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ERASMUS
ERASMUS
A Study of His Life,
Ideals, and Place in History
PRESERVED SMITH
FREDERICK UNGAR PUBLISHING CO
New York
Republished 1962
First published 1923
Printed in the United Slates of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card No, 62-17092
TO
MY WIFE
WITH LOVE AND HOMAGK
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. APPRENTICE YEARS i
The Renaissance represented by Erasmus. His birth, 1469.
Schooling at Deventer. Reception as an Austin Canon at Steyn.
Love for the classics. Painting. The Burgundian Court. The
University of Paris. Revolt from scholasticism. Student life.
Patrons.
II. THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 33
The classics. The Adages* Greek. Panegyric of Philip. The
"philosophy of Christ." Jean Vitrier. Enchiridion Militis
Christiani,
III. ENGLISH FRIENDS 59
First visit to England, 1499. Second visit, 1505-06. Third
sojourn, 1509-14. Later visits. Teaching at Cambridge.
English benefices. Pilgrimages to Canterbury and Walsingham.
Dispensations from the Pope. Sir Thomas More and his family.
The Utopia. John Colet.
IV. ITALY 101
The journey to Italy 1 506-09. The degree of Doctor of Theology
at Turin. Bologna, Florence, Venice. Aldo. Padua, Ferrara,
Sienna, Rome, Naples.
V. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 117
Sources. Character of the satire. Success. Julius excluded
from heaven*
VI. THE RHINE . „ 129
Erasmus's fame in Germany, 1514. Hutten. Reuchlin. Letters
of Obscure Mm. Travel on the Rhine. Portraits by Matsys,
Durer, and Holbein. Holbein's illustrations of the Folly and the
Paraphrase of Ltike. University of Louvain.
VII. THE NEW TESTAMENT 159
State of biblical criticism. Erasmus's edition of the Greek text.
Criticism, translation, exegesis. Reception and influence of the
work. Paraphrases.
VIII. MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 189
Editions of the Fathers. Editions and translations of the classics.
Political writings. The Institution of a Christian Prince. Repub-
licanism and Pacifism. Epistles.
IX. THE RK FORMATION: THE FIRST PHASE, 1517*21 .... 209
Erasmus's preparation for the Protestant revolt. His influence
on Luther, His welcome for the Theses on Indulgences. Attacks
on him by the monks. His plan for a court of arbitration, His
meeting with Frederic the Wise at Cologne. The Diet of Worms.
Neutrality of Erasmus resented by both sides. His flight from
the Netherlands,
vii
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
X. LIFE AT BASLE, 1521-29 257
Erasmus's income, library, and will. Visits to Constance,
Besancon, and Freiburg in the Breisgau. Health. Relations
with France and England.
XL THE COLLOQUIES AND OTHER PEDAGOGICAL WORKS . . . 286
The Colloquies, their origin, success, and teaching. Textbooks.
Pronunciation of Greek. Pedagogical method. The Ciceronian.
Erasmus's style.
XII. THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 320
Contact of the Renaissance and Reformation; their common
origin and final divergence. Relations of Erasmus and Luther
typical of this. The inevitable break precipitated by personal
reasons. Quarrel with Hutten. The Free Will. Luther's reply
and Erasmus's rejoinders. The Diet of Augsburg. Melanchthon.
XIII. THE Swiss REFORMATION 372
Zwingli. Reform at Basle. Farel. (Ecolampadius. Departure
from Basle. Controversies of Erasmus with the Catholics.
The offer of the Red Hat.
XIV. LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG AND AGAIN AT BASLE , 404
Freiburg in the Breisgau. Cousin. Last works. Correspondence
with H. C. Agrippa, De Pins, and Rabelais. Deaths of Fisher
and More. Death of Erasmus, 1536.
XV. THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS AND His PLACE IN HISTORY , . 421
His works put on the Index of Prohibited Books, Later Catholic
opinion. Protestant estimates. Rationalist appreciation.
Character of Erasmus. As a representative of the contact of
Renaissance and Reformation. As the exponent of "the
philosophy of Christ."
APPENDICES
I. THE YEAR OF ERASMUS'S BIRTH 445
II. THE CORRESPONDENCE OF ERASMUS AND DE PINS: Six UN-
PUBLISHED LETTERS , 447
III. UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF ERASMUS AND GAGUIN. ..... 453
IV. BIBLIOGRAPHY 459
ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA 467
INDEX * .... 469
Jutograph signature to a letter to Duke
Georgf of Saxony, December 5, Ip2.
It reads; ^ "Erasmus Rot Serenitati
tuae addictissimus manu mea subm
scripsi." Original in Dresden,
PREFACE
PERHAPS the best way to explain the raison d'etre of this
work is to set forth the phases through which the com-
position has passed. Lectures given at Amherst College
in the winter of 1912-13 laid the foundations. At that
time I was attracted to the subject by the large amount
of new materials which had appeared very recently.
The masterly edition of the epistles by Percy Stafford
Allen and the publication of many unknown or inac-
cessible letters by J. Forstemann, O. Giinther, L. K.
Enthoven, and other scholars, have greatly added to
our knowledge of Erasmus's life. The Bibliotheca Eras-
miana, now in course of publication, has opened a mine
of information on many of the humanist's works. On
various phases of his career and genius much new light
has been cast by the labors of Kalkoff, Mestwerdt,
Humbert, Zickendraht, Woodward, and Nichols.
Under the pressure of other labors the biography
was laid aside for several years. When I took it up
again, and studied it more deeply, I discovered in
Erasmus the champion, in his own day, of that "un-
dogmatic Christianity" now first coming to its own
four hundred years after he proclaimed it. One must
not exaggerate, nor wrench historical facts to precon-
ceived ideas; it would be impossible to claim that the
humanist felt toward dogma and ritual exactly as the
most rational Christian at present feels. Nevertheless,
it is true that, relatively, he neglected doctrine and
ceremony and placed the emphasis on the ethical and
the reasonable. His peculiar note, much more striking
then than it would be now, was to reconcile the claims
of piety with those of reason, to discountenance obscur-
antism, while cherishing morality* No writer before
yd
ril PREFACE
Voltaire has left behind him such a wreck of super-
stitions; few writers since the last Evangelists have
bequeathed to posterity so much of ethical value. ^ It
is this combination of reason and morality in religion
that makes Erasmus the forerunner and exponent of
that type of Christianity at present prevalent among
large circles of our cultivated classes.
When I gave the manuscript its third and final revision,
I had recently written a larger history of the Reformation
and had given much thought to the various philosophical
problems connected with it, among which none is deeper
or more difficult than that of the relation of the Re-
formation to the Renaissance. Were the two opposed
or allied movements? Why did the humanists after
preparing the way for the Reformers, turn against them?
I soon learned that the life of Erasmus would cast more
light upon this problem than that of any other man,
for he tjgified and represented, more than did any other
man, the, ey^ in its cont act t with
the Reformation; first The prepared the way for it, then
he welcomed it, and finally repudiated it. A solution
of the problem why he did this, and to some extent
of the larger problem of the contact of the two move-
ments, is here presented. Furthermore, Erasmus's
particular task, that of synthesizing the two diverse
currents flowing from Christian and from pagan an-
tiquity, is freshly evaluated.
In fine, three tasks have been here attempted—
first, to sum up many new facts and details on the life
of Erasmus; secondly, to exhibit the genius of his
rational piety; and thirdly, to explain, by the example
of his career, the intricate relations of Renaissance
and Reformation*
My obligations to helpers have been very great, I
am indebted to Dr. P. S. Allen for occasional informa-
tion and for keeping me au cow ant of his own work;
to that generous patron of learning, Mr, George Arthur
Plimpton, for the use of his splendid library of rare
ERASMUS aii
books, including some valuable Erasmiana; to Prof. H.
Carrington Lancaster, for transcribing for me some
letters from the Bellaria Epistolarum Des* Erasmi
Roterodami et Ambrosii Palargi, published at Cologne,
1539, out of the copy of that rare work at the Bodleian.
For information about a manuscript containing unpub-
lished Erasmus letters at Nimes I am obliged to Prof.
John Lawrence Gerig. Still more do I owe to Prof.
Louise Ropes Loomis. At one time I hoped to secure
her co-operation in writing this volume, but, though
the work was in her possession for about a year, she
found little time to devote to it, and actually wrote only
some eight or ten pages. As she built on my work,
and as I have in turn remodeled hers, it is impossible to
indicate her contribution more exactly than to state
that most of what is said on the Adages in Chapter II
is from her pen. She has also recently read the first
half of the manuscript and has given me the benefit
of many corrections and suggestions in matters of
detail. Most of all, perhaps, the book owes to the
thorough revision of Prof. George Lincoln Burr, Every
chapter now bears the mark of his profound erudition
and keen insight. My wife has also assisted me in
reading the proof, and has also prepared the index.
The merits of the book are due to the co-operation
of the kind friends here warmly but inadequately
thanked; for its faults, as well as for the expression of
opinion, I alone bear the responsibility.
PRESERVED SMITH.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
July 6»
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES
Allen — Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami denuo recognitum et auctum
'per P. S. Allen. As yet 4 vols. 1906 IF.
Enthoven — Briefe an Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam, hg. von L. K.
Enthoven. 1906.
Epistola ad Amerbachium — Epistola familiares Des. Erasmi Roterodami ad
Bonif. Amerbachium. 1779.
Forstemann-Giinther — Brief e an Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam* hg. von.
J. Forstemann und 0. Giinther. 1904.
LB. — Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omniat ed. J. Clericus. 10 vols.
Lugduni Batavorum. 1703-06. The epistles are quoted from vol. 3 by
number of epistle only; other volumes are quoted by number of volume
and column.
L.C. — Luther's Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters^ translated
and edited by Preserved Smith. Vol. I, 1913. Vol. 2, in collaboration
with C. M. Jacobs, 1918.
Lond. — Epistolarum Des. Erasmi libri xxxi. London, 1642.
Nichols. — The Epistles of Erasmus. . , . English translations with a cow-
mentary . . . by F. M. Nichols. 3 vols. 1901-19. Though I add references
to Nichols in the notes, I have always compared his version with the original,
Z.W. — Huldreich Zwinglis samtliche Werke> hg. von E. Egli, G. Finsler, und
W. Kohler, 1905 ff. As yet, vols. i, ^9 3, 7, 8, and parts of 4 and 9.
ERASMUS
CHAPTER I
APPRENTICE YEARS
ECE all great and complex movements, the Renais-
sance is capable of interpretation in various ways
and from opposite standpoints. When we think of its
importance in the preparation of our modern habit of
mind, we are inclined to class it with the great epochs
of advance, such as the Athenian Age and the Enlight*
enment. But if we take the testimony of its own writers
we learn that its ideals were in the past, a restoration
and not a progress. Its most enlightened champions
appealed not to reason, but to the Roman poets; not
to nature, but to classic authority. While the glorious
freedom of thought attained by many of its represent-
atives entities it to be regarded as an insurgence oi
reason, its passionate rebellion against the rationalism of
Aristotle and Aquinas forces us to consider it an artistic,
emotional reaction against reason, like the Romantic
Movement of the early nineteenth century.
Nor is there any consensus of opinion as to the re-
lations of the Renaissance and the Reformation. For
long they were regarded as sisters, similar in origin and
analogous in result; emancipations both, in different
fields and with different emphases but with a friendly
alliance, so that the elder sister prepared for the younger
and the younger consummated the work of the elder.
But of late it has been asserted that the Reformation
was a reaction of backward minds against the Renais-
sance; the different points of view of the two have been
stressed, and their rivalry and even hostility pointed
out. "Where the Reformation triumphed "—we may
paraphrase a famous saying of Erasmus— ** the Renals-
2 ERASMUS
sance perished55; and contrariwise where humanism at-
tained its perfect work the Lutheran gospel met with a
cold reception.
A part of the confusion of thought on this subject
is due to the lack of a precise understanding of what is
meant by the term "Renaissance/* Sometimes it is
made to cover all the intellectual phenomena of the
fourteenth to the sixteenth century, and even (as by
Burckhardt) extended to the political development;
again it is narrowly restricted to the rebirth of en-
thusiasm for classical antiquity. For the sake of clarity
it should be pointed out that the vast change which
came over the human spirit in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, marking the transition from mediaeval to
modern times, can be analyzed into at least three very
distinct factors. In the first place, there was the Social
Shift, manifesting itself in politics in the rise of the na-
tional state and in economics in the change from the
gild system of production to the capitalistic method.
Secondly, there was a large number of new Discoveries —
geographical exploration, the invention of printing,
gunpowder, glass lenses, and the compass, and the
revival of natural science with Copernicus and his
fellows. Thirdly, there was the Rebirth of Antiquity,
manifesting itself, according to the view here set forth,
in the Renaissance and in the Reformation. All three
great lines of progress interacted, as for example, na-
tionalism in the rise of vernacular literature, and the
discovery of printing in the spread of culture, but each
is separable in thought* and might conceivably have
acted independently.
The Renaissance and the Reformation were, therefore*
really one. The conscious opposition of the champions
of each, the intense warfare arising from their propm*
quity and concern with the same interests, have con-
cealed the real similarity of their natures, just as the
warfare between Catholics and Protestants has greatly
exaggerated the popular estimate of their differences
3
and obscured their numerous and fundamental agree-
ments. Though both Renaissance and Reformation,
by breaking down the old barriers and by stimulating
new thought and claiming new freedoms, did much to
prepare the modern world, both, as the first syllable
of each name indicates, represented a turning back to
the past, and to about the same period of the past, the
first century of the vulgar era. Their opposition was a
recrudescence of the great alignment of the first cen-
turies of the Roman Empire; that between Christianity
and paganism. Many of the Italian humanists repudi-
ated the gospel in the name of the Greek and Roman
poets and philosophers; most of the Reformers de-
nounced or lamented the errors of the heathen and
of their recent disciples. The versatile virtuosi of Italy
longed for the return of that golden age when the
Roman Capitol swayed a world of poetry and of sensual
pleasure, when all made for the joy of living and the
still greater joy of learning. The earnest Calvinist
panted for the virtues and the faith of an apostolic age,
But, before Luther as after him, there were men,
particularly among the serious-minded scholars of the
North, who felt the need of amalgamating both streams
of influence, the Latin and the Judaean. Splendid was
the heritage of the classic poets and philosophers; pre-
cious was the message of the gospels; could not the
two possessions, so different in spirit and in quality, be
united in one rich synthesis, cleared from the rust and
accretions of a thousand years, and turned to the profit
of a new civilization? The solution of this problem was
the task consciously and conscientiously set themselves
by the Transalpine humanists; their success has been
of high value to their own world and to ours, and their
achievement, though like all great works the product of
many minds, was due more to Erasmus than to any
'other one man. He cared little for the inventions and
discoveries of his age; he was not even aware of the
significance of the main economic and political changes;
4 ERASMUS
but he does represent, better than any other one man, the
common spirit of the Renaissance and of the ^Reform-
ation. His own life typifies their similar origin and
their final divergence.
As the task of reconciling the streams of ancient
culture flowing from Judaea and from Athens was uni-
versal, it was fitting, perhaps necessary, that its jrnaster
should have been born in the most cosmopolitan of
European states. In the fifteenth century the Nether-
lands supplied the exchange and entrepot not only of
merchandise, but of ideas. Italian goods, material
and spiritual, floated down the Rhine; those of Eng-
land were borne across the North Sea; those of Germany
and France were close at hand. In this focus arose a
man who wrote, "I wish to be called a citizen of the
world, the common friend of all states, or, rather, a
sojourner in all/'1 "That you are very patriotic/' he
said to a French friend, "will be praised by some and
easily forgiven by everyone; but in my opinion it is
more philosophic to treat men and things as though
we held this world the common fatherland of all."2
Significant it seemed to him that he was born "between
the banks of the Rhine" — that is, in the delta, as though
he were intended to share the culture of the two great
bordering states. For at that time the Dutch did not
think of themselves as a separate nation; half of the
Burgundian state was German, the other half French,
and those persons born near the frontier might choose
to which of the two nations they belonged. Erasmus
preferred now one and now the other country,3 but did
not care to decide the matter finally, for, as he wrote ;4
I should like not only France and Germany, but all countries
and all cities to claim Erasmus; for it would be a useful emulation
which would stimulate many to noble deeds. Whether I am a
1 To Zwingli, September 5 ("5 nonas Septembres*1) i$z%«, Z, W, vii, ep» $35.
9 To Bude, Allen, ep. 480,
1 LB. x, 1662; LB, ep. 803; Lond. xii, 43.
4 To Peter Mamus, October i, 1520, Allen, ep* 1147,
APPRENTICE YEARS 5
Batavian I am not sure. I cannot deny that I am a Hollander by
birth, from that part, if one may trust the maps, which borders
on France rather than on Germany, but assuredly from the region
situated on the frontiers of France and Germany.
But though the name Holland applied not to a nation,
as in common speech it does now, but merely to a
province, Erasmus loved it well. If at times he expressed
discontent with a country which appreciated its own
son less than did other nations, elsewhere he praised
highly its rich soil, its hardy fishermen, its numerous,
wealthy, and cultured cities, and the humane and
intelligent character of the inhabitants.1. Holland was
then a part of the Burgundian state, welded into a
powerful land by Philip the Good and Charles the Bold,
but with little of the national feeling already character-
istic of the French, the English, and the Germans.
About his birth and childhood in this country Erasmus
in after-life wove a web of romance founded on fact,
which may be here repeated after him.
During the last years of Duke Philip the Good there
lived at Gouda, a town about twelve miles from Rotter-
dam, a man named Elias.2 The Dutch at that time had
no family names, but took their surnames either from
the baptismal name of their fathers, or from the town
where they were born or with which they were later
connected. Thus Adrian of Utrecht, who became pope
in 1522, was called after the city of his birth and, oc-
casionally, Rogers, a patronymic. Elias and his wife,
Catharine, had ten sons, of whom the youngest save
one, and the most gifted, was called Gerard, "the
Beloved/1 With a natural aptitude for learning he
*"Auris Batava," Ada$iat LB* i, 1083 f, €/, L. Enthoven: "Erasmus
Weltbtirger oder Patriot?" Neue Jahrbucher fur das Klamsche Alteftwm*
etc., ««» ao$.
s Go Erasmus's parents and early life, Allen, i, 46 ff and ep. 447; Nichols,
!, pp. 5 ff, ar»d ep, 443. Erasmus hated his uncles, who dealt as hardly with
him m they had dome with his father* One of them tried to rob him of a shirt,
Allen, ep, 76, On the Dutch lack of family names, L, Pastor: History of the
j, tr. by B* F. Kerr, i»,» 34; N. Paul us: Die Deutscken Dominikaner im
&tm Lvtker, 1906, p. 68.
6 ERASMUS
acquired a mastery of Latin and also, we are told, of
Greek, a language still almost unknown north of the
Alps, which he probably picked up during a sojourn
in Italy. His attainments marked him out as the object
of his brothers' envy, and they conspired against him
like another Joseph. Being unable to sell him to the
Midianites, they desired to make him a priest, in order
thus, as they hoped, to deprive him of his share in the
family inheritance. Under their pressure, Gerard took
holy orders.
Before his ordination,1 the young man entered into
a liaison with a widow named Margaret, the daughter of
a physician in the neighboring village of Zevenberghen.
The pair had two sons, Peter, born when his parents
were both about twenty-five years old, and Erasmus,
three years younger. Not long before the birth of his
second son Gerard deserted his mistress, perhaps on
account of further persecution by his family, and went
to Rome. In this polished but corrupt city, then under
the rule of Paul II, he led a dissipated life, supporting
himself by copying manuscripts, and sent his parents
a letter with a picture of two clasped hands and the
words, "Farewell, I shall never see you more/' However,
he later decided to return, perhaps in consequence of
a letter from his family containing the false news that
Margaret was dead. After his home-coming he took care
of his children, but did not, apparently, live with their
mother any longer.2
Soon after he had taken orders, probably, and perhaps
*In January, 1506, on account of his illegitimate birth, Erasmus got a
dispensation from the pope to hold benefices, He there is described as bora
"of a bachelor and widow/1 which would dispose of the idea that he was the
son of a priest, were it not that he was obliged later to get a second dispensa-
tion (1517) in which his dtfectvs natalium is said to be that he was "born of
an illicit and, as he fears, of an incestuous and damned union/* This would
imply that in the interval he had learned something more about hii birth*
and also that he was himself uncertain of its details.— Allen, iii, p. xxix, and
ep. 518, Erasmus was probably born after his father was ordained,
2 Charles Readers great novel, The Cloister and the Hearth) it founded on
the adventures of Gerard.
APPRENTICE YEARS 7
during his absence, his second son was born and given
the then common name of Erasmus, chosen, possibly,
as a Greek rendering of his father's name. A little
house in Nieuw-Kerk Street in Rotterdam bears the
inscription saying that in it was born the great Erasmus,
and this location may be considered the most likely
one, though it is not altogether beyond doubt. Mar-
garet may have gone there to hide her shame or, accord-
ing to an early tradition, have been sent there by Gerard
to conceal his sin.1
Erasmus always celebrated the feast of St. Simon and
St. Jude (October 28th) as his birthday, but as to the
year his accounts vary strangely. Several indirect
references2— such as the statement that he met Colet
when they were both just thirty (1499) and that he was
fourteen years old when he left Deventer (1484) — point
to the year 1469 as the one he had in mind, and that this
is the true year is confirmed by early local tradition.3
1 This house was shown to visitors as the birthplace of Erasmus as early
as 1540.— Brown: Calendar of State Papers, Venice^ v, 2-22. In 1591 Fynes
Moryson visited the house, and also noted that the wooden statue of Erasmus
had been broken down by the Spanish soldiers in the Dutch war of independ-
ence. See his Itinerary, ed. 1907, pp. 107 ff. Cornelius Loos, a Dutchman
who lived a little later, relates that the stone statue of Erasmus was erected
after the Rotterdam fire of 1563, and was destroyed by Spanish soldiers in
1572, On the place of Erasmus's birth he says: "If we may credit the tradition
of the fathers in these parts, his father was a parish priest in the neighborhood
of Cknuia, who in order to conceal his crime sent his pregnant servant to a
neighboring city,"— "Cornelius Loos: Illustrium Gerrn&nus Scriptorum Cata-
tofius, 1582, /„ 0. "Erasmus11 (no paging). A copy of this rare book is at
Cornell, Against this, however, may be placed a long MS. note to a written
extract from Loos, now found in the town, library of Gouda, The writer of
this Is unknown, but he declares that Erasmus's friend, Regner Snoy, had
often heard Erasmus say that he was born at Gouda. This printed in drchief
voor Kerktlijkc Gcschif dents, xvi, 1845, p, 232, The fact that Erasmus took
the surname " Rotcrodamus," however, shows that he regarded himself as a
citizen of Rotterdam. J. Milton speaks of a bronze statue of Erasmus at
Rotterdam, Defensk II pro Populo An^licano, Works* 1805, v, 299.
a LB. i, 921 f; via, 561; Allen, ep, 940; and perhaps his speaking of his
schooling at the age of thirteen, LB, ix, fixoA* Furthermore, he says that he
wrote his firat epistle (Allen* cp. x, put in 1484) when he was fourteen; see
Allen, ep» 447, and LB. i, 347.
* Cornelius Loos, lac* cft» This date is apparently accepted by the unknown
annonm> r on Loos, cited above.
8 ERASMUS
But of twenty-three direct references to his age the
first (made in 1506) gives the year 1466; the next two
(made in 1516) give 1467; the next twelve (made during
the years 1517-24) indicate 1466; and the last eight
(made during the years 1525-34) point to ^ 1464. In
other words, the older he became the earlier he put
the year of his birth. It has been suggested, with
much plausibility,1 that, whereas he knew the true year
of his birth to be 1469, he made himself appear older
in order to save the reputation of his father and to make
it easier to get for himself certain ecclesiastical dis-
pensations. At that time the union of a priest with
a woman was considered a greater sin than the union
of two unmarried lay persons, and the illegitimate
child suffered under a heavier stigma. If Erasmus
could make himself and his contemporaries believe that
he had been born before his father took orders, he
would have a powerful motive to do so. When he
selected the year 1466 he may have appropriated the
birth year of his brother, who was just three years
older than himself.2
The boy's education began in his fifth year at the
school of a certain Peter Winckel of Gouda. The
studies were chiefly reading and writing Dutch, an
unattractive sort of learning in which he made slow
progress. About 1475 he was transferred to the famous
school at Deventer. Both his parents died, probably
of the plague, his mother in 1483, his father the following
year. His mother had accompanied him to Deventer,
His father left a small property, consisting partly of
the valuable manuscripts he had copied, which was
divided between the orphan boys. It was perhaps at
some time during the school year at Deventer that
Erasmus was withdrawn for a time and sent to the
* P, Mestwerdt: Die An}an& dfs Erasmus^ 1917, pp. 178 ff. Several lists
of references made by Erasmus to his age have been drawn up; the fullett
will be found in Appendix I to this hook.
2 In like manner Napoleon gave himself the birthday of his older brother
in his marriage contract with Josephine,
APPRENTICE YEARS 9
Cathedral school at Utrecht, where he was a chorister.
He does not seem to have kept up his music in later
life.
Deventer had been a notable school for a century,
having been founded in 1380 by Gerard Groot, the
mystic who started the religious societies known as the
Brethren of the Common Life. True to the traditions
of its inception, the school emphasized religion, even
encouraging the reading of the Bible in the vulgar
tongue as well as in Latin. Among its many famous
graduates were Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and Thomas
a Kempis, the probable author of The Imitation of
Christ. At the time Erasmus entered it, the connection
of the school with the Brethren of the Common Life was
still organic, for the rector of that order, Egmond Ter
Beek, was headmaster of the Florentius House there
until his death in 1483. It is barely possible that he
was the pedagogue spoken of by Erasmus as "both
by name and nature a driveling ram/'1 There was
also a master in the school who, in order to have an
excuse for whipping the boy, trumped up a false charge
against him, by which he almost broke his pupil's
heart, brought on an attack of ague, and nearly dis-
sipated his love of learning,
The life of a poor schoolboy was, indeed, not an easy
one. The memoirs of Butzbach and Platter tell ho§w
they were used as fags by the older boys, forced to beg,
starved, beaten, scolded, and otherwise brutally abused
both by their seniors and by the masters. At Deventer
there was perhaps less whipping than elsewhere. The
boys paid fines for speaking Dutch and for other breaches
of the rules. They were encouraged to spy on one
another and on the younger masters. The day was
completely filled with a routine of appointed task,
*Thi$ passage from the Adages quoted by Allen, i, p. 579* The word
**Beek" is near enough to the Dutch bok (he-|?oat, or ram) to make the
identification with the Kpiopbfof barely possible. On the other hand, " Beek"
means river in Dutch, and is so used by Erasmus in his epigram on the death
of Arnold Beka*s daughter.-^LB* i,
io ERASMUS
meal time and exercise* from four in the morning, when
they rose, until eight or nine at night.1
Deventer was one of the largest schools. A little
later it provided instruction for 2,200 boys. There were
eight forms, each of which must have had an average
of 275 pupils. The boys sat on the floor around the
master, who dictated to them a Latin text, translated
and commented on it, and heard them construe and
parse yesterday's lesson. The principal study of the
nine years at this school was Latin, though, as Erasmus
assures us, "it was still barbarous. The Pater meus
and the Tempora were read aloud to the boys, and the
grammars of Eberard and John Garland were dictated
to them/' The Pater meus was an exercise book with
paradigms of the declensions, the Tempora a similar
manual for the conjugations. John Garland was a
thirteenth-century Englishman who had taught at
Toulouse. His books were filled with riddling verses,
such as
Latrat et amittit, humilis, vilis, negat, heret:
Est celeste Canis sidus, in arnne natat.
The answer is a dog, which barks, and loses ("dog"
being the name of the lowest throw at dice), is humble,
vile, denies like an apostate ("a dog returned to its
vomit"), adheres; is the Dog Star, and swims (the
dogfish). "Heavens!" exclaims Erasmus, "what a time
that was when the couplets of John Garland were read
out to the boys, accompanied by a prolix commentary!
A great part of the school was employed in dictating,
repeating, and saying by heart some silly verses/'2
Other books used were the Floretus, a sort of abstruse
catechism, the Cornutus, a treatise on synonyms, the
grammatical works of Papias and Huguitio, and a
1 Allen: "A Sixteenth-century School," English Historical Rariew, x, 73$
* De putrif instituendis* LB. i, p4F. Allen; The Age of £rasmuf, 35 IF;
Woodward; JSrasmus Concerning the Aim and Method of Education^ p* 102*
Cataloguf van d$n IncunMcn in dt Atkentvinr&ibliothek to Devcnttr* Door
M. E, Kronenberg, 1917.
APPRENTICE YEARS n
dictionary called the Catholicon. All these were written
in Latin, and in a Latin of an almost inconceivably
obscure and difficult type. The Catholicon> by John
Balbus, was one of the very first books to be printed,
in an edition dated 1460, by Gutenberg at Mainz. It
was an important work in its time, being the first
dictionary arranged on the alphabetical principle.
Former works had grouped the words according to
their roots, or supposed derivations. These were often
of the most fanciful kind; thus hirundo (swallow) was
derived from aer, because it lived in the air; and ovis from
ofero, because sheep were offered in sacrifice; nix from
nubeSy because snow comes from a cloud. One of these
derivations has become proverbial, that of Papias,
"lucus a non lucendo," because "a grove lacks light
(lux) and is therefore called, antiphrastically, lucus."
The date of the beginning of Erasmus's schooling
is fixed by his remark that he was at Deventer when
Pope Sixtus IV proclaimed a jubilee (1475). He was
still there in April, 1484, when Rudolph Agricola, a
famous humanist, visited the school, and Erasmus was
presented to him as the head pupil, and perhaps read
a prize poem. It is possible that the verses have been
preserved; if they are the ones beginning "Pamphilus
insano Galateae captus amore/* They are a chaudfroid
of Vergilian phrases, and yet they may contain a kernel
of genuine personal reminiscence, some calf love not
otherwise known. The reason for thinking this is that
Pamphilus is a name almost synonymous with Erasmus,
and is used as a pseudonym by him elsewhere. In one
of his Colloquies ', first published in 1523, Erasmus
recounts a love passage between Pamphilus and Maria,
in which the girl is cruel, the suitor desperate.1
Shortly before Erasmus left Deventer the school was
given "a breath of better learning" by John Sintheim,
1 LB. I, 692. ff, Ruelens; "'Notice sur la jeunesse et les premiers travaux
d'£rasme»" in Erasmi Roterodami Siha Carminwrt> reproduction photo*
lilho%raphigut, 1864, On Agricola's visit, Allen, i, p. 2. Pamphilus was also
the name of one of the story-tellers in Boccaccio's Decameron*
12
ERASMUS
an excellent master and a humanist, who is said to
have prophesied Erasmus's future greatness.1 At the
death of his father, probably in 1484, the boy was left
in charge of guardians, one of whom was the pedagogue
of Gouda, Peter Winckel. Erasmus's first extant letter
was written at this period, advising his guardian to
sell the books left by Gerard. The man returned it
with the sarcastic comment that epistles written in
such stilted Latin should be accompanied by a com-
mentary.2 Both the sons of Gerard tried to persuade
their guardians to send them to a university, whereas
these gentlemen advised them, on the contrary, to
enter a cloister. A temporary compromise was effected
by which the boys were allowed to pursue their studies
in another school of the Brothers of the Common Life
at 'S Hertogenbosch, until October, i486.3
Erasmus's later observation that he was a dull pupil
is to some extent borne out by the fact that he took
eight years to cover at Deventer the curriculum passed
by Butzbach in two years.4 But by the time he got
to 'S Hertogenbosch he was far in advance of his masters,
who, recognizing his excellence, asked him to make an
epitome, for school use, of Lorenzo Valla's excellent
textbook of style, the Elegancies of Latin? In later
life he represented the influences of the school as exces-
sively monastic, a charge which he then greatly ex-
aggerated, owing to his increased dislike of monasticism.
As a matter of fact it is known that the Brethren of
the Common Life did not urge, nor even allow, their
pupils to become regular canons, and that Egbert Ter
Beek, rector of the Florentius House at Deventer,
opposed the plan of Nicholas of Cusa to guide boys
into a monastic career,6
* Allen, i, p, 57.
2 Allen, cp. I, and ii, p, 345. De conscrilendis epistolis^ LB, i, 347E*
8 Rather than 1487, as Mr. Allen thinks.
4 Mestwerdt: Die Anf&nge d<rs Krastnu^ 1917, p, Aost f.
8 LB, I, 1067; Ruelens, 5; Biblioiktca Mtasmiana, i, 153.
83> 131*
APPRENTICE YEARS 13
On the other hand, it is equally well known that
the Brethren of the Common Life set great store by
the humanities and did not forbid their pupils to read
heathen authors. Not only by Agricola and Sintheim,
but by most of his other masters, the promising boy
would have been encouraged, according to the precepts
of Gerard Groot, to read the ancient moral philoso-
phers, particularly Seneca.1 From them he would even
have learned the first principles of textual criticism, for
their constitutions prescribed the greatest care in secur-
ing correct manuscripts for copying, "lest we should
burden our consciences by writing erroneous books."2
Returning to Gouda in the autumn of 1486, Peter
and Erasmus found that the estate left by their father
(whatever it may have been) had gone to waste, and
that one guardian had died. The other again pressed
his wards to enter the monastery. According to a
much later account, a violent scene ensued, followed
by a trial of gentler methods, A swarm of monks was
introduced, one of whom painted a charming picture
of the tranquillity of the cloister, another in a tragic
vein magnified the perils of the world, while a third
dwelt on the terrors of hell aas though there were no
road from the cloister to the world below," Finally
an old comrade, Cornelius, referred to by Erasmus as
Canthelius (ass) practiced upon the boy's love of letters.
These combined efforts finally succeeded. The brothers
both entered the monastic life, though not both the
same cloister. Peter chose the monastery at Sion near
Delft, Erasmus wrote him an affectionate letter in 1487,
and referred to him pleasantly in 1498, but later spoke
of him in very bitter terms as a man given to dissipation.
At his death in 1528 he felt no regrets.3
The monastery selected by Erasmus for himself was
* Mestwerdt, p. 97.
2 Me$twerdt» p. 142.
8 Allen, cp. 3. A **Petr. Roterodamus" matriculated at CoJognc cm
September 12, 1522, who may have been Erasmus's brother. H. Keussen;
Die Matrikeldtr Universitat Kotn, ii, 1919, p, 851,
i4 ERASMUS
the priory of Emmaus at Steyn, about a mile from
Gouda; it had been founded in 1419 by a man who
became its first prior, James, son of Gyrard, on lands
given by John the Bastard of Blois. It belonged to
the same congregation as did the cloister of Sion. The
order was that of Augustinian Canons, not to be con-
fused with the Augustinian Eremites, or Austin friars,
to which Luther belonged. The order had originated
among the canons of cathedral chapters, who had
formed a loose association and taken the "rule of St.
Augustine/' so called, for the guide.1 Erasmus had
no real vocation for the monastic life. Nevertheless,
he found in the cloister congenial friends, for one of
whom, Servatius, later prior, he soon conceived a
violent passion. His letters of this period to him and
to another young monk are full of alternate rapture
and despair, kisses and tears.2
He also found the leisure to pursue his darling studies.
Indeed, he wrote an essay on Contempt of the World*
to prove that the monastic career was of all the pleasant-
est and "most Epicurean/' His warm enthusiasm for
the pagan Latin writers shines through the copious
references to them in his early correspondence. Many
of them he mentions by name and characterizes. With
a touch reminding us of his later pacifism he praises
Ovid because "his pen is nowhere dipped in blood/'4
Seldom if ever quoting from the Bible, mentioning
Augustine only once or twice, he yet evinces a high
admiration for Jerome's letters, full, as they are, of
1 Kirckenkxicon, ii» pp. 1829 ff. On Steyn, Allen, i, 585; Ruelens, I ff,
2 Allen, epp. 17-30. His letter to Servarius excusing himself for having
"been inclined to those pleasures, though never their slave/' Allen, i, p. 567.
July 8, 1514- The reading "inclinatus" is preferred by Allen; that of
"inquinatus" is found in most MSS«
8 IV Contemptu Mundi, LB. v, 12570. Cf. Allen, i, p» 18, and ep. 1x94,
and letter to a monk, October 27, 1527, LB. iii, col. 1024 f; Lend, xx» x8»
Petrarch had written a De Contemptu Mundi, not known to Erasmus*
Innocent III had also written a De Contemptu Mundi* swe d$ miseria c®ndi*
tionis hwn6n&t Migne Patrologia Latina, vol. 2x7, pp, 701-46, This had been
printed several times before 1480, and may have been known to Erasmus,
4 LB. iii, col, ia$7BC.
APPRENTICE YEARS 15
Roman life, and couched in easy Latin. Among the
more recent humanists he defends Agricola, Hegius, and
J£neas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II), whose letters*
novels, and diaries disclose so much knowledge of the
world and so much interesting information about it.
But of all the moderns the one to excite his enthusiasm
to the highest pitch was Lorenzo Valla, whose influence
on him was almost incalculable. As a stylist, a critic,
an anticlerical, and an exponent of a completely undog-
matic Christianity, the Dutchman was the Italian's
truest disciple. For Valla was an incarnation of the
intellectual Renaissance, a critic and iconoclast of the
caliber almost of Voltaire, unparalleled as yet in modern
Europe for the daring, acumen, force, irreverence, and
brilliancy of his attacks on religion. True, Valla called
himself a Christian, and probably without hypocrisy,
but his ideal was of a purely moral, humanitarian
religion, unhampered either by creed or by ritual.
Interested in theology, of which he was a master, he
insisted on the genuine old theology of the Gospel
and the Fathers over against the spurious new scholasti-
cism and asceticism. The old doctors of the church
he compared to bees making honey, the newer to wasps
stealing grain from others. In exposing the Donation
of Constantine as a forgery he put into the hands
of the Protestants who came after him one of their
most trenchant weapons. Again, in his Notes on the
New Testament^ he pointed out the numerous errors
in the Vulgate, then usually considered, as it was later
officially declared to be, the authentic form of the
Scriptures, In a work on the monastic life (De Pro-*
fession^ RMgiosoTum) he called in question the worth
of asceticism. In a dialogue "On Pleasure/* one inter-
locutor, representing the Epicurean philosophy, main-
tains that a prostitute is a more useful member of
society than is a nun. Valla's own opinions, represented
neither by the Epicurean nor by his Christian opponent,
but by the arbitrating Niccoli, cannot be characterized
i6 ERASMUS
as atheistic and hedonistic, but the very fact that he
canvassed such ideas was significant of his free spirit.
Moreover, he was intensely antipapal and anticlerical.
In all things he was the spirit who eternally contradicts.
Attracted not only by the brilliancy of his language,
but by the cogency of his argument and the keenness
of his criticism, Erasmus remained throughout life the
disciple and in many respects the spiritual descendant
of the Roman critic.1 He had, while yet in school,
paraphrased one of Valla's grammatical works which,
on account of its attacks on Priscian and the mediaeval
grammarians, was treated as heretical by some monks.2
Later in life he was to follow Valla in many a path of
biblical exegesis and of metaphysical argument.
Not contenting himself with reading, Erasmus tire-
lessly practiced his pen. The language he always used
was Latin, then the tongue of the Church, of diplomacy,
of learning, and of the greater part of accessible literature.
Few works of high merit had as yet been produced in
any European vernacular; practically none in Dutch,
and this narrowness of his native dialect doubtless led
the aspiring author to select the language of Rome as
the vehicle for his thoughts. He knew Dutch, of course,
which came back to him on his deathbed, notwith-
standing a life-long use of Latin in conversation as well
as in writing; and he learned to speak a little French,
English, and Italian while he was staying among those
peoples. Nevertheless, his attitude to his mother tongue
is strikingly conservative compared with that of Luther,
Rabelais, and Skelton.*
*Qn Valla in general, P. Monnier: Le Quattrocento, 1908, i, 275 ff;
Creighton: History of the Papacy* ii, 338 £ E. Fueter: Gwhichtt des neuren
Historiographie, 1911, pp. 38 f, naf,, Mestwerdt, 50 £ ML v, Wolff*; lorenw
Valla, Sfin Leben und Stint Werke* 1893.
8 Pastor: History of the Popes, tr. by Antrobus, i, 51.
8 His use of Dutch at the last, Alien, i, 53 f. French, Alien* epp. 119, 194;
Nichols, epp. 122, 113* German he says he did not know, Italian he refu$«d
to talk (LB. ep. 533, Lend. xiii» 43)* but some words of that language and of
English occur in his Dt Pronunciation*, and more rarely elsewhere***** fa
the English word "sin" in the Praise of Folly*
APPRENTICE YEARS 17
It is unnecessary to review the various exercises
written at this period, the elegiac verses, the epistles,
the declamations, all of which are good, but none of
which is remarkable. They all tell one tale — a passionate
love of letters and the unceasing effort to become a
master of style. The most elaborate of the pieces bears
a title which might be given to them all, the Antibarbari*
It is an essay on the text of most of Erasmus's later
works, the loveliness of "good letters," and the wicked-
ness and grossness of the barbarians who opposed the
children of light. In this work, and another like unto
it, The Conflict between Thalia and Barbarity? the
author's satire is directed against the monks and peda-
gogues who neglect literature, the keen sarcasms remind-
ing us of similar passages in the Praise of Folly.
In these works the author broached a question that
exercised him much throughout life, namely that of the
relation of culture to religion, and gave it the same
answer now that he always gave it later, namely that
though virtue and learning are not the same thing,
yet they are not hostile, and may even be helpful to
each other, as both are good. Christians have learned
from the pagans almost all they know of the arts of
peace and of war, as well as of writing, speech, poetry,
and science. True, religion is the "best of things/'
but it is not the only good thing, and even it is helped
by the truth discovered by the Greek philosophers, who,
as Augustine said, "scintillated sparks of the immortal
light/*
While at Steyn Erasmus dabbled in the art of painting,
A letter written in 1488 speaks of some flowers that he
had painted in a book. There is also a record of a
picture of Christ on the cross, with the inscription, in
* LB. x» 1691, Mbli&theca JKrasmiana, pp. 55-80. Allen, ep« IX to,
* First published in 1693, LB. i, 889 ff. There is a slight doubt as to itt
genuineness* Cf. MUwtheca JKrasmietnat Colloqma, It has been put in June,
1489, just after Erasmus's letter to Cornelius Gerard, Allen, ep. ^3, but cf*
Mestwerdt* »o6 n, 6,
8 On this Mestwerdt, 25°* 260 ff.
i8 ERASMUS
Latin, "Desiderius Erasmus painted this long ago ^ at
Steyn." It belonged, at one time, to Cornelius Musius
(1500-72), provost of the convent of St. Agatha at
Delft. A painting of the crucifixion, a triptych, has
long been known, and is now in America, which bears,
on the shield of one of the soldiers, the words, " Erasmus
Ppnxit], 1501." This, however, is certainly not by
Erasmus of Rotterdam. The inscription is barely
legible and, if admitted, might apply either to the name
of the person represented in the picture (St. Erasmus),
or to some other painter with the same name. The
painting is a fine one and bears some resemblance to
a similar picture attributed to Diirer.1
The pen, rather than the brush, unlocked the gates
of the house of fame for Erasmus, and also found him
early employment. In those days all public men, as
well as all governments, needed secretaries skilled in
the learned tongue, to give intelligibility and elegance
to their state papers. The young canon was offered,
and accepted, such a position from the Bishop of Cam-
brai, Henry of Bergen, one of the bastards of John
Labeo ("Thick-lips") of Bergen, who was reputed to
have ten legitimate and thirty-six natural children.
On April 25, 1492, probably not long after he had entered
the service of the Bishop of Cambrai, Erasmus was
ordained priest at Utrecht by Henry of Burgundy,
bishop of the diocese.2
Next to nothing is known of the young man*s life at
the episcopal court. He speaks of having heard of the
exploits of Albert, Duke of Saxony, the agent employed
by Maximilian in subduing a rebellion in Holland. In
1489, after a long siege, Albert, aided by the party
known as the Cods, took Amsterdam, and by 1492
pacified the whole province. The courageous but cruel
1 Allen, ep. 16; Nichols, cp. 15; Maurice W, Brockwell: Erasmus, Humanist
and Painter, 1918. (Privately printed,) The Dttrer painting which it resem-
bles is reproduced in JKHamker der JKunM9 Durert p. 83,
3 On Henry of Bergen, A, Walther: Anfangs Karls P9 19x1, p* 1 8. On eh«
ordination, Allen, i, p. 588; ii» p. 304*
APPRENTICE YEARS 15
soldier was much hated by the peasants, the pool
*'bread-and-cheese folk/5 as they called themselves,
but their famous compatriot bore no rancor againsl
the son of his country's enemy.1
As the Bishop of Cambrai stood in close relations
with the young duke Philip, whose marriage with Joanna
of Spain he celebrated at Brussels, October 21, 1496,
Erasmus must have caught some glimpse of the gorgeous
and polished Burgundian court. Of all this experience,
however, nothing has come down to us. All that is
known is that he continued his studies, becoming at
this time especially attracted to Augustine, a taste
which perhaps indicates a deeper interest in religion
than he had hitherto shown.2
But the court was not a good place for study and the
young scholar persisted in his desire to go to a university,
His attention turned to Paris both because it was the
oldest and most famous seat of learning north of the
Alps, and because some of his comrades had studied
there. In 1495 the opportunity to follow their example
came to him.3
Had we been able to enter Paris with Erasmus we
should have been struck first with the quaint, mediaeval
appearance of the town, the narrow, crooked streets^
the low houses, the lack of drainage and of lights. But,
notwithstanding the unfamiliar appearance of the streets
and of the walls, we should soon have been able tc
convince ourselves that this was indeed the capital oi
France. Approaching from the north we should have
seen a palace called the Louvre standing just outside
the wall, though it is not the Louvre of to-day, which
was built later. We should not have known the palace
on the site of the later Bastille; but on the lie de la
Cite, Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle would be
1 Letter to Duke George (Albert's son), July 31, 1520, Allen, ep. 1125
1 Horawitz: Erasmus und Martin Lipsius, p. 114.
* An w Erasm. de Rotterdam!®, art. i» pauper," matriculated at Cologne o«
June 6, 1496, but this was not the great Erasmus. H* Keussen: Dit Matrik*
der Universit&t Koln, ii» 1919, p, 401.
20 ERASMUS
conspicuous, while in the Latin Quarter, on the left
bank of the Seine, the churches of St. Germain-des-
Pres and St. Sulpice and the recently built abbey of
Cluny would greet us. On the hill now crowned by
the Pantheon then stood the church of Ste.-Genevieve,
but hard by was St.-£tienne-du-Mont, of which a por-
tion remains exactly as it was. The Sorbonne and the
various other colleges of the university were scattered
around the same district, as they now are; that of Mon-
taigu, inhabited by Erasmus, just north of Ste.-Genc-
vieve, on the site of the present library of that name.1
The University of Paris was, with the possible excep-
tions of Bologna and Salerno, the oldest and most
famous in Europe. The most celebrated faculty at
the university was that of theology, and it was in this
that Erasmus matriculated. The course was of extraor-
dinary length, occupying normally fifteen years, so that
the rule that the recipient of the doctor's degree must
be thirty-five years old was almost unnecessary. After
four years of study devoted chiefly to the Bible, and
two years on Peter Lombard's Sentences, the candidate
was admitted to his first theological degree, that of
baccalaureus ad biblia. After this he was allowed to
give certain lectures for three years until his promotion
to SententiariuSy or baccalaureus formatus* After six.,
years more of study and teaching he was at last allowed
to take his doctorate.2 The course was, in practice,
greatly shortened in the case of older men, who were
X0n the topography of old Pans, cf. the map in H. Rashdall; History of
Universities (Oxford, 1895), '» 27r- A number of old pictures at the Oarnavalct
Museum, Paris, &ive a vivid idea of the appearance of the city at various
times in its history. See also: Grant Allen; Paris, pp. 52, 7 r. S. Keinach:
"Ste. Genevieve sur Notre Dame de Paris," Gazrttf des Ktaw^An^ 1922, pp.
257 fF, describes and reproduces a view of the lie do la Cite from a 15th-
century MS., showing Stc.-Genevievc as a gigantic figure kneeling on top of
Notre Dame.
2 Rashdall: Uniwrsities, i» 470 ff. It is interesting to compare the course
in German universities, Luther, after about three years of special study*
became baccalaureus ad biblia on March 9, 1509. After thin he lectured three
semesters on the Sentences and studied and perhaps lectured two years on the
Bible, when he was admitted to the doctorate, October 12,
APPRENTICE YEARS 21
able to enter with what would now be called advanced
standing. Erasmus, who matriculated in his twenty-
sixth year, became bachelor of theology (baccalaureus
ad biblia) apparently in April, 1498, after five semesters.
In preparation for this degree, he gave some sermons,
and took a course in scholastic philosophy. This study,
so deeply repugnant to Luther, aroused the mirth of
the young Dutchman. Aquinas, in many respects the
greatest of the schoolmen, was by this time little re-
garded, for his system, and the Realism which had
flourished in the heyday of scholasticism, had since
been superseded by Nominalism and the later philoso-
phers, Occam, Biel, and Duns Scotus. The alignment
was really different at the close of the Middle Ages
from what it had been earlier. In the twelfth century
the deepest questions of metaphysics had been mooted,
for the implication of realism is pantheism; the impli-
cations of nominalism are materialism and individualism.
In these latter days the dispute was not so much meta-
physical as logical, a subtle sophistry engaged with the
precise meanings of crabbed terms, and the defense of
paradoxes. The disputants were intent rather on
victory than on truth. The " modern " philosophy, as
nominalism was then called, had been condemned by
an edict of the Sorbonne in 1472, but had triumphed
nine years later, when the edict was repealed. When
Erasmus entered Paris, the Scotists were in power,
being represented by the influential teachers John
Tartaret and Thomas Bricot, and by the Franciscan
preacher and reforming Vicar General, Oliver Maillard*
The question most to the front at the time was the
dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin
Mary, not yet officially adopted by the Church, but
maintained in 1496 by the professors of the Sorbonne,
whose opinions had but little less authority with the
learned public than those of the Roman Curia.1 Erasmus,
1 A. Renaudec: Ptcreforme et Humanism? d Paris 3 1916, passim. A.
Renaudct: "Erasme," in Revue IIittoriqitet cxi» 238 ff» ign. P. Feret: La
22 ERASMUS
who often spoke of this dispute as one of the most
barren, was brought into the atmosphere of debate
by the writings of his friend Gaguin^ whose De in-
temeratcs Firginis conceptione was first published at
Paris in 1489 and afterward reprinted often, once at
Deventer in I494.1
Let us hear what Erasmus has to say about his
studies in scholastic philosophy. He is writing, in
August, H97,2 to his English friend and pupil* Thomas
Grey:
I, who have always been a primitive theologian, have begun of
late to be a Scotist — a thing upon which you, too, if you love me,
should pray the blessing of Heaven. We are so immersed in the
dreams of your compatriot — for Scotus, who, like Homer of old,
has been adopted by divers countries, is especially claimed by the
English as their own — that we seem hardly able to wake up at
the voice of Stentor. Then, you will say, are you writing this in
your sleep? Hush, profane man! you know nothing of theological
slumber. In our sleep we not only write, but slander and wench
and get drunk. ... I used to think the sleep of Epimenides the
merest fable; now I cease to wonder at it, having myself had the
like experience.
Erasmus then goes on to tell the story of Epimenides,
an ancient Rip van Winkle who, one day, in a cave,
while making many discoveries about instances and
quiddities and formalities, fell into a sleep which lasted
forty-seven years.
For my part, I think Epimenides uncommonly fortunate in coming
to himself even so late as he did, for most divines never wake up at
all. . . . Look now, rny Thomas, what do you suppose Epimenides
dreamed of all these years? What else but those subtlest of sub-
tleties of which the Scotists now boast? For I am ready to swear
that Epimenides came to life again in Scotus. What if you satw
Faculte de Theologie a Paris, Vol. I, 1900. P. Delislc: La Faculte de TKeohgie
a Paris. Notices ft Extraits des MSS. dc la Bibliotheque National f9 1899, vol.
xxxvi, pp. 325 £ Workman; Christian Thought to the Reformation, 190, p.
243, Buheus: Historia Univerritatis Parisiensts a Carlo Magno ad nostra
tempora, 6 vols. 1665-73, H. Rashdall: Universities of JRurope in the Middle
Ages> vol. i» 1895.
1 Bibliothcca Belgica* s» ». Gagum.
8 Allen, ep. 64; Nichols, ep» 59.
APPRENTICE YEARS 23
Erasmus sit yawning among those cursed Scotists while Gryllard
is lecturing from his lofty chair? If you observed his contracted
brow, his staring eyes, his anxious face, you would say he was
another man. They assert that the mysteries of this science can-
not be comprehended by one who has any commerce with the
Muses and Graces. ... I do my best to speak nothing in true
Latin, nothing elegant or witty, and I seem to make some prog-
ress. . . . Do not interpret what I have said as directed against
theology itself, which, as you know, I always have singularly culti-
vated, but as jokes against the theologasters of our age, unsurpassed
by any in the murkiness of their brains, in the barbarity of their
speech, the stupidity of their natures, the thorniness of their doctrine*
the harshness of their manners, the hypocrisy of their lives, the
violence of their language, and the blackness of their hearts.
Erasmus never got over his contempt for Scotist
subtleties. One of the men whom he knew at his College
of Montaigu, who was, indeed, one of the heads of it
in 1499, though he did not take his doctorate in theology
until 1506, was the Scotchman, John Major. This
scholar was much given to the sophistry Erasmus
ridicules. One of his works was characterized by
Melanchthon as follows: "Good heavens! What wagon
loads of trifling! What pages he fills with disputes
whether there can be horsiness without a horse, and
whether the sea was salt when God made it." These
specimens were no exaggerations. Major seriously dis-
cusses such questions as whether God could become
an ox or an ass, if he chose, and whether John the
Baptist's head, having been cut off, could be in more
than one place at a time. Erasmus was thinking of
works like these when, in The Praise of Folly, he spoke
of the barren scholastic tastes of the Scotch, and brought
up, for derision, the question, suggested by Major, as
to whether God could have redeemed mankind in the
form of an animal or a gourd.1 It was such ridicule as
this that turned the first name of Duns Scotus into a
synonym for fool.
1 Hume Brown; Surveys of Scottish History* 1919, p. 127. On Major,
Godct: College de Montagu, 1912, i f; A. Clervah Registre des
la Paculte dtt Theokgie dff Paris* 1917, p, 5*
24 ERASMUS
Erasmus began to lecture, presumably on the Bible,
shortly after receiving his degree of baccalaureus ad
biblia. One young man, who heard him about 1498,
wrote thirty years later how much he had then admired
his teacher's learning and modesty, his attainments in
Latin, Greek, philosophy, and theology, his ardor in
teaching, his candor in writing, and his piety.1 This
pupil was Hector Boece, a young Scotchman, later the
first principal of King's College, Aberdeen. Erasmus
returned the affection and dedicated to him one of his
first published writings, a short poem on The Hovel
where Jesus was Born.2
Like Oxford and Cambridge, the University of Paris
was divided into colleges, originally dormitories for
poor students, in which instruction was given by tutors.
The college entered by Erasmus was that of Montaigu,
which, having been founded by Gilles Aycelin de Mon-
taigu, Archbishop of Rouen, in 1314, had fallen into a
senile decrepitude by the year 1483, It owed its re-
habilitation to John Standonck (c. i45O-Fcbruary 5,
1504), the son of a poor cobbler of Malines.* As a
boy Standonck studied with the Brothers of the Common
Life at Gouda, matriculated at Louvain in 1469, and
then went to Paris, where, by 1475* be had become
regent of Montaigu. In 1490 he bought a little house
in the Rue des Sept Voies (which corresponds to the
present Rue Vallette) for the lodging and boarding of
poor students. The numbers soon outgrew the narrow
quarters, whereupon Standonck rebuilt a wing of the
old College of Montaigu, on the site of the present;
Place du Pantheon at the intersection of the Rue Vallette.
It was an ample, isolated, quasi-monastic cloister, with
1 May 28, 1528. Enthovcn, cp. 62.
* Carmen de casa natalia Jnu* first published 1496; LB, v. col, 1317;
ff. Allen, ep, 47.
8 On Montagu and Standonck: Renaudet; Prfa''formt, p. 174; Godef:
La Congregation de Montagu, 1912. Godut, in Archwwn Franciscanum, II,
1909; Imbart de la Tour; JLts Originfs de la Reform^ iif 506, 548, Alien, i, p,
200, 1 66. Renaudet: *'], Standonck," Bulletin de la Socutff dt Hlistorie dn
JProUjtantifme Fran(atst I, vii (1908), 5 ff.
APPRENTICE YEARS 25
its own oratory, dormitories, library, refectory, and
garden. The students were formed into a congregation
limited in numbers to 86, of whom 72 were poor students
in the arts course, 12 were theological students, and
2 were chaplains. The rule,1 imitated from that of
the Brothers of the Common Life, was strict. The
fasting was perpetual, though the theologs were allowed
one third of a pint of cheap wine, mixed with water,
at each meal. Precautions against vermin are suggestive,
especially when compared with Rabelais's satirical
reference to "the short-winged hawks of Montaigu."
Flogging was a frequent punishment,2 though we never
hear that Erasmus was subjected to it, as Loyola was.
The Congregation existed in its constitution after
February, 1495, but it did not move into its new quarters
until May 17, 1496. After Erasmus had left the college,
Standonck was banished from France and, on June 16,
1499, he put the institution in charge of John Major, whom
Erasmus ridiculed, and of Noel Beda, whom he hated.
Standonck's reforming activities were not confined
to Paris. He helped Henry of Bergen to found schools
at Carnbrai and at Malines, and with the assistance
of Adrian of Utrecht he started a college at Louvain
in the year 1500. In 1496 he was also busy with the
reform of the Augustinian Canons. The General Chapter
held at Windisheim under his inspiration and at the
demand of the delegates from Chateau-Landon, ap-
pointed six monks as a committee of reform. One of
these was John Mauburn, a good man with whom
Erasmus was acquainted.3
All these connections with friends in the Netherlands
made it natural that when Erasmus went to Paris he
should first enter the Domus pauperum at Montaigu.
There he had an unhappy time, and judged the methods
severely. " Nowhere," he says bitterly, "do they form
lThc written rule (Godet, p. 52) dates from January 30, 1503, but it
represents the earlier customs.
a Henry Bottcus to Erasmus, March 6, 1528, LB. App, ep. 347.
8 Allen, ep. sa*
26 ERASMUS
youths in less elegant science and in worse morals."
To Standonck he allowed good intentions, but thought
that his judgment was lacking. Having been reared
in poverty himself, he insisted on his scholars having
aso hard a bed, so sparing and cheap a diet, such heavy
labor and such long vigils, that within one year many
men of noble mind and bright promise either committed
suicide or became blind, or mad, or leprous/'1 Indeed*
the rotten eggs and the infected bedchambers soon
made Erasmus ill, and he was obliged to return for a
visit to the Netherlands.2 Kindly received by the
Bishop of Cambrai, he recovered his strength and ^theo
made a short stay at Steyn. Encouraged by his friends
here to go back to Paris, he did so in September, 1496.
That he did not again seek admission to Montaigu was
partly due to his dislike of the college, partly to the bad
odor in which he was probably held by the rigorists*
Major and Beda. More than thirty years later* when
Loyola was a pupil at Montaigu, his doubts about
Erasmus's orthodoxy were confirmed by local traditions.8
Erasmus naturally welcomed an opportunity of leav-
ing so disagreeable and dangerous a place and going
to board with some wealthy young Englishmen he was
tutoring. The atmosphere of his new lodgings was
rendered lively by the encounters of the mistress and
her maid. The candidate in theology did not make
matters any more peaceful, but, on the contrary,
advised the maid to retaliate:
"Do you fancy," said I to her, "that the issue of battles depends
only on strength? . . . When she attacks you again pull off her
.cap" (for the little women of Paris deck themselves wonderfully
with black caps), *' and go for her hair/* This 1 said in jest, supposing
it had been taken in the same sense. But just before supper time,
a guest who is pursuivant of Charles VIII, commonly called Gentil
Garden, ran up breathless. "Come here/* cried he, "my masters,
and you will see a bloody sight/* We ran to the spot and found the
iColloquwt "Ichthyophagia" (1526), LB. i, 806 f; ef. 6%2A«
2 Allen, i, p. 50* and cp* 48.
* Godet, p. 99. On Major and Beda, see above. They were inmates of the
college at this time, though not yet principals.
APPRENTICE YEARS 27
landlady and the maid rolling on the ground in so fierce a struggle
that it was with difficulty we pulled them apart. . . . On one side
lay the mistress's cap, on the other the girl's kerchief, the ground
was covered with tufts of hair. . . . The landlady took heaven and
earth to witness that she had never met a girl so small and so vicious.
... I congratulated myself that she had no suspicions of my part
in the matter.1
These self-congratulations may have been premature;
at any rate, Erasmus was soon asked to leave, which
he did with much hard feeling on all sides. The warning
was not so much due to the "inept cunning " of the
landlady, Antonia, as to "the perfidy of certain persons/*
Erasmus's letters at this time are filled with denuncia*
tion of the guardian of the two young Englishmen whom
he was tutoring, a Scotchman whom he describes as
"glaring from under his bushy eyebrows with his
brutal eyes; his head trembling, his lips livid, his teeth
discolored, his poisonous breath emerging from his foul
jaws," an "assassin," and "a serpent/'2 As the denun-
ciations are as vague as they are violent, it is difficult
to get at the real cause of the quarrel. It seems, however,
extremely likely that the tutor became suspicious of
Erasmus's relations with one of his pupils, a certain
Gray, to whom the Dutch priest was writing letters
in the same loverlike tone with which he had formerly
addressed his companions in the monastery.
If we ask what was actually the moral life of the
student at this time, we must remember that the city
was corrupt. Popular plays, written but a little later,
commonly turn on the seduction of girls. In one of
them the wife of a merchant goes to a brothel to gtt
an assignation, In another comedy the love of an
abbe and a married woman is given a happy ending by
their mutual vows of fidelity to each other.3 The uni*
versity had a number of students given over to dissipation*
1 Allen, ep. 55; Nichols, ep. 47, Spring, 1497*
8 Allen, epp. 60, 61* Nichols, epp, 78, 55.
8 Iff TUton Frangais w XHt et m Xnie stick, ei E. Foumicr. Fari»»
28 ERASMUS
How far Erasmus yielded to the temptations of
youth and boon companionship cannot certainly be
told; but his worst could not have been very bad.
His own testimony, that he was so moderate in food
and drink that he took them like medicine and that
he never served Venus, for he found no time for such
things, must be given some weight.1 It is true that
rumors reached his old home that "he did nothing but
feast, play the fool, and fall in love," and that he was
at considerable pains to contradict them.2 On the other
hand, Robert Gaguin, a man of sobriety and parts,
praised him for being "religious no less in life and in
speech than in dress/'3 He frequently alludes to love-
making in his Colloquies and elsewhere; but whether
any of his anecdotes are based on personal experience
it is difficult to say. On the face of it the most com-
promising would be the dialogue between a youth and
a harlot, in which Sophronius converts Lucretia to a
better life. But this dialogue, realistic as it is, is the
best proof of how difficult it is to disentangle personal
reminiscences from dramatic situations, for in all prob-
ability Erasmus borrowed the plot from the tenth-
century nun, Hroswitha, whose dramas were popular
in his day.4 More damaging is the remark in one of
the Colloquies that the best way to learn French at
Paris is from the little women of the place.6
During his years at Paris Erasmus was the bosom
friend of a brilliant but notoriously immoral Italian
humanist, Faustus Andrelinus, "whose lectures," as
*To J. Gaver, March i, 1524, LB. ep, 671.
a Allen, ep. 83; Nichols, ep. 81. Fans, December 14, 1498, If thif epwtle
could be dated one year later— -and the date is uncertain—one might suspect
Standonck of having keen the talebearer, for it was exactly at this time that
he returned to Cambrai. Godet, 30.
8 R» Gaguin, Epistolai et Orationest ed. Thuaenc, 1903 f, i, p. 25 £
4 Ilrotswithaf Gandeshemensis comotdias sfxt ed. J. Bendi&eo, x86», p. 93,
No, 5. "Paphnutius,*1 Paphnutius the hermit visits Thais the courtesan as a
lover and converts her. On contemporary Familiarity with Hroawhha, Dtirer's
picture reproduced in Klassiker der Kun$t> p. 190. The dialogue, LB* i, 718.
« LB. i, 634 f.
APPRENTICE YEARS 29
the Dutchman says, "on all parts of the poets, even
on the Priapeia, were in a manner, to say nothing
worse, truly Faustine."1 With him Erasmus exchanged
gay notes during a lecture,2 and letters on the kisses
he had given and received.3 He even got his friend to
write a testimonial4 to his character to send home.
Andrelinus, indeed, cared for nothing but the classics.
Since 1489 he had taught at Paris, and his lectures,
rather witty than learned, had attracted large crowds.
He was accustomed to attack theologians very bitterly.5
Other associates of Erasmus were more respectable.
To one of the leading scholars of the day, Robert Gaguin,
he had a letter of introduction which he presented soon
after his arrival.6 Gaguin, though he considered Erasmus
too much of a toady, was so pleased with his learning,
his style, his morals and piety, that he asked him almost
at once to write an Introduction to his History of France.
Disregarding his new friend's strictures on his parasitic
manners the young man discharged the obligation with
gusto, heaping both the author of the book and his
nation with fulsome praise.7 Gaguin, Faustus, and
Erasmus soon became fast friends. The French historian
has left an epigram, hitherto unpublished, testifying
his high regard for the other two.8 It was written on the
occasion of a dinner at Gaguin's apartments, and may
be rendered as follows:
Welcome, O Faustus, bard loved by Apollo;
Welcome no less, Erasmus, who dost follow
As Faustus' comrade. Not with flowing cup
I greet you; meagerly must poets sup.
* Allen, ep. mi,
8 Allen, epp, 96-100; Nichols, epp, 88-92.
8 Allen, ep. 103; Nichols, ep, 98.
4 Allen, ep. 84; Nichols, ep. 79.
8 Erasmus to Vives, 1519. Allen, ep. 1104. On Faustus, see his Eclogues,
e<L by W. P. Mustang 1918,
6 Allen, epp, 43-44.
7 Allen, ep. 46, October 7, 1495.
8 British Museum MS, Egerton 1651, fol. 5* For text see Appendix III,
30 ERASMUS
Though Gaguin thinks you worthy better meat
And even of banquets such as high gods eat,
You see no feast here, but a friend's true heart,
And home of friendly fortune. Small the part
Of furniture and dress to you I offer,
But all my heart and soul instead I proffer.
But neither theology nor pleasure was Erasmus's
deepest interest at Paris. As previously* his study and
his delight was the literature of ancient Rome. He also
began to learn Greek, but did not like his teacher and
did not advance far.1 Besides reading, he wrote a good
deal and even published a little. One of the first things
he had printed was a collection of Odes by his friend,
William Hermann of Goudas which he sent to his
patron, the Bishop of Cambrai, in January, 1497? with
the following note:2
I am giving you the gift of another, having been able to print
nothing myself on account of my occupation with theological studies,
for I follow the advice of Jerome to learn before I teach. But you
may shortly expect some fruit from rny studies.
While at Paris Erasmus apparently received some
financial help from the Bishop of Cambrai,8 but was
forced to eke out his substance by taking pupils. Among
them were some young men of high rank — a son of
James III of Scotland who became Archbishop of St,
Andrews in 1497, and William Blount, Lord Mount joy,
later tutor of Henry VIII. Throughout his life Mountjoy
was one of the humanist's best patrons* Erasmus's
first extant letter to him begins: "Hail, truly named^
*mon joie. "*4 Erasmus had no modesty about pro-
claiming his own merits a$ a teacher. When one of
his pupils requested his assistance in the composition
of a Latin letter to his brother, the humanist* as he
acknowledges, wrote about himself in these terms;*
1 Allen, i, p, 7*
3 Allen, ep. 51,
1 So, at least, Mr. Allen conjecturesi ep. 48*
4 Allen, cp. 79*
* Allen, cp» 61; partly translated by Nichols, ep. 5$»
APPRENTICE YEARS 31
After dinner Erasmus, Augustine, and myself took a stroll In the
very place among the vineyards where, as Erasmus told us, he had
more than once sauntered with you, drunk with sweet words, while he
recalled you by his eloquent exhortations from sordid cares and rav-
ished your whole soul with love of letters. Do you recognize the spot?
There Erasmus fed us with lettered speech, more delicate fare than
the supper we had eaten. ... It seems to me that now by the
blessing of the saints, the supreme good has fallen to me, for what
could I pray for more than a learned and friendly teacher, and now
I have the most learned and kindest of all; I mean Erasmus whom
I so long sought in vain. Now I have him and possess him all to
myself and delight in him day and night. What do you say? I
hold Helicon itself within my chamber walls. What is It to live
among the choir of Muses if this Is not to do so?
When writers, scholars, and artists were dependent
on a patron for their living, there was danger that they
would be tempted to flatter this individual; just as,
now that they are dependent on the reading public,
it is probable that they are induced to flatter the prej-
udices of that patron. Neither form of writing for
a living is more objectionable than the other; if flattery
is used it is disgraceful not from the object on which
it is spent, but from the prostitution that it implies
of noble talents to a base end. As it was the general
custom four hundred years ago for literary men to
receive pensions from the great, the fact that Erasmus
received, and even solicited, such favors, calls for no
apology. It must be confessed, however, that he oc-
casionally, though rarely, carried his importunity beyond
the bounds of decency.
This is most notable in his relations with Anne of
Veere, a daughter of one of the greatest nobles in Holland
and widow of Philip the Bastard of Burgundy.1 She
had engaged one of Erasmus's friends to tutor her son
Adolph and, doubtless at his invitation, Erasmus visited
her at her castle of Tournehem, between Calais and
St. Omer* Here he got to know Adolph, and probably
1 On Anne of Veere, see M. P. Roosenboom; The Scottish Staple in the
Netherlands* 1910, pp. 32 and xliii.
32 ERASMUS
put in his Colloquy, "The Shipwreck/'1 a record of
some personal experience of the young man. The
kindness and courtesy of the great lady aroused hopes
of securing from her money for a projected journey to
Italy. For the next few years the young Dutchman
addressed to her and to his friend Batt, the tutor of
her son, appeals of the most pressing nature. For
example, December 12, 1500, he wrote to the latter:2
Point out to my lady how much more credit I shall do her by my
learning than the other divines whom she maintains. They preach
ordinary sermons; I write what will live forever; they, with their
silly rubbish, are heard in one or two churches; my books will be
read by all who know Latin and Greek in every country in the world;
such unlearned divines abound everywhere, men like me are scarcely
found in many centuries. Repeat all this to her unless you are too
superstitious to tell a few fibs for a friend.
Undiscouraged by the cool reception of this promise
of immortality, Erasmus wrote and dedicated to the
young Prince Adolph an Exhortation to Embrace Flrtue^
where, under the pretext of placing before his eyes
images of perfection, the author heaped upon the
little lord, upon his mother, and upon his tutor, the
most fulsome flattery. Failing to realize from this
also, in proportion to his hopes, the irrepressible suitor
made a supreme effort and addressed his hoped-for
patroness directly in an epistle comparing her with two
other Annas, the mother of Samuel and the sister of
Dido, and predicting for her also a like eternity of
glory. He capped the climax of this ungracious pro-
ceeding by writing at the same time to Batt that he
had never penned anything with so much repugnance
as this parasitic flattery, and by heartily abusing Anne
of Veere behind her back.3
1 LB, i,
- JUJG>, it 712,
* Allen, ep. 139; Nichols, ep, 139.
8 Allen, ep. 146; Nichols, ep, 140.
CHAPTER II
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY: THE CLASSICS AND THE
GOSPEL
THERE was nothing precocious about the genius
of Erasmus. When he was thirty he had pro-
duced hardly anything. Had he died at the age of
forty he would scarce be remembered now. The pro-
digious success of his Folly, of his New Testament,
of his Paraphrases, of his Colloquies, of his Epistles, not
only raised his fame among his contemporaries and
posterity, but cast a reflex luster on his earlier works.
In these, however, his deepest interest, the restoration
of antiquity both classic and Christian, had already
found expression. And even these early works met
with a hearty reception from contemporaries to whom
these interests were vital.
For it was just because Erasmus so perfectly ex-
pressed the spirit of his time that he gradually won
the international reputation that all but made him
arbiter of the great questions which arose with the
Reformation and cried for authoritative judgment.
Erasmus came at the acme of the Renaissance, when
humanism had gathered its full force and reached its
maturity, but before it had begun to wither in the
fierce heats of confessional controversy and the drought
of too academic, too remote, too fastidiously exclusive
an interest. In his last years he was to see and to
attack the absurdities of a classicism become a mania,
an obsession for the antique, a haughty assertion of
superiority to the rest of the world. But in his prime
he saw and shared the glow of enthusiasm for the full
revival of Greek and Latin letters. He also had the
33
34 ERASMUS
genius to combine into one stream the two contending
currents of pagan and of Christian antiquity. For him
the Gospel was the "philosophy of Christ/5 and the
philosophy of the Greeks a natural gospel. When he
read Cicero he reflected: "A heathen wrote this to
heathen^ and yet his moral principles have justice^
sanctity* sincerity* truth, fidelity to nature; nothing
false or careless is in them/'1 "When I read certain
passages of these great men," he confessed again* "I can
hardly refrain from saying, tfSt. Socrates* pray for me/"2
Erasmus's great success in Christianizing the Ren-
aissance was due partly to the narrowness of his
interests. There were sides of life cultivated by his
generation with enthusiasm and consummate ability*
which hardly came into his purview at all. The most
glorious artists of the whole world— Leonardo and
Titian* Michelangelo and Raphael* San Gailo and
Bramante — were his contemporaries* and he had oppor-
tunity to see their works* but not once* I believe* does
he mention any of them in his pages. With Matsys*
Diirer* and Holbein he came into personal contact*
but hardly noticed their art. Again* a new world was
discovered during his lifetime. In his youth Columbus
found America and Vasco da Gama broke the path
around the Cape of Good Hope to India; in his man-
hood Cortez and Pizarro and Balboa and De Soto
enacted romances of discovery and conquest that would
be thought too wonderful for fiction* and Magellan put
a girdle around the earth. These triumphs fired the
imagination of contemporaries* of More and Camoens* of
Ariosto and Rabelais; the tales of Amerigo Vespucci
were sought aad eagerly read by Beatus Rhenanus1
and Eck4 and Vadian; but Erasmus* though he met
1 Preface to Cicero's De 0fficiis> September xo, 1519. Alkn» ep. 1013.
8 Conowwtn rdigiosum, LB. i» 683,
8 There is extant a copy of WaldseemiHIer's Cosmography with the name of
Beatus Rhenanus written in. See the facsimile by Wieier> 1907.
4 Allen: Ate of Erasmus, p. 93. And ntt Eck's edition of Aristotle in «h*
Cornell library.
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 35
the son of Columbus In 1520, hardly let an allusion to
the New World pass his pen.
Then, again, he had no interest in science. While
Leonardo was experimenting in anatomy and physics
and accumulating facts about geology and astronomy,
while Copernicus1 was working out the most momentous
discovery that has ever dawned upon the human mind,
while VIveSj2 who was well known to Erasmus, was
stating that men should no longer rely on authority
but should look at nature for themselves, the attitude
of Erasmus was intensely conservative. Like Socrates,
he not only did not care for natural science, he actively
disliked It as leading men's thoughts away from the
more important problems of moral philosophy.8
Nor did he have attention to spare for beautiful
scenery, nor for the common life of men as seen In their
cities and country homes. He visited many parts of
England, of France, of Italy, of Germany, of Switzer-
land, and of the Netherlands, but in all his works there
are but one or two notable descriptions of town or
country. How much he might have told us of Paris and
London, of Venice and Rome and Naples, of the Swiss
passes, and of the Rhine!
But, after all, to point out these limitations is only
to say that Erasmus was Erasmus and not somebody
else. The very concentration of his mental life was
doubtless one cause of the consummate mastery he
displayed In his chosen field. As a scholar, as a stylist,
as a thoughtful and popular writer on religion and
education, he has had few equals. His work centers
around a few ideas, the principal ones expressed in
phrases that recur over and over again in all his writings,
1 Copernicus was in Italy just before Erasmus was there, and he knew one
of Erasmus's friends, Celio Calcagnini, who, under his influence, wrote, about
1520, a treatise Quod cesium sttt, terra moveatur. Copernicus did not publish
his own great work until 1543, but he had arrived at his conclusions long:
before, and they were talked of in the learned world. On Calcagnini, Allen,
mt p. »6.
1 A. Boniila y San Martin: Luis Fives y lafilosofia del rtnacimiento^ 1903.
1 Erasmus to Carondilet, January 5, 1522, LB. ep, 613.
36 ERASMUS
like the leitmotifs of a symphony, "good literature/*
"the philosophy of Christ," "peace."
His first ideal was that of culture founded on a
thorough knowledge of the classics. His mastery of
Latin literature was imperial Doubtless he heard,
as a boy and a young man, of the first publication of
many Latin authors, and the zest of new discovery
was added to the imperishable charm of the poets and
orators. Before Erasmus went to school at Deventer
there had already been printed much of Cicero, Lactan-
tius, Apuleius, Aulus Geilius, Cxsar, Lucan, Pliny,
Vergil, Livy, Sallust, Juvenal, Perslus, Quintilian,
Suetonius, Terence, Tacitus, Ovid, Horace, Martial,
Plautus, Tibullus, Catullus, Propertius, Statius, Lucre-
tius, and Seneca.1 But few of these were complete;
fresh portions of their works kept coming out later,
as did Tacitus's Annals 1-5? New minor authors ap-
peared from time to time. Erasmus was therefore able
to command the bulk of Latin literature in printed form.
He shared his contemporaries' enthusiasm for manu-
scripts and eagerly sought new ones himself. Thus
he wrote to the College of Canons at Metz, asking for
a catalogue of their noble collection.8 In later life he
edited a number of Latin and Greek classics.
In the latter half of 1499 Erasmus made a visit to
England. On his return to Paris his first enterprise
was the compilation of a work which was to prove one
of his greatest immediate successes, his book of Adages
or. Familiar Quotations from the Classics, Soon after
his arrival he was laid up for a time with an attack of
fever for which he blamed his new lodgings. He called
in the services of a friend and " devotee of the Muses/'
one William Cop, a native of Basle, then physician to
the German nation in the University of Paris. The
skill of Cop and the power of St. Gcnevieve had cured
1 Sir J, Edwin Sandys: History of Classical Scholarship) ii> 19081 p. 103,
* Which appeared in 1515.
s Louvain, July 14, 1519; Allen, ep. 997,
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 37
him of a similar attack three years earlier and again
their combined ministrations slowly restored him to
health.1 However, Cop forbade serious writing or
study during his convalescence, and in search for an
occupation Erasmus took to browsing around among
his favorite authors with all the more zest, perhaps,
that he had had less time than usual for reading in
England. There was no large library within reach,
he was still unable to make much headway with Greek,1
but he had with him the familiar Latins. His friend
Gaguin lent him Quintilian, Macrobius, and the Rhetoric
of George of Trebizond, which he wished to see.3 In
March he writes that he is deep in his books, quite
happy, evidently, except for the annoying scarcity
of money :
Do you want to know what I am doing? I devote myself to my
friends, with whom I enjoy the most delightful intercourse. . . .
With them I shut myself in a corner, where I escape the windy
crowd and either speak to them in sweet whispers or listen to their
gentle voices, conversing with them as with myself. Can anything
be more comfortable than this? They never hide their own secrets,
yet they keep sacred whatever is intrusted to them. They never
divulge abroad what we confide freely to their intimacy. When
summoned they are at your side; when not summoned they do not
intrude. When bidden they speak; when not bidden they are
silent. They talk of what you wish, as much as you wish, as long
as you wish. They utter no flattery, feign nothing, keep back nothing.
They frankly show you your faults, but slander no one. All that
they say is either cheering or salutary. In prosperity they keep
you modest, in affliction they console, they never change with fortune.
1 Allen, ep. 124; I, p. 286. Cop studied Greek at Paris under Lascaris,
Erasmus, and Aleander, and later published translations from Hippocrates
and Galon. He was also a physician of great repute. LeFevre d'EtapIes says
that he cured him of sleeplessness. Erasmus, however, speaks not altogether
lightly of the part played by Ste. Genevieve in his recovery, " If I should have
a second attack of this fever, it would be all up with your Erasmus, my Batt.
Nevertheless we keep up hope, relying on Ste. Genevieve, whose ready aid
has delivered us now the second time," Allen, ibid,, and ep. 50; I, pp, 164-165.
2 In September, 1500, he writes that he cannot read a copy of Homer,
temporarily in his possession, but that he finds comfort in the mere look of it.
Allen, ep, 131; I, p. 305*
8 Allen, epp, m, 122; I, pp. 283, 284; Nichols, epp. 114, 115.
38 ERASMUS
They follow In all dangers, abiding with you even to the grave.
. With these sweet friends I am buried in seclusion. What
wealth or what scepters would I barter for this tranquillity? Now,
that you may not miss the meaning of my metaphor, pray under-
stand all that I have said about these friends to be meant of books,
companionship with which has made of me a truly happy man.1
In this situation the idea occurred to Erasmus of
culling from the pages of these authors a selection of
brief sayings or epigrams, useful for quotation. The
task seemed to him a light and agreeable one* not^the
tax upon his strength that one of his more ambitious
projects would have been. The book, when completed,
would be an attractive gift to dedicate to one of the
wealthy patrons whose interest in him it was just now
so important to keep warm. He hesitated a little
between young Adolph of Veerc and Lord Mountjoy,
deciding finally in favor of the latter.2 The ^ishion
of quoting from the Greek and Latin classics has dis-
appeared in our day, whether the disappearance be
due to an improvement in literary taste or to a decline
of polite learning. We rarely see any longer the old-
fashioned English gentleman who used to cap his
remarks with a line from Vergil or Horace. We can,
therefore, hardly realize how excessively in Erasmuses
time a knack at quoting was admired nor what elegance
and weight were added to any composition by the use
of examples and citations from ancient literature.
The Prince of Machiavelli, the Essays of Montaigne,
both written during this period, are famous illustrations
of the practice. Their continual references to the classics
serve for us merely to invest with a quaint and pedantic
1 Allen, ep. 125; I, pp. 288-289; Nichols, ep. 119. A distinguished con-
temporary of Erasmus had a similar feeling for his books, See Macluavflli,
0'pere, ep. 26; English translation in Viilari, Life and Timfs of M&M&oelli,
p. 159. Erasmus may have been recalling the celebrated passage in Cicero'i
Pro Archia,
2 Krasmuc composed a tentative draft of t dedication which he did not uae.
He omitted all names, but internal evidence seems to indicate that it was
meant for Adolph of Veerc. At the last moment he wrote his dedication to
Mountjoy, Allen, epp. u$> 126, in; pp* a88, 389, 445.
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 39
atmosphere the authors5 keen and radical philosophies
of life. We tolerate the references for the sake of the
rest. But to the writers themselves their literary
authorities were a serious matter^ as essential parts of
their arguments as their own shrewd observations upon
mankind. Men of less genius than Machiavelli or
Montaigne or Erasmus depended largely upon a choice
array of classical allusions to obtain for themselves
any sort of hearing. For them, for the whole world
of scholars and cultivated gentlemen, a convenient
manual of effective quotations would be a labor-saving
device of priceless value. An Italian, Polydore Vergil
of Urbino, had published a book of Proverbs at Venice
in 14985 but it was a comparatively small and simple
affair, not yet in wide circulation. Erasmus seems not
to have known of its existence at this time. Later,
Vergil and his friends accused the Dutchman of plagiariz-
ing, and he was obliged to defend himself. His relations
with the historian were temporarily ruffled, though
they finally became friendly again and Erasmus assisted
in the publication of Vergil's lesser works.1
In the preface to the first edition of his Adagia9 never-
theless, Erasmus felt called upon to justify his under-
taking. The book soon needed no defense for its
appearance and no explanation of its utility, but in the
beginning he was anxious to prove its worth.
What is such an aid either in gracing a speech with a delicate
air of festivity or in enlivening it with learned jests or in seasoning
it with the salt of urbanity or in adorning it with gems of translation
or in illuminating it with the brilliancy of epigrams or in diversifying
it with the flowers of allegory and allusion or in investing it with
the charm of antiquity as a rich and full supply of these adages,
like a storeroom built at home and well supplied? For everyone
knows that the chief wealth and refinements, of speech consist of
epigrams, metaphors, parables, examples, illustrations, similes,
images, and figures of this sort. . „ . Everyone also enjoys hearing
1 Nichols, 1» p. 242. Also Erasmus to Vergil, Louvain, December 23, 1520,
Allen, ep, 1175* Vergil to Erasmus, June 3, js^S* in S. A, Gabbema; ///#/-
trivm ft Clarorum Firorum EpistoUc> No. 3; Erasmus to Pace, June n, 1531,
Allen, ep, 1210.
40 ERASMUS
what he recognizes, especially if it has the sanction of antiquity;
so adages, like wine, increase in value with age. . . -
You might think that I was saying all this from love of my own
work were not the truth conspicuous in every class of author, that
whoever has especially excelled his fellows has especially delighted
in these adages. In the first place, what has the world richer than
the language of Plato or more heavenly than his philosophy? But
in his dialogues on every subject, good Lord! the proverbs are
scattered thick as little stars, so that no comedy gives me such
pleasure as the dialectic of this philosopher. Then Plautus, the
peculiar darling of the theater, bubbles over with proverbs and
says hardly anything that he did not take from the mouths of the
common people or that did not pass at once from the stage into
their common talk, so that for this talent above all he deserves to
be ranked in eloquence with the Muses. Terence has more art than
Plautus and therefore uses proverbs less frequently but more fastidi-
ously. Did not Varro, the greatest of scholars, find such satisfaction
in proverbs that he sought no other arguments or headings for his
satires? From his work the following are still quoted: The ass at
the lyre; Know thyself; Old men are in their second childhood. . . .
But if, as Christians, we prefer Christian examples, I can easily
adduce Jerome as one of many. , . . His books contain more prov-
erbs than even the comedies of Menander, and clever ones, such
as: He leads the bull to the combat; The camel danced; Blunt
wedges rive hard knots; Diamond cuts diamond; The tired ox
plants his feet more firmly; The lid is worthy of the dish. . , .
There are adages even in the writings of the apostles. (You are not*
I suppose, so engrossed with Scotus as never to glance at them.)
Adages occur often even in the Gospels, namely, these: The dog re-
turned to his vomit; The sow wallowing in her mire; Beating the
air: Tinkling cymbal; We have piped unto you and ye have not
danced; The mote and the beam; A stone for bread. . . . Wherefore for
many reasons we have thought it no futile or sterile task to instruct
studious youth to the best of our ability in this mode of speech
or at least to instigate them to it, seeing that it has been adopted
with good cause by so many learned and divine writers,1
The kernel of Erasmus's book was a compilation of
pithy sayings culled from the ancients* With these he
incorporated a certain number of*more recent proverbial
phrases, including about a hundred of German origin,2
1 Dedicatory epistle to first edition, Allen, ep, 126; pp. 291-295,
2 Adagwrum Collectanea; on this see Bibliothtca £ra/mwna* /, 0. and J. Ewe-
lem; Dit Sprichworttr and Sinnnden da deutwhen Fotka in dttr und
Ztit9 1860, p. xxviii, note.
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 41
though all, of course, were given only in the Latin form.
The first edition, published by John Philip of Kreuznach,
at Paris, in June, 1500, contained 818 adages, each with
a commentary, usually very short. The first two proverbs
are on friendship, "Friends have all things in common/'
and "A friend is another self/'1 the notes giving illustra-
tive material from Terence, Menander, Cicero, Aulus
Gellius, Plato, Socrates, and Plutarch. Marvelous speci-
mens of erudition they were in that age before diction-
aries and concordances had made reference easy. Richard
Burton could hardly display more learning over a trifle
in his Anatomy of Melancholy than did Erasmus in his
Adages. And yet Gaguin seems to have criticized the
notes as too formal and lifeless.2 Erasmus, therefore, set
about collecting material for a new edition. He doubtless
followed the practice himself, which ne recommended to
a friend, of keeping a commonplace book for the notation
of striking sayings met with in the course of reading.
Various editions, slightly enlarged, were published
during the next few years, but a completely new form was
given to the book by the immense increase in size of the
edition published by Aldo at Venice in September, 1508,
with the changed title, Adagiorum Chiliades? It con-
tained in all 3,260 adages, and the treatment of those
taken over from the first edition was so altered as to make
the Venetian work almost altogether new. Some old
proverbs were suppressed, the order of others changed, and
the commentary greatly expanded. Erasmus had sought
Italy largely with a view to doing this work, and he was
enabled to accomplish it because he was now more fluent
in Greek and more forward to speak his mind, and because
of the exceptional facilities he found at Venice in the way
of access to books. Of all this he has left an account in
his commentary on the adage "Festina lente"* which
* LB. I, cols, 13 flf.
* LB, X, p. 200.
1 Bibliotheca Er&fmiana.
4 LB* il» 403 ffj Chil ii, centuria t» prov, I,
42 ERASMUS
first appeared in the edition published by Froben in 1526.
He says :
Aldo was then making a library whose only limits should be
those of the world. . . . Venice, famous on many accounts, is
most famous because of the Aldine press, so that whatever book
is printed there can easily be sold, whatever its origin. While I,
a Dutchman, was editing my Adages in Italy, many learned men there
of their own accord offered me authors not yet published, which
they thought would be of use to me. Aldo had nothing in his treasury
which he did not let me see. John Lascaris, Baptists Egnatius,
Marcus Musuras, Brother Urban, all did the same. Even men I
did not know personally helped me. ... The whole business was
finished In about nine months, though meanwhile I was suffering
seriously from the stone, my first experience of it. See now how
much the book would have lost If those learned gentlemen had
not lent me their manuscripts! Among them were the works^of
Plato in Greek, Plutarch's Lives and Moralia, of which the printing
was begun just as I finished my enterprise, the Dipnosopkista of
Athemeus, Aphthonius, Hermogenes with a^ commentary, the whole
of Aristides with scholia, brief commentaries on Hesiod and ^The-
ocritus, Eustathius on the whole of Homer, Pausanias, Pindar
with a set of careful notes, a collection of proverbs ascribed to Plu-
tarch, another ascribed to Apostolius, Jerome Alcandcr supplied
me with the last-named volume. There were other smaller books
which I either do not remember or do not consider important to
mention here. No one of them at all had at that time been printed.
As a specimen of the Adages in its new form let us take
the following:
EVIL COMMUNICATIONS CORRUPT GOOP MANNERS
This is the meaning of that verse of Mcnander which the apostle
St. Paul did not disdain to quote in his first letter to the Corinthians,
—$$&pavffti> fjfy xpfaP fyuMu «<w«/— that is. Wicked companionship
mars good manners. Tcrtullian translated the Greek line for his
wife, but freely, after the manner of Latin comedy, "Choose/*
he says, "associations and relationships worthy of God, remembering
the verse sanctified by the apostle* Wrong companions corrupt good
manners." Aristotle has a sentiment like this in the ninth book
of the Ethics^ and his line is famous among the Gr<wk$,*~~K<w<rf<: fytd&v
KO.MC it/Way KctK6$~- -that is, If you live with evil-doers you will
yourself become evil Although it may appear foreign to my
undertaking to include so much, I still cannot refrain from
adding the following passage from Seneca, On Ani^ book 3.
If it does not assist much in the explanation of the proverb* it
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 43
is certainly pertinent to the ordering of life. "Manners," he sayss
"are derived from one's associates. And just as infections pass
by bodily contact from one person to another, so one heart trans-
mits its evil to its neighbors. A drunkard inspires his com-
rades with a craving for wine. The companionship of sensualists
weakens a man even if he be strong. Avarice spreads contagion
among those who see it. The same rule, on the other hand, is true
of the virtues, for they brighten everything about them. Nor do
a healthful land and a salubrious climate profit the sick more than
association with the upright the feeble of soul. This truth you will
appreciate* as far as that is possible, if you observe how wild animals
grow tame by living with us and how every fierce beast loses its
violence by long dwelling in the habitation of men." Thus far
I have repeated the words of Seneca. Moreover, while every form
of contact and intercourse has a great effect in reforming or depraving
the disposition of mortals, speech is the most influential of all, for
it rises from the secret recesses of the soul and carries with it a two-
fold and mysterious force or (to express it better in Greek) fokpyuav,
which it discharges within the mind of the hearer into which it
penetrates, an instantaneous poison if it be baneful, an efficacious
remedy if it be wholesome. Indeed, I do not remember reading as
yet any other dictum of the philosophers which seems to me com-
parable with the favorite saying of my John Colet, a man both
learned and incorruptible. "Our character is that of our daily
conversation; we grow like what we are accustomed to hear/*
Now the same that is said of conversation is true also of studies*
They who spend all their lives on pagan literature become them-
selves irreligious. They who read nothing but unclean authors
must themselves in their owa habits become unclean. For reading
is a kind of conversation.1
A further edition, once more remodeled and augmented,
was published by Froben in 1515.* Of it Erasmus says:
For this redaction 1 had more leisure and a more considerable
library, thanks to the amazing kindness of Archbishop Warhara.
I was able to review my work from beginning to end, to correct
numerous misprints, to complete the translation of Greek terms, to
add a more copious commentary, and to supply the name of the
author where it had been omitted.
This edition contained 3,411 adages; among the 151 new
were three which became famous, and which were often
reprinted separately, as they were little short of essays in
1 Adagia; ChiL I, cent, x» 74; LB, i, col 388.
8 Bibliotheca Erasmiana*
44 ERASMUS
length and form. The first of these was the Duke Bdlum
Inexpertis, with its commentary1 (which had, indeed,
appeared in embryonic form earlier), a tract on the
evils of war. The second was the Scarabceus quarit
aquilam? or "The beetle seeks the eagle/' Beginning as
a treatise on impotent envy, it contained a good deal of
political and antimonarchical doctrine. The third, the
Sileni AldUadis? discoursed on the deceptiveness of
appearances.
Later editions kept appearing at frequent intervals,
each one a little augmented. Among the notable addi-
tions made to the redaction of 1526 was the proverb,
"Make haste slowly," with a commentary of four folio
pages of reminiscent discourse, from which we have
already quoted, much of it curious and interesting reading
enough, though wandering far from the text. This
maxim, Erasmus begins by saying, had a peculiar value
for princes, having been quoted by Achilles, Sardan-
apalus, Fabius Maximus, and Augustus :
And that it appealed also to Titus Vespasian may easily be deduced
from the antique coins struck by him. Aldo Manimo showed me
a silver coin clearly of ancient Roman workmanship, which he said
had been sent him as a gift by Peter Bembo, the patrician of Venicer
a young man, but one of our foremost scholars and an eager student
of all ancient literature. On one side of the coin was stamped the
head of Titus Vespasian with the inscription, on the other side an
anchor with a dolphin wound about the shaft.
After a considerable digression on the nature and
history of literary symbols and hieroglyphics Erasmus
*LB. i, 95* ff.
*LB. i, 869 ff.
8 LB. i, 770 ff. There is at Cornell University an old English translation of
this not known to the editors of the Billiotheca JSrasmiana. The tirle reads,
"Here folowith a scorneful Image or monstrous shape of a marueloua atrange
fygure called Sileni aldbiadis* * . Imprinted at London by me John Cough/*
No date is given, but the tract is bound with another, evidently from
the same press, a translation of Luther's **Worfce made agaynst the false
canonisacyon of Benno the bysshoppe. Translated and prynted in Englyasche
in the year MCCCCCxxxim." Neither Luther's name nor that of the trans*
lator is mentioned. Other instances are known in which Lather's opinions
were introduced thus anonymously into England.
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 45
remarks that Suidas reproduces the same device, and
explains It by saying that the anchor, since it holds the
ship, means delay, whereas the dolphin signifies speed;
therefore the combination of the two expresses the mean-
ing of the proverb, "Make haste slowly."
The mention of Aldo, and of the symbol which he had
made his trade-mark, leads the author to add a few
words of appreciation of the great publisher:
If some divinity who is a friend to good letters regards favorably
the noble and almost kingly vows of our Aldo, and if the fates are
propitious, I promise scholars that within a few years they shall
have every good author in the four languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew,
and Chaldee, in every branch of learning, in full and emended editions,
through the efforts of this one man, and that no one shall lack any
part of his literary inheritance.
Even after 1526 Erasmus kept making additions to his
work, the last in the year of his death. One reason for
these continual alterations was doubtless that they gave
each new edition a value slightly greater than the last,
and this, in the days before copyright, helped to keep
control of the profits in the hands of the chosen printer,
usually Froben, The book in its final form contained
4,151 proverbs. It had an enormous success, no less than
sixty editions being called for during the author's lifetime
and at least seventy-five mote during the seventeenth
century.1 Enthusiastic commentators did not hesitate to
ascribe the progress of learning and the reform of uni-
versity curricula in the sixteenth century to the influence
of the Adagia. But its popularity was not all due to its
convenience as a storehouse of ornament for the aspiring
Latinist.2 There was an English translation by Richard
*0n the Adagia see BiUiotheca Eta$miana> Van der Haeghen, Van den
BeVghe and Arnold; vol i» Adagia> Ghent, 1897. In the seventeenth century
critics had begun to say that Erasmus's Latin style was not Ciceronian and
his translations from the Greek were awkward. Nevertheless, twenty-four
more editions of the Adagia were called for before the year 1700. Since then
it has not been printed in its original form except in the edition of the Qpfra
of 1703,
* Anonymoui preface to edition of 1612.
46 ERASMUS
Taverner In 1539* an Italian version in 1550^ one in
German in 1556, and one in Dutch in 1561.
In fact, the Adages soon became a standard work used
and quoted by everyone with any pretensions to scholar-
ship. Luther,1 quoted it thirteen times within a single
year in his correspondence, and from this compilation
derived some of his political axioms. The style and
thought of Montaigne2 and of La Boetie were nourished
on it. Conrad Gesner3 richly decked his Natural History
of Animals with proverbs about brute nature culled from
the humanist. The great Elizabethans, Bacon4 and
Shakespeare,5 knew it and used it.
To take up again the thread of Erasmus's life at the
point where he published the first edition of the Adages^
he continued to reside at Paris until September of the
same year (1500), and then went to Orleans for three
months. It was about this time that he seriously began
the study of Greek, for reasons explained to one of his
patrons, Antony of Bergen, Abbot of St. Herein:6
By lucky chance I got some Greek works, which I am stealthily
transcribing night and day. It may be asked why I am so pleased
with the example of Cato the Censor as to be learning Greek at my
age. ... I am determined that it is better to learn late than to
be without knowledge which it is of the utmost importance to
possess. I had a taste of this learning a long time ago, but it was only
with the tip of the tongue, as they say; and having lately clipped
deeper into it, we see, what we have often read in the most weighty
authors, that Latin erudition, however ample, is crippled and imper-
fect without Greek. We have in Latin at best some small brooks
and turbid pools, while the Greeks have the purest fountains and
*0n Luther, infra, p, 213.
8 Montaigne; Essais, ii, 5; Hi, 5, 6, 8, etc, On La Boede my A$t of the
Reformation, 599,
•H, Morley: "Conrad Gesner," in Ckment Marat and othtr Studitf,
1871, ii, 120.
4 Francis Bacon; Works, ii, 1861, pp. 126 fF, several quotation! from the
Adages and Cicfronianus in the Dr Angmentu* 1623,
* Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, "Blunt wedges rive hard knots";
ffamht, II, ii, 416: "An old man is twice a child/1
6 Allen, ep. 149; Nichols, ep. 143; c/, similar expressions in Allen, epp»
129, 138.
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 47
rivers flowing with gold. I see that it is mere madness to touch
with a finger that principal part of theology, which treats of divine
mysteries, without being furnished with the apparatus of Greet
when those who translated the sacred books have, with all their
scrupulosity* so rendered the Greek figures of speech that not even
the primary sense, which our theologians call "the literal," can be
perceived by those who do not know Greek.
Erasmus then gives an example of the sort of misunder-
standing he meansj arising from a verse in a Psalm, which
in Greek reads: Kal n a^aptfia ftov sv&niov [AQV £<7<ri
Siartavtog but in the Latin vulgate1 peccatum meum
contra me est semper. A certain theologian, he says, had
once given a long disquisition on this text, pointing out
how the spirit was ever fighting with the flesh, whereas,
he missed the whole meaning of the words, which is not
"my sin is ever against me," but "my sin is ever
before me/'
While on a visit to the Netherlands the next summer
Erasmus spent much time on Greek studies. By this
time he had become so enraptured that he would rather
pawn his coat than fail to get any new publications in
that language, especially if it were something Christian,
like the Psalms or the gospels.2 He speaks of reading
Euripides and Isocrates; and he ordered Greek books
from Paris.3
The publication of Greek authors was much less
advanced than that of Latin. Almost all the editiones
principes were brought out in Italy, and many were
doubtless hard to get north of the Alps, By the year
1500 there had been printed, in this order: J£sop,
Homer, Isocrates, Theocritus, Hesiod, the Anthologia
Gr&ca, the Medea^ Hippolytus^ Alcestis and Andromache
of Euripides, Aristotle, Bion, Moschus, Theognis,
Apollonius Rhodius, Lucian, nine plays of Aristophanes,
"Phalaris," the Astronomici veteres> and a few gram-
matical writings and minor authors. The year 1502 saw
1 Vulgate, Psalm b«jj in English Psalm lir/j.
1 Allen, ep, 160; Nichols, ep, 156.
1 Allen, ep. 158; Nichols, ep. 154*
48 ERASMUS
the publication of Thucydides, of Sophocles, and of
Herodotus. All eighteen plays of Euripides and Xeno-
phon's Hellenica were printed first in 1503; and
Demosthenes in the year following. Plutarch's Moralia
came out in 1509; Pindar and Plato in 1513; more of
Aristophanes and Xenophon and the whole of Pausanias
and Strabo in 1516; Plutarch's Lives in 1517; six plays
of ^Eschylus in 1518; Galen in 1525; Epictetus in 1528;
Polybius in 1530; eleven plays of Aristophanes in 1532;
Ptolemy in 1533. l
While prosecuting his Greek studies with diligence and
success Erasmus began Hebrew but, as he expresses it,
"frightened by the strangeness of the idiom, and con-
sidering the insufficiency of the human mind to master
many subjects/'2 he soon gave it up. Moreover, the
Hebrew Scriptures did not attract him as did the New
Testament, and he was actively repelled by the other
Jewish writers. So he wrote to a Hebrew scholar,
somewhat later:3
I could wish you were more given to Greek than to Hebrew studies,
although I do not condemn the latter. I see the Jewish race is fed
full of lifeless tales and produces nothing but a little vapor, to wit
the Cabbala, the Talmud, the Tetragrammaton, the Gates of Light,
and such vain titles. Italy has many Jews; Spain hardly any
Christians. I prefer Christ, even contaminated by Scotus, to this
Jewish nonsense. , . . Would that the Christian Church did not
rely so much on the Old Testament, which, although it was only
given for a certain time and is full of shadows, is almost preferred
to the Christian writings. And thus we turn from Christ, who alone
suffices us.4
Erasmus was by nature a nomad* Never did he live
as long as eight years consecutively in the same place,
1 J, E. Sandys: History of Classical Scholarship* ii» 104 f.
* Allen, ep. 181* c. December* 1504,
*To Capito, March 13, 1518. Alien* ep. 798; Nichols, ep, 761.
4 There is at Basle a copy of the PsdUrium IMraicwn «sd, by C, Pcllican
and S. Miinster, with an introduction by Capito, Kronen, 1516, which
apparently belonged to Erasmus, his name having been inscribed In It by *
contemporary, J, Fieker: "HcbraJschc Handpsalter Luthers," Sitiunff-
berichte dtr HMelbergtr Akadtmie def Wimnschaften* Phil Hist. Klaise,
1919, no. 5, p, 4.
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 49
Having now spent six years, with considerable intervals,
at Paris, he decided to return for a while to his native
country. Here he lived for three years. Leaving Paris
in May, 1501, he went first to see his old friends at Steyn,
then to Haarlem to visit another old friend, William
Herman, then to Dordrecht (June Qth). He next so-
journed for a while at Brussels with the Bishop of
Carnbrai, and at Antwerp with his friend Voecht, after
which he proceeded to the island of Walcheren near
Flushing to stay with his patroness, Anne of Veere. She
greeted him kindly, but was able to do little for him,
being herself under surveillance for suspected complicity
with the insubordinate Provost of Utrecht.1 After a visit
to Tournehem, he stayed for a while at the Abbey of
St.-Bertin, in the town of St.-Omer, as the guest of his
patron, Antony of Bergen. It is possible that he may
have discharged secretarial duties for his host; at any
rate there is extant a letter composed by Erasmus for
Antony of Bergen to Cardinal John de' Medici, later
Leo X.2 Erasmus was housed in the cloister during the
late summer and autumn of 1501; he passed the winter
near St.-Omer at Courtebourne, the chateau of Florent,
a nobleman of the famous family of Calonne; he then
returned to St.-Bertin for the spring and summer of 1502.
The guardian of the Franciscan friary at St.-Omer was
a certain John Vitrier who, though a Scotist, was a
reformer in the earnestness of his life. Not being able
to fulfil his desire of preaching the gospel to the heathen,
he had turned his attention to the faults in the church
at home, and had preached, in the Cathedral of Tournay,
such scathing indictments of the unreformed convents,
immoral clergy, and indulgences, which he said "came
from hell," that his propositions were fastened upon as
heretical and he was compelled by the Sorbonne to
retract on October 2, 1498. Later he came into conflict
with the Bishop of Boulogne, for he was one of those
1 Allen, i, p, 3S7J Nichols, i, p. 317.
* Alien, ep. 162.
So ERASMUS
men persecuted by a world not worthy of him. Erasmus*
learning to know and love him, preferred his character
even to that of John Colet, for in Vitrier, he said, there
was no trace of human weakness. It is thus that he
wrote about him some years afterward:1
He was a man of authority, of a presence so distinguished and
elegant and a mind so lofty that nothing was more humane. He
had been brought up on Scotist subtleties which he did not entirely
disapprove, thinking they contained some wisdom in their mean
words. On the other hand, he did not make much of them, especially
after he had tasted Ambrose, Cyprian, and Jerome, He greatly
admired what was sound in Origen without approving his heresy.
He perfectly knew the Bible, and especially the epistles of Paul,
which he could recite by heart. He prepared his sermons by reading
Paul and by prayer. In his sermons he connected the gospel and
epistle, avoiding citations from the fathers and the Canon Law.
He had at one time wished to be a missionary and martyr, but was
called back by a voice from heaven which promised him martyrdom
at home. ... He thought little of ceremonies, advising me to eat
some meat in Lent for the sake of my health. He made everyone
better, being especially successful in preparing them for death.
In the autumn of 1 502 Erasmus settled at Louvain for
about two years. Louvain was a large, fortified town,
conveniently provided with canals for the transport of
merchandise and adorned with spacious squares and
splendid churches.2 The university, founded in 1425,
had by this time become one of the leading academies of
Europe.3 John Standonck, fresh from Montaigu, and
Adrian of Utrecht, later Pope Adrian VI, had bought, on
April 15, 1500, a college for poor students, founded in
1468, which was known, from its vicinity to "The Inn
of the Pig," as the Collegium Porci. James Le Ma^on
(Latornus), a theologian of the conservative school, was
1 Allen, ep, 1211, To Jonas, June 13, 1521. Cf. Allen, i, p, 372, On Vitricr,
Renaudet: "firasme," in Revue Mittoriquf, tome iu, p, 253; D'Argentre:
Collfctio judiciorum, 1, part n, pp. 340-341; Gieseler: Church History, English
translation by Hull, 1858, iii» 404,
aLf v. Pastor: "Die Reise Luigis d'Aragona" (Efgdmungvn und Etlautft-
ungen tut Janssens Gfschichtf dfs Deutsch^n Polkes, Band v, 4), 1908, p. 56*
'Rashdall: Universities, u, 261, and 766 £ On '* Erasmus at 'Louvam,"
Foster Watson, Mibbcrt Journal* April, 1918,
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 51
made head of this institution.1 Erasmus, who attended
some lectures on theology given by Adrian of Utrecht,2
was offered the position of instructor at the college, but,
with his habitual independence, declined.3
The humanist of Rotterdam had by this time risen to
sufficient prominence to be selected by the civic authori-
ties as the proper person to present a congratulatory
address to their sovereign, Philip the Handsome, Arch-
duke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy, on his return to
the Netherlands from Spain. The address, of which
perhaps only a short portion was declaimed, while the
rest was presented in book form under the appropriate
title of The Panegyric, took place at the royal castle in
Brussels on January 6, 1504. Philip was graciously
pleased with the work and bestowed upon its author
fifty livres as a token of favor.4 The oration6 was,
inevitably, stuffed with fulsome laudation of the duke
and all his relatives, which Erasmus defended in private
as a necessary sugar-coating for the pill of good advice:
For there is no more effective method of reforming a prince than
setting before him, under the guise of praise, the example of a good
monarch. . , . How, with more impunity, or with more severity,
could you reprove a wicked prince better than by magnifying clemency
in his person? How could you better animadvert on his rapacity,
violence, or lust, than by lauding his benignity, moderation, and
chastity?
Nor was this excuse wholly disingenuous. The orator did
indeed inculcate a number of royal virtues, especially
that of keeping the peace,
Erasmus continued to study at Louvain throughout
the year 1504, during which time he received several
1 Allen, i, p. 200; ii, p. xix, Godet; La Conjugation dg Montaiguf p. 125.
8 Erasmus to Adrian VI, August i, 1522; LB, ep, 633, col 723.
1 Allen, epp. 172, 171. His name does not even appear in the matriculation
book in these years; see H, de Voecht: "Excerpts from the Registers of
Louvain University/' Knglish Historical Review, 1922, 89 ff.
4 Allen, ep» 179 and introduction.
» IB. rv, 507 (F.
52 ERASMUS
small subsidies or "alms" from the' government.1 He
also made some money by composing epitaphs for
wealthy patrons.2
While in the Netherlands Erasmus composed and
published the work which, more than any other, gave
a complete and rounded exposition of "the philos-
ophy of Christ/5 as he loved to call the form of religion
taught by him throughout life. For some years past
piety had been a growing interest, until, from a small
seed, it waxed a tree that overshadowed all other business
of life, even that of enjoying and studying the classics.
Erasmus was one of those happy natures that blossom
and ripen into perfection ever so gradually. For him
there was apparently no convulsion, no "con version *'
such as stands at the head of many a prophet's career.
No blinding light smote him to the ground, no revelation
of the Holy Ghost taught him the secret of justification
by faith, no visions of the Trinity dazzled his eyeballs.
As a youth he had learned religion; even while, as a
student at Paris, he found life gay rather than godly, his
early poems and letters showed a slowly strengthening
character and an ever deeper interest in the gospel. It is,
perhaps, remarkable that with Standonck and "Gryllard"
and the monks to make piety repulsive, and with Valla
and Andrelinus to make irreligion attractive, he did not
become a complete rationalist and Epicurean* Instead,
he learned from both humanists and schoolmen, and never
forgot the lesson that meticulous religiosity is horrible
and that reason has her rights in weighing the claims of
dogma.
The peculiar quality of the Erasmian ideal of an
undogmatic religion and an ethical piety, founded alike
on the Sermon on the Mount and on the teachings of
Greek philosophy, was rooted in two schools with which
1 Allen, ep. 181, introduction; and M. dc Foronda y Aguilcra; Estancias y
Flakes del flmptrador Carlos F» 1914, p, 19: **A Fr. Erasrno aguitino como
limosna para ayudarlc a pagar la cscucla dc Lovania donde estaba e*tudiaftdo«"
Receipt of Finances, Lille, 1504.
1 Allen, cp. 178, 51 n.
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 53
he early came In contact, that called the "devotio
moderna" of the Brethren of the Common Life, and that
of the Florentine Platonic Academy.1 Widely different,
indeed mutually hostile, as appeared the sources of the
inspiration of the German mystics and of the Italian
humanists, both agreed in asserting, against the stiffening
of religion through dogma and organization, the claims
of an inner, personal piety. The mystic, by emphasizing
the role of the spirit, the other by cherishing the rights of
reason, arrived at the point where theology and ritual
alike were regarded as hindrances to the inner life, and
where the ethical interest emerged uppermost. In the
almost godless Valla on the one hand, and in God-
intoxicated Tauler on the other, one finds a kindred ideal
of Christianity as a life rather than a creed or a ceremony.
Priest and sacrament shrank in importance before the
assertion of the new individualism.
The deep piety of the German mystics permeated the
schools of the Brethren of the Common Life, and left its
traces in Erasmus's earliest writings, such as the Anti-
barbari, mainly concerned as they are with classical learn-
ing. Upon him, as little of a mystic as a religious man
can be, the lesson was stamped that, as Thomas a Kernpis
had taught, the true worship of Christ was imitation of
him, not verbal assent to a creed or exploitation of sac-
ramental grace. Here, also, he learned that the pure
philosophy of Christ was inwardly related to all the
truths of antiquity, to the Stoic mastery of self and faith
in predestination, to the Platonic idealism and other-
worldliness. Plato, he soon discovered, was a theolo-
gian, Socrates a saint, Cicero inspired, and Seneca not
far from Paul. *cTheir philosophy," he once said, "lies
rather in the affections than in syllogisms; it is a
*Qn this see P. Mestwerdt: Die Anfdnge dss Erasmus und die Devotio
Moderna, 1917; H. Ernst: "Die Frommigkeit des Erasmus," Theologische
Studien und Kritiken> 1919, pp. 46 fF ; E. Troeltsch: Die Kultur der Gegenwart:
Geschichte der Christlichen Religion, 1909, pp. 476 ff; P. Imbart de la Tour:
Les Origins* de la Reform*) ii, 413. J. Lindeboom: Erasmus: Onderxofk naar
xijne theologie en zijn godsdienstig Gemoedsbestaant 1909,
54 ERASMUS
life more than a debate, an inspiration rather than a
discipline; a transformation rather than a reasoning.
What else, pray, is the philosophy of Christ?"1
The influence of the Platonic Academy of Florence and
of its wonderfully beautiful soul, Pico della Mirandola,
may have come to him first through Rudolph Agricola.
Later he learned to know Pico through his disciples
Thomas More and John Colet; finally he read his works.2
Of equal or more value to his spiritual development was
the friendship of those choice and master spirits of the
time, More, Colet, and Vitrier, men who, while making
light of ceremonies and scholastic subtleties, beautified
religion by holiness. But among all these sources of
devotion and of moral aspiration the first and greatest
was he who had been meek and lowly of heart, the su-
preme inspiration of all the ages, the man whose tragic
and beautiful life has been the finest and noblest thing
in human history. Turning to the gospel Erasmus drew
his own conclusions, that religion was a life, not a creed,
still less a set of prescribed rules and ceremonies. The
life was that taught by the example of Jesus and by the
Sermon on the Mount. Here, not in Plato nor in Pico
nor even in Paul, did the humanist find his truest
inspiration.
In working out a consistent system, Erasmus was con-
fronted by two problems, that of cult and that of dogma.
His attitude to the former was to let it alone, relying on
holiness of character to purify and vivify it. "External
worship is not condemned/' he wrote in his Enchiridion,
"but God is pleased only by the inward piety of the
worshipper/' Luther, and still more Calvin, reformed the
ceremonies and rites of the Church according to their
conceptions of Biblical precedent and precept; Erasmus
had no such design, and for many reasons. In the first
place he was too historical-minded not to cherish tradi-
tional forms. Secondly, he was under no bibliolatrous
siS) LB. v, 14,1. C/, also Allen, ep. 1062*
1 So he says in the Cfafronianits9 LB, i, 1009*
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY 5$
prepossession, such as would lead him to regard every-
thing not sanctioned by a specific text as wrong. Thirdly,
he was unwilling to give offense, and finally, he regarded
the whole matter of cult as one of subordinate concern.
Fasting, sacerdotal celibacy, the communion in one kind,
and all the rest of the Church law did no harm, if stress
were not put upon such matters.
In the face of dogma Erasmus was a child of the
Renaissance, It is too much to say either that he
neglected it or regarded it as of minor importance; but
it is conspicuously true that with him dogma had not the
supreme place that it had with the Reformers and with
the inquisitors. While at times he hovered on the verge
of doubt of some doctrines, or admitted the possibility of
doubt in others without the brand of heresy, yet he always
sought and finally yielded to the authority of the Bible,
and, in the second place, to that of the Church, as the
voice of either could be reasonably interpreted.1 As with
other men, so with Erasmus, we find slight inconsis-
tencies and variations in his statements. But on the
whole his attitude is plain, and it is far more modern than
was that of the Reformers. He welcomed criticism and
philosophy as aids to religion; they dreaded reason as a
foe to faith.1
All these ideas found perfect expression in a little work
of devotion, the Enchiridion Militis Christian^ or the
Handbook (or Dagger, the word has a double meaning)
of the Christian Knight. Erasmus, who always knew how
to invest his books with a personal interest, tells how this
was written at the request of a lady who wished to reform
her husband, a great noble, jovial, hot-tempered, dissi-
pated, and completely illiterate. His name was John, and
the author remained on friendly terms with him for many
years, but his exact identity has never yet been put
beyond doubt. Possibly he was a certain John de
Trazegnies, who was decorated with the order of the
Golden Fleece in November, 1516, and who owned
J Lindeboom, passim, and especially pp. 156 ff.
56 ERASMUS
estates in Artois. At any rate, the book was begun at
Tournehem in Artois in 1501, and the dedication written
at St.-Omer, in the autumn of the same year.1
The title, Enchiridion, is borrowed from Epictetus, or
from Augustine, who applied it to small treatises on
things especially necessary to salvation. Luther later
took the word as the designation of his shorter catechism.2
The idea of the Christian Knight had been a common one
in the Middle Ages, being derived from the comparison
of the Christian life to warfare.3 The Latin translation
of Job vii:i, is, "Militia est vita hominis super terram,"
an interpretation followed by the early German ver-
sions, which rendered "militia" by "Ritterschaft,"4 St.
Paul, in the sixth chapter of Ephesians, fully describes
the armor of faith, and alludes to it elsewhere. The idea
had been further developed in the Middle Ages, especially
by the mystic Suso (1295-1366). The official title of the
Knights Templars was "Pauperes Commilitones Christi
templique Salamonis," and it is noteworthy that one of
their founders, Godeffroi de St.-Omer, came from the
same place from which Erasmus now wrote his introduc-
tion. The phrase "Knight of Christ" after 1450 had
become a catchword in German religious life. Certain
saints had been honored as Milites Christi, in which
character two had been depicted between 1420 and 1432
in the famous altarpiece of the Van Eycks at Ghent,
which was probably seen by Erasmus* Even Valla once
called himself "a Christian knight."
The first chapter of the Enchiridion carefully works
out this idea of the warfare of life, while the second
describes the arms of the Christian, and the third
1 Allen, ep. 164, Text of the work, LB. v, I fF. C/. Allen, i, pp. 19, ao;
Nichols, i, 337, 376,
2 On the name, Du Cangc: Clossarfwn media1 et infima? ttitinitatis, /. P.
*P, Wdbcr: dlbrerkt Dtirers Weltanschauung (1909). H, Bergncr: **Der
christliche Hitter in <ler Dichnmj? und bildcnclcr Kunst/' Zritschrift /ur
J$uchffrfrfund(*t N. F. 6, 1915, »37 flf.
4 "Das leben <ks menschcn ist wne rittewchaft auf der Erie/1 in version of
1466, reprinted by W. Kurrclmcycr: l>*r erst* deutsch* Bibel, 19^0. Luther^
version was: "Muss nicht der Mcnsch immcr in Streit sein auf Erden?"
THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY $7
differentiates true from false wisdom. The fourth, fifth,
and sixth chapters contain the kernel of the book, the
distinction between the inner and the outer man: the
flesh and the spirit, the sensual and the moral, external
observances and internal righteousness. Fasting, without
a spirtual intent, may be a more carnal work than eating,
and the worship of the saints is often ignorant and
selfish :
There are those who worship certain heavenly powers with special
rites. One salutes Christopher daily, though only when he sees his
image, because he has persuaded himself that on such days he will
be insured against an evil death. Another worships St. Roch —
but why? Because he thinks to drive away the plague. Another
mumbles prayers to Barbara or George, lest he fall into the hands
of an enemy. This man vows to Apollonia to fast in order to escape
toothache; that one gazes on the image of St. Job to get rid of
the itch. Some give part of their profits to the poor in order to
keep their business from mishap; some light candles to Jerome to
restore a. business already bad.1
Such a cult of the saints is declared to be on a par with
idolatry; the names of Hercules, .ZEscuIapius and Neptune
are changed, but the spirit of the devotee is the same.
"The true way to worship the saints is to imitate their
virtues, and they care more for this than for a hundred
candles. . , . You venerate the bones of Paul laid
away in a shrine, but not the mind of Paul, enshrined in
his writings." The writer then goes on to discuss the
tripartite nature of man, the divine spirit, the animal
flesh, the human soul. He closes by drawing a number
of practical applications of his principles, especially
denouncing the evils of war.
The Enchiridion, first published at Antwerp in 1503,*
did not at once attract much attention. A reprint was
not called for until 1509, nor a third printing until 1515.
After this new editions came almost every year for a long
period; it was translated into Czech in 1519, into Dutch
1 LB. v, 23, A similar passage in the Praise of Polly y LB. Iv, 450,
f For the editions see MUiotheca Belgica, s. v» Erasmus, Enchiridion. Allen,
i, pp, »29» 373.
58 ERASMUS
in 1524* Spanish 1527, Italian 1531, Portuguese 15413,
Polish 1585, and Russian 1783. It found famous trans-
lators in the three great modern languages. William
Tyndale was probably the author of the English version
appearing without date (1518) as Enchiridion militis
Christiani, which maye be called in English? the hansome
Weapon of the Christian Knight. George Spalatin made
a German version in 1521, and the French reformer^
Louis de Berquin, put it into his mother tongue in 1529.
It had a deep influence on the more spiritually minded
men of the day. Albert Diirer knew it and may have had
it in mind when he made his famous woodcut, "The
Knight, Death, and the Devil"1 Jerome Emser? a dis-
tinguished Catholic theologian, spoke highly of it, and
apparently superintended an edition of I5J5'2 Luther
knew it through and through. His sermons and letters
of 1516 and later have many echoes of the passage on the
worship of saints, translated above.3 Luther's famous
work, The Liberty of a Christian Man> has a striking
resemblance to the Enchiridion, both in its leading
thought of the distinction between the inner and outer
man,4 and in the idea of the universal priesthood of
believers as worked out from the New Testament by
Erasmus.5
1 Dated 1513; he alludes to the Enchiridion in 1521, See Durers Sckriftlickt
Nachlass, ed, Heidrich, 1908, p. 100,
8 Allen, ep. 553; BiUwtheca Bdgica.
8 Sermons, July 27, 1516 (luthers Wetke, Weimar, i, 62); February 2, 1517,
ibid., i, 130; cf. also i, 420 and iv, 636. Most of all the sermon of December
4» 1517; *^"f » w> &39» and in a sermon preached in 1516, but retouched for
publication in 1518, ibid., 411-426* Here Luther advance* on Erasmus and
says: "In our time the cult of the saints has gone so far that it would be
better if their days were not kept, nor their names known at all." Cf, further
a passage in a letter of December 31, 1517, Endcrs: Luthtrs Britftvechstl> i,
136; LC ep. 46,
4C/, chapters 4 and 6f of the Enchiridion^ with Lutkm Wtrk^ vii? 12 ff
and 39 ff,
1 Cf. LB. v* 47, with Luthtrt Wttke, vii, 24.
CHAPTER III
ENGLISH FRIENDS
ERASMUS made at least six visits to England, the
first lasting from June to December, 1499, the sec-
ond from the autumn of 1505 to August, 1506, the
third from about October, 1509, t6 July, 1514, the fourth
in May, 1515; the fifth in the summer of 1516; the sixth
a brief visit in April, 1517. He sometimes wished that
England were joined to the Continent by a bridge, for
"he hated the wild waves and the still wilder sailors/*1
Indeed, in that age the passage was far worse than it is
now, when it is still so much disliked. Bad weather and
storms often caused delays of many days, or even weeks
before the small boats, sixty feet in length, dared to
venture forth. The time required was greater than it
now is, and accommodation and food for the passengers,
of whom seventy were taken at a time, were poor.2
The first trip was made in the company, and probably
at the invitation, of Lord Mountjoy, whom Erasmus had
been tutoring in Paris. The young nobleman, though
still a minor, had been married for more than two years,
but his child wife remained in the custody of her father,
Sir William Say. It was to the estate of this gentleman,
at Bedwell in Hertfordshire,3 that Mountjoy and his
tutor first repaired. Erasmus was delighted beyond
words by his reception here, and pleased with Mountjoy's
bride and her kind father.4 Charmed with the blandish-
1 Allen, ep. 756, January 7, 1518.
* E. S, Bates: Touring in 1600 (191 x)» p. 64, and the account of Casaubon's
passage in 1610, M. Partisan: Casaulonf 1892, pp. 274 ff.
"Nichols, i, p* 200; Allen, i, p. 238. Enthoven, ep. 12 (January 28, 1528,
not as dated in Enthoven).
4 Allen, ep. 115; Nichols, ep, 104.
59
60 ERASMUS
ments of that most pleasant of all resorts, an^ English
country house, he almost threw aside his studies.1 He
himself also made a good impression on his hosts. A
young man who visited Bedwell twenty-nine years later
found that "it was still full of memories of Erasmus/'2
The enthusiasm of the young Dutchman was reflected in
one of his gayest letters to his gay friend, Faustus
Andrelinus.3
We, too, have made progress in England. The Erasmus you
knew has almost become a good hunter, no bad rider, a courtier
of some skill, bows with politeness, smiles with grace, and all this
in spite of his nature. What of it? We are getting on. If you are
wise, you, too, will fly over here. Why should a man with a nose
like yours grow old among those French "merdes."4 But you will
say your gout detains you. The devil take your gout if he will
only leave you! Nevertheless, did you but know the blessings of
Britain, you would run hither with winged feet and if the gout
stopped you you would wish yourself another Daedalus.
To take one attraction out of many; there are nymphs here with
divine features, so gentle and kind that you would easily prefer
them to your Camense. Besides, there is a fashion which cannot
be commended enough. Wherever you go you are received on all
hands with kisses; when you leave you are dismissed with kisses;
if you go back your salutes are returned to you. When a visit is
paid, these sweets are served; and when guests depart kisses are
shared again; whenever a meeting takes place there is kissing in
abundance; in fact, whatever way you turn you are never without
it. Oh Faustus, if you had once tasted how soft and fragrant those
kisses are, you would wish to be a traveler, not for ten years, like
Solon, but for your whole life, in England.
The habit which pleased Erasmus so much was indeed
noticed by many travelers in Britain at this time/ and
the coaxing young man* "most inclined to love/"6 as he
11 Allen, ep. 136, line 46, referring to the whole visit in England,
aEnthoven» ep, 12.
8 Allen, ep, 103; Nichols, ep, 98. Summer, 1499.
4 This worcl "inertia," though found in Horace, was hardly in decent usage,
Erasmus quoted it from one of Faustus's own poems,
fi Some references given in Nichols, t, p. £04; more in Mrs. H, Cust; Gentfe*
men JBrrant, 1909, pp. 43, 496-498, The same freedom of kissing pretty
women was noted by Balcus in his Description of Switzerland
quoted in $, M. Jackson: U* Zwingli, 1900, p. 16.
* Allen, ep* 107, October, 1499.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 61
called himself, would be likely to make the most of his
opportunities.
From Bedwell Erasmus went with Mountjoy to the
latter's country house at Greenwich. Here he met young
Thomas More, later destined to prove himself, by his
noble Utopia and by his courageous resistance to tyranny,
the chief ornament of his country. Among the friends of
More, Erasmus met also a certain Arnold, who may per-
haps be identified with Richard Arnold, a citizen of
London, who died in 1521, and whose Chronicle, pub-
lished in the Netherlands in 1502, furnishes information
about the coinage and tolls of Flanders, but is* chiefly
remembered for containing the famous ballad "The
Nut-Brown Maid/'1 Through the good offices of More,
Erasmus was taken to Eltham Palace, near Greenwich,
and presented to the children of Henry VII, all but
Arthur, who was away being educated. "In the midst
of the group," says the visitor, "stood Prince Henry, then
nine years old, and having already something royal in
his demeanor, in which loftiness of mind was combined
with singular culture. On his right was Margaret, about
eleven years old, afterward married to James, King of
Scots, and on his left played Mary, a child of four.
Edmund was an infant in arms."2 More presented a
complimentary address or poem to Prince Henry; but
Erasmus was unprepared, and angry at his companion
for not having warned him, especially as the boy sent
him a little note challenging something from his pen.
Immediately on returning home he wrote a poem
entitled Prosopopoeia Britanniae Majoris* in which
Britain speaks her own praises and those of her king.
It was printed, with a flattering introductory letter to
1 On Arnold, see Dictionary of National Biography, and J, M. Berdan;
Early Tudor Poetry, 1920, pp. 153 f,
2 Allen, i, p. 6; Nichols, i» p. 201, The scene here described has been made
the subject of a beautiful painting by Frank Cadogan Cowper, in the Houses
of Parliament. More is kneeling, presenting Henry with his writingj while
Erasmus stands behind More to the left,
«LB i, 1213 ff.
62 ERASMUS
Prince Henry1 in the first edition of the Adages (1500).
The letter concludes with an exhortation to literary
studies, and a complimentary allusion to Skelton, "that
incomparable light and ornament of British letters/5
As Skelton is also mentioned in the poem itself/ and as
he was tutor to Prince Henry at this time^ Erasmus
must have met him. For the poet, whose works he could
not enjoy, as they were nearly all in English, he wrote
a laudatory lyric which he never published possibly
because Skelton did not on his side produce anything
in praise of the author, though he apparently wrote
something, or was expected to do so. The verse, which
has remained unpublished until the present,3 may be
translated as follows:
O Skelton, worthy of eternal fame,
Why should thy fount of speech pour on my name
The meed of praise, for I have never sought
Pierian grottos, nor drunk water brought
From the Aonian fountain, liquor which
The lips of poets ever doth enrich.
But unto thee Apollo gave his lyre,
Thou playest the strings taught by the Muses* choir;
Persuasion lies like honey on thy tongue
Given by Calliope, and thou hast sung
A song more sweet than dying swan's by far,
And Orpheus self yields thee his own guitar,
And when thou strlk'st it savage beasts grow mild,
Thou leadest oaks and stayest torrents wild,
And with thy soul-enchanting melodies
Thou meltest rocks. The debt that ancient Greece
To Homer owed, to Vergil Mantua,
That debt to Skelton owes Britannia,
For he from Latium all the muses led,
And taught them to speak English words instead
Of Latin; and with Skelton England tries
With Roman poets to contend the prize,
1 Allen, ep. 104; Nichols, cp, 97*
* lam puer Henrtcus genitoris nomine laettt* Monstrante fonteit vate
Skeltone sacros. (LB, i» 1216.)
3 Original in British Museum, Egerton MS. 1651, fol 6 f. For text s«
Appendix III.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 63
By autumn Erasmus was found at Oxford, staying at
St. Mary's College, a house founded in 1435 to enable
young Austin canons to study at the university. The
prior was a certain learned and virtuous Richard Char-
nock.1 A banquet, almost a Platonic symposium, in
which Erasmus participated, is described by him in the
following letter2 to his friend, John Sixtin, a fellow
countryman then also at Oxford:
How I wish you had been present, as I expected, at that last
feast of ours, a feast of reason than which nothing was ever sweeter,
cleaner, or more delicious. Nothing was wanting. A choice time,
a choice place, no arrangements neglected and fine little men, as
Varro says.3 The good cheer would have satisfied Epicurus; the
table talk would have pleased Pythagoras. The little men were so
fine that they might have peopled an Academy, and not merely
made up a dinner party. First, there was Prior Richard Charnock,
that high priest of the Graces; then the divine who had preached the
Latin sermon that day, a person of modesty as well as learning;
then your friend Philip, most cheerful and witty. Colet, assertor
and champion of the old theology, was at the head of the table.
In December, Erasmus returned to London and pre-
pared to depart from England. He summed up his
impressions of the land to his old friend Robert Fisher,
then in Italy, The letter, perhaps, was intended for
general perusal:4
But you will ask how I like England. Believe me, my Robert,
when I say that I never liked anything so much before. I have
found the climate here most agreeable and salubrious; and I have
met with so much civility, and so much learning, not hackneyed and
trivial, but deep, accurate, ancient, Latin and Greek, that but for
curiosity I do not now much care whether I see Italy or not. When
1 hear my Colet I seem to be listening to Plato himself. In Grocin
who does not marvel at such a perfect world of learning? What can
be more acute, profound, and delicate than the judgment of Linacre?
What has nature ever created more gentle, sweejt, or happy than the
genius of Thomas More?
1 Allen, ep. 106,
4 Allen, ep. n6; Nicholas, ep, 205, November, 1499,
8 Varro, Men, 335.
4 Allen, ep. n8; Nichols, ep. no.
64 ERASMUS
On January 27, 1500, Erasmus was at Dover, about
to embark for Boulogne/ but at the port he had an
unpleasant experience. All his money was confiscated
in accordance with the English law that no coin might
be exported from the realm.2 This injury he never
either forgot or forgave, occasionally using the word
" English" as a synonym for "rapacious."3
At Boulogne he was also rigorously searched, but the
fact that he had nothing left prevented him from losing
anything more. ViaTournehem and Amiens he journeyed
to Paris. At the little inn at St.~Just~en~chaussee he and
his English companion tried in vain to procure a room to
themselves. They were sure that the gentleman who
shared their room was a robber and they waited like
victims for the sacrifice, watching and sleeping by turns.
At length Erasmus arising at five o'clock on the cold
morning of February 2d? and finding that his sword had
been removed from his bedside, aroused the house-
hold and insisted on starting away at once, A long
dispute over the bill and the coins offered by the guests
was followed by another tedious argument over the
horses. So much for the pleasures of touring in the
sixteenth century!4
The hope of a benefice drew Erasmus to England for
a second time in the summer or autumn of 1505. A
living had indeed been promised by Henry VII,5 and so
vivid was Erasmus's expectation of it that lie took the
trouble to get a dispensation from Pope Julius IF to
meet any difficulties that might arise from his illegitimacy.
This dispensation, which closely resembled that later
1 Allen, i» p. 274.
* Allen, i, p. 16; Nichols, i» p, 227,
8 Allen, ep, 123, In contemporary French literature "Anfllais" was a name
applied to a creditor. It is so found in GuHbume Cretin (c, 1500) and in
Jodelle (155*)- Cf. K. Fournicr: Le Theatre Frangait au XFh fft XVII*
sieclft s. d., p. 56, note.
4 Allen, epp. n<)» 120; Nichols, epp* 122, in. Allen, iv» p, xxi,
* Allen, cp. 189; Nichols, ep. 188; April, 1506,
8 This dispensation, dated January 4, 1506* in Allen, ep, i87a, iii, p, aocix.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 65
granted by Leo X,1 was doubtless, like that, procured
through the assistance of powerful friends at court. The
Holy Father wrote his beloved son that the latter 's "zeal
for religion, honesty of life and character, and other laud-
able merits, probity, and virtue, for which you have been
commended to us by faithful testimony, have induced
us to show you special grace and favor," consisting of
an absolution from all defects inherent in illegitimacy
and the right to hold certain benefices in England.
Erasmus's hope, however, of obtaining one of these, was
disappointed at this time.
At London he lodged either with Foxe, Bishop of
Winchester, or with Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.2
With the latter he formed an intimacy which lasted
through life. John Fisher was in 1506 about fifty-five
years old. He had been made Vice Chancellor of Cam-
bridge University in 1501, and had worked energetically
to infuse life into that then somewhat torpid institution.
In 1503 he had been appointed to the chair of divinity
by its founder, the king's mother, Lady Margaret Tudor,
Countess of Richmond, and a year later had become
Chancellor of the University. On April 12, 1505, he was
made president of Queen's College, an office which he
held for three years. On meeting Erasmus in London at
this time he probably took him up to Cambridge and
offered him a professorship. The markedly humanistic
bias of the statutes of Queen's drawn up at this time
certainly shows the influence of the Dutch scholar.3
Erasmus petitioned for and received permission to study
for a doctorate in theology, but he soon gave up the idea
in order to go to Italy. The grace granted him by the
university shows that he was expected to lecture on
Paul's Epistle to the Romans.4
1 Allen, ep, 517; Nichols, ep. 499. January 26, 1517.
8 Allen, ep, 185, ilote.
* On Fisher, Dictionary of National Biography, and life by Bridgett, 1880.
On Erasmus at Cambridge, Allen, i, pp. 590-593,
* Grace Book T containing the records of the University of Cambridge, 1501-42,
eel W» G. Searle, 1908, p. 46, Grace dated 1505-06.
66 ERASMUS
But when Erasmus returned again to England some
years later Cambridge was more successful in getting his
services. He arrived in England in the autumn of 1509,
and for a year and a half afterward his life is shrouded
in mystery. Part of the time was spent at More's house*
part with Andrew Ammonius, an Italian of Lucca, Latin
secretary first to Lord Mountjoy and then to Henry
VIII.1 Though Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, resigned the
presidency of Queen's College, Cambridge, in 1508, he
still continued to be Chancellor of the university.
Regarding the co-operation of Erasmus as necessary
to carry through the humanistic program he had at
heart, in the summer of 151 12 he secured the appoint-
ment of his friend as lecturer in Greek. Not long after
this (about November) Erasmus accepted the chair
of divinity founded in 1503 at Cambridge by Lady
Margaret Tudor, and began to lecture on Jerome, and
probably on other subjects. One of his pupils, Robert
Aldridge, later wrote him that the semester spent under
him, introducing both the serious and the pleasant side
of literary study, was more profitable than years with
other teachers.3 Another of his pupils at this time was
probably William Tyndale,4 later the famous reformer
and translator of the Bible. Something of Erasmus's
spirit towards his work may be seen in the following
conversation reported by himself.5
You will laugh, I know, at what I tell now. When 1 said something
about an under teacher, a man of some reputation said with a smile:
"Who would submit to pass his life in a school among boys who
could live in any fashion whatever elsewhere?" I answered softly
that I thought it a highly honorable office to bring up youth in
virtue and learning; that Christ had not despised that age upon
which kindness is best bestowed and from which the richest harvest
1 Allen, I, p. 455.
* Allen, cpp. 242, 229* On the lectures, ep, 233, On a request from the
university to Lord Mountjoy to contribute to Krausmus's salary, Allen* x» p*
613; Nichols, ii, pp. 73, 88,
3 Enrhoven, ep, 40, (15*16?)
4 A, W. Pollard; Records of the English ftiblf, 1911, p, 4,
8 Allen, ep. 337; Nichols, ep, 231.
FRIENDS 67
might be expected, as indeed it is the seed-plot and planting-ground
of the commonwealth. I added that any really pious person would
be of opinion that there was no duty by which he could better serve
God than by drawing children to Christ. He sneered and said:
"If anyone was so bent on serving Christ he had better go into a
convent and become 'religious/" 1 replied that Paul places true
religion in offices of charity, and that charity consists in doing all
the good we can to our neighbors.
From his professorship Erasmus received thirteen
pounds a year in addition to board and lodging, but
he was not allowed to take fees from the students,
according to their customary practice — an abstention
of which he later made a virtue.1 With John Fisher
he continued on terms of intimacy until death parted
them. In August, 1516, he visited him at Rochester
for about ten days in order "to translate him into
Greek," — i. <?., to give him lessons in that tongue.2 It
was at this time that he became well acquainted with
the bishop's library, which he describes as its owner's
paradise.3 While he earned some money by teaching
and writing, he received most from patrons. In Novem-
ber, 1511, he returned from a visit to London with a
purse stuffed with seventy-two nobles.4 He had no
false delicacy in requesting financial assistance, though
he was occasionally snubbed for his pains, even by
his good friend Colet.5 From another patron, Andrew
Ammonius of Lucca, a humanist who had sought and
made his fortune in England as a Latin secretary,
Erasmus received frequent presents of wine.6 He
greatly appreciated these, and soon became intimate
with Ammonius as a kindred spirit. Not only is their
correspondence extant, but there is also preserved a
poem of the Italian humanist in acknowledgment of a
gift of the sweetmeat then called marchpane. Ammonius
1 Allen, ep, 296, !, p» 569.
2 Alien, ep* 452; Nichols, ep, 438.
8 To Fisher, September 4, 1524, Lond. xviii, 47; LB. ep. 698.
4 Allen, ep. 241,
6 Allen, epp. 225, 227, 230, 237*
8 Allen, epp- 226, 228, 234, 236, 238, 240.
68 ERASMUS
declares that he has never found anything nicer or
sweeter than that cake, which has long been esteemed
at the pope's table, save only the witty conversation
of Erasmus.1
In order to further his own advancement Erasmus
was not above practicing the usual arts of suitors,
which he wittily describes.2 He was able in 1511 to
bid up his price in the English market by showing a
letter3 promising him a benefice in Brabant; he used
this to get an appointment to an English living in the
gift of William War/ham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
with whose praises his letters at this time ring.4 Erasmus
had met Warham, perhaps through Colet's introduction^
in January, 1506, or shortly before. At the first inter-
view he presented the prelate with a translation from
Lucian and received in return a present which hardly
came up to his hopes.5 However, Warham proved one
of his most constant patrons in after-life. Of his pressing
attentions Erasmus says;6
It is often our own fault that friendships are broken. ... As
a youth I offended grievously. For had I then met the advances
of great men who began to take me up, I should have been some-
thing in the literary world; but an immoderate love of liberty caused
me to contend for a long time with perfidious friends and with
dire poverty. Nor should I ever have ceased doing so had not
1 The poems of Ammonias are printed in an extremely rare volume, of
which a copy is at the Bibiiotheque Nationale, Paris. I take this, however,
from the MS. transcript at the Public Record Office, on which see Calendar
of State Papers of Henry Fill, 2d ed. by Brodie, i, App. 5, anno 1509, The
poem reads:
Ad Erasrnum Theologum me$$o crustulo quod marsium pancm vocant.
Nil mi lautius csse suaviusque
Mcnsts pontificum esr diu probation
Unum $ctl modo dulcxus rcpcrtutn
Argute eloquium tuura cst, Erasme!
* Allen, cp. 250; Nichols, ep, 241,
8 Allen, ep. 214451; Nichols, cp. 406, anno 15x6,
4 Allen, epp, 243, 252, November, 1911, and February, 15x3, Cf. <sp. 334»
May, 1515.
6 Allen, i, p. 5, and cp. 188.
6 Adagia, chil. 4, cent, 5, prov, x (1515.) IB. ii, 1050*
ENGLISH FRIENDS 69
William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man not more
reverend for his title and office than for his noble virtues worthy
of a prelate, lured me, fleeing as it were from him, into the net of
his friendship.
Warham did indeed appreciate the worth of the
Dutch scholar and wrote him? while he was in Italy,
offering him money if he would consent to spend the
rest of his life in England.1 When Erasmus did return
to London Warham took him up and, hearing that he
had a cold, sent him twenty gold "angels/' as the Eng-
lish coins were called from the image of an angel stamped
on them, hoping that among them would be found
Raphael the physician of salvation who would heal the
sick man and restore him to his former health.2 The
same loving patron collated him, on March 22, 1512, to
the rectory of Aldington in Kent, worth thirty-three
pounds six shillings and eight pence a year;3 as money
would then buy at least ten times what it does now, this
income would be the equivalent of some $i, 600 nowadays.
As the appointee had no intention of performing the
duties connected with this office, and was, indeed, on
account of his ignorance of English, unable to do so,
he scrupled a little at accepting it. Warham, however,
urged that he did more good by his books, which taught
many preachers, than he would perform by personal
ministrations in a small parish.4 Later, in deference to
his wishes, Warham changed the living for a pension,5
charged on the revenues of the parish, at the same
time protesting that it was never his habit to burden
churches with payments to absentees but that he felt
1 Allen, ep, 214. There dated May, 1509. In Geldenhauer's Collectanea,
ed. Prinsen, 1901, pp. 19 f, it is dated 1521.
2 Allen, ep, 24oa; "*» P- xxxi, November n, 1511, On Raphael the Physician,
Luihers Werke (Weimar), xxxviii, 280 ff.
3W, Vischer: JErasmiana (1876), ii, r, p. 8. Erasmus's acceptance of the
benefice through four men appointed to act as attorneys (procuratores, actores,
factores negotiorum et nuncii speciales), ibid., ii, 2. On the value of the
benefice, Allen, i, p* 501,
4 In the JScclesioftfSt 1535, LB. v, 8n f; Nichols, ii, p. 64.
8 Vischer, II, 3, p. 13,
70 ERASMUS
constrained to make an exception of Erasmus^ "a most
consummate master of Latin and Greek9 who like a
star ornaments our times with his learning and elo-
quence/' and who, moreover, prefers England to Italy,
France, or Germany. Wherefore he was granted a
pension of twenty pounds per annum from the revenues
of Aldington. This stipend, regularly paid throughout
the rest of Erasmus's life, was perhaps his most depend-
able source of income. The archbishop also procured for
Erasmus exemption from the higher tax normally paid
by foreigners appointed to English benefices.1
Though there is no positive evidence to show that
Erasmus ever visited his parish, he may have done so
at the time when he made a pilgrimage to the shrine
of St. Thomas of Canterbury.2 His own interesting
account of this trip in the Colloquies, is worth tran-
scribing. He was accompanied by Colet, whose name
is rendered as "Gratian Pullus, an Englishman of note
and authority, who, though probably not a follower of
Wyclif, had read his books/'3
"The church dedicated to St. Thomas," he says,
"rises so majestically into the air, as to strike even
the distant beholder with religious awe. Two vast
towers seem to greet the pilgrim as he approaches,
while the pealing of their bells echoes far and wide over
the country. In the south porch are three statues of
1 The archbishop's mandate reprinted in A. T. Bannister: Registmm
Car oli Bothi Episcopi Herefordensis* x$ 16-35* 1921, p. 246,
2 Allen, i, p. 501,
3 There is no special reason to place this visit at Easter* 1506, as Renaudet
Rev ue Historiquf, cxi, 1912, p. 260, does, because the court made the pilgrimage
then. On Erasmus's trip* sec Pertgrin&tio fdigionis ffrga. LB, i, 684 f, and
783 f* C/. Modus orandi9 LB. v, mo. J, II. Lupton (Lifeof Cokt, 1887, p.
206) puts this trip "presumably in 15 14*" but the time cannot be determined
with accuracy. I borrow freely from his translation of the colloquy, and from
his excellent notes. He explains the name ^ivcn Colet as follows: Gratianus
is John, because John means "grace/' Pullus, he says, ia derived from the
dark color of Colet's clothes, "vesdmentis pullis," But I believe pullus wa»
used in the sense of "young animal11 and stood for "colt/* The identification
is certain, as Colet is mentioned as Erasmus's comrade In this pilgrimage in
the Modus orandt> v, 1119 f.
ENGLISH FRIENDS yi
armed men, they who impiously murdered the saint.5*
Their names, he goes on to say, were Tuscus, Fuscus, and
Berrus, thus distorting the names of three of the four re-
puted assassins, Tracy, Fitz-Urse, and Brito. After more
details about the appearance of the church he continues:
On the altar is the point of the sword with which the archbishop's
skull was cloven. We religiously kissed its sacred rust, on account
of our love for the martyr. Entering the crypt, the skull itself
was displayed to us, incased in silver, though with a part at the top
left bare to be kissed. . . . There also are hung up in the dark the
hair shirts, girdles, and bands with which that prelate used to subdue
the flesh. The very appearance of them made us shudder, such
a reproach were they to our luxurious softness. Thence we returned
into the choir, on the north side of which are repositories for relics.
When these were unlocked, from them were produced an amazing
quantity of bones: skulls, jawbones, teeth, hands, fingers, and arms,
all of which we adoringly kissed, until my companion, a man less
well disposed to this department of religion than I could have wished,
not over politely refused to kiss an arm which had bleeding flesh
still attached to it. ...
Next, the pilgrims were shown the immense store of
costly vestments and precious metals bestowed on the
shrine by pious persons. At this point Colet burst out
again.
"Is it true, good father," said he, "that St. Thomas was very
good to the poor?" "Most true," replied the other, and began
to relate many instances of his bounty. . . . "Then," continued
Colet, "sin^e the saint was so liberal to the destitute when he was
himself poor and in need of money, do you not think that now,
being so rich and having no use for money, that he would take it
patiently if some poor woman, for instance, with starving children
or a sick husband, and destitute of all support, were to ask pardon
and then take some small part of the great riches we see for the
relief of her family? . . . I, for my part, am quite convinced that
the saint would even rejoice at being the means, in death as in life,
of assisting by his riches the destitution of the poor." At this the
attendant began to knit his brows and glare at us, and I have no
doubt would have turned us contumeliously out, had he not learned
that we had an introduction from the archbishop. I pacified him
as best I could, telling him that my companion never meant a word
he said, but was only joking, and at the same time I put a few shillings
into the box.
72 ERASMUS
Next the sacristy was visited, and more relics ex-
hibited. The guide had the poor judgment to offer
Colet as a souvenir a handkerchief once used by the
saint to wipe the sweat from his brow and to blow his
nose, and showing plainly signs of the use to which it
had been put. Colet regarded it with a derisive whistle
and turned contemptuously away. As they were leav-
ing, an old man offered them St. Thomas's shoe to
be kissed, whereupon Colet flared up with: "What do
the dolts mean? Next they will bring us his excrements
to kiss."
Though Erasmus represents himself as deeply morti-
fied at his friend's manners, he tells the story in a way
that shows he appreciated the humor of the scene.
There was never a drier wit than his; no writer has
ever had such a gift of ridiculing a usage while pre-
tending to hold up his hands in holy horror at the
profanity of those who did the like. I have no doubt,
though it is hard to prove it or to bring it out clearer
in the translation, that Erasmus saw the absurdity of
kissing the sword which clove the archbishop's skull,
just as Luther later made fun of the exhibition of the
cord with which Judas hanged himself as a relic in
Rome.1 In fact it seems not unfair to say that during
the exhibition of the relics, while Colet fumed Erasmus
tittered. The two attitudes were becoming general in
Europe, and were both ominous of the Protestant
revolt,
In the summer of 1512 Erasmus made a pilgrimage
to our Lady of Walsingham, also described in the
Colloquies.* This shrine, in the northern part of Norfolk,
about sixty miles from Cambridge, ranked with Lorctto
and Compostella as one of the most famous in Europe,
and was served by the Austin canons of Walsingham
priory. Erasmus, called Ogygius in the Colloquy, was
* De Wette: Luther s J?r«V/r, vi, 323.
1 LB, i» 778 IF, Perfgrinatio feligionis trg&* Allen, ep» a6s attd note. Scse
also Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, x, m
ENGLISH FRIENDS 73
accompanied by Robert Aldridge, a student who was
enthusiastic about his teaching. There they beheld
among other relics St. Peter's knuckle and the milk
of the Virgin still liquid and saw her statue nod.1 Erasmus
hung up a votive hymn in Greek iambics, declaring
that, having no gold, silver, and precious stones, such
as other pilgrims heap on her shrine, he offered her the
best that he had, a song.2
While living as a student and teacher at Cambridge
Erasmus did not entirely neglect the lighter side of life.
He continued the equestrian exercise spoken of to
Faustus Andrelinus in the first letter from England.3
Ascham, who went to Cambridge in 1530, heard from
Garret a tradition that "when Erasmus had been sore
at his boke, for lacke of better exercise he would take
his horse and ride to Market Hill and come agayne."4
Incidentally this story shows that the professor was
living in comfortable style.
While at Cambridge Erasmus perhaps learned to know
the neighboring nuns of the convent of St. Clara at
Denny. At any rate we find him later in correspondence
with them. In a letter first printed in I5285 he thanks
them for their love and gifts and says he is glad that
his former letter pleased them. He sends them a little
flower culled from the ever-green garden of Isaiah — i.e.,
a little sermon on the text, "In silence and hope will
be your strength."
Erasmus was too restless to be content with any
position long. After lecturing at Cambridge for about
two years he gave up the work and shortly after left
England for the Continent. The pension of Warham,
as well as the enormous gifts of that prelate and others,
1 These nodding images were common, and a Httle later were ruthlessly
exposed when Henry VIII visited the monasteries. C/. Lindsay: History
thf Reformation, ii, 1907, pp. 343 ffl
*LB. v, 1325.
3 Allen, ep. 103,
4 Ascham: Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 46, Allen, i, p, 532,
8 Lond. xxx» 3; LB. ep* 497. C/< Allen, i, p. 174*
74 ERASMUS
made him feel independent.1 He hoped for higher
promotion however, and when disappointed passionately
accused the perfidy of his friends, especially of Lord
Mountjoy.2 He had been introduced at court, and had
dedicated to the king a translation of one of Plutarch's
works3 and to Thomas Wolsey, the rising favorite, two
other translations.4 He made nothing by them, however.
In July, 1514, he left England and spent a few
days at the castle of Hammes near Calais. There, or
just before his arrival, he received a letter from his
old comrade Servatius, now prior of the monastery of
Steyn, warning him that his protracted absence was
against the rule and perhaps threatening to take meas-
ures to enforce his return to the monastery. Erasmus
replied in a long letter5 excusing himself, on the ground
of his dislike of the monastic life and the delicacy of
his health. He defended himself for having doffed
his monastic dress, and enlarged upon the uprightness
of his life and the excellent influence of his works,
among which he mentioned the Enchiridion, the Adages^
the Copia, and the soon-to-appear Jerome, New Testa-
ment, and commentary on Paul's Epistles. The Moria
is conspicuous by its absence from this list,
In May, 1515? Erasmus returned to England to see
his old friends again, but stayed only a very short time.
In the summer of 1516 he traveled again to London for
the purpose of obtaining assistance from his powerful
patrons in a matter of importance and delicacy. Just
ten years earlier he had secured a dispensation from
Pope Julius to hold certain benefices notwithstanding
his illegitimate birth. He had, however, need of a new
dispensation and also of absolution for the performance
1 ID the epistle to Scrvatiua, July 8» 1514 (Allen, ep. 296; Nichols, ep. 290),
Erasmus says that besides the pension, Warham had given him 400 nobles
(about £130) and other bishops xoo nobles,
38 Allen, ep. a8x; Nichols, ep» 274,
I Allen, ep* 272,
4 Allen, cpp, 284, £97*
II Alien, ep. 296; Nichols, ep» 090$ July 8> 1514*
ENGLISH FRIENDS 75
of certain acts which had been, in the circumstances,
unlawful. Probably he had overstepped some rules
about clothing; and an effort was again being made
to compel him to return to Steyn. It seems likely that
Servatius and his old comrades there had ferreted out
fresh facts about Erasmus's birth, for a principal dif-
ference between the new dispensation and the old one
is that in the former Erasmus is described as born of
the union of a bachelor and a widow, while in the second
the union is labeled "damned and incestuous/' meaning
that his father was a priest at the time. Naturally
unwilling to have the affair made public, he needed
the assistance of friends no less discreet than powerful.1
Crossing the channel in July, he went to London and
was again the guest of Sir Thomas More, apparently with-
out much welcome from his host's wife.2 The interest of
Pope Leo X in the humanist having already been aroused,
it was determined to approach him on the matter
through Sylvester Gigli, Bishop of Worcester, though
Erasmus also wrote directly to the pontiff.3 Together
with this missive went a long one to a person in Rome,
probably Gigli, which was later published in the Opus
Epistolarum of 1529, with an address to "Lambert
Grunnius, Apostolic Notary." This letter, which has
been a puzzle to the biographers, is an appeal in be-
half of "a supremely gifted character/' called Florence,
who, with his brother Antony, had been forced into
the monastic life, in fact almost kidnapped, by "those
Pharisees who compass sea and land to make one
proselyte/'4 The story of Florence's life is given and
is easily recognizable, in spite of decoration, as that
of Erasmus himself. The name "Florence" was perhaps
chosen in allusion to Florence Radewyn, one of the
founders of the Brethren of the Common Life, after
1 Allen, ep, 451,
9 Allen, ep. 389.
- /HUGH, cp. joy.
8 Allen, ep. 446; Nichols, ep. 434,
4 Allen, ep, 447; Nichols, epp. 443, 444.
76 ERASMUS
whom was named a "Heer-Florenshuis" at Deventer.1
The identity of the Florence of this letter with Erasmus
was known to the author's amanuensis.2
The name Grunnius is also fictitious, being derived
from the Latin "grunnio," to grunt. It is found also
in the Praise of Folly, In this case it seems to stand
for Sylvester Gigli, to whom, we may conjecture, the
original letter was sent, not as coming from Erasmus,
but from his friend Ammonius.3 When Erasmus later
published this letter, in which for obvious reasons he
had greatly exaggerated the amount of pressure that
had been put on him as a youth and the evils of monastic
life, he thought fit to match it with a reply, probably-
founded on an actual letter sent to Ammonius by Gigli,
recounting how delighted was the Holy Father with his
style and what joy he took in granting the request.4
Ammonius, in fact, approved of the whole "fiction,"
and promised as much zeal in his friend's business as
if it were his own.5
The further progress of the negotiation may be traced
in the correspondence after Erasmus had returned to
1 Catalogs van de Incunabelen in de dthenfum-Bibliothek to Deventer, door
M, E. Krontnberg, 1917* P- xv"-
2 Allen, iii, p, xxv.
8 Cf. Nichols, ii, pp. 337-339; Allen, ii, p. 291. P. Kalkoff: " VcrmittlunKs-
politik des Erasmus," Archiv fur Re formations geschichtc, i, 1903^ p. 3^»oti».
Vischer first published the other documents concerning this episode in his
Erasmiana (1876) and Doctor Reich comments on it in his Mrasmns mm
Rotterdam (11896). He proves that the letter was sent to a real person (though
not bearing the name Grunnius). That Gifcli was the person is proved by the
fact that the letter was published by Erasmus in the first collection of epistles
to appear after he had heard of Gigli's death (April 18, 1521), by the slight
resemblance between the reply of Grunnius and the letter of February 9, 15*7,
from Gifcli to Ammonius (Allen, ii, p. 321), and by the fact that Lamlwtus
Grunnius is the metrical equivalent of Sylvester Giglius. This Latin conven-
tion in the use of factitious names was frequently, though not always, followed
by Erasmus. C/. Cantheliu* for Cornelius, That Ammonius sponsored the
letter is shown by the fact that the answer is addressed to him- C/* Leo to
Ammonius, January 26, 1517, Allen, «p. 5x7- Long after 1 bad written this
note I found the same conclusions in P. Mestwcrdt: DiV Anfiint* des Mrasmw>
1917, 189 ff.
4 Allen, ii, p, 312; Nichols, ep. 444,
* Allen, cp. 453; Nichols, cp. 439*
ENGLISH FRIENDS 77
the Continent. Ammonius wrote to Leo in September1
and received an answer in October,2 saying that the
pope was favorably disposed, but could not act until
he had returned to Rome, and that the Datary must
receive a sop. This Ammonius promised, but the next
answer was so tardy in arriving that Erasmus felt
extreme anxiety, fearing that "all was lost/'3 In
December Ammonius wrote that Leo was favorable
and that Gigli had forwarded a draft dispensation,
which he sent on to Erasmus for corrections.4 In
February, 1517, the humanist again offered more money,
and on March II thanked his friend at court for his
services.6 A day or two later he received the news
that the dispensation had arrived in London and that
it would be necessary for him to come to London to
confess and receive absolution. On March I5th he
agreed to do this, notwithstanding his hatred of the
sea.6 Even before he went to England, however, he
wrote, on April 4th, notes of thanks to Leo and Gigli.7
When he arrived in London, he found the dispensation,
dated January 26, I5I7,8 ready. In it Pope Leo granted
to Ammonius the right of absolving a certain person
from all penalties incurred by having put off his habit,
for having said masses, or for having done other things
unlawful for a bastard to do. He also allowed this per-
son to hold certain benefices, which, apparently, were
expected to be English.0 Under this power Ammonius
absolved Erasmus on April gth.
1 Allen, ep, 466.
a Allen, ep, 479; c/. Brewer: Letters and Papers of Henry Fill, ii, nos.
3 Allen, ep. 483.
4 Allen, ep. 498,
6 Allen, ep, 551.
"Allen, ep, 552, This letter, Inadvertently printed in the Farrago, was
carefully omitted from all later editions until Allen restored it,
7 Allen, epp, 566, 567,
8 Allen, ep. 517.
9 As shown by the reference to the constitutions of Otho and Ottoboni,
unless this wording is merely copied from Erasmus's earlier dispensation
(Allen, Hi, p. xxix) without any special significance being attached to it,
78 ERASMUS
With the main document Leo sent two letters, the
first private, giving his reasons for granting Erasmus's
request together with certain details as to the benefices
to be enjoyed, the second of a more general nature,
testifying to the scholar's merits, and suitable for show-
ing to friends or for publication. Gigli also wrote a
note of congratulation.1
This was the last time that Erasmus ever saw England.
With such good friends and generous patrons in that
country, it is perhaps strange that, after having spent
five years in it, he did not settle there. The reasons
are given by himself. He feared first the popular
hostility to foreigners, which showed so ugly a face
on "Evil Mayday," 1517. On that date, just after
his own return from London, the populace rose against
the foreign merchants, particularly his fellow country-
men the Flemings, and slaughtered some of them.
Erasmus also feared that the tyranny of the king would
impose on him a servitude which he could ill brook.
The later acts of the despot gave but too much color
to his fears.2
I have left to the last some account of Erasmus's
relations with his two friends, Thomas More and John
Coiet, for his acquaintance with them extended over
many years and was kept alive by frequent corre-
spondence during long absences* There is a story that
Erasmus and More first met at the Lord Mayor's
table in London and conversed for some time without
knowing each other's names, until the one exclaimed,
" You are either More or no one/' and the other replied,
"You are either Erasmus or the devil/'3 But this
legend bears the stamp of fiction. In all probability
the meeting occurred at Bedwell or Greenwich in 1499.
Thomas More was then twenty-one years old,4 already
1 Allen, epp, 518-520,
* Erasmus to More, c. July io» 1517, Allen, ep. 597.
s Cresacre More: Life of Sir Thomas More, 1631, p. 93.
4 On More's age, Allen, i, p. 266, and iii, p. xxiii. Apparently he was born
on February 6, 1478.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 79
practising law, but not relinquishing the study of the
humanities. It was a case of love at first sight; the
earliest letter/ Written by Erasmus on his thirtieth
birthday, is already full of the greatest affection. Of
his friend he has left us a sketch, no less perfect in its
way than are the pictures by his contemporary Holbein.2
In stature More is neither tail nor notably short and there is
such symmetry in all his members that you want nothing. His
complexion is pale rather than sallow, with just the faintest flush
under the skin; his hair is dark yellow, or, if you prefer, light brown;
his beard is sparse, his eyes bluish gray and spotted, which kind is
said to argue a most happy nature and is considered especially
amiable in England, though over here [in Brabant] we prefer black.
They say no kind of eyes are less susceptible to faults. His face,
agreeing with his nature, and wearing an habitual smile, plainly
shows his pleasant and friendly jocularity. Frankly, his face better
expresses merriment, though far removed from thoughtless or
scurrilous folly, than gravity or dignity. His right shoulder is a
little higher than his left, especially when he walks, which is a defect
not of nature, but of custom, like most of our habits. In the rest of
his body.there is nothing to offend. His hands are somewhat coarse,
at least compared with the rest of him. From boyhood he was
always most negligent of his body, so that he did not even care
for that which Ovid says men should especially care for. Now
perhaps he may think it time to throw overboard whatever beauty
he had as a youth; but I knew the man when he was but twenty-
three, for he is now not much over forty.
His health, even rather than robust, is sufficient for his civic
duties and very little subject to illness. We hope that he may
yet live long, for his father attained a green old age.
I never saw anyone less exacting in the pleasures of the table.
Until early manhood he preferred drinking water, as his father did.
But lest this habit should embarrass his guests he would pretend
to drink out of a pewter3 cup, filled mostly, if not altogether, with
water. It being the custom in England to invite a friend to drink
out of the same cup of wine, he will touch the rim with his lips so
as not to seem to omit the ceremony altogether, just as he performs
other common civilities. He prefers beef, salt fish, and coarse bread,
especially if sour, to the food usually delighted in. He is not averse
to other corporal pleasures. He is fond of things made of milk,
and of the eggs of hens and of other birds.
1 Allen, ep» 114; Nichols, ep. 103. October 28, 1499.
2 Allen, ep. 999. Erasmus to Hutten, July 23, 1519.
8 Stanneus, an alloy of silver and lead.
80 ERASMUS
His voice is neither loud nor very low, but easily heard. Though
not sonorous or soft, it is well adapted to speaking, for he does not
seem by nature formed for music, though he delights in it. He
articulates with marvelous distinctness, neither hurriedly nor slowly.
He delights in simple dress, nor does he wear silk nor purple nor
gold chains except on festive occasions when forced to. It is remark-
able how negligent he is of those polite forms which are commonly
esteemed. Not expecting them from others, he does not scrupulously
observe them himself, though not ignorant of them either in assem-
blies or at meals. He thinks it womanish and unworthy of a man to
waste time in these follies.
He has long been averse to courts because he always hated tyranny
and loved equality. For you will hardly find any court so modest
as to be without much bustle and ambition and deceit and luxury,
even if not tyranny. He could only be tempted into the court of
Henry VIII with much trouble, though he could wish for nothing
more civil and moderate than this prince. By nature he desires
freedom and leisure, though only to use that leisure well, for when
business calls him he is as patient and vigilant as any.
He seems born and made for friendship, which he cultivates
sincerely and tenaciously. Nor does he fear the multitude of friends
so little praised by Hesiod. He is open to the claims of all. By
no means peevish in his love, he is most obliging in cherishing
friendship and most constant in keeping it. If by chance he
becomes acquainted with anyone wh'ose vices he cannot cure he
rather withdraws from him than breaks with him. When he finds
sincere friends he so delights in their society and conversation that
he seems to place the chief felicity of life therein. He simply detests
balls, dice, cards, and other games by which the common run of
gentry while away their time. Moreover, though negligent of his
own interests, no one is truer in caring for the interests of his
friends. What more can I say? If anyone seeks the example of a
true friend he will find it nowhere better than in More. The sweet-
ness of his manners is so engaging and his comity so rare that there
is no one so sad whom he cannot cheer and no mood so desperate
that he cannot dispel it.
From a boy he so delighted in jokes that he seemed born for
pleasantry, though he is never scurrilous or sarcastic. As a youth
he both acted and wrote comedies.
Some anecdotes of Morels practical jokes are pre-
served, anonymously* in Erasmus's colloquy Exorcism
or the Spectre, printed in August, 1524. He there tells
how, while a party was riding to Richmond, one Polus,
a son-in-law of Faunus, pretended to see an immense,
ENGLISH FRIENDS 81
fiery dragon in the sky and, though there was really
nothing there, persuaded the whole party, one after
another, to say that they actually saw the portent, the
rumor of which went all over England. At another
time Polus played a trick on a foolish priest named
Faunus (not his father-in-law, but another man of the
same name), with the aid of his (Polus's) son-in-law,
the husband of his eldest daughter and a man of won-
drous jocund spirit, who did not abhor such foolishness.
One of the two dressed up as a cacodemon and appeared
in answer to a spell recited by Faunus, and wrote to
him a letter dated "The Empyrean, September 13,
1498."* The identification of the persons in this story
has been a riddle to all biographers, most of whom
would see More in Polus. But this solution seems to
me impossible, both because More was too young at
the date given to have a son-in-law, and because Polus
is said to be fond of hunting and hawking, whereas
More saw no pleasure in "the seelye and wofull beastes
slaughter and murder/'2 The Greek word Polos means
"colt," and the name here points rather to More's
father-in-law, John Colt. More would then be the
son-in-law, the youth of "wondrous jocund spirit/*
As he married probably in 1505, the date "1498"
must be corrected. The scene of the pranks is said
to be a country place near London, which would cor-
respond well with Colt's estate at Netherhall in Essex.
The interlocutors in the comedy are called "Thomas"
and "Anselm/5 The first was probably meant to be
Thomas Grey, a young Englishman of whom Erasmus
was fond, and one who very well knew both More and
Colt, for his ancestral property was adjacent to that of
Colt.3 The name of the other interlocutor, Anselm,
would suggest William Warham, who, like the earlier
Anselm, was Archbishop of Canterbury.4
a Utopia, book ii, Bohn edL p. 129. Life of More* by W. H, Hutton, p, 47.
3 Allen, ep. 829; To More, c. April 23, 1518. Cf,
* Erasmus knew a Swiss Thomas Anselm, but he is out of the question.
82
Erasmus loved to play jokes on his witty friend^
of which was a letter in trochaic tetrameter*
without division of Hues, as prose* sent to see if
More would detect the trick. As he to do so, a
good was raised at him. "For/* says Erasmus*
lie even loved Jokes made at Ms own expense. It was his fond-
ness for wit and fan, and especially for Liidans that made me write
the Praise of Potty 9 though to do so was like mating a camel dance.
But in all human affairs* light ©r serious, he takes pleasure. If
he has to do with learned men he delights in their genius; if with
fools, in their folly; for he can accommodate himself, with great
tact^ to all dispositions* With women in general, and even with
his own wife, he does nothing but sport and joke. You might call
him another Democritus, or rather that Pythagorean philosopher
who wandered idly through the market place only to see the tumult
of buyers and sellers. For though no one is less carried away by
the Judgment of the common herd, no one is less a stranger to public
opinion.
His special pleasure is to study the forms, minds, and habits
of animals. There is no species of bird which he does not keep
at his house, as well as a quantity of rare animals — monkeys, foxes,
ferrets, weasels and the like. He eagerly buys whatever is exotic
or rare and has his house so arranged that there is always some-
thing to catch the eye of anyone who enters* and he renews his
pleasure as often as he sees anyone else pleased.
Mote's low of animals is amusingly illustrated by
a story told in the Colloquies.1 While at his house
Erasmus saw a monkey protect some rabbits from a
weasel. Just as the weasel had dug tinder the cage
in which the rabbits were kept, the monkey moved It
along the ground to the waif, thus showing as much
intelligence as a man. Continuing Erasmus's biography;
In his youth he was not aYerse from the love of maidens, but
innocently, for he preferred rather to captivate than to enjoy them,
so that their souls and not their bodies were Joined.
From his first years he eagerly devoured the classics- As a youth
lie applied himself to Greek philosophy to such an extent that his
father* a good and otherwise sensible man, refused 10 help him
and almost disinherited him, thinking these studies detrimental
to the practice of law. This illiberal profession is in Engjbnd the
877.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 83
surest road to power, wherefore the greater part of the gentry apply
themselves to it and insist that it cannot be mastered without several
years of hard application. Although the genius of young More,
born to better things, shrank from this study, yet after tasting the
learning of the schools he applied himself so well to jurisprudence
that Etigants consult no one more readily, nor do those who have
never done anything else make more at the profession. So great
is the power and quickness of his mind! Moreover, he spent no
little labor on the volumes of the fathers. While yet a young man
he publicly lectured to a large audience on Augustine's City of God,
nor were old priests ashamed to learn theology from a young layman,
nor did they regret having done so.
At this time he applied his whole mind to religion, and with fasts,
vigils and the like meditated taking orders. This course was more
wise than is that of those who make so arduous a profession before
they have previously made trial of themselves. The only thing
that quenched his preference for this kind of life was his desire to
marry. He chose, therefore, to be a faithful husband rather than
an unchaste priest. So he married a young virgin of good family
and one who had spent all her time in the country with her parents
and with children, and was, therefore, uneducated, in order that he
might form her to his own character. He had her instructed in
literature and made skillful in all kinds of music, but just as he had
almost m;jde her such a person as he would have liked to pass his
life with, a premature death took her away, though not until after
she had borne some children, of whom three girls, Margaret, Aloys,
and Cecily, and one boy, John, survive.
The girl whom he thus married was Jane Colt, the
eldest daughter of John Colt, of Netherhall, near
Roydon, In Essex. More began by loving her younger
sister, who was the prettier, but, considering that it
would be a shame to the elder to see her junior married
first, he took Jane. They were married probably in
1505, and set up housekeeping in a small house in one
of the narrow streets of Bucklersbury, near Cheapside,
London. Erasmus was in England during the first
year of their married life, and perhaps himself wit-
nessed what he tells of it, without mentioning names,
in his Colloquy Uxor9 first published in August, 1523:*
*LB. i, 704; t*ui identification is due to Mr, P. S* Allen, London Times
Literary Supplement, December 26, 1918.
84 ERASMUS
I know a man of good birth and education and singularly clever
and tactful. He had married a young girl of seventeen, whose life
had been spent without a break in her parents' home in the country,
where noblemen usually like to reside, for hunting and hawking.
He wished his bride quite undeveloped, that he might more easily
mold her to his own tastes. He began to interest her in books and
music, to accustom her to repeat the substance of sermons she heard,
and to train her to other useful accomplishments. All this was
quite new to the girl. She had been brought up at home in complete
idleness, playing and talking to the servants. Very soon she began
to be bored, and refused to comply. If her husband urged her,
she would burst into tears; sometimes even throwing herself to
the ground and beating her head on the floor, as though she wished
to die. As this went on, the young man, concealing his vexation,
suggested that they should pay a visit to her parents in the country,
with which she joyfully fell in. On arrival he left her with her mother
and sisters, and went off with her father to hunt. As soon as the two
were alone, he told his story: how instead of the happy companion
he had hoped for, he found his wife perpetually in tears and quite
intractable; and he begged for assistance in curing her.
"I have given her to you," was the reply, "and she is yours.
If she doesn't obey you, use your rights and beat her into a better
frame of mind."
"I know," said the husband, "what my rights are; but I would
rather the change were effected with your aid and authority, than
resort to such extreme measures."
The father consented, and after a day or two found an opportunity
to speak with his daughter alone. Setting his face to severity he
said:
"You are a plain child, with no particular charm; and I used
often to be afraid I should have difficulty in getting you a husband.
After a great deal of trouble I found you one whom any woman
might envy; a man who, if he weren't very kind, would hardly
consider you worth having as a servant; and then you rebel against
him."
And with this he grew so angry that he seemed about to beat her:
all of course, in pretense, for he is a clever actor. The girl was
frightened, and also moved by the truth of what he had said. Fall-
ing at his feet, she vowed to do better in future; and he promised
continuance of his affection, if she would keep her word. Then
returning to her husband, whom she found alone in his room, she
fell down before him and said:
"Until now I have known neither you nor myself. Henceforward
you shall find me quite different: only forget what is past."
He sealed her repentance with a kiss; and in this happy state of
mind she continued till her death, Indeed, so great was the affection
ENGLISH FRIENDS 85
that grew up between them that there was nothing, however humble,
that she would not do at his wish. Some years after she used fre-
quently to congratulate herself on having such a husband: "without
him," she would say, "I should be the most miserable of women."
In another place Erasmus tells how More delighted
his bride with a present of sham jewels, apparently
letting her think them real. If the picture he gives of
their married life is not the happiest possible, one must
remember that deep love and joy came before the end.
In the epitaph he wrote she was his "darling wife/'
More was not long able to remain single [Erasmus continues],
though advised to do so by his friends, but a few months1 after
the death of his first wife he married a widow, more to give care to
his family than for his own pleasure ; for indeed he used to say
in joke she was neither pretty nor a maiden, but a keen and vigilant
matron. With her, nevertheless, he always lived as sweetly and
amicably as if she had been ever so beautiful a girl. Hardly any
husband obtains as much obedience from his wife by command as he
does by blandishments and jokes. . . . With like amiability he
rules his whole family, in which there is no tragic strife. . . . More
never sends anyone away with enmity on either side. Indeed,
happiness seems fated to this household, in which no one ever lived
who was not carried on to better fortune, and none who has lived
here has suffered any stain on his reputation.
More's sec6nd wife was a certain Mrs. Alice Middleton,
a widow with a daughter of her own. She had the
reputation among his friends of being "a crook-beaked
harpy."2 Probably she had more to endure than
Erasmus realized. Her gifted husband wrote that in
Utopia husbands chastize their wives, and he also
composed some epigrams on marriage that make pain-
ful reading. In one of the harshest he declares that a
wife is a heavy burden, but may be useful if she dies
quickly and leaves her husband all her property.3
Though somewhat autocratic with his children, More
loved them deeply, especially his gifted daughter
1 Just one month, according to other authorities.
2 Henry VIIFs Latin secretary, Ammonius, calls her this. Allen, ep. 451*
* T. Mori Opera, 1689, p. 241.
86 ERASMUS
Margaret, and he was, in turn, adored by them. He
instructed them all, girls as well as the boy* in Latin,
making them so wonderfully proficient as to excite the
admiration of Erasmus, to whom they all wrote letters.1
When Sir Thomas's fortune had grown great he built
himself a house in Chelsea, then not part of the great
city but a little suburb, which More called c*his country
place/* Erasmus describes it and the family in a
letter of I532.2
More built himself on the banks of the Thames not far from the
city of London a country seat which was neither sordid nor invidi-
ously magnificent, and yet ample; there he lives with his best friends,
his wife* his son and daughter-in-law, three daughters and as many
sons-in-law, with eleven grandchildren. . . . He loves his old wife
as if she were a girl of fifteen. . . . You would say that his house
was another Academy of Plato — but I wrong his home in comparing
it with Plato*s Academy, where questions of mathematics, and
occasionally of morals, were discussed. Morels house should rather
be called the school of the Christian religion. . . . There is no
quarreling nor scolding; no one is idle.
In his life of his friend, Erasmus adds :
More is most averse from filthy lucre. He has applied to his
children's wants as much as he thinks they need; the remainder
he freely spends. Although deriving his income from legal business,
yet he always gives true and friendly counsel to his clients, with an
eye more to their advantage than to his own. He persuades most
to settle their disputes out of court as the cheapest way. If they
refuse to do so he indicates the way of least expense, even though his
clients delight in litigation. In London, where he was bom, he was
judge in civil cases for some years. As this office is little burden-
some (for the court sits only on Thursday mornings) it is considered
especially honorable. No judge ever decided more cases or more
uprightly, so that he much endeared himself to his fellow citizens. . . .
Once and again More has been sent on legations, in which he has
borne himself so sagely that His Majesty Henry VIII never rested
until he had drawn the man into his court. Why should I not say
" drawn **? For no one ever strove harder to be admitted to a court
than he Aid to keep out of it. For truly, when die excellent king
1 To Bude, Anderiecht* 1521. Allen, ep.
* Erasmus to Fabcr> Loud, xxvit, 8, LB. App. ep. 426. Though without
date, it may S>e placed with much probability toward die end of 1532.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 87
purposed to surround himself with learned* grave, and wise men,
among others lie came upon More* and became so intimate with
that it seemed lie would never let him go. For if lie were serious
he found no better counselor, or if he were minded to relax his
with pleasant stories, he found no companion more festive. . . . Yet
If ore never became in the least proud* but in the midst of such
momentous business remembered his old friends and returned now
and then to his beloved Eterature. ...
But I pause to mention those studies which most recommended
me to More and More to me. In his youth he chiefly devoted him-
self to verse, but soon turned his attention to polishing his prose
and practiced all kinds of composition. Why should I say how well
he succeeded, especially to you who have his books in your hands?
He especially delighted in declamations and preferred to take the
harder side that he might thereby better exercise his talents. It
was on this account that as a youth he wrote a dialogue to defend
Plato's community of wives. He answered Luoan's Tyrannicide
and wished to have me as an opponent in this argument so as to
make his task ai the bander. He published the Utopm with the
purpose of pointing out what was amiss in the state, especially in
his own England. He wrote the second book fiist to while away
the time, and later added the first book ex timpore* For this reason
there is some inequality in the style, though you can hardly find
anyone else who speaks better ex tempore, for a felicity of language
accompanies his happily constituted mind. His intellect is ready
and alert, his memory good and, as it were, well ordered, so that
he can promptly recall whatever the time and subject require.
In debate no one is more acute, so that he can often make the most
eminent theologians work while discussing their own subjects with
them. John Cblet, a man of sharp and exact Judgment, was wont
to call him the unique genius of England, although there are many
brilliant Englishmen. More is a man of true piety, though most
averse from superstition. . . . He chats with his friends of a future
life in such a way that one may know he speaks sincerely and not
without good hope. Such is More, and yet some say good Christians
can only be found in monasteries!
The famous Utopia, here mentioned, is oae of the
world's great books. It was largely written at the
house of Peter Gilles, of Antwerp, while More was on
one of the embassies spoken of by Erasmus. The
manuscript must have been nearly complete when the
Dutch scholar visited his English friend at London in
the summer of 1516, but it was not sent to him for
88 ERASMUS
correction until September jd.1 He carefully polished
the style and added some notes,2 while another friend
of the author got an artist to draw a map of the imagi-
nary country.3 The first edition, under the title Utopia
sive de Optimo reipublicae statu. . . . cum notis Erasmi,
was printed at Antwerp in December, I5i6,4 being
intended as an etrenne (strena) or New- Year gift for
the author's friends.5
Erasmus rarely spoke of the Utopia with praise,
though, in forwarding the work to Froben, he did say
that he always approved all of More's writings.6 Another
reference, of a rather ambiguous nature, was to the
effect that in reading it one would find himself trans-
ported to another world.7 There may have been in it
several things to shock him, as the statement that Chris-
tianity, though known, was not the prevalent religion of
the ideal state. Perhaps the humanist regarded this as one
of the paradoxes which, like Plato's community of wives,
the author inserted as an exercise for his genius. His mild
censure of More's style, which, in its mixture of irony
and earnest, was not uninfluenced by the Praise of Folly,
is, coming from so fine a critic, worthy of consideration.
But the fact is that the Utopia deals with a subject
in which Erasmus had very little interest. Neither for
the romantic framework, borrowed from Vespucci's
travels, nor for the social problems at the kernel, did
he have much understanding or sympathy. The New
World meant little to him; the world of poverty and
1 Allen, ep. 461.
2 Allen, ep. 477; Nichols, ep* 464. The reading of the older editions,
"nusquam adorno," must be corrected to "Nusquamam adorno," Nusquama
being; the Latin name for Utopia,
3 Allen, ep. 487.
4 Bibtiotheca Erasmiana, Listes sornrnaires, in, p, 41.
6 Erasmus speaks of the custom of Englishmen of giving their own works
as strense; Allen, i, p, 8; ep, 187. To the references given by him in the notes,
add Roger Ascham; The Schokmaster (1571), English Works of R. A^ 1761,
p, 195: "I thought to prepare some little treatise for a New- Year gift/'
6 Allen, ep. 635.
7 Allen, ep* 530.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 89
toll and ignorance, nothing at all The Middle Ages
had much charity for the disinherited of life, but no
justice for them. In this Erasmus still belonged to
the age from which some of his contemporaries were
emerging. The German cities, exactly at this time,
were beginning to take measures for state poor relief,
soon to be discussed in a scientific treatise by the
humanist's friend, Louis Vives.1 But, save when they
gave him alms, the rich and mighty of the earth re-
garded the laborer as a sort of animal, "the ox without
horns" to be harnessed to the plow when good, and to
be hunted like a wild beast on the rare occasions when
despair prompted him to rebel against his lords. The
intellectuals made common cause with the masters.
Diirer planned an arch of triumph to commemorate
the suppression of the Peasants' Revolt; Luther and
Melanchthon joined Albert, Archbishop of Mainz, and
Matthew Lang, Archbishop of Salzburg, to beat down
in blood and blows the wretched workers who rose in
blind, almost animal fury, against intolerable wrongs.
The spirit of the humanists was but too faithfully
expressed in the Horatian verse, "I hate the vulgar
crowd and I keep them off!"
But the great heart of More went out to the people.
He thought not of charity and state employment and
all the other ways of dealing with paupers. He dreamed
of a society where there should be no poor, where gold
and jewels should be esteemed badges of shame, not
of honor, and where all men should share and share
alike. The sources of his inspiration were neither Plato's
Republic nor the writings of Roman and Christian
publicists, but his own experiences as lawyer, judge,
and government officer. He knew too well that what
we call government is but "a conspiracy of the rich
seeking their own commodity under the name of the
lD<f Subventions Pauperum,, by L. Vives, English translation Concerning the
Relief of the Poor, by M. M. Sherwood, 1917. On the whole subject see my
Age of the Reformationt 1920, pp. 557 IT,
go
weal/1 He saw that the
toward the poor Its incor-
ruptible; the laws of as
**irst thieves put to death." He
denounced the inclosiires of by
lords to wool for the so "sheep
now become devoured of men." He
for begging* monopoly* He
the policy of war diplomacy*
as the pathway to national power* denied
states had one standard of morality individuals
another. For poverty he suggested no palliatives*
a socialistic communism as a remedy, being persuaded
that if all men worked a few hours daily* there would
be enough to provide for all without superfluity/
Not only in politics* but in other matters, the Uto-
pians furnished an example of the highest enlightenment.
They studied literature, music, arithmetic* geometry*
and astronomy/* kit all that deceitful divination by the
stars they never so much as dreamt of, though raaeyf
even among Christians, to-day believe it/* Miracles
they regarded not as proofs of a particular religion, but
merely as strange occurrences* or natural prodigies.
They held that the chief felicity of man consisted isa
pleasure, by which they meant the reasonable exercise
of all man's powers* bodily and mental.
In depicting their cult More fulfilled the dramatic
exigencies of his story* and at the same time revealed
his own broad-mindedness* by making it what would
later have been called pure deism. Though this word did
not obtain currency until the seventeenth century, the
idea of a "natural "as opposed to a *c re veakd" religion
was a very old one. Accordingly* the Utopians beieved
in God and in the future Efef though the author remarks
1 Tiiere is a ine» though not historically well founded, painting of Mote
showing Henry VIII his Uiopw, with Erasmus standieg by. Tlbe artist if
E, Gwnrett* and the original is in the home of W. HL Walker* Gwat Bar*
Kingtoii, M astaclitBettf. It is iqpuDductd in Tke fntenuAiul S&mdt® for
September* 1917.
9i
that Christians doubted the latter article. The
priests of Nowhere were few and holy, of both sexes*
and allowed to marry. Their offerings were prayer and
incense. Their two religious orders devoted themselves
to useful and unpleasant work. Their tolerance was
broad; none was persecuted for his opinions — for they
were persuaded that it was not in a man's power to
believe what he list — but those who denied the existence
of Godj or the immortality of the soul, were debarred
from public office. The benign effect of their rational
polity and habits produced throughout their land a high
level of virtue, far ahead of that attained in Christian
countries. When Christianity was preached to them,
however, they gladly welcomed what was good in it, and
expelled only one missionary, whose zeal led him to
declare that all who were not Christians would be
damned, and to incite his followers to persecution.
Him they exiled not for his faith but for sedition.
Was Sir Thomas then a pure rationalist, tolerant of
all vagaries of religious faith, and holding strongly to
none except to the prime articles of belief in God and
immortality? The zeal with which he cultivated the
Catholic means of self-discipline, as well as his de-
fense of miracles daily taking place at shrines, and his
strong persecution of heretics in later life, show clearly
that he was neither a skeptic nor very tolerant. His
inconsistencies have been stressed sufficiently, and even
more than enough, but of them the true explanation
has never vet been suggested. It is to be found largely
in the distinction which More, in common with other
men of his time, drew between established, recognized
religions on the one hand, and heresy on the other.
He seems to have been deeply influenced by Cardinal
Nicholas of Cusa's tract On the Peace of the Faith.1
1 Nicolai Cusani De Pace Fidci. This was printed in a collection of his
Tractatou certl* which has conjecturally been put by the catalogue of the
British Museum, in 1505. I know it in the Paris reprint of 1514, at Harvard.
This explanation of More's apparent inconsistency, which seems so cogent,
was suggested to me by Prof. George Lincoln Burr.
92 ERASMUS
In this the great Catholic reformer of the fifteenth
century tells of a man animated with excessive zeal,
who persecuted the Turks beyond custom, but was
finally led by a vision and by meditation to see various
grounds for tolerating their religion. God had made
them all, he reflected, and moreover, the vast majority
of them had neither the opportunity nor the power to
choose their own religion, but were forced into it by
their governors and priests. He then heard, in imagi-
nation, an Arab, a Hindu, a Chaldean, and represent-
atives of many other religions, defending themselves,
and pointing out some truth in their respective faiths.
This view, that there were certain licensed religions,
was even reflected in the public law of Europe, which
subjected heretics, but not Jews, to the Inquisition.
All this More imbibed, and all this made him ready
not only to tolerate but to see good in a prescriptive
faith, a venerable and long-established cult with vested
interests and ancient beliefs. Very different were the
heretics, who were innovators, rebels, seditious, and,
into the bargain, often brawling and unreasonable and
themselves persecuting. Moreover, It is unquestionable
that More's liberalism was changed by advancing age
and the experience of one vast, subverting revolu-
tion. Like Luther and like Burke, More then became a
reactionary. He came near to recanting his earlier
opinions when he hoped that neither the Praise of
Folly nor the Utopia would be translated into English,
lest great harm should come from them.1 Yes, the
man who pointed out that one could not believe
what he list, punished with stripes and death those
who would have seceded from the Church. He de-
clared that the burning of heretics was lawful, neces-
sary, and well done,2 and that of all crimes he considered
heresy the worst.8 He kept up a war of pens against
1 Confutation of Tyndale, 1532-33, Workcs» 1557, p. 422,
2 Dialogue, Workes* 1557, pp. no, 274 ff»
* Apology, Workes, p. 866.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 93
the heresiarchs, writing against Luther in a style that
Erasmus thought more bitter than Luther's own.1
He reviled Tewkesbury, who translated Luther's
Christian Liberty and died for his faith, as "a stinking
martyr/'2 and he published long polemics against
Tyndale, the translator of the Bible into English. When
Tyndale defended himself by pointing out that many
of his translations were suggested by Erasmus, More
replied :3
He asketh me why I have not contended with Erasmus, whom
he calleth my darling, of all this long while, for translating this
word ecclesia into this word congregatio. And then he cometh forth
with his fit proper taunt that I favor him of likelihood for making
of his book Moria in my house. ... I have not contended with
Erasmus, my darling, because I find no such malicious intent in
Erasmus, my darling, as I find in Tyndale.
After Erasmus had left England for the last time
he occasionally saw More on the Continent. In the
year 1520 the famous Englishman was sent upon an
embassy to the Hanse Towns. From July igth to
August 1 2th he was at Bruges, actively treating with
the ambassadors of the Hansa, who noted his bland
English - manners.4 Earlier in July he had been with
Erasmus at the "Congress of Kings" at Calais, and had
there met Germaine de Brie, a Frenchman with whom
he had long been waging a war of epigrams on the sub-
ject of national honor.5 Erasmus tried hard to reconcile
the two, but in vain, at least until 1527, when Brie seems
to have got over his spleen.6
Next to Thomas More, Erasmus's best friend in
England was John Colet, to whom, as to a man of singular
1 LB, x, 1652. The "tertius quidam'* must be More; see English Historical
Review^ 1912, p. 673, note 23.
2 On Tewkesbury, "News for Bibliophiles," The Nation (New York), May
29, 1913.
3 Confutation of Tyndale, Workes> pp. 422, 425.
*IIanserffCffsre, 1477-1530, Band VII, 1905, bearbeitet von D. Schafer,
no. 332.
6 Allen, epp. 461, 1087, *°93? ^096,
8 Forstemann-GUnther, 67.
94
goodness* he was introduced by Richard Chamock at
Oxford in October* 1499. Of him, toos Erasmus has
left a charming sketch, a biography so true5 so beautiful*
so vivid, that a good part of it must needs be quoted.1
Colet was born at London of honorable and wealthy parents.
His fattier was twice mayor. His mother., yet livings a woman of
great goodness, bore her husband eleven sons and as many daughters*
of whom John was the eldest and would therefore have been the
sole heir according to British law* even if the others had survived,
but only one of them was alive when I irst began to know him. In
addition to such advantages of fortune he had a distinguished and
elegant person. As a youth at home he diligently learned scholastic
philosophy and obtained the reputation of a proicient in the seven
liberal arts. In all of these was he happily versed, for he devoured
the books of Cicero and diligently searched the works of Plato and
Plotinus, nor did he leave any part of mathematics untouched.
After this eager commerce with good letters he went to France
and Italy. There he gave himself to the study of sacred authors^
but after he had wandered through all kinds of literature, he still
loved best the primitive writers, Dionysiiis» Origen, Cyprian, Am-
brose, and Jerome. Among the ancients he was more hostile to
none than to Augustine.8
He even read Scotus and Aquinas when he had the opportunity.
He was well versed in the Canon and Civil Laws. In short there was
no book on the history and institutions of the past which he did not
study. The English nation has authors who have accomplished
that for her tongue which Dante and Petrarch have for Italian.
By studying them he polished his speech so as to be able to preach
the gospel. Returning from Italy, he soon left his parents* house,
preferring to live at Oxford. There he publicly and without reward
lectured on Paul's Epistles. Here I first began to know the man—
for some god or other sent me thither. He was about thirty years
old, two or three months younger than I. In theology he neither
took nor sought any degree, yet there was no doctor of theology or
law nor any abbot nor other dignitary who did not attend his lectures
and- bring with them their books. They may have done this to
1 Allen, ep. 1211.
***Nulii inter veteres iniquior quam Augustino**; it lias been proposed to
translate this, "To none did he give greater attention than to Augustine/"
for as a matter of fact Colet quotes Augustine more than anyone else, and
with approval. J. HL Lupton: Colet on the Moiak Jccowttt of Creation^ intro-
duction, xlv; Colet s Lectures on Romms* p. xxxix; Life of Cokt, 1887, p. 57*
But I cannot; find any good lexical authority for so translating "imquior."
Hie text is surprising, and is either corrupt or Erasmus's pen slipped and put
in one too many negatives. But set Allen's note, lvf p. 515, Sine 273.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 95
Cbleifs authority or to encourage Ms zeal* bet at any rate
old were not to learn a youth and doctors
one not a doctor. Later the degree of doctor was
honoris causa, fae took It to comply custom
because fee desired It. ...
Let me now make a few remarks about his nature, his paradoxical
opinions* die trials fey which his natural piety was buffeted.
Though endowed with a notably lofty which could brook no
evil, yet he confessed to me that lie was Inclined to lust* luxury,
and sleep* and not altogether safe from love of money. Against
these temptations he fought with philosophy, sacred studies, watch-
ing^ fasting, and prayer with such success that during Ms whole
life lie remained pure from stains of the world. As far as I could
gather from his conversation, lie kept the lower of his vugynity til
Ms deatli. He spent his wealth In pious uses and struggled against
pride, even allowing himself to be admonished by a boy. He drove
away concupiscence and drowsiness by perpetual abstinence from
food* by sobriety, by unwearied labors and holy conversation.
Whenever diance forced film either to joke with the meoy or to
converse with women or to participate in a rich banquet you might
see traces of his natural bent. Therefore lie abstained fiom the society
of laymen and even from their banquets, to which. If he were forced,
he would take some one like me* so that he might avoid their con-
versation by talking Latin. He would then eat a morse! of one
kind of food only, with one or two drinks of beer, abstaining from
wine* which, though lie took little, lie loved when good. Thus he
kept guard on himself and abstained from all things by which he
might offend. For he was not Ignorant that the eyes of al were
upon him. I never saw a richer nature. He delighted In men of
similar mind, though preferring to apply himself to the tilings that
prepare for a future life. He philosophized in every oiciunstauice,
even when he relaxed his mind with pleasant stories. The purity
and simplicity of his nature found delight In boys and girls, for
Christ summons his disciples to Imitate diem and compares them
to angels.
His opinions differed from those commonly held, but in these
points he yielded with wonderful prudence lest lie should offend
some one or damage his own reputation, for he was not Ignorant
how unjust are the judgments of men and how prone to believe
evil and how mucli easier It Is to contaminate a man's fame with
slander than to restore It with praise. Yet among learned friends be
freely professed what he thought. He said he considered the Scotists
to whom the common herd attributed a peculiar acumen, stupid fools
and anything but Ingenious. For to argue about the opinions and
words of others, gnawing irst at this and then at that, and cut-
ring up everything into little bits, is the work of a sterile and poor
96 ERASMUS
mind. He was more harsh to Thomas Aquinas even than to Scotus.
Once when I praised Aquinas; . . . after a silence he looked sharply
at me to see whether I spoke in earnest or in irony, and when he saw
that I spoke from my mind, replied, as though filled with a certain
spirit: "Why do you praise to me a man who, had he not had so
much arrogance, would never have defined all things in such a rash
and supercilious way, and who, had he not had a worldly spirit,
would never have contaminated the doctrine of Christ with his
profane philosophy?" I admired his earnestness and began to
expound to him the work of Aquinas. What need of words? He
entirely disagreed with my whole estimate.
Though no one had more Christian piety, yet he cared little for
monastic vows, gave little or nothing to monks and left them nothing
at his death. Not that he disliked the profession, but that the men
did not live up to it. He himself vowed to withdraw from the world
if he could ever find a company sincerely dedicated to an evangelical
life. He delegated this search to me when I went to Italy, saying
that when he was in Italy he had found among the Italians some
monks really prudent and pious.1 . . . He was wont to say that he
never found less vice than among married people, . . . and though
he lived so chastely yet was he less hard on priests who offended
in this point than on the proud, hateful, evil-speaking, slanderous,
unlearned, vain, avaricious, and ambitious. ... He said that the
numerous colleges2 in England thwarted good studies and were
nothing but temptations to idleness.
The influence on Erasmus of this stimulating per-
sonality was as immediate as it was profound. The
sketch just quoted, written many years afterward,
rightly mentions some of the points which particularly
impressed him; Colet's love of primitive texts, and
dislike for the later dogmaticians, Scotus, Aquinas, and
even Augustine; his criticism of the monastic life. In
a letter written shortly after their meeting Erasmus
emphasizes some of these same points, heaping ridicule
on the "new theologians" who have reduced divinity
to absurdity, by asking and discussing questions such
as, "Could God have become incarnate in a devil or in
1 Colet was probably thinking of the "Platonic Academy n of Florence, the
leading light of which, in his clay, was Pico de la Miranctola, On the saintly
and beautiful lives of these men» <r/, P, Monnier; Le Quattrocento, 1908, vol.
ii, pp* 75 fF. He may possibly have also met Savonarola*
2 In the original sense of foundations for poor students.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 97
an ass?" At the same time he upholds the authentic
theology of the Bible and the fathers. From this time
on we see him turning his attention more and more to
Jerome, regarded as the champion of humanistic the-
ology, to the Bible, and to the study of Greek.1
Erasmus, on his side, made a favorable impression
on Colet, who soon suggested that his friend should
place his talents at the disposition of the university by
lecturing either on divinity or on poetry and rhetoric.
Erasmus replied that the former he felt above his power
and the latter below his purpose.2
A sample of the friends' conversations is given in
some letters3 on a serious theological topic, namely
Christ's agony in the garden. Erasmus maintained the
conventional view that it was due to Jesus* apprehension,
as a man, of the suffering he was about to go through;
Colet, following a hint of Jerome, that it was due to his
sorrow at the crime about to be committed by the Jews.
The admirable spirit of the discussion may be seen in
the words of Erasmus, "that he would rather be con-
quered than conquering — that is, taught than teaching."
When Erasmus returned to England in 1505 he re-
newed his personal intercourse with Colet, to whom
he wrote, just before his arrival expressing his ardent
desire to devote his life to theology.4 He found his
friend in a new office, of which the account may best
be given in Erasmus's own words:5
From his sacred labors at Oxford Colet was called to London
by the favor of King Henry VII to be dean of St. Paul's,6 that he
might preside over the cathedral chapter of him whose writings
he so much loved. This is a dignity of the first rank in England,
even though others have larger emoluments. This excellent man,
as though summoned to a labor rather than an honor, restored
1 October, 1499. Allen, i, 246 fF. Cf, A. Humbert: Les origincs de la
tMologie moderns, 1911, 184 ff.
2 Allen, ep. 108; Nichols, ep. 108.
8 Allen, epp. 109-111.
* Allen, ep. 181; Nichols, ep. 180; December, 1504.
6 Allen, ep, 1211.
* Some time between June 20, 150=;, and June 20, 1506, Allen, iv, p. xxii.
08
die of the chapter and the
of every holy day in bis diiircSi^ delivering^
&Gitnon3 in the palace and elsewhere. In Ms homilies lie did
take the text at random from the of the day, bat chose one
line of aigument to which he for several consecutive dis-
cwiises— for example, the gospel of the the Lord's
prayer. He drew large audiences, were of the
chief men of the city and mint. He brought to tie
table of the dean, wMdi pretext of hospitality had
to luxury* Colet* according to Ms long-established custom,
without the evening meal. At his late lunch fee had a few guests;
the viands, though frugal, were dean and quickly served* and Ac
conversation was such as to only good and learned men.
After grace a boy would read aloud a chapter from the Epistles
of Paul or from the Proverbs of Solomon. From these lie
choose a passage, the meaning of which he would inquire both from
the learned and from intelligent laymen. His words? no matter
how pious and serious* were never tedious or haughty. At the end
of the meal, when all had eaten enough to satisfy nature, though
not appetite, he Introduced another subject, so that his guests
departed refreshed in mind and in body* better than when they
came and not overloaded with food. If there was no one at hand
able to converse (for lie delighted not in everyone) the
read a passage of Scripture.
He sometimes took me for a comrade on an outing "which lie
enjoyed more than anything; else; a book was always our com-
panion, and our words were only of Christ. He was so impatient
of all that was low that he could not bear even a barbarism or solecism
in speech. He strove for neatness in his household faritlttire, his
table* his clothes, and his books, but not for magnificence. He
wore only dark clothes* though commonly the priests and theologians
there wore purple. The outer garment was of simple wool; when
the cold required it he wore an inner garment of skin.
The ocoine of his office he gave to his steward for household
expenses; he himself applied his ample patrimony to pious uses.
For when at his father's death he inherited a large fortune* fearing
lest it might breed some ©Til in him if he kept it, he constructed a
new school in the churchyard of St. Paul's, and dedicated it to the
boy Jesus. He built a magnificent school-house in which two masters
might live and he gave them a large salary that they might teach
die boys gratuitously, but made the stipulation that only so many
pupils should be received. He divided them into four classes. Into
the first, that of catechumens, none were received who could not
read and write. The second class was taught fay the under master,
the third by the upper master. Each class was divided from the
others by a curtain which could be drawn and withdrawn at pleasure.
ENGLISH FRIENDS 99
Above the chair of the preceptor sat the boy Jesus as though teaching.
Him the whole class saluted on entering and at leaving. Above
was the face of the Fattier saying* "Hear ye him," for Colet wrote
these words at my suggestion.1 In the rear was die chapeL There
was no comer or nook in the whole school, nor separate dining and
sleeping rooms. Each boy had Ms place. Each class had sixteen
members, and the best scholars in each class were given higher
seats. All applicants were not admitted, but a choice made according
to nature and intelligence. That wise man saw that the main hope
of the state was in good primary education. Much as the enterprise
costs he allowed no one to help him. When some one left the school
one hundred pounds by will, Colet, knowing that the laity would
thereby arrogate some rights or other, got permission from his
bishop to apply the bequest to buying sacred garments for cathedral
use. For trustees of the school he selected neither priests, nor a
bishop and chapter, but some married citizens of good reputation.
To some one who asked him why he did this he replied that, though
nothing was certain in human affairs, less corruption was found in
such men than in others.
No one disapproved the school, but some wondered why he built
a magnificent house in the gardens of the Carthusian monks near
the palace at Richmond. He said that he prepared this seat for his
old age when he should be unequal to work or broken down with
illness and forced to withdraw from the companionship of men.
There he intended to study philosophy with two or three good friends,
among whom he was wont to number me, but death prevented his
plan.
When Colet died in Septembers, 1519, Erasmus wrote
to Fisher?
The death of Colet has been as bitter to me as the death of any
man within thirty years. I know that it is well with him, that
he is free from the calamities of this wicked world and enjoying
Christ, whom he loved so well while alive. Yet on behalf of the
public I must needs deplore so rare an example of Christian piety,
and so singular a preacher of Christ's doctrine, and on my own
behalf the loss of so constant a friend and so incomparable a patron.
All that is left to me is to discharge the offices due to the beloved
dead; if my writings have power I shall not suffer his memory
to die away among posterity.
1 For this school Erasmus wrote a Sermon 00 the Boy Jesus, which was
soon translated into English and has been edited by ]- H. Lupton In 1901,
as JSwifit Concio de pvtro Jesn. A sermon on the child Jims . . . in an M
English version of nnknwm Authorship,
'October 17, 1519. Allen, cp, 1030.
ioo ERASMUS
In pursuance of his intention of writing a biography
of his friend, Erasmus asked Lupset and others to send
him materials.1 When he finally accomplished his
purpose, two years later, he was not fully satisfied with
the result. He wrote to Lupset:2
I have gathered up Colet' s life in an epistle; if it seems too drab,
part of the fault is yours for not giving me information colored more
like the man. No one could have done this better than you. If
you had only made a proper selection of facts, I should greatly have
approved the manner in which you set them forth.
By dying when he did Colet escaped the storm of
the Reformation. There is good reason to conjecture
that he approved Luther's first steps,3 though, had he
lived, it is impossible to say what his subsequent feeling
would have been.
1 October 16, 1519. Allen, ep. 1026.
2 August 23, 1521. Allen, ep. 1229.
3 Erasmus sent Colet Luther's Theses on March 5, 1518 (Allen, ep. 786).
His answer is lost. On May 30, 1519, Erasmus wrote Luther that he had
powerful supporters in England. As Erasmus could hardly have meant More
or Wolsey or Warharn, may he not have been thinking of the Dean of St.
Paul's? Colet's life has been written, and many of his works have been edited,
by J. H. Lupton. (The Life, 1887). See also; F. Seebohm: The Oxford
Reformers, Colel, Erasmus, and MOTS, 1864.
CHAPTER IV
ITALY
SINCE the timeof ./Eneas many wanderers have sought
the shores of Italy. Some, like Hannibal and Con-
stantine, have come to found new empires; some, like
Pythagoras and Paul, to sow the seeds of new religions.
But in modern times pilgrims have mostly sought in
Italy the glories of times gone by. The shimmering
Ausonian haze still flames with the afterglow of an
ancient splendor. The noontide sun of Roman dominion
has been followed by a sunset of unparalleled beauty
and brilliance. The Eternal City was the political
center of the antique world and the religious center of
the mediaeval world. Most of what we call history has
happened within a radius of nine hundred miles from
the Capitol: 90 per cent of the story of our race is
told about i per cent of the surface of the globe.
Many were the motives which sent the contemporaries
of Erasmus to Italy. Luther went as a pilgrim to the
apostolic shrines: Diirer to study painting; Colet and
Lefevre d'll/taples to learn philosophy; Copernicus to
gather information on the ancient astronomers; Rabelais
and Hutten to taste a richer civilization than they found
at home. Erasmus says that the purpose of his visit
was partly to see the sacred places, partly to explore the
libraries and to enjoy the society of the learned.1 In
letters of a much earlier date he professes the practical
motive of taking his doctor's degree at an Italian
university.2
The long-sought opportunity came to him at last in
1 Allen, ep. 809, April 5, 1518.
2 Allen, ep, 75; Nichols, ep. 71. 1498.
101
102
1506* when John Baptist Boerlo, the Italian physician
of Henry VII, offered him the position of tutor to his
sons, John and Bernard^ whom he was sending to Italy
to complete their education.1 The boys are variously
described as extremely dull,2 and as modest^ docile,
and industrious.3 They had with them another tutor
named CIifton> an amiable young man.
From Paris the party set out southward, the road
lying through Lyons, The favorable impression made
by the excellent inns of France is recorded in the
Colloquies^
One could not be better treated at his owe house than at these
inns. ... At table some woman is always present to enliven the
meal with her charming humor and courtesy. The first one to meet
you is the landlady, who salutes you, bids you be merry and excuse
whatever you may find amiss. Then follows the daughter, an
elegant person, so gay in speech and manners that she might cheer
up Cato himself. They converse not as with strange gut* «.s> but
as with familiar friends. . . . The provisions, too, are splendid;
I can't understand how they do it at so small a price. . . „ They
wash your soiled linen of their own accord, and finally embrace you
at parting with as much affection as if you were their own brothers.
From Lyons the party proceeded through Savoy and
the Mont Cenis to Turin. As they were crossing the
pass a violent quarrel arose between the pursuivant of
the king of England and Clifton,5 which was later made
up over a bottle of wine. Seeing this conduct, Erasmus
conceived a strong dislike for them both, and avoided
their company, whiling away his time by composing a
poem on old age.6
Turin* the capital of the Dukedom of Savoy, was the
seat of a small and not very flourishing university/
1 Alien, i, p. 59; Nichols, i, p. 28. B. Rhenanus to Charles V.
* Nolhatc: Correspondents tfAlle Manuce, 1 888, p* 78.
8 Allen, ep. 195; Nichols, ep, 195.
* LB. i, p. ?*$.
* Catalogue of Lucubrations* Allen, i, p. 4; Nichols, i, p. 416*
8 Carmen £e $enect<Mis incommodis* LB. iv, 750 ff.
7 On Turin, Rashdall: Universities, ii, pp. 56-58. There was a Renaissance
church at Turk, completed 1498, but Erasmus was not interested.
103
There to be an old joke in Germany the
an at for the passengers to
degrees* and evidently the of Turin were
exacting. possibly Clifton
doctorates while passing-through. Erasmus
was by no of his mater; he worded
his letters to give the impression* absolutely
so* that he at the more
University of Bologna. His diploma/ dated
September 4* 1506, states that Baldesar de Bemecif
Archbishop of Laodicea* vicegerent and vicar general of
John Lewis della Rovere* Bishop of Turin,2 and specially
deputed vice chancellor of the university, having found
the candidate sufficient* grants the degrees of
master and doctor in theology.
Descending the Po to Pavia* the party had the op-
portunity of seeing some of the inest specimens of
Renaissance architecture — for example* the cathedral
and one of the university buildings begun by Liidovico
il Moro in 1490. Five miles north of the city stands
the famous Certosa. The nave of the cathedral* begun
in 1396* was completed in Gothic style in 1465: but
the rest of the church is of more modem fashion. The
cloisters and transepts had already been built in 1506,
and the facade was erected the next year. The work of a
number of different artists, it is often considered the
most elaborate and richly adorned example of its style
in existence.® Erasmus saw the wonderful monument,
but was impressed by the enormous expense* rather than
by the beauty of the thing, and by the pride, rather than
the piety* which made the rich desire sepulture in it.4
a Printed from Erasmiufc ®WB ospy in Epistofa famSKares IX J&fwiwt Rat.
ml Mmifttcinm Jmi&aiMtm, 1779, no. I, and in Viscfeer: Mr&smtm*, 1876,
P- 7'
* Doubtless a Hnsraati of tlic then reigning Pope Jufiw II, from wboai
Efasroos had just procured a dispensation. Pciiwps tins explains EnomnsT*
couise in stopping at Turin* and Ws reception there.
*Mneyi!0paim Bntaunca* s. w.
104 ERASMUS
Proceeding to Bologna, the travelers were soon obliged
to leave by the threat of a French army demonstrating
against the town, and to take refuge at Florence.1
Italy was now the bone of contention between greater
powers, the Empire, France, and Spain. While Spain
was firmly established in the south, Louis XII of France
was marching up and down, seeking what he could
devour in the north. Only the great states, the Papacy
and Venice, withstood his arms. Florence, under the
guidance of Machiavelli, enjoyed a somewhat precarious
neutrality, a buffer state between the powers of the
Golden Lilies, the Keys, and the Lions and Castles.
At Florence Erasmus was at the very heart of the
Renaissance. Hardly a great name either in art or in
literature that was not in some way connected with
her. Her cathedral and her marvelous churches stood
in 1507 much as they do now; they and her private
houses were enriched then, as now, with paintings and
statues of transcendent loveliness. But Erasmus never
mentioned the Duomo or the Badia, Santo Spirito or
Santa Maria Novella, the Campanile or the Baptistry,
or the various palaces and public squares. He spoke
of Dante and Petrarch as having done great things for
the vernacular, and he knew that some men spent their
lives expounding them.2 He said that he had read
Petrarch, Poggio, Filelfo, and Aretino; presumably he
meant their Latin, not their Italian works.8 He thought
Petrarch's style barbarous.4 He mentioned Savonarola
several times, though cursorily, as one who had the
gift of prophecy.5 The works of the great artists he
never described specifically, but only in the most general
way, showing that he was familiar with their favorite
subjects. The libraries of the humanists at Rome, he
observed, were full of pagan rather than of Christian
1 Alien, epp. 200-202; Nichols, epp. 198-200.
* LB, v, 954, and letter to Jonas, 1521. Allen, ep» 1211.
* Lond. xxvli, 38; LB. ep. 1284. To Damian a Goes, August 18, 1535.
4 Cicerontanus, LB. i, ioo8E.
B LB. v, 954, 985.
ITALY 105
art; In such places one saw Jupiter slipping through the
skylight into the lap of Danae rather than Gabriel an-
nouncing the conception to the Virgin Mary, Ganymede
stolen by the eagle rather than Christ ascending to
heaven, Bacchanalia and festivals of Terminus rather
than the raising of Lazarus or the baptism of Jesus
by John.1
From Florence the party was soon enabled to return
to Bologna, attractive as the seat of one of the oldest
and most famous universities in Europe. Though the
students were numerous, the academy had no fixed
buildings of its own, the professors lecturing at their
own houses. Bologna had just been at war with its
overlord, the pope, and the martial pontiff, Julius II,
had just conquered It. Erasmus was in time to witness
his triumphal entry.2 It occurred on November II,
1506, the lovely Italian weather still permitting the
roses to bloom. The pageant was a perfect specimen
of the festive art of the Renaissance. Thirteen triumphal
arches had been erected, bearing the Inscription: "To
Julius II, our liberator and most beneficent father."
First came the cavalry, the men at arms, and the
regimental bands. Then followed the papal officers,
the cardinals walking immediately in front of Julius,
who was carried in a chair of state, resplendently clad
in a purple cope shot with gold thread and fastened
with gems. He was followed by the patriarchs, arch-
bishops, bishops, generals of the orders, and papal
guard. The crowd of spectators was Immense.3
1 Ciceronianus, transl. by Scott, p. 75. From such allusions it is impossible
to say what pictures Erasmus had in mind. The famous "Danaes" of Titian
and Corre&gio came later; the "Annunciation" had been treated by Giotto,
Moretto, Fra Angelico, Solario (1508), and many others; the "Ganymede"
of Correggio came later; the "Ascension" had been treated by Mantegna and
others; Titian's " Bacchanal© " was painted in 1514, though there was one by
Piero di Cosimo painted c. 1485; there were many baptisms of Jesus.
8 Allen, ep. 203; Nichols, ep. 201,
8 Pastor: History of the Popes (English transl. by Antrobus, 1898) vi, 281.
On November 29th the Pope had an interview with Michelangelo in Bologna.
Ibid., 510.
106
of being Impressed by the of the
spectacle* Erasmus was scandalized by seeing the Vicar
of Christ celebrating bloody surveyed the
whole with a silent groan.1 His deep
contempt for the man who thus the Church
found expression* a few years later* in a
in which Julius is represented as in admis-
sion to heaven on the that his
had aggrandized the Roman Church.2 It is possible
that Erasmus may also have the pope*s
triumphal entry into Rome* on Palm Sunday* March 28*
I5®7» a spectacle which even the
procession at Bologna.3
Most of the year, however* he spent at Bologna
in study. Though disappointed in not finding there
anyone acquainted with Greek* he made several good
friends among the scholars, the best of whom was the
accompished Paul Bombasius* at this time a professor*
later secretary to Cardinal Pucci and then to Clement
VII.4
Erasmus had hitherto worn the dress of an Augustinian
canon, consisting of a long black gown, a capuce^ or
black mantle* and a white hood carried over the arm
like a scarf.5 It happened that at Bologna at this time
the dress of the physicians who attended victims of the
plague was very similar. On one occasion Erasmus was
actually taken for a physician* and would have been
mobbed by a crowd of citizens who feared he was
bringing in contagion, had not a kind lady explained
to them that he was an ecclesiastic. He therefore
hastened to get permission from the pope to wear the
* Jpol0gw wfo. Stmntc&my JLB. vc, 360.
1 On this dialogue^ see next chapter, pp. 127 €
* L. Pastor: History of ike Popes. (English translation by Antrobus), T^,
281, 287.
* ASSera, epp* 210, 2x7, 223* 251, 257; Nichols, i, pp. 426-427.
s These clothes might be of various colors, black white, violet or red. Cf*
KwfanUywnk 1883, II, p. 1829. On the Incident, Allen, i, pp. 59, 60* 571,
is» PP- 3<H ft Nichols, I» p. 29, i% pp. 14
simple dress of a priest* which he kept during his sub-
sequent life.
The year at Bologna was, as usual, filled with literary
work. Wishing to have some of his lucubrations pub-
lished^ Erasmus was naturally attracted by the fame
of the Venetian printer, Aldo Manuzio. To be a pub-
lisher in the sixteenth century was to be a member of
a learned profession engaged in the diffusion of science
and culture. Among the brilliant men who devoted
themselves to printing in its infancy none has attained
a juster renown than Aldo. Born just as Gutenberg
was making his momentous discovery (1450), Manuzio
gave himself a thorough training in Greek and Latin,
spending his earlier years in teaching. In 1490 he moved
to Venice, and before his death, in 1515, he had printed
twenty-eight editiones principes of Greek and Latin
classics, besides many reprints and other publications.
Deficient as some of these editions may seem in the
light of modern scholarship, only a man of rare abilities
and learning could have produced them at all. In
beauty and durability of paper, type, and binding, his
work has never been surpassed by all the appliances of
twentieth-century mechanics. There was, therefore,
no hyperbolical compliment in Erasmus's letter to Aldo,
requesting that his works might be made sure of im-
mortality by being published by him. A favorable
answer brought the humanist to Venice in November,
1507, where he spent just about a year,1 during which
time he was the guest of Aldo for about eight months.1
Here he published a new edition of Adages* in handsome
folio.
Aldo had gathered around him a number of learned
collaborators, among them the Greeks Marcus Musurus
and John Lascaris, who formed a society, devoted to
letters and philosophy, known as the Neacademia.
1 Alan, cpp. 207, 208. Of. Cambridge Modern ffisfory, jy 564; P. 4e Nolhac:
lesCorresprndmtotf JlfoMimii£e9i$$$» P.deNolhac:
»LB. 0,1137.
io8 ERASMUS
This society was extremely congenial to Erasmus, who,
as a matter of course, was admitted to membership.
In one of his Adages he relates the kindness of these
friends in lending him manuscripts and assisting him
with his Greek, and especially commends the noble care
of Aldo to have his edition as perfect as possible.1 One
of the scholars whom he especially mentioned in this
connection was Jerome Aleander, a young man of
twenty-seven, whose knowledge of Hebrew and Greek
had already won him distinction and who was to win a
still wider renown by the part he subsequently played
as papal nuncio at the Diet of Worms. At that later
time Erasmus conceived a deep hatred and suspicion
of him, but at Venice their relations were so warm that
they shared the same room for six months, and when
the Italian departed for Paris, in 1508, he was given
valuable introductions by his friend.2
If Erasmus was satisfied with the conditions under
which he worked, he was not at all contented with the
Venetian manner of life. In one of his Colloquies he
has given us a comically doleful picture of the hardships
he suffered in Aldo's house. One grievance was that
roots were burned as fuel, making nothing but smoke;
another was that the women were kept apart from the
men. In summer the house was overrun with fleas and
bugs. The wine was made by adding water to dregs
of ten years* standing. The bread, made of spoiled
flour twice a month, became as hard as rocks. There
was no breakfast; and dinner, which north of the Alps
was usually served at ten in the morning, was kept
waiting till one. After every excuse for delay had been
exhausted a dish of tallowlike mush would be brought
in. Though there were nine at table, the next course
would consist of seven leaves of lettuce dressed in vinegar
1 In the Adage, Festina knte, which first appeared in the edition of 1526,
LB, ii, 405; Nichols, i, 437 ff, quoted supra, p. 42*
2 Allen, ep. 256. P. KalkofF; Depeschcn des Nuntius Aleander m Worms,
*897> p. 74. Letter of Aleander, February 8, 1521. Paquier: L'Humanisme
ct la, Reforme, 1900, p. 27,
ITALY 109
without oil. The desert was a little cheese with three
pennyworth of grapes. But worse was yet to come!
In the autumn the fare consisted of small portions of
shellfish drawn from the sewers. When the guest com-
plained of these he was given soup made of the rinds
of cheese, followed by a bit of meat, taken, two weeks
previously, from the viscera of an ancient cow. The
batter with which it was covered was just enough to
deceive the eye, but not the nose. And when the guest
still complained his host hired a doctor to advise him
to eat less! And yet this miser, to whom Erasmus
gave a fictitious, but perfectly transparent name, made
a thousand ducats a year!1
Making due allowance for humor and rhetoric, it is
evident that the full-blooded Dutchman was very ill
satisfied with the frugal fare of the Italians. They on
their side marveled at his capacity for food and drink.
Many years later an enemy, who perhaps got his
information from Aleander, represented Erasmus as
both the servant and parasite of Aldo, and one who
"though doing only the work of half a man, was thrice
a Geryon for drinking, under the pretext that he needed
the stimulant/'2 Exaggerated as this charge must be,
it is a fact that Erasmus first felt at Venice the symptoms
of the then common disease known as the stone, which
he attributed to the poor food, but which is in reality
aggravated, if not caused, by the too exclusive use of
alcoholic beverages.3
At Venice, as at Florence, Erasmus was a little blind
to the wonderful art of his contemporaries, Bellini,
Carpaccio, Giorgione, Palma Vecchio, and Titian, none
of whom he seems to have met, and whose works he
never mentions.
In October or November, 1508, Erasmus left Venice
1 The Colloquy "Sordid Wealth," LB. i, 862 ff.
2J. C, ScaHger: Oratio pro Cicerone contra Erasmwn> 1531. Quoted S>y
Noihac: £rasme en Italu, p. 37. Cf. Apologia ad XX IP libros Alberti Pn.
LB. ix, 1136 f; Nichols, i, pp. 446-448.
3 Erasmus to Asola, March 18, 1523, Noihac, p. 107, no. 5.
no
for Padtia? the university town, or9 as Reliant calls it,
**the Latin quarter5' of the great maritime republic.
Here he became tutor to Alexander Stuart, a natural
son of James IV of Scotland, who was already appointed
to the archiepiscopal see of St. Andrews.1 The relations
of the two seem to have been pleasant and intimate,
Erasmus highly praises the personal appearance and
accomplishments of his pupil2 and relates how the lad
amused himself by imitating his teacher's handwriting.3
Besides Latin and Greek with the humanist, he was
reading canon law with another preceptor, and devoting
his leisure to history. In 1508 Alexander was joined
by his younger brother, also a natural son of the king
of Scotland, James Stuart, Earl of Moray, for whom,
many years after, Erasmus continued to make affec-
tionate inquiries.4
In December, 1508, the party went to Ferrara, famous
for the poets patronized by the house of Este. The
northern scholar apparently saw neither the poets nor
the princes. One of the most famous scions of the ducal
family was Isabella d'Este, who had married a Gonzaga,
marquis of Mantua. She kept up relations with Ferrara,
and also with Florence and Bologna during these years.
In 1537 Cardinal Bembo noticed a protrait of Erasmus
in her castle at Mantua, but this had almost certainly
been sent to her from Germany in I52I.B Erasmus did,
however, meet there a famous scholar, Celio Calcageini6
who weclomed him with an oration. Calcagnini was
1 On Alexander Stuart, who fell with his father at Fbdden, September 9,
1513, see J. Herkless and R. K. Hannay: The JrchUshops of Sf. Andrews,
it 215 ff, an<! Allen, ep. 604, 2, note.
*LB. il, 5546, Ada&9 "Spartarn nactus es, hanc oraa."
* To Pirckheimer, 1528, LB» iii, col loySB.
*To Hector Boece, LB. i, unnumbered page (anno 1550).
8 On Isabella d'Este, the life in two volumes by Julia Cartwrigbt, 1903;
on this portrait, ibid., ii, 378. V, Cian: Giomale Storico della Lett* Ital%a.n&»
1887, ix, S3 1. The painting, together with one of Luther, was probably sent
Frederic Gonzaga by his agent at Worms, See Preserved Smith; "Some
Early Pictures of Luther," Scriknrft Magmne, July, 1913, p. 244.
6 Allen, iii, p. 26.
Ill
a recently 31, 1503)
his in at Ferrara*
wrote a notable wort^of whica
sunrived : That the sky stands still
the moves. Long their first he
their relations by means of
letters. In his work on Free Will Calcagnini praised
Erasmuses book on the same subject/ and was rewarded
by compliments to himself in subsequent editions of the
Jtdagis in the Ciceronianns^ for which he wrote to
thank the author.1 At the same time he endeavored to
protect the humanist from Catholic attacks that threat-
ened in later life.1
After stopping only a few days at Ferrara, the royal
youths were taken by their preceptors to Siena. At
Carnival time* February, 1509, they saw a curious bull-
fight, in which the animal was confronted not by a
swordsman or by a mounted lancer^ but by wooden
images of various beasts, moved by men hidden inside
them.4 At Siena Erasmus met Richard Pace/ now a
student at Padua and later a trusted diplomatic agent
of Henry VIII. Another new acquaintance was James
Pi$o» ambassador of Hungary to Julius^ who found at
a bookseller's a manuscript codex of Erasmus's epistles,
which he bought and returned to the author. Not
thinking at that time of publishing his correspondence,
the humanist bunted the manuscript.® While recuperat-
ing from an illness he wrote a Declamation on Death,
later published.7
In the spring of 1509 Erasmus went to Rome.8 The
* C. C^crngmini Optra &J%m^ 1544, p. 395 fs to Bonawmttira
Ferran,. January si-Si, 1525.
9 Crfcagpliil to Erasmii% Septemlier 17, 1533. JU£, p. i66L
i to Augustine Eugtibiniu^ no date; *&££, p. 149.
3 Allen, eg». ziex
• Allen, ep. ±16: LB. cp. 507.
7 AJlen» ep. 604.
1On tihe ctiFosioIogy of Erasmus's mo¥ement% cf~ Allen, % p. 452. He can
be traced in Rome on April 6A and! April jotta.
02 ERASMUS
town5 of about 40,000 inhabitants, could not com-
pare in size or wealth with Florence (100,000) or Venice
(167,000), still less with Paris. Save for the papal
court, it was a city of the dead, living on memories of
its great past. "Without the curia Rome would resemble
a desert rather than a city/' said Paul Jovius, and
Erasmus expressed much the same opinion.1 "Rome
is not" he once exclaimed, "she has nothing but ruins
and rubbish, the scars and vestiges of her former calami-
ties."2 These ruins occupied more ground than the
inhabited region and among them wandered goats —
fit symbol of desolation. Visible remains of the world's
capital of a bygone age were the baths and theaters,
the Colosseum and many temples. It is remarkable
that while Luther's table talk has many references to
the antiquities he saw in 1510, Erasmus seldom speaks
of them. In fact, it is a comment on the indifference to
archaeological research of the greatest scholar of Northern
Europe that he did not know where the site of the
Capitol was, though the spot was then, as now, pointed
out to the traveler.3
The humanist did not, however, strike Rome quite
at the nadir of her glory. Half a century earlier she
had been still more squalid and neglected, but the popes
of the Renaissance had begun to make broader streets,
handsome squares, and beautiful buildings. The im-
provement received a great impulse from Julius II,
who brought from Florence and other cities the best
artists to beautify his city. Resolved to erect a new
and splendid church fit for the capital of Christendom,
he employed Bramante to make the plans. This architect,
with the superb self-confidence of the new age and its
contempt for the mediaeval 'style, began by destroying
the ancient St. Peter's and other monuments to such
1 On Rome in 1509, cf, E. Rodocanachi: Rome au Umps de Jules 11 ft de
Leon X, 1912. H. Bohmer: Luthers Romfahrtr 1914, pp. 88-158.
* LB. i, ro*6F.
* Allen, ep. 710; Nichols, ep. 683, November 13, 1517. C/. Mirdbili*
Urbts Romae, translated by F, M. Nichols, x88<), pp. 16, 88,
ITALY 03
an extent that his contemporaries dubbed him "Ruin-
ante." In 1509 the tribune and nave of the old church
were still standing, while of the new only a beginning
had been made. In this year Michelangelo was working
on the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael had commenced
decorating the Stanza della Segnatura. The Vatican
palace had been restored on a magnificent scale by
Nicholas V (1477), but was further enlarged by Julius II.
Bramante drew plans for two corridors from the old
Vatican to the Belvedere Place; the space between
them, 70 yards by 327 yards, was divided into two
courts, one of which was to make an arena for bull-
fights and tournaments.1 Though the work was not
completed until 1511, it is possibly here that Erasmus
saw a spectacle which he describes.2 "I was drawn to
it," says he:
by friends, for of myself I never take pleasure in these bloody
games, the relics of pagan antiquity. In the interval between the
killing of one bull and the bringing out of another, a marked clown
leaped into the midst, with his left hand wound in a cloak and with
the right brandishing a sword; he went through all the gestures
of real toreadors, coming up, retreating, and pretending to fight. . . .
This man's jokes pleased me more than the deeds of the others.3
This reminiscence serves to remind us that the Curia
was one of the gayest courts in Europe. The cardinals
had splendid palaces in the Borgo — the one good quarter
of the city — and lived like worldly princes. Erasmus
knew several of them, Domenico Grimani, who, with
18,000 ducats a year, received the humanist affably,
not as a man of humble rank,4 but as a colleague, and
Raphael Riario, Cardinal of St. George,5 one of the most
1 L. Pastor: History of the Popes, English transl. ed. by Antrobus, vi, 484.
> LB. x, 1754-
'The brutal sport was finally prohibited by Pius V in 1567, See Lecky:
History of Rationalism^ i, 303.
*To Eugubinus, March 26, 1531. Lond. xxvi, 34; LB. iii, col. 1374 f;
Nichols, i, p. 461.
6 Allen, epp, 333, 334; Nichols, epp. 318, 319, Allen, i, p, 568.
ii4 ERASMUS
powerful men at Rome, He also met Cardinal des
Medici, later Clement VII.1
Of the venality of the papal court he saw something.
He knew a man who made his living by fraudulent
dealing in benefices and had once cheated an applicant
for an Irish bishopric, by making him pay for an appoint-
ment to a see that was not vacant.2 Erasmus must have
seen many of the relics, mostly spurious and often
absurd, with which the Holy City was filled, for his works
are full of allusions to such things. He witnessed the
blasphemies,3 and also the levities, indulged in by
unworthy priests. On Good Friday, 1509, he heard a
sermon delivered by the celebrated Latinist, Inghirami,4
nominally on the death of Christ, but really stuffed
with fulsome flattery of Julius II, served up in the
purest Ciceronian rhetoric. The preacher, who neither
understood nor cared for his solemn subject, delighted
only to exhibit his learning by comparing the Saviour
in turn to Curtius, to Cecrops, to Aristides, and to
Iphigenia.
A severe moral judgment is occasionally expressed
in the Dutchman's allusions to Rome.5 The town was
full of demi-mondaines, some of whom lived in splendor,
like Greek Hetaerae, the friends of great men, and the
objects of poets* adulation. They often took classical
names, as Irnperia, Polyxena, or Penthesilea. It was
perhaps with an eye to one of them, or possibly to the
scandalous repute of Lucretia Borgia, that Erasmus
gave the name Lucretia to the harlot of one of his
Colloquies.® In this same dialogue the woman expresses
1 Letter of Medici to Aleander, autumn, 1521, instructing Aleander to treat
Erasmus considerately, Balan: Monumenta Reformationis Lutheran®, 1884,
no. 53 j Lamrner: Monumenta Vatican®, 1861, pp. I ff".
* De Lingua, LB, iv, 711.
a LB. i, 732C.
4 Ciceronianus, LB. i, 993 f; cf. Rodocanachi, p. 138. A portrait of Inghi-
rami by Raphael is at Fenway Court, Boston, Massachusetts,
6 LB. iv, 483. Praise of Polly. Nichols, ii, 6 ff.
6 LB. f> 718 ff. On these women see E, Rodocanachi: Courtisants et Bouffons,
1894-
ITALY 05
the opinion that all men who visit Rome are made
worse thereby, and the youth who is talking to her
replies that he? personally, has been saved by the New
Testament of Erasmus.
Although the Italian jealousy of foreigners later gave
rise to the rumor that Christopher Longueil, who was
copying manuscripts, was paid by Erasmus and Bude
to rob Rome of her literary treasures,1 the northern
scholar speaks well of his opportunities for study. His
literary work in the Holy City, however, was confined
to the composition of two orations, one in favor of
making war on Venice, and one against that policy, both
written at the express desire of Cardinal Riario for the
pope. Though the author put more heart into the plea
for peace, the other won the day.2
Of his general impression of Rome, Erasmus wrote
three years later to his friend Robert Guibe, a Breton
resident in the city:
Had I not torn myself from Rome, I could never have resolved
to leave. There one enjoys sweet liberty, rich libraries, the charming
friendship of writers and scholars, and the sight of antique mon-
uments. I was honored by the society of eminent prelates, so that
I cannot conceive of a greater pleasure than to return to the city.3
Before setting his face northward Erasmus, probably
in April,4 made a short visit to Naples, of which the
only incident preserved is his inspection of the Grotto
di Posilipo, on the road from Naples to Cumae, In one
place he calls it a cave of pirates, though named after
the Sibyls, and describes the walls as covered with
shells.5 Elsewhere he speaks of its darkness and of the
1 Pastor: History of the Popts, English transl. ed. by Kerr, viii, 228 f.
This was in 1518-19.
* Catalogue of Lucubrations, Allen, i, p, 37, In 1468 Bishop Roderic Sancius
of Zamora and Bartholomew Platina held a debate at Rome on a similar
subject, the former speaking for war, the latter for peace. G. Butler: Studies
in Statecraft, 1920, p, 14.
* Allen, ep. 253.
4 Allen, ep. 604, a note.
6 Adagia, LB. ii, no. 4120.
n6 ERASMUS
light of the entrance, shining in the distance like a star.1
A famous Neapolitan known to him, though perhaps
not until later, a man to whom he wrote of the libraries
at Naples, was John Peter Caraffa, founder of the
Theatine Order, and later pope as Paul IV.2
That Erasmus did not settle in Italy was due to the
high hopes of preferment held out to him by English
friends on the accession of Henry VIII to the throne
on May 22, 1509. The event was announced to him
by Mountjoy in words implying that the golden age
of learning was about to dawn, and that the new Henry
would be not only Octavus, but Octavius. The young
prince, he said, only wished he were more learned, and
promised to cherish all scholars, on the ground that
"without them we should hardly exist at all"3 Eras-
mus's hopes of profiting by the esteem of a prince
whom he already knew were increased by a letter from
Warham seeming to promise something definite.4 He
therefore hastened north, calling on Bombasius at
Bologna sometime before September 28th,5 and giving
him an eloquent account of his expectations. He
crossed the Spliigen to Chur, thence to Constance and
Strassburg, and so down the Rhine to Antwerp. After
a short visit at Louvain6 he proceeded to England.7
1 Allen, ep, 756.
8 Allen, epp. 377, 640; i, p. 550.
8 Allen, ep, 215.
1 Allen, ep. 214.
6NoIhac: Les Correspovdants d'Alde Manuce, 1888, p. 84; Nichols, i, p.
465.; Allen, i, p. 452.
6 Allen, ep. 266; Nichols, ii, p. 84*
7 Rhenanus to Charles V, Allen, i, p. 62; Nichols, i, p* 32.
CHAPTER V
THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
THE most widely read, though not the most im-
portant, work of Erasmus, the one which gave him
an immediate international reputation, was The Praise
of Folly, written just after his return from Italy, while
he was waiting in More's house for the arrival of his
books and was suffering from an attack of lumbago.1
Something of the spirit and intention of the Folly is
revealed in the dedicatory epistle to More:
On returning from Italy ... I chose to amuse myself with the
Praise of Folly (Moria). What Pallas, you will say, put that into
your head? Well, the first thing that struck me was your surname
More, which is just as near the name of Moria or Folly as you are
far from the thing itself, from which, by general vote you are remote
indeed. In the next place I surmised that this playful production
of our genius would find special favor with you, disposed as you
are to take pleasure in a jest of this kind, that is neither, unless I
mistake, unlearned nor altogether inept. . . . For, as nothing is
more trifling than to treat serious questions frivolously, so nothing
is more amusing than to treat trifles in such a way as to show your-
self anything but a trifler.
This last sentence gives the key to the Folly, It is a
witty sermon, an earnest satire, a joke with an ethical
purpose. Satire of this peculiar flavor, mockery with a
moral, was characteristic of the age. How much of it
there is in Luther, how much in Hutten, how much in
Rabelais, how much in the Epistles of Obscure Men!
1 Allen, epp. 337; 222; Nichols, epp. 317 (ii, p. 5), 212. The Encomium.
Moria is printed LB. iv, 381 ff; also see Stultiti<z Laus Dfs. Erasmi Rot.
Rf cognovit et adnotavit I. B. Kan. 1898. Many editions of the English versions;
see The Praise of Folly, written by Erasmus 1509, translated by J. Wilson,
1668, ed. by Mrs. P. S. Alien, 1913.
H7
n8 ERASMUS
Erasmus probably had many of the earlier satirists
in mind, though he mentions as literary sources only
classical models, beginning with the Batrachomyomachia.
He speaks particularly of Lucian, the author of dialogues
on the fly, on the parasite, and on the ass, and of course
Erasmus's careful study and translation of this author
contributed to his own mastery of the ironic style. But
there were certainly works nearer his own time which
also influenced him. If he would have scorned the bar-
barous Goliardic songs, which contain a vast amount
of mockery directed against the Church, he would have
felt much less repulsion for the works of Poggio and
Aretino, both of whom wrote Faceticz with many a
shrewd blow directed at superstition and human foibles.
He knew them both, as well as Skelton, the English wit.
At Rome he must have become acquainted with
one of the famous vehicles of caricature and lampoon,
the statue of Pasquin, from which the word "pas-
quinade** is derived. In 1501 there had been dug
up there a statue lacking nose, arms, and part of the
legs, which was then believed to be a Hercules, but is
now known to represent Menelaus carrying the body
of Patroclus. This statue was set up by its discoverer,
Cardinal Oliver CarafFa, in the Piazza Navona, near a
shrine to which a procession was annually made on the
day of St. Mark the Evangelist (April 25th). The
gaiety of the Roman populace, seeing something absurd
in the mutilated statue, began on these holidays to dress
it up in a travesty of some antique deity or hero. Thus,
in 1509, when Erasmus may well have been present,
the fragment was decked out to represent Janus, in
allusion to the war that had broken out with Venice.
The immense publicity given to the statue gradually
led to its being used as a convenient billboard for post-
ing lampoons — for the people, deprived of power, sought
revenge on their masters by heaping them with ridicule,
thus tempering despotism with epigram. Finally the
statue was named Pasquin after a citizen particularly
THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 119
noted for his biting tongue. By the year 1509 three
thousand of these epigrams were known, and a collection
of them had been published.1
But if Erasmus borrowed something from Pasquin,
he found a more direct suggestion for his literary form
in the Narrenschif of Sebastian Brant, first published
in 1494, and translated into Latin as Stultifera Navis
by Locher Philomusus in 1497, and again by Erasmus's
friend, Josse Bade the printer, in 1505, as Navis Stulti-
fera. It appeared in the French translation of Pierre
Riviere in 1497 as La Nef des Folz du Monde. Two
English versions, one by Henry Watson, and a more
famous one by Alexander Barclay, were printed under
the title Ship of Fools , both in I5O9.2
But .every reader of the Folly .j&u$£jb£~st£udk -by the
amount in it taken'Tfom the i^ijter^
When he speaks of what is rotten in Church or state,
his reflections are usually suggested .by something he
himself, h^s seen. When he satirizes the pope, it is
Julius II he has in mind; when he points out the asininity
of the theologians, his examples are drawn from the
lucubrations of his fellow student, John Major.3 And
if he drew few facts from predecessors, preferring to
paint from the life, he had even less in common with
their spirit. With Pasquin satire was a dagger, with
Brant a scourge; with Erasmus it was a mirror. It is
true that all satire starts with the axiom that the world
is full of fools; but whereas some men, like Brant and
Swift, take this to heart and with s&va indignatio gird
at folly as wickedness, and at wickedness as folly, others,
like Erasmus and Rabelais, find the idea infinitely
amusing. So the Folly personified by the Dutch wit
was neither vice nor stupidity, but a quite charming
1 See Encyclopedia Britannica, s. v. "Pasquinade," and E. Rodocanachi:
Rome au Umps de Jules II et de Leon X, 1912, pp. 153 ff,
2 Herford: Literary Relations of England and Germany in ike Sixteenth
Century* 1 886, p, 324, Mrs. P. S. Allen, op. atf pp. iv £ Later Erasmus
knew Brant personally, and wrote an epigram to him, LB. i, 1223.
8 £/„ supra, p. 23.
120 ERASMUS
naivete, the natural impulse of the child or of the
unsophisticated man. Though her birth is derived from
Pluto, she is no grim demon, but an amiable gossip,
rather beneficent than malignant.
Without her, society would tumble about our ears,
and the race die out — for what calculating wise man or
woman would take the risk of marrying and bringing
up children! Indeed, would women or children have
any attraction without her? — like Sir Thomas Brown,
Erasmus evidently thinks that the act of procreation
is one that no wise man would willingly perform. With-
out Folly, says our author, there would be more care
than pleasure; without her there would be no family,
for marriages would be few and divorces many. Nay,
there would be neither society nor government at all.
Did not the wisest legislators, Numa and Minos, rec-
ognize the necessity of fooling the people? Socrates
showed his good sense in declaring that a philosopher
would keep away from politics; Plato was mistaken in
thinking that philosophers should be kings and kings
philosophers, for history has shown no states more
miserable than those ruled by such.
Even the most esteemed arts owe much to Folly, for
medicine is mainly quackery and most lawyers are but
pettifoggers. In fact, men would be far better off if
they lived in a state of nature; just as, among animals,
bees, that live according to their instincts, fare best,
and horses, forced to unnatural labor, fare worst. So
the wisest men are the most wretched, and fools and
idiots, "unf righted by bugbear tales of another world/*
are happiest. How much pleasure comes from hobbies,
which are mere foolishness! One man delights in hunt-
ing, another in building, a third in gaming, but a sage
despises all such frivolity.
Next, the follies of superstition are satirized, at first
in words that remind the reader strongly of the En-
chiridion* The analogy between the worship of the
saints and the ancient polytheism is pointed out:
THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 121
Polyphemus has become Christopher to keep his devo-
tees safe; St. Erasmus gives them wealth; St. George
is but the Christian Hercules. "But what shall I say
of those who flatter themselves with the cheat of pardons
and indulgences?'* These fools think they can buy not
only all the blessings and pleasures of this life, but
heaven hereafter, and the priests encourage them in
their error for the sake of filthy lucre.
Each nation, too, has its own pet foibles. England
boasts the handsomest women; the Scots all claim
gentle blood; the French pique themselves on good
breeding and skill in polemic divinity; the Italians
point to their own learning and eloquence.
Neither do the wise escape having their own peculiar
follies. No race of men is more miserable than stu-
dents of literature.
When anyone had found out who was the mother of Anchises, or
has lighted on some old, unusual word, such as bubsequus, bovinator,
manticulator, or other like obsolete, cramped terms, or can, after
a great deal of poring, spell out the inscription on some battered
monument, Lord! what joy, what triumph, what congratulations
upon his success, as if he had conquered Africa or taken Babylon
the Great!
As for the scientists or "natural philosophers/*
How sweetly they rave when they build themselves innumerable
worlds, when they measure the sun, moon, stars, and spheres as
though with a tape to an inch, when they explain the cause of thunder,
the winds,, eclipses, and other inexplicable phenomena, never hesi-
tating, as though they were the private secretaries of creative
Nature or had descended from the council of the gods to us, while
in the meantime Nature magnificently laughs at them and at their
conjectures.
In this disparaging estimate of natural science, though
the speaker is Folly, we doubtless have the real opinion
of Erasmus, who, in this, but followed Socrates and the
ancient world in general. The theology of the divines
is still more ridiculous :
They will explain the precise manner in which original sin is derived
from our first parents; they will satisfy you in what manner, by
122 ERASMUS
what degrees and in how long a time our Saviour was conceived
in the Virgin's womb, and demonstrate how in the consecrated
wafer the accidents can exist without the substance. Nay, these
are accounted trivial, easy questions; they have greater difficulties
behind, which, nevertheless, they solve with as much expedition
as the former — namely, whether supernatural generation requires
any instant of time? whether Christ, as a son, bears a double, specially
distinct relation to God the Father and his Virgin Mother? whether
it would be possible for the first person of the Trinity to hate the
second? whether God, who took our nature upon him in the form
of a man, could as well have become a woman, a devil, an ass, a
gourd, or a stone?
So Folly enumerates the stupidities and injustices
done by the monks, who insist that ignorance is the
first essential, by kings and courtiers, by pope and
cardinals whose lives contrast so painfully with their
professions.
I was lately [she continues] at a theological discussion, for I often
go to such meetings, when some one asked what authority there
was in the Bible for burning heretics instead of convincing them by
argument? A certain hard old man, a theologian by the very look
of him, not without a great deal of disdain, answered that it was
the express injunction of St. Paul, when he said: "Haereticum hora-
inem post unam et aiteram correptionem devita."1 When he yelled
these words over and over again and some were wondering what
had struck the man, he finally explained that Paul meant that
the heretic must be put out of life — de vita. Some burst out
laughing, but others seemed to think this interpretation perfectly
theological.
If the passages just quoted represent rather the lighter
side of the satire, by which it was affiliated with Pasqnin
and the Obscure Men, there are not wanting admonitions
keyed in a higher mood. If the author was a wit, he
was also a scholar; if he was a man of the world, he
was also a moralist; and it is less the gauds of the
outer habit of fun than the solid gold of serious precept
within that make The Praise of Folly a criticism of life
1 /. en "A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition
reject/' Titus iii, 10. This incident was not invented by Erasmus, but was
told him as a real occurrence by Colet. See the note in his New Testament
to the verse cited.
THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 123
with permanent literary value. If he decks his orator like
Columbine to attract the crowd, he endows her with
eloquence worthy of a missionary to convert them.
When her cymbals have drawn an audience she forgets
her part, and Folly speaks like wisdom; indeed, the
most natural words to describe her animadversions are
the words of Scripture: "Whom she loveth she chasten-
eth." Hearken to her and hear the same message as
that set forth by the Christian Knight* and by St.
Peter himself: "To live well is the^way to die well;
you will best get rid of your sins by adding to your
alms hatred of vice, tears of repentance, watching,
prayer, and fasting, and a better life." Away with your
outward ceremonies and futile works by which, as by a
kind of religious mathematics, you would cheat God
and the devil; learn to do right and thus to cultivate a
pure and undefiled Christianity! The world then was
hungry for the words of reform and of the gospel; and
it was just because the satirist weighted his shafts of
ridicule that they carried far, even as one can throw a
heavy stone further than the lightest feather.
Though Erasmus completed the work in the summer
of 1509, and showed it in manuscript to several approving
friends, he did not print it until two years later.1 His
statement that Richard Croke,2 one of his English
pupils, was responsible for the publication, is either a
polite fiction or else a proof that he gave it to some one
else to have printed, in order to disavow it afterward,
if necessary. At any rate, Erasmus went to Paris, in
the spring of 1 5 n, to see it through the press. A glimpse
of his sojourn there is given in a letter,3 written sixteen
1 On the several editions, Bibliotheca JBetgica, Erasmus, Moria (Distribution
de 2 deccmbrf, 1908 ff); Allen, i> p. 459; Nichols, iS, I ffj Mrs, P. S. Allen,
op, ciL9 introduction.
38 See J. T. Sheppard; Richard Croke, 1919. Croke (c. 2489-1558) taught
Greek at Louvain, Cologne, Leipzig, and Cambridge, and filled several
diplomatic missions. Erasmus probably knew him at King's College,
Cambridge, where he was admitted as a scholar on April 4, 1506,
8 Enthoven, ep. 49; Nichols, ii, p. 12.
124 ERASMUS
years later, by Stephen Gardiner* the statesman and
prelate, at this time a servant of the humanist, and one
especially skilled in dressing salads. The first edition,
with a dedicatory epistle to More, dated June 9th,1
was printed, without date, by Gilles de Gourmont at
Paris in 1511. It was reprinted at Strassburg in August,
1511, and October, 1512; at Antwerp in January, 1512,
and by Badius at Paris, revised by the author, in July,
1512. In all, forty editions were called for during the
author's lifetime.
A commentary by Gerard Lystrius was added to the
Froben edition of 1515, and to most of the subsequent
reprints. It was long suspected that these notes were
by Erasmus himself, and it was thought the name was
but a disguise. Lystrius, however, was a real person,
and the secret of his operations has only just been dis-
covered. Erasmus, indeed, began the job himself, but
later turned it over to Lystrius, a youth eager for glory.
Even afterward, however, Erasmus probably furnished
the bulk of the material, including a dedicatory epistle
purporting to come from Lystrius and highly praising
the work. As one sees by the example of Sir Walter
Scott, who in anonymous reviews compared the Waverley
Novels to Shakespeare's plays, this questionable practice
of self-laudation in disguise was indulged in by others
than by the author of the Folly. Lystrius, having
scored an easy success with his annotations on the Folly,
wished to collaborate further in a similar edition of the
Enchiridion, but Erasmus refused.2
In 1515 Hans Holbein the younger and other artists
added as marginal drawings illustrations that have often
been reproduced, of which more will be said in another
place.3
A French translation was made by George Halwyn4
1 Allen, ep. 222,
* On Lystrius, Mbliotheca Belgica, Erasmus, Encomium Moria, edL of 1676;
Allen, ii, p, 407, Erasmus to Bucer, March 2, 1532.
* Infra, p. 152 £
1 Allen, ep. 641. C/. ep. 660.
THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 125
In 1517? first printed — if this is indeed the same version
and not another — at Paris in 1520. New translations
were made in 1642, 1670, 1713, 1780, 1789, 1826,
1867, 1870-72, and 1877. The first of several Italian
versions was published in 1539; the first of many Dutch
in 1560. Sir Thomas Chaloner, poet and statesman, put
the book into English in 1549; J. Wilson in 1668; and
White Kennett, later Bishop of Peterborough, in 1683,
while still an Oxford undergraduate. All these versions
were frequently reprinted, and a new one added by
James Copner in 1878. Folly began to speak German
in 1520, Swedish in 1738, Danish in 1745^ Russian in
1840, Spanish in 1842, Modern Greek in 1864, Czech in
1864, and Polish in 1875.
The Praise of Folly won an immediate and striking
success. Its publication marked the real beginning of
that immense international reputation that put its
author on a pinnacle in the world of letters hardly
surpassed or even approached by anyone later save
Voltaire. The editions were not small; within one month
after the publication of a new reprint in March, 1515,
seventeen hundred were sold,2 and by 1522 more than
twenty thousand copies had been issued in all.3 Every-
one knew, most praised, and some imitated the precious
satire. James Wimpheling, a good type of the serious
German humanist, later distinguished as an opponent
of Luther, expressed enthusiastic admiration for it.4
Ulrich von Hutten, in the second series of the Epistola
Obscurorum Firorum (1517) warmly claimed Erasmus
as the inspirer of his work.5
Rabelais owed much to him.6 So did some English
1 There is extant a MS. Icelandic translation of the Moria made in 1730.
Cf. An Icelandic Satire (Lo/ Lyginnar) by Porleijur Halldo'sson, ed. H.
Hermannsson, 1915, introduction.
•Allen, ep. 328. April 17, 1515.
« LB. ix, 360.
* Allen, ep. 224.
6 Epirtolas Obscufotum Ftroram, ed. Stokes, 1910, p. 235, and other
references, for which see index. Allen, ep. 363.
8 Thuasne: £tudes sur Rabelais, 1906, chap, ii.
126 ERASMUS
jest-books, especially the Tales and Quicke Answeres,
printed about 1535* and reprinted, enlarged, as Mery
Tales, Wittie Questions^ and Quicke Answeres^ in I567-1
But against the general chorus of laughter and of
praise, the voice of the theologians, or of some of them,
made itself heard in more or less angry protest. The
intensely conservative coterie at Louvain, in especial,
murmured against him who had mocked their foibles.
One Martin Dorp, having found that Folly's cap fitted
him when he tried it on, complained directly to the
author, and was answered by him and by Thomas More,
The latter made the point that only enemies of good
literature hated the Moria^ while Erasmus protested
that his one object was to improve mankind, which he
thought could be done without wounding them. He
added that many of the sentiments expressed by Folly
were the direct opposite of his own; and that he did not
see why theologians should be so sensitive as a class,
whereas kings, navigators, and physicians were equally
held up to ridicule.3
Renewed and incessant attacks kept Erasmus busy
defending himself throughout life. He protested that
he had twitted no one by name but himself,4 — apparently
agreeing with Mrs. Gamp, "which, no names being
mentioned, no offence can be took" — and he added that
Leo X, having read the book through, only laughed,
and said, "I am glad .our Erasmus is in the Moria.**5
Among the few adverse judgments expressed by
humanists, that of Stephen Dolet, f*the martyr of the
Renaissance/' is notable:
Most persons praise the Encomium Moritz, many really admire
it; yet, if you examine it, the impudence of Erasmus will strike
J H de Vocht: De Invlotd van Erasmus op de Mngdscht Toonedliteratuur der
XVle en XFIh Ecwen, 1908.
2 More to Dorp, Bruges, October 21, 1515, LB. App, ep, 513; Mori Opera,
1689, pp. 284-300,
» Allen, ep. 337; cf. epp. 304, 347.
4 Allen, ep. 739; cf. LB. iv, 4$7A.
6 Allen, ep. 749. C/. the Adage, "offas ostendere/1 LB, ii, 461,
THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 127
you rather than the real force of his language. He laughs, jokes,
makes fun, irritates, inveighs, and raises a smile even at Christ
himself.1
Some of the Protestant Reformers, like (Ecolampadius,
loved the Moria? whereas others, like Luther, were
repelled by it. Luther quotes from it, though not by
name and without expressing any opinion of it, in his
lectures on the Psalms, late in the year I5i6.3 One
might think that he would have relished the attack on
the old Church, as a help to his own cause, but he was
soon heard to cry out against such an ally. In his own
copy (Basle, 1532) he wrote:4
When Erasmus wrote his Folly, he begot a daughter like himself.
He turns, twists, and bites like an awl, but he, as a fool, has written
true folly.
Another satire, of far less importance, which, though
published anonymously, brought some trouble on its
author, was a tiny dialogue entitled Julius excluded
from Heaven,5 which represented the pope as vainly
seeking admission to paradise. Apparently written not
long after the death of Julius II (February 21, 1513),
it was first published in 1517, and was at once attributed
to Erasmus by Scheurl, by Pirckheirner, and by Luther,
as well as by other friends who were in the secret of
the authorship. He endeavored, by elaborate equivo-
cation, amounting almost but not quite to denial, to
mislead prelates and others inclined to take offence at
the bold mockery of the head of the Church. Luther
judged it "so jocund, so learned, and so ingenious — that
is, so entirely Erasmian — that it makes the reader laugh
1 R. C. Christie: £tienne Dolet, 1899, p. 191.
2 Allen, ep. 224.
8 Luther s Werke, Weimar, iv, 442, cf. Nachtrage, p. viii.
4 Luther's Briefwechsel, ed. Enders, ix, 254.
6 Reprinted in Booking: Ilutteni Opera, 1859-66, iv, 421, and in Jortin's
Lift of Erasmus, 1758-60, ii, 600-622. Translated in Froude's Life and
Letters of Erasmus. Pastor, History of the Popes, English, vi, 438 n., wrongly
attributes it to Faustus Andrelinus. Jortin, loc. cit., Nichols, ii, p. 446, and
Allen, ep. 502, introduction, prove it to be by Erasmus.
128 ERASMUS
at the vices of the Church, over which every true
Christian ought rather to groan/'1 Later, however, his
opinion of it rose so high that he would have liked to
translate it into German, but feared that he could not
do justice to the style.2
*L. C ep. 42, to Spalatin, November, 1517. Enders, i, 121,
2 L. C. ep. 130, February 20, 1519. Enders, i, 433. Cf. Luthers Tischrtden,
Weimar, iv, no. 4902, May, 1540. On copies sold in Oxford in 1520 by John
Dome see Publications of the Oxford Historical Society, v, 1885, pp. 94, 113, 117.
CHAPTER VI
THE RHINE
ERASMUS, born in the delta of the Rhine, spent
many years on the banks of that noble river, at
the Swiss town of Basle. Well did he know the course
of the famous stream from Chur, near its source, to
the North Sea; with the great cities strung like beads
on its blue filament he was well acquainted, passing
through them often in his frequent journeyings. For
at that time the Rhine was a principal artery of European
commerce and the chief avenue from the northwestern
coast to the Alpine lands and to Italy.
His ascent of the Rhine in the summer of 1514 was
like a triumphal progress. The fame of the Folly,
re-enforced by that of the Adages and of the Enchiridion,
already gave him the natural leadership of the large
society of humanists then pulsing into lusty life in the
universities and wealthy towns of Germany. The
Renaissance, like spring, came late to the northern
latitudes, but when it did come it brought verdant
life. With the earnestness characteristic of their
race, young Germans seized on the classic literature,
and put it to the sack, as though it were an empire to
be conquered by their famous soldiery. Perhaps they
felt like the American who remarked that though
Chicago hadn't had much time for culture yet, when she
did get around to it she would make it hum. Fraternities
of "poets/' as they called themselves, were formed in
every town of any pretensions, as well as at the acad-
emies of learning. These men worshiped literature,
hated crabbed scholasticism, and highly resolved to
bring in a new reign of culture and of light. The man
J29
130
who had mastered the classics, who had routed the Philis-
tines? and who had shown the path of progress, was their
idol. They crowned him with verses as with diadems,
they burned the incense of their homage before him.
And now the great man, " amiable and bearing the horn
of plenty/*1 was to come among them.
Leaving England in July? 1514, after a few visits to
friends in the Netherlands,2 Erasmus proceeded to
Mainz/ the seat of a prince-archbishop, who had also
the powers and titles of Elector, Imperial Arch-marshal^
and Primate of Germany. The occupant of the see was
Albert of Brandenburg, an enterprising and unscrupulous
Hohenzollern, determined to play a brilliant part in
politics and as a patron of the liberal arts. Even before
his day his predecessors Berthold von Henneberg (1484-
1504) and Uriel von Gemmingen (1508-14) had at-
tracted to the University of Mainz leading humanists,
thus making that academy, together with Erfurt, also
under the jurisdiction of Mainz, the chief center of
learning in Germany. Famous, as Erasmus knew,
because of the invention of printing,4 Mainz had now
become one of the foci of the popular intellectual revolu-
tion that preceded the Reformation. Whether the
humanist met the young archbishop, with whom he
afterward corresponded, is not known; but he met one
of his courtiers, Ulrich von Hutten.5
Hutten,6 one of the romantic figures of the time, a
1 Spalatin to Lang, March 3, 1515, L. C. ep. 9.
* Allen, epp. 299, 301, ii, p. 5; Nichols, ep. 291.
8 F. Herrmann: Die fvangdische Bewegung m Mainz, im Refottnations"
zeitaher, 1907; and various encyclopaedias, under Mainz and Albert of
Brandenburg, Also Dietrich und Baden Bntrage zur GeschichU dtr
UniversitaUn Mainz und Gitssen,
* Allen, ep. 919.
8 Crotus Rubeanus is mistaken in saying, in a letter to Mutian, Ju»ie n,
1515 °r *£*$> that Erasmus met Hermann Busch and Reuchlin at this time.
0, Krause: Der Brief mchsel des Mutianits Ru/us> 1885, no, 533, and K.
Gillert; Dtf Briefwechsd des Conradus Mtttianuf, 1890, p, 171, Cf. Allen,
ep, 830, Introduction, ep, 967, 72 note, ep, 300, 12 note,
8 Life by I). F. Strauss, 4th cd., 1895; also English translation, Cf. L.C, ep.
189; Allen, ep. 365. P, Kalkoff: Ulrich von Hutten und dit Reformation, 1920
THE 131
passionate^ wayward nature, not without nobility of
purpose, was something between an Ishmael and a
Knight of Christ, a Thraso turned into a Crusader.
From his youth he had dedicated himself to the causes
of liberty and of patriotism, always pointing his sword
and his mightier pen at the breast of some tyrant; first
at that of Duke Ulrich of Wiirttemberg, who murdered
Hutten's cousin John for the sake of John's wife; then
at the Dominican inquisitors; finally at the pope of
Rome, as the enemy of the Lutheran gospel. From
his picture, in his knight's armor and poet's crown of
laurel, his lean, dissipated face looks out boldly, impu-
dently, but not without fire. Quick of temper as of wit,
he was always ready for a quarrel; nor was he backward
in boasting of his victories. When attacked by five
French ruffians, he assured his friends, he had slain
one and put the rest to flight.1 Now, at the age of
twenty-six, before he had won the laureate's crown of
Germany, he was captivated by the scholar-wit and
longed to play the Alcibiades to the older man's Socrates.2
Erasmus, too, was so favorably impressed that he
inserted into his New Testament of 1516 a note of
praise for his young friend.3
The second meeting of the two occurred at Frankfort
on the Main, in the spring of 1515? while Erasmus was
traveling back from Basle to England. He had visited
the ancient city, not to see its Roman relics and imperial
insignia, but to attend the famous book fair held here
in March or April of each year. In 1515 it had lasted
from March nth to March joth.4 At Frankfort he
1 Allen, cp. 6n. July 30, 1517.
* Allen, ep, 365; Nichols, ep. 351; October 24, 1515. Cf. also the account
of Erasmus, doubtless from Hutten's pen, in the Bpistola Obscurorum F"irorumt
cd. Stokes, i, 42.
'LB.vi, sss.
4 J. W, Thompson: Tht Frankfort Book Fair, 1911, p. 46. A. Dietz: Zur
Gfschichtf dfr Frankfurter Buchermesse> 1921. A. Dietz; Frankfurter Han-
delsg€schichu> 1910. The fair was opened on the Sunday Oculi — four weeks
before Easter — -and closed on the Friday before Palm Sunday. In 1515 Palm
Sunday fell on April ist.
132 ERASMUS
also met John Reuchlin,1 the foremost Hebrew scholar
of the day, now the accused in one of the most notorious
heresy trials in history. His refusal to participate in
a plan of a converted Jew, named PfefFerkorn, to destroy
all Hebrew books except the Old Testament, had
exposed him in 1509 to a charge of heresy at the hands
of the Dominicans of Cologne. The leader of these
"hounds of the Lord'* (to quote the famous pun on
the name Dominican! and Domini canes) was a certain
Hochstraten, the chief inquisitor for Germany, aided
by a peculiar humanist, Ortwin Gratius by name,
Reuchlin's memorial, called the Oculare Speculum^ or
Eyeglass, protesting to the Emperor Maximilian against
the destruction of the Hebrew literature was fiercely
attacked and publicly burned. An appeal to Rome
dragged out the process for many a long year. The
cause celebre excited the passionate partisanship of all
Europe; the humanists, all save Ortwin, sided with
Reuchlin; the monks almost to a man were against him.
Erasmus naturally sided with the persecuted scholar,
with whom he had been already in correspondence in
When he first met Hutten at Mainz in that year the
latter was hotly engaged in the cause, and had written
The Triumph of Reuchlin, which Erasmus advised him
to suppress as imprudent and premature.3 At this time
Erasmus had obtained Reuchlin's Memorial, together
with its condemnation by Hochstraten, and had thor-
oughly convinced himself of the Hebrew scholar's or-
thodoxy, though he mildly censured his invective. He
1 Retichlin's letters have been edited, and his life written, by Geiger, See
also Rcakncyklopadufur protfstemtische Th^ologu^ Stokes, op, tit,, introduction,
Allen, i, p. 555, For Reuchlin's meeting, the only one with Erasmus, see
Allen, ep. 967, 72 note. LB. x, x66aC» i668E, Nichols, ii, 181; Allen, ii, p. 67;
Briefwechfd de.$ Mutianus Rufus, no, 533; K, Gillert: jBriefwechsel des Cow-
radus Mutianus, p, 171. The letter here dated June n, 1515, should be 151:6,
and is mistaken in saying "Main'/*' instead of "Frankfort."
2 Allen, ep. 290; Nichols, ep. 285; cf. Allen, ep. 300.
3 It was, however, printed in 15x8; Hutteni Opera, iii, 413 fF; cf. i, 26.
LB. x, x668DE,
THE RHINE 133
accordingly had written to Reuchlin from Basle, assur-
ing him of his own esteem, and telling him of the
sympathy of Fisher and of Colet.1 On March 1st of
the following year he forwarded some questions2 from
Fisher to Reuchlin. A little later he took occasion, in
writing to Cardinals Riario and Grimani,3 to plead the
cause of his eminent friend, whose trial was then pending
at Rome. To the former correspondent he said:
I do most earnestly beseech and adjure you, for the sake of sound
learning which Your Eminence is always wont to cherish, that that
distinguished man, Doctor John Reuchlin, may enjoy your justice
and good will in the business in which he is now concerned. , . .
All Germany is indebted to him, for he first aroused in that country
a love of Greek and Hebrew literature; he is a man skilled in several
languages and learned in various sciences, long known to the Chris-
tian world by the books he has published, and especially favored
of the Emperor Maximilian, one of whose councillors he is, while
among his fellow citizens he holds the honorable position of triumvir4
[of the Swabian League], and a reputation which has never been
soiled. . . . Therefore to all good men who know him by his writings,
not only in Germany but also in France and England, it appears
most unworthy that so distinguished a man should be harassed by
such hateful litigation, and that for a thing that in my judgment
is more trifling than an ass's shadow, as the jesting proverb says.
This letter, together with the one to Grimani, was
published by Froben in August, 1515. Though they
apparently had little effect in Rome, for Riario does
not mention Reuchlin in his answer, they doubtless
had some influence in Germany.
Erasmus continued in his letters to defend Reuchlin
and pay his respects to Pfefferkorn in such words as
these:5
I hear that that pestilent Corn, sowed by some clever Satan,
has published a book in which he rages against all the learned with
impunity. He is the tool of those illustrious pillars of religion,
1 Allen, ep. 300; Nichols, ep. 294.
2 Allen, ep. 324; Nichols, ep. 315.
3 Allen, epp, 333, 334; Nichols, epp. 318, 319. ^
4 So Erasmus. Reuchlin held the position of triumvir in the South German
confederacy known as the Swabian League for the years 1502-13.
BTo Banisius, November 3, 1517; Allen, ep, 700; Nichols, ep. 671.
I34 ERASMUS
misused by them to break up the peace of Christendom. I wish
he were a Jew all over — and that his tongue and both hands were
circumcised as well as his other parts! As things now are this angel
of Satan, taking the form of an angel of light, fights under our own
banners against us9 and will soon betray us, as Zopyrus [by pretend-
ing to be mutilated] betrayed Babylon to Darius.
Reuchlin received so many testimonials from eminent
supporters that he published them under the title of
Letters of Famous Mm. This suggested to one of his
most brilliant supporters, Crotus Rubeanus, the^ idea
of a satire on his foe Ortwin, in the form of a series of
burlesque Letters of Obscure Men. These epistles pur-
ported to be written to Ortwin by wretched monks who
blatantly exposed their atrocious Latin, superstition,
bigotry, ignorance, and immorality. The first series of
letters was published in the autumn of 1515 by Wolfgang
Anxt of Hagenau, and at once sent by him to Erasmus,
with an excuse for the boldness of the Obscure Men in
addressing so great a personage as him, with whose
Folly they feel an affinity.1 In 1516 Hutten published
a second edition of the work, with a few letters added;
and in 1517 he wrote a second series of the Letters,
distinguished from those of Crotus by their greater
virulence.
The Epistoltz Obscurorum Firorum had much popular
success in raising a laugh against the monks through-
out Europe. Erasmus, however, notwithstanding his
liberal sympathies, highly disapproved of the satire- On
August 16, 1517, he wrote to Csesarius:2
The Letters of Obscurt Men greatly displeased me, even from the
beginning. The joke might amuse if it had not become personal.
I like satire provided it be without insult to anyone. But it was
right annoying when in the second edition my name was mixed
up in it: as if it were not enough to play the fool without exciting
1 Epistoles Obscurorum Virorumy ed. with translation by F. G* Stokes, 1909.
On authorship and date see his introduction, and SteiflF: Buchdruck x?u Tubingen*
pp. 217 f; Bauch and Steiff in CentralUatt jur Bibliothckswesen, xv, 1898, pp.
490 if; Allen, ep. 363, and ii, pp. xix-xx.
2 Allen, ep. 622; Nichols, ii, p. 610,
THE RHINE 135
odium against me and thus in a great measure destroying the fruit
obtained by so much laborious study. And as if that had been
deemed Insufficient, a second book, like the first, has made its appear-
ance, in which there is frequent mention of persons to whom I am
quite sure mockery of this kind is anything but agreeable.
To the same correspondent he wrote on April 5th
of the following year that he wished the book had never
been published or that, if published, it had appeared
under a different title. He sarcastically added that the
satire was so perfect that it was read at Louvain as if
it were a serious defence of the monks. One of the pro-
fessors, who hated Reuchlin and loved Hochstraten,
even bought twenty copies as presents to his friends!1
Again, he says that he disapproves of the slanders
contained in the book, not of the jokes.2
With Reuchlin he continued to keep up a friendly
correspondence and he also wrote, with unwonted bold-
ness, to both Hochstraten and Ortwin, urging moder-
ation. He observed that there is no need of exciting
hatred against the Jews, "for if to hate Jews be Chris-
tian, we are Christian enough already." He protested
that he himself was not to be confounded with Reuchlin,
for he never cared for the Cabbala, but that he did not
think it necessary to "mix heaven and earth to make
such a melodrama."3 Gratius he begged to devote him-
self rather to study than to quarrels worthy neither of a
scholar nor of a Christian.
When the Lutheran affair began to make Erasmus
more cautious he published, in an edition of the Col-
loquies, a signed Protest against seditious Calumnies,*
calling to account the indiscreet persons who had, with-
out his consent, and, as he believed, without the consent
of Reuchlin, published their private correspondence.
1To Caesarius, April 5, 1518; Allen, ep. 808.
2 To Neuenaar, August 25, 1517; Allen, ep. 636.
8 "Tantas excitare tragoedias," a favorite phrase of Erasmus. Letter to
Hochstraten, August n, 1519, Allen, ep. 1006. Letter to Gratius, Allen, ep.
1022. The text was much mutilated, but has been restored by Allen,
4 BiUiotheca Erasmiana, Colloquia^ i, pp. 59, 65.
I36 ERASMUS
"I am not a Reuchlinist," he declared, "nor yet a
partisan of any human faction. I am a Christian and
recognize Christians and not Erasmians or Reuchlinists."
Nevertheless, his admiration for the great scholar in-
duced him, when the latter died, in June, 1522, to write
an Apotheosis of Reuchlin, for insertion in the later
editions of the Colloquies.1
From this long digression let us return to accompany
the great man on his triumphal progress through Ger-
many in the summer of 1514. From Mainz, probably
accompanied by Hutten, he ascended the Rhine to
Strassburg, an important German Imperial Free Town,
with which Erasmus was immensely pleased.
There [he wrote] I have seen old men not morose, nobles without
arrogance, magistrates without pride, citizens ornamented with the
virtues of famous heroes, a vast populace without tumults. In
short, I saw a monarchy without tyranny, an aristocracy free from
faction, a democracy without turbulence, wealth without wantonness,
prosperity without insolence.2
He was made particularly happy by the ovation given
him by the circle of humanists. Their leader, perhaps,
was Jacob Wimpfeling,3 a Catholic Reformer who had
written on theology, but had also cultivated letters.
He wrote an essay glorifying Germany, and later took
part against Luther. Sebastian Brant, whose Ship of
Fools Erasmus knew, was now the secretary of the
Strassburg government, and Erasmus met him4 either
at this time or at Antwerp in 1520. Another statesman
and humanist, noted for the school he founded, was
John Sturm.
One of the glories of Strassburg, the cathedral, with
a spire 465 feet high, was already ancient in the sixteenth
1 Dff incomparabtfi heroe Johanne Reuchlino in divorum numerum rflato.
LB. I, 689 ff.
2 Allen, ep. 305; Nichols, ep. 298. To Wimpfeling, September 21, 1514.
'Allen, epp. 302, 305; Nichols, epp. 295, 298. C. Schmidt; Histoire
litter air e d* Alsace, 2 vols. 1879. Revue Historique, 112, p. 247.
4 Supra, p. 119; Allen, ep. 1132, introduction; P. Kalkoff in Repertorium
fur Kunstwissenschaft, xxviii, 1905, pp. 474-485.
THE RHINE 137
century. On one occasion, whether now or at a later
visit is not known, Erasmus was taken over it by some
of its canons, perhaps Gerbel and Gebweiier. The
canons were boasting that no one could be admitted to
their chapter unless he had at least fourteen noble
ancestors on his father's side, and as many on his
mother's. They were somewhat abashed when, with
characteristic wit and demure sweetness, their guest
remarked: "Then Christ himself could not have been
received into this chapter unless he got a dispensa-
tion from this rule." They took the lesson to heart,
or at least they remembered the saying many years
afterward.1
The next stop, in this progress of the summer of 1514,
was made at Schlettstadt, a small town of only 4,000
to 5,000 inhabitants, but boasting a few humanists of
note.2 The greatest of them was Beatus Rhenanus3
(as Beat Bild of Rheinau preferred to be called) now
living at Basle, but occasionally to be found at his
native place or at Strassburg. His historical work was
the most noteworthy on the critical side of any pro-
duced by his German generation. In the sifting of
sources he was as cool, as fine, and as successful as his
friend Erasmus, from whom he learned much. He was
a historian first, a patriot, or a partisan, secondarily,
If at all. Another humanist of Schlettstadt, was the
schoolmaste'r John Sapidus,4 who accompanied the
illustrious visitor to Basle.
1 It was told to John Christopher, Freiherr von Zimmern, who was con-
secrated as canon on September 29, 1531. Das Zimmersche Chroniky hg. von
K. A. Barack, 2d ed., 1881, iii, 129.
2 J. Geny: Die Reichstadt Schlettstadt und ihr Anteil an den social-politischen
und religiosen Bewegungen der Jahre 1490-1536. (Erlauterungen und Ergani-
ungen zu Janssens Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes^ Band I), 1900.
8 Briefwechsei des Beatus Rhenanus, hg. von A. Horawitz und K. Hartfelder,
1886, with life by his friend Sturm. Cf. also Historische Jahrbucher, xxviii,
714-716; Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte des Oberrheins, Bande 29, 31 (1914, 1916).
On his historical work, E. Fueter: Geschichte der neueren Historiographiet 1911,
190 ff. G. Knod: Aus der Bibliothek des Beatus Rhenanus, 1889.
* LB. i, 1223; Nichols, ii, p. 155.
i38 ERASMUS
In Basle1 Erasmus spent many years of his life, most of
the time from the middle of 1514 to the middle of 1516,
again from 1521 to 1529, and the year before his death
(1535-36). Though a small town, it was prosperous*
cultured* and pretty. After a good deal of negotiation
it had thrown off its obligations to the Hapsburgs and
had been received into the Swiss Confederacy (1501-03).
It was described by Beatus Rhenanus, with a pun on
the name, as "a royal residence, the queen of cities/5
with pleasant, even magnificent houses, clean streets,
gay gardens, delightful views, polite citizens, and a mild
climate. The university,2 founded in 1460, had a good
name, even before QEcolampadius and Grynaeus raised
it to European celebrity. Memories of the Council of
Basle (1431-48) animated the place with a sense of
freedom and reform. Famous writers like Brant and
artists like Diirer and Holbein had spent, or were spend-
ing, parts of their lives here. Most of all, Basle was
famous for its printers.3 John Amerbach had set up
his press in I475> and in 1513 had entered into a partner-
ship with the still more famous John Froben. The
government of the town was republican; the gilds had
just thrown off the old aristocracy of nobles, and further
asserted their power in I5i6.4 A still more democratic
revolution was to take place with the subsequent
introduction of the Reformation.
During much of his life at Basle, Erasmus dwelt in
1On Basle: Basel, von Martin Wackernagel, 1912. Rudolph Wackernagel:
Geschichte der Stadt Basel, Band II, Teil II, 1916. Die Stadt Basel und Ihre
Umgebung, hg. von Verkehrsverein der Stadt Basel, 1898, R. Thommen:
Urkundenbueh der Stadt Basel, Bande 9, 10, 1905, 1908. P, S, Allen: Age of
Erasmus^ 1914, p. 146. E. Doumergue: Fie de Cabin, i, 1899, pp. 471 fF.
A. Heusler: Gesckichte der Stadt Basel,3 1918. A series of pictures of Basel in
1618 by Merian in the Cornell library.
2 W. Fischer: Geschichte der Universitat Basel, 1460-1529* 1 860.
3 Stockmeyer und Reber: Beitrdge zur Easier Buchdruckergeschichte* 1870,
4 On March 8, 1515, while Erasmus was there, the old patricians agreed that
all offices should be open to members of the gilds; on St. John's Day
(December 27), 1516, the gilds elected their first burgomaster, James Meier,
When the bishop tried to interfere the Town Council, on March 12, 1521,
declared the city free from the bishop's jurisdiction. Heusler, op, <rtt» p. 95,
THE RHINE 139
a small house called Zur Luft — names then taking the
place of numbers — in the Little-Tree Alley (Baumlein
Gasse). Hating stoves and close rooms as he did,
Erasmus perhaps selected it for the good air promised
by its name* though in fact it does not look very airy.
Some of the old utensils used by Erasmus are still
preserved; among them a knife and fork with handles
chased with designs of Adam and Eve? possibly made
by Holbein.
As the publishing house of Froben was the magnet
attracting Erasmus to Basle, it is natural that he
should soon be introduced to the famous printer in a
way pleasantly described by himself:1
I delivered to Froben a letter from Erasmus, adding that he was
my intimate friend, and had intrusted me with the business of
publishing his lucubrations, so that whatever I did would stand
good as done by Erasmus himself. At last I added that I was so
like him that whoever saw me saw Erasmus. He then. broke into a
laugh as he detected the hoax.
A warm friendship sprung up between the two.
Erasmus thus spoke of his printer, just after his death
in I527;2
Who would not love such a nature? He was to his friends the
one best friend, so simple and sincere that even if he had wished to
pretend or conceal anything he could not have done it, so repugnant
was it to his nature. He was so ready and eager to help everyone
that he was glad to be of service even to the unworthy, and thus
became a fit prey to thieves and swindlers. He was as pleased
to get back money stolen or lent to a fraudulent debtor as others
are with an unexpected fortune. His incorruptible honor deserved
the saying: "He was a man you could trust to play fair in the dark."
Incapable of fraud himself, he could never see it in others, though
he was not seldom deceived. He could no more imagine the disease
of envy than a man born blind can understand colors. He pardoned
even serious offenses before he asked who had committed them.
He could never remember an injury nor forget the smallest service.
And here, in my judgment, his goodness was excessive, for a wise
father of a family. I used to advise him sometimes that, while con-
1 Allen, ep. 305; Nichols, ep. 298. On Froben, Allen, ii, 250.
* Lond. xxiii, 9, End of October, 1527. LB. iii, col. 1053.
140 ERASMUS
tinuing to be true to his sincere friends, he should expend only kind
words on imposters who both cheated and laughed at him. He smiled
gently, but I told my tale to a deaf man. The frankness of his
nature was too much for all warnings. What snares did he not
spread for me, what excuses did he not hunt up to force a gift on
me? I never saw him happier than when, by artifice or importunity,
he succeeded in getting me to take something. Against his artifices
I needed my utmost caution, and all my skill in rhetoric, to devise
some plausible reason refusing what he offered, without hurting
him, for I could not bear to see him sad. If by chance my servants
had bought cloth for my clothes, he would ferret out and pay the
bill before I suspected it, and no entreaty of mine could make him
take the money again. So, if I wanted to save him from loss, I
had need of singular arts, and there was between us a contest quite
different from the common usage of the vulgar, where one tries
to get as much and the other to give as little as possible. I could
never entirely avoid his gifts, but that I made a most moderate
use of his kindness all his family will, I think, bear me witness.
Whatever he did for me he did for love of learning. Since he
seemed born to honor, to promote and to embellish learning, and
spared no labor or care, thinking it reward enough if a good author
were put into the hands of the public in worthy form, how could
I take advantage of a man like this ?
Erasmus's life at Basle was very pleasant. To one
friend he wrote that he could not express how much he
liked both the climate and the hearty, friendly people.1
At times his work seemed excessive, so that he spoke of
Basle as a prison in which he had done six years' work
in eight months.2 To his dear Bruno Amerbach he
wrote: "What is our mill doing? How goes it in the
cave of Tryphon? Have you been lucky enough to
escape and vindicate your liberty?"3
An extremely agreeable picture of his relations with
the younger men around him is given in a letter from
Henry Glarean, who said to him : " Besides innumerable
other benefits you conferred on me the chief is this,
that you taught me to know Christ, and not only to
know, but to imitate, to reverence, and to love him."4
1 Allen, ep. 412; Nichols, ep. 399,
2 Allen, ep. 410; Nichols, ep. 397.
3 Allen, cp. 439. July 13, 1516.
4 Allen, ep. 463. September 5, 1516.
THE RHINE 141
This is acceptable evidence of the moral influence
exercised by Erasmus and of the rectitude of his own
life. He himself, however, did not maintain the lofty,
transcendental position that virtue is its own reward,
but thought that, though virtue was the chief good, a
man could not be really happy without other goods
as well.1
Erasmus never lived eight consecutive years in any
one town, and even while he kept his head-quarters at
Basle he continued to make frequent journeys back
and forth to the Netherlands. Traveling was not so
easy or rapid then as it is now. Boats and horses were,
of course, the only means of conveyance. Sometimes
the Rhine was so swollen with floods that the trip was
more like swimming than riding;2 at other times the
roads were so muddy that the horses were "almost
shipwrecked."3 There were other dangers in travel
than those supplied by the weather. Of these the most
often mentioned were the plagues and the robbers.4
Thus on April 23, 1518, he wrote Colet:5
I am girt up for a journey perilous on account of the disbanded
scoundrels and marauders who have gathered by thousands to fall
upon others. This is the cruel clemency of princes, to spare impious
parricides and sacrilegious criminals, but not their own subjects.
It was on these frequent journeys that Erasmus
received the unpleasant impression of German inns,
humorously recorded in the Colloquies? We know from
other sources that much of what he says about these
was not exaggerated. In one large reception room the
1 Series of letters to and from Cardinal William Croy, c. May, 1519. Allen,
epp. 957» 958, 959-
2 Allen, ep. 348; Nichols, ep. 336. August, 1515. On this occasion, Erasmus
wrote an epigram on the flood. Allen, ii, 124.
8 Allen, ep. 1169, December 13, 1520.
4 Allen, ep. 794.
6 Allen, ep. 825.
6 Diversoria, LB. i, 715-718. See A. Schultz: Das hausliche Lekfn der
europdischen Kulturv'olker vom Mittelalter bis zur zweiten Halfte dts iSen
Jahrhundert, 1903, pp. 93, 395 f; E. S. Bates: Touring in 1600, 1911, pp.
240 ff.
142 ERASMUS
guests gathered to dry their steaming clothes before a
stove> filling the place with smells and sometimes with
vermin. After an unappetizing meal of bread, sausage,
pudding, and wine or beer, the guest would be led to a
bedroom already occupied by other travelers of both
sexes, lucky if he did not have to share his bed with a
strange man. When, in 1523, Erasmus compared the
luxury of French inns with the coarse entertainment
provided by the German hostelries, the contrast may
have been partly due to the higher standards he had
now acquired in place of those which he held when, as
a younger man5 he had first traveled through the rich
plains of Southern France. But let us hear what he
has to say:
No one welcomes the newcomer, lest they should seem to solicit
guests, for to do so would appear to them mean and low and beneath
the high-mightiness of the German character. When you have
been shouting for a long time some one puts his head, like a tortoise
looking from its shell, out of the hot-air shafts1 in which they live
almost until midsummer. You must ask if you may stay and if he
doesn't say "no" you conclude that you may have a place. You
ask where the stables are and he shows you with a motion of his
hand, for you may take care of your'horse as best you can without
a servant to help you. In the more famous inns a man shows you
to the stables and carefully points out the worst stall for your horse,
for they keep the better places for later arrivals, 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, for which you have to pay as much as for oats.
When you have cared for your horse you go to the common sweating-
room,2 filled with footwear, baggage, and mud, pull off your boots,
put on your slippers, change your shirt if you like, and dry yourself
and your clothes, dripping with rain, by the tile stove. If you wash
your hands, the water is generally so filthy that you have to wash
away the first ablution. . . . They crowd eighty or ninety persons
into that sweating-room, footmen and horsemen, merchants, sailors,
carters, farmers, women and children, sick and well. . . . One is
combing his hair, another wiping off sweat, another cleaning his
boots and legwear, another smells of garlic. Amid a confusion of
1 "JEstuarium," literally "hot-air shaft/' a sarcastic name for the overheated
room detested by Erasmus,
a "Hypocaustum," a sarcastic name for the heated reception room.
THE RHINE 143
men and tongues such as was once seen at Babe! they stare at a
foreigner like a new kind of animal from Africa. . . . Meantime
it is a crime to ask for anything, for they will not serve anything
until late in the evening, when they expect no more arrivals. Finally
a hoary, bald, wrinkled, dirty old waiter appears . . . spreads the
table, and gives each guest a wooden bowl, a wooden spoon, a glass
cup, and some bread, which everyone munches until the soup is
ready — that is, for about an hour.
If anyone tried to air the room by opening a window,
all the rest would shout, "Shut it! Shut it!" and if
he replied that he could not endure the heats he was
summarily invited to go to another inn. Finally, the
amusements of the guests were unpleasant :
Frequently clowns mix with the company and, though they are
the most detestable of men, you can hardly believe how much the
Germans delight in them.1 With their singing, chattering, clamor,
jumping and blows, they make the hot room almost collapse and you
can't hear anyone speak.
If these were the ordinary experiences of a traveler,
sometimes they were much worse. The trip from
Basle to Louvain in September, 1518, is thus vividly
painted:2
DEAR BEATUS: Learn the whole tragicomedy of my journey.
As you know, 1 was unwell when I left Basle, having not yet returned
into Heaven's grace since I had so long led a sedentary life under
stress of endless labor. The boat trip was not unpleasant except
that the noonday sun became trying. At Breisach we lunched
worse than you can imagine — the smell stifling and the flies worse
than the smell. We sat at table half an hour before they brought
us anything to eat, and when they did it was only dirty soup, scraps,
and salted raw meat,3 all very nauseous. I did not go into their
hencoop,4 for 1 had a slight fever. He who tended me told me a
fine tale, that the Franciscan theologian with whom I had had a
1 Albert Diirer speaks of the "rare, precious mummers" he saw at a banquet
in carnival time, 1521. Schriftlicher Nachlass, p. So,
8 Erasmus to Beat us Rhenanus, Louvain, c. October 15, 1518; Allen, ep.
867. Allen iii, 392, gives the exact itinerary.
1 Raw ham and raw salmon, smoked, are considered delicacies in Germany
now.
4 Another slighting name for the reception room.
144 ERASMUS
disputation about "hsecceities"1 had pawned some communion
vessels as his own! O Scotist subtilty! Toward night we were
turned out into a cold village the name of which I was not able to
find out, nor, had I done so, should I wish to publish it. There I
almost died. In one oven, not large, at almost ten o'clock more
than sixty of us dined, such a promiscuous aggregation! As they
became heated with wine, what a stink and what a noise! But we
all had to sit still until the clock gave the signal to rise.
We were wakened early by the clamor of the sailors. I embarked
hungry without having slept. We got to Strassburg before lunch,
about nine. There we were better received, especially as Schiirer
furnished the wine. A part of the literary fellowship was already
there and soon all came to greet me, none more affectionately than
Gerbel. . . .
Thence we struggled on to Spires on horseback, seeing nothing
of the cloud of war with which rumor had frightened us. My English
horse almost foundered and hardly got to Spires because a rascally
blacksmith had so maltreated him by burning the frogs of two of
his feet with a hot iron. At Spires I furtively withdrew and betook
myself to my neighbor Matermus. The learned and humane dean
[Truchses] entertained us kindly for two days. By chance we found
Hermann Busch there.
Thence by wagon I went to Worms, thence to Mainz . . . where
I stayed not at the inn but at the house of a canon. When we left
he took us to the boat. The voyage was, on account of the fair
weather, not disagreeable except for its length and the smell of the
horses. . . . When we came to Boppard and were walking on the
shore while the boat was being searched, some one pointed me out
to the toll-collector, saying, " That is A<?."2 The collector's name,
if I mistake not, is Christopher Eschenfelder. It is incredible how
the man jumped with joy. He took us to his house, where among
his receipts we saw the works of Erasmus. He declared that he
was happy, called his children, his wife, and all his friends. In
the meantime he sent two bottles of wine to the sailors, who begged
for it, and when they clamored for more sent them more bottles
and promised he would remit the toll to him who had brought so
great a man. . . .
1 "Haecceitas" is a word used by Duns Scotus, like "quidditas." It means
"thisness," or "the form of individuality calculated to yield the absolute
certainty of real actuality," says M. Heidegger: Die JKategorien und JSedtu-
tungshhre des Duns Scolus, 1916, p. 67 f; cf. also p. 12, which speaks of it as
indicating "a greater and finer nearness to real life." By Erasmus of course
used sarcastically, implying that this Scotist was a little too practical. Erasmus
spoke of the words "haecceitates, quidditates," as portentous words recently
invented, in the Moria, LB. iv, 463 A, 465 B.
2 Greek.
THE RHINE 145
Having passed through Coblenz and Bonn we arrived at Cologne
on Sunday morning before six, in bad weather. Having gone to
the inn1 I ordered the servants to prepare a wagon and have food
ready at ten. I heard mass. Lunch was late. The wagon was not
forthcoming. I tried to get a horse, for mine were useless. Nothing
succeeded. I saw what they were about; they were trying to force
us to stay. Immediately I ordered my servants to saddle the horses.
I had one box put on a horse, and left another box with my host.
Then with my lame horse I pushed on to the castle of the Count
of Neuenaar, a journey of about five hours. I spent five days with
him at Bedburg in such tranquillity and leisure that I got through
with a good part of the revision of the New Testament. . . .
From this point the trip commences to be a tragedy.
Erasmus departs from Bedburg in a terrific storm. The
wagon is so rough on the stony road that he prefers
even the lame horse. At Aix he is entertained by a
canon and makes himself sick by eating disgusting raw
fish, so that he is obliged to force himself to vomit by
sticking his finger down his throat. Ulcers appear on
his thighs and are made worse by riding. When he
reaches Tongres he faints, but insists upon being carried
on, though in terrible pain, to Louvain. There he is
unable to get any physician to attend him, as they all
believe he has the plague. Angry with them, he com-
mends himself to Christ, eats nothing but eggs beaten
in wine; while recovering, he works doggedly on the
New Testament. His letters at this time are full of
the most minute and painful descriptions of his symp-
toms, which indicate that he really had an attack of the
disease now known as the bubonic plague, then endemic
and frequently epidemic in Europe.2
During these years Erasmus was in correspondence
with a man of some note in his day, Willibald Pirck-
heimer, of Nuremberg. This patrician had been born
at Eichstadt in 1470, and given, by his wealthy father,
1 According to a letter of Adolph Eichholz to Erasmus, dated Cologne,
October 6, 1518, the latter, on passing through that city, had stopped at the
White Horse Inn. Allen, 866.
•See article on the Plague in the Encyclopedia Urttannica, nth edition,
1910-11.
146 ERASMUS
an exceptional education including a seven years' visit
to Italy (1490-97), where he studied Greek at the
universities of Padua and Pavia. Returning to Nurem-
berg? he had been soon made Town Councilor, and,
after attracting the attention of the Emperor Maxi-
milian, appointed Imperial Councilor. He published
a good deal, including translations of Plato. In 1504 he
was left a widower with five daughters, whom he made
as learned as were those of Sir Thomas More. His
wealth and position enabled him to patronize men of
talent, among whom first and foremost was the painter,
Albert Diirer. A number of letters between the two, writ-
ten during the year 1506 when the latter was at Venice,
have survived,1 and so have two portraits of Pirckheimer
by the famous artist. Comparing the, drawing of 1503
with the engraving of 1524, we note a remarkable degener-
ation in the character of the face,2 a philosopher turned
into a swine by drinking Circe's cup of sensuality.
Quite naturally Pirckheimer became interested in the
author of the Adages and Folly, and in December, 1514,
he wrote his friend, Beatus Rhenanus, asking for an
introduction.8 Receiving this immediately, he started
a correspondence with Erasmus which lasted for the
rest of his life. In 1515 Erasmus commended to his
care the sister of the gentleman to whom he had dedicated
the Enchiridion, and at his death he wrote an encomium
in the form of a letter to Duke George.4
The Nuremberg councilor seems to have acted as an
intermediary in getting for Erasmus a call to the Uni~
versity of Leipzig early in I5i6.5 The humanist was
lDur£TS Schriftlicher Nachlass> 1908, pp. 120-150. Doctor Reicke and
Doctor Reimann have undertaken to edit Pirckheimer's correspondence. For
Pirckheimer's life, Realencyklopddu, Allen, ii, p. 40.
2 The drawing, in Berlin, published in Durers Schriftlicher Nachlass, p. 120.
The engraving in Klassiker der Kunst, Durer, 1908, p. 1 60.
8 Allen, ep. 322, Pirckheimer to Rhenanus. December 9, 1514. Cf. Briff-
wechsel des Beatus Rhenanus, no. 422 (autumn, 1513).
4 May 15, 1531, Lond, xxvi, 33; LB. ep, 1187.
6 Allen, ep. 527, A letter without date in the original, inclosing the proposi-
tion from Emser, rector of the university. Dr. Allen places this letter in 1517,
THE RHINE 147
then unable to accept, but the plan was brought up
again in 1520, by which date Erasmus had become
friendly with Duke George of Albertine Saxony? whose
capital Leipzig was. In the spring of 1516 the Uni-
versity of Ingolstadt made a flattering but vain attempt
to secure the services of the noted scholar.1
Other honors came thick and fast. Not to mention
expectations of preferment in France and a canonry at
Totirnay, the gift of which was disputed between the
French and English governments, Erasmus in 1515 was
made a member of the Privy Council of Prince Charles,
soon to become king of Spain and afterward emperor.2
Four years later the Burgundian Chancellor, John le
Sauvage, tried to get Erasmus to supervise the studies
of Charles's younger brother, Prince Ferdinand, then
in his sixteenth year.3 The scholar probably met the
princes in the summer and autumn of 1516, when the
court was at Brussels, and for Charles he wrote his
treatise on the education of a Christian prince, but he
declined to undertake the duties of preceptor for reasons
which, he wrote, "it would not be safe to set down."
These reasons are, however, explained in one of his
Adages, first published in 15 15,* and show that he had
already gauged the difficulties of training a king.
Now we see hardly any men educated more corruptly or laxly
than those whom it is so very important to have brought up as
well as possible. This child about to rule the world is committed
to the charge of silly women, who are so far from instilling into his
mind anything worthy of a prince, that they even dissuade him
but I agree with Doctor Reich and Mr. Nichols in placing it in January, 1516.
In addition to the reasons given by Allen, ii, p. 452-453, may be mentioned
the following: Pirckheimer expresses the hope that Erasmus will visit Nurem-
berg on the way to Leipzig. This would be convenient only if Erasmus was
at Basle, as he was in January, 1516. In 1517 he was in the Netherlands.
1 Allen, epp. 386, 418; Nichols, epp. 392, 400.
* Allen, ep. 370, note 18; Nichols, ii, 272; Allen, epp. 470, 565. On the trip
to the Netherlands to meet Le Sauvage and perhaps Charles, Allen, ep. 412,
and ii, p. 240; Nichols, ep. 399.
'Allen, epp. 917.952-
4 Adagia, "Aut Regem aut fatuum nasci oportere," chil. i, cent. 3, prov. i.
LB. ii, no.
148 ERASMUS
from heeding the salutary admonitions of his tutor and the gentle
impulses of his own nature. Everyone flatters, everyone agrees
with him. The nobles applaud, the ministers comply, even the
tutor adulates, not acting so as to make the prince a blessing to his
country, but so as to accumulate a fortune for himself. The theo-
logian commonly called his confessor also flatters him. . . . He
hears himself called "sacred majesty, serenity, divinity, terrestrial
god,"and such like titles. In short, while yet a boy he learns nothing
but how to play the tyrant. Soon he is put in the company of girls,
all of whom invite his addresses, praise him, and serve his wishes.
His court is a crowd of effeminate youths, whose only words and
jests are of girls. The best part of his youth is consumed in gaming,
dancing, music, and running hither and thither.
In May, 1516, Erasmus returned from Basle to the
Netherlands, which he made his headquarters for the
next five and a half years, living first chiefly at Antwerp
and Brussels and, after July, 1517, chiefly at Louvain.
At Antwerp he had a good friend in Peter Gilles,
immortalized as More's host in the Utopia. Gilles,
besides occupying the position of Chief Secretary of
the city of Antwerp, devoted much attention to letters,
for, though he wrote little himself, he edited important
works for other men, who valued his advice. On the
occasion of Gilles's marriage with Cornelia Sandria
(1514) Erasmus wrote an epithalamium in which the
three Graces and the nine Muses speak words of praise.1
When, after bearing a number of children, Cornelia died,
about August, 1526, Erasmus wrote her epitaph. Pres-
ently Gilles married again and when he lost this wife
also his friend contributed an inscription to her memory.
While Erasmus was staying at the house of the
Secretary of Antwerp, about May, 1517, he and his
host had their pictures painted by the celebrated artist,
Quentin Matsys,2 both portraits being intended for
presentation to Thomas More. The great humanist
1 Later included in the Colloquia, LB. i, p. 746. On Gilles, Allen, i, p. 413;
"> P- 3SJ »»> P- 146-
*The original of Erasmus is at the StroganofF Gallery at Rome; that of
Gilles at Longford Castle, England. A copy of the Erasmus is at Hampton
Court. Both pictures are reproduced in Allen, ii, 576. See Allen, 683, notes.
THE RHINE 149
was represented sitting at a desk, with an open book
before him, ready to write. When the paint was fresh
it was possible to see that the book was the Paraphrase
to the Epistle to the Romans, but the letters are no longer
visible. On the forefinger of the delicately veined right
hand a seal ring is conspicuous. The finely chiseled
features wear a pensive expression, not at all like the
satirical cast of countenance seen in Holbein's later
portraits. There were two natures in the same man;
one the scholar and theologian, represented by the
Enchiridion and the edition of the Greek Testament, the
other the sportive mocker, emerging in the Moria.
Matsys, the painter of serious, religious pictures, saw
the one side of the man; Holbein, the merry portrait-
painter and caricaturist, the other. The boyish face of
Gilles, in the diptych, makes a good contrast to its
pendant. He is holding a letter of More in his hand,1
and has before him a copy of the Antibarbarf- by
Erasmus — fit symbols of his fame depending mostly on
his friends.
Both pictures were sent to More in September.8 His
letters4 of acknowledgment to Erasmus and Gilles show
how immensely pleased he was. To the former he wrote:
You can more easily Imagine than I can tell how delighted I am.
For as the likenesses of such men done even in chalk or charcoal
would captivate all who were not dead to admiration of learning
and virtue, how can anyone express in words or fail to conceive
how much I am ravished when the features of such friends are
recalled to my memory, by pictures drawn with such art that they
may challenge comparison with the works of any ancient painter?
Whoever sees them would think them molded or sculptured rather
than painted, so exactly do they seem to stand out in the exact
proportions of the human figure. You cannot believe, dearest
Erasmus, how much your care to please me has added to my love
1 The writing is not legible, but More speaks of it. Allen, ep. 683.
* As the first known edition of this book was printed at Cologne in 1518, the
title must have been added later, or this picture represents a manuscript, or
previous edition, not now extant.
* Allen, cp. 654.
4 Allen, cpp. 683, 684.
ISO ERASMUS
for you, though I was sure before that nothing could add to it,
nor how I glory In your esteem and in this token by which you
declare that you prefer my love to that of anyone.
Having painted the portrait, Matsys proceeded to
found some bronze medallions with a head of Erasmus,
newly drawn and quite different from the first work.
He did this in 1519, if we may assume that they are
the same as the medallions bearing that date now ex-
tant in the museum at Basle and at the Luther-house
in Wittenberg. A friend who saw one in 1528 considered
it wonderfully lifelike.1
A still greater artist was next to try his hand on the
famous writer. When Albert Diirer came to the Nether-
lands in 1520-21, he met Erasmus several times and,
about September i, 1520, made two sketches of him in
charcoal, apparently with the intention of turning one of
them into a painting, though he never found time to do
this. Six years later he made an etching from one study,
a copy of which he sent to Erasmus, who, though he
praised the artist's other work highly, did not care for
this and thought it "nothing like,"2 and was even
reported to have said, "If I look like that I am a great
knave."* Indeed, neither of the two Diirer drawings
was successful. The one, now at the Bonnat Museum*
Paris, is nearly full-face. The half-closed, downcast
eyes and the smiling mouth have a sweet expression
not found so readily in the other portraits. The second
sketch, worked up in the woodcut, is far more elaborate.
The scholar is seated at his desk, writing, with a vase
of flowers before him and surrounded by books. In one
of the gouty hands is a quill, in the other the long,
1 Henry Botteus to Erasmus, March 6, 1528, Enthoven, no. 60. Erasmus
to Botteus, March 29, 1528, LB. ep. 954. Haarhans, op. «t, Archw fur
Reformations -geschickte, 8 Jahrgang, p. 145, See Allen, ep. 1092, and reproduc-
tion of this medallion opposite.
*A. Durers Schriftlicher Nachlass, ed. Heidrich, 1908, p. 50, between
August 28 and September 3, 1520. Cf. Lond. xxx, 29, 43; LB. epp, 631, 827,
954-
2 Luther's Tischreden, Weimar, vi, 1921, no. 6886.
THE RHINE 151
narrow inkhorn. The countenance, composed and
earnests is less fine and less attractive than it appears
elsewhere. In fact, the artist is not giving us a char-
acter study, but a bit of the genre he loved; it is not
so much Erasmus we see here as the typical scholar.
This ill success did not prevent Diirer from becoming
an excellent friend of his sitter. He gave him three of
his own drawings, and made likenesses of many of his
friends.1 One of these may possibly have been Sir
Thomas More, who was at the time at the court of
Charles V. But the portrait, if painted, has not been
certainly identified.2
Various other likenesses of Erasmus made during these
years can hardly be regarded as original studies. The
best is perhaps an anonymous woodcut dated 1522,
showing a fine profile. It claims to be drawn from life
and bears the same inscription in Greek, meaning "His
writings will show his image more truly/* that is found
on the medallion of 1519 and on the Diirer woodcut.
In fact, not only this inscription, but the details of the
posture, both here and in Diirer's woodcut, show that
Matsys had created a type which other artists felt
bound to follow. There are also extant a woodcut after
Matsys ascribed to Cranach, a drawing by Jerome
Hopfer probably after the medallion, but showing a
more humorous expression, and a very poor drawing
ascribed to Lucas van Leyden, dated 1521.
lDurers NicdeTldndische Reise, ed. J. Veth und S. Mullet, 1918, i, 55, at
Antwerp, August, 1520.
2 Preserved Smith: "Diirer's Portrait of Sir Thomas More," Scribner's
Magazine, May, 1912. The painting that I there identified with Thomas
More, now in possession of Mrs. John Lowell Gardner, of Boston, has been
thought by others to be a portrait of Lorenz Sterck, though there is no proof
save the fact that Diirer is known to have made Sterck's portrait in the year
1521. A. Durers Niederlandische Reise, von J. Veth und S. Muller. 2 vols.
1918, vol. i, plate 57. A few years after the appearance of my article there
turned up in Canada another painting claiming to be by Diirer of Sir Thomas
More. It is reproduced in Veth and Muller, op. cit., vol. ii. It was sold by
G. A. Dostal of New York and Mrne. Lucille Krier de Maucourant of Paris
to G. F. Glason, of Montreal. New York Times, February 4, 1917, It is
probably spurious.
1 52 ERASMUS
But the artist who more than any other has given to
posterity the pleasure of looking on this speaking, dis-
tinguished face, and who also entered so fully into the
spirit of the satirist, was Hans Holbein the younger.1
Born at Augsburg in 1497, he was taken by his father*
a distinguished painter, to Basle in 1511. When he
was barely eighteen years old (December, 1515) he
borrowed a copy of Froben's edition of the Praise of
Folly, 1515* from his friend and the author's, Oswald
Myconius, master of St. Peter's school2 Very likely
at Myconius's suggestion he covered the broad margins
with those quaint and spirited drawings that have ever
since been the appropriate illustrations of the book; the
work being done, as the inscription says, in ten days in
order to give Erasmus pleasure. There we see Folly,
a fresh young maiden, beginning and ending her lecture
to a crowd of boys in cap and bells. There is the the-
ologian studying Duns Scotus, the pilgrim with his
staff, the dunce with his doll, the schoolboy getting a
sound spanking, all drawn from contemporary German
life. More biting sarcasm is displayed in such pictures
as that of the two humanists as asses braying forth each
other's praise. The author is represented sitting at his
desk writing his Adagia, and so wonderfully youthful
and handsome does he look that when the picture was
shown to him he exclaimed: "Oho! Oho! If Erasmus
still looked like this, forsooth he would take a wife!"
Was it he who wrote over the picture of a gay fellow guz-
zling and swilling, spilling his wine over a dish of trout
and with one arm about a woman, the word "Holbein,"
to suggest that the artist was here caricaturing himself?
1A. B. Chamberlain: Hans Holbein the Younger* 2 vols., 1913, esp. i, pp.
45, 146, 1 66 fF, 288 flf, 338 fF. H. Knackfuss: Holbein der Jiingtre, 1896, pp.
52 ff, 115. P. Gauthier: //. Holbein, 1907, pp. 20, 80 ff. Sandys: History of
Classical Scholarship, 1908, ii, 132.
2 Allen, iii, p. 382 f; ep. 739 n, J. B. Kan: Moplat; 'Ey/e<6//*ov, 1898, introduc-
tion. W. Hes: Ambrositts Holbein, 1911. K. Woermann: Gcschichte der
Kunst alia Zeitsn und Folker, iv, 1919, pp. 497 f. One of the marginal
illustrations has the date "December 29, 1515."
THE RHINE 153
Though such a jest would have been taken in good
part, Erasmus was probably not guilty of it.
After Hans had finished thirty-seven of these marginal
illustrations including the Erasmus, the Pope, the Cardi-
nal, the Bishop, and Duns Scotus, his brother Ambrose
took the work in hand and added fifteen more drawings,
including the one labeled, "Monks handle not gold, but
women," the Hercules, the Chimaera, and other myth-
ological subjects. Still later other artists added thirty
drawings, much inferior in execution and often coarse
in idea.
The illustrations of the Folly are reprinted with almost
every edition, but those made by Holbein in another
book of Erasmus are hardly known at all. There is at
Harvard a copy of In evangelium Lucae paraphrasis
nunc prima nata et aedita (Basle, 1523) the margins of
which are decorated with twenty-seven original pen-
and-ink drawings by Holbein.1 They represent subjects
such as Jesus, the Virgin, Dives and Lazarus on earth
and in heaven. They are indeed exquisite little bits.
It is most unfortunate that the binder of the book cut
the margins so close as frequently to cut off some of
the drawings.
When the humanist moved to Basle Holbein made
several portraits of him, no less than three during the
year 1523. One of these was a diptych with Froben, of
which there is an early copy at Hampton Court. This
and a three-quarters face, now at Longford Castle, were
probably the two portraits that Erasmus said he sent
to England in June, 1524, one of them as a present to
Warham. Holbein also made another profile, which
was sent as a gift to Boniface Amerbach at Avignon.
It is probably the one now at the Louvre. These fine
and beautiful studies exhibit at the very best the deli-
1 Their genuineness, which seems highly probable to me, is testified to by
an expert, the custodian of the Museum of Basle, D. Jouaust, in a letter dated
Basle, August 26, 1869. He compared them with the originals of the Folly
drawings. Preserved Smith: "Some Unpublished Drawings ascribed to
Holbein/' Art in America, February, 1917.
154 ERASMUS
cacy and refinement of the original. The loveliness of
the soul has wrought out upon the flesh a serene dis-
tinction, a serious purpose not without humor, a character
upon which no evil passion has set its stamp. One can
easily read the inscription carved upon the features by
a lifetime spent in the high company of ancient philos-
ophers and poets.
Perhaps at the suggestion of Erasmus^ from whom
he bore letters of introduction* Holbein set out for
England about August 29, 1526, and there made a
prodigious success, painting Warham, Fisher, and Sir
Thomas More both alone and with his whole family.1
He returned to Basle in August, 1528, bearing with
him as a gift the picture of Morels family. During
his second visit to England, in 1530, he painted Henry
VIII, his wives and courtiers*
Boniface Amerbach speaks of a portrait of the dead
Erasmus by Holbein, but of this nothing else is known.
A woodcut from one of Holbein's paintings was made
by Liitzelburger in 1530. In the next century Van Dyke
engraved the same, but poorly, giving the face an
expression not only grim and sarcastic, but positively
pained.
During the years 1517-21 Erasmus occupied a some-
what indeterminate position at the University of Lou-
vain.2 Always suspected by the conservatives, he was
now continually the object of some criticism or attack.
One occasion for hostilities came with the founding of
the new College of Three Languages to be a special
*LB. epp. Appendix 327 (wrongly dated 1523), appendix ep. 334 (wrongly
dated 1525), appendix ep. 351. Lond. xxvi, 50; LB. ep. 1075, wrongly dated
1529 for 1528. On October 28, 1738, the Earl of Oxford saw at Mr. LenthaU's
house at Burford a picture said to be More's family by Holbein, which he
thought was not original. Reports of Historical Manuscripts Commission,
Portland MSS.» vi, 180. On August 16, 1669, Sir Harbottie Grimston saw at
the Earl of Beaufort's seat at Badmington, Holbein's Erasmus. MSS. of Earl
of Verulam, 1906, p. 248.
2 He matriculated at Louvain as "Magister Erasmus de Roterodamis sacrae
theologize professor," on August 30, 1517; see De Vocht in English Historical
Review, January, 1922, pp. 89 ff.
THE 155
home of the new learning. The money for the under-
taking came from a bequest of Erasmus's wealthy friend,
Jerome Busleiden, who died on August 27^ 1517, and
the humanist played an active part in carrying out the
intention of the founder.1 The natural antipathy of the
old scholastics for the new Greek and Hebrew was
aroused by this* and was further stimulated by an
Oration on ike Knowledge of Various Languages^ written
by Mosellanus of the University of Leipzig. This
promising young man had already been in correspondence
with Erasmus, who said of him "He loves glory, but
he knows not what a weight glory is/'2 He was most
fiercely attacked not only at home, but by one of the
Louvain professors, a certain James Latomus. This man*
who afterward figured actively as an inquisitor at the
trial of William Tyndale, published a Dialogue on the
Three Languages and Theological Study ^ beating Erasmus
over the shoulders of Mosellanus. The Dutch humanist
replied with an Apology, not mentioning the Saxon
professor, but trying only to prove that he was not
touched by Latomus's charges.
Further trouble came when Alard of Amsterdam
announced that he would begin lecturing at the College
of Three Languages on a book of Erasmus. This so
fluttered the dove-cotes of the theological faculty that
on March 8, 1519 — the very day after the announcement
was made — the rector of the university convoked a
council which refused permission for the course. A
bitter quarrel, patched up by a truce in September,
broke out again in November. Meantime Erasmus's
Encomium of Marriage had been attacked as heretical
1 F. Neve: Memoir e sur If college des trois-langues a I'universitf de Louvain>
1856. F. Neve: La renaissance des lettres et I'essor de I' erudition dans les Pays*
JBas, 1890. H. de Jongh: L'ancienne Faculte de Theologie de Louvain 1432-
X54O, 1911. Allen, ep. 205. Bibliotheca Belgicat j. v. "Latomus: De Trium
Linguarum Collegia Dialogus, 1519."
2 Erasmus's remark on Mosellanus is preserved in Luthers Tischreden,
Weimar, iv, no. 4921. On Mosellanus (whose real name was Peter Schade)
see Allen, ii, p. 517. On this quarrel with Latomus see Pijper: Primitive
pontificiae, 1905, pp. 1-84.
i56 ERASMUS
by J. Robyns, on February 21, 1519, and thereafter
trouble was chronic.1
A letter written just before the humanist left Louvain,
on July 5, 1521, gives an interesting account of the
university. Louvain, with three thousand students,
is pronounced second to Paris, each college supporting
one president, three professors, and twelve scholars
entertained gratis, as well as some students who pay
board. The auditorium is often crowded with classes
numbering a hundred or more. The colleges are not
inelegantly built, and the salaries large in proportion
to the endowment, though small when compared with
the needs of the teachers.2
By reason of his fame Erasmus was drawn to some
small extent into public affairs. He heard with horror
of the sack of Alkmaar by the Black Band, and approved
of its dispersal.3 He was at one time given a com-
mission from the Emperor Maximilian to treat on
some unknown matter with the University of Louvain.4
He was occasionally found at the court of Margaret,
regent of the Netherlands, and at that of Charles V
after the latter returned to Brabant from his Spanish
kingdom.5 Among many famous men, he met Ferdi-
nand Columbus, son of the Admiral, to whom, on
October 7, 1520, he gave a copy of his Antibarbari. All
that is known of the meeting comes from the inscription
in this book, half in Spanish and half in Latin: "The
author himself gave me this book, as appears on the
eighth page. Erasmus Roterodamus gave this as a pres~
ent to Don Ferdinand Colon, Louvain, on Sunday,
1 De Jongh, op. cit.t p. 197 if.
2 To Daniel Tayspil, Anderlecht, July 5, 1521, Allen, ep, 1221. Luigi
d'Aragona, who visited Louvain about this time, reports the number of
students at six thousand, a great exaggeration. L. von Pastor: Die Reise
Luigis d'Aragona, 1908, p. 56. Even Erasmus's figures may be too large.
3 Allen, epp. 628, 832,
4 Allen, epp. 669, 670.
8 For a visit in company with Pace in May, 1519, see Allen, epp. 970, 071;
Deutsche Reichstagsattsn unter Karl F, ed. Wrede, ii, 685, note.
THE RHINE 157
October 7, 1520. Erasmus himself wrote the first two
lines here with his own hand/*1
Erasmus's reputation was now such that, as a younger
contemporary says, "all men desired his writings and
regarded them with favor. A letter from him was a
great glory and a splendid triumph to its recipient. He
to whom was accorded the advantage of a meeting and
some conversation seemed to himself one of the favorites
of fortune/* Occasionally young enthusiasts would make
a regular pilgrimage to his residence. One of these
devotees to visit him in October, 1518, was Eoban of
Hesse, a lecturer at Erfurt and leader of the circle of
humanists in that academy. In return for letters and
gifts brought by him he took back a sheaf of epistles
containing flattering allusions to his own facility in
Latin prose and verse. These letters he published, with
an account of his trip, in a booklet with the title Hodcs-
poricon,2 not altogether to the satisfaction of Erasmus.
Seven months later another pilgrim to the shrine of
letters came in the person of Justus Jonas, later known as
a prominent Lutheran reformer.8 At Erfurt, thoroughly
Erasmian in 1520, Eoban lectured on the Enchiridion,
another professor, Crafft, on the Praise of Folly, while
Mutianus Rufus, the philosophic canon of Gotha near
by, wrote to John Lang of Erfurt that Erasmus took
the prize as the greatest of critics, and advised another
friend to begin each lecture with a proverb culled from
the Adagia.4 When Lewis Platz was rector, in 1520, an
official communication from the university asked and
was answered by advice from Erasmus on the reform
of the curriculum.5
1J. B. Thacher: Christopher Columbus, iii, 1904, 432 f. Read "la" for
"laz." Allen, ep. 1147, introduction.
2 In 1519. Copy at Harvard. The letters are reprinted by Allen, epp. 870 ff.
Cf. Allen, ep. 982.
* Allen, ep. 876, 963.
*C Krause: Eoban Hess, 1879, i, 288 f, 315; J. Burgdorf: Johann Lange,
190, p. 24-
6 J, C. H, Weissenborn: Akten der Erfurter Unwersilat, 1884, ii, 314. L. C,
ep. 281, Allen, ep. 1127.
158 ERASMUS
From another university town came further proof that
Erasmus was the best seller of his day. The accounts
of John Dorae^ an Oxford bookseller, for 1520, show that
a third of all his sales were of works by Erasmus, the
favorites being the Enchiridion, the Adages^ and three
textbooks of Latin style, the Colloquies^ the De Con-
structionty and the Copia.1
1 Oxford Historical Society Collectanea, 1885, I, 71-77. See T. M. Lindsay
in Cambridge History of English Literature, Hi, 1909* p. 19,
VII
THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE purpose that gave unity and nobility to
Erasmus's life was his championship of "the
philosophy of Christ," by which he understood a simple,
rational* and classical Christianity. A prerequisite to the
realization of his program was the publication and
thorough scientific study of the ancient Christian texts.
Biblical criticism, therefore, both textual and literary,
occupied much of the best energies of his life. His aim
was always practical — to aid reform, not primarily to
produce a work of disinterested scholarship, But the
achievement was great, and in the end accomplished
much of what he wished in rationalizing religion. For
his work was the effective beginning of that philological
criticism of the Bible that, after so hard a battle, has
at last done so much to free Christendom from the
bondage of superstition and of the letter.1
By the opening of the sixteenth century the Vulgate —
St. Jerome's version of the Bible, or, rather, his revision
of still earlier Latin versions — had been printed many
times. Though commonly esteemed, as it was .later
declared by the Council of Trent to be,2 the authentic
form of the Scriptures, and though referred to as "the
accepted text/'8 there was no standard edition of it,
1 A. D. White: Warfare of Science and Theology, 1898, chap, xx, especially
vol. n, pp. 303 ff.
* In the decree of April 8, 1546. "Statuit et declarat, ut haec ipsa vetus et
vulgata editio . . . pro authentica habeatur, et ut nemo illam reiicere
quovis praetextu audeat vel praesumat/' C. Mirbt: Qucllen zur Geschichte
dfs Papsttums? 1911, p. 211. Realencyklopddie fiir protfstantiscke Theologif?
" Bibeliibersetzupgen."
a Roger Bacon.
159
160 ERASMUS
manuscripts and printed books differing from each
other. Erasmus, who possessed an edition printed about
1465, and who examined many codices, noted this.1
The revival of Greek, together with that birth of a
new spirit in the later Middle Ages, inevitably led to an
examination of the Bible and to a discovery of the
faults of the old version and a desire for fresh study.
Lorenzo Valla's Notes on the New Testament, written
about 1450, embodied the first attempt at a scientific
criticism of the Vulgate. With three Latin and three
Greek manuscripts in his hands, he had no difficulty
in pointing out and in emending many errors both
in readings and in translation.2 Shortly afterward a
humanist pope, Nicholas V, encouraged a competent
scholar, Gianozzo Manetti, to make a new Latin version
of the Bible from the original tongues, and the work
was actually begun, though never completed. Manetti
printed in parallel columns the oldest Latin version,
known as the Itala, the Vulgate, and his own translation,
and defended the undertaking against the attacks he
easily foresaw.3 Half a century later a highly cultivated
woman, Isabella d'Este, employed a learned Jew to
translate the Psalms from Hebrew, in order to be sure of
getting their true meaning.4 A number of scholars had
now come to feel the need of a new exegesis, based on
philological apparatus, not on outworn postulates of
the schoolmen. Though John Colet was able to do
little to supply the want, his broad, free lectures on St.
Paul show that he felt it.5 An immense stimulus to the
study of Hebrew was given by John Reuchlin. A
marked advance in biblical exegesis came with the
publication, by the French savant, James Lefevre
d'fitaples, of the Quintuples Psalterium, a Latin and
* LB. ix, 766.
8 P. Monnier: Le Quattrocento, 1908, i, 284.
8 Cambridge Modern History, i, 679; A. Humbert: Origines df la theologu
moderns, 1911, pp. 117 ff.
4 J. Cartwright: Isabella d'Este, 1903, i, 78.
6 Published in several volumes by JT. H. Lupton,
THE NEW TESTAMENT 161
French edition of the Psalms* with commentary, in
1509, and of a new translation of the Pauline Epistles
in 1512. In the early lectures of Luther, which have
come down to us, we see how eagerly students were
grasping at what the original tongues could tell them
of the meaning of the Bible.1
Such was the situation when Erasmus took up the
task. He did it under the widely diverse influences of
Colet and of Valla, the one aglow with piety, the other
as cold a rationalist as was ever born. Valla's Notes
on the New Testament) as yet unprinted, Erasmus found
in the Praemonstratensian Abbey of Pare near Louvain,
in the autumn of 1504. Though he knew that to publish
such an attack on the Vulgate would be attended with
no little risk, he did so, in December, at Paris, with a
preface that is mainly an apology for his temerity.2
At the same time he urged the need of minute research,
in words that are a defense of all detailed scholarship:
"He is occupied with the smallest things, but such as
the greatest cannot afford to neglect; he deals with
minute points, but such as have serious consequences/*
The work had more importance than is generally rec-
ognized. With this initiation into biblical criticism
we see the unfolding, or budding, of a new spirit. Sick
and tired of the old glosses, the interminable subtleties
that seemed beside the point, the age had at last found
something fresh, the Bible treated in the spirit of
Quintilian, not as an oracular riddle, but as a piece of
literature. It was the skeptic Valla that first disclosed
the true, sound method of exegesis, and thus uncovered
the long-hidden meaning. The cock had found the
pearl; the careless wayfarer had chanced upon the
nugget of gold; the scoffer who sought to shame truth
by unveiling her had made her more beautiful. And
1 K. A. Meissinger: Luther s JLxegese in der Fruhzeit, 1911; O. Scheel:
Martin Luther, Pom Katholizismus zur Reformation, 1917, ii, 210 IF. Preserved
Smith: "Luther's Development of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith
Only," Harvard Theological Review, 1913, 407 ff.
2 Allen, i, p. 406, ep. 182; Nichols, ep. 182.
162 ERASMUS
Erasmus was the man to perceive the value of the new
treasure and to set it in a blaze of brilliants.1
It was probably at the instigation of Colet that
Erasmus began an original Latin version of the New
Testament. The work, embodying the matter he had
acquired from Valla, and aiming at purity of Latin style^
was completed in manuscript by October* 1506. After
the return from Italy (1509) the labor of polishing the
translation was taken up and the manuscript shown
to Richard Bere, Abbot of Glastonbury. This gentle-
man, however, disapproved, and probably for that reason
the idea of publishing it was postponed, not to be realized
until the second edition of the Greek Testament, in 1519.2
Inevitably, when so many Greek classics were pouring
from the press, the thought suggested itself to scholars
of publishing the original of the sacred texts. Es-
pecially as the Hebrew Old Testament had long since
been published by Jewish rabbis, it seemed shameful to
neglect the specifically Christian writings. Cardinal
Ximenes planned a sumptuous edition of the Bible in
all ancient tongues and versions. The earliest volume,
containing the New Testament, was printed, according
to the colophon following the Greek text, by Arnold
William de Brocario, at Alcala, on January 10, 1514.
After the text had been completed, however, the volume
was kept back a considerable time, partly in order to
allow the addition of a Greek vocabulary and other
explanatory matter, partly in order to get the approval
of the pope. This last was expressed in a breve printed
in Vol. I of the Old Testament, dated March 22, I52O.3
1 Humbert, op. cit., p. 190 £ Meissinger, op. cit,, p. 86, for Luther's use of
the Annotations?.
2 Allen, ii, pp. 181-183; Lond. xviii, 46; LB. ep. 700, Erasmus to Bere,
1524. Wordsworth: Old-Latin Biblical Texts, 1883. Realencyklopadie? iii, p.
57. Some sarcasm, undeserved in the light of the facts here given, has been
leveled against Erasmus for the supposed speed with which he executed his
translation.
8 Novum testamentum grcece et latine in academia Complutensi novittr impres**
sum, 1514. Fetus testamentum multiplici lingua nunc primum tmpressum. In
hac presdarissima Complutensi univnsitate, 1517.
THE 163
It was perhaps some rumor of the forthcoming Spanish
edition that hastened the completion of a plan that
Erasmus had certainly entertained for many years. In
March, 1516, he brought out his own Greek text under
the title Novum instrumentum onine, diligenter ab Erasmo
Rot. recognitum et emendatum, Basileae Jo. Frobenius,
mense februario, 1516. The word "Instrument"1 chosen
in conformity with the usage of Tertullian, and em-
ployed also by Jerome, by Rufinus, and by Augustine,
was changed to "Testament55 in the reprint of 1518,
and in all subsequent editions. A Latin version differing
little from the Vulgate was added to the Greek, and also
copious notes. A new edition, revised, with the Erasmian
Latin version of 1506, much more radical than the
one used in 1516, was printed in 1519. A third edi-
tion followed in 1522; after which there was a fourth
revision by the editor, as well as numerous reprints —
no less than sixty-nine by the year 1536. The progress
of the work, at least after 1512, can be followed with
some closeness, but, without troubling ourselves with
such details, let us glance at the results of the textual
criticism, at the notes, at the Latin translation, and at
the reception of the work by the public.
For the first edition Erasmus had before him ten man-
uscripts, four of which he found in England, and five
at Basle, where they had been left by Cardinal John of
Ragusa, when he attended the Council of Basle in
143 1.2 The last codex was lent him by John Reuchlin;
it appeared to Erasmus so old that it might have come
from the apostolic age, though modern critics assign it
to the tenth or twelfth century. This codex, the best
1 A. Harnack: Du Entstehung des Neuen Testaments) 1914, pp. 137 ff.
* Erasmus's statement in 1520 that "at different times he had used more
than seven manuscripts" (LB. ix, 275) either errs on the side of modesty, or
else he does not count all the manuscripts he had seen as having been "used."
Full accounts of his work in A. Bludau: Die beiden ersten Erasmus- Ausgaben
des Neuen Testaments, 1902. Cf. also, Cambridge Modern History, i, 599;
Realencyklo$adie, ii, 754 ff, article "Bibeltext des N. T."; P. S. Allen, ii, pp.
164 ff, 181 ff* E. Nestle: Introduction to Text Criticism of the New Testament,
English trans., 1901.
164 ERASMUS
he had, he utilized only for the Apocalypse, which was
lacking in the other MSS. Neither did he use, save on
rare occasions, the best of the Basle MSS. (twelfth
century), for he believed that it had been altered to
agree with the Vulgate.1 The gospels he took almost
entirely from a cursive codex (no. 2 of the Basle MSS.),
probably of the fifteenth century, though possibly some-
what earlier; for the Acts and Epistles he used a slightly
older codex, which he sent to the press without copying,
but with a few corrections chalked out in red. The
Apocalypse suffered most severely at his hands, for
it was copied, by one of his assistants, with many
gross errors, some of which have been perpetuated for
centuries. Thus, the reading (Apoc. xvii:8) ovz !<m
xairtep Hate is a mistake for ovx €<WLV xfa rtdpsGtaf,.
This slip was repeated not only in subsequent Greek
editions, but crept into Luther's German, where it was
first corrected in 1892; and into the Authorized English
Bible, which reads, "is not and yet is" — the Revised
Version altered the reading to "is not and shall come/'
As the last six verses were lacking altogether in his MS.
Erasmus supplied them by translating the Vulgate into
very lame Greek. His critical note, that he has "added
some words from the Latin/' hardly gives an adequate
idea of the extent of his enterprise. But the work as
a whole must not be judged by such dubious procedure,
the butt of endless sarcasm by modern scholars. Erasmus
actually did collate MSS. and on critical principles,
though not the soundest. He was able, here and there,
by means of grammatical and historical knowledge
superior to that of his contemporaries, to improve the
text by conjectural emendation. His wide reading in
the early fathers stood him in good stead not only in
elucidating, but in restoring the text.2 He compared
1 LB. ix, 10490.
8 One authority used by him in this manner was the Commentary on the
Gospels by Theophylact of Bulgaria, called Vulgarius. Cambridge Modern
History 9 i, 603,
THE NEW TESTAMENT 165
the citations from the Old Testament with the Septuagint,
and secured the services of OEcolampadius for a similar
collation with the Hebrew.
Erasmus did not drop critical work with the publi-
cation of his first edition, for he introduced four hundred
more alterations, not all improvements, in the second
edition of 1519. For this he used a Latin MS. known
as the Codex Aureus, lent him by Matthew Corvinus,
King of Hungary, two MSS. from the Austin Priory of
Corsendonk near Turnhout, and a Greek MS. lent him
by the Monastery of Mount St. Agnes, near Zwolle.
These he took with him to Basle for printing the second
edition.1 When in Brussels in 1520-21 he consulted
two old MSS. at the library of St. Donation;2 another
he found at the Abbey of St. James at Liege, left there
in the fourteenth century by Radulphus de Rivo.3 When
at last the Complutensian Polyglot was released, he
also compared that. For a special text he had his
friend Bombasius look up the Codex Vaticanus.4
This text was the famous " comma Johanneum,"
or the verse read in our Authorized Bibles as I John v: 7:
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three
are one." The verse is an interpolation, first quoted and
perhaps Introduced by Priscillian (A.D, 380) as a pious
fraud to convince doubters of the doctrine of the Trinity.5
Not finding it in any Greek manuscript, Erasmus prop-
erly omitted it; for this honest, practically unavoidable
conduct, he was ferociously attacked. Finding, from the
report of Bombasius, that the Vatican Codex did not
have it, he rashly asserted that if a single Greek MS.
1 Allen, ii, pp. 164 ff.
»LB.ix,353.
9 A. Roersch: Humanisme Beige, 1910, p. 8.
4 LB. ix, 353, and Allen, ep. 1213.
BW. R. Nicoll: The Expositor's Greek Testament, 1910, vol. v, p. 195.
S. Reinach: Orpheus, English, 1909, p. 239. Houtin: La Question biblique an
XlXme siecle, p. 220. E. Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
Bury's edition, chapter xxxvii.
166 ERASMUS
could be found containing it he would insert it. The
required authority was soon found in the Codex Mont-
fortianus of Trinity College, Dublin* which was? in all
probability, manufactured entire for this express pur-
pose.1 Though Erasmus suspected the truth, and frankly
expressed in a note the belief that the verse had been
supplied from the Latin, he inserted it in his third
edition (1522) "that there be no occasion for calumny."*
Thus the forged verse was put back into the Greek to
be kept there until the nineteenth century. Though
omitted in the German version by Luther, it was put
into the German Bible after his death, and is found in
every other important translation of the Scriptures before
the nineteenth century. It is still retained as a proof-
text in Protestant creeds,3 while the Roman Catholic
Congregation of the Index has forbidden any question
of its authenticity.4
Erasmus detected two other important early interpo-
lations, the last twelve verses of Mark's gospel and the
passage about the woman taken in adultery (John vii:
53-viii:n). Though he retained them in his text, he
honestly noted that the former passage was doubtful
and that the latter was lacking in the best author-
ities. His other changes were slighter. The form in
which he left the text was little improved by the labors
of Beza and Estienne in the sixteenth century. The
edition of 1633, differing little from his, became known
as the "textus receptus," and was not substantially
* Such is the opinion of Caspar Rene Gcegory; cf. Biblical World (Chicago),
April, 1911, p. 256. E. Nestle: Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New
Testament^ English trans., 1901, p. 5, thinks that the forger was the English
Franciscan, Roy. I do not know his reasons for this opinion, which seems to
me not very probable.
»LB. ix, 353.
8 E.g. in the Westminster Catechism^ and the Confession of Faith published
by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, chaps, ii, Hi, Schaff:
Creeds of Christendom, 1877, $> 6°8; R. E. Thompson: History of ike Presly*
tffian Church, 1895, p. 257. The proposal for revision was rejected in 1893.
4 Decree of January 13, 1897; C. Mirbt: Quellen zur Geschichte des
Papsttums? 1911, no. 540, quoting from the Acta Sanctat Sedis*
THE NEW TESTAMENT 167
castigated until the labors of Tischendorf, and of West-
cott and Hort, in the nineteenth century, restored the
original on really scientific principles.
Though Erasmus claimed that his notes to the text
should not be considered as a commentary, they fall,
in their copiousness and variety, little short of being
such* By pointing out how necessary it is to have details
correct before going on to sublimer matters, he apologized
for the attention paid to minutise. As it is in small
points, he thinks, that theologians err, and as Christ
has averred that no jot or tittle should pass away, it is
necessary, even at the cost of much pains, to examine
each word carefully.1 Thus it is that every obscure
word detains him for a moment, though at times he
has little better to offer than an anecdote or a joke.2
The new Latin translation3 elucidated as much as
did the annotations. Many of his corrections were
stylistic, as the substitution of "cum vidissent" for
"videntes," in Mark ii:i6, on which he observed, "It
is strange that such a solecism should have been
used when the Greek gave no occasion for it.** Again,
where the Vulgate translates Peter's words (Matthew,
xvi:i8), "Absit a te," Erasmus puts, "Propitius sit
tibi," and noted that "Propitius sit tibi Deus" would
be closer to the thought. Language is so nearly related
to thought that some simple corrections of this sort
had a wide bearing. Such was the substitution of
"sermo," in John i:i, for the Vulgate "verbum," the
word "sermo" having the connotation of rational dis-
course found in the Greek Xoyog. In Matthew iii:2, and
elsewhere, the Greek [Aetavoelte was translated in the
Vulgate "penitentiam agite," a phrase more than
ambiguous on account of the Latin having but one
word for the two distinct ideas of "repentance" and
1 Introductory epistle, Allen, ep. 373.
1 C/. his note on tievTEpoTrp&ros, Luke vi:i. His New Testament is
reprinted in LB., vol. vi.
8 Also published separately in 1519 and often. Preface in Allen, ep, 1010.
168 ERASMUS
"penance/* The Vulgate version might mean either
"repent ye," or "do penance/' and had, of course*
been usually taken by the Catholic doctors in the
latter sense,1 and had become a powerful support to
the sacramental system. Rejecting this old translation,
Erasmus proposed " Resipiscite," or "Ad mentem redite/'
"Be mindful/' or "Come to yourselves/' The leaven of
this new rendering worked so powerfully in Luther's
mind that it became the starting point of the Reformation
and thus leavened the whole loaf of Christendom.2
Fine literary criticisms in the notes and in other
writings in many cases anticipate the conclusions of
later research. There was no hesitation in discriminating
between the several books of the Bible. In the first
place, he greatly preferred the New Testament, " where
all is clear, plain truth, and where nothing savors of
superstition and cruelty, but all is simplicity and gentle-
ness/'3 to the mysteries of the Old Testament, where
truth is sometimes covered up in apparently indecent
and silly fables.4 How, he asks, could all the animals
get into the ark? What are we to think of the story
of Creation, of Samson, of the threats in Deuteronomy
xxvii, of the minute regulations about leprosy and food —
conducive rather to superstition than to true piety?
These, he thinks, can only be explained as allegories.
In the Enchiridion he had written, "Choose, in especial,
those interpreters who depart as far as possible from
the letter/'5 But in later life he came to regard the
letter as more important and to save the allegories for
moralizing otherwise incomprehensible or offensive por-
1 Cf. the first of Luther's Ninety-five Theses; also T. *More's Confutation of
Tyndale, Workcs, 1557, p. 4i8H. In the Douai version of the Bible ^sr&vota
is rendered "penance,"
2 Luther himself so spoke of the verse, quoting Erasmus's translation,
Resolution?*, 1518, Werke9 Weimar, i, 530.
3 Ecclesiastes, 1535, LB. v, 1028 f; cf. 1043 fF.
* LB. v, 870.
RLB. v, 29BCD. On Erasmus's interpretation of the Bible cf. C. Beard:
The Reformation in Its Relation to Modern Thought and Knowledge^ 1883,
p. 120 f, 150,
THE NEW TESTAMENT 169
tions of the Holy text. Even in the Enchiridion he had
said that, if one kept only to the literal sense> he might
as well read Livy as the Book of Judges. In one of the
Adages? of the edition of 1515, he expressed himself
as follows:
If in the Old Testament you see nothing but history, and read
that Adam was made from mud, that his little wife was unobtrusively
drawn from his side while he slept, that the serpent tempted the
little woman with forbidden fruit, that God walked in the cool of
the evening, and that a guard was placed at the gates of Paradise
to prevent the fugitives returning, would you not fancy the whole
thing a fable from Homer's workshop? If you read of the incest
of Lot, the whole story of Samson, the adultery of David, and how the
senile king was cherished by a maiden, would that not be to chaste
ears repulsively obscene? But under these wrappings, good Heavens!
what splendid wisdom lies concealed.
The fact is that Erasmus's treatment of the Bible
was the most rational possible in the light of the then
available knowledge. If a passage yielded a clear
historical or plain moral meaning as it stood, he took
it literally. Only if it were repugnant either to reason
or to ethics in its literal sense was a figurative inter-
pretation employed. The great lack of the exegete of
that day was the idea of development, of an evolution
from a primitive to a higher ideal of religion and duty.
Nowadays it is obvious even to the Sunday-school
scholar that the same conception of God and the same
ethical code cannot be expected in a Bedouin tribe
wandering in the desert in the time of Homer, and in
the most enlightened members of a polished empire in
the age of Augustus. But this key for unlocking the
mysteries of the Hebrew literature was as yet undis-
covered. Assuming that the whole of Scripture was
inspired and dictated by the same divine personality,
the sixteenth-century philosopher could no more admit
the imperfections of the Mosaic code than Plato could
allow for the unedifying theology of Homer. With the
1 "Sileni Alcibiadis," LB. ii, 773.
170
stubborn material and the stark premises at his com-
mand Erasmus did the best possible.
Among the New Testament writers he also had his
favorites. The principal works he thought to be the
Gospels, Acts, First Peter, First Epistle of John, and
the Pauline Epistles except Hebrews.1 He said that
Matthew was probably originally written in Hebrew*2
that Mark was an abridgment of Matthew/ and jthat
Luke was not an eyewitness.4 He repeated the opinion
of Jerome that Clement of Rome was very likely the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.5 James he thought
lacking in apostolic majesty,, He could easily believe
that the heretic Cerinthus was the writer of the Apoca-
lypse. Ephesians was Pauline in thought but not in
language*
Rarely did Erasmus's comments lead him far into
the field of dogmatic theology. Perhaps the most
notable exception to this general rule was the note, that
filled two finely printed folio pages, on Romans., v:i2,
"Wherefore since sin entered the world through one
man/* By way of examining the opinion of the fathers
as to the meaning of this text, he canvassed the doctrine
of original sin, taking, himself, the common-sense and
humane view that however detrimental Adam's dis-
obedience had been to his posterity, it certainly did
not involve them all in his guilt. In this he was obliged
to argue against Augustine. In other places, however,
where an opportunity offered to go into speculatiye
theology, Erasmus usually declined it. The note, for
example, on "The just shall live by faith" (Romans, i: 17),
the verse which played so momentous a role in the his-
tory of the century, was confined to a mere comparison
1 LB. v, 1049.
2 LB. ix, 86.
8LB. vi, isrE, airC.
* LB. vl» 2i8D.
6 LB. v, s6C. Cf. Allen, ep. 1172: " By many arguments one may conjecture
that it (the Epistle to the Hebrews) is not Paul's, for it is written in a rhetorical
rather than in an apostolic style,'*
THE NEW TESTAMENT 171
of the readings of the Hebrew and Septuagint In the
words of Habakkuk quoted by Paul.
While abstract divinity left Erasmus cold, the practi-
cal application of a text to the criticism of some abuse in
the Church always filled him with ardor. For example, the
words, "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will found
my church/* had commonly been taken as the charter
of the papal primacy, but Erasmus pointed out the
difficulty of applying them directly to the pope instead
of to the whole body of Christians. Many another abuse
and misapplication of Scripture was glanced at, but
what drew down his most trenchant blows were scandals
arising from monasticism and the celibacy of the clergy.
How terrible are his words on that favorite text of the
monks: "Some have made themselves eunuchs for the
Kingdom of Heaven's sake."
In this class [says he] we include those who by fraud or intimi-
dation have been thrust into that life of celibacy where they are
allowed to fornicate but not to marry, so that if they openly keep
a concubine they are Christian priests, but if they take a wife they
are burned. In my opinion parents would be much kinder to castrate
their children than to expose them whole against their will to this
temptation to lust.
Again, commenting on I Timothy, iii:2, which pro-
vides that a bishop shall be the husband of one wife,
he ridiculed in no gentle terms those who torture the
text to explain away its obvious meaning, as for example,
those who understand "wife" to mean "church/* or
those who claim that the apostle desires to prohibit a
man who has ever had more than one wife from being
a bishop, and went on:
The priest guilty of unchastky is allowed to become a bishop,
so is the murderer, the pirate, the sodomite, the blasphemer, the
parricide, and who not? Only he who has had two wives [in suc-
cession] is excluded from this honor. It is remarkable how grimly
we hold on to some things and connive at others. If anyone will
consider our present condition, how large a part of mankind is
included in the herds of monks and colleges of priests, and will
then observe how few of these are chaste, into what various lusts
1 72 ERASMUS
countless numbers deviate, how shamelessly and openly and im-
pudently they flaunt their vices, he will perhaps think it more
expedient that those who cannot be continent should be allowed to
marry publicly, as they could do without shames purely and sacredly,
rather than that they should be stained with such miserable and
base lusts.
In the note on Matthew 20:30, "My yoke Is easy
and my burden is light/' he went so far in the discussion
of the many faults of the ecclesiastical system that the
passage reads like a propagandist pamphlet rather than
a commentary, and the author himself felt obliged to
apologize for it.1 Here he severely scored the innumer-
able human institutions which had grown up and choked
the pure "philosophy of Christ/5 such as the speculations,
bordering on impiety^ about the nature of the Trinity,
the superstitions connected with the sacraments and
various religious rites, the regulations in the canon
law, and the claims of the preachers of indulgences!
So it is plain that Erasmus saw the import of his work,
and did not draw back from making the practical appli-
cation. But to all who read the notes as a whole it is
clear that the writer's immediate and constant, if not
ultimate and dominating, aim was to construe the text
accurately. In such a book this is, of course, as it should
be. Erasmus performed the task with great success;
his really explanatory and clarifying comments are a
refreshing contrast to the interminable subtleties woven
around the letter by the schoolmen. In fact, it is hard
to say whether they won their greatest success as
learning or as literature. Of late they have been re-
printed, as most other notes on texts are printed, at
the foot of the page, but then they were printed in a
separate volume, in attractive type and style, and there
is no doubt that they were widely read by themselves.
Practically they constituted another pamphlet in favor
1 The note is found in LB. vi, 63. It is partially translated by Bludau, p. 54,
and by Humbert, p. 209 fF, and in my Age of the Reformation, pp. 58 f, Denifle
makes the significant remark that it is first found in the edition of 1519, thus
perhaps showing the influence of Luther.
THE NEW TESTAMENT 173
of the Erasmian reform and of the philosophy of Christ.
They were not forbidding and difficult, like modem
commentaries which no one except a scholar can under-
stand, they were chatty and companionable, full of
anecdote and wit, and under it all an earnest purpose
and the best liberal instruction to be found in matters
of faith and piety. It was a novel and a fruitful idea
at that time as it would be now to turn a work of biblical
erudition into a best seller! To support his own position
he introduces his humanist allies, Hutten and Colet,
along with Augustine and Jerome, and marshals them
all against those children of darkness, the magistri
nostri. Both his success and the animosity he aroused
were explained partly by the perfection of his style and
still more by the fact that he was the first to look at
the Bible and at religion in a human, rational way, to
prefer the spirit to the form. Against Eck he maintained
that a poor Greek style and even small inaccuracies
due to faults of memory were perfectly consistent with
the inspiration of the whole.1 Against Colet he main-
tained that Christ's agony in the garden was due to a
purely human apprehension of the terrible suffering in
store for him.2 The purpose of Christianity was to show
love embodied in the person of Jesus and enshrined in
the New Testament. His introduction pointed out,
in beautiful words, that this was the whole value of
the book: "If anyone shows us a relic of Christ's clothes
we fall down, adore and kiss it, but it is only the gospels
and epistles that efficaciously bring back to us the whole
Christ."
The Preface to the New Testament was later expanded
into a work on The Method of Theology, and published
separately in I5I9.3 It proves what has just been said
about the author's rational treatment of the Scrip-
tures. After recommending a good life and reverence
1 Allen, ep. 844.
4 Allen, epp. 109-111.
» LB. v, 73 ff.
174
as prerequisite to a fruitful study of divinity* he pleads
for a better knowledge of the original tongues as the
foundation on which should be built a superstructure
of dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic* music, physics, cosmog-
raphy, and history. In theology proper the first place
is to be given to exegesis, in which the ancient fathers
are to be preferred as authorities to the modern com-
mentators, while dogmatics. Church history and dis-
cipline, civil and ecclesiastical law, and ethics are all
to follow. Certain rules on method proper are added,
as, for example, the correct formula for interpreting
figurative language in the Scriptures and the recom-
mendation to learn some passages by heart.
The Greek Testament, once out, met with a mixed
reception. Prolonged applause from the liberals mingled
with the hoots of the conservatives. Instinctively
feeling that the work would need protection, Erasmus
dedicated it to Leo X, at the same time requesting his
friend, Bombasius, to get a formal breve approving
publication.1 As this was forthcoming, the editor was
able to appeal to the approval of the pope in his sub-
sequent dealings with his critics. Some of them were
inclined to blame Leo for having lauded a work which, in
the words of one of them, "has brought forward opinions
on confession, on indulgence, on excommunication, on
divorce, on the power of the pope and on other questions,
which Luther only had to take over — save that Erasmus's
poison is much more dangerous than Luther's/*2 Never-
theless, Leo's successor, Adrian VI,3 approved in his
turn and even urged Erasmus to do for the Old Testa-
ment what he had done for the new. After the Council
of Trent had authorized the Vulgate and had condemned
Erasmus, Cardinal William Sirleto made an elaborate
*Leo to Erasmus, September 10, 1518, Allen, ep. 864; Erasmus and
Bombasius, Allen, epp. 865, 905.
2Aleander to Cardinal de* Medici, Worms, February 28, 1521, Deutsche
Reichstagsakten nnter Karl V> hg. von A. Kluckhohn und A. Wrede, ii, 513 f>
P. Kalkoff: Die Depschen des Nuntius Aleander? 1898, p. 108.
8 LB. ix, 764. Adrian " then a cardinal/'
THE NEW TESTAMENT I7S
defense of the old Latin version against the criticisms
of Valla and Erasmus.1
From most of his English friends Erasmus received
hearty praise. Far from being shocked by the liberties
taken with the Vulgate, Bishop Fisher was inclined to
wish that the translation had been freer,2 Thomas
More wrote epigrams in honor of the work, vigorously
defended it against several assailants, and recommended
it to Cardinal Wolsey.3 Colet wrote the editor in the
following terms:4
I understand what you say in your letter about the New Testa-
ment. The copies of your edition are eagerly bought and everywhere
read in this country. Many approve and admire your work; some
also disapprove and carp at it ... but these latter are men whose
praise is blame and whose blame is praise. For my part, I love your
work and welcome this edition of yours. ... Do not stop, Erasmus,
but, now that you have given us a better Latin version of the New
Testament, illustrate it also with expositions and full commentaries
on the Gospels. Length with you is brevity. The appetite will
grow, if the digestive powers be healthy, in reading what you have
written. If you unlock the meaning — as none can do better than
yourself — you will confer a great benefit on the lovers of the Scrip-
ture, and will immortalize your name. Immortalize, do I say?
The name of Erasmus will never perish; but, besides bringing
eternal glory on your name you will now, in toiling for Jesus, win
for yourself life everlasting.
The opposition in England, just spoken of, was strong
enough to cause the book to be prohibited at Cambridge
soon after its appearance. The conservatism of the
human mind, and particularly of the theological mind,
is such that it almost always retches at anything new
and strange. When the old proof-texts are gone, it
1 H. Hoepfl: Kardinal Wilkdm Sirlets Annotationes zum Neuen Testament.
Eint Ferteidigung der Fulgata gcgen Valla wnd Erasmus, nach ungedruckten
Qiullen, 1908. Biblische Studien, Band xiii, no. 2. The date of Sirleto's work
was 1549.
2 Allen, ep. 481.
8 More to a Theologian, published in Jortin's Life of Erasmus, 1760, ii,
670-99. The epigrams in praise of the New Testament, one of which was
written in a copy presented by Erasmus to Wolsey, are found in T. Mori
Opera, 1689, p. 253.
4 Allen, ep. 423.
176 ERASMUS
seems as If theology must crumble, and those who love
theology promptly take alarm. Every version of the
Scriptures, every serious and important criticism, from
the Septuagint to the English Revised Version of 1881,
has had to run the gauntlet of those who said, "the old
wine is better/' Erasmus ridiculed these fossils in a
lively letter, comparing them to the old priest who?
owning a breviary with the typographical error "mumpsi-
mus" instead of "sumpsimus" at a certain point in
the mass, became so accustomed to the nonsensical
form that he refused to change it when the error was
pointed out to him, and kept on mumbling "mumpsi-
mus" to the end of his days.1
Because of the omission of the verse on the Three
Heavenly Witnesses, and other similar changes that
seemed to put the mark of doubt on favorite texts,
Edward Lee, a rising diplomatist and theologian, later
Archbishop of York, attacked the Greek Testament.
Lee says that while he was at Louvain Erasmus had
come to his house and asked for aid in revising the New
Testament and that, when he had suggested many
corrections, Erasmus was piqued.2 Lee then wrote down
his criticisms, which were copied by Erasmus's friend
Martin Lipsius, and sent to the humanist. As the
rumor of Lee's impending attack thickened, Erasmus
forestalled it by a counter-attack in his Apologia against
James Latomus, and also by threatening Lee with a book
which he said the Germans, a ferocious people, were
preparing against him. Notwithstanding these precau-
tions, and the intervention of More, of Bishop Richard
Foxe of Winchester, of Martin Lipsius, and of Richard
Pace, Lee published his polemic in January, I52O.3
The Dutch scholar, always sensitive, was wounded
to the quick, and even inclined to believe that the
mediation of his friends had been insincere. To Lipsius
1 Allen, ep. 456.
2 F. A. Gasquet: The Eve of the Reformation, New ed.» 1900, pp. 154 f.
E. Leus: Annotations in Novum Testamentum Erasmi, 1520.
8 Allen, ep. 446, July 15, 1519. CJ. Allen, ep. 750, to Lipsius, January, 1518.
THE NEW TESTAMENT 177
he wrote: "Lee acts with you as a lion with a Iamb. . . .
Would that you had not given him those other letters.
... I trust him less than a cacodemon." Again, for-
getting the tremendously high praise he had always given
to England, he wrote the same friend that Lee's criti-
cisms had made him hate Britain more than ever, though
she had always been pestilent to him.1 His suspicions of
Pace were perhaps justified, for the latter, notwith-
standing his unfortunate attempt at mediation in 1520,
had already published a work blaming Erasmus and
More for misspelling certain words and ridiculing the
former for his poverty ? When Lee's notes came out*
Erasmus promptly answered them,3 though he also
wrote that nothing sillier had ever appeared.4 As a
further means of humiliating his adversary he inspired
his friends at Erfurt to publish a volume of Epigrams5
in which Lee was called a son of Cerberus and of a Fury,
from whom he had inherited his envious, infernal bark,
a second Heroscratus, a disease like gout, and whatever
else the luxuriant imagination of the poets could think
of. Erasmus also collected letters of his own admirers
which expressed disparaging opinions of Lee, and pub-
lished them in a separate volume.6
Another critic, Henry Standish, Bishop of St. Asaph,
attacked Erasmus in an oration at St. Paul's Church
Yard, London, for changing "verburn" into "sermo,"
in John i: i. Against him, also, as "Bishop of St. Ass/'
1 Allen, ep. 899. November, 1518. Erasmus to Foxe, asking him to intervene.
Allen, ep. 973. More's letters to Lee, Jortin, ii, 646-662.
2 De Fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur, 1517. Abstract of this work in Jortin,
ii, 351 ff. Cf. further, Allen, ep. 3505 1097, 1098, 1099, noo, and LB.,
App. ep. 275.
8 Ad notations Ed. Lei. LB. ix, 123 ff.
4 Allen, ep. 1126.
6 In Edwardum Leeum Quorundam s Sodalitate Erphurdienst Erasmlci
nominis studiosorum Epigrammata, May, 1520. C. Crause: Hess, 1879* i> 3°6-
8 Epistolae aliquot eruditorum virorum ex quibus perspicuum quanta sit Ed,
Lei virulentia, Basle, 1520. Cf. Jortin, ii, 371, 496 £F. G. Kawerau: Brief-
wechsel des J. Jonas, 1883, epp. 37, 41. Enthoven, ep. 3 (perhaps forwarding
some of the letters). Lupset to Lee, Oxford, March 30 (1520), printed in
Knight's Lif* ~/ Erasmus, 1726, Appendix, no. 26, p. 82.
178 ERASMUS
Erasmus published an apology.1 The foolishness of his
opponents was often the butt of his wit. For example^
he recounts how a certain divine had attacked the study
of Greek, but on being closely questioned by More in
the presence of Henry VIII, admitted that all he knew
of it was that it was derived from Hebrew, Of similar
caliber was the Dominican who tried to persuade Queen
Catharine that it was very wrong of Erasmus to correct
the books of the wise and holy Jerome, as though he
knew more than the saint.
In France the New Testament found less favor than
in England. This was in part due to an unfortunate
controversy between its editor and the man at the head
of French liberal theology. As Lefevre d'fitaples was at
Paris in the years 1504-05, Erasmus must have met him
then, but their correspondence, glowing with mutual
admiration and friendship, did not begin until I5I4.2
The occasion for the breach was the proposal of Lefevre,
in his Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles (1512), to
change the reading of Hebrews ii: 7, from, "Thou hast
made him [Christ] a little lower than the angels," to,
"Thou hast made him a little lower than God." When
Erasmus rejected this emendation in his notes to the
New Testament, Lefevre replied in the second edition
of his own work (1517) that "this assertion that Christ
is not a little lower than God, and yet is below the
lowest man, we refute energetically as impious and
most unworthy of Christ and of God." Stirred by this
charge of impiety, Erasmus published an Apology?
though he felt terribly sorry to be forced to take issue
with his old friend, and would have preferred to write
a volume in his praise rather than a short pamphlet
in refutation of him.4
9 Allen, ep. 315.
8 Apologia adv, Fabrum Stapulensem, 1518, LB. v, 17 if. Bibliotheca Bdgica^
s. v. Allen, ep. 597. Cf. Nichols, ii, pp. 586, 601 f.
4 Allen, ep. 652. c. September 7, 1517. For his change Lefevre had the
authority of the Hebrew text of Psalm viu:4. See English Revised Version,
NEW TESTAMENT 179
So distasteful was the quarrel that he did his best
to avert its further course by turning to common friends,
Glarean1 and William Bude, to mediate. Bude's some-
what curt refusal caused a strain in their relations,
which was perhaps increased by mutual jealousy, for
Bude, though not so great a writer, was a profounder
student than was Erasmus. The Hollander revenged
himself in a characteristic way, by publishing their
correspondence2 followed by a letter from the distin-
guished Christopher Longueil to a certain James Luke
expressing surprise that King Francis I should prefer
Erasmus to Bude, "a German to a Frenchman, a
foreigner to a citizen, a stranger to an acquaintance/'
The climax of this witty but disingenuous attack on the
French scholar was a letter from Erasmus to Longueil
stuffed with transparently sarcastic praise of Bude.
In the meantime the quarrel with Lefevre remained
unappeased, notwithstanding a very friendly letter from
Erasmus to his rival begging that a mere difference of
opinion should not make them enemies.3 Indeed, he
greatly regretted the altercation, "Everyone/' he
wrote, "German, Italian, and English, congratulates
me on conquering that Frenchman, but they cannot
make me hate my victory less/'4 That Erasmus had
the better of the controversy was in fact the opinion of
impartial contemporaries. Luther, for example, though
in general he preferred Lefevre,5 and though he regretted
the strife between these two princes of learning, judged
that in this case the Dutchman conquered and spoke
the better.6
1 Allen, ep. 766.
1 In the Farrago of October, 1519. The letters are reproduced in their
original order in Lond. iii, 51-63. The artful arrangement of the letters is of
course destroyed by chronological redistribution. The letters, in this order,
are in Allen, epp. 778, 810, 906, 723, 915, 930, 924, 9^9, 9S4> 9H> 935- Of-
also Allen, ep. ion, 1015.
'Allen, ep. 814, April 17, 1518.
4 Allen ep. 794, C/. also, epp. 675, 659.
8 Enders, i, 88. March I, 1517. L. C. ep. 30.
6 Enders, i, 143. January 18, 1518. L. C. ep. 47.
180 ERASMUS
The altercation with Lefevre was a mere pin-prick
compared with the severe chastisement administered
to Erasmus by his old enemies of the Sorbonne. Noel
Beda was aroused by the invitation to all men, even
the laity, to read the Scriptures.1 A debate on the
new translations of Erasmus and Lefevre was proposed
in the faculty of theology. When one Dominican had
the temerity to assert that the Vulgate was very faulty
he was so harshly reprimanded that he promptly declared
he had only advanced the obnoxious opinion in order
to provoke a discussion. After a formal examination,
the learned faculty condemned all new Latin versions
of the Bible, mentioning those of Erasmus and Lefevre
by name.2 The grounds for this decision were set forth
by Peter Sutor in a pamphlet.3
A savage attack came from Spain. James Lopez de
Stunica, one of the editors of the Complutensian Polyglot,
perhaps stimulated by jealousy, prepared with extraor-
dinary speed 165 notes on Erasmus's New Testament,
and showed them to Cardinal Ximenes, for approval.4
As this was not granted, the publication of the attack
was delayed until Ximenes's death. Erasmus frankly
admitted that he had learned much from Stunica; he
nevertheless published an apology against the calumnies
of this too virulent critic.5
As Louvain was the center of old-fashioned scholasti-
cism, it was natural that the Erasmian Testament
should there excite considerable opposition, most of
which, however, developed after the beginning of the
Lutheran revolt. Even before its publication one of
the Louvain Professors, Martin Dorp, had begged the
a LB. ix, 456.
* Humbert: Qrigines de la thtologie modern^ 1911, pp. 207 f. L, Delisle:
Notice sur un Registre des Proces~Ferbaux de la Faculte de thedogle a Paris,
S899, p. $6.
1 De Tralationt Mblite ft Novarum Reprobations interpretationum, *525-
4 Bludau, op. citn 125 ff. J. L, Stunica: Annotation's contra Erasm-tttn in
defensionem tralationis Novi Testament^ 1519. Allen, iv, 623 IF,
6 In /, Lopim Stunicam non admodum circumspectum calumniator em apologia.
LB, ix, 283.
THE NEW TESTAMENT 181
editor to consider carefully the expediency of trying to
improve the version sanctified by long use; and had
quoted in this connection Augustine's words, "I would
not believe the gospel but for the authority of the
Church/* The answers given by More and Erasmus,
however, finally converted this opponent into a friend
and supporter.1
But it was in Germany that the work had its greatest
immediate influence. There, as elsewhere, some offence
was taken by the conservatives; John Eck, for instance,
professor at Ingolstadt and a pillar of the Church, was
scandalized by the opinion of Erasmus that the Greek
of the apostles was not so good as that of Demosthenes,
and that the Evangelists occasionally made mistakes.2
Another backward-looking scholar, Augustine Alfeld,
attacked Erasmus for translating xe%aprttt[ievyi "gra-
tiosa," instead of "gratia plena/' as in the Vulgate,
Luke i: 28.3
But among the liberals the work was applauded and
studied. Ulrich Zasius* the jurist of Freiburg in the
Breisgau, celebrated the " clearer sense and better Latin"
of Erasmus's version.4 On the men later to be Reformers
the influence of the work was incalculable. Wolfgang
Capito studied it carefully. (Ecolampadius had assisted
in the preparation of the text and now expressed high
approval of it. Melanchthon praised it as divinely guided
and happy in its issue in fulfilling the author's purpose
to improve studies and dispel darkness and the vanity of
many errors by the rising sun of truth.5 Ulrich Zwingli
bought, transcribed, and annotated a copy with his own
hands.6 Andrew Bodenstein, called Carlstadt, thought
the editor "the prince of theologians,"7 and studied the
1 Allen, epp. 304, 337, 347, 338.
1 Allen, epp. 769, 844,
8L, Lemmens: A. Alfdd, 1899, P* 79> n- 3«
4 Udalrici Zasii Epistolae, ed, J. A. Riegger, 1774, i, 288. Hexastich to
Erasmus's New Testament, 1516.
8 Dfdamatio de Erasmo, Corpus Reformatorum, xi, 264 (1557).
«Z. W., i, 61; iii, 208.
70. Seitz: Der authentische Text der Leipziger Disputation, 1908, p. 41,
1 82 ERASMUS
text with a zeal that sometimes outran knowledge.1
Doubtless many of the minor Reformers, of all stripes
and shades, perused the labors of Erasmus and profited
by them.2
On Luther, the richest nature and the most indepen-
dent character among the Reformers, it is perhaps
worth while to trace the influence more in detail, for
it will explain much in the history of Protestantism.
We can see what an immense stimulus the work gave
to the Saxon monk's development, and yet how even
from the first there is traceable an undertone of suspicion
and hostility which became more pronounced with
years. At the time of the New Testament's appearance
Luther was lecturing on Romans, using as his chief
guide the edition of Lefevre d* Etaples. He apparently
secured the new edition at the earliest possible moment,
and from that time forth, beginning, namely, with the
ninth chapter of the epistle, he took Erasmus as his
chief authority in exegesis.8
The Erasmian influence on Luther's exegesis, perhaps
under the stimulus of Melanchthon's praise, rose to
its height in the Commentary on Galatians, first given as
university lectures in 1516-17, and then published in
1519. Not only was the Dutch scholar often quoted
directly, but the whole angle of presentation was the
humanistic and literal instead of the scholastic and allego-
rical. A little later, however, the more deeply religious
interest came to its own and inevitably the clear human
1 In the text rovr6 kanv rb a&jjLd fiov (this is my body, Matthew,
Carlstadt argued that Christ could not mean that the bread was his body
because rovro was neuter whereas &pro$ was masculine. See Preserved Smith:
A Short History of Christian Theophagy, 1922, p. 127.
3 At Cornell there is a copy of the first edition of the Greek Testament with
the statement that it was bought for J. Salandronius at the fair at Chur on
St. Paul's Day, 1517. Salandronius, or Salzmann, was a minor Swiss Reformer,
a friend of Zwingli.
3 Ficker: Luthers Vorlemng uber den R6merMefy Leipzig, 1908. Preserved
Smith: Life and Letters of Martin Luther, 23 ff. Preserved Smith: "Luther's
Development of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith Only," Harvard
Theological Review, 1913.
THE NEW TESTAMENT 183
method of Erasmus was less followed. In the edition of
the Commentary on Galatians published in 1523 all
references to Erasmus were suppressed, and in the
lectures on the same Epistle given in 1531 the older
scholar was mentioned only to be refuted.1 Indeeds
by this time Luther had purchased the fourth edition
of the Greek Testament (Basle, 1527) and no less than
470 marginal notes in his own hand embody an extremely
unfriendly criticism of the editor.2
Though many of Luther's specific judgments on
books of the New Testament, as those on the Epistle
of James and on the Apocalypse, are but echoes of
Erasmus, or developments of his thought in stronger
form, he found in time the rational method of the
humanist so distasteful to him that he wished that this
scholar would abstain from treating the Scriptures, for
his only service was to introduce a knowledge of the
tongues, while to sound the deeper meaning of the
truth was beyond his power.3 Finally,4 he came to
see in the whole critical method with its "thus Augustine
reads/' "thus Jerome understands," only a stamping of
doubt on the most precious passages of the Word of
God and a fostering of skepticism.
But the most important service of the Greek Testa-
ment has yet to be mentioned. It was the fountain
and source from which flowed the new translations into
the vernaculars which like rivers irrigated the dry lands
of the mediaeval Church and made them blossom into
a more enlightened and lovely form of religion. There
had, indeed, been previous translations into several of
1 Luthers Forlesung -fiber den Gdaterbnef 1516-17, hg. Hans von Schubert,
1918. Commentary on Galatians, Luthers Werke, Weimar, the lectures of
1519, ii, 436 ff, with special references to Erasmus on pp. 452, 476, 508, 598,
601, The lectures of 1531, ibid., vol. xl On this see G. Ellingen Philipp
Mflanchthon, 1902; A. Humbert: Origints de la theologie moderns, 1911, pp.
347 f.
a Lutherstudien zur 4. Jahrhundertfeier der Reformation, 1917, p. 244. The
book is at the Library of the University of Groningen, Holland.
8 L.C ep. 591.
4 Conversations with Luther, pp. Ill £
184 ERASMUS
the modern languages, but they had all been made from
the Vulgate, and to the errors of that version the poor
scholarship of the translators had added a number of
others. It was not until the Greek text was published
that a really scholarly rendering was possible. Erasmus
himself foresaw the use to which his work would be
put and cordially approved of it. In the first edition
of 15 i6l he says: —
I vehemently dissent from those who would not have private
persons read the Holy Scriptures nor have them translated into the
vulgar tongues, as though either Christ taught such difficult doctrines
that they can only be understood by a few theologians, or the safety of
the Christian religion lay in Ignorance of it. I should like all women
to read the Gospel and the Epistles of Paul. Would that they were
translated into all languages so that not only Scotch and Irish,
but Turks and Saracens might be able to read and know them.
In the preface to the third edition, dated Basle,
January 14, IS22,2 Erasmus expanded this passage, In
beautiful words expressing his wish that all might come
to Christ and drink of the Gospels.
Some think it an offence to have the sacred books turned Into
English or French, but the evangelists turned into Greek what
Christ spoke in Syriac, nor did the Latins fear to turn the words
of Christ into the Roman tongue — that is, to offer them to the
promiscuous multitude.
He goes on to wish that they could be translated into
all languages, French, English, German, and Hindustani,
far it is both indecorous and ridiculous that laymen and
women should, like parrots, repeat their Psalms and pater-
nosters in Latin which they do not comprehend. . . *
Like St. Jerome I think it a great triumph and glory to the cross
if it is celebrated by the tongues of all men; if the farmer at the
plow sings some of the mystic Psalms, and the weaver sitting at
*In the Paraclesis, or introduction without pagination. I quote from the
copy at Harvard. The same passage in the edition of 1519 in the British
Museum copy, p. 8. St. Chrysostom may have suggested to Erasmus this
passage on Bible-reading. Cf. his Homily 35 on Genesis xii. Migne, Patrologia
Graecdt liii, 323,
* Lond. xxix, 82, Luther's New Testament was not out yet.
THE NEW TESTAMENT 185
the shuttle often refreshes himself with something from the Gospel.
Let the pilot at the rudder hum over a sacred tune, and the matron
sitting with gossip or friend at the colander recite something from it.
In closing, Erasmus anticipates Luther's catechetical
labors by suggesting that children be given regular
instruction in the Gospel and in the obligation of their
baptismal vows, and that books for the purpose should
be written representing Jesus as gentle as he really was.
While Erasmus wrote these words the German New
Testament was being completed. It was translated at
the Wartburg from the Greek edition of 1519. It is
quite possible that the Dutch scholar's preface to that
edition first suggested the enterprise to the Reformer.1
By a lucky accident it was the best of all the Erasmian
editions and the translator's labors show constant, almost
incalculable, use of the lucubrations of his predecessor.2
The next year saw a new French version, made by
Lefevre d' fitaples, who, though he used the Latin Vul-
gate, knew the Greek from other sources, and did not
agree with all of Erasmus's readings, was unable to
ignore the work of his rival.
William Tyndale, who had probably heard Erasmus
lecture at Cambridge, printed in 1525 at Cologne the
first English New Testament3 based on the Greek text,
and strongly showing the influence of both Erasmus
and Luther. This version was violently attacked by
More, in a Dialogue, on the ground of three thousand
supposed errors, among them the use of the words
"congregation" instead of "church/* and "elder" in-
stead of "priest." When Tyndale defended himself by
showing that in both cases he had but followed a hint
1 In Luther's letter to Lang, December 18, 1521, where he first speaks of his
translation, he seems to have Erasmus's words in mind. Enders, iii, 256;
L. C. ep. 518.
2 Momfret: History of the English Bible (ed. 1906) gives in parallel columns
selections from the Erasmian and Lutheran versions.
5 It is strange that whereas there are extant several earlier printed editions
of the whole or parts of the Bible in German and French there should be none
in English. An old translation there was, which circulated only in MS.,
attributed to Wyciif. Cf. A. W. Pollard, Records of the English Bible, 1911, p. I.
1 86 ERASMUS
of Erasmus in Latin, "More's darling/' Sir Thomas
replied with more temper than force that, though the
translations were the same in appearance, yet Tynd ale's
was informed with a malicious spirit not found in
Erasmus's.1 At the same time More professed to believe
that a properly executed version in the vulgar tongue
would be useful, and even argued liberally, though* to
judge from the later decree of the Council of Trent,
erroneously, that the Church herself attributed infalli-
bility to the original texts, and not to the Vulgate.2
The Spanish translation of the New Testament, made
by Francis de Enzinas, and published at Antwerp in
1543, was also based on the work of Erasmus.3
Colet's request that Erasmus should follow up his
editorial work with an extended commentary was
answered by the production of a number of Paraphrases
of the books of the New Testament.4 In this full, free,
and popular form the author felt that he could best
exhibit the thought of the inspired writers. All the
materials at his command were skillfully worked into a
scheme following the order of the original Scripture,
while immensely expanding and beautifully interpret-
ing it. The first Paraphrase to be completed was
dedicated to Cardinal Domenico Grimani, on Novem-
ber 13, 1517. The four Gospels were inscribed to four
friendly monarchs; Matthew to the Emperor Charles
V,5 Mark with an introductory letter on the wickedness
of war, to Francis I; Luke to Henry VIII; and John
to Ferdinand of Austria, king of Hungary and Bohemia,
and later emperor.
1 Moris Workfs* 1557, pp. 422, 425, "Confutation of Tynd ale's Answer."
* Mori Opera> 1689, pf 296, "Responsio ad Luthcrum."
8 A. Bonilla y San Martin, in Revue Hispanique, xvii, 1907, p. 428, Enzinas's
own memoirs do not speak of the original. Collection des Memoires snr
I'Histoire de Belgique, 2 vols., 1862-3. The dependence of Enzinas on Erasmus
was noticed by the seventeenth-century scholar, Richard Simon, quoted by
E. Boehmer: Spanish Reformer*) i, 140, note B.
4 All reproduced in LB. vii, C/, Allen, epp, 710, 916, 956.
8 Charles's letter thanking Erasmus, dated Brussels, April i, i$229 printed
In Geldenhauers Collectanea, ed. Prinsen, 1900, pp. 62 f.
THE NEW TESTAMENT 187
The Swiss Reformer, Leo Jud, translated the Para-
phrases on the Epistles into German in 1523; a German
version of those on the Gospels appeared in 1530. A
Bohemian version of the Paraphrase on Matthew appeared
in 1542; and a French version of the Epistles in 1543.
A number of English scholars undertook, in 1543* with
the support of Queen Catharine Parr? to bring out
vernacular translations; the Gospel of John being
intrusted to the Princess Mary. 'The Injunctions of
Edward VI, of July 31, 1547, ordered that the clergy
should put in every church a copy of the Paraphrase on
the Gospels — perhaps the only part of the whole work
as yet ready in English — and that every parson below
the rank of B. D. should provide himself with a copy.1
Under Elizabeth these Injunctions5 with slight modifi-
cationsj were renewed.
From this it will be seen what popularity the Para-
phrases long enjoyed. The purpose of the author* "to
close up gaps, to soften abrupt transitions, to reduce
the confused to order, to smooth out involved sentences,
to explain knotty points, to illuminate dark places, to
grant Hebraisms the Roman franchise, in short to
modernize the language of St. Paul, heavenly orator as
he is/'2 all this and more was accomplished. Here was
no longer a crabbed, pedantic, artificial interpretation
of the text, but something to tell men, for the first
time in that new age, what the Bible really said and
1 Allen, ep. 710, introduction; Gee and Hardy: Documents Illustrative of
English Church History, pp. 421, 425; Miscellaneous Writings of T. Cranmer,
ed. Parker Society, 1846, "Acts of Visitation of 1548," ii, 155 ff, 499, 501.
The copy of the book at the Congregational Library, 14 Beacon St., Boston,
Massachusetts, has the title: The first tome or volume of the Paraphrases of
Erasmus upon the newe testamente. Enprinted at London ... by Edwarde
Whitchurche, January 3 1, 1548. Translated by order of Queen Catherine Parr.
Vol. ii, dated August 16, 1549. The dedication is to Edward VI. No name of
translator is given. A letter of Queen Catherine Parr to Princess Mary,
September 20, 1544, speaks of Mary's translation as just completed with the
help of Francis Mallet, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Persons^ ed. M. H. E.
Wood, 1846, iii, 1 80 £ Nicholas Udal's Preface also speaks of Princess Mary's
work.
1 Allen, ep. 710.
188 ERASMUS
meant. Most of them rejoiced in the dawning light.
A few found even the Erasmian eloquence tame after
the sublimity of the sacred text. "It is dangerous to
try to be more elegant than the Holy Spirit/' wrote
Lefevre, with a glance at the Paraphrases, in the Intro-
duction to his French New Testament.1 "How ridiculous,"
thought Luther, "are those who, for the sake of style,
put the Bible into paraphrase!"2 "And," chimed in
Roger Ascham,3 "Erasmus's Paraphrases, being never
so good, shall never banish the New Testament."
^erminjard: Correspondance des Reformateurs des Pays de la langue
franfaist, L
* Luthers Wcrke, Weimar, xlii, 2 (1544).
* Roger Ascham: The Schoolmaster (1563), English Works, 1761, p. 289.
CHAPTER VIII
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS
IN an age of great editors Erasmus was one of the most
prolific as well as one of the ablest. When modern
scholars, who, devoting their lives to the study of one
author, or a few, find themselves in a position to improve
the texts first published, they should remember how
vast and how virgin a field invited the labors of their
forbears. At that time it seemed more important to
get out as much material as possible, than to apply
intensive study to a smaller field. Moreover, the diffi-
culties confronting the first editors were greater than
those met with to-day. For the most part they had as
sources few and late manuscripts, often the work of poor
copyists unable to deal with the harder passages. Greek
and Hebrew quotations in Latin manuscripts were
either entirely omitted or unintelligently imitated; even
knotty points and obscure words in Latin were plausibly
but incorrectly misread. The textual emendations of
Erasmus were noteworthy; he corrected four thousand
corruptions in the text of Seneca alone, and in one case
at least, where he restored auxesin faciens for aures in-
ficiens in Augustine he showed himself equal to Bentley.
In general, his editions of the fathers were superior in
quality to his work on the New Testament. His sense
of style was keen, however much his knowledge was
occasionally at fault. He was not sure whether Irenaeus
wrote in Latin or in Greek, and he repudiated Chrys-
ostom's Homily on the Acts, now known to be a genuine
though a poor work. On the other hand, he rightly
declared the Opus imperfectum in Matth&um, widely cir-
culated under the name of Chrysostom, to be an Arian
189
ERASMUS
forgery. The most serious charge brought against him
as an editor is that, in order to give authoritative expres-
sion to his own views, he published, as a work of Cyprian*
a treatise entitled De Duplici Martyrio^ composed by
himself.1 This charge, however, though supported by
eminent authority, must be regarded as disproved.
If the pseudonymous tract were really from the pen
of the great scholar, it would be a shock to find him
speaking of the wars of Diocletian against the Turks!
Its purpose, to show that one could be a martyr — i.e. a
witness to Christ, not only by blood but by good deeds —
is indeed worked out in thoroughly Erasmian style,
with many parallel passages to his notes^ on the New
Testament. Nevertheless, it is quite certain that it was
the production of another rational pietist, who wished
to advance the evangelic cause by fathering his own
ideas on one of the doctors of the Church.
Undoubtedly the Christian writer preferred by Erasmus
was Jerome. Like many of his contemporaries2 he was
attracted by this least theological of theologians* ^this
man of the world among saints, this pure Latinist
among barbarians. As early as 1500 he thought of
bringing out an edition of this doctor, for reasons thus
stated: — 3
My mind has long burned with incredible ardor to illustrate with
a commentary the Epistles of Jerome. In daring to conceive so
*F. Lezius: Neue JahrMcher jut deutsche Theohgie, 1895, Iv, 95-110*
184-243. A. Harnack: Ckronologie der dtchristlichen Littiratur, 1904, ii, 369.
J. A. Faulkner: Erasmus^ The Scholar, 1907, pp. 236 £ The work is not in
the Erasmian edition of Opera Cypriani, Basle, 1521 (at Harvard). It is said
to have appeared first in the edition of 1530. 1 have read it in an edition
published at Antwerp, 1568, pp. 581 £ The editor, James Pamelius shows
that it cannot be by Cyprian, and says that Henry Gravius attributed it to
Erasmus, on internal evidence, when he re-edited Cyprian in 1544* Se®
further Allen> ep. 1000.
2 Jerome's popularity is shown by the numerous early editions of his works,
than which none are more often met with in second-hand catalogues. 1 here
was ari Italian translation of his letters: Epistolf de sando Huronymo volgare,
Ferrara, 1497, and a French one: Les Epistres de monseigneur sainct Hieros
fnfranfoist Paris, 1520.
8 Allen, ep. 141; Nichols, ep. 134. Cf. Allen, ep. 138, *nd ii, pp. 210 £
EDITION OF JEROME 191
great a design, which no one has hitherto attempted, I feel that some
god inlames and directs my heart. I am moved by the piety of
that heavenly mans of all Christians beyond question the most
learned and most eloquent; whose writings, though they deserve
to be read and learned everywhere and by ail, are read by few, admired
by fewer still and understood by scarcely any. ... I am not
unaware of the audacity of my presumption. What a task it will
be, in the first place, to clear away the errors, which during so many
ages have become established in the text. What a mass there is
in his works of antiquities, of Greek literature, of history — and
then what a style, what a mastery of language, in which he has
left not only all Christian authors far behind him, but seems to
vie with Cicero himself!
As time went on Erasmus felt more deeply drawn to
Jerome for reasons he has not mentioned here. In the
hermit of Bethlehem who translated the Scriptures,
who cultivated the tongues, who loved the classics,
who cared so little for systematic theology and so much
for life, he saw the prototype of his own mind and the
champion of the "philosophy of Christ/* In such
respect Jerome was a perfect contrast to Augustine, the
great thinker, the explainer of God's ways, the asserter
of determinism and of total depravity. There have
always been the two types of mind in the Church. The
two New Testament writers, St. Paul and St. John, who
first worked over the simple materials of the Synoptic
Gospels, represent the same tendencies, the one to a
hard and fast system, the other to the expression and
glorification of a life. Again, fifteen hundred years later,
Erasmus and Luther typified the same diversity, and
Luther, with his customary insight, detected the dif-
ference at once.1
I do not doubt [he wrote] that I differ from Erasmus in interpreting
Scripture because I prefer Augustine to Jerome as much as he in
all things prefers Jerome to Augustine. . . . The reason for my
preference is that I realize that Jerome seems even intentionally
to descend to a purely historic interpretation, so that, strange to
say, his best exegesis of Scripture is in the obiter dicta in his epistles
and elsewhere rather than in his commentaries.
1 Luther to Spalatin, October 19, 1516. Enders, i, 63, L. C cp. ai.
i92 ERASMUS
The dogmatic Augustine attracted the dogmatic
Reformer; the humane Jerome the humanist. "I have
always avoided the character of a dogmatist/' wrote
Erasmus, "except in incidental admonitions about
improving studies and about human judgment." He
had always labored, he added, to bring scholastic theology
back to its sources.1 For this reason he often expressed
his preference for all the ancient fathers as against
Aquinas and Scotus. He thought the rivulets of truth
purer as they approached the divine spring.
Hearing that the Amerbachs were preparing Jerome
for publication by Froben, Erasmus immediately com-
municated with them. He had already made some prep-
arations for such a work, and about 1514 he was
appointed editor-in-chief. The dedication was first
intended for Warham, then for Leo X, who graciously
accepted it, it later was changed back to Warham, when
the New Testament was, for important reasons, inscribed
to the pope.2 The first volume came out in 1516, and
was promptly followed by the others — nine parts in all,
variously bound in four or five tomes. The whole was
sold at the reasonable price of nine gulden.3
Jerome was but the first of a long series of doctors of
the Church to receive editorial attention from the scholar
of Rotterdam.4 At various times he published either
the whole or large parts of the works of Algerus, Ambrose,
Arnobius, Augustine, Cyprian, Eucherius, Hilarius,
Lactantius, and Prudentius, among the Latins. He
edited various works of Athanasius, the first, in an
old Latin translation, in 1518. Further studies came
out in 1527; the dedication of these caused the editor
1 Erasmus to Maldonato, March 30, 1527. Zcitschrift fur Mstorische Theologie^
xxix, 1859, p. 608. Cf, A. Humbert: Qrigines de la theoloptie modtrne, pp. 228 flT.
* Allen, epp. 308, 396, 333~33S» 33^» 3395 Nichols, ep, 384, April I, 1516.
A preface to the reader, Alien, ep, 326.
8 Scheurls Briefbuch, ed. Soden und Knaake, 1872, li, 13, Scheurl to Spalatin,
April i, 1517. A gulden, fifty-six cents, had a much greater purchasing power
than the same amount of gold would have to-day,
4 BibHotheca Erasmiana, 1893, serie ii.
TRANSLATIONS FROM LUCIAN 193
some thought, before he chose John, Bishop of Lincoln,
as the patron.1 Editions or Latin translations of other
Greek fathers, Basil, Irenseus, Chrysostom, Nazianzen,
and Origen, appeared in course of time. Erasmus as
a critic was at his happiest in the introductions to these
authors. While he differentiated and characterized
them with unsurpassed nicety, he rendered a genuine
literary service to the Church, doing more perhaps to
popularize her classical texts than any other man has
ever done.
As editor and interpreter of the classics Erasmus was
even more active than as a laborer in ecclesiastical
fields. No sooner had he mastered Greek than he began
to turn his knowledge to account by producing Latin
versions of the Attic and Hellenistic masterpieces. A
few of these were from Euripides, but most were from
that scoffer and atheist of the ancient world, the Syrian
Lucian. For ascertainable reasons Lucian was the
most popular author of the Renaissance.2 The Italians
Filelfo, Guarino, and Poggio had been among his first
admirers and translators. From the time that Rudolph
Agricola brought a taste for him north of the Alps, he
had more imitators and interpreters than any other
Greek writer. Thomas More, Pirckheimer, Mosellanus,
Ottomar Luscinius, and Melanchthon all tried their
hands at versions of his dialogues.3 His strong influence
was reflected in the numerous satires of the age, in the
Praise of Folly, and in the works of Rabelais. Indeed,
what appealed to the keen wits of the Renaissance was
Lucian's satire even more than his skepticism. The
Syrian misanthrope took the same delight in mocking
the superstitions of paganism that Voltaire found in
1 L. C. ep. 752, Erasmus to Lewis Ber, January 26, 1527.
2 J. A. Froude, "Lucian," in Short Studies in Great Subjects, iv, 216 ff. R.
Forster: "Lucian in der Renaissance," drchivfur Liter aturgeschichte, xiv, 1886,
pp. 337 ff.
8 In the Leyden Edition of Erasmus's works, LB. ep. 475, is a preface to
Lucian Js dialogues Cynicus, Ntcyomantia, and Philopseudes, put in as by
Erasmus, though really penned by T. More. See Jortin, Erasmus, ii, 746.
194 ERASMUS
ridiculing the Christian mysteries. One of his dialogues
represents the poor, impotent, ridiculous deities of
Greece attending a debate on the question of their own
existence, at Athens, where Damis maintains a skeptical
attitude with great success, while his orthodox opponent,
Timocles, is totally unable to reply to his arguments save
by calling him blasphemer, infidel, and villain. Nor
did Christianity escape the notice of Lucian, who
directed his jibes against "the man who ascended into
heaven/5 and against Christian dogmas which came
to his notice. Indeed, there is extant one dialogue, prob-
ably spurious, but perhaps thought by Erasmus to be
genuine, directed entirely against the disciples of Jesus,
and a translation of this very work under the title
Lucian on Christ, was circulated over the name of
Erasmus.1 This was probably spurious, but renderings
of other works of this skeptical author even such as
were less obnoxious to Christian feeling, brought down
on the humanist the suspicions of his contemporaries,
who murmured that he covered his own opinions under
the name of his original and, in the guise of holiness,2
mocked all things. In this judgment it is impossible
for us to concur. Erasmus certainly appreciated and
appropriated as his own all the satire of his original in
as far as it was directed against human folly and super-
stition, but it is equally certain that he stopped short
of sanctioning actual infidelity. The age was one of
restless movement, inquiry, and satire. All old values
were being doubted, and the Reformation, which was
to transmute many of them, was at hand.
The catholic taste of Erasmus found much to enjoy,
and his industry much opportunity, in bringing forth
the works of the ancients. Books were the world he lived
in. The greatest of all inventions, in his judgment, was
1 According to a saying of Luther in 1542, Melanchthon had this dialogue,
probably in manuscript, as we know nothing else of it. E. Kroker: Luthm
Tischreden in der Mathesischen Sammlung. No. 569.
2 So Luther, often, <?.#,, Wrampelmeyen Tagebuch dts Conrad Cordatux, nos,
394, 1294, 1521.
OF THE CLASSICS 195
printing, the instrument of learning and true happiness.
This discovery he attributed to John Fust, the grandfather
of his friend the printer, Peter Schoeffer,1 though he
knew that others disputed it. "This almost divine
art/' as he called it, was chiefly valuable in his eyes for
giving the world the benefit of reading the classics, or,
at least, such poor fragments of them as were left.
"Let us/5 he passionately exclaimed, "keep on publishing
them, despite those who, under pretext of saving religion,
pollute and extinguish all elegant learning, though their
frantic efforts in fact only make their victims the more
illustrious/5
True to his own principles, Erasmus edited many
of the classics, among the Latins Ausonius, several works
of Cicero, Quintus Curtius, the Historia Augusta,
Horace, Livy, Ovid, Persius, Plautus, Pliny's Natural
History^ Seneca's tragedies, Suetonius, the Mimes of
Publius Syrus, and Terence; among the Greeks, either
in the original or in Latin versions, jEsop, Aristotle,
Demosthenes, Euripides, Galen, Isocrates, Josephus,
Libanius, Lucian, Plutarch's minor works, Ptolemy, and
Xenophon.2
The passion for the Athenian and Roman poets and
philosophers displayed in all Erasmus's writings, and
the imperial command of them exemplified in the Adages,
tell the same tale of ardent and unremitting study as
is told in his efforts to kindle in others his own en-
thusiasm. By letters, by assistance of all sorts, and
occasionally by gifts, he initiated others into his own
tastes. There is in the library of my friend, Mr. George
Arthur Plimpton, of New York, a precious volume of
Herodotus, published by Aldo in 1502. It has an in-
scription, in the first owner's hand, "Erasmi sum,"
1 Allen, ep. 919, preface to edition of Livy gotten out by Hutten, dated
February 23, 1519. There is a copy of this work, T, Livius Patavinus
Historicus, . . . ed. Ulrico de Hutten, Moguntiae, Schoeffer, 1518-19, at
Wellesley College, with manuscript notes wrongly attributed to Melanchthon.
2 Bibliotheca Erastniana, 1893, serie ii. See also, on the translation of
p: Bibliothec a Belgica; (^Esopus): Fabulae Petri Aegidii, 1513.
196 ERASMUS
to which some admirer has added, "Amicus orbi pe-
renne," "Ever the friend of the world." A further note
informs us that Erasmus gave the book to his friend the
jurisconsult, Antony Clava, who, at his death on May 31,
1529, left it to Livinus Ammonius. The letter accom-
panying the gift, dated April 29, 1518, is extant.1 There
is also in existence, in the possession of Mr. P. M.
Barnard, of Tunbridge Wells, a copy of Gregory Nazi-
anzen's Carmina, published by Aldo at Venice, 1504,
with the autograph inscription meaning: "I am Eras-
mus's, nor do I change my master." When, however,
Martin Lipsius received the book as a gift he wrote in
it, "I was Erasmus's and I have changed my master,"
which the original owner capped with a gracious quo-
tation from his own proverb, "Nay, I did not change
masters, since a friend is another self."2
As the political writings of Erasmus are of consider-
able importance and originality, it is remarkable that
they have hitherto been so little noticed.8 The most
formal, though not the greatest, of them was The Insti-
tution of a Christian Prince,* written for and dedicated
to Charles V, then king of Spain and soon to be emperor.
This essay is a really valuable contribution to several
branches of political science. To be appreciated, the
standpoint of the author must be compared with that of
his contemporary Machiavelli, whose Principe, printed
in 1532, was perhaps already written. The Italian
statesman regarded politics as totally dissociated from
1 Allen, ep. 841. Mr. Plimpton bought the book, which I have seen, from
J. E. Hodgkin, or from his estate. See Historical MSS. Commission, I5th
report, 1897, Appendix, part ii, p. 4.
2 Letter by Prof. J. W. Thompson, in the New York Nation, May 17, 1919,
p. 792; Bodleian Quarterly Record, 1917-19, p. 6r. Various allusions to the
book occur in Erasmus's correspondence with Lipsius.
8 W. A. Dunning: A History of Political Theories, 3 vols. 1902 ff, has no
word on Erasmus.
4 Text, LB. iv, 561 IF; preface Allen, ep. 393; Nichols, ep. 389. See
L. Enthoven: "Ueber die Institutio Principis Christiani des Erasmus," Nftte
Jahrbucher fur das Ktassische Altertwn, etc,, xxiv, 312 ff. Extracts from the
Institutio have just been published by the Grotius Society, as no. x of a series
of texts for students of international relations.
POLITICAL WRITINGS 197
morals, as much so as mathematics; it was a game like
chess or war in which any strategy or ruse was allowable.
Erasmus followed Aristotle, Plato and Aquinas in
making politics a branch of ethics, both being concerned
with the actions of men, the one in a public, the other
in a private capacity.
What were Erasmus's sources besides the Greeks just
mentioned, and the obvious one of the Utopia, I am
unable to say. There were a large number of political
writings in the Middle Ages, many of theiri, like the
works of Occam, being concerned chiefly with the
proper relation of Church and state, and others, like
Dante's Monarchic with proving that one particular
form of government is the best. Erasmus does not con-
cern himself with either of these questions and there is no
proof that he ever studied politics thoroughly. His
essay was above all practical, and it is perhaps super-
fluous to look for sources beyond the commonplaces of
tire schools and his own observation of the needs of his
country.
After recommendations as to the qualifications de-
sirable in elective rulers he points out the necessity of
education for any ruler, and especially for a hereditary
prince. The object of this education should be to teach
him that his main duty is not to fight the Turks or
found monasteries, but to care for his people. The
second chapter is a warning against flatterers, though
Erasmus himself is, as usual, quite liberal with his praise.
The third chapter is on the arts of peace. The first of
these is to love his people; but to do so in an enlight-
ened manner, not buying popularity with largesses, but
caring for the public interests by the skillful appointment
of counsellors and by attending to larger concerns in
person, for nothing is more regrettable than the absence
of the prince. Among the arts of peace Erasmus natu-
rally gives a high place to the foundation and support
of schools and universities.
Chapter four is an excellent treatment of the subject
198 ERASMUS
of taxation. Imposts should be as light as possible, and
should be levied solely on luxuries, leaving free neces-
sities like grain, bread, beer, wine, and clothing, but
bearing heavily on linens, silks, purple, unguents, and
gems. The author follows up this economic discussion
by a brief consideration of the proper beneficences of a
prince, his duty as legislator, as appointer of officers, as a
framer of treaties and alliances, and as a fostering
patron of peaceful industry. The last chapter is a
sermon on the favorite subject of the wickedness of war,
which should never be undertaken against a Christian
power nor rashly even against the Turks. He proposes
that if dissentions arise the contending parties resort to
arbitration instead of arms. " There are many bishops,
abbots, learned men, and grave magistrates by whose
judgment these things might be far more decently com-
posed than by murder, pillage, and calamity throughout
the world. " For this suggestion of international ar-
bitration, first realized in the nineteenth century,
Erasmus had a predecessor in Pierre Dubois (1300) one
of the lawyers of Philip le Bel.1 But as he had probably
never read this lawyer's book the similarity of their
suggestion should not betray us into imagining a con-
nection between the two distinct expressions of the same
idea.
Pacifism was one of the most valuable, as it was one
of the most modern, features of Erasmus's thought. In
season and out of season he was always urging the folly
and the wickedness of international, wholesale homicide.
"In my opinion/' he wrote, *c Cicero was right in saying
that an unjust peace was better than the justest war/'2
And again, "I do not condemn every war, for some are
necessary, nor do I taunt any prince, yet it cannot be
denied that when war breaks out there is a crime on
1 CJ. E. H. Meyer: Die Staats — und Folkerrtchtlichen Heen von P; Dubois,
1908.
2 To Peutinger, L. C. i, 391; Allen, ep, 056, Very early he expressed the
same opinion, Allen, ep, 29.
POLITICAL WRITINGS 199
one side or the other, if not on both."1 Even war on
the Turks, he urged in a special treatise, did not please
him and could only be justified on the plea of necessity.2
To give his ideas general expression he published, at the
request of the Burgundian Secretary of State, John Le
Sauvage, for the conference about to take place at Cam-
brai in March, 1517, a tract entitled The Complaint of
Peace* Chiefly on religious grounds, but also for reasons
of ordinary morality and of expediency, he urged the
case against war. Again he brought forward his plan
for arbitration, arguing that even an unjust award, now
and then, would be less injurious to the aggrieved party
than the havoc of armed conflict. But these suggestions
were too far ahead of the time to bear immediate fruit.
Only in our time have statesmen come to appreciate the
old humanist's contribution to the cause of peace.4
Next to pacifism, republicanism is the most original
and valuable element of Erasmus's political thought.
One must not be misled by the adulation he now and
then heaped on royal patrons into thinking that he fell
in with the general tendency of the Renaissance and
Reformation to exalt monarchy as instituted jure divino.
A close study of his writings will show that he differed
from Machiavelii not only in his ideal of a prince, but in
his ideal of government. Nothing is more untenable
than the opinion, recently advanced,5 that fundamentally
both the Florentine and the Rotterdamer maintained the
same thesis, the one as a statesman, the other as a man
of letters, and that "both forgot only one thing, the
governed/* Erasmus saw the miseries of the people and
the folly of their hereditary rulers more plainly than
any man of his time. He often was reminded, he wrote
1 To Christopher von Schydlowitz, August 27, 1528. Horawitz: Erasmiana
t, (Sitzungsberichte. . . . Wien, vol. 90), p. 438.
2 De Bello Twcico, LB. v, 365.
8 Querela Pads, prefatory letter to Philip of Burgundy, Allen, ep. 603.
English translation, The Complaint of Peace, published by Open Court, 1917.
4 J. Bryce: International Relations, 1922, p. 18.
B Imbart de la Tour: Ongines de la Reforme, i, 556 ff.
200 ERASMUS
Bude in prudent Greek, of the Horatian verse, "When
the kings go mad the people are smitten/'1 In his
Adages, especially in the edition of 1515, a bitter hatred
of monarchy is expressed, such as is hardly found else-
where save in the French monarchomachs of St. Bar-
tholomew and of the Revolution. Listen to this:2
The eagle is the image of a king, for he is neither beautiful, nor
musical, nor fit for food, but he is carnivorous, rapacious, a brigand,
a destroyer, solitary, hated by all, a pest to all, who, though he can
do more harm than anyone, wishes to do more harm than he can.
Or this:3
In all history, ancient and modern, scarcely in several centuries
are found one or two princes whose signal folly did not inflict ruin
on mankind. ... I know not whether much of the blame of this
should not be imputed to ourselves. We trust the rudder of a vessel,
where a few sailors and some goods alone are in jeopardy, to none
but skillful pilots; but the state, wherein the safety of so many
thousands is bound up, is put into any chance hands. A charioteer
must learn, study, and practice his art; a prince needs only to be
born. Yet government, as it is the most honorable, so it is the most
difficult, of sciences. Shall we choose the master of a ship and not
choose him who is to have the care of so many cities and so many
lives? But our custom is too long established to be subverted. Do
we not see that noble cities are erected by the people and destroyed
by princes? that a state grows rich by the industry of its citizens
and is plundered by the rapacity of its rulers? that good laws are
enacted by representatives of the people and violated by kings?
that the commons love peace and the monarchs foment war?
The guardians of a prince aim never to let him become a man.
The nobility, battening on public corruption, endeavor to make him
as effeminate as possible by pleasure lest he should know what a
prince ought to know. Villages are burnt, fields are devastated,
temples pillaged, innocent citizens slaughtered, all things spiritual
and temporal are confounded, while the king plays dice or dances,
or amuses himself with fools, or with hunting or drinking.
Such passages might be multiplied.4 The author of
these sentiments might have led a republican revolt,
1 Allen, ep, 954. "Quidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi."
2 Adagia, "Scarabaeus aquilam quaerit/1 LB. ii, 875.
8 Adagia, **Aut regem aut fatuum nasci oportet," LB. ii, 106.
1 Cf. " Frons occipitio prior," Adagia, LB. ii, 77.
POLITICAL WRITINGS 201
had the times been ripe and his own character as decided
in action as it was bold in speculation. However, while
he saw plainly what was rotten in monarchy, he could
hardly frame in his own mind a practical alternative,
The Peasants' War was a great shock to him, as it was
to Luther and to other liberals. In the Adage "Scara-
baeus"1 after one of the fiercest invectives against the
monarch who "makes the whole people tremble, the
senate subservient, the nobility obedient, the judges
obsequious, the theologians silent," as he beats down
laws and customs, humanity and justice, Erasmus adds:
But princes must be endured, lest tyranny give way to anarchy,
a still greater evil. This has been demonstrated by the experience
of many states; and lately the insurrection of the German peasants
has taught us that the cruelty of kings is better than the universal
confusion of anarchy.
Indeed, Erasmus had no very high opinion of the
masses, "that fickle, many-headed monster," as he once
called the people.2 Early in life he wrote: "If a thing
displease the vulgar, that is a presumption in its favor/5
and, "truth is a sharp and bitter thing to the vulgar."3
Nevertheless, his incisive criticism of hereditary
magistrates bore fruit, in the various fields in which the
seed fell, in some thirtyfold, in some fiftyfold, in some a
hundredfold. While Grotius blamed his pacifism,4 Sir
Thomas Elyot, in his book, The Cover nour, wrote, "There
was never boke written in latine that in so lytle a portion
contained of sentence, eloquence, & vertuous exhortation
a more compendious abundance," than the Institution
of a Christian Prince* Catharine de" Medici had a
French paraphrase of it made for the instruction of her
sons; and the author cannot be blamed if these boys
1LB, ii, 871 fF. The passage about the Peasants' Revolt was, of course,
added after 1525.
2 LB. ep. 655. To Albert of Mainz, June i, 1523.
3 Allen, ep. 63.
4 H. Grotius: Wane and Peace, English translation, London, 1655, Preface,
unnumbered page.
* T. Elyot: The Governour, 1880 (after first edition of 1531), i, 95.
202 ERASMUS
grew up into weaklings and degenerates.1 The two
antimonarchical adages, "Scarabseus" and "The king
and the fool are born such/' were separately printed and
widely circulated. Luther's friend, Spalatinj, translated
the latter into German, adding a dedicatory epistle to
Prince Joachim of Anhalt,2 and Luther's own famous
remark/ that " since the foundation of the world a wise
prince has been a rare bird and a just one much rarer, for
they have usually been the biggest fools and worst
knaves on earth/5 is but an echo of Erasmus. The
truest heirs of the liberal humanist, however, were the
French monarchomachs, who in the Wars of Religion
almost anticipated the Revolution by two centuries,
Many a page of Mornay and of Beza and of Hotman
and, above all, of La Boetie, bears the stamp of the
writers' careful study, during the impressionable period
of youth, of the two adages just quoted.4
Familiar letters were then, as they have been at many
periods and as they are now, one of the recognized, most
carefully cultivated, and most popular forms of literature.
The epistle is at once a necessity, a comfort, and a luxury.
It is a key to unlock the heart and to open a treasury of
gentle wisdom, of homely sentiment, of keen obser-
vation, and of criticism of life. As a literary form it
furnishes infinite variety, patient of all manners save
the stilted or formal As a historical source it com-
bines the advantages of the document written at the same
time as the events described, and of the memoir revealing
the writer's psychology as he serves up the facts known
to him. Even the simplest missives of business, friend-
ship, and love, written by common men and women, such
as those recently turned up by the hundred in the Egyp-
1 Chantilly: Cabinet des Livres, 1900, i, 255. The MS. Is entitled
"Epitome ou Sommaire du traite d'firasme de Roterdam, de Tlnstitution
d'ung Prince Chrestien jusques en Peage d'adolescence." Jt was made in the
years 1553-4.
2 Bibliotheca Erasmiana, "Adagia.
8 Luther? Werke, Weimar, xi, 267 f, 1523.
4 Preserved Smith; The Age of the Reformation, 1920, pp. 588 0F.
EPISTLES
203
tian papyri, are fascinating. The polished epistles of
Cicero and of the younger Pliny, the sacred epistles of
St. Paul and of St. Jerome, furnished models for the
humanists who, especially in Italy, cultivated no style of
composition more assiduously than the epistolary. The
teaching of Latin prose always included the writing of
letters, as well as of orations. So popular was this
literary form that it furnished a mold for the satire of
the Obscure Men and for the history of Peter Martyr
d'Anghierra.
As the Opus Epistolarum, the bulkiest of all Erasmus's
extant works, shows, he was second to none in practicing
the art of letter-writing and in keeping his correspond-
ence for publication. Indeed, one of his earliest studies,
written for an English pupil about 1498, first pirated,
then published by the author himself in 1521, was a
treatise on letter-writing.1 " I judge that epistle to be the
best/* he says, "which is furthest from the vulgar, un-
learned sort; which conveys choice sentiments in elegant,
apt words, and which is well suited in style to the argu-
ment, the place, the time, and the person addressed/*
The author adds several engaging examples of the best
style of letter writing, partly from Pliny and Cicero,
partly of his own composition, these latter including
an amatory epistle to a girl, and several letters selected
from his authentic correspondence.
His friends valued his epistles highly enough to keep
them, and some of them even found their way, in manu-
script copies, into the bookshops. A whole code of his
letters was bought by his friend Piso at a bookstall in
Siena, and other such collections came back to the
writer at different times.2 Although he burned these, he
himself preserved what he thought worth keeping, even
some from his earliest years, and, after careful editorial
revision, in order, as he expressed it, to remove the aloes
of bitterness, he adopted the plan, not uncommon among
1 Df conscribendis epistolis, LB. i, 343 ff, Allen, ep. 715 Biblioihtca Erasmiana*
8 Allen, ep. 1206,
204 ERASMUS
Italian humanists, of publishing his own correspondence
during his lifetime. The volumes enjoyed considerable
popularity among his contemporaries, both for their per-
sonal and for their literary interest, and they are to us of
to-day perhaps the best part of the humanist's work,1
A certain number of his important letters were brought
out separately? as articles now are printed in periodicals.
The first group to be published were the four of May,
1515, to Leo, to the Cardinals Grimani and Riario, and
to Dorp in defense of the Moria. These came out in
Damiani Elegia, Froben, August, 1515.^ In the following
year, while staying at Antwerp with his intimate friend,
Gilles, Erasmus had twenty-one letters printed, three of
the previous four and eighteen others to and from
famous men— Leo X, Warham, Ammonius, Henry VIII,
More, Colet, Bude, and others. This collection was
edited with a preface written by Gilles, who, according
to the convention of the day, assumed the responsi-
bility of bringing out the letters of his modest friend. ^
A third selection, also fathered by Gilles, appeared in
March, 1517, under the title of Epistoltz elegantes. It
included thirty-five letters, some of the previous ones
and others from Leo, the Bishop of Worcester, Bude, and
other scholars.
Sixty-three new letters were edited by Beatus Rhen-
anus under the title of Auctarium, in August, 1518.
Erasmus pretended to be ignorant of this publication
but he really had been preparing for it. To Mountjoy,
for example, he wrote2 requesting him to send some
letters for insertion in it and promising to change any-
thing in them that ought to be changed and to publish
nothing indiscreet. Several of the letters are apologies.
The Farrago (October, 1519) contained a much larger
number of letters (333)? including almost all prior to the
year 1514 that were published during Erasmus* life-
1 For the different editions published, cf. Allen, i, 593 ff; Nichols, i, pp,
xxvi ff. Bibliotheca Erasmiana (1893), Pt. I, pp. 87 ff.
8 Allen, ep. 783, c. March 5, 1518.
EPISTLES 205
time. The correspondence is quite one-sided, only a few
letters from such famous men as More and Colet being
included. The responsibility for this may rest partly
upon the Basle editors, who were modest enough not
to include a single letter from their own circle.
The next edition, Epistolcz ad diversos, was brought out
in the latter part of 1521 (the preface is dated May 2yth,
but letters as late as November 22d are included) to
correct some indiscretions committed in the preceding
volumes, for Erasmus was now getting deeper than he
wished into the Lutheran affair. As far as possible he
suppressed the earlier letters in which he had expressed
sympathy with the Reformer. Most of these are
probably now entirely lost, but some of them have since
been found and edited. To counteract their effect he
now put in a large quantity of hedging utterances, pro-
fessing his total aloofness from Wittenberg. His preface
is so characteristic of his attitude, especially toward his
own correspondence, that a part of it may well be
translated r1
I see, my good Beatus, that what you write Is more true than I
should wish. But then I wonder why my German friends insist so
strongly upon that which brings down upon me such a burden of ill
will. For you know how unhappy was the issue of those epistles of
which you first undertook the editing, and still more unfortunate that
Farrago. . . . Even in that careful selection enough was found to
excite tragic anger in many hearts. I have therefore made up my
mind to desist entirely from that kind of writing, especially now
that affairs are everywhere rocked by such a marvelous agitation,
and the minds of many so embittered by hatred that you cannot
write anything so mildly, so simply, or so circumspectly that they
will not seize it for purposes of calumny.
Though as a young man, and also at a riper age, I have written
a great number of letters, I scarcely wrote any with a view to
publication. I practiced my style, I beguiled my leisure, I made
merry with my acquaintance, I indulged my humor, in fine did
scarcely anything in this way but amuse myself, expecting nothing
less than that my friend would copy and preserve such trifling com-
positions. . . . But if epistles lack true feeling and do not represent
the life of the writer, they do not deserve the name of epistles.
1 Nichols, i, p. Ixxvii ff. Allen, ep. 1 206.
206 ERASMUS
Apparently the Epistola ad diversos did not have the
expected effect, for Erasmus allowed seven years to pass
before he again ventured to print some more of his cor-
respondence; and when at last he did so the tiny volume
of Selects Epistolce (1528) consisted of apologies. The
next year, however, Froben persuaded his learned friend
to undertake a new edition of correspondence, and this
resulted in the large Opus Epistolarum (1529) containing
more than a thousand letters, of which more than four
hundred were new. After this, supplements appeared
frequently, the Epistol<z Florida in 1531, the Epistolce
palteontzoi in 1532. Sixteen new letters appeared as an
appendix to his De pr¶tione ad mortem (1534), and
nineteen new letters in the volume containing his De
puritate tabernaculi (c. February, 1536).
Nowadays, distinguished people leave the publication
of their private correspondence to their literary executors
and biographers. The artifices taken to avoid the ap-
pearance of egotism have become too trite and too trans-
parent for further use. Indeed, in the sixteenth century,
Montaigne animadverted severely on Cicero and Pliny
for publishing their familiar epistles, adding, "What
could a silly schoolmaster, who gets his living by such
trash, do worse?"1 A close parallel to the humanist's
practice is furnished by Alexander Pope, who, though
with greater secrecy and more elaborate pretense that
it was all done by friends, edited his own letters, altering
a great deal, especially the names of correspondents and
dates.2
Regarding his epistles as literature, Erasmus felt free to
rewrite them, as much as wished, for publication. When
Eoban Hess printed some of Erasmus's letters, the
humanist wrote his young friend that he regretted the
act, for he was about to edit the letters himself in a
fuller form.8 Comparison with the manuscripts, where
1 Montaigne: Essais, i, 39.
2 G. Pas ton: Mr. Pope, 1910. 2 voli.
* Allen, ep. 982.
EPISTLES 207
they have survived, shows extensive and important
alterations.1 Dates, added from memory, were fre-
quently wrong, or were sometimes falsified intention-
ally to give a desired impression.2 Names were sup-
pressed; whole passages were omitted, and others added,
Justus Jonas remarked with astonishment that one of the
humanist's letters to himself had been greatly expanded
on publication, and corrupted by the introduction of an
incorrect statement.3 Erasmus frequently assured his
friends that he would print nothing unfit for the public
eye.4 He preferred the artistic grouping of letters by
subject and writer, and shrank from the more exposing
chronological order which friends sometimes urged on
him, and which he once promised to adopt.5
These facts make one cautious in using the letters as
historical sources, but they do not destroy, or even
seriously impair, their value. Some facts would be too
notorious for Erasmus to suppress; most others he would
have no motive for concealing. Moreover, he could
never really misrepresent himself. If a letter written by
him was published ten years afterward, we may not be
sure of the exact date at which he held the opinions ex-
pressed in it — but we are certain that he held them, or at
least wrote them. That he altered here and there to
protect his friends and himself was inevitable and morally
unobjectionable. Since his death some letters have been
found dealing with the shame of his birth and the errors
1 Examples of changes, Nichols, vol. iii, pp. 116 f, 288, 216, 295. (?/. Nichols,
i, p. xx, p. xxix; pp. 406, 4.08, ep. 464. Nichols reads "nusquam adorno" and
translates, " I do not embellish anywhere," applying this to the editing of the
epistles. But the true reading is "Nusquamam adorno," "I am preparing the
Utopia" Allen, ep- 477,
* An example of this in the first letters he ever printed, in Damiani Elegiay
Allen, epp. 333-335. Allen says that more than half the dates added by
Erasmus from memory were wrong, i, 596.
*G. Kawerau: Brufwechsel des Justus Jonas, 1884 f, i, p. 42. The epistle
in question was published in the Farrago nova, and is now found in Allen,
ep. 985-
4 Allen, ep. 783.
6 Forstemann-Gunther, nos. 61, 73.
208 ERASMUS
of his youth. How could he be expected to expose these
to the public gaze? The greater part of his changes are
purely stylistic, not material. Only in one respect has he
seriously beclouded the clear sky of historical truth, and
in this respect he has himself alone suffered. The repu-
tation he has borne for extreme caution, carried to the
verge of cowardice, is based on the impression given by
the letters published by himself and carefully toned
down, as was absolutely necessary in the circum-
stances, when they were published. He really played a
momentous and a not cowardly part in the great religious
conflict of his age, but he has given the world the idea,
through the carefully guarded manner in which he ex-
plained his private acts to the public, that he played a
small, almost a pusillanimous, role.1 Making due allow-
ance for this, as should be done, though it hardly ever
has been done, we shall find him a greater and truer
man in his nakedness than he appeared in his own too
carefully selected dress.
For the lover of history and of good literature Eras-
mus's epistles are a feast. He serves up all his own sweet
and reasonable ideas, many a lively anecdote, and not a
few exquisite portraits, with the sauce of gentle humor
and the warmth of a facile, charming, if not classical,.
Latin. And what a society one meets at his hospitable
board! Popes and monarchs, nobles and bankers,
reformers, scholars, artists, writers, Luther, Melanchthon
Margaret of Navarre, Colet, More, Bude, Zwingli,
OEcolampadius, Aleander, Rabelais! But to name them
all would be to call the roll of half the great men of the
early sixteenth century.
1 £/. P. KalkoiF: Gfgtnrfformation in den Niederlanden, 1903, i, 4.
CHAPTER IX
THE REFORMATION. THE FIRST PHASED
ERASMUS laid the eggs and Luther hatched the
chickens/' "Erasmus is the father of Luther/5
"Luther, Zwingli, GEcolampadius, and Erasmus are the
soldiers of Pilate, who crucify Christ/' These gems of
the epigrammatic style are among those that once
studded the sermons of a Catholic priest who wished by
them to express vividly his conviction that Erasmus
started the Reformation. It is true that Erasmus denied
that the priest had either learning or eloquence, or fair-
ness, or genius, or piety,1 and as to the first saying he
protested, "1 laid a hen's egg; Luther hatched a bird
of quite a different breed/'2 Nevertheless, the pithy
phrase flew all over Europe, attained almost the currency
of a proverb, and but expressed, with true wit, what
many people thought. Aleander asserted that Luther
and Erasmus taught the same things, save that the
poison of the latter was more deadly.3
On the Protestant side the same assertion was often
made. "We all know," wrote Conrad Mutian in the
early days of his enthusiasm for the Reform to his friend
John Lang, "that we must congratulate theology on
being restored by Erasmus, from whom, as from a foun-
tain, are derived (Ecolarnpadii, Melanchthons, Luthers,
and, oh! how many princes of literature!"4
Luther saw clearly the connection of Renaissance and
1 Erasmus to Sinapius, July 31, 1534. Stahelin: Brief e aus der Refor*
mationszeit, 1887, no. 24.
2 LB. iii, 840.
3 Deutsche Reichstags akten unter Karl F, ii, 523 f.
4 Mutian to Lang, May 24, 1520. Krause: Epistola aliquot selects Ostfr-
programm des Zerbster Gymnasiums, 1883, 15.
209
2io ERASMUS
Reformation, saying: "There has never been a great
revelation of the Word of God unless he has first prepared
the way by the rise and prosperity of languages and
letters, as though they were John the Baptists."1 Eras-
mus, he stated, had called the world from godless studies
to a knowledge of the sacred tongues, though, like Moses,
he could not himself enter into the promised land.2
Zwingli, Melanchthon, and the minor Reformers were
also forward to acknowledge their debts to the humanist.
In fact, if the matter were to be decided by the suffrage of
leading contemporaries, the man would certainly be con-
sidered, as he has recently been dubbed, "a hero of the
Reformation/' But he himself would have declined the
title; in fact, he spent the last fifteen years of his life
energetically protesting that he had nothing to do with
the Protestant revolt. If he really labored in the vine-
yard, he was like the son in the parable who did so, but
who said, "I go not."
The truth of the matter is somewhat complicated. On
one side, the purely intellectual, the Reformation inher-
ited the wealth of the Christian Renaissance in general,
and of the Dutch humanist in particular. The program
demanding a wider cultivation of letters, a return to the
Bible and early sources, the suppression of abuses and of
mediaeval accretions on the primitive Church, the reform
of the Church, and the substitution of an inner, individ-
ual piety for a mechanical, external scheme of salvation,
was first advanced by the humanists and was after-
ward largely realized by the Reformers. But the Refor-
mation was -the child-jof .morfe than jaog. ancestor^tjtO9,k
over and accomplijhgd-J&e^^
mpyementSy j^Eogh lay outside the.MReii^
in--part Jiostile j:o ,it. M Qn j3ne_§MeJbu the
groxLtJx^of .5?^9na-!i§!P anxLjhiL foundation of state
already foreshadowed by tEe EngEsTi^stafutes
of Mortmain, Provisors, and Praemunire, and by the
1 Luther to Eoban Hess, March 29, 1523. L. C. ep. 580.
2 Luther to (Ecolampadius, June 20, 1523. L. C. ep. 591.
THE REFORMATION 211
Galilean liberties. With this aspiration cosmopolitan
culture had no part nor lot. Again, Luther and Calvin
appealed chiefly to the newly powerful bourgeois classes,
whereas the humanists cared naught for any social ques-
tion. A vein of mysticism came down from Tauler and
The German Theology to Luther; but Erasmus, though
he was directly exposed to the influence of Thomas a
Kempis and of the Dutch mystics, and though he owed
something to them, was too much of a rationalist to
know the ardors of the mystic life. Finally, the Refor-
mation was the direct heir of the mediaeval heretics, espe-
cially of Wyclif and Huss. But Erasmus neither knew
them nor would have approved their schism. Though
he was aware that Colet was a student of Wyclif, he
himself never read the English Reformer, and to the
Lollards his only reference is the jocose remark that he
pitied those who were burned in 1511 less because the
demand for fagots sent up the price of firewood.1 In
truth, heresy always seemed to him a bit freakish, some-
thing repugnant to the sane and sound common sense of
mankind. When the Bohemian Brother, John Slechta,
of Kosteletz, wrote him of the three churches in Bohemia,2
Erasmus replied that he wished they were all one, and
that eccentricity was no presumption of truth. No
doctrine has been so silly, said he, that it has not found
followers :
There were men who taught that it was pious for sons to kill an
aged parent, and a nation has been found where this is solemnly
done. . . . There were some who recognized a debt to Judas the
traitor for the redemption of the world, nor were disciples lacking
who worshiped him as a great saint. ... I believe that if leaders
rose teaching that it is religious for naked men to dance with naked
romen in the market place they would get disciples for their sect.
1 Allen, epp. 239, 240. These jocose letters may have been the source of
be assertion made by Pierre Bayle (1697) that burning heretics under
>ueen Mary raised the price of firewood in England, See Addison's
'pfctator, no. 139, December 4, 1711.
2 Allen, epp. 1021, 1039. October 10 and November 1, 1519. Also published
i Bohuslaw's correspondence: Dva Listdre Humanisticke . . . ed. J. Truhlar,
'rag, 1897, ep. a8.
212 ERASMUS
But, however much Erasmus despised the vagaries of
religious enthusiasm, he was desirous of reform. When
Luther began attacking flagrant abuses, Erasmus knew
that he had a case, and a good one. For nearly four
years he labored hard and at no little risk to get him a
fair hearing. Later he was repelled, not so much by the
danger to himself — though that was not slight — as by
the dogmatic violence of the Evangelical leaders. Dis-
liking dogma, he could not find it any more palatable
hot from Wittenberg than cold in Rome* Fearing the
" tumult " above all things, bitterly hating the mob-
violence and partisan conflict in which reason can but
abdicate, he became more and more alien to the cause
he had once regarded with open-mind edness, if not with
cordial approval. Even from the first he had misgiv-
ings, lest the stir and bustle of it all should end in a
tragedy. Indeed, it is possible that he foresaw the
revolt before it took place. The signs of the time
were so plain that Aleander1 warned the pope in 1516
that Germany was on the point of secession. "In
this part of the world," wrote Erasmus, on Septem-
ber 9, 1517, "I fear that a great revolution is about to
take place."2
Though Erasmus could not have been one of the
formative influences of Luther's early life, his writings
were, from 1515 or 1516 until about 1521, the chief
guide and authority of the Wittenberg professor. After
1521, the humanist was indeed read carefully, but gen-
erally with dissent and reprobation. But in the earlier
period, so perfectly did the Austin friar imbibe the
doctrine of the Austin canon that on April 27, 1518, at
the Heidelberg disputation, Bucer reported that the
young Reformer agreed in all things with Erasmus, save
*P. Balan: Monumenta Reformationis, 1884,110.31; Th. Brieger: Aleander
und Luther, 1884, no. n.
1 Allen, ep. 658; Nichols, ep. 628. It is not certain, but it is quite possible
that Erasmus had in mind an impending religious revolution. He may have
referred to the disorders in Holland, such as the atrocities of the Black Band;
but it is as likely that he had an uneasy presentiment of religious change.
THE REFORMATION 213
that he expressed them more openly.1 The Adagia was
one of the first works of its author to be thoroughly read
by the Wittenberger, and was one which he took care
always to have in the latest and best edition.2 There
may be a quotation from it in Luther's works as early
as I5IO-H;3 quotations from it become very numerous
after May, 15 18.4 The Enchiridion suggested the cam-
paign at Wittenberg against the worship of the saints,
and the difference between inner and outer religion,
worked up in the treatise On Christian Liberty. The
Folly was also read, as was the satire known as the Julius
Excluded from Heaven.
Luther purchased and eagerly devoured the large col-
lections of the humanist's letters published from time to
time. He perused the Auctarium selectarum epistolarum*
(August, 1518) containing sixty-three letters mostly of
the years 1517-18; the Farrago nova6 (1519) with 333
epistles well distributed over many years; the Epistolcz
ad diversos7 (September i, 1521) containing many recent
but cautiously selected letters. These volumes were
chiefly interesting to him as revealing the writer's atti-
tude toward the Evangelic cause and its leader, and he
praised or blamed them accordingly. In subsequent
years he expressed the harsh judgment that nothing was
to be found in the epistles but laudation of friends and
reviling of enemies.8
One of these letters, that to Antony of Bergen, dated
March 14, 1514, on the subject of peace, was translated
»L.C.ep.57-
* Luther s Briefwechsel, bearbeitet von E. L. Enders, i, 157. February, 1518.
8 Luther's notes on Lombard's Sentences, Luthers Werke* Weimar, ix, 65,
quotes the proverb "sus Minervam," which may have been taken from
jEsop, but more probably from Erasmus.
4 Enders, i, 192 (twice), 193 (twice), 207 (twice), 214, 351, 404, 408 (twice),
489; ii, 48, 122 (twice), 131, 193. There are probably others I have not
noticed.
6 De Wette: Lutkers Briefe (1825-56), i, 362. Cf. Enders, ii, 216.
6 Enders, ii, 369. L. C. i, 3 10.
7 Enders, iii, 360, 361.
8 Tischreden, ed. Forstemann und Bindseil, iii, 423,
214
ERASMUS
by Spalatin, Luther's best friend, apparently^ from a
manuscript copy.1 Spalatin, indeed, the chaplain of the
Elector Frederic, was a tremendous admirer of the
humanist, other works of whom he thought of translat-
ing; and all of those publications, as fast as they came
out, he induced his master to buy and put in the library
at Wittenberg, where Luther and the other professors
had easy access to them.2
Most of all was Luther influenced by the publication
of the Greek New Testament, which from the moment
he got it, in April, 1516, became his chief guide and
authority in exegesis for some years. But the Witten-
berg professor was not the man to follow any authority
blindly. The sharp critic of the Bible did not let its
modern editor go unscathed. He was especially dis-
pleased by the treatment of the Epistle to the Romans,
for, having recently worked out his own famous doctrine
of justification by faith, resting on Romans 1:17, he was
disappointed to see that Erasmus had so little to say
about it. So much disturbed was he by this omission,
that within a few months after he had obtained the New
Testament, he wrote to his influential friend Spalatin,
pointing out the fault and begging him to communicate
it to Erasmus.3 "In interpreting the apostle on justifi-
1 Allen, ep. 266, i, 551. Allen puts Spalatin's translation in 1514. This
would postulate an extremely brisk circulation of the letter. Spalatin's letter
to Luther, Enders, i, 74, L. C. ep. 23, on the advisability of translating certain
little works, points to 1516 as the more probable date. The evidence that
Luther knew the translation is in a letter to Spalatin, Enders, i, 333 (1519)*
where he says, "Erasmus is for peace as you know better than I do."
3 Allen, ii, 417. A list of the books bought for this library in the year
1512 includes Erasmi opera (meaning the Lucubratiunculce, cf. Bibliotheca
Erasmiana, i, 119), Valla's Elegantia, the Annotation's in Novum Tfsta-
mentum> and the Encomium Moria* Archiv fur Gcschichte des deutschen Buck-
handels, xviii, 1896.
3 Enders, i, 63-64. October 19, 1516, L. C. ep. 21. For another criticism, of
February, 1519, ibid., i, 43 9. It is a little hard to find the exact point of Luther's
criticism, which seems somewhat fine spun to modern minds. Turning to
Erasmus's note on Romans i:i7 (the division into verses is later, but I refer
to the passage, "The just shall live by his faith")* found in the Annotations*
(1519), pp. 251 ff, we see that Erasmus, instead of following Jerome, expressly
repudiates him. Jerome would have read, both here and in Habakkuk (11:4),
REFORMATION 215
cation by works, or by the law, or justification proper
(as the apostle calls it)? he understands only the cere-
monial and figurative observance of the law. Moreover
he will not hear the apostle on original sin, though he
allows that there is such a thing." The writer concludes
that no good works justify, even if they be the heroic
deeds of a Fabricius or of a Regulus. In accordance with
his friend's desire, Spalatin communicated this criticism
to Erasmus, quoting it word for word, but mentioning
the critic only as "an Augustinian priest no less famous
for the sanctity of his life than for his theological lore/'
The humanist received this letter, but did not answer it.1
Another severe criticism, probably directed against the
notes on the New Testament, is the following in a letter
of March I, 15 1/.2
I read our Erasmus and my respect for him daily decreases. He
pleases me because, constantly and learnedly, he convicts and
condemns monks and priests of inveterate sloth and ignorance; yet
I fear he does not sufficiently reveal Christ and the grace of God, in
which he is much more ignorant than Lefevre d*£taples, for human
considerations prevail with him much more than divine.
While Erasmus paid no attention to Spalatin's letter
on biblical theology, he could not long ignore the Ninety-
five Theses on indulgences, posted on the doors of the
Castle Church at Wittenberg on October 3 1, 1517. Even
before they were nailed up they had been printed, and
they flew through Germany "as if carried by angels/*
Four months after their promulgation they were sent by
Erasmus to his friends More and Colet.8 To the latter
he wrote:
In all royal courts counterfeit theologians rule. The Roman Curia
has simply cast aside all shame. What is more impudent than these
Incessant indulgences? Now a war with the Turks is the pretext for
them, though the real object is to drive the Spaniards from Naples.
'"The just shall live by my faith'*; Erasmus defends the traditional reading,
**by his faith." Luther had arrived at his interpretation about June, 1515.
1 Spalatin to Erasmus* Allen, ep. 501. He wrote again, complaining that
he had received no answer, November 13, 1517. Ep. 71 1. Cf. Allen, ii, p. 415.
1 L. C. ep. 30. A similar opinion, January 18, 1518.
9 Allen, epp. 785, 786, March 5, 1518.
216 ERASMUS
Unfortunately, Coiet's answer has not been preserved,
but there Is some reason to think that he approved of
the Theses.1
Two months later, when Erasmus passed through
Strassburg on his way from Louvain to Basle, he saw
Fabritius Capito, who had already been in correspond-
ence with him and with Luther,2 and to this common
friend the humanist expressed a candid admiration for
the Theses, which Capito hastened to communicate to
Wittenberg.3
No one could remain long unconscious of the turmoil
excited by the first act of the Reformation. Erasmus's
opinion of the Theses, and his endeavor to pour oil on
the troubled waters, is reflected in the preface to the
new edition of his Enchiridion, in the form of a letter to
Paul Volz, dated August 14, 1518.*
If anyone assails the absurd opinions of the common people who
call those virtues prime which are the very least, and who detest
among vices those which are most trivial even at their worst, and
conversely, he is at once called into court as though he favored those
vices which he called less evil than others, and as if he condemned
virtues which he said were less holy than some others. So, if anyone
admonishes us that deeds of charity are better than papal indulgences,
he does not altogether condemn indulgences, but he prefers to them
what is more surely taught by Christ. Likewise, if anyone warns us
that it is better for a man to care for wife and children at home than
to make pilgrimages to Rome, Jerusalem, or Compostelia, and better
to give the money wasted on these long and perilous journeys to
good and true poor men, he does not condemn the pious intention,
but prefers to it that which is more truly pious.
1 In his letter to Luther, May 30, 1519, L. C. ep. 155, Erasmus says that he
has favorers in England, and those among the greatest. As he could hardly
have referred to More, or Wolsey, or Tunstall, or Fisher, who was left, among
Erasmus's friends, save Colet?
2 Enders, ep. 63 February 19, 1518; Allen, ep. 459, September 2, 1516.
3 The letter in which Capito told Luther of Erasmus's judgment is lost, but
a summary of it is given in a letter of September 4, 1518. Enders, ep. 92.
L. C. ep. 78. Capito was at this time resident at Basle, connected with the
university and cathedral, but he was making a visit to Strassburg to push his
suit for the provostship of St. Thomas's Church, which suit he won,
4 Allen, ep. 858. Erasmus later denied that he had the Theses in mind, but
it is difficult to believe this when one compares the passage here translated
with Theses 43-46. Luther s Werke, Weimar, i, 235.
THE REFORMATION 217
Erasmus was further Informed of the course of events
by a letter from Luther's good friend, John Lang, of
Erfurt, a letter brought by Eoban Hess when he visited
Louvain in October, 1518. To Lang the humanist re-
plied on October 17, I5I8:1
I hear that Eleutherius is approved by all good men, but it Is said
that his writings are unequal. I think his Theses will please all, except
a few about Purgatory, which they who make their living from it
don't want taken from them. I have seen Prierias's bungling answer.*
I see that the monarchy of the Roman high priest (as that see now is)
is the plague of Christendom, though it is praised through thick and
thin by shameless preachers. Yet I hardly know whether it is expedi-
ent to touch this open sore, for that is the duty of princes. But I fear
they conspire with the pontiff for part of the spoils. I wonder what
has come over Eck to begin a battle with Eleutherius.3
Two days after penning the above Erasmus wrote to
Capito : " Some one has informed me that Martin Luther
is in danger/54 This undoubtedly refers to the heretic's
summons before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg. Here
he bravely refused to recant the errors attributed to him,
and appealed from the pope badly informed to the pope
to be better informed, and soon afterward from pope to
General Council. In this stand at Augsburg, if we may
trust the report of Spalatin, "Erasmus of Rotterdam
gave Doctor Martin great applause, as did almost all
the University of Louvain, and many eminent persons
in divers lands."5
The interest of the humanists in Luther just at this
time led some of them to prepare for Froben an edition
of the Reformer's collected pamphlets. Responsibility
1 Allen, ep. 872; L. C. ep. 87.
2 The Dialogue of Sylvester Prierias, master of the Sacred Palace, was
printed in the summer of 1518, and sent by Luther to Lang on September 16.
Enders, i, 236.
8 John Eck had attacked the Theses in a tract called Obelisks.
* Allen, ep. 877.
5 Spalatin's account of the trial at Augsburg, Luthers Sammtlicke Sckrifien,
hg. von J. G. Walch. Neue revidirte Stereotypausgabe, Band xxi, 1904, col.
3244. "Herr Erasmus Roterodamus gibt dem Doctor! Martino einen grossen
Zufall." "Zufaii" then was the equivalent of "BeifaU" or "Zustimmung."
See Sanders: Deutsches Worterbuch, s. v. "Fall/* in fin.
218 ERASMUS
for it has commonly been placed, apparently follow-
ing a hint of Erasmus^ at the door of Capito5 and the
anonymous preface is attributed to him.1 But the express
testimony of Conrad Pellican2 that Beatus Rhenanus pre-
pared the volume and sent it to press, is supported by
other indications. This volume contained The Resolu-
tions, with a dedication to Leo X, the Dialogue ofPrierias,
and Luther's Answer, Carlstadt's Apology Against Eck,
Luther's Sermon on Penance, Sermon on Indulgences, Ser-
mon on the San, Sermons on the Ten Commandments •, and
a few other small things. The preface, "To Candid
Theologians/9 is undated; the colophon gives the date
"Mense Octobri, 1518." The volume had no name of
place or printer, but met at once with a wide sale.3 A
reprint was called for in 1518, and another early in 1519.
On February I4±h of that year Froben wrote Luther that
he had already exported some hundreds of copies to
France, Spain, Italy, Brabant, and England.4
The Cornell University Library possesses a particu-
larly interesting copy of the first edition of this book,
for it once belonged to the Amerbachs, as is proved by
the inscription in Boniface's autograph, "Amerbachi-
orum," on the title-page,5 They had it bound with a
few other tracts, Luther's De prczparatione ad Eucha-
ristiam of November, 1518, and pamphlets by Bartho-
linus Perusinus and by (Ecolampadius, these all with
Froben's emblem and imprint. It was perhaps this very
1 L. C. ep» 94.
2 Pellican, who knew intimately Froben's circle, says: "Ad festum penta-
costes (1519) perveni Basileam; quo tempore multi Lutherani libri impressi
sunt Basileae, opera et submissione Beati Rhenani, primuni quidem a Johanne
Frobenio, nempe," and then he goes on to describe the contents of this volume.
See Pellican's Chronicon, p. 75. Froben himself wrote Luther (L.C. ep. 125)
that he got the originals from Blasius Salmonius, an unknown Leipzig printer.
8 First record of this in a letter of Beatus Rhenanus to Zwingli, December
26, 1518; Z, W., ep. 53.
4L. C. ep. 125.
8 It was bought by Prof. George L. Burr from the duplicates of the Basle
Library in 1904. There is a copy of the 1519 edition at Andover Theological
Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I owe the reference to Pellican and
others on this subject to Professor Burr.
THE REFORMATION 219
copy that was seen by Erasmus, who at any rate very
soon read the book, took fright at the inflammatory
nature of some of the material In It, and wrote a long
letter to Beatus Rhenanus on the subject,1 and also ad-
vised Froben not to publish anything more of Luther's;
— advice which he repeatedly drove home by letters from
Loiivain, where he spent the summer of isi9.2
Not knowing this, Luther had much reason to believe
that Erasmus was one of his strong supporters, having
been informed to this effect by Capito and by a rumor
from the court of Albert of Mainz.3 On March 1 8, 1519,
he accordingly wrote a letter4 to the last degree affection-
ate and respectful, couched in the following terms :
Greeting. Often as I converse with you and you with me, Erasmus,
our glory and our hope, we do not yet know one another. Is that not
extraordinary? No, it Is not extraordinary, but a thing of every day.
For who is there whose innermost parts Erasmus has not penetrated,
whom Erasmus does not teach, in whom Erasmus does not reign?
I mean of those who rightly love learning; for I rejoice that among
Christ's other gifts to you, this also is numbered, that you displease
many; for by this criterion I am wont to know the gifts of a merciful
from the gifts of an angry God. I therefore congratulate you that
while you please good men to the last degree, you no less displease
those who alone wish to be highest and to please most. * . *
Now that I have learned from Fabritius Capito that my name is
known to you on account of my little treatise on indulgences, and
as I also see from the preface to the new edition of your Handbook
of the Christian Knight that my ideas are not only known to you but
approved by you, I am compelled to acknowledge your noble spirit,
which has enriched me and all men, even though I write a barbarous
style. Truly I know that you will esteem my gratitude and affection,
as shown in his epistle, a very small matter, and that you would be
content to have my mind burn secretly before God with love and
gratitude to you; even as we are satisfied to know you without your
being aware of it, having your spirit and services in books, without
1 This letter has, unfortunately, not survived, but is mentioned in a letter
of Beatus Rhenanus to Zwingli, of March 19, 1519, Z. W., ep. 86: "Erasmus
. . . scripsit ad me literas quse libellum aequare possent, de Lutherio et aliis
rebus."
2 Allen, ep. 1033, 1167; and to Alberto Pio, October 10,1525, LB. ep. 333;
also LB. ix, 1094.
* L. C. epp. 78, loo, 127.
4 Allen, ep. 933.
220 ERASMUS
missives or conversation face to face. But shame and conscience do
riot suffer me not to thank you in words, especially now that my
name has begun to emerge from obscurity, lest perchance some one
might think my silence malignant and of ill appearance. Wherefore,
dear Erasmus, learn, if it please you, to know this little brother in
Christ also; he is assuredly your very zealous friend, though he
otherwise deserves, on account of his ignorance, only to be buried in
a corner, unknown even to your sun and climate. . . .
Philip Melanchthon prospers, except that we are all hardly able
to prevent him from injuring his health by his too great rage for
study. With the ardor of youth he burns both to be and to do all
things unto all men. You would do us a favor if by a letter you
would admonish him to keep himself for us and for learning, for
while he is safe I know not what greater things we may not con-
fidently hope. Andrew Carlstadt, who venerates you in Christ,
sends greeting. May the Lord Jesus himself keep you forever,
excellent Erasmus. Amen. I have been prolix. But you will know
that you ought not always to read only learned letters; sometimes
you must be weak with the weak.
BROTHER MARTIN LUTHER.
Melanchthon, just mentioned, had long been a devoted
admirer of the great humanist, to whom he had written
Greek verses while yet a boy,1 and to whom he occasion-
ally ventured to send greetings. The fame of his pre-
cocity had reached Erasmus, who recommended him for
a position in England and always spoke of his talents
with high regard.2 Early in i$i8z Melanchthon wrote
to the elder scholar to contradict a rumor that he (Me-
lanchthon) intended to revise his (Erasmus's) commen-
taries, and at the same time to assure him of his own
and Luther's zealous affection. On April 22d4 Erasmus
replied, assuring him of constant friendship, and adding:
"No one among us disapproves Luther's life; of his doc-
1 Allen, ep. 454. Cf. ep. 457.
2 CEcolampadius to Erasmus, March 26, 1517; Allen, ep. 563. In his reply,
c. July, 1517, Allen, ep. 605, Erasmus wrote: "Of Melanchthon I think highly
and hope splendidly, provided Christ will that that youth shall long survive
us. He will simply eclipse Erasmus." Cf. also Briefwechsel des Conradus
Mutianus, rig. K. Gillert, 1890, i, 250.
3 Allen, ep. 910, dated January 5, 1519, prohably rightly. In Mdanch-
thonis Epistola> 1642, iii, 64, the letter is dated January 9th, and this is ac-
cepted by Enders, i, 345.
4 Allen, ep. 947.
THE REFORMATION 221
trlnes there are various opinions. I have not yet read his
books. I have written of him to the Elector Frederic in
my dedication to that prince of my edition of Suetonius/3
This letter to Frederic was probably written in answer
to an effort of that nobleman to get his support for Luther
in the coming debate at Leipzig.1 In his reply2 Erasmus
ventures to give advice as to how to treat the accused
heretic, persecuted as he is by bad men who never want
an excuse to charge others with errors. "As Luther is
entirely unknown to me/* he continues, "no one will sus-
pect me of favoring him. I have not read his works.
But his life is approved by all and those who attack him
do it with ferocity, raging against him, but neither warn-
ing nor teaching him, as though they thirsted for blood
rather than for the salvation of souls. All error is not
heresy, for there are few writers ancient or modern in
whom some error cannot be found." — The upshot of the
letter was an encouragement not to give Luther up to
his enemies.
Fredericks reply, dated May 14, 1519,* expressed joy
that his subject's works are not condemned by good
men. Erasmus acknowledged this,4 at the same time
writing to Spalatin;5 and Frederic again answered in two
letters, both of which have been lost. Their tenor,
however, has been preserved in an epistle of the recipient
to Bishop Fisher of Rochester, dated October 17,
The Elector Frederic of Saxony has sent me two letters in answer
to mine. By his protection alone Luther lives. He said that he
protected him rather for the sake of the cause than for his own
person, and protested that he could not allow innocence to be oppressed
in his dominions by those who sought their own profit and not the
things of Jesus Christ.
1 P. KalkoiF: Erasmus, Luther, und Friednch der Weise, 1919, p. 22; cf.
Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte, xvi, 134.
2 Allen, ep. 939; L. C. ep. 141.
8 Allen, ep. 963; L. C. ep. 145. The letter was carried by Jonas.
4 Allen, ep. 979.
8 Allen, ep. 978.
8 L. C. ep. 1 88, Allen, ep. 1030.
222 ERASMUS
With his letters to Spalatin and to the Elector Frederic,
Erasmus sent one by Jonas to Luther^ dated May 30,
1 5 19.* In part he said:
Dearest brother in Christ, your epistle showing the keenness of
your mind and breathing a Christian spirit, was most pleasant to
me. I cannot tell you what a commotion2 your books are raising
here [at Louvain]. These men cannot be by any means disabused
of the suspicion that your works are written by my aid and that I
am, as they call it, the standard-bearer of your party. ... I have
testified to them that you are entirely unknown to me, that I have
not read your books and neither approve nor disapprove anything.
... I try to keep neutral, so as to help the revival of learning as
much as I can. And it seems to me that more is accomplished by
civil modesty than by impetuosity.
Several other letters written at this time give a strong
idea of Erasmus's opinions, though it is noticeable that
his tone differs considerably to different correspondents.
To Mosellanus he wrote of a theologian at Louvain at-
tacking Luther in public with such epithets as "heretic55
and "Antichrist/' though in fact, added the writer,
Luther was equipped not with the new learning, but
with the old scholasticism.3 To Cardinal Campeggio he
wrote that people wrongly suspected him of writing
Hutten's Nemo and some tracts of Luther, though he
has not even read them.4 To Cardinal Wolsey he sent
a much more elaborate apology/ saying, in part:
They accuse me of writing every hateful book that comes out.
You might say that it was the very essence of calumny to confound,
as they do, the cause of sound learning with that of Reuchlin and
Luther, when really they have nothing to do with each other. . . .
Luther is absolutely unknown to me, nor have I had time to read
more than a page or two of his' books, not because I have not wanted
1 Allen, ep. 980; L. C. ep. 155.
2 "The phrase 'tragoedias excitare' meant, of course, no more than *to make
astir'; but- for some reason it has become the fashion to render thus literally
[i.e. 'to make a tragedy'] the words of Erasmus." J. H. Lupton: Colet on
Romans, p. xiii. If the sarcasm is intentional, it is worthy of Gibbon.
3 April 22, 1519. Allen, ep. 948.
* May i, Allen, ep. 961.
8 May 1 8, Allen, ep. 967; L. C. ep. 149; Nichols, ep. 5636, iii, p. 378, with
wrong date, 1518.
THE REFORMATION 223
to, but because my other occupations have not given me leisure.
If he has written well, I deserve no credit; if otherwise* no blame,
since of his writings not a jot is mine. Whoever wishes to investigate
this matter will find what I say absolutely true. The man's life is
approved by the unanimous consent of all, and the fact that his
character is so upright that even his enemies find nothing in it to
slander, must prejudice us considerably in his favor. So that even
if I had abundant leisure to read the writings of such a man, I should
not have the presumption to judge them, although even boys nowa-
days rashly pronounce this heretical and that erroneous. Indeed, I
have sometimes been rather opposed to Luther, for fear that a
prejudice might arise against sound learning, which I would not have
burdened more than it is; nor has it escaped me that it would be an
invidious task to tear up that from which the priests and monks
reap their harvest.
After mentioning by name some of the early tracts of
Luther, Erasmus goes on to depict the lively war waged
in Germany between the lovers of literature and the
obscurantists. Among the former, Eoban? Hutten, and
Beatus Rhenanus are known to him personally, and he
thoroughly approves their motives, though at times he
has counseled them to moderate their mockery.
To the Wittenberg Reformer Lang, he wrote:1
All good men love the freedom of Luther, who, I doubt not, will
have sufficient prudence to take care not to allow the affair to arouse
faction and discord. I think we should rather strive to instil Christ
into the minds of men than to fight with Christians; neither glory
nor victory can be expected from them unless we curb the tyranny
of the Roman see and its satellites, Dominicans, Carmelites, and
Franciscans — I mean only the bad ones.
Even at this time it is plain that Erasmus was trying
to steer a straight course between the Lutheran Scylla
and the Roman Charybdis. Already, at this early date,
there were fears that he would come out against the
Reform, a thing which Capito begged him not to do.2
At the same time his colleagues at Louvain believed that
he was on the verge of becoming a Lutheran, and they
declared war on him as such. It was reported that when
1 Allen, ep. 983; L. C. ep. 156.
2 Capito to Erasmus, Allen, ep. 938; L« C, ep. i39Af i8 p. 570,
224 ERASMUS
Erasmus heard of the Leipzig1 debate between Luther
and Eck, in which the former had maintained that popes
and councils could err and that many of Huss's articles
condemned at Constance were evangelical and Christian,
he had exclaimed: "I fear that Martin will perish for his
uprightness, but Eck ought to be called Geek" — the
Dutch word for fool.2
Erasmus was more deeply involved than ever when
his letter to Luther, quoted above, was published at
Leipzig in June, 1519, and then at Augsburg in July.3
His saying, in this epistle, that the Bishop of Liege was
favorable to Luther, though probably true at the time
it was written,4 soon ceased accurately to describe the
attitude of that fickle prelate, Thef bishop's anger,5
especially hot after the matter had been taken up at
Rome,6 caused Erasmus promptly to republish the letter
with "episcopus Leodiensis" changed to "eximius qui-
dam/*7 and to complain bitterly, in a letter to Jonas8
of the publication of the missive as a breach of confi-
dence. But his troubles did not end here. The in-
quisitor, James Hochstraten, found the letter and
thought it sufficient to convict Erasmus of favoring
Luther.9 The universities of Louvain and Cologne had
now declared war on Wittenberg,10 while Erard de la
1 Erasmus followed the course of the debate; he heard of Eck's attack as
early as October 17, 1518 (cf. Allen, ep. 872); Mosellanus informed him of the
preparations for the debate, January 6, 1519, Allen, ep. 91 i; and Melanchthon
sent him Eck's Excusatio and his own Defensio contra Eckium, August, 1519,
Corpus Rsformatorum, i, 1 19.
2 Luther heard this story, which Is somewhat doubtful, from a corre^
spondent in France, and wrote it to Staupltz on October 3, 1519, L. C. ep. 178.
8 Enders ii, 64-66; L. C. ep. 155.
* Allen, iii, p. 168.
5 Spoken of by Aleander, P. Kalkoff: Die Dfpeschen des Nuntius Aleander>
1897, p. 220.
8 Pastor: History of the Popts, English transl. ed. by Antrobus, v. 398.
7 In the Farrago of 1519; he even claimed that he wrote this in the first
place; Bibliotheca Erasmiana, Colloquia, i, 65.
8 May 10, 1521. G. Kawerau: Briefwecksd des Justus Jonas > 1884 f, i, 54;
Allen, ep. 1202.
9 L. C. ep. 187.
10 H. de Jongh: UAncienne Faculte df Theologie de Louvain, 1911, pp. 208 flF.
THE REFORMATION 225
Marck, Bishop of Liege, and Adrian of Utrecht, now
Bishop of Tortosa, applauded.1
The humanist now began to see that things were verg-
ing to a crisis. His main interest was to dissociate the
cause he had most at heart, that of "sound learning/'
from the religious conflict. But over and beyond that
he was determined, if possible, not to let an innocent
man be crushed by the Pharisees he had himself been
fighting all his life. His plan at this time was simply to
impose silence on both sides, as had, indeed, already been
proposed by the papal envoy to Saxony, Charles von
Miititz.2 It is possible that Erasmus was already formu-
lating his plan for a committee of arbitration under con-
ditions which should insure temperate judgment and
appropriate action. Spalatin had once proposed leaving
the matter to the judgment of Matthew Lang, Arch-
bishop of Salzburg, with whom Erasmus was now in
communication, though by whom he was not, at this
moment, particularly well received.3
Erasmus hoped to find powerful support for his medi-
ating policy in Albert of Hohenzollern, Cardinal Arch-
bishop of Mainz. Notwithstanding the unsavory past
of this young prelate, and his patronage of the indul-
gence trade, it was thought that his interest in learning
would make him a fit protector of the Christian Renais-
sance. Failing to see Albert on visits to Mainz in
May and October, 1518, Erasmus dedicated to him his
Method of Theology,* which, as Hutten5 wrote, was greatly
appreciated by the prelate. To set forth his program
more perfectly, and to clear himself, Erasmus addressed
to Albert, on October 19, 1519, a long letter,6 protesting
that he never had dealings with either Reuchlin or
1 L. C. ep, 202.
8 August 13, 1519, to Pope Leo, Allen, ep. 1007.
s Preface to Paraphrase to Ephesiansy to Cardinal Campeggio, Alien, ep.
1062. On Spalatin's plan: Kostlin-Kawerau: Martin Luthfr, 1903, i, 223.
On Matthew Lang and Erasmus, Enthoven, ep. 26.
4 LB. v, 73 ff; i, p. 248; Lond. xxix, 29.
5 Allen, ep. 923.
6 L. C. ep, 192, Allen, cp. 1023.
226 ERASMUS
Luther, that the latter was entirely unknown tc him, that
he had never even read his books, and that he had
advised against their publication.
Luther wrote me a right Christian letter [he continued], at least to
my way of thinking, and I answered, incidentally warning the man
not to write anything seditious or insolent to the Roman pontiff, nor
anything arrogant or fierce, but to preach the evangelical doctrine
with sincere mind and with ail gentleness. This I did civilly in order
to make my advice more effective. I argued that he could thus best
conciliate the opinion of his favorers, from which some have gathered
that I favored him, although no one except myself had ever admon-
ished him.
How much better it would be, the writer goes on to
set forth, to have a Christian in error corrected than
driven to destruction; but Luther's enemies had acted
most un-Christianly toward him. If the Saxon had
spoken immoderately of indulgences and of the power of
the pope, his opponents, Alvarez,1 Prierias, and Cajetan,
had surpassed his licence. In fact, Luther was rather
imprudent than impious, charged as he was with lack
of reverence for Aquinas and for the Mendicant Orders,
and with diminishing the profits of the trade in papal
pardons, and with putting the gospel above the school-
men. Intolerable heresies those! "They cry heresy at
whatever displeases them or is beyond their comprehen-
sion, and make it heresy to know Greek and to write
good Latin." Through all Erasmus's hedging in this
letter, his preference for Luther, and his desire, if not to
help him, at least to keep him safe from unjust persecu-
tion, is apparent.
This letter was intrusted to Ulrich von Hutten, and
by him shown to several friends. Luther saw a manu-
script copy of it in January, 1520, and was much pleased
with it. "In it," he said,2 "Erasmus shows his solicitude
1This was not the mediaeval theologian mentioned by Allen in his note
loc. cit., but John Alvarez (1488-1557), a son of the Duke of Alva, a Dominican
who taught at Salamanca and was later made Bishop of Cordova and cardinal.
See note L. C. i, 242. He had written to Erasmus earlier, Allen, ep. 506.
* Enders, ii, 304-306. L. C. ep. 220.
THE 227
for me, and defends me nobly, though he seems to do
nothing less than to take my part, so dextrous is he
according to his wont. Perhaps the letter will be
printed." It was indeed soon printed by Melchior
Lotter at Wittenberg.1 Erasmus naturally took this in-
discretion of Hutten's very ill; if chance gave the letter
to the press, he exclaimed* it was most unlucky; if per-
fidy, it was more than Punic.2 In sending the letter to
the press before he had even shown it to its addressee,
it is probable that Hutten thought he was only carrying
out the wishes of the writer; certainly the epistle was
well adapted for public reading.3
Provoked as he was by the Reformers, Erasmus was
still more enraged by the Catholics, and especially by
his fellow theologians at Louvain. These " champions
of bad letters/' as he called them, issued, on August 31,
1519, a condemnation of a number of passages from
Luther's works, which was solemnly ratified by the
whole university on November 7th.4
Luther answered Louvain and Cologne in March, 1520:
"They have condemned not only me," he breaks forth,5
"but Occam, Mirandola, Valla, and Reuchlin, to say
nothing of Wesel, Lefevre d'fitaples, and Erasmus, that
ram caught by the horns in the bushes!'* Erasmus read
the answer and wrote Melanchthon that it pleased him
wonderfully, for it had begun to make his colleagues
ashamed of their premature pronouncement, but that he
wished his name had been left out, as it only brought
odium on him and did not help Luther.6 His opinion of
the Wittenberg professor was certainly more favorable
1 It was also printed at Leipzig in 1519. Bibliothcca Erasmiana, i, 93.
8 1520. Allen, ep. 1152.
8 Huttcni Opera) ed. Docking, ii, 311; P. Kalkoff: Ulrich con Hutten, 1920,
p. 521.
4 Kostlin-Kawerau, 5, 266. H. de Jongh: L'Ancirnne Faculte de Theohgie
de Louvain, 1911, pp. 208 ff.
6 Werkf, Weimar, vi, 183.
6 Corpus Reformatory,™, i, 206. On a lost letter from Luther to Erasmus, of
May, 1520, perhaps in answer to the one from Erasmus to Melanchthon, cf.
Enders, ii, 397. L. C. ep. 214.
228 ERASMUS
than he thought it prudent to avow in -his letters, at
least in those designed for publication. A disciple,
Hermann Hump, who lived with him during the last half
of 1519 and the first months of 1520, wrote Luther on
March 14, 1520, that Erasmus almost adored him, though
he kept his opinion for his table companions.1 Indeed,
the humanist himself wrote Jonas,2 April 9, 1520: "I
would not have the Dominicans know what a friend I
am to Luther. This university has contracted incurable
madness. Atensis, indeed, has perished, but Egmond
and Latomus act more odiously than he/' The alter-
cation with Egmond waxed very hot indeed about this
time, the special cause of it being Erasmus's old letter
to Luther "badly understood and worse interpreted."3
The quarrel finally reached such a point that the rector
of the university summoned both parties to a public
conference to settle their differences. One of the wit-
tiest bits of Erasmus's writings is the account of this
conference for his friend More.4 Asked to make a specific
complaint, Erasmus said that Egmond had accused him
of favoring Luther, which was a lie. Egmond then lost
his temper, burst into foul language, called Erasmus an
old turncoat, Luther's harbinger, a falsifier of the Bible,
a forger of papal letters, and a slanderer who had accused
him, Egmond, of being drunk. Erasmus demurely ad-
mitted the last charge, though he said he only spoke of
it as a matter of common knowledge, but added that,
though Egmond might shout against Luther till he split
for all he cared, he must not, in future, mix his, Erasmus's,
name in the affair. To Egmond's demand that he write
something against the heretic, or at least publish an
opinion that he had been successfully refuted by Lou-
vain, the humanist replied that, judging in the same
1 Enders, ii, 350-352. L. C. ep. 236.
* Kawerau: Brief weeks fl des Justus Jonas, i, 43. L. C. cp. 245. Alien,
cp. 1088.
8 Allen, ep. 1033.
*L. C. ep. 313. Louvam, November, 1520. Allen, ep. 1162.
THE REFORMATION 229
way, his opponent must be a Lutheran himself, for he
had not written anything against Luther.
On June 15, 1520, the bull, Exsurge Dominey threaten-
ing to excommunicate Luther if he did not recant within
sixty days after its promulgation in Germany, was signed
by Leo at Rome, and intrusted to Eck, who posted it
during the last days of September in the dioceses of
Brandenburg and Merseburg. About the same time
Aleander was dispatched from Rome to the Netherlands
to meet Charles, who was coming from Spain to be
crowned emperor, in order to secure his support for the
Church in suppressing the heretic.
Erasmus now resolved to do all in his power to prevent
extreme measures being taken. Judging that it would
be both inexpedient for the attainment of his end and
dangerous to himself to come out openly for Luther, he
went to work in a quiet but persistent way to influence
persons in power to act with leniency, and especially to
moderate the passions of the leaders of each side. Luther
and his friends sinned in the violence of their invective,
but he hoped to bring them to reason.1 Their opponents,
the monks, or "Pharisees," as he called them, were
beyond the appeals of reason; so he merely worked to
thwart them of the bloody triumph they desired.
When he later became Luther's enemy he skillfully
covered up as much as possible the traces of his activity
in the summer of 1520, and, as he had acted with caution,
it was not hard to do so. It is sometimes difficult to
determine exactly how far his efforts went. To (Eco-
lampadius he wrote, for example, on May 15, 1520,
that Luther's books would have been burned in England
but for the intervention of "a humble and vigilant
friend. Not that I undertake to judge Luther's books,"
he qualifies, "but this tyranny by no means pleases me."2
One of the first potentates whom he endeavored to
1 He wrote Spalatin, July, 1520, that lie hoped Luther would moderate his
language. Allen, ep. 1119.
* So in a letter to Melanchthon, L. C. epp. 257, 258; Allen, epp. 1102, 1113.
23o ERASMUS
influence to act as mediator was his old friend Henry VIII
of England, who spent part of the summer at Calais
negotiating with Francis I and Charles V. Erasmus
joined him in July, and, in his own words, "talked some
of writing against Luther, but more of means of making
peace in the Church/'1
Erasmus's efforts apparently met with a somewhat
chilly reception, for on September 9th he wrote Gelden-
hauer2 that he feared the worst for poor Luther, so much
were the princes and Leo incensed- against him. Would
that Luther had followed his advice, for the formidable
bull has already been published against him, though Leo
had forbidden this to be done (!). The source of the
whole affair, according to the humanist, was hatred of
learning and the stupidity of the priests. He assured his
correspondent, probably not without reason, that he
(Erasmus) might get a bishopric if only he would write
against Luther.
The bull had indeed been published in Germany
during the summer, both by supporters of the pope and,
with a railing commentary, by Hutten, who thought
thus to help Luther in the eyes of his countrymen.3 The
1 Lond. xxiii, 6, col. 1229. L.B. ep. 650. On this visit ef. Meyer, p. 45;
Kalkoff: FeTmittlungspolitik, p. 19 ff. It took place between July 6th and
30th. About this time he saw his friend More at Bruges, Allen, 1184, En-
thoven, p. 10. Various rumors of this interview with Henry got out, the most
interesting of which is found in a letter from Myconius to Clivanus, November
20, 1520, published by Hess: Erasmus von Rotterdam, 1790, ii, 607: "I will
tell you something of Erasmus. He is a scoundrel. Hear what he did. He
was summoned by the king of England to take counsel while he was here.
The king slapped him on the back and said; 'Why don't you defend that good
man, Luther?' Erasmus answered, * Because I am not enough of a theologian;
since Louvain has given me the robe of a grammarian I meddle with no such
business.' After many words the King said, 'You are a good fellow, Erasmus/
and sent him away with fifty ducats. Then Erasmus went to Frankfort. . . .
He intended to go on to Basle, but was called back by the king of Spain."
L. C. ep. 338. Erasmus was present at the splendid entry of Charles V into
Bruges on July 25, 1520. P. KalkofT: Ulrich von Hutten, 1920, p. 498.
2 Allen, ep. 1141. C/. his letter to Chieregato, September 13, 1520, Allen,
ep- 1 144;
* Bibliography of the first editions of the bull, Exsurge Domine, in
schrift fur Buchcrfreundc, k, 1918, pp. 187 ff; x, 1919, p. 19.
THE REFORMATION 231
officials, however, were not far behind. Aleander and
Caracciolo, the papal nuncios who had been dispatched
from Rome on July 27th,1 arrived in Cologne in Sep-
tember? and published the bull here on the 22d. Four
days later Aleander was in Antwerp for the same pur-
pose, and on September 28th he had here his first inter-
view with Charles of Spain, from whom he promptly
secured a decree against the Lutherans in the Nether-
lands. This was doubtless a bitter blow to Erasmus,
who wrote the Reformer that the court was filled with
"beggar-tyrants" (his favorite epithet for the mendi-
cants) and that there was no hope in the emperor.2
Indeed, it is remarkable that he who so freely eulogized
many of the potentates of the day should seldom have
had a good word to say for his own sovereign. A story
was current that he said of Charles and Ferdinand,
"These two cubs will make Germany smart some day/'3
After this triumph the indefatigable legate proceeded
to Louvain, where he posted the bull on October 8th,
solemnly burned the heretic's books, and made a violent
speech attacking Erasmus. This was followed the next
day by a renewed attack from Egmond and by the ex-
clusion of Erasmus and Dorp, his only supporter among
the professors, from the theological faculty.4 For these
acts Aleander and Egmond were bitterly scored in an
anonymous pamphlet, the Acta Academics Lovaniensis^
which has been attributed to several writers, but was
probably from the pen of Erasmus.5 The style, the
1 For these dates and facts, Kalkoff : Luthers romischer Proxess. Rom. 1906.
5 Luther to Spalatin, October 1 1, 1520. Enders, ii, 491, cf. iii, 90. In Luther's
phrase "mendicotyranni" we recognize Erasmus's favorite, KruxorvpavvoL
L. C. ep. 304, cf. ep. 406.
3 Luthers Tischreden in der Mathtsischen Sammlung, ed. Kroker, No. 498.
Letter of Besold to V. Dietrich, April II, 1542, Archw fur Reformations-
geschichtf, xix, 1922, 95, An exception to the general rule that Erasmus
never praised Charles is to be found in the Institutio Christiani Principis,
which was, however, written in 1515, when Charles was a mere boy.
4 P. KalkofF: Anf tinge der Ge genre formation, ii, 35 ff. Also the article by the
same scholar to be found in Zwingli's Werke, vii, 409.
5 The proof of the authorship given in P. KalkoiF: 7ermittlungspolitikt 23 ff.
The similarity of the style of the Acta to that of Erasmus was early noticed.
232 ERASMUS
occurrence of expressions used in his letters at that time,
the trend of the satire, the minute acquaintance with
circumstances known better to Erasmus than to anyone
else, and the publication of the pamphlet shortly after
the events recorded and at Cologne, while he was in that
city, all tend to prove that he was the author. The pur-
pose of the tract was not only revenge on Aleander, but
also to weaken the position of that envoy by casting
doubts on the legitimacy of his nunciature and on the
authenticity of the bull, and by assuring the public that
the Romanists were able only to burn Luther's books,
not to refute them.
Shortly after the scene at Louvain Erasmus followed
the emperor to Cologne in order to meet two men
reckoned as the chief supporters of the new movement,
Francis von Sickingen and the Elector Frederic of
Saxony.1 In the current, but unjustified, idealization of
Sickingen, he is represented as the perfect knight of Christ
and of Germany, standing boldly amid the forces of dark-
ness for the truth, for the Gospel, and for the fatherland.
As a matter of fact he was a self-seeking, brusque soldier,
capable, when he was put in command of an army against
France, of intriguing with the enemy for his own per-
sonal profit.2 By his friend Ulrich von Hutten he had
been sufficiently interested in the Lutheran cause to see
in it a powerful support to his anti-imperial and anti-
Spanish policy, and he therefore tried to protect Luther,
though he was, in fact, soon duped, or seduced, by abler
politicians than himself, Aleander and Glapion, But,
Fadianische Brief sammlung (Mitteilungen zur vatfrlandischen Geschickte, 25.
St, Gallen. 1890 ff) ii, 346. The pamphlet is reprinted in Luther's Werkc*
Erlangen edition, Opera latina varii argumenti, iv, 308-314. Cf. De Jongh:
JJAncienne Facultt de Theologie de Louvain, p. 241.
xOn Erasmus at Cologne, Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus, hg. von
Horawitz und Hartfelder, 1886, Nos. 181, 200; L. C. ep. 332, 438; Enthoven,
ep. 26. LB. ep. 709.
2 The older literature, the biographies of Hutten by Strauss, and of Sick-
ingen by Ulraann, carried this idealization to an extreme. See W. Friedens-
burg: "Franz von Sickingen." Im Morgenrot der Reformation^ 1912, pp.
557-666; P. Kalkoff: Ulrich von Hutten und die Reformation, 1920.
THE REFORMATION 233
though they did little real service to the Evangelical
cause, the two knights, Hutten and Sickingen, were now
outwardly zealous for it. Erasmus's more cautious
method of protecting Luther from unjust condemnation
seemed to them little better than cowardly because of
its calculated moderation. Hutten accordingly ad-
dressed to his old and formerly revered friend a rather
insulting invitation to keep safe,1 on August 15, 1520:
When Reuchlin's affair got hot you seemed In more weak terror of
those fellows [the Roman Inquisitors] than you ought to have been.
And now in Luther's case you try hard to persuade his enemies that
you are as far as possible from defending the common good of
Christianity, while they know that you believe just the opposite
from what you say.
And again on November I3th:2
Fly, fly! Keep yourself safe for us! I am in sufficient, even infinite
peril, but my mind is inured to danger and to the vicissitudes of
fortune, while with you it is different. Those fellows all cry out that
you are the author of this business and that from you as from a
fountain-head has flowed whatever now displeases Leo; they say
that you went before us, that you taught us, that you first incited
the minds of men with the love of liberty and that we are your
followers.
In vain did a common friend, Capito, beg Hutten to
follow a more peaceful course and especially to spare
true friends like the old humanist. While still breathing
out fire and slaughter, Hutten replied that for him to
leave the fatherland in slavery would be dishonorable.3
At first he wondered that Erasmus did not reply to his
first letter4 but, from the Ebernburg, near Worms, he
wrote Nesen: "The people at Cologne have recently
sent me letters, but Erasmus has sent nothing, fearing,
like a coward, that what he writes may be betrayed/'
In this case, a most reasonable fear!5
1 Hutteni Opera, ed. Docking, 1859, i, p. 367. L. C. ep. 285; Allen, ep. 1135.
2 Docking, i, 423; L. C. ep. 336, Allen, ep. 1161.
'Hutten to Capito, August 28, 1520, Zeitsckrift des Fiddaet Gesckichtx-
vereins, viii, 1909, pp. 52$*; KalkofF: Hutttn, 1920, pp. 241 f.
4 "Miror, Erasmus an scripserit," ibid.
5 Hutten to Nesen, KalkofF: Hutten, 1920, p. 573.
ERASMUS
Far different in character was Frederic, well named
the Wise, with whom Erasmus came into direct com-
munication during his three weeks5 stay at Cologne in
Novembers 1520. Ever since the letters exchanged be-
tween the two, eighteen months before, the elector had
been trying to get the support of the humanist in order
to make as good a front as possible against the assaults
of the partisans of the pope. The several imperial em-
bassies at Wittenberg in 1520 may have brought news of
the humanist, and on the other side Frederic selected as
Bis envoy a particularly trustworthy young poet, now in
-the service of Maximilian of Zevenbergben, one John
Alexander Brassicanus by name. By him he sent an
invitation to the great scholar to come to Wittenberg,
and he also sent, as a token of his esteem, a medallion
of himself as Lieutenant of the Empire.1
While he declined the invitation to Wittenberg,
Erasmus counted on seeing Frederic at the imperial
coronation, which took place at Aix-la-Chapelle on
October 23d. As the elector, however, was detained
while on his way thither by an attack of gout, he waited
at Cologne, and there, on October jist, had an audience
with his imperial master, who arrived on October 28th.2
At this meeting, in the sacristy of the cathedral, the
emperor promised that he would allow the way of the
law to which he had already been committed by his
"capitulation/' or agreement signed at his election.
When an emperor was chosen it was customary for the
electors not only to demand gratifications of money, but
also political concessions of all sorts, and Frederic, who
had refused the donative, insisted, having Luther's case in
mind, that no subject of the Empire should be outlawed
or condemned without due hearing. Charles, therefore,
merely confirmed in this promise his previous undertaking.
* On all this P. KalkofF: Erasmus, Luther, und Friedrich der Weise, 1919, pp.
22, 87 f; The medallion is reproduced in P. Schreckenbach und F. Neubert,
Martin Luther? 1918, p. 54.
2 He hastened from Aix on account of the outbreak of the plague.
J. Paquler; Lettres de Jerome Al'eandre* 1910, p, 61.
REFORMATION 235
On Sunday, November 4th? the papal legates visited
Frederic at his lodgings on the Square of the Three
Kingss and demanded that the heretic's books be burned
and that he himself be either punished by the elector^ or
be delivered to them bound. The politic old prince gave
them one of those evasive answers in which he was an
adept? disclaiming any intention of protecting heresy^
but announcing that he would not deliver up an uncon-
dennned man. The next day Frederic sent for Erasmus,
and their conversation has been carefully noted by Spa-
latin/ who was present. There was a large open fire
before which the humanist took his stand, warming his
hands at the blaze behind his back while facing the
benign and incorruptible old statesman for whom he had
already conceived a high admiration. The elector
asked the scholar to use his native tongue, the Dutch
(which he called Belgian), but Erasmus preferred to
speak Latin. This the prince understood, though he did
not venture to speak it, but put his questions through
Spalatin. The first and most important of these was
whether Luther had erred. The man so bluntly inter-
rogated at first closed his lips with a smack and kept
them compressed for some minutes, but then, as the
elector, according to his custom when discussing serious
matters, regarded him with grave, wide-open eyes, he
suddenly burst into these words: "Luther has erred in
two points — in attacking the crown of the pope and the
bellies of the monks/3 The winged word flew throughout
Germany and helped the accused not a little.
Satisfied with having planted the perfect epigram,
Erasmus took his leave and walked with Spalatin to the
house of Count Hermann of Neuenahr, Provost of
1 Spalatin's fullest account exists in German MS. at Gotha, but has nerer
been published in the original Ludwig von Seckendorf translated it into
Latin and published it with the wrong date, December $th, in his Historia
Luther anismi, of which I consult the second edition, 1694, i, 125 f, section 34,
81. A much briefer account is found in Spalatins Nachlass, ed. Neudecker
und Preller, 1851, i, p. 131, and something may be found in Luther's Tisck-
reden, Weimar, i, p. 131.
236 ERASMUS
Cologne and a disciple of the Reformer, and there he
drew up a series of short propositions called Axioms'1 to
serve as a basis for the settlement of the whole affair.
In this document he showed most strongly his sympathy
with much of the Reformer's program, and his wish to
be of service to it. He stated : That the origin of the
persecution was hatred of learning and love of tyranny;
that the method of procedure corresponded with the
origin, consisting, namely, of clamor, conspiracy, bitter
hatred, and virulent writing; that the agents put in
charge of the prosecution were suspect; that all good
men and lovers of the Gospel were very little offended
with Luther; that certain men had abused the easy-going
kindness of the pope. The author advised that precipi-
tate counsels be avoided, as the fierceness of the bull had
scandalized all and was unworthy of the gentleness of
Christ's vicar, and that the cause be examined by impar-
tial and experienced persons. Only two universities had
condemned Luther, and they, though condemning, had
not refuted him. The accused demanded only justice in
submitting himself to impartial judges, and his motives
were pure, whereas those of his adversaries were corrupt
and violent. The honor of the pope and the cause of
evangelical truth required that Luther be tried by
grave, unsuspected men of mature judgment. Erasmus
added orally that Luther had been too violent; and
Spalatin promised to remonstrate with him.2
Frederic was both surprised and pleased at the bold-
ness of the Axioms. He sent his adviser a chamois
gown, but, if we may trust a bit of gossip, said to his
chaplain, Spalatin: "What sort of a man is Erasmus,
anyway? One never knows where he is/' With the
elector was his cousin, Duke George of Albertine Saxony,
who, as a sincere Catholic, was much disappointed in
Erasmus's attitude, and, on hearing the Axioms, burst
out: "The plague take him. You can never tell what
1 Printed in Luthcri op fro. latino, varii argument^ v» 238 ff.
3LB.x, 1659.
THE REFORMATION 237
he means. I really prefer the Wittenbergers, for at least
they say yes or no/'1 When the legates called on Frederic
on November 6th, they received a complete refusal of
their demands.2
Though intensely annoyed at the part played by the
humanist, Aleander judged it prudent to win him over
If possible, and accordingly invited him several times to
dinner. Erasmus always declined these invitations, fear-
ing, as he said later, that he would be poisoned.3
He continued to try to influence the emperor and his
counsellors, not directly by personal conversations, but
through a Dominican named John Faber, with whom he
had been in touch at Louvain. The friar, with his aid
and at his instigation, drew up a memorial4 entitled:
The Advice of One Desirous of the Peace of the Church.
He points out that, after all, the peace of Christianity
is the main consideration and that pious men should act
with an eye to this only, without considering exactly
what Luther deserved. As in the Axioms, so here, Faber
traced the origin of the persecution to the hatred of good
1 Luthers Tischreden, Weimar, iv, no. 4899. This account, in Luther's table
talk twenty years after the event is intrinsically probable, though colored by
Luther's dislike of Erasmus. The chamois gown is also mentioned in one of
Erasmus's epistles, Lond. xviii, 37, LB. ep. 709, as a damask gown.
* Narratio per Henricum Priorem Gundensem [i.<f., of Ghent] scripta. Luthfri
opera lot. varii arg. v, 249.
* Allen, ep. 1188.
4 On Faber, N. Paulus: Die deutschen Dominikaner im Kampfe gegen
Luther (Erauterungen und Erganzungen zu Janssens Geschichu des Deutschen
7olkes)> 1906, pp. 301 ff. In my judgment Paulus proves that Faber was the
author of the Consilium cujusdam, though Maurenbrecher and Kalkoff
(Fermittlungspolitik des Erasmus^ I ff) attribute it to Erasmus, and its style
was early seen to resemble his: cf. Fadianische Brief sammlung, ii, 346.
Erasmus never admitted it, though he praised it in letters — <r.g., Lond. xxvii
2, LB. ep. 1195; and almost avows it as his own, Allen, ep. 1199. He denied
it, however, Lond. xvii, 19; LB. ep. 603. The work was also attributed to
Zwingli, and is now most conveniently found in the old edition of his works by
Schuler und Schulthess, 1832, iii, I ff, and translated into English in The Latin
Works and Correspondence of H. Zwingli, ed. S. M. Jackson, 1912, pp. 57 ff.
Schlottmann, in an able work anticipating many of KalkofFs positions,
Erasmus Rcdivivus, 2 vols., 1883, 1889, i, p. 230, attributes the Concilium to
Erasmus, but Allen, iv, 357, accepts the joint authorship of Erasmus and
Faber.
238
letters, and observed that only two universities had con-
demned, and that without refuting, Luther. The bull is
disliked by all who love Leo, and while the papal agents
are burning Luther's books they are spreading his
opinions. Moreover, the accused heretic is a man of
good life. Let his cause, therefore, be committed ^ to a
tribunal of impartial and learned judges to be appointed
by Charles and by the kings of England and Hungary.
Erasmus pressed the acceptance of this plan on most of
the emperor's agents, on Gattinara, Adrian of Utrecht
the future pope, Villinger, Albert of Mainz, the bishop
of Liege, and Conrad Peutinger.1 His efforts were not
as successful as he could have desired. Faber, however,
brought up a similar plan again at the Diet of Worms,
though without result.2
Another important ally in the work of mediation was
Wolfgang Capito, now in the service of Albert of Mainz.
It is probably due to his influence that now and
later Albert stood for a policy of reconciliation.3
Erasmus still tried to remain neutral To Reuchlin he
wrote, November 8th ;4
You see what a fatal tragedy is now acting, the catastrophe of
which it is impossible to foresee. ... I prefer to be a spectator
rather than an actor, not because I refuse to incur the risks of battle
for the cause of Christ, but because I see the work is above my
mediocrity. ... I always try to separate your case and that of
learning from that of Luther.
To Justus Jonas at Erfurt he wrote, on November 1 1 th :5
Aleander, a man sufficiently skillful in the three tongues, but
apparently made for this tragedy, is here. . . . He burned Luther's
books . . . and attacked me more violently than that man, because
1 Lond. xxvii, ^ xiii, 30. LB. ep. 1195; Paulus, op. cit.t 302; Allen, ep, 1156.
8 Judicium Fratris Johannis Fabri in causa Lutkeri. Wrede: Reichstags-
akten unUr Carl V,, ii, 484, note 2.
8 Capito to Luther, December, 1521. Enders, iii, 259. Cf. P. Kalkoff:
W. Capito im Dienste Albrfchts von Mainz. 1907. Also c/. Hedio's letter to
Zwingli, Zwinglis Werke> vii, 355.
4 Allen, ep. 1155.
5 Kawerau: Briffwechsel des Justus Jonas, no. 41. Allen, ep. 1157. Cf.
Erasmus to Barlands November 30, i|2O, Allen, ep. 1163.
THE REFORMATION 239
he and his party believe that I am the only obstacle to the immediate
destruction of Luther, although for many causes I never mix in
this affair. I cherish sound learning; I cherish the gospel truth;
I will do it silently if I may not do it openly.
It was perhaps after hearing of some such expression
as this that the Saxon Reformer wrote a friend that,
though there was no misunderstanding between himself
and Erasmus, yet he often discussed with Melanchthon
the question of how far the humanist was from the
Gospel truth.1
After three weeks at Cologne Erasmus returned to
Louvain, part of the journey being in the company of
that merry princess, Germaine de Foix, widow of
Ferdinand of Aragon, and now wife of the Margrave
John of Brandenburg.2 The trip was made difficult by
the floods, the horses being, as their master wittily
phrased it, "almost shipwrecked."3
Safe at home again, Erasmus wrote two letters on the
same day, December 7th, which are a striking instance
of how much he varied his tone to suit different corre-
spondents. To the Reformer Capito, he wrote, refer-
ring to the vigorous Lutheran agitation in the Nether-
lands: "Our Dutchmen have rejected the bull of the
pontiff, or rather of Louvain. The theologians think
that Luther can only be conquered by my help and
tacitly implore it. Far be this madness from me!"4
Feeling obliged to cover his retreat at Rome, however,
he put the case differently, on the very same day, to
Campeggio.5 After pointing out the odious way in which
ITo Spengler, November 17, 1520. De Wette: Lutkers Briefe, i, p. 525.
L. C. ep. 337.
2 Lond. xviii, 37, LB. ep. 709. "The Queen of Aragon," Erasmus calls her.
Diirer saw her and her husband about this time. Durers SchriftlicheT Nachlass
(1908), pp. 46, 116.
8 Allen, ep. 1169.
4 Allen, ep. r 165 ; L. C. ep. 352. Erasmus calls Exsurge Dominf, "the bull of
Louvain/* because most of the errors of Luther condemned in the bull had
been lifted bodily from the pronunciamento of the Belgian university.
8 Allen, ep. 1167; L. C. ep. 351.
240 ERASMUS
Luther had been treated — unwarned, untaught, unre-
futed, only attacked and persecuted — he goes on:
I am not so impious as to oppose the Roman Church, nor so
ungrateful as to embarrass Leo . . . but yet I am not so imprudent
as to resist one [Luther] whom it is hardly safe for kings to oppose.
. . . If the corrupt morals of the Roman Church need a great and
present remedy, certainly it is not for men like me to take so much
upon themselves. I prefer the present state of affairs to exciting new
tumults which turn out differently from what one supposes. . . .
Let others affect the martyr's crown, I do not think myself worthy of
this dignity. . . . Many grave and prudent men think the religious
affair would have a happier issue if it were treated with less fury and
left to a body of grave, learned, and sedate men.
Such Intervention did little good at Rome. The sixty
days given Luther to recant expired on November 28th.
Instead of doing so, however, the bold rebel burned the
bull and the whole canon law on December loth. The
bull of excommunication was signed at Rome on January
6, 1521, though not promulgated at Worms until May
6th.
The failure of Erasmus's plan of arbitration, made
evident by the course of events during the winter of
1520-21, marks a turning-point in the humanist's atti-
tude toward the Reformation. Though he could never
have been called a follower of Luther, he had hitherto
labored to protect him from unjust persecution and to
give him a fair hearing. He believed that if the Saxon
would only be moderate he might accomplish much good,
and, for the sake of peace, he wrote him no less than five
personal letters, and appealed also to his friends, to urge
him to apply himself to the cause of reform with a mind
uncorrupted by hatred or violence.1
But Luther's Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the
Churchy an attack on the Catholic sacramental system,
and his burning of the canon law at Wittenberg on
December loth, not only shocked the humanist, but con-
vinced him that Luther's cause was hopeless. He had
1 All but one of these letters (that quoted above) have perished, but numer-
ous traces of the correspondence are left. Cf. Allen, ep. 1041, and iv, 339.
THE REFORMATION 241
tried his best, he protested, to devise a plan by which
the friar might win the glory of obedience, and the pope
that of clemency, but what could one do for a man who
acted as if he did not want to be saved?1 His position,
as he would have it understood, was perhaps most fully
explained in two letters to Nicholas Everard, President
of the Estates of Holland, of which the first, published
four hundred years after he wrote it, may here be trans-
lated in part:2
With what odium Luther burdens the cause of learning and that
of Christianity! As far as he can he involves all men in his business.
Everyone confessed that the Church suffered under the tyranny of
certain men, and many were taking counsel to remedy this state of
affairs. Now this man has arisen to treat the matter in such a way
that he fastens the yoke on us more firmly, and that no one dares to
defend even what he has said well. Six months ago I warned him to
beware of hatred. The Babylonian Captivity has alienated many
from him, and he daily puts forth more atrocious things.
Before we judge Erasmus for using too strong lan-
guage let us examine what the Wittenberg innovator was
actually saying at this time. That his language was
sometimes unbridled, likely to arouse fierce passions in
the multitude, cannot be denied. The most " atrocious "
thing he said, and one that has been quoted against him
by his enemies for four hundred years, was the following
sentence in a tract published in July, I52O:3 "If we punish
thieves with the gallows, robbers with the sword, and
heretics with fire, why should we not rather attack with
all arms these masters of perdition, these cardinals, these
popes, and all the offscourings of the Roman Sodom, who
eternally corrupt the Church of God, and why should we
not wash our hands in their blood ?" Imagine the effect
1 Allen, ep. 1203.
2 Allen, epp. 1186, 1188. February 25, and March, 1521.
3 This was in a note, or appendix, to an edition of Prierias*s Epitoma
Rfsponsionis ad M. Lutkerum, published by Luther himself. The passage is
found in Luthers Werke, Weimar ed., vi, 347; Lutheri Opera latina varii
argument^ Erlangen ed., ii, 107. The latest Catholic treatment of it by H.
Grisar in Historisches Jarhbuch, Band 41, pp. 247 ff, 1921.
242 ERASMUS
of this fierce harangue on the sensitive scholar, and then
let us hear his own sorrowful confession of his disappoint-
ment that the man from whom he had hoped a real
counter-agent against the forces of evil had not only
doomed himself to perish, but had acted so as to make
the Pharisees in the opposite camp all the stronger. In
the letter quoted last he continues:
Nor do I see on what Luther is relying, unless perhaps on the
Bohemians. I fear that if we turn from the Lutheran Scylla we shall
fall into Charybdis. Some men, led by desire for revenge, now
accept the yoke and bridle of the papal bulls, which perchance they
will later wish had not been executed, and the same has come to
pass in regard to the Apologies. And Luther acts like the proverbial
goat who jumps into a ditch without looking to see how he can get
out again.
So In other letters the humanist drives home the point
that he can no longer support a man who, not content
with courting wilful martyrdom, would bring down the
cause of learning in his own ruin.1 With the Bohemian
Brethren, in whom he saw the chief support of the
Reformer, and who actively applied to him at this time
for approval, he also expostulated.2
But the gentle scholar's dislike of the rough road of
revolution was not due entirely to considerations of the
public good. He felt more and more painfully the deli-
cacy of his own situation, for, as he pointed out to a
powerful gentleman in Holland — perhaps the imperial
councilor Maximilian von Zevenberghen — if he supported
Luther he would be prosecuted, if he opposed him he
would draw on himself the hatred of Germany.8 In a
mood of unusual frankness as well as of discourage-
ment, he wrote to his friend, Richard Pace, a letter never
published until the eighteenth century. As it contains
1 Allen, ep. 1185.
2 On a visit of two Bohemian Brethren to Erasmus in the summer of 1520
see Allen, iv, 291 f. His letter to the Hussite Captain of Moravia, Artlebus
de Boskowitz, January 28, 1521, Allen, ep. 1183; L. C. ep. 385.
3 Allen, ep. 1166; L. C., ep. 346. Kalkoff suggests that the addressee may
have been originally Maximilian of Zevenberghen, sometimes called Tran-
sylvanus, Anfange der Gfgenrf formation in den Niederlanden, i, p. 105, note 23.
REFORMATION 243
the most damaging admissions he ever made about his
attitude toward the Reformation* some part of it must
here be transcribed:1
Would that some deus ex machina might make a happy ending for
this drama so inauspiciously begun by Luther! He himself gives his
enemies the dart by which they transfix him, and acts as if he did
not wish to be saved, though frequently warned by me and by his
friends to tone down the sharpness of his style. ... I cannot
sufficiently wonder at the spirit in which he has written. Certainly
he has loaded the cultivators of literature with heavy odium. Many
of his teachings and admonitions were splendid, but would that he
had not vitiated these good things by mixing intolerable evils! If he
had written all things piously, yet I should not have courage to risk
my life for the truth. All men have not strength for martyrdom. I
fear lest, if any tumult should arise, I should imitate Peter [in denying
the Lord]. I follow the just decrees of popes and emperors because
it is right; I endure their evil laws because it is safe. I think this is
allowable to good men, if they have no hope of successful resistance.
. . . Christ, whose cause my little writings have ever served, will
look after me. After Luther has been burned to ashes, and when some
not too sincere inquisitors and theologians shall take glory to them-
selves for having burned him, good princes should take care not to
allow these gentlemen to rage against the innocent and meritorious,
and let us not be so carried away with hatred for Luther's bad writings
that we lose the fruit of his good ones.
But, though this is the frankest confession of his own
weakness ever made by Erasmus, it is not really so dam-
aging to his character as are the endless apologies of his
later life. A man who spent such a world of effort, un-
relaxed for eighteen years, to explain and justify his
action, can hardly have been very easy about it in his
mind. Must we then cast into the vestibule of hell, with
the angels who neither rebelled with Lucifer nor fought
for God, but remained neutral and "for themselves,"2 the
man whose character, judged on other grounds, seems
so fine, and whose services to the world were so distin-
1 Allen, ep. 1218; July 5, 1521.
2 quel cattivo coro
Degli angeli che non furon rebelli,
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro.
Dante, Inferno, iii, 37 fF. The very words remind one of the descrip*
tion in the Epistola Obscurorum Firorum, " Erasmus est homo pro se.1'
244 ERASMUS
guished? Some opinion we must have, and this opinion
will doubtless depend primarily on our conception of the
Tightness or wrongness of the humanist's treatment of
the Reformation. A purely colorless narrative is vir-
tually impossible, for the sources cannot be left "to speak
for themselves"; the witness of each document must be
cross-examined in the light of the whole history of the
epoch, nay, of the whole of the historian's philosophy.
In the opinion of the present writer, Erasmus's atti-
tude toward the Reformation was wrong, because the
present writer thinks that the Reformation was justified
in its purpose and on the whole good in its results. With
all his faults and all his sins, Luther acted a nobler, more
heroic, and also a historically more justifiable part than
did Erasmus. Not only was he braver, but he was ulti-
mately more right in his judgment of the requirements
of the time and of the remedies suitable for restoring
health and vitality to suffering Christendom. ^
But, having given the value-judgment that is unavoid-
able if history is to mean more than an idle tale, it is
only just to add that, relatively, there is much to be said
for Erasmus's view of the Reformation. At his age,^ in
his position, with his interests, it is rather surprising
that he should have been so open-minded as he showed
himself, than that he should finally have turned aside
from revolution. He saw, as we should be inexcusable
not to see still more clearly, that in human parties all
the good is never on one side; nor all the evil on the
other. He had the rare, and, for its possessor's peace
of mind, unlucky gift of seeing the weakness of his own
side and the strength of his enemy. There was war in
his own heart not between God and the dbvil, but be-
tween hosts of ideas, interests, and affections, of which
some good and some evil ones seemed to fight on either
side. What weighed with him most was his belief that
he was finally consistent in championing the two causes
of undogmatic piety and of sound culture. The
two least creditable springs for his action — cowardice
THE REFORMATION 245
and fear of losing his own leadership — were the two
which had the least weight with him. Men's mo-
tives are often mixed, and with so complex a mind
as that with which we are now dealing, this mixture is
unusually intricate. To dissect that delicate tissue of
nerves and brain, lancet and lens are needed. After
splendid successes, to be matched with an issue too large
for any save the greatest to master, to be cast at the age
of fifty into a mighty revolution, to run into a terrific
storm after a smooth voyage — in short, to be confronted
with an opportunity and a peril almost unequalled in
history — was the misfortune of the man. Even the best
qualities of his mind, his tolerance, his pacifism, his
ability to see both sides of every question, stood him in
ill stead now. If he was wrong in his judgment of the
supreme issue, he was right in his criticism of many
details. Luther gave only too many handles to his
enemies; all that was violent and coarse and crude in
the man and still more in some of his followers, repelled
the fastidious scholar, and kept him from the Protestant
camp more effectually than did any fear for his own skin
or his own laurels.
In January,! 52 1, Charles opened his first Diet, atWorms.
Before that august body came many important questions,
political, constitutional, financial, and foreign. But the
supreme interest of contemporaries, as of posterity, has
been concentrated on the Diet's dealing with Luther. Ale-
ander proposed that he be condemned unheard, but the
estates, after a stormy session, decided to summon him.
He appeared before them on April lyth, and again on
April 1 8th, refusing to retract aught of his doctrine.
Erasmus, invited to be present, declined, partly, as he
explained, because he did not want to meddle with the
religious question, partly because the plague had broken
out in the crowded town.1 Hoping, however, to exercise
his influence in favor of moderation, he wrote to powerful
xTo Laurinus, February i, 1523; Lond. xxiii, 6, col. 1213; LB. ep. 650,
col. 749.
246 ERASMUS
men, among whom he mentions the Burgundian Chan-
cellor Mercurino Gattinara, Cardinal Matthew Schinner,
Aloysius Marlian, Bishop of Tuy, and an adviser of
Chievres, the Stadholder of the Netherlands. Marlian
composed an oration against Luther, the temperate tone
of which may have been due to Erasmus's advice. But
as both he and Chievres died of the plague at Worms
nothing came of this effort.1 Gattinara answered
Erasmus's advances in a letter, reassuring him as to his
own personal safety, but promising nothing for Luther.2
True to his expressed preference for "being a spectator
rather than an actor of a drama/'3 Erasmus spent the
winter of 1520-21, while the earth trembled with the
storm at Worms, in safety at Louvain and at Antwerp.
One day, at the house of Peter Grilles, he dined with
Albert Diirer, the celebrated Nuremberg painter, now on
a trip to the Low Countries.4 It was perhaps on this
occasion that Diirer heard him say that he gave himself
two more years in which to dare to do something.5 The
artist was in warm sympathy with the Reformation, as
were other friends of the humanist. The local head of
the movement, which almost reached the proportions of
a revolt, was the Augustinian Prior James Probst, whom
Erasmus called "a pure Christian who almost alone
preaches Christ/'6 and whom Aleander dubbed one of
the men most dangerous to the Roman Church.7 An-
other leader in the revolt from Rome was the humanist's
warm friend, Cornelius Grapheus.8
1 On Marlian, who died on the night of May 1011, 1521, L. C., i, 421, note;
on William de Croy, Seigneur de Chievres, ibid., ep. 341.
2 Dated Worms, April 5, 1521. Allen, ep. 1197.
* LB. iii, 871 D.
4E. Heidrich: Albrecht Durers Schriftlicher Nachlass, 1908, p. 82.
5 Ibid., p. 100.
6 Allen, ep. 980; L. C. ep. 155. May 30, 1519.
7 Aleander to Cardinal de' Medici, October 13, 1520. Brieger: Aleander
•und Luther, 1 886, p. 271. P. Kalkoff: Anfange der Gegenreformation in den
Niederlanden, 1903, i, 51 f. Diirer, pp. 77, 107. On Probst further, Allen,
ep. 980, line 54, note; Marcel Godet: La Congregation de Montaigu, 1912, p.
189; 0. Clemen: Eeitrage zur Rejormationsgeschichte, i, 37 ff; Enders, vii, 92.
8 Diirer, p. in.
THE REFORMATION 247
Erasmus probably took little part in this agitation.
He was daily becoming more irritated against a man who
"acted as if he wished to perish." On May loth he
wrote a long letter to Jonas,1 explaining that Luther,
who at first had his favor, had gradually alienated good
men by his passion, by his railing against the pope,
against the friars, against the universities, and against
Aristotle's philosophy. Luther, he says, would have
done better to have thrown himself on the mercy of
pope and emperor. Though there is some slight resem-
blance between the words used by the Wittenberg pro-
fessor and those used by Erasmus, the latter explains
that there is a world of difference in their meaning and
tone. His own ideal of a reform and of reformers was
further set forth, for the benefit of the same correspon-
dent, in a long epistle containing the lives of Vitrier and
Colet.2
On April 26th Luther left Worms. While returning
home, on the afternoon of May 4th, he was seized with
friendly violence by retainers of the Elector Frederic,
and borne away to the Wartburg, a fine castle near
Eisenach, to hide from the ban until the storm should
blow over. Wild rumors of his assassination, as well as of
his flight to Bohemia or to Sickingen, flew through Ger-
many. On May iyth the news reached Antwerp, where
Diirer heard it and recorded in his diary a long lamen-
tation for the untimely end of the "inspired man of
God." "O Erasmus of Rotterdam," he continues,
"where wilt thou abide? 0 thou Knight of Christ, seize
the martyr's crown."3 But this was an honor for which
the gentle scholar had no ambition, at least in this cause.
"I should wish to be a martyr for Christ," he said, "had
I the strength; but not for Luther."4 To Richard Pace
1 Allen, ep. 1202; L. C. ep, 477; G. Kawerau: Briefwechsel des Justus
fonas, no. 50.
8 Allen, ep. 1211.
8 Durers Schriftlicher Nachlass, pp. 95 ff. Erasmus speaks of the rumor of
Luther's assassination on July 5th. Allen, ep.
4LB. x, 663. "Spongia," 1523.
ERASMUS
he wrote on July 5th,1 saying that the Germans wish to
drag him into the affair, but that their foolish plan is
more likely to alienate him. What help could he give
the bold innovator if he tried to share his danger, save
that two would perish instead of one?
Erasmus had indeed some cause to be anxious. On
May 6th Aleander published the bull Decet Pontificem
Romanum, placing Luther under the ban of the Church.
On May 26th the emperor signed the Edict of Worms,
putting him under the ban of the Empire, commanding
his books to be burned and his person to be delivered
up to the authorities. Shortly afterward Charles and
Aleander returned to the Netherlands, where they pro-
ceeded at once to carry out their program of stamping
out heresy. In the autumn Probst and Grapheus were
arrested at Antwerp,2 and it was perhaps the fear of the
inquisitor that sent Diirer back to Nuremberg.3
Finding Antwerp too hot to hold him, Erasmus retired
to Anderlecht, a small town near Brussels, where he spent
most of the summer and early autumn. On his occa-
sional visits to the capital he was well received by dis-
tinguished men. Among others he saw the king of Den-
mark, Christian II, now on a visit to his brother-in-law,
the emperor, in order to collect his wife's dowry. The
king was decidedly favorable to Luther, and answered
the humanist's objections to the violent course things
were taking by asserting that efficacious medicines al-
ways put the whole body into convulsions before they
could cure.4 For his own part, Erasmus feared that,
1 Allen, ep. 1281.
2 Kalkoff: Anfange, pp. 61-70.
8 Kalkoff, ibid., and on Diirer on Repcrtorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, xx,
1897. Durer himself only says that he had declined the offer of a house and
pension from the city of Antwerp. Schriftlichtr Nachlass, p. 178. Before he
left he intrusted his possessions to Luther's warm friend, Wencelaus Link,
Hid, p. 114.
4 LB. ep. 509, 650; Lond. ep. xxiii, 6, col. 1214. Both 1523. Durer men-
tions a banquet given by the king to the emperor on July 3d, and one given
by Charles to Christian on July 4th. Schriftlicher Nachlass, pp. 114 f. It
was perhaps here that Erasmus met him.
THE REFORMATION 249
though a powerful drug might be necessary to restore the
collapsed morals of the Church, yet that this medicine,
applied without sufficient skill, would rather exacerbate
than expel the disease. The Apple of Discord had been
thrown into the world, no part of which was now at peace.
The parting of the ways had now come; one must be
either with the Reform or against it. Erasmus's con-
tinued efforts to keep on good terms with both sides only
brought him the ill will of both. As Zasius, the juris-
consult of Freiburg and a friend of the humanist, wrote
to Boniface Amerbach, Erasmus's letters on Luther
caused him to be ill spoken of even by the most devoted
Erasmians.1 For his own part, Zasius protests, he
esteemed the prudent and holy writings of Erasmus all
the more by contrast with the insane ravings of Luther.2
In order to disabuse the public of the idea that he had
any part or lot with Luther, while at the same time put-
ting in a word wherever possible in favor of moderation,
Erasmus continued throughout the summer to write to
powerful friends. To Peter Barbier he confessed that
"he so hated discord that even truth, if seditious, would
displease him, and that he had not written against Luther
only because he had not had time to study the question
thoroughly, and that to write against a man should be
something more than to call him names.3 To Warham,
Archbishop of Canterbury, he protested that he would
write something for the peace of the Church when he
had time.4
To his enemies at Louvain he designed to send the
most elaborate apology of all.5 At the same time, urged
on by many men in power, he began a dialogue On Ending
the Lutheran Affair, which, however, was soon interrupted
by ill health, as he says, or, more probably, by prudence.6
1 July 15* 1521. Udalrici Zasii epistola, ed. J. A. Riegger, 1774, i, 47.
2 To Amerbach, August 20, 1521, ibid, p. 49.
3 Louvain, August 13, 1521. Allen, ep. 1225.
4 Bruges, August 23, 1521. Allen, ep. 1228.
6AnderIecht, 1521; Allen, ep. 1217.
6 To Glapion, Basle, 1522, Lond. xix, 10; LB. ep. 645.
25o ERASMUS
The scheme of the book, related elsewhere, was to con-
sist of three conversations between Thrasymachus^ repre-
senting Luther, Eubulus the Catholic, and Philalethes the
arbiter— i.e.9 Erasmus himself. The first conversation was
to consider Luther's manner, which was designated as ob-
jectionable even if all he said were true; the second was
planned to discuss some of his doctrines, and the third de-
signed to show the path toward peace.1 He even wrote
to Bombasius2 at Rome, asking him to get permission from
the pope to read Luther's works; this Aleander had refused.
All the while Erasmus was keenly sensible of his dan-
ger. Among the men he feared most was John Glapion,
a Franciscan of Bruges recently appointed confessor to
the emperor. Whether, as Hutten charged,3 Glapion's at-
tempt to mediate at the Diet of Worms was due to the
influence of Erasmus, cannot certainly be told, but soon
after that he entered into communication with the
humanist with the purpose of making him arbiter of the
whole cause. "I know that he acted with friendly mind,"
wrote Erasmus much later, "but others tried to force the
plan upon me because they suspected me, though un-
justly. They wished either to make me the hangman of
those whom they thought I favored, or else to make me
betray myself into their nets."4 The plan, however, such
as it was, fell through. Glapion tried hard to get an
interview during the summer, but failed. Erasmus says
that he was so willing to meet him that he actually
started to return to the Netherlands after he had gone
1 Catalogue of Lucubrations, 1523. Allen, i. p. 34 £
* September 23, 1521, Allen, ep. 1236.
*LB. x, 1647; "Spongia," 1523. At Worms Glapion had met Hutten,
Bucer, and Spalatin, and had tried to prevent Luther's coming to the city
by proposing that all should be smoothed over if Luther would only retract a
few articles. On this see L. C. epp. 407, 440, 444, 445; P, Kalkoff: Aleander
gegen Luther •, p. 156; P. Smith: Life and Letters of Martin Luther, pp. II f;
Kostlm-Kawerau: Lathers Lefan, 1903. i, 388, 408; Forstemann: Newts
Urkundenbuch, pp. 36-54.
4 To Olaus, April 19, 1533. Forstemann und Gun then Brief e an Erasmus,
1904, p. 348. The same, dated February 19, 1533, in Olah Miklos Levelezese;
kozli Ipolyi Arnold. Monumenta Hungarite diplomatic^ xxv, 1875, P« 351-
THE REFORMATION 251
to Baste, in order to see the confessor at Calais, but that
ill health forced him to return after he had reached
Schlettstadt.1 He continued to write2 to him until
Clapton's death, in September, 1522, cut short
further intercourse. Before this happened^ however,
Erasmus had already begun to feel terribly uneasy at
the course things were taking. "Before Csesar left for
Spain," he wrote much later, "I felt that there was a
movement on foot to put me at the head of the growing
Lutheran party; and I confess that I left that province
[Brabant] because I dared not trust Glapion, although
he wrote often and courteously/'3 At the same time he
told Zwingli that he was obliged to leave so as not to
get involved with the Pharisees.4
To Glapion himself he wrote that he would have pre-
ferred to have remained at Anderlecht had the emperor
been able to protect him against those who, under pre-
text of religion, went about to avenge their own slights.5
Among these by far the most dangerous was Aleander,
now raging around the Netherlands, privately denounc-
ing Erasmus, in dispatches to Rome, as a worse heretic
than Luther,6 and as the agitator arousing all Germany
to rebellion and spreading the idea that the bull Exsurge
was forged.7 Aleander knew and disliked the Advice of
One Seeking the Peace of the Church f and he insinuated,
on the ground of a slight stylistic resemblance, that the
humanist was the author of the Babylonian Captivity?
1 To P. Barbier (1522), Lond. xx, 40; LB. ep. 644
2 To Glapion, Basle, 1522, Lond. xix, 1 10; LB. ep. 645.
3 Erasmus to Maldonato, March 30, 1527. Zeitschrift fur historische
Theologie, xxix, 1859, p. 610.
4 August 31, 1523, Zwinglii Opera, ed. Egli etc., viii, 115.
6 To Glapion, Lond. xix, no; LB. ep. 645.
6 P. Kalkoff: Aleander gegen Luther, pp. 59, 74; letters of December 18,
1520, and of February 6, 1521.
7 J. Paquier: Lettres familieres de Jerome Aleandre, 1910, p. 6ij Aleander to
Cardinal Pucci, October 24, 1520.
8 Kalkoff: Aleander, p. 80.
9 Erasmus to Bombasius, September 23, 1521; Allen, ep. 1236. The
Babylonian Captivity began with the words "Velim nolim," and Erasmus's
Panegyric of Philip with the words " Velis nolis."
252 ERASMUS
This charge almost drove Erasmus wild, as did the re-
ports he heard of Aieander's savage defamation of him
to the emperor and others in power,1 especially the
Bishop of Liege. The tricky Italian, however, judged it
expedient to keep all this enmity as secret as possible,
and even complained, with crocodile tears, to friends of
the humanist,2 that, in spite of the wrongs he had suf-
fered at his hands, he could not forget his ancient love
for the scholar.
With far more reason Erasmus also felt compelled to
dissemble his fear and hatred of the legate. Though he
knew him to be proud, fierce, irritable, insatiate of glory,
and bent upon his ruin,3 he spoke to Capito of this man
in a friendly way, in order that Capito might use his
good offices with the legate.4 In order to forestall him
Erasmus wrote to powerful friends at Rome and received
a gracious reply from Leo, dated January 15, 1521,
expressing pleasure in the humanist's assurances of loy-
alty, which the pope had begun to doubt, not so much
by reason of the reports of others, as because of certain
of his own writings.5 At the same time strict instruc-
tions were sent by Cardinal de' Medici to Aleander to
treat the humanist with the utmost consideration.6
Distrusting these professions, however, and even hear-
ing a report, probably false, that a reward had been
offered to anyone who would capture him and send him
bound to Rome,7 he prepared to leave the Netherlands.
While spending some days at Louvain in order to pack,
1 Erasmus to Aleander, Septembers, 1524; LB. ep. 693.
2 Vives to Erasmus, Louvain, January 19, 1522. LB. ep. 615. Fwis Opera,
1782, vii, 159.
3 So Erasmus wrote Pirckheimer, March 30, 1522, LB. ep. 618.
4 Capito to Aleander, March 29, 1521; P. KalkofF: Capito im Dienste
Albrechts von Mainz, 1908, p. 135.
5 Lammer: Monuments Faticana^ 1861, p. 3; Jortin: Life of Erasmus t ii,
398. Allen, ep. 1180.
6 Balan: Monumenta Reformationis Luther ana* no. 53, pp. 129 f; Pastor-
Kerr, viii, 257.
7 Boniface Amerbach to Alciat, 1521; Burckhardt-Biedermann: Bon.
Amerbach und die Reformation, pp. 20, 150.
THE REFORMATION 253
he met Aleander, on Sunday, October 26, 1521, at the
Inn of the Wild Man and had a long conversation in
which mortal hatred on both sides was masked under a
show of courtesy and even of old friendship.1 Indeed,
while more than one evening was thus spent in appar-
ently amicable chat, many subjects of discourse were
brought up, the pleasantest of which was the news, com-
municated by the legate, that Pirckheimer, recently
smitten by the ban of excommunication, had submitted
and had been absolved by special breve of the pope.2
After this smooth introduction the talk soon fell upon
rapids and whirlpools, when the subject of Erasmus's
own position was broached. Aleander not only pointed
out objectionable passages in the humanist's acknowl-
edged writings, and demanded recantation, but accused
him of writing several anonymous pamphlets — as, of
course, he had done — and thus threw him into "mortal
confusion."3 Contemporary gossip reported4 that when
the nuncio offered the humanist a fat bishopric if he
would write against the heretic, he had replied:
"Luther is too great for me to write against. ... I
learn more from reading one page of his books than from
the whole of Aquinas." The cautious Dutchman would
certainly never have expressed himself thus bluntly be-
fore a wily opponent, but the report that he admired
Luther's exegesis was very persistent,5 and the offer of
1 To Laurinus, Lond. xxiii, 5, col. 1214; LB. ep. 650; Paquier: Humanism*
ft Reformf, pp. 280 ff. Allen, iv, 591.
2 November 29, 1521, Erasmus to Pirckheimer. Allen, ep. 1244. To
Pirckheimer, January 26, 1521, Allen, ep. 1282.
8 Aleander to Sanga, Brussels, December 30, 1531, in Lammer: Monumenta
Fat-icana, 1 86 1, p. 93; cj. Pastor-Antrobus, v, 423.
4 "Narratio per Henricum Priorem Gundensem," Lutheri Opera latina varii
crgumenti (Erlangen), v, 249. This was attributed to (Ecolampadius, see
(Ecolampadii judicium de M. Luthero, sine loco et anno (British Museum);
Hiibmaier sent this to Beams Rhenanus, in an undated letter published in
Briffwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus, no. 192. It has been conjectured that the
name Henricus Prior Gundensis concealed a double authorship, referring to
Henry of Ziitphen and Melchior Miritzsch, Prior of the Augustinian convent
at Ghent, Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1920-21, p. 289 f.
6 Melanchthon, in Corpus Reformatorum, v. 74.
254
the bishopric is intrinsically probable and is testified by
certain expressions of his own. But Aleander did not
disdain threats, observing that the pope, who often de-
stroyed counts and dukes, could easily destroy some
lousy men of letters, and could even treat the emperor
as a cobbler.1
Notwithstanding the apparent friendliness of the legate
Erasmus continued to believe, and to write to his friends,
that the latter was going about to traduce and to destroy
him.2 He was also much alarmed at the arrest of a
heretic at Antwerp, who* on being examined at Brussels,
implicated him in aiding and abetting the illicit sale of
Lutheran books.3 He therefore decided to leave at once,
and put himself under the protection of Francis von
Sickingen, now captain of the army on the Meuse, with
whom he spent his birthday, October 28th, at Brussels.4
Under his powerful shield, he made his way up the
Rhine, arriving at Basle on November I5th.5 Meeting
Capito at Mainz, he learned that this old ally had
been negotiating with Luther in hopes of patching up a
truce between him and the Church, and especially be-
tween him and the Archbishop of Mainz, a wily
Hohenzollern who did his best to run with the hare and
to hunt with the hounds at the same time. As Capito's
efforts were not kindly received by the Reformer, on
October I4th he wrote Erasmus for instructions.6 The
Lutherans, he said, were both curious and insolent,
and boasted that they had Erasmus's support. The
1 A. Lauchert: Die Italienischen liUrariscken Gegner Lutkers* 1912, p. 299 f.
2Lond. xx, 40; LB. ep. 644; Erasmus to Choler, 1531, Horawitz: Eras'
miana, i, no. 18, and a letter to Wolsey published by A. Meyer: Les Relations
d'£rasme ft dt Luther, 1909, p. 163.
3 Vives to Erasmus, April i, 1522; LB. ep. 619; Pivis Opera, vii, 164.
4 Lond. xxiii, 6, and xx, 40; LB. epp. 644, 650. H. Ulraann: Franz von
Sickingen, 1872, p. 226.
5 Allen, iv., 598 ffj Fadianische Brief sammlung, ii, no. 292.
6 Capito to Erasmus, October 14, 1521. Allen, ep. 1241. The letter is un-
fortunately badly mutilated. As it was first published by Merula in 1607
from a MS. now lost, there is little hope of restoring its contents, which would
certainly be most interesting. Cf. L.C. ii, p. 56 n.
255
humanisms answer was probably given In the interview
at Mainz, early in November, but what it was can only
be Inferred from the sequel and from his growing cold-
ness to the evangelical cause.
It was probably this very effort of Capito and Erasmus
to induce Luther to write more gently that finally alien-
ated him altogether. When he left Worms for the Wart-
burg he still had the highest hopes of the great humanist.
In a letter to Spalatin of May i4th he referred with ap-
proval to the Consilium cujusdam, which he attributed
to Erasmus.1 Again in the preface to his work against
Latomus (June, 1521), the Louvain professor who had
previously attacked Erasmus, Luther refers to Latomus
as Ishbi-benob, the giant Philistine who thought to slay
Davidj and to Erasmus as Abishai, who defended the
man of God, "and," he adds, "this Ishbi-benob yields
to the might of our Abishai."2
The next reference,3 in September, shows an entire
change of attitude, and hints at the cause of it:
The judgment of neither Capito nor Erasmus moves me In the
least. They accomplish nothing, but they make me fear that I shall
sometime have trouble with one or the other of them, since I see that
Erasmus is far from the knowledge of grace, as one who looks not at
the cross, but at peace in all his writings. For this reason he thinks
that all can be accomplished with civility and benevolence, but
Behemoth4 does not care for such treatment, nor does he amend
himself in the least on account of it.
1So at least I interpret the reference to "Erasmi bule" (povty) which
puzzled Enders, though Luther's reading of the Consilium, "that Erasmus said
the people would no longer bear the yoke of the pope," is somewhat strained.
Enders, iii, 153, L. C. ep. 483.
2 Rationis Latomiana Confutatio. Werke (Weimar), viii, 36, and De Wette,
ii, 1 8.
8 Enders, iii, 229. L. C. ep. 506. C/. Richter, 30-32. There is an undated
letter from Capito to Luther (Enders, iii, 238) exhorting him to mildness, put
by Enders in October. I should be inclined to put it in September. Capito
was at Wittenberg on September 3oth, to consult with Melanchthon and
Jonas on the way to prevent Luther attacking Albert of Mayence. Archiv
fur Reformations gesch., vi, 172, 178 (1910). Cf. letter of Ulscenius to CapitOj
October 2ist, ibid., 206,
4 Job, xhi5. Luther's favorite expression for Satan, following Jerome.
256 ERASMUS
The breach was made complete by the publication of
the Epistoltz ad diver -sos, in November, 1521. This was
intended to correct the indiscretions of the last collec-
tion of letters (the Farrago of 1519), and to give the
impression that the Dutch scholar stood entirely aloof
from the combat. None of the letters here published
are favorable to the Reformers, and many protest that
the writer had nothing to do with Wittenberg, but is
still a true son of Rome. He himself feared1 that it
would excite the hatred of the Reformers, and he was
right. Luther saw the volume a few months after it
was published and wrote Spalatin: "In this book of
letters Erasmus now at length shows that he is the
hearty enemy of Luther and his doctrine though with
wily words he pretends to be a friend."2
1 Lend, xxi, 16. LB. ep. 624,
* Enders, iii, 360.
CHAPTER X
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29
RELATIONS WITH FRANCE AND ENGLAND
AFTER his return to Basle, on November 15, 1521,
jLjL Erasmus lived for ten months with Froben, paying
150 gulden for his board.1 He was sensitive lest it be
thought that he lived on Froben's bounty, a rumor which
he took pains to deny, though acknowledging the con-
stant kindness of his friend the publisher.2 In Septem-
ber, 1522, he took up his residence in a separate house.
His life was so little private that he said of it that the
veil of the temple was rent in twain and the most sacred
secrets of the confessional published abroad.3 At this
time he speaks of his annual Income as a little more than
four hundred gulden,4 which, by the way, was equal to
the salary of a professor at the leading German and
English universities.
As there was no general copyright, he received com-
paratively little for his manuscripts, which to-day would
have made him a rich man. Nevertheless, an author's
good will was worth something to the publisher, and the
humanist showed himself a good business man in exploit-
ing this. Doubtless one chief reason for the noticeable
fact that every new edition of each work differed some-
what from the last was to give the publisher and author
the benefit to be derived from the desire of readers for
1 December 16, 1524. Loncl. xx, 24. LB. ep. 719. A gulden was intrinsi-
cally worth fifty-six cents. Erasmus therefore paid eighty-four dollars, worth
at that time ten times as much in purchasing power as now.
* Catalogue of Lucubrations, Allen, i, pp. 40-45.
8 Lond. xx, 24. LB. ep. 719.
4 Allen, i, 42 ff.
258 ERASxMUS
the latest thing. For, even without copyright, the first
publisher had a considerable advantage in being able to
sell before a rival would have time to reprint. The com-
petition was extraordinarily keen. During the author's
lifetime the Folly was printed in nine different cities,,
and in each of two of them, Venice and Cologne, by
three separate publishers. The New Testament was
printed by seven publishers at Basle alone.1 What
Erasmus got for each of these printings is not known;
doubtless he got nothing for most of them. For first
editions, however, or for emended and enlarged editions,
he received something; thus, Josse Bade, the great
printer of Paris, offered him, in 1512, fifteen florins for
the new edition of the Adages and a like sum for the
intended edition of Jerome, and apologized for the small-
ness of the honoraria. If the florin meant was the gold
coin of that name, as is probable, the offer would amount
to about thirty-four dollars, or seven pounds, for each
manuscript, at a time when money had ten times the
purchasing power that it has now.2
Such rewards, even eked out with special fees for odd
jobs like writing epitaphs3 and panegyrics to order,
would have furnished a sorry support to the man of
letters, had they not been supplemented by extremely
handsome gifts and pensions from powerful and wealthy
patrons. The annuity granted by the emperor caused
its recipient enormous trouble, remaining in arrears or
in abeyance for years together, partly on account of the
chronic disorder of the imperial finances, partly because
of the rascality of the agent employed, in this case one
Peter Barbier.4 In 1533, Duke John of Cleves-Julich
XL. Enthoven: "Ueber Druck und Vertrieb Erasmischer Werke," Neue
Jahrbucher fur das klassiscke Altertwn &c., xxviii, 1911, pp. 33-59.
2 Allen, epp. 263, 264, 283.
3 On writing an epitaph for Lady Margaret, on December 28, 1512, see C. H.
Cowper: Memoir of Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, ed. J. E. B.
Mayer, 1874, pp. 124, 200.
4 Peter Barbier to Erasmus, November I, 1529, Enthoven, no. 77; Barbier
to Erasmus, July 9, 1533, Forstemann-Giinther, no. 189. Erasmus to Decius
AT BASLE 1521-29 259
made a grant of thirty gold gulden per annum, which
was apparently regularly paid.1 So, throughout life, was
the English annuity^ though Erasmus feared that the
death of Warham, on August 229 1532, would interrupt
it.2 Such, however,, was not the case, for Archbishop
Cranmer continued to pay it, and other English patrons
lavished handsome presents upon the distinguished
scholar, among them Thomas Cromwell and the Bishop
of Lincoln.3 Other valuable gifts mentioned were one
hundred and fifty Rhenish gulden (two hundred dollars)
from Ferdinand and fifty from the Cardinal of Trent;4
two horses, a pacer and a trotter, from Christopher von
Stadion, Bishop of Augsburg,5 three hundred florins?with
an invitation to visit Brabant from the emperor^ Maria
the Regent, and the chancellor,6 and an unspecified sum
from Dantiscus, a Polish bishop.7 Doubtless there were
many other such perquisites of which we know nothing.8
Erasmus frequently complained that his income was
too small for his position, and to one with so many noble
August 22, 1534, Tvflaskowski: Erasmiana, no. 36; To A. Fugger, July 7,
1529, Lond. xxiii, 14, LB. no. 1064. Erasmus complained that Barbier had
robbed him once of one hundred florins and that the pension remained seven
whole years unpaid.
*Duke William's note of thanks for Erasmus's "foetura," November 10,
1529, ed. F. Wachter: Zeitschrift des Bergiscken Geschichtsvereins, xxx, 1894,
p. 201; Pension from Duke John, April 20, 1533, Vischer: Erasmiana, no. 6,
with note in Erasmus's hand that it was paid at the Feast of John the Baptist
(June 24), 1533, Forstemann-Gunther, no. 183.
2 Erasmus speaks of this and of his fears in letters to Tomicki, March 10,
1533, Miaskowski: Jahrbuch fur Philosophic 1900, p. 323, and in a letter to
Amerbach, published in Epistola ad Bon. AmerlacMum, no. 64, April 21,
1532 (not 1531). ^
* Gerard Phrysius forwarded thirty pounds from Cranmer, June 8, 1533,
Forstemann-Gunther, no. 187; cf. Erasmus to Decius, August 22, 1534,
Miaskowski, p. 333. In 1535 T. Bedill, Warham's old secretary, forwarded
twenty angels from Cromwell, eighteen from Cranmer, and fifteen from the
Bishop of Lincoln, Enthoven, no. 138. Lond. xxvii, 51; LB. ep. 1296. A
letter of March 12, 1536, speaks of delay in paying the English pension,
Letters and Papers of Henry Fill r, x, no. 478.
* From J. Loble, May n, 1533, Forstemann-Gunther, no. 184.
B From Stadion, August 8, 1533, ibid., no. 191.
6 To More, October 12, 1533, Lond. xxvii, 45; LB. ep. 1256.
7 Miaskowski: Erasmiana, no. 36.
8 A list of some other known gifts, however, in Forstemann-Gunther, p. 345.
260 ERASMUS
and royal friends it must have seemed narrow. Never-
theless, he was able to live in comfort, with good wine,
horses, and servants, and above all with a good library.
In 1525 he raised money by selling this, reserving the
right to use it during his lifetime. The purchaser was
John Laski, nephew of the famous Bishop of Gnesen of
the same name, a baron of Siegratz in Poland. The
family had stood in friendly relations with the scholar
ever since two of the brothers, Hieroslaus and Stanislaus,
paid him a visit in 1523^ The contract of sale, which is
not uninteresting, reads as follows:2
BASLE, June soy 1525.
I, Erasmus of Rotterdam, have sold my library to the illustrious
Polish Baron, John Laski, for three hundred crowns [two hundred
dollars] on condition that as long as I live the use of the books may
amicably be allowed to me as well as to him, but that they shall
permanently belong to him and to his heirs. As a pledge he has an
inventory of the books. All additions to the library shall belong to
him, except future purchases of high-priced manuscripts, for which
a special agreement must be made. In witness whereof I, Erasmus,
have written this with my own hand and affixed the seal of my ring
representing Terminus.
Half the price was paid on the spot; the other half
after the owner's death to his heirs. On March 21, 1533,
Erasmus wrote Laski that the library was now worth
one hundred florins more than it was when he sold it,
and offering to give back the price and get another pur-
chaser.3 This, however, was not done, for on March 5,
1534, he wrote again that he left the library at Laski's
disposal.4 After the second half of the money had been
paid, on November 12, 1536, to Boniface Amerbach, the
books were sent in three boxes on January n, I538,5
1 Casimir von Miaskowski: Der Brief weeks el des Erasmus mit Polfn, 1901,
P. 44-
2 Burigny: Fie d'firasmt, 1757, ii, 442; Miaskowski: " Erasmiana," Jahr-
biicher fiir Philosophic, vol. xv, p. 105, no. 2 (1901).
8 Miaskowski: Erasmiana, no. 31.
4 Ibid., no. 34.
8 Ibid., no. 44.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 261
and reached the Polish baron on April 5th.1 They later
came into the hands of John Egolph of Kroningen and
in 1573 passed to the University of Ingolstadt, now the
University of Munich.2
On January 22, 1527, Erasmus drew up his will.3 He
made Boniface Amerbach his trustee; the executors were
to be Basil Amerbach, Beatus Rhenanus, and Jerome
Froben. Boniface was to receive his rings, his spoon of
pure gold, and the golden double cup given by Duke
George. Henry Glarean, Louis Ber, Basil Amerbach,
Jerome and John Froben, Sigismund Gelen, Froben's
proof-reader, Botzheim, and Conrad Goclen, were all
remembered with tokens. The fact of the library being
sold to John Laski was noted. Arrangements were made
for Froben to print a complete edition of the works,
according to the plan laid down in the Catalogue of
Lucubrations, a provision afterward carried out. The
editions of Jerome, Hilary, and other fathers were not
to be included in the works if inconvenient. The editors
were to be Glarean, Goclen, Rhenanus, the two Amer-
bachs, and Sigismund Gelen. If any refused to act, the
trustee might appoint others. A copy of the works was
to be sent to Warham, to Tunstall, to More, to Longland,
Bishop of Lincoln; to Queen's College, Cambridge; to
Fisher, to the Royal Library in Spain, to Wm. Croy,
Bishop of Toledo; to Ferdinand, to Bernard von Cles,
Bishop of Trent; to Baptista Egnatius, to the Collegium
Trilingue at Louvain, to the College of the Lily at
Louvain, to the college to be founded by Coutrell at
Tournay, to Francis Craneveld, Senator of the Town
Council of Mechlin; to the Abbot of St. Bavon at Ghent,
to Marcus Laurinus for the library of the College of St.
Donatian at Bruges, of which he was dean; to Nicolas
llbid., no. 43, dated April 5, 1537, presumably meaning 1537-38. Inter-
esting details of the transportation of the library in a letter of A. Fritsch to
Boniface Amerbach in Pamietnik Literacki, Lemberg, 1905, p. 512.
2 Forstemann-Giinther, p. 345.
8 Published by J. B. Kan: Erasmiar.a, 1891, p. 6 fF. Also by S. Sieber:
Das Testament von Erasmus, 1889, with other documents.
ERASMUS
Everard, President of the Estates of Holland, or to his
successor; to Hermann Lethmaat, and to the library of
the monastery at Egmond. A servant, Quirinus, was
remembered with a legacy of two hundred gulden.
Directions for a funeral neither sordid nor pretentious
completed the document.
Although Erasmus joked about his testament, saying
that he was in the same condition as the poor priest of
Louvain who made a will in these terms, "I have nothing;
I owe much; the rest I give to the poor/'1 yet the
inventory attached to his will, dated April 10, I534?2
shows that he possessed a large number of gold and silver
vessels and ornaments given him by distinguished
persons, as well as a good outfit of furniture, clothes, ^and
household utensils. Among the patrons who had given
him gold clocks, cups, spoons, or other handsome articles,
were mentioned Christopher von Scheidlowitz, the Arch-
bishop of Mainz, William Mountjoy, Anthony Fugger,
Julius Pflug, Damian a Goes, Pirckheimer, the Laskis,
and several other prelates and noblemen. He also
enumerates his cloths, napkins, silk mantles, gowns, hose,
collars, twenty-four shirts, towels, feather beds, cushions,
parlor rugs, tapestries, kitchen utensils, forks, a hammer,
an egg-beater (cochleare spumarium), candle snuffers,
boxes for spices, axes, iron trunks, a mirror, a shaving
set, a purse, rings, five beds, couches, and curtains, as
well as tongs, an ear probe, and other instruments.
Erasmus took extraordinary pains to get legal sanction
for his will. On July 8, 1525, he had received permission
from Pope Clement VII to leave his property as he
wished; he thrice got similar permission from the
tribunals at Basle,3 and once a diploma to the same effect
*To Ber, January 26, 1527; L. C ep, 75^5 original first published ibid, ii,
2 L. Sieber: Das Mobiliardes Erasmus, 1891, and Kan: Erasmiana, 1891.
* Clement's breve, and two of the Basle permissions, dated January 24,
1527, and June 13, 1527, in Sieber: Das Testament des Erasmus, the third
permission mentioned in a letter to Amerbach, January 15 th, no date, E-pistolcz
ad Amerbachium, no. 17
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 263
from Ferdinand to the Town Council of Freiburg.1 He
also speaks of a similar diploma from the emperor.2
Twice he altered his will In details* while leaving the
main provisions as to the trusteeship Intact, once on
June 5, 1535, and once on January 22, I536.3 The will
was probated on January n? 1538,* when his property
was estimated at the sum of seven thousand gulden
($3*920)5 besides a fine lot of cups.
For seven and a half years Erasmus made Basle his
headquarters. From here, however, his restless spirit
ever urged him to make visits to neighboring cities. In
September, 1522, with two companions, Henry von
Eppendorf and Beatus Rhenanus, he visited another
devoted friend, John Botzheim, a Canon of Constance,
whose house was a center of hospitality for men of arts
and letters. His excuse was an Invitation to visit Rome,
but If he ever seriously entertained the idea of continuing
the journey south, an attack of illness prevented him.
In a fascinating letter5 he described his reception and
experiences at Constance.
Botzheim's house might seem the home of the Moses; there is no
spot in it without some beauty or some elegance; it is never silent,
but always alluring to the eyes of men because of its speaking pictures.
In the summer court, where, as he said, he had just prepared a table
for me, stood Paul, teaching the people. On another wall Christ sat
on the mountain, teaching his disciples, while the apostles set out
across the hills to publish the gospel. Along the smoke closet? sat the
priests, scribes, and Pharisees, with the elders, conspiring against the
already waxing gospel. Elsewhere the nine sisters of Apollo sang;
and the naked Graces, true symbol of simple benevolence and friend-
1 Horawitz: Erasmiana, iii, p. 775. (Sitzungsberichte der K. K. Akademie
der Wissenschaften zu Wien, vol. 108, 1885).
2 Epistolte ad Amerbachium^ no. 17.
3 Mentioned by Siedler: Das Testament des Erasmus.
4 Miaskowski: Erasmiana, no. 44.
6 To M. Laurinus, February i, 1523; Lond. xxiii, 6; LB. ep. 650. On the
date, Zwinglis Werke, vii, 584. Cf. further, K. Hartfelder: "Der human-
istische Freundenkreis des Erasmus in Konstanz," Zeitschrift fur die Ge-
schichte des Oberrheins, viii, 1893, pp. 24 ff. K. Walchner: /. von Botzheim,
1836, pp. 29 ff.
6 I.e.* for ripening wine, or smoking meat.
264 ERASMUS
ship, were seen. But why should I, in this letter, continue to depict
the whole house, the splendors and delights of which you could hardly
examine in ten days? But in all that house, everywhere so lovely,
nothing is lovelier than the host himself. He has the Muses and
Graces more in his breast than in his pictures, more in his manners
than on his walls. . . .
I became so ill that I made neither my friends nor myself happy;
otherwise, nothing was lacking to the greatest pleasure. Good
heavens! what a hospice, what a host, what handsome attendants,
what magnificence, what plays, what readings, what songs! O
banquets and feasts of the godsl I should not have envied the gods
of the poets their nectar and ambrosia had my health been a little
better. The situation of the place itself is pleasing. Hard by is the
wonderfully beautiful lake of Constance, stretching many miles in
either direction and always lovely. The wooded mountains showing
themselves everywhere, some afar, some near by, add charm to the
scene. For there the Rhine, as though wearied with his journey
through the rough and rugged Alps, refreshes himself as it were in a
pleasant inn, and, slipping softly through the middle of the lake,
recovers at Constance his channel and his name together, for the
lake prefers to owe its name to the city. ... It is said to be well
stocked with fish, and of an incredible depth, so that the deepest part
measures a hundred cubits. For they say that huge mountains are
covered by this lake. The Dominican prior, a good and learned man,
especially eloquent in preaching, gave us from the lake an enormous
fish, which the vulgar call a trout,1 a gift worthy of a king in our
country.
The Rhine, leaving the lake to the right, slowly flows past the city
of Constance, and as though in wanton play makes an island occupied
by a fine convent of nuns; soon gathering itself together it makes a
smaller lake which, for some unknown reason, is called Venetus.2
From this it rolls on in an even bed, somewhat eddying but neverthe-
less navigable, to the town, formerly an imperial residence, called
Schiffhausen,3 probably on account of the ferry there situated before
there was a bridge. Not far away are some cataracts through which
the Rhine rushes with a great noise; and as it is broken elsewhere
frequently by cataracts and rocks it Is unfit for navigation until it
gets to Basle.
But now my story must get back to Constance, which is famous
1<<Quam Trottom appellat vulgus"; the ordinary German name is
"Forelle." They are delicious,
2 Now called the Unter-See.
8 Now Schaffhausen. Erasmus derived the name from the German words
for "ship" and "houses." In the local dialect It is still called Schafusa, with
the first vowel obscure and a strong accent on the second.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 265
for nothing more than for its ancient and by no means ugly cathedral.
It is also famous for the Council held there of old under the presidency
of the emperor, and most of all for the burning of Huss. . . . We
spent there almost three weeks.
Within a few months after his return home Eras-
mus was off again to visit Besan?on, at that time1 an
Imperial Free City. Invited by Feric Carondelet,
brother of the Archbishop of Palermo, he enjoyed
the Burgundian wine, which he believed very whole-
some to the stomach. "O Burgundy/' he cried, "worthy
to be called mother of men, since you have such milk
in your breasts!'52 His visit, however, was marred by
another illness, and by sinister rumors circulated by the
Lutherans, angry at his recent polemic against Hutten.3
Another little trip that Erasmus made about this time
was to Freiburg in the Breisgau, at the invitation of his
friend Ulrich Zasius, one of the most famous jurisconsults
of the day and professor of law in the university of that
town. Their acquaintance had begun in 1514, with a
respectful letter from Zasius to the "great Rotterdamer."4
In the next year the jurist invited Amerbach and
Erasmus to his daughter's wedding,5 and the friendship
thus pleasantly begun lasted until the death of Zasius,
for whom the humanist wrote an epitaph.6 Zasius was
one of those who wrote against Lee.7 Of his friend he
wrote to Boniface Amerbach, on June 5, 1521, "How
shall I not exult about Erasmus, who to me is the image —
I will not say of great Apollo, but of a great Divinity?"8
1 Until 1668.
*LB. ep. 650, col. 756.
3 To Pirckheimer, June 3, 1521, Lend, xxx, 37; LB. App. ep. 327; To Noel
Beda, 1525 (1524?), Lend, xix, 97; LB. ep. 784. To Pirckheimer, July 21,
1524, LoncL xxx, 36; LB. ep. 684.
* Allen, ep. 303.
6 Uddrici Zasii Epistolte> ed. J. A. Riegger, 1774, i, 251.
6 Ibid., 209. Zasius died on November 24, 1535.
7 To Eramus, July 13, 1520, ibid., 297. "Proceed, great hero, as you have
begun; I care not for that ridiculous, senseless man.*1
8 Ibid, ii, 45. " Super Erasmo quomodo non gestiam, qui mihi est instar
magni non dico Apollinis, sed Numinis." A classical phrase almost proverbial,
though not in the Adagia.
266 ERASMUS
Not long after the humanist's return from the Nether-
lands to Basle he paid a visit to Freiburg/ of which he
gives the following account in the Colloquies, using for
his own name the transparent disguise of Eros:
You know Eros, an old man, now a sexagenarian, with health more
fragile than glass, afflicted with daily maladies of the worst sort and
burdened with heavy labors and study that might break down
even Milo. In addition to this, by a certain natural tendency, even
from boyhood he hated fish and was impatient of fasting. . . .
Recently at the invitation of friends he visited^ Freiburg, a city not
altogether worthy of its name. It was at the time of Lent.
And yet, continues the interlocutor, in order to offend
no one Eros ate fish. He felt illness coming on when
Glaucoplutus,2 a learned man and one of authority there,
invited him to breakfast. Eros accepted on condition
that he should eat nothing but two eggs, but when he
got there he found a whole chicken prepared. Indignant,
he ate nothing but the eggs, and then got on his horse.
The smell of that chicken, however, reached the syco-
phants, who made as much fuss about it as if ten men
had died of poison.
Fuller information as to the sequel to this unecclesi-
astical repast reaches us through a letter of Erasmus to
Zasius, which he thought prudent not to publish himself.3
He heard that Zasius had been called into court for offer-
ing a chicken in Lent. Notwithstanding the disclaimer
in the just quoted Colloquy, it is evident that Erasmus
had partaken of it, for he excused himself for not having
observed "the superstition of foods" by alleging that
he was suffering terrible torture from the stone and
might have endangered his life had he fasted. At Basle,
he says, meat is sold on fast days, and it is better that six
hundred men who did not need it should eat than that
one who really needed it should perish for the lack of it.
1 "Ichthyophagia," LB. i, 805. This colloquy appeared in 1526; on the other
hand, Erasmus's epistle to Zasius about it is dated February 20, 1523, which
should probably be altered to 1525.
2 Ulrich Zasius. See infra, p. 294, n. i.
8 Zasti fpirtola, 300 ff. February 20, 1533 (1525?).
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 267
Erasmus added that he did not blame the emperor for
laying stress on such things, for he was misled by
Dominicans and Franciscans, and will learn better with
age and experience. He will then learn that there are
worse faults to punish, such as highway robberys and
worse evils to correct, such as the calamities of harmless
peasants, spoliation of the people, tumults, wars, and
massacres. But now the magistrates who punish men
for not fasting let them go scot-free for adultery. He
himself hastened to get a dispensation from fasting from
the papal legate Campeggio.1
Erasmus naturally cared little for the outward cere-
monies of the Church. "My mind is Christian," he is
once reported tohavesaid, "but my stomach isLutheran."2
Though he ate meat when he needed it, his habits were
temperate. His ordinary breakfast was one egg and a
cup of water boiled with sugar. For lunch he had milk
of almonds and pressed grapes.3 Though he liked wine,
he was always temperate in its use.4
A certain abstemiousness was recommended for reasons
of his health, which for years had been far from robust.
Frequent colds, occasional attacks of worse diseases, like
the plague, gout, rheumatism, and a malady of the
pancreas,5 are often spoken of in his letters. When he
migrated from Basle to Freiburg in 1529 he had been
unable to ride horseback for two years, and had to be
carried in a litter.6 Twenty years before, at Venice, he
had first felt the symptoms of the disease of the bladder
known as the stone, and as time went on he suffered from
gout and rheumatism, other signs of a superfluity of uric
1 Dated February 2, 1525, W. Vischer: Erasmiana, no. 5.
* Melanchihoniana $adogogica> ecL K. Hartfelder, 1892, p. 175.
8 LB. I, 805. Colloquies, "Ichthyophagia."
4 In one letter he speaks of having drunk two kegs (vasa) In ten months,
Lond. xxvii, 40; LB. ep. 1260.
6 The " pancreatica valitudo" is spoken of in a letter of his amanuensis
Gilbert Cousin to Amerbach, September II, 1534; manuscript in the Basle
archives, kindly communicated to me in photograph by Prof. Edna Virginia
Moffett, of Wellesley College.
8 Lond. xxiii, 14; LB. ep. 1064.
268 ERASMUS
acid in the system. This diathesis is fostered partly by
a heavy meat diet, such as was then in vogue among the
well-to-do, but chiefly by the use of alcohol Strange to
say, this was so far from being understood that wine
was actually prescribed as a remedy,1 the only effort
being to get a vintage sufficiently good. Other medicines
also frequently did more harm than good, though
whether this was the case with turpentine, which our
patient speaks of using, I cannot say. Baths were also
prescribed, but being unused to them the sick man was
afraid to follow his physicians5 advice in this respect.
Though more enlightened than many of his contempora-
ries, the old scholar did not disdain to use a charm,
namely a cup marked with an "astrological lion" which
was supposed to impart virtue to his drink.2
At one time he consulted a man who had a great
reputation at that time, a strange mixture of scientist
and charlatan, of empiricist and empiric, and whose
megalomaniac character is well indicated by his pre-
tentious name: Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bom-
bastes Paracelsus, While he actually did something to
free medicine from the bondage of Galen and Hippoc-
rates, and while he made a few contributions to science,
philosophy, and theology, he mixed the whole in such a
mass of cloudy incomprehensibility that it is difficult to
assign him a high place among the discoverers. In 1526
he came to Basle, was appointed city physician and
professor of medicine at the university, and made a few
notable cures, among them that of Erasmus's friend
Froben. But his insolence and self-conceit soon won the
dislike of the local apothecaries and physicians and he was
obliged to leave the town. Erasmus, impressed by the
cure of his friend, consulted Paracelsus by letter, and
received a reply that the sufferer was taking the wrong
treatment, but that if he would follow the advice of his
new doctor he would have a long, quiet, and healthy
1 Lend, xxiii, 14; LB. ep. 1064.
2 Catalogue of Lucubrations, Allen, i, 46.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 269
life.1 Erasmus marveled that so accurate a diagnosis
could have been made by a man who had seen him but
once. "I have time/* he added, "neither to be cured,
nor to be ill, nor to die, so borne down am I by labor and
study." How far the treatment was continued we do
not know, nor with what results, but the lack of evidence
makes us suspect either that the humanist discontinued
employing a physician who undoubtedly had a good deal
of the quack in his make-up, or that Paracelsus was not
sufficiently encouraged by his patient's frank statement
that he could pay better in gratitude than in money.
The academic seclusion of the scholar did not wholly
shut out the noise of stirring events. The year 1525
saw the most terrible rising of the lower classes that
Germany ever witnessed. The revolt of the peasants,
starting in the autumn of 1524 in the highlands between
the upper Rhine and the sourcesof the Danube, swept in all
directions until nearly the whole Empire was involved.
The first serious check to it was given at Leipheim, on
April 4, 1525, and after that it was suppressed with great
severity and enormous slaughter. The old scholar at
Basle was not called upon to take an active part in the
movement on either side. His letters betray some
nervousness as the fighting came near home. To Lupset
he wrote that the revolt was like a hydra, of which, when
one head was cut off, nine sprang up in its place.2 To
Polydore Vergil, he wrote September 5, 1525?
Here we have a cruel and bloody story; the peasants rush to their
destruction. Daily there are fierce conflicts between nobles and
rustics, so near that we can almost hear the noise of the artillery
and the groans of the dying. You may guess how safe we are.
On September 24, 1525, he wrote to Everard, president
of the Supreme Court of Holland, that much more than
1 Anna Stoddart: Paracelsus, 1911, p. 297; Erasmus's reply, p. 298. Cf.
also p. 83. Miss Stoddart does not say where she got the letters she reprints
but the source is given by Enthoven, no. 163. On ''Paracelsus in Basel" see
F. Fischer in Beitrage zur Faterlandischen Geschichtf, v, 1854.
2Lond. xviii, n. LB. ep. 790.
3 Lond. xx, 59, LB. ep. 760.
270
one hundred thousand peasants had been slain in
Germany/ that daily, priests, the inciters to the re-
bellion^ were captured, tortured, hung, beheaded, and
burned. The remedy, he added, though harsh, was
necessary.
For the moment the whole of Europe seemed in
turmoil. The apprehension and disgust with which
Erasmus surveyed the situation is reflected in a colloquy
that was first published in February, 1526. Among the
evil signs of the times there enumerated are the following:
the captivity of Francis I, the exile of Christian II of
Denmark, the foreign wars of Charles, and the domestic
troubles of Ferdinand; that all courts are in want of
money; that the peasants revolt undeterred by their
own slaughter; that the people meditate anarchy; that
the Church is collapsing under the attacks of perilous
sects; and that even the doctrine of the eucharist is
called in question.2
Erasmus continued to have close relations with France,
to which Francis I, eager to assemble all possible talent
at Paris to ornament his reign, often invited him. "Alas,
Bude," said the king one day, talking to that scholar,
"we have no Lefevre in our land." Bude replied that
Lefevre was not absent. "Ah ! I meant to say Erasmus,5*
answered the king.3 Accordingly he dictated and in part
wrote the following kind letter, dated Saint-Germain-
en-Laye, July 7,
*LB. Ep. 781. iii, 900. Erasmus's estimate is perhaps not far from the
correct number.
2"Puerpera,"LB. 1,766.
3 To Marcus Laurirms, February i, 1523; LB., ep. 650, iii, col. 757, On
Erasmus's calls to France see Felibien: Historie de la Fille de Paris, 1725, iii
"985; W. Heubi: Francois I et le Mouvement Intellectuel en France, 1913, p.
15. A. Lefranc: Histoirt du College de France* 1893, PP- 45 ff-
4 Vischer: Erasmiana, no. iv. Vischer places this letter, which is without
year date, in 1522, on the ground that Robertet, who countersigned the letter,
died in 1522, and by N. Weiss: "Guillaurne Farel," Bulletin de la Societe de
Yhistoire du Protestantisms franfais, 1920, p. 124, in 1524. The true date is
found by consulting the Actes de Francois I, 1887, which shows that 1523 was
the only year (1520-1525, inclusive), when Francis was at Saint-Germam-en-
Laye on July 7th. There were many Robertets in Francis's service.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 271
DEAR AND GOOD FRIEND: We have given commission to our dear
and weE-beioved Claude Cantiuncula, the bearer of this, to tell and
declare unto you certain things on our part, In which we very affec-
tionately beg you to believe and have entire faith, as you would if
you heard them from us personally. Dear and good Friend, may the
Lord keep you in his protection. [Follows in Francis's own hand] I
assure you that if you wish to come you will be welcome.
FRANCIS.
ROBERTET.
When Claude Cantiuncula had delivered this to his
friend, Erasmus hurried to complete the Paraphrase to
the Gospel of Mark, which he sent to Francis by his
servant, Hilaire Bertulph, with a letter dated December
17, 1 523.* By the same messenger he sent a work called
Confession, dedicated to Francis du Moulin, Sieur du
Rochefort, together with a French translation of the
same by Cantiuncula, dedicated to the king's sister,
Margaret d'Angouleme.
The protection of the French king was the more
necessary in view of the constant hostility of the
Sorbonne. The theological professors, headed by Noel
Beda,2 in whom alone, as Erasmus once remarked, lived
many monks, were on the point of taking action against
the Dutch humanist, when the king intervened by asking,
through his confessor, William Petit, for an account of
their proposed censure. The faculty then decided to
draw up no articles, but to depute Beda to satisfy his
majesty in a personal audience, if he wished.3
Further complications arose from the. zeal of Lewis de
Berquin, a gallant and high-minded French Reformer
who, though he did little but translate the works of
1 Horawitz: Erasmiana, ii, no. 4 (Sitzungsberichtf, Wien, 1879), with the
wrong date, May lyth. On the true date see Weiss, loc. ciL On Hilaire
Bertulph's trip to France see A. Roersch: UHumanisme Edge, 1910, p. 75 ff.
2 On Beda see Godet: Le College de Montaigu, pp. 66 ff, and A. Hyrvoix:
"Noel Bedier," Revue des Questions Historiques* vol. 72, 1902, pp. 578-591.
Beda was principal of Montaigu 1503-13; later attacked the "Mirror of a
Sinful Soul" by Margaret of Angouleme, was exiled, and died on February 8,
3 A. Clerval: Registres des Proces-Ftrbaux de la Facidte de Theologie de
Pans, 1917, p. 402.
272 ERASMUS
others into his native tongue, did that with enough
genius to make his name remembered in literature and
in the history of Protestantism,1 An admirer of
Erasmus at least as early as 1519^ he pot several of his
works, and later several tracts of Luther, into French.
For these, and for his Apology against Luther9 s Calum-
niatorsy he was summoned before the Sorbonne, on
June 15, 1523, and reprimanded, while two days later
his defense of Luther was publicly burnt.3 In Januarys
1524, the Sorbonne subjected Erasmus's Paraphrase to
Luke and the Exposition of the Lord's Prayer to a
scrutiny. They let the matter lie dormant for more than
a year, however. In May and June, 1525, they examined
and condemned to be burnt French translations by
Berquin, of the Encomium of Marriage, the short
Admonition to Prayer, The Apostles* Creed Explained^
and the Complaint of Peace. It was doubtless this act
which excited the apprehension of the humanist and
drew his attention to Berquin. He therefore wrote him
on August 25, IS2J4 saying that he believed he had made
the translations with good intentions, but requesting
him to abstain in future, as he wished only for peace.
On April 17, I526,5 Berquin replied, sending him a list
of charges which he begged him to answer in full, and
encouraging him by reporting a saying of the king to
the effect that the Sorbonne is only brave against the
weak, but fears to attack Erasmus. The Dutch scholar
was impressed by the tf impudence, sycophancy, and
crass ignorance 9) of these articles6 and wrote to Francis
I, June 16, 15267 partly to defend himself from the
attacks of Beda and Sutor, partly to defend Berquin.
*0n Berquin (i490~April 17, 1529,) see Realencyklopadie fur.prottstantisck*
Theologie und Kirche> ii, 643, and N. Weiss, in Bulletin de la Societe dt I'his-
toire du Protestantismf fran$ais, 1918, pp. 162 ff.
*N. Berault to Erasmus, March 16, 1519; Allen, ep. 925.
3 Notice dfs Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque National*, xxxvi, 326.
4 Postridie JSartholomei. Lond, xix, 87, LB. ep. 753.
5 LB, App. ep. 335.
8 To Pirckheimer, June 6, 1526. Lond. xxx, 44, LB. ep. 823.
7 Lond. xxi, 40. LB. ep. 826.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 273
The opposing party had been suspected of using poison,
he asserted, and had otherwise discredited themselves by
their attacks on Lefevre and himself. On June i4th he
wrote a similar apology to the Parisian Parlement,1
having previously defended himself by a letter to the
Faculty of Paris.2 His main line of defense is to show
what a difference there is between Luther and himself,
to prove which he sends the book directed by that
"poisonous beast " against himself. Probably in con-
sequence of Erasmus's letter Francis gave the order,
July, 1526, to free Berquin from prison,3 but the Parle-
ment of Paris objected to this. In October Berquin was
again arrested, and, after long proceedings, of which the
humanist was kept informed,4 he was sent to the stake
on April 17, 1529.
Apprised of the death of his admirer, Erasmus wrote
a detailed account of it in the form of a letter to a friend,
and published it almost immediately in his Opus Episto-
lary,™ in August, 1529.* Berquin, he said, unmoved by
the exhortations of Bude, who was one of the judges,
and undaunted by the fear of death, had shown great
bravery until the last, when his speech to the assembled
crowd was drowned by the rattle of drums. The story
told by the Franciscan appointed as his confessor, that
he recanted at the last moment, Erasmus thought
incredible, for he had heard similar fictions about the
Lutheran martyrs at Brussels. Without venturing to
say whether Berquin deserved death or not, he expressed
frank admiration for the courage and sincerity of a man
who was certainly not, in his opinion, a Lutheran, %nd
who sinned chiefly through lack of prudence. Even had
Berquin erred, he protested emphatically, it would be
unprecedented to burn everyone for any degree of error,
1 Lond. xx, 44. LB. ep. 824.
2 Jortin: Erasmus, i, 492. June 23, 1526.
8 M. Felibien: Histoirf de la Ville de Paris, 1725, ii, 984.
* By a letter of Gervais Wain, dated Paris, August 16, 1528. Forstemann-
Giinther, no. 89.
6 To C. Utenhoven, July i, 1529. Lond. xxiv, 4; LB. ep. 1060.
274 ERASMUS
no matter how slight. This would only result in con-
demning, hanging, quartering, burning, and beheading
vast numbers of men, good and bad alike.
Though the Sorbonne could not burn Erasmus, they
made things as hot for him as they were able* Together
with their detestation of his tolerant spirit, they ^ cher-
ished a grudge against a man who frequently ridiculed
them. Irritated by a slighting allusion in the Colloquies?
first published in March, 1522,* Beda attacked the author
and Lefevre d' Staples in a pamphlet in 1526,2 and at the
same time procured the condemnation of the Colloquies,
taking pains to send their memorial on the subject to
Louvain.3 Among the thirty-two propositions selected
for censure the most interesting is an expression in favor
of tolerance.
Erasmus at once expostulated by letters to the king,4
to Beda,5 and to the University of Paris.6 To the latter
he wrote that he had hoped that if he were driven out
by the Lutherans he might find refuge at the Sorbonne,
but now it assailed him more fiercely than did the
Reformers.
While the king again interfered to prevent further
action by the Sorbonne,7 Erasmus revenged himself on
his three chief enemies, Beda, Quercus, and Sutor, by
composing a biting satire in one of his Colloquies, called
"The Synod of Grammarians/' first published in 1528.*
Some one asks the meaning of "Anticomarita" ("old
wife"; cf. I Timothy, iv, 7), and is told that "It means
1 LB. i, 63 1. Here it is stated as incredible aews from Paris that Beda is
wise and Quercus a preacher.
* Bib. Eras. $d series, 6. Erasmus's letter to Beda, Lend, xix, 91, LB. ep.»*
746, is dated June 15, 1525, a mistake for 1526.
1 Notices dss MSS. de la Bibliothsque National*, xxxvi, 334; LB. ix, 904 if,
* LB. vi, 943 £
5 LB. ep. 746, dated 1525 by mistake for 1526.
6 Corpus Reformatorum, xcv, 1915, pp. 740 ff. This letter was sent by Caspar
Mosager to Zwingli on October 16, 1526. LB. epp. 907, 9°8, 909. Enthoven,
epp. 54, 67.
7 Catalogue des Actes de Francois I, 1887 ff, i, no. 1702.
*LB. 1,824.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 275
a kind of beet (Beta) which was formerly called 'swim-
ming5 (natatilis, a play on Beda's first narne^ Noels or
Natalis), because it dwells in damp? foul places, and
flourishes especially in privies. It has a twisted, knotty
stalk, and a nasty smell/' Later, allusions are brought in
to **the gall of the oak" (pun on galla, French, and
Quercus, or Du Chene), and to "the shoemaker's black-
ing" (sutorium atramentum, pun on Sutor).
Naturally this did not conciliate the Sorbonnists, who?
in 1529, published another attack on Erasmus,1 in the
following year forbade the sale of his editions of Ambrose
and Augustine, and in April, 1532, censured another
work by his hand. When Erasmus heard of this he knew
at last that the idea he had cherished of going to France
under the king's protection2 was vain. To his friend,
John Choler,3 he wrote of the new tumult at Paris, of the
search made for his books under the seal of the absent
monarch, and of the hostility of Beda, who did more
through others than in his own person, and finally of
the examination to which his works had been subjected
by the Franciscans, who found a thousand errors in
them. "I see," he concluded, "that it will simply come
to pass that, if the Lutheran cause declines, such a
tyranny of monks will arise as will make us wish for
Luther again."
The aristocratic friendships formed by Erasmus broad-
ened as time went on. Among his list of correspondents
was Queen Margaret of Navarre4 and King Sigismund of
Poland.5 His long letter to the latter, May 15, 1527, on
1 Determinatio Facultatis Theologies in Schola Parisiense super quam plurimis
Assfrtionibus Erasmi, 1529, Bibliographie des impressions des atuvres de Josse
Bade Ascensius, par P. Renouard, 1908, ii, 403.
2 He had toyed with the idea of going to France as late as March 30, 1527;
see Revue Hispanique, xvii, 1907, p. 533; Notices ft Extraits des MSS. de la
Bibliotheque National?, xxxvi, 334 ff.
5 Erasmus to Choler, September 9, 1533; Pantos epistolarum [ed. G. Veesen-
meyer], Ulm, 1798, p. 3.
4 September 28, 1525. Lond. xx, 2, LB. ep. 764. Cf. F. Genin: Lettres in-
idites de la Reine de Navarre, Marguerite d*Angouleme> 1841, p. 460.
* Lond. xxii, 16. LB. ep. 860.
276 ERASMUS
the glories of peace, was quickly printed, to the regret
of the writer,1 who thought that it excited enmity against
him in the court of Ferdinand, though not from the king
himself. This monarch promised four hundred gulden a
year if Erasmus would come to Vienna.2 One of the
most interesting letters written to the humanist is that
from a famulus who went by the name of Felix Rex
Polyphemus, telling how royally he was entertained at
Spires, whither he went bearing letters from his master,
as soon as it was known whom he served.3 King Ferdi-
nand himself gave him an audience, said that he would
do anything for his master, and gave Polyphemus a good
place, at one hundred and thirty gulden a year, in his
guard of archers.
Erasmus's relations with the royal family of England
were quite special. He had met the boy Henry in
I499,4 had corresponded with him during the Italian
years, and had hailed his accession to the throne (1509)
as a triumph for humanism and progress. During the
long sojourn in England (1509-14) Henry had received
him graciously and Queen Catharine had asked him to
become her tutor.5 Nevertheless he instinctively felt
the coming storm and that he would have more freedom
on the Continent.
He almost became implicated in the quarrel between
Luther and Henry VIII, each side suspecting him, as
usual, of aiding and abetting the other. The English
monarch, proud of his learning, had written, with the
help of his ablest divines and scholars, a Defense of the
Seven Sacraments against Luther's attack on them in the
Babylonian Captivity* The work appeared in London in
1 Erasmus to Christopher Scheidlowitz, August 27, 1528. Horawitz:
Erasmiana, i, no. 12, and Miaskowski: Erasmiana, iii, no.io. Sigismund wrote
to Erasmus February 19, 1528, ibid., and August 17, 1531, ibid, no. 12.
2 John Faber forwarded this offer from Prague, June 17, 1528, Forstemann-
Giinther, no. 87.
3 March 23, 1529. Ibid, no. 102.
4 Allen, i, p. 6; Nichols i, p. 201.
1 Allen, i, 569, ep. 296; Nichols, ep. 290,
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 277
July, 1521, and the king almost immediately sent a copy
inscribed in his own hand, "Pro D. Erasmo." Another
copy Erasmus saw while he was Wolsey's guest at Calais
in August, 1521; Carracciolo handing it to him. He
merely glanced at the title, and remarked: "I congrat-
ulate Luther on having such an adversary," but for
some reason the book was not left in his possession.1
He received one five months later, however,2 and not
long afterward an edition was published at Strassburg
with two of his letters on the subject.3 Some persons,
indeed, suspected Erasmus of having a hand in the
composition of the work, an ungrounded suspicion, but
one which he took some pains to deny. His letter4 on
the authorship has been quoted from that day to our own
as proof that Henry wrote his own book. It enumer-
ates the king's accomplishments as musician, horseman,
mathematician, and deep student of Aquinas, Biel, and
Scotus. If the style resembles that of Erasmus, the latter
explains it by saying that Henry was Mount joy's pupil
and Mountjoy Erasmus's pupil. As evidence of the king's
ability to write Latin the humanist quotes a letter written
to himself, of which he says he has seen the first draft.
This assurance, which has so often been taken as conclu-
sive, has recently been shown to be most suspicious.5 He
repeated his conviction that the king composed the book
unaided, in a missive to Duke George of Saxony, saying
again that if the style is like his it is because his pupil,
1 Lond. xxiii, 6, p. 1229. LB. ep. 650. On the whole affair: Preserved
Smith: "Luther and Henry VIII," English Historical Review, October, 1910.
* He says in February he received a copy sent in August, ibid. He is probably
wrong about the date at which it was sent, which would allow too much time
for the transmission. We know a copy was sent him by Dr. W. Tate (one of
the collaborators), December 4, 1521. Allen, ep. 1246.
* Edition of 1522. The letters (which had just appeared in tlitEpistola ad
diversos, November, 1521) are those to Warham and Pace, August 23, 1521.
Allen, epp. 1227, 1228. Erasmus certainly had no hand in the edition of the
Asstrtio. Cf. E. Voss, "Murner's translation of two letters of Erasmus,"
Journal of English and Germanic Philology, v, 1904, 287 ff.
4 To Cochlaeus, April i (1522), wrongly dated 1529, Lond. xxiii, 15, and
also LB. ep. 1038 and Nichols, i, 424. Cf. Allen, i, 433.
* Allen, ibid.
278 ERASMUS
M ountjoy, was Henry's instructor,1 At the same time he
highly extolled the monarch, who relied more on the pen
than on the sword.2
Luther answered the king in July, 1522, in^as angry a
tone as that of his royal opponent,3 by his violence
alienating still more the good opinion of the humanist.4
Strange to say, Erasmus was suspected of writing this
book, too, and was so much moved by the accusation that
he sent his own servant to England to reassure Henry
and Wolsey,5 in which he was apparently successful
Though the king did not himself reply to Luther, he
urged his ablest subjects, Fisher and More, to do so.
They both complied, the latter under the pseudonym
William Ross; Erasmus knew this work, but did not know
that it was by his friend; in his opinion it outstripped
even Luther's virulence.6 Henry also urged Erasmus to
take up the cudgels, and so vehemently that the humanist
feared the king would take it ill did he not comply.7 In
fact, his final decision to write against the Wittenberg
professor may have been due in large part to Britain's
monarch.
A few years later Erasmus seemed likely to become
involved in the great divorce on which all Europe took
sides.8 It is not necessary to enter into a full history of
1 Basle, September 3, 1522; Gess: AkUn und Briefe zur Kirchenpolitik
Herzogs Georg von Sachsen, 1905, i, no. 371; LB. ep. 635. L. C. ep. 555.
* August 2-3, 1521. Allen, ep. 1228.
8 Contra Hcnricum AngUcs Regem, Lutkers JPerke, (Weimar), x, part ii,
pp. 175 ff.
4 To Laurinus, February i, 1523; Lond. xxiii, 6, LB. ep. 650. To Adrian
VI (1523), Lond. xviii, 20; LB. ep. 649.
* To Pirckheimer, August 29 (1523), Lond. xxx., 33. Clava writes from
Ghent, July 5, 1523, that Erasmus's servant, Levine, is just back from
England (Enthoven, ep. 21). C. Tunstall, Bishop of London, wrote, July 7,
1523, that he was glad to hear that Erasmus had nothing to do with Luther's
works. Lond. xxii, 22. LB. ep. 656.
6 LB. x, 1652. English Historical Review, October, 1912, p. 673, note 23,
7 To Pirckheiraer, January 9, 1523; Lond. xxx. 30. LB. ep. 646.
8 Preserved Smith: The Age of the Reformation, 1920, pp. 286 f, 290 f,
704, 708. On Erasmus's share in it, Preserved Smith: "German Opinion
of the Divorce of Henry VIII," English Historical Review, October, 1912,
pp. 671 ff.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 279
the transactions nor to probe Henry's strangely mingled
motives of policy, conscience, and lust. The failure of
Catharine of Aragon to have living issue, threatening a
disputed succession, gave rise to rumors of divorce as
early as 1514.* The birth of the Princess Mary in 1516,
however* by giving the king hope of other children* post-
poned the execution of the plan for many years*
In view of later developments it does not seem unreason-
able to suppose that the queen's request to the humanist,
made through her chamberlain^ Lord Mountjoy? in 1524
or 1525, to write her a book on marriage, may have been
in part due to her anxiety about her position.2 When
Erasmus complied, by publishing The Institution of
Christian Matrimony5 in 1526, he followed the previous
work of his friend, Lewis Vives, on the same subject.
The dedicatory letter, dated July iSth, extols the queen
as the example of the most perfect wife of this genera-
tion, as her mother, Isabella of Castile, had been before
her, and as her 'daughter Mary would doubtless be after
her.
Marriage is defined as a perpetual and legitimate union
of man and woman. The evils of divorce are so thor-
oughly canvassed that one is inclined to believe Erasmus
must have known of the suspicions cast on Catharine's
marriage. After remarking how inauspicious divorce has
always been considered even by those nations which
allow it, and how solemn and binding is wedlock in both
law and religion, the writer begins to hedge by consid-
ering the Impediments to marriage, some of which suffice
to render any marriage null, some of which can break a
marriage contract, but not consummated wedlock.
Union with a brother's widow is expressly stated to be
1 Calendar of State Papers* Venetian* 1509-19, p. 479.
2 To Piso, September 9, 1526, Erasmus writes that the queen asked for the
book a year ago. Lond. xxi, 65, LB. ep. 838. The dedicatory epistle to the
queen, however, says that he had promised Mount joy to write the book two
years ago. Lond. xxix, 40 . LB. v, col. 613 f. Cf. also to Beda, June 10, 1525,
Lond. xix, 91, LB. ep. 746.
8 Matrinonii Christiani Institutio, LB. v, 613 ff.
28o ERASMUS
an insufficient cause for nullifying a marriage, the
reason being that in some cases marriage with a brother's
widow was expressly commanded in the Old Testament.
The value of a papal dispensation is then considered; it
is stated to be sufficient in some cases, but not in all.
In general it may be said that the author takes a well-
balanced view, inclining slightly to the side of the queen.
The rest of the work considers the choosing of mates,
which is best left to the parents, and the bringing up of
girls, the main object being to keep them unspotted from
the world, not letting them read romances nor hear loose
talk nor see lascivious pictures, with which, Erasmus
remarks, Bibles are often illustrated.
Catharine was apparently too busy to acknowledge
the work at once, but after Erasmus had written on
March I, I528,1 gently reminding her of the dedication,
praising her virtuous life, and exhorting her to patience
in her present affliction, she directed Mountjoy to
express her pleasure, and she sent a gift.2 In the same
letter Mountjoy voiced his hopes that Erasmus would
come to England and referred to the invitation of the king.
But the humanist declined,3 for, as there was no definite
offer of money, but only a general promise of freedom,
the bid was not attractive. He felt too old, moreover,
easily to take up a new abode, wishing only, as he wrote
More, a convenient place in which to die.
By this time the plan for a divorce was well known.
Erasmus received direct information of a rumored sep-
aration of "Jupiter and Juno" from John Crucius
Berganus, who visited England in 1527, but did not
think it safe to write until he had reached Louvain in
1 Lond. xix, 69, LB. ep. 437.
2 Forstemann-Gunther, no. 66, dated 1527. On the true date cf. Vocht:
"Erasmus's Correspondence," Englische Studien, 1909, p. 386. Cf. on the
gift, Lond. xx, 87, LB. ep. 975. Cf. also to Christopher Mesias; March 30,
1530, Lond. xxv, 26; LB. ep. 1102.
8 Henry to Erasmus, September 18 (1527?), Lond. xxvii, 31. Erasmus to
Henry, June i, 1528, Lond. xx, 73; LB. ep. 961.
4 February 29, 1528, Lond. xix, 79; LB. ep. 936.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 281
the following January.1 On September ad, Erasmus
wrote his friend Vives,2 who was deeply concerned in
the matter, "Far be it from me to mix in the affair of
Jupiter and Juno, especially as I know little about it.
But I should prefer that he should take two Junos rather
than put away one.55 "Would that Jupiter and Juno/*
replied Vives, "might devote themselves not to that
ancient goddess Venus, but to Christ, the turner of
hearts."3
In expressing a preference for bigamy to divorce,
Erasmus but concurred in an opinion which, strange as
it seems to us, was very commonly held at the time.
Not only the Anabaptists, but many more sober reform-
ers, and not a few Catholics and rationalists, held the
view that polygamy, commonly practiced in the Old
Testament and not clearly forbidden in the New, was a
natural and in given circumstances a permissible state.4
Whether Erasmus was solicited by Henry for an opinion,
as were other learned doctors, is uncertain, but the sub-
ject continued to occupy his thoughts. Early in 1530 he
wrote his intimate friend, Boniface Amerbach, that, as
Henry had not married Catharine from love, his case is
a hard one, but that, nevertheless, he advises him to
marry his daughter to a noble and to make her son his
heir. However, he asks whether, considering the blood-
shed that would result from a disputed succession, a
dispensation annulling the marriage might not be given,
though it would be hard on the queen.5 Amerbach
1 Enthoven, no. 12, wrongly placed in 1522. On the true date January 28,
1528, Vocht, loc. cit.
2 Lond. xx, 87, LB. ep. 975. On Vives' part in the divorce, cf. Letters and
Papers of Henry FIIL, iv, part ii, no. 4990 (November, 1528), and Foster
Watson: "A Friend of Sir T. More," The Nineteenth Century and After,
March, 1918. Opera, vii, 134. Vives to Henry VIII, January 31, 1531.
3 October 1, 1528. LB. ep. 990. Fivis Opera, 1798, vii, 192.
* Preserved Smith: The Age of the Reformation, 1920, pp. 507; " German
Opinion of the Divorce of Henry VIII," English Historical Review, 1912, pp.
673 ff. W. W. Rockwell: Die Doppelehe des Landgraf Philipp von Hessen,
1904.
5 Erasmi f pistoles ad Bon. Amerbachium, 1779, no. 11.
282 ERASMUS
replied/ on February 28th, that the moot question was
Due for jurists, and that the pope had the power of grant-
ing divorce only In extreme cases. Though it is not
certain that another marriage would produce a son*
Amerbach added: "Were I a Lutheran I should say that
a new wife might be taken without putting away the old,
for polygamy was practiced by the patriarchs and Luther
teaches that it is not forbidden by the New Testament/1
That Erasmus did not embrace the queen's cause more
warmly is perhaps due to his sense of injury because she
lid not take more notice of his compliments. In a work
railed The Christian Widow9 dedicated to Queen Mary
jf Hungary, he referred to Catharine as "a woman of
>uch learning, piety, prudence, and constancy, that there
Aras nothing in her feminine, nothing not masculine,
except her sex and beauty,"2 and he took pains to call
:his passage to her attention. The small gift that he
•eceived very late did not satisfy him, especially when
le contrasted her indifference with the autograph letter
lent him by Queen Mary.3 The poor woman had other
:hings to think of than Latin adulators, no matter how
jxquisitely they burned their incense before her.
Just at this time the humanist was in close communi-
ration with Simon Grynseus, a learned Greek scholar
vho, having been professor at Heidelberg 1524-29, was
railed in the latter year by (Ecolampadius to Basle to
•eplace Erasmus.4 A mission to England, in search of
•Jreek manuscripts, led to his employment by Henry as
>ne of the agents to collect the opinions of foreign imiver-
ities and doctors on the divorce. Having already been
i correspondence5 with Erasmus on learned subjects, he
1 Burckhardt-Biedemann: Bon. Amerbach und die Reformation, 1894, pp.
38 L
8 LB. v, col. 726. Other compliments in cols. 730, 766.
8 To Mountjoy, September 8, 1529, Lond. xxvi, 20. LB, ep. 1077. To
[ountjoy, March 18, 1531. Lond. xxvi, 39; LB. ep. 1174.
4 Rfalfncykhpadif fur prottstantische Theologie und Kirche* vii, 218.
6 Simonis Grynai Epistola, ed. W. T. Streuber, 1847, epp. 1-4, three from
rasmus to Grynaeus and one reply, all without date.
AT 1521-29 283
now took letters of introduction from him to English
friends, but while there won the ill will of More and of
Tunstali and generally disgraced himself in their eyes by
defending ZwinglL1
Whether he solicited Erasmus's opinion, as he did that
of many other divines, is unknown* but that the old
scholar was approached by the other side is expressly
told, two nobles from the imperial court acting as inter-
mediaries. Apparently he tried to avoid giving them a
direct answer, telling them what he hoped would happen,
not what divine and human law required. Protesting
his loyalty to the emperor, he denied that the rumor
that he approved of the divorce had any foundation.
The matter he thought too hard for him to decide.2 This
was his reply to a letter from his Portuguese friend,
Damian a Goes, who had written to express his surprise
.that Erasmus had favored the divorce, inasmuch as he
has heard the direct opposite from his correspondent's
own mouth.3 A quite different impression, however, is
given by a letter to another friend, then at Padua, in
which the writer opined that the king was justified in
getting a divorce at last, as his course had been approved
by so many doctors and had been going on for eight
years.4 At the same time, when he heard the false rumor
that Henry had taken back Catharine, though he
regarded it as incredible, he hoped it was true/ and
when Cochlaeus, in 1534, wrote against the divorce, the
humanist applauded him.6
Probably Burnet is wrong in saying that Erasmus
secretly favored the divorce, but was afraid to appear in
the matter lest he should offend the emperor.7 About
1 Erasmus to Viglius van Zuichem, November 8, 1533; LB. App. cp. 374.
2 To Damian a Goes, July 25, 1533; Lend, xvii, 19; LB. ep. 1253.
8 June 20, 1533, Forstemann-Giinther, ep. 188.
4 To Viglius Zuichem, May 14, 1533 ; LB. App. ep, 372.
sTo Olaus, November 7, 1533; Monumenta diplomataria Hvngaria» xxv,
424.
6 M. Spahn: /. Cochlaus, 1898, p. 250.
7 Burnet: History ofthf Reformation, ed. Pocock, 1865, i, 160.
284 ERASMUS
this time one of the humanist's numerous secretaries
wrote a friend that Henry's divorce was indefensible
because of the injury done to his daughter and because
an heir might have been adopted with the consent of
the people.1 The fact is that Erasmus was pulled in two
ways : he loved peace, and yet he was bound by ties to
both the king and the queen of England. He could
not help pitying the latter, while he saw with apprehen-
sion the possibilities of bloodshed latent in a disputed
succession. He approached the matter as far as possible
from the practical standpoint, hoping for the solution
that would entail least hardship on all parties. He there-
fore remained non-committal, even when he wrote, in
1532, a special treatise on divorce,2 intended as an answer
to some enemy whom he designates as "Muzzle-mouth."
There was an early English translation of this, though
the exact date cannot be determined.3
However he may have felt toward Queen Catharine,
Erasmus had no scruple in making friends with the
Boleyns. Though it is hardly likely that he knew Anne's
father, Thomas Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, personally,
he received a letter from him dated November 4, 1529,
in which the nobleman asked him to explain to him
the Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd," and added to
the Latin of his secretary in his own hand the English
words: "I pray yow gyff credyt to thys and pardon me
that I wryte not at thys tyme to yow myself. Your own
asseurydly, T. Rochford."4 Erasmus complied, dedicat-
1 Gilbert Cousin to Ulrich Zasius, son of the Freiburg professor of that
name. The letter is dated only "ex zedibus Erasmicis," and was presumably
penned, therefore, in the years 1530-35. It was first published in Cousin's
(Cognatus) De Us qui Roma jus dicelant olim, Lyons, 1559. I owe this
reference to Prof. Edna Virginia Moffett of Wellesley College.
2 Responsio ad disputationem cujusdam Phimostomi de divortio, Freiburg,
August 19, 1532. LB. ix, 955 ff.
* The censure and judgment of . . . Erasmus: Whyther dyvorscmentt Ittwene
man and wyfe stondeth with the lawe of God. . . . transl. by N. Lesse, London,
wyd. Jhon Herforde for R. Stoughton,
Bittiotheca Erasmiana, i, 174. The Dictionary of National Biography, j. v.
Nicholas Lesse, puts this dialogue in 1550.
4 Forstemann-Gunther, no. 114.
LIFE AT BASLE 1521-29 285
ing his Ennaratio triplex in Psalmum XXII1 to Rochford,
and later also his Symboli explanatio swe Catechismus.2
For these he got a warm note of thanks and a present of
fifty crowns, accompanied by the further request for a
work on Preparation for Death.3 Erasmus complied in
this case also.4 Less than two years later he heard from
Chapuls of the expected execution of Rochford, who
therefore had a very practical use for the work he had
asked for. In the same letter he recounts the pitiful tale
of the demise of Queen Catharine, much comforted, if
we may trust the writer, by the same book,5
1 LB. v; the dedicatory epistle, Lond. xxix, 34, is wrongly dated 1527.
2LB. v, H33ff. English translation : A playne and godly txposytion. . . . of
the commune Crede. . . . put forth by Erasmus. London, Redman, no date
(1533 f).
* Rochford to Erasmus, June 19, 1533. Enthoven, no. 109. Cf. letter of
Rochford's secretary, Gerard Phrysius, June 8, 1533, Forstemann-Gunther,
no. 187.
*LB. v. 1294 ff.
5 Chapuis to Erasmus, February i, 1536. Enthoven, no. 145. Catharine
died January 6, 1536.
CHAPTER XI
THE COLLOQUIES AND OTHER PEDAGOGICAL WORKS
OF all the works of Erasmus the one in which his
own nature and style appeared to the best advan-
tage, that which surpassed all others in originality, in wit,
in gentle irony, in exquisitely tempered phrase, and in
maturity of thought on religious and social problems, was
written as a text-book of Latin style. The Familiar
Colloquies were intended to make easy and pleasant the
once thorny path of learning for aspiring youth. They
are stories in the form of conversations, always convey-
ing, along with the necessary exercise in Latin, enough
instruction and reflection on all sorts of matters to make
them profitable reading for thoughtful minds. The
author's most important "sources" were, indeed, his
own experiences. If he borrowed something from
Lucian, a plot from Hroswitha and a tiny bit from Poggio,
far more he wove in of his own ripe thought on events
in which he had participated.1
Like so many of its author's productions, this was a
work of many years, each issue being a revision and
expansion of the previous one. The first Colloquies were
written at Paris in 1497 for the use of some pupils,
among them Augustine Vincent Caminade.2 The author
did not intend them for publication, but, as he wrote later,3
I dictated some trifles or other if anyone wished to chat after
dinner and, as Horace says,4 to sport informally by the fireside.
1 See A. Horawitz: "Ueber die Colloquia des Erasmus von Rotterdam,"
Historisches Taschenbuch, 6te Folge, 6tes Jahrgang, 1887, pp. 53-122.
*On whom see Appendix.
3 To the Reader, Louvain, January i, 1519. Preface to the revised edition
of the Familiarium Colloquiorum Formula^ 1519. Allen, ep. 909.
4 Satires, ii, 1. 73.
*86
THE COLLOQUIES 287
There were some formulas of everyday intercourse anc! again some
convivial conversations. . , . These trifles Augustine Carainade
sucked up like an insatiable Laverna, and from them all patched up
a book like /Esop's crow; or rather he concocted them just as a cook
mixes up many scraps to make a broth. He added titles and names
of persons from his own invention, so that the ass in the lion's skin
might sometimes betray himself. For it is not as easy to write Latin
trifles as some think.
Twenty years later Beatus Rhenanus got hold of these
exercises and published them, without the author's
knowledge, at Basle in November, ijiS.1 The work had
a rapid sale, and several new editions were called for.
Erasmus, at first indignant that his rough notes should
be printed in such poor form, found it better to revise
and acknowledge the work than to disown it altogether.
A new edition was published by Froben on January i,
1519, now bearing the title, Formulas of Familiar Con-
versations, "by Erasmus of Rotterdam, useful not only for
polishing a boy's Speech but for building his Character;
this was revised and much enlarged in an edition of 1522
dedicated to young Erasmius Froben. The title was
changed to Familiar Conversations in 1524, and at this,
and at many other times, until March, 1533, further ad-
ditions were made.2
The earliest colloquies are the easiest and most formal,
dealing with such subjects as eating and drinking, games
of ball, and matters of everyday life. All manner of
proper salutations are catalogued, from the most distant
to such affectionate titles as "my life, my delight, my
little heart." Such instructions in manners are given as
that it is polite to salute people when they sneeze or
cough, and to wish them good luck, but not when their
bowels rumble or when they are engaged in discharging
the duties of nature. The interlocutors are Caminade,
1 Preface to N. and C. Stallberger, dated November 22, 1518, in Brief wechstl
des Beatus Rhtnanus, p. 1 22.
2 Bibliotheca Belgica> Erasmus: Colloquia, 1903-07. Allen, i, p. 304. Dedi-
cations to Erasmius Froben, August I, 1523, Lond. xxix, 18; August I, 1524.
LB. i, 627. The text of the Colloquies* ibid> 629 ff.
288 ERASMUS
James Voecht, a school-teacher of Schlettstadt named
Sapidus, Erasmus, Erasmius Froben, Caspar, Bernard,
and others. The first two names date back to the Paris
days; the others were added later. The conversations
show that Erasmus joined his pupils in games of tennis,
conversed with them on serious topics, and joked them
on everything; one pupil, for example, was good-
naturedly ridiculed for having a nose big enough to be
used as a bellows, a harpoon, or a candle extinguisher.
In the edition of March, 1522, Erasmus added much,
mainly on religion. The tendency of it is all liberal, to
emphasize the life of the spirit rather than dependence
on ceremonies. In a long Religious Symposium, an inter-
locutor called Eusebius says: "I have put Jesus instead
of the foul Priapus as protector of my garden."1 This
free manner of speaking, and the juxtaposition of the
two names, shocked the conservative. In a later edition,
also of 1522, Erasmus added An Apotheosis of John
Reuchlin, who died on June 20, 1522. In this the good
man is represented as taken to heaven, whereas an ob-
scurantist, called "the Camel" — probably the Carmelite
Egmond — is satirized.
In the next edition, of August, 1523, Erasmus added
much, chiefly on love and marriage. One dialogue rep-
resents a girl rejecting an infatuated suitor; another
shows the young man warning the girl of the dangers of
the cloister; and a third exhibits her repentance at
having taken the veil. A fourth dialogue sets forth the
inconveniences of marriage. Various anecdotes of the
writer's friends are inserted, including one of Thomas
More's early married life.2 One of the interlocutors,
Xanthippe, perhaps stands for the shrewish second wife
of the same man. Nor did Erasmus scruple to add, in
this textbook for boys, a realistic dialogue between a
youth and a harlot, in which the former tries to convert
the girl to a better life, and tells her that he himself has
* LB. i, 6/3E.
* Quoted above, p, 83 IF.
THE COLLOQUIES 289
kept pure, even at Rome, by reading the Greek Testa-
ment of Erasmus. The author probably took the plot
for this story from the tenth-century dramatist and nun,
Hroswitha.1 At any rate it illustrates the freedom with
which such matters were then spoken of. Virtue was then
supposed to lie not in ignorance, but in knowledge.
Another conversation added at this time contrasts the
French and German inns, very much in favor of the
former. Still another dialogue, between Antony and
Adolph, doubtless Dutch friends of the writer, describes
a shipwreck in the following manner:2
ADOLPH: The night was dark and in the topmast stood a helmeted
sailor as a lookout for land. To him a fiery sphere began to stick,3
which, coming alone is considered an evil portent, though if two come
together it is thought to be lucky. Antiquity believed them to be
Castor and Pollux.
ANTONY: What have they to do with sailors when one was a
horseman, the other a boxer?
ADOLPH: Thus it seemed good to the poets. The skipper, who sat
at the rudder, said: " Comrade" (for thus sailors address one another),
"do you see the fellow sticking to your side?" "I see," said he, "I
pray that it may be lucky." Soon the fiery globe fell down through
the ropes and rolled to the skipper.
ANTONY: Was he not paralyzed with fear?
ADOLPH: Sailors are accustomed to monsters. Then after a short
pause the globe rolled around the edges of the boat and disappeared
through the hatchways. At midday a tempest began to gather. Have
you ever seen the Alps?
ANTONY: Yes.
ADOLPH: They are warts compared with these waves. When we
were borne up we could touch the moon with our fingers; when down
it seemed as if the earth yawned and we were going straight through
to Tartarus.
ANTONY: Madmen to trust the sea!
*LB. i, 718 ff. Hrotsvithas Gandesheimensis Comosdias sex ed. J. Bendixen
1862, no. 5, "Phaphnutius." That Hroswitha was really known and studied
at this time is proved by a picture of Albrecht Diirer, dated 1501, showing
the nun presenting her book to the Emperor Otto. The woodcut is repro-
duced in Klassiker der Kunst, Diirer, p. 190. Charles Reade has used the
Erasmian colloquy very effectively in his novel, The Cloister and the Hearth.
2 LB. i, 712 ff. See above, p. 32.
3 Called "St. Elmo's fire," or "the fire of St. Erasmus." See Encyclopedia
Britannica. But did the name not originate with this colloquy?
290 ERASMUS
ADOLPH: As the sailors strove with the tempest in vain the
skipper, all pallid, came up to us.
ANTONY: His pallor presages a great disaster.
ADOLPH: "Friends/* said he, "I am no longer master of my ship;
the winds have conquered; it remains to put our trust in God and
prepare for the end."
ANTONY: A truly Scythian speech!
ADOLPH: "But first/' said he, "the ship must be lightened.
Necessity knows no law. We must save our lives at the expense of
our goods rather than perish with them." The truth prevailed and
some boxes of valuable goods were thrown into the sea.
ANTONY: This was indeed to hazard a throw!
ADOLPH: There was a certain Italian present who had been on an
embassy to the king of Scotland; he had a box full of silver and gold,
cloth and silk.
ANTONY: He would not settle with the sea?
ADOLPH: No. He wished either to perish with his goods or to be
saved with them. So he disputed the order.
ANTONY: What did the skipper say?
ADOLPH: "We would allow you to perish alone with your goods,"
said he, "but it is not right that we should all be jeoparded for the
sake of your box."
ANTONY: A nautical oration.
ADOLPH: So the Italian also threw over his things, cursing by
heaven and hell because he had trusted so barbarous an element.
ADOLPH: Soon the winds, by no means appeased by our gifts,
tore away the ropes and sails.
ANTONY: Oh, calamity!
ADOLPH: Then again the captain approached us.
ANTONY: To make a speech?
ADOLPH: He saluted us. "Friends," said he, "the time has come
for each one to commend himself to God and to prepare for death."
Asked by some who were not ignorant of navigation how long he
thought he could save the ship, he said he could promise nothing, but
not above three hours.
ANTONY: This speech was harder than the former.
ADOLPH: Then he commanded all the ropes and the mast, as far
down as the base in which it was standing, to be cut away and thrown,
spars and all, into the sea.
ANTONY: Why?
ADOLPH: Because the sail, being torn, was no use, but only a
burden; the only hope was in the rudder.
ANTONY: What in the meantime did the passengers do?
ADOLPH: There you would have seen a wretched spectacle; the
sailors singing Salve Regina, praying to the Virgin Mother, calling
her the Star of the Sea, the Queen of Heaven, the Mistress of the
THE 291
World, the Port of Safety, flattering her with titles of which the
Bible knows nothing.
ANTONY: What had she to do with the sea on which I think she
never sailed ?
ADOLPH: Formerly Venus took care of sailors, for she was believed
to have been born from the sea; when she ceased doing so the Virgin
Mother succeeded the mother not a virgin.
ANTONY: You jest.
ADOLPH: Some, falling down on the deck, adored the sea, pouring
oil upon the waves, flattering it not otherwise than we might an
angry prince.
ANTONY: What did they say?
ADOLPH: "O most clement sea, O most generous sea, O most rich
sea, O most beautiful sea, be gentle and save us!" Thus many sang
to the deaf sea.
ANTONY: Ridiculous superstition. What then?
ADOLPH: Some only vomited; most made vows. There was an
Englishman present who promised mountains of gold to the Virgin of
Walsingham if he came alive to shore. Others promised much to the
wood of the cross in a certain place; others to the same wood in
another place. The same was done for the Virgin Mary who rules in
many places; they think the vow void unless they mention the
place.
ANTONY: Ridiculous! As though the saints did not inhabit heaven.
ADOLPH: Some promised to be Carthusians. One vowed to go to
St. James of Compostella with bare feet and head and with his body
covered with an iron corselet, begging his bread.
ANTONY: Did no one mention Christopher?
ADOLPH: One man did, whom I heard not without a laugh. With
a loud voice, lest he be not heard, he vowed to St. Christopher in the
high church at Paris, a wax statue, or rather mountain, as big as
himself. While he was shouting this as loud as he could, over and
over, a friend of his nudged him with his elbow and said: "Take care
what you promise; even if you sell all that you have you could not
pay that vow." Then he, in a low voice lest Christopher should hear:
"Hold your tongue, you fool. Do you think I mean what I say?
If ever I reach land I won't give him a tallow candle."
ANTONY: Stupid fellow! I suspect he was a Hollander.
ADOLPH: No, a Zeelander.
ANTONY: I am surprised that none thought of the Apostle Paul,
who himself was once a sailor and shipwrecked. He, not ignorant of
evil, would know how to succor the miserable.
ADOLPH: No one mentioned Paul.
ANTONY: Did the passengers pray meanwhile?
ADOLPH: Earnestly. One sang the Salve Regina and another the
creed. Some had special prayers, like charms, against perils.
ERASMUS
ANTONY: How religious affliction makes men! In prosperity neither
God nor saint comes in to our mind. What did you do? Did you make
vows to anyone?
ADOLPH: No.
ANTONY: Why?
ADOLPH: Because I do not bargain with the saints. What else is
ic than a regular contract: I give if you give; I will give wax if I
swim out, or I will go to Rome if you save me.
ANTONY: But did not you implore the protection of any saint?
ADOLPH: Not even that.
ANTONY: But why?
ADOLPH: Because the sky is spacious. If I commended my safety
to some saint, say Peter who stands at the gate and would therefore
hear it first, before he had obtained an audience with God and
explained my cause I should have perished.
ANTONY: What, then, did you do?
ADOLPH: I went straight to the Father himself with the Lord's
prayer. None of the saints would hear me quicker or more willingly
give what I asked.
ANTONY: But did not your conscience prevent you? Did you dare
to approach the Father whom you had offended with so many sins?
ADOLPH: Frankly, conscience did deter me somewhat. But I soon
took courage thinking: No Father is so angry with his son that if
he saw him in peril of drowning would not pull him out by his hair.
Among all the passengers none was more tranquil than a woman
nursing a baby in her lap.
ANTONY: What did she do?
ADOLPH: Alone she neither cried out nor wept nor vowed, but only
embraced her son and silently prayed. Meantime the ship was
suddenly smitten with a wave. The captain, fearing she would burst
in pieces, bound her together with ropes from prow to poop.
ANTONY: Miserable defense!
ADOLPH: Then a certain old priest whose name was Adam threw
away his clothes, even his hose and boots, all except his shirt, and
commanded that everyone should prepare to swim. Standing in the
midst of the ship he gave us an exhortation from Gerson; that homily
on the use of confession, and he bade all to prepare for either life or
death. A certain Dominican was also present to whom those who
wished confessed.
ANTONY: What did you do?
ADOLPH: Seeing all the tumult, I confessed silently to God,
condemning my own righteousness and imploring his mercy.
ANTONY: Where would you have gone had you perished?
ADOLPH: This I committed to God's judgment, for I would not
be my own judge, but I had good hope. Meanwhile a weeping sailor
came to us. Let each one, said he, prepare himself, for the ship will
THE COLLOQUIES 293
not last a quarter of an hour; it is leaking fast. Shortly after that he
announced to us that he saw the spire of a church, and bade us pray
to the saint to whom it was dedicated. All fell down to adore the
unknown saint.
ANTONY: Had you addressed him by name perhaps he would have
heard you.
ADOLPH: His name was unknown. In the meantime the captain
guided the ship, as best he could, to the shore. „ . . and as we
approached, the inhabitants saw us, rushed to the shore and, fastening
shirts and hats to lances, waved them to us, inviting us to shore and
signifying that they deplored our misfortune. . . . The sailors let
down a skiff into the sea, into which all tried to throw themselves;
but the sailors with great tumult shouted that it would not hold all,
and that the passengers should get what they could to swim with.
One seized an oar, another a pole, another a tub, another a bucket,
another a plank, and thus committed themselves to the waves. * . .
I almost perished, . . . but with the help of a companion pulled
out the lower part of the mast and floated on it. ... But only
seven were saved of fifty-eight. ... On land we experienced the
incredible humanity of the people, who with great alacrity supplied
us with lodging, fire, food, clothes, and means of transport*
ANTONY: What people was it?
ADOLPH: The Dutch.
ANTONY: No people are more humane, though they are surrounded
with savage nations. I hope you will not tempt Neptune again.
ADOLPH: Not if God give me a sound mind.
ANTONY: I prefer to hear such tales rather than experience them.
This colloquy excellently illustrates the manner in
which liberal ideas were instilled into the minds of the
readers. One by one the author took up most of the
popular abuses in order to hold them up to ridicule.
The conversation entitled, "The Inquisition of Faith/*
minimizes the Church's power of excommunication, show-
ing that only God's fulminations strike the soul and
that nothing is necessary to salvation but the Apostles*
Creed.1 A very mild satire on the "poor rich men/*
i.e., the begging friars, holds up the ideal of men rich only
in spiritual gifts. The worship of the saints comes in
for constant derision. One of the boldest passages
is the following, purporting to be a letter from the
i LB. i, 728. March, 1524.
294 ERASMUS
Virgin Mary to Glaucoplutus, a pseudonym for Ulrich
Zwingli:1
Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Glaucoplutus, greeting. By following
Luther in persuading men that it is unnecessary to invoke the saints,,
you have done me a great favor, for hitherto I have been almost
killed by the evil petitions of mortals. All things were begged from
me alone, as though my son were always an infant, because he is so
painted in my bosom, as if he still waited on my nod and feared to
deny me anything lest I should refuse him the breast. Sometimes
my worshipers sought from the Virgin what no decent youth would
ask from a bawd, things which I am ashamed to put in writing. - One
day a merchant about to sail to Spain committed to my care the
chastity of his mistress. A nun, having cast aside the veil and pre-
pared for flight, recommended to me the reputation she was about to
prostitute. A wicked soldier going to slaughter cried out: Blessed
Virgin, give me the Spolia opima; the spoils of war! A dicer cries:
Help me, saint, and part of the gain shall be yours. If the dice fall
badly he insults and curses me for not favoring his vice. She who
lives on the wages of prostitution cries out: Give me a rich haul! If
I deny anything, they say then I am not the mother jf mercy.
The prayers of some others are rather foolish than impious. The
maiden prays, Mary, give me a rich and handsome husband; the
matron, Give me pretty little cubs; the pregnant woman, Grant
me an easy birth; the old woman, Let me live without coughing and
dryness; the old man, Let me be young again; the philosopher.
Help me solve the insoluble; the priest, Give me a rich benefice;
the bishop, Save my church; the sailor, Give me a prosperous
journey; the perfect cries: Show me our son before I die; the
courtier, Give me a chance to confess on my deathbed. . . *
And yet with all this enormous business to attend to I get no honor.
Formerly I was hailed Queen of Heaven and Lady of the World, now
I hear only a few Ave Marias! ... I wanted you to know this so
as to get your advice, for I have taken the matter much to heart.
From my stone temple, Basle,* August i, 1524. I the Virgin sign
this with my stone hand.
Other dialogues ridicule the superstitions of spiritism,3
1 Erasmus uses Glaucoplutus as the Greek equivalent of Ulrich both here
and elsewhere of Ulrich Zasius, as if the name was derived from words
meaning "owl" and "rich." Zwingli had recently published a sermon
against Mariolatry, "Eine Predigt von der ewigen reinen Magd Maria,"
September 17, 1522. Z. W. i, 385 ff.
1 Apud Rauracos, a Latin name for Basle.
8 Exorcismus sive sptctrum, LB. i, 749, cf, above p. 80 f.
THE COLLOQUIES 295
or of alchemy,1 of fasting,2 or of pilgrimages.3 It Is not
surprising that some of them should have given offense to
old-fashioned piety. Luther, for instance^ though quoted,
sided with the conservatives, and, in one of his late,
harsh judgments, selects the colloquy on Mariolatry as
one that mocks all religion.4 This censure is, of course,
wrong. What Erasmus mocks is not religion, but the
false application of it. In proof of this, one more selection
must be given, which, with the lightest and most
delicious wit, reveals a real grasp of the spirit of the
Sermon on the Mount. The speakers are Cannius and
Polyphemus, the latter being the name given by
Erasmus to a youth who served him partly as a domestic,
partly as an amanuensis.
CANNIUS: What Is Polyphemus hunting for here?
POLYPHEMUS: You ask me what I am hunting without dogs or
gun?
CANNIUS : Perhaps some hamadryad ?
POLYPHEMUS: You are a good guesser. See, here is my hunting net.
CANNIUS: What do I see? Bacchus masquerading in the spoils of
a lion, Polyphemus with a book! To see the hinges, clasps and brass
bands, one might call it a book of war.
POLYPHEMUS: Open it.
CANNIUS: It is pretty, but you haven't decorated it enough yet.
POLYPHEMUS : What is the matter with it.
CANNIUS : You ought to have put your coat of arms in it.
POLYPHEMUS: What do you mean.
CANNIUS: The head of Silenus looking out of a barrel. But what
does the book treat of, the art of drinking?
POLYPHEMUS: Be careful not to blaspheme without knowing it.
CANNIUS: What then, is it something holy?
POLYPHEMUS : The holiest thing in the world, the Gospel.
CANNIUS: Great Hercules! What is there in common between
Polyphemus and the Gospel.
POLYPHEMUS: What is there in common between a Christian and
Christ?
CANNIUS: I can't answer. But it seems to me that a halbard would
1 LB. i, 742.
2 LB. i, 787, cf. above, p. 266.
8 LB. i, 774, ef. spura, p. 70 ff.
* Tirchrtden, ed. Forstemann & Bindseil, Jii, 410-412, 422.
296 ERASMUS
suit you better than this book, for when I see a man like you I take
him for a pirate, or, if he is in the woods, for an assassin.
POLYPHEMUS: But the Gospel recommends us not to judge by
appearances. Sometimes a gray cowl hides an inhuman heart, and
sometimes a cropped head, bristling mustaches, menacing eyebrows,
ferocious eyes, and a military costume, hide an evangelic soul. . . .
CANNIUS: Don't play the sophist with me. A man doesn't carry
the Gospel in his heart unless he loves it, and he can't love it deeply
without showing it in his acts.
POLYPHEMUS: You are too subtle for me.
CANNIUS: I'll explain to you more simply. If you carried on your
shoulder a bottle of French wine, would it be anything else than a
"weight ?
POLYPHEMUS: Certainly not.
CANNIUS: Suppose you took some in your mouth and spit it out
again?
POLYPHEMUS: That would do no good, but I assure you that is
not my custom.
CANNIUS: But if, on the contrary, according to your custom, you
drank some of it?
POLYPHEMUS: I should like nothing better.
CANNIUS: It would warm your body, flush your face, and give
you a happy expression.
POLYPHEMUS: Yes, indeed.
CANNIUS: The same with the Gospel. If it circulates in the veins
of the mind it changes the entire nature of a man.
POLYPHEMUS: Don't you think I live as the Gospel commands?
CANNIUS: No one can tell better than yourself.
POLYPHEMUS: If I could only obey the Gospel the way I want to
— with a battle ax!
CANNIUS: If some one called you a liar and a good-for-nothing,
what would you do?
POLYPHEMUS: What would I do? Hit him in the eye.
CANNIUS : And if somebody hit you ?
POLYPHEMUS: I'd break his neck for him.
CANNIUS: And yet your book there bids you answer insults with
blessings, and if one smite you on the right cheek to turn to him
the left.
POLYPHEMUS: I did read that — but I forgot it. ...
CANNIUS: Well then, how can you show me that you love the
Gospel?
POLYPHEMUS: I'll tell you. A certain Franciscan keeps reviling
the New Testament of Erasmus in his sermons. Well, one day I
called on him in private, seized him by the hair with my left hand,
and punished him with my right. I gave him so sound a drubbing
that I reduced his whole face to a mere jelly. What do you say to
THE COLLOQUIES 297
that? Isn't that supporting the Gospel? And then, by way of
absolution for his sins, I took this book I have here and gave him
three resounding whacks on the head in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
CANNIUS: That is certainly evangelic, defending the Gospel by
the Gospel.
POLYPHEMUS: I can tell you something else. There was another
man of the same order who broke loose against Erasmus without the
least restraint. Well, inflamed with evangelic zeal, I forced the
man to beg pardon on his knees, and to confess that all he had said
was at the instigation of the devil. All the while I had my halbard
brandished over my head. I must have looked like angry Mars.
Several people can tell you that this is true.
CANNIUS: I am astonished that he survived. But really it is time
you were turning from a brute beast into a man.
POLYPHEMUS : You are right, for all ,the prophets of this time say
that the end of the world is at hand.
CANNIUS: Another reason for making haste. . . . But why do
your prophets think that the end is coming?
POLYPHEMUS: Because they say men are living now as they did
just before the deluge; they eat, drink, marry and are given in
marriage, have mistresses, buy, sell, borrow and lend at interest,
and build. Kings make wars, priests devote themselves to getting
money, theologians invent syllogisms, monks gad about, the common
people rebel, Erasmus writes colloquies — in short, all possible curses
exist at once: hunger, thirst, brigandage, war, pestilence, sedition,
lack of good. Doesn't that all portend the last judgment?
But superstition was not the only foible satirized. One
colloquy denounced war; another hit off the absurdities
of the grammarians; a third was a plea for eugenics, at
least to the extent of forbidding the diseased to marry.1
Others treated of feminism, of horse-cheats, of miserli-
ness, of false nobility, of the love of glory. In fact, every
human, or at least every humanistic interest, is taken up,
exposed to the free play of mind, and moralized.
Naturally, the free tone of the Colloquies, and their
anti-ecclesiastical tendency, aroused bitter criticism. In
the first acknowledged edition, that of March, 1522,
Nicholas of Egmond, the conservative of Louvain,
detected four passages savoring of heresy, one on vows,
yaiiog sive conjngium impar, LB. i, 826.
298 ERASMUS
one on indulgences, one of confession and pilgrimages*
one on fasting. The author had described a man who
confessed having made, while drunk, vows ^ to go on
pilgrimages to Rome and Compostella and who had
carried them out, although he was persuaded that they
were foolish and that his wife and children suffered by
his absence. Another passage attacked was this: "I
hate a snake less than a fish. And I have often wondered
why, when the Gospel freed us from the Mosaic law, we
believe that God has put this more than Jewish load
[of fasting] upon Christian shoulders/*1 In the next
edition, of the same year, Erasmus modified these
censures, and also deprecated the action about to be
taken against him by the university of Paris. This was
long delayed, for, though the university drew up a
Determination on the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus in
May, 1526, it was not published until 1531, the author
answering in the following year.2
Meantime Erasmus was busy defending his work
against other critics. In the edition of June, 1526* he
added a Letter to the Reader "on the utility of the
Colloquies/'3 moved thereto by the slander that waxedi
hot against every man and every book. In his book, he
protests, he has for the first time aimed to make the
road to learning a pleasant one, for he is convinced that
play is the best teacher. Throughout, however, he has
pointed morals, for example he has called attention to
the evils of pilgrimages, which no one familiar with the
disastrous fate of relatives left at home can deny- He
has condemned, not indulgences, but the abuse of them.
It is nonsense to say that he has ridiculed religion. As
for the charge of lasciviousness in the dialogue between
the youth and the harlot, he answers that the critics who
strain at his gnat swallow the camels of Plautus and
1 On this Bibliotheca Erasmianat s. »» Colloquiat ed. of March, 1522.
8 D'Argentre: Collect™ judiciorum, //, 53-74. P. Inibart de la Tour: Le$
Origines de la Rtformf, in, 1914, p. 268,
®Lond. xxix, 19, May 19, 1526.
THE COLLOQUIES 299
Pogglo. The obscene word put into the mouth of the
shameless girl is said to have been a common one even
in the speech of honest matrons.1 If anyone prefers he
may write another word.2 But save for this the author
claims that he has made even the stews chaste.3
In like tone Erasmus assured his private friends that
his work had in it nothing indecent, impious, or seditious,
but that it had, on the contrary, profited many.4
To the author the most trying ordeal came not from
the camp of his enemies, numerous though these were,
but from a probably well-meant attempt to expurgate
the offensive matter, in an unauthorized edition by
Lambert Campester, a Saxon theologian of Louvain.
This gentleman, described as "of squinting eye, but of
yet more squinting mind, . . . corrected, that is to say,
depraved, some passages about monks, vows, pilgrimages,
and indulgences," and changed the names Paris and
France to London and England, regardless of the sense;
and he also forged an introduction in barbarous Latin,
purporting to come from the author* He then published
the hateful work at Paris.6
But the narrowly religious men in both camps con-
tinued to protest against the Colloquies. Ambrosius
Pelargus, a shining light of Freiburg, said that all the
youth had been corrupted by that work.6 Cuthbert
Tunstall, Bishop of London, was offended by them.7 In
1549 one J. Morisotus, did his best to have the Colloquies
1 Those acquainted with the literature of the time will see that this is not
much of an exaggeration, Erasmus tells in one place (LB. v. 717) of a matron
who slipped on the steps of St. Gudule at Brussels and was pained into uttering
the same word he has here put into the mouth of Lucretia.
2 "Mea voluptas" instead of "mea mentula."
8 1 cannot wholly agree with this; there are a few passages in the Collo*
quits — e.g., in the " Puerpera," unfit for boys* eyes.
4 To Wolsey, April 25, 1526, Lond. xxi, 33, LB. ep. 810. To John the Bishop
(Fisher), September x, 1528, Lond. xxii, 30; LB. ep. 974.
6 Catalogue of Lucubrations, Alien, i, p. 9 f. Bibliothtca Erasmiana: Collo-
quia, i, 364.
8N. Paul us: Dif Deutschen Domtnikantr im Kampfe gegfn Luthff, 1903,
p. 206*
7 Forstemann-Gtlnther, ep. 108*
3oo ERASMUS
superseded by a new work of the same name, written by
himself.1 Dionysius de Zannettinis, Bishop of Milopo-
tarnos and delegate to the Council of Trent, described
them as very dangerous and as likely to make boys
mock all religion.2 They were censured by a papal
commision of cardinals in 1537 and finally put on the
Index, with the rest of their writer's works.3 They were
forbidden by the inquisition in Franche-Comte in 1535.*
The Reformers, too, though they sanctioned the use of
the Colloquies — perhaps exscinding some of the freer
passages — in their schools5 in 1528, finally turned against
them. "On my deathbed," said Luther, I shall forbid
my sons to read Erasmus's Colloquies. . . . He is much
worse than Lucian, mocking all things under the guise
of holiness/'6 The great Protestant scholar, Joseph
Scaliger, thought there were many faults in the Latin
of the Colloquies.7
All these attacks, however, did not greatly injure the
popularity of the work, but rather advertised it. When
Vesuvius wrote from France, on February 8, 1527,® say-
ing that the censure of the Sorbonne did not alienate
the esteem of good men, his opinion was fully borne out
by the fact that the mere rumor of the coming condemna-
tion induced a Parisian bookseller to hurry through the
press an edition of twenty-four thousand copies.9 In
fact, the sales were enormous, and would be considered
so even in modern times.10 During the eighteen years
1 A. Bohmer: " Aus dem Karnpfe gegen die Colloquia Familiaria des
Erasmus," Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte, ix, 1911.
2 G, Buschbell: Reformation und Inquisition in Italien um die Mitte des
XVI Jahrkunderts, 1910, pp. 48 ff.
8 Preserved Smith: The Age of the Reformation, 1920, p. 420 ff. Mansi:
Conciliomm & Decretorum Collectio Amplissima, Supplement V, 545.
4 L. Febvre: Notes & Documents sur la Reforme et V Inquisition en Franche*
Comte, 1912, p. 178.
6 "Instruction to Visitors of Schools," Luther s Werke, Weimar, xxvi, 174 f.
8 Preserved Smith: Life and Letters of Luther f 1914, p. 212.
7 Scdigerana, 1695, p. 140.
8 Enthoven, no. 47.
9 Cambridge Modern History, i, 571.
10 Bibliotheca Erasmiana, for list of editions and translations.
THE COLLOQUIES 301
from their first publication to the author's death about
a hundred impressions were called for, and the popularity
of the work rather increased than diminished during the
next two centuries. This astounding success, which
easily broke all previous records and was only surpassed,
among contemporary works, by the vernacular Bibles,
may be partly accounted for by the international repu-
tation of the author, all civilized countries contributing
to swell the sales. Another consideration was that the
Colloquies were used as a text-book, and a successful
text-book has always been one of the most vendible forms
of writing. There were also many translations, one of
the earliest being into Spanish.1 Separate dialogues were
also put into the vernacular: Clement Marot, for ex-
ample, translating into French verse the dialogues
entitled "The Abbot and the Learned Lady" and "The
Girl Who Did Not Want to Marry."2
The influence of the Erasmian Colloquies on the
thought of the sixteenth century was proportional to
their popularity. Other works, indeed, such as The
Utopia, The Prince, The Revolutions of the Heavenly
Spheres, and The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,
may have ultimately done more to revolutionize the
world's thought, but none of them made such a wide
and immediate impression upon the minds of youths at
the most impressionable age. The spread of the Refor-
mation in particular, and of ideas still more liberal for
that day and generation, was due more to this text-book
of style than to any other one volume. Among the
Anabaptists and among the Arminians, in Franck and in
Acontius, the Erasmian liberalism obtained a full evalu-
ation; in Rabelais and Montaigne it reached a still higher
plane of expression.
Among the many educational treatises of all sorts
penned by the scholar of Rotterdam, two of the earliest
1 Boniila y San Martin, in Revue lUspanique, xvii, 1907, pp. 435 ff. Origines
de la Novela por D. M. Menendez y Pelayo, Tomo iv, 1915.
2 (Euvres de Clement Marot, ed. 1731, Tome iii, pp. 116 fF.
302 ERASMUS
were the Method of Study1 and The Double Supply of
Words and Matter? In them the author expressed his
preference for the study of language to "that elusive
maiden Dialectic/' the love of the schoolmen, emphasized
the importance of vocabulary, gave examples of how to
say the same thing in different ways, and recommended
the study of Latin and Greek together for their mutual
help.
Other commentaries, text-books, and treatises on peda-
gogy poured from his pen. Such was his edition of The
Distichs of Cato, some moral couplets which had a great
vogue in the Middle Ages, when they were supposed to
have been written by Cato the Censor, though believed
now to have originated in the third or fourth century.3
Such was the Greek grammar of Gaza translated by Eras-
mus in I5i6.4 Such was the Latin grammar, composed
jointly by Lyly and Erasmus for Colet's school, which was
for centuries the standard Latin grammar, being the one
used by Shakespeare, recommended by Doctor Johnson,5
and the basis of the Eton Latin grammar now in use.6
This book made an immediate success; Sapidus, a
well-known German schoolmaster, wrote Erasmus how
delighted the boys were with his text-book.7 In his reply8
1 Translated by Woodward: Erasmus on the Aim and Method of Education,
162-78. LB. I, 517. First edition, 1511.
2 LB. i, 3 ff Cf. Catalogue of Lucubrations, Allen, i, p. 9. First edition, 1511;
first authentic edition, 1512. Bibliotheca Erasmiana, i, p. 65. Dedication to
Colet, April 29, 1512, Allen, ep. 260, Simon Sinapius lectured on the De
Copia at Wittenberg in 1540. G. Buchwald: Zur Wittenberger Stadt- und
Universitdtsgeschichte, 1893, p. 150.
8 Preface, to Neve, August i, 1514. Allen, ep. 289. Luther often quoted
from Cato.
4 LB. i, 116 fF. Allen, ep. 428.. To Caesarius, 1516.
8 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. B. Hill, i, 99.
6 LB, i, 167 ff. Preface, Basle, July 30, 1515. Allen, ep. 341. Colet wrote
an English preface to this, in which he says "Wherefore I pray you, al lytel
babys, al lytel children, lerne gladly this lytel treatyse and commend it
dylygently unto your memoryes. Trustynge of this begynnynge that ye shal
procede and growe to parfyt lyterature and come at last to be gret clarkes." A
Feuillerat: John Lylyt 1910, p. 6, note 4.
7 Allen, ep. 353.
8 Allen, ep. 364; Nichols, ep. 366.
THE COLLOQUIES 303
Erasmus expressed a very high regard for the calling of
schoolmaster:
I admit that your vocation is laborious, but I utterly deny that it
Is tragic or deplorable, as you call It. To be a schoolmaster is next
to being a king. Do you count it a mean employment to imbue the
minds of your fellow citizens in their earliest years with the best
literature and with the love of Christ and to return them to their
country honest and virtuous men? In the opinion of fools it is a
humble task, but in fact it is the noblest of occupations. Even among
the heathen it was always a noble thing to deserve well of the state*
and no one serves it better than the moulder of raw boys.
Erasmus had a good deal of experience in teaching,
though he never remained for long a regular professor.
He gave lectures at Cambridge, and he had taken private
pupils at Paris and elsewhere. In this line he was highly
successful, not only making his pupils devoted to him-
self, but producing really cultured men. At Louvain
he took a lively interest in the university, especially in
the foundation, by means of a bequest from his friend
Busleiden, of the Collegium Trilingue, to be devoted, as
its name indicates, to the cultivation of the three ancient
tongues.1 Very likely the plan owed much to his advice,
as its execution was due to his co-operation. As Hebrew
professor he secured the baptized Jew, Matthew Adrian.
The plan of the instruction was set forth in a letter to
John Lascar, asking for a recommendation of a Greek
teacher:2
In this college shall be taught publicly and gratis Hebrew, Latin,
and Greek. A sufficiently splendid salary of seventy ducats,8 which
may be increased according to the value of the person, is assigned to
each professor. The chairs of Latin and Hebrew are already provided
for; many are competing for the chair of Greek. It has always
seemed to me that a native Greek should be secured so that the pupils
may get a correct pronunciation at once.
1 Allen, I, p. 434.
2 April z6, 1518. Allen, ep. 836.
8 A ducat was worth $2.25, or nine shillings, intrinsically; the salary would
therefore be $157.50, or £31-10-0, per annum, at a time when money had ten
times the purchasing power that it has now. Salaries in German and English
universities at this time averaged somewhat higher. See Preserved Smith:
The Age of ike Reformation, 1920, p. 471.
3o4 ERASMUS
As Erasmus has spoken of getting a Greek to secure
the proper pronunciation of the language, it is interesting
to note that he wrote what was long regarded as the
standard treatise on the right pronunciation of Latin and
Greek. Incidentally, the work is interesting as showing
the author's acquaintance with various vernaculars, for
he continually quotes words in English, French, Dutch,
and German. Erasmus was well aware that the Romans
sounded their consonants differently, in some cases, from
modern usage. For example, he shows that in Latin c
should always be sounded k. It is probable that Erasmus
did not follow his own precept in this regard. A parallel
case is that of De Quincey, who remarks in one of his
essays that c is sounded like k, but would certainly never
have been guilty of saying Kikero. Milton also touches
this subject in his Tractate on Education, but contents
himself with observing that the vowels should be sounded
as near the Italian as possible. The main purpose of
Erasmus's work was to protest against the "iotacism"
in Greek — that is, the pronunciation of several different
vowels and diphthongs like the Italian i. This is now,
and was in the sixteenth century, the pronunciation of
the modern Greeks, but the Dutch scholar rightly main-
tained that the ancients must have differentiated. His
method became known as the Erasmian, opposed to the
Reuchlinian, which was followed by Melanchthon. The
former finally prevailed,1 for it was adopted on the Con-
tinent by H. Estienne, Beza, and Ramus, was introduced
at Cambridge by Thomas Smith and John Cheke in 15369
1 R. C. Jebb, in Cam. Mod. Hist, i, 581. Ingram Bywater: The Erasmian
Pronunciation of Greek and Its Predecessors, L. Aleander, A. Manutius, An-*
tonio of Lebrixa. London, 1908. This little monograph shows that, though the
story told by Rescius of Erasmus's writing the Pronunciation to get credit for
himself which belonged to others, is false; yet he had predecessors, first
Antonio of Lebrixa (1444.-! 522) who wrote the Descriptions Latins, then
Manutius, who wrote De literis Gratis, 1508, following Antonio, and Aleander,
who wrote on Pronunciation, in 1512, following Manutius. Cf. also T. Papa-
Demetrakopoulos: La Tradition ancienne et les partisans d'£rasme (1903) and
other works cited in the Bibliotheca Erasmiana, iii, p. 45. Sandys: History of
Classical Scholarship, ii, 232.
THE COLLOQUIES 305
and, after the Reuchllnian pronunciation had been
brought back in 1542 by Gardiner, was permanently
restored in 1558.
Not only to the practical work of writing text-books
and grammars, but to the exposition of pedagogical
theory, Erasmus contributed much.1 It is true that he
was not very original in method, borrowing largely from
Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Quintilian, Mapheus Vegius,
and the German humanists. With the classical enthu-
siasm of the age he was thoroughly in sympathy, as he
was with the highly aristocratic tendency of the Renais-
sance.2 The training of an elite was his constant pre-
occupation and he saw that there was no education like
converse with men of character and cultivation. "Live
with learned men/' he advised, "hear them submissively
and with honor, study them, and never think yourself
learned."3 Logically, therefore, the tutorial system was
postulated, at least as the ideal. This system, of course,
is only open to the wealthy, and it is of the education of
these that Erasmus always seems to be thinking. He
had no democratic instincts; the immense services ren-
dered to the common-school education of the people by
Luther would not have appealed to him. His thoughts
were absorbed in excogitating the rational training for
a leader, a prince, a prelate, or at least an aristocrat like
More or Pirckheimer. The chief, indeed almost the only,
subjects to be taught were the classics. This idea, which
seems so inadequate to us, was in reality an advance
over the mediaeval curriculum; the only subjects then
taught, except a little barbarous Latin, had been dialectic
and Aristotelian philosophy. Compared to this dry
1 J. M. Hofer; Die Stellung des D. Erasmus und des J. L. Fives zur Padagogik
des Quintilian, Erlangen Dissertation, 1910. D. Rekhling: Ausgewahlu
pedagogische Schriften des D. Erasmus. Uebersetzung und Erlduterungen, 1896.
W. H. Woodward: Erasmus concerning the Aim and Method of Education, 1094,
2 Well brought out by Imbart de la Tour: Orients de la Reforme, i, 556.
8 Letter to Vadian, September 27, 1520. Fadianische Brief sammlung, hg.
von E. Arbenz und H. Wartraarm, 1890 ff. Seven parts and seven supplements,
u, no. 219.
306 ERASMUS
course the classics offered real wealth of material. Never-
theless, it is fortunate that Erasmus's plan did not
obtain exclusive dominance.
Erasmus saw that the earliest education must come
from the mother, and laid down the sound principle that
care of the body is the foundation of all. Work should
begin by way of play, a tutor (whose qualifications are
set almost impossibly high) should be secured when the
pupil is five or six. If the boys are sent to school — which,
however, is deprecated — lay schools are to be given the
preference to religious ones.
The text-books edited by Erasmus allow us to see
exactly the method he preferred. A glance at his De
Construction? (Lyly's grammar of 1515) shows a consid-
erable lack of logical arrangement. This may be partly
intended; at any rate, reading was more relied on than
formal rules. The first books to be read should be the
Proverbs and Gospels in Latin, after them a Latin
version of Plutarch's Apothegms and Moralia. JEsop is
to be the first author read in Greek. It is plain that
the moral element is preponderant in this choice, the
predilection for sententious precepts being especially
marked. It is noticeable that Luther shared this taste
to the full; ^Esop and Dionysius Cato, both edited by
Erasmus, being among his favorite books. Following
Quintilian, Erasmus then picks out to be read among the
Greeks Lucian, Demosthenes, Aristophanes, Homer, and
Euripides; among the Latins, Terence, Plautus, Vergil,
Horace, Cicero, Caesar, and Sallust. He excludes
mediaeval Latin, especially the romances of Arthur and
Launcelot.
The author is to be read first for the grammar, then
for the style, and finally for the moral instruction. The
method followed was that recommended by Milton a
century later, the teacher to construe the text to the
boys one day and have them repeat it to him on the
morrow. Writing was, of course, studied, especially
prose, first the oratorical style, then the epistolary, and
LtiL UJLLUyUIES 307
then the historical. Poetry and Greek composition were
also recommended.
It is astonishing to us that so little time is given to
anything but language. All other subjects were sup-
posed to be taken in incidentally to philology. History
was a by-product of Livy, for example, and natural
science of Pliny. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if
knowledge of any facts at all was mainly valued for the
sake of literary allusion. Unlike Luther, Erasmus put a
very slight value on music. He apparently had little
taste for it, sometimes mentioning the congregational
singing in the reformed churches as one of their repellent
features. Some emphasis was laid on deportment; in
1526 Erasmus wrote a primer of Civility for Boys, telling
them how to carry themselves, how to dress, how to
behave at church, at table, in company, at play, and in
the dormitory.1
In advocating the education of women Erasmus was
ahead of most of his contemporaries. He labored to
refute the common but erroneous opinion that literature
is neither useful to women nor consistent with their
reputation and innocence,2 One of the Colloquies* on the
subject shows an abbot, who at first maintained that
books took from the weaker sex what little brains they
had, finally convinced by a blue-stocking that the
learned women of Italy, Spain, England, and Germany
had profited mightily by their studies. Both here and
elsewhere Erasmus alleged the examples of Sir Thomas
More's daughters, and those of Pirckheimer and Blaurer.
With More's eldest daughter, Margaret Roper, he was
indeed in occasional epistolary correspondence. In her
nineteenth year she translated into English one of his
tracts under the title A Devout Treatise upon the Pater
Noster* and he repaid the compliment by dedicating
1 LB. i, 1033.
2 To Bude, Anderlecht, 1:521. Allen, ep. 1233,
3 Abbatis et eruditae, LB. i, 744.
4 F. Wiener: Naogeorgus in England, 1913, p. 7. The Devout Treatise on
tkf Pater Nosier was published by W. de Worde in
3o8 ERASMUS
to her his Commentary on Prudentius* Hymn to the
Nativity.1
The influence of Erasmus was doubtless great, but it
was not revolutionary, because of the perfect accord
between him and the liberal wing of contemporary
thought. To distil the lessons of the classics and of the
early Christian writings, and then to instil them into
the minds of youth, seemed to that and to many sub-
sequent generations the highest wisdom. The principal
pedagogical writers of the next generation followed the
humanist's recommendations exactly. What do we read
in Ascham, and in Ramus, and in Eliot, and in Melanch-
thon, and in Vives, and in Starkey,2 but variations
upon the tune composed by the scholar of Rotterdam?
What new matter did Milton, in the next century, have
to recommend? Indeed, the humanistic reform of the
sixteenth century formed the basis of all education until
the latter part of the nineteenth, when living languages
and new sciences began to take the place of the classics.
Nowadays the old authors so familiar to our fathers
have become little more than ghosts of their former
selves; and, like the shades seen by Odysseus in the
underworld, they revive to life and warmth only when
they drink blood — that of the unappreciative youths
and maidens still sacrificed to them in our schools.
Venerate the classics though he did, there was a depth
of servility in their adulation to which Erasmus would
not descend. He never tired of ridiculing those pedants
who would speak nothing but the purest Ciceronian
style. In the Folly he told of a preacher whose art
completely swamped his matter. Elsewhere3 he satirized
those who spoke of Christ the Redeemer of the world as
*LB. v, 1337; Lond. xxix, 65. December 25, 1524.
2 T. Starkey: A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupstt, ed.
J. M. Couper, 1878, p. 210 ff. An imaginary dialogue written in the time of
Henry VIII.
3 Letter to Francis Vergera, professor of Greek at Alcala, October 13, 1527;
Lond. xx, 15; LB. ep. 899. Similar expressions in a letter to Maldonato,
March 30, 1527. Revut Hispanique, xvii, 1907, p. 530.
THE COLLOQUIES 309
"Jupiter optimus maximus," and of the Apostles as
"conscript fathers/' as well as those who preferred Ponta-
nus to Augustine and Jerome, and who placed the elo-
quence of Cicero above that of Jesus. That Erasmus's
satire did not overshoot the mark is proved by the
letters written by the papal secretary Bembo, in which,
in order to avoid neologisms, he refers to Christ as
"Minerva sprung from the head of Jove," and to the
Holy Ghost as "the breath of the celestial zephyr/'1
Erasmus not only declared that he would prefer Christ
to ten Ciceros, but he asserted that even were he able to
attain Tully's style he should prefer one more solid, more
concise, more nervous, less finished, and more masculine.2
In thus deprecating the idolatry of the humanists' demi-
god, he had the example of Valla, who, with his usual
independence, preferred Quintilian.3 With the purpose
of urging his ideas still further Erasmus published, in
February, 1528, a dialogue called the Ciceronianusf at
first incorporated with the Colloquies, but later printed
in separate form. This lively work, written, as Gibbon
says, with the same humor as Pascal's Lettres Provinciates,
satirizes the pedants who, "by a wave of the Ciceronian
wand, call up a land of make-believe, full of senates and
consuls, colonies and allies, Quirites and Caesars/' and
defends, as the subtitle indicates, a better method of
writing Latin. The interlocutors are Nosoponus the
"Morbid Toiler" for style, Bulephorus the "Counsellor,"
and Hypologus the "Arbiter." Nosoponus is the perfect
Ciceronian, who boasts that "for seven years he has
touched nothing except Ciceronian books, refraining
from others as religiously as the Carthusians refrain from
1 Kurtz: History of the Church, English translation, i, 503.
fln the letter to Vergera, Lond. xx, 15; LB. ep. 899.
3 On Petrarch's idolatry of Cicero see Robinson and Rolfe: Petrarch, 1914,
passim,
4LB. V97I. Dedicated to J. Vlatten, February 2, 1528. Translated by
Izora Scott, with an introduction by Paul Monroe, 1908. A critical text has
been edited by J. C. Schonberger» Augsburg, 1919; a commentary is expected
from the same.
3 10 ERASMUS
flesh, lest somewhere in his writings some foreign phrase
should creep in and dull, as it were, the splendor of
Ciceronian speech." Drawn out by the ironical sympathy
of his companions, he then tells how^with enormous
labor, he has compiled three lexicons, in one of which
he has set down all the words used by Cicero, in another
all his phrases, and in a third all the metrical ^feet used
by him in beginning or ending a period. So rigorous is
his standard that he will employ only those forms^ of
inflection found in Tully; thus, if amo is used by him,
but not amamusy the former is taken and the latter left.
Bulephorus, then abandoning his pretense of agree-
ment, and adopting the Socratic method, forces from
Nosoponus the admission that in particular points and
manners other writers are superior to Cicero. His
advice, therefore, for the cultivation of style, is to follow
the example of the painter Zeuxis, who, when he made a
picture of Helen, did not use as a model the most beautiful
woman, but chose what was most comely from several
women. Thus, if we imitate Cicero in part, we can also
learn much from the other great writers of Latin prose.
Furthermore, it is impossible for us to speak in Cicero's
vocabulary of things of which he knew nothing, and the
attempt to do so lands us in absurdity. Why should we
call God "Jove," Christ "Apollo," the Virgin " Diana," the
college of cardinals "conscript fathers/' an oecumenical
council "the Senate and People of the Christian Republic,"
and adopt other awkward circumlocutions for such words
as baptism, eucharist, excommunication, and apostles ? In
fine, continues Bulephorus, as present conditions differ
widely in religion, government, laws, customs, occupa-
tions, and in the habits of men's minds, it is absurd to
try to compress them all into the compass of an outworn
speech. Bulephorus then passes in review all the great
humanists, from the time of Petrarch, to whom he
credits the reflowering of eloquence, and shows that none
of them are truly Ciceronian; not Biondo nor Boccaccio
nor Filelfo nor Pico della Mirandola in Italy, not Bude
THE COLLOQUIES 311
nor Lefevre d'fitaples nor Jean de Pins in France, not
Erasmus nor Melanchthon in Germany, nor any of the
English scholars. There is, indeed, one, Christopher de
Longueil, who might claim the title of Ciceronian, for
even in writing against Luther he avoided the word
"fides" in the sense of Christian faith, and used
*'persuasio" instead.
That the sensible advice on style tendered in this
Dialogue was much needed is proved by the storm it
raised. Men who had in sober earnest advised aspiring
stylists to read nothing but Cicero for two years on end
could not but wince;1 and, though Erasmus had paid
many compliments to his contemporaries while passing
their writings in review, certain Frenchmen were deeply
incensed by his ridicule of Longueil,2 and by his mention-
ing, in the same breath and as if on the same level, the
great scholar Bude and the printer Badius. Some Ital-
ians, too, who saw Bembo in Nosoponus, dubbed Erasmus
"Porrophagus" on account of his frequent use of the
word "porro," and otherwise ridiculed his style.3
The attack was formally opened by an Italian physi-
cian at Agen on the Garonne, known to letters as Julius
Gaesar Scaliger. He had been born, in 1484, at Riva on
the Lago di Garda, and was convinced that he sprang
from the family of Delia Scala, lords of Verona. "What
is more ancient/' he boasts, "more famous, greater, more
glorious, than the race of Scaliger, which in antiquity
surpasses all the Theban offspring of the dragon's teeth,
all the Arcadians, though called 'older than the moon/
the Athenian autochthones, the Latin aborigines — in fact,
all fable and all memory?"4 He says he had been a
1 Vives describes such persons to Erasmus, October i, 1523; Fivis Opera
1792, vii, p. no; LB, ep. 990,
a E. Rodocanachi: Rome au Temps de Jules II et de Uon X, 1912, p. 134, on
Longueil, quoting his letters. Longueil had died in 1522.
3 R. C. Christie: fiticnne Dolet, 1899, p. 197.
4/» C Scaligeri Epistolecy Toulouse, 1620, ep, 13, to Ferron. On Scaliger
further see J, E. Sandys; History of Classical Scholarship^ ii, 1908, p, 177;
Mark Pattison, Essays, i, 1889, pp. 132 ff.
3i2 ERASMUS
soldier, present at five pitched battles, and distinguish-
ing himself with a valor and generalship unsurpassed —
though the details he gives of these battles are sometimes
contradicted by authentic histories. When he came to
Agen in 1526 he was still unaccountably obscure; but,
burning to distinguish himself in letters, he saw the
chance to do so when he read the Dialogue of Erasmus.
Borrowing it from his friend, L. Claudius, in I529,1 he
answered it in three days, and at once sent off several
manuscript copies to the various colleges of the Uni-
versity of Paris. Though it was dedicated, in flattering
terms, to those "Excellent Youths/' as to the defenders
of letters and of the Gallic name, both of which, the writer
avers, had been trampled upon by Erasmus, it was not
received by them with the least favor. Some of the stu-
dents at the College of Navarre2 stole the copies, and
others, the author asserts, plotted to murder him. A copy,
he says, was sent to Erasmus, who forthwith wrote to his
friends at Paris begging them by all that was sacred not
to let the work be published. In reality, Scaliger thinks,
Erasmus should have been grateful to him for calling
the old man back to reason.3 After much delay, the work
was published with the help of Beda,4 and appeared with a
preface dated March 15, 1531, falsely asserting, in order to
excuse the lateness of the answer, that the author had re-
ceived the Ciceronian Dialogue only six months previously.5
The orator takes the position that Erasmus had
assailed not only Cicero's style, but his character and
ability/ as well as the French and Italian nations. To the
1 Scaligeri epistolcs, ep. n, to Sevinus, December 13, 1529.
2 Scalig£ri epistoles, no. I ff.
8 Scaligeri £pistol&, No. 12, to A. Ferron, February 5 (1532?).
4 Scaligeri Epistola, No. 9, to Beda.
5 J. C. Scaligeri Pro M. Tullio Cicerone, contra Desid. Erasmum JK.oUro-
damum, Oratio 1 . 1531. I use the edition of Toulouse, 1620.
6 The same charge was brought by Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, on July 20,
1784, wrote of the Ciceronianus: "My affection and understanding went
along with Erasmus, except that once or twice he somewhat unskilfully
entangles Cicero's civil or moral, with his rhetorical character." Boswdl's
Lije of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, 1887, iv, 353.
THE COLLOQUIES 313
former attack he replies by a comprehensive vindication
of the Roman statesman; to the latter, though he antic-
ipates Burke in remarking that "one cannot draw an
indictment against whole nations/'1 by animadverting
upon the drunkenness of the Germans. The bulk of
the oration, however, consists in abuse of his opponent,
whom he calls a parricide and a parasite, a drunkard and
a literary hack. After having left the cloister because
tired of the religious life, Erasmus is said to have wan-
dered from town to town, getting his living by mean
occupations and by begging, and to have settled at the
Aldine Academy in Venice, whence he had issued that
collection of Adages which had first given him a name,
though it was stolen from the works of other men.
It was probably this innuendo about his life at Venice
that convinced Erasmus that the name Scaliger was
fictitious and that his assailant was really Aleander,
whose style he thought he recognized, as well as he
knew his face.2 When he wrote to reproach him for the
attack,3 Aleander replied in no less than four letters, deny-
ing the charge, expressing the highest regard for his old
friend, and begging for a reconciliation.4 But Erasmus,
who had previously smarted under the treachery of the
Italian nuncio, refused to be convinced either by his
protestations5 or by the following letter from Francis
Rabelais,6 then an unknown proof-reader at Lyons:
I recently learned from Hilaire Bertulph, with whom I am here
very intimate, that you are planning something or other against the
1 "Nihil in nationes integras invehendum," p. 9.
* " Ego illic phrasim Aleandri non minus agnosco quam novi Faciem," to
Choler, Horawitz, Erasmiana> i, 18, November i, 1531. Cf. also his letters to
Tomicki, February 4, 1532, Miaskowski; Erasmiana, No. 22; to Amerbach,
November 29, 153 1, Erasmi Epistolts ad Bon. Amerbachium, No. 70.
3 Lammer: Monumenta Vatic 'ana, 1861, p. 99.
4 Two of April i, 1532, one of July 4th, and one of July 5th, all published by
J. Paquier: "foasme et Aleandre," Melanges d* Archeologie ft d'histoire
publics par I'ecole fr an$ aise a Rome, 1895, pp. 351 ff. Cf. Aleander to Sanga.
January 28, 1532, H. Lammer: Monumenta Vaticana^ 1861, p. 99.
5 To Viglius van Zuichem, LB. App. ep. 370.
6 Forstemann und Gimther, ep. 182. November 30, 1532.
3i4 ERASMUS
calumnies of Jerome Aleander, whom you suspect of having written
against you under the fictitious name of Scaliger. I will not allow
you to doubt longer and to be deceived by this suspicion. For Scaliger
himself is an Italian exile from Verona, of the exiled family of Delia
Scala, and now he is a physician at Agen, and a man well known to
me. By Zeus, he has no good reputation. Pie is, therefore, that slanderer,1
as shall appear shortly. He is not unskillful in the healing art, but for
the rest he is altogether such an atheist as no one else ever was. I have
not yet happened to see his book, nor has any copy of it been brought
hither for many months, so that I think it has been suppressed by
your well-wishers at Paris.
Erasmus wisely decided to treat the attack with silent
contempt, nor was he stirred to reply by the further
book against the Ciceronianus written by Etienne Dolet,
a gifted printer and humanist of Lyons, later put to
death as an atheist. This Dialogue concerning the Imita-
tion of Cicero in defense of Christopher de Longueil against
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam appeared early in I53S-2
In form it is an imaginary conversation between Sir
Thomas More and Simon de Villeneuve, and it contains a
good deal of rancorous abuse of the "old buffoon and tooth-
less drybones," Erasmus. The man attacked was inclined
to suspect that this, too, was written either by Aleander
or by some one whom he had suborned to do it.3 How-
ever, as he wrote his friends, Merbelius and Laurentius:4
I think it best to ignore the absurdities of these youths, whose
violence tends to destroy learning as that of the heretics subverts
religion; for their praises make the humanities inhumanities, and the
Muses Furies. The book which you sent me I received some years
ago. In it I see nothing pertaining to me. If they make me the
enemy of Cicero they err as widely as possible. Now they say that
at Lyons fitienne Dolet has published a sour book against me. . . .
Julius Caesar Scaliger has published at Paris an oration against me
stuffed with the most impudent lies and the most furious reviling,
although I am sure from many certain arguments that he is not the
author of it. ... I have no desire to strive with such enemies,
nor do 1 think it expedient, and I hope you will also not answer them.
They seek antagonists.
The italicized passage in Greek.
2 Christie, op. cit.9 pp. 204 if.
8 LB. ep. 1299.
4 LB. ep. 1278, March 18, 1535.
THE COLLOQUIES 315
Scaliger, who had been trying to get a friend to recon-
cile him to Erasmus/ stung by this letter, which was sent
him by its recipients, immediately composed a second
oration, which appeared in the winter of 1536-37, after
the death of his enemy.2 His abuse and vainglorious
boasting are more outrageous than ever. While he him-
self is "the flower of the Italian nobility/* his antagonist
is a drunkard, and was a pedagogue at the court of Philip
of Burgundy, and one who had ransacked the Italian
libraries, as a perfidious plagiarist, to steal their treas-
ures for his own books. This Scaliger avers that he has
learned on the authority of John Jucundus3 and Jerome
Dominius, who had been his tutors in youth.
The opinion of the learned world was alienated by
these savage attacks on an old and distinguished man.
Scaliger himself later confessed that some people, for
their love of his enemy, would have none of his books in
their libraries.4 Far from making common cause with
Dolet, he was furious at the man who had dared to write
on the same subject that he had chosen for his own, and
falsely accused Dolet of having stolen all his arguments
from the oration. John Maurisotus, a physician of Dole
in Burgundy, wrote a belated Defense of Cicero against
His Calumniators ,5 but German opinion was favorable to
the great humanist. Melanchthon wrote to Camerarius:6
I have seen Dolet's book and am thinking of instructing some one
to reply to it. Erasmus, indeed, is not altogether undeserving of this
Nemesis which has come upon him, but the impudence of this young
man displeases me.
1 To James OmphaKus, Agen, May 4, 1536, Scaligeri epistol&t No. 17.
2 /, C. Scaligeri Oratio //, 1536. I use the edition of Toulouse, 1620.
3 On Giovanni Giocondo, see Sandys, ii, index.
4 Epistolts Scaligeri, p. 78* *' Fragmenta Pnefationis J, C. Scaligeri in
Aristotelis Historiam de Animalibus." Joseph Scaliger, the scholar, son of
Julius Caesar, said that his father was later sorry for having written against
Erasmus. He, Joseph, tried to suppress his father's letters against Erasmus.
Scaligerana, 1695, p. 140.
6 J. Maurisoti: Libettus de ParechremaU contra Ciceronis calumniatores,
1550; on which cf. A, Bomer; " Aus dem Kampf gegen die Coiioquia Familiaria
des Erasmus," Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte, ix.
6 Quoted by Christie, p. 211.
3i6 ERASMUS
Carnerarius had already expressed his own opinion in
a letter to his friend, Sigismund Gelenius,1 as follows :
I learn that Erasmus has returned to you. I wish him a quiet
resting-place at last, as his age and laborious life deserve. They say
he has been most unworthily attacked by some Frenchman, by whom
all his writings are not only rejected, but trampled underfoot on
account of his Ciceronianus. They say that the Frenchman exults in
the ardor of youth, but our Erasmus is languid with age. Wherefore
I often think of Homer's verse: 'Old man, how sorely do the young
warriors harass you!'
The opinion of those who would see the good in both
sides— like the tertium quid in Browning's The Ring and
the Book — was expressed by Roger Ascham in these
words:2
Erasmus, being occupied more In spying other men's faults than
in declaring his own advice, is mistaken of many, , . . He and
Longolius only differed in this, that the one seemed to give overmuch,
the other overlittle to him [Cicero] whom they both loved best.
"Those who can, do/' says Bernard Shaw, "those who
can't, teach." This cutting epigram was not true of
Erasmus. If he spent his life largely in teaching the art
of writing, he was himself one of the greatest masters of
that art. As he never sought, so he naturally never
attained, the distinctive beauty of the classics: that
perfect adaptation of language to thought, that su-
preme artistry which, sometimes by apparently simple
means, sometimes by perceptible elaboration, unfailingly
achieved the desired and definite effect. Those who at-
tempted imitation and nothing more fell into an arid,
stilted pedantry, alike fatal to all freshness of thought
and to all true beauty of form.
But Erasmus, having imbibed, as had few others even
in that age of idolatry of the classics, the spirit of the
ancients, finally attained a mastery of style at once
original and attractive. That Latin was hardly a dead
1 Joachimi Camerarii Epistola* 1583, dated " 1531."
2 R. Ascham: The Schoolmaster, 1563, Ascham's English Works^ 1761, p. 305.
THE COLLOQUIES 317
language, but one very much alive both in the mouths and
on the quills of scholars, is proved by the perfectly living
treatment of the medium by this great master. The very
fact that the tongue he wrote was not exactly that of
ancient Rome, that it was enriched when necessary with
new words, and that it did not even precisely follow the
classical usage in the more intricate sequences of moods
and tenses, proves not that the writer was careless or
ignorant, but that he had a different feeling for the value
of words, due to an evolution in human thought itself
and, within the narrow limits set by his own taste, per-
fectly legitimate. Thomas More was occasionally slov-
enly and obscure, Colet now and then ungrammatical;
Luther, a great wielder of his own tongue, was anything
but Hellenic or Roman in his thought and manner.
But Erasmus, mastering his medium and not mastered
by it, fitted modern thoughts into an ancient speech with
the ease of a born artist.
Great care, infinite pains, went to the final result.
When Erasmus blames "the vice of his nature" for
undue haste in precipitating his thoughts,1 he does him-
self an injustice. If he wrote rapidly at last, it is because
he had toiled painfully at first. His own text-books on
composition show the infinite pains he took to acquire
a style. Like other masters of language — Pater and
Landor, for example — he emphasizes particularly the
selection of vocabulary. The words chosen should be
apt, elegant, idiomatic, and pure, and like dress should
be appropriate to the subject adorned. An unfit style
is as awkward as a woman's dress on a man. Mean,
unusual, poetic, new, obsolete, foreign, and obscene
words should be avoided.2
1 "Qmnia nostra fere praecipitamus; hoc est naturae meae vitium.1' To
Maldonato, March 30, 1527. Revue Hispamque, xvii, 1907, p. 545. P. S. Allen
notes the speed with which he wrote his letters, compared with the laborious
composition evinced in the epistles of his correspondents. See Allen's lecture
on Erasmus, delivered for the Genootschap Nederland-Engeland, 1922,
p. 16.
* De rations studil, LB., i, 517 ff.
3i8 ERASMUS
But Erasmus inculcated and practised other excellen-
cies than this. Variety of construction is emphasized and
rules given for the proper uses of the copious, and of the
concise, manner. But the secret of his own charm is
something more elusive and personal than any style
acquired by mere study and rote could be. Like all
great masters of speech, he invested everything he said
with a peculiar and appropriate pungency. By whetting
his words to a keen edge, he attained delicate polish and
glow of supple beauty. One of the more external and
striking elements of his style was the habitual moder-
ation of his statement; the careful guarding against all
glares of affirmation or denial. Is a reading in the New
Testament ambiguous? No; it is only "slightly am-
biguous5' (nonnihil ambigo). Does Erasmus reject an
argument? Far be such brutal positiveness from him;
he "begins to have a glimmering of doubt" (subdubitare
coepi). Erasmus thought that Luther wrote excellently
well, but all he chooses to assert is that the professor's
books are "rather more like Latin than the average"
(sermo paulo latinior). Double negatives tone down an
otherwise too conspicuous assertion. Except when he
is writing to patrons for expected gifts, Erasmus speaks
of his friends as "persons not altogether unknown to
me." Diminutives play their part is qualifying the
brutal shock of things; the writer's person is usually his
"poor little body" (corpusculum).
But even as we grasp and press the style, its secret
eludes us;, the beauty of Erasmus's writings is something
more subtle, more difficult, than can be readily indicated
by rough analysis. Now and then there is a rapier thrust
of perfect epigram; a stab, planted like a wasp's sting,
infallibly on the nerve ganglion of the chosen victim.
Still more perfect in its way is the repressed irony of the
author, never more effective than when most latent, the
dry wit that held up to scorn or ridicule an institution or
a person, apparently by a simple, matter-of-fact narra-
tive without an abusive, or vulnerable, word in it. It
THE COLLOQUIES 319
was this that made the persons attacked so furious; they
felt that they were being stripped naked and pilloried,
while they could not find any weapon of defense. A
candid, almost naive description of a pilgrimage or of
an inquisitor makes the reader wonder how anything so
silly or so malignant was ever allowed to exist, but what
was there in it all tangible enough to strike? A critic,
after reading Anatole France's lie des Pengouins^ a satire
much in the Erasmian manner, said that there was
nothing left to do but to commit suicide. When the
monks read the Folly and the Colloquies they felt there
was no appropriate comment but to murder the author.
CHAPTER XII
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER
THE importance of Erasmus's biography lies not
only in his contributions to the beauty and wisdom
of the world, but also in his representative function. In
his own person he went through exactly the same evolu-
tion as did the Renaissance in the whole of western
Europe, that of being at first the preparer, then the
moderate supporter, and finally the enemy, of the
Reformation. What was the cause of this process? The
problem is one of the deepest in history, one of the most
studied, and one in which there is least agreement. The
answer here proposed is as follows :
Hitherto undue emphasis has been placed upon the
Renaissance and Reformation in the history of the
period of transition from mediaeval to modern times.
These movements have, together with politics and ex-
ploration, occupied almost the whole field of the his-
tory of the time. But contemporary with them there
was taking place an equally important economic revolu-
tion, the change from gild production to capitalism.
And outside of both there was a change in life perhaps
most important of all made by the new discoveries:
printing, glass lenses, gunpowder, the compass, and in
the field of pure knowledge the Copernican hypothesis,
and the lesser, but still important, achievements in
mathematics and in natural science of Leonardo, Cardan,
Servetus, Stevins, and Gesner. These are sometimes
included in the Renaissance, but it would conduce to
clarity of thought could that name be restricted, as it often
is, to the literary and artistic revival of the classic spirit.
So much must be said, in order to put the Renaissance
320
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 321
and Reformation In their proper perspective. When it
is once grasped that they are, not absolutely but rela-
tively, smaller than they commonly appear to be, it will
be easier to see that they are fundamentally two different
branches of the same movement. Many writers, espe-
cially since Nietzsche, have regarded the Reformation
as totally different from the Renaissance, a reaction
against it and not a development of it.1 But, according
to the view here presented, this is an error, and the
older opinion, common in the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries, that the two movements were nearly
allied, is more correct.
No one can deny the striking similarity between the
two. Both were animated by a desire for a return to
antiquity, a nostalgia for the golden age of both pagan
Rome and of Christianity. Both were revolts against
the mediaeval scholasticism. Neither was primarily
intellectual or rational; both were literary and emo-
tional reactions against the pure but barren rationalism
of Aquinas and Scotus. Both were children of a new
individualism, whether expressed in the art of Titian or
in the doctrine of justification by faith only. The con-
trast sometimes drawn between their attitudes toward
the things of this world and of the next is really unwar-
ranted; both were reactions against the asceticism and
other-worldliness of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance
saw the cultural, the Reformation the ethical, value of
wealth, industry, prosperity, and of woman; and both,
in comparison with Catholicism, stressed the claims of
this world rather than those of the next. Finally, both
were children of the newly grown cities and of the
bourgeois class, first brought to power in the state by
the capitalistic revolution.
Why then, being so closely akin, did the two move-
ments finally come to so bitter an antagonism that both
could hardly survive on the same soil ? It may be pointed
out that the struggle itself is a proof of propinquity; one
1 See my Age of the Reformation, pp. 730 ff»
322 ERASMUS
cannot have a battle between a whale and elephant, nor
can a firm dealing In shoes compete closely with one
producing automobiles. The two fought because they
were so near together; because both cultivated and both
sought to dominate one sphere of human interest, the
spiritual-mental for which we have no single word, but
which the Germans call geistig. But perhaps the com-
pound English word just used has its advantages, for
it points out the difference in the ideals of the two move-
ments, the one appealed primarily to the mental life ^of
art and thought, the other primarily to the spiritual life
of religion and morals.
And this is the only difference, save one presently to
be discussed, which can be pointed out. It is impossible
to call one movement liberal and the other conservative.
Luther's rejection of the sacramental system of the
Church shocked Erasmus by its radicalism as much as
the humanist's play of mind over dogma repelled the
Reformer by its liberalism. If, in his general attitude,
the Dutch scholar was more open-minded, in particular
points the Saxon heresiarch was more advanced. Even
those men of the Renaissance who rejected the Christian
mysteries did so not primarily on rational grounds, but
rather on the authority of the ancients. If Livy exalted
the Roman religion because it was patriotic, Machiavelli
drew the conclusion that it was preferable to Christianity;
if Tacitus spoke of Christianity as a vile superstition, his
editor, Poggio, implicitly followed his ipse dixit. Nor can
we see a general rejection of superstition by the leaders
of either Renaissance or Reformation. Sir Thomas More
was convinced the miracles did happen at shrines and
that devils existed, and Benvenuto Cellini saw devils,
just as did Luther. Nor was Erasmus himself altogether
free from these obsessions of his age. Like his con-
temporaries, he hung votive offerings in churches,1 and
like them occasionally consulted astrologers.2 He re-
* LB, v., 1335.
2 Allen, ep. 948.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 323
peated, without any clear indication that he disbelieved
them, stories of witchcraft and of the direct intervention
of devils in human affairs. However, notwithstanding
these signs that Erasmus was a man of his age, there is
much to show that he was more skeptical and enlight-
ened than most of his contemporaries. In the Moria,
in his letters, frequently in his Colloquies and in the
epistle defending them, he ridicules such superstitions as
alchemy, demonology, witchcraft, and spiritism. In his
colloquy, "The Alchemist/3 he exposes the fraudulent
practices of the magicians and the gullibility of the
public. In the colloquy called "Exorcism of the Spec-
ter," after describing several bogus apparitions, he adds:
"Hitherto I have not given much credence to the cur-
rent ghost-stories; hereafter I shall believe them still less/5
Even in the letter to Anthony of Bergen, describing the
doings of a wizard, he calls attention to the fact that
witchcraft is a new crime, unknown to the civil and
canon laws.1 In summing up his position one may say
that it is probable that Erasmus was skeptical of most
current superstitions, without denying in principle the
possibility of witchcraft or magic. It was much the
position of Joseph Addison, who said: "I believe in
general that there is and has been such a thing as
witchcraft, but at the same time can give no credit to
any particular instance of it."2 Amiel and Froude go
too far when they attribute to the humanist a complete
and scoffing rationalism. Enough glory to him that in
a superstitious age he effectively derided the cruel and
the credulous.
Returning from this digression to a consideration of
the relations of Renaissance and Reformation, we can-
not maintain that the former was as tolerant, nor
the latter as intolerant as they are sometimes repre-
sented. In the great and free fifteenth century, Jews
1 Allen, ep» 143. But there are some allusions to witchcraft in both laws.
One section of the Decretum (c. 6, X) is headed "De frigidis et maleficiatis."
2 Spectator, no. 117, July 14, 1711.
324 ERASMUS
and Moriscos, Hussites and Lollards, were sacrificed
in holocausts; and there were some Reformers who
stopped short of approving the execution of Servetus.
Luther, in his first period, before he met with that
hardest of all tests, complete success, was tolerant,1
and the limits of Erasmus's endurance of false opinion
are clearly marked. His very plea against some persecu-
tion— "Who ever heard orthodox bishops incite kings
to slaughter heretics who were nothing but heretics?572 — -
indicates these limits, and still more clearly does a letter
of uncertain, but late, date: "The Anabaptists are by
no means to be tolerated. For the Apostles command9 us
to obey the magistrates, and these men object to obeying
Christian princes."3
In addition to this difference of emphasis on the things
of the spirit and the things of the mind, the only impor-
tant contrast between Renaissance and Reformation is
that the first was an aristocratic, the second a popular
movement. The humanist sought to educate the classes;
the Reformer to convert the masses. A corollary of this
was that the former was international, the latter national.
Erasmus's pacifism was based on a cosmopolitan culture
that found any fatherland but the world too small; the
intensification of nationalism following the Reformation
was but the logical effect of the appeal to the patriotic
peoples. The humanists spoke Latin, the Reformers
the vernacular.
If there is any truth in what has just been said, the
deeper reasons for Erasmus's changing attitude toward
the Reformation become apparent. Sharing its interests,
approving most of its program, he at first educated the
Reformers and then did his best, for the four years
following the promulgation of the Theses, to get them a
fair hearing. But, after his return to Basle in November,
1521, he diverged more and more from them, and
1 On Luther, The Age of the Reformation, pp. 643 ff.
* LB. ix, 904 ff. Propositio III.
8 Lond. xxx, 77.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 325
primarily for the two reasons just indicated; that his
interests emphasized the cause of learning and theirs the
cause of dogmatic religion, and because he both distrusted
and feared a popular rebellion, evidently verging more
and more toward violence. And once the breach was
made and felt ever so slightly, it was widened by personal
associations. Pulled by powerful friends toward Rome
and pushed by the indiscreet and impertinent zeal of
the innovators away from Wittenberg, it is almost sur-
prising that for so long he tried to take, if not an openly
approving, at least a neutral, position toward the
Reformers.
The choice was hard for personal, as for public, con-
siderations. Some of his best old friends — Hutten, Jonas,
Pirckheimer at first, Capito, CEcolampadius, and others —
hastened to enlist under the standard of the "gospel."
Hatred, fear, and disgust at the actions of the "Phari-
sees" of Louvain and throughout the cloisters of Europe
almost outweighed his dread of religious revolution.
"Should Luther go under," he well knew, "neither God
nor man could longer endure the monks; nor can Luther
perish without jeopardizing a great part of the pure
gospel truth."1 The reports sent to Wittenberg, there-
fore, immediately after Erasmus's arrival in Basle, that
he was working prudently to help the cause of truth, and
that Luther and Melanchthon were much loved in that
town, were not wholly without foundation.2
The enemies of the "Gospel" still regarded Erasmus
as one of its chief supports. When he tried to get an
imperial edict imposing silence on his detractors at
Louvain, he was answered by one of the courtiers in a
letter expressing doubts of the humanist's fidelity to the
Church.3 The emperor refused to do anything until he
had some proof, such as a published work, showing that
1 Erasmus to Spalatin, March 12, 1523; L. C. ep. 581.
8 C. Pellican to Melanchthon, November 30, 1521. Melanchthoniana
Padagogica, ed. K. Hartfelder, 1892, p, 19.
8 Guido Morillon to Erasmus (before March 20), 1522, Enthoven, ep. 15,
326 ERASMUS
Erasmus was really hostile to Luther.1 One of his friends
attended a dinner given by King Louis of Hungary and
his wife, the emperor's sister Mary, at which it was
plainly said that the heretic had taken everything from
the humanist.2 In long letters to powerful friends3
Erasmus did his best to clear himself of suspicion, pro-
testing that rumors of his infidelity emanated from
Aleander and the Dominicans of Louvain, that he had
always said, even to Luther's patrons, the Elector
Frederic, the King of Denmark, and the Captain of the
Bohemians,4 that the Wittenberger was wrong in many
things. Moreover, he wrote, the Lutherans threatened
him with spiteful pamphlets. He might have made ^ a
great deal had he taken sides for Luther, seeing that in
Switzerland there were more than a hundred thousand
men who hated the papacy and approved the rebel against
it.5 One bit of special evidence, indeed, tending to show
that Erasmus was inwardly true to the Church at this
time, is to be found in a thoroughly orthodox liturgy
prepared for the press by him in 1523, though withheld
from publication until two years later »6
When, in January, 1522, Erasmus's old friend Adrian
of Utrecht was raised to the tiara to succeed the recently
defunct Leo, the humanist regarded the event as by no
means auspiciou,* for the future peace of the Church.
For, while Adrian was a sincere and moral man, eager
to put down corruption at Rome, he had already taken
sides with much energy against Luther, and he was
known as a mere schoolman, untouched by polite learn-
1 Haloin to Erasmus, March 31, 1522. Forstemann-Giinther, ep. 6.
z PIso to Erasmus (after May 7, 1522), Forstemann-Giinther, ep. 7.
8 To Fisher, Jortin: Life of Erasmus, Hi, 184. To Wolsey, March 7, 1522,
partly published by A. Meyer: £rasmt et Luther, p. 163 f. Abstract in Letters
and Papers of Henry Fill, iii, no. 2090. L. C. no. 53 1.
4 Artlebus von Boskowitz of Znaim, Supreme Captain of Moravia, who had
urged Erasmus to join Luther.
8 Erasmus to Jodocus, president of the Town Council of Malines, July 14,
1522. LB. ep. 629.
6 J, Zellen "Die Laurentanische Liturgie," Theologiscke Quartalschrift, xc,
280284.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 327
ing.1 The humanist, however, judging it expedient to
be on good terms with the powers, dedicated an edition
of Arnobius to the new pontiff,2 and wrote him a letter
excusing his migration to Basle.3 The pope replied, on
December i, 1522, and again on January 23, IS23,4
requesting his correspondent to come to Rome and to
write against Luther. The first of these breves was
drafted by Aleander; the original concept is extant and
is most interesting for the fact that in it there is more
praise for Erasmus and more denunciation of the
Lutherans than in the final form.5 In his reply the
scholar of Rotterdam promised to do what he could for
the Church, but excused himself from going to Rome on
account of his health. Together with complaints of the
odium excited against himself by the Lutherans he
inserted a plea for gentle means on the part of the
ecclesiastical authorities, remarking that the Wyclifites
in England were rather pressed gradually out of exist-
ence than driven by force and slaughter.6 This advice
the author himself felt would do little good against the
opposite advice of Eck and the extremists.7
Adrian VI, however, did not give up hopes of employ-
ing so powerful a pen in the service of the Church. He
deputed his nuncio in Switzerland, Ennio Filonardo,
whom Erasmus had met at Constance in September,
1522, to ask the humanist to draw up a memorial on the
quickest way to extirpate the new sect.8 The request,
however, called forth only an elaborate excuse for not
1 So Erasmus wrote Fisher, 1522. Jortin, iii, 184. Letters and Papers of
Henry Fill, iii, no. 2731.
2Lond. xxviii, 9; LB. ep. 633. August I, 1522.
8 December 22, 1522. LB. ep. 641.
4Lond. xxiii, 3, 4; LB. epp. 639, 648. On December I3th Hannibal wrote
Wolsey: "His Holiness has sent for Erasmus under a fair color by his brief,
and if he come not I think the pope will not be content." Letters and Papers
of Henry VII '1 \ iii, no. 2614.
6 J. Paquier: Jerome Aleandre, 1900, pp. 290 fF.
6 Undated letter, Lond. xviii, 20; LB. ep. 649.
7 So he wrote Pirckheimer, July 19, 1523 (not 1522), LB, ep. 631.
8 Hartfelder, in Zeitsc hrift fur die GeschichU des Qberrheins, N, F. viii, 1893,
p. 27. Zwinglii opera^ viii, 62, note 2.
32g ERASMUS
complying with it.1 The Lutherans, it is stated, already
hated "the poor scholar so fiercely that he would be
compelled to leave Germany, though he knew not whither
to flee, for in France there was war and England was
disagreeable to him. To write against Luther would only
excite new tumults; on the other hand, to write for him
would be to make the heretics triumph and to exalt the
author to. .a pinnacle as the god of Germany, for they
regarded him as the only obstacle to victory. This
letter Filonardo promised2 to communicate to the pon-
tiff, who, however, had died two days before it was
written. On learning this Filonardo undertook to deliver
the message to the next pope.3 The same impression as
that conveyed by the letter to Adrian was imparted by
the writer to the Roman prelate Sylvester Prierias. To
him the humanist declared that simply by doing nothing
for the innovators he broke their strength more than did
Aleander with all his frantic measures. "The Lutheran
faction is not yet extinct/' he added. "Would that it
were, for it ruins all our studies."4 At the same time he
wrote to the powerful Cardinal Campeggio, protesting
that he was not a Lutheran, even though, as he proved
by inclosing an autograph letter from the Saxon here-
siarch, the latter claimed him as a follower.5
But even while he declined to compromise himself by
writing the memorial asked for by Adrian and issuing it
under his own name, he probably had much to do with
a tract called Scrutinium divintz scripture pro concil-
iations dissentium dogmatum, edited at just this time
by Conrad Pellican. Not only has the introductory
epistle, signed by Pellican, been attributed to Erasmus,
1 Erasmus to a Roman Prelate, September 16, 1523. Nolhac: frame en
Italic 1888, no. 9, p. 112. The addressee is plainly Filonardo, who wrote the
letters published in Forstemann-Gtmther, nos. 17, 18, 23, 24.
2 September 23, 1523. Forstemann-Giinther, ep. 17.
8 October 22, 1.523. Ibid, ep. 18.
« LB. ep. 664.
B P. Balan: Monumenta Reformationis Lutheran^ 1884, p. 305. Either
Luther's first letter, or one not now extant, must be meant.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 329
but the main part of the work, published under the
name of the Franciscan Satzger, shows strong traces
cf the humanist's collaboration. This irenic recom-
mended moderation and conferences, and endeavored
to show that all differences might be reduced to
mere misunderstandings. The pamphlet did not have
much success, for Luther judged it a foolish attempt
to reconcile God and Belial, the Bible and the
"sophists."1
From other quarters the humanist was constantly
urged to take up arms in the cause of the Church. Duke
George of Albertine Saxony, after hearing the Leipzig
Debate, had turned his face decisively against the inno-
vators of Wittenberg. The humanist had already been
in communication with him through his dedication of
Suetonius, and there had even been some talk of his
taking a position at the University of Leipzig. Six
months after his arrival at Basle Erasmus had written
explaining the causes of his migration,2 and bewailing
his illnesses and the woes of the time. The duke's
answer, accompanied by two books of Luther sent for
the purpose of refutation, has been lost. Erasmus
thanked him for the books, but remarked that he could
not read anything in German.3 He excused himself for
not writing against a man who had begun to preach
with the applause of all, and expressed fear that if he
were crushed abuses might again become rife. He was
of the opinion that silence was the best remedy and
moreover that it was foolish to provoke those who
could not be conquered. The duke received this re-
sponse and other similar ones with great coolness.4
1 K. Zickendraht: "Eine anonyme Kundgebung des Erasmus, 1522, im
Lichte seiner Stellung zur Reformation," Zritsch. f. Kirchengeschichte, xxix,
22 ff, 1908. Enders, no. 638.
2 May 25, 1522. Horawitz: Erasmianat i, no. 39.
3Gess: Akten und Brief e zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georges von Sachsen, i,
1904, ep. 371; LB. ep. 635. L. C. ep. 555.
4 Erasmus wrote him again December 5th, fearing his letter of September 3d
was lost (Horawitz, I, 40; Gcss, 408); the duke replied it was not lost, but he
33o ERASMUS
We do not know what were the books sent by George.
Erasmus mentions reading with disapproval the Latin
De Abroganda Missa, (published 1522) and of hearing of
other works of a Hussite nature.1 One work which he
read and thoroughly liked was the Tesseradecas* (pub-
lished 1520) a book of spiritual comfort. Indeed, even
in 1523 he seems to have been not unfavorable to the
Wittenberg reformer. To Peter Barbier, at that time
chaplain of Adrian VI, he wrote on April 17, 1523 :8
would that Luther's charges against the tyranny, base-
ness, and avarice of the Curia were not true; and to
Christopher, Bishop of Basle, he expressed the hope
that the Reformer might yet be recalled to the ways of
peace.2
Even while he was writing this Erasmus was much
Irritated by letters of Luther disparaging him.4 Hoping
still to restrain him he wrote Spalatin, on March 12,
1523 :5
I have never ventured to judge Luther's spirit, but I have often
feared that the appearance of so much arrogance and vituperation
would injure the cause of the Gospel, now happily reviving. . . .
Would to God that he were gentler!
Erasmus could not fail to be influenced by the course
events were taking. While Luther was absent at the
Wartburg the reforms he had started were carried on at
Wittenberg with increased rapidity by Zwilling, Carl-
stadt, and some men of Zwickau who called themselves
the ** Heavenly Prophets/' Their innovations included
now thought it no longer of any use to write him (Horawitz, 1, 41; Gess, No.
441, L. C. ep. 571)* He wrote again, acknowledging the receipt of a lost letter,
on May 21, 1524. (Gess, No. 662, L. C. ep. 626).
1 To Laurinus, February i, 1523. Lond. xxiii, 6. L. B, ep. 650.
z 1523. Lond. xxi, 8. LB. ep. 661.
3 Lond, xxi, i. LB. ep. 653.
4 J. Fevynus to F. Cranveld, Bruges, March 17, 1523. Prinsen: Gddsnhauers
Collectanea, p. 74. Erasmus's "Dialogue" is here mentioned and also his
resentment at a letter of Luther to a "canon of Erfurt." This is probably a
mistake. One of the letters published under the title, " Judicium D. M.
Lutheri de Erasmo," is meant, L. C. ep. 549,
« L. C ep. 581.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 331
not only religious reforms snch as the breaking of images
in churches, the abolition of fasting, the marriage of the
clergy, but a number of socialistic measures as well, and
their method of carrying them through, by mob violence,
was more objectionable than the reforms themselves.
The movement spread from Wittenberg to other parts
of Germany, and of it Erasmus expressed his disapproval
in a long letter to Christopher, Bishop of Basle, dated
Easter Monday (April 21), 1522, and published in the
following November.1 It was to oppose these fanatics
that Luther returned to Wittenberg early in March,
1522, and his success in restoring order won him a number
of adherents throughout Germany and perhaps made
Erasmus, too, think better of him.
The peaceful scholar must also have been affected by
the acts of the inquisitors in the Netherlands. Hoch-
straten, the Dominican prosecutor of Cologne, con-
demned his books during the summer of 1522 and
Erasmus was advised of the fact in a letter by Capito,
of August I7th, in which his friend solemnly warned him
of the danger of trying to .keep the favor of both parties.2
A sterner warning came in the arrest of two acquaint-
ances, Probst and Grapheus, who redeemed their lives
only by a solemn recantation.3 But the inquisitors, soon
finding men of less pliable stuff, burned two of them at
Brussels on July I, 1523. Erasmus read the published
account of their fate, without being able to decide whether
he ought to deplore it or not. Even if in substance they
were right — such was his idea — they put themselves in
the wrong by stirring up tumults. It is the manner that
makes all the difference in the world. Indeed, he added
confidentially, after comment on the auto~da~fe9 "I
1 Lond. xxxi, 43. Bibliotheca Erasmiana, i, p. 89.
2 Forstemann and Gunther, No. 9.
8 They were arrested in December, 1521, and recanted on February 9, 1522.
Kostlin-Kawerau, i, p. 604. P. KalkofF: Die Anfange der Gegenreformation in
den Niederlanden, ii, 1903, pp. 61-69. The recantation of Grapheus was
described to Erasmus in a letter by A. Brugnarius, November 4, 1522, Forste-
mann-Giinther, ep. 10.
332 ERASMUS
seem to myself to teach almost the same things as
Luther, only without sedition and violence.7'1
More than to any other one person Erasmus's final
decision to break with the Reformation was due to
Ulrich von Hutten, the brilliant but unstable Alcibiades
hitherto sitting at the feet of the Dutch Socrates2 in an
attitude of worshipful respect. The character and fate
of this wandering knight might make the subject of a
Shakespearean tragedy, for the hero, not without a
genuine spark of nobility in his turbulent nature, pre-
cipitated himself through his own fault into an abyss of
utter ruin. The ardor with which he apparently embraced
Luther's cause spent itself in such futile ragings against
the Romanists that they began to laugh at him as one
whose bark was worse than his bite.3 With savage fury
he plotted with Sickingen to revenge himself by starting
a holy war against priests and prelates throughout
Germany.4 The plan which, as Erasmus's friend Basil
Amerbach remarked, was worthy of a Catiline,5 matured
early in 1522, when Sickingen attacked Treves, only to
be defeated and mortally wounded in battle on May /th.
When Hutten, with his friend Busch, wandered to Basle,6
on the way committing some highway robberies to relieve
his desperate need of money, Erasmus refused to see
him on the pretext that Hutten's health did not permit
*The source Erasmus read was Historia de duobus Auguttiniensibus ob
Evangelii doctrinam exustis, published at Brussels on July 10, 1523. See
0. Clemen: Beitrdge zur Reformations gesckichu, 1900, i, 42. Erasmus's letter
on the subject to Charles Utenhoven, July 1, 1529, Lond. xxiv, 4, LB. ep, 1060.
To Zwingli, August 31, 1523, Zwinglii opera, ed, Egli, Finsler, und Kohler,
viii, 114,
2 Ante, p. 130 ff.
8 Busch to Hutten, May 5, 1521. Hutteni Opera, ed. Booking, ii» 62; L. C.
ep. 472.
4 On all this P. Kalkoff: Ulrich von Hutten und die Reformation, 1920.
6 C. Burckhardt-Biedermann: Bonifacius Amerbach und die Reformation,
1894, pp. 149, 158 £
6 He was at Basle on November 28, 1522, cf. Zwinglis Werke, ed. Egli,
Finsler und Kohler, vii, 622, and Burckhardt-Biedermann, loc. cit. Erasmus
had allowed his praise of Hutten to stand in the edition of the New Testament
of 1522, in a note to i Thes. i: 2, p. 516. Cf. "Catalogue of Lucubrations,11
Allen, i, p. 27.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 333
him to go anywhere without a stove, whereas his own
maladies would not suffer him to be in the same room
with one.1 Notwithstanding the polite form in which
he couched his refusal, the insulted gentlemen resolved
to revenge themselves. Busch announced his intention
of writing against the humanist,2 and Hutten actually
did so, after trying to blackmail the man attacked into
buying his manuscript.3 Though his friends wished to
do this, Erasmus refused and Hutten's pamphlet, under
the title of An Expostulation, was accordingly sent to the
press. In the meantime the aggrieved scholar had
applied to the Town Council of Basle protesting against
his enemy's continued presence in the town and the
swashbuckler was accordingly expelled in the middle of
January, 1523.* Fleeing first to Miilhausen and then to
Zurich, he found an asylum with Zwingli. His ran-
cor had found ample expression in his Expostulation?
which rates Erasmus for duplicity and cowardice, under-
taking to show that while he secretly approved all the
principles of the Reformation he was afraid to say so.
Gradually, it was said, his attacks on Aleander, Hoch-
straten, and the rest had changed first into apology and
then into flattery. Anything would be better than
eternal vacillation; rather an open enemy than a false
friend.
The savage attack cut Erasmus to the quick. Never,
he wrote to a friend, would he have believed that there
could be so much inhumanity, impudence, vanity, and
virulence in one book as there was in the Expostulation,
and that written by one whom he had so often praised!6
Just as peace seemed about to come, he elsewhere com-
1 Spongia, LB. x, 1631 ff. Erasmus to Hutten, March 25, 1523 (not 1524)
Lond. xxvii, 3; LB. ep. 672.
2 Luther to Spalatin, March I, 1523, Enders, Iv. p. 91; Erasmus to Pirck-
heimer, August 29 (1523), Lond. xxx, 33.
* Bocking, ii, 179. Kalkoff, p. 506.
<Kalkoff, p;59i,
5 Bocking, ii, 180 ff.
8 To Pirckheimer, July 19, 1523 (not 1522), Lond, xxx, 29; LB. ep, 631.
334 ERASMUS
plained, this awful storm of abuse burst and clouded the
whole sky.1 He replied with uncommon haste in a work
entitled, A Sponge to Wipe off Hutttn's Aspersions,
dedicated to Zwingli because, as the author set forth, the
antidote should go to the same quarter where the poison
was brewed,2 This suspicion that Zwingli was con-
federate with Hutten was not quite groundless, and was
given color by the fact that the latter found a shelter
near Zurich. To the Town Council of that city the
humanist wrote a letter pointing out the harm done to
the Gospel by the refugee, and the abusive lies he had
uttered against many persons, not even sparing the
pope and emperor, and he asked them not to shelter such
a rascal.3 The missive was at once shown to Hutten,
who wrote a prompt answer to it.4
The Sponge? distinctly a work of personal apology,
takes up one by one the charges brought, and proves the
writer's consistency. He has attacked only the vices of
the Church, wishing, in a thoroughly loyal spirit, to
mend, not to end her. It would be more honest of
Hutten rather to help the pope to reform than to make
his path harder. With some heat the author defends his
cautious position by alleging examples in which Christ
had apparently dissembled the truth or suppressed it as
inconvenient to be spoken at all seasons. How different
is the manner of the innovators ! They, headed by the
Wittenbergers, stop at no abusive language and at no
scurrilous manners, though more could be accomplished
by gentleness than in any other way. Defending his
refusal to take sides, "I am a lover of liberty/' he cries,
"I cannot and will not serve a party/*
1 Allen, I, pp. 27 fF.
2 To Zwingli, ZwingUs Werke, viii, 119, Lond. xxx, 52. Cf. Zwinglit Werke*
viii, 93. Letter of Hutten to Zwingli.
3 E. Egli: AkUnsammlung zur Zurcher Reformation, 1879, no. 565 (wrongly
put by ^Egli in 1524), August 10, 1523. The same in Booking: Hutteni
Opera, ii, 256 f; and Hess: Erasmus y if, 572.
4 Hess, ii, 574.
6 Spongia adversus Aspergines Hutteni, LB,, x, 1631 fF.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 335
When the work came from Froben's press in the sum-
mer of 1523 Hutten was a broken man. Having abetted
Sickengen's rash rebellion, the defeat and death of the
captain left him alone and discredited. Seeking a place
to die in, as his enemy recognized,1 he had turned to
Switzerland and, crushed by disappointment and disease*
repenting having written and published the Expostula-
tion, he breathed his last in an obscure corner of the
world on August 29th.2 This tragic event, though it did
not prevent three thousand copies of the Sponge from
being printed,3 deprived that work, as its author regret-
fully admitted, of much of its welcome. He assured
the public that he prayed for Hutten's soul, and offered
an apology4 for publishing his book at all, though one
which perhaps did not much mend matters. He called
attention to the fact that he had never reproached his
enemy with "his military life, not to use a worse term,"
nor with his debts, nor with his vices, "which even his
shameful disease could never make him stop." In the
same tone of apology he wrote Melanchthon : "When
that Thraso, pox and all, sought my house as a place in
which to die, I refused, and then he begged the same
from Zwingli, as the latter wrote me." Again, the man's
perfidy in publishing letters unauthorized is alleged as a
reason for having broken with him.5 The battle was taken
up by Otto Brunsfels, who wrote a reply to the Sponge.*
1 Erasmus to Melanchthon, September 6, 1523 (not 1524), Lond, xix, 113;
LB. ep. 703.
2 To C. Goclen, September 25, 1523, Lond. xxx, 10. Beatus Rhenanus to a
Friend, October 27, 1523. ZnfcrcA. /. d. Geschichu des Qberrheins, xxi, 1906,
p. 48.
8 To J. Faber, November 21, 1523; Horawitz: Erasmiana, ii, ep. 5; L'B.
ep. 658.
4 Catalogue of Lucubrations, Allen, i, pp. 27 ff.
6 September 6, 1524. Lond. xix, 113; LB. ep, 703. L. C. ep. 633.
6 Othonis Brunsfelsii pro U. Hutteno defuncto. . , ,Responsiot Becking, ii,
325 ff. K. Hartfelder: "Otto Brunsfels als Verteidiger Huttens," Zeit-
schriftf. d. Geschichu des Oberrheins, viii, 1893, pp. 565 ff. There is at Cornell a
copy of the first edition of the Sponge with the autograph, "Mathias Heros,
philosophise professor, 1523." Matthew Held, late vice-chancellor under
Charles V, is meant.
336 ERASMUS
The skirmish with Hutten preluded a greater battle
with Luther. Inevitably, as two great nations with in-
terests in the same spheres drift into opposition and then
into war, the two greatest religious leaders of the early
sixteenth century felt more and more keenly their rivalry
and the necessity of defining their differences in public
argument. For, while Erasmus advocated, although
without violence, many of the practical reforms pushed
by Luther, his spirit was different. The Saxon was a
friar and a schoolman; with all his denunciation of the
"sophists" of scholasticism, he was their kinsman in
that he asked the same questions as did they, even
though he gave those questions new answers. But a
man's interests reveal themselves more in the questions
which he asks than in the answers he gives; as long as
the dogmatic predilection was fundamental it mattered
little that the Reformer strongly objected to some of
the particular dogmas of his predecessors. Salvation,
urgent and doubtful, depended, he thought, on knowing
the absolute truth.
But to seek the absolute truth, and still more to find it,
brands the seeker as a child or a dogmatist. It would
never have occurred to Erasmus to put it in exactly that
way, but he did see quite clearly the difficulties in arriv-
ing at the truth in any matter, most of all in the deepest
problems of philosophy. To his temperament the all-
important matter in religion was the life; beliefs were
interesting, even rather important, but they were subor-
dinate to the moral issue. It is really surprising how
clearly the Reformers themselves saw this difference.
In 1521 a student at Wittenberg wrote a friend that
Erasmus was not much thought of there because his
Enchiridion had made Plato rather than Christ his model,
had mistranslated parts of Paul's epistles, and showed
less courage than Luther.1
And yet the very fact that the two were able to join
1 Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus> hg. von Horawitz und Hartfelder, 1886,
>. 281. Albert Burer to Beatus Rhenanus, Wittenberg, June 30,
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 337
issues proves that they were nearly allied in interest.
Men with totally different spheres of action let one
another alone. There was no battle between science and
capitalism, between Copernicus and Fugger. As far as
there was antagonism between art and religion it was
silent, half-unconscious; only as an afterthought did
Michelangelo come under the displeasure of the Church.
Given, then, a community of interest and a divergence
of type between humanist and Reformer, it was natural
that the battle should be joined on precisely the issue
taken, that of the free will, for both to the dogmatic and
to the ethical mind this question is fundamental. To
talk of morality without freedom of choice is absurd,
said Erasmus; to speak of our own powers to attain grace
and merit apart from God's eternal decree is impious,
pontificated Luther. "All argument shows that our wills
are bound," remarked Doctor Johnson, "but we know
that we are free and that settles the matter/' So it
does for the man who accepts his own feelings as decisive;
for the more deeply logical mind the arguments count.
The question had been a live one in the Church ever
since the controversy of Augustine and Pelagius. The
saint and philosopher of Hippo had for the time carried
all before him, establishing as orthodox the position that
God predestined everything and that, as far as merit
went, the human will was absolutely impotent to do
aught but sin. However, the common sense of mankind
rebelled against the assertion of the bondage of the will,
and throughout the Middle Ages the Church really held a
semi-Pelagian position, by which it was hoped that God's
foreknowledge and foreordination might be reconciled
with man's freedom. Aquinas may be presumed to de-
fine adequately the orthodox view in the following words r1
As predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory, so
reprobation includes the will to permit some one to fail into sin and
to bring the penalty of damnation for sin. . . . Reprobation is not
the cause of the present fault, but it is the cause of abandonment by
1 Summa Theologia, pars I, qu. 22, arts. 3-5.
338 ERASMUS
God. Yet it is the cause of future eternal punishment. But the sin
comes from the free will of him who is reprobated and abandoned
by grace. ...
The effect of divine foreknowledge is not only that a certain thing
should happen in a particular way, but that it should happen either
contingently or necessarily. That, therefore, happens infallibly and
necessarily which divine foreknowledge disposes to happen infalli-
bly and necessarily, and that happens contingently which the rea-
son of divine foreknowledge so conceives that it should happen
contingently. . . .
No one has been so insane as to say that merits were the cause of
divine predestination viewed from the standpoint of God's pre-
destinating act.
St. Thomas felt the need of exonerating God from the
charge of punishing men for inevitable evils; he labored
not a little to show that though God might be the cause
of the evil arising from the corruption of things, he was
not the cause of evil arising from defect of action.1
Finally, after having asserted strongly God's power of
predestination he came out plainly with the statement,
so difficult to reconcile with this position: "Man has
free will; otherwise counsel, exhortation, precept, pro-
hibition, reward and punishment would all be in vain/'2
It was this last statement that was most emphasized for
the common man.3
The question again attained prominence in the fifteenth
and early sixteenth centuries. Lorenzo Valla, so much
studied by the Dutch humanist, had written a work in
favor of free will,4 preferring to doubt God's omnipotence
rather than his goodness. At the same time he tried to
reconcile free will for men with a doctrine of predestina-
tion and foreknowledge of God. When published by the
Reformer Vadian in 1518, this treatise came to the
notice of the Wittenberg professors, and the author's
"stoical opinion" was rejected by Melanchthon. Luther's
1 Qu. 49, art. 2.
2 Qu. 83, art. r.
3 Dante: Purgatorio, canto 16, Paradiso, 5. See also the fourteenth century
poem, The Pearl, ed. by C. S. Osgood, p. xxxix, and C. F. Brown in Publications
of the Modern Language Association, xix, 115 fF.
4 E. Maier: Die JVillensfreiheit lei L. Valla. Bonn Dissertation, 1911.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 339
praise of a work taking the opposite side of the question
must be understood as merely relative, an indirect way
of scoring Erasmus.1 The Italian skeptic, Pomponazzi,
had also written on the subject in 1520, though his work
was not published until 1557. 2
When Erasmus took the offensive the choice of this
subject was motived partly by his wish not to interfere
with any of the practical reforms undertaken by Luther,
with many of which he was in sympathy, and partly by
the fact that this dogma lay at the very heart of the
Protestant system, being, in fact, no more than the
reverse side of the famous doctrine of justification by
faith only. Where everything is performed by the grace
of God there is nothing left for the human will. In fact,
the Wittenberg professor was so far from strict deter-
minism that he allowed man free choice in a lower sphere,
so to speak, than that of religion. We can, he said, go
in and out as we like, milk the cow or not do it; our wills
can even, as the Augsburg Confession put it, "work a
certain civil righteousness." The point was that this
had not the slightest effect on salvation. It was on this
issue that he had first detected heresy in the humanist;
in previously cited epistles of 1516 and 1517 he had
criticized the editor of the Greek Testament for mis-
understanding the Pauline conception of the nature of
sin and for undervaluing grace. His own opinion was
early expressed in his lectures, in his Resolutions) and at
the Heidelberg Debate in April, 1518. He had there
maintained the thesis that "free will, after the fall, was
only a name, and that when a man acted according to
his own being he sinned mortally." This was reported
by Martin Bucer, a hearer, to Beatus Rhenanus; the
report was probably forwarded by the recipient to his
great friend.3
1 Tischreden, Weimar, i» no, 259.
8 Df FatO) Libffro Arbitri®, Predestinatione. Cf. Christie: Pomponatiur,
p. 149.
3 Briefwschsd des Beatus Rhenanus, ed. Horawitz und Hartfelder, 1886,
P« 1*3-
34o ERASMUS
When the bull Exsurge Domine (1520) condemned the
opinion on free will quoted above, Luther defended it
at length, citing Augustine and many biblical texts to
prove his point.1 This Refutation of the Bull was in turn
refuted by Bishop Fisher of Rochester in a tract2 from
which the Dutchman borrowed a good deal. Denial of
free will was mentioned by Aleander, in his speech before
the Diet of Worms, as a cardinal heresy of the Saxon.3
Melanchthon, however, adopted his friend's position
and expressed it still more clearly, if possible, in his
Loci Communes, a text-book of theology printed in 1521.*
Carlstadt also adopted his friend's position and defended
it at great length at the Leipzig Debate with Eck.5
This also came to the notice of Erasmus.
His opinion, at an early date, is doubtless reflected in
the words of Capito, in some sort his emissary, who on
a visit to Wittenberg on September 30, 1521, told
Melanchthon that Luther overemphasized grace and the
bondage of the will.6 "The Lutherans call me a
Pelagian/*7 Erasmus reported as early as 1522; but, on
consulting theologians about his interpretation of Romans
ix in his New Testament and in his Paraphrase, he learned
that they approved his position except only that they
thought he attributed rather too much to the freedom of
the will.8 In a letter to Zwingli he enumerated as
Luther's three chief errors, (i) his designation of all good
works as mortal sin, (2) his denial of free will, (3) justi-
fication by faith only; but he added that he had refused
1 Refutatio omnium articuhrum, December, 1520; Luther s Werke^ Weimar
vii, 94.
* Assertion™ Luthefi Confutatio, analyzed by Zickendraht: Der Streit
ztffisc hen Eras mus und Luther fiber die Wilhnsfreiheit, 1909, pp. 183 fF.
8 J. Paquier: Aleandrc, p. 200.
4 Corpus Reformatorum, xxi, 86 ff.
B 0. Seitz: Der autkentische Text der Leipziger Disputation, 1903, pp. 14-54;
8 Corpus Rtformatorum, i, 462.
7 To Glapion, 1522, LB. ep. 645.
8 To Pirckheimer, 1522, Lond. xxx, 28, LB. ep. 618. Cf. also Erasmus's
defense of his position in his letter to Marcus Laurinus, Lond. xxiii, 6, LB, ep.
650. February i, 1523.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 341
all invitations from the emperor, the pope, and various
kings, to write against the Wittenberg professor.1 Doubt-
less his ideas were confirmed by the fact that denial of
free will was mentioned as Luther's fundamental error
in a letter of Henry VIII to Duke George of January 20,
1523, and in the latter's answer of May 8.2
In July, 1522, was published a pamphlet containing
Melanchthon's "Statement Concerning Erasmus and
Luther/' -and two letters of the latter about the former,
one to Capito, January 17, 1522, and one to Borner or
Cubito, of May 28, 1522;* this last containing a very
disparaging estimate of the humanist's theological
abilities :
On predestination he knows less than the sophists of the schools.
... He is not formidable in such matters, for truth is more powerful
than eloquence. ... I will not provoke Erasmus, nor, if provoked
once and again, will I hit back. Yet it does not seem to me that he
would do wisely to direct the force of his rhetoric against me, for I
fear that he would not find Luther another Lefevre d'fitaples con-
cerning whom he boasts that all congratulate him on his victory.
In vain did mutual friends try to keep such letters from
coming to the knowledge of the humanist; in vain did
they warn the writer of them to be more careful4 When
the Wittenberger continued to pen even harsher judg-
ments, they were at once published. Such was a letter
to Pellican at Basle, dated October I, 1523, expressing
regret that Hutten should have "expostulated" and that
Erasmus should have "wiped off his aspersions with a
sponge,"
for if this is erasing with a sponge, what is cursing and reviling? . . .
I see how far the man is from the knowledge of Christian things, and
^Zwinglii opera, viii, 114 ff. August 31, 1523.
'Zickendraht, pp. 15 f.
* Published under the title, Indicium D. Martini Lutheri de Erasmo, sine
loco et anno; <r/. Enders, iii, p. 276. L, C, ep. 549. Zickendraht, p. 10.
4 Luther's letter, just quoted, was forwarded by Ambrose Blaurer to his
brother Thomas, begging him to see that it was shown to Erasmus. Thomas,
however, returned the letter, warning Luther to be more careful. Briefwechsel
der Blaurer^ ed. T. Schiess, 1908 ff, i, 52.
34* ERASMUS
therefore would easily suffer him to call me any name he likes, as
long as he does not touch the cause, for I propose to defend that
alone, and not my life or character.1
Erasmus knew these expressions and of course resented
them. He complained bitterly of the "private letters
published in hatred of me by those who fear to rage
against the pope and emperor/'2
On June 20, 1523, Luther wrote to QEcolampadius at
Basle:3
I feel the pricks that Erasmus gives me; yet, as he dissimulates his
hostility and does not call himself my foe, I also pretend that I do
not notice his guile, although I understand it more deeply than he
is aware. He has done what he was called to do; he has introduced
the study of the tongues and called us from those other godless
studies. Perhaps, like Moses, he will die in the land of Moab, for to
come to the promised land of better pursuits is not his lot.
This letter was not published, but was shown by its
recipient to its subject, who spoke of it to Zwingli on
August 3 ist4 and in an epistle to John Faber5 saying
that the Wittenberg Reformer had vehemently execrated
the Sponge and had recently written to (Ecolampadius
that Erasmus was a Moses to be buried in the wilderness.
"This/' he concludes, "is the prelude to war/'
With a heavy heart he at once began the composition
of the Diatribe on the Free Will, though he feared that he
could not publish it unless he should leave Germany.6
As an encouragement, the new pope, Clement VII,
whom he had known personally, sent him a present of
two hundred florins; this he only consented to take on
the express understanding that it was a reward for the
1 Published in a work entitled Indicium Erasmi Alberi de Spongia Erasmi
Roterodami, Enders, iv, p. 233 ; L. C. ep. 600. Erasmus Alber was the author's
real name, though he of Rotterdam suspected that it was a pseudonym to
conceal Busch. Lond. xxx, 36; LB. ep. 684.
2 In his Catalogue of Lucubrations (1524), Allen, i, pp. 28, 32.
8 Enders, iv, 163. L.C. ep. 591.
*Zwinglis Werke> viii, ep. 315.
6 Horawitz: Erasmiana, ii, no. 5 (p. 601) November 21, 1523.
6 To Henry VIII, September 4, 1523, Lond. xx, 35; LB. ep. 657.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 343
Paraphrases.1 Nevertheless, early in 1524, some months
before it was published, he sent manuscript drafts of the
work to Clement2 and to his old patron, Henry VIII.3
News of the attack, received at Rome with joy, created
not a little dismay throughout Germany. Popular opin-
ion was expressed in a short tract entitled, "Dialogue
between a Peasant, Belial, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and
Dr. John Faber, briefly showing the true reason that
induced Erasmus and Faber to deny God's Word/'4 In
this Belial is represented as rejoicing that he has "seduced
not only some small, simple, worthless, apostate, desper-
ate men to deny the truth, but has also so tempted and
moved the master of beautiful Latin, that he neither
sees nor understands what he has formerly said, written,
and published abroad/' Erasmus is then made to chime
in, all complacency because he "has won and obtained
more favor from the pope, cardinals, bishops, and other
princes, than Luther and his fellows have done, who
have got nothing but hatred, odium, and persecution
from the same quarters."
Deep concern took possession of the Reformers when
they heard of the captain marching against them.
Capito had long ago foreseen and deprecated such a
catastrophe,5 while Luther keenly appreciated the harm
1 On January 5, 1524, John Haner wrote Clement from Nuremberg, sug-
gesting that a douceur for Erasmus would be advisable; Clement sent it with
a letter of April 3, 1524, P. Baian: Monumenta Reformations Lutherans,
PP- 3I9> 3H- Erasmus wrote Pirckheimer of it on July 21, 1524; Lond. xxx,
36; LB. ep. 684. His personal acquaintance with Clement is spoken of in a
letter of 1523 to C. Stadion, Bishop of Basle, LB. ep. 661. C/. also letter of
August 26, 1527, Zeitschrift fur historische Theologie, xxix, 1859, p. 595.
2 Ennio Filonardo to Erasmus, Rome, April 14, 15, 1524. Forstemann-
Gunther, epp, 23, 24.
3 Lond. xx, 49; LB, ep. 660, dated 1523; according to the old style, fre-
quently employed by Erasmus, of beginning the year at Easter or on Lady
Day (March 25th), this might mean any time before April, 1524.
4 Gesprachbuchlein von einem Bauern, Belial, Erasmo, und Doctor Johann
FabrL Plugschriften aus den ersten Jahren der Reformation, hg. von 0. Clemen,
Band i, Heft 8, 1906. The date of this pamphlet is given as soon after the
Recess of Nuremberg of April 18, 1524.
6 Baum: Capito und Hutzer, 1860, p. 84, quoting a letter of Capito to
Erasmus dated June 5, 1522.
344 ERASMUS
that the attack would do his cause. In order to intim-
idate an opponent rated as a coward, he at once indited
the following insulting missive:1
Since we see that the Lord has not given you courage and sense
to assail those monsters openly and confidently with us, we are not
the men to exact what is beyond your power and measure. . . .
We only fear that you may be induced by our enemies to fall upon
our doctrine with some publication, in which case we should be
obliged to resist you to your face. . . . Hitherto I have controlled
my pen as often as you prick me, and have written in letters to
friends, which you have seen, that I would control it until you publish
something openly. For although you will not side with us, and
although you injure and make skeptical many pious men by your
impiety and hypocrisy, yet I cannot and do not accuse you of willful
obstinacy. . . . We have fought long enough; we must take
care not to eat each other up. This would be a terrible catastrophe,
as neither of us wishes to harm religion, and without judging each
other both may do good.
Erasmus's answer, dated May 8th,2 asserted that he
was not less zealous for the cause of religion than were
those who arrogated to themselves the name "evangel-
ical/' and that he had as yet written nothing against
Luther, though had he done so he would have won the
applause of the great ones of the world. He showed
Luther's letter to (Ecolampadius in order to secure his
good offices as a peace-maker.3 Melanchthon and Jonas
were also eager to intercede, though the former dreaded
the odium that a personal interview would excite.4 To
Pirckheimer Erasmus confided: "Martin Luther wrote
me kindly, sending the letter by Camerarius. I did not
dare to reply with equal kindness on account of the
sycophants/'5 and again: "Luther wrote me in his own
manner, promising to overlook my weakness if I would
not write expressly against his dogmas. I answered
briefly but, as is my habit, courteously. There is now
1 Enders, iv, 319; L. C. ep. 620. Dateless, to be put about April 15, 1524.
2 Enders, iv, 335; L. C. ep. 624.
8 (Ecolampadius to Luther, May 8, 1524; Enders, iv, 339.
* Stromer to Erasmus, May r, 1524; Enthoven, ep. 25. Erasmus to Pirck-
heimer, June 3 (1524), LB. App. ep. 327. Zickendraht, p. 20.
5 July 21, 1524. Lond. xxx, 36. LB. ep. 684.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 345
present a Baron Hieroslaus, ambassador of the king of
Poland, a sincere friend of mine and very hostile to
Luther, as is his king/'1
Apropos of the visit of this nobleman, Hieroslaus
Laski2 who forever remained his faithful friend and dis-
ciple, Erasmus tells a long story in his Catalogue of
Lucubrations (September, I524).3
I took Laski to my library; he asked if Luther were learned;
I replied in the affirmative. He then asked what I thought of the
Reformer's dogmas, and received the reply that they were beyond
my power to judge, but that he of Wittenberg had certainly taught
much well and attacked abuses strongly. He then asked what books
of Luther I most approved. I replied the Commentaries on the Psalms
and the Tesseradecas,* adding that these were approved even by those
that condemned the rest, "although even in these," I said, "he has
mixed some of his own doctrine." He repeated "his own" and smiled.
This was our first talk on Luther, in which neither he clearly saw
my mind nor I his. When he visited me again, by chance there was
a recent letter of Luther's lying on the table among my papers.
From this he snatched a few words at a glance which showed him
that Luther seemed to think meanly of me. While we were talking
he tried to steal the letter. Pretending not to notice what he had
done, I took it from his hands and replaced it on the table. . . .
Later he confessed he had tried to steal it. I asked him why. He
said that many would persuade his king that Erasmus was in league
with Luther. "I will inform you," said I; "I will give you his
autograph, lest he should pretend that it is a copy, and I will add
two others,6 of which one has recently been printed at Strassburg,
the other I know not where, in which he speaks hatefully of me."
"By these," I said, "you can show the emperor (for he was ambassa-
dor to the emperor) that my relationship with Luther is not so close
as some declare." Then he asked me if I were going to write against
Luther, but I said I had no time. Then he told me that the king
of Poland was so hostile to Luther that he confiscated all the property
of any man in whose house was found a book of Luther. I disapproved
this cruelty and also this searching of people's houses. Departing,
Laski gave me a silver vase, which I would have refused, but he
pressed it on me.
1 June 3 (1524), LB. App. ep. 327.
2 Miaskowski: Die Korrespondenz des Erasmus mit Polen, 1901.
3 Allen, i, 31 ff.
4 Erasmus Latinizes the name "opus de quattuordecim spectris."
5 /. e. those to Borner, May 28, 1522, and to Pellican, October i, 1523.
346 ERASMUS
Shortly after this he published his Diatribe on the Free
Will. The composition of it had been completed on
May ijth,1 as was announced to Luther two days later
by (Ecoiampadius. At first the author thought of keep-
ing it in manuscript, but by July 2 1st,2 he decided to
publish it, as the rumor of his having written it was out
and people might think it worse than it was. "For I
treat the matter with such moderation that I know even
Luther will not be angry." His moderation he intended
to show even in the title, for at that time and in Greek
"diatribe" meant "conversation" or "discussion/' and
not, as it now does in English, "bitter criticism/* or
"invective." Just as the work saw the light he wrote
elsewhere:3
I have never renounced the friendship of anyone either because
he was inclined to Luther or because he was against him. For I am
of such a nature that I could love even a Jew, were he only a pleasant
companion and friend and did not blaspheme Christ in my presence.
Moreover 1 think courtesy more effective in discussion.
Thus conceived, the Discussion of Free Will41 came from
the press of Froben in September, 1524.* The original
intention to dedicate it to Wolsey was given up by the
author as likely to make it seem the work of a toady.
Of all the many books of metaphysical divinity com-
posed during the last four centuries, The Diatribe on the
Free Will is one of the very few still readable on account
of its brevity, its moderation, and its wit. The author's
irony, as well as the force of his destructive criticism, is
nowhere better revealed than in the introductory section
of his pamphlet, not on the main question itself, but on
the principles of judging. Admitting the Bible as the
1 Enders, iv, 343.
2 To Pirckheimer, Lend, xxx, 36; LB. ep. 684.
8 Catalogue of Lucubrations, Allen, i, 17.
4 Text LB. ix, 1215 ff. Best edition: De Lilero Afbitrio Atarptffi swe
Cottatio per D. Erasmum Roterodamumj hg. von J. von Walter, 1910. On the
date of publication, Bibliotheca Erasmiana, i» 20; Walter, Einleitung, xii ff.
6 To Clement VII, February 13, 1524; Lend, xix, I; LB. ep. 670. To
Giberti, September 2, LoncL xxi, 5; LB, ep, 694.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 347
standard authority, he shows that many things in the
Bible are hard to understand, and none harder than
the very question at issue. The strong penchant of the
theologian to read his own ideas into the Scripture is
seldom expressed with finer psychological insight than
in the observation: "Whatever men read in the Bible
they distort into an assertion of their own opinion, just
as lovers incessantly imagine that they see the object
of their love wherever they turn." The solution of the
enigma of free choice may be left by Providence to the
Last Judgment, but in any case man's duty is plain,
"If we be in the way of piety, let us hasten on to better
things; if involved in sin, let us find the remedy of
repentance/ * Even if we have arrived at the true view,
it may be inexpedient to proclaim it; who, for example,
would longer strive to do good if he knew that he had
really no option in the matter? Moreover, salvation is
not prejudiced by ignorance in these obscure matters;
how much rather has piety been damaged by the strife
over useless questions, such as that of the immaculate
conception! These battles must remain largely unde-
cided, for there is no umpire. While both sides appeal
to Scripture and to "solid reasons/' no one can tell
surely what Scripture means. If the sense is as clear
as some people say, why have so many people differed
in interpreting it? If they appeal to the guidance of the
Spirit, what proof do they offer that they are under
infallible inspiration? If you appeal to miracles, they
talk as if there had been no Christianity for thirteen
hundred years. If you ask for a good life, they claim
to be justified by faith, not by works.
Having thus set forth the difficulties in the way of
arriving at the demonstration of absolute truth, the
author grapples with the main problem. Various shades
of determinist opinion are set forth: it is hard to say — as
does Carlstadt — that the will has power only to sin; it
is much harder— with Luther, Wyclif, and a few Man-
ichaeans— to deny the existence of free will altogether.
348 ERASMUS
Nevertheless, people may differ without heresy on this
point or on that, and as Luther, particularly, differs
from almost everyone, he cannot object if Erasmus dif-
fers now and then from him. Possibly his^ words in
this matter are hyperbolic; he may overstate his opinion,
as he apparently does when, in order to guard against
the abuse of hagiolatry, he denies that the good deeds
of the saints have any merit whatever. Such paradoxes
may be pardonable as a means of arousing attention, but
they cannot be taken seriously as articles of faith.
Free will, defined as the power to apply oneself to the
things that make for salvation, is proved by two argu-
ments: first, that without it repentance would be sense-
less and punishment for sin unjust, and, secondly, by
adducing the biblical texts that declare, or imply, man's
freedom to choose, and his responsibility to a God
desirous rather of his conversion than of his death.
Other passages of Scripture, the author frankly admits,
seem to militate the other way, as do the texts referring
to the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the story of Jacob
and Esau, Romans ix, and John xv: 5. These sayings
can, however, be explained away better than the others,
and perhaps only indicate that God's grace has much
to do with man's choice, even though it is not the only
factor involved. In short, sums up the writer, "the
opinion of those who attribute much to grace but some-
thing to free will pleases me best." God helps the man
as a father supports the first steps of a young child;
only, God does not do it alL
Erasmus lost no time in sending his book to powerful
patrons. With the copy for Duke George of Saxony he
sent a letter saying that he had not written against
Luther before because he had hitherto regarded him as
a necessary evil, a drastic antidote to the corruptions of
the time.1 The duke replied at once,2 praising the
1 F. Gess: Akten und Brief e zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs yon Sachs ffn,
1905, i, ep. 723, with correct date September 6, 1524; in LB. ep. 695 with date
September 4. L. C. ep. 634.
2 Gess, ep. 742, written from Leipzig between October 3 and October 8, 1524.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 349
Diatribe and sending Luther's Monastic Fows, with a
request for a refutation of that. Erasmus read the book,
which he thought very garrulous, but did not reply to
it. Probably at Duke George's suggestion his protege
Cochlaeus translated the Erasmian pamphlet into Ger-
man. This the author disapproved, alleging the short-
comings of the version, but probably also because he
did not care to argue his case before the unlearned public.
In several letters to Cochlaeus he blames the passionate,
personal tone of his polemic and his carelessness in state-
ments of facts.1
To his English patrons, Henry VIII, Wolsey, and
Cuthbert Tunstall, he also sent copies.2 Vives wrote
him shortly afterward that he had found the king reading
it with much evident delight.3
Pope Clement also received a printed copy, with a
letter protesting against Aleander's hostile actions.4 He
gave the messenger ten ducats,6 but, having already
rewarded the author, apparently sent nothing more at
this time.
Like most controversial tracts on burning issues, the
Diatribe was hailed by the partisans of the side it
defended as a masterpiece, whereas its enemies found
it an utter failure. Ulrich Zasius reported a highly
favorable opinion of it,6 and his own oration against
Luther at the University of Freiburg was probably much
influenced by it.7 Influenced by him, the University of
Freiburg condemned Luther in a memorial dated Octo-
1 M. Spahn: /. Cochlceus, 1898, pp. 124, 140.
f Lond. xviii, 48, 51, 52. LB. epp. 606, 697, 702. September 4 and 6.
8 LB. ep. 780, November 13, 1524 (not 1525). Also found in Auetarium
Epistolaruin Vivis, an appendix to Lond., ep. 13, and in 7ms Opera, vii, 180.
4 To John Matthew Giberti, Datary, September 2, 1524. Lond. xxi, 5; LB.
cp, 694. Another letter to Giberti, dated October 13, in P. Balan: Monu-
wenta Reformationis Lutheran®, 1884, p. 380.
8 L. Pastor: History of the Popes, English translation, ed. by Kerr, x, 337.
The entry in the papal account-book is dated October 24, 1524.
8 U. Zasii epistola:, ed. Riegger, p, 71. To Boniface Amerbach, September
Ibid, p. 78
350 ERASMUS
her 12, I524-1 Calcagnini wrote from Ferrara On the
Free Motion of the Soul, praising the work of Erasmus
and blaming the author for his long delay in writing it.2
The Reformers, however, with the exception of Me«
lanchthon, disliked the Erasmian pamphlet, Melanch-
thon wrote that it had been received at Wittenberg with
equanimity, for it would be tyranny to forbid difference
of opinion on such subjects, and that even Luther did
not object to the caustic wit, because he believed the
discussion would be profitable to many.3
If we inquire of Doctor Martin himself what was his
opinion of the Diatribe* we shall find it hardly as favor-
able as reported by his friend. He once said that of all
the books written against him by the papists this was
the only one he had read through, and that even this he
often felt, while he read it, like throwing under the bench.4
On November I, 1524, he wrote that he was so disgusted
with it that he could hardly get beyond the first thirty
pages, and that he was ashamed to answer so unlearned
a book of so learned a man.5 His resolve6 to answer,
however, lest his followers be led astray, was strength-
ened by the appeals of Capito and the other Strassburg
preachers, who compared Erasmus to the Scyrian she-
goat of his own proverb;7 this animal had kicked the man
whom she had fed with her milk and thus wiped out
by this nasty sequel the memory of her previous
kindness.
He was unable to reply at once, however, on account
of his preoccupations with the Peasants' Revolt, with a
1The theological matter in this was largely taken, however, from the bull
Exsurgt Domine and from the censure of the University of Paris. See
E. Krek in Zeitschrift dcr Gesellschaft fur Beforderer der Gesckichtskunde von
Freiburg, xxxvi, 58-67, 1921.
2 C. Calcagnini Opera Aliquot, 1544, pp. 395 f. Dedication to Bonaventura
Pistophilus, January 3, 1525.
3 September 30, 1524, Lond. xix, 2. LB. ep. 704, L. C. ep. 637.
4 Tischreden, Weimars vi, no. 6850, apparently of late date,
fi Enders, v, 46.
6 Enders v, 52. L. C. ep. 645.
7 Enders, v, 66 f.
CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 351
controversy over the sacrament with Carlstadt? and with
other things, until late in I525.1 He was finally brought
to it, if he does not jest in saying so, by the requests of
his newly married wife and of Camerarius.2 In Septem-
ber he began seriously to work on his reply,3 which was
finished by the end of the year.4
Erasmus was surprised at the long delay in receiving
his answer, and attributed it to Luther's marriage, over
which he made merry. "Troubles in comedies," said
he5 "are wont to end in a wedding, with peace to all/'
The marriage he thought timely, for he heard that
Luther's wife had borne him a son ten days after it.
Therefore said he, Luther begins to be milder now, for
the fiercest beasts are tamed by their females. He later
confessed the rumor about the child false6 and added
that he was skeptical of the old legend that the antichrist
would be bom of a monk and a nun, or else there would
have been many antichrists already.
The Bondage of the Will? is, much more than was
The Free Willy a polemic with a distinct purpose. There
is another difference in the apparently greater earnest-
ness of the reformer; what to the Wittenberg professor
is a matter of life and death had been to the humanist
the subject of an interesting conversation. It is in this
sense that he attributes eloquence and skill in words
to Erasmus, but real knowledge of the point at issue to
himself.
If Erasmus's moderation, which he attributed to doubt,
rather increased than assuaged his anger, the assertion
1 Enders, v, 100, 105, 125.
* Kroker: Luthers Tischredcn in den Matkfsischen Sammlung. 1903, np. 212.
3 Enders v, 245, 257, 249. L. C. ep. 704.
4 Enders v, 294. L, C. ep. 722.
* To N. Everard, Chief Justice of Holland. December 24, IS2S- LB. ep.
781. Luther's marriage took place June I3th. Erasmus speaks of the news
again in a letter to Lupset (Lond, xviii, n; L. B. ep. 790) saying that Luther
has married a wonderfully charming poor girl of a family of Borna. Katie
von Bora was not at all pretty,
6 To Silvius, March 13, 1526. Lond. xviii, 22. LB, ep. 801.
7 Luthers Wtrke, Weimar, xviii, 551 if, De servo arbitrio.
352 ERASMUS
that many texts in the Bible are contradictory made him
perfectly furious. To him the Scripture, as the inspired
and sufficient rule of faith and practice, was a single unit;
each text must be taken literally and yet all must be
made to agree, for infallible wisdom could not contra-
dict itself, To the expressed doubt about the necessity
and importance of deciding such dogmatic questions he
answered with a counter-assertion of their supreme sig-
nificance; to the charge that uproar followed the proc-
lamation of untimely truths he replied that this is one
of the very signs of the preaching of the Word.
After this lengthy introduction Luther expounded his
argument for determinism, based not, as that of a modern
thinker might be, on any conviction of the reign of unal-
terable law, but solely on the ground of the all-sufficiency
(monergism) of God's grace and the impotence of the
natural man to choose the good. Following Augustine
in the assertion that God inclines men's hearts either to
good or to evil according to their foreseen merits,1 and
that God even wills them to sin in order to punish them,2
Luther proclaimed in the strongest terms the total impo
tency of the natural man:
The human will is like a beast of burden.3 If God mounts it, it
wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes
as Satan wills. Nor can it choose its rider, nor betake itself to him
it would prefer, but it is the riders who contend for its possession.4
. . . This is the acme of faith, to believe that God, who saves so
few and condemns so many, is merciful; that he is just who has
made us necessarily doomed to damnation, so that, as Erasmus
says, he seems to delight in the tortures of the wretched, and to be
1 Augustine: Dt gratia et libero arbitriot cap. 20
2 Augustine: Contra Julianum, lib, 5, cap. 3, §§ 10-13.
8 This simile of God as the rider of the will comes from Augustine or pseudo-
Augustine, Libri III ffypomnesticum contra Pelagium. It was cited as Augus-
tine's by Ect in the Leipzig Debate, O. Seitz; Der authentische Text dsr Leip*
ziger Disputation, p. 28. Whether the work was really by Augustine has been
doubted. Cf. A. V. Miiller: Lutkers theologische Quellen, 1912, p. 207, The
simile is also found in Raymund de Sabunde, tit. 246-248. Cf, Zeitschrift fur
Kirchengeschichte, xxxv, 135 f.
4 This idea of the contest of the good and evil spirits reminds one of Erasmus's
saying that the Manichaeans had rejected the free will.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 353
more deserving of hatred than of love. If by any effort of reason
I could conceive how God, who shows so much anger and iniquity,
could be merciful and just, there would be no need of faith. . . .
God foreknows nothing subject to contingencies,1 but he foresees,
foreordains, and accomplishes all things by an unchanging, eternal,
and efficacious will. By this thunderbolt free will sinks shattered in
the dust.
The argument, of course, is based chiefly on biblical
texts, especially such as that about God hardening
Pharaoh's heart, the saying that God loved Jacob and
hated Esau, and the case of Judas, whose sin, being fore-
seen, was bound to take place. In order to reconcile the
idea of an inexorable Almighty God, predisposing all
things, even sin, with the idea of a God of love as re-
vealed in Jesus, Luther distinguished two divine wills,
one hidden and one revealed. This was his theodicy.
Luther's tract, though not the only answer to Erasmus,
threw all others into the shade. Francis Lambert, the
French Reformer, had already written a book on The
Captive Willy directed against the humanist, though
not naming him.2 Bugenhagen prepared a reply, but
suppressed it because "he wished Erasmus well, saving
God's truth," and because his greater friend had already
taken up the cudgels.3 Capito, too, designed an answer
to the man whom he now thought of as doing all he
could to destroy faith, but he also retired from the field
because of discouragement from Luther.4
The Bondage of the Will, first printed in December,
1525, had a wide sale, seven Latin and two German
editions being called for within a year.6 The author
1 This against Valla, who said that, though a man's will was free, his volun-
tary act was foreknown. E. Maier: Die Willensfreiheit lei L Fdla^ 1911.
Luther's words would also apply to Aquinas, but he apparently knew little of
this author.
2 Herminjard: Correspondence des ReformaUurs des Pays de la langue
Fran$aise, 9 vols., 1866-97, i, 348.
8 0. Vogt: Bugenhagtns Eriefwecksel, 1888, p. 21.
* Capito to Bugenhagen, October 8, 1525, ibid, p. 35.
*Luthers Wsrke, Weimar, xviii, 551 IF; introduction to the De Servo Ar-
bitrio. Only four Latin editions and two German are given in the BibUothcca
Erasmiana, iii, 37. Erasmus once spoke often editions before the end of 1526.
354 ERASMUS
himself was much pleased with it, remarking at one time
that he would be content to have all his books perish
save the Catechisms and the Bondage of the Will. His
friend, Justus Jonas, a quondam Erasmian, now con-
vinced that, though his former master was still "a
valuable, high-minded man, yet his book on the
Free Will was offensive and contrary to the Gospel,"1
hastened to translate Luther's work into German.
Like all other controversial pamphlets, it was judged
mainly from the partisan standpoint, though here and
there it carried conviction even into hostile minds. The
humanist of Munster, James Montanus, a friend of the
Rotterdamer, opined that Erasmus in the Diatribe had
misunderstood Luther and that he could not possibly
refute his answer.2 Considering that The Bondage of the
Will was the chief fountain and source of Calvin's
tremendous doctrine of predestination and election, it
is not too much to reckon it as one of the most important
of sixteenth-century works.
Luther sent his treatise to his opponent with a letter,8
now lost, expressing arrogant confidence in his own
opinion. Erasmus, stung to the quick, replied as follows :4
Your letter was delivered to me late and had it come on time it
would not have moved me. . . . The whole world knows your
nature, according to which you have guided your pen against no one
more bitterly and, what is more detestable, more maliciously than
against me. . . . The same admirable ferocity which you formerly
used against Cochlaeus and against Fisher, who provoked you to it
by reviling, you now use against my book in spite of its courtesy.
How do your scurrilous charges that I am an atheist, an Epicurean,
and a skeptic help the argument? ... It terribly pains rne, as.it
must all good men, that your arrogant, insolent, rebellious nature
has set the world in arms. . . . You treat the Evangelic cause
1 On this op. city and Jonas's letter to Albert Count of Mansfeld in Kawerau:
Briefwechsel des Justus Jonas y i, ep. 93,
2 Montanus to Pirckheimer, January 9, 1525, and April 23, 1526. Zeitschrift
JUT vaUrldndische [Westfalens] Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Munster, 1914,
Band Ixxii, pp. 27, 35 f.
8 On it cf. Erasmus to Wolsey, April 25, 1526. LB. ep» 810. Lond. xxi, 33.
4 Enders v. 334; Lond. xxi, 28; LB. ep. 806. L. C, ep. 729.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 355
so as to confound together all things sacred and profane as if it were
your chief aim to prevent the tempest from ever becoming calm,
while it is my greatest desire that it should die down. ... I should
wish you a better disposition were you not so marvelously satisfied
with the one you have. Wish me any curse you will except your
temper, unless the Lord change it for you.
Bitter complaints about Luther's acerbity, and about
the unfairness of having a German version which would
excite the vulgar artisans and to which he could not
reply, overflow the humanist's correspondence at this
time.1 On March 2d he even wrote the Elector John of
Saxony, demanding the protection of the laws against
Luther's accusations of atheism.2 The elector at once
forwarded3 the missive to Luther for advice, which he
received to the effect that "his Grace should not let
himself mix in the affair, as the viper asks, but should
reply, according as he himself well knows, that his
Grace neither can nor should be a judge in spiritual
affairs."4
Erasmus believed that the book had been composed
by the combined efforts of "the church of Wittenberg" —
he had Melanchthon especially in mind — and that it
had been sent him late by the author on purpose so that
he could not answer it before the great Frankfort book
fair.6 However, having been early supplied with a copy
by a friend in Leipzig6 — probably Duke George — he set
about with tremendous energy to frustrate this plan,
completing his answer in twelve days, and engaging
Froben to work six presses at once, turning out twenty-
1 To Gattinara, April 29, 1526. Zeitschrift fur historiscke Theologic, xxix,
1859^ p. 693.
2 Unpublished letter in the Weimar archives, of which extracts are given in
Enders, v, 342. The German copy of the letter is dated March I3th.
8 Enders, v, 340.
4 De Wette: Luthers Brief e, 1825 ff, iii, 105; Enders, v. 344.
*To Michael, Bishop of Langres, March 13, 1526. Lond. xviii, 24; LB.
cp. 800.
* Cf, letter of George to Erasmus, February 13, 1526. Gess: Akten und
Brief e, ep. 39, and Erasmus to Emser, Lond. xviii, 28 (with wrong date 1527 for
15*6).
356 ERASMUS
four pages a day. Consequently, the first part of the
Hyperaspistes1 appeared about March, 1526. It is a full
defense of the Diatribe, being three times larger than
that work. In it, however, the question of the will
recedes in importance behind the larger subject of the
excellence of the Evangelical doctrine. Erasmus cannot
persuade himself of the beneficial effect of the Reforma-
tion, Luther's person being the chief cause. He blames
his opponent with having caused the peasant's revolt
and with his cruel book against the peasants. He
reproaches the reform also with the lack of unity among
the leaders, especially with the quarrel between Luther
and Carlstadt. He promises to answer The Bondage of
the Will more fully later, and warmly defends himself
from the charges of skepticism.
This work also enjoyed much popularity, being
reprinted at least four times in 1526 and translated into
German by Jerome Emser, the protege of Duke George.2
This nobleman was much pleased with the work as he
wrote its author on April i6th.3 His councilor, Pistorius,4
also wrote on April igth urging him to continue with his
good work and, in order to help him, had some of the
Reformer's German books translated into Latin, so that
Erasmus might refute all the errors contained in them.
The emperor also wrote on November 9, 1526, from
Granada, congratulating Erasmus on becoming at last
ex professo an enemy of Luther and exhorting him to
continue.5 A second letter of a year later, again expressed
the monarch's pleasure that Erasmus had dissociated
himself from Luther's madness, and exonerated Erasmus
from all error save a few human slips.6
^B., x, 1249. Preface dated February 20, 1526.
2 Emser had published Erasmus's Rythmi in laudem Anna Avies Jesu in
1515. See J. Tr uhlan Catalogus manuscriptorum in Bibliotheca Universitatis
Pragensis, 1906, no. 2771. Cf. BiUiotkeca Erasmiana, 109-110, and Eraser's
tracts published in Corpus Catholicorum, i, 4, p. 54 (1921).
3 Horawitz, Erasmiana, I, ep. 10. Gess, ii, 527.
4LB. App. ep. 336.
5 Brewer: Letters and Papers of Henry VIlly iv, No. 604.
6 December 13, 1527. LB. ep. 1915.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 357
Yet it was with a heavy heart that he continued his
work. On June 6, 1526, he wrote Pirckheimer that,
although Luther left no place for friendship, he seemed
to restrain his wrath, and that in writing against him he
knew that he aided some who would rather see Erasmus
dead than the Reformer himself.1
That, indeed, he decided to publish the second half of
the Hyperaspistes was perhaps due to the importunity of
his English friends2 and to a renewal of the quarrel
between Luther and Henry VIII. The Reformer had
had the poor judgment to write a humble letter to his
royal enemy, offering to make public apology for his
former polemic.3 After a long delay the king answered
with a fiercer missive than before,4 accusing him of all his
old errors and of a variety of crimes, including the
incitement to the peasants' war and living in wantonness
with a nun. This letter was edited and translated by
Emser, who sent a copy of it to Erasmus December 25,
1526, begging him to publish the rest of his Hyperaspistes
and saying that by not doing so he made himself
suspected.5
Under these combined stimuli Erasmus finally decided
to bring out a comprehensive work against the Reforma-
tion, studying a number of the Wittenberg professor's
books with care. The Hyperaspistes II is six times as
large as the Diatribe, being not only a careful refutation
of The Bondage of the Will but an attack all along the
line. A lengthy excursus is devoted to the quarrel with
Henry VIII, Luther's reply to the letter last mentioned
having given special offense. Erasmus definitely breaks
with the reform at last and predicts that no name will
be more hated by posterity than will Luther's. He finds
1 Lond. xxx» 44. LB. ep. 823.
2 More wrote him from Greenwich, December 18, 1526, urging him to do so.
LB. App. ep. 334.
8 September i, 1525. Enders, v. 229. L. C. ep. 700.
4 Epistola Martini LutherL . . . Rssponsio dicti regis. Dresden. 1527.
L. C. ep. 737.
6 Forstemann und Giinther, ep. 56.
3S8 ERASMUS
fault especially with the absolutism of the professor*
"who never recoils from extremes/5 For himself he is a
humanist, who believes that reason reveals truth as well
as Scripture, and who "like nature, abhors portents."
Indeed, it has been said,1 with no more exaggeration
than is pardonable in any brief generalization, that the
controversy was fundamentally not so much on the
subject of the will as on the claims of revealed versus
natural religion. Luther feared that the absolute claim
of Christianity would be compromised. In short this
work reveals better than any other the fundamental
difference in the ^Oog of the two men.
When the Hyperaspistes Part II appeared about Sep-
tember i, 1527, Erasmus sent a copy at once to the em-
peror,2 with a request for protection against the now
enraged Lutherans, and to Duke George with a letter
protesting that nothing had ever been so tediou* to him
as reading Luther's works.3 The nobleman, while pleased
at Erasmus's efforts to overturn Luther, could not
wholly rid himself of the idea that, after all, the two
champions were much of a sort, and that Erasmus was
still in doubt about Luther's spirit.4 To Maldonato
Erasmus sent what was perhaps the most perfect state-
ment of his position:5
While I was fighting against these monsters [the enemies of learning]
a fairly equal battle, lo! suddenly Luther arose and threw the apple
of discord into the world. ... I brought it about that humanism,
which among the Italians and especially among the Romans savored
of nothing but pure paganism, began nobly to celebrate Christ, in
whom, if we are true Christians, we ought to boast as the one author
of both wisdom and happiness. ... I always avoided the
1 R. Will; La Liberte Chretienne chez Luther, 1922, p. 32 ff.
* Lond. xx, 5; LB. ep. 895.
8 Lond. xix, 47; LB. ep. 889. Cf. his letter to Vergara complaining that
he had almost died of reading the taunts, grimaces, insults, boasts, jeers, and
cries of triumph in Luther's books. Lond. xx, 14; LB. ep. 893.
4 J. Caesarius to J. Lang, Leipzig, October n, 1527. K. und W. Krafft:
Brief e und Dokumente aus der Zeit der Reformation) 1875, p. 154. See George
to Erasmus, January I, 1527. F. Gess: AkUn und JBriefe, ii, no. 681.
8 March 30, 1527. Revue Hispanique, xvii, 1907, pp. 629 f.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 359
character of a dogmatist, except in certain obiter dicta which seemed
to me likely to correct studies and the preposterous judgments of
men. The world was put into a deeper slumber by ceremonies than
it could have been by mandrake; monks, or rather, pseudo-monks,
reigned in the consciences of men, for they had bound them on
purpose in inextricable knots.
Luther never deigned to answer the Hyperaspistes —
though in his private letters he punned on the name as
if it meant "super-viperine"1 — for he thought that a
reply would do too much honor to one "who should be
condemned rather than refuted, as he mocked all
religion like his dear Lucian."2 The other reformers,
even Meianchthon,3 resented the attack. Jonas now
called his once loved master "an old fox/'4 and another
member of the group, Mark Forster, published a Judg-
ment of the recently published Books on the Will vainly
called Free and truly called Bound, giving the palm of
victory to the Wittenberger.5
Erasmus's private letters, those never published by
himself, prove that he kept au courant with Luther's
doings and writings. At one time he asked to see the
tract On the Turkish Warf at another time to have pro-
cured the pamphlet On the Keys of the Church, if in Latin.7
His friend and the Reformer's bitterest enemy, Duke
George of Albertine Saxony, continued to supply him
with literature and to do his best to spur him to new
efforts in defense of the faith. The Wittenberg professor
wrote to the duke on December 21, I525,8 hoping to
make him a convert, but received a tart reply bidding
1 Enders, vi, 103, 105, no. L. C. epp. 728, 777.
2 To Montanus, May 28, 1529; Enders vii, 105; L. C. ep. 834.
3 To Luther, October 2, 1527. Enders vi, 97; L. C, ep. 730.
4 Jonas to Lang, October 17, 1527, Kawerau: Briefwschsel des Justus Jonas ^
ep. 107. ^
5 De Libellis vane Liberi et vere Servi Arbitrii nuper azditis Judicium Marci
Furstkeri, Dated Wittenberg, March 17, 1526. Reprinted in Theologische
Studien und Kritikeny 1911, pp. 136 ff.
6 Epistoltz ad Amerbachium, no. 29, no date. The Turkish War was written
in 1529.
7 Ibid* no. 2. The Keys was written in 1530.
8 Enders v, 281; Gess 11,459; L. C. ep. 720.
360 ERASMUS
him keep his gospel to himself.1 When this correspond-
ence was forwarded to Erasmus, he read the duke's
letter with pleasure, but even then replied to him, much
to his disgust, that it was difficult to regard Luther's
spirit as either a wholly good or a wholly evil one.2 The
course of events, however, turned him ever more strongly
against the Protestants, and when Luther wrote a violent
pamphlet entitled Of Secret and Stolen Letters, accusing
Duke George of robbing the mails, Erasmus confessed
that the impudence and scurrility of the invective had
alienated him more from the author than a hundred
books by his enemies would have done,3 and he even
sent a protest to Melanchthon.4 At another time he
entered a vain protest to the Elector John against his
subject's treatment of priests and monks;5 and he also
narrowly escaped becoming involved in the war of pens
which arose over the spurious treaty forged by Dr. Otto
von Pack.6
It is fairly astonishing, after all that Erasmus had
done to clear his skirts of the Reformation, that he
should still have been appealed to from time to time as
an umpire or a peacemaker. While the extremists of
both parties reviled him, moderate Catholic and Prot-
estant alike turned to him for final judgment; he was
treated alternately as an outlaw and as the arbiter of
Christendom. So, when the great Diet of Augsburg was
opened by the emperor in 1530, with the express pur-
pose— though the hope proved fallacious — of reconciling
the contending parties, Erasmus was plied with letters
from both sides, urging him to use his influence in favor
1 Enders v, 285; Gess ii, 472 (with many corrections); L. C, ep. 721.
2 Lond. xviii, 6; LB. ep, 991. With wrong date September 2, 1527, for 1526.
Cf. Horawitz: Erasmiana (Sitmnberichte der Wiener Akademie, xc), p. 412.
* Erasmus to Duke George, June 30, 1530. Lond. xxv, 29; LB. ep. 1113.
On the controversy between Luther and Duke George, see P. Smith: Life and
Letters of Martin Luther, p. 225.
4 Corpus Reformatorum, ii, 288.
5 Erasmus to Maldonato, March 30, 1527. Revue Hispanique, xvii, 1907,
P- 538.
6 Forstemann-Giinther, ep. 83. On this affair, Smith, Life of Luther, 224 £
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 361
of compromise.1 Himself hoping that the Diet would
extirpate heresy while avoiding war,2 he wrote to influ-
ential friends urging a peaceful course and approving
certain reforms, such as the eucharist administered in
both kinds, the marriage of priests, and the regulation
or abolition of private masses. It was even reported
that he had written to the emperor that the matter was
too great to be hastily dispatched, and that reforms
should begin at home.3
The rumor that he was actually invited by the em-
peror to make peace4 was, however, unfounded, but the
protagonists of both parties appealed to him. Luther,
as an outlaw, did not appear at Augsburg, and the
leadership of the Protestants therefore fell upon Melanch-
thon, who had always cultivated friendly relations with
Erasmus. He wrote to him more than once, complain-
ing of the ferocity of Eck, the Catholic leader, speaking
of the moderation of the princes and praying him to use
his influence for peace.5 Erasmus replied that no one
but God could compose this tragedy, even if ten coun-
cils met, that he had never written to the emperor, nor
been summoned by him, but that he had written to
Campeggio, to the Bishop of Augsburg, and to other
friends in the sense Melanchthon wished* He added, in
two letters, that Melanchthon would most profit the
cause by prevailing with Luther to forgo his obstinate
reviling and provocation of the princes.6
1 Choler to Erasmus, February 3, 1530, Enthoven, no. 80; Susquetus to
Erasmus, August 31, 1530, ibid, no. 87. John von Vlatten, secretary of the
Duke of Cleves, to Erasmus, Forstemann-Gtinther, no. 130. Pistorius to
Erasmus, June 27, 1530, ibid, no. 128.
2Lond. xxv, 29; LB. ep. 1113. June 30, 1530.
8 Justus Jonas to Luther, Augsburg, July 28, 1530. Enders, xvii, 265.
4 Enthoven no. 87. Also Melanchthon to Luther, Enders viii, 63. The
falsity of the rumor is proved by Erasmus's letters to Melanchthon, Con Ref.
ii, 288 and 244; Melanchthon to Erasmus, ii, 232.
6 Melanchthon to Erasmus, August I, 1530. Mdanchthonis Epistolce
Lond., 1642, i, 114. LB. 1125.
6 LB. epp. 117 and 1126. Corpus Ref. ii, 288. Erasmus to Melanchthon,
July 7, August 2, and August 18, 1530. Luther was kept informed of the less
offensive parts of Erasmus's letters. Enders viii, 202.
36z ERASMUS
Eck also, notwithstanding an order from the Bishop
of Vienna to keep quiet,1 was after Erasmus, plying him
not to use his influence for peace, but to hunt out the
foxes from the vineyard of the Lord. For his part, he
said, he tried rather to displease than to please the
heretics; he had found 3,000 errors in Luther's books,
of which he had selected 400 to publish at the Diet.2
Eck's uncompromising spirit was still further revealed
by a letter from John Henckel, confessor to Queen
Maria of Hungary, the emperor's sister, speaking of a
conference with Eck in which that theologian had vio-
lently blamed him for having seen Melanchthon, not-
withstanding which he had since interviewed Bucer and
Capito.3 Erasmus hardly thought it worth while to
remonstrate with so belligerent a person, but did write
an earnest plea for peace to Cardinal Campeggio.4
Besides the miseries which follow war, and with which
the world has so long been plagued, he urged that its
issue would be extremely doubtful; that not only would
the emperor be in danger, but that the Church herself
would suffer, as the people would be persuaded that the
pope was responsible. Much as he detests the sec-
taries, he thinks the peace of the world should be pre-
ferred even to giving them their desserts. Nor should
the Church be despaired of, for her condition was no
worse than it had been under Arcadius and Theodosius.
The attempts to arrive at a solid agreement were
fruitless. The Protestants were allowed to read their
Confession on June 25th, but a refutation of this was
forthcoming, and the Catholic majority voted that they
must recant before the ijth of the following April, or
they would be proceeded against as schismatics.5
The part played by Erasmus in the popular imagina-
1 John Faber to Erasmus, June 21, 1531. Enthoven, no. 92.
2 Eck to Erasmus, September 18, 1530. Lond. xxx, 80. LB. 1141.
8 October i, 1530. Forstemann-Giinther, no. 137.
4 August 18, 1530. LB. ep. 1129.
6 Erasmus speaks of this in a letter to Antony Dalbonius, Abbot at Lyons.
November 27, 1530. Lond. xxv, 41. LB. 1147,
CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 363
tion was well depicted by a comedy enacted at Augsburg
representing the progress of the Reformation.1 A person-
age dressed as a doctor (Reuchlin) came in with a
bundle of fagots, which he threw on the ground.
Erasmus then entered, tried to pick them up, but, not
succeeding, arranged them in the form of a pyre and
then fled. Enter Luther, who set fire to the wood. Then
a personage in the imperial insignia tried to put the fire
out by beating it with his sword, but. only made it burn
the brighter. Then the pope arrived with two buckets,
one of oil and one of water, and poured the first on the
flame, which naturally made it assume enormous pro-
portions. After three representations of this farce the
authorities thought it time to intervene, but the actors
had time to flee before they were discovered.
Even after the close of the Diet of Augsburg several
appeals were made to Erasmus to act as arbitrator. One
of these came from Julius Pflug, one of the most admi-
rable of the Catholic divines, who wrote from Leipzig,
May 12, 153 I,2 saying that if Erasmus would intercede
with Melanchthon, or with some other good man, he
thought that on the Catholic side some concessions might
be made, for the sake of expediency, even of things
undesirable in themselves. Erasmus replied that he was
sick and tired of mediating, feeling like the man who in
trying to separate two gladiators met his death.3 He
had formerly interceded with the emperor, with Gat-
tinara, and with Adrian, but all in vain. As for
Melanchthon, he was liked even by his opponents and
did his best for conciliation at Augsburg.
A year later an urgent appeal came from George
Wicel, an enthusiastic young Catholic with reforming
tendencies.4 He addressed Erasmus in terms of the
highest praise,5 as the man who understood religion the
1 Meyer, 144, note 3.
2 Lond. xxvii, I LB. 1186,
3 August 20, 1531. Lond. xxvii, 2. LB. 1195.
4 On him see G. Kawerau in Jlealencyklopadu.
8 His letter, Frankfort, September 8, 1532. Forstemann-Gtinther, no. 178.
364 ERASMUS
best and who watched over it most carefully, who spent
most for it and who was able to help it the most. A
picture of the evils of the sects was followed by an
exhortation to work for the Church: "Stimulate the
princes to consider the matter. . . . Counsel, propose
methods, pray, conjure, and sweat that the Church be
given back to Christ/5
Wicel followed up this letter by another, dated March
30, 1533, expressing his desire for a general council, his
trust that Charles V would moderate the Curia, and his
belief that Luther's ferocity was moderating: "We hope
that you, Erasmus, will be our Solon, by whose arbitra-
ment each party would give up something for the sake
of avoiding strife/'1
In pursuance of these appeals, particularly • as he
judged that by this time the sects were growing milder,2
Erasmus wrote, in 1533? his Book on Mending the Peace
of the Church and on Quieting Dissent,* dedicating it to
Julius Pflug; he recommended tolerance in trifles, the
prohibition of books likely to disturb public order, and
the summons of a general council backed by the civil
power. The best way to still schism, he urged, was for
everyone to lead a good life. Harking back to his con-
tention with Luther, he pleaded that such thorny ques-
tions as that of free will should be left to academic
discussion. In reference to recent and violent icono-
clastic outbreaks, while deprecating idolatry he set forth
the view that images should be allowed as "silent
poetry/'
This harmless essay evoked an immediate storm of
wrath from the Reformers and the eventual condemna-
tion of the Catholics.4 Luther's attack took the form
1 Best printed in the Zeitschrift des Bsrgischen Geschichtsvereins, xxx (1894),
p. 207. Also in LB. col. 1755.
2 Erasmus to Tomicki, September 2, 1532. Miaskowski, Erasmiana, no,
27, p. 3 20.
3 LB. v, 470 ff. Preface also Lond, xxix, 37, July 31, 1533.
4E. Gossart: Un lime d*£rasme reprouve par Is University de Louvain.
(Liber de sarcienda ecclesia concordia, 1558). 1902.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 365
of an open letter to Amsdorf1 and a preface to a lengthy
refutation by Corvinus.2 In the former he reviewed
Erasmus's Catechism, his Method of Theology, his Para-
phrases, and other works, and asserted that all of them
suggest doubts to the reader, as "Why is Christ not
called God but Lord in the Bible?" and, "Why is the
Spirit not called God but Holy (or saint, sanctus) "> thus
proving that the writer of such words is an Arian and a
skeptic. The preface to Corvinus's pamphlet remarked
on the too great gentleness of this author, and showed
that, while agreement of faith is one thing and charity
another, Erasmus wanted the former, though Luther
could consent only to the latter. Debate and mutual
concession were vain when two sides were so fundamen-
tally opposed as light and darkness, Christ and Belial.
More attention was paid by the public to the Letter to
Amsdorf than to the work of Corvinus; Luther knew
that this letter had displeased Philip Melanchthon,3 but
that it was applauded by others.4 One of the humanist's
friends answered it,5 and another was convinced by it
that Luther had softening of the brain.6 In partial
mitigation of judgment on the writer's virulence it must
be remembered that he was urged on by flatterers, from
whom he received false reports of his enemy. One of the
guests at his table spoke as follows of the great scholar:7
I knew him [at Basle 1521-22] and of all pestilent men none was
worse than he. A certain priest told me that he believed neither in
God nor immortality, and that once he had burst forth in this blas-
phemy, that if God did not exist he would like to rule the world with
his own wisdom.
1 Enders, x, 8 IF, circa March II, 1534. Cf. Enders ix, 382, showing that
Amsdorf had suggested the subject to him.
2 Preface to Corvinus, Quatsnus txpediat aeditam recens Erasmi rationes sequi
1534. Luther s Werke^ Weiraar, xxxviii, 273.
* Tischnden, Weimar, iv, no. 4899.
4 Corvinus to Luther, Enders, x, 85.
6 Egranus's answer is known only by an allusion of Luther, Enders, x, 36.
6 Boniface Amerbach, who sent this letter to his brother and to Erasmus.
Burckhardt-Biedermann: Bon, Amerbach und die Reformation, p. 297.
7 Tischreden, Weimar, iv, no. 4899. The speaker was one Wolfgang Schiefer,
afterwards tutor to Prince Maximilian II.
366 ERASMUS
Shocked by the letter, which he described as "simply
furious, and so wickedly mendacious that it might dis-
please even the stanchest Lutherans, especially as it
threatens even worse things to come/'1 Erasmus at first
reflected that it was impossible to answer a madman, as
Luther now plainly showed himself to be.2 To Agricola
he wrote3 that if the Reformer, angered by the Catechism
he had recently written for the king of England's new
father-in-law, did throw his books out of the schools
and deliver his person to Satan, the man thus slighted
thought none the worse of himself for all that. Loaded
with favors by emperors and kings, he could well dispense
with the good graces of the Wittenberg professor. On
second thoughts, however, he published a pamphlet4
defending himself against accusations of paganism and
blaming the violent language which he said was equally
distasteful to him by whichever side it was used. This
apology was in turn rebutted by Amsdorf, but the
humanist's life did not last long enough to continue the
controversy further.
A good many people were repelled by Luther's savage
treatment of the old scholar. Leo Jud, the Swiss
Reformer, in a letter to Bucer, blamed the Wittenberger
for this;5 and a general reference in an epistle of Julius
Pflug to "those who deny that eloquence can be united
with knowledge" seems to point to the Reformer.6
With regrettable inconsistency, however, the Reformer
himself continued to spice his works with transparent
sneers at "Italo-German vipers, asps, and viper-asps" —
lTo De Pins, November 13, 1534; Nimes Manuscript published in ap-
pendix to this book.
2 To Decius, Miaskowski, ep. 36; cf. letter to Melanchthon, October 6,
1534, LB. ep. 1273.
3 Edited by Buchwald in Zeitschrift fur kirchliche Wissetischaft und kirch*
liches Leben, v. 1884, p. 56.
4 Adversus calumniosissimam epistolam Martini Lutheri* LB., X, 1537 ff,
6 Letter dated April 27, 1534, published by Grisar in Ilistorisches Jahrbuck,
xxxix, 1919, p. 512.
6 Letter of J. Pflug, probably to Erasmus, May 5, 1533, published in Archiv
fur Reformations gfschichte, xvii, 1920, p. 231.
CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 367
i.e. Hyperaspistes.1 His table talk Is full of the most
rancorous expressions; a few specimens will suffice to
show their character:2
Erasmus wishes to leave behind him the faith he dares not confess
during his lifetime. Such men, who will not say what they think,
are paltry fellows; they measure everything by their own wisdom
and think that if God existed he would make another and a better
world.
All who pray, curse. Thus when I say, "Hallowed be thy name/'
I curse Erasmus and all who think contrary to the Word.
He arrogates to himself the divinity he would like to take from
Christ, whom, in his Colloquies he compares to Priapus,8 and whom
he mocks in his Colloquies and especially in his detestable Miscellany.*
He thinks the Christian religion either a comedy or a tragedy, and
that the things described in the New Testament never happened,
but were invented as an apologue.
Erasmus is worthy of great hatred. I warn you all to regard him
as God's enemy. He inflames the baser passions of young boys and
regaVds Christ as I regard Klaus Narr [the court fool].
When Erasmus died Luther expressed the opinion
that he did so "without light and without the cross/'5
Even while the battle was raging most fiercely with
Luther, Erasmus kept on the best of terms with Melanch-
thon, whose "fatal charm*' he acknowledged and whom
he hoped to retain in the bosom of the Church. Because
this Hamlet of the Reformation designated it as his
misfortune to have been thrown, as Luther's lieutenant,
into the religious controversy, the Catholics cherished
constant hope of winning him back to their side by hold-
ing out to him offers of a quiet and honorable position
1 Preface to Bugenhagen's ed.of Athanasius contra
Werke, Weimar, xxx, part iii, p. 531.
2 Conversations with Luther, translated and edited by P. Smith and H. P.
Gallinger, 1915, pp. 105-114.
8 In the Colloguiaf Convivium Rdigiosum> some one says that he has put
Christ as guardian of his garden instead of Priapus. LB. i, 673 E»
4 /,<?. the Farrago nova epistolarum, 1519.
5 "Sine lux et sine crux"; Luther's Tischreden, Weimar, v, no. 5670, anno
1544. The phrase, "Sine lux, sine crux, sine Deus," was first applied to
Erasmus by the Dominicans of Louvain. Allen, ep. 950,
368 ERASMUS
in which to pursue his dear studies.1 The first serious
attempt to detach the gentle scholar from stormy Witten-
berg came in 1525 when the legate Campeggio sent a
prominent Catholic scholar, Nausea, to confer with
Erasmus at Basle on this plan. When he had published
his Diatribe the year before, the author had felt con-
strained to write to Melanchthon what amounted to an
apology for breaking the peace.2 Long, he protested,
had he refrained from attacking the leader of the Evan-
gelical cause because he favored renovating the Church,
and because he had hoped that Luther would modify
his acerbity. Only under the intolerable provocation
given him by Hutten, in the fear of tumults, and in
resentment at the hauteur of other reformers, particu-
larly Zwingli, did he consent to oppose the Saxon
friar.
To this advance he received a courteous reply, entirely
agreeing with his strictures on those who, forgetting
humanity and religion, had arrogated to themselves the
name evangelical3 The writer was sure, as he commu-
nicated to other friends, that when Luther answered the
Diatribe it would be with moderation.4
Erasmus's rather tart reply to this, reminding one of
his words to Pirckheimer that he dared not be civil to
the Lutherans because of the "sycophants," advanced
the position that no one hurt Luther as much as did his
followers, just as no one hurt the pope as much as did
his partisans, and that the extravagances of a man cor-
rupted by applause proved that the cure for the Church
was worse than the disease, for it is useless, even were
it true, to instil into the ears of the people the idea that
the pope is antichrist and that there is no free will.5
When The Bondage of the Will came out, it was no
1 On this G. Kawerau: Die Vcrmche Melanchthon zur katholischen Kirche
zuruckzufuhren, 1902,
2 September 6, 1524, Lond. xix, 113; LB. ep. 703; L. C, ep. 633,
3 September 30, 1524, Lond. xix, 2; LB. ep. 704; L. C. ep. 637.
4 Botzheim to Erasmus, November 26, 1524. Enthoven, ep. 29.
B December 10, 1524; Lond. xix, 3; LB. ep. 714.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 369
secret that Melanchthon regretted the tone of his friend.1
He saw in the humanist's expressed suspicion that the
work was composed by the joint efforts of "the church
of Wittenberg" a reflection on himself, and hastened to
meet it by sending word through a common friend that
he not only had no hand in the book, but that he took
no pleasure in Luther's bitterly controversial manners.2
On the other hand he found the Hyperaspistes prolix,
confused, bitter, and unfair, though he was half con-
vinced by it that determinism would be bad for the
common man.3
The pair, so much alike in many ways, continued on
the friendliest terms, the veneration of the younger man
and the policy of the elder to use him as a brake on the
Reformation coach, supplying the motives of occasional
intercourse. To the continued wishes expressed by the
humanist that the Reformers would try to promote
morals as vigorously as they endeavored to establish
their own opinions, and to frequent lamentations about
the tumults of the times and the perils into which the
cause of learning had fallen,4 Melanchthon responded
so heartily that his adviser hardly knew what his position
in regard to the Reform really was.5
In 1532 Melanchthon dedicated his Commentary on
1 Capito to Zwingli, September 26, 1526: Ztvinglis Werke, viii, 725. "Philip-
pus fertur non dissimulate quod Lutheri acrimoniam in Erasmum utpote
virurn optime meritum de bonis literis, parum probat."
2 Melanchthon to Sigismund Gelenius, middle of July, 1526. The text in the
Corpus Reformatorum, no. 393, has been altered by the editors to conceal the
reflection on Luther. The true text, given by Druffel: "Melanchthon Hand-
schiften in der Chigi Bibliothek," Akademie der Wissenschaften^ Munchen,
Sitzungsberichte, Phil. — Hist. Classe, 1876, p. 501, reads: "Erasmum, quzeso,
ut mihi places, nam quod suspicatur Lutherum mea uti opera, valde errat;
ego enim sua acerba conflictatione minime delector." A letter of W. Rychard
to J. Magenbuch, dated Ulm, September 3, "anno a manifestato Helix
spiritu quarto" (1524?) speaks of Erasmus's suspicion that Melanchthon was
attacking him. J. G. Schelhorn: AmoenitaUs literarics, 1725, ii, 306.
3 To Luther, October 2, 1527; Enders vi, 97; L. C. ep. 775. To Camerarius,
April II, 1526, Corpus Reformatorum, i, 794. L. C. ep. 730.
4 Erasmus to Melanchthon, February 5, 1528; Zeitschrift fur Kirchengc-
schichte* xxxi, 88, 1910.
6 Erasmus to Camerarius, August 9, 1529; Lond, xxiv, LB. ep. 1071.
37o ERASMUS
Romans to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, begging that
corrupt and Machiavellian, if somewhat vacillating, pillar
of the Catholic Church to provide a mild remedy for the
abuses of the times. On October 25th he sent a copy of
the lucubration to Erasmus, expressing by an accom»
panying letter his regret for the violence of both sides,
neither of whom, he remarks, "will listen to our counsel/*1
No wonder that the old scholar gathered that the writer
was by this time "disgusted with his own party ";2
though when he came to examine the Commentary closely
he found that he disapproved more than he liked in it,3
and a little later he observed that, though Melanchthon
might write more mildly than Luther, he did not, in
fact, differ a straw from his dogma, but was "almost
more Lutheran than Luther himself."4
Another lover's quarrel broke out when the sensitive
old man saw in an invective against insinuating skepti-
cism, inserted into a new edition of Melanchthon's Com-
monplaces of 1535, an innuendo against himself. To his
inquiries the author replied with a flattering but truthful
expression of his profound respect, and a disclaimer that
he should ever attack one from whom he had learned so
much.5 In some lost letter of these later years he did,
however, venture to suggest that the humanist, might
make acts square with his words, doing more for a cause
for which he had said so much. To this he received an
epigrammatic response in a line of Greek poetry:6 Ipj/a
year, fiovhai, 5e [teattv, ^%a!i re ye^vftiv (Young men
for action, middle-aged for counsel, old men for prayer.)
Doubtless chafing under the yoke of "the almost dis-
1 Corpus Reformatorum, ii, 617 fF, with wrong date. On all this, G. Kawerau:
Die Versuche Melanchthon zur katholischen Kirche zuruckzwfuhrfn, 1902, pp.
i6ff.
2 "Se suorum pigere."
3 Erasmus to Amerbach, Corpus Christi (June u), 1533. Epistolat ad
Amerbachium, no. 79.
4 March 5, 1534. Wierzbowski: Materialy do dziejow Pifmennictwa Pok~
kitgo, i, 1900, p. 74.
6 May 12, 1536. Corpus Reformatorum, iii, 68 fF,
6 Melanchthoniana Padogogica, ed. K. Hartfelder, 1892, p, 176.
THE CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER 371
graceful servitude" which he said Luther imposed on
his disciples, and feeling the attraction of the gentle
scholar of Rotterdam, Melanchthon was planning to
visit him, when he was prevented by the old man's
death. In the anguish of the lost opportunity he
expressed himself so pointedly that murmurs arose
among the orthodox of Wittenberg against those who
would rather read the dead Erasmus than hear the
living Luther.1
1 Cordatus's complaint of September 8, 1536. Corpus Rfform&torum, iii,
159. On Melanchthon's planned visit see C. Gerlach to J. Westphal, July
*9> X536, K. und W. Krafft: Brief e und DokumtnU* 1875,.?. 77.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SWISS REFORMATION
CONTEMPORARY with the great Lutheran
movement, largely dependent on it but in part
owing inspiration to different sources, there evolved in
Switzerland a revolt from Rome through various im-
perfect stages to a consummation in Calvinism. But
though the genius of Geneva finally stamped on the
Reformed Church its indelible character, equipped and
organized it for the conquest of much of Europe and
North America, this movement took, in its earliest
stages, and from its first captain, a free-born son of
William Tell, a spirit of liberalism and rationalism later
transformed into Republicanism and logical philosophy.
If Ulrich Zwingli lacked the mighty genius of Luther,
the piercing vision and marvelous gift of language apt
to arouse a people to enthusiasm, he was superior to his
rival in a certain political aptitude and in a somewhat
greater freedom of intellect. Like a more Christian
Ulrich von Hutten, or as the Arnold von Winkelried of
sacred learning, he led a free people to a freer religion.
That this child of the mountains and the forests, born
in liberty and educated in the humanism of Basle and
Vienna, should have found his first, and, until Luther
appeared, his strongest, inspiration in the writings of
Erasmus, omened well for the intellectual and moral
quality of his reform. Imbibing with relish the "phi-
losophy of Christ," tinctured with the ethical, perhaps
Stoical Christianity of Its expounder, he learned, at the
age of thirty, from Erasmus's Expostulation of Jesus with
Man that Christ was the only mediator, and that the
hierarchy of angels and the rites of the Church could be
37*
THE SWISS REFORMATION 373
subordinated, or disregarded.1 "I do not remember/'
he confessed, on reading the Plan or Compendium of
True Theology, "to have found elsewhere so much fruit
in so small a space." With enthusiasm he bought,
studied, and in part copied the Greek New Testament
at its first appearance. In its editor he found the great
emancipator, the Christian opponent of the schoolmen
and the equal of the worldly humanists. Later he came
even more completely under the spell of Luther, and
perhaps his originality consisted more in a genius cap-
able of combining two such almost incompatible elements
as were the minds of these two men than in anything
else. The older scholar himself recognized his own
thoughts in the commentaries of the younger disciple:
"0 good Zwingli/' he exclaimed on one occasion, "what
do you write that I have not written before?"2
As parish priest at Glarus Zwingli made a trip to
Basle early in 1516 especially to see his idol, soon after-
wards writing him a fervent letter of thanks and appre-
ciation for all that the great scholar had done for him.8
Presently he received the following kind answer:4
Your affection for me, as well as the festive and learned eloquence
of your letter greatly delighted me. If I answer very briefly, impute
the fault not to me, but to my endless labors, which often make me
less kind to those to whom I should least wish to be unkind, but make
me especially unkind to myself, drawing off the force of my intellect
more than the fifth essence could restore. I am very glad that my
works are approved by a man so generally approved as you; and for
this reason, they displease me less. I congratulate Switzerland, of
which I am very fond, that you and men like you polish and ennoble
her with learning and character, especially Glarean, a man singularly
respected by me on account of his various learning and uprightness,
1 Zwinglis Werke, hg. von Egli, Finsler, & Kohler, 19905 ff,ii, 217. The Ex-
postulatio Jesu cum homine, first published in 1514, is in LB. v, 1319. On the
relations of Zwingli and Erasmus see S. M. Jackson: Ulrich Zwingli> 1900,
p. 86; J. M. Usteri: Zwingli und Erasmus, 1885; W. Kohler: "Zwingli als
Theologe," in Ulrich Zwingli: Zum Gedachtnis der Zurchcr Reformation 1519-
1919, cols. 23 ff.
2 Zwingli to Vadian, May 28, 1525. Z. W, viii, pp* 333 f.
* Allen, ep. 401; cf. corrections iii, p. xxv; Z. W. vii, ep. 13.
4 May 8, 1516. Allen, ep. 404. Z. W. ep. 14.
374 ERASMUS
and one wholly devoted to you. . . . Exercise your pen, Ulrich,
that best teacher of style: I see that natural talent is there if only
practice is added. I have written this at the request of Glarean,
a man to whom I can deny nothing, even should he ask me to dance
naked. Farewell.
Henry Loriti of Claras, thence commonly called
Glarean, a warm friend of both parties. In his efforts to
bring them together again, wrote Zwingli a little later to
ask if he had received this epistle, which apparently lay
unanswered.1
After accepting a call to Zurich in 1519, Zwingli, by
his vigorous reformation of that city, made it the capital
of the Swiss revolt from Rome. Hoping to win the older
man to his side, and in strait alliance with Hutten, he
made another visit to Basle in March, 1522,* probably
inviting Erasmus to Zurich, but receiving only a polite
refusal coupled with the advice to be careful, which he
apparently did not resent.3 After this, correspondence
was renewed vigorously for a time, and has luckily been
preserved by Zwingli, for Erasmus never published it,
fearing to compromise his neutrality.
In these early years Erasmus was popularly regarded,
in Switzerland as elsewhere, as an ally of Luther. One
pamphlet, published at Zurich in 1521, claiming to be
by two Swiss peasants, and possibly written by Utz
Eckstein, is entitled, "A Description of God's Mill, and
of the divine Meal sent by God's grace and ground by
the most famous of all millers, Erasmus of Rotterdam,
and baked by the true baker Martin Luther and pro-
tected by the strong Peasant/'4 Another citizen of
Zurich, Hans Fiissli the bell-founder, rejoiced, in a poem
1 Z. W., vii, ep. 17.
* His intention of making the visit is spoken of as early as June 19, 1520,
Z. W. vii, p. 329; also in Jan., 1522, Fadianischt JBriefsammlung, ii, 415. On
the visit cf. Z. W. vii, 440; 499.
1 August I, 1530. Lond. xxxi, 59.
* Dyss hand izven schwytzer purtn gmackt. Furwar sy hand ts wol bftfachtf
Beschribung der gotlichen muly, &c. Copy of the first edition at Cornell; re-
printed by O. Schade; Satircn und Pasquille, 1859, i, 119.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 375
published in May, 1521, that the gospel would now be
preached "by the splendid, famous, learned man,
Erasmus of Rotterdam, who opened up the right way
on which we may safely go to the true Holy Scripture,
which surpasses all things/'1 In like tone a peasant of
Thurgau asked, " Where have you seen that anyone
brings forward Paul as fairly as Erasmus has done?"2
But the great scholar, as soon as he came to Basle to
live, assumed that role of neutrality which seemed con-
cerned mainly to prevent violence on either side. He
disliked the association of Zwingli and Hutten, from
which he inferred no gentle methods of reform. After
seeing an anonymous pamphlet, generally known to be
by Zwingli, in which the author animadverts severely
on the proposition made by Pope Adrian at Nuremberg
to quell the schism, Erasmus wrote,8 December 9, 1522:
It is kind of you to take my affection for you so well. But I warn
many in vain. I could easily bear the rashness of others did it not
compromise good learning and good men and the Evangelical cause,
which they promote so stupidly that if anyone wished Christianity
extinct he could not devise a better method of bringing this about
than theirs. Another worthless trifle has been published on the pope.
If the writer had added his name he would have been insane; as it
is he has produced an anonymous, but dangerous and bungling,
article. If all Lutherans are such they will bid me good-by. I never
saw anything more inept than their folly. If winter did not keep
me here I should go elsewhere to avoid hearing it,
Zwingli apparently did not take this warning kindly.
Erasmus told Melanchthon4 that Zwingli had informed
him that there could be no agreement between them,
and had answered his admonition as proudly as if he
were St. Paul in the third heaven. The Zurich priest
1 Schade, i, 22.
8 Schade, i, 161 ff.
*Z. W., vii, 631 f, The work was: Suggestio deliberandi super^ proposi-
tions Hadriani Nerobergae facia, Werke, i, 429 ff. Other warning, vii, 582, on
the Apologeticus of Zwingli. September.
* September 6, 1524. Lond, xix, 113. LB, ep. 703,
376 ERASMUS
himself looked back on the breach with some bitterness,
remarking that though it was caused by his defense of
Luther, he had only lost the Dutchman without winning
the Saxon.1
As the Reformation drew nearer home Erasmus natu-
rally felt its impact more strongly. The innovators at
Basle announced their break with the ancient episcopal
government on Palm Sunday, April 13, 1522, at a ban-
quet served with a sucking pig and embellished with
oratory, much like the old-fashioned barbecues for polit-
ical purposes in the United States,2 Though Erasmus
and his friends took and discreetly expressed offense at
this method of purifying the Church, they were forced
to see a great addition to the strength of the Reformers
when, toward the end of the same year, (Ecolampadius
accepted a call to Basle and began, early in 1523, to
teach at the university. He had already spent three
years (1515-18) in the town helping with the publication
of the Greek Testament, and his ancient friendship with
the editor presaged a peaceful and moderate course. At
one time, indeed, (Ecolampadius had turned away from
the new gospel, and had sought rest for his soul in a
Bridgettine cloister; he came out of it, after two years,
aged more with study and inward struggle than with his
forty years.3
While the humanist and this Reformer lived in mutual
respect and kindness, a very different aspect of the move-
ment presented itself with the arrival, in 1524, of William
Farel, a man on fire with zeal from the crown of his red
1 Zwingli to Blaurer, May 4, 1528. Brief weeks el der Blaurer, i, 148; Z. W.
ix, ep. 720.
2 B. Fleischlin: Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, ii, 1908, p. 337. N.
Weiss: "G. Farel &c.," Bulletin de la Societe de I'Histoire du Protestantism*
fran$aisy Ixix, 1920, 1 15 ff.
8 On him see Realencyklopadie> Attgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Ulrich
Zwingli zum Gedachtnis, p. 291; E. Stahelin: (Ecolampadius' Beziehungen zur
Reformation* 1917; Id.: (Ecolampad-BiUiographie, 1918. A. Bigelmair, in
Beitrage zur Geschichte det Renaissance und Reformation /. Schlecht dargc»
brackt, 1917, pp. 15 ff. CEcolampadius entered the cloister at Altomilnster
on April 23, 1520, and left it January 23, 1522.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 377
head to the sole of his gospeller's feet upon the moun-
tains. After a public oration in Latin, on February 28th,
which was translated on the spot into German by
(Ecolanipadius for the benefit of the audience,1 Farel
took it upon himself to visit Erasmus, whom he had
just called "a chameleon and a pernicious enemy of
the gospel/' and to give a little instruction in divinity.
The discussion over the invocation of the Holy Spirit,
with special reference to the comma Johanneum or spuri-
ous verse, I John v: 7, waxed so hot that the French
youth told his elder that Froben's wife knew more
theology than did he, and that he would rather go to
the stake than not attack the humanist's fame. He con-
trasted the simple faith of (Ecolampadius with the gaudy
pretension to esoteric learning displayed by his antag-
onist, and, in short, acted in such a way that the other
believed even Luther would have disapproved of him.
How easily, remarked Erasmus, he himself might have
won golden opinions of his erudition by calling the pope
antichrist! He revenged himself by fixing the name
Phallicus on his assailant, and by having him, in July,
expelled or requested to leave.2
Such incidents could not fail to turn Erasmus more
than ever against the Reformation. The continued
tumults, as he wrote Eoban Hess,3 seemed likely to dis-
credit not only the Pseudo-Lutherans, but the Reformer
himself and all good learning. At the same time he
uttered the following terribly severe arraignment of the
fruits of the Reformation :
How strong a man is Luther, I know not; but certainly this new
gospel has produced a new race of men: stern, impudent, wily,
1 B. Fleischlin, pp. 364 ff. Weiss, op. cit.t p. 129.
2 Erasmus to Anthony Brugnarius, October 27, 1524. Lond. xviii, 40; LB.
ep. 707. Calvin to Farel, February 3, 1551, and Farel to Calvin, February
14, 1551, in Calmni Opera ed. Baum, Cunitz & Reuss, xiv, 42. Hilaire Ber-
toiph to Farel, Basle, end of April, 1524, Herminjard: Correspondance <tes
Rfformateurs des pays de la langue fran$aiset* 1878, i, 21 x. Peter Toussaln to
Farel, September 2, 1524, ibid, p, 284 flf.
8 September 6, 1524. Horawitz: Erasmiana, ii, ep. 7.
378 ERASMUS
cursing, liars and sycophants; discordant among themselves, obliging
to none, disobliging to all, seditious, furious, brawlers, who displease
me so much that if I knew a city free from this sort I would migrate
thither.1
Elsewhere he expressed the now famous opinion that
where Lutheranism reigned learning perished, even
though the Protestant sect had been particularly nour-
ished by learning.2 In this phrase we see struggling to
expression the truth that the Reformation, though in
large part prepared and made possible by the Renais-
sance, afterward turned against it, dissociating itself
with cruel violence from the freer thought. The incom-
patibility of the two spirits is well set forth in another
letter;3
I see how hard it is for the devotees of polite literature to agree
with theologians, and again how the theologians are scarcely just to
liberal studies. The long-standing quarrels of princes are sometimes
at length composed by a marriage; would that some nymph might
arise to unite you in mutual benevolence, by which the studies of
both would flourish more.
The main point which divided the Reformers among
themselves was the doctrine of the eucharist. The
theory of the Catholic Church, transubstantiation, is
that the bread and wine are actually changed into the
body and blood of the Lord, though the accidents of
taste, form, etc., remain the same. Luther's theory,
sometimes called consubstantiation, was nearly allied,
namely, that the body and blood were actually present
with the bread and wine, though without any direct
transmutation, just as, to use a favorite simile, fire is
actually present in red-hot iron. While Luther was
absent at the Wartburg, in 1521, a new and more
advanced opinion arose almost simultaneously in several
quarters, that the Lord's Supper was a commemorative
1 To Henry Stromer, 1524. LB. ep. 715.
2 To Pirckheiraer, dated 1528, probably written circa February 21,
Lend, xix, 50; LB. ep. 1006. On date, L. C., no. 821, note.
3 To Sylvius (circa August, 1525), Lond. xix, 88.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 379
rite merely, and that the elements were but the tokens
of the body and blood, and in no sense identical with
them. This opinion was defended by a Dutch theolo-
gian, Honius, by Andrew Bodenstein von Carlstadt, one
of Luther's colleagues, and by the so-called Zwickau
prophets.1 When Luther returned to Wittenberg, March,
1522, he so discredited the prophets and eventually Carl-
stadt that they were obliged to withdraw, first from
Wittenberg and then from Saxony. Carlstadt produced
a number of pamphlets attacking Luther on several
grounds, among them the doctrine of the eucharist.2
His work favorably impressed the leaders of the Swiss
reform movement, men far abler than he was, Ulrich
Zwingli and QEcolampadius. Erasmus wrote, on October
2, 1525, to Michael Buda, Bishop of Langres:3
A new dogma has arisen, that the eucharist is nothing but bread
and wine. Not only is it naturally difficult to refute, but (Ecolampa-
dius has supported it with such copious arguments and reasons that
it seems that even the elect may be seduced !
The truth is that Erasmus had been asked by the
Town Council of Basle to give his opinion on (Ecolam-
padius's tract entitled "Of the true Understanding of
the Words of the Lord, 'This is my Body/ "and had given
it to the effect that the work was learned, eloquent, and
thorough, and might even have been called pious could
anything be pious which differed from the consensus of
the Church's opinion, from which to dissent was always
dangerous.4 His position, however, was so ambiguous5
that each side saw in him a supporter of the other. On
the one hand Melanchthon discovered in him the original
1 This opinion also held by the Bohemian Brethren, as one of them had
written Erasmus on October 10, 1519. Allen, ep. 1021,
2 Preserved Smith: A Short History of Christian Theophagy, 1922, pp. 122 ff.
8 Lond. xx, 60. LB. 766.
4 Bassler Chronick , . . durch Christian Wurstisen (1580), ed. of 1883, book
iv, chap. 14, p, 385. Fleischlin: Schweiurische Reformationsgeschichte* 1908,
ii, 410.
8 Cf, his letter to Lupset, Lond. xviii, n; LB. ep. 790. Internal evidence
dates it December 1525.
38o ERASMUS
source from which the Swiss had drawn their doctrine;1
on the other, many begged him to defend the doctrine
of the real presence.2 Privately he expressed his doubts
very freely. Thus to Pirckheimer he wrote:3
CEcolampadius's opinion of the eucharist would not displease me
were it not opposed to the consensus of the Church. For I do not
see what is the function of a body which cannot be apprehended by
the senses, nor what use it would be to have it apprehended by the
senses, provided that the spiritual grace were present in the symbols.
But the authority of the Church binds me.
And again,4
I should have some doubts, as one little learned, on the eucharist,
did not the authority of the Church, by which I mean the consent of
Christians throughout the world, move me.
No wonder that the sacramentarians, as they were
now called, believed that the great scholar was either in
agreement with them or on the point of becoming con-
verted. In fact, several of them openly claimed him as
their own, the most forward to do so being Leo Jud, a
friend of Zwingli, who under a pseudonym published a
German pamphlet entitled The Opinion of the Learned
Erasmus of Rotterdam and of Dr. Martin Luther on the
Lord's Supper* The ingenious author tries to prove by
quotations from Erasmus's works that the humanist
regarded the bread and wine only as symbols; and then
1 Melanchthon to Aquila, October 12, 1529. Corpus Reformatorum, iv,
970. S. M. Jackson: Zwingli, p. 85, note.
2 Toussain to Farel, September 18, 1525. Herminjard, i, 385. M. Hummel-
berg wrote Beatus Rhenanus on November 2, 1525, that he was glad to hear
that Erasmus was going to write on the eucharist. Briefwechsd des Beatus
Rhenanus, p. 341. Erasmus's warnings to Zwingli and Zwingli's comment
inZ. W. ix, 431.
8 June 6, 1526; Lond. xxx, 44; LB. ep. 823. See my Christian Thcophagy>
148 ff.
4 To Pirckheimer, July 30, 1526; Lond. xxx, 43; LB. ep. 827.
5 Des Hochgelerten Erasmi von Roterdam und Doctor Martin Luthers maynung
vom Nachtmal. . . . 1526. [Colophon:] April 18, 1526. Lodomcus Lffopoldi
Pfarrer zu Leberaw. I use the copy in the Bodleian Library, Tract. Luth.
46, no. 1 8, On the authorship cf. Bibliotheca Erasntiana, iii, 32, and Fadian*
ische Briefwechsel, vi, 1906, p. 265,
THE SWISS REFORMATION 381
deduces the same opinion logically from Luther's belief
that there is no difference between priests, who conse-
crate the bread and wine, and laymen. In both cases
probably the Zwinglian view of the sacrament would
have been the logical corollary of certain admitted
premises, but in fact one cannot deduce any man's
opinions thus syllogistically. Consequences perfectly
evident to one man are often denied by another, and so,
while Luther was unshaken by the clever work of Jud,
Erasmus was moved only to indignation. Defending
himself, he wrote to the synod then assembled at Baden
that this tract showed both ignorance and malice, and
that the publication of such pamphlets, once regarded
as a capital crime, had of late become the regular sport
of men claiming to preach the gospel.1 In like tenor he
published an open letter to all lovers of the truth, show-
ing that the deep difference between himself and the
Reformers was best testified by their attacks on him.2
But they were not all so easily convinced. Since 1519
there had been at Basle an Alsatian Reformer, an excel-
lent Hebrew scholar and a personal friend of Erasmus,
Conrad Pellican3 by name. Though he inherited from
peasant ancestors a homely face and a particularly
firm-set mouth, his friend knew him to be "a very
childlike, kindly, sweet-spirited man." Acting on the
maxim, unfortunately not universally true in this hard
world of strife, that peacemakers are blessed, he tried
to persuade the great scholar that their opinions on the
Lord's Supper were fundamentally in agreement. The
latter assured him,4 however, that he was mistaken and
that the writer, having been persuaded by the Church
1 Lend, xix, 45. LB. 818.
9 Lond. xxx, 58. Cf. Praestigiarum libelli cujusdam, June, 1526, LB. x, 1557.
1 See his picture in Ulrich Zwingli: Zwn Geddchtnis, 1919, pp. 113 f. On the
man see Das Chronikon von K. Pellikan> hg. von Riggenbach, 1877, and L. C.,
ii, p, 3 17. The correspondence of Pellican and Erasmus on this subject is re-
called by John Laski in a letter to Pellican, dated Emden, August 31, 1544.
Scrinium antiquarium sive Miscellanea Groningana [ed. Daniel Gerdes], 1750,
tomus, ii, pars I, pp. 530 f.
4 Lond, xix, 95, 96; LB. epp. 845-847, all dated 1526.
3 82 ERASMUS
to accept the gospel, would always learn from the same
mistress the true Interpretation of the words of the
Gospel. To the statement that Zwingli might write
against him the humanist boldly replied that In a matter
he really cared about he feared not ten Zwinglis. On
the other hand, rather than drench the world with blood
for the sake of a few ambiguous articles he would
dissemble his belief or disbelief In ten such points.
The expected intervention of Zwingli was not in vain.
About this time he published a pseudonymous satire,
The Epistle of a Certain Frank to a Certain Citizen of
Basle, containing a bitter criticism of Erasmus's position,
both for his reply to Pellican and for saying that Christ
was really present in the eucharist "in an Ineffable
manner/* This pamphlet was forbidden at Basle.1
Erasmus's natural anger at this attack aroused the
further resentment of the sacramentarians, who now
regarded him as "the brother of the Wittenbergers" in
his eucharistic doctrine, and as having lost all savor of
piety.2
Though occasionally requested by the orthodox to
write something on the moot dogma,3 Erasmus had the
prudence not to do so. At one time, indeed, he thought
of answering (Ecolampadius, but abandoned the plan4
because he feared that It would only excite tumult
without producing edification, and because Bishop
Fisher and the Sorbonne had taken the task upon them-
selves. In fact, the desperate earnestness of the
Reformers of Wittenberg and of Zurich, each of whom
would rather have died than yield a single point, was
1 Fleischlin, ii, 410. The date here given, October 23, 1525, seems too early.
By "Francus" does Zwingli mean "Frenchman," "Franconian/' or simple
" Freeman " ? If the former he may have wished to suggest the suspicion that
the letter was by Farel, for he was not above such disingenuous strategy,
2 Capito to ZwingH, September 26, 1526. Z. W.» viii, p. 725,
'Botzheim to Erasmus, February 2, 1527. Forstemann-Giinther, p. 64.
G. Thomas to Erasmus, August 31, 1527. Ibid., p. 85.
4 October 19, 1527, to Pirckheimer. LB. ep. 905. Pirckheimeri Opera ed,
Goldast, p, 286.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 383
highly disgusting to the man of charity, and in his eyes
did nothing but discredit the cause they represented.1
With another type of Reformer Erasmus came in
contact in the year 1522, when Balthasar Hiibmaier
came to Basle to confer with him on purgatory and on
the dark places in John's Apocalypse, but went away
disappointed with the man "who spoke freely but wrote
cautiously/*2 Hiibmaier is commonly classed as an
Anabaptist, the leader of the left wing of Protestantism,
the dissidence of dissent. Though he himself was a
university man, most of the Anabaptists were uneducated
and sprang from the lower classes of society, particularly
after the poor had been so cruelly rebuffed in the
Peasants5 War by the leader of the Lutheran established
church. Erasmus noted the progress of the sectarians
and truly observed that though they won large numbers
of adherents they never founded a church3 of their own.
With equal discernment and fairness he remarked on the
purity of their lives, on their constancy under perpetual
martyrdom,4 and on their aim to establish a new
democracy verging on anarchy. When seditious he
thought they should not be tolerated.5
Personal influences combined with others of a more
general nature to make Erasmus tired of his surround-
ings. Of the quarrels thrust upon him one of the most
disagreeable was that with a young Saxon knight whom
he learned to know pleasantly at Louvain in 1520.
Henry von Eppendorf, as the youth was called, then
went to the University of Freiburg, whence he kept up
a witty correspondence with the humanist. From
Boniface Amerbach he requested and received the
Epistol<% ad diversoSj which he richly annotated.6 His
marginal comments reveal his warm admiration for
1 To Bucer, November n, 1527. Lond. xix, 72. LB, ep. 906.
2 H. Vedder: B. Hubmaitr, 1905, p. 54.
8 To Fonseca, March 25, 1529, Lond. xxix, 33. LB. ep. 1033.
4 To Tunstail, 1525. Lond. xxii, 23. LB, ep. 793.
6 Lond. xxx, 77, uncertain date.
8 Allen, iv, appendix xiv, pp. 615 ff.
384 ERASMUS
Luther and Hutten and his gradually changing feeling
toward the scholar whom he came to regard as a rene-
gade. For him the Saxon Reformer was "thrice great/*
the Dominicans and Hochstraten, Eck, Faber, Prierias,
Cajetan "and six hundred others" were scoundrels, and
Erasmus was eloquent, but cowardly and devoted to the
princes of this world.
When he heard, whether truly or not, that the humanist
had been making disparaging remarks about him, he
came to Basle in 1528, and let it be known that he was
going to bring Erasmus to justice.1 The scholar cared
little for his threats, but was persuaded by his friends to
allow Eppendorf an interview. Eppendorf appeared, and
in the presence of Beatus Rhenanus and Louis Ber, pre-
sented a letter purporting to be from Erasmus to Duke
George of Saxony, in which the writer advised the prince
to recall Eppendorf from idleness, and at the same time
made certain disparaging remarks about that young
gentleman's family, and certain accusations of heresy.
Erasmus refused to recognize the letter, which was in
an unknown hand, unsigned and unsealed, as his. After
a dispute, Eppendorf declared that he would consider the
matter and communicate his decision to Beatus Rhenanus.
The demand, thus transmitted the next day, was that
Erasmus should write to Duke George and justify
Eppendorf, and that before sending the letter he should
read it to the latter "lest by ambiguous and oblique
terms I be more hurt than served/' Furthermore,
Erasmus was to give one hundred ducats to the poor of
Freiburg, one hundred to the poor of Basle, and two
hundred to Eppendorf to dispense among the poor of
Strassburg. If Erasmus refused, Eppendorf would risk
his life rather than his reputation. Moreover, as Erasmus
had ruined Henry's reputation with other princes, he was
1 Eppendorf to Zwingli, February 3, 1528. Z. W. viii, p. 355. "I am now
here to force the great Erasmus to retract." The history of this quarrel is given
in the main in the Admonitio adversus mendacium (1530) LB. x., 1683 ff, and
in a letter to Pirckheimer, May i, 1528, LB. No. 958. An excellent summary,
which I follow, is given in Bib. Eras. Admonitio . . . I fF.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 385
required to mend it again by the publication of a pam-
phlet dedicated to him.
Erasmus gave a qualified assent to the articles about
the pamphlet and the letter, and said that he preferred
to give Eppendorf two hundred ducats rather than have
a law suit. Eppendorf made some difficulties about this,
and the matter was left to the arbitration of Amerbach
and Rhenanus, who rendered the award on February 3,
1528. Erasmus was to do as he had promised in the
first two articles; Eppendorf was to suppress anything
he had written against Erasmus; Erasmus was to give
about twenty florins to the poor.
Eppendorf continued to make trouble. He demanded
the letter and the dedication of the book at once.
Erasmus drew up a draft of the dedication, but refused
to publish it immediately, as it seemed to him ridicu-
lous to print a dedication without a book. The letter
to Duke George was also put off on the ground that
no time was specified and that the conditions left
Erasmus free to write either to the duke directly or to
one of the court. We find him actually in February
writing to both the duke and his officer, S. Pistorius,
though not exactly in the sense which Eppendorf would
have wished,1 for he mentioned that the young gentle-
man was exciting the Lutherans against him.
Erasmus revenged himself characteristically by ridicul-
ing his adversary's pretensions to noble birth, both in
private letters2 and in published works. A Colloquy, first
printed in 1528, holds up to scorn a certain class of
braggarts under the title "The Horseless Knight or
Counterfeit Nobility/'3 So does the following passage4
in the Adages, first inserted in September, 1528:
lTo Pistorius, Februray 5, 1528; Horawitz: Erasmiana ii, no. 8. To
Duke George (about February 18), 1528, ibid> i, no. n.
2 Erasmus to Egranus, no date (1528), Handschriften aus der Reformations-
zffit, hg. von 0. Clemen, 1901, no. 18.
8 "iTnrevc awTTTrof swe Emcntita NoUUtas, LB. i, 834, C/. D. F. Strauss:
Ulrich von Hutten (Gesammelte Schrifttn, 1877, Band vii), pp. 459, 512.
4 No. 844, LB. ii, 350,
386 ERASMUS
Among the nobles of Germany there are some irnposters who bribe
people to call them Junkers (lonckheri), who boast their paternal
castles, add a plume to their helmets, paint a coat of arms in which
a hand holding a dagger stabs an elephant, and subscribe their letters
"knight." If one named, for example, Ornithoplutus is born in the
village of Isocomus, he doesn't call himself Isocomian, for that would
be vulgar, but he dubbs himself Ornithoplutus von Isocomus.
The name selected is the Greek equivalent — though
apparently the disguise thus far escaped detection — for
Heinrich von Eppendorf.1
The peace was not, therefore, definitely established.
In 1529 Erasmus wrote Eppendorf, who, he believed, had
been accusing him publicly of perfidy, that he did not
want his friendship, but would like him to keep his
distance, for one could be hurt by worms and beetles.
He wondered what he wanted. Eppendorf, then at
Strassburg, replied very angrily indeed.2
On the whole, Erasmus had the best of the battle. On
March 15, 1529, Duke George wrote him regretting the
late unpleasantness and stating that he did not intend
to recall Eppendorf.3 In the following year Erasmus
published his Admonition against Falsehood and Slander,4
in which he recounted the whole affair, much to the
disadvantage of his enemy. The latter replied with his
version, February, 153 1.5
But though unpleasant personal experiences doubtless
had their weight with the old scholar, as they do with
other men, yet his attitude was fundamentally far more
changed by the increasing pace of religious revolution
at Basle. Apparently in 1525, his opinion of certain re-
forms was solicited by the Town Council and given in a
memorial not published in his works, but preserved in
1Ornithos equals Hein or Hahn, plutus means reich; Isos is Eben, and
Comos is Dorf.
2 These letters, the first without date, the second dated only 1529, LB. epp,
1087-1088.
8 LB. App. ep. 349.
4 LB. x, 1683 ff.
6 Bib. Er. Admonitio, p. II.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 387
the archives of Basle.1 In the guarded tone habitual to
him, he begins by saying that he prefers to express no
opinion of the Lutheran movement as a whole, but begs
to refer them for a more learned evaluation of the same
to his friend Lewis Ber, provost of St. Peter's Church
and professor at the university. But on a few points of
urgent local import, the humanist consented to give
advice, though he knew that by not fully indorsing either
side he would anger both, and though he was conscious
of his difficulties as a stranger ignorant of German. In
the first place, then, he thinks libellous and seditious
books should be suppressed, as well as works on con-
troversial points, at least if they are new. Much must
be winked at in old books, or else even Jerome would
not be printed, or any works save the canonical ones.
The lucubrations of innovators, like Luther, might well
be tolerated in so far as they argue temperately without
vituperation. Ordinances of the Church, such as the
use of images, the canon of the mass, chants, ceremonies,
tonsure, and vestments, are said to be at best wholesome
and at worst harmless. On account of the danger of
changing old customs they should therefore be tolerated.
Mass should be restored in its old form, though probably
permission to communicate in both kinds might be
obtained from the pope. Dispensations might also easily
be obtained for not fasting, at least by those who needed
to eat meat. Fugitive monks and nuns are said to be
unworthy of favor, for it is incredible that a bad monk
should make a good citizen. Cloisters, on the whole, are
pronounced the best places of refuge for such people.
Viewed in relation to the history of the time this docu-
ment is notable, one of the most important in the history
of liberty. Its quiet, diffident tone should not blind us
to the fact that it actually proposed, for the first time,
1 " Erasrai Rot. Consilium Senatui Basiliensi in negotio Lutherano," C. F.
Standlein: Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Religion und Sittenlehre, i, 17971 pp.
294-304. Bossier Chronick durch C. Wurstisen> ed. of 1883, book vir, chap, xiv,
p. 385 £ C/. B. Fleischlin; Schweizerischc Reformattonsgeschichte, 1908, ii,
384 ff.
388 ERASMUS
a plan to allow for differences of religious practices, and
freedom for arguing opposite opinions, within the same
territory. Hitherto it had seemed axiomatic, and had
been clearly stated by Luther, for example, that, if for
no higher reasons, yet for the sake of peace and quietness
one form of worship and belief only should be tolerated
in one territory.
But the advice shattered at Basle on the rock of par-
tisan fury, for the Protestant leaders continued to take
counsel as to how to suppress Catholic worship, (Ecolam-
padius early in 1527 publishing a pamphlet alleging the
examples of old Jewish kings, and branding the mass as
worse than theft, harlotry, treason, adultery, and mur-
der. This was answered by Augustine Marius, or Mayr.
The humanist's disgust with the whole proceeding is well
expressed in a recently published letter to his friend Ber:1
Your letter, no less learned than pious, relieved my mind of a large
part of the disgust caused me less by my poor health and the wicked-
ness of certain men than by the public misfortune of the world; for
I see that the cause of Christianity is approaching a condition I
should prefer not to have it reach. But the Lord, the Creator of
men, wonderful in disposing and swiftly changing human affairs,
causes me to retain some hope of a happier issue, provided only that
we recognize that this calamity summons us to the philosophy of
wisdom. Assuredly I have reaped some personal good from these
great evils. There are certain men here who are trying to put this
city into the same condition that Zurich is in; nor do they suffer
your man2 to be preacher, though he seems to me apt to teach and
not at all seditious. His great crime is that he attracts large audiences.
Though the impression continued to gain ground that
Erasmus was more Catholic than Protestant and could
have stayed the progress of reform had he but thrown
his weight fully on the side of the conservatives,3 yet at
Basle the religious revolution went its way. On October
zzd of the same year four hundred Zwinglians met to
1 January 26, 1527. Original first published, L. C., ii, p. 532 f; translation
and notes, ibid, ep. 752.
* Probably Augustine Mayr.
* Letter of James Monasteriensis (of Minister, or of Montier-Grandval), to a
friend at Mainz, dated Solothurn, January 29, 1528. Quellenbuch zur Schweiur*
gtschichte, hg. von W. Oechsli, 1910, p. 317.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 389
urge the Town Council to abolish Catholic services, but
five days later the Council announced to all the gilds that
everyone should be free to exercise which cult he pleased.
The discontent of the Protestants found vent in an icono-
clastic demonstration on Good Friday, April 15, 1528,
during which the pictures were removed first from
QEcolampadius's church and later elsewhere.1 This was
done, however, without the knowledge of the Reformer,
and even with his anxious disapproval. According to
his account five zealots began on the day of Preparation
(Wednesday before Holy Thursday) to remove the
images from St. Martin's Church, and their example
encouraged thirty-five others to purge in like manner
the church of the Austin Friars on Easter Monday. The
day following, the Town Council convened and threw the
rioters into chains, but two hundred citizens forthwith
assembled and assumed so threatening an aspect that
the Town Council withdrew to the Wheelwrights* Gild-
hall, and even there was forced to decree the freeing of
the prisoners.2 This failed to satisfy the conspirators
and further riots threatened, in the opinion of CEcolam-
padius, now an anxious, worn man,3 to demolish alto-
gether the house so divided against itself.4
The pacific advice of the Town Council that "no man
should call another papist or Lutheran, heretic or ad-
herent of the new faith or of the old, but that each
should be left unembarrassed and unscorned in the
exercise of his own belief" only enraged the Protestant
majority further. On December 23, 1528, they accord-
ingly handed in a petition, probably drafted by QEcolam-
padius, demanding the suppression of the mass. Though
the Council was divided equally between the adherents
of both Churches, in deference to this and under pressure
10n this and the following see B, Fleischlin: Schweizerische Reformations-
gescUchte> 1908, ii, 433 ff, 455 ff» and N. Paulus: Protestantismus und Toltranz,
1911, p. 198 ff.
2 (Ecolampadius to Zwingli, April 16-17, 1528; Z. W. ix, 430 f.
8 See his picture in Utrich Zwingli zum Gcdachtnis, p. 34.
4 (Ecolampadius to Zwingli, April 20, 1528; Z. W, ix, 436.
390 ERASMUS
from the ambassadors of Zurich and Berne, they passed
an ordinance forbidding the clergy to preach aught but
the pure Word of God. Anyone in doubt as to what
this was should be enlightened by a biblical discussion,
and, if obstinate in his own opinion, should be relieved
of pastoral duties.
It was now the turn of the Catholics to take the offen-
sive. As Erasmus wrote to Sir Thomas More:1 " There
was good hope that moderate counsels would prevail,
when two monks, one the preacher in the cathedral, the
other preacher to the Dominicans, incited another
tumult for us. They, indeed, made their escape, but
others were smitten with evil/5 The two men referred
to were Augustine Marius, or Mayr, and Ambrose
Storch, commonly called Pelargus. When Erasmus's
letter was published in the Epistola Pal&on<zoi in Sep~
tember, 1532, Pelargus took offense at these words and
expostulated with their author.2
But the party that started the trouble this time was
unable to control it. On the excuse that the Catholics
had broken the law, the Protestant mob, composed
chiefly of the poor3 and doubtless aiming partly at social
as well as at religious revolution, gathered in the public
square on February 8th to the number of nearly a thou-
sand, planted cannon in front of the Town Hall, and
compelled the Council to expel the twelve Catholic mem*
bers. During the following week the remaining images
were destroyed, Catholic worship suppressed, and the
existing ecclesiastical polity completely subverted. "For-
sooth, the spectacle was so sad to the superstitious," wrote
(Ecolampadius, "that they had to weep blood. While we
raged against the idols the mass died of sorrow/'4
1 September 5, 1529, Lond. xxvi, 21. LB. ep. 1074.
3 Bellaria Epistolarum Erasmi Roterodami et Ambrosii Pelargi vicissim
missarum> 1539, ep. 21.
3 This point is emphasized by the chronicle of the Dominican John Stolz,
published in W. CEchsli: Qudlenbuch zur Schweiurgeschichtc, 1910, pp. 318 f.
4 To Capito, February 13, 1529. B. J. Kidd: Documents of the Continental
Reformation, 191 1> p. 466.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 391
This Reformer, now a dictator, had recently shown his
thorough conversion to Protestanism by taking a wife,
the young and pretty widow Wilibrandis Keller, born
Rosenblatt. The mature age and delicate health of the
bridegroom made him the butt of some sarcasm on
account of this step. Boniface Amerbach mocked thus:
"The wedding would wring a laugh even from old Sober-
sides. A man of advanced age, with shaking head and
body so exhausted that one might call him a living
corpse, has taken a pretty and delicious wife about
twenty years of age. 0 Gospel ! 0 marriage ! 5>1 Erasmus,
too, commented mirthfully on the bridegroom's desire to
mortify his flesh manifested by his choice of a particu-
larly charming girl; for his part he disagreed with those
who spoke of the Lutheran tragedy; it was really a
comedy, as the happy ending showed.2 The new gos-
pellers, he remarked, "sought only two things; good pay
and a wife, for the gospel gave them the rest — that is,
the liberty to live as they pleased."3
His thought took a much more serious turn after the
"battle of the idols" in 1529. He knew that now he
must leave Basle lest people should think there was a
pact between him and the sectaries who hated him so
much.4 He looked with dread of war on the confederacy
between the German and Swiss cities, and with disgust
on the iconoclasts who pulled down images "even to a
fly," abolished mass, and allowed women and boys to
sing hymns in German.5 "The mass has been abolished,"
he wrote elsewhere,6
but what more holy has been put in its place? ... I have never
entered your churches, but now and then I have seen the hearers of
1T. Burckhardt-Biedermann: Bon. Amerbach und die Reformation) 1894, p.
207, March 15, 1528. CEcolampadius's announcement of his marriage to
Zwingli, of same date, Z. W. ix, 390.
a To Adrian Rivulus, March 21, 1528. Lond. xix, 41; LB. ep. 961*
«To Pirckheimer, 1528 (1529), Lond. xix, 50; LB. Hi, 1138 f.
4 To Francis Vergara, March 17, 1528. Lond. xix, 28; LB. ep. 1029*
8 To John Vergara, March 24, 1529. Lond. xix, 3 1. LB. ep. 1032.
* LB. x, col 1578 f.
392 ERASMUS
your sermons come out like men possessed, with anger and rage
painted on their faces. . . . They came out like warriors, animated
by the oration of the general to some mighty attack. When did your
sermons ever produce penitence or remorse? Are they not more
concerned with suppression of the clergy and the sacerdotal life?
Do they not make more for sedition than for piety? Are not riots
common among this evangelical people? Do they not for small
causes betake themselves to force?
Naturally, feeling so ill at ease in a town " sub verted
by the CEcolampadian whirlwind/'1 he and some of his
friends decided to leave. When the citizens learned
of his decision they did their best to persuade him to
stay, (Ecolampadius especially protesting his regret for
a departure caused, as he saw it, by no act of tyranny
or of unkindness.2 A personal interview between the
two former friends failing to effect a reconciliation,3 the
magistrates called upon Erasmus to explain first why
he had covered his face with his cloak, which they took
to be an insulting gesture, but which was really, he
averred, due to toothache; and secondly what he
meant by his joke in a recently published Colloquy about
a man with a long nose, a sheep's head, and a fox's
heart, which they applied to (Ecolampadius, but which
the author protested he had meant to characterize his
own secretary.4 Having finally satisfied them, he med-
itated a secret flight, but later thought better of it and
took his departure openly, on April 13, 1529, escorted
to his boat on the Rhine by a concourse of friends and
at the last moment composing a farewell quatrain to the
city, thanking her for hospitality and wishing her good
fortune and never a guest more burdensome to her than
he had been.5
1 Glarean to Laski, S. A. Gabbema: Illvstrium Pirorum Epistola, 1669,
ep. 8.
a (Ecolampadius to Vadian, April 29, 1529, Fadianischf Brufsammlung, iv,
ep. 573.
1 Ixempltim codicillorum Erasmi ad J. (Ecolampadium, Lond. xxx, 47.
4 To Pirckheimer, July 15, 1529. Lond. xxiv, 10. LB. ep. 1066.
5 Bassler Chronick durch Christian Wurstisen, 1883, p. 406. Fleischlin:
Schwei%erischc Reformationsgeschichtc* 1908, p, 465.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 393
But he was not yet done with the Swiss and South
German Reformers. A book he wrote in 1528 called
An Answer to some Articles of the Spanish Monks1 became
the occasion of a new quarrel. One passage in it had
remarked that formerly heretics were much more leni«
ently treated than they had been of late, and proved this
by citing a constitution on the Manichaeans from the
Justinian Code. This passage gave the opportunity
for using the name of Erasmus in favor of toleration
of the Protestants when their case came up before the
Diet of Spires of 1529* There was a certain Reformer,
Gerard Geldenhauer, of Nymegen, thence called Novio-
magus, who had been educated at Deventer and Louvain,
and later had been chaplain to Charles V and secretary
to Philip of Burgundy, Bishop of Utrecht. Sent by him
on an embassy to Wittenberg in September, 1525, he
had gone over to the Reformers and began to occupy
himself with teaching, finally winning a professorship
in history at Marburg. In 1529 he was at Strassburg,
and there he published an extract from the work last
mentioned, together with letters of his own driving home
the point, under the title Erasmus's Annotations on
Ecclesiastical and Imperial Laws Concerning Heretics,
the last two words being the display line of the title-page.2
Though there is no reason to think that Geldenhauer
had any intention of exploiting the humanist's name
unfairly, nevertheless, the attempt to drag him into the
controversy once more, and on the side of the Lutherans,
was bitterly resented by him. His wrath took form in
An Epistle against those who falsely boast that they are
Evangelical.* This comprehensive attack on the doc-
1 Apologia adversus Articulos guosdam per Monackos Hispanof exhibitos,
1528. Biblioiheca Erasmianaf /. t>.
2 Collectanea van Gerardus Geldenhauer Noviomagus . . . uitgegeven . . .
door J, Prinsen, 1901, pp. vii f, xli ff. The work appeared in Latin under
the title De s, Erasmi Roterodami Annotationes in Leges Pontificias et Casariar
de Hereticis, and in German as Ejn Antwort des hochgelerten D* Erasmi die
er sue hung und verfolgung der Ketzer betreffend, 1529, See Bibliotheca Eras-
miana, j. 0.
8 LB.» x, 1573 ff, dated November 4, 1529.
394 ERASMUS
trines and morals of the Reformers was answered In
April, 1530, by An Apology published anonymously,
but really written by Bucer.1 In addition to defending
the rightness of the Protestants, the author asserts that
their cause is a growing one, and undertakes to prove
once more that Erasmus either is secretly, or logically
ought to be, favorable to it. This in turn djrew a
Response'2' in fifty pages repeating In more detail his
argument from the alleged bad moral effect of the
Reformation. This he proves from the fact that Luther
had recently created a system of church visitation to
regulate the disordered morals of the people, and by
quoting the Reformer's own words that he would prefer
the rule of the pope and of the monks to that of the
new gospellers who used their freedom only to live a
Sogdian life. From this and similar testimony wrung
from the words of Melanchthon and of GEcolampadius,
the author infers that the chances are, even from a
human calculation of probability, overwhelmingly in
favor of the Catholic Church, rather than in favor of
Zwingli and Bucer, and therefore that if one cannot be
sure it is safer to cast one's lot with the former. Among
other faults of the Protestants he reckons their alleged
hostility to learning, and especially slurs their newly
founded academy at Nuremberg. His old admirer,
Eoban Hess, being a professor in this institution,
revenged himself by a flow of invective in Latin verse3
against the "lurid old man" who from a god had turned
Into a stone idol A few years later, however, he
relented and composed a dirge for the " incomparable
scholar."4
1 Baum: Capita und Bucer, 1860, p. 464.
2 Erasmi Responsio ad epistolam apologeticam, LB. ix, 1589. Published as
Epistola ad Fratres Germanics Inferioris, in Lond. xxxf, 59, dated August if
I530-
3 C Krause: Eoban Hess, 1879, ii, 82 ff. There is a pun on Roter Damm
(i.e., red dam) concealed in the lines, " Deus ille invictus Erythri. . . . Saxeus
iste Deus, luridus iste senex."
4 Ibid., p. 209.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 395
When, on October II, 1531, Zwingli perished on the
field of Cappel, and when, a few weeks later, (Ecolam-
padius succumbed to a fever, Erasmus regarded the con-
sequent prostration of the Swiss Protestant cause as a
subject for rejoicing. "Here," he wrote to one of his
Hungarian correspondents,1 "we are freed from great
fear by the death of the two preachers Zwingli and
(Bcolampadius, whose fate has wrought an incredible
change in the mind of many. This is the wonderful
hand of God on high; may he complete what he has
begun to the glory of his holy name!" And to another
friend: "It is well that the two leaders have perished,
Zwingli in battle and CEcolampadius shortly after of an
ulcer, for if Bellona had favored them, it would have
been up with us."2
But, even while dissociating himself with violence from
the paths of revolution, Erasmus was constantly express-
ing his own ideal of reform. He had another opportunity
to do this when the Duke of Cleves sought his advice on
the proper method of dealing with ecclesiastical prob-
lems.3 Little is known of the negotiations, save that
Conrad Heresbach was sent to Freiburg to confer with
the humanist, who praised the ordinance which was
promulgated in 1532.* Much of it, including some
provisions usually thought to be Erasmian, can be found
in earlier ordinances promulgated by the Dukes of Cleves
as far back as 1491 ; on the other hand his direct influence
can be seen in the increased biblicism and rationalism of
the new laws, in the treatment of ritual, of baptism, the
eucharist, the catechism, the worship of saints, and some
ceremonies which, without being abolished, are given a
very subordinate place. Perhaps the thing most signifi-
cant of Erasmus's liberalism is that he should have
*To Nicholas Glaus, December II, 1531. Monumenta Bungaria, xxv, 175.
Similar expressions in a letter to Queen Mary of Hungary, p. 176.
2 LB. ep. 1205.
*J. Hashagen: "Erasmus und die clevischen Kirchenordmmgen von
1532-33." Festgabe F. von Bezold, 1921, pp. 181 fF.
4 LB., App.» ep. 512,
396 ERASMUS
consented to participate In an ecclesiastical reform pro-
mulgated by a temporal authority. Like most compro-
mises, this ordinance was severely dealt with by both
sides. At one moment, indeed, it attracted the attention
of the Anglicans who were also trying to find a via media,
and it might have attained international importance had
the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleves been
happier. But the German Protestants severely criticized
it, and in 1543 the emperor, acting for the Catholics,
forced the duke to kneel and confess that he had never
meant by it to depart from the Church.1
For Erasmus, too, the only result of his attempts at
reform was to excite afresh the fury of the monks. The
plague of hatred endemic at Louvain caused him to
apply both to Ferdinand and to Pope Clement for pro-
tection. The latter sent a special message by his emis-
sary, Theodore Hezius, to Egniond and Vincent Dierx,
requesting them to abstain from cursing Erasmus.
Though these two theologians were still of opinion that
the humanist favored the Reform, they perforce con-
sented to forgo further animosities felt as scandalous to
the Church.2 To Ferdinand Erasmus complained that
it was hard for him to suffer from both sides, and begged
him to request his sister, Margaret, Regent of the
Netherlands, to stop the mouths of those who railed on
him at Louvain, especially of that brawler, Egmond.3
Though Ferdinand complied, Erasmus was forced to
apply again in a few years for another intervention on
the part of the Chancellor Gattinara.4 Maximilian of
Zevenbergen, writing this news to his friend, Alfonso
Valdes,6 says that the monks are generally more hostile
1 Die Religion in Geschichte and Gegenwart> i, 2108.
1 Letter of Theodore Hezius to the papal secretary, Blosius, Liege, October
26, 1525 (?), P. Fredericq: Corpus Inquisitionis neerlandicee, v, 1900, no. 782.
H. de Jongh: UAnci&nne Faculte de Theologie de Louvain, 1911, p. 257*
8 Lond. xx, 23, LB. ep. 710. November 20, 1524.
4 April 29, 1527, Lond. xx, 6; LB. ep. 859.
6 Flanders, October 25, 1527, Calendar of State Papers, Spanish) 1527-29,
00.223.
THE SWISS REFORMATION 397
to Erasmus than to Luther or to any heretic worse than
Luther, and that the head of this party is the dean, who
teaches nothing, and charges a great price. He begs his
friend to procure from the emperor a rescript providing
that only the pope or the Grand Inquisitor of Spain
could judge the humanist's books. He also hopes that
the emperor may invite Erasmus back to Brabant, as the
French king called back Lefevre to Paris, for he thinks
that Erasmus does not like his present home. The
storm, though subsiding, did not die out1 and on July I,
1528, Erasmus was obliged to write a protest2 against
the stupid and rancorous book of Vincent. After this it
was said that the monks were silenced: "Peace sleeps,
or rather is buried/'3 But hatred soon became active
again. On the rumor of his death in 1530 the monks of
the Netherlands burst out into wild cries of triumph.4
Some called him Errasmus from "erro," and Erasmus
"the asinine,"5 and one doctor bought his picture in
order to give himself the delicate pleasure of spitting on
it from time to time.6 "This tyranny," he complained,
"is the result of Luther's violent effort to give us free-
dom";7 and again he asked; "What is the use of sup*
pressing Lutheran books if these Pharisees intercept the
victory?"8 Cut by the tongues and stoned by the books
1 Alfonso de Fonseca, Archbishop of Toledo, wrote Erasmus from Madrid,
June 29, 1528, that his adversaries have at last learned to act with reason
rather than oppression. LB. ep. 962. Calender of Spanish Papers, No. 479.
Wrongly dated July 3d. He begs him to write against heresy and sends two
hundred ducats; for he must be the "Romanus Praeses" mentioned in the
letter from Alfonso Valdes to Erasmus, dated Madrid, June 29, 1528. Letters
and Papers of Henry VIII. iv, no. 465. C/. Valdes to Erasmus, Madrid,
February 26, 1529. Ibid, v., no. 641. (Dated wrongly March 5th.)
* Lond. xix, 82.
9 Letters and Papers, v, no. 641.
4 From C. Susquet, Bourges, August 31, 1531, Enthoven, no. 87.
8 To Alciat, March 31, 1531. Lond. xxvi, 6; LB. ep. 1177.
• To Mailarius, March 28, 1531. LB. ep. 1176.
^Erasmus to John von Riedt, October 1, 1528. F. and W. Krafft: Brief e und
Dokumente, p. 144.
8 Erasmus to Nausea, Day after Pentecost (June 10), 1527. Epistola ad
JFr. Nauseam, 1550, p. 50.
398 ERASMUS
of both sides, as he expressed it,1 at times he waxed
pessimistic, seeing no hope for Germany save in the
intervention of heaven. The hatred of peasants for
lords, of the people for princes and ecclesiastics, the
religious differences, the menace of the Turk, the exces-
sive luxury of the wealthy, all combined to make the
outlook exceedingly dark. Presently, he feared, the
signal for war would be given and neither he nor Freiburg,
his present abode, would be safe.
It is remarkable that both Protestants and Catholics
should have attacked him in the same manner, by making
it appear that he agreed substantially with the Re-
formers. "The deadly parallel" was used with much
effect by Albert Pio, Prince of Carpi, a nephew of Pico
della Mirandola and now French ambassador at Rome,
who prepared a work consisting largely of a comparison
of passages from Erasmus and from Luther, with the
conclusion: aWho reading these words will deny that
Erasmus Lutherizes, or rather that Luther Erasmized
when he began to go mad ? " Hearing of the forthcoming
attack, the humanist tried to ward it off by writing the
distinguished author that he had nothing in common
with Luther. Pio received the letter on November 13,
1525, and sent his Hortatory Reply to Erasmus's Expostu-
lation to Basle on May 15, 1526, having it, about the
same time, printed at Rome.2 He is particularly severe
on the Folly, and objects also the humanist's previous
intercession for Reuchlin. Carpi sent the work to Paris
where it was published in 1529, and where it was trans-
1 Natali DIvi Johannis (June 24), 1530. Epistola ad Amerbachiumt no. 61.
2 H. von der Hardt: Historia liter aria Reformationis. On all this F. Lauch-
ert: Die Italienischen Gegner Luthers, 1912, pp. 279 ff. It is there said that the
first edition of the Alberti Pii> Carporum Comitis, ad Erasmi expostulationem
responsio parcsnetica, was printed at Paris, 1529, and this is the first edition in
the Bibliotheca Erasmiana. But an edition published at Rome, 1526, has been
advertised for sale by J. Gamber, 7 rue Danton, Paris, catalogue Ixiv, no. 1934.
Extracts from the work are published in J. D. Mansi's Supplement to Raynaldo's
Annales Ecclesia, 1755, xii, 150 ff, where the work is put in 1516! I tried to
buy the work advertised by Gamber, but he wrote me, January 5, 1920,
that it had been sold.
ALBERTO PIO 399
lated at the author's request by William de Montmorency,
though the translation was not published.1 Erasmus, who
suspected that much of Pio's information came from
Aleander,2 wrote again to beg him not to publish, and also
sent a missive to Pope Clement with assurances of his
orthodoxy.3 When at last he saw the attack he published
a polite but sarcastic answer to it. This drew forth a very
elaborate work in thirty-one books, pointing out passages
in his works which Erasmus ought to alter or retract,
which in turn caused the humanist to put forth a bitter
Apology against the ravings of Alberto Pio. As this gentle-
man was now dead, his friend Juan Jines de Sepulveda
advanced to defend his memory, performing the task
with the more gusto as he was one of those treated
with a certain condescension in the Ciceronianus.*
About the same time another Italian Friar, Ambrosius
Catharinus, attacked the humanist, saying: "Either
Luther Erasmizes, or, as some have expressed it more
harshly, Erasmus planted, Luther watered, but the
devil gave the increase." Again, in 1540, Catharinus
scented Pelagianisni in the Free Will, and fiercely fell
upon it.6
In other cases Erasmus's attempts to defend the
Church excited the antipathy of her sons, who cried,
"Non isto defensore!" His book on Mending the Peace
of the Church^ which aroused such dislike among the
Lutherans, also proved a red rag to the Catholics. On
November 5, 1533, the papal nuncio Vergerio sent it to
Rome, with the information that one Augustine Eugu-
binus "had spoken worse of Germany than was ever
written of any province and had even named Erasmus
I1\it version, which must have been done in 1530-31, exists in MS. See
Chantilly, Cabinet des Lwres, ^ v,, 1900, i, p. 167.
2 To Olaus, February 28 (1532), Monumenta Hungarus xxv, 201; cf. En-
thoven, no. 164, November 23, 1531.
8 April 3, 1528, Lond. xx, 82; LB. ep. 961,
4 Morel-Fatio: Historiographu de Charles 7, 1913, p. 44.
B For all this see F. Lauchert: Die Italienischen Gegner Luthers, 1912, pp.
400 ERASMUS
as a fellow of Luther/'1 A few years later the same book
was condemned by the University of Louvain.2
Trouble was also brewing in Spain.3 The first serious
manifestation of it came after Alphonso Fernandez of
Madrid had translated the Enchiridion into Spanish.4
The author was at once accused of heresy, especially of
disapproving the punishment of heretics, of preferring
marriage to virginity, and thinking ill of the Inquisition.5
The fanatical fury of the monks, fanned to white heat by
the presence of the English ambassador, Erasmus's old
enemy Edward Lee, found vent in the publication of a
list of errors attributed to the humanist. So much of a
bogy did he become that a riot of monks was awed into
order by the imprecation of the presiding officer: "May
the wicked Erasmus catch you if you are not quiet!"
The government, however, took the part of the scholar
to the extent of imposing silence on his enemies, though
they still questioned suspected persons, like Loyola,6
about their supposed Erasmian views, and though in
1535 Charles V made it a capital offense to use the
Colloquies in the schools.
All this time Erasmus was doing his best to assert his
loyalty to the Catholic cause. One letter gives such
prudent advice about keeping square with the Church
1 W. Friedensburg: Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, i, 1892, p. 139, On
Augustine Steuchus, called Eugubinus from his birthplace Gubbio in the
Apennines, see Bossert in Archiv fur Reformations geschichte, xvii, 1920, pp.
231 ff. A letter of Pflug, dated May 5, 1533, shows that Erasmus was then in
correspondence with Eugubinus.
2Gossart: "Un livre d'firasme reprouve par PUniverske de Louvain,"
Bulletin de I'Academie Royale de Belgique, Glasse des Letters*, 1902, p. 438,
8 On Erasmus in Spain see A. Bonilla y San Martin: Luis Fives y lafilosofia
del renacimiento, 1903, pp. 123 ff; H. C. Lea: History of the Spanish Inquisi-
tion9 1907, iii, 414 ff; H. C. Lea: Chapters from the Religious History of Spain,
890, pp. 35 ff.
4 Letter of Alphonso Fernandez to Dr. Lewis Coronel, September 10, 1526,
published by E. Bohmer: "Erasmus in Spanien," Jahrbuchfiir romanische und
englische Liter atur, iv, 1862, 158 ff.
6 Bonilla y San Martin, "£rasme en Espagne," Revue Hispanique* xvii, 1907,
445-
6 The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, ed. by J. F. X. O'Connor, 1900,
p. 101.
PAUL III 401
that, notwithstanding its jocular form, one must believe
it to contain an element of sincerity. Writing to his
friend, Viglius van Zuichem,1 he begs him to avoid getting
mixed up with the sectaries, and illustrates the man-
ner in which this may best be done by the story of the
lawyer who fooled the devil. When the arch-fiend asked
the man what he believed, the pious lawyer replied,
"What the Church believes.** Seeking to entangle him
by asking what it was that the Church believed, Satan
was foiled by the legal luminary's reply, "What I do."
With the prelates and governors of the Church
Erasmus got on better than with the theologians. With
his old friend Sadoletus2 he kept up a friendly corre-
spondence, and when Alessandro Farnese was raised to
the tiara in 1534 under the name of Paul III, Erasmus
wrote him his customary letter of congratulation3 prais-
ing him as a true follower of St. Paul, and expressing
his wishes for the peace of the church. He advises
political neutrality on the part of the papacy, and the
summoning of a general council in which the Protestants
should be allowed to hope that they may obtain their
just demands. He expects that this would restore unity,
as he still thinks that the majority of Christians are
untouched by heresy. The papal secretary replied that
the pope was pressed for need of money, and, notwith-
standing his desire to do something for Erasmus, was
unable to send him a present, but promised another
favor instead,4 which came soon in the appointment of
Erasmus to a provostship of Deventer.5 Paul III him-
1 LB. App. ep. 374. November 8, 1533. Luther had previously (1531) told
a similar story about a charcoal-burner of Prague tempted by the devil.
Luthers Werke, Erlangen, xxvi, 377 f,
2 Two of these epistles reprinted in Epistolcs P. Brunelli ft aliorum, ed. F. A,
C. GraufF, 1837, pp. 381 f. See further Lauchert: Die Italienischen Gegner
Luthers ', 1912, p. 390.
•January 23, 1535. Published by Cardauns, Qmllen und Forschungtn aus
Italienischen Archiven. xi, 202. (Rome, 1908.)
4 April 14, 1535. Enthoven, no. 127.
6 W. Vischer, Erasmiana, no. vii. Instrument giving it to Erasmus, August
1,1535, A letter from Paul III to Queen Mary of Hungary urging that Erasmus
402 ERASMUS
self answered that he desired nothing better than the
peace of the Church and that he counted on Erasmus's
help in securing it.1 About the same time the pope
offered him the cardinalate, but, though he felt pleased
and flattered at the offer, poverty, age, and infirmity
prevented him from accepting it.2
But the friendship of the curia did not exempt Erasmus
from the hostility of many Romans. A pasquinade prob-
ably written before his death represented him as "balanc-
ing the papal heaven against the Christian heaven/* and
compared him to a man attached to two columns by a
rope around his middle, with a heavy sack tied to his
feet and a sail between two horns on his head, the whole
apparatus placing him in such an unstable position that
every gust of wind turned him upside down and kept
him whirling about.3
Much more unpleasant was a quarrel fastened on him
by one Peter Curtius, who took offense at the slur on
Italian courage contained in Erasmus' speaking of sar-
castic proverbs, such as, "Learned as a Scythian, honest
as a Carthaginian, warlike as an Italian/* Curtius, or
one of his friends, thereupon forged a letter purporting
to come from Erasmus to Curtius, imitating the
humanist's hand and even his style not unsuccessfully,
but full of scurrility and indecency not without wit.
Erasmus is represented as drinking freely with his friends
Beatus Rhenanus and Henry Glareanus, and making
merry with them over a carving of tipsy Bacchus.
Erasmus is then made to explain that he had never
written "an unwarlike Italian" (Italum imbellem) but
"unwarlike Attalus" (Attalum imbellem), for Attalus
be allowed to occupy this position, printed in Epp. ad Amerlach. p. 119. iv.
August 5, 1535. A certain Antony von Gumppenberg wrote Erasmus, Au-
gust 21, 1535, from Rome that he has procured him the provostship, which is
said to be worth 1,500 ducats per annum, though he fears it is not half that,
and has a good house included, Forstemann-Giinther, no. 225,
1 Rome, May 31, 1535. Lond, xxvii, 26. LB, ep. 1280.
8 To P. Tomitz, Bishop of Cracow, Basle, August 31, 1535. Lond, xxvii,
25. LB., ep. 1287.
9 E, P. Rodocanachi: La Reforms en Italic, 1920, i, p. 148.
A FORGED LETTER 403
was a man called by Hecataeus unwarlike and timid.
Such misprints are attributed to the malice of the
printers, and the letter continues to give an extreme
example of this, as shown in a misprint said to have
been introduced into Erasmus's dedication of the
Christian Widow to Queen Mary of Hungary. Where
he had written "Atque mente ilia usam earn semper
fuisse, quae talem feminam deceret/' the printer had
substituted for "mente ilia" "mentula," thus turning
a compliment into an obscene insult, which was said to
have been printed in a thousand copies. Though when
he heard of this forgery Erasmus at once protested
against it, the imitation of his style was so good that the
spurious letter was printed as his by Merula in 1607,
and has found its way into the complete editions of his
correspondence published since then.1
lThe letter, dated Freiburg, January n, 1535, in Lond. xx, 68; LB. 1276;
Erasmi Responsio ad Petri Cursii Defcnsionem, LB. ix» 1747. C/. Jortin: Life
of Erasmus, i, 557 f; Nichols, i, p, xxxviii, 474. — A letter to Erasmus from
Martin Dabrowski, dated Rome, 1536, gives him information of the political
situation there. Published with one from Joseph Tectander, by Miaskowski,
in Pamiftnik liUracki, xiii, 1914-15, pp. 71-76.
CHAPTER XIV
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG IN THE BREISGAU AND AGAIN
AT BASLE
residence selected by Erasmus after leaving
JL Basle was the Hapsburg city about forty miles
north of that town, Freiburg in the Breisgau. Beauti-
fully situated on the Dreisam at the foot of the Schloss-
berg in the Black Forest, this archiepiscopal see was
adorned with one of the finest Gothic minsters in
Germany and was the seat of the university founded
by Albert VI, Archduke of Austria, in 1457. The
attractions of the spot for the weary scholar consisted
largely in the promise of freedom from the sects and
in the presence of several warm friends, headed by
Ulrich Zasius, the local professor of jurisprudence.
By the care of John Faber, Bishop of Vienna, he
found awaiting him the handsomest house in Freiburg,
then known as The White Lily, built by the Imperial
Treasurer, James Villinger, in 1516 for the Emperor
Maximilian.1 The only drawbacks to his enjoyment
of this royal residence were that he had to share it with
Dr. Othmar Nachtigall, known in Latin as Luscinius,
and that he was expected to pay rent.2 But these proved
so serious that after two years and a half he moved to
another house, known as The Child Jesus, which he at
1 H. Mayer: "Erasmus in Semen Beziehungen zur Universitat Freiburg,"
Alemannia, N. F. viii, 1907, pp, 287 ff. (?/„ Forstemann-Gttnther, p. 345. Jn
that day houses were named instead of numbered. This palace was later
dubbed "The Whale/' and is now Franciskanerstrasse 3, occupied by a whole-
sale wine merchant, but preserved in the old style.
2 To More, September 5, 1529, Londt xxvi, 21; LB. 1074; and Lond. xxx,
20, LB. ep. 1210, 1531.
404
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG 405
first rented and then bought for a thousand gulden,
again selling it when he returned to Basle in I535.1-
Crowned with his own fame and armed with a special
diploma from Ferdinand, Erasmus was received with high
honors by the university. With him to Freiburg he
brought the whole chapter of canons of the Basle
cathedral, some of whom were given teaching positions.2
Erasmus, who found the university well attended, but
not well served in any faculty save that of jurisprudence,
was on intimate terms with the professors, and was by
them occasionally consulted as to appointments, and was
allowed to keep a few students with him as famuli. On
August 5, 1533, he enrolled as "Desiderius Erasmus
Rotetodamus theologize professor/'3 his chief object in
doing so apparently being the desire to secure the pro-
fessorial privilege of freedom from taxes. Just two
months later he was taken into the university senate, on
the stipulation that no heavy work be put upon him.
Never content long in one place, Erasmus in the au-
tumn of 1531 paid another visit to Besan^on, in order
"to quench his thirst with good Burgundian wine." A
letter of recommendation from the ertnperor secured him
a splendid reception from the magistrates of the town,
and perhaps an invitation to settle there.4 He thought
of going further to see Lyons, which he remembered from
his visit of a quarter of a century before, but the war
between Savoy and Berne and a letter from Charles V
prevented him.5
1 Now SchifFstrasse 7, occupied by a brewery, rebuilt but with an inscription
reminding the visitor of Erasmus's sojourn* On the rent and other details,
letters of J. Loble to Erasmus, Forstemann-GUnther epp. 153, 155, 184.
2 Glarean to Laski, Freiburg, October 6, 1529, S. A, Gabbema; Illustrium
et Ctarorwn Firorum JSpistote, 1669, ep. 8,
9 H* Mayer; Die Matrikeln der Unwersitat Freiburg~im~Brtisgau> 1460-16^6.
1907. Under date.
4 Erasmus to Secretary Lambelin, dated October 26, 1532 (for 1531) and
letter of Charles V, October i, 1531, published by A, Castan "Granveile et le
petit empereur de Besanctm,1* Revue Historique, i, 1876, p. 125,
8 To Dalbonus, Abbot of Lyons, November 27, 1530 (for 153 i)» lond, xxv,
41 j LB. ep. 047-
4o6 ERASMUS
From Burgundy Erasmus brought back with him as
amanuensis a young native of that region, Gilbert
Cousin of Nozeroy,1 or in Latin Gilbertus Cognatus
Nozerenus, known later as a writer on law and history
and as a Reformer. He took his office so seriously that
his first published work, On the Duties of Secretaries*
asserts that x.he choice of a literary assistant is no less
important than the choice of a wife. His assiduity and
good character won his master's love, even though this
master would have preferred a Catholic. When Erasmus
left Freiburg in 1535 Cousin attended to the business of
winding up his affairs in that city, and then took a
canonry at Nozeroy. The affectionate correspondence
continued through the short interval until his master's
death filled him with sorrow. In the Boston Public
Library there is an edition of Erasmus's Adages of 1533
with numerous notes in the hand of Cousin and with
two epigrams, one in Greek and one in Latin, under
Erasmus's picture.2 The former may be translated :
Who has not seen Erasmus living will
From this true picture know him. Could the skill
Of the artist but bring back his voice, such art
Would show to thee the image of his heart.
But what the artist could not, he has done;
For in his books his mind shines like the sun.
That is his truer image and more clear
Than is the one the artist painted here.
Know, therefore, that Erasmus thou dost find
When in his works thou dost admire his mind.8
1 L. Febvre: "Un Secretaire d'firasme: Gilbert Cousin et la Reforme en
Franche-Comte," Bulletin de la Societt de Vhistoire du protestantisme fran^ais,
Ivi, 1907, 97 ff. Professor Edna V. Moffett of Wellesley College has kindly let
me see her unpublished work Gilbert Cousin (Cornell Doctor's Thesis, 1907)
with photographs of unpublished letters of Cousin. Other letters in G. Cognati
Opera, 1562, i, 296 fF.
2 Adagiorum Opus Des, Erasmi Roterodami per eundem exquisitiore quam
anuhac unquam cura recognitum. Froben. Basle. 1533. The notes in this
volume were doubtless for the edition of Proverbs prepared by Cousin as a
supplement to Erasmus. G. Cognati, Opera, 1562, i, 86 ff.
* Later published in LB. i (24).
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG 407
And the Greek one thus :
How Erasmus looked when old thou canst not tell
From this design; 'tis not he, but his shell.1
These last words remind us that by this time Erasmus
was getting to be a rather frail old man. "At Louvain,"
he wrote to Eoban Hess, recalling the visit of twelve
years ago, "you saw the shadow of a man; now you
would see the shadow of a shadow/'2
Erasmus continued laboriously writing to the end*
Besides new works, and editions of works by others
superintended by him,3 he kept producing revised edi-
tions of his own lucubrations. A new impression of the
Adages, for example, he dedicated to Charles Blount, the
son of his old friend, Mountjoy, in the following beauti-
ful epistle:4
It must be your especial care, dear Charles, to be a true son of your
accomplished father, the true heir of his excellence, not to degenerate
from his culture and to prepare yourself to inherit his virtue even
more than his advantages. For although he Is of illustrious descent,
and does not lack wealth suitable to his birth, yet if you consider
him as a whole he is both more illustrious and richer in virtue and
learning than in race and possessions. Although neither law nor
custom allows children to take possession of their father's goods
before their death, yet ought they, from their earliest infancy, to take
their heritage of those things which are really goods. Your father's
kindness desires this, and the most splendid foundations are laid for
it in your training in the classics, as much as your age allows. You
have no dull spurs to urge you on: first your father himself; then the
example of that noble maid, of almost the same age as yourself, the
Princess Mary, daughter of a learned king and a learned and pious
queen, who now writes letters in good Latin and of content showing
a nature worthy of her extraction; and finally you have the example
of the daughters of the More family, that chorus of Muses, so that I
do not see that anything is wanting to stimulate your ambition.
3 To Hess, 1531, C. Krause: Heliw Eobanus IIwust 1879, i, 287, not*.
8 As *.£, the translation of Chrysostom undertaken by Germaine Bricc at
Erasmus's request, Forstemann-Gttnther, no, 140.
4 Enthoven, p, 202. 1528, Blount's answer, Junt, 26, 1529, ibid,, no. 74*
Erasmus later dedicated his Liry to Blount. Preface March I, 1531*
Loud. Kviii, x£j LB. ep* 060,
4o8 ERASMUS
I am writing to say that you will now share with your father the
possession of the Adages, which was long ago dedicated to him, by
which you will detract nothing from his glory, but will add much to
the book, for, if I mistake not, you will reap much fruit therefrom.
It is nothing new to dedicate the same work to several people, and
were it new I would answer for it that the father and the son who
so much resembles him should be considered rather one person than
two. For what is a son but a father renewing his youth in another
self? And perchance your father, absorbed in the business of the
court, has no more leisure for such things and willingly hands the
lamp to you. Read it, therefore, Charles, and while reading think
that it is Erasmus talking to you. The Lord Jesus keep and prosper
your whole life, accomplished boy.
Young Blount answered this dedication with an
epistle which drew forth from the humanist the rather
fulsome exclamation, that if he could write such Latin
unaided it was time for Erasmus to give up the pen.1
To John More, the son of another old friend, he dedi-
cated his Aristotle,2 and an edition of Ovid's Nut*
A work of the kind in which Erasmus especially de-
lighted was the Apophthegmata (first edition, Froben,
March, 1531), a collection of "egregie dicta" attributed
to famous men of antiquity. The foundation of his work
was that of Plutarch.4 As usual, he kept working at the
piece after its publication, and in 1532 issued an edition
in which the original six books were expanded to eight.
Though not one of his more famous books, the Apo-
thegms, attained considerable popularity, being trans-
lated into English by Taverner in 1540 and by Nicholas
Udall in 1542.*
An extant copy of the Apothegms with notes in Luther's
hand,6 furnishes interesting testimony that, however
1 To Lord Mountjoy, March 18, 153 1. Lend, xxvi, 39. LB. 1 174.
2 February 27, 1531. Lend, xxviii, 13. LB. ep. 1159.
8 In 1524. Lond. xxix, 26.
4 Erasmus defended himself from the charge of having plagiarized from the
recent translations of Plutarch by Filelfo and Rhegius. On the whole sub-
ject see BiUiotheca Erasmiana, Apophthegmata. 1901.
6 Ibid., 180.
8G. Kawerau: "Luthers Randglossen zu einer Schrift des Erasmus,"
Ztitschrift fur kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliches Lebtn, 1889, p. 599. The
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG 409
much the Reformer disagreed with the man of letters,
he continued to buy his books. The severely critical
animus of the annotator dissents from many of the say-
ings of the author. When, for example, Erasmus says,
"Wise men judge an unexpected and sudden death the
best," Luther adds, "These are the words of impiety/'1
Other late works were the Catechism or Explanation oj
the Apostles' Creed, a brief summary of the necessary
articles of faith,2 and the Method of Preaching, covering
a large part of the field of practical theology as well as
that of homiletics. Originally written as a gift to
Bishop Fisher it was, on his sad death, dedicated to
Christopher von Stadion, Bishop of Basle.3
Friends and admirers without number either carne,
during these last years, to pay their homage to the prince
of the humanists, or poured on him an immense quantity
of letters. The correspondence published by himself and
his executors fell off during the last four years of his life;
for the years 1532-36 only seventy-two letters were thus
published, and of them the majority not by but to him.
Since that time from his letter-books at least three times
that number has come to light; of these also the majority
were by his friends. Kings, princes, prelates, and men
of genius in affairs and in learning contributed to the
treasury of his praise. With the King of Poland and with
his bishop John Dantiscus he was in communication.4
Queen Mary of Hungary, to whom he had dedicated his
Christian Widow, replied with gracious invitations,
book is the edition of Leyden, 1541, was given away by Luther in 1543, and
later came into possession of his son Paul.
1 Of course sudden death was regarded as a divine punishment, and Luther's
position is that of the Church,
2 LB. v, 1133. Luther's poor opinion of this work also expressed in LauUr*
backs Tagebuch auf das Jahr 1538, hg. von J. K, Scidemann> p. 48,
3 LB. v, 767.
4 Erasmus to King Sigismund, August 28, 1528, LB. iii» col. 1098; Mias-
kowski (Jahrbmh fur Philosophu^ xiv, 1900, p. 351) states that this letter
should be in 1535* but he is wrong* Other correspondence of Erasmus with the
Poles published by him, and also found in Acta Tomiciana: Epistola, Lega~
tiones, Responsa* Action^ Rt$#st® Sigismwndi L Vols, 1-13, 1852-19x5,
4io ERASMUS
thanks, and compliments.1 With those kings of com-
merce, the Fuggers, Erasmus was also in correspondence.2
Among the many promising youths who sought the
acquaintance of Erasmus not in vain, one to make his
mark later as a humanist and statesman, and as a sup-
porter of the policy of Charles V and Philip II in the
Netherlands, was Viglius van Aytta van Zuichem. In
addition to the correspondence published in Erasmus's
works, fourteen interesting letters, relating to the young
man's studies in France, Italy, and Switzerland, have
since come to light.3
Another correspondent was Ambrose^ Storch, ^or
Pelargus, of Cologne, a well-known Catholic theologian
in his day. Thirty-five of their letters and one of
Erasmus to the Archbishop of Trier, not found elsewhere,
were published by Storch in 1539.* Half the volume
is taken up with Storch's Judgment of Erasmus's
Declamations in answer to the Censure published by the
Theologians at Paris: the author admits that the scholar
has much reason to be angry with Beda, but blames
him, nevertheless, for subscribing to Luther's impious
dogma. When, in 1532, Erasmus revised his Declama-
J This published in Oldk Miklos Levdezese; kozli Ipolyi Arnold. Monu-
mania Hungaria historica: diplomataria, xxv, 1875. Olaus to Erasmus, Augs-
burg, July i, 1530, p. 69; Erasmus to Olaus, July 7, p, 70; Erasmus to Queen
Mary, December 12, 1531, p. 175; Mary to Erasmus, June 13, 1533, p. 378;
Erasmus to Olaus, February 28, 1532, p. 201; Olaus to Erasmus, July 26, 1532,
p. 226, and other letters.
* Letter of Antony Fugger to Erasmus, April 7, 1530, thanking him for a
dedication of Xenophon. Zeitsch. d, hist. Fereinsf. Schwabtn und Neubcrg, xxi,
1894, p. 56.
*C. P. Hoynck van Papendrecht: Analecta Belgica, 6 parts, 1743. ^Letters
vol. ii, part i, pp. 9 ff., dated 1529-35. Life of Van Zuichem (1507-77), in vol i.
In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, there is a portrait called " Zwingli/1 now known
to be of Van Zuichem by the artist Nicholas of NeuchateL Zwingliana, 1918,
P' 347-
4 Ambroni Pelargi et Erasmi Roterdami Bdlaria Epistolarum, 1539. A
copy of this excessively rare book (not in the British Museum) is at the Bod-
leian, Oxford. I have not seen it myself, but my friend, Prof. Carrington
Lancaster, kindly made an abstract of it for me, copying one letter entire and
selections from others. On Pelargus see further: N. Paulus: Die Dtutscken
Dominikamr tm Kampfe gegen Luther •, pp, 204-208. The letters are dated
1529-34.
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG 411
lions for a new edition he wrote the fact to Pelargus
and added:
Wherefore I ask you to send me your notes that I may see if they
have anything useful to me. For it is not my intention to mix
anything Lutheran in my writings. If you please to send them, do
not bother to copy them, for I have secretaries who can read anything.
However, if you should wish to copy them, I should be grateful.
But do not undertake the labor until I have had a sample of your
work and we have talked it over together.
The correspondence shows the good humor with
which the greater man allowed the lesser to criticize his
Folly and Colloquies*, the break came when the lesser
writer took umbrage at a published reference to himself
and Mayr as having part in the tumults at Basle.
A philosopher and scientist famous in his own day
and esteemed even now was Henry Cornelius Agrippa of
Nettesheira, a man who stood outside of the two hostile
camps of the Christian religion. The crowning labor of
this versatile man was a defense of philosophic doubt,
or rather an attack on the pretensions of learned men,
and at the same time a plea for a simple biblical
Christianity, entitled: An Oration on the Uncertainty
and Fanity of Science and of Art and on the Excellence
of God's Word. This he sent for an opinion to Erasmus,
who professed to like it.1
With a brilliant circle of humanists in Southern
France Erasmus was brought into contact by his publi-
cation of Josephus. Having heard of an important
manuscript of this author in possession of George
d'Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez and an officer of the
King of Navarre, the great scholar wrote him asking to
borrow it, in a letter dated November 19, 1531** It
happened, however, that this codex had passed into the
1 On Agrippa see lives by H. Morley, 1856, and Prost, 1881, Some letters to
Erasmus and Agrippa, not found elsewhere, are in H, C A$rippat Optra*
Lugduni, /.*.» Lib. vi, epp, 31, 36; lib* vii, epp. 6, 9, 17, 18, 19, 38, 40,
* Lend, xxv, 3; LB« ep* 1:203 with the mistaken superscription "Episcopo
Rivcnsi" (Bi*hop of Rieux) instead of "Episcopo Ruthenensi" (Bishop of
Rodex).
4i2 ERASMUS
possession of Jean de Pins, Bishop of Rieux, to whom
(TArmagnac forwarded Erasmus's request, and wrote
the latter of the fact. On January 28, 1532, De Pins
replied to (TArrnagnac that he would send the manu-
script to the humanist had he not already promised
to give it for printing to the publisher of Lyons, Sebastian
Gryphius.1
But Erasmus was not thus to be foiled. He had
already known De Pins at Bologna, some twenty-five
years before, and accordingly on March 20, 1532, wrote
him the letter2 of which part is here translated:
To me, certainly, that was no unlucky mistake which has given
occasion to revive the memory of our pleasant intercourse and
literary studies at Bologna. I thought that there was a Greek
Josephus in possession of the Very Reverend Bishop of Rodez, but
he has written that it is now in your possession, having returned
to you by right of ownership. Your kindness, which I formerly
learned to know and to try at close quarters, makes me hope that
you will lend that volume for some months to Jerome Froben, who
has decided to publish, with the aid of several learned men, that
historian, who, in spite of his fame, has been wretchedly corrupted
by the ignorance of copyists and of translators. ... I should
like to know what the oracle says about our friend Bombasius, for I
have been able to hear nothing of him for many years.
This innocent epistle aroused the suspicions of the
vigilant inquisitors of Southern France. Dolet has told
how De Pins was called before the town council of
Toulouse and forced to hear the letter read and trans-
lated to them.3 He himself describes the same
experience in a letter written in reply to the last.4
SWEETEST ERASMUS: When your delightful and pleasant letter
was brought to me, you would hardly believe the tumult that it
created by falling into the hands of certain men who appear to look
at you askance and to say evil about you. They tried secretly to
1 This letter first published by L. Thuasne in Revue des Bibliotheg[ues> xv,
1905, pp. 203-208. It is dated "Toulouse." On Gryphius see article by R. C.
Christie, Historical Essays by Members of Owens College, Manchester) 1902,
pp. 307-23.
2 Nimes MS., no. 215, fol. 168 verso. See text in Appendix II, p. 448.
8 Quoted by Thuasne, he. «/., and see R. C. Christie: Doletf 1899, 66 ff*
4 Nimes MS., 215, fol. 165 verso. See text in Appendix II, pp. 448 f.
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG 413
smell out some way in which I could be either threatened or drawn
out. But I think their only reason was that they have been too
vehemently affected by the reproach of certain persons1 whom you
attack in your books, and wound and harass too much, as they have
complained both to me and to others. When these men hoped to
find something important in your letter, as though Erasmus and
De Pins were conspirators against the realm, they first made a great
fuss and then while I, by chance, was absent from the city on a short
vacation, they threw into prison the poor secretaries who had brought
the letter from Paris, on the ground that these men sought to evade
them and did not seem willing to deliver the letter at once into their
hands. When they, smitten with madness though they were, had
returned to good sense and moderation, they insisted on unsealing
the letter in my presence and with my consent. When I readily
consented and when they found that there was nothing in the letter
except something about a certain Joseph, then you may believe that
their faces fell and that they acted like men taken unawares. . . .
De Pins then goes on to tell how he had once procured
the manuscript of Josephus from the heritage of Filelfo
and Leonardo Giustiniani; how he had lent it to Peter
Gylli, a scholar in the service of George d'Armagnac,
how he had now promised to send it to Sebastian
Gryphius at Lyons to be printed. He added that he
heard that Bombasius had perished in the sack of Rome.
But in the meantime the manuscript had been returned
by Gylii to George d'Arrnagnac, and by him forwarded
to an obscure proof-reader of Sebastian Gryphius, one
Francois Rabelais by name, with instructions to send it
on to Erasmus when he got a reliable messenger. The
opportunity came when Hilaire Bertulph, one of the
humanisms secretaries and a man 'already known to the
French court, visited Lyons.2 Rabelais, who had been
studying Erasmus with admiration, seized this occasion
to write to him, partly to express his obligations, partly
to disabuse the humanist of the idea that the book
written by J. C. Scaliger was composed by Aleander,
A part of his letter is here translated:3
* /,<f«» the humanists attacked in the Ciceronianws*
* A. Roersch; U Humanism* £ttgtt 1910, pp. 75 ff.
9 Pdr0temann*G0nther» ep. 182, dated November 30, 1533,
4i4 ERASMUS
George d'Araiagnac, the famous Bishop of Rodez, recently sent
me Flavins Josephus's Jewish History of the Sack1 and asked me, for
the sake of our old friendship, that, when I found a reliable man
setting out I should send it to you at the first opportunity. I gladly
seized that handle and occasion, kind father, of showing by a pleasing
service with what devotion and piety I love you. I call you father;
for, as we daily see that pregnant women nourish offspring which they
have never seen and protect them from the harsh outer air, the same
has happened to you who have educated me who am unknown to you
and of simple estate. Thus have you hitherto nourished me with the
most chaste breasts of your divine learning, so that, did I not ascribe
to you alone my whole worth and being, I should be the most
ungrateful of all men who are now alive or ever will be. Hail again
and again, most beloved father, father and glory of your country,
champion and defender of letters and unconquered fighter for the truth.
This more than enthusiastic letter would lead one to
expect that Rabelais was a careful student of Erasmus's
works, and a thorough investigation has proved that
the Gargantua and Pantagrud do in fact borrow im-
mensely from the Folly and the Colloquies, as well as
from other works.2 To Erasmus, however, the young
physician of Lyons was quite unknown, and though he
certainly received the letter it is probable he did not
answer it.
With Rabelais's letter Erasmus therefore received the
Josephus, which he acknowledged in a note of January
30, 1533,* and which he forthwith prepared for the
press.4 When De Pins requested the return of the
manuscript,6 Erasmus penned the following interesting
epistle, dated November 13, 1534.°
EXCELLENT BISHOP: For your constant benevolence toward me I
am, as I ought to be, most grateful. I am forced to endure various
inconveniences. Luther has written against me a simply furious
letter, so wickedly mendacious that it may displease even the most
1 I.e., of Jerusalem. The words in italics are in Greek in the original.
2Thuasne: £tudes sur Rabelais. 1904. Chap. ii. "Rabelais et firasme/*
8 Nimes MS., 215, fol. 170. See Appendix II, p. 450.
4 Antiquitatum Judaicarum libri xx. Basle, 1534.
6 Nimes MS., 215, foi. 167. See Appendix II, p. 451.
* Nimes MS,, 215, fol. 169. See Appendix II, p, 451.
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG 415
ardent Lutherans. Nicholas Herborn, the Franciscan Commissary
General this side of the Alps, has published some Lenten sermons
in which he spatters me with bitter invective. There are some men
who read libels against me privately among their fellows, among
whom was Busch, recently deceased. Nor does the least part of my
troubles come from my servants. I recently nursed a viper in my
bosom, thinking I had a faithful servant, but he would have killed
me could he have done so with impunity. In addition to this, old
age weighs on me more and more, and gout tortures me.
Another short letter of May 19, 1535, gave news of
Bombasius's death.1 A greeting from De Pins,2 on June
24, 1536, closed the record of friendship of the two old
men, both of whom were near death.
While the adoration of so many brilliant men must
have given him much happiness, the last years of
Erasmus were darkened by the hideous tragedy that fell
upon his English friends under the tyranny of Henry
VIIL The dramatic disgrace of Wolsey cast, in October,
1529, from the height of power to the depth of disfavor,
made an immense sensation throughout Europe. "Oh
fickle tide of human fortune I" exclaimed the humanist
when he first heard of it,3
When the great seal was given to Sir Thomas More
he at once wrote his old friend: "Long having meditated
leisure, lo I am unexpectedly thrown into the stream ot
affairs. . . , My friends here exult vehemently and
congratulate me . . . you perhaps will pity my fortune/'4
Far from reassured by the news, Erasmus foreboded
further trouble and a great slaughter, unless some
genuine hero should arise to prevent it.B
1 Nirnes MS,, 215, fol 169, Appendix II, p. 451 f,
2 Hero aid to Erasmus, Enthovcn, no* 141.
8 "0 rerum humanarum Euripuzn"; tf» Adagio^ chil i» cent, ix» prov, Ixii,
LB» ii, 357, To Francis, Treasurer of Besanc.on, December io» 1529? Lond.
xxvi, 23 j LB. ep, 1080, Cf. Luther's comments on the same matter, Enders,
vii, 228,
4 October a8, 1529, "ex rusculo nostro" (Chelsea), Forstemann-Gttnther,
ep, 113.
6 Erasmus to Amerbach> January 14 (1530), Epistola ad Amttbackium^ no.
H» The year-date ia given by the reference to Campeggio'a leaving England,
which happened in October, 1529,
4i6 ERASMUS
All too soon came confirmation of the gloomy presenti-
ment. Unable to approve Henry's marriage with Anne
Boleyn, or to allow his title as Supreme Head of the
Church, More resigned the great seal on May 15, 1532,
writing to Erasmus that this step had not been forced
upon him by the king,1 and at the same time expressing
his hatred of the sectaries, particularly of Tyndale and
of Melanchthon. The letter was so long delayed in
Saxony that everyone knew of the event before the news
reached Erasmus. Thinking to help his friend, perhaps,
the humanist wrote, in the form of an open letter2 to
Faber, Bishop of Vienna, a charming description and
eulogy of More's household, adding his assurance of the
ex-Chancellor's safety: "For I know the nature of that
most humane prince, and the constancy with which he
cherishes the friends he has once embraced, and how he
hardly ever removes any of them from his favor, even
though he surprises them in some human error. ... I
doubt not that for good reasons More begged the king
to dismiss him,"
Vain sop of flattery tossed to a savage beast! Now
began in earnest the slaughter of the noblest in the
kingdom. On May 4, 1535, three Carthusian priors, the
Vicar of Isleworth, and Dr. Richard Reynolds of the
Bridgettine monastery of Sion were sent to the block
on the charge of treason. A still greater shock to the
civilized world came when the two ornaments of England,
John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More,
were thrown into the Tower and then executed, the one
on June 22d, the other on July 6th. Of all this Erasmus
wrote on August I2th:3
1 More to Erasmus, June 14, 1532, Lond. xxvii, 9; LB. ep, 1223. Another
letter without date, Lond. xxvii, 10. Dr. F. M. Rogers: "A Calendar of the
Correspondence of Sir T. More," English Historical Review, xxxvii, 1922,
546 ff, dates this second letter June, 1533.
2 No date, but written toward the end of 1532 and first published in the
De preparation* ad Mortem, sent to England, circa January, 1534, Lond.
xxvii, 8; LB. ep. 426.
* To Bartholomew Latomus, Basle, August 12, 1535, LB. ep. 1286,
LAST YEARS AT FREIBURG 417
Hither many noble Frenchmen have fled, fearing the winter
storm, but they are now called back. "The lion will roar," says the
prophet, "and who will not be afraid?" A similar terror, from a
different cause, has settled on the souls of the English. Capital
punishment was exacted of certain monks, among whom was a
Bridgettine, first dragged along the ground, then hung, and afterward
quartered. A persistent and probable rumor says that when the
king knew that the Bishop of Rochester had been elected into the
college of cardinals, he had him quickly led forth and beheaded.
For some time Thomas More has been in prison, having given up his
offices. This is too true. It is also said that he has been executed,
but of this I have as yet had no certain tidings. Would that he had
never mixed in this perilous business, but had left theology to
theologians!
Within two weeks Erasmus knew the worst1 and then
wrote: "In More I seem to have died, so much did we
have one soul, as Pythagoras said. But such are the
surges of human fate."2 Shortly after this there was
published an open letter on the death of Fisher and of
More, purporting to be from William Courinus Nucerinus
to Philip Montanus; it was commonly attributed to
Erasmus, but was doubtless written, under his direction
and inspiration, by his famulus, Gilbert Cousin.3 After
an account of the trial and execution taken from a news-
letter from Paris4 with the report of an eyewitness, the
heroism and nobility of the suffering pair are graphically
described. The writer would have liked to persuade the
king to be less severe toward these lights of Britain, at
the same time that he would have advised the men not
openly to defy the storm, for time heals many things
1 He was informed by Chapuys, the imperial ambassador in England; see
his letter to L Ber, September 12, 1535, published in Zentt alblatt fur Biblio~
thekswffSffn> 38 (1921), p, 100 f*
a Erasmus to Tomitx, August 31, 1535, Lond. xxvii, 25; LB. ep. 1287.
8 It is dated July 33, 153^1 and is reprinted LB, App, ep, 378. It was printed
at Basle, on which and on the attribution of the authorship to Erasmus see
Oporin to Biaurer, October 13, IS3S> Briefmchsel der Blaunr hg, von T.
Schiess, i» 749, 7^3, Letters and Papers of Henry FIIIt x, p, 188, note. Philip
Montanus was a real man known to Erasmus; cf. LB, epp» 1081 and 1264.
The author is given as Gulielmus Courinus Nucerinus, a transparent pseu*
donym for Gilbertus Cousinws Nozerenus,
4 Lt&trt and Papw o/Htnry F///» viii, no, 996.
4i8 ERASMUS
which force cannot mend. Those who serve kings ought
to dissemble in some matters, so as to get at least part
of their objects. More is described as a man of un-
paralleled urbanity and kindness, who befriended all the
learned, not only those of his own nation, but Irishmen,
Frenchmen, Germans, and Hindus. The writer of the
letter, though he says he has never seen More, has shed
many tears for him. What then will be the feelings of
Erasmus, who loved More as his own soul?
Shortly after Erasmus's death there appeared a poem
on the death of Fisher and More, attributed to him,
though it never found its way into his collected works.1
If really by him, and we have no special reason to doubt
its authenticity,2 it gives the strongest representation
we have of Erasmus's real feelings. Henry is arraigned
severely for lust and tyranny and for usurping the papal
prerogative:
Eijceret Moecham, Thalamique in iura vocaret
Legitimam uxorem solitoque ornaret honore.
Ispe sibi ius pontificis nomenque sacratum «
Quae late sua regna patent usurpat. . . .
In many of his letters, too, Erasmus speaks with pathos
of his loss. He had intended to dedicate his Method of
Preaching to Fisher, but a storm has bereft him of that
godly prelate, together with More and Warham, than
whom England never had nor ever would have anything
greater.3 Some, however, were naturally surprised that
1 Incomparatilis . . . D. Erasmi ... in sanctissimorum martirum Rofansis
Epifcopiac Th. Mori, . . , Heroicum Carmen, Mense Septeinbre. MDXXXVI.
[Colophon] Hagenau. Bound with other matter, namely: Antiqua Epistola
Nicolai Papa L (Dedication dated Meissen, February 27, 1536, by editor.)
And Defensio Clarissitnorum Firorum J. Fyscheri Episcopi Rofensis fft Tkomae
MoriBaronis. „ . . adv* Jl. Sampsonem. Per J. Cochlaeum. (Strong pam-
phlet against the king.) Cochkeus corroborates the authenticity of Erasmus's
poem in his Commentaria de actis ft scriptis M. Iwheri, first published 1549.
I quote from the edition of 1568 (Harvard), p, 303.
8 Jortin: Erasmus, ii, 289, doubts it because he thinks Erasmus would not
have had spirit enough to write it.
•To Christopher von Stadion, August 6, 1535; Lond. xxk, 42.
LAST YEARS AT 419
he published nothing openly on their deaths.1 When*
shortly before his death, he heard of the reaction in
England and of the execution of Anne Boleyn, who had
been claimed by the Protestant party, Erasmus wrote
to his informant: "You tell prodigies of England.
Would that these things had been found out before those
good men had been put to death!"2
Sick at heart and " almost killed with cares/5 Erasmus
now prepared to leave Freiburg. A trying personal
experience, the theft of many of his valuables, united
with the clamor of the monks and theologians to drive
him from that town,3 to which he never wanted to return
again.4 The house which he had bought for 624 gold
florins,6 and on which he had spent much for repairs, for
floors, and for glass windows, he sold, on October 30,
1535, to one Peter Ryd.
When he returned to Basle in the summer of 1535 he
was warmly greeted by the university with a gift of
hippocras, malvoisie, and other spiced wines, and saluted
by a delegation of professors. The only untoward
incident was due to the heartiness of the handshake he
received from Oporinus, which was so cordial that it
made him cry out with pain.6 After just a year in his
old home, while superintending some printing, he met
his death from an attack of dysentery. On June 6, IS36,7
he knew himself to be dying, though the end did not
come until the night of July Ilth-I2th. His last words
1 Damian a Goes to Erasmus, Padua, January 26, 1536; LB, App, ep. 331.
8 Erasmus to Schetz, Basle, June i, 1536; extract published by A, Roersch:
**Quarante-six lettres inedites d'firasme,1' in MManges o/erts a M, E. Picot,
tome 1, 1913, p. 10,
•To John Choler, Pintas epistolaruin> [pub. by Vesenmeyer), 1798, p. 4,
dated September 9, 1533,
4 Erasmus to L Ber, Basle, September n, 1535, pub. in Zf ntr dblatt fur
XtiUiothekswesen, Band 38, 1921, pp, 100 f,
* Say #1,400, or £280,
* T. Burekhardt-Biedermann: "Die Erneuerung der Universitat zu Basel
XS'**> 39/' 3*itr&ie mr mtsrlandlsche Gesckickte, N. P., iv, 1896, p. 428.
7 Letter to Tiedemann Giese, in Bibliotheca Warmiensis oder
Bistkumx JSrmland* |87»» p, 103, note 38*
420 ERASMUS
were: "O Mother of God, remember me!"1 "Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me! I will sing
the mercy and judgment of the Lord!" These were
repeated over and over again until with his last breath
the dying man said in the Low German of his childhood,
"Lieber Gott" ("Dear God"), and expired.2 A splendid
funeral was accorded him by the magistrates and men
of note at Basle. He was laid to rest in the cathedral,3
and a stone statue was placed in a public square to
commemorate him.4
1 This according to the testimony of his Belgian secretary, Lambert Coomans.
See Bulletin de I* Academic Royale de Belgique, tome 9, 1842; F. Neve: La
Renaissance des Lettres et FEssor de I' Erudition en Belgique, 1890, p. 28.
2 On Erasmus's removal to Basle, to Tomitz, August 31, 1525; Lond. xxvii,
25; LB. ep. 1287. On his death: Stromer to Spalatin (July 15?), 1536,
Horawitz: Erasmiana, ii, no. n, p. 608. Amerbach to Spalatin, July 1 1,
1536, K. & W. Krafft: Brief e und Dokumente aus der Zeit der Reformation, p. 75.
Boniface Amerbach to Alciat, April 4, 153?; Burckhardt-Biedermann: Bon.
Amerbach und die Reformation, p. 310; Herwagen tp Rhenanus, July 17, 1536,
Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus, hg. von Horawitz und Hartfelder, no. 296;
Rhenanus to Hermann of Wied, August 15, 1536, Allen, i, pp. 53 £ Stromer
to Oswald Lasan, 1536, in Zeitschrift fur kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirch-
liches Leben, v, 103 (1885), and the same in Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte,
xxvi, 138 (1905).
*Fynes Moryson: Itinerary, 1907, i, 59 f.
4 Bartholomew Sastrow saw the tomb here in 1549. Social Gfrmany in
Luther's Time, translated by Vandam, 1902, p. 264.
CHAPTER XV
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS AND HIS PLACE
IN HISTORY
AS the living man is known by the company he keeps,
jfX so the mind of the great dead can be surely placed
by observing the character of those among posterity who
praise and follow and of those who depreciate and detest
him. It is fitting and natural that, whereas the hunt of
obloquy and misunderstanding which pursued Erasmus
during his last years continued for generations after his
death among the partisans of either side, on the other
hand his work and character have received the most
cordial recognition from liberal-minded and rational
Protestants, and from not a few of the less militant free-
thinkers. His truest disciples have been found neither
among those who sacrificed reason at the altar of faith,
nor among those who cast off piety together with super-
stition and dogma, but among the seekers for reason in
religion, and for a culture emancipated from the bondage
of the past but not ungrateful to the precious heritage
of the ages.
After his works had been burned and banned by vari-
ous Catholic countries,1 after he had been branded at the
Council of Trent as a Pelagian and an impious heretic,2
his writings were officially prohibited by the Church, now
1 Colloquies were prohibited in Franche-Comte on July 15, 1535; the Moriaf
the Paraphrases and the Dt Conscribendis B<pistolis on March 8, 1537? see
L. Febvre: NoUs et Documents sur I* Inquisition en Franche^Comt^ 19x2, pp.
178, 183* His works would have been prohibited in Belgium in 1540 but for
Cardinal Granvella, Enders xiii, 222; they were burned at Milan January
29, 1543, Brufwtchsd des Beatus Rhenanus, p. 488.
8 P. Sarpi: ffistoirt du Concile de Trent, traduite en Frangais par Amelot
de la Houmie, 1699, pp. 159, 224,
421
422 ERASMUS
in part, now altogether. The Spanish Inquisition first
forbade the reading of the Folly, of the Epistles, of the
Paraphrases of the Gospels, and of the Refutations of
Luther, and then proceeded, in the words of Milton, "to
rake through his entrails with a violation worse than the
tomb/' publishing, in the Expurgatorial Index of 1584,
a list of passages to be deleted from his works on ac-
count of error, a list so long that it filled fifty-five
quarto pages. But even this was found insufficient; the
enumeration of his errors in the Expurgatorial Index of
1640 swelled to fifty-nine double-columned folio pages.1
Rome soon followed the lead of Spain. In 1559 Paul IV
not only put Erasmus in the first class of forbidden
authors, made up of those all of whose works were con-
demned, but added after his name: "All his commen-
taries, notes, criticisms, colloquies, epistles, translations,
books, and writings, even if they contain absolutely
nothing against religion or about religion/' A Commis-
sion of the Council of Trent relaxed this censure slightly
by prohibiting the Colloquies, the Folly, the Tongue, the
Institution of Christian Marriage, the Italian translation
of the Paraphrase to Matthew, and all other works on
religion until expurgated by the Sorbomie, As this in-
cluded the Adages, there was little left, and in fact he
was treated practically as an author of the first class.2
His friends, Rhenanus, Wicel, and Zasius, were also put
on the Index, apparently more because of their connec-
tion with him than for any other reason.
While some Catholic doctors, like Raynaldus, labored
to justify the censure of the Church by proving Erasmus
an atheist, others felt his charm and tried to save what
fragments they could from the wreck of his anathema-
tized remains. The Jesuits particularly learned the value
of his educational treatises; one of the greatest of them,
Peter Canisius, avowing that the man had deserved well
1 H. C. Lea: Chapters from the Religious History of Spain, 1890, p, 4*.
* F. H. Reurfch: Dcr Index det Verbotenen Mucker, 1883, i» pp. 347-367;
H. C Lea, op. cit. pp. 34 ft
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 423
of letters and only by meddling with theology, to which
he had no call, had ruined his own reputation.1
Thus began to crystallize the now common Catholic
judgment that Erasmus was a man of brilliant parts but
of weak character. When Alexander Pope had told of
the arts lost during the Middle Ages, he added;2
At length Erasmus, that great injured name,
(The glory of the priesthood and the shame!)
Stemmed the wild torrent of a barb'rous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.
A century later the great French Catholic orator and
ecclesiastic, Lacordaire, who spoke with respect of
" Luther's rich and puissant nature," and who admired
Erasmus as the " first academician of the world" and
the modeller of exquisitely elastic prose, sneered at him
because, when the thunder growled and he might have
given one party or the other the support of his blood,
"this good fellow had the courage to — remain academi-
cian, and thus expired at Rotterdam (!) just as he had
finished writing a phrase still elegant but now despised."8
Useless to quote all the verdicts of eminent Catholics.
They are well summed up in the words of that distin-
guished scholar, Ludwig von Pastor:4
A great scholar but a weak character, a man of brilliant attainments,
by the many-sided versatility of his mind, Erasmus exercised by his
numerous writings prodigious influence on his time. In spite of all
the services he rendered to classical study, it must be admitted that,
though he never separated himself openly from the Church, Erasmus
did much by his attacks, not only on degenerate scholasticism, but
on scholasticism itself, as well as by his venomous irony, to lessen
respect for the authority of the Church and for faith itself among
a large number of highly cultivated men of the day. Thus did he
prepare the way for the impetuous and impassioned Luther.
1 J, Jansscn: Geschichte dts dtutschen Polkes, 20te Auflage besorgt durch L.
von Pastor, 1915, a, p. 19, note a.
8 JEssay on Criticism, lines 693-696.
8 A, Sainte-Beuve: Causeriw du Lundi, 1857, i> 239 f. "Le P&re Lacordaire,
Qrateur/'
4 Pastor; ffistwy of the Popffs, English translation ed. by Kcrr, viit 315.
424 ERASMUS
Quite different is the opinion of another great Catholic
scholar, in some respects a liberal, Lord Acton, who
called Erasmus the greatest figure of the Renaissance,
not only as eminently international, but also as the most
capable of all men of living by historical imagination in
other times. Though the narrow range of his sympathies
is noted, debarring him from art and metaphysics, his
diagnosis of contemporary demoralization as due to
ignorance and misgovemment, is indorsed.1
From the Reformers and their heirs, the conservative
Protestants, Erasmus suffered the singularly cruel fate
of being pillaged by one hand and stabbed by the other.
While they approved much of his program and learned
at his feet how to turn the criticism both of morals and
of dogmas against the Catholics, they were furious at
his refusal to join their ranks, and frightened by the
implications of a spirit more emancipated than their own.
With much violence, it has been well said,2 early Prot-
estanism separated from the historical and philological
theology of the Christian Renaissance. The deep sense
of opposition was not confined to the Reformers, for the
humanist could no more accept their solifidian and pre-
destinarian doctrines, based on a fundamentally anti-
rationalistic mysticism and inimical, as it seemed, to
practical morality, than they could indorse the spirit of
free inquiry and of philosophic doubt that pervaded the
writings of the critic. Melanchthon, it is true, assimi-
lated his teaching and tried to pass it on, but his fate
was to be called a traitor to the Lutheran cause and to
be so assailed that he longed for death to free him from
"the rage of the theologians." Far more typical of the
attitude of the Reformers was the conduct of Luther,
who first studied, marked, and inwardly digested the
works of the older scholar and then fulminated anath-
emas at the skeptic he found lurking under the mask
of erudition. Though they controlled their tongues
1 Lectures on Modern History, 1906, pp. 86 ff.
*E. Troeltsch: Protestantism and Progress* 1912, pp. 48 ff»
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 425
better, there is no doubt that Zwingli and (Ecolampadius,
after sitting at Erasmus's feet, came to feel about him
much as did Luther, and were regarded by him in much
the same light. Their successors also thought, as did
the Catholics, of prohibiting his writings, or at least those
repugnant to their theology.1
Calvin seldom if ever praised Erasmus, though he
borrowed from him some of his ideas and though he cited
him no less than one hundred and fifty times as a critical
or exegetical authority. He drew heavily on the human-
ist's Platonism, his contempt for the world, his concept
of faith, and his eschatology.2
Beza called Erasmus an Arian and Farel continued to
denounce him as an impure scoundrel and as the worst
and wickedest of mortals.3 On the other hand, the Swiss
Protestant chronicler, John Kessler, who died in 1574,
bore this witness: "Whatever is artistic, finished,
learned, and wise is called Erasmian, which word now
means impeccable and perfect."4
Nor were the English Reformers less ready either to
learn from or to denounce the great man. William
Tyndale borrowed much from him when he translated
the New Testament into English, but, nevertheless,
spoke slightingly of him as of one "whose tongue maketh
of little gnats great elephants and lifteth up above the
stars whosoever giveth him a little exhibition/'5
In the next century John Milton found in Erasmus a
*Q, Myconius writes Bullinger, June 24, 1535, that Erasmus's EcclesiasUs
ought not to be printed in any Christian city on account of the allusion to the
mass as a sacrifice* Cakini Opera, x» b, p. 47. (Corpus Reformatorum 38 b.)
a Sec Index to Calmni Opera, vol. lix, p. 76. (Corpus Reformatorum^ Ixxxvii,
76.) See also 3VL Schulze: Cabins Jtnsetis-Christentum im Ferhaltnis zu
den rdiftiosm Schriften des Erasmus. 1902,
8 Letter of protest from Boniface Amerbach, Jerome Froben> and N. Epis-
copius to Farel and Beaa, dated Basle, September 20, 1557. Calmni Opera,
xvi, ep* 2728. (Corpus Reformatorum^ xliv*)
4 Johanna Kesslers Sabbata» hg. von E. Egli und R. Schoch. 1902, p. 87.
* A* W. Pollard: Records of the English Bibk> 1911, p. 96. He borrowed the
phrase, "ex musca plusquam elephantem facit/' from Erasmus himself; see
Allen, ep. 1148, et seutpe.
426 ERASMUS
support for his doctrine of divorce, and also used his
example to excuse his own unreserved treatment of vice.1
The Protestant view of Erasmus has been unduly
emphasized because most of his biographers have been
from this side. Such was the English life by Samuel
Knight (1726)5 and the still more elaborate and thorough
one by John Jortin (1758-60). The impression made by
the latter on a man of the world is well recorded in one
of Horace Walpole's letters:2
For Doctor Jortin's Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it
has given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me a
very bad one of his subject. By the doctor's labors and impartiality,
Erasmus appears as a begging parasite, who had parts enough to
discover truth, and not courage enough to profess it: whose vanity
made him always writing, yet his writings ought to have cured his
vanity, as they were the most abject things in the world. Good
Erasmus's honest mean was alternate time-serving. I never had
thought much about him, and now I heartily despise him.
This judgment is the more impressive in that Jortin
writes not, as one might think, to attack his subject,
but rather to defend him. But whereas the worldling
sees in Erasmus a coward, the dogmatically religious
man sees in him only a worldling.
What a fineness of judgment [says Professor Harnack]5, what a
power to look all around, what an earnest morality, does Erasmus
develop in his Diatribe on the Free Will! One is justified in regarding
it as the crown of his literary work; but it is an entirely secular, at
bottom an irreligious treatise.
Hear also the opinion of BShmer:4
As a genuine optimist, Worldly Wiseman, and completely unphilo-
sophical scholar, Erasmus really possessed no organ at all for the
perception of religion!
1 Milton: Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglican^ Works ^ 1806, pp* 22-9,
285, 299.
* To Henry Zouch, October 21, 1758, Letters of Horace Walpole, 16 vok 1:903,
vol. iii, p. 205.
8 Adolph Harnack: Lehrbnch der Dogmengeschichte? iii, p» 841.
* H. Bohmer: Luther im Lichte der neueren Forschung? 1910, p. 147.
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 427
While admitting Erasmus's services to criticism, to
history, and to comparative religion/ Walter Kohler
assigns to the humanist the somewhat difficult role of
"a John the Baptist and Judas Iscariot in one!"2
Nor are these harsh censures confined to German
scholars. Nothing more crushing has ever been written
than the following words of Principal T. M. Lindsay:3
"A great scholar but a petty-minded man" is a verdict for which
there is abundant evidence. . . . Every biographer has admitted
that it is hopeless to look for truth in his voluminous correspondence.
... He was always writing for effect and often for effect of a
rather sordid kind. . . . He had the ingenuity of a cuttlefish to
conceal himself and his real opinions; and it was commonly used to
protect his own skin.
Even the more conservative Protestants, however, are
in some places coming to see in Erasmus a support for
their double ideal of conformity and clericalism on the
one side, and of reasonable liberty of opinion on the
other. "The ideals of Erasmus in the spirit of Luther'*
is the motto proposed by one of them, for, in his opinion,
on the five chief points at issue between the two leaders,
the verdict is now in favor of the humanist. These moot
points are said to concern: (i) the papacy, which Luther
thought the work of antichrist, but which Erasmus
regarded as salvabie; (2) the method of reforming the
Church; (3) toleration of opinion; (4) attitude toward
dogma; (5) freedom of the will.4 Other divines of the
same school are ready to hail Erasmus as the man who
"stepped quietly from the mediaeval to the modern
world/* and even while praising him for his free spirit
of inquiry, blame him for some of his most logical
deductions, as shown, for example, in his too loose treat-
ment of divorce. Alike his glory and his danger are
found in his detached mind, which, "like a detached
1 W. KMler: Idee %nd PersMichfait in der Kirchen%eschichtt, 1910, p. 18.
* Die Klasriker der Religion; Erasmus. Hg* von W. Kohler, 191 7, p. 17.
3 History of the Reformation, 1906, i, pp. 172 ff.
4 H. G, Smith, "The Triumph of Erasmus in Modem Protestantism,"
Hibbert Journal^ iii, i, 1905, pp. 64-8^.
428 ERASMUS
lady, is an extremely awkward traveling companion and
for a monk seemed to verge on the improper/'1
Not among the conservatives, but among the liberal
Christians, did Erasmus fully come to his own. Even
in Catholicism there was a little band of his disciples
who struggled vainly against desperate odds to find
some compromise, some spirit of healing and reform,
in his precepts. Such were the devoted German
theologians, John Cropper, Julius Pflug, and George
Wicel; such were the Italian Catholic Reformers,
Victoria Colonna, Renee of Ferrara, Isabella d'Este;2
and Cardinal Contarini. Their counterparts in the
established Protestant Churches were found in Melanch-
thon and in his disciple Camerarius.3 With great effect
the quondam neighbor of Calvin, Sebastian Castellio,
spread forth the words of Erasmus as one principal
support for his noble plea for toleration.4 Still further,
in the eighteenth century, went John Solomon Semler,
sometimes called "the father of German rationalism/'
when he declared, "as an unquestionable truth, that
everything which the newer theology had painfully won
for itself was already to be found in the great and
admirable Erasmus."5
This liberalizing influence in Christianity has been
constant. Especially when, some fifty or sixty years
ago, a fierce battle was fought over the inspiration and
1 J. P. Whitney: "Erasmus," English Historical Review, 1920, i flf.
8 In 1537 Cardinal Bembo saw pictures of Luther and Erasmus at Isabella's
castle at Mantua; J. Cartwright: Isabella d'Este, ii, 378.
* Joachimi Camerarii Bapenbergensis Epistolarum familiarium, libri vi, 1583.
Camerarius to Jerome Baumgartner, July 30, 1538 (lS3^): "Know that
Erasmus of Rotterdam has recently died, having won eternal fame by his life:
this news was brought to me by men who have seen his grave, as many have
done, so that hereafter the rumors cannot be denied. Though not unexpected,
this event brought me some little chagrin, both for other causes and for one
special reason so small that I am ashamed to mention it." This last obscure
allusion perhaps refers to Melanchthon's plan of visiting Erasmus, thwarted
by his death, a visit which Camerarius was anxious to promote.
4 S. Castellion: Traite des Herhiques, ed. A. Olivet, 1913. R, H. Murray:
Erasmus and Luther, 1920, p. 205.
8 E. Troeltsch; Protestantism and Progress, 1912, p, 201.
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 429
Inerrancy of the Bible, the name of Erasmus was invoked
in the rational side; for, according to J. S. Brewer:1
he claimed to apply to the authorized translation of the Scripture
the same rules of criticism as the scholars of his day were applying
to Cicero and to Vergil. In this respect his influence on the Reforma-
tion was greater than Luther's; as the application of the principles of
criticism introduced by Erasmus must/under favorable circumstances
and in more vigorous hands, lead to consequences more important.
Andrew D. White, the distinguished American scholar
and diplomat, and first president of Cornell University,
felt so strongly that the services of Erasmus's biblical
criticism to the cause of enlightenment had been inade-
quately appreciated, that at one time he intended to
utilize the large collection of Erasmiana made by him
and now left to Cornell, in writing a biography of the
humanist.2 Another eminent American scholar, Pro-
fessor George Burton Adams, has expressed a similar
opinion in the following words :3
By no means the least of the great services of Erasmus to civiliza-
tion had been to hold up before all the world so conspicuous an
example of the scholar following, as his inalienable right, the truth
as he found it, wherever it appeared to lead him, and honest in his
public utterances to the result of his studies.
The same testimony to the enlightening effect of his
work is offered by Mark Pattison,4 who thinks that his
Greek Testament ** contributed more to the liberation
of the human mind from the thraldom of the clergy
than all the uproar and rage of Luther's many pam-
phlets/1 Erasmus "was a true rationalist in principle/'
for he was the earliest and most complete exemplar of
the rale "that reason is the only one guide of life, the
supreme arbiter of all questions, politics and religion
included/' If he did not "dogmatically denounce the
rights of reason/' yet "he practically exerted them/'
1 J, S. Brewer: ** Passages from the Life of Erasmus" (1863), English
Studies, x88x, p. 346.
* See his Autobiography f 1895, index*
8 Civilization during the Middle A%es> 1900, pp. 423 f.
* 4I Erasmus/* Encyclopedia Britannica, in the ninth edition and, revised by
P. S, Allen, in the eleventh,
430 ERASMUS
A similarly high estimate of the humanist's services
to Christian enlightenment is set forth by Marcus Dods,
who finds the portrait of Erasmus attractive, in that the
intelligent eyes, the melancholy and skeptical mouth,
and the ironical smile exhibit, in one^ of the world's
great faces, scholarly tastes combined with pungent wit.
His main fault consisted in too great optimism in fancy-
ing that abuses would ever be removed by those whose
interest it was to maintain them.1
A large school now sees in the Reformation a reaction.
Another school, believing that the Reformation was a
step forward, sees in the counter-movement in the
Catholic Church a great restoration of medievalism.
From these premises a rather erratic scholar has sought
to give a novel interpretation of the work of Erasmus as
"a Counter-Reformer before the Counter-Reformation/'
His piety, in the opinion of Hermelink, arose from the
same source as did that of the Brethern of the Common
Life, and finally flowed into the streams of Tridentine
and Jesuitical reform. "The immediate effect of the
mediseval reform movement was, therefore, the strength-
ening of the Counter-Reformation/'2
Fully as much as in the orthodox, or established,
Churches, did the Erasmian thought work itself out
to expression among the sectaries and independents.
Little as there seems to be, at first blush, in common
between his aristocratic, highly cultured, almost artifi-
cially polished and decorously conforming mind, and that
of the plebeian, poor, dissenting, popular Anabaptists,
nevertheless they found common ground in their
emphasis of the Sermon on the Mount, in their neglect
of ritual, and in the tolerance and passive non-resistance
characteristic of many, though not of all, of them*1
1 M. Dods: Erasmus and other Essays. 1891.
* Hermelink: "Die Anfange des Humanismus in Tubingen/' WurtUm-
Itrgische FiertdjahrshefUfuf Landesgeschichti, N* F. xv, 1906, pp. 319 ff.
» P. Althaus: Zur Charakuristik far Evan&Uschtn GefotsUteratnr im Rr*
formations jahrhundert) 1914, pp. 26 £
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 431
The "spiritual Reformer/* Sebastian Franck, a com-
bination of mystic and rationalist, was strongly influ-
enced, in some particulars, by the Dutchman. When,
in 1531, he published his "Chronicle, Time-book, and
History-Bible/5 he stated that heretic was a name of
honor, borne by the leaders of thought in every genera-
tion, and that Erasmus deserved that title. The
humanist, however, did not appreciate the intended
compliment, but bitterly resented it.1
The peculiar character of the Reformation in the
Netherlands, neither Lutheran nor Zwinglian, but
humanistic, moral, and averse from revolution, may be
traced to Erasmus. On his own circle of friends,
Cornelius Grapheus,2 Nicholas Buscoducensis,3 Haio
Caminga,4 William Gnapheus,5 and many another,
Erasmus naturally impressed his ideas and character.
On the next generation his influence was even stronger,
particularly on the moderate party known as the
Compromisers, and on "those humanists after the down-
fall of humanism" the Libertines, whose name then
imported devotion to liberty, not, as it now does, to
immoral licence,,6 Indeed, this "meaning of the word,
derived "a libertate carnis," was first fastened on it by
Calvin, who wrote against "the fantastic and furious
sect" in 1545* Originally they were a quietist and
1 Oncken on S, Franck, in Historischt Zeitschrift, Band 82, pp. 385 ff,
2 The author of a Vita 5. Nicolai, who later fell foul of the Inquisition: see
Allen, Hi, 34 note.
8 Probably the author of a pseudonymous work, Manipulus ftoruw cottectus
ex libtis JR. P. F. Jacobi de HochstraUn^ by Nicholas Quadus, Saxo, no date, a
satire on Hochstraten, Pfefferkorn, Lee and Gratius, On this see Bibliotheca
Belgic6> s. v. "Manxpulus/1 Z. W., vlii, 401-420, and Allen, in, p. 34, note*
4 A famulus to whom Erasmus gave Seneca's Works, 1529; with the in-
scription, "Haioni Camigae Phrysio anuco Des. Erasmus Rot. dono dedit, 3
id. Jan, 1529"— -*.*1,, January I3th, See M, L* Polain in Melanges offerts a
M, £. Picot, 1913, ii, 135,
8 Author of Troost tnde Spit gel der siecken> 1531, ed, by F» Pijper in Bib*
liothffca Rffformatoria nffwlandica9 i, 151-249.
8 F, Kjper: Erasmus an de Nederlandischt Reformat™* 1907. H* A. Enno
van Gelden "Huraanisten en Libertijnen, Erasmus en C. P. Hooft/* Neder*
landsch ArchitfwQf Ktrkgeschiedenis9 N. S, xvi, 19^0, pp* 35*84.
432 ERASMUS
spiritual body, and as they were founded in the Nether-
lands in 1530 by one Coppln, they may have owed some-
thing to the direct and personal influence of Erasmus.1
He was also the spiritual ancestor of James Acontius, the
most radical Christian of the sixteenth century, who
regarded positive dogmas as "Stratagems of Satan" to
entangle the simply pious soul.2 In the Netherlands
C. P. Hooft, George Cassander, Francis Balduinus,
Johannes Venator, and Dirck Volckertszoon Coornheert,
exerted themselves, during the frightful ravages of the
Dutch War of Independence, to impress upon their
countrymen a spirit of tolerance, an indifference to cere-
monies, and an anti-dogmatism directed especially
against Calvin's doctrine of predestination. Though
William of Orange found in this party a useful ally, and
gave it his support, their efforts remained partly
thwarted until Arminius and Episcopius gave their ideas
a more powerful, but also a more narrowly pointed,
expression.3 A truer, because a freer, disciple than
Arminius was Hugo Grotius, who thought that "Erasmus
had so well shown the road to a reasonable Reformation."
Adopting his description of Christianity in terms of the
Sermon on the Mount, his pacifism, his suggestion of a
world court of arbitration, Grotius wished to reconcile
Catholics and Protestants and, though nominally one of
the latter, was in many respects more in sympathy with
the ideals of the old Church.4
The Christian radicals have always found in Erasmus
an inspiration and a support. The Unitarian Charles
Beard wrote in 1883, "The Reformation of the past was
1 Karl Mullen "Calvin und die Libertiner," Zeitschrift fur Kitchenge~
schichte* xl, 1922, pp. 83-129.
2W. KShler: "Geistesahnen des J, Acontius,11 Festga.be fur K. Mullet*
1922, 198 ff,
8 Rachfahh Wilhelm von Oranien, i, 1906, pp. 448 f» 464; Preserved Smith:
The Age of the Reformation, 1920, 239 IF, 249 £ W. Kohler: "Coornheert" in
Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 1913; W. Dilthey: Das naturlickff
System der Geisteswissenschaften im // Jahrhundert, 1892, pp. 480 flf,
4 J. L. Motley: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1855, i, 72. J. SchlUter:
Die Theologie des H. Grotius •, 1919.
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 433
Luther's; perhaps the Reformation of the future will
return to Erasmus/'1 Schlottmann, a "Bible-Christian"
who hoped both to reform and to unite all Churches,
appealed to Erasmus as a liberal force against the
Roman Curia after the triumph of ultra-montanism and
medievalism at the Vatican Council of 1871. He called
his book Erasmus Redivivus swe de Curia Romana
hucusque insanabili,* and he wrote it in Latin because he
wished to describe "not the life, but the image of
Erasmus defaced by the opinions and passions of divers
parties/' and he thought that could only be done in the
tongue used by the humanist himself. He found that
"Erasmus favored Luther because of the gospel and
attacked him because of the fatal schism which was to
endure for centuries," and that the purpose of the two
was the same, but their methods different.
The most thorough -going partisan of the humanist is
a man who has little of his spirit of moderation, a man
who derives his principles from the skeptics and his facts
about the Reformation from the Catholics,3 a free-thinker
who laments the lost unity of Christendom. To present
the ideas of so enigmatical a thinker one must quote
directly from his work:4
The Catholic Church needed reform urgently enough, but the
reform which it needed was that of Erasmus, not of Luther. Had the
labors of Erasmus not been blighted by the passionate appeals of
Wittenberg, at first to the ignorance of the masses and then to the
greed of the princes, we believe that the Catholic Church might
have developed with the intellectual development of mankind, might
possibly have become the universal instrument of moral progress
and mental culture, and — dogmas gradually slipping into forgetful-
ness — we should now be enjoying the blessings of a universal Church,
embracing all that is best in the intellect of our own time.
1 The Reformation in its Relations to Modern Thought and Knowledge, 1883 .
Principal J, Estlm Carpenter of Manchester College, Oxford, a personal friend
of Beard's, informed me that that scholar found Erasmus much more con-
genial to him than was Luther,
* Two volumes, 1883-89.
3 Karl Pearson; The Ethic of Fmthovght, 1887. 2<3 ed, 1901* He writes
much on the Reformation, all of it indebted deeply to the Catholic Janssen.
4 Op. cti*, ad ed., pp. 199, 205.
434 ERASMUS
We have to inquire whether our modern thought has not been the
outcome of a gradual return to the principles of Erasmus, a con-
tinuous rejection one by one of every doctrine and every conception
of Luther.
A far more mature and brilliant interpretation of the
forces at work in the Reformation has been given by
Ernst Troeltsch, who sees in Erasmus the exponent of
reason in religion, and of the idea of reducing Christianity
to a general cult of humanity.1 Wernle2 and Karl Miiller
also see in Erasmus the standard-bearer of a funda-
mentally new and reforming concept of Christianity, a
truly modern religion. Indeed, Miiller so far reads into
Erasmus the ideas now agitating German theology, that
he credits him with finding that harmony between Jesus
and Paul so acutely wanted by some advanced thinkers.3
A. Schroder has written a small book4 on the modern
traits in Erasmus. These he finds in his seductive doubts,
his relativist point-of-view, and his idea of religious
progress and religious breadth. Furthermore,
Erasmus was modern ... in that he knew how to respect acts
and facts, but was no man of action himself. . . . He was modern
in seeking and not quite finding, ... as a skeptic and rationalist,
... as a man of intellect rather than of religion.
To the left of the Christian progressives stand the
" dissenters from all creeds." Some of them have seen
in Erasmus but another theologian. While Rabelais
acknowledged his debt to the humanist in the warmest
terms, and while Montaigne5 spoke favorably of him,
Bonaventure des Periers mocked him along with Luther,
Calvin, and all the obscurantists.6
1 E. Troeltsch : Kultur der Gsgenwart, Geschichte der Christlichen Religion^
1909, pp. 478 ff.
3 Renaissance des Christentums im 16. Jahrhundert> p. 25.
3 Christentum und Kir c he Westeuropas im Mittelalter (Kultur der Gtgenwart)9
I, Teil iv, p* 215.
4 Der moderns Mensch in Erasmus, 1919.
5 Essais, iii, 2; and his whole spirit was like Erasmus's.
6 Cymbalum Mundi9 1538; and on this Zwingliana^ 1922, no. x.
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 435
But other rationalists have now and then found much
to their taste in Erasmus, whose own skepticism they
have been inclined to overrate. It is impossible to agree
with Amiel1 that Erasmus was all but a free-thinker, an
earlier Voltaire or Littre, or with Froude that "in his
love of pleasure, in his habits of thought, in his sarcastic
skepticism, you see the healthy, well-disposed, clever,
tolerant, epicurean, intellectual man of the world," and
that, if his spirit had prevailed, the higher classes would
have become mere skeptics and the multitude have
remained sunk in superstition.2
But we do find that the ground irrigated by his spirit
bloomed with a freedom of thought not found elsewhere.
Paul Jovius spoke of him as surpassing almost all the
writers of his age in the fertility of his genius, though
he added, with somewhat forced assumption of virtue,
that so pleasant and stinging a satire as the Folly was
hardly becoming to the pen of a theologian.3 The wide
swing of Elizabethan skepticism has been noted, and its
leaders were trained in the Colloquies. Their mark,
indeed, may be found on many of the contemporaries of
Shakespeare.4 Of all the Elizabethans learned Ben
Jonson owed the most to him. The characters and
situations in two of his famous comedies, Folpone and
The Alchemist^ took not a little from the Colloquies?
So often has Erasmus been compared to Voltaire that
it may seem odd that the French philosophers of the
Enlightenment saw so little in him. The father of them
1 E. Amiel: Un Libre-pens eur du XVle siecle, £rasme, 1889, p, xi.
a JL A, Froude; "Times of Erasmus and Luther" (1867), Short Studies on
Gnat Subjects* 1908, i» pp. 69, 131. Also Life of Erasmus, 1894.
8 Faulus Jovius: Elogia virorum literis ilhwtriwmy Opera, 1575, i» 175.
*0n Elizabethan skepticism, P, Smith; A$t of the Reformation, 1920, p.
633 ff» On Erasmus's influence on Lily and on some other literature of Shake-
speare's age, see H, de Vocht: De Invlotd van Erasmus op de Engelsche Tooneel-
liUratuur der XFe en XFIIe Eeuwen. 1908, Also "Erasmus," in Ency-
clopedia Britannica, ix» 73 2c.
* See J, D, Rea's preface to his edition of Folpone* 1919. I think Rea over-
estimates Erasmus's influence on The Alchemist, bufc that he proves Fotpone
to he largely dependent on Erasmus as well as on Lucian.
436 ERASMUS
all, Peter Bayle, while furnishing a brief sketch of his
life and character, says not a word of his rationalism or
influence.1 Voltaire, in his great Essay on the Character
and Genius of Nations? says only: "Erasmus, although
long time a monk, or perhaps rather because long time
a monk, doused the monks with ridicule from which they
never recovered." An anonymous writer, probably
Diderot, in the Encyclopedic, however, calls him "the
finest wit and most universal scholar of his age/' and
says also: "He was one of the first to treat theo-
logical matters in a noble manner, free from vain
subtleties/'3
On the Enlightenment in Scandinavia, also, he had
some influence.4
Continuing in the same tradition, Sainte-Beuve calls
Erasmus a moderate Voltaire, a Fontenelle with a saner
literary taste, a Rabelais without drunkenness, a born
neutral with good sense and finely tempered spirit.5
Kuno Francke emphasizes the eighteenth-century-like
rationalism and optimism of Erasmus, and adds: "Almost
all the liberating ideas on which the international culture
of the present rests are present in germ in his thought-
world."6
A penetrating analysis of the Dutch scholar's genius is
offered by Imbart de la Tour. After doing justice to the
historical-minded philosopher who saw in classic anti-
quity, in Judaism, and in Christianity forms of thought
necessary in their own place to complete one another,
he goes on :
1 Pierre Bayle: Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, 1696, s. i>. "Erasme,"
2 Voltaire: Essai sur les mcsurs et V esprit des nations, 1754* chap. 127.
3 Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire universel raisonne, tome xvi, 1772, s. v*
"firasme."
4V. Andersen: Tider og Typer, 2 v., 1907-9. Holberg paid a debt to
humanism in his "Erasmus Montanus," and there was a Praise of Lying
written in imitation of the Praise of Folly. See An Icelandic Satire (Lof
Lyginnar) by Porleifur Halldorsson, ed, H, Hermannsson, 1915.
6 Cauteries du Lundi, 1857, i, p. 240.
'"Erasmus als Deiiker und Kunstler," Internationale Monatsschrift^ vi»
1911-12, pp. 269-291.
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 437
One will look in vain in his work for that which was the power of
Luther and of Calvin : those simple ideas, radiating sonorous phrases,
thrown out like a fanfare to the winds of heaven . . . Erasmus
proposed more than he demonstrated. . . . Every system repelled
him like a jail. . . . Moreover, this genius lacked a soul. He
never vibrates or throws himself or anyone else into a passion; he
suffers only in his vanity. . . . Compare his Christianity, more
intellectual than mystical, with the richness of soul and of accent
found in Luther! . . . But in the end he might have thought he
conquered. His spirit continued, especially in France . . . the
country in which Erasmianism was best understood and in which
it bore its finest fruits.1
This influence is said to have been shown in the
Erasmian thought dominating the early pre-Lutheran
reform, and in the Politiquesy who learned tolerance from
the Colloquies. Cartesianism in the seventeenth century
might be counted his child; and modern times owe much
to his exegesis and to his ideals of progress.
This symposium on Erasmus's influence and character
may well include one of the best of all the estimates,
by one of the greatest of American historians, Henry
Charles Lea, who writes:2
Erasmus, the sickly scholar of Rotterdam, the flatterer of popes
and princes, the vainglorious boaster and querulous grumbler when
his assaults were retaliated in kind, is, when rightly considered, one
of the most heroic figures of an age of heroes. Nowhere else can we
find an instance so marked of the power of pure intellect. His gift
of ridicule was the most dreaded weapon in Europe and he used it
mercilessly upon the most profitable abuses of the Church.
As most of Erasmus's writings were devoted to religion
it is natural that most of the estimates should judge him
by his relation to religion. But piety was not his only
interest, and he appeals to many readers as a scholar
and writer rather than as a philosopher or theologian.
Ever after the Ciceronian storm had subsided there were
eminent thinkers who criticized his scholarship. The
1 P. Imhart de la Tour: Qrigines de la Reform, Hi, 1914, pp. 107 ff. The
same appeared in the Revue d*s Dtwc Mondes, May 15, 1913,
1 Chapters from the Religww History of S^ain* 1890, p. 30.
438 ERASMUS
younger Scaliger saw many faults of Latin in his works,
and Giordano Bruno went much further in denouncing1
"a certain prince of humanist who wrote on a supply of
words2 such unnecessary things that he certainly seems
to have written folly naturally/'3 and in blaming4 him
for "that present flood of arrogant and presumptuous
grammarians, who by the multiplication of books and
commentaries had led knowledge into extreme confusion
and crushed it like the invincible Caeneus under the
rocks and trees heaped on him by the half-animal
Centaurs."
But against this disparaging estimate countless trib-
utes could be marshaled did space permit. The greatest
of living classical scholars5 confesses that he is captivated
by Erasmus's books whenever he opens one of them.
A tremendously high appreciation of his literary genius
closes Charles Reade's great novel, The Cloister and the
Hearth? of which so many scenes are taken from the
writings of the humanist. He was not only, says Reade,
the first scholar and divine of his epoch; he was also the heaven-born
dramatist of his generation. . . . Words of a genius so high as his
are not born to die: their immediate effect upon mankind fulfilled,
they may seem to lie torpid; but at each fresh shower of intelligence
Time pours upon their students, they prove their immortal race;
they revive, they spring from the dust of great libraries; they bud,
they flower, they fruit, they seed, from generation to generation and
from age to age.
No evaluation of Erasmus's genius would be complete
without taking account of the opinion of the master of
them who know him, the scholar whose edition of the
humanist's epistles is one of the glories of twentieth-
century learning. When Dr. P, S, Allen asks himself
1 J. Bruni Opera latine conscripta, ii, part iii, p. 376.
2 Lf, the Df Copia Perborum.
8 "Pro more," a pun on the Moria, or Folly.
4 Dt triplici minima ft mensura, quoted by V. Spampanato: Vita M
Giordano Bruno, i, 1921, p. 74.
6 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Geschickte der Philolo^ 1921, p. 19.
8 Published 1861.
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 439
what was the secret of Erasmus's remarkable ascendancy,
he replies:1
It may be found In a combination of brilliant intellectual gifts with
absolute sincerity and enduring purpose. As a thinker he was not
perhaps profound. . . . His strength lay rather in the power to
grasp important truths and to present them with cogency in
spontaneous, irresistible eloquence; never succumbing to the tempta-
tions which beset many brilliant minds, to pursue novelty and
paradox at the cost of making the better appear the worse, and, for
fear of cant, to bespatter in their mirth the high things they really
venerate.
Dr. Allen's words are welcome not only for their
insight but for their evidence of the wish to judge the
man by his best achievement. But, though we should
not be partisans — poor Erasrnians if we were! — we must,
in closing, speak once more of his moral ideals and of
the part he played in the great battle of his age.
The man to whom all Europe turned at the crisis of
religious conflict as to an umpire and whom zealots
then reviled because he would not prostitute his judicial
office to their petty ends, can be neither accepted by us
as having spoken the final word on the Reformation, nor
reproached for not anticipating the verdict that we
ourselves may give. In the light of four centuries we
have little excuse for not rendering a fairer judgment
and for not taking a wider view than even he, in the
thick of the conflict, was able to do. Convinced as I am
that the Reformation was fundamentally a progressive
movement, the culmination of the Renaissance, and
above all the logical outcome of the teachings of Erasmus
himself, I cannot but regard his later rejection of it as a
mistake in itself and as a misfortune to the cause of
liberalism. But, for his decision to keep <cau-dessus de
la melee," 1 cannot petulantly find fault with him. The
world is too big a stage, human motives and aspirations
are too complex, to allow the historian to choose one
1 P. S. Allen: Erasmus* A lectwre delivered for the Genootechap Nfderland-
1922, p, 15*
440 ERASMUS
man or one cause as eternally right and so condemn all
others as wrong. The drama would be poorer were there
less variety of character; among its dramatis persona it
needs diverse types: Luther and Loyola, Erasmus, and
Valla, and Rabelais.
And it is futile to judge him by one issue forced upon
him late in life and against his will. How, with his per-
sonality, could he have acted otherwise than as he did ?
Physically a small man, thin, slight, and pale;1 everything
about his form and chiseled features indicated delicacy,
refinement, exquisite temper. If Luther was a Richard
Cceur de Lion whose sword could cleave a bar of iron,
Erasmus was a Saladin, whose blade could sever a pillow
without knocking it down. His tastes were fastidious
and shrinking, as if — one may repeat the epigram once
more — he had been descended from a long line of maiden
aunts. His eyelids, veiling his eyes demurely, do not keep
him from keen vision, but only from fierce glances; his
mouth is curved in kindly irony, which is perhaps the
ripest of all moods in which poor humanity can look at
itself.
Purely intellectual as he was, he could not be a par-
tisan, not because of timidity, but because he saw the
good and the bad of all sides. He would not follow
Luther, because he had mixed some evil with his good;
he could not wish him utterly crushed, because of the
Pharisees in the Catholic Church. He was always mak-
ing exceptions, discovering distinctions, and toning down
an otherwise too glaring statement. He could hardly
write anything without some hedging, some slight doubt
as to the unqualified validity of what he said. He,
almost alone in his age, knew that truth had many facets,
that no rule can be without exceptions, and that no
position is unassailable.
If his life did not furnish another example of supreme
self-sacrifice and heroism, still less did it have in it any-
thing vulgar, or angry, or ugly. As I compare his por-
1 Allen, iv, 169. Letter of Lee. See also his portraits.
THE GENIUS OF ERASMUS 441
trait with that of Sir Thomas More, I find that More's
face is the one on which I love to look for occasional
inspiration, but Erasmus's is the face of the man I should
prefer to live with. More would die for his faith, and
would have you punished for yours; Erasmus would
be companionable and chatty and courteous and tolerant
even to an infidel. What anecdotes the man could tell,
what pictures he could call up, what wit he could
scintillate! And, above all, how much one might have
learned from him, both in matters of mere erudition and
in the conduct of life!
As the broadest scholar and as the most polished wit
of his generation Erasmus is sure of a lasting place in the
history of literature and of learning. As that actor in the
great contemporary revolution who typified the contact
of Renaissance and Reformation, who felt most deeply
their common spirit and most delicately their various
contrasts, his biography is worthy of close study* Most
of all does he deserve to be remembered for the rare
spirit which combined the ethical and the rational; for
the common sense really so uncommon, and for the
humanity so called, one might think, like "lucus a non
lucendo," from its conspicuous absence in many human
breasts. That he saw through the accretions of super-
stition, dogma, and ritual to the "philosophy of Christ";
that he let his mind play freely on the sacred arcana of
the traditional faith; that he recognized reason as the
final arbiter in these matters as well as in social and
political affairs — all this is the noble genius of Erasmus.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
THE YEAR OF ERASMUSES BIRTH
THE data for calculating the birth year of Erasmus
can be found partly in the sayings of his friends,
inscriptions, and allusions, but most reliably in his own
writings. It is remarkable that his statements differ
widely. A number of indirect statements point to the
year 1469 or even later. Thus he says several times that
he was fourteen years old when he left Deventer (LB. i,
921 f; viii, 561; Allen, ep. 940), which happened in
1484. Again, he says he was twelve years old when he
saw Agricola, probably in 1484. He tells us that when
he met Colet, in the autumn of 1499, they were both
just thirty years old (Allen, ep. 1211). He says he wrote
a letter to his guardian at the age of fourteen; if this is
the letter printed by Allen, ep. I, as in 1484, he must
have been born in 1469, which is the year that all the
other data just given indicate, save the saying about
Agricola, which would point to a later year.
Most of his direct statements of his age, however,
point to an earlier year. The list drawn up by Doctor
Richter, revised by Mr. Nichols (i. 474 ff) is here given
again revised and expanded by myself. First I give the
source and afterward, in parentheses, the year to which
the statement points;
I. Carmen d$ senectutis incommodis^ August, i$o6* LB, iv, 7563.
(1466.)
2* Methodus verae thtQlo%iaC) March, 1516, (1466 or 1467*)
3, Epistle to Rhcgiu$, February 24, 1516. Allen, ep, 392. (1467.)
4, Kpiatle to Bade, February 15, 1517, Allen, ii, p. 469, (1466.)
5, Epistle to Capito, February 26, is1?- Allen, ep. 541. (1466.)
6, Apologia ad Fabrum, August 5, 1517. LB. x, 20. (1466.)
445
446 APPENDIX
7. Epistle to Stromer, August 24, 1517. Alien, ep. 631.
(1467 or before.)
8. Epistle to Eck, May 15, 1518. Allen, ep. 844. (1466 or 1467.)
9. Preface to Methodus, 2d ed., 1518. LB. v, 79. (1466.)
10. Epistle to Rhenanus, October, 1518. Allen, ep. 867.
(1467 or before.)
11. Epistle to Ambrose Leo, October 15, 1518. Alien, ep. 868.
(1465 or 1466.)
12. Epistle to Theodorici, April 17, 1519. Allen, ep. 940. (1466.)
13. Epistle to Gaverus, March I, 1524- Lond- ™™> 55 LB. iii, 7870.
(1465 or 1466.)
14. Compendium Vita, March 2, 1524. Allen, i, 47. (1466.)
15. Epistle to Stromer, December 10, 1524- Lond. xix, 4; LB. iii,
833F. (1465 or 1466.) _
16. Epistle to Bude, August 25, 1525. Lond. xix, 89; LB. m, 88sC.
(1464 or earlier.)
17. Epistle to Nicholas Hispanus, April 29, 1526. Lond. xxi, 24;
LB. iii, 93 2C. (1465 or earlier.)
18. Epistle to Baptista Egnatius, May 6, 1526. Lond. xxi, 39;
LB. iii, 93 sE. (1465 or earlier.)
19. Epistle to Gratianus Hispanus, March 15, 1526. Lond. xix, 54;
LB. iii, 10676. (1464.)
20. Epistle to Binck, September 4, 1531, Lond. xxv, 2, col 133*-
(1461 or later.)
21. To Peter and Christopher Mesia, December 24, 1533. Lond.
xxviS, 22. col. i$3oDE. (1464 or soon after.)
22. Epistle to Amerbach, June, 1534. Epistola jamiliares D. Erasmi
ad Bon. Jmerbachium, 1779, ep. 90. (1464-)
23. Epistle to Decius, August 22, 1534. Miaskowski, Philosopfrisches
Jakrbuch, xv, p. 333-
Combining these data, we see that five indirect refer-
ences to events early in Erasmus's life point to 1469 as
the year of birth, and one to 1472, or possibly an
earlier year. Of the direct references, the first fifteen,
falling between the year 1506 and 1524, point mostly
to 1466, but some to 1465 or to 1467. All can be made
to agree with 1466 except one which gives 1467* But,
of the last eight references, falling between the years
1525 and 1534, all point to the year 1464 or can be made
to agree with it. It therefore seems that Erasmus tended
to put the year of his birth farther back the older he
became. For a solution of the enigma see anU, pp. 7 f.
APPENDIX II
UNPUBLISHED CORRESPONDENCE OF ERASMUS
AND JEAN DE PINS
THE letters here published are taken from the manu-
script letter-book of Jean de Pins, at the Bibliotheque
Municipale at Nimes, no. 215 (old number 13,864).
At least ten years ago my friend, Prof. John Lawrence
Gerig, of Columbia University, called my attention to
them and now, thanks to the kindness of the Librarian
at Nimes, M. Joseph de Loye, I am enabled to publish
them.
Jean de Pins (1470?-! 537) of Toulouse, studied at
Paris and in Italy. During a five-year stay at Bologna
he met Erasmus and Bombasius, The correspondence
between himself and Erasmus did not start, however,
until many years later, when the Dutch humanist
wanted to get a manuscript of Josephus. He first wrote
to George d'Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez, who, he had
heard, possessed a valuable codex of this author. This
letter, dated 19 November, 1531, is extant and published
Lend, xxv, 3; LB. 1203, with the mistaken super-
scription "Episcopo Rivensi" instead of *' Ruthenensi."
D'Armagnac wrote Erasmus that De Pins had the
codex of Josephus, and the following letters are con-
cerned chiefly about that, though also about othei
things, particularly the fate of Bombasius and the diffi-
culties that Erasmus's first letter prepared for De Pfns
at the hands of the enraged heresy-hunters. Though
appointed in 1523 Bishop of Rieux, De Pins continued
to reside at Toulouse* On him see Allen, iii, p. 510 f;
R* C Christie, Doto, 1880, pp. 57-67; Revue des
BibUotheques> xv, 1905, pp. 203-208.
447
448 APPENDIX
/. Erasmus to De Pins.
Nimes MS. no. 215, fol. 168 verso. FREIBURG, March 20, 1532.
Erasmus Roterodamus clarissimo viro D. D. Joanni Pino episcopo
Rivensi in Gallia s.p.
Mihi quidem non infeiix error qui dulcissimae societatis quae
Bononiae quondam in optimis studiis fuit memoriam refricuit. Per-
suasum erat nobis Josephum graecum esse apud reverendissimum
dominum episcopum Ruihenensem. Is scripsit eum esse in tuis bonis
atque ad te postliminio rediisse. Optimam itaque spem mihi facit
tua humanitas olim commas perspecta explorataque fore ut ejus
voluminis copiam ad menses aliquot facias Hieronymo Frobenio qui
adhibitis aliquot eruditis viris Historicum ctimprimis clarum sed
interpretum ac scribarum inscitia misere depravatum contamina-
tumque ex fide graeci codicis restituere decrevit. Ea res ut non
parum conducet publicis studiis ita nonnihil laudis apponet tuo
quoque nomini. Hieronymus vir est exploratae fidei, attamen si
quid addubitas me sponsorem accipe, nihil enim hie metuo.
Illud oraculi napaforfj cupio scire quid agat noster Bornbasius;
multis enim annis nihil de illo licuit inaudire. Proximis literis
significavit se petere Bononiam cum suo cardinal!1 qui nuper decessit
numeraturum tria ducatorum miliia pro Praetorio quod fuerat
mercatus. Preaterea si quid est omnino in quo amplitudini tuae hie
humilis olim amiculus, nunc servulus, graturn facere potest, experieris
ad omnia imperata promptissimum. Bene vale. Datum Friburgi
Brisgoae, 20 die Martii, anno 1532. Erasmus Roterodamus mea
manu extempore.
//. De Pins to Erasmus.
Nimes MS. no. 215. fol. 165 verso. TOULOUSE, 1532.
Johannes Pinus Erasmo Roterodamo salutem.
Redditae sunt mihi jucundissimae et optatissimae literae tuae,
Erasme rni suavissime, quae difficile credas quantam prime suo
adventu tragediam excitarint, quod in quorundam hominum manus
inciderant, qui tibi non satis aeque videantur, et apud quos tu quoque
male admodum audias. Libuit clanculum odorari, si quid alicunde
causae aut comminisci aut elicere possem. Sed ego nihil aliud
in causa esse existimo quam quod illi viri alioquin boni quorundam
hominum nota sunt addicti vehernentiusque quos tu passim in tuis
libris offenderis, at vel laceraris potius et vexaris irnmanius ut ipsi
et apud me, et apud alios, saepe sunt qucsti. Hi quod sc magni
i Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci, who died c, September 16, 1531. Bombasius,
however, had perished at the sack of Rome, on May 6, 1527,
APPENDIX 449
aliquid in his inventuros sperarant quasi vero inter Erasmum et
Pinum per literas nihil nisi de regno aut regni conjuratione agi
deberet, prirno tumultum ingentem moverant et me inscio atque
etiam absente, nam turn forte ab urbe paulisper rusticatum abieram,
librarioios quosdam qui eas literas Parisiis attulerant, in carcerem
conjecerint, quoniam hi et tergiversari nonnihil, et neque satis
propere eas literas eorum manibus reddere viderentur. Verum illico
illi, qui primum quodam veluti furore perciti videbantur ad sanitatem
atque ad modestiam redierunt, literasque non nisi me praesente aut
assentiente resignare voluemnt. Quod cum his facile annuissem
hique in literis nihil nisi de Josepho quodam scriptum reperiissent,
turn vero illis et labra concidisse crederes et plane cornicum oculos
confixos esse. Ipse vero interim mecum coepi ridere fabulam quam
neque tibi ipsi ignotam esse volui, ut si tu quo pacto potes aut si id
forsan quidquid est tanti totum existimas, id genus hominum tibi
resarcias gratiam, nisi earn forte adeo concisam putas ut difficile
posthac coituram ac cicatricem inde abducturam existimes. Scis
quo innuam eoque apertius nihil loquor.
Jamque ad tuas literas quibus quod apud me Forbonii [sic] tui
causarn agis de Josepho cogor et ipse altius repetere quo tibi res tota
innotescat: Proximis annis Petro Gyllio1 viro eruditissimo episcopi
Ruthenensis hommi nobis multis de causis amicissimo familiari ac
domestico Josephum meum utendum dederam, qui postea quam bona
fide ad dominum postliminio rediisset. Coepi ego multorum literis ac
precibus fatigari ut eundem Lugdunum formis excudendum mitterem
quod etsi et grave admodum mihi ac permolestum esset, quoniam eo
libro aegre admodum carerem quern et redemeram magni olim
Venetiis et duorum doctissimorum sae culi nostri hominum Philelphi2
ac deinceps Leonardi Justiniani Veneti8 fuisse rescieram, proinque
eum mihi castigatissimum esse persuaseram; vicerat tamen amicorum
assidua quaedam et indefessa sedulitas, meque vel invitum in ea re
herbarn porrigere coegerat, jamque a me librum abstulerant. Quum
ecce Rutenensis episcopi literae ad me quibus tuae quoque ad ipsum
inclusae erant, quibus a me petebat sed tam obnixe ut nihil fieri
vehementius potest ut tibi ad aliquot menses libri ejus copiam ac
potestatem facerem. Ego vero ubi primum Erasmi mei amicorum
vetustissimi, ac jam quoque Hterarum facile principis mentionem
audivi, exilui sane gaudio sed quod paulo post subito merore muta-
tum est nam quid facerem aliud cum me nee tibi nee Ruthenensi
* P, GylH (1490-1555) was prior of Durenque. On him see Thuasne in
Remit <ks Mbliothequgy, xv, 190$, pp. 203 ff.
8 Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481), one of the great humanists of the Italian
Renaissance*
s Leonardo Gitmmiani (1388-1446), a Venetian senator, translator, and
author* His version of Plutarch*® Lives of Cinna and Lucullus shows that he
knew Greek.
450 APPENDIX
nostro gratificari posse conspicerem. Jam liber dominium nostrum
exierat nee revocandi spes ulla reliqua facta videbatur. Juvit nos
tamen Deus optimus maximus ac negotium ipsum repente in melius
vertit, nam denuo mihi praeter spem libri potestas facta est. Noli
quaerere quanam id ratione sit factum, nam si dicere coepero, et
audienti tibi et mihi ipsi quoque dicenti fastidium pariam. Misi
itaque librum confestim ad Rutenensem nostrum nam et is forte sub
id tempus in urbem advenerat Armoniacam Aquitaniae Provinciam
petiturus in qua summum pro rege Navarrae magistratum gerit qui
se fideliter curaturum est pollicitus ut ad te liber sanus et integer
perveniat. Proin tu si ita videbitur hominem literis tuis appella,
quanquam id minime omnium necessarium existimem. Scio emm
eum pro ingenita sua bonitate fidem praestaturum quam dederit.
Venio jam ad extremam epistolae tuae particulam qua petis a me
ut si de Bombasio, communi nostro amico, certi quicquam habeam
velim te certiorem facere. Ego vero iam plusculos annos de eo nihii
audivi, nisi quod fatali ilia Romanae urbis direptione periisse homi-
nem rumor quidarn (utinam falsus) vulgeraverat. Quo etiam excidio
Petrum Alcyonium1 venetum interfectum narrabant, neque hue
posthac de his certius quicquam allatum est. Quare cepi non parvam
ex epistola tua consolationem quod scribis a Bombasio literas
accepisse, quibus se Bononiam petere nuntiabat. Subdue, arnabo,
rationem temporis ut scire possim id ante an post excidium fuerit*
Quod si post acceperis et vanum fuisse rumorem intelligam et
hominem nobis amicissimum vivere adhuc et salvum esse sperare
nobis licebit. Qua una re nihil in vita nobis jucundius aut gratius
contingere posset.
Vale, Erasme carissime, et me, ut facis, ama.
///. Erasmus to De Pins.
Nimes MS. 215, fol. 170. FREIBURG, Jan. jo, 1555.
Reverendissimo domino Joanni Pino episcopo Rivensi, Erasmus
Roterodamus.
Risi tragicos tumultus istorum sed exitu comico etc.2 Josephus
iam est in manibus Hieronymi Frobenii quo nomine plurimam habeo
gratiam tuae mihi iam olim cognitae humanitati. Curabo ut codex
in corrupt us ad te redeat nam Frobenius nondum decrevit exemplar
graecum excudere sed ad hujus collationem latinam emendate trans-
lationem. Is vero sperabat totum Josephum at tuus codex tantum
tenet [?] historian! belli Judaici etc.2 Bene vale. Friburgi, 3 cal.
februarii, anno 1533.
1 Alcyonius, a Venetian pupil of Musurus, professor of Greek at Florence*
who died in 1527, either at or shortly after the sack of Rome. Allen, ii, p» 315,
2 So in MS,
APPENDIX 451
IF. De Pins to Erasmus.
Nimes MS. 215, fol. 167. (7555 or 1554.)
Legit mihi nuper, suavisslme, literas etc.1 Josephum meum quern
proximis annis tuo rogatu Frobenio misi, velim ad me remittendum
cures, si ille satis commode usus fuerit. Sin minus expectabo ipse in
tuam gratiam tantisper, vel quantocunque meo incommodo, dum
ille suum commodum faciat. Vale. Tui honoris semper et nominis
cupidissimus et amantissimus Pinus, Rivensis episcopus.
Y. Erasmus to De Pins.
Nimes MS. 215, fol. 169. FREIBURG, Nov. jj, 1534.
Erasrno Roterodamo.
Joanni Pino, episcopo Rivensi D, Erasmus S. P.
Quo pristinam erga me benevolentiam constanter obtines, orna-
tissime praesul, mihi quidem est, ut esse par est, gratissimum. Variis
incommodis ad tolerantiam exerceor. Luterus in me scripsit epistolam
simpliciter furiosam, ac tarn improbe mendacem ut displiceat etiam
Luteranissimis; minatur etiam atrociora. Nicolaus Herborn,2 Fran-
ciscanus, com[missarius] generalis cismontanus, edidit sermones quad-
ragesimales non in aliud nisi ut acerrimis conviciis me aspergeret.
Sunt qui libellos famosos in me scriptos recitant, sed apud symmistas
duntaxat, quorum de nostro erat Buschius qui nuper decessit. Nee
minima pars molestiarum venit a famulis. Nuper sceleratissimam
viperam fovi in sinu meo credens me habere fidelem ministrum;
occideret me si posset impune. Accedit his senectus in dies magis ac
magis ingravescens quae me nimium frequenter chyragra et podagra
discruciat. Sic visum tamen* 0* oW£ ol 6eol fMdx°VTai- Josephum
tuum nunquam vidi. Scrips! Hieronymo, ut nuncio, qui tuas red-
didit, tradat codicem, quod non dubito eum facturum. Ejus nomine
tibi quoque gratias ago. Vale. Friburgi, 13 die novembris 1534.
Erasmus Roterodamus, mea manu.
FL Erasmus to De Pins.
Nimes MS. 215, fol 169. FREIBXJRG, May ip, 7535.
Johanni Pino, episcopo Rivensi, d. Erasmus R,
Reverendissime praesul, dederam cuidam theologo4 negotium ut
* So in MS.
* Nicholas of Herborn in Nassau (1535) called Stagefyr in satire, after work-
ing in vain against the Reformation in Hesse, came to preach at Cologne in
1527. In his Lenten Sermons of 1530 he attacked Erasmus as more dangerous
than Luther or Zwingli. See L. Schmitt: Der Kolner Theologe Nik. Stagefyr und
der Pranziscaner Nik. Herborn* 1896,
* Blank in MS. The whole Greek sentence is perhaps 'Avdy^ cf oM
0sol p&xovr&tf from Simonides of Ceos, as handed down in Stobaeus, Eclog.
I, 420* This reference I owe to Professor H» de Forest Smith.
4 Damian a Goes, see Erasmus's letter to him August 25, 1534. LB. ep* 1
452 APPENDIX
Bononiae inquireret de Paulo Bombasio. Is scribit se a Bombasii
fratre accepisse quod Romae interfectus sit a militibus Borbonicis.1
Doleo tibi rem esse cum chiragra cum quo malo mihi Jam biennium
dira conflictatio est. Dominus te servet incolumen.
Friburgi, 19 die Mail, 1535. Erasmus Roterodamus, mea manu.
a/.*., the Imperial army under Charles, Constable of Bourbon.
APPENDIX III
UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF ERASMUS AND GAGUIN
The British Museum contains an illuminated MS., Egerton 1651,
with some poems and one letter of Erasmus, apparently all in con-
temporary copy, and most likely of the years 1499-1500, Some of
these have been published, but there are still four unpublished. The
contents of the MS. in detail is as follows.
1. LETTER TO PRINCE HENRY OF ENGLAND, 1499,
Allen, ep. 104.
Allen conjectures (rv. p. xxi) that this letter, and the poems were
actually presented to Prince Henry, and he collates the letter, ibid.,
with the form late printed.
2. IN LAUDEM ANGELORUM, printed LB. v, 1321*
3. DE MICHAELE, ibid.
4. GABRIELIS LAUS, ibid. 1323.
5. RAPHAELIS LAXJS, ibid.
6. DE ANGELIS IN GEN ERE, ibid. 1324.
7. HENDECASILLABUM CARMEN, LB. i, 1217.
8. IN [ANNALES] GA[GUINI] ET [ECLOGAS] FAUSTINAS].
LB. i, 1217.
9. CARMEN EXTEMPORALE.
This ode to Skelton was never published, perhaps because Skelton
did not reciprocate with the eulogy of Erasmus evidently expected
from him. See ante, p. 62.
Quid tibi facundum nostra in preconia fontem
Solvere collibuit,
Aeterna vates Skelton dignissime lauro
Castaldumque decus*
Nos neque Pieridum celebravimus antra sororum
Fonte nee Aonio;
453
454 APPENDIX
Ebibimus vatum ditantes ora liquores
At tibi Apollo Chelim
Auratam debit, et vocalia plectra sorores.
Inque tuis labiis
Dulcior hybleo residet suadela liquore;
Se tibi Calliope
Infudit totam; tu carmine vincis olorem.
Cedit et ipse tibi
Ultro porrecta cithara Rhodopeius Orpheus.
Tu modulante lyra
Et mulcere feras et duras ducere quercus
Tu potes et rapidos
Flexanimis fidibus fluviorum sistere cursus;
Flectere saxa potes.
Grecia Meonio quantum debebat Homero
Mantua Virgilio
Tantum Skeltoni iam se debere fatctur
Terra Britanna suo.
Primus in hanc Latio deduxit ab orbe Camoenas,
Primus hie edocuit
Exculte pureque loqui. Te principe Skelton
Anglia nil metuat
Velcum Romanis versu certare poetis,
Vive valeque diu.
10. IN CASTIGATIONES VINCENTII CONTRA MALLEOLI
CASTIGATORIS DEPRAVATIONES.
This unpublished poem compares the excellent editorial and proof-
reading wcrk done by Augustine Vincent Cammade with the poor
work, corrupting the text, done by a certain "Little Hammer.1*
Vincent was a pupil of Erasmus in 1500; in that year preparing the
Adagio, for the press of John Philippi at Paris. Allen, i, p, 305, and
epp. 131, 136, 156. It is difficult to conjecture who was the
"Malleolus." No proper name among those known in Erasmus's
writings can be exactly so translated. Possibly the man intended
was Batt, a friend with whom Erasmus was in correspondence in
1 500, and whose name might be translated as Malleolus.
APPENDIX 4S5
Plus sibi quam Varo1 volui Tucrique2 licere
In musam sumit turba prophana meam.
Hie lacerat mutilatque; hie pannos assuit ostro;
Sordidior [et] mendis pagina nulla vacat.
Vel nuper quanta horrebam rubigine! Scabro
Malleolo vexor dum miser atque premor.
Hie sordes mihi dum male sedulus excutit auxit,
Dumque agitat veteres addidit ipse novas.
Reddidit ereptum Vincenti lima nitorem,
Ornavit variis insuper indicibus.
Vivat ut usque meus vindex vincentius opto;
Flagret malleolus Malleus ille maiis!
n, AD GAGUINEM. LB. i, 1218.
12. CONTESTATIO SALVATORIS AD HOMINEM SUA CULPA
PEREUNTEM. CARMINIS FUTURI RUDIMENTA.
This is a first draft of the poem later published in LB., v, 1319.
As the printed form was much changed, however, the original may
be reproduced here.
Quin mihi sunt uni, si quae bona terra polusque
Habet, quid hoc dementiae est
Ut malis homo falsa sequi bona? sed malva vera
Me rarus aut nemo petat ?
Forma capit multos; me nil formosius usquam est;
Formam hanc amat nemo tamen.
1 It is difficult to say what Varus is meant here, I conjecture that the
person intended is Adolph of Veere, to whom Erasmus at one time intended
to dedicate the Ada%ia. On him see Allen, i, p, 229,
8 This word is very uncertain; in the MS., of which I have a photograph, it
looks like "Tucceque," I believe that James Tutor is meant, Tucri standing
for Tutor!, as c and t are interchanged often in this MS., on whom see Allen,
®P» I33> and i, p, 356. Tutor was a man for whom Erasmus had great respect.
The meaning of the first two lines would then be: "The unlearned crowd
arrogates to itself, against my Muse, more than I should be willing to allow
even to Veere or to Tutor,"
456 APPENDIX
Sum clarissimus, et generosus utroque parente.
Servire nobis quur pudet?
Dives item et facilis dare multa et magna rogatus,
Rogari amo; nemo rogat.
Sumque vocorque patris summi sapiencia; nemo
Me consulit mortalium.
Preceptor: mihi nemo cupit parere neganti
Eternitas, nee expetor
Sum via quae sola caeli itur ad astra, tamen me
Terit viator infrequens.
Auctor quum ego sim vitae unicus, ipsaque vita
Quur sordet mortalibus?
Veraci credit nemo, fidit mihi nemo,
Quum sit nihil fidelius.
Sum placabilis ac misereri pronus, et ad nos
Vix confugit quisquam miser.
Denique Justus ego vindexque severus iniqui,
Nostri metus vix ullum habet.
Proinde mei desertor homo; socordia si te
Adducet in mortem tua.
Praeteritum nihil est. In me ne rejici culpam;
Malorum es ipse auctor tibi.
13. IN DIVE ANNE LAUDEM RITHMI IAMBICL
LB., v, 1325. The last 18 lines are omitted in the MS.
14. AD SKELTONEM CARMEN EXTEMPORALE,
The first three lines of no. 9 above.
15. EPIGRAMMA GA[GUINI].
The above poems were all by Erasmus. In addition to them there
is one by Gaguin, which is not found in his published works. It is on
folio 5b of the MS., between no. 7 and no. 8, above. See ante, pp,
29 f. The subject is Gaguin's welcome to Faustus Andrelinus and
Erasmus at a dinner given by himself.
Faustus ades fauste spectatus Appoline vates
Nee minus advenias gratus, Herasme, comes.
APPENDIX 457
Non vos accipiam pleno cratere bibaces;
Vatibus apponi parcior esca solet.
Quamquam equidem mensa dignos meliore Gaguinus
Estimat et divum promeruisse dapes.
Haud epulas tentum, quantum spectetis amici,
Pectus et humane nimlum amicitiae,
^Edes fortunae, tenuis cum veste supellex
Cor animus vestris usibus ecce patent!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AS it would be impossible to exhibit here the titles
jLA. of all the books worked into this study, reference
is made to the notes, where the literature is cited in full.
For works often cited by abbreviations 1 refer to the list
at the beginning of this book, on page xiv. As a very
full bibliography of the works published prior to 1893
exists in the Bibliotheca Erasmiana, Liste Sommaire,
3d series, 1893, only the recent literature, since 1893,
is here represented. Other bibliographies may be found
in G. Wolf: Quellenkunde der deutschen Reformations-
geschichtej 1915, Band I, pp. 345-376, in the various
volumes of P. S. Allen's edition of the Opus JEpistolarum,
and in Luther's Correspondence, translated and edited
by Preserved Smith and C. M. Jacobs, ii, 1918, pp. 542 ff.
Allen, P, S.: Opus JEpistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, 4 vols. 1906 ff.
Allen, P. S.: The Age of Erasmus, 1914.
Allen, Mrs. P. S.: The Praise of Folly, written by Erasmus 1509, translated by
J. Wilson, 1668, edited, 1913.
Andersen, V,: Tider og Typer af danskaands Historic* 2 vols. 1907 ff.
Arbenz, E., und H, Wartmann: Fadianische Brief sammlung, 7 parts and 6
supplements, 18901913.
Becher, R.: Die AnsichUn des D. Erasmus uber die Erziehung und den ersten
UnUrrickt der Kinder, 1890.
JSibliothffca Belgica^ publiee par F. Vander Haeghen, R. Vanden Berghe et T. J.
L Arnold, 1897 ff. Contains elaborate bibliographical information on the
works of Erasmus, as yet on the Adagia, Admonitio, Annotationes, Anti-
barbari, Antwort, Apologia*, Apophthegmata, Colloquia, Enchiridion,
Moriae Encomium, and Ratio ver» theologian
Bie, P. J. dc, and J. Loosjes: Biographisch WQordsnboek van Protestantsche
Godgdeerden in Nederland* 1920 ff.
Bludau, A,; Die bndtn trsun Erasmus" Ausgaben des Ntuen Testaments und
ihn Gegnet, 1902.
Bonilla, A,» y San Martin; "Erasmo en Espana," Revue IIis>pani%ue» xvii,
I907» 379-548.
Bonllla, A,, y San Martin; Luis Vivcs y lafilosofia dd renacimunto, 1903.
Brockwell, M« W.: Erasmus* Humanist and Painter, 1918.
462 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brims, Ivor "Erasmus als Satiriker," Fortrdge und Aufsdtze, 1905, 413-436
Burckhardt-Biedermann, T.: "Die Erneuerung der Universitat zu Basel/
Beitrdge zur vaterlandischen Geschichte, 1 896, iv, 401 ff,
Burckhardt-Biedermann, T.: Bonifacius Amerbach und die Reformation. 1894.
Burgdorf, J.: Johann Langs (Rostock Dissertation). 1911.
Burger, 0.; Erasmus von Rotterdam und der Spanier Fives (Munich Dis-
sertation). 1914.
Buschbell, G.: Reformation und Inquisition in Italien um die Mitte des XFL
Jahrhundert. 1910.
By water, L: The Erasmian Pronunciation of Greek and Its Precursors. 1908.
Caird, J.: University Addresses. 1898.
Cambridge Modern History. Vol. i, The Renaissance, 1902. Vol. ii, The
Reformation, 1904.
Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. A. W. Ward, A. R. Walker. Vol.
iii, The Renaissance. 1909.
Chamberlain, A. B.: Hans Holbein the younger. 2 vols. 1913.
Clemen, 0.: Handschriftenproben aus der Reformationszeit. 1911.
Clerval, A.: Registre des Proces-Ferbaux de la Faculte de Theolvgie a de Paris.
1917.
Copley, E. F. EL: Erasmus. 1903.
Crozals: " Ufiloge de la Folif, sa place dans I'ceuvre d'jSrasme." Universke de
Grenoble, Annales, xvii, 1905, pp. 159-191.
Delisle, F.; "La Faculte de theologie a Paris," Notices etExtr aits des MSS. de
la Bibliotheque Nationale, xxxvi, 1899, pp. 325 ff.
Emerton, E.: Erasmus. 1900.
Emerton, E.: "The Chronology of the Erasmus Letters," American Historical
Association, Annual Report for ipoi. (1902), L 173-186.
Enthoven, L. K.: Brief e an Desiderius Erasmus. 1906.
Enthoven, L. K.: "Ueber Druck und Vertrieb der Erasrnischen Werke/'
Neue J ahrbucher fur das klassische Altertum, &c. 1911.
Enthoven, L. K.: "Uber die Institutio principis Christian! des Erasmus/1
Ibid. 1909.
Enthoven, L. K.: "Erasmus Weltbiirger oder Patriot?" Ibid. 1912.
Erasmus: The Complaint of Peace. Open Court Pub. Co. 1917.
Erasmus: A book called in Latin Enchiridion militis Christiani, 1905.
Erasmus: Roterodamus pleasantly representing several superstitious levities
that were crept into the Church of Rome in his days . . . with seven more
dialogues and a life of Erasmus by Thomas Brown. English translation by
H. M., Gent, I67I.1
Ernst, H.: "Die Frommigkeit des Erasmus," Theologische StuMen nnd
Kritiken, 1919, 46 £
Faulkner, J. A.: Erasmus the Scholar. 1907.
Febvre, L,: "Un Secretaire d'Erasme: Gilbert Cousin ct la Reforme en
Franche-Corate." Bulletin de la Societe de I'histoirc du protestantism
fran^ais, Ivi, 1907, pp. 97 ff.
Fleischlin, B,: Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte* 2 vols. 1908.
1 This and a few other works, apparently not included in the MMiotheca
Erasmiana, are inserted in this bibliography, though of date prior to 1893.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 463
Forstemann, J., und 0. Giinther: Brief e an Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam.
1904.
Francke, Kuno: "Erasmus als Denker und Kiinstler," Internationale Monat-
schrift, vi, 1911-12, 269-291.
Froude, J. A.: The Life and Letters of Erasmus. 1894.
Gasquet, F. A.: The Eve of the Reformation. New edition. 1900.
Gess, F. : Akten und Brief e zur Kirchenpolitik H. Georgs von Sachsen. 2 vols.
1905-17.
Godet, M.: La Congregation de Montaigu. 1912.
Gossart, E.: "Un livre d'firasme (liber de sarcienda ecclesiae concordia)
reprouve par PUniversite de Louvain," Bulletin de I'Academie Royale de
Belgique, Classe des Letters. 1902, pp. 438 ff.
Haarhans, J. R.: "Die Bildnisse des Erasmus von Rotterdam," Zeitsc hrift fur
Bildende Kunst, N. F. x, 1898-99, pp. 44-66.
Hartfelder, K.: Melanchthoniana P&dogogica. 1892.
Hashagen, J.: "Erasmus und die Clevischen Kirchenordnungen," Festgabe
fur Bezold) 1921, pp. 181-220.
Hes» W,: Ambrosius Holbein. 1911.
Hermelink, H.: Die religiosen Reformbestrebungen der deutschen Humanisten.
1906.
Herzog, J. J.: Realencyklopddie fur Protestantische Theologie und Kirche.
3e Auflage hg, von A, Hauck, 24 vols. 1896-1913.
Heubi, W»: Fran$ ois I et le Mouvement Intellectuel en France. 1913.
Heusler, A.: Geschichte der Stadt Basel. 1918.
Hofer, J, M.: Die Stellung des Des. Erasmus und des J. L. Fives zur Pddegogik
des Quintilian. (Erlan&en Dissertation.) 1910.
Hopfl, H.; "Kardinal Wilhelm Sirlets Annotationes zum Neuen Testament,
eine Verteidigung der Vulgata gegen Valla und Erasmus." Biblische
Studien, xiii, no. 2, 1908.
Humbert, A.: Les Origines de la Theologie moderne. 1911,
Humbertclaude: £rasme ei Luther > leur polemique sur le libre arbitre. 1909.
Hutton, W* H,: Sir Thomas More. 1900.
Imbart de la Tour, P.; Les Origines de la Reform^ vol. iii. 1913.
Imbart de la Tour, P.: **£rasme," Revue des Deux Mondes, May 15, 1913,
pp» 364-398,
Jongh, H. de: Uancienne Faculte de Theologie a Louvain. 1911.
Kalkoff, P.: Die Fermittlungspolitik des Erasmus und sein AnUil an den
Flugschriften der ersten Riformations%eit. 1903*
Kalkoff, P.; Die Anfange der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden. 2 vols.
1903-04.
Kalkoff; P.: Erasmus, Luther, und Friedrich der Weise, 1919.
Kalkoff, P.: Ulrich von Hutten und die Reformation. 1920.
Kalkof, P.; W, Capito im Dienste des Erzbischof Albrecht von Mainz. 1908.
Kan> 1 B,; Mwp% By/c^ov. 1898,
Kawerau, G.: Dig Fersuche Mdanchthon %ur katholischen Kirche zuruckzu-
fuhren, 1902.
Kayser, F«; AusgewahlU pMagogische Bchriften des D. Erasmus. 1896.
Keussen, H.: Die Matrikd der Unmrsitat Koln, vol. ii. 1919.
Kbss, W,: "The Place of Erasmus in the History of Philosophy," The Monist,
1907, pp. 84-101,
464 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kneisel, Dr.: Beitrdge aus Erasmus9 Colloquien fur die Kulturgeschichte des
16 Jahrhunderts. 1897.
Kohler, W.: Desiderius Erasmus; Ein Lebensbild in Auszugen aus seinen
Werken. 1919.
Konig, E.: "Erasmus und Luther," Historisches Jahrbuch, xli, 1921, pp. 52 ff.
Lauchert, F.: Die Italienischen liter arischen Gegner Luther s. 1912.
Lefranc, A.: "L'CEuvre de Lefevre d'foaples et d'firasme," Revue des cours et
des conferences, xix. 1911.
Lezius, F.: Zwr Characteristik des religiosen Standpunkts des Erasmus. 1895.
Lilly, W. S.: Renaissance Types. 1901.
Lindeboom, J. : Erasmus, onderzoek naar zijne theologie en godsdientsig gemoed-
bestaan. 1909.
Lindeboom, J.: Het Bijbelsch Humanisms in Nederland. 1913.
Lupton, J. H.: A Life of John Colet. 1887.
Luther, M.: Werke, Kritische Gesammtausgabe, von Knaake und Andern.
50 vols. 1883 ff.
Luther, Dr. Martin: Briefwechsel, kg. von E. L. Enders, forgesetzt von K.
Kawerau, welter gefiihrt von P. Flemming. 17 vols, 1884-1920. (I have also
seen part of the proofs of the eighteenth volume, kindly sent me by Prof.
Paul Flemming.)
Mackail, J. W.: Erasmus against War. 1907.
Mayer, H.: "Erasmus in seinen Beziehungen zur Universitat Freiburg,"
Alemannia, N. F. viii, 1907, pp. 287 ff.
Menendez y Pelayo, D. M.: Origines de la Novela, tome iv. 1915.
Mestwerdt, P.: Die Anfdnge des Erasmus. 1917.
Meyer, A.: £tude critique sur les relations d'Erasme et de Luther. 1909.
Miaskowski, C. von: "Listy Polakow do Bonifacego Amerbacha 1527-49"
(Letters of Poles to B. Arnerbach). Roczniki towarzystwa przyjaciol Poz-
ndnskiego, 44, 1917, 23-59.
Miaskowski, C. von: "Erasmiana," Jahrbuch fur Philosophie, Paderborn,
vols. xiv, xv. 1900-01.
Miaskowski, C. von: Die Korrespondenz des Erasmus mit Pohn. 1901.
Migne: Patrologia Latina. Vol. xlvii, 1877, cols. 197-570. "Animadversiones
in omnia S. Augustini Opera."
Moffett, Edna V.: Gilbert Cousin. (Cornell dissertation, 19075 unpublished,
kindly loaned me by the author.)
Moreau-Nelaton, E.: "firasme chez Catherine de Medicis a Chantilly,"
Gazette des Beau- Arts, ser. 3, vol. xxxvii, 1907, pp. 481 ff,
Murray, R. H.: Erasmus and Luther; their attitude towards Toleration. 1920.
Nichols, F. M,: The Epistles of Erasmus. 3 vols. 1901-18.
Nolhac, P. de: firasme en Italie. 1898.
Norcross, G,: "Erasmus the Prince of Humanists," American Historical
Association Report. 1898*
Oechsli, W.: Quellenbuch zur Schweizergeschichte, 19x0.
Paquier, J.: Jerome Ale andre. 1900.
Paquier, J.: Lettres familieres dg Jerome Ale andre. 1909,
Pi j per, F.: Erasmus en de Nederlandsch Reformation. 1907.
Rembert, K.: Die "Wiedertaufcr" im Herzogthum, JUlich* 1899,
Renaudet, A.: "firasme," Revue Historiqut, vols. cxi, cxil 1912-13,
Renaudet, A.: Prereforme et Humanisms a Paris. 1916.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 465
Renouard, P.: Bibliographic des impressions et des centres de Josse Bade As-
censius. 3 vols. 1908.
Reichling, D.: Ausgewdhlte pedagogische Schriften des Z>. Erasmus. 1896.
Reitsma, J.: Geschiedenis van de Hervorming en de Hervormde Kerk. 3d ed.
door L. A. Langerraad und F. Reitsma. 1913.
Rhijn, Mvan: Studien over Luther's rechtvaardingingsleer. Met en nawoord
over nieuwere Erasmus-waardeering. 1921.
Richter, M. : Desiderius Erasmus und seine Stellung zu Luther* 1907.
Roersch, A.: "Quarante-six lettres inedits d'£rasme." Melanges offerts a
M. £. Picot, i, 1913, i ff.
Sandys, J. E. : A History of Classical Scholarship. Vol. iii. 1908.
Savage, H. J.: "The First Visit of Erasmus to England," Paper read at
meeting of Modern Language Association. December, 1920.
Schiess, T. : Briefwechsel der Brilder Ambrosius und Thomas Blaurer. 3 vols.
1908-12.
Schroder, A.: Der moderns Mensch in Erasmus. 1919.
Schulze, M.: Cabins Jenseits-Ghristentum im Verhaltnis zu den religiosen
Schriften des Erasmus. 1902.
Scott, L: Ciceronianus, a dialogue on the best style of speaking, by Erasmus,
with an introduction by P. Monroe. 1908.
Searle, W, G.: Grace Book T, containing the records of the University of
Cambridge, 1501-42. 1908.
Sheppard, J. T.: Richard Croke, a Sixteenth Century Don. 1919.
Smith, H. G.; "The Triumph of Erasmus in Modern Protestantism," Hibbtrt
Journal, iii, 1905, pp. 64-82,
Smith, Preserved: Life and Letters of Martin Luther. 1914.
Smith, Preserved: Luther's Correspondence and other contemporary Letters,
vol. i, 1913; vol. ii, in collaboration with C. M. Jacobs. 1918.
Smith, Preserved: The Age of the Reformation. 1920.
Sjmith, Preserved: "Some Drawings attributed to Holbein,** Art in America,
, February, 1917,
Smith, W. F.: Rabelais et £rasme. 1908.
Spahn, M.: /. Cochlaeus* 1898.
Spitzner, J.: $eitra% %ur Kritik der Unterrichts-* und Erziehungslehre des D.
Erasmus. 1893.
Tatham; "Erasmus in Italy," English Historical Review, x, 1895, 642,
Thuasne, L,; £tudes sur Rabelais. 1904,
Thuasne, L*: "La iettre de Rabejais a firasme," Revue des Mbliothequfj* xv,
*90$9 pp. 200 ff.
Thudichum, F*: "Erasmus von Rotterdam; Ein Wort der Wiirdigung weder
seine Verkkinerer/1 Monatechrift der Comenius-Gesellschaft, xviii, 1910, pp.
132 ff. .
To^el, H*; Die pada%o$ische Anschauungen des Erasmus in ihrer psycholo-
gischen Bagr undung» 1896,
Troeltsch, E,: Du Kultur der Gegenwart; Geschichte der Christlichen Religion.
1909.
Troeltsch, E,: Protestantism and Progress. 1912, Translation of Die Bf-
dmtung des Protestantisms fur die Entstthung der modernen Welt* 1906.
Veth, J., und 8, Mullet; A* Durers NiedeMndische Reise. ^ vois, 1918.
466 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vischer, E.: Die Lehrstuhle und der Unterricht an der theol Fakultdt Easels.
1910.
Vocht, H. de: De Invloed van Erasmus op de Engelsche Tooneelliteratuur der
XFIe. en XFIIe. Eeuwen. 1908.
Vocht, H., de: "Chaucer and Erasmus," Englische Studien, Band 41. 1910.
Vocht, H., de: "The Most Recent Contributions to Erasmus's Corre-
spondence," Ibid.
Walter, J., von: De Libero Arbitrio ^larpip^ per D. Erasmum Rot. 1910.
Walter, J., von: "Die neueste Beurteilung des Erasmus," Jahresbericht der
Schlesischen Gesdlschaft fur vaterldndische Kultur. 191 1, Band V.
Watson, F.: "Erasmus at Lou vain," Hibbert Journal 1918.
Watson, F.: Luis Fives. 1922.
Weiss, N.: "Louis de Berquin," Bulletin de la Societe de I'Histoire du Protes-
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Weiss, N.: "G. Farel, &c," ibid, 1920, 05 £
Whitney, J. P.: "Erasmus," English Historical Review, 1920, I ff.
Wierzbowski, T.: Materialy do dziejow Pisraiennactiva Polskiego, i, 1900,
Wiescher, E.: Die Reformation in Basel 1917.
Wilkinson, M.: Erasmus of Rotterdam. 1921.
Willburger: Die Konstanzer Bischofe Hugo von Landenberg, Balthasar Merklin,
und Johann von Lupfen (1496-1537) und die Glaubesspaltung. 1918.
Woodward, W. H.: Erasmus Concerning the Aim and Method of Education.
,
Zickendraht, K.: Die Streit zwtschen Erasmus und Luther uber die Willens-
freiheit. 1909.
Zwinglis Werke, hg. von E. Egli, Finsler und W. Kohler, as yet 5 vols, 1904 fF,
Zxvingli zum Gedachtnis 1519-1919 Zttrich, 1919.
ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.
Page 289, note I. Hroswitha found the plot of her
drama "Phaphnutius and Thais " in an older legend,
possibly dating back to the fifth century. See the
Bollandists' Ada Sanctorum for Oct. 8, iv, 223 ff. But
the parallels between Erasmus's Colloquy and Hros-
witha seem to show that he borrowed from her.
Page 433. Karl Pearson's opinion of Erasmus and the
Reformation seems to be partly dependent on that of
Wieland, as reported in the Diary of Henry Crabb
Robinson, ed. Sadler, 3 vols. 1869, i, 109.
Appendix III. In the Catalogue of Lucubrations
(Allen, i, p. 3) Erasmus says that he had written every
sort of poem, and had left some unpublished. Among
his poems he mentions as a very early one the sapphic
to Michael the Archangel, which he wrote at the request
of an official in a church dedicated to Michael — the
legend of Raphael as "set over all the diseases and
wounds of the children of men,'* goes back to the Book
of Enoch, xl, 9.
INDEX
Adams, G. B., 429.
Addison, J., 323.
Adrian VI, Pope,
origin of name, 5.
founds University of Louvain, 25,
5of.
approves New Testament, 174.
against Luther, 225, 326.
and Erasmus, 238, 327, 363,
Agricola, R., 11, 13, 54, 366.
Agrippa, H. C., 411.
Aix-la-Chapelle, 234.
Alard, 155.
Aldo, seeManuzio.
Aldriclge, R., 66, 73.
Aleander, J.
meets Erasmus, io8f.
and Erasmus, 209, 2376, 252, 333,
413,
predicts Reformation, 212,
and Charles V, 229, 231.
attacks heretics, 23 if., 349.
and Luther, 245^, 340.
denounces Erasmus, 250$".,
.
and Carpi, 399.
Alfeld, A., xSx,
Alkmaar, 156.
Allen, P. S,» ii, 43 8£
Alvarez, J., 226.
Amerbacn, B,, 140, iss£» 192, »i8,
249, 26o£, 265, 28x£, 332, 383,
A -3«8%391'
Amiel, H., 323, 4.3
Ammonia^ A,, 071,, 76f., 204*
Amsdorfi, N. von, 36$£
Anabaptists, 281, 301, 324, 383, 430.
Andrclinus, R. 28L 52, 60, 73, 4$3f.
Anghierra, P. M» d , 203.
Anne Boleyn, Queen of England,
284, 416, 419,
Antwerp, 148, 246, 248.
Aquinas, T., 21, 96, 192, 197, 226,
, ?S3*m* 3"» 337^
Aretmo, P., 118.
Aristotle, 197, .247, 305,
d
Arminius, J., 432.
Arnold, R., 61.
Art, 34.
Ascham, R., 188, 316.
Augsburg, 217, 224.
Diet of, 360$".
Augustine, 19, 163, 170, 173, 181,
183, 189, 190, 275, 337, 339, 352.
Augustiman Canons, 14, 25, 106.
Bacon, F., 46.
Bade, J., 119, 258.
Baden, 381.
BarHer, P., 249, 330.
Barclay, A., 119.
Basle, 129, iS2ff., 16^, 205, 379, 384.
ioms Swiss Confederacy, 138,
home of Erasmus, 138$"., 257-285,
392» 4J?f'
center of humanism, 13811,
University of, 138.
Council of, 163*
Reformation, 376, 386, 388f.
Batt, J.,45i.
Bayle, P., 436.
Beard, C, 432.
Beatus Rhenanus, I37f., 146, 204,
2i8£, 223, 261, 263, 287, 339,
384f., 422,
Becket, Church of St. Thomas, 7o£,
9*<
Beda, N., 25f., 180, 27if., 274^, 312,
410,
Bedwell, 60.
Bembo, P., Cardinal, no, 331.
Bentley, R., 189,
Ber, L,, 384, 387f.
Bere, R., 162.
Bergen, Anthony of, 46, 49, 213, 323.
Bergen, t Henry of, Bishop of Cam*
brai, 1 8, 25 f,, 30.
Berquin, L de, 58, 27i£
Bertulph, H., 413,
Besancon, 265, 405.
Beza, T., 166, 202, 304, 425.
Bible, 20, 24, 55.
edited by Erasmus, 159-188.
469
470
INDEX
Bible
texts and manuscripts, 16311.
Vulgate, I59ff., 174^ i8of., i84f.
German, 164, 166, 184.
Codex Vaticanus> 165.
Complutensian Polyglot, 165, 180.
translations, 167$., 183, 186.
and humanism, 173.
Spanish, 186.
Biel, G., 277.
Blount, C., 407* , ,
Blount, W., Lord Mountjoy, 30, 38,
59, 61, 66, 73, 116, 204, 262,
Boece, H., 24.
Boerio, J., 102.
sons of, 1 02.
Bohemian Brethren, 242.
Bohmer, H., 426.
Boleyn, T., Viscount Rochford, 284*.
Bologna, 105$".
University of, 105.
Bombasius, P., 106, 116, 165, 174,
250, 4i2f., 415, 447^*
Borgia, Lucretia, 114.
Botzheirn, J., 263 f.
Bramante, H2f.
Brandenburg, Albert of, 130.
Brant, S., Ship of Fools, 119, I36f.
Brassicanus, J. A., 234.
Brethren of the Common Life, 9,
I2f., 24f., 53» 75-
Brewer, J. S., 429.
Bricot, T., 21.
Brie, G, de, 93.
Brocario, W. de, 162.
Brown, Sir T., 119.
Browning, R., 316.
Bruno, G., 438.
Brunsfels, 0., 335.
Brussels, 148.
Bucer, M., 212, 339, 362, 366, 394.
Buda, M., 379-
Bude, Wm., 115, 179* I99> 204, 270,
^ 2?3>3H.
Bugenhagen, J., 353.
Burke, E., 92, 313.
Burton, R., 41.
Busch, BL, 332f.
Busleiden, J., 155, 303.
Caesarius, 134.
Cajetan, T. de Vio, Cardinal, 217,
226, 384.
Calcagnini, C., iiof., 350,
Calvin, J., 54, 211, 372, 425, 431.
Calvinism, 372,
Cambridge, 65 f., 73.
Camerarius, J., 344, 354, 428.
Caminade, A. V., 286f., 45 if.
Campeggio, L., 222, 239, 267, 328,
36if., 368.
Campester, L., 299.
Cantiuncula, C., 271.
Capito, W. F.
and New Testament, 181.
and Reformation, 2i6fF., 223, 233,
325.
for mediation, 23 8f., 252, 254ff.,
343-
and Erasmus, 331, 353, 362.
and Free Will, 340, 350.
Caraffa, J. P., see Paul IV.
Caraffa, O., Cardinal, 118.
Carls tad t, A., Bodenstein of, i8r,
33 1.34P* 147»15?, 379-
Carpi, Albert Pio, Prince of, 398.
Cassander, G., 432.
Castellio, S., ^28.
Catharineof Aragon, Queen of Eng-
land, 279ff.
Catharine Parr, Queen of England,
187, 276.
Catharine de* Medici, Queen of
France, 201.
Catharinus, A., 399.
Catholic Church
Index, 1 66, 422.
and Erasmus, 240, 322, 334, 387,
402, 42 if.
and Luther, 240, 322.
excommunication, 293.
Renaissance and Reformation, 321.
and free will, 537.
and Reformation, 390.
Cellini, B,, 322.
Chaloner, Sir T., 125.
Charles V, Emperor, 393.
and Erasmus, 147, 156, 231, 325,
35^405.
and More, 151.
dedication to, 186, 196,
and Aleander, 229.
and Henry VIII, 230*
and Diet of Worms, 245,
and Edict of Worms, 248,
foreign wars of, 270,
and Reformation, 364.
and Colloquies^ 400.
Charnock, R., 63, 94,
Choler, J., 275.
Christianity, if,, 15, 17, 88£, 97, 123,
136,
Christian II, King of Denmark,
Sweden and Norway, 248, 270.
Chrysostom, St. J., 189.
INDEX
471
Classics, 14, 30, 36ff., 46ff., 189,
I92ff., 105, 2Q3, 305*1, 3o8ff.
Clement VII, rope, 106, 114, 262,
342f., 349> 396, 399-
Cleves, John, Duke of, 258, 395.
Cochlaeus, J., 283, 349.
Colet, J., 50, 54, 67, 101.
at Canterbury, yoff.
and Erasmus, 78, 93, g6L, 99,
i6if., 173, 186, 204?., 216,
biography by Erasmus,
97ff-
and Luther, 100.
and Reuchlin, 133.
lectures on St. Paul, 160,
on New Testament, 175.
and Wyclif, 211.
and Theses, 21 5 f.
and Latin, 317.
Cologne, 234, 239.
University of, 224, 227, 232, 331.
Columbus, F., 35, 156.
Constance, 2636%
Council of, 224.
Coornheert, D., 432.
Cop, W., 36f.
Copernicus, N.» 101, no, 320,
337-
CorvinusjA., 365,
Cousin, G., 406, 417.
Cranach, L,, 151.
Cranmer, T., 259.
Crafft, A,, 157,
Croke, R., 123.
CromwelLT., 259.
Curtius, P., 402,
Cyprian, St., 190.
Dante, 197,
Deventer, 7ff,, 22, 401*
Diderot, D., 416.
Dierx, V., 396?.
Dods, M.» 430.
Dolet, £., 126, 3i4f., 412.
Dominicans, 13 if., 178, 180, 223,
228, 267, 326, 331,384, 390.
Dorp, ML 126, 1 80.
Dublm, Trinity College, 166.
Dubois, P., 198,
Duns Scot us, i5a£» 192, 277, 321*
Scotwts, 2 iff,
Dttrer, A., 18*
Knight, Death and the Devil> 58,
arch of triumph* 89.
and Italy, lot.
at Batle* 138.
and Pirckhetmer, 146,
drawings of Erasmus, 15 of.
and Reformation, 246.
praises Luther, 247.
leaves Netherlands, 248.
Eck, J., 173, 181, 217, 224, 229, 327,
34?, 3T6i£» 384-
Eckstein, U., 374.
Edmund, Prince, 61.
Egmond, N., 228, 288, 297, 396.
Eisenach, 247.
Elizabeth, Queen of England, 187.
Elyot, T., 201.
Emser, L, 58, 3?6f.
England, 36, 59ft., 63, 70, 74, 78, 116,
.130, I75> 177.
Enzinas, F. de, 186.
Eoban Hess, 157, 206, 217, 223, 377,
^ . 394) 407.
Epimemdes, 22.
Eppendorf, H. von, 263, 383^
Erasmus, D.
career
family, 5^, ij.
illegitimate birth, 6ff., 64, 74f.,
77. _
education, 8ff.
enters monastic life, 13.
as artist, i7f.
secretary to Henry of Bergen,
l8-
enters University of Paris, 20.
lectures, 24.
anecdote, 26f.
and Anne of Veere, 31.
travels, 31, 3Sf., 48£, 59, 73,
I02ff., I07ff., 115, I36ff.,
Hiffl, 239, ^3ff., 405.
lectures at Cambridge, 6jf., 7"j.
income, 30, 64, 67, 6gf.t 73!.,
2<J7»»., 34
at Louvam, 5of., 148, 176,
m 219,^46,252,
m Venice, IO7E, 313.
in Germany, 1361!
in England, 3& 59-100, 116, 130.
at Basle, 138!?., 257-285.
in Netherlands, 130, 141, 148.
degrees and honors, 103, I46f.
portraits, I48ff.
as editor and critic, i89ffl, 195.
and Peasant's War, 201, 269^
and Reformation, 209-256, 3 20
37i» 37B, 439*
and Swiss Reforma
will, 26 1 C
attacked by both parties, 398,
attacked in Spain, 400.
at Freiburg, 404-419.
nation, 3 72-403.
472
INDEX
Erasmus, career
correspondence, 208, 409$!
death, 41 9f.
health and habits, 28, 82, 19,
27lff.
doctrines, opinions and character,
undogmatic Christianity, i, 159.
Latin and Greek, 16, i6off.
relation of culture to religion,
I7» 358-
character, 28, 35f., 439fF.
and classics, 14, 30, 36ff., 46$".,
189, I92ff., 195, 203, 3osf.,
jo8ff.
Biblical criticism, I59ff.
and pacificism, I98ff., 324.
and Republicanism, I99ff.
and Catholics, 227, 387, 4006°.
attacks foibles, 293fF.
attacks pedantry, 3o8ff.
and education, 303$".
as writer, 17,316$.
and superstition, 322f.
and Free Will, 340.
as peacemaker, 3606°.
doctrine of eucharist, 379ff.
liberalism, 395f.
writings
Df Contemptu Mundi, 14.
The Hovel Where Jesus Was
Born, 24.
Antibarbari, 17, 156.
The Conflict Between Thalia and
Barbarity, 17.
Moria, 17, 23, 76, 88, 92, II7E,
129, 134, 149, 152, 157, 204,
213, 258, 308, 319, 323, 411,
414, 4.22, 435.
Colloquia, 28, 80, 82h, 102, 108,
114, 13 5f., 141, 157, 266, 274,
286-301, 319, 323, 385, 392,
411,414,422,435,437.
Adagia, 36, 74, 108, 129, 147,
152, i57f., 20if., 213, 258,
t
Enchiridion Mthhs Chnstiam,
54, 55ff., 74, 120, 124, 129,
146, 149, iS7£, i68£, 213,
216, 336, 400.
dedications, 32, 38, 74, H7f.,
1 86, 192, 202, 221, 225, 271,
279, 282, 284f., 287, 308, 312,
327, 364, 403, 40/E, 418.
Copta,74.r 157.302.
New Testament, 33, 74, 115, 149,
IS9-I88, 2I£. .....
Institutio Principis Chriftiani,
De Construction?, 157.
The Method of Theology, 173,
225.
Apologia Against James Lato-
mus, 176.
Paraphrases, 33, 149, 153, i86ff.,
27if., 342, 422.
political writings, I97f.
Epistolcs, iii, 75, 157, 202-208,
213, 256, 273, 383, 390, 393,
422.
Julius Excluded from Heaven,
213.
Axioms, 236.
On Ending the Lutheran Affair,
Advice of One Seeking the Peace
of the Church, 251.
Confession, 271.
Exposition of the Lord*s Prayer,
272.
Complaint of Peace, 272.
Institution of Christian Matri-
mony, 279, 422.
The Christian Widow * 282, 403,
409.
Ennaratio Triplex in Psalmum
XXII, 2%$.
Preparation for Death, 285.
Method^ of Study, 302.
The Distichs of Cato, 302.
de Constructions, 306.
Civility for Boys, 307.
A Devout Treatise Upon the Pater
Noster, 307.
Commentary on Prudentius*
Hymn to the Nativity, 308,
Ciceronianus, ill, 309-316, 399,
Orthodox Liturgy, 3 26.
A Sponge, 3341.
Diatribe on the Free Will, 242,
346ff., 399, 426.
Hyperaspistes, ^6E, 365.
Book on Mending the Peace of
the Church, 364, 399.
Expostulation of Jesus with Man,
372.
Plan or Compendium of True
Theology, 373,
Admonition Against Falsehood
and Slander, 386.
An Answer to Some Articles of
the Spanish Monks, 393.
Apology Against the Mayings of
Alberto Pio, 399.
Apothegms* 408.
Catechism, 285, 409.
Method of Preaching* 409.
INDEX
473
Erasmus, writings
edits Josephus, 41 iff., 447ff.
Poems, 453ff.
influence and relation with con-
temporaries
Hutten, isoff., 136, 173, 223,
226f., 233, 265, 332ff., 368.
Colet, 78, 93, 96f., 99, i6if., 173,
1 86, 2O4f., 216, 247.
More, 61, 66, 75, 78ff., I48ff.,
204f., 215, 228, 261, 278, 390,
4iSff:
Reuchlin, 13 iff., 222, 225, 288,
328, 398.
Pirckheimer, 127, I4sf., 344,
3J7» 368, 38o.
Lefevre d'Etaples, I78ff, 273 f.
Melanchthon, 209, 220, 227,
308, 33S> 34*» 350» 35S»
¥ 371, 375>379f.»424>428.
Luther, 1821., 205, 209-256, 320
37i>.387»J98, 4*4»424-
Frederic, Elector of Saxony,
22if., 232, 234ff., 326.
Francis I, 179, 27off.
Sorbonne, 27 iff.
Aleander, io8f.9 209, 23 7f.,
2So£, sijf., 326ff» 333, 413.
(Ecolampadius, 209ff., 229, 344,
376, 380, 382, 39if., 395, 4*5-
Henry VIII, 230, 276-285, 343,
417.
Fisher, 6$ff., 133* *7S» 261, 340,
409, 4i6f,
Eppendorf, 384*1*.
Farel, 377.
Tud, 381.
Peliican, 328, 38 if.
Zwingli, 209£, 251, 340, 342,
3$8» 374> 382, 395, 4^5*
Capito, 331, 353, 362.
judged by posterity
early Catholics, 421 £
Pope, 423.
Lacordaire, 423.
Pastor, L. von, 423.
Acton, Lord, 424.
early Protestants, 4&4E
Milton, 425,
Kn%ht» 426,
Tortm, 426*
Wai pole, 426,
Harnack, 426.
Bdhmer, 426,
Kdhler, 427,
Lindsay, 427.
liberal Christians, 418.
Brewer, 429.
White, A. D., 429.
Adams, G. B., 429.
Pattison, 429.
Dods, 430.
Hermelink, 430.
Anabaptists, 430.
Franck, 431.
Dutch liberals, 43 if.
Beard, 432.
Schlottmann, 433.
Troeltsch, 434.
Wernle, 434.
M tiller, 434.
Schroder, 434.
Rabelais, 434.
Montaigne, 434.
Des Periers, 434*
Amiel, 435.
Froude, 435.
Jovius, 435.
Jonson, B., 435.
Bayle, P., 436.
Voltaire, 436.
Diderot, 436.
Sainte-Beuve, 436.
Francke, Kuno, 436.
Imbart de la Tour, 436.
Lea, 437.
Scahger, 438.
Bruno, G., 438.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 438,
Reade, 438.
Allen, P. S., 438f.
Erfurt, 157, 177, 217,
Estienne, H., 166.
Eucharist, doctrine of the, 378ff.
Everard, N., 241, 269.
Exsurge Doming 229, 238, 251.
Faber, J., 237, 342, 384, 404, 416,
42C.
Farel, W., 3766
Ferdinand, King of the Romans, 186,
231, 270, 276, 396.
Ferrara, no.
Renee, Duchess of, 428.
Filonardo, E., J27f.
Fisher, J., 65^, 133, 154, 175, 221,
261, 278, 340, 382, 409, 4i6f.
Forster, M., 359.
Florence, ictyfT, nz,
France, A., 319.
France
inns, X42f.
and New Testament, 178.
monarchomachs, 202.
Francis I, King of France, 179,
474
Franciscans, 267, 275.
Franck, S., 43 1.
Francke, Kuno, 436. ^
Frankfort on the Main, 131.
Freiburg in the Breisgau, 181, 2656,
349, 384, 404* 419. f
University of, 383, 4041.
Froben, J., 43, 45» 88, 133, I38ff.,
I52f., 192, 2i7ff., 257, 261, 268,
287, 3S5> 34^ 355» 377» 4i2»
448f.
Froude, J. A., 323*435-
Fugger family, 337, 410.
Fussli, H., 374.
Fust, J., 195-
Gaguin, R., 28ff., 37, 41, 4$6f.
Gardiner, S., 124.
Garland, J., 10.
Gattinara, ML, 238, 246, 363, 396.
Geldenhauer, G., 393*.
Gelenius, S., 316. ,
Germaine de Foix, Queen of Spam,
^ 239> ^
Germans, 176, 322.
Germany
cities and poor relief, 89.
and Reuchiin, 133.
and Erasmus, 136, 242, 315, 328,
342f., 398.
inns, 141 f.
proverbs, 40.
and New Testament, 181.
and Reformation, 212, 215, 223.
and Luther, 331*
Gesner, C, 46, 320.
Gigli, S., Bishop, 75ff.
Gilles, P., I48f., 204, 246.
Glapkm, T., 232, 25 of.
Glarean, H., 140, 179, 373f.
Goclen, C., 261.
Gouda, 5, 13.
Gourmont, G. de, 124.
Grapheus, C., 216, 248, 331, 431.
Gratius, 0,, I32ffl
Greek, 30, 33, 46f., 70, 146, 160, 162,
INDEX
classics, 36, 40, 193, 195.
Greek fathers, 193.
Greenwich, 78.
Grey, T., 27, 81,
Grirnani, 0., 113, 133, 186, 204.
Groot, G., 9, 13.
Grotius, H., 201, 432.
Grynaeus, S., 138, 282,
Gryphius, S*, 4I2£
Gutenberg, J,, 107.
Gylli, P., 413, 449.
Hampton Court, 153.
Harnack, A., 426.
Henckel, J., 362.
Henry VII, King of England, 64, 102.
Henry VIII, King of England, 66,
Hi, 178.
as prince, 6 if.
painting of, 90, 154.
accession to throne, 116.
letters to, 204.
and Erasmus, 230, 276ff., 343, 417,
453*
divorce from Catharine, 278-285.
and Luther, 276$"., 357.
and Free Will, 341, 349.
and Anne of Cleves, 396.
tyranny, 4isff.
and More, 41 5 f.
Henry of Bergen, Bishop of Cam-
brai, i8f., 49.
Herborn, N., 451.
Hermann, W., 30, 49.
Hermelink, H., 430.
Herodotus, 195.
'S Hertogenbosch, 12.
Hochstraten, J., 132, 13$* 224, 331,
TJ iL3?3'284'
Holbem, A., 153.
Holbein, H., 124, I38£, 149, 152^.
Holland, c, 18.
Hopfer, JL, 151.
Hotman, F., 202.
Hroswitha, 286, 289.
Hiibmaier, B., 383.
Humanism
Erasmus apostle of, 33.
at Strassburg, 136.
at Louvain, 1541.
and Bible, 173.
and France, 202.
and letter-writing, 202.
and Lutherf 217.
and education^ 308,
and Reformation, 324.
and Latin, ^3 24..
and Christianity, 358*
Hump, H», 228*
Huss, J., 21 T, 224.
Hutten, U. von
and Italy, 101.
satire, 117.
admires Moria, 125*
Nemo, 222.
and Erasmus, iioE, 116, 173, 223,
226f,, 2^, 265, 33*£f 3^0*
and Reucnfin, 132,
and Francis yon Sickmgen, ajaf.
attacks Glapion, 250,
INDEX
475
Hutten
and Reformation, 325, 332fF.
character, 332.
and Pellican, 341.
An Expostulation, 333, 335.
death, 335. f
and Zwingli, 372, 375.
Imbart de la Tour, P., 436.
Inghirami, 114.
Ingolstadt, University of, 147.
Jrenaeus, 189.
Isabella, Queen of Castile, 279.
Italy, 104.
living conditions, io8£
art, 109, H2f.
courage of Italians, 4O2f.
James IV, King of Scotland
sons, no.
Jerome, St., 163, 173, 178, 183, i9off.,
203, 387.
Jesuits, 422.
Jesus Christ, 17, 54, 122, 137, 140,
167, 184, 194, 223, 288, 308, 334,
33&
"philosophy of," 34, $2£, i7z£,
T . I9/' ?72> 441'
John the Baptist, 210.
John the Apostle, 191, 383.
John of Ragusa, Cardinal, 163.
>hnson, S., 337.
onson, B., 435.
fonas, J., 157, 207, 222, 224, 228,
238, 247, 325, 344, 354, 359.
oran, J., 426.
Josepnus, 447$*,
ovius, ?*, 435.
"ud, L., 187, 366, 38of.
'ulius II, Pope, 64, 74, iosf., H2ff.,
09, 127,
Kempis, T,, 9, an,
Kessler, J.» 425.
Kdhier, W.» 427,
Knight, S., 4*ct
La Boetije, 46, 202.
Lacordaire, J.» 423.
Lambert, K, 353-
Lang, 1L 157, aop, 2x7, 223,
Lang, M», Archbishop, 225.
Lascaris, J., 107, 303.
Laski, J», *6o£, 34S-
Latin, s£, *o£, *6, 70, 162, 189,
302E, 3i6£, 324.
clawks, *3&> 30, 33, s6£, 47£,
3» I9S-
us, J,,
T .
Latomus, J,, 155, 176, »$S-
Lea, H. 0,437-
Lee, E., i76£, 4.00.
Lefevre d'fitaples, J.
and Italy, 101.
Quintuplex Psalterium, i6of.
and Erasmus, I78ff., 273 £, 341.
New Testament, 185.
and Paraphrases, 1 88.
and Luther, 215.
and Francis I, 270.
Latin style, 311.
Leipzig
University of, i46£, 155, 224.
flebate, 221, 224, 340.
Leo X, 49, 65, 212.
and Erasmus, 75, 77f., 240, 252.
and Moria, 126.
dedication to, 174, 192, 218.
letters, 204.
and Luther, 217.
exsurge Doming, 229, 238.
death, 326.
Lindsay, T. M., 427.
Lipsius, M., 176, 196.
Lombard, P., 20.
London, 63, 65, 69, 74.
Longueil, C. die, 179, 311.
Louis XII, King of France, 104.
Louis, King of Hungary, 326.
Louvain
Erasmus at, 5o£, 148, 176, 219,
239,246,2152,383.
University of
founded, 25.
described, 5o£, 156.
attacks Erasmus, 126, 154f., 396.
conservative, 180.
approves Luther, 217.
attacks Luther, 222ff., 227.
Aleander at, 23 if.
and Erasmus, 249, 274, 325,399.
Loyola, L, 25 £, 400, 440.
Lucas van Ley den, 151.
Lucian, 118, I93£, 300, 359.
Ludovico il Moro, 103,
Luther, M., 54, 56, 58, 72,92, xoi, x 17.
and Peasants' War, 201, 350, 383.
and Rome, 112.
and Bible, 161, 164, 166.
and catechism, 185.
and Augustine, I9i£
saying of, 202.
and Erasmus, i82f., 205, 209-256,
320-37.1* 387»J98> 4*4> 4H> 45**
and writings of Erasmus, 46, i27f.»
1 88, 213$;
Reformation and Renaissance,
209-256,
INDEX
Luther
pamphlets, 2i7ff.
and Melanchthon, 220.
and Frederic, Elector of Saxony,
221.
and Louvain, 227.
Christian Liberty, 93.
papal bull, 229, 248.
and Faber, 237.
Prelude on the Babylonian Cap-
^ tivity of the Church, 2401"., 276.
virulence of, 241.
Diet of Worms, 245, 247.
and Henry VIII, 276*1*., 357.
and polygamy, 282.
and Colloquia, 295, 300.
and Latin, 317.
and toleration, 324.
and Adrian VI, 225, 326ff.
Tesseradecas, 330, 345.
and Free Will, 339f.
Resolutions, 339.
Refutation of the Bull, 340.
Commentaries on the Psalms, 345.
Monastic Vows, 349.
marriage, 351.
Bondage of the Will, 35 if., 354,
368f. i
and Zwingli, 373.
and Glarean, 373.
doctrine of Eucharist, 378$".
and Jud, 381.
Lystrius, G., 124.
Machiavelli, N., 39.
The Prince, 38, 196
and Florence, 104.
and Erasmus, 190,.
and Roman religion, 322.
Maillard, 0., 21.
Mainz, 130.
University of, 130.
Albert, Elector of, 219, 225, 238,
.254,370.
Major, J., 23, 2$f., 119.
Mai donate, 358.
Manetti, G., 160.
Mantua
Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of,
no, 1 60, 428.
Manuzio^Aldo, 4iff.,io7fr*,, 195^,3 13,
Marck, E. de la, Bishop, 2241.
Margaret d'Angouleme, Queen of
Navarre, 271, 275*
Margaret, Regent of the Nether-
lands, 396.
Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland,
61, 656
Maria, Queen of Hungary, 362, 409.
Marius, A., 388, 390.
Marlian, A., 246.
Marot, C., 301.
Mary, Mother of Jesus, 294.
Mary Tudor, Queen of France, 61.
Mary Tudor, Queen of England, 187,
279,407-
Matsys, Q., I48ff., 151.
M auburn, J., 25.
Maximilian I, Emperor
and Reuchlin, 132.
and Erasmus, 156.
and New Testament, 181.
residence, 404.
Maximilian of Zevenbergen, 396f.
Melanchthon
on John Major, 23.
and Peasants' War, 89.
and Erasmus, 182, 209, 220,, 227,
308, 335> 34*» 350, 355* 360-371,
375» 379f-> 4H> 428.
and Lucian, 193.
and Luther, 220, 239, 325, 365.
and Greek, 304.
and Camerarius, 315.
and Free Will, 338.
Loci Communes, 340.
as peace-maker, 344.
and Hyperaspist.es, 359, 369.
and Catholics, 3663(1.
Commentary on Romans, 369f.
Commonplaces, 370,
and Reformation, 394.
and More, 416.
Michelangelo, 113, 337.
Miltitz, C. von, 225.
Milton, J., 7».304» 308, 422, 425.
Mirandola, Pico della, 54, 227, 310,
398.
Montaigne, M. de, 39, 46, 206.
and liberalism, 301.
and Erasmus, 434.
Montaigu, G. de, 24.
Montanus, J., 354.
More, J,, 408.
More, Sir T,
and Erasmus, 6t, 66, 75, 78$".,
I48ff., 204f., 215, 228, 261, 278,
390, 41 sff.
described by Erasmus, 79f,
practical jokes, 8of.
love of animals, 82*
marriages, 84$".
family life, 85?.
Utopia, 85, 87fF.» 148, 198,
reactionary, 9af,
in Europe, 93.
INDEX
477
More, Sir T.
dedication of Moria, nyf.
portrait, 154.
and New Testament, 175$"., 181.
attacks Tyndale, i85f.
and Lucian, 193.
and Grynaeus, 283.
anecdote, 288.
and Dolet, 314.
and Latin, 317
and miracles, 322.
and Henry VIII, 4i5f.
death, 4i6fF.
character, 441.
Mosellanus, 155, 193, 222.
Moses, 210.
Mountjoy, see Blount.
Mailer, K., 434.
Musurus, M., 107.
Mutian, C, 209.
Myconius, 0., 152.
Nachtigall, 0,, 404,
Neacademia, 107.
Netherlands
commerce, 4.
and Erasmus, 251"., 47, 130, 141,
^ 148, 33?»43i-
Reformation, 239, 246, 248.
Aleander in, 2ji.
hatred of monies, 397.
Nicholas V, Pope, 113, 160.
Nicholas, Cardinal of* Cusa, 9, 12.
PS Pace Fidei, 9 if.
Nietzsche, F., 321.
Nuremberg, 394,
Occam, William of, 197, 227.
CEcolampadius, J., 127, 138.
and Bible, 165.
and New Testament, 181.
and Erasmus, 2O9ffl, 229, 344, 376,
380, 382, 39if., 395, 425.
pamphlets, 218.
and Grynaeus, 282.
and Reformation, 325, 376, 379,
and Luther, 342, 340.
at Basle, 376^
and Farel, 377,
doctrine of Eucharist, 379f., 382.
marriage, 391.
death, j<x.
Orange, Wifliam, Prince of, 432.
Oxford, i £7.
University of, 63.
Pace, R,» in, I7^
Pack, 0, von, 300*
H7*
Padua, no.
Papal Court
levity of, 1 14.
Paracelsus, T., 268.
Paris, I9f., 26, 123, 150, 161.
Louvre, 153.
University of, 20, 180, 422.
Montaigti, College of, 23 f., 26.
Navarre, College of, 312.
morals of students, 27.
philosophy, 2if.
hostility of, 27 iff., 298, 300.
Determination on the Familiar Col-
loquies of Erasmus, 298.
and CEcolampadius, 389.
Pasquin, n8f., 122.
Pastor, L. von, 423.
Pattison, M., 429.
£au!'T$V'i91' 2°3» 336, 37S> 401.
Paul III, Pope, 401.
Paul IV, Pope, 116.
Pellican, C, 218, 328, 341, 38if.
Periers, B. des, 434.
Petit, W., 271.
Pfefferkorn, J., I32f.
Pflug,J,, 363^366, 428.
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, 19, 51,
3iS> 393-
Pins, J. de, 311, 4i2fF., 4476*".
Pirckheimer, W.
and Erasmus, 127, 344, 357, 368,
380.
life and character, 145^
and Lucian, 193.
excommunicated, 253.
Erasmus's will, 262.
and Reformation, 325.
Piso, J., in, 203.
Pius II, Pope, 15.
Plato, 88f., 197, 336.
Platz, L, 157.
Plimpton, G. A., 195.
Poggio, 1 1 8.
Popej A., 206, 423.
Prierias, S., 226, 328, 384*
Printing, I94f.
Priscillian, 165,
Probst, J., 246, 248, 331.
Pucci, L., 448.
Rabelais, F,, 25, 101, 117, 119, 125,
i9jf., 440.
and Erasmus, 413, 434, 436.
and liberalism, 301,
and Scaliger, 314.
Radewyn, F.,^5,
Raphael Sanxi, 113.
Reade, C, 438.
478
INDEX
Reformation
and Renaissance, iff., 2O9fR, 32off.
378, 424.
foreshadowed, 72.
defined,^ 2 if.
and Mainz, 130.
and Basle, 138.
economic and intellectual changes,
194, 320.
and monarchy, 199.
and Erasmus, 209-256, 320371,
377f., 439- p
and Luther, 244^, 320-371, 377t,
439-
and Diirer, 246.
in Netherlands, 246, 43 1.
hostility of Sorbonne, 27iff.
and Colloquia, 301.
comedy of, 362.
in Switzerland, 372-395.
opinions of, 430, 439.
Renaissance
interpreted, iff.
defined, I, 321^
and Reformation, iff., 2O9ff.,
32off., 378, 4^
Christianized by Erasmus, 34, 358.
architecture, 103.
and Florence, 104.
festive art, 105.
and Germany, 129.
and monarchy, 199.
and Luther, 2o9ff.
and Erasmus, 305, 32off.
Reuchlin, J.
heresy trial, T32f.
Erasmus defends, I32ff., 288.
Letters of Famous Men> 134.
and Lou vain, 135.
scholarship, 160, 163, 304.
and Erasmus, 222, 225, 238, 398.
and Luther, 227.
and Reformation, 363.
Rhine, I29f.
Riario, R., Cardinal, 113, 115, 133.
Rome, 101, 106, inf., 115, 212, 224,
23 9f.
Roper, M., 307.
Rotterdam, 7.
Rubeanus, C., 134.
Rufinus, P., 163.
Rufus, M., 157.
Sadoletus, 401.
St. Clara, convent, 73,
Sapidus, J., 137,
Satzger, C, 329,
Savonarola, G,, 104.
Saxony
Albertine
Albert, Duke of, I46f., 23 6f.,
277, 329f-
George, Duke of, I46£, 23 6f.,
3S8ff.,
Ernestine
Frederic, Elector of, 22if., 232,
234ff., 326.
John, Elector of, 355, 360,
Scaliger, J., 300, 3 1 lit., 3i3ff., 413*
438.
Schlettstadt, 137.
Schlottmann, 433.
Schroder, A., 434.
Science, 35.
Scott, W., 124.
Semjer, J., 428.
Sepulveda, J. de, 399.
Servatius, Rogerus, 14, 74.
Servetus, M., 320, 324.
Shakespeare, W., 46, 124.
Shaw, B., 316.
SickinRen, F. von, 232, 254, 332, 335.
Sigisrnund I, King of Poland, 275.
Sintheim, J., n, 13.
Sixtin, J., 63.
Sixtus IV, Pope, II.
Skelton, J., 62, 118, 450**.
Sleet a, J.».2ii.
Spain, 1 80.
and Erasmus, 400, 422.
Spalatin, G., 58, 202, 2Hf.» 217,
22 if., 225, 235£» *S&> 33g ,
Stadion, C. von, Bishop of Basle,
3ji.
Standish, H./I77.
Standonck, J., 24f,, 50, 52,
Steyn, 13, 17, 26, 49» 74-
Storch, A., 390, 410.
Strassburg, 116, 136^, 216, 384.
Stunica, J. de» 1 80,
Sturm, J,, 136.
Sutor, P., 1 80.
Tartaret, J., at.
Tauler, J,, an.
Taverner, R., 46.
Ter Beek, E., 9, xa*
Tewksbury, J., 93.
Titian, 321.
Tischendorf, 167.
Trent, Council of, 159, 4»*«
and Vulgate, 174.
Troeltsch, E,, 434.
Tunstall, C., 399, 349*
Turin, i oaf.
INDEX
479
Tyndale, W., $8, 66, 93, 155, 185,
416, 425.
Udail, N., 408.
Vadian, 338.
Valdes, A., 396.
Valla, L., 52, 56, 440,
Elegancies of Latin, 12.
influence on Erasmus, i5f., i6if.,
309-
Notes on the New Testament^ 15,
s6off.
De Professions Rfligiosorumy 15.
and Luther, 227.
and Free Will, 338.
Van Dyke, 154.
Van Eycks, 56.
Veere
Adolph, Prince of, 3 if., 38, 454.
Anne, Lady of, 3 if., 49.
Venice, lo/fF., 112.
Vergerio, 399.
Vergil, Polydore, 39, 269.
Vespucci, A., 88.
Vitrier, J., 49f., S4> H7-
Vives, L., 89, 279t, 308.
Voltaire, 15, 125, 193, 43sf.
Volz, P., 216.
Walpole, H., 426.
Walsingham, 72.
Warham, W,, Archbishop, 43, 68,
73, 81, 116, i53f., 192, 249, 259,
201, 418.
Wernle, 434.
White, A. D., 429.
Wicel, G., 3631., 422, 428*
Wilamowkz-MoeUendorff, U. von,
438.
Wimpheling, J,, 125, 136,
Winckel, P., 12.
Windesheim, 25.
Wittenberg, 150, 205, 227, 234, 241,
TT3-79* • r
University of, 205, 212, 214, 224,
__T , 33o£, 334? 336, 338, 350» 355-
Wolsey, T., Cardinal, 74, 175, 222,
«T 277^^46» 349, 4iS-
Worms, Diet of, 108, 238, 245, 247,
250, 340.
Edict of, 248.
Wiirttemberg
Uirich, Duke of, 131.
Wyciif, J.
and Reformation, 211.
and Free Will, 347.
Wyclifites, 327.
Ximines, Cardinal, 162, 180.
Zasius, U., 181, 249, 26sf.» 349, 404,
422.
Zeyenbergen, 6.
Zuichern, V. van, 401, 410.
Zurich, 374, 388, 390.
Zwichau, 379.
Zwilling, G., 330.
Zwingli, U.
annotates New Testament, 181.
and Erasmus, 2O9rT., 251, 340, 342,
3,68, 374, 382, 395, 425.
and Grynseus, 283.
and Mariolatry, 294.
and Hutten, 334, 375.
character, 372.
influenced by Erasmus, 372f.
and Luther, 373.
and Glarean, 374,
and Swiss Reformation, 372-395.
doctrine of Eucharist, 382.
death, 395.
Zwmghans, 3881,
34926