a
prefatory letter to his Adages, which he has just
put forth. He asks this not for the merit of the
work, for he does not flatter himself so far as not to
see how poor it is but the worse the goods the
more they need recommendation. Faustus gave
the letter and it duly appeared, but whether it did
not just suit Erasmus, or whether he could not
quite bear to have his work recommended by any
one, he saw fit later to declare that the printer had
wormed it out of Faustus. Perhaps, too, Faustus
had a little overdone it and in the extravagance
of this festive person's praise Erasmus may have
detected a little sting of sarcasm. In a letter to his
friend and pupil, Augustinus, Erasmus reproves him
for taking too flattering a tone towards himself and
says, by the way,
" that exaggeration of Faustus, in which he says that in
me alone is the very sanctuary of letters, was not so very
delightful to me, both because extravagant praise suits
neither my modesty nor my deserts and because such
figures of speech are as a rule not believed and simply
arouse envy. They are moreover akin to irony, just as
what you wrote me, although in most flattering terms,
did not really flatter me at all: ' O, most attentive teacher,
I, thy devoted pupil, dedicate myself to thee; command
me as thou wilt; naught that I have is mine, but all is
94 Desiderius Erasmus [ I50 o
thine! ' All that kind of talk, it seems to me, ought to
be kept as far as possible from a sincere attachment.
For where there is real affection as there is, I think, be
tween us, what use is there in such figures of speech ?
And where affection is insincere they are wont to be
turned into a suspicion of malice. Therefore you would
greatly oblige me if you would completely banish such
exaggerations from your letters, that simple affection
may find its proper language and that you may bear in
mind that you are writing to an attached friend and not
to a tyrant."
This sounds very fine and would impress one with
a great sense of Erasmus' ingenuous nature, if one
could forget that this is precisely the time when he
was carrying on the correspondence with Battus and
the Marchioness of Veere which we have already
examined. 1 Indeed the years from 1500 to 1506 are
the most perplexing in Erasmus' whole life. He
was continually on the move, now at Paris, now at
Orleans, again in the Low Countries, visiting this
friend and that, with no regular source of income,
yet somehow pulling himself through. During all
this time there is hardly a letter which does not
speak of him as the victim of a cruel fate. Of course
it is always the fault of someone else, but human
nature has not so greatly changed in four hundred
years that we can afford to take his word for it that
all his patrons had deserted him with no cause what
ever on his part. To get the proper perspective for
an understanding of the situation we must remind
ourselves that Erasmus was as yet a very doubtful
1 See p. 486-99.
i 5 oo] The Adagia 95
investment. His real individuality was hardly show
ing itself. He had positively rejected all proposals
of regular occupation; he was making considerable
demands on life, but he would take life only on his
own terms.
The motive of Erasmus' wanderings in these early
years of the century is not clear. More easily per
ceptible than any other is his fear of the plague and
a nervous dread of other illness. When things went
badly in one place he betook himself to another,
but it is hard to find much principle even in his
health-seeking. He speaks of finding relief in his
native land and again writes that Zeeland is hell to
him, he " never felt a harsher climate or one less
suited to his poor little body." The bishop of
Cambrai had long since failed him. The bishop's
brother, the abbot of St. Bertin, formerly a great
friend, was of no use; the Marchioness was herself in
some mysterious trouble; Battus alone, his precious
Battus, was quite true to him, but not able to do
much for him. Altogether it seems most probable
that the conspiracy of the fates against our scholar
may have been nothing more than a common feel
ing of distrust toward a sturdy beggar, who had not
yet proved his value and who was not inclined to put
up with any half-way charity.
But meanwhile Erasmus was always at work.
His real, permanent, and persistent interest was his
own self-culture not in any narrow or mean sense,
but that he might be equal to the great demands
he was preparing to make upon himself. Of all
things he wished to make himself strong in Greek,
9 6 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
and it is clear that he was dissatisfied with any
teaching which thus far had been open to him.
From this we ought not hastily to draw conclusions
as to the badness of Greek teaching at Paris. Eras
mus, like most men of original genius, was not a
docile pupil. He knew intuitively, what it takes
most of us a lifetime to find out, that every man
must teach himself all that he ever really and effect
ively knows, and that this is especially true of all
linguistic knowledge. Erasmus complains of his
Greek teachers, but he did not sit down and wait
for better ones. He went to work with such appli
ances as he had and read Greek books and gradually
came to read them well. He learned Greek, in
short, as he had learned Latin, by using it.
From time to time, however, he gave evidences of
his progress in culture by some production intended
for wider circulation. A specimen of such occa
sional writing is his Enchiridion militis christiani, a
title which has almost invariably been rendered, " A
Handbook of the Christian Soldier, ' ' but which bears
equally well the meaning, " The Christian Soldier's
Dagger. ' ' The essential point is that it was a some
thing " handy," a vade mecum for the average
gentleman who aimed to be a good Christian. Eras
mus uses the word in both meanings at different
times. Writing, according to his own reckoning,
nearly thirty years afterwards, 1 Erasmus gives us an
account of the origin of this treatise, which is in
teresting as showing how unsystematic were the
motives which led, or which he imagined led, to the
1 Catalogus lucubrationum, i.
1503] Enchiridion Militis Christian! 97
writing of many of his most famous works. He
says " the thing was born of chance." He was at
Tournehens to escape the plague then raging in
Paris and there came into relations with a friend
of Battus, a gentleman who was " his own worst
enemy," a gay and reckless liver. This gentleman's
wife was a woman of singular piety and in great
distress for her husband's soul. She begged Eras
mus to write something which might move him to
repentance, but to be careful that this warning
should not appear to come from her; for " he was
cruel to her even to blows, after the manner of
soldiers." So Erasmus noted down a few things
and showed them to his friends, who approved them
so highly that some time afterward at Louvain he
employed his leisure in putting them into shape.
For a while the book attracted little attention ; but
later it became one of the most popular and widely
read of its author's more serious works. It was first
printed in 1503 and after that ran through edition
after edition with great rapidity. Naturally, it
brought out also no little opposition ; but that will
explain itself when we have examined a little more
carefully the aim and contents of the book.
Its object is especially ta emphasise the difference
between a true religion of the heart and an outward,
formal religion of observances. It is divided into
thirteen chapters of varying length, each headed
with a caption rather vaguely indicating its con
tents. After a somewhat long introduction he pro
ceeds to a definition of the human soul, following in
the main the lead of the early Fathers, especially of
98 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
Origen. He distinguishes between the soul of man
and a something higher yet, which they describe as
spirit. The body is the purely material, the spirit
is the purely divine, but the soul, living between
the two, belongs permanently to neither, but is
tossed back and forth from one to the other accord
ing as it resists or gives way to the temptations of
the flesh. The body is the harlot, soliciting to evil.
' Thus the spirit makes us gods; the flesh makes us
beasts; the soul makes us men." This distinction
is again and again illustrated, and the chapter ends
with a declaration of the true rule of Christian piety ;
viz., that every man see to it that he judge himself
according to his own temptation. 1
" One man rejoices in fasting, in sacred observances,
in going often to church, in repeating psalms, as many as
possible but in the spirit. Now ask, according to our
rule, what he is doing: if he is looking for praise or re
ward, he smacks of the flesh not of the spirit. If he is
merely indulging his own nature, doing what pleases him,
this is not a thing to be proud of, but rather to be feared.
There is your danger. You pray and you judge the man
who prays not; you fast and you condemn the man who
eats. Whoever does not do as you do, you think is in
ferior to you. Look out that your fasting be not to the
flesh ! Your brother needs your help, but you meanwhile
are mumbling your prayers to God and neglecting your
brother's poverty: God will be deaf to such prayers as
that. ... You love your wife just because she is
your wife; that is very little, for the heathen do the
same. Or you love her only for your own pleasure;
1 V., 20-D.
i 5 o 3 ] Enchiridion Militis Christiani 99
then your love is to the flesh: but if you love her chiefly
because you see in her the image of Christ, piety, mod
esty, sobriety, chastity, then you love her not in herself,
but in Christ nay, you love Christ in her and so God in
the spirit."
The book then goes on to more specific injunctions
to the Christian life, always with the undernote of
sincerity as the main thing. Here is a striking
passage from the second canon of the eighth
chapter : '
" Christ said to all men that he who will not take up
his cross and follow after him is not worthy of him.
Now you have no concern with dying to the flesh with
Christ, if living in his spirit does not concern you. It
is not yours to be crucified to the world, if living to God
be not yours. To be buried with Christ is nothing to
you, if rising in glory is nothing to you. Christ's humil
ity, his poverty, his trial, his scorn, his toil, his struggle,
his grief, are nothing to you, if you have no care for his
kingdom. What more base than to claim for yourself the
reward with others, but to put off upon a certain few
the toil for which the reward is offered ? What more
wanton than to wish to reign with our Head, when you
are not willing to suffer with him ? Therefore, my
brother, do not look about to see what others do and
flatter yourself with their example; a difficult thing in
deed and known to very few, even to monks, is this dying
to sin, to carnal desire and to the world. Yet this is the
common profession of all Christians."
So again in the fourth canon ; "
1 v., 23-A.
*v., 26-D.
ioo Desiderius Erasmus [i 503 -
" You fast, a pious work indeed to all appearance;
but to what purpose is this fasting ? Is it to save provi
sions or to seem to be more pious than you are ? Then
your eye is evil. Or do you fast to keep your health ?
Why then do you fear disease ? Lest it keep you from
pleasure ? Your eye is evil. Or do you desire health that
you may devote yourself to study ? Then to what end
is this study ? that you may get a church office ? But
why do you wish the office ? that you may live to your
self and not to Christ ? Then you have wandered from
the standard which the Christian ought to have set up
everywhere. You take food that your body may be
strong, but you desire this strength that you may be
equal to the study of sacred things and to holy vigils:
you have hit the mark; but if you look after your health
lest you lose your beauty and so be incapable of sensual
pleasure, then you have fallen away from Christ and
have set up another God for yourself.
" There are those who worship certain divinities with
certain rites. One salutes Christopher every day, but
only while he is gazing upon his image, and for what ?
because he has persuaded himself that he will thus be
safe for that day from an evil death. Another worships
a certain Rochus, and why ? because he fancies he will
drive the plague away from his body. Another mumbles
prayers to Barbara or George, lest he fall into the hands
of his enemy. This man fasts to Apollonia to prevent
the toothache. That one gazes upon an image of the
god-like Job, that he may be free of the itch. Some de
vote a certain part of their profits to the poor, lest their
business go to wreck. A candle is lighted to Jerome to
rescue some business that is going to pieces. In short,
whatever our fears and our desires, we set so many gods
over them and these are different in different nations; as,
1503] Enchiridion Militis Christian! 101
for example, Paul does for the French what Jerome does
for our people, and James and John are not good every
where for what they can do in certain places. Now this
kind of piety, unless it be brought back to Christ instead
of being merely a care for the convenience or incon
venience of our bodies, is not Christian, for it is not far
removed from the superstition of those who used to vow
tithes to Hercules in order to get rich or a cock to
^Esculapius to get well of an illness, or who slew a bull
to Neptune for a favourable voyage. The names are
changed, but the object is the same. You pray to God
to escape a sudden death and not rather that he may
grant you a better mind, so that whenever death over
takes you it may not find you unprepared. You never
think of changing your way of life and yet you pray God
to let you live. What then are you asking ? why, only
that you may keep on sinning as long as possible. You
pray for wealth and know not how to use wealth; so you
are praying for your own ruin. If you pray for health
and then abuse it, is not your piety impious ?
" An objection will be made here by some 'religious '
fellows, who look upon piety as a profession, or, in other
words, by certain sweet phrases of blessing seduce the
souls of the innocent, serving their own bellies and not
Jesus Christ: ' What,' they will say, ' do you forbid the
worship of the saints, in whom God is honoured ? ' In
deed I do not so much condemn those who do this from
a certain simple superstition as those who, seeking their
own profit, put forth things that might perhaps be toler
ated with pure and lofty piety, but encourage for their
own advantage the ignorance of>Jhe common people.
This ignorance I do not in the least despise, but I can
not bear to have them taking indifferent things for the
most important, the least for the greatest. I will even
102 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
approve their asking Rochus for a life of health if they
will consecrate their life to Christ; but I should like it
still better if they would simply pray that their love of
virtue may be increased through their hatred of vice.
Let them lay their living and dying in God's hands, and
say with Paul ' whether we live or whether we die, we
live or die to the Lord.' ... I will bear with weak
ness, but, like Paul, I will show you a more excellent
way."
It will be noticed that even thus early in Erasmus'
moral appeal, he does not aim at destroying any
thing. Even for the worship of saints he has plenty
of room in his thought, but he says: *
" the way to worship the saints is to imitate their virtues.
The saint cares more for this kind of reverence than if
you burn a hundred candles for him. You think it a
great thing to be borne to your grave in the cowl of
Francis; but the likeness of his garment will profit you
nothing after you are dead, if your morals were unlike
his when you were alive. . . . You pay the greatest
reverence to the ashes of Paul, and no harm if your own
religion is consistent with this. But if you adore these
dead and silent ashes and neglect that image of him
which lives and speaks and, as it were, breathes to this
day in his writings, is not your religion preposterous ?
You worship the bones of Paul laid away in a shrine, but
you do not worship the mind of Paul enshrined in his
writings. You make great things of a scrap of his body
seen through a glass case, but you do not marvel at the
whole soul of Paul that gleams through his works. . . .
Let infidels, for whom they were given, wonder at these
v., 3i-D.
i 5 o 3 ] Enchiridion Militis Christiani 103
signs, but do you, a believer, embrace the books of that
man, so that, while you doubt not that God is able to do
all things, you may learn to love Him above all things.
You honour an image of the face of Christ, badly cut in
stone or painted in colours, but far more honour ought to
be given to that image of his soul which by the work of
the Holy Spirit is made manifest in the Gospels. . . .
You gaze with awe upon a tunic or a handkerchief said
to be those of Christ, but you fall asleep over the oracles
of the law of Christ. ' '
With constant reference to Paul as the greatest of
human teachers, Erasmus comes to the monastic
life in some detail. 1
" ' Love,' says Paul, ' is to edify your neighbour,' and
if only this were done, nothing could be more joyous or
more easy than the life of the ' religious ' ; but now this
life seeins gloomy, full of Jewish superstitions, not in any
way free from the vices of laymen and in some ways more
corrupt. If Augustine, whom they boast of as the founder
of their system, were to come to life again, he would not
recognise them; he would cry out that he had never ap
proved this sort of a life, but had organized a way of
living according to the rule of the apostles, not according
to the superstition of the Jews. But now I hear some of
the more sensible ones say: ' We must be on our guard
in the least things lest we gradually slip into greater
vices.' I hear and I approve; but we ought none the
less to be on our guard lest we get so bound up in these
lesser things that we wholly fall away from the greater.
The danger is plainer on that side, but greater on this.
Look out for Scylla, but do not fall into Charybdis. To
>v., 36-A.
104 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
do those things is well, but to put your trust in them is
perilous. Paul does not forbid us to make use of the
' elements,' but he would not have the man who is free
in Christ made a slave to them. He does not condemn
the law of works, but would have it properly applied.
Without these things you will perchance not be a pious
man, but it is not these that make you pious. . . .
" What, then, shall the Christian do ? Shall he
neglect the commands of the Church, despise the honour
able traditions of the Fathers, and condemn pious observ
ances ? Nay, if he is a weakling he will hold on to these
as necessary; if he is strong and perfect, he will observe
them so much the more, lest through his wisdom he offend
his weak brother, and slay him for whom Christ died.
These things he ought to do and not leave the others
undone. . . . Your body is clothed with the monk
ish cowl; what, then, if your soul wears an earthly gar
ment ? If the outer man is veiled in a snowy tunic, let
also the vestment of the inner man be white like snow.
You keep silence outwardly; see to it so much the more
that your mind within is fixed in silent attention. You
bend the knee of the body in the visible temple; but that
is nothing if in the temple of the heart you are standing
upright against God. You adore the wood of the cross;
follow much more the mystery of the cross. Do you
go into a fast and abstain from those things which do not
defile the man and yet not refrain from obscene conver
sation which defiles both your own conscience and that
of others ? Food is withheld from the body and shall the
soul gorge itself upon the husks of the swine ? You
build a temple of stone; you have places sacred to re
ligion ; what profits it if the temple of the soul, whose wall
Ezekiel dug through, is profaned with the abominations
of the Egyptians ? ... If the body be kept pure
Enchiridion Militis Christiani 105
and yet you are covetous, then the soul is polluted. You
sing psalms with your bodily lips, but listen within to
what your soul is saying: you are blessing with the mouth
and cursing with the heart. Bodily you are bound within
a narrow cell, but with your thoughts you wander over
the wide earth. You hear the word of God with your
bodily ear: hear it rather within."
So much for the monks. As to the general moral
standards of his day Erasmus is equally clear and
vigorous and is interesting especially from the com
parison he makes with the morals of ancient times. 1
"Turn the annals of the ancients," he bursts out,
" and compare the manners of our time. When was true
honour less respected ? When were riches, no matter
how gained, ever so highly esteemed ? In what age was
ever that word of Horace 7 more true
' A dowried wife, friends, beauty, birth, fair fame,
These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame.'
When was luxury ever more reckless ? When were vice
and adultery ever more widespread or less punished
or less condemned ? . . . Who does not think pov
erty the last extreme of misfortune and disgrace ? "
It is the cry, familiar to all ages, especially of
course at times when civilisation has reached a high
point, that all honour may be bought for money and
place. It shows no especial acuteness on Erasmus'
part, but it does prove his courage and his clear
Christian insight. That he should fancy the heroes
J v., 40-D.
* Horace, Epp., i., 6, 36. Conington's translation.
io6 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
of the classic world to have been superior to the
modern Christians of his own day was a natural part
of the classic enthusiasm in which he lived. Nor
can we doubt that it greatly strengthened the moral
argument in his time to add these examples of purely
non-Christian virtue to those furnished by the well-
worn heroes of the Jewish past.
A very characteristic touch is found in Erasmus'
reference to the prevailing rage for information, also
a vice of an over-eager age. 1
" Let me speak of another error. They call him a
clever man and skilled in affairs who, catching at all
kinds of rumours, knows what is going on all over the
world: what is the fortune of the merchants, what the
tyrant of the Britains is planning, what is the news at
Rome, what is 'the latest happening in Gaul, how the
Dacians and Scythians are getting on, what the princes
are thinking about, in short, the man who is eager to
do battle about every kind of affairs among every race of
men, that man they call wise. But what is more sense
less, more foolish, than to be running after things remote,
that -have nothing to do with yourself, and not even to
think of what is going on in your own heart and what be
longs especially to you. You talk about the troubles in
Britain; tell rather what is troubling your own heart,
envy, lust, ambition; how far these have been sent under
the yoke, what hope there is of victory, how far the
war is advanced, how the plan of campaign is laid out.
If in these things you are watchful, with eyes and ears
well trained, if you are cunning and cautious, then in
deed I will declare you to be a clever man."
1 v., 44- A.
Enchiridion Militis Christiani 107
A very interesting example of Erasmus' insistence
upon the essential thing and his indifference to names
and forms is in the chapter which describes the opin
ions worthy of the Christian. It has almost a social
istic ring, so sharply does he emphasise the duty of
Christian charity. 1
" You thought it was only monks to whom property
was forbidden and poverty enjoined ? You were wrong;
both commands apply to all Christians. The law pun
ishes you if you take what belongs to another; it does
not punish you if you take what is yours away from your
brother when he needs it; but Christ will punish both.
If you are a magistrate the office should not make you
more fierce, but the responsibility should make you more
cautious. ' But,' you say, ' I do not hold a church
office; I am not a priest or a bishop.' Quite so, but
you are a Christian, are you not ? See to it whose
man you be, if you are not a man of the Church. Christ
is come into such contempt in the world, that they
think it a fine thing and a royal to have no dealings
with him and despise a person the more, the more
closely he is bound to him. Do you not hear every
day some angry layman throwing in our faces as a vio
lent reproach the words ' Clerk! ' ' Priest! ' ' Monk! '
and that with the same temper and the same voice as if
he were charging us with incest or sacrilege ? Of a truth
I wonder why they don't attack Baptism, or like the Sar
acens assault the name of Christ as something infamous.
If they would say ' bad Clerk! ' ' unworthy Priest! ' ' im
pious Monk! ' we could bear it as coming from those who
were rebuking the character of the man and not the pro
fession of virtue. But those who call the rape of virgins,
io8 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
the plunder of war, the gain and loss of money at dice
deeds of glory, these people have no word to throw at
another more full of contempt and shame than ' Monk! '
or ' Priest! ' though it is clear enough what these people,
Christians in nothing but the name, think of Christ.
' There is not one Lord for bishops and another for
civil rulers; both are vicegerents of the same Lord and
both must render an account to him. The office of the
Christian prince is not to excel others in wealth, but, as
far as possible, to seek the advantage of all. Turn not
what belongs to the public to your own profit, but spend
whatever is yours, even yourself, for the public good.
The people owe much to you, but you owe everything to
them. High-sounding names, ' Invictus,' ' Sacrosanctus,'
' Majestas^ though your ears are forced to hear them,
yet ascribe them all to Christ, to whom alone they belong.
The crime of l<zsa majestatis, which others bring forward
with frightful clamour, let this be to you a very small
matter. He alone violates the majesty of the prince
who, under the name of a prince, does things contrary to
law, cruel, violent, or criminal. Let no attack move you
so little as one which touches you personally. Remem
ber that you are a public person, and that it is your duty
to think only of the public good. If you are wise con
sider, not how great you are, but how great a burden
rests upon your shoulders. The greater danger you are
in, so much the less seek indulgence for yourself, and
choose the model for your administration, not from your
fathers or from your partisans, but from Christ. What
can be more absurd than that a Christian prince should
set up Hannibal, Alexander, Caesar, or Pompey as an
example to himself ? . Nothing is so becoming,
so splendid, so glorious in kings as to attain as nearly as
may be to the perfect likeness of Jesus, the supreme
i 5 o 3 i Enchiridion Militis Christiani 109
king, greatest and best. . . . ' Apostolus,' 'Pastor,'
' Episcopus,' these are names of duties, not of govern
ment; ' Papa, 1 ' Abbas,' are titles of love, not of domin
ion. But why should I go into this ocean of vulgar
errors ? ' '
The Enchiridion closes with five chapters of re
medies against certain vices : lust, avarice, ambition,
arrogance, and anger. These prescriptions have to
us so obvious a sound that one easily overlooks their
real importance. Their value consists in this : that
in an age of formal righteousness they direct the
conscience of the individual man straight back to
the sources of all Christian living, to the plain teach
ing of Jesus and the plain argument of common
sense. We ought to follow Scripture, yes, but
because Solomon kept a harem of concubines, that
is no example for us. Peter denied the Christ for
whom he afterward died ; but that is no excuse for
perjury. The Christian law is thus made plain to the
individual conscience.
It has seemed worth while to go into the contents
of this little book with more care than its extent
might appear to warrant, because it is the earliest
formulated expression of those principles of inter
pretation which form the basis of Erasmus' whole
mature life and thought. It is for him, as it were,
a programme, which he was to fill out in detail, in
the long series of writings that now began to flow
rapidly from his pen. In it he made his challenge
to the world, yet with such moderation, such care
ful weighing and balancing of views, that he evid-
no Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
ently hoped to win the support of all classes in
what he began to feel was his life-work.
We are always told that Erasmus here in the
Enchiridion began his unceasing warfare upon the
monks ; but if we read closely we see how carefully
he guarded himself against direct assault upon this
or any other established institution. Not the
name " monk " was a reproach, but the name " bad
monk." He even goes so far as to identify himself
with the clerical order. It was well enough to fast
or even to use images and relics, so long as one saw
through the forms to the meaning underneath ; but
the moment a man found himself relying upon the
forms, no matter who he was, pope, priest, or lay
man, that moment he was in danger.
Erasmus says that the Enchiridion attracted little
attention at first, but afterward had a great sale.
We can well believe that the full force of its critic
ism was not felt until the first stirrings of the Pro
testant Reformation brought men sharply face to
face with the problems it had outlined. It cannot
be called precisely a controversial book, yet the
germs of the bitterest controversies of the Reforma
tion time are contained in it. Erasmus professed
the utmost reverence for the existing institutions of
the Church, and there is nothing in his later life to
make us doubt the sincerity of this profession. He
was by nature averse to all the violence and confu
sion that must attend any great social change. But
it was clear to him that his age had wandered far
from the ideals of the founders of these institutions.
His remedy was to point out to men how widely
Enchiridion Militis Christian! in
they had erred and to show them once more in
plain and direct language the true foundations of the
Christian life.
It is noticeable that with all his protests of respect,
Erasmus nowhere urges the appeal to the existing
order in the Church as final. Men may fast, worship
saints, take vows, seek absolution ; but their real
salvation is to be found in none of these things.
As this little book went out into the world, in the
year 1503, it remained to be seen which aspect of
its teaching would prove the more effectual, whether
its real meaning would penetrate alike to friends and
enemies. Some light on this point may be gained
from a letter ' of Erasmus written in 1 5 1 8 to his friend
Volzius and afterward published as a preface to a
new edition of the Enchiridion. In this letter he
says that his work was criticised as unlearned, be
cause it did not use the quibbling methods of the
schools. But he was not trying " to train men for
the prize-ring of the Sorbonne, but rather for the
peace which belongs to the Christian/' There is no
lack of books on theology;
" there are as many commentaries on the ' Sentences ' of
Petrus Lombardus as there are theologians. There is no
end of little summas, which mix up one thing with another
over and over again and after the manner of apothecaries
fabricate and refabricate old things from new, new from
old, one from many, and many from one. The result is
that there are so many books about right living that no
one can ever live long enough to read them. As if a
doctor should prescribe for a man in a dangerous illness
'iii-'i 337-
ii2 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
that he should read the books of Jacobus a Partibus and
all the likes of them and there he would find out how to
mend his health."
There were books enough, Heaven knew! but not
life enough to read them, and this multitude of
quarrelling doctors were only obscuring the true art
of living, which Christ meant to make plain and
simple to all. These so-called philosophers are ob
stacles, not helps, to the true Christian life.
" They could never have enough of discussing in what
words they ought to speak of Christ, as if they were deal
ing with some horrid demon, who would bring destruction
upon them if they failed to invoke him in proper terms,
instead of with a most gentle Saviour, who asks nothing
of us but a pure and upright life."
Erasmus makes here the very practical and con
structive suggestion, that
" a commission of pious and learned men should bring
together into a compendium from the purest sources of
the gospels and the apostles and from their most approved
commentators, the whole philosophy of Christ, with as
much simplicity as learning, as much brevity as clear
ness. What pertains to the faith should be treated in as
few articles as possible; what belongs to life, also in few
words, and so put that men may know that the yoke of
Christ is easy and pleasant, not cruel; that they have
been given fathers, not tyrants; pastors, not robbers;
called to salvation, not betrayed into slavery.
" Now then," he says, " that is precisely the purpose
I was filled with when I wrote my Enchiridion. I saw
i 5 o 3 ] Enchiridion Militis Christian! 113
the multitude of Christians corrupted, not only in their
passions, but also in their opinions. I saw those who
professed to be pastors and doctors generally abusing
the name of Christ to their own profit, to say nothing
of those at whose nod the affairs of men are tossed hither
and thither, but at whose vices, open as they are, it is
hardly permitted to raise a groan. And in such a turmoil
of affairs, in such corruption of the world, in such a con
flict of human opinions, whither was one to flee, except
to the sacred anchor of the Gospel teaching ?
" I would not defile the divine philosophy of Christ
with human decrees. Let Christ remain what he is, the
centre, with certain circles about him. I would not
move the centre from its place. Let those who are
nearest Christ, priests, bishops, cardinals, popes, whose
duty it is to follow the Lamb wherever he goes, embrace
that most perfect part and, so far as may be, hand it on
to the next in order. Let the second circle contain
temporal princes, whose arms and whose laws are in the
service of Christ. ... In the third circle let us
place the mass of the people as the dullest part of this
world, but yet, dull as it is, a member of the body of
Christ. For the eyes are not the only members of the
body, but also the hands and the feet. And for these
we ought to have consideration, so that, as far as pos
sible, they may be called to those things which are nearer
to Christ, for in this body he who is now but a foot may
come to be an eye. . . . So a mark is to be set be
fore all, toward which they may strive, and there is but
one mark, namely Christ and his pure doctrine. But if,
instead of a heavenly mark you set an earthly one, there
will be nothing towards which one may properly strive.
That which is highest is meant for all, that we may at
least attain to some moderate height. . . . The per-
8
'14 Desiderius Erasmus [1503-
fection of Christ is in our motives, not in the form of our
life, in our minds, not in dress or food. There are some
among the monks whom the third circle would scarcely
accept, I am speaking now of good ones, but weak.
There are some, even among men twice married, whom
Christ would think worthy of the first circle. It is no
offence to any particular form of life if what is best and
most perfect is put forth as a standard for all. Every
kind of life has its own peculiar dangers and he who
shows them up makes no reflection upon the institution,
but is rather defending its cause."
This highly characteristic letter closes with a re
view of the early history and purpose of the monastic
orders and emphasises still further Erasmus* point
that he has no quarrel with monks as such, but only
in so far as they set more value upon forms than
upon the true following of Christ.
" I would have all Christians so live that those who
alone are now called ' religious ' should seem very little
religious and that is true to-day in not a few cases ; for
why should we hide what is open to all ? "
His picture of the true monks, as Benedict and
Bernard would have had them, must have seemed
Utopian indeed. They were merely voluntary com
munities of friends, living
" in the liberty of the spirit according to the Gospel law,
and under certain necessary rules about dress and food.
They hated riches, they avoided all offices, even those
of the church; they laboured with their hands, so that
they might not only be no burden upon others, but might
i 5 o 3 ] Enchiridion Militis Christiani 115
have a surplus to relieve distress; they dwelt upon mount
ain-peaks, in swamps, and sandy deserts."
Now let whoever will compare all this with the
monks of his own day!
Things had moved very rapidly in the fifteen years
since Erasmus had written the Enchiridion, but the
tone of this defence is quite in harmony with that of
the book itself. It is not loose and vulgar abuse
of the " religious " orders, but rather a calm and
consistent appeal to the one true standard of Christ
ian life, namely to the teaching and example of
Christ himself.
This is the great interest of this little manual of
the Christian gentleman. It shows Erasmus as a
clear-eyed critic of existing institutions, rather than
as a man who had any definite scheme of reform to
propose. Throughout the book there is but one
concrete proposition : that a commission be ap
pointed by whom is not suggested to reduce the
substance of Christian faith and morals to such
simple form that it could be understood by every
one. A very pretty and amiable suggestion indeed,
but hardly suited to a moment when the irreconcil
able nature of the great conflict between a religious
system founded upon formalism and the simple
morality of the Gospel was beginning to be more
and more clearly felt.
In the year following the publication of the
Enchiridion, while Erasmus was quietly going on
with his studies, living where he could find a com
fortable place for the moment, he was suddenly
n6 Desiderius Erasmus [1504-
called upon to perform one of the very few public
functions of his life. Philip, Duke of Burgundy,
son of the Emperor Maximilian and administrator of
the government in the Low Countries, was returning
from a journey to Spain and France in the year 1504
and was to be received at Brussels with all fitting
demonstrations of loyalty and affection. Among
other things the community desired to show its ap
preciation of learning by inflicting upon the young
man a public oration in as good style as they could
pay for.
Erasmus was chosen for this task and fulfilled it
with success if not with enthusiasm. His extrava
gant phrases of laudation, in which the prince is
credited with almost more than human qualities,
cannot interest us. They are purely conventional
and can convince us neither of the prince's merit
nor of the orator's insincerity. More important for
us is the evidence that even through such formal
surroundings, the originality of the man cannot fail
to make itself here and there felt.
The oration was delivered in the ducal palace at
Brussels. In its printed form it fills over twenty
folio pages and can hardly have occupied less than
three or four hours in delivery. One would imagine
that even the divine virtues of the young prince
could hardly have kept up his spirits while these
ponderous paragraphs were being read to him, and it
is certainly to be hoped that he was let off with an
abbreviated edition. He may well have yawned
over the tedious narrative of his journey to Spain
and his magnificent reception in France, but he was,
i 5 o 4 ] Philip of Burgundy 117
probably seldom privileged to hear such sound in
struction as Erasmus dealt out to him from point to
point of his discourse. 1
" Even to-day," said the orator, " there are not want
ing those who croak into the ears of kings such stuff as
this: ' Why should you hesitate ? Have you forgotten
that you are a prince ? Is not your pleasure the law ?
It is the part of kings to live not by rule but by the lust
of their own hearts. Whatever any of your subjects has,
that belongs to you. It is yours to give life and to take
it away; yours to make or to ruin the fortunes of whom
you will. Others are praised or blamed, but to you
everything is honourable, everything praiseworthy. Will
you listen to those philosophers and scholastics ? . . . .
Seal your ears with wax, most noble Duke, against the
fatal song of these Sirens; like Homer's Ulysses, or
rather, like Virgil's .^Eneas, steer your course so far from
their coast that the poison of their seductive voices may
not touch the soundness of your mind."
" By what names we call you, it matters little to you,
for you do not think yourself to be other than what
Homer calls the ' shepherd of the people ' or Plato its
' guardian.' You have discovered a new way to increase
the revenues of your nobles and of yourself: by dimin
ishing expense instead of increasing taxes. Oh ! wonder
ful soul! you deprive yourself that your subjects may
abound; you deny yourself that there may be the more
for the multitude. You keep watch, that we may sleep
in safety. You are wearied with continual anxieties,
that your own may have peace. You wear your prince
dom, not for yourself, but for your land."
1 iv., 529-F.
n8 Desiderius Erasmus [1504-
" The Astrologers declare that in certain years there
appear long-tailed stars which bring mighty convulsions
into human affairs, touching both the minds and the
bodies of men with fatal force and terribly affecting
rivers, seas, earth, and air. But no comet can arise so
fatal to the earth as a bad prince, nor any planet so
healthful as a blameless ruler."
The most striking part of the panegyric, however,
is that which compares the virtues of peace with
those of war. Here Erasmus makes his first great
declaration of principles as to the absolute wicked
ness and folly of war and henceforth, during his
whole life, he never failed to repeat and to emphasise
them. We cannot account for this consistent atti
tude on any theory of personal timidity or even on
the ground that the scholar's work demanded peace
for its full development. This latter argument we
do find in Erasmus, but it might equally well be
turned in favour of war as" furnishing those stirring
episodes and kindling that enthusiasm for heroic
deeds which have always been inspiring to literary
genius. Erasmus was sincerely and profoundly im
pressed with the enormous waste of energy which
war seemed to imply and believed with all his heart
that the motives leading to it were almost invariably
bad. In a day when the peoples of Europe were
continually involved in wars and rumours of wars, it
was an act of no little courage for this solitary
scholar to stand before a great assembly of princes
and plead the sacred cause of peace.
Considerable ingenuity is shown in his clever reply
to the argument that peace is enervating to the
i 5 o 4 ] Philip of Burgundy 119
ruler. Bravery, Erasmus says, is far easier in war,
for we see that a very poor kind of man may show
it there ; but to govern the spirit, to control desire,
to put a bridle upon greed, to restrain the temper,
that kind of courage is peculiar to the wise and
good. Of all these peaceful virtues he declares
Philip to be the model, and it is of little account to
us whether this praise be well or ill applied. Our
interest is in the growth of Erasmus' own ideas and
the part they had in fitting him for the work he was
to do. His description of the miseries of war is a
really noble piece of eloquence and reason.
We shall have occasion again to refer to Erasmus'
peace propaganda. Enough here that he had the
courage to speak his mind under circumstances
which might well have led a less manly orator to
dwell upon the glory and profit of a warlike policy.
His listener, involved as he was at that moment in
as tangled a web of negotiations as ever European
diplomacy had yet woven, must have smiled in his
sleeve at this harmless pedantry of the worthy
scholar. Certainly no action of his life up to that
time or in the short years left to him can indicate
any preference for peace for its own sake.
More grateful, doubtless, to the princely ears were
Erasmus' prognostications of his future. He had
no faith in astrology, but he seemed to see in the
evident trend of European affairs an accumulation
of powers in the hand of duke Philip, which was to
be realised in the person of his son Charles. The
orator lets himself go in laudation of Maximilian,
Ferdinand, Joanna, and Philip himself, with confid-
120 Desiderius Erasmus [1504-
ent prediction of a magnificent future. In fact
Maximilian's career was a series of brilliant failures.
Ferdinand was in continual dread of Philip and
often in open hostility with him. Joanna was al
ready showing traces of that hopeless insanity,
aggravated it was said by the cruel frivolities of
Philip, which was to taint the house of Habsburg
to this day. Finally Philip was to die of disease
within two years, without realising any of the
schemes of aggrandisement to which his life was
devoted.
But if Erasmus' prophecy was bad, his scheme of
princely morals, as here laid down, was good, and
it indicates clearly the bent of his serious thought.
A man with his sense of humour in other words,
with his common sense could not fail to see the
discrepancy between the actual Philip and the being
whom he had here depicted. When he came to
publish his panegyric he found it necessary to de
fend himself against the charge of falsehood. In a
letter * to his friend Paludanus, professor of rhetoric
at Louvain, he goes at considerable length into the
obligation of a writer of such things to tell the truth.
He supports his own action by reference to classic
panegyrists and lays down the general principle,
that one can do more to help a prince by praising
him for virtues he has not, than by blaming him for
the faults he has.
" Just," he says, " as the best of physicians declares
to his patient that he likes his colour and the expression
1 iv., 550.
i 5 o 4 ] Philip of Burgundy 121
of his face, not because these things are so, but that he
may make them so. Augustine, so they say, confesses
that he told many a lie in praise of emperors. Paul the
apostle himself not infrequently employs the device of
pious adulation, praising in order that he may reform."
The panegyric to Philip, in its published form, was
dedicated to Nicholas Ruterius, bishop of Arras. In
the dedicatory letter Erasmus professes that this
kind of writing was distasteful to him, and defends
himself again by the reflection that
" there is no way so effectual for improving a prince, as
to present to him, under the form of praise, the model of
a good prince, provided only that you ascribe virtues
to him and take faults away from him in such wise that
you urge him to the one and warn him from the other."
We are led to believe that Prince Philip was gra
ciously pleased to approve the discourse of Erasmus.
Doubtless he was as quick as the orator himself to
explain it in a Pickwickian sense wherever it verged
too closely upon unpleasant facts. He gave him a
handsome present and is said to have offered him
a place in his service which Erasmus, as usual, de
clined.
CHAPTER V
RESIDENCE IN ITALY THE " PRAISE OF FOLLY"
1506-1509
WE have already noted Erasmus' often-ex
pressed desire to visit Italy. It is the al
leged motive of his begging correspondence with the
Marchioness Anna in and about the year 1500. At
that time he professes to have little interest in Italy
for its own sake, but to be yielding to a popular
delusion that a doctor's degree was absolutely indis
pensable to a scholarly reputation and that an Italian
doctorate was worth more than any other. In Eng
land he is quite satisfied that he has done just as
well for his Greek and his scholarly advancement in
general as if he had gone to Italy ; yet the idea of
the Italian journey seems never to have left him.
It is an interesting inquiry precisely what the real
attraction of Italy to Erasmus was.
One can easily draw a fancy picture of what ought
to have attracted him. Italy had naturally for the
scholar of the Renaissance a double interest, first as
the seat of ancient Roman culture, and again as the
source and spring of that modern revival in which
he himself formed a part. It might well appeal to
the instinct of the antiquarian and the sight-seer,
iso6] Residence in Italy 123
eager to bring visibly before himself the remains of
ancient splendour, the living and vivid reminders
of a mighty past. He might hope to live again in
the charmed atmosphere of Virgil and Horace, to
sit amid the scenes already familiar to him in the
glowing pages of Cicero, and to bring into his mind
some more adequate understanding of the vast
achievements he had read of in the pregnant story
of Livy or of Julius Caesar.
The appeal of Italy, in short, to the historical im
agination is, one would say, perhaps the most power
ful that has ever come to a scholar's mind from that
land of enchantment. It was a time, too, when
men's thoughts and activities were turning eagerly
to all that side of the new classical study. For a
century and a half, ever since the days of Petrarch
and Rienzi, the treasures of ancient art, Greek as
well as Roman, had been brought to light, gathered
into great collections, and made to do their part in
the education of Europe. The limits of the Eternal
City had been turned into one great treasure-house
of precious reminders of former and presages of a
future greatness. The visitor to Rome or to Flor
ence might study from the originals the choicest
forms in which the art of the ancient world had ex
pressed itself.
It is hard to fancy that Erasmus, in his thoughts
of Italy, can have failed to be drawn by the an
ticipation of living thus bodily in the presence of
the human world from which he drew his literary
inspiration and toward which all his serious thought
went back as to its natural source. Yet the fact is
124 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
that neither in the anticipation nor in the reality of
his Italian journey do we find such reference to these
things as would warrant us in thinking that they
formed any essential part of his ideas about Italy.
That sense of an overwhelming grandeur, a some
thing indescribably greater than all that had come
since, which has fallen upon so many an Italian
traveller, seems to have been entirely absent in his
case. When Goethe entered Italy, it was with
bated breath and reverent awe at the stupendous
remains of a civilisation whose influence was even
then potent in the lives of men. So far as Erasmus
has left us any witness of himself his mind was oc
cupied solely with the immediate profit of the mo
ment : his doctor's degree, his new publisher, the
petty comforts and discomforts of daily life.
Still more curious is his attitude towards that
other aspect of Italy which might have been ex
pected to impress him even more. As a man of the
Renaissance one might have looked to find Erasmus,
even before his departure, in correspondence with
some of the lights of the later Italian Humanism ;
yet, so far as we know, he went over the Alps a
stranger, except for the slight reputation of his own
writings, and chiefly of the Adages. The enormous
activity of all those great producers in every field
of art, who have made the turning-point of the
fifteenth to the sixteenth century one of the great
epochs in human history, seems simply to have
escaped his notice. We do not hear of it as attract
ing him from the North ; when he is in the midst of
it, it finds no echo in his correspondence, and when
1509] Residence in Italy 125
he leaves it, there is nothing in his later writing to
show that it had greatly affected him. With the
really greatest men of the land he seems not to have
come into any intimate personal relation, and he
certainly avoided here, as he had always done else
where, any complication with political or social
movements of any sort.
Our information in regard to the Italian journey
and residence is curiously meagre. In the great
collection of Erasmus' letters, there are but a half-
dozen in the three years from 1506 to 1509. M.
Nolhac ' has published four others written by Eras
mus to Aldus, his printer, but these latter are oc
cupied almost wholly with unimportant business
details. Four of the former group are written from
Paris just after the party had left England and give
us only some scattered hints as to Erasmus' depart
ure for Italy.
The long-sought opportunity came to him in a
form which he had once vowed he would never
accept, namely, through an engagement as private
tutor to the two sons of Battista Boerio, the
Genoese physician of King Henry VII. Beatus
takes some pains to tell us that Erasmus was not
to teach these youths, but it is not quite clear what
else his function was. They had an attendant
(curator) named Clyston, whom Erasmus describes
in one of these early letters as the most pleasant,
lovable, and faithful fellow in the world. The lads,
too, were, he says, most modest, teachable, and
1 P. de Nolhac, rasme en Italic, jfrtude sur un Episode de la Re
naissance, avec douze lettres intdites d'Erasme, 1888.
126 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
studious. He has great hopes that they will fulfil
the expectations of their father and reward his own
pains. The voyage across the Channel was a dread
ful one, lasting four days, so that a report spread in
Paris that they were lost, and Erasmus appeared
among his friends, he says, like one risen from the
dead. The result was that he was taken with an
illness, which he describes so exactly as to leave no
doubt that he had a good clear case of the mumps.
From Paris the journey was by way of Lyons and
the western Alps. We have a brief account of it in
that singular hodge-podge, the catalogue of his
writings, made by Erasmus eighteen years afterward
and sent to John Botzheim of Constance. The story
of the journey there given is only incidental to the
account of a little poetical dissertation * on the ap
proach of old age which he wrote on the way and
sent back to Paris to his medical friend, William
Cop. Erasmus was only about forty years old, but
he felt himself getting on in life . and declares here
his determination to give up the charms of pure
literature and devote the rest of his days to Christ
alone. Most serious men of the Renaissance from
Petrarch and Boccaccio down had had their moments
of self-reproach for their over-devotion to the heathen
Muses and perhaps Erasmus' feeling on this point
was as sincere as that of his colleagues. Surely his
life up to this time had not been so frivolously class
ical as to cause him any deserved regrets. He re
presents this poem as written to relieve his mind from
the unpleasantness of his companions, especially the
1 Carmen equestre vel potius Afyestre, iv., 755.
Residence in Italy 127
distinguished Clyston, who was now already as
dreadful a being as a few weeks before he had been
charming. While Clyston was alternately brawling
and drinking with an English man-at-arms whom
the king' had specially deputed for their protection,
Erasmus was, he says, devoting himself to poetical
reflection and composition. Another reference to
this journey is probably found in the well-known
colloquy " Diversoria," in which one of the speak
ers describes the charms of the French inns, their
cleanliness, their good wines and cookery, and the
great efforts of the landladies and their fair attend
ants to make things pleasant for the traveller. All
this is then made the more effective by a counter-
description of the swinish customs of the inns in
Germany. 1 Again we have an illustration of Eras
mus' aesthetic indifference. It is not a sufficient
answer to say that joy in outward nature is a purely
recent emotion. The whole art of the Renaissance
is the witness that men had long since escaped from
this form of mediaeval bondage and were quite able
to understand that they were living in a good world,
made for their delight and not wholly under the
dominion of Satan. A journey on horseback across
the Alps! and, so far as we know, this prince of
learned men, who could discourse so eloquently
upon every human feeling, had not one emotion be
yond a desire to get across as soon as possible and a
lively sense of the comforts and discomforts of his
inns.
If a doctor's degree was one of Erasmus' objects
1 See page 226.
128 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
in coming to Italy, he certainly lost no time in
fulfilling it. The degree was conferred on him at
Turin September 4, 1506.' Erasmus took especial
pains to state in at least four letters that he took
this degree to please his friends, not himself; but
made no objection to its immediate use in his pub
lications. From Turin he went on to Bologna where
he proposed to settle for his own studies, as well as
for those of his young pupils. The country was in
a distressing state of confusion and that of a kind
especially offensive to Erasmus. War was bad
enough at the best, but a papal war was a scandal
to the name of Christianity, and a fighting pope was
to him a monster of iniquity. He held his pen
quietly enough at the time, but the impression of
this pope, Julius II., leading a campaign for the re
covery of Bologna from the French never quite left
him. It served him for a text whenever he felt free
to speak his mind on the subject of war or on the
decline of virtue in the church. A turn in affairs
gave Bologna to Julius II. and furnished to Erasmus
the opportunity of seeing the triumphal entry of the
pope into his city. He simply reports the event to
Servatius, his old comrade at Steyn, without men
tioning that he had witnessed it, and only long after
ward casually refers to his presence, in the course of
a formal defence against the charge of abusing the
papacy.
" In the passage ... I compare the triumphal
entries (triumphos) which, in my presence, Julius II.
1 See the diploma in W. Vischer, Erasmiana, Basel, 1876.
ISOQ] Residence in Italy 129
made first at Bologna and afterwards at Rome, with the
majesty of the apostles who converted the world by
divine truth and who so abounded in miracles that the
sick were healed by their very shadow, and I give the
preference to this apostolic splendour; yet I say nothing
abusive against those [other] triumphs, although to speak
frankly I gazed upon them not without a silent groan."
Two little notes to Servatius at this time are quite
in the usual tone of Erasmian discontent. He says
that his principal object in coming to Italy was to
study Greek but "jamfrigent studia, fervent be I la "
" studies are cold, but wars are hot," he will en
deavour to fly back again very soon and hopes to
see his friend the following summer. While wars
are planning study takes a holiday. He makes an
identical promise to another friend and was prob
ably quite sincere in fancying that Italy, like every
other place he had tried, was a failure. Evidently
he was in trouble about his pupils. Writing to one
of them twenty-five years afterward ' he says :
" it was the fault of that fellow, whom you nickname
the ' scarabeus, ' not only that I had to leave you sooner
than I had intended, but that the pleasure of our com
panionship was so embittered that if I had not been
kept by a sense of duty, I could not have endured that
monster for a month. I have often wondered that your
cautious father could have been so thoughtless as to
intrust his most precious treasures to a man who was
scarce fit to keep swine, nay, who was of such feeble
mind that he rather needed a keeper himself."
'Hi.*, 1397-
9
i3 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
The whole affair is almost an echo of the trouble
with the " old man " at Paris and would be too
trifling for notice were it not almost the only inci
dent in connection with Erasmus' residence of more
than a year at Bologna which has come down to us.
Of course the climate was bad and especially un-
suited to his requirements.
The summer of 1507 found Erasmus still at Bo
logna. It was an exceptionally hot season so he
says and the plague broke out with violence. It
is apropos of this plague and an incident which he
relates in connection with it, that we come once
more to the famous letter, mentioned early in our
narrative, 1 in which Erasmus begs to be released
from the obligation of wearing the monastic dress.
The letter is addressed to Lambertus Grunnius, a
papal secretary at Rome, and contains, by way of
introduction, that long series of details about the
compulsory entrance into the monastery of a youth
called Florentius, which has been generally ac
cepted as a truthful narrative of the writer's own
experience. We have already followed the indica
tions of this letter with some care down to the
point where Erasmus was safely invested with the
monastic garb and had made up his mind to make
the best of it. At this point, with one of those
jumps so common in his style, he comes to the time
of his Italian visit and continues:
" Some time afterward it happened that he went into
a far country for the purpose of study. There, accord-
1 See Introduction.
i 5 o 9 ] Residence in Italy 131
ing to the French custom, he wore a linen scarf above
his gown, supposing that this was not unusual in that
country. 1 But from this he twice was in danger of his
life, for the physicians there who serve during a plague,
wear a white linen scarf on their left shoulder, so that it
hangs down in front and behind, and in this way they
are easily recognised and avoided by the passers-by.
Yet, unless they go about by unfrequented ways they
would be stoned by those who meet them, for such is the
horror of death among those people, that they go wild at
the very odour of incense because it is burned at funerals.
At one time when Florentius was going to visit a learned
friend, two blackguards fell upon him with murderous
cries and drawnswords and would have killed him, if a
lady fortunately passing had not explained to them that
this was the dress of a churchman and not of a doctor.
Still they ceased not to rage and did not sheathe their
swords until he had pounded on the door of a house
near by and so got in.
" At another time he was going to visit certain country
men of his when a mob with sticks and stones suddenly
got together and urged each other on with furious shouts
of ' Kill the dog! Kill the dog! ' Meanwhile a priest
came up who only laughed and said in Latin in a low
voice: 'Asses! Asses!' They kept on with their tumult,
but as a young man of elegant appearance and wearing
a purple cloak came out of a house, Florentius ran to
him as to an altar of safety, for he was totally ignorant of
the vulgar tongue and was only wondering what they
wanted of him. ' One thing is certain,' said the young
man: ' if you don't lay off this scarf, you '11 some day
1 In another place he says that he changed his dress in Italy to con
form to the custom of the country, iii., 1527.
132 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
get stoned; I have warned you, and now look out for
yourself. ' So, without laying aside his scarf, he concealed
it under his upper garment."
Such is the cock-and-bull story with which Eras
mus, we know not how many years later, amused
the excellent Grunnius as a preface to his petition
for a papal dispensation from the duty of wearing
the monastic dress. It is too silly even for Mr.
Drummond, who very properly says that it is quite
too much to believe either that Erasmus would be
in a plague-stricken city when he could get out of
it, or that any Italian could be so blind as not to
know a monk from a doctor! Certainly Erasmus
would never wait to be pounded in the street before
finding out what dress he might safely wear. The
reply of Grunnius shows how the whole matter
looked at Rome.
" MY DEAREST ERASMUS : I never undertook any
commission more gladly than the one you have intrusted
to me and scarcely ever succeeded in one more to my own
mind. For I was moved not so much by my friendship
for you, strong as that is, as by the undeserved misfor
tune of Florentius. Your letter I read from beginning
to end to the pope in the presence of several cardinals
and men of the highest standing. The most holy father
was extremely delighted with your style and you would
hardly believe how hot he was against those man-stealers;
for greatly as he favours true piety, by so much the more
does he hate those who are filling the world with wretched
or wicked monks to the great injury of the Christian faith.
' Christ,' he says, ' loves piety of the heart, not work-
Residence in Italy 133
houses for slaves.' He has ordered your permit to be
made out at once and gratis too. . . . Farewell,
and give Florentius, whom I regard as I do yourself, an
affectionate greeting from me."
However much of truth or of fiction there may
have been in this famous letter, we may be tolerably
sure that Erasmus thought of it very much as he
would of his Colloquies, as a piece of literary work
with a purpose at the bottom of it. At the time
he sent it, perhaps 1514, his views were well known
to the papal circle, and the abuse of monks was far
from unwelcome to the " enlightened " views of a
monarchy as worldly as any in all Europe. Doubt
less Erasmus knew his Rome well enough before he
ventured to send such a fulmination as this into the
midst of it.
Of his other occupations at Bologna we know
little. He does not appear to have been a regular
student at the famous university, but rather to have
worked by himself and to have got what help he
could from a Greek teacher named Bombasius, with
whom he had later some correspondence. 1
" I never passed a more disagreeable year," he
said long afterward ; but we have learned the form
ula by this time and could hardly expect any other
1 Beatus Rhenanus, in his brief summary of Erasmus' life, says :
" With the exception of the rudiments, he may truly be said to have
been self-taught. For the journey into Italy . . . was under
taken for the sake of visiting that famous land, not to take advantage
of the professors there. At Bologna he heard no one of the public
lecturers, but, satisfied with the friendship of Paulus Bombasius
. . , he devoted himself to his studies at home."
134 Desiderius Erasmus [i 50 6-
opinion from him of a year in which he had reached
the goal of his desires, was free from all burdens
except the oversight of two excellent pupils, was at
one of the principal seats of learning, in as good
health as usual and working away at several pieces
of composition which he had undertaken of his own
free choice. It is as certain that this was a profit
able year to Erasmus as it is that he profited by
those early monastic years of which he affected later
to have only the gloomiest recollections.
If any proof of this were wanting it would be
found in the earliest acquaintance of Erasmus
with the famous Venetian printer and publisher,
Aldus Manutius, which begins at the close of the
year at Bologna and was to continue for many years
to the great pleasure and profit of both parties.
Erasmus* first request to Aldus, introduced by
plentiful compliments upon his work, is that he will
undertake to reprint the translation of two tragedies
of Euripides which had already been published by
Badius at Paris. That unlucky publisher, it seems,
had offered to make a second and better edition,
but Erasmus confides to Aldus his dread that Badius
would only patch up old errors with new ones, and
says l :
" I should feel that my productions were on the way
to immortality if they should see the light by the aid of
your types, especially those small ones, the most tasteful
of all. Let it be so done that the volume shall be very
small and let the thing be put through with very slight
1 Nolhac, rasme en Itatie, Ep. i.
ALDVS-PIVS- MANVTWS-
. ^. - .
ALDUS P. MANUTIUS.
FROM AN OLD PRINT.
1509] Residence in Italy 135
expense. If it shall seem good to you to undertake the
business, I will furnish gratis the corrected manuscript
which I am sending by this messenger and will only ask
for a few copies to give to my friends."
He urges Aldus to haste because he may have to
leave Italy very soon.
Everything thus points to an entire absence of
plan in Erasmus' mind. His only fixed intention
was to go to Rome at Christmas, as he informs
Aldus in his next letter. The great publisher had
evidently agreed to print the tragedies and had
made certain suggestions in regard to readings,
which indicate at once how much more than a mere
printer or publisher he was. Erasmus replies with
his own views on the passages in question and with
very warm words of admiration for Aldus. He
wants these plays, he says, as New Year gifts to his
learned friends at Bologna, and these include " all
who either know or profess the classic literature."
At Rome, also, he will want to have some little work
to recall him to his former acquaintances and to
make new ones ; so he begs Aldus for a short intro
ductory note, which he will leave entirely to his dis
cretion. It is an interesting comment on Erasmus'
relation to the Italian scholars that he should have
needed a publisher's introduction to commend him
to them. Will Aldus be so good as to send him
twenty or thirty copies de luxe (codices estimatos) for
which he will pay in advance, c.o.d. or in any way
Aldus may direct ? A singular reference in this
letter is worth noting for the light it sheds upon I
Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
know not exactly what aspect of Erasmus' charac
ter. He says:
" Leave out the epigram at the end of the tragedies. It
was written by a certain young Frenchman, at that time
a servant of mine, whom I had led to believe, by way of
a joke, that these verses ought to be printed, and I had
given them to Badius at my departure in the youth's
presence to make him keep on hoping. But I wonder
whatever put it into Badius' head to print them, for I
told the man that I was only playing a joke on the lad."
In both these letters there is shown a studied disre
spect for Badius and an evident effort to gain the
good will of Aldus, to whom Erasmus speaks as to
a superior person. ' No doubt you will find many
errors, but in this matter I do not even ask you to
be cautious."
This friendly beginning with Aldus had its imme
diate consequence for Erasmus. He gave up his
intention if he had ever had it of going to Rome
at Christmas, 1507, and we next find him in the early
part of 1508 at Venice. He had thrown up the care
of the young Boerios, for reasons, perhaps, con
nected with his dislike of their attendant, but cer
tainly without any break with the lads themselves.
The specific purpose of Erasmus in going to Venice
was to prepare a new edition of his Adages, the first
edition of which we noted as made at Paris in 1500.
Eight years of continuous occupation with classic
literature, and especially the progress he had mean
while made in the study of Greek, had given him an
immensely increased acquaintance with the kind of
1509] Residence in Italy 137
material he wished to use for this collection. How
far he had prepared the way by correspondence we
do not know; but it would seem that he went at the
work at once and kept on with it very steadily for
about nine months. The peculiar nature of the
Adages, a mere collection of disconnected para
graphs without any natural order or arrangement of
any sort, made it possible for Erasmus to work in a
fashion very different from his usual one. It was
simply a question of getting the thing along bit by
bit, and so we find him sending in a daily instalment
of "copy " and taking away a daily batch of proof.
The first typographical corrections were made by a
paid proof-reader, then the author corrected, and
finally Aldus himself read the proof, not so much,
as he once said in reply to a question of Erasmus,
to ensure correctness as for his own instruction.
We gain from many scattered indications a
picture, on the whole very attractive, of this new
activity. 1 It was Erasmus' first experience as a
fellow-worker with anyone, and it had its uncom
fortable aspects of course, or he would not have been
Erasmus. His critics, notably Scaliger, would have
it afterward, on the authority of Aldus himself, that
Erasmus was little more than a paid assistant in the
printing-office, and one is at a loss to know why so
honourable an occupation should have seemed an
occasion for reviling him or worth his own while to
deny. The obvious refutation lies in the great
amount of work required by the Adages themselves.
He must have been busy enough to refute other
1 See the adage Festina lente, ii., 405, B-D.
138 Desiderius Erasmus [i 50 6-
charges of Scaliger as to his laziness. Whatever
else he may have been, he was not lazy then nor at
any other time of his life. As to still another ac
cusation we may perhaps have our doubts. Scaliger
says: " While you were doing the work of half a
man, reading [proof ?] in Aldus' office, you were
a three-bodied Geryon for drinking."
The view of Erasmus at Venice which is re
flected in Scaliger's tirade may have come from
the undoubted familiarity of Erasmus' relation with
Aldus and his family. Probably the most vivid
conception of such an early printing-office may be
gained to-day by a visit to the great house of Plantin
at Antwerp, now happily preserved by the piety of
the municipality and kept as nearly as possible in
the condition it was in at the time of its great activ
ity but little later than that of the house of Aldus.
It is an ample burgher residence, with spacious
living-rooms and every indication of a generous
family life; but under the same roof and in close
connection with the living apartments are also the
rooms devoted to business. The working force was
in an intimate sense the " family " of the publisher,
and from the earliest moment of his arrival Erasmus
seems to have formed one in the Aldine corps. The
principal account of this Venetian life is, unfortu
nately to be found in the colloquy, " The Rich
Miser," one of the most scurrilous of all Erasmus'
writings. The person here exposed to the biting
sting of his humour is Andreas d'Asola, the father-
in-law of Aldus Manutius. He seems to have been
the economic head of the Aldine household and, in
1509] Residence in Italy 139
some form, a partner in the business, as were also
his two sons, Federigo and Francesco. Erasmus
was received into this family on the same terms,
apparently, as other workers. The household con
sisted of thirty-three persons. Beatus represents
this arrangement as a kindness to Erasmus, to save
him from going to a hotel and, at all events, he re
mained a fellow-member of this clan as long as he
stayed in Venice. There was certainly no compul
sion upon him to do so unless he pleased, and com
mon courtesy ought to have prevented him from
holding up to the ridicule of the world a family and
a people to whom, as he elsewhere freely acknow
ledges, he owed every kind of assistance in his work
and every personal attention. The principal speaker
in the Opulentia sordida is one Gilbertus, who pre
sents himself to his friend Jacobus in such lean
and pitiful guise that the friend inquires whether he
has been serving a term in the galleys. " No," he
replies, " I have been at Synodium, boarding with
Antronius. " The weather had been for three months
continually cold, so that he was nearly frozen to
death; for the only firewood they had had was
green stumps which Antronius rooted up by night
out of the common land. In summer it was worse
on account of vermin, but Antronius never minded
that, he was brought up to it; and besides he
was always off trading in everything that would
bring him in a penny of profit. Even on the
funerals that went out of his house he made his
gain, and these were two or three at least in the
most healthful year; for he played such tricks with
14 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
his wine that some were always dying of the stone.
Yet he weakened his wine by throwing in a bucket
ful of water every day, and adulterated the meal of
which his bread was made by mixing chalk with it.
The son-in-law Orthrogonus, who stands for Aldus
himself, comes in for his share of abuse for aiding
and abetting in this villany. Frequently Antronius
would come home pretending to be very ill and
without appetite, and then the whole family would
have to starve on grey peas with a little oil on them.
Finally, however, dinner would be served, but such
a dinner! First a soup of water with lumps of old
cheese soaked in it, then a piece of fortnight-old
tripe covered up with a batter of eggs to cheat the
eye, but not enough to deceive the sense of smell,
and, to close, some of the same stale cheese. The
luckless boarder saved his life by having a quarter
of a boiled chicken served up with each meal, but
even this was a poor wretched fowl and he was
stinted in his meagre ration. Even his own private
fresh eggs were stolen by the women and rotten ones
given him instead, and his own cask of good wine
was broached by the same thieves and drunk up
without remonstrance from the host.
The worst of it was that when they found out
that the poor Northerner was trying to keep soul
and body together by buying extra things, they set
a doctor upon him to persuade him not to be such
a glutton. The doctor was a very good-natured
fellow and finally compromised on a supper of an
egg and a glass of wine, admitting that he allowed
himself this indulgence, and, as Erasmus testifies,
1509] Residence in Italy 141
kept himself fat and hearty on such a diet. The
dialogue concludes with good Erasmian hedging;
for the grumbler confesses that if the food had been
of good quality he would have got on very well
with the quantity, and, after all, eating was largely a
matter of habit and he, being used to a different
method, simply could not do with this. The final
fling at poor Andreas is to say that his sons, for
whom he was doing all this scraping and pinching,
would make up for their scanty fare at home
by throwing their money away in riotous living
outside.
Make what allowance we may for the humorous
exaggeration of this tirade, it cannot give us any
but the lowest notion of its author's fineness of feel
ing. The bit of truth contained in it was probably
that to Erasmus the usual manner of living of the
well-to-do Italians seemed meanly insufficient, while
to the Italians his natural demands seemed those of
a glutton and a wine-bibber. Very likely his friends,
in the kindness of their hearts, called in a physician
to persuade him to consider his health by living
more as they did. It is simply the ever-repeated
struggle of the Northerner, accustomed to much
animal food and to strong drink, to understand the
frugal ways of the South. Our interest in the whole
incident is to notice that here Erasmus contracted
the disease which to his great bodily distress, but
also, it must be admitted, often to his great moral
comfort, he was to carry about with him to his
death. He writes from Basel in 1523 to Francesco
d'Asola, one of the youths to whom he gives such a
Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
villainous character in his Opulentia sordida : " I
have not forgotten our former intimacy, nor would
my gravel let me do so if I would, for I first got it
there and every time it comes it reminds me of
Venice." His own explanation of this attack is the
badness of his fare, especially the wine, which, he
says, caused two or three deaths from stone every
year in the Aldine family ; but we may be permitted
a doubt whether it was not rather due to his own
imprudence and his refusal to adapt himself to the
simple manners of the country. 1
The Aldine printing establishment was a kind of
literary club-house for the finer spirits of. the Repub
lic, and Erasmus was here introduced to them all.
All were interested in his work and helped him with
manuscripts and suggestions; to such a degree, in
deed, that this was one of the counts in Scaliger's
indictment against him. Such aid may, however,
easily be explained by the peculiar nature of the
Adages. Every available source, written, printed, or
oral, was properly laid under contribution for a work
which was essentially a compilation.
Of these men, none was of the first rank as a
scholar; they were the fair representatives of that
humanistic generation which had come into the
great inheritance of culture prepared for it by two
previous generations. The early original impulse
with its extravagant individualism had settled down
1 It seems quite clear that Erasmus was a victim to what is now
known as the " uric acid or gouty diathesis," a condition much more
likely to be produced by high living and heavy drinking than by any
such experience as he describes in the Opulentia sordida.
Residence in Italy 143
into a calmer, wider, and more polished method of
thought and work. Culture had made its way into
all departments of life and proved its right to exist
by useful service. Of the Venetian scholars we
need mention but few. Two Greeks, Marcus Mu-
surus and Johannes Lascaris, were famous, the one
as a Greek teacher, the other as the literary purveyor
of Lorenzo the Magnificent and, at the time of Eras
mus, as ambassador of King Louis of France to the
Republic. Girolamo Aleander, then a man of
twenty-eight, was preparing himself to teach Greek
at Paris and, in fact, went thither in 1508 with letters
of introduction from Erasmus. The two were to
meet on another field when Aleander as legate of
Leo X. at the court of Charles V. was to be the chief
agent in the papal policy against Luther and was to
reproach Erasmus in bitter terms for his half-way
policy towards the Reformation. Erasmus believed
that he was the author of the attacks of Scaliger,
of whom he knew nothing, and says in this connec
tion that they were co-frequenters at Aldus's and
that he knew him as well as he knew himself.
Everything goes to show that the nine months of
the Venetian visit were months of eager work, re
lieved by intercourse with men of genuine culture
and of unbroken friendliness. That Erasmus should
have dwelt more upon the petty inconveniences of
his life than upon these weightier things is quite in
character. The real monument of his Venetian days
is the great second edition of the Adages, in substan
tially their final form.
From Venice Erasmus moved in the early
144 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
autumn to Padua, the university city of the Vene
tian territory. His immediate business there was to
take charge of a pupil, the young illegitimate son of
King James IV. of Scotland. This amiable youth,
Alexander by name, was already, at eighteen, bur
dened with the title of Archbishop of Saint Andrews.
He had come to Italy to study, and was commended
to Erasmus by his father to receive instruction in
rhetoric. Erasmus once uses him as an illustration
of near-sightedness: " he could see nothing without
touching his nose to the book. ' ' Yet he was a most
clever fellow with his hand. Writing in 1528 to his
Nuremberg friend Pirkheimer about certain alleged
manuscript forgeries, Erasmus tells a pretty tale of
Alexander, which shows a very pleasant relation
between them :
" he once showed me a printed book which I knew for
certain I had never read ; but in the numerous marginal
notes I recognised my own handwriting. I asked him
where he had got the book. ' I acknowledge the writing, '
I said, ' but the book I have never read nor had in my
possession.' ' Oh, yes,' he replied, ' you read it once,
but you have forgotten it; otherwise where did this
writing come from ? ' Finally, with a laugh, he con
fessed the trick."
Marcus Musurus, his acquaintance at Venice, was
here at Padua the best friend and helper of Erasmus.
He was in full activity as professor of Greek, and
though we have no record of any regular instruction
to the visitor, it is certain that Erasmus applied to
him for many details of his own work and held him
1509] Residence in Italy 145
always in grateful memory. Indeed his short resi
dence of but a few weeks at Padua seems to have
been an exception to the rule of tediousness. He
refers to Padua afterwards as the seat of a more
serious scholarship than was to be found at other
Italian university towns. The formation of the
League of Cambrai between King Louis XII. of
France, Pope Julius II., the Emperor Maximilian,
and the King of Spain against the republic of Venice
broke up the quiet circle of Paduan scholars.
Troops of the allies began to make their appearance
in Venetian territory and Erasmus, reluctantly he
says, was forced to move southward. He travelled
in the suite of the boy-archbishop, stopping first at
Ferrara, where he met a choice circle of resident
scholars, among whom was the young Englishman,
Richard Pace. It was at Pace's house that he was
presented to the Ferrarese Humanists. A very
pretty little story is recalled by one of them, Ccelius
Calcagninus, who in writing to Erasmus in 1525
reminds him of their meeting in Ferrara, and gives
him a brief account of the other scholars whom he
had met there.
"We were talking," he writes, "of Aspendius the
harp-player, and the question came up as to the meaning
of intus canere and extra canere, when you suddenly drew
forth from your pouch a copy of your Adages, just
printed at Venice. From that moment I began to ad
mire the genius and learning of Erasmus, and scarce
ever have I heard mention of his name without recalling
that conversation almost with reverence. My witness is
Richard Pace, that man most learned himself and by
10
146 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
nature made to be the promoter of the studies of the
most learned men."
Only a few days were spent at Ferrara and still less
time at Bologna. The party reached Siena at the
very end of 1508 or the beginning of 1509, and there
settled definitely for the work of the young arch
bishop. We have a very engaging picture of Eras
mus as a teacher of rhetoric in his comments upon
the Adage, " Thou wast born at Sparta; do honour
to it." ' He represents his pupil as a model of all
the virtues and gives us again an insight into his
method of teaching. It is always the same which
he had himself employed in learning, the method of
persistent practice in repeating and writing the
language itself. A style was to be formed only by
becoming absolutely familiar with the classic model.
Yet the life at Siena, serene and charming as it
may have been for the pupil, was, if we may judge
by his expressions in other connections, more or
less a bore to the master. He liked to think of
himself as an authority on the art of teaching, but
he seems always to have regarded teaching as being,
for himself, an interruption to the higher interests
of his life. After a few weeks he was restless again,
and begged permission of his pupil to go on alone to
Rome.
It is easy for a modern to picture the charm which
the Eternal City with its countless memorials of the
ancient world must have exercised upon a man whose
life was devoted to the study of that world, who
1 -, 554-
CARDINAL REGINALD POLE.
FROM " ERASMI OPERA," PUBLISHED AT LEVDEN, 1703.
1509] Residence in Italy 147
spoke and wrote its language, and who drew from it
almost the whole material of his intellectual occupa
tion. None of the biographers of Erasmus has been
quite able to resist the temptation to tell what he
must have have thought and felt in this august
presence; but candour compels us to say that his
own witness on this point is as meagre as can well
be imagined. Only one or two scattered expressions
give us any reason to think that his impressions of
Rome were at all of the kind they ought in all reason
to have been. It was the pontificate of Julius II.,
a man indeed chiefly devoted to the political in
terests of his great place, but also an eager patron
of art and learning, doing his part in the attempt,
never quite successful, to make Rome a real centre
of culture. What was true of the pope was true also
of that group of great prelates who formed around
him a court more splendid and not less worldly than
that of any purely temporal ruler. Say what one
may and, in all truth, must say of the corruption
and scandal of the Roman institution, it was a life
of immense activity and, for a thinking man, one of
great interest. Rome was alive with building;
painting and sculptural decoration were being car
ried to a height unheard of in human history. The
ancient monuments were, it is true, fast disappear
ing to make room and to furnish material for new
construction, but enough was left to give the inter
ested traveller abundant suggestion of what had
been. That Erasmus saw and, after his fashion,
noted these things is certain ; but he felt no impulse
to dwell upon them or to speak of them to others.
148 Desiderius Erasmus [i 5 o&-
His life during this first ' visit at Rome was more
completely that of the literary traveller and sight
seer than it had ever been anywhere. There is no
pretence that he busied himself with study or with
composition. So far as he had any aim it seems to
have been to make acquaintance with men of his
own kind and their patrons, nor is there the slight
est room for suspicion that in making these connec
tions he had in view any ulterior advantage to
himself. His best introduction was the book of
Adages, by this time widely known and everywhere
justly welcomed as a monument of vast learning,
immense industry, and an orginality of thought not
less noteworthy.
Perhaps the most intimate companion of these
Roman days was Scipio Carteromachos, a Tuscan
scholar, with whom Erasmus had made acquaintance
at Bologna, and for whom he expresses unusual re
gard. " He was a man," he writes, " of curious
and accurate learning, but so averse to display that
unless you called him out you would swear that he
was quite ignorant of letters." They had met again
at Padua, and now lived for a while at Rome appar
ently in the greatest intimacy, sharing the same
bed at times, though this it would seem was not an
unusual proof of friendship with Erasmus. Through
Carteromachos he was introduced to many others,
scholars of the same type and frequenters of the
papal court. The result was that he found himself
1 There seems to be no sufficient reason to accept, as Drummond
does, a previous trip of Erasmus to Rome during his residence at
Bologna.
1509] Residence in Italy 149
brought into relation with the most distinguished
Roman circle. He makes the most of this fact
afterward in defending himself from the charge of
unfaithfulness to the papal cause, and there would
seem to be no room for doubt that he was at least
a well tolerated guest of the men who were giving the
tone to the ruling society of the capital. He claims
intimate acquaintance with Tommaso Inghirami,
the most popular preacher of the city, the type of
religious orator who gave scandal to the more serious
by garnishing his oratory rather with classic allusion
and quotation than with proofs and texts of the
Bible. In his treatise on a false purity of style
called Ciceronianus, Erasmus gives us a choice spec
imen of this kind of preaching. 1
He says that he was urged by his learned friends
at Rome to attend the discourse of a famous pulpit
orator whose name he would rather have understood
than expressed. The subject was the death of
Christ. Pope Julius II. himself was present, a most
unusual honour, and with him a great crowd of car
dinals, bishops, and visiting scholars. The opening
and closing parts of the discourse, longer than the
real sermon itself, were occupied with praises of
Julius, whom the orator called
' Jupiter Optimus Maximus, brandishing in his all-
powerful right hand the three-forked fatal thunderbolt
and by his nod alone doing what he will.' Everything
that had happened in recent years, in France, Germany,
Spain, Portugal, Africa, Greece, he declared had been
'i., 993, 994-
15 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
done by the will of that man alone. All this was said at
Rome, by a Roman, in the tongue of Rome, and with the
Roman accent. But what had all this to do with Julius,
the high-priest of the Christian religion, the vicar of
Christ, the successor of Peter and Paul ? or with the
cardinals and bishops, the vicegerents of the other
Apostles ? As to the topic he had undertaken to treat,
nothing could be more solemn, more real, more wonder
ful, more lofty, or more suited to kindle emotion. Who,
though he were endowed with but a very common kind
of eloquence, could not with such an argument have
drawn tears from men of stone ? The plan of the dis
course was this: first to depict the death of Christ as sad
and then by a change of style to describe it as glorious
and triumphant in order, of course, that he might give
us a specimen of Cicero's Savoxrews, by which he was able
to carry away the emotions of his hearers at will.
" HVPOLOGUS: Well, did he succeed ?
" BULEPHORUS: For my part, when he was working
his hardest upon those melancholy feelings which the
rhetoricians call irdOi), to tell the truth I was more in
clined to laugh. I did not see a person in that whole
concourse one whit the sadder, when he was piling up
with the whole force of his eloquence the unmerited suf
ferings of the innocent Christ. Nor, on the other hand,
did I see anyone the more cheerful when he was wholly
occupied with showing forth His death to us as triumph
ant, praiseworthy, and glorious. . . .
" Not to make more words about it, this Roman talked
in such a very Roman fashion that I heard nothing about
the death of Christ. And yet, because he was so eagerly
striving after a Ciceronian diction, he seemed to the
Ciceronians to have spoken marvellously. Of his sub
ject he said hardly a word; he seemed neither to under-
1509] Residence in Italy 151
stand it nor to care for it. Nor did he say anything to
the point nor rouse any emotion. The only reason for
praising him was that he spoke like a Roman and recalled
a something of Cicero. If such a discourse had been de
livered by a schoolboy to his mates it might have been
praised as an evidence of a certain talent; but on such a
day, before such an audience, and on such a topic, I pray
you, what sense was there in it ? "
Among the cardinals two are especially mentioned
as friendly to our traveller, Raffaelle Riario, nephew
of Julius II., and the Venetian Grimani. If we
may trust Erasmus' allusions, he was in the way
of frequently going in and out at the houses of
great men, but his character as a man of letters,
whom it was their pride and pleasure to favour,
seems to have been strictly maintained. In the
great throng of followers of a princely establish
ment, one wandering scholar more or less made no
great matter, and it would not do, from the words
" hospitality " and " familiarity " to argue any very
close personal intimacy.
What strikes one most forcibly is the almost
total absence of anything like discussion on pub
lic affairs. The only topic on which Erasmus
thinks it worth while to make any report is classi
cal studies, and on this he gives us only brief
detail. There is no indication that this visit to
Rome had any decisive influence upon Erasmus' at
titude towards the Church. That was already deter
mined. Nothing could be more distinct than his
declarations in the Enchiridion and now, quite re
cently, in the Adages. Rome could hardly fail to
152 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
furnish him with new suggestions and illustrations,
but it was as far from forcing him into any new
attitude of opposition as it was from so influencing
Luther on his visit a year later. Both saw many
things which startled and shocked them, but Eras
mus had already reached the limit of his critical
development and Luther had hardly as yet begun
to formulate his criticism of the Roman institu
tion.
The only exception to the rule of exclusion from
public affairs is found in the invitation of Cardinal
Riario to write a dissertation on the subject of the
proposed war against Venice. It was a most ticklish
commission, and Erasmus' solution of it was more
than Erasmian. He wrote two treatises, one for
the war and the other against it, that those who
were to pay their money might have their choice.
He put more heart into the second, he says, but
the advice of the first was followed. Both these
treatises were lost, he tells us, by the treachery
of some person. There was an unfounded rumour
that the grim old soldier-pope, finding Erasmus'
sentiments against war very little to his taste,
sent for the author and warned him in future
to let politics alone; but it is highly improbable
that if Erasmus had had an interview with the
pope, even under so untoward circumstances, he
would have failed to make some mention of it.
Yet it would be far from true -that Erasmus lived
in Rome with his eyes shut. Numerous little allu
sions to Roman and Italian traits in his later writings
show that he was here, as everywhere, very much of
i 5 og] Residence in Italy 153
a human being, keenly alive to what was going on
about him and mindful of its use on future occasions.
The young archbishop was soon recalled to Scot
land, and four years afterward he met his death,
fighting bravely by his father's side on the fatal field
of Flodden. Before leaving Italy he desired to see
Rome, and in his company Erasmus, who had mean
while returned to Siena, went back again as learned
guide and companion. They seem to have gone
southward as far as Naples, but to have made only
a flying visit even in Rome. Erasmus remained
there after his pupil had left, and it is during this
final visit that the question of a permanent residence
begins to be discussed.
As to the possibility or probability that Erasmus
would definitely settle at Rome, there is room for
difference of opinion. If one may judge from his
own allusions there was no country, in which he
made any considerable stay, which did not at one
time or another occur to him as a possible residence
for his declining years, and on this general principle,
why not Rome as well as another place ? Our study
of his character up to this point, however, should
lead us at once to understand that, of all places in
the world, Rome was least suited to his peculiar
genius. Although he was quite capable of defend
ing both sides of any argument, he could not be
happy where he must either do this all the time or
else commit himself without reserve to the dominant
tone of a society which would eventually absorb him
completely. Furthermore, the almost inevitable
condition of a Roman residence was the holding of
154 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
an ecclesiastical office and this, no matter how high
it might be the higher in fact the worse was as
far as possible from the line of Erasmus' ambition.
Beatus says he was offered the very high function
of papal penitentiary, with a hint that this might be
a stepping-stone to higher dignities. When we con
sider the kind of official places filled by many of the
Italian humanists, such an offer does not seem im
probable. Less clear is one's feeling about a propos
ition made by the Venetian Cardinal Grimani that
Erasmus should attach himself to his personal follow
ing and, presumably, continue to live the life of an
independent scholar. Erasmus' account of his in
terview with the cardinal is worth while for us
because of its many details. It was written in 1531,
after the death of Grimani, and is given in a letter '
apropos of a reference to the cardinal's services to
the cause of letters, especially in maintaining so
large and valuable a library.
" When I was at Rome I was invited once and again
by him, through Pietro Bembo, if I am hot mistaken, to
an interview with him, and though I was at that time very
averse to seeking the company of great men, I at last
went to his palace more from shame than from desire.
Neither in the courtyard nor in the vestibule did the
shadow of a human being appear. It was the afternoon
hour. I gave my horse to my man and went up alone,
found no one in the first hall, nor in the second, and still
on to the third, finding not a door closed and wondering
at the solitude. Only in the last did I find one man, a
1 iii.*, 1375 A D.
CARDINAL PETER BEMBO.
FROM " ERASMI OPERA," PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN, 1703.
1509] Residence in Italy 155
Greek physician I believe, with shaven head, guarding
the open door. I inquired what the cardinal was doing.
He replied that he was within talking with some gentle
men, and as I said no more he asked what I wished.
' To make my compliments to him, ' I said, ' if convenient,
but as he is not at leisure, I will call again.' Then, as I
was about to go and was looking out of the window, the
Greek returned to me and waited to see if I had any
message for the cardinal. ' There is no occasion to in
terrupt his conference, ' I said ; ' I will come again soon. '
Finally he asked my name and I gave it to him. When
he heard it he rushed in before I knew it and soon
coming out said I was not to go away and I was sum
moned at once. As I came in the cardinal received me
not as a cardinal and such a cardinal might receive a man
of the lowest condition, but as a colleague. A chair was
set for me and we talked more than two hours, during
which he did not permit me to take off my hat. For a
man at the very height of fortune his graciousness was
marvellous. Among the many things he said about
study, showing that he had then in mind what I learn he
has since done about his library, he began to urge me
not to leave Rome, the nurse of genius. He invited me
to share his palace and the enjoyment of all his fortunes,
adding that the warm and moist climate of Rome would
suit my health, and especially that part of the city where
he had his dwelling, a palace built by a former pope who
had chosen the site as being the most healthful in the
city. After we had had considerable discussion he sent
for his nephew, who had just been made archbishop, a
youth of an almost divine disposition. As I started to
rise he forbade me, saying: ' It is becoming for the
pupil to stand before the master. ' At length he showed
me his library of books in many tongues.
156 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
" If I had known this man earlier I should never have
left a city which I found favourable to me beyond my
deserts. But I had already arranged to go and matters
had gone so far that I could hardly have remained
honourably. When I said that I had been summoned
by the king of England, he ceased to urge me, but
begged me over and over again not to suspect him of not
meaning what he had said nor to judge him according to
the usual manners of courtiers. With difficulty I got
away from the conference; but when he was unwilling to
detain me longer, he laid it upon me with his last words
that I should see him again on the subject before I left
the city. I did not return, unhappy man that I was, lest
I should be overcome by his kindness and change my
mind. But what can one do against the fates! "
This interview was held at the last moment of
Erasmus' stay in Rome, before his departure for
England. His account makes it clear that he had
not known Grimani before, so that we cannot reckon
him among Erasmus' Roman patrons. Nor can we
give too much weight to the promises of employ
ment. From the connection in which Erasmus in
troduces the story it seems quite probable that the
cardinal had some idea of making use of him in
connection with his library; but the great scholar
had no fancy for being anybody's librarian. His
laments that he had not listened to Grimani's pro
position may safely be treated as conventional.
From Rome Erasmus journeyed rapidly by way
of Bologna, through Lombardy, over the Splugen
Pass to Chur, Constance, and Strassburg, where he
took ship on the Rhine for Holland. We hear of
1509] Residence in Italy 157
him at Louvain and Antwerp and then in England
early in July, 1509. What was the fruit of his
nearly three years in Italy ? He had perfected him
self in Greek, as far at least as he needed to go for
the purposes he had most at heart. He was Doctor
Erasmus, and needed no longer to feel himself over
shadowed by the superior display of some inferior
talent. He had given to the world in his Adages a
great and serious work, which was welcomed with
the greatest approval by those most competent to
judge. He had seen for himself something of the
life of that people which had done most to bring
pure learning to honour. Finally he had made per
sonal connections within the world of scholars, which
were likely to be of great future service to him.
It would be most interesting if we could perceive
with any distinctness the direct effect of this experi
ence upon Erasmus' literary production, but such
effect cannot be traced in any instructive way.
There are of course references to Italy to be found
henceforth in many of his writings, but it would be
too much to say that the Italian visit was in any
way epoch-making for his literary character. Liter
ature was not a thing of nationalities ; it was cosmo
politan, and the scholar was as much, or as little, at
home in one place as in another. The genius of
Erasmus ripened slowly and naturally, following the
lines of its early choice and moving on without note
worthy interruption to its highest achievement.
Still, few biographers have failed to fancy a con
nection of cause and effect between the Italian im
pressions of Erasmus and the famous satire, in which
158 Desiderius Erasmus [1506-
almost at once on his arrival in England he gave
free rein to his criticism of church and society.
Certainly his illustrations in the Praise of Folly
point often to abuses which he might have seen and
felt in Italy. His direct attacks upon popes and
cardinals can hardly fail to have gained an added
point from his observation at first hand. What is
not clear is that such stimulus to his reforming zeal
was anything more than incidental.
In all the earlier writing of Erasmus we have noted
especially the quality of the moral preacher. What
ever he touched took on inevitably the tone of
exhortation. And this same quality continues to
appear in all his work, whenever the subject rises,
even ever so little, above the level of mere gram
matical detail. One ought to have this prevailing
seriousness of purpose especially in mind in coming
to such a piece of work as the Praise of Folly. 1 Of
all Erasmus' writing, none was and is more widely
known than this. It is called a satire and was in
tended to make men laugh. Erasmus had to apolo
gise for it, as he did for most thing she wrote, and
in the introductory epistle to his dear More he
apologises in advance for allowing himself so lively
a diversion. There can be no doubt that the men
of his day were vastly amused by it. It had for
them the charm that always belongs to literary
references to familiar types and figures, especially
if these references are couched in colloquial phrase.
Erasmus was tolerably sure of his audience, and
could count upon applause from every class for the
'iv., 405-503.
The " Praise of Folly " 159
amusement it got out of his criticism of all other
classes of men. Yet it is a little difficult for one of
us to raise more than an honest smile at this elabor
ate fooling. After all, one feels the sermon under
neath, and pays his tribute to the author, not
primarily as a humourist, but as a man of sense
who lightens his style a little, to be sure, yet re
mains all through plainly conscious of his mission.
If one seeks an analogy, one may say, perhaps, that
the Praise of Folly is about as funny as an average
copy of Punch.
Erasmus' account of the origin of the Mwpi'a is as
trifling as in the case of most of his works. He tells
More that he thought it out during his journey from
Italy to England in 1509, and he put it into form at
More's house in London soon after. The title,
Mwpt'as fyKwfjuov, he explains as a pun on More's
name, the humour of it being that More was " as far
from the thing as his name was near it." The book
is written under the form of an oration, a declama-
tio the author calls it, delivered by Folly in person
to an imaginary audience made up of all classes and
conditions of men. Folly is a female, and this is
quite in harmony with most of Erasmus' references
to the sex. She wears cap and bells as her acad
emic garb and brings to the lecture-room her attend
ant spirits, Self-love, Flattery, Oblivion, Laziness,
Pleasure, Madness, Wantonness, Intemperance, and
Sleep. Folly is the offspring of Wealth and Youth,
born in the Fortunate Isles, where all things grow
without toil, and nursed by the jovial nymphs,
Drunkenness and Ignorance.
160 Desiderius Erasmus [1509
The oration begins by Folly commending herself
as indispensable to the well-being of men. Their
very existence is owing to her, for no man would
put his head into the halter of marriage if he thought
it over carefully beforehand as a wise man would;
and no woman would marry if she carefully con
sidered the sorrows of childbirth. Marriage there
fore is owing wholly to Madness, the companion of
Folly. But no woman, having once experienced
the pains of child-bearing, would ever submit herself
to them again but for another of Folly's ministers,
Oblivion, who comes in thus to save the race. From
this first example we can see how Erasmus plays
with the meaning of the word " folly." It is quite
impossible to define it by any one term which would
cover his numerous variations, but we may see plainly
from the start that it is very far from being what we
mean, in plain modern English, by the word " fool
ishness." It comes nearer to the meaning we find
in Shakespeare of " innocent " or " thoughtless."
. " Folly " is the opposite of studied calculation for
a mere material end. It is the impulse by which
men perform their noblest actions. It is imagina
tion, idealism, sacrifice of self for others. Nowhere
does Erasmus lay down any such general definition
as this, but his examples show that some such mean
ing was in his mind, and the Folly whom he allows
to praise herself is therefore really a very praise
worthy person. She hates the materialism of the
Philistine the cool, calculating merchant-spirit
which would reduce life to a thing of dollars and
cents and she finds her illustrations of what is
i 509 ] The " Praise of Folly " 161
noble pretty nearly where an optimistic philosopher
of modern times would find them.
The happiest times of life, says Folly, are youth
and old age, and this for no reason but that they are
the times most completely under the rule of folly,
and least controlled by wisdom. It is the child's
freedom from wisdom that makes it so charming
to us; we hate a precocious child. So women owe
their charm, and hence their power, to their ' ' folly,
i. e., to their obedience to impulse. " But if, per
chance, a woman wants to be thought wise, she only
succeeds in being doubly a fool, as if one should
train a cow for the prize-ring, a thing wholly against
nature." A woman will be a woman, no matter
what mask she wear, and she ought to be proud of
her folly and make the most of it.
In dealing with Friendship, Folly first reminds
her hearers that every man has his faults and plenty
of them, and that everyone is all too keen in spying
out the faults of others and forgetting his own. But
now there could be no such thing as friendship ' ' were
it not for that which the Greeks so beautifully call
cv'i?'0eia, and which may be translated ' folly ' or
4 good nature.' ' Here Erasmus himself makes
" stultitia " the equivalent of " morum facilitas."
And not the relation of friends merely, but of hus
band and wife, ruler and ruled, scholar and tutor,
all human relations, in short, are made tolerable by
this rule of human kindness. And as the blindness
of love to others makes human life bearable, so Self-
love, one of Folly's intimates, is the indispensable
aid to happiness, since if a man were continually
1 62 Desiderius Erasmus [1509
ashamed of himself, of his person, his country, he
would never rise to any worthy action. Courage is
the very inspiration of Folly, and the proof is the
stupid bungling of great thinkers when they try to do
things. Socrates could not make a political speech,
and showed his wisdom by declaring that a wise
man ought to keep out of public business. Plato's
famous saying: " happy the state that is ruled by a
philosopher, or whose ruler is given to philosophy,"
is false, for history shows that there were never
more unfortunate stateSvthan those so governed.
Theorisers, in short, have ruined what they under
took to manage, but states have been saved by such
divine folly as that of Quintus Curtius, who, pos
sessed by some demon of vainglory, sacrificed him
self to the infernal gods. Wise men would condemn
such acts, but the pens of eloquent men have glori
fied them. Strange as it may seem, even the virtue
of prudence is owing to folly,
" for the wise man goes to the books of the ancients and
gets out of them nothing but wordy discussions, while the
fool, grappling with the world in hand-to-hand conflict,
learns, if I mistake not, the true prudence." " Modesty
and fear are the two great obstacles to the understanding
of affairs; but Folly, being hindered by neither of these,
blushes at nothing and attempts everything."
The wise man thinks of reason only and leaves all
the passions to Folly, but when this kind of thing
has its perfect work, as among the Stoics, then you
have left
" not so much a man as a new kind of god that never yet
The " Praise of Folly " 163
existed anywhere and never will; or rather, to say it
plainly, a marble image of a man, dull and almost devoid
of human sensibility; a man who measures everything by
the line, never makes any mistakes himself, but has the
eye of a lynx for the least failings of others. That 's the
kind of a beast your truly wise man is ! "
But who has any use for such a creature ? Who
would have him for a ruler, a general, a husband, a
friend ?
" Who would not prefer one taken out of the very
midst of the crowd of fools, who being a fool himself
would know how to command and obey fools, who would
be agreeable to his kind, namely, the great majority of
men, pleasant to his wife, merry with his friends, a lively
table-companion, a good-tempered comrade, in short a
man ' qui nihil humani a se alienum putet ' ' who holds
nothing human foreign to himself.' '
This comes as near a definition of his " stultus "
as any hinted at by Erasmus. In this sense the
book might have been called " the praise of human
nature," for " wisdom " is treated systematically
as meaning something contrary to natural human
instinct. Such over-wise wisdom embitters life, but
folly makes it sweet and precious.
" Now, I think, you see what would happen if men
were wise all the time. Faith! we should have need of
another clay and another Prometheus for a potter. But
I, Folly, sometimes by ignorance, sometimes by thought
lessness, sometimes by forgetfulness of evils or the hope
of good, and scattering the sweetest pleasures, so comfort
1 64 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509
men in the greatest misfortunes that they are not glad to
die even when the measure of the Fates is fulfilled and
life has actually left them. The less reason they have to
cling to life the more they rejoice in living, so far are they
from being wearied with its burden."
Real misery is to be out of harmony with Nature
shall we call man miserable because he cannot fly
like the birds, nor walk on all fours like beasts ?
' We might as well call a war-horse unhappy be
cause he doesn't know grammar and cannot eat
pie." So Erasmus goes on, in extravagant praise,
to glorify Nature as contrasted with Art. That life
alone is happy which comes near to Nature, as that
of bees and birds ; the nearer these natural creatures
are brought to the life of man, the more they de
generate. Of all men the happiest are those we
call ' ' moriones, " " stultos, " " fatuos, " " bliteos ' ' ;
they have no fears, no ambitions, neither envy nor
love. They are always merry ; everyone likes them
and pets them ; the very beasts recognise in them a
kind of sacred being. Princes cannot live without
them, and value their plain-speaking more than the
flatteries of their counsellors.
How much pleasure comes in this world from
hobbies! One man delights in hunting, with all its
absurd ceremonies; another has a rage for building;
others are chasing after new inventions, hunting for
a fifth essence. Others take to gaming and go to
ruin with it, but Folly is not quite clear whether
to claim these as her children or not. She has no
doubt, however, about those who show their folly
by superstitious observances in religion, and here, it
The " Praise of Folly " 165
will be observed, Erasmus" definition of folly gradu
ally shifts. From this point on it begins to slide
over into a meaning something more nearly like
what we should be inclined to give it. Folly her
self cannot be consistent when she comes to religious
fraud. Self-deception is a very useful and pleasant
thing, but no gentleness of judgment is due to those
" who hug the silly though pleasant persuasion that if
they see a wooden or painted Polyphemus- Christopher,
they will not die that day; or who salute a statue of St.
Barbara with a fixed formula of words if they get home
safe from a battle; or, if they call upon Saint Erasmus on
certain days with candles and prayers, fancy that they
will soon get rich. Now they have invented a George-
Hercules, like a new Hippolytus, and come precious near
worshipping the very horse of him, decked out with
breastplates and ornaments." " But what shall I say of
those who flatter themselves so sweetly with counterfeit
pardons for their crimes, who have measured off the
duration of Purgatory without an error as if by a water-
clock, into ages, years, months, and days like the
multiplication-table ? . . Now suppose me some trades
man, or soldier, or judge, who by paying out a penny
from all his stealings, thinks the whole slough of his life
is cleaned out at once all his perjuries, lusts, drunken
nesses, all his quarrels, murders, cheats, treacheries,
falsehoods, bought off by a bargain and bought off in
such a way that he may now begin over again with a new
circle of crimes ! . And is n't it much the same
thing when the several countries claim for themselves
each its special saint with his special function and his
special forms- of worship ? as, for example, this one is
good for the toothache, that one helps women in travail,
1 66 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509
another restores stolen property; this one shines upon
shipwreck and that one takes care of the flocks and so
on for it would be too long a story to go through the
whole list. There are some that are good for more
things than one and of these especially the virgin mother
of God, to whom the mass of men now pay more honour
than to the Son."
And yet after all, the things men get from the saints
are only the appurtenances of Folly.
The world is full of fools, yet the priests are glad
to get them all for their own profit.
" But if some hateful wise man were to arise and say
what is true: ' to live well is the way to die well; you
will best get rid of your sins by adding to your money
hatred of vice, tears, vigils, prayers and fasting, and a
better life; the saint will help you if you imitate his life '
I say if a wise man were to come prating such stuff as
this, how much happiness he would destroy and what
trouble he would bring upon mortals ! "
There is no class of fools to whom Erasmus pays
his respects with heartier good will than to those
whom he calls " grammarians." Folly claims these
for her choicest sons. Nothing could be more
wretched than their profession were it not for their
foolish self-esteem and the skill with which they
make others have as good an opinion of them as
themselves. The pettiness of their aims, the nasti-
ness of their schoolrooms, the tumult of their pupils,
are all concealed by the friendly aid of Folly, who
makes them believe themselves " rulers of a king
dom as great as that of Phalaris or Dionysius. "
EVERYONE HAS HIS HOBBY.
PILGRIM FOLLY.
" FOLLY " CONCLUDES HER LECTURE.
HOLBEIN'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE " PRAISE OF FOLLY."
The " Praise of Folly " 167
" What a joy if they find out who was the mother of
Anchises or discover some little word unknown to the
vulgar, for instance, ' bubsequa (a cowherd), ' bovinator '
(a brawler), ' manticulator ' (a cut-purse), or dig up some
where a piece of an old rock, cut with worn-out letters
by Jove ! what bragging, what triumphs, what glori
fication ! as if they had conquered Africa or taken
Babylon."
The grammarians enjoy nothing so much as rubbing
each other's back unless it be roundly abusing
each other.
The quibblings of the philosophers are among
Folly's choicest products, and from these she runs
on naturally to Erasmus' especial black beasts, the
scholastic theologians. Quite in the spirit of the
Epistolce obscurorum virorum, but more decently,
he enumerates the problems which, so Folly says,
chiefly interest them,
" whether there was any instant of time in the divine
generation ? whether there was more than one ' filiation '
in Christ ? is it a possible proposition that the Father
could hate the Son ? Could God have taken the form of
a woman, a devil, an ass, a squash, or a stone ? How
the squash would have preached, done miracles, hung
upon the cross ? What would Peter have consecrated if
he had celebrated the Eucharist while Christ was still
hanging on the cross ? etc."
Not the eyes of Lynceus, which could see through a
stone wall, could penetrate the refinements of these
people. And these difficulties are all increased by
the multitude of the schools,
1 68 Desiderius Erasmus [1509
" so that one might sooner get out of a labyrinth than
out of the windings of Realists, Nominalists, Thomists,
Albertists, Occamists, Scotists. And these not all by
any means, only the chief of them. In them all there is
so much learning, so much refinement, that I should say
the very apostles themselves would have to be of another
spirit if they were compelled to discuss these matters
with this new race of theologians. Paul knew something
about faith; but when he says ' faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,' that
is far from being a definition fit for a Magister ; and
though he knew well enough about charity, his definition
and division of it in the thirteenth chapter of his first
letter to the Corinthians was by no means good dialect
ics." ' The apostles knew the mother of Jesus, but
which of them has shown as philosophically as our theo
logians have done, how she was preserved from the sin
of Adam ? Peter received the keys, and from one who
would not have given them to an unworthy keeper, but I
doubt whether he ever reached the subtilty of knowing
how one who has no knowledge can hold the keys of
knowledge." " The apostles worshipped, but in spirit,
following simply that apostolic rule: ' God is a spirit,
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and
in truth ' ; but it does not appear that it was revealed to
them that an image drawn with a crayon on the wall was
to be worshipped, provided only it have two fingers held
upright, hair flowing, and three rays in the halo about its
head. For who can understand these things unless he
has ground out six and thirty years in the study of
physics and the superhuman notions of Aristotle and the
Scotists ?
" Meanwhile the actual words of the apostles are
utterly neglected. While they keep up their fooleries in
The " Praise of Folly " 169
the schools, they fancy that, like Atlas in the poets, they
are holding up the tottering Church with their syllogistic
pillars, and what joy they take in moulding and re
moulding Scripture according to their will as if it were
made of wax; yet their own conclusions, if a few school
men have subscribed to them, they think more weighty
than the laws of Solon or the decretals of popes, and like
censors of the world, if anything does not square to the
line with their conclusions implicit and explicit, they de
clare as by an oracle ' this proposition is scandalous; this
is lacking in reverence; this smacks of heresy; this has n't
the right sound.' So that, by this time, neither Baptism,
nor Gospel, nor Paul, nor Peter, nor St. Jerome, nor
Augustine nay, not even the most Aristotelian Thomas
himself, can make a man a Christian unless the reckon
ing of these bachelors be added."
The same method of direct denunciation, with no
special reference to the main thesis of Folly, is pur
sued in the case of the monks, or " religious," both
titles false, Erasmus says, for the greater part of
them are as far as possible from religion, and there
is no kind of men whom you are more apt to meet
in all places. They pride themselves upon their
ignorance, carry the psalm-books they cannot read
into the churches, and bray out their words as if they
could thereby please the ear of God. Some of them
crowd the taverns, waggons, and ships, showing off
their poverty and filth and howling for alms. Yet
the merry knaves try to pass themselves off as living
the life of the apostles.
" "What a joke it is that they do all things by rule, as
it were by a kind of sacred mathematics; as, for instance,
1 7 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509
how many knots their shoes must be tied with, of what
colour everything must be, what variety in their garb, of
what material, how many straws' breadth to their girdle,
of what form and of how many bushels' capacity their
cowl, how many fingers broad their hair, and how many
hours they may sleep. Now who cannot see what an un
equal equality this is, when there is such a variety of
persons and tastes ? and yet with all this nonsense, they
not only make light of others, but come to despise one
another, and these men who profess apostolic charity
make a terrible row at a dress girded in another fashion
or at a colour a little darker in shade. Some of them are
so very ' religious ' that they wear no outer garment but
one of hair-cloth, with soft linen underneath; others on
the contrary wear linen without and woollen within.
Others again would as soon touch poison as money, but
meanwhile make free with wine and women. They are
all trying not to agree in their manner of life; none of
them to follow the example of Christ, but all to be differ
ent one from the other.
" The greater part of them have such faith in their
ceremonies and human traditions that they think one
heaven is not reward enough for such great doings,
never that the time will come when Christ shall set all
this aside and claim his rule of charity. One will show
his belly stuffed with every sort of fish; another will pour
out a hundred bushels of psalms; another will count up
myriads of fasts and make up for them all again by
almost bursting himself at a single dinner. Another will
bring forward such a heap of ceremonies that seven ships
would hardly hold them; another will boast that for sixty
years he has never touched a penny except with double
gloves on his hands; another wears a cowl so greasy and
filthy that no sailor would think it decent. Another will
The " Praise of Folly " 171
boast that for eleven lusters he has led the life of a
sponge, always fixed to the same spot; another will dis
play his voice hoarse with much chanting; another a
drowsiness contracted from solitary living; another a
tongue palsied by long silence. But Christ will interrupt
their endless bragging and will demand: ' whence this
new kind of Judaism ? One law and that my own I
recognise, and that is the only thing I hear nothing about.
In that day I promised openly and using no twisted par
ables, the inheritance of my Father, not to cowls and
prayers and fastings, but to deeds of love.' And yet no
one dares reproach those people, who belong, as it
were, to another commonwealth and especially the
Begging Friars, because they know everybody's secrets
through what they call ' confessions.' '
Erasmus more than hints that the friars had ways
enough of playing fast and loose with the secrets
confided to them, and, running together his assaults
upon the schoolmen and the monks, shows up the
scholastic preaching of the friars by some excellent
specimens.
" I myself have heard one distinguished fool I beg
his pardon, a scholar I would say who, in a famous
sermon on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, in order to
show his uncommon learning and please the ears of the
theologians, took a quite new method, namely from
the letters, syllables, and discourse itself and then from
the agreement of nouns and verbs, of adjective and sub
stantive, to the great admiration of some, but causing
others to grumble in the words of Horace: ' what is all
this rot about ? '
" At last he got the thing down so fine, that he showed
i; 2 Desiderius Erasmus [1509
as plainly as any mathematician could chalk it out, that
the mystery of the whole Trinity is expressed in the rudi
ments of grammar. This most highly theological person
sweat away for eight months over that speech, so that the
whole sight of his eyes ran into his wits and he is now as
blind as a mole; but the creature cares naught for his
eyesight and thinks his glory very cheaply bought.
" Then I have heard another, an octogenarian and
such a theologian that you would think Scotus had been
born again in him. He set out to explain the mystery
of the name of Jesus and showed with marvellous subtilty
that in those letters lay concealed whatever could be pre
dicated of him. For a word that is inflected with but
three cases is evidently the image of the divine Trinity.
Then because the first case, Jfesus, ends in s, the second,
Jesum, in m, the third, Jesn, in //, beneath this fact there
lies an unspeakable mystery, the three letters indicating,
of course, that he is the beginning, middle, and end.
Still there remained a mystery more obscure than all this,
according to the principles of mathematics : he so divided
the word Jesus into two equal parts that the third letter
was left alone in the middle; then he showed that this
was called by the Hebrews syn and that syn in the lan
guage, I believe, of the Scots {Scotoruni\, means sin, and
hence it was plainly demonstrated that Jesus was he who
should take away the sin of the world."
The assault on the friars ends with some amusing
criticism of their manner of public speaking, which
they seem to have acquired by misapplying and ex
aggerating the good principles of rhetoric they have
somehow picked up here and there.
As to secular princes and courtiers, Folly borrows
from the oration of " her friend Erasmus " to Duke
1509] The " Praise of Folly " 173
Philip, and adds little to the commonplaces of criti
cism upon their wild and reckless living and their
disregard of the good of their subjects. She carries
her argument along from secular to clerical princes
and finally reaches the pope, to whom she pays her
respects in this monumental passage :
" Those supreme pontiffs, who stand in the place of
Christ, if they should try to imitate his life, that is his
poverty, his toil, his teaching, his cross, and his scorn of
this world, or if they should think of the meaning of
' pope,' that is ' father,' or even of ' most holy,' what
position in the world could be more dreadful ? Who
would buy it with all his resources, or, when he had
bought it, would defend it by sword and poison and every
violence ? What joys they would lose, if once wisdom
should get hold of them! Wisdom, say I ? nay, even a
grain of that salt Christ tells us of. What wealth, what
honours, riches, conquests, dispensations, taxes, indul
gences, horses, mules, guards, pleasures, they would lose!
. and in their place they would have vigils, pray
ers, fasts, tears, sermons, study, groans and a thousand
other painful toils of the same sort.
"And we ought not to forget that such a mass of
scribes, copyists, notaries, advocates, promoters, secre
taries, mule-drivers, grooms, money-changers, procurers,
and gayer persons yet I might mention, did I not respect
your ears, that this whole swarm which now burdens
I beg your pardon honours the Roman See, would be
driven to starvation. This would be an inhuman and
an abominable deed, but still more execrable would it
be that those chief princes of the Church and true lights
of the world should be reduced to scrip and staff. As it
is now, if there is any work to be done, it is left to Peter
174 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509
and Paul, who have plenty of leisure for it; but if there
is anything of show or of pleasure, they keep that for
themselves. And so it happens that, through my assist
ance, there is scarce any class of men who live more
jovially and less burdened with care. They think they
are fulfilling the rule of Christ if they play the part of
bishops with mystical and almost theatrical decorations,
ceremonies, titles of benediction, of reverence, of sanc
tity, with blessings and cursings. Doing miracles is
quite antiquated and out of date; to teach the people
is hard work; to interpret the holy scripture is a matter
for the schools; praying is tedious; shedding tears is a
wretched business fit for women; to be poor is base; to
be conquered is dishonourable and unworthy of him who
will scarce allow the greatest of kings to kiss his blessed
feet; to die is unbecoming and to be lifted on a cross is
infamous."
The end of the Mwpi'a is an attempt on Folly's
part to support her case by references to authority,
and especially, of course, to the classics and to
Scripture. It is laboured, and neither very ingenious
nor very amusing. The joke-machine goes a little
hard at this stage of its progress yet the solid
seriousness of the author's purpose is as clear here
as anywhere. In his references to Scripture he can
not resist the temptation to give a parting fling at
the foolish interpretations which it was the most
important work of his life to correct. For instance,
he makes Folly say :
" I was myself but lately present at a theological dis
cussion for I often go to such meetings when some
one asked what authority there was in Holy Writ for
i 509 ] The " Praise of Folly " 1 75
burning heretics instead of convincing them by argu
ment. A certain hard old man, a theologian by the very
look of him, answered with great scorn, that the apostle
Paul had laid down this law when he said ' hereticum
hominem post unam et alterant correptionem devita ' 'avoid
an heretic after one or two attempts to convince him.'
And when he had yelled out these same words over and
over again and some were wondering what had struck the
man, he finally explained ' de vita tollendum hereticum '
' the heretic must be put out of life.' Some burst out
laughing, but there were not wanting some to whom this
commentary seemed perfectly theological."
An opportunity for Erasmus to express his usual
detestation of war is furnished by his references to
the papal warfare, which seemed to him the most
unjustifiable of all forms of military action. Indeed
one may fairly say that in this year, 1 509, Erasmus
had clearly in mind and had already given expres
sion to the views which were to form the ground
work of the Reformation. This was the year before
Luther's journey to Rome, and Erasmus himself
was just fresh from the impressions of an Italian
residence. The worldly lives of clergymen, from
pope to friar, the burden of monastic vows, the
ignorance of theologians and their scholastic back
ers, the wickedness of indulgences, the follies and
superstitions of saint-worship, the cruel weight of
ceremonies which had no support in any worthy
authority all these things were as boldly pointed
out by Erasmus in 1509 as ever they were to be
shown by any reformer of a later day. The Praise
of Folly carried his proclamation into a thousand
176 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509
hands that would never have touched the more
sober, but not more serious, criticism of less broadly
human critics.
Naturally the Praise of Folly called forth a cer
tain criticism from individuals belonging to some of
the classes attacked. To this criticism Erasmus re
plied only by renewed and more bitter comment in
the same spirit. Quite different, however, was the
admonition he received from his excellent friend,
Martin Dorpius of Louvain, and different to corre
spond was the spirit of his reply. 1 He addresses
Dorpius throughout as a sincere man and scholar,
whose view had been obscured by the misunder
standings of others ; in fact, when you came to the
bottom of it, of one man, by whom is doubtless
meant the unhappy scapegoat, Nicholas Egmund.
Dorpius had disapproved the Moria chiefly on ac
count of what seemed to him its flippant tone and
the tendency it must have to excite hostility against
really good and valuable things. Erasmus defends
himself on the ground that the flippancy is only ap
parent, a mere lightness of touch to commend the
serious purpose underneath. He had been bitterly
abused, but he abuses no man ; on the contrary, he
has taken great pains to avoid any personal attack or
even an attack upon any class of men as such.
" I had in view no other object in the Moria than
I have had in other works, but used only a different
method." He mentions specially the Enchiridion,
the Institutio Principis, and the Panegyric on Philip
of Burgundy, serious works enough in all conscience.
1 Epistola apologetica ad Mar tinum Dorpium Theologum t ix., I.
The " Praise of Folly " 177
He gives the familiar story of the composition and
first publication of the book. He had just returned
from Italy, ill and worn out by the journey. He
was at More's house and began to play with the
idea of the Moria, not with any intention of publica
tion, but just to while away the time. 1 He showed
his friends what he had written, only that he might
enjoy his laugh the better in company. They liked
it, and not only urged him to finish it, but sent it
over to Paris, and there it was printed, but from
corrupt and even mutilated copy. How displeasing
it was Dorpius may judge from the fact that within
a few months it was reprinted seven times in different
places. ' If you think this was a foolish perform
ance on my part, I shall not deny it."
Yet it has been approved by the most famous
theologians, men of the highest character and learn
ing, " who have never been more friendly with me
than since its publication, and who like it far better
than I do." He would give their names and titles
were it not that this might expose them to the abuse
of
" those three theologians or rather, when you come to
that, of that one. " " If I should paint .him in his true
colours no one could wonder that the Moria is displeas
ing to such a man; nay, I should be sorry if it did not
displease such people, though it does not suit me either.
Yet it comes the nearer to pleasing me because it does
not suit such characters as that."
1 He says elsewhere that More was the cause (auctor] of his writing
the book, iii. 1 , 474-D.
178 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509
If Dorpius could only look into his soul he would
see how many things Erasmus has not touched upon,
lest he give offence, and lest he say anything indecent
or seditious.
Our analysis of the Moria is well sustained by
Erasmus' attempt here to show that by stultitia he
does not mean mere human foolishness. " There is
no danger that any person will here imagine that
Christ and the apostles were really fools." They
only had a certain element of weakness common to
all humanity, and which, compared with the eternal
wisdom, may well seem not altogether wise. The
tone of the whole defence is admirably calm, and
shows a sincere regard for Dorpius, though, like
certain islanders, he does need to have a joke ex
plained now and then.
Erasmus did not exaggerate the immense and im
mediate popularity of the Moria. Our bibliography
enumerates forty-three editions in the author's life
time, and it has been translated and reprinted since
then an infinite number of times. Holbein amused
himself by decorating the margin of his copy with
these rude but clever wood-cuts which have come to
be the permanent types of the various orders of
Erasmian fools.
CHAPTER VI
ENGLAND (1509-1514) THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE " DE COPIA VERBORUM ET RERUM "
THE third visit of Erasmus to England was
brought about, if we may trust his own ac
count of it, by very urgent requests on the part of
his English friends. He liked to speak of the
" mountains of gold " which had been promised
him if he would only come thither, and it was a
delightful grievance for him to fancy that he had
been torn from his beloved Italy, where he had con
sistently complained of his lot, and to which he
looked back as the source of all his later physical
ills, only to suffer a new series of misfortunes in
England. The fact very likely was that, hearing
of the change of government in England, and hav
ing done what he went to Italy to do, he hoped for
some advantage from a move, and sounded his
English friends on the prospect. Our earliest clue
is a letter from Mountjoy, 1 to which, curiously
enough, the date 1497 has been affixed in the col
lection. Mountjoy speaks of receiving two letters
from him, which are, unfortunately, lost to us, and
also of having written him personally a congratul-
Mii. 1 , 7-E.
179
i8o Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
atory letter on the completion of his Adages, which
letter, together with the bearer, had been lost on the
way. It is evident, therefore, that so far as Mount-
joy was concerned, Erasmus had not, in any strict
sense, been ' ' invited ' ' to come into England. Evid
ently he had complained of his misfortunes in Italy,
and consulted with Mountjoy about a change:
" Your letters gave me at once joy and pain. That
you should, as you ought, familiarly and as a friend,
confide to your Mountjoy your plans, your thoughts,
your misfortunes and troubles, was a joy indeed; but to
learn that you, my dearest friend, to whom above all I
desire to be of service, were assailed by such varied
shafts of fortune, that was a grief."
Even before the king's death a letter ' had been sent
to Erasmus by the Prince of Wales, but it contained
nothing more than a formal compliment upon the
great clearness of his style, and a mild reproof that
he had had the bad tact to recall to him the recent
loss of his royal brother, the King of Castile. Next
time, he hopes, he may write of something more
agreeable.
But, if he was not " called" to England, certainly
Erasmus had reason to believe he would be welcome
there. The accession of the young king, whose
generous disposition and taste for the refinements
of life were well known, seemed to open up a vista
of promise for all kinds of talent. Mountjoy writes * :
'iii. 2 , I84O-E. The letter, i83g-E, from Henry as king, used by
Mr. Froude at this point to show how urgently Erasmus had been
invited to England, belongs probably many years afterwards.
iii.>, 7-E.
NOVVM TESTA
MENTVM OMNE, MVI/TO~ QVAM ANTEHAC DI
ligentiusab ERASMO ROTERODAMO recognicu.eme
datum ac tranflatum,no folum ad Gnecatn uentate.ucrum
etiam ad multoru ucriulq? lingua; codicum.eQrumqj uetecu
fimul Si cmedatorum fidem , poftremo ad pTobariflimorii
autorum a'tationem.emedacionem K interpretations, prx'
dpue Origenis,Athana(rj,Na2ianzeni,Chtyfoftomi, Cys
rilli,Thcophyla(ftt,Hicronymi, Cypriani, Ambrofq, Hila^
rrjAuguftini^na cu Annotarionibus rccognitis.ac magna
acccflione locupletatis. qua; Icdlorcm doceant, quid quaia/
none mutatu (it.Quifquis igitur amas uera. TheoJogtam.le
ge,cognofce,acdeindciudica.NeqjftatimoffendereJiquid
mutatum offenderis,led cxpende.num in melius mutatum
fifcNam morbus eft non indicium, damnarc quod non ins
fpexcris.
SALVO VBIOVE ET 1LLABEFACTO
ECCLESIAE IVDICIO.
Addita (unt in fingutas Apoftolorum epiftolas
ArgumentaperERA'SMVM ROT.
TITLE-PAQE OF NEW TESTAMENT, 1519.
i 5 i 4 ] England 181
" I have no fear, my dear Erasmus, but that when you
hear that our prince Henry octavus, or rather Octavius,
has by the death of his father succeeded to the kingdom,
all gloom will at once vanish from your mind. For what
may you not promise yourself from a prince whose ex
traordinary nay, almost divine character is well known
to you; to whom especially you are not merely known,
but known familiarly why, you have even received let
ters from him written with his own hand a thing which
has happened to few men. If you knew how like a hero
he now appears, how wisely he conducts himself, how he
loves truth and justice, what favour he is showing to men
of letters, I dare swear, though you have no wings, you
would fly over to us in all haste to greet this new and
auspicious star.
" Oh! my dear Erasmus, if you could only see how
wild with joy everyone here is, how they are congratu
lating themselves on having such a prince, how they pray
for nothing more earnestly than for his life, you could
not help weeping for joy. The very air is full of laugh
ter, the earth dances, everything flows with milk and
honey and nectar. Avarice slinks away far from the
people; generosity scatters wealth with lavish hand.
Our king is eager, not for gold, not for gems and pre
cious stones, but for virtue, glory, and immortality. I
will give you a taste: the other day he was wishing him
self more learned ' nay,' I said, ' that is not what we
wish for you, but rather that you may welcome and en
courage learned men.' ' Why should I not,' he replied,
' for indeed without them I can scarce exist.' What
nobler word could have fallen from a prince's lips ? But
I am a rash fellow to venture out upon the ocean in my
slender bark ; let this task be reserved for you. I wanted
to preface my letter with these few words in praise of our
1 82 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
divine prince, so that, if any gloom remains in your
heart, I might straightway banish it, or, if it is all gone,
that I might not only confirm the hope you have formed,
but more and more increase it. ...
" I could console you and bid you be of good cheer,
did I not believe that whatever you could dare to wish
for, you have already on your own account very reason
able hopes of attaining. You shall think that the last
day of your troubles has dawned. You shall come to a
prince who will say: ' here are riches; be the chief of
my poets.' '
The letter then briefly summarises the contents of
the lost epistle and continues:
' ' I will now go back to your work, which all are prais
ing to the skies. Above all the archbishop of Canterbury
was so pleased and delighted, that I could not get it out
of his hands. ' But,' you will say, ' so far nothing but
praises.' The same archbishop promises you a living if
you will return and has given me five pounds cash to be
sent to you for the journey. I add as much myself, not
really as a gift, for this is not the kind of thing to be
called a gift, but only that you may hasten to us and no
longer torment us with longing for you.
" Finally, there remains only this bit of advice to give:
don't imagine that anything can be more grateful to me
than your letters or that I could be offended by anything
from you. I am exceedingly troubled that your health
has become impaired in Italy; you know I was never
greatly in favour of your going there. But when I see
how much work you accomplished and how much fame
you have won there, by Jove! I am sorry I did not go
with you. For I think that such learning and such fame
1 5 i4] England 183
would be well bought with hunger, poverty, and pain,
nay, even with death. Please find enclosed a draft for
the money; look out for your health and come to us as
soon as you can."
Certainly a more than friendly letter. True, Mount-
joy makes no definite promises on his own account,
but his glowing picture of the great times coming
for English letters was enough to fire the ambition
of a less credulous scholar than Erasmus. The
definite promise from Archbishop Warham of a
church-living and the earnest of a gift for travelling
expenses were attractions not to be resisted.
Erasmus arrived in England in 1509, and remained
there until the early part of 1514. Of these nearly
five years we have but little satisfactory account.
There is no indication that it was anyone's affair
to look after him in any way. We know that he
lived chiefly at Cambridge and London. He may
even have made a short trip to the Continent in the
interval. He was evidently much concerned with
money matters, making continual complaints of
poverty ; but at the same time he lived in apparent
comfort, not to say a kind of luxury. What he
meant by poverty was the absence of a sufficient
estate from which to live as he would have liked to
live. He certainly had money more or less regularly
from Mountjoy, and at some time during his Eng
lish residence he was also handsomely furnished with
a regular income by Warham. The peculiar thing
about these English pensions was that they were
generally paid when due, and that was more than
1 84 Desiderius Erasmus
could be said of any of the other benefits promised
to Erasmus, either before or afterward.
The arrangement with Warham was one quite in
accord with the practice of the day in such cases,
but not altogether in harmony with some of Eras
mus' lofty pretensions about pecuniary burdens.
When Warham offered Erasmus the " living" of
Aldington in Kent, it was rather a severe test of the
famous critic's sincerity in his utterances on church
morality. A more flagrant case of abuse of church
funds, so far as the principle was concerned, could
hardly be imagined. Here was a needy foreigner,
who had, to be sure, the ordination of a priest, but
who from the moment of his ordaining had never
done a single clerical act, to be set over a congrega
tion of English souls, only that their contributions
might go to support him in a life of scholarly pro
duction. To be sure there were excuses enough in
the habits of the day, but it was precisely as a critic
of such corrupt practices that Erasmus was now be
fore the world. Another palliation may be found
in the nature of the work which the scholar hoped
to do in the leisure thus acquired. He was laying
great and far-reaching plans for such an advance
ment of theological study as should bring in a really
new era of Christian faith and practice. Still all
such reasoning could not obscure the real fact that
to accept such a parish living meant to take money
for which no proper equivalent was given to those
who furnished it. This was not Warham's money,
but only a trust in his hands for the benefit of the
souls of Aldington.
WILLIAM WARHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
FROM A PAINTING BY HOLBEIN, IN THE LOUVRE GALLERY.
is 14] England 185
Erasmus' own account ' of the transaction repre
sents himself as very reluctant to take the benefice,
and Warham as insisting upon it so urgently that
he finally could no longer resist. Fortunately we
have the original documents 3 in Warham's own
words, and there is no hint of any reluctance on
Erasmus' part. The fact was, at all events, that he
took the living, did nothing by way of service, and
in a few months resigned it in exchange for an annual
pension of twenty pounds. Warham's account of
the matter goes far beyond the ordinary limits of a
deed of record, and is in fact nothing less than
a frank apology for a practice which he did not
himself approve. It was far too common for a parish
priest to resign a living with duties in exchange for
a substantial life-pension without duties, and War-
ham declares his determination not to permit this
sort of thing in the diocese of Canterbury. He
makes, however, an exception in Erasmus' case, he
says, for several reasons : First, he is
" moved by the countless good qualities of Erasmus, a
man of consummate ability in Latin and Greek literature,
who adorns our age with his learning and talent like a
star, to draw back a little from our general principle.
And no one ought to think it strange if in the case of so
rare a man and one placed beyond every hazard of
genius, we thought we ought to change somewhat of our
previous custom. For when we had conferred on him a
benefice with the cure of souls, namely, the church of
Aldington, although he was extremely learned in theology,
1 Knight's Life of Erasmus, p. 155, note a.
* Knight, Appendix, xl., and Vischer's Erasmiana, 1876, pp. 8-15.
1 86 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
as in every other branch of learning, still as he could not
preach the word of God to his parishioners in English or
hold any communication with them in their own tongue,
of which he is entirely ignorant; for this reason desiring
to give up the before-mentioned church, he begged us to
provide for him an annual pension in the same. We
thought that to agree to his suggestion would be profitable
to the souls, and at the same time he would be able the
more freely to pursue those literary studies to which he
is completely devoted. We were also not a little moved by
his unusual affection toward the English, for he had
given up Italy, France, and Germany, where he might
have lived prosperously enough, and preferred to betake
himself hither, that he might pass the remnant of his life
here among friends, and that these in turn might enjoy
the companionship of so learned a man."
Here is the plain evidence of a serious document
of record that Erasmus not only took his pension
gladly, but actually begged for it, and it is quite in
harmony with this that we afterwards find him quar
relling with his successor about certain tithes which
the latter thought were to be deducted from the
twenty pounds.
This document bears date the last day of July,
1512, so that Erasmus was unquestionably well pro
vided for from that day on. The date of his first
induction into the parish was March 22, 1511, and
as he thus had a right to the whole income of the
place during a year and a third, there is no reason
why he should not have had a tidy sum to his
credit.
The letters of Erasmus during this English visit
England 187
are few and give but little insight into his way of
life. The most interesting of them are those written
from Cambridge to another foreigner, an Italian,
Andreas Ammonius, who, like himself, had wan
dered to England to seek his fortune, and had become
a Latin secretary to the young King Henry VIII.
In addition to this function he appears later as
holding some papal commission in England. With
this cheerful and practical specimen of the gay
Italian Humanism of the day our scholar corre
sponded with great freedom. Ammonius was not
troubled by Erasmus' dread of place-holding, and
was frankly enjoying the sunshine of the court. He
seems to have advised Erasmus to try his fortune
also in London. Erasmus replies:
" As for your serious advice that I should pay my
court to Fortune, I acknowledge the true and friendly
counsel, and I will try it, though my mind rebels against
it most strongly and predicts no good and happy out
come. If I had exposed myself to the risks of Fortune I
should have put myself under the laws of a game, and, if
I had got beaten, should be making the best of it, know
ing, as I do, that this is just Fortune's trick, to set up
some and restore others as she pleases. But I thought I
had provided myself against having anything to do with
this wanton mistress, since Mountjoy had brought me
into harbour and into a settled thing. Nor does the
kindness of Fortune towards others, no matter how un
worthy, trouble me one particle, so help me God! The
success of you and the like of you brings me a real and
uncommon pleasure. Even if I were compelled to go
into a calculation of my merits, my present fortune would
1 88 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
seem beyond my deserts, for I measure myself by my
own foot and not by your praises."
Little inclined as Erasmus was to try his hand at
court, it was not for lack of theories as to how one
might best get on there. He gives Ammonius the
benefit of them in this classic passage ' :
" Now then I, the sow, will proceed to teach Minerva;
but, since you forbid it, I will not philosophise too much.
The first thing is, give your forehead such a rubbing
that you will never blush at anything. Mix yourself in
everybody's business. Elbow aside everyone you can.
Love no one and hate no one with your whole heart, but
measure all things by your own advantage. Let the
whole ordering of your life be turned to this one aim.
Give nothing without hope of a return; agree to all
things with all men. ' But,' you say, ' these are common
places.' Well, then, since you insist upon it, I will give
you a special piece of advice, but in your ear, mind you.
You know the jealousy of these Britons; make use of it
for your own good. Ride two horses at once. Hire
various suitors to keep at you. Threaten to leave and
begin to pack up. Show letters calling you away with
great promises ; take yourself off somewhere, that absence
may sharpen their desire for you."
This is a very exact description of Erasmus' own
tactics in the Battus days, and continues to fit his
action very well whenever he was considering a
change of residence.
In 1511 he writes to Ammonius:
" If you have any trustworthy news, I wish you would
1 iii. 1 , I22-B.
i5i 4 ] England 189
let me know it. I want especially to hear whether Julius
is really playing Julius, and whether Christ keeps up his
ancient custom of specially trying with the storms of ad
verse fortune those whom he desires to make specially
his own."
Writing from Queen's College in August, 1511,
he says:
" I am sending you some letters which I have writ
ten to Bombasius [his learned friend, we remember, in
Bologna]. As to myself I have nothing new to write,
save that the journey was most uncomfortable and that
my health is so far very dubious on account of that over-
exertion. I expect to make a somewhat longer stay in
this college, but as yet I have not given much of myself
to my hearers, desiring to look out for my health. The
beer in this place I don't like at all and the wine is far
from satisfactory. If you can order me a flagon of Greek
wine, the very best you can find, you will make your
Erasmus happy, but let it be very far from sweet. Don't
worry about the money; I will pay in advance if you
like."
Ammonius sent the wine, not so much as Erasmus
had expected, but refused with some heat to hear of
pay, and we have Erasmus' reply:
" You have given me a double pleasure, most amiable
Ammonius, by sending with your merry wine letters far
merrier still, and smacking exactly of your genius and
disposition, and these in my judgment are the sweetest
that ever were. As to my mention of pay which makes
you so angry, indeed I was not ignorant of your charac
ter, which is worthy of a kingly fortune. But I supposed
1 90 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
you were going to send me a great flagon, enough to last
me several months yet even this is too large for a
modest man to receive without pay. ... I marvel
that you stick to your nest so perpetually and never take
a flight away. If you should ever be pleased to visit this
Academy you would be welcomed by many, by me first
of all. You bid me come back to you if I get too tired
here, but I can't see any attraction for me in London
except the companionship of two or three friends."
Ammonius accompanied the English army in the
Flemish campaign of 1513, and Erasmus writes to
him in camp, thanking him for the vivid description
of army life which he has sent home, and introducing
him to various friends of his own in the Low Coun
tries.
" O happy man," he says, " if God permits you to re
turn safely to us! What merry tales your experience of
these horrors will supply you with for the rest of your
life! But, my dear Ammonius, I beseech you again and
again, as I have cautioned you in my recent letters, by
the Muses and Graces, look out that you do your fighting
from a safe distance. Be as furious as you like with
your pen, and slay with it ten times ten thousand men
a day." As for himself, he says he is hanging on at
Cambridge, " looking about me every day for a con
venient chance to fly away. Only no opportunity offers.
I am kept also by the thirty nobles which I am expecting
at Michaelmas. I am so on fire with zeal to re-edit Je
rome and to illustrate it with commentaries, that I seem
to be inspired by some god. I have now nearly com
pleted the revision and have collated many ancient texts,
and all this at great expense to myself."
u SI
i 5 i 4 ] England 191
At Cambridge, as elsewhere, Erasmus seems al
ways to have been on the eve of flight, working
away at what interested him, but neglecting every
thing else as far as possible.
" I wrote to you once and again in camp," he says to
Ammonius, " but meanwhile was in a no less serious war
fare here with my emendations of Seneca and Jerome than
you with the Frenchmen. Although I was not in camp,
Durham has given me ten crowns from the French plun
der; but I '11 tell you all about this when I see you, and
meanwhile will be on the lookout for your military let
ters. Good-bye, best of friends. I don't need to ask of
you what you are always doing of your own accord, and
yet I do ask that if any chance offers you will help me
along with a word of recommendation. For these few
months I have cast anchor securely. If things go well,
I will fancy that here is my native land, which I have
preferred to Rome and where old age is coming upon me;
if not I will break away, it does n't much matter whither,
and will at all events die somewhere else. I will call
upon all the gods to bear witness to the confidence by
which he whom you know has ruined me. If I had
promised with three words what he has repeated so often
and in such sounding phrases, I know that what I pro
mised I would have performed. May I be damned if I
would n't rather die than let a man who was dependent
on me go destitute. I congratulate you, dear Ammonius,
that Fortune, not always so unjust as she is to me, is now,
as I hear, smiling upon you. Good-bye again."
" For months now," he writes, " I have been living the
life of a snail, shut up at home and brooding in silence
over my studies. There is a great deal of solitude here;
many are away through fear of the plague, though even
i9 2 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
when everyone is here it is a solitude. The expense is
intolerable and there is not a farthing of profit. Think
of it! I swear by all that 's sacred that in the five months
since I came here I have spent sixty nobles and have
only received one from some of my hearers and that with
much reluctance on my part. It is certain that during
this winter I shall leave no stone unturned and, as they
say, shall weigh the anchor of my safety. If things go
well, I shall make myself a nest somewhere; if not, I
shall certainly fly away from here, I know not whither;
if nothing else I will at least die elsewhere."
Ammonius reports upon his progress in begging
for Erasmus, and Erasmus, quite in the tone of the
old correspondence with Battus, thanks him and
urges him to further effort.
These dolorous letters bear date 1511, but can
not all belong in that year, and month and day
are often obviously incorrect. Dated early in 1512
we have a letter to the abbot of St. Bertin. After
explaining why he had not reported himself earlier,
Erasmus goes on to say :
" If you care to hear how I am getting on: Erasmus
is almost completely transformed into an Englishman,
with such distinguished consideration am I treated by
very many others, but especially by my incomparable
(unicus) Maecenas, the archbishop of Canterbury,
patron not of me alone, but of all learned men, among
whom I hold the lowest place, if indeed I hold any place
at all. Eternal God! how happy, how productive, how
ready is the talent of that man! What skill in unravel
ling the most weighty matters of business! what uncom
mon learning! what unheard-of graciousness towards all!
1514] England 193
what geniality in company, so that, a truly royal quality,
he sends no one away from him sad. And besides all
this: what great and ready generosity! Finally, in such
a conspicuous position of fortune and rank, how abso
lutely free from haughtiness, so that he seems to be the
only one who is ignorant of his own greatness. In caring
for his friends no one is more faithful or more constant.
In short he is indeed Primas, not in rank alone but in all
praiseworthy things. Since I have this man for a friend,
why should I not deem myself exceptionally fortunate,
even if there were nothing more ? "
It is idle to attempt to determine which of these
moods represents the real state of mind of Erasmus
at Cambridge. Probably he was at his old tricks of
making himself valued by threatening to leave an
unbearable situation, and at the same time making
that situation appear as delightful as possible to any
one outside who might conceivably raise a bid for
him in another quarter. He tells Ammonius again
how charming Italy was to him and what a prospect
he had given up there to come to England. He
thinks he will come to London, and begs Ammonius
to find him a warm lodging not too far from St.
Paul's. He cannot go to Mountjoy's so long as
that Cerberus " is there. Evidently he did not
have the run of many hospitable homes in London.
As regards Erasmus' official position at Cambridge
there is some room for doubt. He appears in the
lists of university officers as the " Lady Margaret's
Professor of Divinity, ' ' but precisely what this means
is not clear. The Lady Margaret was the Countess
of Richmond, mother of King Henry VII., never
194 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
queen herself, but claiming the doubtful honour of
blood-relationship to sixty or seventy persons of
royal lineage. This benevolent lady, influenced
undoubtedly by the advice of John Fisher, after
ward Bishop of Rochester, had founded in 1503 a
readership in divinity at each of the great English
universities. The endowment had been intrusted
to the abbey of Westminster with instructions to
pay over the salary to the holder. The election to
the office was to be biennial, and besides the chan
cellor all doctors, bachelors, and inceptors in divinity
were to have the right to vote. The place was to
be no sinecure. The reader must read libere, sollen-
niter, and aperte. He was to have no fees beyond his
salary, and must read such works in divinity as the
chancellor with the " college of doctors " should
judge necessary. He must " read every accustomed
day in each term, and in the long vacation up to the
eighth of September, but might cease in Lent, if the
chancellor should think fit, in order that during that
season he and his auditors might be occupied in
preaching. " Evidently it was contemplated that the
reader of the Lady Margaret should devote himself
wholly to this work. The salary was the very re
spectable sum of sixty-five dollars a year, enough to
provide a modest living for a man of quiet habits.
We are almost wholly without information as to
Erasmus' performance of the duties of this office.
Everything points toward the belief that in the
sense described by the act of foundation he never
filled it at all. The only references he makes are to
his attempts to teach Greek, certainly not one of
JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.
FROM THE DRAWING BY HOLBEIN, IN WINDSOR CASTLE.
England 195
the functions of the Lady Margaret Professor. It
has often been assumed ' that Erasmus' complaints
about his Cambridge life were caused by a sense of
failure in his work as a teacher. We are prepared
to believe from all his previous experience that he
never cared to succeed as a teacher, and, further, we
may be tolerably sure that, for this quite sufficient
reason, he was not a very good teacher. He held
his readership, we may believe, for two terms of two
years each if indeed he held it at all and mean
while tried to give Greek lessons, but could get
neither pupils nor pay. Mr. Mullinger says, " Dis
appointed in his class-room, he took refuge in his
study," as if his literary work were a kind of last
resort on the failure of his true profession.
The truth would seem to be just the opposite of
this. What really commanded the allegiance of all
that was best and most effective in Erasmus' make
up was his study and writing. His proper medium
of self-expression was his pen, and until he took
his pen in hand he was not his best self. If he was
capable of any sincere utterance he was sincere when
he said to Ammonius that he felt himself moved by
an almost divine inspiration when he got going on
his Jerome. A few more glimpses at the working
of his mind at Cambridge and we will pass on to see
what he accomplished there in the way of contribu
tions to learning.
Besides Ammonius his other most important cor
respondent during this time was his old friend, John
1 For example, by Mr. Mullinger in his History of the University
of Cambridge, p. 50 8 ff.
i9 6 Desiderius Erasmus
Colet, now definitely settled in London as dean of
St. Paul's and greatly absorbed in the work which
was to be his most lasting monument, the new school
for boys. The correspondence seems to have begun
by a begging letter from Erasmus in which he had
gone beyond the limits of good taste, and to which
Colet had replied with some heat. It is not beyond
our belief that Erasmus may have given his letter a
jocose form, and that Colet, Englishman as he was,
had not seen the joke. At all events, Erasmus
writes:
" You answer seriously a letter written in jest. Per
haps I ought not to have joked with so great a patron,
yet it pleased my fancy just then to try a little ' Attic
salt ' on such a very dear friend, being mindful rather of
your gentle character than of your high position. It will
be the part of your friendliness to make allowances for
my awkwardness. You write that I am in your debt
whether I like it or not. Indeed, my dear Colet, it is
hard, as Seneca says, to be an unwilling debtor, but I
know no man to whom I would more willingly be in debt
than to you. You have always had such kind feelings
towards me that, even if no good offices had been added,
still I should have been greatly your debtor; but now you
have added so many services and kindnesses that if I did
not acknowledge them I should be the most ungrateful
of men. As to your embarrassments I both believe in
them and grieve for them, but my own difficulties were
so much more pressing that I was compelled to take ad
vantage of yours. How unwilling I was to do this you
may gather from the fact that I was so long in asking what
you had long since promised. I don't wonder that you,
ISM] England 197
occupied as you are with so many affairs, should have
forgotten your promise; but when we were in your garden
talking about the Copia? I proposed to dedicate some
juvenile work to our youthful prince, and you asked me
to dedicate the new work to your new school. I an
swered with a smile that your new school was a trifle
poverty-stricken and what I needed was someone who
would pay cash down. Then you smiled. Then, when
I had told over many reasons for expense, you said with
some hesitation that you could not give me as much as I
needed, but would gladly give fifteen angels. When you
repeated this with an eager face, I asked if you thought
that was enough. You answered eagerly again that you
would willingly pay that. Then I said I would gladly
take it. This reminder will perhaps bring the matter to
your memory. I might pile up more arguments, if you
had not faith in me of your own accord. There are some,
and friends, too, for I have no dealings with enemies and
don't value their words one hair, who say that you are a
little hard, and in giving money a trifle exacting. They
say that this does not come from meanness so I under
stand them but because from the very gentleness of
your nature you cannot resist those who press and urge
themselves upon you, and are the less generous with your
modest friends because you cannot satisfy both. . . .
If it would not burden you to send me the remnant of
what you promised, as my affairs are at present, I will
take it, not as a debt, but as a gift to be repaid when I
can do so. I was sorry to hear, at the end of your letter,
that you were so unusually burdened by business cares.
I could wish you were as far as possible removed from
the cares of this world, not for fear that the world's
1 De duplici copia verborum et rerum.
i9 8 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
allurements can lay hold upon you, but because I should
like to see such genius, eloquence, and learning as yours
wholly devoted to Christ. If you cannot escape, look
out that you do not sink deeper and deeper. It might
be better to fail than to buy success at so great a price,
for the highest good is peace of mind. These are the
thorns that accompany riches. ... I have finished
the collation of the New Testament and am going on to
Jerome. When I have finished him I will fly to you."
Singular that in all Erasmus' complaints of his
Cambridge life he makes no reference to any failure
on the part of the authorities to pay him his due
stipend. It seems clear either that he held no posi
tion which carried a salary with it, or that his beg
ging was for " extras " beyond the modest needs of
a celibate scholar. Some light is thrown upon this
point in a letter to Colet, dated October, 1513, but
quite as likely belonging, as Mr. Drummond sug
gests, in 1511.
" I am now wholly absorbed in the Copia, so that it
seems like a regular enigma to be in the midst of plenty
\copid\ and yet in the depths of want. And would that
I might bring both to a conclusion at once; for I will
quickly make an end of my Copia if only the Muses will
favour my studies more than Fortune has up to the present
time favoured my estate. . . .
" In your offer of money I recognise your ancient good
feeling toward me and I thank you with all my heart.
But there is one phrase, though you use it in jest, that
stings me to the soul : ' if you would beg humbly. ' Per
haps you mean, and very properly, that to bear my lot
with such impatience comes wholly from human pride,
1 5 i4] England 199
for, indeed, a gentle and Christian spirit makes the best
of everything. Still more, however, I marvel how you
put together humility and shamelessness: for you say,' if
you would beg humbly and make your demand shame
lessly.' If, according to common usage, you mean by
humility the opposite of arrogance, how are impudence
and modesty to be put together ? But if by ' humbly '
you mean ' servilely' and 'abjectly ' you differ very much
from Seneca, my dear Colet, who thinks that nothing
comes higher than what is bought with prayers, and that
he does a far from friendly service who demands of his
friend that lowly word, ' I beg you.' Socrates once said,
conversing with some friends: ' I should have bought
me a cloak to-day if I had had the money,' and Sen-
ecar says : ' he gave too late who gave after those
words.'
" But now, I pray you, what could be more shameless
than I, who have been a public beggar all this time in
England ? From the archbishop I have had so much
that it would be more than infamous to take any more,
even if he should offer it. From N. I have begged
boldly enough, but as I asked without shame so has he
without shame repulsed me. Why now I seem too
shameless even to my dear Linacre, who, when he saw me
going away from London with barely six angels in my
pocket, and knew how feeble my health was, and that
winter was coming on, yet eag'erly warned me to spare
the archbishop, to spare Mountjoy! But I will rather
pull myself together and learn to bear my poverty
bravely. Oh ! that was a friendly counsel ! This is why
I especially loathe my fate, that it does not permit me to
be a modest man. As long as my strength would carry
me, it was a pleasure to hide my need now I cannot do
that unless I choose to neglect my life. And still I am
200 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
not yet so lost to shame that I ask all things of everyone.
From others I ask not, lest I get a refusal, but from you
with what face, pray, can I ask ? Especially since you
yourself have none too much of this kind of goods.
Yet, if it is boldness you like, I will end my letter with
the very boldest clause I can. I cannot so put aside all
shame as to beg of you with no excuse, but I am not so
proud as to refuse a gift, if such a friend as you should
give it me willingly, especially in the present state of my
affairs. ' '
These selections from the English correspondence
have made it clear that Erasmus in England was
precisely what he had always been, a keen-sighted
observer of men and things, a hater of all shams but
his own, a sturdy beggar, a jovial companion and
correspondent when he was in the mood, above all
an independent liver and thinker, dreading any
routine that was not self-imposed, but capable of
steady and persistent work when he could put his
time on congenial tasks. Of these labours, to which
he devoted himself in England, the new edition of
the Greek New Testament, or, as he preferred to
call it, the " New Instrument," held the first place
in his interest. It was not to be published until
1516, a year or more after he had left England, and
Erasmus says that he consulted manuscripts in Bra-
.bant and Basel before printing; but it seems toler
ably clear that a considerable part of the preparatory
work was done at Cambridge. He writes to Colet, 1
1 iii., IO7-E. It really seems a little too much to place this begging
letter, as Mr. Drummond does, in 1512, after Erasmus had received
his pension from Warham.
CARDINAL XIMENES.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY 0. E. WAGSTAFF, IN THE FLORENCE GALLERY.
i 5 i4] The New Testament 201
as early as 1511: " I have finished the collation
of the New Testament," by which he must mean
that he had done all that he intended to do at
it in England. In speaking of the work at Basel he
refers to the great haste with which it was pushed,
the object being, probably, on Froben's part, to get
ahead of a similar undertaking reported to be under
way in Spain. This latter work, to be known as
the "Complutensian Polyglot," was going on under
the direction of Cardinal Ximenes at Alcala (Com-
plutum). It was to include the whole Bible, and
though the New Testament was completed in 1514
it was held back to appear with the rest in 1520.
When Erasmus says 1 that he used "very many
manuscripts in both languages, and those not the
readiest to hand, but the most ancient and most
correct," he is speaking after the standards of his
day. In fact, recent scholarship has shown that he
not only used very defective manuscripts of no
great antiquity, but that he failed to make adequate
use of the best one at his disposal. 2
In spite of the fact, then, that the actual work of
publication was done at Basel, we may fairly count
this great work as one of the fruits of the English
period. Rightly to estimate the value of this service
to the cause of a reasonable Christianity, we must
consider for a moment the conditions of biblical
scholarship in the year 1511. That the ultimate
appeal in matters of Christian faith lay to the inspired
1 vi., ad i 'nit.
8 C. R. Gregory, Prolegomena to Tischendorf's New Testament,
L, 207-210.
202 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
word of the recognised canon of Scripture, no one
doubted for a moment. True, the governing powers
of the Church had insisted that alongside this source
of truth there were two others of equal importance,
the tradition of the Church and the authority of the
Roman papacy ; but Church and papacy had always
been conceived of as expressing their own judgment
through their interpretation of Scripture. Nothing
which they could lay down could ever be in contra
diction to the true teaching of the canonical writings.
A modern mind would say, therefore, that nothing
could have seemed more important to these inter
preting agents than to know precisely what the
writers whom they were interpreting had said and
meant. One would think that every effort would
have been made from the beginning to secure and
maintain a version of the Scriptures in their original
form, of such unquestionable accuracy that all devia
tions of interpretation could be anticipated and
checked.
The immense prestige which the Roman govern
ment of the Church might thus have secured to itself
was deliberately thrown away. Not only did the'
chief church authority do nothing itself to promote
so practical and so profitable an undertaking, but it
systematically checked the efforts of individuals and
groups of scholars to contribute toward this end.
It rested all its own interpretation upon a translation
into Latin, the so-called Vulgata, which had been
made by Jerome in the years just before and just
after 400, and repeatedly declared by the Church to
be the sole authorised version. This translation
1514] The New Testament 203
was, so far as the New Testament was concerned, a
revision of earlier Latin versions carefully compared
with the Greek originals. The Old Testament was
translated from the original Hebrew with close refer
ence to the Septuagint and the early Greek com
mentators. The obvious motive of the Church in
clinging to this defective presentation of its own
supreme authority was the motive of uniformity.
The longer the correction of errors could be post
poned, the more hope that no effective criticism of
institutions resting, perhaps, on errors would arise.
Of all tendencies in human society none was so
greatly and so justly dreaded by church authority
as the tendency to criticism. And by criticism we
do not mean a carping opposition. We mean only
what the word properly denotes: inquiry into the
exact facts about any given subject. In proportion
as the great structure of ecclesiastical authority had
grown more complicated, this nervous dread of free
inquiry had increased. Nor was the central author
ity alone responsible for this state of mind. Every
part of the church organisation had done its share to
fix this notion of an unchanging uniformity upon the
Christian world. The whole philosophy of the Middle
Ages, which prided itself, above all else, upon being
a Christian philosophy, had exhausted itself in giving
a pseudo-scientific form to the most unscientific view
of truth the world had ever seen.
The great service of Erasmus was, therefore, that
he proposed to find out as nearly as he could what the
writers of the New Testament had actually said. Of
course his apparatus for this inquiry was still, from
204 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
the point of view of modern science, very defective.
He had no earlier scientific commentators to consult,
with the single exception of Laurentius Valla, the
Italian humanist, who a few years before had pub
lished annotations to the Greek text. His criteria
of judgment had to be evolved from his own sense
of accuracy as he went along. All that vast assist
ance to intelligent editing which in recent times has
come from the cultivation of the historic sense was
wanting to him. Nothing was farther from Eras
mus' mind than any radical discussion of Christian
doctrines. He continually declares his fixed deter
mination to abide by the faith of the Church, and
whatever adverse criticism he had to make was
against evil practices which always seemed to him
only perversions of the essential Christianity of
apostolic times. So we are not to look to his New
Testament for startling innovations. What gave
offence to his enemies was the same quality which
gave value to the book, namely, the single effort
to put things as they were. What the " men of
darkness " who had come largely to control the
practical working of religious affairs least of all de
sired was precise truth to facts. They were getting
on comfortably with a version of truth which suited
them very well, and were not inclined to see their
precious ease invaded by any restless seeking for
ultimate accuracy. They felt, and quite truly, that
any jarring of the foundations might bring the whole
structure of ceremonies and usages in which they
were thriving, about their ears. Erasmus might
protest as he would, but the instinct of self-preserva-
DEVICE OF THE HOUSE OF FROBEN.
i 5 i4] The St. Jerome 205
tion on the part of those who were enjoying the
high places of the Church was rightly alarmed.
The other work on which Erasmus spent most of
his time in England was his share in a new edition
of St. Jerome, which was being brought out by the
great printing house of Froben at Basel. It will be
more in order, perhaps, to speak of this when we
have followed Erasmus to the Continent and seen
him established in the full career of an editor and
author which was to occupy the remainder of his
life. It may not be out of place here to quote his
own description of the principles which governed
him in his editorial work. He was accused of inac
curacy and undue haste in giving to the world the
results of unripe scholarship. He acknowledges the
facts, but defends himself as follows, 1 speaking at
the moment of the epistles of Jerome:
" I gave such care to this work [the edition of 1524]
that the attentive reader may easily see that I did not
undertake this revision in vain. The control of ancient
manuscripts was not lacking, but these could not pre
clude the use of conjecture in some places; but these
conjectures I so modified in the notes that they could not
easily deceive anyone, but could only stimulate in the
reader a zeal for investigation. And I hope it may come
to pass that someone equipped with more correct texts
may restore also those points which have escaped me.
To these I will gladly render the praise due to their in
dustry and they will have no reason to find fault with my
attempts; for while I have been fortunate in restoring
1 Calalogus lucubrationutti, i.
206 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
many points, in some I have been compelled to follow
the ancient proverb: ' not as we would, but as we can.'
" For there are men of such a disposition that if they
can add anything to the efforts of their predecessors,
they claim all the praise for themselves and make a tre
mendous fuss if one has even nodded at any point or not
accomplished what one has undertaken. I know not
whether we ought to despise more the rudeness of such
persons or their ingratitude. No one stands in their
way, if they wish to produce something better. They
say that nothing ought to be published that is not per
fect. Now, whoever says that, simply says that nothing
at all should be published ; nor was ever anything pro
perly edited down to the present day. I was editing these
things for Batavians, for monks and theologians, who
were for the most part without classic learning; for lib
eral study had not yet penetrated so far as these.
" If one will just consider, he will see that I am enter
ing upon no unworthy or unfruitful field. Will not
Italian critics give the same indulgence to barbarians
which they have been compelled, willing or unwilling,
to give to their own scholars, to Filelfo, to Hermolaus, or
to Valla, whenever during the past sixty years they have
aided the learning of the community by their zeal in
translating Greek authors or emending Latin ones ?
Those who publish nothing avoid all blame, but earn no
praise; nay, while they are barely avoiding the blame
of men, they fall into the worst kind of blame; unless,
indeed, he is less blameworthy who gives to his famished
friends nothing from his splendid table, than he who
freely and gladly gives what he has and would be glad to
give more sumptuous things if he had them. ... I
confess myself greatly indebted to Beatus Rhenanus,
who has given us Tertullian emended at many points,
DEVICE OF FROBEN.
is i4] The " Copia Verborum " 207
though it is incomplete and beside that is thick-sown
with blunders. He does no injury to his reputation who
gives a service proportioned to his day and opens the way
to others to do more finished work. Nor have I suffered
from any more unjust critics than those who publish
nothing and do not even teach, as if they begrudged any
usefulness to the world, or as if whatever they gave to the
community were a loss to themselves. And if ever they
detect a human error, what snickerings, what abuse,
what a rumpus! "
These are really admirable sentiments, worthy of
a man of literary courage and generosity. On the
whole Erasmus lived up to them. He was impatient
of criticism and inclined to believe his critics actuated
by motives of personal dislike ; but where he felt the
friendly note in criticism he was ready to accept it
and to discuss the point in the spirit of worthy
rivalry. Much that he wrote was hasty and incom
plete, but he wrote, and he did indeed open the way
for others of less individual quality to follow his
leading.
As a fruit of the English residence, we must
briefly notice the treatise, de duplicicopia verborum et
rerum? written by Erasmus, as he says, at the re
quest of Colet, and dedicated to him in a really
beautiful and touching preface. The Copia of Eras
mus is a text-book of rhetoric, intended for ad
vanced Latin scholars who have already mastered
the principles of grammar and are well on the way
to the acquisition of a good style. Its value for our
1 i., pp. i-no.
2o8 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
purpose is in giving a clue to the principles of com
position which were to govern Erasmus in all his
writing ; and thus preparing us to interpret what he
says with the greater intelligence. No opinion as
to his meaning on any question can be worth much
which is not based upon a clear comprehension of
his literary method. He was a literary artist and
we are here introduced to some of the most valu
able secrets of his art. They must never be forgot
ten when we try to find out what he really means at
a given moment.
The word copia is a difficult one to translate. Its
first meaning of " abundance " is liable, as Erasmus
begins by showing, to be understood as mere ver
bosity.
" We see not a few mortals, who, striving to emulate
this divine virtue with more zeal than success, fall into a
feeble and disjointed loquacity, obscuring the subject
and burdening the wretched ears of their hearers with a
vacant mass of words and sentences crowded together
beyond all possibility of enjoyment. And writers who
have tried to lay down the principles of this art have
gained no other result than to display their own poverty
while expounding abundance."
He proposes to give only certain directions, and
to illustrate them by formulas which may prove
convenient to writers. Copia includes the ideas of
richness and variety, but must avoid the errors of
mere quantity and change. Not all fulness con
tributes to completeness of effect, and not all varia
tion in style helps towards real illustration of the
i 5 i4] The " Copia Verborum " 209
thought. Here, as elsewhere, we find Erasmus
the true apostle of common-sense. After all, the
purpose of rhetoric is primarily to say something
worth saying, and to say it in such a way that it
will commend itself to the reader. The purpose of
these directions will therefore be to show how the
essential point may be condensed into few words
and yet nothing be left out, and how, on the other
hand, one may expand into copia and yet have
nothing in superfluity.
The first rule of the Copia verborum is
" that speech should be fitting \apta\, good Latin, elegant
and pure [/#;-#]. . . . What clothing is to the body,
style is to the thought; for just as the beauty and dignity
of the body are heightened or diminished by dress and
care, so is thought by words. They are therefore greatly
mistaken who think it makes no difference in what words
a given thought is expressed if only it can be understood.
So also there is the same principle in changing the dress
and in varying the speech. It is our first care that our
dress be neither mean, nor unsuited to our figure, nor of
a wrong pattern. It would be a pity if a figure good in
itself were to be spoiled by mean garments; it would be
ridiculous if a man were to appear in public in woman's
dress, and a disgrace if one were to be seen in a prepos
terous garb or with his clothes turned back side before.
" And so, if anyone tries to put on an affectation of
copia before he has attained the purity of the Latin
tongue, he is, in my judgment, no less ridiculous than a
poor beggar, who, having not a single garment fit to wear,
should thereupon change one set of rags for another and
come out into the market-place to show off his beggary
210 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
for wealth. And the oftener he should do this, would
he not seem so much the more foolish ? I think he
would. And just as foolish are those who affect copia
and yet cannot say in plain words what they want to say.
As if they were ashamed to appear to stammer a little,
they make their stammering only the more offensive in
every possible way, as if they were on a wager with them
selves to talk as barbarously as ever they can. I like to
see a wealthy house furnished in great variety, but I want
it all to be elegant and not to be filled up with articles of
willow and fig-wood and vessels of Samian crockery.
At a splendid banquet I like to have many kinds of food
brought on, but who could bear it if anyone should
serve a hundred sorts of food not one of which was fit
to eat ? "
Having thus admirably laid down the rule of
moderation and good taste, Erasmus goes on to
details. He shows what kinds of words are to be
avoided and to what extent. His comments on the
use of obscene words are interesting in view of the
general practice of his time and, indeed, upon occa
sion, of his own practice. Certain words are obscene
because they represent obscene things; others be
cause they are twisted from their harmless mean
ings. ' What then is the principle of obscenity ?
nothing more nor less than the usage, not of
anybody and everybody, but of those whose speech is
correct." Of himself it must be said that in general
he lived pretty well up to his principles. Where he
offends in this respect it is generally in a kind of
composition, as, for example, in many of the Collo
quies, in which he simply lets himself go, producing
The u Copia Verborum " 211
his effect by a freedom which he carefully avoids in
other forms of writing. He was, if one may say so,
artistically obscene.
In spite of his admiration for pure Latinity, he does
not hesitate to admit Greek words according to a
rather dangerous canon. Greek words, he says, may
be used when they are more significant, or shorter,
or stronger, or more graceful, " for no Latin word
can equal the grace of a Greek word." In short,
" whenever any certain appropriateness \commoditas\ in
vites us we may properly interweave Greek with Latin,
especially when we are writing to learned men ; but when
we are not so invited and deliberately weave a discourse
that is half Latin and half Greek, this may perhaps be
pardoned in youths who are training themselves to readi
ness in both languages, but for men this kind of display
is, in my judgment, far from becoming and is as undig
nified as if one should write a book in prose and verse
mixed up together, as, in fact, has been done by some
learned men."
As to repetition, a trick of rhetoric often em
ployed by Erasmus, he disapproves it in theory, but
admits that it may be done " when the repetition
helps the thought and when the weariness of it can
be avoided by a certain variety." Cicero repeats,
but he says " things similar, not the same things."
" I insist upon this the more earnestly because I have
heard preachers of considerable fame, especially in Italy,
wasting their time in affected synonyms of this sort, as,
for example, if one interpreting the word of the Psalmist,
212 Desiderius Erasmus [i 509 -
' create in me a clean heart, O God! ' should say, 'create
in me a clean heart, a pure heart, a spotless heart, a
stainless heart, a heart free from baseness, a heart un
spoiled by vice, a heart purified, a heart made clean, a
heart like snow,' and then should do the same in other
words, this kind of copia is not far removed from mere
babble."
So he goes on, through the whole range of figures
of speech, laying down a general principle and illus
trating it with a wealth of classical learning that is
simply overwhelming. It is rather dreary reading,
but is relieved every now and then by flashes of
sense and humour that must have commended the
book to all fair-minded men. " No word ought to
seem to us harsh or obsolete which is to be found in
an approved author. On this point I differ far and
wide from those who shudder at every word as a
barbarism which is not to be read in Cicero."
When he has made his principles clear he proceeds
to illustrate still further by ringing all possible
changes on a model sentence, tuce litera me tnag-
nopere delectarunt, to the extent of a printed folio
page. The development of semper dum vivam, tui
meminero, fills two folio pages. The pupil who
should carry out these illustrations intelligently
would be almost a master of Latin prose. The
greater part of the rest of the copia verborum is filled
with formulas for the expression of a multitude of
ideas most likely to occur in the work of the classi
cal pupil. This is pure hack-work, a mere mechan
ical enumeration, but likely to be of great use to
those for whom it was intended. It would be an
ISM] The "Copia Verborum " 213
admirable thing if our own high-school pupils could
be made to commit great parts of the de copia ver-
borum to memory.
The plan of the Copia rerum is similar to that of
the former part. It is an elaborate analysis of the
various ways in which discourse may be enriched
and amplified. Erasmus puts much less of himself
into this part, but at the close sums up the argument
with his usual good sense and judgment.
" He who likes the brevity of the Spartans will first of
all avoid prefaces and expressions of feeling in the manner
of the Athenians. He will state his case simply and con
cisely. He will use arguments, not all but at least the
chief ones, and will present these not in detail, but com
pactly, so that the argument shall be almost in the very
wording, if anyone cares to work it out. Let him be
content to make his point and be very sparing with
amplifications, similes, examples, etc., etc., unless these be
so essential that he may not omit them without offence.
Let him also abstain from all kinds of figures which
make language rich, splendid, telling, elaborate, or at
tractive. Let him not treat the same subject in various
forms, or so explain single words by expressions of mean
ing, that much more is understood than is heard and one
thing may be gathered from another. On the other hand
he who seeks for copia will desire to expand his material
pretty nearly according to the rules I have laid down.
" But let each beware, lest through affectation he be
carried over into the fault which lies nearest him. Let
the lover of brevity see to it that he does not merely use
few words, but that he says in the fewest words the very
best thing he can." . . . For nothing is so conducive
214 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
to brevity of style as aptness and elegance of words, and
if we add simplicity, it will be easy to avoid obscurity, a
vice which is very apt to follow a striving after brevity.
But here again we must look out that our speech does
not grow cold through lack of all warmth of feeling.
Therefore let the matter be so put before the eye that,
of itself, it may silently take a certain hold upon the
mind. Let all be sweetened with the Attic charm."
The Copia proved its value by a great and rapid
sale. It was first printed in 1511, and went through
nearly sixty editions in the author's lifetime. Since
then it has been repeatedly reprinted and epitomised.
Coming as it did so soon after the Praise of Folly,
and written as it was in the intervals of very serious
occupation with the New Testament and Jerome, it
gave to the world a very striking proof of Erasmus'
immense versatility of talent and wide-reaching in
tellectual interests. Taken together these works
make it quite clear that when Erasmus left England
in 1514 he had commended himself to every class of
thinking men by some direct appeal to what specially
concerned it.
In all the biographies of Erasmus it seems to be
tacitly assumed that he was on intimate terms with
Thomas More during this long residence in England.
In fact, however, contemporary evidence on this
point is almost entirely wanting. There is but one
letter from Erasmus to More in this period, and none
whatever from More to him. If it be said that there
was no need of correspondence, since the friends
could meet at any time in London, the same is true
of Colet and Ammonius, from and to whom we have
ISM] England 215
so many letters. When Erasmus goes to London
it is Ammonius who finds him a lodging; he it is
who sends him his wine and helps him to a horse.
More was certainly greatly occupied with public
affairs at this time, but he found leisure to write his
Utopia, which was published in 1515, very soon
after Erasmus' departure from England. The real
relations between these men, who, in spite of similar
tastes, were of quite different character, seem to
have been expressed rather in their later correspond
ence than in any close intimacy at this time.
During this residence in England occurred doubt
less the visits of Erasmus to the shrine of the Virgin
Mary at Walsingham and to that of Thomas a
Becket at Canterbury, which are immortalised in
the very famous colloquy, Peregrinatio religionis
ergo, the Religious Pilgrimage. 1 Though published
some years afterwards, there is every reason to be
lieve that this dialogue faithfully represents the
writer's state of mind in 1513-14. The essential
part of it is the skilful balancing between conformity
to prescribed usage and an open contempt for the
whole paraphernalia of relics, miracles, votive offer
ings, and lying tales, of which these and similar
places were the centres. Erasmus represents him
self as a devout believer in the Holy Virgin and in
the holiness of saints ; but as a total sceptic regard
ing the whole machinery of their worship. His
cautious language and his protestations of charity
for ignorance and human frailty cannot in the least
'i., 774-787.
216 Desiderius Erasmus [1509-
conceal his real disgust at these perversions of an
honest and honourable sentiment.
In the visit to Canterbury, Erasmus represents
himself as accompanied by a high clerical dignitary
of England, whose open expressions of distrust and
scandalised piety he endeavours to moderate. That
this person was Colet is made clear by a later refer
ence. The fact serves to connect Erasmus with the
feeling, growing henceforth more intense and finally
culminating in the suppression of the English mon
asteries, that a vast perversion of true religion had
taken place. It was only a question of time when
the evil would become intolerable. Erasmus doubt
less contributed his share in the fostering of this
rebellious feeling; but he was far from being alone
in his opinions. The enlightenment of his genera
tion was all pointing the same way. All that was
needed was a formulation into some definite pro
gramme of action, and for this, of course, Erasmus
was conspicuously incompetent. The impulse was
to come from a mixture of motives, many of them
as unworthy as those they sought to replace.
In his treatise on the True Way of Prayer, 1523,
Erasmus sums up his attitude on the question of
relic-worship in a few words * :
" In England they expose to be kissed the shoe of St.
Thomas, once bishop of Canterbury, which is, perchance,
the shoe of some harlequin; and in any case what could
be more foolish than to worship the shoe of a man ! I
have myself seen them showing the linen rags on which
1 Modus orandi Deum, v., ing-F.
England 217
he is said to have wiped his nose. When the shrine was
opened the Abbot and the rest fell on their knees in
worship, raised their hands to heaven, and showed their
reverence by their actions. All this seemed to John
Colet, who was with me, an unworthy display; I thought
it was a thing we must put up with until an opportunity
should come to reform it without disturbance."
This is the key-note of the " Erasmian Reform,"
and we shall hear it sounded many times again before
the moment of action arrives.
CHAPTER VII
BASEL AND LOUVAIN THE " INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS
CHRISTIANI"
ERASMUS left England in early summer, 1514,
on good terms with his English friends but
without making such connections as could have
served to keep him permanently in the country.
He was bound to have explanations ready for any
emergency, but we need not trouble ourselves to
seek other reasons for his leaving England than that
he did not wish to stay. He had accumulated a
considerable stock of manuscripts and knew that he
could get them into print better at Basel than in
London. If we may trust a letter ' sent back to
Ammonius from the castle of Ham, in Picardy, of
which Lord Mountjoy was governor, he came near
losing these precious papers through what he always
fancied to be the special malice of the English
customs officials; but happily they were safely re
stored to him.
The short stay at Ham is memorable for a famous
letter written from there to Prior Servatius of the
Hi. 1 , 137.
218
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 219
monastery at Steyn, where, we remember, Erasmus
had passed the few years of his monastic experience.
We gather from this letter that Servatius, a former
companion of his at Steyn, had written to offer him
a residence there where he might pass the remnant
of his days in peace. Erasmus, in respectful and
serious language, reminds Servatius that he had
never really felt any calling to the life of seclusion,
and goes over the familiar ground of his bodily and
mental unfitness for it, the absurdity of supposing
that a boy of seventeen could know himself well
enough to decide once for all so momentous and
complicated a question, and the compelling attrac
tion of a free life devoted to intercourse with the
highest things. He shows that his life has been,
humanly speaking, a worthy one: he has cultivated
virtue and avoided vice; he has had a delicate body
to take care of and knows that Holland would be
death to him. As to the conventual life itself,
Erasmus lets himself go in sweeping condemnation,
yet preserving still a certain dignity that is far more
convincing than any extravagant abuse. 1
" You, perhaps, would think it the highest felicity to
die among the brethren. In fact not only you but almost
everyone is deceived and imposed upon by this notion
that Christ and true piety are to be found in certain
places, in dress, in food, in prescribed ceremonies. We
fancy a man is ruined, if he put on a black gown instead
of a white one, if he change a cowl for a hat, if he from
time to time change his residence. But I dare say the
opposite, that great injury to Christian piety has come
'iii., I528-A.
220 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
from those so-called ' religious ' acts, although they
were, perhaps, first introduced with a pious purpose.
Gradually they have increased and broken up into six
thousand diversities. The approval of the supreme pon
tiffs has been given to them, but in many ways quite too
easily and indulgently ; for what is more corrupt and
impious than those loose religious practices ? Why, if
you speak only of praiseworthy, even of the most praise
worthy ones, I know not what image of Christ you will
find in them beyond certain chilling and Judaising cere
monies. By these things they please themselves and
condemn others, although it is the teaching of Christ
that all the world is as one great house, or as it were
one monastery, and all men are its canons and its breth
ren ; that the sacrament of baptism is the supreme act
of religion and that we are to consider, not where we
live, but hou> we live."
He justifies his wandering life by the good char
acter he has everywhere maintained.
" If I am not approved by everyone a thing I do not
strive for surely I am in good standing with the chief
men at Rome. There was not a cardinal who did not
receive me as a brother, though I had no such ambition
for myself, especially the cardinal of St. George, the
cardinal of Bologna, cardinal Grimani, the cardinal
of Fornovo [?], and he who is now supreme pontiff, to say
nothing of archdeacons and men of learning ; and this
honour was paid, not to wealth, which I neither have nor
desire, nor to ambition, to which I was ever a stranger,
but to letters alone, which our countrymen laugh at, but
the Italians worship.
" In England there is not a bishop who is not glad to
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 221
salute me, who does not seek me as a table-companion,
who does not wish me as an inmate of his house. The
king himself, just before my departure from Italy,
wrote me a most affectionate letter with his own hand,
and still speaks of me in the most honourable and
friendly fashion. As often as I pay my respects to him
he embraces me most affectionately and looks at me
with such friendly eyes that you can see that he thinks
as well of me as he speaks. The queen wished me to
be her teacher ; everyone knows that, if I had chosen to
spend even a few months at the royal court, I might
have heaped up as many benefices as you please, but I
subordinate everything to the opportunity of leisure for
study."
Then follows a very glowing account of the money
he has received in England from Warham, Mount-
joy, and others.
" The two universities, Oxford and Cambridge, are
vying with each other to get possession of me ; at Cam
bridge I taught for many months Greek and sacred
literature, and that for nothing as I am determined
always to do. 1 There are colleges there, in which there
is so much of true religion that you could not fail to
prefer them to any 'religious' life, if you should see
them. There is at London John Colet, dean of St.
Paul's, a man who combines the greatest learning with
the most admirable piety, a man of great influence with
all men ; he is so fond of me, as everyone knows, that
he lives not more intimately with anyone than with me,
1 If this means anything, it must mean without fees from students,
for, supposing Erasmus to have held the Lady Margaret foundation,
there was certainly a salary attached to his position.
222 Desiderius Erasmus [i 5 r 5 -
to say nothing of countless others, lest I weary you at
once with my boasting and my much speaking."
As to his writings he calls the attention of Serva-
tius to the Enchiridion as adapted to lead many to
piety, the Adagia as useful to all kinds of learning,
and the Copia as serviceable to preachers. The
Praise of Folly he naturally and prudently leaves
unmentioned.
" During the last two years, besides much other work,
I revised the epistles of Jerome, marking with an obelus
spurious and interpolated passages. By a comparison
of ancient Greek texts I have emended the whole New
Testament and have annotated more than a thousand
passages, not without profit for the theologians. I have
begun commentaries to the epistles of Paul and shall
complete them when I have disposed of the others. For
I have made up my mind to spend my life in sacred
studies and to this end I am devoting all my spare time.
In this work men of great repute say that I can do what
others cannot ; in your kind of life I should simply ac
complish nothing at all. I am on intimate terms with
many learned and serious men, both here [England ?] and
in Italy and in France, but I have thus far found no one
who would advise me to return to you, or think it the
better course. Nay, more, even your predecessor, Nicho
las Wittenherus, always used to advise me rather to
attach myself to some bishop, adding that he knew both
my nature and the ways of his brethren."
Finally he goes into the old story of his monastic
gown, " laid aside in Italy lest I be killed, in Eng
land because it would not be tolerated," and con-
i 5 is] Basel and Louvain 223
eludes by repeating his determination not to return
to a kind of life in which, now more than ever,
there was no place for him. 1 This letter shows us
how Erasmus could paint his English life when it
was a question of raising his market price. The
same note of self-valuation is sounded in a letter to
his old friend, the abbot of St. Bertin in Flanders,
written from London in 1513 or 1514. He is seri
ously considering returning to his own country and
would be glad to do so, if only the prince presum
ably Charles of Burgundy, the future emperor
' It is quite possible that the famous Grunnius letter, asking the
papal dispensation from the monastic dress, was despatched to Rome
at the same time that this letter to Servatius was written from the
castle of Ham. The interesting manuscript discoveries of Professor
Vischer of Basel '* have led the learned finder to take a step beyond
my suggestion of a strong resemblance between the form of this letter
and that of the later Colloquies (see p. 5). He goes so far as to be
lieve that both the letter and the reply to it were a deliberate fabric
ation of Erasmus after the whole matter of the dispensation had
been settled. Its object was, he thinks, to cover up the traces of a
previous negotiation with the papacy carried on through Ammonius
and intended to free Erasmus once for all from any danger of being
forced back again into the monastic life. Vischer's documents give
us indeed a very satisfactory explanation of some of the mysterious
allusions in the correspondence with Ammonius in 1516 and 1517.
They show us plainly that Ammonius, who is here described by the
pope as a papal " Collector," was not only the mediator in Erasmus'
behalf, but was the papal agent in granting the dispensation issued
in 1517. All this, however, does not make it even reasonably clear
that the Grunnius letters were a pure fabrication. With all his shifti
ness Erasmus would hardly have gone as far as that. These letters
still remain, as to their date and precise interpretation, as mysterious
as ever ; and their value as history is not increased. Vischer's view
that the especial occasion for Erasmus' anxiety about the dispensation
was the tumult roused by his New Testament is a reasonable one.
Vischer, W., Erasmiana. Basel, 1876.
224 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
would give him a fortune sufficient for his modest
leisure (ocioluiri). " Not that Britain displeases me
or that I am tired of my Maecenases." He gets
enough and could get more, if he would go round
about it ever so little, we remember his letters to
Ammonius, only times are bad ; an island is an
isolated kind of place anyway, and wars are making
England doubly an island. Then comes one of his
usual tirades against war in the abstract.
Gradually an almost conventional form of refer
ence to England develops itself in his writing.
From a letter 1 written to Cardinal Grimani in 1515,
evidently after he had been in Basel and returned
to England again, we quote a specimen. He begins
with an apology for not accepting the invitation
given by the cardinal at their first and only meeting
to return to him with a view to remaining in Italy.
"I will explain this to you very simply and, as befits a
German, frankly. At that time I had fully decided to
go to England. I was called thither by ancient ties of
friendship, by the most ample promises of powerful
friends, by the devoted favour of the most prosperous of
kings. I had chosen this country as my adopted father
land ; the resting-place of my declining years [he was
forty-one at the time]. I was invited, nay I was impor
tuned in repeated letters and was promised gold almost
in mountains. From all this I, hitherto a man of severe
habits, a despiser of wealth, conceived a picture in my
mind of such a power of gold as ten streams of Pactolus
could hardly have washed down. And I was afraid that if I
should return to your Eminence I might change my mind.
1 iii. 1 , 141-0.
i 5 i8j Basel and Louvain 225
" For if you so weakened, so fired my mind at that
first interview, what would you not have done, if I had
come into closer and more permanent relations ? For
what heart of adamant would not be moved by the gentle
courtesy of your manner, your honeyed speech, your
curious learning, your counsel so friendly and so sincere;
especially by the evident good-will of so great a prelate.
I already felt my decision perceptibly weakening and
began even to repent of my plan and yet I was ashamed
to seem so inconstant a person. I felt my love for the
City, which I had hardly thrust aside, silently growing
again, and in short, had I not torn myself away from
Rome at once, never should I have left it. I snatched
myself away, lest I should be blown back again and
rather flew to England than journeyed thither. [Flying
we have seen, was Erasmus' favourite method of travel
ling on paper.]
" Now, then, you will ask, have I repented of my
decision ? Do I regret that I did not follow the advice
of so loving a counsellor ? Lying is not my trade. The
thing affects me variously. I cannot help a longing for
Rome as often as the great multitude of attractions there
crowds upon my thoughts."
Then he enumerates freedom, libraries, literary
associations, and so on.
" These things make it impossible that any fortune,
however kind, could banish this Roman longing from my
heart. As to England, though my fortune has not been
so bad as to make me regret it, yet, to tell the truth, it
has not at all corresponded either to my wishes or the
promises of my friends."
226 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
He recounts the favours, actual and expected, of
his English patrons, especially of Warham, to whom
he here pays one of his usual glowing tributes:
"So it came about that what I had abandoned at
Rome from so many distinguished cardinals, and so
many famous bishops and learned men, all this I
seemed to have recovered in this one man." After
all, the picture grows a little brighter as he goes on.
Now he is ready for Rome again. True, things are
looking up again in England, he wishes it to be
quite clear that he is not being turned out of the
country, but he hears that under the patronage of
the great Leo all talent is streaming towards Rome.
He tells what he has done and what he proposes
to do, puts in a good word for the persecuted
Reuchlin, and promises to be in Rome the coming
winter (1515).
A letter of the same date to Raphael, the cardinal
of St. George, repeats the same impressions of Eng
land vast promises, of which we have no other doc
umentary evidence, and disappointments, equally
without witness. On his own evidence we know of
a sufficient provision in England to supply all modest
requirements of a scholar, and we have a right to take
him at his word that he wanted nothing more.
From Ham, Erasmus made his way pretty directly
to Basel, taking the route by the Rhine valley.
His travelling experiences are summed up in the
very amusing Colloquy called Diversoria, " The
Inns," which has been so effectively employed
by Mr. Charles Reade in his " The Cloister and the
Hearth." The especial point of this dialogue is the
i 5 is] Basel and Lou vain 227
difference between the inns of France and of Ger
many. As to the former, Erasmus takes those of
Lyons as typical. Bertulphus begins by saying
that he cannot see why so many people want to stay-
two or three days at Lyons for his part, he always
wants to get to his journey's end as fast as he can.
William replies:
" Why, I wonder how anyone can ever tear himself
away from there."
BERT. "Why so?"
WILL. " Because it is a place from which the com
panions of Ulysses could not be torn away ; there are
sirens there. One could not be better treated in his own
house than there in an inn."
BERT. " What do they do ? "
WILL. " At table there was always some woman
present, who enlivened the meal with her humour and
her charms. Then you find there the most agreeable
manners. The first one to meet you is the lady of the
house, who salutes you, bids you be merry and excuse
the faults of what is set before you. Then follows the
daughter, an elegant person, so gay in speech and man
ner that she would have cheered up Cato himself. They
converse with you not as with strange guests, but as
with familiar friends."
BERT. " I recognise the refinement of the French."
WILL. " But, as these could not always be present on
account of domestic duties and the welcoming of other
guests, there was always at hand a maid-servant thor
oughly posted in all kinds of chaff ; she alone could
take up the jokes of everyone, and kept things going
until the daughter came back. The mother was quite
along in years."
228 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
BERT. " But how about the provision ? for one can't
fill one's belly with stories."
WILL. " Really splendid. I can't understand how
they can entertain at so small a price. Then after din
ner they amuse you with merry tales, so that you cannot
get tired. I thought I was at home and not in a strange
land."
BERT. " How about the chambers ? "
WILL. " Always some girls about, laughing, frolick
ing, and playing. They asked of their own accord if we
had any soiled linen, washed it, and brought it back re
splendent. Need I say more ? We saw everywhere
only girls and women, except in the stables, and even
there the maids were often bursting in. When you go
away, they embrace you and dismiss you with as much
affection as if you were all brothers or the nearest of
relatives."
BERT. " I dare say that suits the French well enough,
but for my part I like better the customs of the Germans
as being more suited to men."
WILL. " I have never happened to be in Germany, so,
if you don't mind, pray let us hear how they receive a
guest."
BERT. " I cannot say whether it is the same every
where, but I will tell what I have seen. No one wel
comes the newcomer, nor do they seem to want guests ;
for that would seem to them mean and low and unworthy
the seriousness of a German. When you have been
calling a long time, someone sticks his head out of the
little window of the room where the stove is, like a tor
toise out of its shell. They live in these rooms almost
until midsummer. You have to ask him whether you
may stay, and if he does n't say ' no ' you know that
you are to have a place. You ask where the stables are
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain . 229
and he shows you with a motion of his hand, and you
may take care of your horse as best you can. In the
larger inns a man shows you to the stables and points out
a poor enough place for your horse. The better places
they keep for the late-comers, especially for the nobility.
If you complain, the first thing you hear is, ' If you don't
like it here, go to another inn.' In the cities it is all
you can do to get a little hay and you have to pay for
it about as much as for grain. When you have cared
for your horse you go over into the common room,
riding-boots, baggage, mud, and all."
WILL. " In France they show you a separate room
where you can change your dress, brush up, get warm,
and even take a nap if you please."
BERT. " There 's nothing of the sort here. In the
common furnace you pull off your boots, put on your
slippers, change your dress if you will ; your dripping
clothes you hang by the stove and betake yourself there
to dry off. Water is ready if you wish to wash your
hands, but generally so nasty that you have to go hunting
about for more water to wash away that first ablution."
WILL. " It 's a fine thing for men not to be spoiled by
luxury ! "
BERT. " If you arrive at four o'clock in the after
noon you '11 not get your supper before nine or ten."
WILL. "Why is that?"
BERT. " They get nothing ready until they see all
their guests, so that they may serve them all at one
time."
WILL. ' They are trying to cut it close."
BERT. " You 're right, they are. Sometimes they will
crowd into that sweat-box eighty or ninety persons, foot
men and horsemen, merchants, sailors, carters, farmers,
boys, women, sick and well."
230 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
WILL. " Why, that 's a regular monastery ! "
BERT. "There is one .combing his hair; another
wiping off his sweat, another pulling off his cowhides or
his riding-boots ; another smells of garlic. In short
there is a confusion of men and tongues as once in the
tower of Babel. But if they see a foreigner of a certain
dignity they all fix their eyes upon him, staring at him
as if he were some new kind of animal brought from
Africa ; even after they have sat down at table they
screw their necks about and continue their gazing, even
forgetting to eat."
WILL. " At Rome, or Paris, or Venice, no one mar
vels at anything."
BERT. " Meanwhile it is a crime to ask for anything.
When the evening is far gone and there is no prospect of
any further arrivals, there appears an old servant, with
white hair, a shaven head, a crooked face, and dirty
clothes. "
WILL. " Such a fellow ought to be cupbearer to a
Roman cardinal ! "
BERT. " He casts his eyes about and counts the
guests, and the more he finds the more he heats up the
stove, though the weather be boiling hot. For in Ger
many it belongs to good entertainment to set everyone
to dripping with sweat, and if anyone unaccustomed to
this steaming opens a crack of a window to save himself
from suffocation, he hears at once : ' Shut it ! shut it ! '
and if you answer : ' I can't stand it ! ' you hear : ' Go
find another inn then ! ' "
William enlarges ad nauseam on the dangers of
this herding of men together, but Bertulphus
answers :
"They are tough people; they laugh at these things
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 231
and take no thought of them. . . . Now hear the
rest of the story. This bearded Ganymede comes
back and spreads as many tables as are enough for the
guests but, ye gods ! not with linen of Miletus ; one
would say with the canvas of old sails. To each table
he assigns at least eight guests. They who know the
ways of the country drop where they are put ; for there
is no distinction of rich and poor, master or servant."
WILL. " This is that ancient equality which tyranny
has now driven from the world. I suppose that 's the
way Christ lived with his disciples ! "
BERT. " After all are seated, that crooked old Gany
mede appears again, and again counts his company.
Then he gives each one a wooden bowl, a spoon of the
same metal, and a glass cup some time afterward some
bread, which everyone eats up to pass the time while the
soup is cooking ; and so they sit sometimes the space of
an hour."
WILL. " Does no guest meanwhile ask for food ? "
BERT. " Not one who knows the ways of the country.
At last they bring on wine good God ! what a taste of
smoke ! The sophists ought to drink it, it is so keen
and sharp. If any guest, even offering extra money,
asks for another sort, they first put him off, but look at
him as if they would murder him. If you press them
they answer ' So many counts and marquises have put
up here and there was never a complaint of my wine ;
if you don't like it, get you to another hostelry.' They
think their own nobles are the only men in the world
and are always showing you their coats of arms."
So the banquet moves on to its end, through
alternate courses of meat and soup, giving Erasmus
abundant opportunity for gibes at his despised Ger-
232 Desiderius Erasmus [i 5 i 5 -
mans. Could any good thing come out of a land
where people washed their bed-linen once in six
months ? We may be tolerably sure that these
early impressions of Erasmus were not without their
effect upon his conception of the meaning of the
Reformation. Indeed, he was not the only one
who was inclined to reject the whole movement of
Luther from the start, partly for the reason that it
came from the reputed coarse and drunken folk of
Germany.
Erasmus remained in Basel only a few months.
In March, 1515, he was again in England. The
visit at Basel was, however, of lasting import to
him in many ways. It made him familiar with the
place which, more than any other, was to be his
home during his remaining life. He found himself
honourably treated, the climate suited him, good
wine could be procured without too great difficulty,
and he was near a group of scholars who were to be
among his most efficient helpers in all his future
work. Foremost among these was John Froben,
the great printer and publisher, to whom we owe
many of the very finest products of the early six
teenth century press. Froben was a man of the
Aldus type, a scholar himself and with a talent
for enlisting scholars in his service. Two pict
ures, one from the brush of Holbein, and one
from the pen of Erasmus, have given us a clear im
pression of this amiable but forceful personality.
Erasmus wrote after his death ! :
" The loss of my own brother I bore with great equa-
'iii., I053-E.
>a i
. avut -jvon
vn vvuxtu^
PORTRAIT OF FROBEN BY HOLBEIN. EPITAPH BY ERASMUS FACSIMILE
OF HANDWRITING.
FROM KNIGHT'S " LIFE OF ERASMUS."
i 5 is] Basel and Louvain 233
nimity ; but I cannot overcome my longing for Froben. I
do not rebel at my grief, reasonable as it is, but I am
pained that it should be so great and so lasting. As it was
not merely affection which bound me to him in life, so it is
not merely that I miss him now that he is gone. For I
loved him more on account of the liberal studies which
he seemed given us by Providence to adorn and to pro
mote, than on account of his kindness to me and his
genial manners. Who would not love such a nature ?
He was to his friend just a friend, so simple and so sin
cere that even if he had wished to pretend or to conceal
anything he could not do it, so repugnant was it to his
nature ; so ready and eager to help everyone that he
was glad to be of service even to the unworthy, so that
he was a natural and welcome prey to thieves and swind
lers. He was as pleased to get back money from a
thief or from bad debtors as others are with unexpected
fortune.
" He was of such incorruptible honour that never did
anyone deserve better the saying ' He is a man you
could throw dice with in the dark,' and, incapable of
fraud himself, he could never suspect it in others though
he was often deceived. What the disease of envy was
he could no more comprehend than a man born blind
can understand colour. Even serious offences, he par
doned before he asked who had committed them. He
could never remember an injury, nor forget even the
smallest service. And here, in my judgment, he was
better than was fitting for the wise father of a family. I
used to warn him sometimes that he should treat his
sincere friends becomingly, but that while he used gentle
language towards impostors he should protect himself
and not at the same time get cheated and laughed at.
He would smile gently, but I told my tale to deaf ears.
234 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
The frankness of his nature was too much for all warn
ings. And as for me, what plots did he not invent, what
excuses did he not hunt up to force some gift upon me ?
I never saw him happier than when he had succeeded
by artifice or persuasion in getting me to accept some
thing. Against the wiles of the man I had need of the
utmost caution, nor did I ever need my skill in rhetoric
more than in thinking up excuses to refuse without of
fending my friend ; for I could not bear to see him sad.
[One feels that Erasmus' rhetoric was running away
with him a little at this point.] If by chance my serv
ants had bought cloth for my clothes, he would find it
out and pay the bill before I suspected it ; and no en
treaties of mine could make him take payment for it.
So it was if I wanted to save him from loss ; I had to
make pretences and there was such a bargaining ; quite
different from the usual course, where one tries to get
as much as possible and the other to give as little as
possible. I could never bring it to pass that he should
give me nothing ; but that I made a most moderate use
of his kindness, all his household will bear me witness.
Whatever work I did for him I did for love of learning
Since he seemed born to honour, to promote, and to em
bellish learning, and spared no labour or care, thinking
it reward enough if a good author were put into the
hands of the public in worthy form, how could I prey
upon a man like this ?
" Sometimes when he showed to me and other friends
the first pages of some great author, how he was trans
ported with joy ! how his face glowed ! what triumph
ant words ! You would say that he had already taken in
the profits of the whole work in fullest measure and was
expecting no other return. I am not exalting Froben
by decrying others ; but it is notorious what incorrect and
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 235
inelegant editions some publishers have sent us even
from Venice and from Rome. From his office, within
a few years what volumes have gone forth, and in what
noble form ! And he has always kept his house free
from books of controversy, by which others have gained
great profit, lest the cause of good literature and learn
ing should be defiled by any personal hostilities. . . .
Surely it will bean act of gratitude for us all to pray for
the welfare of the departed, to celebrate his memory by
due praises, and to lend our favour to the house of Froben,
which is not to be closed by the death of its master, but
will ever strive to its utmost to carry forward what he
has begun to still greater and better things."
This charming companion picture to the account
of the Aldine establishment in Venice is probably
in the main correct. It suggests the relation be
tween publisher and author, which we have already
tried without entire success to make clear. Ap
parently, on his own statement, Erasmus was in a
way an employee of Froben. The anxiety which
he betrays not to seem to take pay from the pub
lisher, was plainly the same feeling which made him
reject with such scorn the charge of Scaliger, that
he had been in Aldus's employ. He was not
ashamed of his work, any more than a European
physician of a generation ago was ashamed of his;
but he desired to have this work viewed as a labour
of love, and any reward which, of course, he could
not entirely do without was to be considered as a
gift freely offered, and to be accepted only under a
kind of protest.
Besides Froben himself, we find Erasmus making
236 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
friends with the brothers Amerbach, sons of Froben's
predecessor in the business. Writing to Pope Leo
X., 1 to ask his acceptance of the dedication to the
works of Jerome, Erasmus enumerates his co-
labourers in the great undertaking:
" The weightiest contribution was that of the brothers
Amerbach, at whose expense and by whose labours, in
common with those of Froben, the work was mainly
carried through. The Amerbach family was, as it were,
pointed out by the fates, that Jerome might live again
through their exertions. The excellent father had his
three sons educated in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, for
this very purpose. Upon his death he commended the
work to his children as an inheritance, devoting to its
accomplishment all his resources. And these admirable
youths entering upon the fair field committed to them
by an admirable father, are labouring diligently therein,
and have so divided the Jerome with me that they are
doing everything except the epistles."
It would appear, then, that Erasmus' share in
the Froben Jerome was the personal responsibility
for the epistles, the writing of a dedication which
was, after all, not addressed to Pope Leo, but to
Archbishop Warham, and the use of his name as a
general recommendation of the whole. Perhaps
also he exercised a general supervision over the
work of the others.
It was here also, probably, that Erasmus had his
first personal relations with John Reuchlin, a man
after his own heart, but already too much involved
Mii. 1 , I54-C.
BONIFACE AMERBACH OF BASEL.
FROM "ERASMI OPERA," PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN, 1703.
i 5 i8] Basel and Lou vain 237
in active controversy with established powers to
make him altogether a safe investment for a prudent
scholar who could see something worth having on
both sides of every question. Erasmus speaks of
him to Leo ' as
" that illustrious man, almost equally skilled in Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew, and so well versed in every sort of
learning that he can hold his own with the best. Where
fore all Germany looks up to him and reveres him as the
phenix and the chief glory of the nation."
In the letters to Cardinals Grimani and Raphael,
dated just a month earlier than this to Leo, Erasmus
speaks much more heartily of Reuchlin. He has
been expressing his determination to devote the re
mainder of his days to what our fathers used to call
curious learning," unless envy, " more fatal than
any serpent," shall prevent,"
" as I have lately seen with the utmost regret in the case
of that great man John Reuchlin. For it was fitting
and it was time that this man of reverend years should
enjoy his noble studies and should be reaping the hap
piest harvest from the faithful planting of his youthful
labours. A man skilled in so many tongues, and in so
many kinds of learning, ought to have been able, in this
autumn of his days, to pour forth into all the world the
rich products of his genius. He ought to have been
spurred on by praise, called out by rewards, fired by
others' zeal. And I hear that men have arisen I know
not who they are who, unable of themselves to bring
anything great to pass, are seeking for reputation by
'iii. 1 , I54-B. *iii. 1 , I44-B.
238 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
the basest of methods. Immortal God ! what a tumult
they have stirred up and on what frivolous grounds !
From a little book, a mere letter, which he neither pub
lished nor wished to have published, such a storm has
arisen ! Who would ever have known that he wrote this
letter if those fellows had not published it to the world ?
" How much better it would have served the cause of
peace, supposing he had erred in any way, as all men
do err, to conceal this, or frankly interpret it, or surely
to pardon it out of consideration for the distinguished
virtues of the man. I am not saying this because I
have found any errors in him ; that is for others to de
cide ; but this I will say, that if anyone after the same
malicious fashion, and as the Greeks say, aTtOTOfAoos,
should explore the books of St. Jerome, he would find
many a thing very widely differing from the views of our
theologians. To what end then was it that a man vener
able in years and in letters should for an affair of no mo
ment, be dragged into turmoils of this sort, in which he has
now, I believe, lost seven years. Would that he might
have spent this labour and this time in furthering the
cause of honest study ! Instead of this, he, a man
worthy of all reward, is involved in vexing quarrels to
the great grief and anger of all learned men, and indeed
of all Germany. And yet all have hopes that through
your assistance, so distinguished a man may be restored
to learning and to the world."
This appeal to Rome in behalf of Reuchlin was
doubtless a piece of pure friendly service on Eras
mus' part. So far the cause of Reuchlin was the
cause of sound learning, pure and simple, and ap
pealed therefore powerfully to all Erasmus' sym
pathies. Later, when the names of Reuchlin and
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 239
Luther came to be joined together as of allies in one
great movement, then we shall find Erasmus hes
itating and even declaring himself wholly ignorant
of the real questions in dispute. Already, we notice,
he carefully avoids the question whether Reuchlin
may have erred in any way that was not his affair.
One other of Erasmus' early Basel acquaintances
was Beatus Rhenanus, of Schlettstadt, in Alsatia.
Erasmus mentions him to Pope Leo as " a young
man of rare learning and the keenest critical scent."
Precisely what was accomplished at Basel during
the eight months or so of Erasmus' first visit we
cannot say. It seems to have been a period of be
ginnings. He writes to Ammonius in October:
" I was getting on finely here until they began to heat
up their stoves. Jerome is in progress. They have already
begun on the New Testament. I cannot stay on account
of the intolerable stench of the stoves, and I cannot
leave on account of the work that is begun and which
cannot possibly be carried through without me. . . .
If my health permits, I shall stay here until Christmas ;
if not, I shall either return to Brabant or go straight to
Rome."
Evidently, in spite of congenial work, carried on
under the most favourable conditions, the restless
creature was already uneasy and looking about him
for chances, which he was quite sure not to improve.
If we could take him at his word a hot room was of
more account in his plans than the proper comple
tion of his work. Happily his deeds speak loudly
in his own defence and we know by the results that
240 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
he must have been very busy during his first Basel
days.
In March, 1515, the dates of his letters show him
again in England, for what purpose we do not know.
His connection with Cambridge was broken, his
pension was secured, he was not, so far as we know,
seeking any further employment. Possibly he may
have been re-examining manuscripts for his New
Testament. It is fairly certain that he was on the
continent again by the early summer.
If we follow, even with allowance for palpable
errors, the dating of Erasmus' letters we should
have to conclude that he was in England for a while
in 1516, and again in 1517. Meanwhile he would
have been twice in Basel and have spent more or less
time at Louvain, Brussels, and elsewhere. Mr.
Drummond accepts this result, but, even with Eras
mus' restless temper, it seems hardly possible that
he could have accomplished the work he did, with
the continual interruptions inevitable to such fre
quent and prolonged journeyings. On the other
hand we find it brought up as a charge against him
by his critics that he wasted his time in aimless
wanderings. He defends himself by declaring that
he never undertook a journey without good and
sufficient reasons connected with the work of his life.
We shall probably be safe in thinking that Eras
mus had a great gift of settling promptly to work
and putting other things out of his mind while the
spell of work was on him, the marvellous gift of
concentration which has made more reputations
than the gift of genius. Still, if we consider the
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 241
peculiar demands of the work of editing texts, the
necessity of an apparatus of books, the accumulation
of material, all of which ought to be at hand for
correction and comparison, the disadvantages of
frequent change become more obvious and Eras
mus' wanderings are so much the more inexplicable.
His correspondence during these three years, from
1515 to 1518, is full of references to the question of
a permanent residence. To judge from these one
would suppose him to be firmly fixed in the notion
of a settlement for life. Now it is England, now
Flanders, now Basel, now Paris, with ever and anon
the distant thought of Italy rising in the background
as a possibility. We should not be going far wrong
if we were to describe this period as that in which
Erasmus was enjoying to the full a newly acquired
sense of power and value. Not until after the ap
pearance of his New Testament in 1516 could he
feel that he had demonstrated to the world at once
the grasp of his scholarship and the deep serious
ness of his purpose. It was probably true then, as
it may not have been quite true when he was bid
ding on himself to Servatius two years before, that
any country in Europe would be glad to have him,
and almost on his own terms. He liked to feel
himself a citizen of the world and was tasting the
joys of a universal popularity, too great to last for
ever.
Here and there we get glimpses of his way of life,
which indicate a very considerable degree of pro
sperity. A letter ' written to young Beatus and
'iii. 1 , 37I-C.
16
242 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
dated at Lou vain in the autumn of 1518 gives a
detailed account of his journey thither from Basel.
" I left Basel," he says, " in a languid and enervated
condition, like a man who has not yet got on good terras
with out-of-doors, so long had I been shut up in the
house, and yet busied with incessant work. [This refers
to a long illness which had kept him indoors through
the summer.] The sail was not unpleasant, only that
towards noon the heat of the sun was rather oppressive.
We dined at Breisach, the worst kind of a dinner.
The stench was enough to kill you and the flies worse
than the stench. . . .
" Towards night we were turned out into a chilly town,
whose name I did n't care to know, nor if I knew it,
should I care to speak it. There I was just about killed."
Here follows a description, almost the same as that
in the Diversoria, of the horrors of a German inn,
always with the unlucky stove as the central figure.
"In the morning we were routed out of bed by the
shouts of the sailors and I went on board ship without
supper and without sleep. We reached Strassburg at
about nine o'clock in the forenoon and were pretty well
entertained there, especially as Schurer furnished the
wine. A part of the fraternity was on hand and soon
they all came to welcome us. ... Thence we went on
to Speier by horse and saw never a shadow of a soldier
though dreadful rumours were abroad. My English horse
was just about used up and scarcely got to Speier. That
scoundrel of a blacksmith had so abused him that both his
ears were burned with a hot iron. At Speier I took myself
quietly out of the inn and went to my friend Maternus
Basel and Louvain 243
near by. There the dean, a man of learning and culture,
entertained me for two days with great kindness. We
met there by chance Hermann Busch. Thence we jour
neyed by carriage to Worms and Mainz. There hap
pened into the same carriage a certain Ulrich, a secretary
of the emperor, whose surname was Farnbul as who
should say, ' Fern-Hill.' He paid me the greatest atten
tion on the journey and at Mainz would not suffer me
to go to the common inn, but took me to the house of a
certain canon and saw me to the boat when I started
off. The weather was very agreeable and the voyage
well enough only that the sailors tried -to make it longer
than was necessary, and the smell of the horses was
unpleasant. . . .
" At Boppard I was walking on the river-bank while
they were looking up a boat and someone who knew
me gave my name to the toll-collector. This man's
name was Christopher and, I believe, Cinicampius, or
in the vulgar tongue, Eschenfeld. It was marvellous
how the fellow jumped for joy. He dragged me to his
house and there on a little table, among his toll-receipts,
lay the writings of Erasmus. He cries out that he is a
blessed man, calls his wife, his children, and all his
friends. To the clamorous boatmen he sends two jugs
of wine and when they burst out into new clamours he
sends some more, and promises that on their return he will
remit the toll because they have brought him so great a
guest. From here I was escorted as far as Coblenz by
John Flaminius, head of a convent of women there, a
man of angelic purity, of sound and sober judgment, and
of unusual learning. At Coblenz Matthias, a chaplain of
the bishop, took me to his house, a young man, but
of settled ways, of accurate Latin learning, and thoroughly
trained in the law as well. There we had a merry supper.
244 Desiderius Erasmus i 5 i 5 -
At Bonn the canon [one of his fellow-travellers] left
us, in order to avoid the city of Cologne, which I also
desired to avoid. My servant had, however, gone
ahead thither with the horses ; there was no safe person
on the boat whom I could send after him, and I had no
confidence in the sailors. On Sunday morning before
six o'clock, in dismal weather, I arrived at Cologne,
went to an hotel, gave orders to the servants to get a
two-horse carriage, and called for breakfast at ten. I
went to mass, but no breakfast ! Nothing was done
about the carriage. I tried to get a horse, for mine were
of no use, no result. I saw what was up ; they were
trying to keep me there. At once I ordered my horses
to be got ready, packed one portmanteau and gave over
the other to the innkeeper ; then on my lame nag I hurried
off to the Count of Neuenaar, a ride of five hours. He
was staying at Bedburium and I spent five days with him
so pleasantly and quietly that I got through a good part
of my revision there ; for I had brought with me a part
of the New Testament."
From this point the real troubles of the journey
began. Erasmus had suffered from boils at Basel
and his two days of riding from Strassburg to Speier
had aggravated them. Now he caught a heavy cold
by foolish exposure to wind and rain in an open car
riage. " Some Jupiter or evil genius robbed me,
not of half my senses as Hesiod says, but of the
whole; for one half he had stolen when I ventured
into Cologne." The story is too long for our pur
pose and quite too minute for our taste, though as
a study in pathological history it might interest a
modern physician. The poor man's digestion was
Basel and Louvain 245
completely upset ; his boils troubled him so that he
did not know whether riding or driving was the
worse. Finally, in the last stage, he found a four-
horse carriage going to Louvain, got a place in it,
and arrived there more dead than alive. Of course
he was afraid of the plague, and, indeed, the first
physician summoned quietly told the people of the
house that he had the plague, promised to send a
poultice, but came near him no more. Others were
called and gave various opinions. A Jew doctor
said he only wished he had as sound a body. One
did one thing and one another until finally, " dis
gusted with doctors I commend myself to Christ
the Great Physician." After this sensible con
clusion, he began to grow better, was soon taking
food, and at once began to work on his New Testa
ment proofs. He had warned his friends not to
come to see him, but they came and sat with him
and so made the four weeks of his imprisonment
pass quite happily.
This account of the journey from Basel to Lou
vain indicates with tolerable distinctness that Eras
mus commanded considerable resources. He had
more than one horse and at least one servant. The
horses were shipped on the boat whenever he trav
elled by water, and apparently this was regarded
as the safer way to travel. He speaks with espe
cial relief of meeting no soldiers on the land jour
ney. Carriages he seems to have hired; but he
twice uses expressions which go to show that such
carnages were not exclusively for the use of the
hirer. He says that Ulrich Farnbui came by chance
246 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
into the same carriage with him, and again on the last
stage he himself gets into a carriage going to Lou-
vain. It is too early to think of regular public con
veyance, but apparently a traveller did not object to
sharing his carriage and expense with another. Our
interest is to observe that such travelling must have
implied a large outlay and must have gone far
to account for Erasmus' persistent complaints of
poverty.
From Louvain Erasmus wrote back a semi-
humorous little letter to his friend, the learned
toll-gatherer of Boppard ' :
" What could have been more unexpected than that I
should find at Boppard an Eschenfeld, a student of my
works ? a publican devoted to the Muses and to liberal
learning ! Christ made it a reproach to the Pharisees
that harlots and publicans should go before them into the
kingdom of heaven ; tell me, is it not equally shameful
that priests and monks should be living for luxury and
the service of their bellies, while publicans are embrac
ing the cause of liberal learning ? They are consecrating
themselves wholly to guzzling, while Eschenfeld divides
himself between the Kaiser and his studies ! You showed
plainly enough what opinion you had formed of me ; and
I shall have done well, if the sight of me has not rubbed
off a little of it.
" But, alack ! alack ! that jolly red wine of yours
mightily tickled our boatman's wife, a full-breasted and
bibulous female ; she would n't share a drop of it,
though they kept calling for some. She drank all she
wanted and then what a row ! She nearly slew a maid-
'iii. 1 , 353-D.
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 247
servant with a mighty ladle and we could hardly stop
the fight. Then when she got on board she went for
her husband, and came near throwing him into the
Rhine. There you see the power of your wine."
It is worth noticing that Erasmus represents his
settlement at Louvain as the result of a freak on the
part of those evil fates of which he liked to fancy
himself the especial victim. To make his climax
more effective he pictures the joys of meeting his
Louvain friends:
" What dinners ! what a welcome ! what talks I was
promising myself ! I had decided, if the autumn should
be a pleasant one, to go over to England and to accept
what the king has so many times offered me but oh!
deceitful hopes of mortal men etc ! "
He has an illness of a few weeks, during most of
which time he is steadily at work, and then he goes
quietly back to his lodgings in the University and
we hear no more of England. We know of no re
newed offers from King Henry, nor indeed, so far,
of any direct offers from him whatever.
While Erasmus was at Basel, he was, so he tells
us, invited by Duke Ernest of Bavaria to come to
his university at Ingolstadt. He speaks of this in
a letter to the bishop of Rochester, as one among
the numerous indications of the favour with which
the first edition of the New Testament had been re
ceived. He had so many offers that he could not
remember them. " Some bishop in Germany whose
name I have forgotten " wanted him for his uni
versity. He knows he is unworthy of all these
248 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
honours, but is pleased to find that all his pains
have earned the approval of good men. ' Many
are now reading the sacred Scriptures who confess
that they would never have read them otherwise,
and many persons everywhere are beginning to
study Greek."
In a letter 1 to Ammonius from Brussels in 1516
Erasmus tells of an offer of a bishopric in Sicily :
" Do you want to laugh ? When I got back to Brus
sels, I went to call on my Maecenas, the chancellor
[Selvagius]. He turned to the councillors who were
standing about and said : 'This man doesn't know yet
what a great man he is.' Then to me : 'The Prince is
trying to make you a bishop and had already given you
a very desirable see in Sicily. But then he discovered
that this see was on the list of those which are called
" reserved," and has written to the pope to get his ap
proval for you.' When I heard this, I could not help
laughing ; yet I am glad to know the good feeling of the
king towards me or rather of the chancellor, who, in
this matter, is the king himself."
Somewhat less apocryphal than these stories is
the report of an offer from King Francis I. of France.
It comes to us in a letter written by the French
scholar, William Buda^us, to Erasmus while he was
in the Low Countries. Budaeus says that William
Parvus (Guillaume Petit), an ecclesiastic who stood
very near the king, had told him that one day in
the course of a conversation about literary men, the
king had expressed his determination a
'iii. 1 , I37-D. Leclerc's date, 1514, is probably incorrect.
Mii. 1 , i6g-A.
Basel and Louvain 249
" to gather the choicest spirits into his kingdom by the
most ample rewards and to found in France a seminary,
if I may so call it, of scholars. Parvus had long been
watching for such an opportunity, being not merely a
supporter of all learning, but also a special admirer of
yours, and said that in his opinion Erasmus ought to be
invited the very first one, and that this could most
properly be done by Budaeus . . . and finally, that the
king, moved by some noble impulse, was brought to the
point of saying that this offer should be made to you by
me in his name : that if you could be persuaded to come
here to live and devote yourself to literary work here as
you are wont to do over there, he would promise to give
you a living worth a thousand francs and more. Now you
understand that my influence comes in only so far as
I assume the part of a mediator, not of a sponsor, and
simply pass on to you in good faith what I have heard
from Parvus."
Budaeus then goes on to say that he has little to
do with court affairs, but that if Erasmus likes it,
he may well promise himself a fine position in Paris.
" Immortal gods ! what an honour for you ! what a
splendid fortune in the judgment of all learned men, to
be summoned into a distant land by the greatest and
most illustrious of kings on the sole recommendation
of your learning ! ... As far as one can guess, he
desires to be the founder of a splendid institution, so
that in the future, quite otherwise than in the past,
liberal learning may seem to be a thing of profit."
Lest Erasmus should fancy this wish of the king
to be " a whim, rather than a carefully considered
250 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
and settled judgment," he refers to the very favour
able opinion of Erasmus held by Stephen Poncher,
bishop of Paris, and quotes him as saying that the
king had at heart the cause of elegant learning and
had conversed with him on the subject of bringing
together men eminent in scholarship.
" I said to him at the time, that you might be called
into France with an honourable provision and promised
that I would take it upon myself and bring it to pass. I
said that you had studied in Paris and knew France as
well as the place of your birth. I think he will be
most favourable to you. ... I expect that William
Cop, the king's physician, a man learned in both tongues,
a friend and well-wisher of yours, will write to you about
this and, others perhaps by the king's order ; or even
the king himself."
Cop did write, in contrast with the intolerable
verbosity of Budaeus, a very brief note, in which he
says that the king, persuaded by Parvus and others,
had ordered him to write and sound Erasmus as to
the conditions under which he would be willing to
come to Paris.
That seems to have been the whole story of Eras
mus' " call" to Paris: a report by one man of a
conversation with others, moderate expressions of
good will on the part of the Parisian scholars, but
hardly a definite promise of anything. At best, the
proposal was that he should take a church living,
and to this he was, more or less to his credit, always
disinclined. His reply to Budaeus is interesting.
He says:
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 251
" I had hardly got myself well out of that very wordy
letter, which I guess will be as tedious to you in the
reading as it was to me in the writing, when another
letter of yours came to me in which you express the
kind intentions of the Most Christian King towards me.
I will answer briefly, not to- bore both you and myself
to death with verbosity and also because I have to write
to many others. The king's purpose is worthy of a
prince and even of such a prince as he. I approve it
most highly.
" His splendid plans for me I owe chiefly to you, my
friend, who have pictured me, not as I am, but as you
would wish me to be ; and that at your own risk as
much as mine. The same subject was most eagerly
pressed in the king's name by that most illustrious ad
vocate, the bishop of Paris, whom you describe in your
letter no less truly than graphically. It would be a long
story to compress into one letter all the pros and cons.
I see what your advice is, and I value it the more be
cause it is given by a man at once very cautious, and
very friendly to me. For if ever there is a place for
the Greek proverb : ' The gifts of the unfriendly are
no gifts at all,' I think it is in matters of advice. But
while I confess that I am deeply indebted, not only
to you all, but especially to your most excellent and
generous king, I cannot make any definite answer until
I have discussed the plan with the Chancellor of Bur
gundy, who has gone on a journey to Cambrai.
I will only say at present that France was ever dear to
me on many accounts [we remember his affection for the
College Montaigu, and his reference to that ' dunghill of
a Paris '] and is now attractive to me Tor no reason
stronger than that Budaeus is there. Indeed there is no
reason to make me out a stranger as you do for, if we
252 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
may believe the map-makers, Holland too is a part of
France."
Nor does Erasmus commit himself any more de
cidedly in the personal letter which he sent at the
same time to King Francis.- 1 The letter is filled with
adulation, but expresses also the writer's honest ap
proval of the king's momentary policy of peace.
The final phrase, " to whom I wholly give and
dedicate myself," must not be construed as having
any meaning whatever. The offer was neither ac
cepted nor repeated. We may well doubt whether
in the year 1516 Erasmus would really have cared to
attach himself to the French court or to any other
on any terms.
He mentions in several places, as a sign of the
great favour shown him by Francis I., the fact that
he had received a most friendly autograph letter
from the king. Such a letter has indeed been found
among papers relating to Erasmus at Basel. How
much it may have meant the reader may judge for
himself:
" Cher et bon amy. Nous avons donne charge a notre
cher et bien ame messire Claude Cantiuncula, present
porteur, de vous dire et declairer aucunes choses de par
nous, desquelles vous prions tres affectueusment le
croyre, et y adjouster entiere foy, comme feriez a notre
propre personne. Cher et bon amy, notre Seigneur vous
ait en sa garde.
" Escript a Sainct Germain en Laye le yme jour de
juillet.
i 5 i8] Basel and Louvain 253
[In Erasmus' hand], " Je vous avertys que sy vous
"Hec rex scripsit pro- voules venyr que vous seres le
pria tnanu." byen venu
" FRANCOYS.
" ROBERTET."
It has been usual to explain his reluctance to at
tach himself anywhere at this time, by certain obli
gations towards the young King Charles I. of Spain,
later the Emperor Charles V., arising from his
appointment to a counsellor's position in the royal
household. That some such office was given him
in or about the year 1516 is quite certain; but that
he was ever asked for his advice may be doubted, and
his own complaints would indicate that he never re
ceived any considerable emoluments from his office.
A letter to the imperial counsellor Carondiletus in
1524 throws light upon both the French call and the
imperial pension. 1
" To reply at once to your letter and that of the Lady
Margaret, I will say in few words that it is not merely
smoke that the French are showing. On the contrary,
some time ago, when Poncher, Bishop of Paris, was the
French ambassador at Brussels, before Charles was em
peror, he offered me in his own name, over and above
the king's bounty, four hundred crowns besides all ex
penses, promising me also that my leisure and my free
dom of movement should be undisturbed. . . . The
reason why the king of France called me so many times
he explained by his messenger. He had determined to
establish at Paris a College of the Three Languages, such
as there is at Louvain, and he wanted me to be the head
'iii. 1 , 794-
254 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
of it. I excused myself, however, remembering how
much enmity and trouble I had borne there from some
theologians on the score of the Busleiden College. Yet
my servant, when he came back from France, reported
on certain information that a treasury order for a thou
sand pounds was ready and waiting for me there.
" I have not so far been much of a burden on the
treasury of my prince, for my pension has only once
been paid therefrom. It has been procured by another
process, without any expense to the treasury. It costs
me a great deal to live here, especially on account of my
frequent illnesses though indeed I am in other ways not
at all a good manager with money. I have already con
tracted a good many debts, so that, even if my health
would permit me to leave, perhaps my creditors would
not. I should, therefore, be very glad, if it can be done,
to have the pension for at least one year paid over to
this messenger, to relieve my immediate necessity. I
send a letter of the emperor, making the same request."
Again in 1525 he writes 1 :
" By the first of September there will be due me eight
hundred gold florins, the payment, that is, of four years.
I don't see what good I am to get out of this delay unless
perchance I am to need money in the Elysian Fields."
And once more in 1527 to Laurinus 1 :
" I have written to your brother as you wished, but I
see no hope of the emperor's pension unless I return
thither. For the matter was once for all brought up in
council and the reply was made me in the name of the
Lady Margaret that both the pension and other things
iii. 1 , 874-F. iii. I 1 i<x>9-F.
i 5 i8] Institutio Principis Christiani 255
worthy of me were ready for me if I would come back.
So I do not think that your brother, eloquent and earnest
patron as he is, ought to be wearied with this affair.
The emperor has twice ordered the pension to be paid
to me out of course, but he is more easily obeyed when
he orders a tax than when he commands a payment."
We cannot for a moment believe that the holding
of this honourary title required any personal attend
ance at the royal court which hindered Erasmus'
freedom of motion when he desired to move. The
principal fruit of his appointment was the little
treatise called the Institutio Principis Christiani, 1
written, probably, in acknowledgment of the honour
and dedicated to the young prince. This very
amiable bit of advice is a companion-piece to the
panegyric upon the prince's father written about
twelve years before. It is unlike that early per
formance in being almost entirely free from ex
aggerated personal adulation ; it is like it in the
freedom with which it lays down for the guidance
of the prince rules of conduct similar to those
which ought to govern the individual Christian man
in his dealings with the world of his fellow-men.
Yet the principles are not the mere commonplaces
of morality. The prince ought to be a good man
in the Christian meaning of that term, but not
merely good, as any private man might be. Eras
mus has at every point a reason for the particu
lar exercise of virtue he may be commending, and
his illustrations, drawn chiefly from the best rulers
'iv., 593-612.
256 Desiderius Erasmus [i 5 r 5 -
of antiquity, are pertinent and show, of course, the
widest and readiest command of the ancient literat
ures. To estimate aright the significance and
value of Erasmus' declarations on public policy, we
must remember that we are dealing with a contem
porary of Macchiavelli, whose Principe, with its
total indifference to the moral point of view, was
already written and undoubtedly in circulation in
manuscript, though not printed until 1532. Whether
it was known to Erasmus we cannot say. If it was,
he could hardly have made a more complete reply
to it than this. Macchiavelli took the world as it
was, especially that Italian part of it which he knew
best, and, assuming that the process of state-build
ing which he saw going on all about him was to
continue along similar lines, he simply laid down
the principles of success in that process. Erasmus,
on the other hand, assuming that human society was
a moral organism, was not concerned chiefly with
outward or momentary success, but rather with the
higher moral function of the ruler. He believed
that success founded upon morality would be higher
and more enduring than that which rested upon
mere expediency. The central point of view with
Macchiavelli was the person of the prince; Erasmus
thought of the prince only as the servant of his
people. Both drew, or thought they drew, their
inspiration from classic tradition ; but Macchiavelli
sought for his illustrations at those points of ancient
history where his principles seemed to be worked
out into great and enduring political structures,
while Erasmus drew from the decay of precisely
i 5 i8] Institutio Principis Christian! 257
the same institutions his lesson of the permanence
of moral obligation and of that alone.
Perhaps the best and most pertinent example of
his method of treatment is found in the chapter on
taxation. It will be evident that the questions
which were disturbing his mind have not yet ceased
to agitate the world. Substitute for " prince " the
word " government," and it will appear that most
of the financial problems of our present day were
burning questions in the days of Erasmus and
Thomas More; for in More's Utopia we have in
the main the same moral elevation applied to the
same questions as in the Institutio. Erasmus says ' :
" The ancient writers tell us that many rebellions have
arisen from immoderate taxation. The good prince
ought therefore to see to it that the minds of his people
should be as little as possible disturbed by these matters.
Let him if possible govern without expense to them.
The office of the prince is too lofty to be used for money-
making. The good prince has for his own whatever his
loving subjects have. There have been many heathen
who put nothing into their treasuries from serving the
state save glory alone ; and some, like Fabius Maximus
and Antoninus Pius, despised even this. How much
more, then, ought the Christian prince to be satisfied
with the consciousness of rectitude, especially since he
serves a Master who leaves no good deed without ample
reward. There are men who busy themselves with no
thing but finding out new devices for cheating the people,
and think they are best serving the prince by making
1 iv., 593-594-
17
258 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
themselves the enemies of his subjects. Let him who
listens to them know that he is far from the true ideal of
a prince.
" The very best way to increase the revenue is to cut
off unnecessary expense, doing away with burdensome
service, avoiding wars and journeys that are like wars,
checking the greed of officials, and trying rather to gov
ern well what the prince has, than to get more. Other
wise, if he is to measure his taxes by his greed or his
ambition, what limit or end of taxation will there be ?
For desire is infinite and is always pressing and straining
at what it has once begun until, according to the old
proverb, the overdrawn rope will break and the ex
hausted patience of the people burst forth into rebellion,
whereby the most powerful empires have been ruined.
" But, if necessity demands that something shall be
exacted of the people, then it is the part of a good
prince to do it in such a way that the least burden may
fall upon those who have least. For it may be a good
thing to summon the rich to frugality, but to compel the
por to hunger and the gallows is not merely inhuman,
but dangerous as well. . . . Let him well ponder
this, that an expense once incurred at some emergency
as pertaining to the advantage of the prince or the no
bility, can never be abolished. When the emergency is
past, not only ought the burden to be taken from the
people, but the outlay of that former period ought, as
far as possible, to be remedied and made good. Let
him who cares for his people beware of the corrupt pre
cedent. If he rejoices in the calamity of his own citi
zens or gives no thought to it, he is as far as can be from
being a prince, no matter by what name he is called.
" It ought to be provided for that there be not too
great inequality of wealth ; not that I would have any-
Institutio Principis Christian! 259
one deprived of his goods by force, but that care should
be taken lest the wealth of the whole community be
limited to a certain few. For Plato would have his citi
zens neither too rich nor too poor, because the poor man
cannot be of profit to the state, and the rich man, after
his kind, does not want to profit it. Nor do princes
even gain wealth by exactions of this sort. If anyone
would prove this, let him consider how much less his
ancestors took from their subjects, how much more they
gave, and yet how much more of everything they had,
because a great part of these present taxes slips between
the fingers of those who collect and receive them, but
only a very small part ever gets to the prince himself.
" Then, whatever things are in common use by the
mass of the people, these a good prince will tax as lightly
as possible, as for example, corn, bread, beer, wine, cloth
ing, and other things without which human life cannot
go on. But now these things are especially burdened,
and that in many different ways : first, by the very heavy
exactions of the contractors which the people call as
sizes, then by duties which have also their contractors,
and finally by monopolies which bring little to the
prince, but crush the poor by higher prices.
" So then, as I have said, let the income of the prince
be increased by economy, according to the old proverb :
' Thrift is a great revenue.' But if some duties cannot
be avoided and the interest of the people demands it,
then let the burden fall upon foreign and outlandish
wares, which have to do rather with the luxury and re
finements of life than with necessity, and which are
used by the rich alone, as for example, fine linen, silks,
purple, perfumes, unguents, gems, and everything of that
sort. For this burden is felt only by those whose fort
unes can bear it and who by these payments are not
260 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
reduced to want, but perchance are rendered more frugal,
so that by loss of money, good morals are improved."
It would be going too far to say that these eco
nomic and financial views of Erasmus are purely orig
inal ; they are doubtless gathered from his reading
of the ancients, especially from Plato and Aristotle ;
they are, however, addressed with perfect directness
to evils of his own time and they show us that his
mind was working upon matters of large public
import, as well as upon his more purely scholarly
interests.
It would be impossible for Erasmus to go through
any treatise on public affairs without saying some
thing about the wickedness and folly of fighting,
and so we find him concluding his Institutio with a
chapter on the undertaking of war. It is his familiar
argument, but especially follows the point that war
-should not be undertaken until all other methods of
composing differences shall have failed. " If we
were of this mind there would hardly ever be a war
anywhere." He shows very clearly how seldom the
alleged cause of war affects the people of a country.
Such causes are usually the private affair of princes.
" Because one prince offends another in some trifle, and
that a private matter, about relationship by marriage or
some such thing, what is this to the people as a whole ?
The good prince measures all things by the advantage
of the people, otherwise he were not even a prince. The
law is not the same towards men and towards beasts. . . .
But if some dissensions arise between princes why not
rather resort to arbiters ? There are so many bishops,
Institutio Principis Christian! 261
so many abbots, scholars, serious magistrates, by whose
judgment such a matter might far more decently be com
posed than by so much murder, pillage, and misfortune
throughout the world."
Here is international arbitration, pure and simple,
a doctrine not appearing in the Utopia, and, so far
as I know, not to be found in any modern writer
before Erasmus; a dream as yet in his time and
long to remain so, but, in the vast ebb and flow of
human affairs, coming ever nearer to some definite
realisation.
Perhaps the most striking argument of Erasmus
against war is the utter hopelessness of it as a means
of gaining the ultimate good of the state.
' ' But,' they say, ' what safety will there ever be, if
no one pursues his right ? ' By all means let right be
pursued, if this be of advantage to the state, but let not
the right of the prince be too costly to the people. And
pray what safety is there now, when everyone is pursu
ing his right to the very death ? We see wars arising
from wars, war following upon war, and no limit or end
to the confusion. So it is clear enough that by these
means nothing is accomplished. Therefore other reme
dies ought to be tried. Even between friends there would
be no bond unless they sometimes made concessions,
one to the other. The husband often pardons certain
things to his wife, that harmony between them may not
be broken. What does war breed, but war ? while gentle
ness calls forth gentleness and equity invites equity."
The closing paragraph has almost a ring of irony
in view of the future course of the young prince, for
whose edification all this wisdom was put forth.
262 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
" I doubt not, most illustrious Prince, that you are of
the same mind ; for so you were born and so you have
been taught by the best and most sincere teachers. As
for the rest, I pray that Christus optimus maximus may
prosper your noble efforts. He has given you an em
pire without bloodshed ; his will is that you preserve it
ever free from blood. May it come to pass that through
your goodness and wisdom we may at last have a rest
from these mad wars. Peace will be made precious to
us by the memory of evils past and our gratitude to you
will be doubled by the misfortunes of other times."
All this to Charles of Burgundy, already Most
Catholic King of Spain, within a year to be elected
Holy Roman Emperor, and destined for the next
generation to turn Europe into a battle-field for ob
jects in which no one of his numerous subject
peoples had the remotest interest ! Evidently the
man who could give only such counsel as this was
not likely to be sought as an intimate adviser of the
prince. In fact we have no reason to suppose that
Erasmus' settlement at Louvain had more than a
nominal connection with his appointment as imperial
councillor. He was a councillor much in the sense
of the modern German " Geheimrath."
Erasmus took up his residence at Louvain in 1516,
not, so far as we know, in the capacity of a regular
teacher, though he occupied a room in the univers
ity. There is the usual uncertainty as to his mo
tives and feelings about the change. Writing to
Ammonius from Brussels in the autumn of 1516,'
'iii., 137 E-F.
PROGENIES - DI WAV oyiNTVS sic - CARQLVS IL
IMPERII CAESAR.- LVMINA- ET-ORA-TVLIT.
AET SVAE X X XI
ANN M D - xxxi
_ _
EMPEROR CHARLES V.
FROM AN ENGRAVING 8Y BARTEL BEHAM, 1531.
i 5 is] Institutio Principis Christian! 263
he says, " I am most eager to hear how our busi
ness is getting on." Such passages of mysterious
meaning occur in almost every letter to this fellow-
scholar and indicate clearly that Ammonius was con
tinually working in Erasmus' interest. They are
now made somewhat clearer by the discoveries of
W. Vischer at Basel. The reference is probably to
the negotiations with the papacy in regard to the
dispensations which bear date a few months later.
It is probable also that Ammonius was putting in a
word as he could in England to secure the regular
payment of his friend's allowances. The letter goes
on:
" I am going to winter in Brussels. Whatever you
may send to Tunstall [the English ambassador at Brus
sels] will be handed to me at once ; I am in continual
relations with him. I am not disposed to go to Louvain.
There I should have to be paying my duty to the schol
astics at my own cost. The young men would be yelp
ing at me all the time : ' correct this ode ; or this epistle,'
one will be calling for this author, one for that. There is
no one there who can be either a help or an attraction to
me. Besides all this I should have to listen sometimes to
the snarlings of the pseudo-theologians, the most unpleas
ant kind of men. Lately there has arisen one of these who
has stirred up almost a tumult against me, so that I am
now holding the wolf by the ears, able neither to kill
him nor to get away. He flatters me to my face and
bites behind my back, promises me a friend and offers
me an enemy. Would that mighty Jove would smash
up this whole class of men and make them over again ;
for they contribute nothing to make us better or wiser,
but are always making trouble with everyone."
264 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
But having had his grumble, Erasmus made up his
mind to go. During the next four years Louvain
was more his home than any other place. He left
it, as we have seen, often and for months together,
but it seems to have suited him as well as he was
willing to be suited anywhere. His accounts of his
relations with the place and the people are as
apparently inconsistent as his utterances on other
subjects. Within a short time after his settlement
he writes to Tunstall :
" I find the theologians at Louvain men of high char
acter and culture, especially John Atensis, Chancellor of
this University, a man of incomparable learning and
endowed with rare refinement. There is here no less
theological learning than at Paris, but it is of a less
sophistical and arrogant sort."
Again, in the autumn of 1518, he writes:
" The air thus far remains pure ; there have been few
cases of illness, and those of disease imported from
elsewhere."
As to the individual scholars, he found himself on
the best of terms with Martin Dorpius, the critic of
his Moria, of whom he said in 1520, " on account
of his distinguished talents for learning and elo
quence I could not hate him even when he was made
use of against me by evil managers." Dorpius con
tinued to be his friend and admirer, as appears from
the letter to Beatus, in which he is described as one
of Erasmus' chief comforters during his tedious ill
ness after the Rhine journey.
i 5 is] Institutio Principis Christian! 265
During Erasmus' residence at Louvain occurred
the foundation of the College of the Three Lan
guages by Jerome Busleiden, brother of a former
archbishop of Besanc_on, and himself a councillor of
the King of Spain. Erasmus writes in 1518 to a
third brother, yEgidius, referring to his attempts at
making an epitaph for Jerome:
" How many attractions have we lost in this one man !
I can easily imagine your feelings at the loss of your
brother, when the whole chorus of good and learned
men is breaking into one lament. But why these empty
regrets, why these useless tears ? We are all born to
this fate."
He is not well satisfied with his epitaphs and evi
dently has some fear that the bequest will not be
carried out.
; ' As to founding the college, see that you are not led
away from that purpose. Believe me, this thing will not
only contribute more than I can say to every branch of
learning but will also add to the name of Busleiden,
already so distinguished in many ways, no little increase
of honour and splendour."
These fears were not justified ; the college was
founded and the advice of Erasmus was sought in
the difficult matter of finding suitable teachers to
fill the new chairs. We have several of the letters
written by him in the discharge of this commission.
One of these, to John Lascaris, a native Greek
scholar, is interesting in several ways. It is one of
the clearest illustrations of Erasmus' power of direct
266 Desiderius Erasmus [1515-
statement when a matter of business was in hand.
He first states the terms of Busleiden's bequest to
found a college
" in which shall be taught publicly and without expense
the three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, with
the sufficiently splendid salary of about seventy ducats,
which may be increased according to the value of the
person. The Hebrew and Latin teachers are on hand.
Many are competing for the Greek professorship, but
it has always been my opinion that a native Greek should
be procured, so that the hearers may get the correct pro
nunciation at once. All the trustees of this undertaking
agree with me and have commissioned me to invite,
in their behalf, whomever I should judge suitable for
this position. I therefore beg you, both by your wonted
kindness to me and your devotion to the cause of learn
ing, if you know anyone who you think would do honour
to yourself and to me, to send him hither as soon as you
can. He will have money for the journey, his salary,
and his lodgings. He will have to do with men of hon
our and refinement. He may have the same confidence
in my letter as if the affair were sealed with a hundred
contracts. Between good men a bargain may be as well
made without bonds. You select the proper man, and I
will see to it that he shall not regret coming."
The Hebrew teacher referred to was a Jew named
Adrian, chosen, it would appear, on the same prin
ciple of employing native teachers. It must have
required a steady nerve to recommend the appoint
ment of a Jew, even a converted one, at a time
when the affair of Reuchlin, turning on just this
question of respect for Hebrew learning, had barely
i 5 i8] Institutio Principis Christian! 267
ceased to agitate the world of scholars. Erasmus
commends Adrian to ^Egidius Busleiden in a letter'
of sound practical sense. Fortune has just thrown
him in their way;
" he is a Hebrew by birth but long since a Christian
by religion, a physician by profession, and so skilled in
the whole Hebrew literature that in my judgment there
is no one at this day to be compared with him. But if
my opinion has not sufficient weight with you, all whom
I have known in Germany or in Italy who were versed
in that language, have borne the same testimony. He
not only knows the language perfectly, but is thoroughly
acquainted with the mysteries of the authors and has
them all at his fingers' ends. . . . Pray command
me if there is anything in which you think I can assist
you."
The Latin professor mentioned was Conrad
Goclenius, the man of all others whom Erasmus
selected some few years later, when he thought he
was going to die, as the confidant of his most in
timate thoughts and wishes.
1 iii., 353-A.
CHAPTER VIII
BEGINNINGS OF THE REFORMATION CORRESPOND
ENCE OF 1518-1519
ON many accounts, the residence at Louvain
ought to have been one of the most satisfac
tory of Erasmus' life. He was in the midst of a con
genial activity not limited by any prescribed duties,
free from great anxiety about money, secure at any
moment of some honourable appointment if he chose
to accept it, in fairly good health, and with working
powers quite undiminished by advancing years.
In the year 1518 there can be no question that
the name of Erasmus was the most widely known
and honoured among European scholars. His New
Testament with its display of learning and its revela
tion of a new principle of criticism, had demonstrated
his character as a serious thinker upon the most im
portant questions of religious faith and practice. If
we seek to define this principle we shall be unable to
fix it by any categories of philosophy or of theologi
cal precedent. In the last analysis we are brought
back every time to the principle of common sense
working upon the accepted dogmatic bases of the
existing church system.
His freedom of speech had always been kept care
fully within the bounds of doctrinal orthodoxy. He
268
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 269
could safely defy his critics to point to a single in
stance of anything that might by any reasonable
interpretation be described as heresy. He knew
that in his criticism, so far as it had gone, he was
supported by the best opinion of the men of en
lightenment everywhere, and relying upon this sup
port he could put on the confident tone of a man
who feels himself on the winning side.
The generation in which Erasmus had grown up
to his fiftieth year was eminently one of progress in
every form of enlightenment and expansion. He
was twenty-five when Columbus discovered America
and gave the first impulse to that intoxicating sense
of limitless possibility which from time to time has
seized upon a generation of men and carried it on
to great triumphs but always also to disappoint
ments more keenly felt than its successes. Along
with the discovery of the earth had gone with equal,
even with more rapid pace, the discovery of man.
The ban which throughout the Middle Ages had
lain upon the human spirit as individual, with pow
ers of its own and the right to use them, was rapidly
being lifted. The cunning plebeian who had learned
how to mix the subtle ingredients of gunpowder and
put it into the hands of his fellow-plebeians, had
taught the world an argument against the rights of
princes, more potent than all the philosophers from
Marsiglio of Padua down had been able to furnish.
That other plebeian group who had lit upon the
marvellously simple device of multiplying copies of
writings by means of movable types, had opened
up possibilities of education and therefore of achieve-
270 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
ment, whose end the imagination of man could not
compass.
At first, doubtless, this vast outlook into the un
known had terrified as well as fascinated the world.
All established institutions whose claim to existence
rested upon an undisputed tradition, trembled lest
their foundation should be shaken. Princes dreaded
the union of the long-oppressed peasants and citizens
with gunpowder in their hands. The guardians of
the treasure of thought which had come down from
the past shuddered at the spreading of " danger
ous " ideas broadcast through the land by the busy
printing-press.
But gradually these apprehensions had been
allayed. The social revolution threatened by gun
powder was delayed as has been so far that which
is threatened by dynamite. Economic laws would
not be broken and the forces of discontent, active
during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth cent
uries, had been gradually brought into an apparent
harmony with the forces of order and tradition.
Once more the great leading powers had come out
of a long conflict victorious, though modified. The
state-governments had overcome the attacks of con
stitutionalism, and seemed to be more independent
of control than ever. The monarchy of Francis I.,
of Henry VIII., and Charles V. seemed to have
beaten down every opposition, but it had also learned
its lessons. If it would control the public life of
its several states, it must itself meet the evident de
mands of its subjects, so far as it could do so with
out abandoning its own supreme prerogative. So the
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 271
papacy, threatened by the aggressive constitutional
ism of the fifteenth-century councils, had overcome
that danger and during the lifetime of Erasmus
had seemed to recover more than its ancient pre
stige. But it had purchased this recovery by vast
adjustments to conditions it could not change. It,
too, in its turn had become " enlightened " and
gone so far into the prevailing liberalism of thought
that it had deprived it of its sting. It might well
seem an idle task to turn the weapons of the ' ' higher
criticism " against a papacy which was itself sup
porting the cause of critical learning with every
resource at its command.
No greater proof of this apparent readjustment of
opposing forces could be offered than the dedication
of Erasmus' New Testament, the ripest product of
the critical scholarship of the time, to Pope Leo
himself. It was a bold stroke, but it paid. The
unstinted approval of the pope gave Erasmus a
backing worth more to him at the moment than any
praise of scholars like himself. But it bound him
also the more firmly to an allegiance he dared not
break, lest the form of success most precious to him
in life should be endangered.
We have spoken of the constitutional opposition
to the papacy by the fifteenth-century councils.
Parallel with this and often combined with it had
gone an opposition growing out of national interests.
This, too, the papacy seemed to have overcome by
the same policy of adjustment. It had allowed the
largest scope to national control of the Church
consistent with its supreme leadership, and had
272 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
even given emphasis to the national idea by push
ing to the utmost its claim to be one among the
powers of Europe. The whole political activity of
the papacy during this most active generation was
based upon a recognition of the national states and
a steady aim to gain their recognition in turn for
its own well developed sovereignty. A pope's
" niece " or " nephew " was as good a parti for a
royal house as the offspring of any princely family
in Europe.
So complete, apparently, was this adjustment of
all the forces of European society that the great
outbreak of the Lutheran reform movement was a
complete surprise and an incredible shock to all
established institutions. The historian can, indeed,
trace with perfect continuity the lines of develop
ment which centre in that wonderful movement,
when a monk, in an obscure town in the remote
north of Germany, drew the eyes of all Europe to
himself by gathering up into one passionate expres
sion the long-suppressed protest against the tyranny
of the dominant church system. But, on the sur
face of things, in the year 1517, there was little to
point to this historic continuity. To all appearance
the great impulse of Wiclif in England had died out
with the suppression of open Lollardry just a hun
dred years before. John Hus, the spiritual heir of
Wiclif, had been sacrificed at Constance in 1415 to
a combination of forces, some of which were to prove
themselves in reality the stoutest allies of the ideas
he represented. True, the fires at Constance had
kindled a flame in Bohemia, which defied all efforts
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 273
of pope and emperor to put it out until dissensions
within the party of revolt scattered and quenched
the material on which it fed. But after the Council
at Basel (1431-1443) the great readjustment carried
Bohemia, too, along into the general scheme of con
ciliation. At that moment a party, henceforth to
be known as the party of enlightenment, seized
upon the papacy, and with Thomas Parentucelli
(Nicholas V. , 1447-145 5) began that series of human
istic popes, ALneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II.,
1458-1464), Giuliano delle Rovere (Julius II., 1503-
1513), and Giovanni de' Medici (Leo X., 1513-1521),
who were ready to sacrifice all other interests to the
aggrandisement of their personal power and the ad
vancement of a higher cultivation and refinement of
life.
It must be said that in the things men cared most
about in the two generations before the year 1517,
the government of the Church was such as suited
the peoples of Europe. It was an easy-going sys
tem. It did not call for any application of the new
spirit of inquiry to the prevailing institutions in
Church and State. It was not insisting upon any
too rigid morality either in the clergy or in the laity.
Nor, on the other hand, was it overzealous in press
ing its own claims too far. There is a grim sense
of humour in the attitude of the Church towards its
own institutions, so long as their existence was not
threatened and no diminution of revenue was in
sight. All the system asked was to be let alone.
The Church knew that many of its claims had come
to be absurd. Nowhere was this so well understood
18
274 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
as in Italy and above all at Rome. So frank a
" heathen " as Leo X. was not likely to insist too
eagerly upon ideas or practices which he knew to be
mere superstitions of the vulgar not likely, that is,
to press these matters until they were attacked.
If, on the other hand, they should be attacked,
would this papacy be thoroughgoing enough in its
enlightenment and its indifference to let them go,
or would it rally to their defence all the forces of
reaction ? That was the problem of the Reforma
tion period. If one approaches it from the side of
enlightenment, one is at once impressed with the
vast opportunity opened to the papacy. It had
already adjusted itself to so many changes, it had
so often found ways of taking the sting out of ideas
and movements which seemed to threaten its very
life, that sanguine men, like Erasmus, might well
feel encouraged to hope that it would once more
rise to the occasion. The world of Europe was
filled with friendly criticism of its forms and
methods; but as yet there had been few voices
raised against its existence.
Dante, in his treatise on a single government for
the world (de Monarchic?), still clings to the mediaeval
conception of a twin administration of Christendom,
only with the religious side distinctly subordinated
to the temporal. Even Wiclif and Hus had been
led to defy the papacy only by the logic of events;
hostility to a papal organisation of church life was
not an essential part of their original programme.
Even Marsiglio of Padua had reserved to the papacy
a wide sphere of activity, limited only by constitu-
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 275
tional rights of governments and peoples. The
literature of the conciliar period, covering the first
half of the fifteenth century, does not succeed in
casting off the spell of the papal idea, but aims to
check and control its dangers to the public welfare.
A constitutional papacy was the ideal of that time,
not a Church without a papacy. All these attacks
the mediaeval system had met with amazing success.
It had dealt its blows sparingly, but with great effect.
Where its enemies had been backed up by powerful
interests, as was Wiclif in England, it had seemed
to fail and had bided its time. Where it could itself
combine with other interests against them, as against
Hus at Constance, it had hit hard and with precision.
It may be said with some certainty that if the
papacy of the second half of the fifteenth century
had been inclined to meet criticism half-way, critic
ism would not have turned into hostility. As one
looks over the field of European society and politics
in the two generations before 1517 one fails to find
anything that can be called an anti-Roman ' ' party. ' '
By " party " we mean here a nucleus of organisation
with a programme or " platform " of its own to
wards the accomplishment of which it bends its
chief efforts. In that sense, there was no party in
Christendom which aimed at the overthrow of the
papal system.
On the other hand it might be said that there was
no great public interest in Europe which was not
more or less directly threatened by the papacy and
likely, therefore, at any inopportune moment, by
some slip in the papal policy or even by the mere
276 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
\
insistence of the papacy upon some point it could
not give up, to be turned from apparent friendliness
to open opposition. First among these public in
terests was the principle of nationality. The papacy
had, as we have seen, apparently adjusted itself to
this opposition, but this adjustment was obviously
unstable. How great a strain would it bear ? To
what lengths of concession could the papacy afford
to go in recognising the right of kings to manage
the affairs of their kingdoms without interference ?
Were there questions of religion, or of public morals
so obviously beyond the sphere of temporal control,
that any conceivable papacy must cling to the right
of final judgment in them or go to the wall ? When
in the year 1341 the Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian,
had claimed for himself the divine right to declare
a certain princess divorced from an inconvenient hus-
band,H:hat he might marry her to his son and bring
her dowry to increase the Bavarian estates, there
was an almost universal cry of horror at this assault
upon a sacred prerogative of the Church. How
would it be now, two hundred years later, if a king,
let us say of England, should find it convenient to
divorce a wife and marry another for no reason but
that he willed it so ? Could the papacy afford to
pay the price of acquiescence, or could it better
afford to lose for ever the allegiance of England ?
That was the kind of question presented to the
papacy from the side of the national states.
So again from the point of view of the advancing
thought of the day ; how far could the papacy safely
go in meeting this advance ? Men were moving on
i 5 ig] Beginnings of the Reformation 277
step by step from one audacious thought to another,
until it was beginning to seem as if there were no
limit to the speculation of this awakened human
spirit. The Church had grown great upon a system
of thought in which the institution, the established
order, the class, the tradition, had been everything,
and the individual had been nothing. It had been
a man's first duty, not to have ideas of his own, but
to take those which were offered to him by the
highest prevailing authority. So far all opposition
to this method of thought had been effectually sil
enced. John Hus had declared that the essence of
the Church lay in its being the assembly of believers
acknowledging Christ alone as its head. Hus had
been disposed of, and again the papacy had risen
triumphant. The same men who had pressed most
eagerly the condemnation of Hus were at that mo
ment aiding his cause by putting forward a theory of
church life which thrust the papacy into the back
ground and would have brought into its place a
legislature of national churches as the true expres
sion of the will of Western Christendom. That op
position too had been overcome.
But now a more subtle development of individual
ism was beginning to make itself felt. The Church
had thus far succeeded in keeping itself before the
world as the one sole and sufficient medium of salva
tion for sinful man. It had developed a vast and im
posing system of mediation between man and God
by its priesthood, its ceremonies, its philosophy of
morals, and its elaborately conducted methods of
bookkeeping with the consciences of the faithful.
278 Desiderius Erasmus [i 5 is-
Indeed, so elaborate had this soul-saving machinery
become that the wear and tear of it threatened the
durability of its parts. An immense proportion of
its energy had to be devoted to keeping the system
going. What now would happen if somehow it
should be made clear to the Christian conscience
that there was a shorter way to salvation, a more
direct, a less expensive, and, more than all, a better-
established way ? How far would the Church dare
to carry its policy of going half way toward such an
idea as that ?
The test upon this point came in the revival of
all that group of notions which, for lack of a better
term, we express by the word " Augustinianism."
Setting aside all refinements of theology for the
moment, the word Augustinian represents to us the
conception of the individual human soul as a sinful
thing, thrown out in all its nakedness and isolation
upon an angry sea of retribution, from which nothing
can save it but the arbitrary action of the grace of
God. Here was individualism indeed! We have
seen how the Church had got on with the aesthetic
individualism of the Renaissance with its sham
heathenism, its theatrical exploiting of antiquity to
justify a license which affronted all true Christian
self-respect, and yet, after all, its readiness to con
form itself to all existing forms of social and religious
organisation. From such individualism as this the
Church had little direct injury to fear. It laughed
with it and at it and used it for its purposes. Pog-
gio Bracciolini, the most foul-mouthed blackguard
of the second generation of Italian Humanists, spent
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 279
his life as papal secretary without fear and without
reproach.
Strange collocation of ideas, that the same im
pulse which drove these unchecked scoffers into an
aesthetic defiance of literary tradition should have
forced Luther and Calvin into a death-struggle with
the whole existing church order ! The Church had
tolerated the individualism of taste; how far could
it tolerate the individualism of the soul ? The one
had declared that the salvation of the human mind
was to be found by going back to the unfailing
sources of culture in the Greek and Latin classics.
The other was to declare that the only salvation of
the soul was to be found by overleaping all the vast
accumulation of forms and traditions of the past
thousand years and going straight back to the early
proclamations of the divine grace through faith in
Christ alone.
While Erasmus was studying, writing, planning,
and travelling, with Louvain as the centre of his
manifold activities, the great assault was gathering
its force in a quarter of the world from which it
might least have been expected. The north of
Germany lay almost entirely beyond the circle of
vision of Erasmus and such as he. The Universities
of Leipzig and Erfurt, the most important of the
Saxon schools, had thus far contributed little to the
advance of general culture. They were still mainly
under the influence of the scholastic traditions,
guided by such men as those who had been made
the butts of the Epistolce obscurorum virorum. The
280 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
University of Wittenberg, founded in 1502 by the
Elector Frederic of Saxony, was just in time to gain
for its chairs some of the first-fruits of the revived
classical spirit, which men like Reuchlin and Rudolf
Agricola had imported into Germany from the Italian
fountainhead. The call of Martin Luther in 1508
from the Augustinian cloister at Erfurt to a profess
orship of theology at Wittenberg, while it cannot
be described as a demonstration in favour of the
New Learning, brought a young man into active
professional work who was already familiar with the
new spirit of study and who was likely to apply it
to his theological teaching, without being seduced
by its aesthetic charm. The invitation of Philip
Melanchthon four years later to teach Greek was a
more pronounced declaration that Wittenberg was
to look forward and not back in setting the tone of
its instruction. Melanchthon was a promising youth
of twenty-one, a relative and pupil of Reuchlin and
recommended by him for this place. He was al
ready well known as an accomplished Grecian, an
amiable, but decided personality, destined to be
through a lifetime of contention the balance-wheel
of the Lutheran party.
It cannot be our purpose to rehearse here the
familiar story of Luther's early career. .Friends and
enemies alike have done their utmost to set before
us the engaging but often mysterious personality of
the man. Our only interest can be to review very
briefly such aspects of his development as may serve
to illustrate the similarities and the differences be
tween his course and that of Erasmus and thus pre-
PHILIP MELANCHTHON.
FROM THE DRAWING BY HOLBEIN, IN WINDSOR CASTLE.
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 281
pare us to understand the connection of the latter
with the reform movement of Luther. If our earlier
judgments as to the youth of Erasmus are correct
we shall have to believe that Luther's years of ap
prenticeship were far more truly years of hardship
and struggle than were his. Poverty, stern dis
cipline, and unsatisfied desire left their lifelong
marks upon a physical constitution none too strong,
but could not crush the inherent cheerfulness and
courage which proved his dominant characteristics.
We seek in vain through the record of Luther's
earlier years for indications of that stormy, passion
ate zeal for improvement in the conditions about
him which almost any student of the later reform
would suppose to be the moving impulse of his
character. Conformity to the demands of his im
mediate surroundings is as marked a trait with him
as were resistance and restlessness with Erasmus.
He goes and does as he is bidden. He enters a mon
astery of his own free will and conforms with pain
ful exactness to the requirements of the rule. Even
long after he has begun to lead the fight against
the limitations of the existing order, he continues to
wear the dress and to live in the cloister of the local
Augustinians. The impulse to the Lutheran re
form cannot, therefore, be found in any restless im
patience of personal limitation on Luther's part. It
must be sought in some great, overpowering convic
tion which drove him out of the attitude of con
formity into the attitude of resistance.
This overmastering impulse came in the form of
that Augustinian proposition we were just now
282 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
examining the proposition that the salvation, or,
better still, the justification, of a man's soul was to
come, not through any institution, nor through the
due performance of anything whatever, but through
the direct act of the grace of God, and, furthermore,
that the only condition of receiving such grace was
an honest opening of the soul to its action, or, in
theological language, " faith." Luther was not a
great " theologian," as that word was used, in
reverence by some and in ridicule by others. He
had not worked himself out into clearness by a
scholastic process, and whenever he tried to defend
himself by scholastic methods, he was almost sure
to confuse himself in contradictions and exaggera
tions. His clearness of vision came rather by an
indefinable process of revelation and self-realisation,
and then it became his life-problem to interpret to
others what had brought such abundant illumination
and satisfaction to himself. The boldness of Luther
was not that of a man defiant by nature, who en
joys the game of give and take, but rather that of a
man who puts off the moment of his attack until he
can do so no longer, and then lets himself go, driven
from~ behind, as it were, by a will greater than his
own and against which he is powerless.
With a nature and a method like this Erasmus
could never have had much sympathy. Compare
their two views of Italy. We have seen Erasmus
seeking there the rewards of scholarship, cultivating
the society of learned men, playing the role of the
famous scholar himself, making himself acceptable
to the powers that were, getting out of Italy what
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 283
he could then coming away and letting all the shafts
of his biting satire play upon this society where he
has been feeling himself at home. He could eat
the bread and take the pay of Aldus, and then hold
him up to the laughter of the world.
Luther went to Italy at almost the same time on
an errand from the Saxon Augustinians to the gen
eral chapter at Rome. He travelled as a monk, stop
ping at the houses of his order along the way. At
Rome he visited all the shrines of the saints, like
the most pious of pilgrims. He was almost sorry,
he says, that his parents were living, so many were
the advantages offered to the souls of the departed
at these altars of divine grace. He performed his
commission, went back to his place, and continued
for seven years longer to fulfil his duties as monk,
priest, and teacher, without any outward show of
hostility to the Roman system. Only in his preach
ing and writing, one can trace the steady advance
of confidence in his guiding principle of " faith " as
the one sufficient guarantee of a life " justified " or
" adjusted " to the divine requirement. He did
not seek the fight ; he waited in his place until the
battle sought him out and then he dared not refuse
the challenge.
Compare again the animating principle of these
two men. If it be true that faith alone is the suffic
ient basis of all justification before God, then it
would seem to follow that the individual will has
little to do with determining the fate of man either
here or hereafter. Superficially viewed, this doc
trine seems to place man within the circle of a kind
284 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
of blind fatalism. Such reproaches have been heard
ever since the days of Augustine, whenever this
subject has been prominently before men's minds.
" Has Christianity brought us out of the old fatal
ism of the Greeks only to plunge us into a new
fatalism, as hard, but not as picturesque, as the
old one?" was asked in Augustine's own time.
Nor had the Augustinian party ever failed to draw
more or less strictly the evident conclusion from its
own premises. It had always insisted that the will
of man was not morally free, but was enslaved by a
certain principle of evil, which had entered into man
with the " fall of Adam " and been transmitted from
father to son ever since.
Now the Church had always regarded Augustine
as one of its greatest ornaments. He was one of
the " four Fathers " upon whom, as upon four pil
lars, rested its majestic structure. Yet in practice,
the Church had never lived up to the doctrine of
the enslaved will. When, in the ninth century, the
Saxon Gottschalk, spiritual progenitor of the Saxon
Luther, had turned his unpractised logic upon this
subject and had worked out to a conclusion the
doctrine of a double predestination, the Church,
through its ablest representative, Hincmar of
Rheims, had promptly flogged him and shut him
up for life where he would do no harm. So far as
the Church had ever formulated its views on the
matter, it had been " Semi-Pelagian." It recog
nised in human justification both the grace of God
and the will of man, but did not draw with absolute
clearness a conclusion as to the preponderance of
Beginnings of the Reformation 285
one over the other. In fact the Church had done
something better than to speculate. It had acted.
It had evolved a marvellous system of justifying
agencies, administered by itself, and had said to its
members, in practice if not in theory, " Do these
things and you shall be saved." While this excel
lent machinery worked, there was obviously no oc
casion for any good Christian to worry about the
conditions of justification, and in fact, from the
ninth to the fifteenth century, the Augustinian
doctrines are not once brought prominently before
the world for discussion. It was only when men
began once more to doubt whether the church
method of doing specific things and getting certifi
cates for them was, after all, the only way, or even
the best way, to find one's adjustment with God,
that this whole group of subjects began, once more,
to demand their attention. The doctrine of the
enslaved will, narrow and revolting though it may
seem to the larger thought of our time, was the
opening gate through which a way might be found
into that very same largeness of view. The world
learns slowly and the dim vision of to-day becomes
the flooding glory of a newly risen to-morrow.
Where should we expect to find Erasmus, as we
have been making acquaintance with him to the
year 1518, on this great new question of human
justification ? Our answer must follow two main
lines. First, as to the general notion of the free
dom of the will, we may fairly conclude from all his
moral teaching up to that time, that the idea of
Luther in itself would be most repugnant to him.
286 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
The whole tone of the Enchiridion, for example, is
to emphasise the function of the individual con
science in determining action. The call to duty is
imperative ; the assumption is that man can do what
he ought to do. The freedom of the will in human
action is so completely assumed that there is no
need of discussing it. The ultimate appeal is never
to any outside power. If, on the one hand, Eras
mus avoids all final reference to an ecclesiastical
authority, so, on the other hand, he equally avoids
reference to a theological " grace of God " which is
to do our moral work for us. The same impression
comes from a study of the Christian Prince.
The prince is a " good prince," not because he is a
special instrument in the hand of God, nor because
he is a faithful servant of any church authority, but
because he does his duty as a man, in the station to
which he is called. He ought to do this thing or
that simply because it is the right and the wise thing
to do, tending most directly toward the welfare of
his subjects and the interest of the prince himself.
The Christian state is such because it tends toward
a realisation of the teaching of Christ, not because
it corresponds to any abstract ideal set for it by the
church power or by any direct working of the divine
agency.
Our second point of view is thus already sug
gested. In so far as the Lutheran position dealt
with man as an individual being, responsible directly
to God, without the need of any intervening human
agency, in so far it could not fail to command the
sympathy of whatever was most sound and most
1519] Beginnings of the Reformation 287
sincere in the thought of Erasmus. His moral ap
peal throughout is completely free from any really
convincing reference to a highest church tribunal,
whose decisions must be final. One can find plenty
of passages in which he has, even before 1518, ex
pressed his respect for the papal system ; but it
would be hard to think of any one of these as
representing his really deepest convictions. Either
they are purely conventional, having no bearing
upon the issue of the Reformation, or they are
evident "hedging/' put in to guard their author
against the suspicion of having gone too far on the
way of criticism. It is always difficult to know
which of his selves is the real self; but wherever
in Erasmus' moral writing we seem to feel the ring
of a sincere emotion, it is always when he is appeal
ing to the essential manliness of man never when
he is making his apologies to the powers that be.
Again, it was plain, once for all, as early as 1518,
that Erasmus had not in him the stuff out of which
great leaders of men in critical times are made. No
one would have acknowledged this more readily
than he, and nothing could have been farther from
the line of his ambition than such leadership.
Even if we make large deductions from his account
of the great positions he had declined, enough re
mains to make us quite sure that, if he had chosen,
he might have held any one-f many places, which,
by their very importance, would have given him an
effective leverage upon European affairs. Such in
fluence lay within the field neither of his gifts nor of
his desires. Such effect as he might have upon the
288 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
course of events must come through the natural
channel of his work as a scholar and a critic.
The difficulty of our problem is greatly increased
by the almost hopeless complication of questions
which entered into that one great demonstration we
call the Reformation. Even at this distance of time
it is impossible, without resorting to some rather
large generalisation, to say in a single phrase what
the issue of the Reformation was. Still less, of
course, was such clear discrimination possible to one
who stood, as Erasmus did, in the midst of these
rapid and ever-shifting and often conflicting currents
and was called upon to say just where his standing-
ground was, or with which one of these currents he
was willing to drift.
Luther nailed his Theses on Indulgences to the
door of the Palace-Church at Wittenberg on the
last day of October in the year 1517. When and
where the news of this action reached Erasmus we
do not know. It is impossible that it can have
been more than a few weeks before he, in common
with all intelligent persons, had read this first pro
clamation of a war that was to be to the death.
The Theses attacked indulgences, but these were
only the outward form under which the whole theory
of a mechanical salvation was expressed. If the
indulgence was wrong, not merely in practice, but
in theory as well, then -the whole church system, in
so far as it was a soul-saving apparatus, was wrong
too. Doubtless there was room for infinite refine
ments upon this simple deduction. The same thesis
about indulgences had been put forth many times
Beginnings of the Reformation 289
before. Men had come to the same conclusions by
many different roads ; but never yet had any one
person travelled so many of these roads. In Luther
there spoke the monk, who had tried faithfully the
method of conformity ; the priest, who had gone
directly to the souls of men with the consolations
of religious hope ; the scholar, who had caught the
gleam of that new light of reason which was chang
ing the whole aspect of human thought ; the patriot,
who saw his fellow-countrymen victimised by a vast
foreign oppression ; and finally the man, who had
worked through the awful problem of human sinful-
ness until he saw it clearly solved by reference to
the common inheritance of humanity.
That is why Luther's appeal was heard. Every
one to whom it came found in it some echo of his
own experience. From every part of Europe and
from every human interest came almost immediately
a response which showed that a voice had been heard
for which men had long been waiting. The Theses
were a temperate document. The tone of impa
tience, even of violence, that was to mark so much of
Luther's later writing, was here as yet only suggested
by a rare decision and certainty of utterance. Al
ready Luther spoke as one who could not help it.
At last the conflict had forced itself upon him, and
for him, being the man he was, there was no alter
native. The form of the Theses was that of a chal
lenge to discussion. Luther put himself forward as a
learner, who was prepared to change his view when
ever a better one should appear. The replies,in so far
as they were hostile, simply continued the discussion.
290 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
Probably there was no other man in Europe from
whom a decisive word in his favour would have been
so welcome to Luther as a word at this moment
from Erasmus. Nor, on the other hand, was there
a champion whom the existing system would more
gladly have seen on its side. The word was not
spoken, but neither did Erasmus array himself as
yet frankly in opposition to Luther. Indeed we
have no reason to believe that the issue in all its
magnitude was clearly present to his thought.
Some things he saw only too clearly. His clever,
analytical mind perceived that usages and forms
might in themselves be innocent or even helpful,
while the wrong use of them was harmful in the
extreme. So his instinct was in every case to say :
Let us amend the wrong use of these things, but let
us not disturb the innocent and helpful practice
itself. Whatever subject he touched called out at
once this overfine discriminating power. He drew
a picture of the thing he wanted to express and be
lieved himself to be heightening the effect of this
picture when he refined upon it until its outlines
became obscured and the very effect he had aimed
at was defeated. The art of fine distinctions was
an admirable one. The question of the hour, how
ever, was not to be solved in that way. The time
had come when men were going down deep below
these refinements and were about to ask the fatal
question : whether forms and systems which could
not bear the strain of daily use by plain human
nature without gross abuses, were not better re
formed out of existence once for all. Erasmus said,
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 291
" Be good and all these evils will vanish." Quite
true, but if all men were good there would be no
need of institutions at all. The question was,
whether the experiment had not been tried long
enough, and that was the issue which Erasmus
seems not to have grasped.
For the moment the discussion turned on the
question of indulgences. On this subject Erasmus
had made no utterance which could be understood
as committing him on the theory as a whole. In
the Praise of Folly he had ridiculed the grosser ab
surdities of the practice, especially the counting up
of the days and years of redemption from Purga
tory, as if salvation were a thing of the multiplica
tion-table. The teaching of the Enchiridion was
hopelessly against any such conception of moral
regeneration. Anyone who had read Erasmus could
not have a moment's doubt that the system of in
dulgences, as it was practised throughout Europe,
must have been repulsive to him in the extreme.
The idea that Erasmus could ever have invested a
penny in such traffic for the advantage of his own
soul or that of anyone dear to him, was grotesquely
absurd. Moreover the circumstances of that special
sale of indulgences in Germany which called out
the wrath of Luther were such as must have seemed
equally outrageous to Erasmus. The barefaced
openness with which the Prince Elector of Mainz
had lent himself to the papal exaction, on condition
that half the plunder should go into his own pocket
to pay for the pallium which the papacy itself had
just granted him, brought out into clearest relief the
292 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
purely mercantile nature of the whole transaction.
It required all the hair-splitting of all the schools to
carry a man through the stages of that bargain and
leave him at last with any tenderness whatever for
the system that made it possible. Yet this was
precisely the feat which Erasmus was apparently to
perform.
We gain a glimpse at the working of his mind on
this subject in the letter to Volzius, called forth by
criticism of the Enchiridion, and dated in August,
I5I8 1 :
" If anyone finds fault with the preposterous opinion
of the vulgar, which gives to the highest virtues the low
est place and vice versa and is specially shocked by un
important evils and the reverse, then one is straightway
called to account as if one favoured those evils which
seem to him less than some other evil ; or as if he were
condemning certain good actions because he thinks
others are even better. So if one teaches that it is safer
to trust in good deeds than in the papal pardons, he is
not condemning those pardons, but is giving the prefer
ence to what is more certainly in accord with the teach
ing of Christ. So also, if one thinks that they act more
wisely who stay at home and look after their wives and
children, than they who go running about to Rome or
Jerusalem or Compostella, and that the money wasted in
long and dangerous journeys were much more piously
spent upon the worthy and honest poor, one is not con
demning the pious impulse of those persons, but is only
preferring what comes nearer to true piety. In truth it
is not a fault of our times alone to attack certain evils as
1 iii. 1 , 343-E.
1519] Correspondence 293
if they were the only ones, while we smooth over, as if
they were not evils at all, others far worse than those we
are abusing."
One feels here an allusion to that overemphasis
on outward organisation which was to be Erasmus*
great objection to the German reform. Instead of
this he would have the true value of the institution
so clearly brought out that it would counteract all
tendency to abuse. This letter was one of the last
pieces of Erasmus' writing at Basel before the long
illness of which he speaks in the letter about his
journey to Louvain. He had spent the year 1518
chiefly at Basel in tireless industry. He arrived at
Louvain only, as we have seen, to break down again.
It was 1519 before we find him drawn directly into
the Lutheran controversy.
The letter to Volzius just quoted was printed as a
preface to a new edition of the Enchiridion in 1518.
The first step in the correspondence with Luther
was taken by Luther himself in March, 1519, and
seems to have been suggested by the very passage
we have here made use of to show Erasmus' feeling
about indulgences. Luther's tone in this first letter
is eminently characteristic of his attitude during
these early years of his public activity. It is modest
and self-depreciating to a degree. Words fail him
to express his admiration for the great scholar. It
is really monstrous that they should not know each
other, when he has so long been worshipping in
silence. 1
1 i., 423-0.
294 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
"Who is there whose inmost being is not filled by Eras
mus ? Who is not being taught by Erasmus ? In whom
does not Erasmus reign ? I mean, of course, among
those who have a true love of letters. For I am glad
enough and I reckon it among the gifts of Christ, that
there are many who do not approve of you. By this test
I discern the gifts of a loving from those of an angry
God, and I congratulate you that while you are most
acceptable to all good men, you are equally disliked by
those who would like to be thought the only great ones
and the only ones to be accepted. But here am I,
clumsy fellow, approaching you thus familiarly with un
washed hands and without formal phrases of reverence
and honour, as one unknown person might address
another. I beg you by your kind nature, lay this to
the account of my affection or my inexperience. In
truth, I whose life has been passed among the school
men, have not so much as learned how to address a truly
learned man by letter. Otherwise, how I would have
wearied you already with epistles ! I would not have
suffered you alone to speak to me all this time in my
study. Now, since I have learned from Fabricius Capito
that my name is known to you through my trifles about
indulgences and learned also from your most recent
preface to the Enchiridion, that my notions have not
only been seen, but have also been accepted by you, I
am compelled to acknowledge, even though in barbarous
style, your noble spirit, which enriches me and all men.
. . . And so, my dear and amiable Erasmus, if you
shall see fit, recognise this your younger brother in
Christ, indeed a most devoted admirer of yours, but
worthy, in his ignorance, only to be buried in his cor
ner and to be unknown to the same sky and sun with
you."
1519] Correspondence 295
The letter closes with an affectionate eulogy of
Philip Melanchthon as the indispensable companion
of his studies.
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of
Luther's attitude at this critical moment. It was
quite true that Erasmus was far beyond him in
scholarly attainment and reputation. It was true
also that the plain meaning of Erasmus' reference
to indulgences in the preface to the Enchiridion
was directly in accord with Luther's own position
in the Theses. If he could be made now, in some
more decided manner, to commit himself to Luther's
cause, it would be a great point gained for reform.
Erasmus gave himself two months before answer
ing these first advances of Luther. His reply is what
we might, from our previous knowledge, have pre
dicted. The letter appeals to him strongly ' :
" Beloved brother in Christ, your letter was most ac
ceptable, at once showing the subtilty of your genius
and breathing the very spirit of Christ."
Then his own personality comes in and he is com
pletely absorbed in the effect of Luther's action
upon himself.
" I have no words to tell you what an excitement your
books have raised here. Up to the present moment the
false suspicion cannot be torn from the minds of these
creatures that your works have been written by my as
sistance and that I am the standard-bearer of this ' fac
tion ' as they call it. Some think that a handle is given
1 iii. 1 , 444-D
296 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
them for attacking sound learning, toward which they
have a deadly hatred as an offence against Her Theo
logical Majesty, for whom they care vastly more than
they do for Christ, and also for quashing me, whom
they fancy to be of some avail in encouraging learning.
" The whole affair is carried on with shoutings, with
insolent cunning, with slander and trickery, so that if
I had not seen it nay, even felt it myself, I would
never have believed, on any authority, that theologians
could be so insane. You might suppose it was a regular
plague ; and yet the poison of this evil began with a few
and crept into the many, so that now a great part of this
much frequented university is infected with this poison
ous disease. I have sworn that you were totally un
known to me, that I had not yet read your books, and
therefore that I neither approved nor disapproved any
thing in them. I only advised them not to keep bawl
ing out so hatefully to the people about your books,
which they had not yet read, but to await the judgment
of those whose opinion ought to have most weight. I
begged them to consider whether it was well to abuse
before a promiscuous crowd things which ought more
properly to be refuted in books or discussed by learned
men, especially as there was but one opinion as to the
excellence of the author's life. But nothing did any
good ; so furious are they in their underhanded and
scandalous discussions."
He, Erasmus, becomes at once the central point
in his own field of vision. Luther has friends in
England, even some in Louvain.
"But I keep myself, so far as I can, integrum [shall
we say ' uncompromised ' ?] in order that I may the
FRONTISPIECE (ERASMUS SEATED) TO " ERASMI OPERA,"
PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN, 1703.
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 297
better serve the reviving cause of letters ; and I think a
well-mannered reserve will accomplish more than vio
lence, etc. We ought to keep an even temper, lest it
be spoiled by anger, hatred, or vainglory ; for in the
very midst of a zeal for religion these things are apt to
be lying in wait for us. I am not urging you to do all
this, but just to keep on as you are doing. I have
glanced over (degustavi) your commentaries on the
Psalms ; they appeal to me greatly and I hope they will
be of great value."
We have omitted a string of commonplaces about
moderation and gentleness, which must have helped
to make this letter rather cold comfort to Luther.
If it meant anything to him, it meant that Erasmus
really agreed with his views on indulgences and the
state of the Church in general, but was already
dreading the effect of putting these views boldly
and clearly before the world. What Luther wanted
in the spring of 1519 was not pious exhortation to
keep his temper, but a grip of the hand and a frank
word of approval. Whether Erasmus was going to
have a bad time with the men of darkness at Lou-
vain could not interest him. The question was:
would Erasmus stand by him, yes or no ? and so
far the answer was not encouraging. To one who
knew the kind of language Erasmus was wont to
apply to his opponents, it must have seemed gro
tesquely out of place for him to exhort Luther to
gentleness of speech.
The dread of being charged with the authorship
of Luther's works and of others similar in their pur
pose, seems to have been the one thing uppermost
298 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
in the mind of Erasmus during these years 1518 and
1519. His correspondence is full of it. He took
pains, in a fashion which he had never before shown,
to set himself right with all the great persons with
whom he had any connection.
The earliest in the group of apologetic letters
brought out by the charge that Luther was only
expressing Erasmus' ideas in somewhat bolder form
is one written to Cardinal Wolsey in May, 1518.'
Here begin the phrases afterwards to become so
familiar:
" Luther is as unknown to me as he is to anyone, nor
have I had leisure to turn over his books except here
and there a page ; not that I shrank from the work,
but that other occupations left me no time for it. And
yet certain persons, as I hear, are saying that I have
been helping him. If he has written well I deserve no
praise ; if otherwise I merit no blame since in all his
writings not so much as one jot is mine, and anyone
can prove this who wishes to investigate it. The man's
way of life is approved by all, and this is no slight argu
ment in his favour, that his character is so sound that
not even enemies can find anything to criticise. But
even if I had ever so much time for reading him I can
not take upon myself to pronounce upon the writings of
so great a man, even though nowadays boys are every
where, with the greatest boldness, declaring this to be
false and that to be heretical. At one time indeed I was
a little hard upon Luther, fearing that some cause for
enmity against sound learning might be given, and desir
ing not to see that cause burdened any further. For I
1 This is Leclerc's date. Stichart prefers Dec. 18, 1517.
1519] Correspondence 299
could not help seeing how much enmity would be
aroused if things were to be broken up from which a
rich harvest was being reaped by priests and monks.
" There appeared first quite a number of propositions
about papal indulgences; then one and another pamphlet
about confession and penance. When I heard that cer
tain persons were eager to publish these I seriously ad
vised against it, lest they should be adding to the enmity
against learning. There will be witnesses of this, even
men who wish well to Luther. Finally there came a
swarm of pamphlets ; no one saw me reading them ; no
one heard me praising them or not praising them. For
I am not so rash as to approve what I have not read, nor
such a trickster as to condemn what I know nothing
about, though this is nowadays a regular practice of
those who ought to know better. Germany has some
young men who give great promise of learning and elo
quence, through whose work I predict that she may
some day have cause to boast as England is now boast
ing with the best of reasons. Of these no one is person
ally known to me except Eobanus, Hutten, and Beatus.
These men are fighting with every form of weapon
against the enemies of the languages and of sound learn
ing, which all good men are favouring. I should admit
myself that their freedom of speech was intolerable, did
I not know in what shameful fashion they are annoyed
both in public and in private. Their opponents allow
themselves in public preaching, in schools, in banquets,
to declaim anything they please in the most hateful, nay,
in the most treasonable manner, before the ignorant
multitude, yet think it an unbearable thing if one of
these scholars dares to comment. Why ! the very bees
have stings to strike with when they are hurt and flies
have teeth to defend themselves if they are attacked.
300 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
Whence conies this new race of gods ? They make
' heretics ' of whom they will, but move heaven and earth
if anyone calls them slanderers. . . .
" I am in favour of these scholars in this sense : that
I look rather to their virtues than to their vices. And
when one considers how soaked in vice were those
men who in Italy and France gave the first impulse to
the revival of ancient learning, one cannot help favour
ing these men of ours whose characters are such that
their theological censors would do well to imitate them
rather than abuse them.
" Now whatever they write is suspected to be my
work, even with you in England, if only men of affairs
who come hither from there are telling the truth. In
deed, I confess frankly : I cannot help admiring their
talent, but a too free pen I approve in no man. First
Hutten sent out as a joke his Nemo ; everyone knows
the argument of it was mere folly, but the Louvain theo
logians kept saying it was my work, and they fancy
themselves more sharp-sighted than Lynceus himself.
Then came the Febris [also by Hutten] ; that was
mine too ! though the whole spirit and style of it dif
fered from mine. Then appeared the Oratio of Mosel-
lanus in which he takes the part of the three languages
against these tongue-lashers. They thought to make me
smart for it, even when I had not yet heard that the
Oratio was in existence ; as if whatever comes into the
head of this man or that man to write, I must be ac
countable for it or as if I had not enough to do to defend
what I have written myself. They are Germans ; they
are young men ; they have pens ; they are not wanting
in ability ; nor are there lacking those who irritate them
by their hatred, nor those who spur them on, and then
pour cold water on them.
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 301
" All these I have warned in my letters to keep their
freedom within bounds ; at all events not to attack the
leading men of the Church, lest they provoke against
learning the hostility of those very men through whose
patronage it is standing up against its enemies and thus
burden the defenders of polite letters with this enmity.
But what can I do ? I can warn, but I cannot compel.
To moderate my own style is within my power, but not
to answer for another's pen. The most ridiculous thing
is that the recent work of the bishop of Rochester against
Faber is ascribed to me, whereas the difference of style
is as great as I am far removed from the learning of that
divine prelate. Why ! there were some who charged
More's Utopia upon me ! whatever appears is mine,
willing or no.
" I have never sent forth a work, and I never will,
without putting my name to it. Some time ago I wrote
for amusement my Moria, without malice though per
haps with more than enough freedom of speech. But I
have always taken pains that nothing should go forth
from me which could corrupt youth by its obscenity, or
could in any way offend religion, or give rise to sedition
or party violence, or make a single black line upon the
good name of another. The sweat I have spent up to
this time has been spent in aiding solid learning and in
advancing the religion of Christ. All are thanking me
for it on every hand, excepting a very few theologians
and monks, who refuse to be made either better or
more learned. . . .
" If anyone cares to make the trial he will find Eras
mus serving the See of Rome with his whole heart and
especially Leo the tenth, to whose piety he is well
aware how much he is indebted."
Precisely the same tone of nervous anxiety about
302 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
himself appears in a letter to Cardinal Campeggio,
the papal legate in England. 1 He assures him that,
so far as in him lay, he has tried to maintain the
cause of Christ and the Church. Of course he can
not please everyone, but he has been satisfied. with
the praise of the best men from Pope Leo down.
" But see," he cries, " the perverse and ungrateful ill-
will of some men. They do not trust to writings and ar
guments, but attack me with slanderous tricks. Whatever
books come out in these days, in which anybody is too
free with his pranks, they put it upon me. There ap
peared the Nemo for that is the name of a certain silly
book ; they charged me with it and would have made
out their case if the angry author had not appeared and
claimed his work for himself. There came out certain
foolish letters and there were plenty of people to say I
had helped to write them. Finally there came I know
not with what parentage a work of Martin Luther, an
author as unknown to me as the most unknown person
in the world ; I have not yet read the book through and
yet at the very beginning they kept saying it was my
work, the truth being that not one stroke in it is mine."
He begs Campeggio to contradict these scandalous
lies, and to rest assured that he never has written
and never will write books of this sort. The card
inal's reply was as friendly and reassuring as could
be wished, but may interest us especially because it
makes no direct reference to the Lutheran move
ment.
To Pope Leo Erasmus wrote in regard to the
second edition of his New Testament.' The first
iii.', 436. s iii.', 490.
i 5 ig] Correspondence 303
edition had been, he says, well received by all but
very few. His description of these few critics is
highly characteristic :
" Some are too stupid to be convinced by reasonable
argument ; some too conceited to be willing to learn
better ; some too obstinate to give up their position, bad
though it be ; some too old to hope ever to do anything
worth doing ; some so ambitious that they cannot bear to
seem to have been ignorant of anything ; but all are men of
such a kind, that it is not worth while to try for their
approval. Indeed that was a clever saying of Seneca :
' There are people by whom it is better to be abused
than praised.'
"Among these people there is scarce one who has
read my books. They were afraid for their power, some
even for their gain, if the world should begin to grow
wiser. What they themselves really think I know not,
but they try to make the uneducated crowd believe that
a knowledge of the languages and what they call good
letters are opposed to the study of theology, whereas
there is no science to which they are a greater help and
adornment. These men, born under the wrath of the
Muses and the Graces, are fighting ceaselessly against
learning, which in these our days is just rising to greater
fruitfulness. Their chief hope of victory is in slander
ous trickery. If they come out in books they simply
betray their folly and ignorance. If they are met by
reasoning, the evident truth overcomes them at once.
So they confine themselves to making an uproar with
the ignorant mob and among foolish women, who are
easy to impose upon, especially under the pretext of
religion, which these people are wonderfully clever in
assuming. They put forth terrible words ' heresy ! '
304 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
' Antichrist ! ' They keep declaring that the Christian
religion is in danger and already toppling over, and pre
tend that they are holding it up on their shoulders ; and
in all these hateful charges they mingle the names of the
languages and of polite literature. These horrible things,
they say, have sprung from ' poetry ' for so they call
whatever belongs to elegant learning that is, whatever
they themselves do not understand. Such nonsense as
this they do not hesitate to blather out in public sermons,
and then ask to be called heralds of apostolic doctrine !
They abuse the name of the Roman pontiff and of the
Roman see, a thing sacred to everyone, as it ought to be.
" By these trickeries they are preparing to assault the
cause of letters, now just beginning to flourish, and also
that purified theology which is learning to know once
more its own true sources. Nothing is left untried ;
every sort of calumny is thought out against those by
whose work these studies seem to be growing ; and
among these they reckon me. Now, how much of im
portance I have contributed I know not, but surely I
have striven with all my might to kindle men from those
chilling argumentations in which they had so long been
frozen up, to zeal for a theology which should be at
once more pure and more serious. And that this labour
has so far not been in vain I perceive from this, that
certain persons are furious against me, who cannot value
anything which they are not able to teach and are
ashamed to learn. But, trusting to Christ as my witness,
whom my writings above all would guard, to the judg
ment of your Holiness, to my own sense of right, and
the approval of so many distinguished men, I have
always disregarded the yelpings of these people. What
ever little talent I have, it has been, once for all, dedi
cated to Christ ; it shall serve his glory alone ; it shall
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 305
serve the Roman Church, the prince of that Church, but
especially your Holiness, to whom I owe more than my
whole duty.
" I might, if I had listened to other arguments, have
been advanced to wealth and dignities ; I can prove by
the most solemn testimony that what I am saying is true.
But this seemed to me a greater reward ; I preferred to
serve the glory of Christ, rather than my own. From a
boy I have made it my care never to write anything ir
religious or scurrilous or against authority. Or if I
formerly chattered away a little too freely, after the habit
of youth, certainly nothing becomes my present age but
serious and holy things. No one was ever made one
hair the blacker or the less religious by my writings ; no
disturbance has ever arisen or ever shall arise on my
account. No malice of my accusers shall ever overcome
this fixed determination of my mind. Let others see to
it what they write ; I am not judging the slave of another;
let every man stand or fall to his own master. My only
grief is that through the bitter controversies of some
persons the peace of learning and of the Christian com
monwealth is being endangered."
Here he seems to shift his ground from the attacks
of the men of darkness to the Lutheran " tragedy."
" The affair seems no longer to be conducted with the
weapons of argument, but the battle rages with violent
abuse on both sides ; biting pamphlets are the weapons
and the uproar is swelling into madness, with mutual
maledictions. There is no one, unless he were more
than man, who does not sometimes slip, but these
human lapses, if they are of such sort that we cannot
wink at them, ought to be corrected with Christian
charity. Now they are turning to evil even that which
306 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
is rightly spoken, often that which they do not under
stand. With bitter words they make raw sores which
might have been healed by Christian gentleness ; they
alienate by harshness men whom they might have kept
by kindness. The word ' heresy ' is straightway in their
mouths, if at any point they differ or wish to seem to
differ. If anything does not exactly suit them, they raise
seditious cries among the rude and untaught people.
These things, springing from slight beginnings, have
often kindled a wide-spread conflagration, and it comes
to pass that an evil, overlooked at first as of small ac
count, increasing little by little, finally bursts forth into
a serious disturbance of the peace of Christendom.
Great praise is due to those excellent kings who have
quieted the very beginnings of these dissensions, as
Henry VIII. in England, and Francis I. in France. In
Germany, because that country is divided up among so
many little kings, the same cannot be done. Among us,
since we have but just acquired our prince [Charles V.
was elected emperor, June 28, 1519], great and excellent
as he is, yet he is so far removed that, up to the present
time, certain men are exciting tumults without reproof.
I think, therefore, that your Holiness would be acting
most acceptably to Christ if you should impose silence
upon such contentions as these and should do for the
whole Christian world what Henry and Francis have
done, each for his own kingdom. Your piety is bring
ing the most powerful kings into harmony ; it remains
for you, by the same means, to restore to learning the
peace which is its due. This will come to pass, if by
your order they who cannot speak shall cease their
babbling against polite learning, and they who have no
tongues for blessing shall cease cursing those who are
devoted to the tongues."
i 5 r 9 ] Correspondence 307
This letter rewards somewhat careful reading.
Two ideas are obviously before the writer's mind :
First, the cause of sound learning and its application
to theology, the cause with which he identifies him
self so completely that every attack upon it seems a
personal assault upon him, and vice versa. Second,
the Lutheran uprising, now beginning to show its
possibilities of danger. Erasmus names no names,
but the solemn warning to the pope as to the little
flame that may grow to a consuming fire seems to
point plainly enough to Luther, and the distinction
so carefully drawn between Germany and the com
pact monarchies of France and England confirms
this idea. It is a warning prophetic in its clearness
of insight, but naive to the point of childishness in
its suggestions of a remedy. The new little emperor
was not only ingenti semotus intervallo from the field
of Luther's activity, but the very constitution of
Germany made it utterly out of the question that
he could take any action whatever against Luther
except by the consent of the prince who was his
immediate sovereign. The " reguli," the " little
kings " in Germany, had not bought their inde
pendence by centuries of conflict to suffer any such
burnings at the stake and cutting-off of heads by
any emperor as those capable youths, Henry and
Francis, could command at will in London or Paris.
Nor was there any more promise in Erasmus' sug
gestion that the pope should order the parties in
conflict to keep silence. The Leipzig disputation
of Luther with John Eck in July of this same year
(1519) was to bring out clearly that, after all, the
308 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
real issue touched the papal authority, and when
that was questioned it was idle to imagine that any
papal action whatever could really affect the course
of events.
There is a certain variation upon this suggestion
in the dedication to Cardinal Campeggio of the para
phrases of certain epistles of Paul in 1519.' After a
most flattering eulogy of Leo X. for his great in
terest in sound learning, Erasmus says:
" If a means of pacification is sought for, I think it
might most easily be accomplished if the pope should
command that each person prepare a statement of his
own belief and set it forth, without abuse of opposing
views, so that the madness of tongue and pen may be
restrained, especially by those to whom such control be
longs. But if there is a difference, as it often happens
that our judgments differ like our tastes, let the whole
contention be held within the limits of courtesy and not
run over into mad excess. And if there be any point
specially touching upon doctrine for everything ought
not to be dragged in, neck and heels, under the head of
doctrine let it be discussed by men who are thoroughly
versed in the mysteries of the faith, who will not seek
their own interests under the pretence of the faith and
who will carry on the affair with prudent judgment, not
with seditious disturbances."
Erasmus thinks he can easily, persuade Campeggio
and that the cardinal will easily persuade the ex
cellent Leo. Where the superhuman beings are to
be found who will carry out his innocent suggestions
1 vii., 969.
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 309
he does not say. We are bound to give him credit
for any constructive ideas he may have had, and in
all his writings there is nothing that comes much
nearer to positive constructive planning than this.
If one may judge from the letter to Leo, Erasmus'
early conception of the Lutheran movement was
much like that which prevailed at Rome. It was a
squabble of monks; Luther was an Augustinian,
Tetzel a Dominican. Most monks were enemies of
learning Luther was a man of learning, but in
clined to violence and not willing to keep the mat
ter to a purely intellectual issue. He was, of
course, right on many points, but was going too
fast and was drawing after him many foolish people,
who ought to be held in check by the established
powers.
Quite the same tone appears in a long letter ' to
Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mainz, the
papal agent in the German indulgence of 1517 and
the principal clergyman in Germany. Erasmus
takes the opportunity of acknowledging the gift of
a loving-cup from the archbishop to go at length
into the Lutheran question. He reaches it again
through the medium of his own personal difficulties.
For a time, he says, he had made peace with the
theologians " at Louvain. They were to hold
their scandalous tongues; he was to do his best to
keep his pen still. If only they had had the arch
bishop's cup to drink their mutual faith in, the
agreement might have lasted longer. As it is, an
unhappy letter, badly understood and worse inter-
1 iii., 5 1 3-D.
Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
preted, has brought on an attack more furious than
ever. He begs to explain ' :
" In the first place, I have never had anything to do,
either with the Reuchlin business or with the affair of
Luther. Whatever Cabala and Talmud may be, they
have never attracted me. Those contentions between
Reuchlin and the followers of Hoogstraaten were most
displeasing to me. Luther is to me unknown as the
most unknown of men. His writings I have not had
time to read, excepting that I have just barely skimmed
over some of them."
It is very difficult to believe that these statements
are true. Erasmus had interested himself in Reuch-
lin's affairs enough to write to two Roman cardinals
in his behalf. He knew enough about Luther's
writings to have convinced himself that their tone
was too decided to suit him ; if he had not read
every word of them, he was thoroughly informed as
to their contents. The motive of his denial appears
in the next words:
" If he has written well, no praise belongs to me, if not
there is nothing which can be laid to my charge. . . .
I was sorry that the books of Luther were published and
when first some writings or other of his began to be
shown about, I did my best to prevent their publication,
especially because I feared that some tumult would be
caused thereby. Luther had written me a letter in what
I thought a very Christian spirit and I answered, warn
ing the man not to write anything seditious or insolent
against the Roman pontiff, but to preach the apostolic
1 iii. 1 , 5I4-A.
1519] Correspondence 311
doctrine with pure heart and in all gentleness. I did
this politely that it might have the more effect. I added
that there were some here who favoured him, that he
might the more accommodate himself to their judgment.
Now some have most stupidly interpreted these words
as if I favoured Luther, whereas no one of those per
sons gave him any advice ; I was the only one who
warned him. I am neither the accuser of Luther, nor
his patron, nor his judge. As to the man's spirit, I dare
not judge him, for that is a most difficult matter, espe
cially if I must judge him unfavourably.
" And yet, even if I did favour him as a good man,
which his enemies admit him to be ; or as an accused
man, and that the laws permit even to sworn judges ; or
as a man oppressed and crushed down by those who,
under some made-up pretext, are working all they can
against pure learning, what ground of fault-finding
against me were that, so long as I do not mix myself in
the matter ? In fine, it seems to me the part of a Christ
ian to favour Luther, in this sense, that if he is innocent
I do not wish him to be crushed by the factions of the
wicked ; if he is wrong I wish him to be set right, not
ruined. . . .
" But now certain theologians whom I know are
neither warning nor teaching Luther, but are only with
mad howlings reviling him before the people and tearing
him in pieces with the most violent abuse and continu
ally having in their mouths the words ' heresy ! ', ' here
tic ! ', ' heresiarch ! ', ' schism ! ', ' antichrist ! ' It cannot
be denied that these clamours were raised among the
people chiefly by men who had never seen the books of
Luther. It is well proved that things are condemned by
these people as heretical in Luther which in Bernard or
Augustine are read as orthodox, nay, as pious words. I
312 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
warned them at the beginning to abstain from clamour
of this sort and to carry on the affair rather with writings
and arguments. I said they ought not publicly to con
demn what they had not read and carefully thought out,
I will not say, understood. Then I told them it was
unbecoming for theologians to carry anything through
by violence, for their judgment ought to be of the most
serious kind, and that it was not an easy thing to gain
their point by raging against a man whose life was ap
proved by everyone. Finally, that perhaps it was not
a safe thing to touch upon such matters before a mixed
crowd, in which there are many who greatly dislike the
confession of secret sins and if these should hear that
there are theologians who say one need not confess all
faults, they will readily snatch at it and get a perverted
notion. Now though all this must strike every man of
spirit as it does me, yet from this friendly admonition
they have conceived the suspicion that Luther's books
are in great part mine, and produced at Louvain, whereas
not one stroke in them is mine or published with my
knowledge or my will. Still, acting upon this false sus
picion and in spite of all denial, they have raised here
disturbances more furious than I have ever seen in my
life.
" Further, though the special function of theologians is
to teach, I see many nowadays who are doing nothing
but compelling men, bringing them to ruin or to silence,
whereas Augustine, even in the case of the Donatists,
who were not merely heretics but furious brigands, does
not approve those who would merely compel, without
also teaching them. Men to whom gentleness is a duty,
seem to be simply thirsting for human blood, so eager
are they to ensnare and ruin Luther. Now this is play
ing the butcher, not the theologian. If they want to
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 313
show themselves great theologians let them convert the
Jews, let them turn to Christ those who are strangers to
him, let them mend the public morals of Christians, even
more corrupt than those of Turks. What justice is there
in leading him to punishment, who has now first proposed
for discussion things which have always been discussed
in all the schools of theologians ? Why ought he to be
persecuted, who begs to be instructed, who submits him
self to the judgment of the Roman See and of the schools,
which they call 'universities?' And if he refuses to
trust himself in the hands of certain persons who would
rather see him crushed than instructed, surely that is not
strange."
For a man who was a total stranger to Luther and
his books, Erasmus shows himself surprisingly well
informed.
" Let us examine into the origin of the present troubles.
The world is burdened with human devices, with the
opinions and the dogmas of the schools, with the tyr
anny of the Mendicant Friars, who, though they are
the servants of the Roman See, are making themselves
a danger to the pope himself and even to kings, by
their power and their numbers. When the pope is work
ing for them he is more than a God ; if he does anything
contrary to their convenience, he is of no more ac
count than a dream. I am not condemning them all ;
but very many are the kind of persons, who for the sake
of power and gain are seeking to ensnare the consciences
of men. With shameless effrontery they were beginning
to leave out Christ entirely and to preach nothing but
their own novel and impudent doctrines. About indulg
ences they were talking in a way that not even idiots
3H Desiderius Erasmus [i 5 is
could stand. Through this and many other things the
vigour of apostolic teaching was gradually disappearing
and it was likely to happen that things would go from
bad to worse until that spark of Christian piety should
be extinguished, from which the dying flame of Christian
love might have been rekindled. The whole of religion
was turning towards more than Jewish ceremonialism.
Good men grieved over all these things. Even theolog
ians who are not monks, and some monks, confessed to
them in private conversation. These are the things, as
I think, which first moved the heart of Luther to set
himself boldly against the intolerable insolence of cer
tain persons. For what else can I suspect of a man who
is aiming at neither honours nor wealth ? As to the pro
positions which they object to in Luther, I am not at
present discussing them, but only the manner and the
occasion of them.
" Luther dared to have doubts about indulgences, but
others before him had made bold enough statements
about these. He dared to speak rather unrestrainedly
about the authority of the Roman pontiff ; but others
had shown little enough restraint in this matter, and
among them especially Alvarus, Sylvester, and the car
dinal of San Sisto. He dared despise the judgment of
St. Thomas, but the Dominicans had almost set Thomas
above the Gospels. He dared in the matter of the con
fessional to discuss certain scruples, but in this thing the
monks have entangled the consciences of men without
limit. He dared in part to despise the conclusions of
the schools ; but they had laid far too great weight upon
these, and yet cannot agree upon them among themselves,
but are always changing them, cutting out the old and
putting in new. This was a pain to pious souls : to hear
in the schools scarcely a word about the apostolic teach-
Pallas Apellazam nuper mirata labelUtm,
Hone ail , ttternum Blbliotheca colat.
Dtcdateam mon/lrat Mn/lf HOLBEINNIUS arlem,
Et/ummi Ingenii Magnus ERASMUS opes.
ERASMUS WITH "TERMINUS."
FROM A WOODCUT BY HOLBEIN, IN THE BASEL MUSEUM,
1519] Correspondence 315
ing, but to learn that the ancient sacred writers, long
approved by the Church, were now quite antiquated, and
to hear in public preaching seldom a word of Christ,
but always of the power of the pope and the opinions
of the moderns ; to know that the whole discourse was
filled with lust of gain, with flatteries, ambition, and
deceit.
" I think the blame ought to be put upon these things,
if Luther wrote a little too violently. Whoever defends
the apostolic doctrine defends the pope, who is its chief
herald, as the rest of the bishops are his heralds. All
bishops stand in the place of Christ, but among them the
Roman pontiff stands first. We must believe of him that
he cares for nothing more than the glory of Christ, whose
minister he boasts himself to be. They deserve very
badly of him who ascribe to him things which he would
not himself recognise and which are far from helpful to
the flock of Christ. And yet some who are stirring up
these disorders are not doing it out of love for the pope,
but are abusing his authority for their own profit and
power. We have, as I believe, a pious pope ; but in the
vast flood of affairs there are many things of which he is
ignorant, which even if he would he cannot get at, but
as Virgil says, the driver is ' swept along by the steeds
and the car heeds not the rein.' He therefore is aiding
the good-will of the pope, who exhorts him to those
things that are especially worthy of Christ.
" It is no secret that there are persons who are stirring
up his Holiness against Luther and against all who dare
to murmur against their dogmas. But the great princes
ought rather to consider what is demanded by the per
manent will of the pope, than by a loyalty extorted by
base means. What kind of people the authors of these
dissensions are I could make perfectly clear, if I did not
316 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
fear that while I am telling the truth I may seem to be
uttering abuse. Many of them I know intimately ; many
have declared their quality by their writings, so that no
mirror could more clearly reflect the image of their heart
and life. Would that they who take up the Censor's
rod to drive out of the Senate of Christians whomever
they will, had drunk more deeply of the teaching and
the spirit of Christ. . . .
" I say these things the more freely because I stand in
every way utterly apart from the case of Reuchlin and
Luther. I should never care to write things of that sort,
nor can I claim so much learning for myself as to defend
what others have written, but I cannot help making this
mystery plain : that those men [the opponents of Luther]
are aiming at something quite different from what they
pretend. They have long been unable to bear the idea
of sound learning and the languages flourishing, the an
cient authors coming to life, who were until just now
lying covered with dust and eaten up by moths, the
world called back to the original sources themselves.
They tremble for their own emptiness, they are unwilling
to appear ignorant of anything ; they fear to lose some
thing of their own authority. They have long been
pressing upon this sore, and at last it has broken, for
the pain could no longer be concealed. Before the
books of Luther appeared they were most urgent in this
thing, especially Dominicans and Carmelites, of whom I
would that many were not more wicked than ignorant.
" When Luther's books came out they seized upon them
as a handle and began to bring the cause of the lan
guages, of sound learning, of Reuchlin and Luther, nay,
even my cause also, together into one bundle, making
not only a bad exposition, but also a bad distinction. For,
in the first place, what has sound learning to do with the
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 317
question of faith, and, in the next place, what have I to
do with the case of Reuchlin and Luther? But these
people have cunningly mingled these matters together
so as to involve in one common hatred all who cultivate
sound learning. That they are not acting honestly is
evident from this fact : they confess that there is no
one among ancient or modern writers who has not made
mistakes and they will make a heretic of anyone who
obstinately defends himself ; but why do they pass over
the rest and so persistently examine into one or two ?
They are not disturbed because Alvarus and the cardinal
of San Sisto and Sylvester Prierias have often erred; they
say not a word of these because they are Dominicans.
They cry out against Reuchlin alone because he is an
enthusiastic lover of the languages ; against Luther be
cause they imagine him to be endowed with our learn
ing, whereas he has but just barely touched it. Luther
has written many things rather rashly than wickedly,
and among these things they are especially enraged be
cause he has little respect for Thomas Aquinas, because
he is diminishing the revenue from indulgences, be
cause he cares little for the begging Friars, because he
pays less respect to the dogmas of the schools than to
the Gospels, because he takes no account of human ar
gumentations about disputed points. Intolerable heresies
these are !
" But these things they pass over and make hateful
charges to the pope, these men who are united and eager
only in doing harm. Formerly the heretic was heard
respectfully and absolved if he gave satisfaction, but if
he persisted and was convicted, the extreme penalty was
that he was not admitted to the communion of the
Catholic Church. Now the charge of heresy is a differ
ent thing and yet, for some slight reason, no matter
318 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
what, straightway their mouths are full of the cry : ' This
is heresy ! ' Formerly he was a heretic who differed
from the Gospels or the articles of faith or from some
thing which had an authority equal to these. Now, if
anyone differ from Thomas, he is called a heretic ; nay,
if he differ from some new-fangled logic, patched up but
yesterday by any sophist of the schools. Whatever they
do not like, whatever they do not understand, is heresy !
to know Greek is heresy ! to speak correctly is heresy !
whatever they do not do is heresy ! I confess that the
charge of violation of the faith is a serious one, but not
any and every question ought to be turned into a ques
tion of faith. They who deal with matters of faith ought
to be far removed from every form of ambition, of
money-making, of personal hatred, or of revenge. But
what these people are chiefly concerned with, who can be
in doubt ? If once the reins of their greed are let loose,
they will begin everywhere to rage against every good
man. Finally they will threaten the bishops themselves
and even the Roman pontiffs ; and in fact you may call
me a liar, if we are not seeing this done by some already.
How far the order of the Dominicans will dare to go we
may learn from Jerome Savonarola and the crime of
Bern. 1 I am not bringing up again the bad name of
that order, but I am only giving warning as to what we
must look out for if they are to succeed in whatever they
are bold enough to undertake. What I have said thus
far has nothing to do with Luther's cause ; I am speak
ing only of the manner and the danger of it. The case
of Reuchlin the pope has taken upon himself. Luther's
1 The reference is to a celebrated fraud perpetrated by the Domin
icans of Bern to demonstrate their superiority over their Franciscan
rivals. The fraud was detected and the ringleaders were burned
alive, 1509.
Correspondence 319
business is referred to the universities and whatever they
may decide is no risk of mine."
The letter concludes with the now familiar pro
testations that he, Erasmus, has nothing whatever
to do with the present troubles, but is merely giving
a timely warning.
This letter to Archbishop Albert is the most im
portant in the group we are now considering. It
shows us practically every aspect of Erasmus' posi
tion in the year 1519, and suggests the numerous
lines of comment thereon. The least convincing
parts of it are those which refer to himself person
ally. These may be sufficiently explained by that
joy in fancying himself persecuted which we have
noted in him from the first. It needed but very
slight foundations for him to build up a whole fab
ric of imaginary assaults, aimed at him because he
was the one great source from which all intellect
ual energy might seem to flow. It was like his van
ity to be vastly flattered if someone suggested that
Luther could never have done what he had done
without Erasmus' help, and he magnified that sug
gestion by saying it over and over to his numerous
correspondents in every possible variation. The
repeated declaration that he knew nothing about
Luther or his books is too silly to deserve attention.
He shows the most complete comprehension of
what Luther was doing, and practically contradicts
himself within the space of a few lines by stating
that he has " taken a taste " of certain Lutheran
books and been greatly attracted by them.
Another curious point is his insistence upon
326 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
grouping Luther and Reuchlin together and setting
himself over against them. In fact the points of
view of these two men were at least as different as
was that of Erasmus from either of them. Reuchlin
was above all things a Humanist, a man of " the
languages," and the " tragedy " in which he was
concerned, his quarrel with the Dominicans of
Cologne, had reference to the use which might
properly be made of Hebrew by a sound Christian
scholarship. All this was certainly very closely
allied with the work of Erasmus and had no direct
connection with that of Luther; yet Erasmus, furi
ously anxious not to seem to have anything in com
mon with either, has no scruple in joining them
together in one common reproach.
All this gives an effect of pettiness to Erasmus'
attitude towards the Reformation and tends to ob
scure his actual service. So far as one can get at
his real meaning, it is something like this: the real
authors of the present troubles are the mysterious
people whom he here continually refers to as "cert
ain persons " or " those men," and whom he occas
ionally defines more specifically as the monks or the
enemies of sound learning. Luther is right in calling
attention to the evils of church life ; he is not the
first to do it, and Erasmus heartily agrees with him.
' Those people " are attacking Luther because they
feel, as well they may, that their rights and privi
leges are in danger, if men are going to listen to his
criticism. They are catching, therefore, at every
excuse to charge him with heresy. Erasmus affects
to believe that pope, cardinals, and all good and
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 321
reasonable men will see through these attempts and
will hasten to save the Church by accepting what is
valuable in this Lutheran criticism and acting upon
it at once.
But, and here is the line of distinction, there
was also in Luther's appeal an element of doctrine,
an implication at least that the Church was false to
its own teaching as to the direct relation between
God and the soul of man. The consequences of
this doctrinal implication were, as Erasmus must
have felt at once, of the most far-reaching sort, and
he was not prepared to follow them up. An un
conditional declaration in Luther's favour would
have seemed to commit him to the doctrinal as
well as to the practical conclusions from Luther's
premises.
This gives at least a shadow of reasonableness to
his refinement of distinction between merely reading
over the works of Luther and making such careful
study of them as would enable him to attempt a
reply. On the 23rd of September, 1521, he writes
to Bombasius in Bologna 1 :
" I am wholly occupied with revising my New Testa
ment and some other works, trying like the bears gradu
ally to lick into shape the crude product of my talents.
But soon I hope to have more leisure. I have been
trying hard to persuade Aleander to give me permission
to read Luther's writings ; for nowadays the world is
full of sycophants and prize-fighters. He said emphatic
ally he could not do this without a special permit from
the pope ; so I wish you would get this for me in the
Mii. 1 , 665-6.
322 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
form of some kind of a brief. For I do not want to give
a handle to these knaves, who would like nothing better."
His bete noire at Louvain seems to have been
a person called Egmund, a Carmelite monk, who
may serve us as the type of " those persons " who
were trying to identify Erasmus with the Lutheran
cause. Writing l to the Rector Magnificus of the
University of Louvain, still in 1519, Erasmus says
that this Egmund had been expressing the pious
hope that as St. Paul had been converted from a
persecutor to a doctor of the Church, so Erasmus
and Luther might some day be converted.
" What will become of these men ? The one thing
they want is to do harm in some way, and it offends
them that I am not a Lutheran, as indeed I am not, ex
cept in so far as Luther serves the glory of Christ. I
know that I am rather free of tongue, but yet no one
has heard me approve the doctrine of Luther. I have
never taken pains to read his books, excepting a few
pages, and these rather skimmed than read. Your con
tentions against Luther I have always consistently fa
voured, but far more your writings, especially those of
John Turenholtius, who, as I hear, has carried on the
discussion in a scholarly way and without personalities."
He has not read Luther, yet he has steadily ap
proved the Louvain contentions against him and
especially the writings of a man of whom he knows
only by hearsay that he writes in good temper!
" If his [Luther's] books were to be burnt, no one
'iii. 1 , 537-
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 323
would find me any the sadder. I have written privately
and said many things to prevent him from writing so
seditiously, and yet I am called a Lutheran ! If these
jokes amuse your university, I am man enough to bear
them ; for I would rather do this than take revenge for
them ; but in my judgment the cause would be better
served by other methods. Vincentius is changing me
with the tumult in Holland, in which after a most foolish
discourse, he came near being stoned to death ; whereas
the truth is I have never written to any Dutchman either
for Luther or against him."
He writes to Mountjoy in the same year * :
" While you are happy for so many reasons I am com
pelled to fight with certain monsters rather than men.
By Hercules ! I would like to try what eloquence might
do, were it not that as I lay my hand upon the hilt a
certain Christian modesty, like Pallas in Homer, seizes
me by the hair and restrains me."
So far Erasmus had stood in an attitude of studied
neutrality. We have to gather from his emphasis
and from the undercurrent of his eloquence our im
pression as to the side on which his sympathies
really lay. If the world could only have stood still
long enough for his wise and cautious suggestions
to affect the parties, all might yet have been well.
Unhappily for the Erasmians of all times, the world
moves, and it does not move strictly according to
rule. Even while Erasmus was exhorting to mild
ness, events were forcing men into partisan attitudes
iii.', 538-C.
324 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
which made his counsel of no avail. There were
enough men who felt passionately the wrongs which
he felt only academically, to force the discussion
into the fighting stage. The more this becomes
evident, the more clearly we see Erasmus moving
over from the position of sympathetic neutrality
towards the reforming party into that of suspicion
and declared hostility.
In the correspondence we have just quoted, the
weight of emphasis is on the provocation which the
reformers had received. They were pretty violent,
but their enemies were worse, and if the highest
authority were to act at all, it would do better to
compel the men of darkness to silence rather than
the excellent Luther and his worthy followers.
How far Erasmus, whether in 1519-20 or at any
later time, really changed his opinion on any of the
points at issue, will probably always remain a sub
ject for controversy. We are concerned with the
change of emphasis by which his final attitude was
determined.
Two letters of 1519, one to Philip Melanchthon,
in the centre of the Lutheran camp, and one to the
Dominican Jacob Hoogstraaten, the head of the
Inquisition at Cologne, will serve to show how
evenly at this time Erasmus distributed the dis
cipline he felt himself called upon to administer to
the new and more tumultuous generation.
One can hardly help smiling at this passage from
the letter to the gentle and peace-loving Melanch
thon, by all means the sweetest-natured of all the
Reformation champions. Erasmus makes him some
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 325
very pretty compliments on his books and then goes
on 1 :
" But, if you will take advice from Erasmus, I wish
you would take more pains in setting forth good learning
than in attacking its enemies. They are indeed worthy
of being assailed by good men with every sort of abuse,
but, if I am not mistaken, we shall accomplish more in
the way I advise. Besides, we ought to fight in such
fashion that we may seem to be their superiors, not only
in eloquence but also in modesty and in good breeding
Everyone here approves of Martin Luther's character,
but there are divers opinions as to his beliefs. I myself
have not yet read his books. Certain things he is right
in calling attention to, but I wish he had done it as
happily as he has boldly. I have written about him to
Duke Frederic."
This letter to Frederic of Saxony, 2 wanting in our
collection, emphasises as strongly as possible the
excellence of Luther as a man, and, while disclaim
ing all interest in his doctrine, urges the Elector to
defend him against his persecution.
Doubtless he was no less favourable to Luther
than he was in the following year, when the Elector
Frederic, finding himself at Cologne on imperial
business, had an interview with Erasmus, of which
his intimate counsellor and biographer Spalatin gives
an account*:
1 Hi. 1 , 431.
2 Karl Hartfelder, " Friedrich der Weise von Sachsen und D.
Erasmus," in Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Liter aturgeschichte, etc.,
N. F., iv., 1891.
3 Friedrichs des Weisen Leben und Zfitgeschichte, von G. Spalatin,
Jena, 1851, p. 164.
326 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
" There at Cologne the most learned Erasmus of Rot
terdam was with the Elector, who talked with him on
all kinds of subjects and asked him if he believed that
Doctor Martin Luther had erred in his writing and
preaching. Thereto he answered in Latin : ' Yes, on
two points, namely, that he has attacked the crown of
the pope and the bellies of the monks.' "
Thereat the Elector laughed and he recalled the
saying a year or so before his death (1525).
Luther contributes to our impression of this inter
view in his Table-talk:
" Doctor Martin said that the Elector Frederic of
Saxony had an interview with Erasmus at Cologne in
1519 and had given him a cloak and said afterward to
Spalatin : ' What kind of a man is Erasmus ? one can
not tell where one stands with him.' And Duke George
said, after his fashion : ' Plague take him ! One never
knows what he is at. I like better the way of the Wit-
tenbergers ; they say yes and no.' "
The letter to Hoogstraaten, who had been the
chief enemy of Reuchlin, was the boldest venture
of Erasmus in this early stage of the Lutheran con
test. It is a monument to the writer's skill in de
fending two sides of a question at once. It is dated
in August, 1519, and begins*:
" When I was reading, some time ago, the books in
which your quarrel with Reuchlin is contained, I was
1 Walch, Luther's IVerke, xxii., 1623-4.
Mii. 1 , 484.
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 3 2 7
often impelled to write to you, first by Christian love,
then by the profession of our common studies and
further by the special affection with which from a boy I
have ever regarded your Order [!], and lastly by an un
common attraction towards you, whom I understand to
be a man of agreeable and courteous manners. That
you are most eagerly devoted to our new studies, your
writings clearly proclaim, which affect throughout refine
ment and elegance of diction and leave no doubt what
your opinion is as to sound learning."
All this tempted Erasmus to give him some good
advice ; but then, on the other hand, he reflected
that good advice is seldom acceptable and generally
harms the adviser. The bishop of Cologne, how
ever, had removed this scruple, and, if he tells the
truth about Hoogstraaten, Erasmus thinks he may
venture on some gentle admonition. At first he
was dreadfully afflicted at Reuchlin's violence; but
then friends told him that Reuchlin must have had
terrible provocation, for that he was naturally the
mildest of men. Then certain persons said hard
things of Hoogstraaten, and finally, when Erasmus
came to read him, he was compelled to say that he
had liked him better before he began to defend
himself. Then, a little while after, he had picked
up "in another person's library " certain furious
letters against Hoogstraaten and, little as these
pleased him, he was able partly to excuse them,
having read the pamphlets which had called them
forth. He is not fighting Reuchlin's battle; rather
Hoogstraaten's, for he is trying to tell him what will
be for his advantage. If he answers that this is
328 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
simply his office as inquisitor, very well; let him
perform his office, but in such a manner that he
may seem to everyone to be doing solely the service
of Christ.
" Had you not done your duty when after so many
years and such a storm of pamphlets you had persecuted
a quite obscure man, who perhaps would never have
been known at all, if you had not made him famous?
and this after the Roman pontiff, learning that the affair
was of such a kind that it was better to drop it than keep
it in agitation any longer, had ordered silence. If any
error dangerous to Christian piety appears, it is first to
be carefully worked out by the discussions of learned
men and then is to be reported to the bishop. When you
have done that your part as inquisitor is done. You have
made the inquiry and have brought it before the proper
authorities. You are not called upon to stir up heaven
and earth and to raise such tumults as these. "Would
that you had spent as much pains, as much money and
time, in preaching the Gospel of Christ. If you had, I
am greatly mistaken or Jacob Hoogstraaten would be a
greater man than he is now, and his name would be far
more honoured among all good men, or at least would
be less hated. As it is, a great part of this hatred falls
upon your Order, which, heavily burdened already by
serious hostilities on many accounts, ought not to be
weighed down by new ones."
Then follows a long defence of some words of
Erasmus quoted by Hoogstraaten, without naming
their author, but which seemed to draw him into
the Reuchlin quarrel. ' May Christ be as favour-
i 5 r 9 ] Correspondence 329
able to me as I am little favourable to the Cabbala! "
He cares nothing for the Jews:
"Who is there among us who does not sufficiently
hate this race of men ? If it is a Christian thing to hate
Jews, we are all good Christians enough ! The one
thing that makes all the trouble is the neglect of learning.
You will be serving much better the cause, not only of
the Dominican order, but also of Theology as a whole,
if you will check by your authority the vacant abuse of
certain persons who everywhere, in public and private
discourses, in disputations, at banquets, and what is
most serious, in public preaching are brawling against
skill in the languages and against polite letters, mingling
with their hatred of these, cries of ' Antichrist ! ' ' heresy ! '
and other violent words of this sort, whereas it is perfectly
clear how greatly the Church is indebted to men skilled
in languages and in eloquence. These studies do not
hide the dignity of theology, but make it more plain ;
do not oppose it, but serve it. You would not straight
way brand the art of music as heretical, if perchance
some musician were to be apprehended as a backslider.
The error of the man is to be condemned, but honour is
still to be paid to his studies. ... If Theology will
join in doing honour to these studies she will in turn be
adorned by them ; but if she abuses and reviles them, I
fear it will come to pass, as Paul says, that while they
are assailing each other with mutual bites, they will
simply be the death of each other."
In view of this correspondence of 1518-19 we
may well consider here the much-discussed question
of Erasmus' personal courage. Of all the charges
33 Desiderius Erasmus [ J5 i8-
brought against him on both sides that of timidity
is the most frequent. Of all the explanations of his
attitude toward the Reformation this is the most
obvious and the most popular. If one can accept it,
it settles promptly and once for all a multitude of
perplexing questions. ' Why did Erasmus not do
or say this thing or that thing ? He was afraid."
In pursuance of our principle not to pretend to know
the motive of every act of Erasmus' life, we shall
not attempt to give one answer that will fit all cases,
but shall venture to be a little Erasmian ourselves
and try to view this matter from more than one side.
We shall have done our work but badly so far if
we have not made it clear that Erasmus believed
in his right to bring all human institutions to judg
ment at the bar of his own mind and conscience.
Nothing which offended his own sense of right could
be wholly acceptable to him. In so far he was an
individual, and claimed his right as such. As an in
dividual, with a mind and conscience of his own, he
had a right, not only to have opinions upon every
subject of human interest, but to express them.
There was no call upon him, any more than upon a
hundred others, to address himself thus to kings,
princes, prelates, popes, inquisitors, and instruct
them as to their duty in a great public crisis. He
did this out of some impelling sense of duty and
of right. If we may put any confidence in anything
he ever said or did, we may rely upon this: that he
felt himself the spokesman of a cause greater than
himself, the cause of a free and sane scholarship.
He was an individual, but of the fifteenth, not of
Correspondence 331
the eighteenth century. The great word of deliver
ance to the modern mind, the " cogito ergo sum,"
had not yet been spoken. Man was still content to
think of himself as hemmed in by standards of
thought and action not created -for him by his own
mind, but given to him as a part of his human in
heritance from the traditions of the past. No estim
ate of individual force can be complete without
this limitation. If Erasmus had lived in the eight
eenth century, he might have been a Voltaire ; but
he was not living in the eighteenth century. He
saw where his time was out of joint, but he did not
believe himself called upon to set it right. His
function was only to point out the evils and, so far
as he could, to appeal to those in authority to
remedy them.
A man merely timid and nothing more could have
found a far easier way to keep himself safe from any
danger of persecution. He might simply have kept
silent, and no one could have said it was his duty to
speak out. It required a very considerable exercise
of courage to say even as much as Erasmus was
willing to say, in a day when Savonarola had so
lately been done to death for merely attempting to
set up in Florence a kingdom of Christ without the
help of the pope. The arm of the Inquisition was
long, its watch was vigilant, and its weapons were
subtle. A man who valued merely his own peace
of mind would hardly be likely to incur its displeas
ure. So far we may go in granting to Erasmus the
quality of courage. He knew he was making
enemies among powerful vested interests. If his
33 2 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
principles of sound learning and reasonable criticism
were to prevail, then, as he frequently said, the
profits of a vast body of place-holders and traders
in all sacred things were going to be diminished,
and they would not suffer this without making a
great demonstration of their power.
On the other hand, nothing was farther from his
nature than any kind of open rupture with esta
blished forms of organisation. His hatred of war
extended to the world of institutions. Revolution
was abhorrent to him, because he thought its evils
were greater than any advantage it might bring.
The moment he fancied he saw this spectre of re
volution, even in the far distance, he was impelled
to modify and explain and warn until he had, for
the moment, satisfied his sense of what was wise
and prudent.
The genius of Erasmus was eminently critical, not
constructive. His misfortune was to live at a crisis
when the merely critical attitude would no longer
serve. The struggle for new construction was be
ginning, and there was where Erasmus began to fail.
Men were looking to him for leadership. Probably
he grossly exaggerates the degree to which all the
criticism of the day was charged upon him. That
exaggeration was nothing more than we might ex
pect from his nervous vanity and his uncontrollable
impulse to make literature whenever he took pen in
hand. Still it contains just this germ of truth : that
the world of scholars felt his power and would have
been glad to follow his lead if he had chosen to take
a leader's place.
i 5 i 9 ] Correspondence 333
How natural the expectation was that Erasmus
would do this we may see from an entry in the
diary of Albert Durer. 1 It was the year 1521.
Luther on his return from Worms had been spirited
away, no one knew whither. Rumours of his death
were spread abroad and carried terror to his numer
ous followers. The simple-hearted painter who the
year before had visited Erasmus in the Low Coun
tries was overwhelmed with dismay. In the midst
of his prosaic little jottings down of travels, paint
ings, presents, and petty bargainings he suddenly
breaks out into a wail of despair:
" Ah God ! is Luther dead ; who will henceforth so
clearly set forth the Gospel to us? Ah God! what
might he not have written in the next ten or twenty
years ! Oh ! all ye pious Christian men, help me ear
nestly to pray and mourn for this God-inspired man, and
pray to God that he send us another enlightened man.
" Oh ! Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou ? Be
hold what the unjust tyranny of earthly power, the might
of darkness, can do. Hear, thou champion of Christ !
ride forth by the side of the Lord Christ ; defend the
truth ; gain the martyr's crown ! As it is, thou art but
a frail old man. I have heard thee say thou hadst given
thyself but a couple more years of active service ; spend
them, I pray, to the profit of the Gospel and the true
Christian faith and believe me the gates of Hell, the
See of Rome, as Christ has said, will not prevail against
thee. And though thou becomest like thy master Christ
and bearest shame from the liars of this world and so
1 Albrecht Dtirer's Tagebuch der Reise in die Niederlande. Ed.
Fr. Leitschuh, 1884, pp. 83, 84.
334 Desiderius Erasmus [1518-
diest a little earlier, yet wilt thou so much the sooner
pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ.
For if thou shalt drink of the cup he drank of, so wilt
thou reign with him and judge with equity them that
have done foolishness. O Erasmus ! stand by us, that
God may praise thee, as is written of David ; for thou
art mighty and thou canst slay Goliath ; for God stands
by the holy Christian churches, as he stands also among
the Romans, according to his divine will."
Doubtless this heartfelt petition of the excellent
Du'rer represents the first impulse of many an honest
soul who thought of Erasmus as a man straightfor
ward as himself, and without any special knowledge
of him jumped to the conclusion that here was the
natural leader of a redeemed generation. No such
illusion could long affect anyone who had come to
know him in his true character.
It is somewhat difficult to imagine what Erasmus
would have done if his personal safety had been
seriously brought into question. It is not impos
sible that, if the issue of retraction or punishment
had ever been squarely presented to him by any
authority capable of enforcing its judgment, he
might have risen to a higher plane of action than
he was ever in fact called upon to reach. Such
attacks as he had to meet were wholly from indi
viduals, representing no recognised authority either
of Church or State, and his defence was always that
the highest persons in both these worlds had ap
proved him. This judgment is at all events more
favourable than Erasmus was sometimes inclined to
LM.AGO- ERASMI-ROTEROUA
A\t AB ALBERTO DVRERO-AI
VlVAAV EFFIGiEAV DEUXL\TA
THN-KPEITTH TA-
A\ D XX V
ERASMUS.
FROM A COPPER ENGRAVING BY ALBERT DURER.
i 5 r 9 ] Correspondence 335
demand for himself. Writing to Richard Pace in
the critical year 1521 he says ' :
" What help could I give Luther, by making myself
the companion of his danger, except that two men should
perish instead of one ? I cannot wonder enough at the
temper in which he has written, and surely he has
brought great enmity upon the friends of sound learn
ing. He has given us many splendid sayings and warn
ings ; but would that he had not spoiled his good things
by his intolerable faults. But even if everything he
wrote had been right, I had no intention of putting my
head in danger for the sake of the truth. It is n't every
one that has the strength for martyrdom, and I sadly
fear that if any tumult should arise, I should follow the
example of Peter. I obey the decrees of emperor and
pope when they are right, because that is my duty ;
when they are wrong I bear it, because that is the safe
plan. This I believe to be permitted even to good men
if there is no hope of improvement."
There was precisely the point. Erasmus was
ready to bear the ills of the world because he saw
no power at hand disposed to remedy them. When
others began to take the remedy into their own
hands, then he could see in their efforts only riot,
confusion, sedition, and all their attendant brood of
horrors.
Mii. 1 , 651-0.
CHAPTER IX
DEFINITE BREACH WITH THE REFORMING PARTIES
HUTTEN'S " EXPOSTULATIO " AND ERASMUS'
" SPONGIA "
1520-1523
WE have followed the course of Erasmus'
thought during these first critical years,
1518 and 1519, when the purpose of the Lutheran
movement was shaping itself into a definite policy.
It could not be said that Luther had at the outset
any " programme " whatever. His leadership was
to be defined by the resistless logic of the events
which were now following in swift succession, each
leading to the next with compelling force. In 1518
Luther had gone as far as Augsburg to meet the
papal legate Cajet'anus, who had simply ordered him
to retract. Luther had replied that he was ready
to be instructed, but until better informed, he was
bound by the word of God and could not think other
wise than as he did. He had got safely out of
Augsburg, but never again risked himself within the
papal grasp. In 15 19 he had accepted the challenge
of John Eck of Ingolstadt, one of the most skilful
disputants of the day according to the scholastic
method, to meet him at Leipzig under the pro-
336
Breach with the Reformers 337
tection of Duke George of Saxony and there discuss
the issues presented by the Theses. So long as the
discussion had kept to the traditional lines of medi
aeval argumentation Luther had felt himself at a dis
advantage. He had chafed under this feeling and
finally had allowed himself to be entrapped into
that magnificent burst of passion in which he had
declared that in the writings of the condemned
heretic, John Hus, there was much that was " right
Christian and evangelical." For the first time and
partly without his own will he had said that the
papacy was not an essential element of the church
organisation.
Henceforth there was no room for compromise.
The papacy, now fairly aroused to the magnitude
of the situation, replied in 1520, at Eck's prompting,
with its last weapon, the bull of excommunication.
This weapon fell absolutely harmless. The aca
demic youth of Wittenberg, with Luther at their
head, marched in festive procession to the Elster-
gate, kindled a bonfire, and threw into it the offend
ing document. But this was not all. Papal bulls
had often met this fate before, without serious loss
of prestige for the authority which lay behind them.
This time, however, not merely the bull in question,
but also a copy of the Canon Law, the whole body
of legal authority on which the power to issue bulls
rested, was committed to the flames. That meant,
not merely that Luther and all who supported him
refused to obey this particular decree, but that they
proposed to emancipate themselves, once for all,
from the control of the whole system which it repre-
33 8 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
sented. With this step the Lutheran movement
passed from the stage of Reformation to the stage
of Revolution.
At this point the eminently constructive nature of
Luther's genius began to display itself. He had
not rejected one authority in order to escape all
authority. He had not thrown aside one ecclesias
tical order, to leave the Church without any order at
all. In those splendid proclamations of the year
1520, " The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,"
the " Address to the Christian Nobility of Ger
many," and the " Freedom of the Christian Man,"
he unfolded his programme for a new and purified
church order on the basis of the Christian state.
Luther's apologists in Germany have sought to save
him from the charge, dreadful to German ears, of
being a revolutionist. Let us, citizens of a nation
to which revolution has meant only the entrance
into a larger and a better-ordered public life, admit
frankly that the action of North Germany in the
years following 1520 was, so far as church matters
were concerned, revolutionary, and that only as
such can it be justified or understood. True, it was
defended then and has been defended ever since as
being merely a return to an order of things once
realised in the early Church. But when a body of
institutions have held their own for a thousand
years their overthrow cannot be disguised by any
gentle figures of speech about mere reformation and
restoration.
That the world of Europe in 1520 felt itself in
volved in a work of revolution is abundantly proved
i 5 2s] Breach with the Reformers 339
by the action of every party concerned. That the
papacy should so regard it was self-evident. All
reformation which should go beyond the stage of
merely commending virtue and condemning vice
must seem to it revolutionary. Its fundamental
proposition was that all which was had, in its es
sence, always been, and that every innovation must
therefore tend to destroy something essential to the
very nature of the Church. From the moment
when the papal government began at all to compre
hend the meaning of the German revolt, it began to
treat it as revolution.
-More striking still, however, is the rapidity with
which all the restless elements of society recog
nised that here was an idea closely akin to their
own instinct of revolution. Hardly had Luther's
first propositions, temperate and modest as they
were, been put forth, when, in his immediate cir
cle of influence, men were found who were ready
to draw the last logical consequences from them.
If it was true that men were justified in the sight
of God solely by faith, then obviously there was
no need of any mediating agency whatever. Away
with all forms, priesthoods, ceremonies, and sacra
ments as so much useless rubbish piled up by cen
turies of wrong! If it was true that God's dealing
with man was direct and not indirect, then why
might not men look for immediate inspiration of
the divine spirit as of old before all this machin
ery of priests and forms had been invented? If the
word of God was not to be bound by a papacy, why
let it be bound by an ancient book, in which, as was
340 Desiderius Erasmus [i 520 -
well known, there was a plenty of errors and falsi
ties ? Had God, then, ceased to communicate with
man ? All these questions were asked by men of
thought and education ; and the answers were not
slow in coming. They came, as in times of great
social unrest they always come, in the form of wild
theories and passionate claims, none of which was
quite without a basis of reason, but which, taken
together, called up a ghastly spectre that could bear
no other name than Revolution. The message of
deliverance from the bondage of personal sin with
out the aid of a corrupt and greedy church establish
ment swelled rapidly into a summons to deliverance
from every form of restraint and oppression. The
men of theory, the Carlstadts and the Miinzers, car
ried the word to the men of action and of suffering.
From 1522 to 1524 the gospel of freedom through
faith was being worked over to suit the needs of the
vast peasant population of Middle and Western Ger
many. In 1524 and 1525 it burst out in the furious
cry of these oppressed classes for equality of rights
as the social expression of the equality of salvation.
Subtle economic causes were, as always, at work
and were leading in the same direction.
Just as the papacy was quick to recognise the
revolutionary meaning of the Lutheran propositions,
so Luther recognised how essentially revolutionary
were all these wider movements which, quite against
his will, had made use of his initiative to gain head
way for themselves. In his retreat on the Wartburg
after the Diet at Worms he heard of the radical do
ings of Carlstadt and the prophets from Zwickau at
Breach with the Reformers 341
Wittenberg. At once he saw the danger and hur
ried to meet it. He succeeded in purifying Witten
berg from the taint of fanaticism only to scatter its
seeds far and wide over the land. Henceforth it be
came perhaps the most important and distinctly the
most difficult problem of the Lutheran party to show
to the world its conservative and constructive side,
without withdrawing for a moment from its original
position of hostility to the papal system.
And, finally, from the political side, the revolu
tionary tendencies of the Lutheran position were no
less clearly visible. Luther's perfectly sound in
stinct had shown him from the first that the German
people were not to be carried away by any abstrac
tions of democracy. Nor, on the other hand, was
there any hope of reviving the ancient authority of
the emperor. Luther's appeal to the German no
bility was based on the fact that whatever political
virtue there was in Germany was to be found in its
princes, and the response of the princes proved them
equal to the emergency. The call to defend the new
religion involved also the prospect of complete de
liverance from all imperial control.
The full meaning of the Lutheran movement is,
of course, far clearer to us than it could have been
to anyone in the year 1520, and yet as early as 1525
every one of the points of view just indicated had
been clearly recognised by every thoughtful ob
server. The tendencies were plain; the question
was, how soon and how far would tendencies develop
into facts.
In such a mortal strife as this where was there
34 2 Desiderius Erasmus [i 520 -
room for poor Erasmus ? The answer to this ques
tion is the history of the seventeen remaining years
of his life years as full of activity as any that had
gone before them. Protest as he might that this
struggle was none of his, it is evident that it formed
the real undertone of his thought and drew from him
the utterances by which his character as a public
man has ever since been estimated. We may, with
out unduly stretching the meaning of his changing
attitude towards the reform, divide it into three
stages. Until 1520 we feel the note of sympathy
and the desire merely to restrain excesses. After
that year, and increasingly as the economic and social
results began to appear, we find the attitude of
direct hostility becoming more pronounced. Fi
nally, under the increasing pressure to justify him
self in this hostility, we find Erasmus laying
down in more formal shape his philosophical and
theological position as against that of the Lu
theran party.
The group of letters cited above reflect an ag
itated, nervous uncertainty of mind on Erasmus'
part. They are filled largely with negations, so ar
ranged as to balance each other with considerable
success. They leave on our minds the impression
of a dual personality : on the one hand a man child
ishly sensitive to abuse and fancying that every mis
directed shaft of the popular wit or feeling was aimed
at him ; on the other hand, a man of wide and clear
vision, with an outlook over the whole field of hu
man interests and with a perfectly sound compre
hension of the ultimate principles by which these
EXIMIO THEOLOGO JO.
LANGIO.
S. p. Vir optirae. Lei me miseresceret, ni tarn virulenter renv
gessisset, ita tractatur etiara a suis Anglis. Habet et Hispania Leum
alterum. Zuniga quidam edidit librum ut audio satis virulentum
adversus Fabrum ac me. Vetuerat Cardinalis Toletanus defunctus.
Eo mortuo prodidit sua venena. Opus nondura vidi. Id caveat ne
liber veniat in manus meas. Nescio quern finem hie tnmultus sit
habiturus. Nam omnino res ad seditionem spectat, a qua semper
abhorrui. Si necesse est ut oriantur scandala, certe a me [non]
proficisci. Devotis animis conspirant isti, ac summorum regum aulas
oppugnant, ac vereor, ne expugnent. De Philippe, OZcolampadio
quod scio cognoveram ex aliorum litteris. Utramque epistolam tuam
accepi. Bene vale vir in domino mihi colende.
LOVAXII, postrid. Cal. Aug.
ERASMUS ex animo tuus.
TO THE DISTINGUISHED THEOLOGIAN
JOHANNES LANGE.
GREETING.
MOST EXCELLENT SIR :
I should be sorry for Lee, if he had not been so violent in
the matter ; so badly is he treated even by his own Englishmen. In
Spain there is a second Lee. A certain Zuniga has, I hear, published
a tolerably savage book against Faber and me. The late Cardinal of
Toledo had prohibited it, but now that the cardinal is dead, he has
given forth his poison. I have not seen the work, and let him
beware that it does not come into my hands ! I know not what will
be the end of this disturbance. Everything points towards revolu
tion, a thing I have always abhorred. If it must be that offences
come, at any rate they shall [not] come from me. Those people are
conspiring with all their might ; they are besieging the courts of the
most potent kings and I fear they will overcome them. All that I
know about Philip and CEcolampadius I have learned from the
letters of others. Both of your letters I have received.
Farewell, beloved in the Lord.
Your most devoted
ERASMUS.
LOITVAIN. Aug. 2, [1521?].
* X M
1523] Breach with the Reformers 343
interests must be regulated. His chief source of
difficulty was his failure to admit the distinctions
between the destructive and the constructive forces
of the reform. While Luther was using all his
energies to make clear to the world that what he
aimed at was reconstruction, Erasmus persisted in
confounding in one sweeping condemnation all the
elements of disturbance he saw abroad in the world.
As he had connected Luther and Reuchlin in his
declarations of ignorance and hostility, so, as time
went on, he mingled Lutherans, Anabaptists,
Zwinglians, and all the swarm of popular agitators in
his indictments. Yet he constantly lets it appear
that he knew as well as anyone the deep-seated
distinctions in the reforming groups. He chose to
confuse them in his public utterances, in order to
keep himself right with that great Establishment
which was the mortal enemy of them all.
Meanwhile the practical problem of the Lutheran
reform was shaping itself rapidly in accordance with
the whole previous development of the German
people. The death of the Emperor Maximilian was
an event of slight importance, excepting as it opened
the way for one of those great electoral contests,
which from time to time came to remind the Ger
man nation of its own peculiar political character.
We must dismiss once for all the fancy that the
elected emperor resembled, except in the vaguest
fashion, the great hereditary monarchs of England,
France, or Spain. So far as his imperial quality was
concerned, he had long since become the merest
anachronism. He was emperor of nothing but a
344 Desiderius Erasmus [i 52 o-
title; and he owed his title to a group of princes
whose liberties he was bound to respect, even to the
point of self-destruction. Territorially, he might be
strong or weak, according to the personal sover
eignty which he held before he became emperor.
Politically he had as much weight as he could per
sonally command, and no more. He might be a
German or he might not.
The electoral canvass of 151920 was the most
elaborate the empire had ever seen. The kings of
Spain, France, and England were all, at one time
or another, among the candidates. A German na
tional party, which saw the hope of the nation in a
policy of separation from all " imperial " interests,
was eager for a purely German emperor and put for
ward as its candidate the venerable Frederic, Prince-
Elector of Saxony, the immediate sovereign of
Luther. If Frederic had acted promptly and put
himself decidedly at the head of this German na
tional party it seems as if he might have been
elected. He hesitated, declined on grounds of per
sonal distrust, and finally gave his electoral vote for
that one among the foreign candidates who seemed
least likely to abuse the constitutional privileges of
the German princes.
Charles V., grandson of Maximilian through that
Archduke Philip to whom Erasmus had written his
panegyric in 1504, grandson also of Ferdinand and
Isabella of Spain through their daughter Joanna,
grandson again of that Mary of Burgundy who had
carried the Low Countries as her most precious
dower to her husband Maximilian, was a youth of
1523] Breach with the Reformers 345
twenty, a German only by virtue of a strain of
badly diluted Habsburg blood, educated under
Spanish influence in the Low Countries, ignorant
of the German tongue, and totally unsympathetic
with the character and traditions of the German
people. The very conception of the German state
as a loose federation of practically independent
principalities was utterly foreign to his training and
his inheritance.
The election of Charles V. gave courage to all
defenders of the existing church order. As to his
personal orthodoxy there could be no question
whatever. Nor was there any more reason to doubt
his loyalty to the traditions of his family as to the
duty of a Christian ruler toward the institutions of
what passed for Christianity. If there had been
any room for question on these points, it would
have been removed by Charles's action in the Low
Countries in the very first years of the Lutheran
revolt. He had taken hold of the matter with a
strong hand and demonstrated his loyalty by prompt
action against heretical books and persons. His
first great public declaration of policy, however, was
at his first appearance on German soil at the famous
Diet at Worms in 1521. It was, properly, regarded
as a piece of liberality that Luther was invited to
come personally to Worms and defend himself be
fore the emperor and the legate of Pope Leo X.,
that same Aleander who had been a fellow-worker
with Erasmus in the Aldine workshop at Venice.
Luther was already a condemned heretic. The
only question was whether the Empire as such would
34 6 Desiderius Erasmus [r 52 o-
ratify the action of the pope and lend its arm to
enforce the papal decrees.
Luther's journey from Wittenberg and his appear
ance in Worms were a demonstration of his popular
ity throughout Northern Germany. Charles V.,
youth as he was, was too clever a politician to offend
too deeply at this outset of his reign a whole people
whose services he might at any moment sorely need.
He heard Luther with patience, he respected his
safe-conduct, and let him return to Saxony in safety;
but he published as the formal decision of the Diet
the Edict of Worms, wherein Luther was declared
in the ban of the Empire as he was already in the
ban of the Church, and his books were condemned
to be burned wherever found.
The Edict of Worms defined the official attitude
of the Empire towards the reform from this time
forth. It lacked nothing in clearness and finality.
Henceforth, whoever within the limits of the Em
pire harboured either the man or his ideas was
subject to immediate punishment. The question,
however, still remained, how the Edict of Worms
was to be enforced, and the answer to that question
is the history of Germany and even of Europe for
the next generation. Enough for our present pur
pose to say that the immediate pressure of political
and military demands outside of Germany compelled
the young emperor to postpone definite aggressive
action against the Lutheran party until the course
of events had separated the whole north of Ger
many from all but a nominal connection with the
Empire. We are concerned with the action of
i 5 2 3 ] Breach with the Reformers 347
Erasmus upon these events and their reaction upon
his course of life.
Erasmus left Louvain in 1521. As to his motives
in this change we are as much in the dark as about
any of his former migrations. We know what his
critics said about it and what he replied to their
criticisms. They said he was afraid to stay in a
country where heretics were being arrested every
day and where, as he had all along been declaring,
he was regarded as the head and front of this whole
offending. He replied that this was pure nonsense,
as could be clearly proved by the fact that after
leaving Louvain he still lingered for several months
in the Low Countries before taking up his journey
to Basel. He went to Basel, he said, for the same
reasons which had carried him thither before ;
namely, to superintend the publication of some of
his works.
The most detailed account of this interval be
tween Louvain and Basel is given in a long letter, 1
dated in 1523, to Marcus Laurinus, dean of St.
Donatian at Bruges. The tone of this letter is that
which had now become habitual with Erasmus,
namely, of elaborate defence against all charges, no
matter from what source, which could in any way
affect his loyalty to the Roman Church on the one
hand or to his own principle of free criticism on the
other. His especial grievance is the charge of
cowardice in leaving Louvain.
" As long as I was at Louvain," he writes, " whenever
I went to Brussels or Mechlin, though I had promised
Hii. 1 , 748.
34 8 Desiderius Erasmus [i 52 o-
to return within ten days, those people, who are ashamed
of nothing, would spread a rumour that I had run away
through fear. Then when I was taking a holiday for
my health at Anderlech, a place close by Brussels, where
the king's palace is, and often running back to Louvain,
why then, I was in hiding ! Frequently, I was at the
same moment down with a hopeless fever at Louvain and
had fallen from my horse and died of apoplexy at Brus
sels ; and this at a time when I was thanks be to
Christ ! never better in my life. It was not enough to
have killed the hapless Erasmus once for all, but they
must needs butcher him with so many diseases, slay him
with such a variety of tortures !
" I did not go to the assembly at Worms, or as
learned men are now beginning to call it at ' Mutton-
headtown,' although I was invited, partly because I did
not wish to be involved in the affair of Luther, which
was then violently discussed ; partly because I easily
foresaw that in such a great sewage of princes and men
of various races, the plague could not fail to appear as
it did at Cologne when the emperor was first there.
" When the emperor came back to Brussels, there was
scarcely a day that I did not ride through the market
place and past the court and often I was about the court ;
in fact, I was almost more a resident at Brussels than at
Anderlech. I daily paid my compliments to the bishops,
though ordinarily I was not overzealous in such matters.
I dined with the cardinal. I conversed with both
nuncios ; I visited ambassadors and they called upon
me at Anderlech. Never in my life was I less in con
cealment, never more openly before the eyes of all men.
And meanwhile there were some among those babblers
who wrote to Germany that Erasmus was somewhere in
hiding, which I never found out until I got here in
i 5 2 3 ] Breach with the Reformers 349
Basel. And again when the emperor was at Brussels
with the king of Denmark, and Thomas, cardinal of
York, was there as ambassador of the king of England,
you know yourself, even if I had kept myself to your
house, how much in hiding I should have been ; since
you had all, or at least the chief dignitaries of the court
at your table and I was sitting among them a welcome
guest, as I believe, to them all. How often I lunched
or dined with the foremost men, even with the king of
Denmark, who wanted me as his daily table-companion !
Where did I not go riding, often in company with you !
At what festivity of the great people was I not present
now at the imperial court, now in the family of the car
dinal of York, now at one house, now at another ! Yet
I often refused invitations ; for I am by nature a home-
lover and my studies require a home-keeping life.
" In the same way that I was then hiding, I afterward
ran away ! For six whole months I was getting ready
for my journey to Basel and that openly before all men.
Why, the emperor's treasurer paid over my pension be
fore it was due, because I told him I was going to Basel !
Nor was the reason for my journey unknown, it being
the same for which I had already so often gone to Basel
before I became afraid of those heroes ! . . . I was
all ready to start, waiting only to decide upon the road
and to have a safe escort. Meanwhile I had to collect
money in divers places and for this purpose spent six
days at Louvain, hiding there too, of course, as my
custom was, at an inn where no guests ever came, so
that it is a most retired place ! It is at the sign of The
Savage. By the purest accident there was there at the
time Jerome Aleander, with whom I lived on the most
friendly terms, sometimes sitting with him over literary
talk until far into the night. We agreed that if a safe
35 Desiderius Erasmus [i 520 -
escort should offer, we would journey together. Return
ing after a few days I found Aleander getting ready to
start, just as I was. ... It was my birthday and
that of the apostles Simon and Jude."
Having thus proved that up to the very moment
of his departure he was on the best of terms with
everyone in the Low Countries from whom he
could have anything to fear, even with Aleander,
the archfiend of the Lutherans, Erasmus goes on
to describe his journey. There is nothing especially
noteworthy in this description. It is the same old
story of dangers and wearinesses by the way, of
German inns and German stoves and the troubles
they brought him. Yet in the little notes of per
sons whom he met and how they received him we
get some of the most significant and attractive
glimpses of the widespread relations of Erasmus
with every grade of scholarly activity. In these
accounts of journeys occur frequently the words
sodalitium and fraternitas. At Strassburg Jacob
Spiegel, an imperial secretary, presented him to
" the fraternity." From Schlettstadt " certain of
the fraternity " escorted him to Colmar. These
words seem to refer to the group of scholars in any
city and give us a pleasant suggestion of the grow
ing comradeship of learning all through the northern
centres of culture.
He tells us how warmly he was received at Basel
by the bishop, the magistrates, and other chief men
of the church and the university. Everybody knew
that he was there, and yet
1523] Breach with the Reformers 35 T
" those fools were spreading the story that I had gone
over to Wittenberg. Is there anything they would be
ashamed of ? My health was fairly good at Basel until
the rooms began to be cold. When I found that this
cold was unbearable to others, I suffered a moderate fire
to be built now and then, but this good-nature cost me
dear. Soon a vile rheum broke out and thereupon fol
lowed the gravel."
Then his digestion went to pieces until, what with
one thing and another, he was wretched enough
" to suit even Nicholas Egmund," his Carmelite
terror at Louvain.
In spite of his pains, however, he went to work
and kept at it so steadily that within a short time
he finished his annotations to the third edition of
the New Testament, and did the whole of his Para
phrase of Matthew. This latter work he sent to the
emperor, and was informed that it had been re
ceived with great favour. The best proof of this
was, that at a moment when many pensions were
being taken away or cut down, he was promised
that his should be maintained and perhaps even in
creased. He takes this occasion to defend himself
against the charge of staying so long away from the
emperor through fear, as was alleged. The only
thing he feared was that he might be called upon
to write against Luther " by one whose request
could not be denied. Not that I favoured that
seditious affair, being as I am a man who shrinks
from all controversy by a certain instinct of nature ;
so that if I might gain a landed estate by a lawsuit
I would rather lose my estate than push my claim."
35 2 Desiderius Erasmus [i 520 -
He goes on in this strain at such length that one
can hardly avoid the conclusion that we are here
touching upon the real reason of his leaving Lou-
vain. It is a tolerably safe principle that when Eras
mus is especially insistent he is trying to make the
worse appear the better reason. He insists that he
was totally unfit for such work of controversy and
ends up by saying that in spite of all this he would
have gone back to meet the emperor if his disease
had permitted. Indeed he tried the journey, got
as far as Schlettstadt, broke down completely, and
barely got back alive to Basel. By this time it was
too late to see the emperor, who was to sail for
Spain about May 1st. So Erasmus stayed a while
longer at Basel, restless and fidgeting as usual.
Now it was a new dream of Italy that haunted him.
He was, or believed himself to be, or wished others
to believe that he was, invited by a host of distin
guished well-wishers there to come and take up his
residence among them. In fact he made a journey
to Constance with his young friends Eppendorf and
Beatus. They were charmingly entertained by John
Botzheim, a canon of the place, and we owe to this
visit one of the very few descriptions of natural
scenery which Erasmus has left us. He seems for
once really to have been captivated by the delight
ful situation of Constance, the beautiful lake, the
course of the Rhine, " holding islands in its smiling
embrace," the falls at Schaffhausen, and the tower
ing Alps looking down upon the whole scene. We
may well believe that, at least when he wrote these
words, the sentiment of Italy was strong upon him.
i 5 2 3 ] Breach with the Reformers 353
An escort, he says, was just ready to start for Trent.
" The Alps smiling down upon me close at hand
beckoned me on. My friends dissuaded me, but
they would have done so in vain, if the gravel, that
potent orator, had not persuaded me to go back to
Basel and fly up into my nest again."
He remained three weeks at Constance in great
suffering, took ship as far as Schaffhausen, and so
back as fast as he could ride to Basel. I confess to
a strong impression that these two trips, to Schlett-
stadt and to Constance, were merely excursions,
such as Erasmus was constantly making from any
point where he happened to be living, and that he
had no more intention of going to Italy in the one
case than of returning to Louvain in the other.
Yet one would equally hesitate to say that he had a
fixed purpose of remaining permanently at Basel.
On his return Erasmus enjoyed a genuine sensa
tion, which seems almost to have marked an epoch in
his life. This seemed the favourable moment to open
a package of choice Burgundy, sent to him some
time before by the episcopal coadjutor of Basel.
" At the first taste it did not wholly please the pal
ate, but the night brought out the native quality of
the wine. " He felt himself a new man. He had
always believed that his disease was brought on by
vile sour and adulterated wines, " worthy to be
drunk by heretics, punishment fit for the worst
malefactor." He had tried Burgundian wines be
fore, but they were harsh and heating. This was
just right, neither sweet nor sour, but pleasant, and
so on. He bursts out into a eulogy of Burgundy,
354 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
that happy land, " worthy to be called the mother
of men, since thou hast milk like this in thy
breasts! " "I tell you, my dear Laurinus, it would
take little to persuade me to move over for good
into Burgundy. ' For the wine's sake ? ' you ask.
Why, I would rather migrate to Ireland than try
another attack of the gravel." This sends him off
again into declarations that he is everywhere a
welcome guest.
The point of all this seems to be that he wishes
to have it quite clear that while it is on the one
hand perfectly safe for him to go or stay where he
will, he is, on the other hand, equally free from any
permanent ties anywhere. Someone had reported
that he had bought a house and acquired the right
of citizenship at Basel. This he denies. To be
sure, the house in which he is now living had been
offered him by some friends, but he has not ac
cepted it. As for citizenship, he has never so much
as dreamed of it. "A certain person of importance
at Zurich has more than once written to offer me
the right of citizenship there. I wondered why he
should do this, and replied that I preferred to be a
citizen of the world, rather than of any one city."
Once set going on this subject it seems as if Eras
mus could not stop. He now pays his respects to
those who reported, with some reason, he says, that
he was thinking of going to France. Having found
the secret of his disease in the badness of his wines,
he begins to wonder what will happen to him if, by
reason of wars, he should be unable to get his Bur
gundy direct. Perhaps, after all, it would be wiser
1523] Breach with the Reformers 355
to go over into France, where he would at least be
sure of his wine. He even went so far as to get
from the French king through his ambassador at
Basel a safe-conduct for the journey, and kept re
minding himself how fond he had always been of
France a fondness which, by the way, he had
shown by keeping out of France for now about
fifteen years. If he had only accepted that " mag
nificent offer " of six years before, he would have
been spared all these " tragedies " with those stupid
babblers at Louvain. Perhaps his health and his
fortunes might have been better too. It would be
pleasant to be near the borders of Brabant, so that
he might run over and see his friends there. But
there was just one obstacle: the war between the
three kings. To Charles he was bound by an oath;
to Henry and the whole English people by ties of
affection ; to Francis also by irresistible attachment
on account of the king's interest in him. Of course
it would never do for so important a personage as
Erasmus to offend two of his royal friends by going
to live with the third.
Why did he not come back to Brabant ? He
hears that there is there just now a great scarcity of
everything, but especially of French wines, and
besides " a sword has been given to certain violent
men, to whom one can be neither a colleague nor an
opponent." There are enemies in every direction.
" Rome has her Stunica ; Germany has some who
can't say a good word of me. I hear that certain ' Lu
therans,' as they call them, are complaining because I
am too gentle with the princes and too fond of peace.
35 6 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
I confess I would rather err on this side, not only be
cause it is safer, but because it is a more holy cause.
Everyone to his taste. There are those on the other
side who try to cast on me the suspicion of being in
league with the Lutherans."
Now each party seemed to Erasmus to be trying
to catch him by stirring him up against the other.
They told him his books had been burnt in Brabant
by Hoogstraaten, hoping to make him write some
thing against the inquisitor which would drive him
over definitely into the Lutheran camp. Poor Botz-
heim at Constance wrote, pene exanimatus (" scared
almost to death,"), that Erasmus' books had been
publicly condemned at Rome by papal order. These
traps had been sprung in vain. He had seen through
the trick and kept his peace and the truth had come
out. Far from condemning him, the papal party at
Rome had done its best to win him to its service,
even offering him a considerable benefice if he would
come. Then this again had produced counter
charges of bribery, which he very properly dismisses
by saying: " If I could have been drawn into this
fight by bribes I should have been drawn in long
ago." Now he hears a third rumour, worse than
the other two : the pope has written some kind of
a pamphlet against him ! but again he sees the trick ;
they want to make him say something against the
pope. Others say that Lutherans are flocking to
Basel to consult with him, some even that Luther
is in hiding there.
" Would that it were true that all Lutherans and anti-
Lutherans too, would come for my advice and agree to
] Hutten's Expostulatio 357
follow it ; the world would be far better off in my opin
ion. Many persons have come hither to see and to
salute me, sometimes in companies and generally un
known to me ; but never has one called himself a Lu
theran in my presence ; it is not my business to make
inquiries and I am no prophet. Before this trouble
broke out I was in literary correspondence with almost
all the scholars of Germany, to me a most agreeable re
lation. Of these some have given me the cold shoulder,
some are quite estranged from me, and some are my open
enemies and seeking my ruin. Some were good friends
of mine, who are now more severe towards Luther than I
could wish and more than is good for their cause. I dis
miss no one from my friendship either because he is too
friendly or too hostile to Luther ; each acts in good faith.
" Men have come to Basel who were said to be under
suspicion of being partisans of Luther, and I am ready
to have this all charged upon me, if a single one of them
has ever come by my invitation or if I have not protested
to my friends that it was exceedingly disagreeable to me.
If persons of this or that faction come hither, with what
reason can this be laid upon me ? I am not the gate
keeper of Basel and hold no magistracy here ! Hutten
was here as a visitor for a few days and neither came to
see me nor did I visit him. And yet if it had depended
upon me, I would not have denied him an interview, an
old friend and a man whose wonderfully happy and
genial talents I cannot even now help admiring. . . .
He could not do without a stove, on account of his
health, and I cannot bear one, and so the fact is, we did
not see each other."
He would not hesitate, he says, to receive Luther
himself, and would give him some wholesome warn-
35 8 Desiderius Erasmus [Do
ings. There is good on both sides. ' I am not
sure that either side can be put down without grave
disaster to many good things." If only it might
be permitted him to be a mere spectator of events !
But here he is, pulled hither and yon by the parties,
each trying to make him declare himself squarely
against the other. While one party was accusing
him of being the author of most of the Lutheran
writings, the other suspected him of having written
King Henry's famous answer to Luther. Upon this
welcome text Erasmus builds up a long story of his
first acquaintance with this royal treatise, a story as
unimportant as the book itself. The outcome of it
all is that he is firmly convinced that the king wrote
the book with his own wits. ' Even if he desired
the help of scholars, his court is filled with learned
and eloquent men." Again they tell him that four
years ago he ought to have retired from the stage,
content with his great services to theology, his re
storation of the true sources of Christianity, etc.
All this is very flattering, but he is held to his work
by a choragos whose orders he dare not disobey.
Once more, he is charged with speaking too highly
of the pope. What he says of Leo is very well,
but, they say, how can we be sure of Leo's suc
cessor. Well, there have been good popes before
Leo, and why not after him ? They say " Erasmus
ought to declare : ' Thou, pope, art Antichrist ! you,
bishops, are false leaders! that Roman see of yours
is an abomination to God ! ' and many other such
things and worse." This is the old Erasmian
method, which he had consistently followed from
1523] Hutten's Expostulatio 359
the beginning to confine his criticism to evil men
and refrain from criticising institutions. If men
were good, institutions would be good.
Finally we come to the charge that Erasmus, in
his paraphrase of the ninth chapter of the Epistle to
the Romans, had allowed " a little something "
to the freedom of the human will. This is our first
encounter with a strictly dogmatic question, the
one by which the whole Lutheran position was to
stand or fall. We have, however, prepared our
selves for Erasmus' inevitable attitude on this point
by noting his insistence, throughout all his moral
teaching, upon the individual will as the dominant
motive. For the moment he defends himself only
by declaring that in his Paraphrase he is merely fol
lowing all the best authorities in the Church from
Origen to Aquinas. He wrote the passage in ques
tion in 1517, before Luther had appeared, so that it
can in no way be thought of as an attack upon him.
Moreover, it is the mildest possible statement of a
free-will doctrine.
" Some weight is to be given to our will and our en
deavour, but so little that in comparison with the grace
of God it seems to be as nothing. No man is condemned,
except by his own fault ; but no one is saved, except by
God's grace. ... I saw on the one hand Scylla lur
ing us on to confidence in works, which I believe to be
the worst plague of religion. On the other hand I saw
Charybdis, a worse monster yet, by whom many are now
being attracted, who say : Let us follow our own lusts ;
whether we torment ourselves or indulge our wills, what
God has decreed will happen all the same."
360 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
So his language has been moderate, and he has
hoped simply to aid men to virtue. The close of
this letter is a really eloquent bit of self-analysis.
" If any there be, who cannot love Erasmus because he
is a feeble Christian, let him think of me as he will. I
cannot be other than I am. If any man has from Christ
greater gifts of the Spirit and is sure of himself, let him
use them for the glory of Christ. Meanwhile it is more
to my mind to follow a more humble and a safer way.
I cannot help hating dissension and loving peace and
harmony. I see how obscure all human affairs are. I
see how much easier it is to stir up confusion than to
allay it. I have learned how many are the devices of
Satan. I should not dare to trust my own spirit in all
things and I am far from being able to pronounce with
certainty on the spirit of another. I would that all
might strive together for the triumph of Christ and the
peace of the Gospel, and that without violence, but in
truth and reason, we might take counsel both for the
dignity of the priesthood and for the liberty of the
people, whom our Lord Jesus desired to be free. To
those who go about to this end to the best of their abil
ity Erasmus shall not be wanting. But if anyone desires
to throw everything into confusion, he shall not have me
either for a leader or a companion. These people claim
for themselves the working of the Spirit. Well, let peo
ple on whom the divine spirit has breathed jump with
good hopes into the ranks of the prophets. That Spirit has
not yet seized upon me ; when it does, then perhaps I
too shall be counted as Saul among the prophets."
In this long letter, written obviously with a view
to publication, we have epitomised, as Erasmus
i 5 2 3 ] Hutten's Expostulatio 3 61
himself wished it to appear, the story of his leaving
Louvain and his attitude toward the chief questions
of the great reform. Nothing that we can add
would be more significant than the concluding para
graph. If only all men could see both sides of
every question as he did, and would join with him
in pious exhortation to everyone else to be good, he
would be delighted to be their leader and com
panion. This is only one of those numerous " ifs "
though an unusually large one by which Eras
mus so often saved himself in difficult places. It
meant simply that he did not propose to commit
himself at all. The Laurinus letter was the reply
to numerous criticisms against the course of Eras
mus in the years between 1520 and 1523, years in
which the various aspects of the great reform
movement were becoming more and more clearly
defined. We discern in it with great distinctness
the view of Erasmus taken by the leading spirits of
the Lutheran party.
Nowhere is this Lutheran judgment of his posi
tion so vigorously demonstrated as in his famous
conflict with Ulrich von Hutten. Hutten's per
sonality was totally antipodal to that of Erasmus.
Born of a noble family in Wurtemberg in 1488,
Hutten received the training of a soldier and took
his part in the violent feuds which, in the absence
of a strong central government in Germany, were
continually wasting the energies and the resources
of the great class of the lower nobility. But
Hutten was more than a soldier. He had early
come under the influence of Reuchlin, his country-
362 Desiderius Erasmus [i 52 o-
man, and had given himself with great zeal to the
cause of learning. He had mastered the technique
of the scholar's profession, had made himself an ac
complished Latinist in both prose and verse, and
had learned as much Greek as was needed to decor
ate his Latin style. In his way he was as marked
an individual as Erasmus. He, too, was a homeless
man, an outcast from his family and his narrower
Swabian fatherland, a wanderer, seeking a living by
methods even more precarious and more question
able than Erasmus had employed, everywhere at
home if only the sun of princely or private favour
would shine upon him for the moment. But here
the resemblance ends. Hutten let his individuality
carry him into wild and reckless living and finally to
ruin, but he did not let it alienate him from the
great movements of humanity going on about him.
In the Reformation he was quick to discern all those
elements of social and economic change which were
sure to follow upon the religious appeal. What
repelled and estranged Erasmus, the man of peace,
attracted and held Hutten, the man of strife. In
Luther's proclamation of a salvation by faith he saw
the hope of a social and religious reconstruction, in
which, inevitably, the religious system of the Middle
Ages must go to the wall. He was too little of
a speculative genius to be drawn into the logical
extravagances of the radical party of Miinzer and
his like, but the prospect of a glorious fight, with
the weapons alike of the intellect and of the flesh,
filled him with a holy joy as it filled Erasmus with
a holy horror. Without waiting to consider or to
ULRICH VON HUTTEN.
FROM A CONTEMPORARY WOOD-CUT.
i 5 2 3 ] Hutten's Expostulatio 363
make certain whither it would lead him, he threw
himself with passionate energy into the Lutheran
cause. Already he had made himself known, ad
mired, and feared by his part in the Epistolcz obscur-
orum virorum, that merciless satire on the schoolmen
which had done more than any other one thing to
draw the forces of light together into one camp over
against the forces of darkness. This contribution to
what others regarded as his own work did not, how
ever, if we may take his word for it, please Erasmus.
He wanted to keep all the satirising to himself, that
it might be held within prudent limits. Thus his
earliest impressions of Hutten were not favourable.
He seems to have felt in him by " a certain instinct
of nature," as he might have said, an " unsafe "
person. His early approach toward him is cautious.
Hutten sends him his works and begs for his friend
ship. Erasmus replies with reserve, counsels him
to keep out of fights, to devote himself to the
Muses, and to preserve his own dignity. Then we
have the famous and charming letter 1 in which
Erasmus describes to Hutten the work and charac
ter of Thomas More. But soon it is evident that
Hutten is getting out of all patience with Erasmus.
The letters of 1518 and 1519, with their anxious
balancing of views, were in circulation, and had
made upon this upright and downright fighting man
the impression of a trimming, fretful, petty spirit.
In August, 1520, he writes to Erasmus in a totally
altered style." He has now no time or temper for
1 Hi. 1 , 472.
* Hutteni opera, ed. Booking, 1859, > 3^7.
364 Desiderius Erasmus [i 520 -
compliments. In short, rapid sentences he puts the
case to the great man as one in which all shilly
shallying was out of place.
" While Reuchlin's affair was all in a glow, you seemed
to be in a more weakly terror of those people [/Vtar] than
you ought to have been. And now in Luther's case, you
have been trying as hard as you can to persuade his
enemies that you were as far as possible from defending
the common good of the Christian world, while they
knew you really believed just the opposite. That does
not seem to be an altogether becoming thing to do. . . .
You know with what glee they are carrying about cer
tain letters of yours in which while you are trying to
escape from blame, you are putting blame on others in a
hateful fashion enough. In the same way you have
been abusing the Epistolce obscurorum, though you ad
mired them powerfully once ; and you are damning
Luther because he has set in motion some things that
ought not to have been moved, when you yourself have
been handling the same subjects everywhere throughout
your writings. And yet you will never make them be
lieve that you are not desirous of the same things. You
will just hurt us and at the same time will not pacify
them. You are irritating the more and rousing hatred
by trying to hide a thing so open as this."
We are quite prepared to understand how unwel
come to Erasmus such direct and unequivocal lan
guage as this must have been. He had no use for
any argument that had not two sides to it. Events
were moving rapidly. While the affair of Luther
was being tried at Worms in the summer of 1521
Hutten was watching and planning for the social
1523] Hutten's " Expostulatio " 365
overturn which he confidently expected, and out of
which, he hoped, a new Germany, regenerated in
body and soul, was to arise. In the winter of 1521-
22 he drifted to Basel and spent some time there.
As yet there was no open breach between him and
Erasmus. He seems to have wished to meet him
personally and to have met a flat refusal. In the
letter to Laurinus Erasmus declares that he was
perfectly willing to see Hutten, but as he could not
endure a room with a stove in it, and Hutten could
not be in a room without a stove, an interview was
impossible! This silly story reappears in various
other connections. It is quite unworthy of serious
examination, but was undoubtedly a mere cover for
some deeper cause. What this was may readily be
supplied. Writing to Melanchthon after Hutten s
death* Erasmus says:
" As to my refusing Hutten an interview, the reason
was not so much the fear of exciting hostility ; there
was another thing which, however, I did not touch upon
in my Spongia, He was in utter poverty and was seek
ing some nest to die in. Now I was expected to take
this l m$Us gloriosits,' pox and all, into my house and with
him that whole chorus of ' evangelicals ' by name and
nothing but the name."
We may be quite sure that here was Erasmus' real
grievance. He might pretend that he had never
seen anyone at Basel who called himself a Lutheran,
but he knew that if he took Hutten into his house
and appeared on friendly terms with him, he could
'iii., 8i7-B.
366 Desiderius Erasmus [i 52 o-
keep up this pretence no longer. He knew also by
a former experience that any expressions favourable
to Luther would be made the most of by Hutten.
He could not afford such a friend and he shut his
door in his face.
Hutten's patience, never, we may believe, over
much enduring, was at an end. He made up his
mind to make such a public attack upon Erasmus as
would compel him to speak out and thus commit
himself once for all on one side or the other. Eras
mus heard of this intention and wrote him a short
letter ! of expostulation, warning and threatening
him at once. In this letter he gives away his case
as to the Basel incident in the most complete fashion.
He says:
" I did not refuse you an interview when you were
here, but begged you through Eppendorf, in the gentlest
manner, that, if it was only a complimentary visit, you
would stay away, on account of the enmity with which I
have long been burdened even to the risk of my life.
What use is there in gaining enmity when one cannot
thereby be any help to one's friend ? "
Then comes in the stove again.
Hutten was, as well he might be, rather more
angered than appeased by this missive, and soon
printed his Expostulatio cum Erasmo?
Erasmus had had to hear a good many bitter
words in the years just past, but never such stinging
reproaches as these. Doubtless the personal element
1 iii. 1 , 790. Also in Hutteni opera, ed. Booking, ii., 178.
8 Hutteni opera, ii., 180.
1523] Hutten's Expostulatio 367
played its part in adding a final goad to Hutten's
indignation ; but the Expostulatio is far from being
a mere personal reply to real or fancied wrongs. It
is a scathing review of the whole attitude of Eras
mus towards the reform. The chief note of the
charge is cowardice, deceit, and time-serving. The
underlying assumption throughout is that Erasmus
was really in sympathy with the whole attack upon
the church order from Reuchlin onwards. This
assumption is proved out of his own mouth. At
every new stage of the reform he was shown to
have expressed approval, only to change approval
into condemnation as soon as there was a prospect
that anything would be done. So, on the other
hand, Hutten shows Erasmus attacking all the
enemies of reform, the pope, Aleander, Hoogstraa-
ten, and the rest, and then changing his tone to a
weak, snivelling flattery as soon as he saw any dan
ger in prospect. A few specimens will illustrate the
vigour and openness of Hutten's method. After
the twistings and turnings of Erasmus' style, his
reads like a model of strength and directness.
" Because of my health, or for some other reason, I
could not be away from my stove long enough to speak
with you once or twice in the whole fifty days I spent at
Basel, though I would often stand talking with friends
in the midst of the market-place for three hours at a
time ! Well, that is quite like your sincerity, to take a
perfectly simple thing and give it a false colouring and
to cover up the truth with an empty show.
" As I thought the matter over attentively several rea
sons occurred to me why, perhaps, you might thus have
368 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
fallen away from yourself. First, your insatiable ambi
tion for fame, your greed for glory, which makes it im
possible for you to bear the growing powers of anyone
else ; and then the lack of steadiness in your mind, which
has always displeased me in you as unworthy of your
greatness and led me to believe that you were terror-
stricken by the threats of these men. . . . Finally I
explain it to myself by the pettiness of your mind, which
makes you afraid of everything and easily thrown into
despair ; for you had so little faith in the progress of
our cause, especially when you saw that some of the
chief princes of Germany were conspiring against us,
that straightway you thought you must not only desert
us, but must also seek their good-will by every possible
means."
Referring to Erasmus' charge that the Lutherans
had set on foot a rumour that Hoogstraaten had
burned his books, in order to make him write
against the Church, Hutten says:
" Now, supposing it was our purpose to draw you into
our party, how could we hope to do it easily in this way,
since it was perfectly certain that you would never dare
to do anything against him or anybody else until you
saw exactly how the land lay unless, indeed, Switzer
land be so far from Brabant that we could hope you
would hear nothing from there for a whole year ! Away
with this simple-heartedness of yours to some other
world ! Our Germany knows no such morals as these.
" When \\\zEpistol(Z obscurorum came out, you approved
and applauded more than anyone else ; you gave the
author a regular triumph ; you said there had never
been discovered a more complete way of attacking those
1523] Hutten's Expostulatio 369
people ; that barbarians ought to be ridiculed in barbar
ous language ; and you congratulated us on our clever
ness. Before our fooleries were printed, you copied
some of them with your own hand, saying : ' I must
send these to my friends in England and France.' But
soon after, when you saw that the whole muck of the
theologers were much disturbed and that the hornets
were stirred up in all directions and were threatening
ruin, you began to tremble, and lest suspicion might fall
upon you that you were the author or that you approved
the plan, you wrote a letter with that same candour of
yours to Cologne, trying to get ahead of the rumours
and making a great pretence of sympathy with them
and regret at the affair and saying many things against
the whole business and abusing the authors."
If Erasmus is such a man of peace, why, asks
Hutten, does he now so bitterly attack the reform
ers ? Some people had long since accused him of
treachery, but at that time no one would believe
them and Erasmus was satisfied to put it all upon
the Fates:
" a fine notion and, as we now see, truly Erasmian !
You say that, being the man you are, you must deal
with Germans after their own fashion. Well, this is not
the way of Germans, but of men whose fickleness and
inconstancy are altogether foreign to Germans, men who
can be tossed about hither and thither by every change
of wind, with whom nothing is fixed, but everything slip
pery and shifting with the changes of fortune. Get you
to Italy with such doings, to those cardinals whom you
are now taking under your wing, where everyone may
live according to his own morals and his own character !
24
37 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
Or else get back to your own French-Dutchmen, if, per
haps, this is a national vice and one common to you and
them ! "
Referring to the use of the term " Lutherans,"
about which Erasmus was so much distressed, Hut-
ten says:
" Therefore, although I have never had Luther for
my master or my companion and am carrying on this
business on my own account, and although I am most
terribly opposed to being counted in any party what
ever, nevertheless, since it is a fact that those who are
opposed to the Roman tyrann)' among whom I desire
above all things to be reckoned and those who dare to
speak the truth and who are turning back from human
ordinances to the teaching of the Gospel, are commonly
called Lutherans, therefore I am ready to bear the bur
den of this nickname, lest I seem to deny my faith in
the cause. . . . Now you know why I accept the
name of Lutheran, and anyone can see that for the same
reasons you too are a Lutheran, and that so much the
more than I or anyone else as you are a better writer
and a more accomplished orator."
One may search the writings of Erasmus from
beginning to end without finding an utterance to
compare with this in decision and clear-cut dis
crimination of the truth. At great length and with
the appearance of entire sincerity Hutten warns
Erasmus of the danger he is now in of appearing to
be only the hired man of the papacy. He may still,
in his heart, be true to his former convictions; but
who will believe it ? All this bragging about his
1523] Hutten's Expostulatio 371
great friends at Rome with their flattering offers
can only confirm the Lutherans in their distrust of
him. If he will not be warned now, then let him
go on
" to fulfil the hopes of those who have long been looking
about for a leader for the enemies of the truth. Gird
yourself ; the thing is ripe for action ; it is a task worthy
of your old age ; put forth your strength ; bend to the
work ! You shall find your enemies ready ! the party
of the Lutherans, which you would like to crush to
earth, is waiting for the battle and cannot refuse it. Our
hearts are full of courage ; we are sustained by a certain
hope and, relying upon our conscious rectitude and hon
our, we will decline no challenge, no matter whither you
may call us. Nay, that you may see how great is the
faith that is in us, the more furiously you assault us, the
keener you shall find us in defending the cause of truth.
. . . One half of you will stand with us and be in our
camp ; your fight will be, not so much with us as with
your own genius and your own writings. You will turn
your learning against yourself and will be eloquent
against your own eloquence. Your writings will be
fighting back and forth with each other."
The Lutherans will trust in God and joyfully take
up the encounter.
There can be no doubt that Hutten was uttering
the voice of the great Lutheran party, as it must
now be called. Although called out by a personal
attack, the Expostulatio keeps itself throughout on
higher than personal grounds. It is not an apology
for Hutten ; it is a fierce outburst of honest indigna
tion against a man who seemed to be throwing away
37 2 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
a noble mind and conspicuous gifts through lack of
courage and simple honesty. Hutten's expressions
of admiration for his opponent have the ring of
absolute sincerity. He had admired him above all
other men, and his wrath is tempered by pain and
honest sorrow at his failure to lead where none could
lead so well. If Hutten made the mistake which so
many have made since his time, of asking from Eras
mus a kind of service for which he was by nature
unfitted, it was a mistake which honours him who
made it. The time for balancing good and evil had
gone. If anything was to be done, it must be by
the united action of all who were in substantial
agreement upon the great essential questions of the
hour. There had been enough of apologising and
trimming, and this great word of Hutten was the
proclamation of what was inevitably to come.
When it came into Erasmus' hands he determined
at once to reply, and the result was the famous
pamphlet which he called Spongia adversus aspergines
Hutteni, "a sponge to wipe out the bespatterings of
Hutten." It is a work twice as long as \heExpostu-
latio, written, so its author says, in six days during
the month of July, 1523, but not published until the
autumn and after the death of Hutten, which oc
curred August 29th. The Spongia is as distinctly a
work of personal apology as the Expostulatio was
the opposite. It takes up, one by one, the points
made by Hutten and deals with them after the
fashion with which we are now so familiar that any
extended examination would in no way enlarge our
understanding of Erasmus' true position. The
1523] The Spongia 373
greater part of Hutten's charges he accepts in one
or another sense and then tries to take away their
force. The most common way of doing this is by
showing that he has never really been inconsistent
with himself, but has only adapted himself for the
moment to given conditions lest the one great cause
of pure learning should suffer by too great zeal.
Nowhere does Erasmus show himself a more com
plete master of the word " if." He will admit
everything with an " if." Hutten has accused him
of keeping on too good terms with the pope after
all the abuse which he has heaped upon things
papistical very well, he has praised popes, but he
has done this because he believed them to be men
who meant well to the cause of Christ. If otherwise
he would be the last to praise them.
Erasmus' analysis of the papal power here is a
monument of his skill in turning about words to suit
his purpose.
" I have never," he says, " spoken inconsistently of the
Roman See. Tyranny, greed, and other vices, ancient
grounds of complaint common to all good men, I have
never approved. Nor have I ever totally condemned in
dulgences, though I have always hated this shameless
trade in them. What I think about ceremonies, my
books declare in many places. But when have I abused
the Canon Law or the papal decretals ? Whatever he
means by ' calling the pope to order ' I am not quite
clear. I suppose he will admit that there is a church at
Rome ; for the multitude of its sins cannot cause it to be
any the less a church if this is not so then we have no
churches at all. And I assume that it is an orthodox
374 Desiderius Erasmus [i 520 -
church ; for if certain bad men are mingled with the
rest, yet the church abides in the good ones. And I
suppose he will allow that this church has a bishop, and
that this bishop is a metropolitan . . . now then
among metropolitans what is there absurd in giving the
first place to the Roman pontiff ? for this great power
which they have been usurping to themselves during
several centuries, no one has ever heard me defend.
" But Hutten will not endure a wicked pope ; why,
that is what we are all praying for, that the pope may be
a man worthy of his apostolic office. But, if he be not
that, let him be deposed ; and by the same token, let all
bishops be deposed who do not duly perform their func
tions. But a'n especial plague of the world has been
flowing now for many years from Rome. Would that it
could be denied ! Now, however, has come a pope who
is striving, as I believe, with all his might, to give back
to us that See and that Curia purified."
Yet Erasmus had been overwhelming the dead
Leo, the source of this pestilent flood, with every
conceivable kind of flattery. Now he abuses him,
in order to make his point that things are all going
to be set right by the excellent Adrian. But this
way of setting things right is just what Hutten does
not hope for, he says.
"Yet there are many reasons for this hope, and char
ity, according to Paul, ' hopeth all things.' If Hutten
were declaring war upon evils, not upon men, he would
hasten to Rome and help this pope who is now trying to
do the very same things he is himself striving for. But
Hutten has declared war upon the Roman pontiff and
i 5 2 3 ] The Spongia 375
all his followers. . . . The Romanists would like
always to have such enemies as Hutten."
If there was an honest Erasmus anywhere under
this mass of words, it seems pretty clear that he
was for Hutten rather than against him. That
Erasmus had any such honest side one is tempted
to doubt when one reads his defence against the
charge of trifling with the truth. Hutten had ac
cused him ' of saying that the truth ought not always
to be spoken, and that a great deal depended upon
how it was put forth.
" That blasphemous speech of yours," he had said,
" ought to have been thrust down your throat (my cause
compels me to speak more angrily than I would) if those
had done their duty who are now compelling heretics to
recant or throwing them to the flames."
Erasmus could not deny the words, but replies":
" When Christ first sent out the Apostles to preach the
Gospel he forbade them to declare that he was the Christ.
If, then, the Truth himself ordered that truth to be kept
in silence, without the knowledge of which there is no
salvation to any man, what is there strange in my saying
that the truth ought sometimes to be suppressed ? "
Then he gives several similar illustrations of repres
sion of truth by silence on the part of Jesus, and
goes on :
1 Expostulatio, 180.
9 Spongia, 274, x., i66o-E, and Hutteni opera, ii., 306.
37 6 Desiderius Erasmus [1520-
" If I had to defend the cause of an innocent man before
a powerful tyrant should I blurt out the whole truth and
ruin the case of the innocent man, or should I keep many
things silent ? Hutten, a brave man and most zealous
for the truth, would, no doubt, speak thus : ' O most
accursed tyrant, you who have murdered so many of
your fellow-citizens, is your cruelty not yet sated, that
you must tear this innocent man from their midst ? '
Well, that is about as clever as the way in which some
are defending the cause of Luther, by raging against the
pope with seditious writings. Or if he [Hutten] were
asking from a wicked pope a benefice for some good
man, he would write to him after this style : ' O impious
Antichrist, destroyer of the Gospel, oppressor of civil
liberty, flatterer of princes, thou givest basely so many a
benefice to wicked men and still more basely sellest
them, grant this one to this good man that all may not
fall into evil hands.' You smile, reader ; but these peo
ple are pleading the cause of the Gospel with no more
caution than that. . . . But what is more foolish
than to call me back from a place where I never was
and to summon me to the very place I am now in ? He
calls me back from the party of the wicked who support
the tyranny of the Romanists, who overturn the truth of
the Gospel, who darken the glory of Christ ; but I have
always been fighting those very men. He summons me
to his own side ; but as yet I am not clear where Hutten
himself stands."
The whole aim of the Spongia and its effect upon
the world were simply to make it perfectly plain
that Erasmus would not take sides. If the purpose
of the Expostulatio was to force him to do so, it was
1523] The Spongia 377
a conspicuous failure. Nothing could be plainer
than Erasmus' own declaration ' :
" in so many letters, so many books, and by so many
proofs, I am continually declaring that I am unwilling to
be involved with either party. I give many reasons for this
determination, but have not put forth all of them. And
in this matter my conscience makes no charge against
me before Christ my judge. In the midst of such con
fusion and danger to my reputation and my life I have
so moderated my judgments as neither to be the author
of any disturbance nor to help any cause which I do not
approve. If Hutten is enraged because I do not support
Luther as he does, I protested three years ago in an ap
pendix added to my Familiar Colloquies at Louvain, that
I was totally a stranger to that faction and always would
be. I am not only keeping outside of it myself, but I
am urging as many friends as I can to do the same, and
I will never cease to do so. I mean by ' faction ' the
zeal of a mind sworn as it were to everything that Lu
ther has written or is writing or ever will write. This
kind of a sentiment often imposes upon good men ; but
I have openly announced to all my friends that if they
cannot love me except as a Lutheran they may have
whatever feeling they like about me. I am a lover of
liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party."
Here once more Erasmus saves himself by a defin
ition. If to be a Lutheran were to swear to every
word of Luther's, then, of course, no man in his
senses would confess to the party name. Erasmus
knew as well as anyone that parties for action were
1 Spongia, 176, x., 1650-6, and Hutleni opera, ii., 291.
37$ Desiderius Erasmus [i 520 -
never formed by any such test. Men joined a party
because they were in general sympathy with others
and believed that the time for common action had
come. This common action was the thing he could
not bear to think of. To him it meant confusiones,
tumultus, tragoedias, and all the other horrors of
open conflict. We leave the Hutten episode, closed
as it was by the untimely death of the brilliant,
reckless genius who had brought it on, with the
feeling that Hutten's charge was substantially true.
Erasmus, with all the best part of him, was fighting
the Lutheran battle and knew he was doing it. He
recoiled before the fear of violence and then had to
justify himself.
It would be interesting to know how far the defini
tion of the papacy as a metropolitan see among others
represented a real opinion of Erasmus. Probably it
was a rhetorical conclusion; but it can hardly have
made the Spongia a welcome visitor at Rome, and
it is not surprising that this passage was expurgated
by the Roman censorship.
An incident of the year 1524 well illustrates the
temper of Erasmus at the time and also the decline
in regard for him on the Lutheran side. A certain
Scotch printer at Strassburg had published some
writing of Hutten against Erasmus, probably the
Expostulatio, with offensive illustrations, and in a
second edition had added an invective by another
author, in which " whatever one blackguard could
say of another " was said of Erasmus. What touched
him especially was that he was called a traitor to the
Gospel, and charged with having been hired for
1523] The Spongia 379
money to fight against it, and moreover was accused
of being ready to be pulled in any direction by the
chance of a crumb of bread. Erasmus wrote two
very angry letters ' to the magistrates of Strassburg
asking them to punish the printer, and defending
himself in his usual fashion from these charges.
Evidently nothing was done about it, for some
time later Erasmus wrote to Caspar Hedio, one of
the Lutheran preachers at Strassburg,* complaining
of this neglect. His suggestions about the way to
treat an offending printer are amusing.
" You say this Scotchman has a wife and little child
ren. Would that be thought an excuse if he should
break open my money-chest and steal my gold ? I
should say not ; and yet he has done a thing far worse
than that. Or perhaps you think I care less for my
reputation than for my money. If he can't feed his
children, let him go a-begging. ' That would be a
shame,' you say. Well, are n't such actions as this a
shame ? Let him prostitute his wife and snore away
with watchful nose over his cups. ' Horrible,' you say.
And yet what he has done is more horrible still. There
is no law to punish with death a man who prostitutes
his wife ; but everyone approves capital punishment
for those who publish slanderous writings."
1 Hi. 1 , 793, 804. 8 Hi. 1 , 844.
CHAPTER X
DOCTRINAL OPPOSITION TO THE REFORMATION
FREEDOM OF THE WILL THE EUCHARIST
THE " SPIRIT "
1523-1527
THERE can be no doubt that Erasmus was urged
from many sides to write something decisive
against the Lutheran party. He held back as long
as he could, partly, we may be sure, from real sym
pathy with the chief purpose of the reform and
partly from a dread of committing himself to, he
knew not precisely what. To estimate his position
aright we must bear in mind that the real meaning
of the reform party was developing year by year,
taking on ever new aspects as one interest after
another came to be connected with the original ker
nel of opposition. So far as outward things were
concerned Erasmus was barred from many lines of
attack by his own damning record. In these mat
ters he could only indulge in vague exhortations to
moderation and in voluminous, but not very con
vincing, apologies.
He was therefore compelled, if he wished to
meet the pressure of the Roman party by some open
380
i 5 2 7 ] Doctrinal Opposition 381
service, to turn to the more speculative side of the
reform. He there found a topic naturally adapted
to draw out his hostility, the topic of the freedom
of the human will. It was a subject especially suited
to the Erasmian method. Its problem involved the
riddle of the ages : To what degree is the action of
man determined by his own will and to what degree
by some power Fate, God, Devil, call it what we
may outside himself ? That man had a will of his
very own had never been totally denied. The
question was, how far was this will free to act ?
Within the history of Christianity this problem
had early found its expression in the great Augus-
tinian-Pelagian controversy of the fifth century.
Both of these parties had admitted that man's will
was somehow affected by the divine will. The dif
ference, the hopeless and perpetual difference, had
been on the question of the possibility of good action
through the human impulse alone. This possibility
the Pelagian party had maintained, adding, however,
that such original good impulse of the human will
was immediately aided by the divine grace. The
party of Augustine had denied the possibility of any
good action without a previous impulse of the divine
grace. The Church, sane and clever always in the
long run, had steered its course carefully between
the two extremes. It had condemned Pelagius as
a heretic and reverenced Augustine as a saint ; but
it had never gone to those lengths of opinion which
might be discovered in Augustine's writings by one
who wished to find them there.
In other words, the Church had instinctively
382 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
recognised that the problem is insoluble. As the
practical administrator of a system of morals, it had
concerned itself only with providing a machinery
whereby the consequences of evil action could be
averted from its faithful members. It had never
said to them, " You are compelled to these sins by
a power you cannot resist," but it had said, " You
will infallibly sin and you will suffer for your sins,
unless you remove them by the means we offer."
So far that had worked. The world had accepted
the situation and gone merrily on, knowing when it
sinned, but knowing also that a kind and indulgent
Church would see to it that its sins were taken care
of at a very reasonable charge. Only from time to
time men like Savonarola and groups of men like
the Waldensians had raised their cry of protest and
called men back again to the sense of direct respon
sibility to, and direct dependence on, God alone.
That was the essence also of Luther's protest.
Every individual Christian was once again called
upon to deal directly with his God. So far the
Lutheran teaching was in complete harmony with
the whole drift of Erasmus' thought. But here
we find another illustration of similar conclusions
reached by different ways. Erasmus was quite
satisfied to let the whole speculative side of the
question take care of itself. Luther could not rest
until he had harmonised his practical aims with some
theological principle, which should give them con
sistency and support. That principle he found in
the Augustinian doctrine of predestination and the
unfree will. Erasmus was content, as the Church
Freedom of the Will 383
was, to accept both sides of the controversy at once,
and trim them to suit each other. Luther cared
little for nice distinctions, but convinced himself
that the salvation of his cause lay in emphasising, so
far as a mind so eminently sound and human as his
could do, the idea of a divine fate, responsible
yes, he would even say this- if he must responsible
even for the seeming evil of this world.
Now it is obvious that, viewed abstractly, the
whole group of ideas we call " Augustinian " are
open to the gravest question. They seem to sap
the foundations of Christian morality and to throw
men back upon the dreary fatalisms from which it
was the mission of Christianity to release them. In
fact, however, it cannot be denied that from time
to time they have worked, where other means have
failed, to recall men sharply and uncompromisingly
to the sense of sin and thereby to a more vivid and
convincing moral purpose. Such a time was come
once more in the day of Luther and Erasmus and
Calvin. This theology may have been illogical, but
it worked. It ought, perhaps, in all reason, to have
sent men flying off into a mad indifference to moral
ity, since nothing they could do would influence
their ultimate fate ; but for every weak and shuffling
conscience which broke under this burden there
were a hundred others that were steeled and nerved
by it to a complete moral regeneration. The doc
trine of the impotent will has produced some of the
most masterful wills before which the world has
ever had to bend.
Here, then, was a point upon which Erasmus
384 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
might safely attack Luther without compromising
himself. His essay on the Freedom of the Will '
was announced some time before its appearance. In
the course of the year 1523 he sent a rough draft to
King Henry VIII., promising, if this seemed worth
while to the king " and other learned men," to
finish it as soon as his health and certain engage
ments would permit. A letter of Luther to Eras
mus in 1524 suggests that he had heard of his
intention to attack in some way the doctrines of the
Reformation, though he nowhere alludes to the sub
ject of free will. This letter is interesting as show
ing the lofty tone of a man who believes himself to
be the spokesman of a cause higher than any human
considerations. He, like Hutten, sees in Erasmus
an ally who, after the measure of the gift of God, is
fighting the same battle. Only he feels the limita
tions of that gift.
" I see that God has not yet granted you the courage
and the insight to join freely and confidently with me in
fighting those monsters. Nor am I the man to demand
of you what goes beyond my own strength and my own
limitations. But weakness like my own and a measure
of the gift of God I have borne with in you and have
respected it. For this plainly the whole world cannot
deny : that learning flourishes and prevails, whereby
men have come to the true understanding of Scripture
and this is a great and splendid gift of God in you. In
truth I have never wished that you should go beyond
your own limitations and mingle in our camp, for though
you might help us greatly with your genius and elo-
1 De libero arbitrio Aiarpiftrf sive collatio, ix., 1215-1247.
1527] Freedom of the Will 385
quence, yet since your heart is not in it it would be safer
to serve within your own gift. The only thing to be feared
was that you would sometime be persuaded by our ene
mies to publish some attack upon our doctrine, and then
necessity would compel me to answer you to your face.
I have restrained others who were trying to draw you
into the arena with things they had already written, and
that was the reason why I wished Hutten's Expostulate
had never been published, and still more your Spongia,
through which, if I am not mistaken, you now see how
easy it is to write about moderation and to accuse Luther
of lacking it, but how difficult, nay, impossible it is to
practice it except through a singular gift of the Spirit.
" Believe me, then, or not, yet Christ is my witness
that I pity you from my heart, because the hatred and
the active efforts of so many and so great men are stirred
up against you. I cannot believe that you are not dis
turbed by these things, since your human virtue is un
equal to such a burden. And yet perchance they too
are moved by a justifiable warmth, because they feel
themselves attacked by you with unworthy methods. . . .
" I, however, have up to this time restrained my pen,
no matter how bitterly you have stung me, and have told
my friends, in letters which you have read, that I was
going to restrain it until you should come out openly.
. . . Now then, what can I do ? Either way is most
trying to me. I could wish -if I could be the mediator
that my allies would cease to attack you with such
zeal and would permit your old age to fall asleep in the
peace of God and this they would do, in my opinion, if
they would consider your infirmity and the greatness of
our cause, which has long since passed beyond your
limitations ; especially now that the matter has gone so
far that there is little to fear for our cause, even if
386 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
Erasmus fight against it with all his might, nay, though
sometimes he scatter stings and bites. Yet, on the other
hand, my dear Erasmus, if only you would consider their
weakness and would restrain from those biting and cut
ting figures of rhetoric, so that if you cannot or dare not
go with us altogether, you may at least leave us alone
and deal with your own subjects. For that they [Eras
mus" ' Lutheran ' assailants] are but ill bearing your
attacks, there is good reason, namely, because their hu
man weakness greatly dreads the name and authority of
Erasmus and because to be once bitten by Erasmus
is quite a different thing from being crushed by all the
papists together.
" I desire to have said these things, most excellent
Erasmus, in witness of my friendly feeling towards you.
I pray that God may give you a spirit worthy of your
fame ; but if God delays with his gift to you, I beg you
meanwhile, if you can do no more, to remain a spectator
of our conflict and not to join forces with our opponents,
especially not to publish books against me, as I will
publish nothing against you. Finally, consider that
those who complain that they are attacked under the
Lutheran name are men like you and me, in whom
much ought to be overlooked and forgiven. As Paul
says : ' Bear ye one another's burdens.' There has been
biting enough ; now let us see to it that we be not con
sumed by mutual strife, a spectacle the more wretched
inasmuch as it is perfectly certain that neither side is at
heart opposed to true piety and that if it were not for
obstinacy, each would be quite satisfied with its own.
Pardon my feeble speech and farewell in the Lord."
The impression of this letter is one of sad but
confident sincerity. Luther is not afraid of Eras-
Freedom of the Will 387
mus because he is unshakably convinced of the
justice of his own cause, but he would gladly be
spared the necessity of going into an encounter which
would make even more evident to the world than it
was already the difference between his own and
Erasmus' views of reform. His tone is lofty, arrog
ant if we will, because he is speaking for what he
believes to be divine truth and to a man who seemed
to him as yet untouched by the real divine spark.
He acknowledges his indebtedness to the great
scholar, but cannot see why Erasmus may not con
tinue to find full scope for his talents on the lines
he has been following. He did not succeed in stay
ing the publication of the essay on free will, but
at all events the moderation of its tone shows a
notable effort on the part of Erasmus to avoid irritat
ing language.
The treatise, published in 1524, is a short one,
covering sixteen folio pages. It consists chiefly of
a careful historical examination of passages of Script
ure, both of the Old and New Testaments, in which
the subject seems to be alluded to. So far as the
argument itself is concerned, the work is of little
interest. Erasmus for the most part carefully avoids
original discussion and holds himself closely to
authority. Since the beginning, he says, there has
never been anyone to deny free will entirely ex
cept " Manichaeus " and Wiclif. Yet Luther gives
no weight to all this and falls back upon Scripture.
Very good, but this is only what all do. " Both sides
accept and revere the same Scripture. The battle
is only about the meaning of Scripture," and in
388 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
getting at the meaning we ought to pay respect to
talent and learning. Of course the only sound in
terpretation comes through the gift of the Spirit;
but where is the Spirit ? The chances are much
greater that it is to be found among those to whom
God has given ordination, just as we believe more
easily that grace is given to a baptised man than to
an unbaptised one.
" If Paul commands his time, in which the gift of the
Spirit was flourishing, to prove the spirits, whether they
be of God, what must we do in this fleshly age ? How
then shall we judge the spirits ? by learning ? On both
sides there are men of learning. By the life ? there are
sinners on both sides. In the other life is the whole
choir of the saints who approve the freedom of the
will. ' But,' they say, ' those were mortals ' ; true, and
I am comparing men with men, not men with gods. I
am asked : ' What have majorities to do with the mean
ing of Scripture ? ' I answer : ' What have minorities to do
with it ? ' I am asked : ' How does the mitre help in un
derstanding Scripture ? ' I answer : ' How does the cloak
help or the cowl ? ' I am asked : ' What has the under
standing of philosophy to do with the understanding of
Scripture ? ' I answer : ' What has ignorance to do with
it ? ' I am asked : ' What can be done for a knowledge
of Scripture by a Council, in which it may happen that
no one has the Spirit?' I answer: 'What can be done
by private gatherings of a few men, among whom it is
far more probable that no one has the Spirit ? ' . . .
" If you ask them by what proof they know the true
sense of Scripture, they reply, ' By the witness of the
Spirit.' If you ask how they come to have the Spirit,
i 5 2 7 ] Freedom of the Will 3 8 9
rather than those whose miracles have been known to
all the world, they reply as if there had been no Gos
pel in the world for thirteen hundred years. If you ask
of them a life worthy of the Spirit, they reply that they
are justified by faith, not by works. If you ask for
miracles they tell you that these have long since ceased
and that there is no need of them in the present clear
light of Scripture. If you deny that Scripture is clear
on this point, upon which so many of the greatest men
have been involved in darkness, the circle comes round
again to its beginning."
Now all this is very clever too clever, in fact ; for
it amounts to nothing but an elaborate defence of
the principle of human authority in belief. By
means of this introduction, Erasmus sets himself
squarely against the principle of free interpretation
of the original sources of Christianity by the light
of reason and knowledge, for which the Reforma
tion was really working and towards which he him
self by his own New Testament work had been
contributing.
Another principle of Erasmus, especially irritat
ing to Luther, was that the truth should not always
be spoken, a maxim as obviously true as the ap
plication of it was liable to gross abuse.
" Let us then suppose," he says, " that it be true in
some sense, as Wiclif and Luther have said, that ' what
ever is done by us, is done, not by free will but by pure
necessity,' what more inexpedient than to publish this
paradox to the world ? Or, let us suppose that in a
certain sense it is true, as Augustine somewhere says :
39 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
' God works both good and evil in us, and rewards his
own good works in us and punishes his own evil works
in us,' what a door to impiety this saying would open
to countless mortals, if it were spread abroad in the
world ! . . . What weak man would keep up the
perpetual and weary conflict against the flesh ? What
evil man would strive to correct his life ? Who could per
suade his soul to love with his whote heart a God who
has prepared a hell glowing with eternal tortures that he
may there avenge upon miserable men his own misdeeds
as if he delighted in human tortures ? "
Here was an objection to Augustinianism as old
as Augustine himself, but the fact was that it had
never yet been sustained and was not likely to
be. Even if it had been, that could not affect the
principle Erasmus was now concerned with ; namely,
that truth which seemed likely to make any confu
sion in the world ought not to be spoken. 1
Having fortified himself on these preliminary
points, Erasmus lays out the problem with great
clearness and then proceeds with the examination
of scripture passages on both sides. It would be
idle to follow this process, by which, proverbially,
anyone can prove anything. Of course Erasmus
finds the weight of Scripture on his side, as his op
ponents found it on theirs. Far more important
1 In a letter to Aloisius Marlianusfiii. 1 , 545-C), Erasmus says : " I
know that everything ought to be borne rather than that the public
order should be disturbed ; I know it is the part of piety sometimes
to hide the truth, and that the truth ought not to be put forth in
every place, nor at every time, nor in every presence, nor in every
way, nor always in its entirety."
i 5 2 7 ] Freedom of the Will 39 l
and interesting is his own personal declaration of
faith. Put in a word, it was that one ought to allow
to man some share in his own good actions ; not a
great share, only " non ni/ii/." In fact, this is
really the only thing he finds to criticise in the
Lutheran doctrine, the overemphasis on the ele
ment of grace in human action.
" * Doubtless to them [the Lutherans] it seems perfectly
in harmony with the simple obedience of the Christian
soul that man should depend wholly upon the will of
God, should place all his hope and trust in His pro
mises, and, knowing how wretched he is of himself, should
marvel and adore His boundless mercy which is poured
out upon us freely in such large measure and should en
trust himself wholly to His will, whether He wishes to
save or to condemn ; that man should take no credit to
himself for His kindnesses, but should ascribe all the
glory to His grace, bearing in mind that man is only
the living organ of the divine spirit, purified and con
secrated by His free goodness, ruled and governed by
His inscrutable wisdom. There is nothing here which
anyone can claim for his own strength and yet one may
with confidence hope from Him the reward of eternal
life not because he has deserved it by good deeds, but
because it has seemed best to His goodness to promise
it to His faithful. It is the part of men earnestly to
pray God that he may impart and increase His spirit in
us, to give thanks if any good is done through us, to
worship His power in all things, to marvel at His
wisdom, and to love His goodness.
" All this I too most heartily approve. It agrees with
1 ix., i24i-F.
39 2 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
holy Scripture. It answers to the profession of those
who, once dead to the world, are at the same time buried
with Christ by baptism, so that through mortifying the
flesh, they may live and act in the spirit of Jesus, in
whose body they are implanted by faith. Truly a pious
opinion and worthy of all approval, which takes away
from us all pride, which lays all the glory and all our
hope upon Christ, which casts out all fear of men or
'demons and makes us distrustful of our own defences,
but bold and full of courage in God. I applaud all this
gladly until it becomes extravagant. For when I hear that
man is so completely without merit that all the works^
even of pious men, are sinful ; when I hear that our
wills can do no more than clay in the hand of the potter ;
when I hear that all we do or will is to be referred to
absolute necessity, my mind is disturbed by many
scruples."
We see how near he comes to the Lutheran posi
tion. Its emphasis on the sinfulness of man and the
direct responsibility to God appeals to him. Only,
like so many before and since, he revolts against the
injustice of a theory which would punish man for
sins he has not committed. He cannot escape from
the ordinary standards of human reward and pun
ishment. His idea of God is offended by what
seems to him a cruel and unfeeling conception. He
cannot ascribe to God any quality which would be
a disgrace to manhood.
" Surely everyone would call him a cruel and unjust
master, who should flog a slave to death because he was
not beautiful enough or had a crooked nose or was other
wise deformed. Would not the slave be right in com-
Freedom of the Will 393
plaining to the master who was slaying him : ' Why
should I be punished for what I cannot help ? ' And he
would be still more justified in saying this if it were in
the power of the master to remedy the defect of the
slave, as it is in the power of God to change our wills
or if the master had caused in the slave the very defect
at which he now takes offence, as, for example, if he
had cut off his nose or disfigured his face with scars,
as God, according to some people, has wrought all the
evil that is in us." l
This is the familiar argument of all anti-Augustin-
ianism from the beginning until now. So long as
the discussion has to be carried on with the weapons
of the ancient theology, it is hard to see how the
issue can be stated otherwise. So long as both
parties were acting on the theory of a universe with
a God outside of it and assumed the existence of
good and evil as absolute entities, they must neces
sarily part company in their definitions of this God
and of his relation to good and evil. Each would
fall back upon such human analogies as seemed to
come nearest to his own divine ideal. The real
issue was far beyond the comprehension of either
party. Each was seeking a solution where no solu
tion was possible. Erasmus said :
" In my judgment free will might have been so defined
as to avoid that confidence in our own merits and those
other difficulties which Luther avoids and also the diffi
culties I have enumerated above, without losing those
valuable things which Luther praises. This solution
1 ix., I243-B.
394 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
seems to me to be found in the opinion of those who as
cribe entirely to grace the first impulse by which our minds
are set in motion, and only in the course of this motion
allow a something to the will of man which has not with
drawn itself from the grace of God. But since all things
have three parts, beginning, progress, and completion,
they ascribe the two extremes to grace and only in the
progress admit that the free will does something ; but
even this it does in such a way that in the same individ
ual act two causes work together, the grace of God and
the will of man, grace being the principal cause and the
will the secondary cause, which of itself can do nothing,
whereas the principal cause is sufficient to itself. Just
as the native 'force of fire burns and yet the principal
cause [of the burning] is God, who acts through the fire
and would be sufficient alone, whereas the fire if this
should withdraw itself could accomplish nothing with
out it." '
This has an almost Pelagian sound. It is in fact
nearly the attitude of the moderate anti-Augustinian
party of the fifth century, when it was trying to show
how orthodox it was. Erasmus goes on to illustrate
the same point with abundant and clever illustra
tion, and finally comes to the question of " original
sin," the inevitable crux of the whole discussion.
" * They exaggerate original sin beyond all measure,"
he says ; " they would have it that the most splendid
powers of our human nature are so corrupted by it, that
we can do nothing of ourselves except to be ignorant of
God and to hate Him. Not even he who is justified by
1 ix., 1 244- A. 9 ix., 1246-6.
i 5 2 7 ] Freedom of the Will 395
faith can do any act which is not a sin ; this very tend
ency to sin left over to us from the sin of our first par
ents they call sin, and declare it irresistible, so that
there is no command of God which even a man justified
by faith can fulfil ; but so many commands of God have
no other aim than that God's grace may be magnified
through his granting of salvation without regard to our
merits! ... If God has burdened man with so many
commands which have no other effect than to make him
hate God the more, do they not make him out more un
merciful than Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, who purposely
made many laws which he expected most persons would
not obey unless insisted upon, then for a while over
looked offences until he saw that almost everyone had
violated them, and then began to call them to account,
and so made everyone hate him?
" This kind of extravagance Luther seems to delight
in, in order that he might, as the saying is, split the evil
knot of others' excesses with an evil wedge. The fool
ish audacity of certain men had gone to extremes. They
were selling the merits, not only of themselves, but of all
the saints. And for what kind of works ? for incanta
tions, for muttering of psalms, eating of fish, fastings,
vestments, titles. Now Luther drove out this nail with
another by saying that there are no merits of saints at
all, but that all the works of pious men are sins, and will
bring damnation, unless faith and God's mercy come to
their aid.
" Again, the other party was making a profitable trade
out of confessions and penances, wherein they had terri
bly ensnared the consciences of men ; and also out of
Purgatory, about which they had handed down certain
marvellous notions. This error their opponents would
correct by saying that confession is a device of Satan and
39 6 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
ought not to be required ; that works can give no satis
faction for sin since Christ has completely paid the pen
alty for the sins of all men, and, finally, that there is no
such thing as Purgatory. So one side says that the de
crees even of their little priors can bind us by the pains
of hell and does not hesitate to promise eternal life to
those who obey them. The other side tries to moderate
this extravagance by saying that all the decrees of popes,
councils, and bishops are heretical and anti-Christian.
If one side had exalted extravagantly the power of the
pope, the other says such things about him as I dare not
repeat. Again, one party says that the vows of monks
and priests bind men by the pains of hell, and that for
ever ; the other says that such vows are utterly impious
and ought not to be taken ; or, if they have been taken,
ought not to be kept. Now it is from the collision of
such excesses as this that the thunders and lightnings
have arisen which are now shattering the world. If both
sides are to go on thus bitterly defending their extreme
views I perceive that the battle will be like that between
Achilles and Hector, who were so equal in savagery that
only death could separate them. ... I prefer the
opinion of those who attribute something to free will,
but a great deal to grace. For we ought not so to avoid
the Scylla of pride as to be swept into the Charybdis of
despair and indifference."
So the treatise ends as it began, by showing what
all reasonable men knew before, that the question
has two sides to it, but without giving that kind of
decided utterance which the critical moment de
manded. Viewed as an abstract treatment, quite
independently of the circumstances, it was a moder
ate, clever, good-tempered discussion of a philo-
1527] Freedom of the Will 397
sophic problem ; but it did not give that clear note
of leadership for which, above all else, men were
listening. Intellectually, Erasmus' position was as
superior to that of Luther as was the temper of his
argument better than that of Luther's reply. The
De libero arbitrio was welcomed by all the moderates
of the day and doubtless did its work in holding to
the status quo many a wavering spirit which other
wise might have been drawn into the reforming
ranks. While the weight of the argument is obvi
ously thrown as far as possible on Luther's side, it
called attention sharply to the weakest points in the
Reformation theology.
As soon as the " Free Will " was published, Eras
mus hastened, as usual, to justify himself by writing
in all directions to the persons whose approval was
of most value to him, to Henry VIII., Wolsey, and
Fisher in England, to Melanchthon and Duke George
in Germany, and to Aleander in Italy. He repre
sents the work as a proof of his courage " a bold
deed in Germany," he says to Wolsey, while to
Aleander he complains that enemies of his in Italy
are abusing him for unsound scholarship.
" They call me ' Errasmus ' in Rome, as if your writers
had never made a mistake. They say I am unfriendly to
Italy, whereas no one speaks more heartily than I of the
genius of the Italians. ... I have no doubt that
you and I would get on beautifully, if we could only live
together."
Luther waited a full year before replying to the
Diatribe. It was a year of especial trial to him, for
398 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
within those months it seemed as if the worst pro
phecies of his worst enemies were being fulfilled. All
the social and economic restlessness of the time was
beginning to make use of his teaching as a justifica
tion for revolt against the existing order of society.
Wholly against his will he found himself held respon
sible for confusions he abhorred and for doctrines
which seemed to him worse, if possible, than those
he had undertaken to combat. His immediate duty
was to clear himself of these imputations ; to show
how utterly foreign to his spirit and his aims were
the theology of Carlstadt, the communistic specula
tions of Munzer, and the revolutionary radicalism of
the peasant leaders. He accomplished this for all
who were able to follow his argumentation in the
remarkable series of pamphlets published in 1524
and 1525. Then he returned to the assault of Eras
mus. The most striking quality of the long and
laboured treatise, De servo arbitrio,* with which he
replied to the Diatribe, is its perfect frankness. In
deed Luther was almost compelled to frankness by
his detestation of what seemed to him the perilously
shifty method of his opponent. Erasmus had
deprecated violence; Luther reminds him that no
great good ever came into the world without com
motion and overturn of an existing order. Christ
came, not to send peace, but a sword. Erasmus
had said that true things were not to be uttered at
all times and had given certain illustrations ; Luther
disposes of this point by showing that the things
1 Walch, Luther's IVerke, xviii., 2049. An English translation by
Henry Cole. London, 1823.
1527] The Spirit 399
proposed in these illustrations were not true and
therefore, of course, ought not to be told at any
time. Erasmus had asked : " If there is no freedom
of will, who will try to amend his life ? " Luther
frankly replied, " No man. No man can. The
elect will be amended by the divine spirit ; the rest
will perish unamended." Erasmus had said that a
door would be opened to all iniquity by this doc
trine. Luther says : " So be it ; that is a part of the
evil that is to be borne ; but at the same time there
is opened to the elect a door to salvation, an en
trance into heaven, a way to God."
On the crucial point of authority for faith, Eras
mus had especially assailed what seemed to him
the vague and uncertain evidence of " the Spirit."
Luther replies that he is far enough from agreeing
with those whose sole reliance is upon the " Spirit,"
of which they boast. He has had a bitter enough
fight with them for a year past. In the same way
he has been attacking the papacy because there one
is always hearing that the Scriptures are obscure and
ambiguous, and that we ought to seek at Rome for
the interpreting Spirit, the most disastrous thing
possible.
" Now we hold this, that spirits are to be tried and
proved by a twofold judgment ; the one an internal,
whereby a man, enlightened by the Holy Spirit or by a
special gift of God may, so far as he and his own salva
tion are concerned, decide with the utmost certainty and
distinguish the doctrines and opinions of all men. As is
written [i Cor. ii. 15.],' the spiritual man judgeth all things,
but is judged by no man.' This is an essential part of
400 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
faith, and is necessary for everyone, even for a private
Christian. This is what we have called above the in
ternal clearness of Holy Scripture and is perhaps what
those persons meant who replied to you, that all things
were to be decided by the judgment of the Spirit. But
this kind of judgment cannot avail for another person,
and is not in question here ; for no one, I believe, can
doubt that it stands as I have said.
" Therefore there is a second kind of judgment, an
external, whereby, not only for ourselves but for others
and as regards the salvation of others, we may most
surely judge the spirits and opinions of all men. This
judgment belongs to the public ministry of the Word and
to the external office and especially to the leaders and
heralds of the Word. This we make use of when we
strengthen the weak in the faith and confute our oppon
ents. This we have called above the ' external clear
ness of Scripture.' And so we say that all spirits are to
be tried in the sight of the Church with Scripture as the
judge."
After this long introduction, Luther proceeds to
take up, one after another, Erasmus' references to
Scripture, and to show that he has misunderstood
them because he has applied to them a false prin
ciple of judgment. We are not concerned with this
theological fencing. Our interest is in the attitude
of the two men towards the ultimate question of
authority. Erasmus, the " individual," the man
of the Renaissance, the apostle of light, the fearless
critic of evils in Church and society, approaches this
great doctrinal question with the timidity of a
scholastic, and refers it finally to the judgment of
i 5 2 7 ] Doctrinal Opposition 401
the great authorities of the Church. Luther, the
man of feeling, .the thinker who only prayed to be
instructed, who gloried in being the slave of a higher
will, comes out here in reality as a champion of the
boldest liberty of human judgment. He would
settle all things by Scripture, but he would read his
Scripture with his own eyes and interpret it by the
light of that evidence of the Spirit which he and he
alone could read for himself. His tone is one of
mingled humility and arrogance, but we have no
reason to question his sincerity in either character.
His arrogance was that of a man who felt with Paul :
"Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel." He
closes, as he began, by praising Erasmus' learning,
thanking him for having gone straight at the heart
of the question, instead of worrying him, as others
were doing, " about the papacy, purgatory, indulg
ences, and such nonsense," and warning him that
henceforth he had better stick to his trade of liter
ature and let theology alone.
By the year 1525 the Lutheran doctrine may be
regarded as substantially complete, in the form which
it was to take in the Augsburg Confession of 1530.
Erasmus had indeed, as Luther said, gone straight
to the point by which that doctrine must stand or
fall, and in rejecting it he had made it impossible for
anyone to rank him with the reforming party. At
the same time he had shown how completely he
was out of sympathy, even theologically, with the
system of salvation by bona opera, which the Church
was trying to maintain. More than ever therefore
26
402 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
he found himself out of tune with both parties and,
since all the world was now rapidly ranging itself on
one side or the other, he experienced a growing
sense of isolation that was to colour his remaining
years.
Logically this isolation was the natural outcome
of lifelong habit. To be free of all obligations was,
we have continually noted, Erasmus' chief desire,
and that motive, consistently followed, could lead
nowhere else than to isolation. Yet here we touch
once more upon that other side of his nature which
had always been in conflict with the instinct of free
dom. In spite of his individuality he needed ap
proval. The breath of adulation was sweet to him.
He could be shabby enough to a friend, if he thought
himself injured, but that very sensitiveness betrayed
his need of friendship. We cannot wonder therefore
that henceforth, with increasing age and infirmity,
his utterances take on a tone of increasing sadness
and sense of loss.
More and more, too, as the doctrines of the re
formers spread downward into all classes of society
and outward over all countries, it became clearer
and clearer to the established authorities that their
real quarrel was not with this or that doctrinal quib
ble, nor with one or the other religious sect or social
organisation, but with the underlying spirit of all
these. It availed little that Erasmus rejected the
doctrine of the Unfree Will, that he refused to be a
Lutheran or a Zwinglian, an Anabaptist or a social
ist. The powers threatened by all these felt, and
rightly felt, that he stood for something more dan-
1527] Doctrinal Opposition 403
gerous still, a something without which none of
the sects could have stood alone for a moment.
That something was the spirit of criticism and of
science based upon a first-hand knowledge of the
sources of Christian truth.
The year 1525 marks a distinct reactionary move
ment. As, on the one hand, the social and econo
mic disturbances were the severest strain on the
new religious awakening, so, on the other hand,
they were the final argument to convince the powers
of conservatism that it was now or never with them.
For a moment the Church had seemed to waver.
In electing as pope Adrian VI., a Northerner, an
intimate of the young emperor, a school-fellow of
Erasmus, and well known as a man of enlightened
and moderate views, the Roman Curia had seemed
to cut itself loose from an exclusively Roman policy.
That policy had more than once brought the papacy
to the brink of ruin and was to do so more than once
again, but for the moment reformers of all grades
believed that a substantial progress had been made.
The early action of Adrian had confirmed this be
lief ; but the pressure was too great ; the papacy was
stronger than the pope. Adrian died in 1523 after
a disappointing administration of a single year,
and the proverbial swing of the papal pendulum
brought to the chair of Peter once more an Italian
not indeed a Roman, but a man as completely iden
tified with the curial policy as Adrian had been
unfamiliar with it.
Giulio dei' Medici, nephew of the great Lorenzo,
devoted from his earliest years to the ecclesiastical
404 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
profession, a politician trained in the same school
with Macchiavelli, and accepting the papacy as
the natural culmination of his ambition, was pre
cisely the kind of man to rally all the resources of
the Church in defence of its imperilled traditions.
In that rally, at this perilous crisis, no half-way
allegiance could be useful. Whatever hopes might
have been placed upon Erasmus by Leo and Adrian
were by this time pretty effectually dissipated. The
kind of sledge-hammer blows which the papacy of
1525 needed to have struck in its defence were cer
tainly not to come from such an arm as this.
Yet there occurred no official breach with any of
the great Catholic powers.' On the accession of
Clement VII. Erasmus sent him an early letter
of congratulation. He almost repeats the language
of similar addresses to former popes. Things have
been going badly enough, but now the right man
for the emergency has come. Especially the cause
of learning may well expect the greatest things from
a Medicean pope. He has resisted all pressure to
take sides against the papacy, and yet Stunica is
raging against him in Italy unpunished, to the dis
grace of Rome and the injury of the papal name.
" ' Believe me, most holy Father, whoever is hiring that
play-actor, a man born for this kind of trickery, is doing
a very poor service to the papacy or to the cause of the
public peace ; he is simply serving some private hatred
and to that end making use of another's folly. . . .
I have always submitted myself and all my works to the
^i. 1 , 783-E.
1527] Doctrinal Opposition 405
judgment of the Roman Church, not intending to resist,
even if it should give a verdict unfavourable to me. For
I will suffer everything rather than be a rebel ; and
therein I place my confidence that your Holiness' sense
of justice will not permit me to be given up to the mad
hatred of a few men. . . . The Emperor and the
Lady Margaret are calling me back to Brabant. The
French king is inviting me with mountains of gold to
come to him. But nothing shall tear me from Rome but
death, or the gravel more cruel than death, if only I
can be sure that your justice will protect me against false
accusations "
The familiar reference to the mountains of French
gold, which have been serving their turn with him
any time these ten years past, but which have no
foundation in fact, serve to indicate the value of
these declarations. It is unlikely that Erasmus had
the least intention of going to Rome. The phrase
about his call to Brabant appears again, somewhat
elaborated, in a letter to Cardinal Campeggio, dated
1526, but almost certainly of even date (February,
1524) with the one to Clement just quoted. He
speaks here of his very feeble health, which has com
pelled him to take a house by himself where he can
have an open fireplace. He cannot leave in the win
ter, but is planning a vacation trip for the coming
summer, and would gladly betake himself isthuc,
presumably to the German Diet at Nuremberg
whither Campeggio was coming as papal legate. He
goes on to say of how little use he can be under the
circumstances, though he will gladly do what he can
in the cause of peace. He promises Campeggio to
406 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
come to the Diet if he can, at the same moment that
he is assuring Clement that nothing shall tear him
(avellere) from his beloved Rome, if he is able to
move from Basel at all. If we doubt his intention
to go to Rome we may be still more certain that a
German Diet in 1524 was the very last place where
he would have cared to show himself. This, by the
way, was the Diet at which Campeggio was warned
not to wear his cardinal's hat, and not to make the
sign of benediction or of the cross. 1
So far as we can ever say that Erasmus had inten
tions about his future, we may venture to believe
that he meant to end his days at Basel. On one
subject it was almost impossible for him to exagger
ate, and that was the awful agony of his disease in
its acute stages and the great weakness and depres
sion in the interval. The wonder is that he could
have kept so steadily at work and could so often, in
the midst of his reproaches upon fortune and his
enemies, display that keen, playful humour which
was his greatest charm.
On one other doctrinal question, of vast import
ance in the history of the Reformation, we must
examine the utterances of Erasmus; namely, on the
question of the Eucharist. While the problem of
the freedom of the will involved the most pro
found philosophical speculation, the eucharistic con
troversy had to deal with a matter which, viewed
from one side, was a mere question of usage, but
from another led at once into a region where blind
1 Ranke, History of Germany, bk. iii., ch. iv.
The Eucharist 407
faith was plainly set in opposition to human reason.
From an early day the organised Church had seen
the value of the ideas which had taken form in the
service of the Eucharist and had insisted with absol
utely unwavering determination upon the doctrinal
formula which expressed them. First brought
sharply before the mediaeval world by the contro
versy of Paschasius in the ninth century, the issue
was revived by Berengar of Tours in the eleventh,
and all the ingenuity of the early scholasticism of
Anselm's day was displayed in giving to the idea a
foundation that could be neither misunderstood nor
evaded. Thus crystallised into a philosophic reality
by the great formulators of the thirteenth century,
the crass statement of the Church had been ques
tioned anew by Wiclif. Hus had, on this point, it
is true, professed allegiance to the Church, but the
Hussite party, by its passionate insistence upon the
right of the laity to receive the Eucharist under both
forms, had protested against the whole conception
of the sacrament as a sacrifice. So also the tendency
of the great mystical movement had been to accus
tom men's minds to a spiritual interpretation of
outward forms.
That was the stage in which the Reformation
found the whole subject of the Eucharist. Luther
early became clear on two points: first, that the
celebration of the Eucharist as a repetition of the
sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, without any re
ference whatever to the individual communicant,
indeed, as was oftenest the case, without any lay
communicant at all, was an outrageous violation of
408 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
every truly Christian conception of the institution,
a mere piece of heathen idolatry. But, secondly,
Luther still clung to the notion that a something
mysterious and miraculous took place when the
formula of benediction was duly uttered by the
priest, and that this something must still be ex
pressed in terms of the church tradition. " Hoc est
corpus meum" must have some literal and physical
meaning. Especially as he saw the " fanatics,"
who were not afraid to use their reason and take
the consequences, going far ahead of him and re
pudiating all the mystery of the consecrated symbol,
he found himself drawn more and more into sym
pathy with the traditional view. The Eucharist
question thus became the test of distinction not
only between Catholic and Protestant but between
moderate and radical Protestant as well. Plain
men like Landgraf Philip of Hessen, who wanted
above all else to see all the forces of Protestantism
united in one great assault, were shocked and puz
zled to find that men who seemed to them to stand
for precisely the same things were held apart by
such a mere speculative problem as this.
Luther said, and said truly, of his Protestant
doctrinal opponents, " these men are of another
spirit," and at the Conference of Marburg, in 1529,
when the whole future of Protestantism seemed to
hang upon the union of the Swiss with the German
branch, his personal insistence upon the out-and-
out literalness of the Catholic symbol prevented
that union forever. He saved the Lutheran Church
from the reproach of fanaticism and left the Swiss
1527] The Eucharist 409
Church free to follow its more liberal course. That
is where the Eucharist question drew near Eras
mus. He began to feel the approach of danger and,
characteristically, to prepare for it. We have no
special treatise on the subject from his hand, though
he is said to have written and suppressed two such.
His expressions in regard to it are scattered through
his apologetic writings. In the " Apology against
Certain Spanish Monks," published in 1528, there
is a chapter ' in which he replies to criticism on this
point. Here, as everywhere, he tries to draw a
clear line between what is essential and what is non-
essential to the Christian faith. Hutten, he says,
found fault with him because he was not willing to
expose himself to all perils for the sake of Luther's
doctrine, but he had replied:
" I would gladly be a martyr for Christ, if he would
give me strength, but I am not willing to be a martyr for
Luther. . . . Now if it were an important article
of faith that the Mass is not a sacrifice, as Luther main
tains, death ought to be sought and inflicted on its ac
count. . . . What I call articles of faith are those
handed down in all the creeds which the Church repeats,
and yet I do not deny the use of this phrase for some
doctrines that are not expressed in the creeds. As to
the reasons why the Eucharist is called a sacrifice, there
is still a difference among theologians as there is also on
many points about the primacy of the pope.
When I have stated that we ought to agree with the
Church in all points, even if man's reason and the appar
ent meaning of Scripture were opposed, I make it clear
MX., 1064-1066.
410 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
enough that I will conform at once, if anyone will prove
to me what the Church teaches on this point."
As regards the communion in both kinds, his
critics tried to trip him on the ground of a letter to
Bohemia in which he had seemed to show some
favour to the new-old doctrine. He protests that
he never meant to question the teaching of the
Church but only to suggest that more weighty
reasons than he had as yet heard ought to be given
for changing a practice which undoubtedly pre
vailed in the early centuries of the Church.
" Nor do I doubt that there were such reasons, which
perhaps on account of some scruple they preferred not
to mention ; for it is not an impious thing in itself to
partake under both forms. ... As for the charge
that on this point as on many others I agree with Lu
ther, if I should say that is a straight lie, they would
think me lacking in courtesy ; but bad luck to that
crafty book from which these extracts are taken ! I try
to persuade men to conform to the requirements of the
Roman Church in partaking of the Eucharist ; is that
agreeing with Luther ? Let anyone read what he writes
on this business ! "
So anxious was Erasmus to set himself right with
the world on this all-important topic, that in 1530,
after his removal to Freiburg, he published an
edition of a treatise by one Algerus, a Benedictine
monk of Liege, who died at Cluny in 1131. This
work, entitled A Treatise on the Sacrament of the
Body and Blood of our Lord, was written in refuta-
1527] The Eucharist 411
tion of Berengar of Tours. In his dedication ' Eras
mus says: " I have never doubted the reality of the
body of the Lord, and yet somehow by the reading
of this work my faith has been not a little confirmed,
and my reverence increased." In the course of this
dedication he shows us very plainly the working of
his mind. The doctrine he admits to be of original
validity, but as to its form, and as to the precise
expressions one ought to use, there has been an his
torical development and this has come about by
human means, through the natural process of con
troversy.
" Would that they who have followed Berengar in his
errors would follow him also in his repentance, and that
their error may turn to the advantage of the Church !
There are innumerable questions about this sacrament,
as, how the change of substance takes place ; how accid
ents can exist without a substance ; how the bread and
the wine retain the colour, the smell, the taste, the power
of satisfying, of intoxicating, and of nourishing which
they had before they were consecrated ; at what moment
they begin and cease to be the body and blood of Christ;
whether, if the form be destroyed another substance
succeeds ; how the same body may be in innumerable
places ; how the very body of a man can be under the
least crumb of bread and many other things which may
properly be discussed by those of trained intelligence.
For the multitude it is enough to believe that after the
consecration the bread and the wine are the true body
and blood of the Lord, which cannot be divided, nor
injured, nor is exposed to any harm, whatever may hap-
1 iii., 1274-1277.
Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
pen to the elements. ... In short, in answer to all
the doubts of human reasoning, there comes to us the
unlimited power of God, to whom nothing is impossible
and nothing difficult."
In other words, Erasmus in 1530 is perfectly satis
fied with the same mental attitude which Paschasius
had displayed in the ninth century, at a moment
when European culture was but just rising above its
lowest point. His only criticism is reserved for the
excesses of the Church system. His description of
the proper state of mind of the devout worshipper is
spiritual enough to be adopted by the most eager
Protestant.
" Once," he says, " when the Church was in its best
estate, it knew but one sacrament and the bishop alone
performed it. The throng of sacramental persons were
attracted first by piety and then by gain. At length the
thing has gone so far that many study for the priest
hood precisely as one man learns to be a mechanic, an
other a cobbler, another a mason or a tailor. To these
the Mass is only a means of livelihood."
Whenever we find Erasmus protesting with espec
ial vehemence that he does not believe a thing, we
may be tolerably sure that he has already given good
reason for suspicion that he did believe it. In the
case of the Eucharist such suspicion was well
grounded. The objections to the doctrine, even on
its philosophical side, were such as must have ap
pealed strongly to his common sense. The abuses
of it in practice, especially the whole theory of the
i 5 2 7 ] The Eucharist 4 J 3
Mass as a sacrifice, performed by the priest at so
much per performance, were precisely of the kind
against which he had declaimed all his life long.
When the doctrine began to be criticised by the
reformers, especially by his Swiss neighbours, he
allowed himself some tolerably free expressions of
opinion. The leader of Swiss thought on this, as
on most theological subjects, was CEcolampadius,
the reformed preacher of Basel. He had published
his view, and Erasmus' friend, Bilibald Pirkheimer
of Nuremberg, had replied, defending a view re
sembling that of Luther. In June, 1526, Erasmus
wrote to Pirkheimer reviewing very briefly the state
of the reforming ideas in the several European
countries. He says ' :
" I should not be displeased with the view of .CEco
lampadius, if the consent of the Church were not against
it. For I see no meaning in a body without sensible form,
nor what use it could be if it were perceived by the
senses, provided only that a spiritual grace were present
in the elements. And yet I cannot depart from the con
sent of the Church and never have so departed. You
differ from OEcolampadius in such a way that you seem
to prefer to agree with Luther rather than with the
Church. You quote Luther with a little more respect
than was necessary, when you might have cited the au
thority of others. . . . With your usual prudence
you will not shoiv this letter to anyone"
In the year following he begins a letter to Pirk
heimer thus 8 :
iii. 1 , Q4I-A. Mii. 1 , IO28-A.
4H Desiderius Erasmus [i 523 -
" From your pen, my dear Bilibald, I have never feared
anything, having long tested your cautious considerate-
ness and your persistent loyalty in friendship ; but it
did offend me to have CEcolampadius mixing up my
name in his books without any reason, when he knows
from me, that it is unpleasant to me to be named by
him, more unpleasant to be abused, and most unpleasant
to be praised. He keeps it up without end. I have
never ascribed anything of this to my dear Bilibald ; for
many things grieve us which we can ascribe to no one.
If I had some little doubt about your unusually long
silence, that ought not to surprise you, considering the
changeableness of human affections. . . . And I do
not regret my little suspicions since they have brought
me these longed-for letters."
Apparently Erasmus suspected that Pirkheimer
had, after all, let CEcolampadius know that he was
inclined to the spiritual view of the Eucharist.
Farther on he writes :
" I said among friends that I could follow his opinion,
if the authority of the Church would approve it ; but I
added that I could by no means differ from the Church.
But by ' Church ' I mean the consent of all Christian
people. . . . How much the authority of the Church
avails with others I know not, but it is so important to
me that I could agree with Arians or Pelagians, if the
Church should approve what they taught. Not that the
words of Christ are not sufficient for me, but it is no
wonder that I follow as interpreter the Church, upon
the authority of which I believe in the canonical Script
ures. Others perhaps have more talent or more strength
than I, but I rest nowhere so safely as in the certain
BILI3ALD PIRKHEIMER OF NUREMBERG.
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY ALBRECHT DURER, IN " ERASMI OPERA," PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN, 1703.
i 5 2 7 ] The Eucharist
judgment of the Church. Of reasons and argumenta
tions there is no end."
In short, Erasmus had on this subject, as he had
usually had on all controverted points, one opinion
for his friends and another for the world. His array
of " ifs " and " buts " was only a cover for his
nervous dread of committing himself to something.
His attitude on this question is throughout charac
teristic. If it meant anything, it would be a com
plete justification for the suspension of all thought
on any speculative question. To say that one would
be inclined to a belief if only the Church would ap
prove it, is to emasculate one's own intelligence. It
could not help things to say that the Church meant
to him the consent of all Christian people. At that
moment there was no consent of all Christian people,
and the only conceivable way by which such consent
could be reached was by a full and free comparison
of the honest views of honest men, in order that
essentials might be emphasised and non-essentials
eliminated. It is a poor defence of the brightest
and clearest mind of his day, to say that he refused
to take his manly part in the clearing up of precisely
those speculative questions about which discussion
must necessarily arise. It was idle for him to talk
about avoiding dissensions. The dissensions were
there, and the real question was not how to sup
press them, but how to solve them so that right-
minded and intelligent men could know where they
stood.
The worst thorn in Erasmus' side on this question
416 Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
was Conrad Pelicanus, one of the reformed preachers
of Basel. The chief offence of Pelicanus was that
he had sought to support his spiritual view of the
Eucharist by declaring that Erasmus really believed
just as he did. We have three letters of Erasmus
to him, all of 1526, and each more violent than the
other. Let us notice only the most decided of these
expressions.
" It is my way when I am with learned friends, espec
ially when there are present none of the weaker sort, to
discourse freely on all kinds of subjects, for the purpose
of making inquiries, sometimes to try them or for men
tal exercise, and perhaps I am more outspoken in this
matter than I ought to be. But I will confess to the
charge of murder, if any mortal has ever heard me say in
jest or in earnest this word : that in the Eucharist there
is merely bread and wine or that it is not the real body and
blood of our Lord as some are now maintaining in their
books. Nay, I call upon Christ himself to be my enemy,
if that opinion ever found a lodgment in my mind. For
if ever at any time any flighty thoughts have touched my
mind I have easily thrown them off by considering the
measureless love of God to me, and by weighing the
words of Holy Scripture, which have compelled even
Luther, whom you set above all schools, all popes, all
men of sound doctrine, and councils, to profess what the
Catholic Church professes though he is wont freely to
differ from her. . . .
" If I should confess to you as to a friend debauchery
or theft, how utterly against all laws of friendship it
would be if you were to babble it even to one person, to the
peril of your friend. Now, when you are scattering abroad
among all men the most dreadful of all charges, of things
The Eucharist 4 : 7
which my tongue, though a free one, has never uttered,
nor my mind ever conceived, how can you be forgiven
for what you are doing, my Evangelical friend ? Did
you think to abuse the authority of my name in order to
enforce a belief you have yourself but lately begun to
hold ? I pray you, in the name of Christ, is that an
Evangelical thing, to make so dreadful a charge against
a friend in order to drag more persons into a new sect,
as if we had not sects enough already ? If your doctrine
is a truly pious one, have you no other means of persuad
ing men to it except this empty statement, that Erasmus
agrees with you ? But if my opinion is worth so much
to you, why do you hold it of no account on the many
points on which I differ from you ?
" If you are convinced that in the Eucharist there is
nothing but bread and wine, I would rather be torn
limb from limb than profess what you profess and would
rather suffer anything than depart this life with such a
crime confessed against my own conscience. ... I
will suffer you to babble out before all men whatever I
have said, in intimate discourse, sober or drunk, in jest
or in earnest, but I will not suffer you to make me the
author or the supporter of that dogma ; for it was never
either on my tongue or in my heart."
The best summary of the view he wished others
to take of his own opinions on this point is found in
a letter to his former pupil, the Polish baron John a
Lasco. 1
" I seem to read between the lines of Luther's writings,
that Pelicanus has given him some hints from our con-
'iii. 1 , 917, D-F.
27
Desiderius Erasmus [1523-
versations, the same who has nearly stirred up another
disturbance here. He had spread a rumour that he had
the same opinions on the Eucharist as I had. I wrote
him a letter of remonstrance, but without giving names.
This letter of [to ?] Pelicanus was shown by Berus and
Cantiuncula to a few persons, was even read in the
Council, and finally was translated into German and
spread far and wide, to my great distress. Pelicanus re
plied by letter. I wrote him to stop his writing and, if
he wanted anything of me, to come to me. He came.
I asked the man what he meant by his letters. He tried
various evasions, but when I pressed him he finally con
fessed that he had said he believed the same as I.
I asked him what then he did believe that could be in
agreement with me ? He replied after many attempts
at evasion : ' I believe that in the Eucharist are the body
and blood of the Lord ; is n't that what you believe ? '
' Assuredly,' I replied. ' Do you believe they are there
by way of a symbol ? ' ' No,' he said, ' but I believe
the efficacy (virtutem) of Christ is present.' I went on :
' Don't you believe that the substance of the body is
present ? ' He confessed that he did not believe it.
After that I asked him if he had ever professed this
opinion in my presence. He confessed what is the
truth, that he had never done so. Then I demanded
whether he had ever heard this opinion from me. He
said he had never heard it and, what was more, he had
often heard the opposite. I continued : ' You pretend
to others that I agree with you, and when you say this,
you understand in your own mind that you agree with
me so far as to believe that the body of the Lord is
present ; while those who hear you understand that I
agree with you in accepting the opinion of CEcolam-
padius.' "
The Eucharist 419
The more Erasmus protested, the less could he
convince the advanced reformers that he did not in
his heart agree with them. His fate was that of any
man who tries to shift and shuffle in a crisis when
honest men are forming their opinions and are
grouping themselves accordingly. He was left out
side all the groups, and could not even persuade the
one all-embracing, ever hospitable Church that he
belonged heartily within her fold.
CHAPTER XI
FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES NEW TESTAMENT PARA
PHRASES CONTROVERSIAL AND DIDACTIC
WRITINGS REMOVAL TO FREIBURG LAST RE
FORMATORY TREATISES RETURN TO BASEL-
DEATH
1523-1536
WITH all Erasmus' anxiety to demonstrate in
words his entire independence of the rapidly
organising reform parties and his unswerving loyalty
to the papacy, his action during these critical years
was as far as possible from timidity or half-hearted-
ness. Of this no better proof can be given than the
repeated editions of his Familiar Colloquies. The
Colloquies, like the Adages, have a history of their
own. They were begun, probably, as early as the
residence of Erasmus in Paris, 1 about the year 1500,
and consisted at first of brief conversations on
familiar subjects, arranged for the use of beginners
in Latin.
As years went on, these early experiments were
extended, partly by expansion, partly by addition.
1 Adalbert HorawitZ, Ueber die Colloquia des Erasmus -von Rotter
dam ; in Raumer's Historisches Tasehenbuch, 1887, pp. 53-121.
420
i 5 2 3 ] Familiar Colloquies 421
In 1523-24 appeared an edition, practically com
plete, with a charming little dedication to the
author's namesake, John Erasmius Froben, the
eight-year-old son of the publisher. This dedica
tion, we have a right to believe, represents fairly the
serious thought of Erasmus as to the real meaning
and purpose of his book. 1
The Colloquies were written to instruct by amus
ing. They touch upon every class of society and
upon every vice and weakness of human nature.
Some are sparkling with humour, some are too
plainly didactic to be very amusing, and some,
especially the later ones, are downright dull. As
in the Praise of Folly, the sermon is heard through
all the rush of words and no one of these tales is
quite without its moral lesson. The subjects most
welcome to Erasmus' satire are of course the ex
travagances of monks and schoolmen and the super
stitions of religion. We have already quoted freely
from some of the more important for the knowledge
of the writer's own life. A brief survey of one or
two of the more widely popular will indicate the
great range of interest and the keen human desire
which commended them to so large a circle of
readers.
In The Abbot and the Learned Lady we have
one of several proofs that Erasmus regarded the
education of women as desirable and profitable
to the community. The abbot reproves the lady
because he finds Latin books in her chamber. French
or German he could bear with, but not Latin.
1 i., 627.
4 22 Desiderius Erasmus [i 523
"Abbot. ' I have sixty-two monks at home, but you
will never find a book in my chamber.' Magdalia.
'That 's a fine lookout for your monks.' Ab. ' I can
stand books, but not Latin ones. ' Mag. ' Why so ? '
Ab. 'Because that tongue is not suited to women.'
Mag. ' I should like to know why.' Ab. ' Because it
is far from helpful in maintaining their purity.' Mag.
' Do those French books, then, full of idle tales, make
for purity ? ' Ab. ' Then there is another thing.' Mag.
' Well, out with it, whatever it is.' Ab. ' They are safer
from the priests if they know no Latin.' Mag. ' Oh!
but there is least danger of all from that quarter ac
cording to your practice, for you do all you can to keep
from knowing Latin.' Ab. ' People in general are of
my mind because it is such a rare and unusual thing for
a woman to know Latin.' Mag. ' Don't talk to me of
the people, the very worst source of good actions nor
of custom, the mistress of all evils. Let us accustom
ourselves to what is good, then what was formerly un
usual will become usual, what was rude will become
polished, and what was unbecoming will grow to be
fitting.' . . . Mag. ' What think you of the Virgin
Mother?' Ab. 'Most highly.' Mag. 'Was she not
versed in books ? ' Ab. ' Quite so, but not in these
books.' Mag. 'What, then, did she use to read?'
Ab. ' The Canonical Hours.' Mag. ' According to what
form ? ' Ab. ' That of the Benedictine order.
The Youth and the Harlot brings us to per
haps the best illustration of that freedom of language
which was the most common charge against the Col
loquies. The argument is one employed previously
by the Saxon nun Roswitha in the tenth century in
her comedy Paplinutius. An edition of Roswitha
i 5 2 3 ] Familiar Colloquies 4 2 3
had been published at Nuremberg in 1501, so that
Erasmus may well have taken his model at first
hand. The conversation is of the slipperiest, and
yet the impression conveyed is not that of immoral
or even of unmoral writing. It is simply the bald
est " realism" of treatment, and the issue is dis
tinctly a moral one. As in Roswitha the erring
woman is won to virtue by the Christian faith, so
here she is reformed by arguments of a more pract
ical sort. The dig at the monks is not lacking. The
youth has been on a journey to Rome :
" Sophronius. ' I journeyed with an honest man and
by his advice I took with me not a bottle but a book,
the New Testament translated by Erasmus.' Lucretia.
' Erasmus! why they say he is a heretic and a half! '
Soph. ' Has his name got into this place too ? ' Luc. ' No
one is better known here.' Soph. ' Have you ever seen
him ? ' Ltic. ' Never; but I should like to see him. I
have heard so many bad things about him.' Soph. ' From
bad men, I dare say.' Luc. ' Oh, no! from most rev
erend men.' Soph. ' Who are they ? ' Luc. ' Oh! it
won't do to say.' Soph. 'Why not?' Luc. 'Because
if you should blab and they should hear it, I should
lose a great part of my gains.' Soph. ' Don't be
afraid. I am mum as a stone.' Luc. ' Put down your
ear.' Soph. ' Stupid! Why need we whisper when we
are alone ? Does n't God hear us ? ... Well, by
the eternal God! you are a pious harlot to help along
Mendicants by your charity! '
The Colloquies became the especial object of
attack from all who cared to assail the reputation
of Erasmus. Typical was the action of the Paris
4 2 4 Desiderius Erasmus [1529
theological tribunal, the Sorbonne, which in 1526
condemned the book as dangerous to the morals of
the young, and worse still as containing the same
errors as the works of Arius, Wiclif, the Walden-
sians, and Luther. In presenting their case to the
supreme court, the " Parlement " of Paris, for its
action, the theologians of the Sorbonne review
the steps already taken by the spiritual authorities
toward the suppression of the Colloquies. They
had done what they could, but now demand the aid
of the temporal powers. King Francis I. appears
to have opposed the action of the Parlement, and it
was not until 1528 that the University as a body
condemned the book and forbade its students to
read it.
Equally unfavourable was Luther's judgment of
the Colloquies. In his Table-Talk he refers fre
quently to them as the most offensive to him of all
Erasmus' writings. 1
" If I die I will forbid my children to read his Col
loquies, for he says and teaches there many a godless
thing, under fictitious names, with intent to assault the
Church and the Christian faith. He may laugh and
make fun of me and of other men, but let him not make
fun of our Lord God!
" See now what poison he scatters in his Colloquies
among his made-up people, and goes craftily at our
youth to poison them."
Another product of the years of greatest party
stress were the Latin Paraphrases of the New Testa-
' Luther's Werke, ed. Walch, xxii., 1612-1630.
JkTVpograpkui BI.AVI AN A
TITLE-PAGE TO THE "COLLOQUIES OF ERASMUS,'
PUBLISHED AT AMSTERDAM, 1693.
PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS AND OTHERS.
i5i6] New Testament Paraphrases 4 2 5
ment books. No one of the serious works of Eras
mus was so widely influential as this. Erasmus
began his work on them immediately after the first
publication of the New Testament in 1516, and con
tinued it at intervals during the next seven or eight
years. The timeliness of the Paraphrases is shown
by their immediate translation into the common
tongues. Erasmus himself says that they brought
him very little odium, but abundant thanks. In a
preface addressed to the "Pious Reader" 1 he
makes an ample and admirable defence of bringing
the Bible to the people both in the form of para
phrases and of translations. " I greatly differ," he
says, " from those who maintain that the laity and
the unlearned should be kept from the reading of
the sacred volumes, and that none should be ad
mitted to these mysteries except the few who have
spent years over the philosophy of Aristotle and
the theology of the schools."
There are two ways to this end : either all men
must learn " the three tongues," or else the Script
ures must be translated. Erasmus makes the some
what startling suggestion that, as the energy of the
Roman princes had compelled all the world to speak
Greek and Latin, merely to maintain their temporal
Empire, it was quite within the bounds of possibility
for the princes of Christendom to compel all men to
learn Hebrew, Greek, and Latin that the eternal
kingdom of Christ might be spread over the whole
earth. However, he realises that this is not likely
to happen very soon and meanwhile will be con-
1 vii., ad init.
426 Desiderius Erasmus [1516-
tent if each may know the Scripture in his own
tongue :
" if the farmer, as he holds the plough, shall sing to
himself something from the Psalms; if the weaver, sitting
at his web, shall lighten his toil with a passage from the
Gospels. Let the sailor, as he holds the rudder, repeat
a Scripture verse, and as the mother plies the distaff, let
a friend or relative read aloud from the sacred volume."
Our limits forbid us to go in detail into the several
long and bitter controversies in which Erasmus
found himself engaged with the defenders of the
ancient faith. They begin with the publication of
his New Testament and continue for twenty years
with little interruption. They were without excep
tion undertaken by unofficial persons, representing
the governing powers of neither Church nor State.
It was Erasmus' constant boast that all the really
important elements of European life were on his
side and that the attacks upon him were only so
many reflections upon the highest authorities them
selves. There is truth enough in this boast to make
it evident that these controversies were a private
matter between himself and his immediate oppon
ents; but it was plain also that at any critical mo
ment the powers that were might be enlisted against
him.
The charges which caused him most anxiety may
be reduced to two. First, the accusation of scholarly
inaccuracy, and second, the far more difficult and
wide-reaching accusation of heresy with all its mul
titudinous meanings. As to the former charge of
1536] Controversial and Didactic 427
4C
inaccurate scholarship, Erasmus had two forms of
defence. Sometimes he admitted it and sought to
explain it away by alleging hasty work and defend
ing himself by readiness to accept correction and to
prepare new editions of the faulty texts. He liked
to represent himself as a pioneer, breaking the way
for others more learned than himself and, he would
venture to hope, stimulated to better things by his
example. Or, again, he would deny the truth of the
criticism and would then proceed to demonstrate at
great length and, with all the amenities common to
literary controversy in his day, to demolish the con
tentions of his opponent. In these discussions of
purely literary and scholarly themes, where his an
tagonists were really men of some consideration, he
kept his argument in the main to a reasonably high
standard. Where, however, they seemed to him
men of small account he descends to unmeasured
personal abuse.
In the other kind of controversy called out by his
attacks upon ignorant and vulgar superstitions or
upon the excesses of clerical abuse, his method was
somewhat different. Here he was always ready to
repay slander by slander, to exaggerate the personal
element both in attack and defence, and especially to
insist that he was absolutely sound in his doctrinal
beliefs. To the former class of controversies belong
notably that with Edward Lee, later archbishop of
York, called out by the early edition of the New
Testament, that with Budaeus, which was a liberal
give-and-take of sharp criticism on purely literary
matters, and that with the Spaniard Stunica. To
428 Desiderius Erasmus [1516-
the latter class belong such vvranglings as his deal
ings with Natalis Bedda of Paris, Nicholas Egmund
of Louvain, and Gerhardt of Nymwegen, the re
formed preacher of Strassburg.
This controversial literature gives us but little
insight into the real thought of Erasmus. Its
value for us is only in furnishing us with evidence
of his astonishing cleverness in winding his way out
of difficulties and his immense command of the lan
guage of vituperation. Its study leaves one with
an unpleasant sense of powers diverted for the time
from their most profitable exercise into issues which
did not tell with any great effect upon the final result
of the scholar's life.
The anxiety of Erasmus as to the reception of
his works begins to show itself from about the year
1 526 in his dealing with the person and the probable
fate of Louis de Berquin. The story of this first
martyr to the reformed faith in France reflects better
than any other episode the course of events and
ideas in the early stages of the reformatory move
ment there. Berquin was a gentleman of Artois, a
man of liberal education, serious in his character,
and moved from the start to apply his learning to
the remedy of obvious abuses in the clerical life.
Through Lefevre he was led to the study of the
Lutheran leaders and became convinced that here
he had found the true way to liberty and recovery
from the low condition of the dominant religion.
Like Erasmus he attacked principally those errors
and abuses which seemed to rest mainly upon ignor
ance and superstition in those to whom the world had
1536] Controversial and Didactic 429
a right to look for learning and enlightenment. The
scholars of the Sorbonne, the heads of the French
ecclesiastical fabric and the leaders of French mon-
asticism, were at once alarmed. They began, early
in the movement of the reform, to bring every pos
sible pressure upon the young, enlightened, and
would-be liberal king to act promptly and with de
cision against these first threatening demonstrations
of what they were ready instantly to stamp as " her
esy." For six years, from 1523 to 1529, Berquin
was subjected to one stage after another of a perse
cution which he was too brave to avoid. His chief
offence in the eyes of his theological persecutors was
that he had studied and translated into French, with
blasphemous " commentaries, several of the most
dangerous writings of Erasmus and other alleged
leaders of sedition. Twice arrested and imprisoned,
he was twice released by the special order of the
king, who seems to have taken his case very much
to heart. Meanwhile were occurring that series of
unhappy events, the Italian campaign of 1525, the
capture of Francis I., the treaty of Madrid, and
the negotiations following it, which were driving
the king inevitably into the hands of the French
clerical party. To save his kingdom and his
" honour" he was forced to make sacrifices, and a
ready victim was found in this man, who had defied
the powers which were now clamouring for a royal
edict of persecution. The king withdrew his pro
tection and Berquin died upon the scaffold on the
i /th of April, 1529.
The relations of Erasmus with Berquin began by
43 Desiderius Erasmus [1516-
a letter from the latter written in 1526 and express
ing the greatest admiration for the learning and serv
ices to true religion of the man to whom he looked
up as his chief example. He assures Erasmus that
the main object in persecuting him had been to
throw suspicion upon Erasmus' own works; but
that he had assured his judges that if anything in
these works seemed contrary to the faith it was the
result of misunderstanding or perversion of the
original text. He exhorts Erasmus to write, not
casually, as he has already done to Bedda, but at
length, with arguments and with the authorities
from Scripture, to refute these calumnies.
This letter of Berquin ' is a noble and touching
appeal. Not a word of complaint or of fear for him
self, though he had just for the second time barely
escaped from the clutches of enemies who were de
termined to destroy him. He appeals to Erasmus,
not in his own behalf, but in behalf of that truth
which he found above all in the writings of the man
he was glad to call his master.
The reply " was as brief and cold as could well be.
" I have no doubt that you are acting with the best of
intentions, most learned Berquin, but meanwhile you are
bringing upon me, who am too heavily burdened already,
a weight of odium by translating my books into the com
mon tongue and bringing them to the knowledge of
theologians."
Two later letters 3 have the same tone of petulant
Hi. *, 1713-?. 2 iii. I ,884. 8 iii. 8 , 1132, 1133.
1536] Controversial and Didactic 43 l
self-interest and cold indifference to the fate which
he predicts if Berquin does not moderate his attacks.
After Berquin 's death he wrote to Pirkheimer, 1
giving an account of the affair as he had heard it,
and added :
" If he deserved this, I am sorry; if he did not deserve
it, I am doubly sorry. The real facts in the case are not
quite clear to me. I had no acquaintance with Berquin,
except from his writings and from the reports of several
persons. ... I always feared that things would end
with him as they have, and I never wrote to him except
to urge upon him to cease from contentions which could
only have an evil end."
The same story is repeated, with more detail, in
a letter to Utenhoven."
In these letters there is not a word of real sym
pathy with the fate of a man whose worst fault was
the publication of Erasmus' own writings! Not a
word of honest admiration for his courage only
a grudging admission that he was an honest fellow,
but really too obstinately determined upon ruining
himself! Worst of all is the shabby pretence that
Erasmus had not really looked into the case of Ber
quin and after all was not quite sure whether he had
2 iii. s , 1206. We are fairly well informed as to Berquin through
French sources, quoted, for example, by H. M. Baird, History of
the Rise of the Huguenots of France, 1879, i., 130. The account of
Erasmus agrees strikingly with these other sources, but it seems a
little too much to reproduce it with all its literary decoration as a
history of Berquin's trial, as is done by Mr. Drummond and in Haag,
France Protestante, s. v.
43 2 Desiderius Erasmus [1516-
deserved his punishment or not. Of all the triumphs
of the Erasmian " If," none is more complete or
more significant than this.
For several years, from about 1523 on, Erasmus
had been engaged in personal controversy with in
dividual theologians at Paris; but it was not until
1525 that the Sorbonne Faculty as a body was
brought to act in the premises. A decree of that
year condemned certain passages in the translations
of several of Erasmus' books. In 1526 another
attack was made especially against the Familiar Col
loquies and the Paraphrases of the New Testament.
The former were definitely prohibited to students
who were candidates for degrees. The decree of
the Faculty was arranged under thirty-two headings,
each concerning some special point of alleged diverg
ence from the true teaching of the Church. In his
reply, 1 published in 1529, Erasmus takes up these
points one by one and fills over seventy printed
folio pages with specific answers. As to the style
of his defence we are prepared to anticipate it. His
method is precisely that of Berquin, to declare
that he is true to the real doctrine of the Fathers
and that his critics not, of course, the learned
Faculty itself are those who are in error. How
these charges can really come from the Faculty as a
whole he cannot comprehend, but he proposes to
appeal from the Faculty asleep to the Faculty awake.
He has made errors: to err is human. But why
condemn as error in him what the greatest lights of
1 Desiderii Erasmi Declarationes ad Censuras Lutetiae, etc., IX.,
813-954.
1536] Controversial and Didactic 433
the Church have said without reproof ? When
Augustine is praising virginity he goes a little far in
dispraise of marriage ; is it strange if Erasmus in
defending marriage has seemed to have too little
respect for virginity ?
We are not for a moment to suppose that the real
audience to which this reply was addressed was the
Faculty of Paris asleep or awake ; it was the reading
world. A more splendid advertisement for the Col
loquies than this theological prosecution could hardly
be imagined. Erasmus says ' that a certain Parisian
publisher, upon the rumour, " perhaps started by
the publisher himself," that the Colloquies were
about to be condemned, got out an elegant handy
edition of twenty-four thousand, and that it was at
once in everyone's hands.
In England, where Erasmus might have expected
to find his best defenders and his most sympathetic
readers, the Colloquies were condemned in the same
year (1526) as at Paris.
A work which brought much later reproach upon
its author was the Institution of Christian Marriage,
written in 1526 and dedicated to Queen Katherine
of England. Our interest in it is in the bearing
upon marriage of the changes in public sentiment
wrought by the Reformation ; and especially in that
whole great problem of the relation between mar
riage as the foundation of human society and the
whole monastic and priestly limitation of it. Eras
mus reaches this point after a long and systematic
review of the canonical regulations as to marriage.
'iii.*, II68-D.
28
434 Desiderius Erasmus [1516-
He examines first the evil effect upon society of the
entrance into the monastic life of persons already
under the obligations of marriage, a thing which he
says was never favoured even in times most kindly
disposed towards monasticism itself unless with full
consent of the other party. 1 That Erasmus had not
entire confidence even in the supervision of marriage
by the most responsible ecclesiastical authorities is
shown by a striking passage 2 in which he fore
shadows the principle of civil marriage :
" It would in great measure do away with the contro
versies that spring from words present and future, from
marriage celebrated and marriage consummated, from
signs, nods, and writings, if the heads of the Church
would deign to decree that no marriage should be con
sidered complete (ratum) until each party, before special
magistrates and witnesses, in clear words, soberly and
freely, shall declare his marriage to the other party, and
that these words should be preserved in writing."
The great body of the essay is taken up with admir
able injunctions as to the conduct of married life
and the education of children. Erasmus avoids
here any consideration of what was becoming one
of the burning questions of the day, the right of
" reformed " monks or priests to enter into lawful
marriage, but returns at the very close to the rela
tion between marriage and the clerical life. The
burden of his thought here is the duty of parents
and all concerned to make sure that the youth
proposing either to take orders or to become a
'v., 646-0. s v.,6si-F.
I53&] Controversial and Didactic 435
monk shall be quite clear as to his calling and per
fectly free to follow it or not. 1 Throughout this
very attractive dissertation there is a noticeable
calmness of style, joined, however, with entire clear
ness and decision upon the essential points. It is
one of the best illustrations of Erasmus' life-long
insistance upon the higher value of the life of nature
as compared with any life of mere formalism.
That Erasmus' silence on the question of clerical
marriage was not due to lack of thought on the sub
ject is clear from a letter to C. Hedio, Lutheran
preacher at Strassburg in 1524, two years before
the treatise on Christian Marriage."
" And yet before all ' Papists ' as these people call
them I have always freely declared that marriage should
not be denied to priests who shall be ordained in future,
if they cannot be continent, and I would say nothing else
to the pope himself; not because I do not prefer con
tinence, but because I find scarcely a man who preserves
his continence. Meanwhile what use is there of such a
swarm of priests ? I never persuaded anyone to mar
riage; but neither did I ever stand in the way of anyone
who wished to marry."
Erasmus recognises the need of reform in every
detail; he professes agreement with every view of
the reformers, but he will not advocate any specific
action, because it will open up some new outlet for
human frailty. To follow him would be to con
demn the world, once for all, to hopeless inactivity,
simply because the world's business must be done
by finite human beings.
'v., 724-A 'iii. 1 , 845-E.
43 6 Desiderius Erasmus [1516-
One naturally compares with this elaborate de
fence of natural and wise living, in the Christian
Marriage, another treatise also written two years
earlier, dedicated to the sisters of a nunnery near
Cologne and called A Comparison of the Virgin
and the Martyr. 1 The good ladies, it seems, had
frequently sent Erasmus presents of confectionery
and had begged him to write something for them, a
very pious desire, he says, but a poor choice of a
man. He only wishes that he could find in the
fragrant stories of Holy Writ something to refresh
their minds as their little gifts have refreshed his
body. So he runs on with a page or two of pretty
fancies about virginity and then, in equally fanciful
strain, about martyrdom. On the whole, virginity
has the advantage.
Comparing the spouse of Christ with the spouse
of a mortal husband, Erasmus dilates upon the vast
superiority of the virgin state. If one is not willing
to believe this from the evidence of learned men,
let her
"call as a witness any one of those who are happily
enough married and ask her to tell the true history of
her marriage. You will hear things that will make you
quite satisfied with your own way of life. Then just
put before yourself the example of those who have mar
ried unhappily, of whom there is a vast multitude, and
think that what has happened to them might have hap
pened to you. . . ."
This was written at the very time at which Eras-
1 Virginis et Martyris Comparatio, v., 589-600.
1536] Controversial and Didactic 437
mus was giving to the world the completed text of
his Colloquies! How shall we explain these appar
ent contradictions ? Precisely as we have explained
the account of the monastic life in the De Contemptu
Mundi. 1 Like that earlier essay, this too was a
piece of literary display, written, not to rouse oppos
ition, but out of a largely conventional impulse.
We need not question for a moment the entire sin
cerity of Erasmus in this kind of composition, as far
as it went. It was only the natural instinct of the
man to counterbalance every opinion he uttered and
every effect he produced by putting forth something
on the other side of the same question for every
question has two sides. There were doubtless
purely conducted monasteries, and Erasmus was
bound to believe that the pleasant ladies who were
kind enough to feed him with candy were examples
to their kind. To suppose, however, that the
phrases of ecstatic spiritual joy here offered came
from very deep down in his heart of hearts would
place the spirit of Erasmus in closer kinship with
Bernard and a Kempis than we should quite like to
put it.
During precisely these years, from 1522 to 1529,
we have a great number of treatises, generally short,
which illustrate this more devotional and spiritual
phase of his literary activity. A characteristic
specimen is the Modus Orandi Deum, "On the True
Way of Prayer," * addressed to Gerome a Lasco, a
Polish baron and brother of the better-known John
a Lasco. This is a systematic inquiry into the
1 See p. 20. * v., 1099-1132.
43 8 Desiderius Erasmus [1516-
nature, the purpose, and the limitations of Christian
prayer. It examines the questions: to whom we
may pray, what we may properly pray for, and how
our prayers should be framed. In regard to the
first question, Erasmus discusses with great skill
some of the most delicate problems of his day. He
examines authorities on both sides as to the pro
priety of prayers to Christ and concludes :
" After diligently searching the sacred volumes, and
supported by the authority of our fathers, I do not hesit
ate to call the Son of God true God and to direct my
prayers to him, not with the idea that the Son could give
what the Father may deny, but because I am persuaded
that the Son wills the same and can do the same as the
Father wills and can do; though the Father is author
and source of all things."
More difficult was the question of the invocation
of saints. Erasmus works his way up to a conclusion
by a series of carefully prepared stages. True, we
ought to affirm dogmatically only such things as are
plainly declared in the Holy Scriptures; but we
ought to respect everything that has been handed
down with the approval of pious men. Now we
know that the invocation of saints was practised by
very early orthodox Christians, therefore, while we
cannot say that it is a necessary article of faith, we
may well bear 'with it. We know that the saints
when on earth were called upon to pray for other
men ; why suppose them less capable of praying for
us now that they dwell with God in heaven ?
As to the proper objects of prayer Erasmus makes
1536] Controversial and Didactic 439
a very elaborate analysis, 1 but brings everything
round finally to the standard of the Lord's Prayer.
The method is almost scholastic in its system and
its logical division, but it is eminently sensible and
practical in its content.
" We should pray for nothing that cannot be referred
to one of the seven divisions of the Lord's Prayer.
Whatever we may ask for which pertains to the glory
of God, belongs to the first clause: ' Hallowed be thy
name.' Whatever refers to the spread and realisation of
the Gospel, belongs to the second: ' Thy kingdom
come ' ; whatever to the observance of the divine teach
ing, to the third: ' Thy will be done,' " and so on.
To illustrate the folly of absurd distinctions as to
which divinities might attend to which prayers, he
tells a story of a certain man at Louvain, simple
rather than impious, who, after he had made his de
votions, used to run about among the various altars,
saluting the saints for whom he had an especial
liking, and saying: " This is yours, St. Barbara,"
and " Take this to yourself, St. Rochus," as if he
feared that the saints would fall to fighting over the
special prayers belonging to each.
A very modern, almost " evangelical " touch is
found in a chapter on extempore prayer.
" It would be very desirable if the whole service of
religion, hymns, instruction, and prayer, could be con
ducted in the language of the people, as was formerly
the case, and that all should be so distinctly and clearly
1 V., II22-F.
44 Desiderius Erasmus [i 529
spoken that it should be understood by all present. But
there are many things in life rather to be desired than
hoped for. It is to be wished that public worship should
not be too prolonged, for there is nothing worse than a
surplus of good things, and that it should be the same
among all peoples of the Christian name. Nowadays,
what diversities in almost every church! nay, what pains
have been taken that one should not agree with the other!
With what tedious chants and prayers are some monks
now burdened, and with what joy do they escape from
their dreary performance! "
We have here an almost complete survey of the
outward forms of the religious life reduced to the
simple standard of Christian common sense. As a
type of Erasmus' activity at this time nothing can
serve us better. He was fulfilling his mission as a
preacher of simple righteousness, and no clamours of
criticism on the one side or the other of the great
conflict raging about him could drive him for a mo
ment from his fundamental position. He watched
all the stages of that struggle and drew out of the
views of the several parties the text for his continu
ous comment upon men and things. He held him
self, as he said, integer, " uncompromised," but he
shows where his real feeling was. The ruling order
might get what comfort it could out of the Modus
Orandi and similar treatises, but if the suggestions
therein contained could have been carried out, a
something very like the Protestant churches would
have resulted. The authority of Scripture as the
standard of religious life; the Lord's Prayer as the
all-sufficient test of the forms of worship ; the laity
i 5 2 9 ] Removal to Freiburg 441
as the essential element of the Christian community ;
the common language as the only proper medium
of communication in religious matters; a worship of
secondary powers so enfeebled by the limits of com
mon sense that it would surely fall away of itself
all this makes a programme that is nothing less than
Protestant in its essence. Stripped of its academic
decorations and its elaborate balancing of values,
this was a reforming tract of the first importance.
Of course Erasmus used all the trimming portions,
both of this and of all similar writings, to demon
strate his loyalty to tradition, but the modern
reader, like the " Lutheran " of that day, must see
through these to the real thought beneath and must
share his impatience that the man who could go so
far could not be brought to take a step farther and
carry out these suggestions or at least help others
to carry them out into definite constructive action.
The reply must always be that the world has no
right to demand of any man what is not his to give.
So in alternations of calm religious reflection and
composition with violent controversial encounters,
of painstaking scholarly editing with keenest satir
ical writing, the residence of the aging scholar at
Basel drew to its end.
In the year 1529 Erasmus left Basel and went to
Freiburg in the Breisgau. Why he left Basel and
why he chose Freiburg as his residence are questions
we can hardly hope to answer satisfactorily, since
they involve that whole very difficult subject of his
personal equation, to which we have not yet dis-
44 2 Desiderius Erasmus [i 529
covered any sufficient key. Perhaps we may say
this : that Basel had been an attractive residence for
him because its political and religious condition cor
responded pretty accurately to his own state of
mind. The spirit of the place was eminently one
of toleration and good feeling. Even the violent
doctrines of the extreme radical party, the Ana
baptists and all their kin, were heard with patience,
but were held in check and not allowed to influence
public action. If we could trust the extravagant
eulogy common just after his death ' we should have
to think of Erasmus living at Basel as a kind of in
tellectual monarch, to whom
" there came not alone from Spain and France, but from
the farthest limits of the whole earth, not merely men of
noble birth but also the greatest monarchs of the world,
popes, emperors, kings, cardinals, bishops, archbishops,
dukes, chieftains, barons, and countless princes, rulers,
magnates, and governors of various degree, etc."
This is obvious nonsense; but we gain enough
glimpses at his manner of life at Basel to make us
sure that Erasmus lived there in honour, with every
opportunity for congenial work and for association
with men of his own kind. His ordinary habits were
those of a sober scholar who was compelled by the
natural demands of his profession and by the limit
ations of feeble health to keep strictly within the
limits of careful and quiet living. He seems to have
surrounded himself with young men, table-boarders,
who came to him as the adviser of their studies.
1 i., adinit. Epitaphia in Laudem Erasmi,
Removal to Freiburg 443
His relation to them is very prettily sketched in a
letter ' to a young Frisian, one Haio Caminga, who
had applied for a place at his table. He gives the
young man fair warning that he will find a table set
with learned conversation rather than with choice
delicacies, as far from luxury as the table of
Pythagoras or Diogenes. The great productivity
of this period would of itself be sufficient evidence
of a regular and quiet life. Nor need we doubt
that a great many visitors were led to Basel by
curiosity or sympathy to make the personal ac
quaintance of the famous scholar.
One feels at once that this was just the atmo
sphere for Erasmus. His only real grievance at
Basel seems to have been his dread that he might
be held accountable for the opinions of someone
with whom he did not entirely agree. In the
course of time, however, this condition of unstable
equilibrium grew more and more untenable. The
actual " Reformation " of the place could not be
averted, and rather than remain in a distinctly Pro
testant community Erasmus broke off all his happy
associations and wandered away again. He takes
infinite pains to assure everyone that he was not
driven away, that he went openly and with the
good will of all concerned. His account of the re
ligious revolution shows that it was a very temperate
kind of revolution indeed. His friendly feelings are
neatly expressed in a bit of verse which he say she
jotted down as he was entering his boat to depart.
l ii\.\ 1128.
444 Desiderius Erasmus [i 530
" Jam, Basilea, vale, qua non urbs altera multis
Annis exhibuit gratius hospitium.
Hinc precor, omnia lata tibi, simul illud, Erasmo
Hospes uti ne unquam tristior adveniat. ' '
" And now, fair Basel, fare thee well!
These many years to me a host most dear.
All joys be thine! and may Erasmus find
A home as happy as thou gav'st him here."
At Freiburg he was well received by the magis
tracy and given a sufficiently splendid lodging in an
unfinished palace of the Emperor Maximilian. He
has, of course, doubts about his health, but thinks
he will stay a year, unless he is driven away by
wars. In fact he kept pretty well until the spring
of 1530, when he was attacked by a new and painful
development of the disease from which he had so
long been suffering.
The references to this illness of 1530 occur gener
ally in connection with some allusion to the great
Diet of Augsburg in that year. Erasmus says that
he was asked to go to this Diet by many leading
men, but expressly states that he was not asked by
the emperor. His illness gave him an excuse for
not going. He says that he could have done no
good at Augsburg and we certainly need no assur
ance of his to make this quite clear to us. By 1530
affairs had moved on far beyond the point where
the only advice he had ever had to give, namely
" be good and wise, and all our troubles will end at
once," could be of any service. In the years from
1525 to 1 529 the whole North of Germany had be-
Removal to Freiburg 445
come welded into a solid mass of resistance to the
Roman Catholic system. The Lutheran Reforma
tion had passed the stage of negative criticism and
had entered upon that of constructive organisation.
Once more we have to ask : Where was there room
for poor Erasmus ? It was a pleasant fiction for
him, in his comfortable quarters at Freiburg, to
imagine that he was really wanted at Augsburg, but
who in the world could have wanted him ? The
time for his " ifs " and " buts " was past and the
moment had come when men were ready to set all
they held dear upon the hazard of a doubtful war.
The Diet at Augsburg obeyed the emperor and re
newed the formal condemnation of Luther and his
works. The Protestant princes promptly replied
by the League of Schmalkalden. Their attitude
was simply one of readiness, not of aggression. For
the time it answered, and delayed the actual out
break of hostilities until long after the death of
Erasmus.
It is evident that Erasmus had little faith in the
Diet. He writes to John Rinckius ' :
" Friends have written me what is going on at the
Diet. Certain main propositions have been made: First,
that the Germans shall furnish troops against the Turks.
Second, that the differences of doctrine shall be remedied,
if possible, without bloodshed. Third, that the com
plaints of those who feel themselves wronged shall be
heard. To accomplish all this an ecumenical council of
three years would hardly suffice. What will be the issue
I know not. Unless God takes a hand in the game, I
1 iii. 2 , I299-B-D.
44 6 Desiderius Erasmus [i 530
see no way out of it. If the final decision is not agreed
to by all the provinces, the end will be revolution."
Then follows a minute description of his recent ill
ness and again allusions to his personal troubles.
" I have now for some time been anxious to go hence
to some other place. This town is fine enough, but not
very populous, remote from a river, well suited for study,
an awfully dear place, the people not particularly hospit
able, they say, though so far no one has given me any
great annoyance. But I see nowhere a quiet haven. I
shall have to hold out here until the outcome of the Diet
is known. Some are predicting that action will be taken
first about pecuniary burdens, and that the question of
heresy will be postponed to a general council, and that
the priests, bishops, monks, and abbots who have been
turned out and plundered will be put off with words."
It is evident that Erasmus saw clearly the danger
of the imperial position. His shrewd sense told him
that Charles was very far from grasping the real
extent of the German resistance. He writes to
Campeggio ' :
" If the emperor is merely frightening his opponents
by threats, I can only applaud his forethought; but if he
is really seeking a war, I do not want to be a bird of evil
omen, but my mind shudders as often as I look at the
condition of things which I think will appear if war
breaks out. This trouble is very widely spread. I know
that the emperor has great power; but not all nations
recognise his authority. Even the Germans recognise it
'iii. J , I303-A.
Last Reformatory Treatises 447
on certain conditions, so that they rather rule than obey;
for they prefer to command rather than be subservient.
Besides it is evident that the emperor's lands are greatly
exhausted by continual military expeditions. The flame
of war is just now stirred up in Friesland; its prince is
said to have professed the Gospel of Luther. Many
states between the Eastern countries and Denmark are
in the same condition and the chain of evils stretches
from there as far as Switzerland.
" If the sects could be tolerated under certain condi
tions (as the Bohemians pretend), it would, I admit, be
a grievous misfortune, but one more endurable than
war. In this condition of things there is nowhere I
would rather be than in Italy, but the fates will have it
otherwise."
No more clever summary of the situation than
this can be imagined ; and yet the only practical
suggestion in it, that some principle of toleration
for the sects might be discovered is a complete
denial of everything for which Erasmus pretended
to stand. It would have been a recognition of the
right of revolution, and that was the one horror
which haunted all his dreams.
Indeed it was the irony of fate that the man who
had spent his early manhood in open attacks upon
the Roman system, and his maturer years in trying
to make his peace with Rome, should now in his old
age find his really virulent critics on the side of the
ancient faith. The " sects," as he always contempt
uously called them, were quite content with the
actual service he had done them and were only too
eager to claim him for their own. The one ortho-
44 8 Desiderius Erasmus [i 53 i
dox fold, in which he steadfastly protested he be
longed, was continually producing men who made
his life a burden with their reproaches.
As long as the Diet at Augsburg lasted, Erasmus
continued to assure his correspondents that he was
under the orders of the emperor not to leave Frei
burg as he had intended to do. Then the winter
began and with it the ravages of the plague, " nova
lues, formerly peculiar to Britain, but suddenly
spreading over all nations." Why he should have
been detained at Freiburg against his will he gives
no intimation, and, indeed, the whole story, appear
ing in letter after letter, seems to show only his
annual restlessness and desire to say why he did not
do something different from what he was doing.
At one moment he thinks he must go to France to
get some wine. They say it is a dreadful thing to
die of hunger, but he really believes it is worse to die
of thirst. He really must get some drinkable wine.
During the summer of 1531 he went so far as to
write to the magistrates of Besancon, saying that
even before leaving Basel he had thought of moving
to their city and now when Freiburg is beginning to
be a dangerous place, his thoughts are turning
thither again.
Freiburg was plainly growing less attractive or,
let us say, was furnishing more and more occasions
of complaint. He had spent nearly two years in
the abandoned palace of Maximilian without know
ing, if we may believe his own story, whether he
was the guest of the city, or whether he was hiring
the house wholly or in part, or, if he was hiring it,
Last Reformatory Treatises 449
who his landlord was or what he was to pay. When,
after two years, he was called upon to move at the
end of three months and to pay back rent for a year
and a half, he affects to be overwhelmed with sur
prise and indignation, and writes a two-column letter
to the Provost of Chur, at the far east end of Swit
zerland, to explain. 1 The result was that he took
the hasty, and, as it seems to have appeared to him
self, somewhat absurd step of buying a house. He
naturally begins the letter, in which he tells this news
to John Rinckius, with an enumeration of the dis
agreeables at Freiburg and ends it by declaring that
the house shall not keep him there if things go as
he wishes. His account of the affair may serve us
as an illustration of the unconquerable humour with
which he faced life to the last."
" But now here is something for you to laugh at. If
anyone should tell you that Erasmus, now nearly seventy,
had taken a wife, would n't you make the sign of the
cross three or four times over ? I know you would, and
small blame to you. Now my dear Rinckius, I have
dorfe a thing no less difficult and burdensome and quite
as foreign to my tastes and habits. I have bought a
house, a fine one enough, but at a very unfair price.
Who shall now despair of seeing rivers turn about and
run up-hill, when Erasmus, who all his life has made
everything give place to learned leisure, has become a
bargain-driver, a buyer, a giver of mortgages, a builder
and, in place of the Muses, is now dealing with carpen
ters and workers in iron, in stone, and in glass. These
cares, my dear Rinckius, which my soul has always
1 iii. 9 , I426-E. * iii. 2 , 1418-0.
29
45 Desiderius Erasmus [i 53 i
abhorred, have just about bored me to death. So far I
am a stranger in my own house, for, though it is spacious
enough, there is not a nest in it where I can safely trust
my poor body. One chamber I have built with an open
fireplace and have boarded it, floor and sides, but on
account of the plastering I have not yet dared to trust
myself in it."
Five weeks later he writes ' :
" This house I have bought makes me no end of
trouble; and yet there is not a place in the whole of it
suited to my body."
The biographer of Erasmus is tempted to draw
a somewhat pathetic picture of his last years; an
aged man, broken with pain and disappointment,
rejected by all parties, without influence in the
world, living under continual fear of some unfore
seen disaster, these form, indeed, the elements for
a sufficiently mournful description. And yet the
end of Erasmus' course was such as he had been
deliberately planning for himself all his life long.
Isolation from all the various groupings of men upon
great public questions had been his avowed ideal,
and he had reached it. He had never aimed to
form a " school " and he left no followers behind
him. On the other hand, his activities were pract
ically unchecked by advancing years. His intel
lectual output during his residence at Freiburg was
hardly inferior either in quantity or quality to that
of any earlier period of equal length. His corre
spondence falls off somewhat in volume, but its
1 iii. J , I4I9-F.
APOPHTHEGMES,
tljat is to fatc 9 p?omt)te,quicfee s lotttic
ano fcntennous fatpnges,of certain
empcrours, fcp tiges , ffapttatncs , pfjflofb-
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5Int) note tranflateb into
vtm
TITLE-PAQE TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION
OF THE "APOPHTHEGMS OF ERASMUS,"
TRANSLATED BY UDALL, 1542.
1532] Last Reformatory Treatises 45 l
style is as fresh and the variety of persons to whom
it is addressed continues as great as ever. New
friends take the place of those he has lost, and his
personal philosophy, always a cheerful one, remains
to comfort him to the last. He consoles himself
by the friendship of individuals against the slights
of parties and their leaders.
The only falling off in Erasmus' productivity
during the years from 1530 to 1535 is in the quality
of originality. We are no longer to expect a Praise
of Folly or a new volume of Colloquies; but we can
only marvel at the vitality still evident in everything
that comes from his restless pen. His humour, un-
conquered by the growing weaknesses of his flesh,
flashes out with almost its old-time brilliancy. His
industry seems undiminished. He is seldom with
out a piece of editorial work, and he is constantly
being asked to write dedications for works edited
by others.
In 1 532 he published his Apophthegmata or Sayings
of the Ancients, 1 a work in some ways similar to the
Adages, but showing far less of the machinery of
scholarship. These are pleasant little stories, gen
erally told in a few lines in anecdote form and
designed to carry some moral lesson. They are
arranged in groups under the name of the principal
person mentioned as, for example, Socratica, Dio
genes Cynicus, Philip of Macedon, Demosthenes,
and so forth. Doubtless the material for this collec
tion had long been gathering, but the mere arrange-
1 Apophthegmata lepideque dicta principum, philosophorum ac
diver si generis hominum, etc., iv., 93-380.
452 Desiderius Erasmus [i 533
ment and revision of it was a work to tax severely
the patience and endurance of a man so enfeebled
by physical troubles as was Erasmus in 1532.
A little treatise of 1533 on Preparation for
Death ' is interesting chiefly for the things it does
not say. Its emphasis throughout is on the neces
sity of a Christian life as the true preparation for a
Christian death. The very essence of Protestantism,
the direct dealing of the human soul with its God,
may be found here. Protest as Erasmus might his
devotion to the forms of the Church, when he wrote
this essay he was giving more aid and comfort to the
enemy than if he had gone over to him with all his
arms in his hands. Of course he explains away as
much of the clearness of his statement as he can,
but the words remain and his own practice went far
to confirm them. He emphasises at every turn the
duty of respect for traditions, but no man in the
year 1533 could write as he does here of the nature
of sacraments without knowing how his words would
be interpreted. If the sacraments were, even quo-
dammodo, " symbols" of the divine good will to
men, then the whole objective, or, to speak technic
ally, the " opus operatum " theory of the sacramental
system was brought in question, and men would
not stop until they had pushed this question to its
rational issue. Here as elsewhere, if we would estim
ate the service of Erasmus to the Reformation, we
must try to feel out of the windings of his rhetoric
the impression he wished to leave uppermost in the
1 Liber quomodo se quisque debeat prceparare ad mortem, v., 1293-
1318.
1535.] Last Reformatory Treatises 453
reader's mind, and as to that we can hardly hesitate.
Even a devout Catholic could not read carefully
this appeal to the essentials of religion without feel
ing a diminished sense of the value of forms, and a
wavering mind could hardly fail to be carried over
pretty far towards the conclusion that forms so
dangerous as these were better reformed out of
existence.
The most important work of the Freiburg period
was the great treatise on the Christian minister,
to which Erasmus gave the title of Ecclesiastes,
or The Gospel Preacher (concionator evangelicus).
In its printed form the Ecclesiastes fills over one
hundred and sixty folio pages and would make
more than two volumes as large as this present one.
Of all the evils in the existing church system, none
had been more evident since the height of the
Middle Ages than the neglect of preaching. The
very first effort of the organised Lutheran party
had been to restore the right balance between the
sacramental and the moral aspects of church admin
istration by emphasising the preaching and diminish
ing the importance of all sacramental observances.
And this is precisely the position of Erasmus. He
begins with a careful definition of the Church (ec-
clesid) as the assembly (concio) of Christians. Christ
is the great preacher and every other ecclesiastes is
only his representative and herald. The highest
function of the preacher is that of teaching. At
first the bishops were the sole teachers; now the
teaching has passed to priests and monks, though it
is a function far surpassing the dignity of kings.
454 Desiderius Erasmus [1535-
As a model of the complete bishop Erasmus gives
a very beautiful description of Warham, dwelling
especially upon his great efficiency in a vast variety
of duties, an efficiency made possible only 'by the
strictest frugality of life and the rigid exclusion of
all luxury and idle amusement.
This brief notice of the Ecclesiastes concludes our
review of the writings of Erasmus, and this seems
the fitting place to note what was the final judg
ment upon them of that Church to which he de
clared himself devoted and from whose teachings he
insisted he had never departed by so much as a
hair's breadth. It was not until the wave of the
Catholic Reaction had begun to rise into a furious
torrent that a definite policy of disapproval of Eras
mus on the part of the Roman authorities took the
place of the former leniency. Lists of books the
reading of which was prohibited to good Christians
were published in many parts of Europe by sov
ereigns, universities, inquisitors, or commissions from
1524 on. 1 Such lists were generally called " Cata
logues." The papacy as such took no part in this
process until the time of the Council of Trent. The
earliest papal list or " Index " was published by
Paul IV. in 1559. It was arranged in three classes,
the first containing the names of authors who were,
as.it were, heretics by intention (ex professo), and
all of whose writings were condemned, no matter
whether they had any reference to religion or not.
1 F. H. Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Biteher, 1883, i., 347-
355-
1535] Last Reformatory Treatises 455
In the second class were names of authors some of
whose writings had been shown to tend towards
heresy or the superstitions of magic, etc. The third
class comprised the titles of books, generally by
anonymous writers, which contained specially dan
gerous doctrines.
In this first papal Index Erasmus takes a place of
extraordinary prominence. Not only was he placed
in the first class, but a special clause was added to
his name: " with all his commentaries, notes,
scholia, dialogues, letters, censures, translations,
books, and writings, even when they contain nothing
against religion or about religion." The Index of
Paul IV. was, however, by no means generally ac
cepted by the people of Europe. In many countries
it was flatly rejected. The Council of Trent at its
final session (1562-1563) took up the matter and
appointed a commission to revise the harshest
clauses. The result of this revision appears in the
Index of Pius IV. in 1564. There Erasmus has
been dropped from the first class and in the second
appear only a few of his most doubtful works, the
Colloquies, Praise of Folly, Christian Marriage, and
one or two others. In 1590 Sixtus V. replaced him
in the first class, and in 1596 Clement VIII. restored
him again to the conditions of the Index of Trent.
Thus the fate of Erasmus after death was very
much what it had been in his life. As honest Duke
Frederick had said : " One never knows how to take
him. ' ' The highest authority could not quite deter
mine whether he was a thorough-going heretic or
only heretical " north-north-west."
45 6 Desiderius Erasmus [i 535
In the month of August, 1535, after a residence
of six busy years at Freiburg, Erasmus returned to
Basel. Once more, and for the last time, he has to
account for a change of residence. At Freiburg he
had been continually complaining of the place, his
quarters, and the people; yet he says he had no
fixed intention of leaving there permanently. He
had been giving matter to the press during these six
years without any special difficulty, but suddenly
he discovers that his Ecclesiastes cannot be prop
erly printed at Basel without his presence. He
has suffered so much, he writes to the bishop of
Cracow, 1 that he prefers to try a change of air even
at the risk of death. He was carried in a covered
carriage, " made for women," to Basel, " a health
ful and pleasant city, whose hospitality I have en
joyed for many years. There, in expectation of my
coming, a room suited to my needs had been pre
pared by my friends."
It is marvellous how the permanent instincts of
his life assert themselves to the last. In October,
1535, he- writes to a magistrate of Besangon :
" Almost incredible as it seems, I have left my nest
and flown hither, meaning to fly to you when I shall
have recovered my strength. The wintry September has
compelled me to cast anchor here and so we shall have
to wait for the swallows. The pope wants to gold-plate
me whether I will or no, and has offered me the provost-
ship of Deventer now that the harpies are all got rid of.
But I am determined, though ten provostships were
offered me, not to take one of them. . . . Shall I,
1 Hi.", isii-C.
1535] Return to Basel 457
a dying man, accept burdens which I have always
refused ? "
Just as he arrived at Basel he had written:
" What has happened in England to Fisher and More,
a pair of men, than whom England never had a better or
a holier, you will learn from the fragment of a letter
which I send you. In More I seem myself to have
perished, so completely was there, as Pythagoras has it,
but one soul to both of us. Such are the tides of human
life!"
It is pleasant to believe that the last days of
Erasmus were cheered by the thought that his pro
testations of fidelity to the Roman institution were
not wholly unrewarded, though, as he says, there
were still men at Rome who were doing their best
to blacken his fame. He had welcomed the election
of Paul III. in much the same language as he had
employed in regard to Leo X., Hadrian VI., and
Clement VII. He wrote to him at once, but we
have, unfortunately, only the brief reply of the
pope. It is a very amiable and appreciative note,
recognising the value of Erasmus' services and ex
pressing entire confidence in their continuance. It
is quite in harmony with his whole career that these
congratulations of the pope should have come to
him in Basel, now thoroughly converted into a Pro
testant community, and in the midst of friends the
most tried and true he had ever had, all of them Pro
testants, but all willing to forget differences in their
common regard for the dying scholar.
Desiderius Erasmus [i 53 6
We are not well informed as to the end of Eras
mus' life. The last letter in the collection of Le
Clerc, perhaps the last he ever wrote, is to his old
friend Goclenius at Louvain, under date of June
28, 1536. He is among faithful friends, better
friends than he had at Freiburg, " but on account
of differences in doctrine I would rather end my life
elsewhere. Would that Brabant were nearer! "
Again he repeats his declaration that he came to
Basel only for a change of air and was intending to
go elsewhere as soon as he felt better. The ruling
passion was strong upon him even to his death.
The story of his last days comes to us through
the excellent Beatus Rhenanus, his devoted friend
and admirer. The winter brought on a terrible
attack of gout, succeeded in the early summer by a
continuous dysentery which proved incurable. In
spite of pain and weakness he never lost a moment's
opportunity of work, the witness whereof is the
treatise De Puritate Ecclesice and the edition of
Origen. He was in the house of the son of his old
friend Froben, the intimates of his earlier residence
were all about him, and evidently were glad and
proud to have him again in their midst.
We have no suggestion, in the eleven months of
his stay at Basel, of any personal dealings with the
Roman clergy, nor of the presence of any minister
of religion at his death-bed. He had lived a cosmo
politan of the earth ; he died, so far as we know, a
cosmopolitan of the world to come a Christian man
trusting for his future to the simple faith in right
doing and straight thinking which had really been
1536] Death 459
his creed through life. His death occurred on the
1 2th of July, 1536. Protestant Basel claimed as her
own the man who had turned his back on her when
she was working through her own religious problem,
but who had after all been drawn to her again by
the subtle ties of a sympathy he could not or would
not openly acknowledge.
" How great was the public grief," says Beatus, " was
shown by the throng of people to take their last look at
the departed. He was borne on the shoulders of students
to the cathedral and there near the steps which lead up
to the choir, on the left side of the church, by the chapel
of the Blessed Virgin, was honourably laid to rest. In
the funeral procession walked the chief magistrate and
many members of the council. Of the professors and
students of the University not one was absent."
The impression of Beatus' narration is confirmed
by a letter ' of the Leipzig physician, Heinrich
Stromer, written immediately after the death of
Erasmus to George Spalatin. He adds:
" The great scholar was completely absorbed in restor
ing the Greek text of Origen, so that though his illness
was extremely painful, he would not give up till death
itself wrested the pen from his hand. His last words on
earth, spoken in the midst of his heavy groaning, were
these: ' Oh, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon
me! I will sing of the mercy of God and of his judg
ment.' And therein you can see the truly Christian
spirit of the man."
1 Adalbert Horawitz, Erasmiana ; in Sitzungsberichte der Wiener
Akademie der Wissenschaften, xcv., 608.
460 Desiderius Erasmus [i 53 6
The last will of Erasmus, made in due form on
the I2th of February, 1536, shows him to have
been possessed of a comfortable property. He ap
points Boniface Amerbach general executor of all his
estate. He gives substantial legacies to several
friends and servants, provides for the sale of his
library to John a Lasco, and finally directs his
executor to give the remainder to poor and infirm
persons, especially to provide dowries for poor girls
and to help young men of good promise.
Expressions of grief and reverence for the great
scholar came from the men of all parties who could
think of him as the prince of learning and the advo
cate of right living. Only those who could not
forgive him his refusal to enter the ranks of any
party failed to do honour to his memory.
Let us ask once more in conclusion what was, pre
cisely, the contribution of this man to the work of
the Reformation. If by " Reformation " we mean
only the work which Luther believed himself to be
doing, we must limit our answer to the somewhat
scanty acknowledgment he was ready to make of
his indebtedness to Erasmus as a scholar. But we
have learned that Luther's own conception of the
Reformation movement was a very narrow and in
adequate one. He believed it to be limited to a
purely religious revival on the basis of a true under
standing of Scripture. In reality it was the whole
great revolt of the human mind against arbitrary
and conventional limitations, and it is only when we
study it in this light that we can measure the influ-
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INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMB OF ERASMUS, AT EASEL.
FROM KNIOHT'S " LIFE OF ERASMUS."
1536] Conclusion 461
ence of Erasmus upon it. First and most important
was his insistence, begun in the Enchiridion and
continued even through the Ecclesiastcs, upon the
principle of a sound, sane, reasonable individual
judgment, not in opposition to the prevailing author
ity of tradition, but in interpretation of it. To be
sure this was no absolutely new thing in the world.
It had been before men's minds since the days of
Petrarch, but it had never before found so many-
sided and so consistent an expression in the North.
It had taken three generations since Petrarch for
the slower mind of the northern peoples to ripen to
the point of receiving this idea. They took it now
from Erasmus with enthusiasm. It came to them
in his satire in such form that the humblest reader
could understand it. It spoke to them in his serious
treatises in language which appealed to the scholar
at once by its literary finish and by its enormous
learning and seriousness. The private judgment of
the individual is really, no matter how concealed,
the tribunal to which the reader is continually re
ferred.
Closely akin to this is the appeal, the other dis
tinguishing mark of the Renaissance man, to the
essential Tightness of what is natural. The mediae
val ideal of morals had been that whatever was
natural was essentially wrong. It could be right
only in so far as it was given a formal guarantee by
some recognised authority. Erasmus represents
human life throughout as being, of its very nature, in
harmony with the eternal law of morality. Espec
ially family life in all its forms, the natural and
462 Desiderius Erasmus [i 53 6
mutual duties of man and wife, the tender love and
care of children, the honourable uses of wealth in
the service of the state and of religion, the obliga
tions of friendship, the natural piety of the simple
child of God, the dignity and responsibility of rulers
as the agents of a divine order among men, the
supreme duty of peace, these are the constantly
recurring subjects of his well-trained pen. Even in
his literary ideals the same general principle of
naturalness prevails. Style is an instrument to be
cultivated ; it has a charm of its own worth the care
ful attention of the scholar; but, after all, style is
only a means of conveying thought, and the object
of it is to carry the highest thought in the clearest
and most direct fashion.
Now one may well ask : How is all this nobility
and elevation of purpose to be reconciled with the
obvious personal limitations of Erasmus' character ?
How does this profound interest in the welfare of
human society go with a self-centred, nervous
dread of criticism which rises at times to the hyster
ical point ? How account for the fear that the very
ideas he seems most to cherish might be spread
abroad among the very people for whom they seem
especially intended ? How explain the elaborate
contradictions in his own accounts of the motives
that led to his most open actions ? Such a personal
ity, we are tempted to say, is beneath our honest
contempt. It is the very negation of all the ideals
of which the man tried to pose as the champion.
The answer to this difficulty is that we find our.
selves here before the perpetual mystery of genius.
1536] Conclusion 463
Erasmus partially solved the problem for us when
he declared that while he was at work a certain
demon seemed to take possession of him and to
carry him on without his will. His pen seemed to
have a volition of its own and to obey the training
of his years of practice by a certain instinct. Just
as his powerful will compelled his frail and suffering
body to do the bidding of his unconquerable spirit,
so the literary impulse carried him on to utterances
far beyond the capacity of his personality to realise
in action. If Erasmus could have lived up to him
self, he would have been the greatest of men. Let
us in our judgment of him beware lest we make
superhuman demands upon him. It is as idle as it
is unjust to ask that Erasmus should be both Eras
mus and Luther at once. Our narrative has not
sought to cover up or to disguise the repellent as
pects of his outward attitude towards the Reforma
tion. May it on the other hand avoid the error of
obscuring his immense service to the cause with
which his nature forbade 'him outwardly to identify
himself.
INDEX
Adages, first edition, 88-91 ; Al-
dine edition, 136
Adrian, Hebrew teacher, 266,267
Adrian VI., pope, 403
Agricola, Rudolf, 7
Albert of Mainz, 291 ; letter to,
309-318
Aldus Manutius, 125 ; corre
spondence with Erasmus, 134-
137 ; his printing-office, 138
Aleander, Girolamo, at Venice,
143 ; at Louvain, 349
Alexander of Scotland, Arch
bishop of St. Andrews, 144,
146 ; death, 153
Algerus, treatise on the Euchar
ist, 410
Amerbach, Boniface, executor,
460
Amerbach, the brothers, 236
Ammonius, Andreas, correspond
ence with Erasmus, 187-192,
262, 263
Andrelinus, Faustus, 41 ; letter
from Erasmus, 80 ; writes a
preface to the Adages, 93
Apophthegmata, 451
Aquinas, Thomas, Erasmus' and
Colet's views of, 72
d' Asola, Andreas, 138-140
d' Asola, Francesco, 139, 141
Atensis, John, 264
Augsburg Confession, 401
Augsburg, Diet at, 444-448
Augustinianism, 278, 283-285,
380-383
Augustinus, pupil of Erasmus, 93
B
Badius, publisher at Paris, 134
Basel, residence in, 232-240, 347,
441-443, 456 sqq.
Battus, James, 48 ; correspond
ence with Erasmus, 48-58 ;
death, 6l
Beatus Rhenanus, 239 ; letter
to, 241-246
Bedda, Natalis, 428
Berquin, Louis de, 428-432
Berlin, St., abbot of, 223
Besan9on, letter to magistrate
of, 456
Bois-le-Duc ('s Hertogenbosch),
school at, 8
Bologna, visit to, 130-135
Botzheim, John, canon of Con
stance, letter to (catalogus lu-
cubrationum), 126 ; visit to,
352, 356
Brethren of the Common Life, 8
Budaeus, William, letter from,
248 ; letter to, 251, 427
Busleiden, Jerome, founder of
the College of the Three Lan
guages, 265
Cambrai, bishop of and resid
ence in, 6, 33, 41
Cambridge, life at, 193-195
Caminga, Haio, 443
Campeggio, Cardinal, letters to,
302, 405
Carteromachos, Scipio, 148
465
466
Index
Charles I. of Spain (V. of Ger
many), makes Erasmus a coun
cillor, 253, 262 ; elected em
peror, 343-345 ; holds the
Diet at Worms, 345, 346
Ciceronianus, treatise on rhet
oric, selection from, 149-151
Cinicampius (Eschenfeld), 243 ;
letter from Erasmus, 246, 247
Clement VII., pope, letter to,
404
Clyston, attendant of Erasmus'
pupils, 125, 127, 136
Colet, John, 64, 65 ; teacher at
Oxford, 68 ; founder of St.
Paul's school, 70 ; his charac
ter, 71-75 ; invites Erasmus
to teach at Oxford, 82-86 ;
correspondence of 1511 (?)-
1512, 195-200 ; present at
Canterbury " pilgrimage," 217
College Montaigu, 34-39
Comparison of the Virgin and
the Martyr, 436, 437
Compendium Vitce, 4
Complutensian Polyglot, 2OI
Constance, visit at, 352
Cop, William, 250
Copia verborum et rerum, dedi
cation, 197 ; analysis of, 208-
214
Cornelius, companion of Eras
mus at Steyn, 14
D
Dante, De Monarchic,, 274
Decontemptu mundi, treatise, 20-
22, 28
Deventer, school at, 5-7
Diversoria, colloquy describing
inns, 127, 226-231
Dorpius, Martin, criticises the
Praise of Folly, 176, 264
Dttrer, Albert, diary of, 333, 334
Ecclesiastes, 453, 454
Egmund, Carmelite at Louvain,
322, 428
Enchiridion tnilitis Christiani,
origin, 96, 97 ; analysis of, 98-
iii ; preface to second edition,
111-115 I its teaching, 286
England, life in, 62-86, \lqsqq.
Epistolce obscurorutn virorutn,
279, 363
Eppendorf, Henry, 352
Erasmus, nationality, 1-3; birth,
3 ; at Gouda, 5 ; at Utrecht, 5 ;
at Deventer, 5-8 ; at 's Herto-
genbosch, 8, 9; at Steyn, 15-
23 ; with the bishop of Cam-
brai, 26 ; ordained priest, 33,
n. ; at Paris, 33-40 ; return to
Cambrai, 41 ; troubles at Paris,
4247 ; correspondence with
Battus, 4858 ; visit to Tour-
nehens, 54 ; at Louvain, 61 ;
in England, 62-86 ; at Or
leans, 92 ; views on war, 118,
128 ; goes to Italy, 125 ; Doc
tor's degree, 128 ; in Bologna,
130-135 ; life at Venice, 137-
143 ; at Padua, 144 ; at Siena,
146 ; at Rome, 146-156 ; Eng
lish residence (1509-1514),
179-217 ; correspondence with
Ammonius, 187-192 ; " Pro
fessor " at Cambridge, 193-
195 ; literary work in England,
197-217 ; letter to Servatius,
218-224; journeys, 226-231,
241-246; at Basel, 232-240;
called to Ingolstadt and else
where, 247 ; offered a bishop
ric, 248 ; called 19 Paris, 248-
253 ; made councillor of
Charles V., 253-255 ; settles
at Louvain, 264 ; his view of
the Reform, 285-288 ; view of
indulgences, 292 ; letter to
Wolsey, 298-301 ; to Campeg-
gio, 302 ; to Leo X., 303-307;
to Albert of Mainz, 309-319;
to Hoogstraaten, 326-329;
removal to Basel, 347 ; letter
to Laurinus, 347-361 ; visit to
Constance, 352; contest
with Hutten, 362-378 ; the
Index
467
Erasmus continued
free-will controversy, 383-401 ;
the Eucharist controversy,
407-418 ; relations with Ber-
quin, 428-432 ; life at Basel,
441-443 ; goes to Freiburg in
Breisgau, J\\\ ; relation to
Augsburg Diet, 444-448; buys
a house, 449 ; his place in the
Index, 454, 455 ; return to
Basel, 456; death, 457-459;
last will, 460 ; final estimate
of, 460-463
Ernest of Bavaria, invites Eras
mus to Ingolstadt, 247
Eschenfeld (Cinicampius), 243 :
letter from Erasmus, 246, 247
Eucharist, history of, 407 ; Lu
ther's view, 407-409 ; Eras
mus on, 409-418
Expostulatio cum Eras mo of
Hutten, 366-372
Familiar Colloquies, 420-423 ;
attacked by the Sorbonne and
by Luther, 424 ; condemned
at Paris and in England, 433
Ferdinand of Spain, 119
Fisher, Robert, 63
Francis I., King of France, calls
Erasmus to Paris, 248-253
Fratres Collalionarii , 10
Frederic the Wise, Elector of
Saxony, letter to, 325 ; inter
view with, 326 ; imperial can
didate, 344
Free will, the problem of, 381-
384 ; essay on, 384, 387-397 ;
Luther on, 398-401
Freiburg in Breisgau, residence
at, 441-456
Froben, John, first acquaintance
with Erasmus, 232 ; character,
233-235
Froben, John Erasmius, 421
Gaguinus, 41
Gerard, father of Erasmus, 4
Gerhardt of Nymwegen, 428
Goclenius, Conrad, letters to, 4,
267, 458
Gouda, life at, 5
Grey, Thomas, 43
Grimani, Cardinal, 151 ; receives
Erasmus, 154-156; letter to,
224
Grocyn, William, 64, 81
Groot, Gerard, 8
Grunnius, Lambertus, letter to,
xiv, 4, II, 19, 21, 130; reply
of, 132
H
Hedio, Caspar, letter to, 379
Hegius, Alexander, 6
Hermann, William, 23, 47
's Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc),
school at, 8
Hoogstraaten, Jacob, letter to,
326-329
Hutten, Ulrich von, 361-363;
controversy with Erasmus,
3 D 3-378 ; letter from, 364 ;
the Expostulatio, 366-372;
Erasmus' Spongia, 372-378
" Index," papal, 454, 455
Indulgences, Luther's Theses on,
289-291 ; Erasmus on, 292,
293
Inghirami, Tommaso, 149
Ingolstadt, call to, 247
Institution of Christian Mar^
riage, 433-435
Institutio Principis Christiani,
255-262 ; its teaching, 286
Italy, life in, 125 sqq.
IxQvo<payia colloquy of Eras
mus, 35-40
Jerome, St., edition of, 68, 205
Joanna of Spain, 119
468
Index
K
a Kempis, Thomas, 8
Lascaris, Johannes, 143 ; letter
to, 265
a Lasco, John, letter to, 417, 418
Laurinus, Marcus, letters to,
254, 347-361
Lee, Edward, 427
Leo X., dedication of New Tes
tament to, 271 ; letter to, 302
Linacre, Thomas, 64, 8l, 199
Louvain, life at, 61, 264
Ludwig the Bavarian, emperor,
276
Luther, Martin, called to Witten
berg, 280; his early develop
ment, 280-283 ; Theses, 289-
291 ; letter from, 294 ; letter
to, 295297 ; his views dis
claimed, 298 sqq. ; Leipzig
Disputation, 307, 337 ; burns
the papal bull and canon law,
337 ; writings of 1520, 338 ;
confronts the radical party,
339-341 ; at Worms, 345, 346 ;
letter on free will, 384-386 ;
treatise, de servo arbitrio, 398-
401
Luther and Erasmus compared,
282, 283
M
Macchiavelli, Niccolo, // Prin
cipe, 256
Manius, Peter, letter to, i
Marburg Conference, 408
Margaret, mother of Erasmus,
4
Margaret of Austria, regent of
the Netherlands, 405
Maximilian of Germany, 119
Melanchthon, Philip, called to
Wittenberg, 280 ; letter to, 325
More, Thomas, 64 ; first meeting
with Erasmus, 77, 78 ; intro
duces Erasmus to the royal
children, 79 ; Utopia, 257
Mountjoy, Lord, pupil of Eras
mus, 43 ; invites him to Eng
land, 62 ; second invitation
(1509), I79~ l8 3
Miinzer, Thomas, 340, 362, 398
Musurus, Marcus, 143, 144
N
Neuenaar, Count of, 244
New Testament, Greek, editing
begun in England, 200-204 ;
dedicated to Pope Leo X.,
271 ; third edition, 351
O
Opulentia sordiJa, colloquy on
life at Venice, 138-142
Orleans, life at, 92
Pace, Richard, at Ferrara, 145
Padua, life at, 144
Paraphrases of the New Testa
ment, 424-426
Paris, university organisation,
34 ; life in, 33-40, 42-4?, 248-
253
Parvus, William (Guillaume
Petit), 248, 249
Paul 1 1 1., pope, correspondence
with, 457
Paul IV., pope, Index of, 454,
455
Pelicanus, Conrad, letters to,
416, 417
Philip of Burgundy, panegyric
on, 116-121
Pirkheimer, Bilibaldus, letters
to, 413, 414
Pius IV., pope, Index of, 455
Poncher, Stephen, Bishop of
Paris, 250, 253
Popes, humanistic, 273
Praparatio ad Mortem, 452,
453
Praise of Folly, motive of, 158 ;
analysis of, 159-175 ; apology
to Dorpius, 176-178
Index
469
R
Raphael, Cardinal of St. George,
226
Religious Pilgrimage, the, 215,
216
Reuchlin, John, 236-239, 310,
320
Rhenanus, see Beatus
Riario, Raffaelle, cardinal, 151
Rome, life in, 150-156
Scaliger, Julius Caesar, criticises
Erasmus, 137, 235
" Senex ille," 42-46
Schmalkalden, League of, 445
Servatius, companion of Eras
mus at Steyn, 23 : prior of
Steyn, letter from Erasmus,
218-224
Siena, visit to, 146
Sintheim, John, 6
Sorbonne, the, attacks the Col
loquies, 424, and the Para
phrases, 432
" Spirit," the, 388, 389 ; Luther
on, 399
Spongia adversus aspergines
Hutteni, 372-378
Standonch, John, 35
Steyn, monastery at, 14-20 ; life
at, 15-23
Stromer, Heinrich, letter to
Spalatin, 459
Stunica, James Lopez, 355, 404,
427
The True Way of Prayer, 437-
440
Tournehens, visit to, 54
Tunstall, Cuthbert, 263, 264
U
Utopia of Thomas More, 257,
261
Utrecht, life at, 5
V
Valla, Laurentius, 204
Veere, Anna, Marchioness of,
48 ; visit of Erasmus to, 54 ;
letter to, 59, 60 ; marriage of,
61
Venice, life at, 137-143
Volzius, letter to, 111-115
W
Warham, William, Archbishop
of Canterbury, joins in calling
Erasmus to England, 183 ;
gives him the "living" of
Aldington, 184-186; charac
ter, 226, 454
Wessel, John, 8
Winckel, Peter, uncle and guard
ian of Erasmus, 5, 7, 9
Wittenberg University founded,
280
Wittenherus, Nicholas, prior of
Steyn, 222
Wolsey, Thomas, letter to, 298
Worms, Diet at, 345, 346 ; Edict
of, 34"
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