FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION
Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther—Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1517—Progress of the Reformation—Luther tries to bring about a rapprochement with Erasmus, March 1519—Erasmus keeps aloof; fancies he may yet act as a conciliator—His attitude becomes ambiguous—He denies ever more emphatically all relations with Luther and resolves to remain a spectator—He is pressed by either camp to take sides—Aleander in the Netherlands—The Diet of Worms, 1521—Erasmus leaves Louvain to safeguard his freedom, October 1521
About the close of 1516, Erasmus received a letter from the librarian and secretary of Frederick, elector of Saxony, George Spalatinus, written in the respectful and reverential tone in which the great man was now approached. 'We all esteem you here most highly; the elector has all your books in his library and intends to buy everything you may publish in future.' But the object of Spalatinus's letter was the execution of a friend's commission. An Augustinian ecclesiastic, a great admirer of Erasmus, had requested him to direct his attention to the fact that in his interpretation of St. Paul, especially in that of the epistle to the Romans, Erasmus had failed to conceive the idea of justitia correctly, had paid too little attention to original sin: he might profit by reading Augustine.
The nameless Austin Friar was Luther, then still unknown outside the circle of the Wittenberg University, in which he was a professor, and the criticism regarded the cardinal point of his hardly acquired conviction: justification by faith.
Erasmus paid little attention to this letter. He received so many of that sort, containing still more praise and no criticism. If he answered it, the reply did not reach Spalatinus, and later Erasmus completely forgot the whole letter.
Nine months afterwards, in September 1517, when Erasmus had been at Louvain for a short time, he received an honourable invitation, written by the first prelate of the Empire, the young Archbishop of Mayence, Albert of Brandenburg. The archbishop would be pleased to see him on an occasion: he greatly admired his work (he knew it so little as to speak of Erasmus's emendation of the Old Testament, instead of the New) and hoped that he would one day write some lives of saints in elegant style.
The young Hohenzoller, advocate of the new light of classical studies, whose attention had probably been drawn to Erasmus by Hutten and Capito, who sojourned at his court, had recently become engaged in one of the boldest political and financial transactions of his time. His elevation to the see of Mayence, at the age of twenty-four, had necessitated a papal dispensation, as he also wished to keep the archbishopric of Magdeburg and the see of Halberstadt. This accumulation of ecclesiastical offices had to be made subservient to the Brandenburg policy which opposed the rival house of Saxony. The Pope granted the dispensation in return for a great sum of money, but to facilitate its payment he accorded to the archbishop a liberal indulgence for the whole archbishopric of Mayence, Magdeburg and the Brandenburg territories. Albert, to whom half the proceeds were tacitly left, raised a loan with the house of Fugger, and this charged itself with the indulgence traffic.
When in December 1517, Erasmus answered the archbishop, Luther's propositions against indulgences, provoked by the Archbishop of Mayence's instructions regarding their colportage, had already been posted up (31 October 1517), and were circulated throughout Germany, rousing the whole Church. They were levelled at the same abuses which Erasmus combated, the mechanical, atomistical, and juridical conception of religion. But how different was their practical effect, as compared with Erasmus's pacific endeavour to purify the Church by lenient means!
'Lives of saints?' Erasmus asked replying to the archbishop. 'I have tried in my poor way to add a little light to the prince of saints himself. For the rest, your endeavour, in addition to so many difficult matters of government, and at such an early age, to get the lives of the saints purged of old women's tales and disgusting style, is extremely laudable. For nothing should be suffered in the Church that is not perfectly pure or refined,' And he concludes with a magnificent eulogy of the excellent prelate.
During the greater part of 1518, Erasmus was too much occupied by his own affairs—the journey to Basle and his red-hot labours there, and afterwards his serious illness—to concern himself much with Luther's business. In March he sends Luther's theses to More, without comment, and, in passing, complains to Colet about the impudence with which Rome disseminates indulgences. Luther, now declared a heretic and summoned to appear at Augsburg, stands before the legate Cajetanus and refuses to recant. Seething enthusiasm surrounds him. Just about that time Erasmus writes to one of Luther's partisans, John Lang, in very favourable terms about his work. The theses have pleased everybody. 'I see that the monarchy of the Pope at Rome, as it is now, is a pestilence to Christendom, but I do not know if it is expedient to touch that sore openly. That would be a matter for princes, but I fear that these will act in concert with the Pope to secure part of the spoils. I do not understand what possessed Eck to take up arms against Luther.' The letter did not find its way into any of the collections.
The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the election of an emperor, after old Maximilian had died in January, and the attempt of the curia to regain ground with lenity. Germany was expecting the long-projected disputation between Johannes Eck and Andreas Karlstadt which, in truth, would concern Luther. How could Erasmus, who himself was involved that year in so many polemics, have foreseen that the Leipzig disputation, which was to lead Luther to the consequence of rejecting the highest ecclesiastical authority, would remain of lasting importance in the history of the world, whereas his quarrel with Lee would be forgotten?
On 28 March 1519 Luther addressed himself personally to Erasmus for the first time. 'I speak with you so often, and you with me, Erasmus, our ornament and our hope; and we do not know each other as yet.' He rejoices to find that Erasmus displeases many, for this he regards as a sign that God has blessed him. Now that his, Luther's, name begins to get known too, a longer silence between them might be wrongly interpreted. 'Therefore, my Erasmus, amiable man, if you think fit, acknowledge also this little brother in Christ, who really admires you and feels friendly disposed towards you, and for the rest would deserve no better, because of his ignorance, than to lie, unknown, buried in a corner.'
There was a very definite purpose in this somewhat rustically cunning and half ironical letter. Luther wanted, if possible, to make Erasmus show his colours, to win him, the powerful authority, touchstone of science and culture, for the cause which he advocated. In his heart Luther had long been aware of the deep gulf separating him from Erasmus. As early as March 1517, six months before his public appearance, he wrote about Erasmus to John Lang: 'human matters weigh heavier with him than divine,' an opinion that so many have pronounced about Erasmus—obvious, and yet unfair.
The attempt, on the part of Luther, to effect a rapprochement was a reason for Erasmus to retire at once. Now began that extremely ambiguous policy of Erasmus to preserve peace by his authority as a light of the world and to steer a middle course without committing himself. In that attitude the great and the petty side of his personality are inextricably intertwined. The error because of which most historians have seen Erasmus's attitude towards the Reformation either in far too unfavourable a light or—as for instance the German historian Kalkoff—much too heroic and far-seeing, is that they erroneously regard him as psychologically homogeneous. Just that he is not. His double-sidedness roots in the depths of his being. Many of his utterances during the struggle proceed directly from his fear and lack of character, also from his inveterate dislike of siding with a person or a cause; but behind that is always his deep and fervent conviction that neither of the conflicting opinions can completely express the truth, that human hatred and purblindness infatuate men's minds. And with that conviction is allied the noble illusion that it might yet be possible to preserve the peace by moderation, insight, and kindliness.
In April 1519 Erasmus addressed himself by letter to the elector Frederick of Saxony, Luther's patron. He begins by alluding to his dedication of Suetonius two years before; but his real purpose is to say something about Luther. Luther's writings, he says, have given the Louvain obscurants plenty of reason to inveigh against the bonae literae, to decry all scholars. He himself does not know Luther and has glanced through his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone praises his life. How little in accordance with theological gentleness it is to condemn him offhand, and that before the indiscreet vulgar! For has he not proposed a dispute, and submitted himself to everybody's judgement? No one has, so far, admonished, taught, convinced him. Every error is not at once heresy.
The best of Christianity is a life worthy of Christ. Where we find that, we should not rashly suspect people of heresy. Why do we so uncharitably persecute the lapses of others, though none of us is free from error? Why do we rather want to conquer than cure, suppress than instruct?
But he concludes with a word that could not but please Luther's friends, who so hoped for his support. 'May the duke prevent an innocent man from being surrendered under the cloak of piety to the impiety of a few. This is also the wish of Pope Leo, who has nothing more at heart than that innocence be safe.'
At this same time Erasmus does his best to keep Froben back from publishing Luther's writings, 'that they may not fan the hatred of the bonae literae still more'. And he keeps repeating: I do not know Luther, I have not read his writings. He makes this declaration to Luther himself, in his reply to the latter's epistle of 28 March. This letter of Erasmus, dated 30 May 1519, should be regarded as a newspaper leader[17], to acquaint the public with his attitude towards the Luther question. Luther does not know the tragedies which his writings have caused at Louvain. People here think that Erasmus has helped him in composing them and call him the standard bearer of the party! That seemed to them a fitting pretext to suppress the bonae literae. 'I have declared that you are perfectly unknown to me, that I have not yet read your books and therefore neither approve nor disapprove anything.' 'I reserve myself, so far as I may, to be of use to the reviving studies. Discreet moderation seems likely to bring better progress than impetuosity. It was by this that Christ subjugated the world.'
On the same day he writes to John Lang, one of Luther's friends and followers, a short note, not meant for publication: 'I hope that the endeavours of yourself and your party will be successful. Here the Papists rave violently.... All the best minds are rejoiced at Luther's boldness: I do not doubt he will be careful that things do not end in a quarrel of parties!... We shall never triumph over feigned Christians unless we first abolish the tyranny of the Roman see, and of its satellites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Carmelites. But no one could attempt that without a serious tumult.'
As the gulf widens, Erasmus's protestations that he has nothing to do with Luther become much more frequent. Relations at Louvain grow ever more disagreeable and the general sentiment about him ever more unkind. In August 1519 he turns to the Pope himself for protection against his opponents. He still fails to see how wide the breach is. He still takes it all to be quarrels of scholars. King Henry of England and King Francis of France in their own countries have imposed silence upon the quarrellers and slanderers; if only the Pope would do the same!
In October he was once more reconciled with the Louvain faculty. It was just at this time that Colet died in London, the man who had, better perhaps than anyone else, understood Erasmus's standpoint. Kindred spirits in Germany still looked up to Erasmus as the great man who was on the alert to interpose at the right moment and who had made moderation the watchword, until the time should come to give his friends the signal.
But in the increasing noise of the battle his voice already sounded less powerfully than before. A letter to Cardinal Albert of Mayence, 19 October 1519, of about the same content as that of Frederick of Saxony written in the preceding spring, was at once circulated by Luther's friends; and by the advocates of conservatism, in spite of the usual protestation, 'I do not know Luther', it was made to serve against Erasmus.
It became more and more clear that the mediating and conciliatory position which Erasmus wished to take up would soon be altogether untenable. The inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraten had come from Cologne, where he was a member of the University, to Louvain, to work against Luther there, as he had worked against Reuchlin. On 7 November 1519 the Louvain faculty, following the example of that of Cologne, proceeded to take the decisive step: the solemn condemnation of a number of Luther's opinions. In future no place could be less suitable to Erasmus than Louvain, the citadel of action against reformers. It is surprising that he remained there another two years.
The expectation that he would be able to speak the conciliating word was paling. For the rest he failed to see the true proportions. During the first months of 1520 his attention was almost entirely taken up by his own polemics with Lee, a paltry incident in the great revolution. The desire to keep aloof got more and more the upper hand of him. In June he writes to Melanchthon: 'I see that matters begin to look like sedition. It is perhaps necessary that scandals occur, but I should prefer not to be the author.' He has, he thinks, by his influence with Wolsey, prevented the burning of Luther's writings in England, which had been ordered. But he was mistaken. The burning had taken place in London, as early as 12 May.
The best proof that Erasmus had practically given up his hope to play a conciliatory part may be found in what follows. In the summer of 1520 the famous meeting between the three monarchs, Henry VIII, Francis I and Charles V, took place at Calais. Erasmus was to go there in the train of his prince. How would such a congress of princes—where in peaceful conclave the interests of France, England, Spain, the German Empire, and a considerable part of Italy, were represented together—have affected Erasmus's imagination, if his ideal had remained unshaken! But there are no traces of this. Erasmus was at Calais in July 1520, had some conversation with Henry VIII there, and greeted More, but it does not appear that he attached any other importance to the journey than that of an opportunity, for the last time, to greet his English friends.
It was awkward for Erasmus that just at this time, when the cause of faith took so much harsher forms, his duties as counsellor to the youthful Charles, now back from Spain to be crowned as emperor, circumscribed his liberty more than before. In the summer of 1520 appeared, based on the incriminating material furnished by the Louvain faculty, the papal bull declaring Luther to be a heretic, and, unless he should speedily recant, excommunicating him. 'I fear the worst for the unfortunate Luther,' Erasmus writes, 9 September 1520, 'so does conspiracy rage everywhere, so are princes incensed with him on all sides, and, most of all, Pope Leo. Would Luther had followed my advice and abstained from those hostile and seditious actions!... They will not rest until they have quite subverted the study of languages and the good learning.... Out of the hatred against these and the stupidity of monks did this tragedy first arise.... I do not meddle with it. For the rest, a bishopric is waiting for me if I choose to write against Luther.'
Indeed, Erasmus had become, by virtue of his enormous celebrity, as circumstances would have it, more and more a valuable asset in the great policy of emperor and pope. People wanted to use his name and make him choose sides. And that he would not do for any consideration. He wrote evasively to the Pope about his relations with Luther without altogether disavowing him. How zealously he defends himself from the suspicion of being on Luther's side as noisy monks make out in their sermons, who summarily link the two in their scoffing disparagement.
But by the other side also he is pressed to choose sides and to speak out. Towards the end of October 1520 the coronation of the emperor took place at Aix-la-Chapelle. Erasmus was perhaps present; in any case he accompanied the Emperor to Cologne. There, on 5 November, he had an interview about Luther with the Elector Frederick of Saxony. He was persuaded to write down the result of that discussion in the form of twenty-two Axiomata concerning Luther's cause. Against his intention they were printed at once.
Erasmus's hesitation in those days between the repudiation and the approbation of Luther is not discreditable to him. It is the tragic defect running through his whole personality: his refusal or inability ever to draw ultimate conclusions. Had he only been a calculating and selfish nature, afraid of losing his life, he would long since have altogether forsaken Luther's cause. It is his misfortune affecting his fame, that he continually shows his weaknesses, whereas what is great in him lies deep.
At Cologne Erasmus also met the man with whom, as a promising young humanist, fourteen years younger than himself, he had, for some months, shared a room in the house of Aldus's father-in-law, at Venice: Hieronymus Aleander, now sent to the Emperor as a papal nuncio, to persuade him to conform his imperial policy to that of the Pope, in the matter of the great ecclesiastical question, and give effect to the papal excommunication by the imperial ban.
It must have been somewhat painful for Erasmus that his friend had so far surpassed him in power and position, and was now called to bring by diplomatic means the solution which he himself would have liked to see achieved by ideal harmony, good will and toleration. He had never trusted Aleander, and was more than ever on his guard against him. As a humanist, in spite of brilliant gifts, Aleander was by far Erasmus's inferior, and had never, like him, risen from literature to serious theological studies; he had simply prospered in the service of Church magnates (whom Erasmus had given up early). This man was now invested with the highest mediating powers.
To what degree of exasperation Erasmus's most violent antagonists at Louvain had now been reduced is seen from the witty and slightly malicious account he gives Thomas More of his meeting with Egmondanus before the Rector of the university, who wanted to reconcile them. Still things did not look so black as Ulrich von Hutten thought, when he wrote to Erasmus: 'Do you think that you are still safe, now that Luther's books are burned? Fly, and save yourself for us!'
Ever more emphatic do Erasmus's protestations become that he has nothing to do with Luther. Long ago he had already requested him not to mention his name, and Luther promised it: 'Very well, then, I shall not again refer to you, neither will other good friends, since it troubles you'. Ever louder, too, are Erasmus's complaints about the raving of the monks at him, and his demands that the mendicant orders be deprived of the right to preach.
In April 1521 comes the moment in the world's history to which Christendom has been looking forward: Luther at the Diet of Worms, holding fast to his opinions, confronted by the highest authority in the Empire. So great is the rejoicing in Germany that for a moment it may seem that the Emperor's power is in danger rather than Luther and his adherents. 'If I had been present', writes Erasmus, 'I should have endeavoured that this tragedy would have been so tempered by moderate arguments that it could not afterwards break out again to the still greater detriment of the world.'
The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the Empire (as in the Burgundian Netherlands before that time) Luther's books were to be burned, his adherents arrested and their goods confiscated, and Luther was to be given up to the authorities. Erasmus hopes that now relief will follow. 'The Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had never appeared on the stage.' In these days Albrecht Dürer, on hearing the false news of Luther's death, wrote in the diary of his journey that passionate exclamation: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you be? Hear, you knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, protect the truth, obtain the martyr's crown. For you are but an old manikin. I have heard you say that you have allowed yourself two more years, in which you are still fit to do some work; spend them well, in behalf of the Gospel and the true Christian faith.... O Erasmus, be on this side, that God may be proud of you.'
It expresses confidence in Erasmus's power, but at bottom is the expectation that he will not do all this. Dürer had rightly understood Erasmus.
The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. Latomus, the most dignified and able of Louvain divines, had now become one of the most serious opponents of Luther and, in so doing, touched Erasmus, too, indirectly. To Nicholas of Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Erasmus's compatriots had been added as a violent antagonist, Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, a Dominican. Erasmus addresses himself to the faculty, to defend himself against the new attacks, and to explain why he has never written against Luther. He will read him, he will soon take up something to quiet the tumult. He succeeds in getting Aleander, who arrived at Louvain in June, to prohibit preaching against him. The Pope still hopes that Aleander will succeed in bringing back Erasmus, with whom he is again on friendly terms, to the right track.
But Erasmus began to consider the only exit which was now left to him: to leave Louvain and the Netherlands to regain his menaced independence. The occasion to depart had long ago presented itself: the third edition of his New Testament called him to Basle once more. It would not be a permanent departure, and he purposed to return to Louvain. On 28 October (his birthday) he left the town where he had spent four difficult years. His chambers in the College of the Lily were reserved for him and he left his books behind. On 15 November he reached Basle.
Soon the rumour spread that out of fear of Aleander he had saved himself by flight. But the idea, revived again in our days in spite of Erasmus's own painstaking denial, that Aleander should have cunningly and expressly driven him from the Netherlands, is inherently improbable. So far as the Church was concerned, Erasmus would at almost any point be more dangerous than at Louvain, in the headquarters of conservatism, under immediate control of the strict Burgundian government, where, it seemed, he could sooner or later be pressed into the service of the anti-Lutheran policy.
It was this contingency, as Dr. Allen has correctly pointed out, which he feared and evaded. Not for his bodily safety did he emigrate; Erasmus would not have been touched—he was far too valuable an asset for such measures. It was his mental independence, so dear to him above all else, that he felt to be threatened; and, to safeguard that, he did not return to Louvain.
Plate XIX. THE HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT WHERE ERASMUS LIVED FROM MAY TO NOVEMBER 1521
Plate XX. ERASMUS'S STUDY AT ANDERLECHT
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Translation on pp. [229] ff.
CHAPTER XVII
ERASMUS AT BASLE
1521-9
Basle his dwelling-place for nearly eight years: 1521-9—Political thought of Erasmus—Concord and peace—Anti-war writings—Opinions concerning princes and government—New editions of several Fathers—The Colloquia—Controversies with Stunica, Beda, etc.—Quarrel with Hutten—Eppendorff
It is only towards the evening of life that the picture of Erasmus acquires the features with which it was to go down to posterity. Only at Basle—delivered from the troublesome pressure of parties wanting to enlist him, transplanted from an environment of haters and opponents at Louvain to a circle of friends, kindred spirits, helpers and admirers, emancipated from the courts of princes, independent of the patronage of the great, unremittingly devoting his tremendous energy to the work that was dear to him—did he become Holbein's Erasmus. In those late years he approaches most closely to the ideal of his personal life.
He did not think that there were still fifteen years in store for him. Long before, in fact, since he became forty years old in 1506, Erasmus had been in an old-age mood. 'The last act of the play has begun,' he keeps saying after 1517.
He now felt practically independent as to money matters. Many years had passed before he could say that. But peace of mind did not come with competence. It never came. He never became truly placid and serene, as Holbein's picture seems to represent him. He was always too much concerned about what people said or thought of him. Even at Basle he did not feel thoroughly at home. He still speaks repeatedly of a removal in the near future to Rome, to France, to England, or back to the Netherlands. Physical rest, at any rate, which was not in him, was granted him by circumstances: for nearly eight years he now remained at Basle, and then he lived at Freiburg for six.
Erasmus at Basle is a man whose ideals of the world and society have failed him. What remains of that happy expectation of a golden age of peace and light, in which he had believed as late as 1517? What of his trust in good will and rational insight, in which he wrote the Institutio Principis Christiani for the youthful Charles V? To Erasmus all the weal of state and society had always been merely a matter of personal morality and intellectual enlightenment. By recommending and spreading those two he at one time thought he had introduced the great renovation himself. From the moment when he saw that the conflict would lead to an exasperated struggle he refused any longer to be anything but a spectator. As an actor in the great ecclesiastical combat Erasmus had voluntarily left the stage.
But he does not give up his ideal. 'Let us resist,' he concludes an Epistle about gospel philosophy, 'not by taunts and threats, not by force of arms and injustice, but by simple discretion, by benefits, by gentleness and tolerance.' Towards the close of his life, he prays: 'If Thou, O God, deignst to renew that Holy Spirit in the hearts of all, then also will those external disasters cease.... Bring order to this chaos, Lord Jesus, let Thy Spirit spread over these waters of sadly troubled dogmas.'
Concord, peace, sense of duty and kindliness, were all valued highly by Erasmus; yet he rarely saw them realized in practical life. He becomes disillusioned. After the short spell of political optimism he never speaks of the times any more but in bitter terms—a most criminal age, he says—and again, the most unhappy and most depraved age imaginable. In vain had he always written in the cause of peace: Querela pacis, the complaint of peace, the adage Dulce bellum inexpertis, war is sweet to those who have not known it, Oratio de pace et discordia, and more still. Erasmus thought rather highly of his pacifistic labours: 'that polygraph, who never leaves off persecuting war by means of his pen', thus he makes a character of the Colloquies designate himself. According to a tradition noted by Melanchthon, Pope Julius is said to have called him before him in connection with his advice about the war with Venice,[18] and to have remarked to him angrily that he should stop writing on the concerns of princes: 'You do not understand those things!'
Erasmus had, in spite of a certain innate moderation, a wholly non-political mind. He lived too much outside of practical reality, and thought too naïvely of the corrigibility of mankind, to realize the difficulties and necessities of government. His ideas about a good administration were extremely primitive, and, as is often the case with scholars of a strong ethical bias, very revolutionary at bottom, though he never dreamed of drawing the practical inferences. His friendship with political and juridical thinkers, as More, Budaeus and Zasius, had not changed him. Questions of forms of government, law or right, did not exist for him. Economic problems he saw in idyllic simplicity. The prince should reign gratuitously and impose as few taxes as possible. 'The good prince has all that loving citizens possess.' The unemployed should be simply driven away. We feel in closer contact with the world of facts when he enumerates the works of peace for the prince: the cleaning of towns, building of bridges, halls, and streets, draining of pools, shifting of river-beds, the diking and reclamation of moors. It is the Netherlander who speaks here, and at the same time the man in whom the need of cleansing and clearing away is a fundamental trait of character.
Vague politicians like Erasmus are prone to judge princes very severely, since they take them to be responsible for all wrongs. Erasmus praises them personally, but condemns them in general. From the kings of his time he had for a long time expected peace in Church and State. They had disappointed him. But his severe judgement of princes he derived rather from classical reading than from political experience of his own times. In the later editions of the Adagia he often reverts to princes, their task and their neglect of duty, without ever mentioning special princes. 'There are those who sow the seeds of dissension between their townships in order to fleece the poor unhindered and to satisfy their gluttony by the hunger of innocent citizens.' In the adage Scarabeus aquilam quaerit he represents the prince under the image of the Eagle as the great cruel robber and persecutor. In another, Aut regem aut fatuum nasci oportere, and in Dulce bellum inexpertis he utters his frequently quoted dictum: 'The people found and develop towns, the folly of princes devastates them.' 'The princes conspire with the Pope, and perhaps with the Turk, against the happiness of the people,' he writes to Colet in 1518.
He was an academic critic writing from his study. A revolutionary purpose was as foreign to Erasmus as it was to More when writing the Utopia. 'Bad monarchs should perhaps be suffered now and then. The remedy should not be tried.' It may be doubted whether Erasmus exercised much real influence on his contemporaries by means of his diatribes against princes. One would fain believe that his ardent love of peace and bitter arraignment of the madness of war had some effect. They have undoubtedly spread pacific sentiments in the broad circles of intellectuals who read Erasmus, but unfortunately the history of the sixteenth century shows little evidence that such sentiments bore fruit in actual practice. However this may be, Erasmus's strength was not in these political declamations. He could never be a leader of men with their passions and their harsh interests.
His life-work lay elsewhere. Now, at Basle, though tormented more and more frequently by his painful complaint which he had already carried for so many years, he could devote himself more fully than ever before to the great task he had set himself: the opening up of the pure sources of Christianity, the exposition of the truth of the Gospel in all the simple comprehensibility in which he saw it. In a broad stream flowed the editions of the Fathers, of classic authors, the new editions of the New Testament, of the Adagia, of his own Letters, together with Paraphrases of the New Testament, Commentaries on Psalms, and a number of new theological, moral and philological treatises. In 1522 he was ill for months on end; yet in that year Arnobius and the third edition of the New Testament succeeded Cyprian, whom he had already annotated at Louvain and edited in 1520, closely followed by Hilary in 1523 and next by a new edition of Jerome in 1524. Later appeared Irenaeus, 1526; Ambrose, 1527; Augustine, 1528-9, and a Latin translation of Chrysostom in 1530. The rapid succession of these comprehensive works proves that the work was done as Erasmus always worked: hastily, with an extraordinary power of concentration and a surprising command of his mnemonic faculty, but without severe criticism and the painful accuracy that modern philology requires in such editions.
Neither the polemical Erasmus nor the witty humorist had been lost in the erudite divine and the disillusioned reformer. The paper-warrior we would further gladly have dispensed with, but not the humorist, for many treasures of literature. But the two are linked inseparably as the Colloquies prove.
What was said about the Moria may be repeated here: if in the literature of the world only the Colloquies and the Moria have remained alive, that choice of history is right. Not in the sense that in literature only Erasmus's pleasantest, lightest and most readable works were preserved, whereas the ponderous theological erudition was silently relegated to the shelves of libraries. It was indeed Erasmus's best work that was kept alive in the Moria and the Colloquies. With these his sparkling wit has charmed the world. If only we had space here to assign to the Erasmus of the Colloquies his just and lofty place in that brilliant constellation of sixteenth-century followers of Democritus: Rabelais, Ariosto, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Ben Jonson!
When Erasmus gave the Colloquies their definite form at Basle, they had already had a long and curious genesis. At first they had been no more than Familiarium colloquiorum formulae, models of colloquial Latin conversation, written at Paris before 1500, for the use of his pupils. Augustine Caminade, the shabby friend who was fond of living on young Erasmus's genius, had collected them and had turned them to advantage within a limited compass. He had long been dead when one Lambert Hollonius of Liége sold the manuscript that he had got from Caminade to Froben at Basle. Beatus Rhenanus, although then already Erasmus's trusted friend, had it printed at once without the latter's knowledge. That was in 1518. Erasmus was justly offended at it, the more so as the book was full of slovenly blunders and solecisms. So he at once prepared a better edition himself, published by Maertensz at Louvain in 1519. At that time the work really contained but one true dialogue, the nucleus of the later Convivium profanum. The rest were formulae of etiquette and short talks. But already in this form it was, apart from its usefulness to latinists, so full of happy wit and humorous invention that it became very popular. Even before 1522 it had appeared in twenty-five editions, mostly reprints, at Antwerp, Paris, Strassburg, Cologne, Cracow, Deventer, Leipzig, London, Vienna, Mayence.
At Basle Erasmus himself revised an edition which was published in March 1522 by Froben, dedicated to the latter's six-year-old son, the author's godchild, Johannes Erasmius Froben. Soon after he did more than revise. In 1523 and 1524 first ten new dialogues, afterwards four, and again six, were added to the Formulae, and at last in 1526 the title was changed to Familiarium colloquiorum opus. It remained dedicated to the boy Froben and went on growing with each new edition: a rich and motley collection of dialogues, each a masterpiece of literary form, well-knit, spontaneous, convincing, unsurpassed in lightness, vivacity and fluent Latin; each one a finished one-act play. From that year on, the stream of editions and translations flowed almost uninterruptedly for two centuries.
Erasmus's mind had lost nothing of its acuteness and freshness when, so many years after the Moria, he again set foot in the field of satire. As to form, the Colloquies are less confessedly satirical than the Moria. With its telling subject, the Praise of Folly, the latter at once introduces itself as a satire: whereas, at first sight, the Colloquies might seem to be mere innocent genre-pieces. But as to the contents, they are more satirical, at least more directly so. The Moria, as a satire, is philosophical and general; the Colloquia are up to date and special. At the same time they combine more the positive and negative elements. In the Moria Erasmus's own ideal dwells unexpressed behind the representation; in the Colloquia he continually and clearly puts it in the foreground. On this account they form, notwithstanding all the jests and mockery, a profoundly serious moral treatise and are closely akin to the Enchiridion militis Christiani. What Erasmus really demanded of the world and of mankind, how he pictured to himself that passionately desired, purified Christian society of good morals, fervent faith, simplicity and moderation, kindliness, toleration and peace—this we can nowhere else find so clearly and well-expressed as in the Colloquia. In these last fifteen years of his life Erasmus resumes, by means of a series of moral-dogmatic disquisitions, the topics he broached in the Enchiridion: the exposition of simple, general Christian conduct; untrammelled and natural ethics. That is his message of redemption. It came to many out of Exomologesis, De esu carnium, Lingua, Institutio christiani matrimonii, Vidua christiana, Ecclesiastes. But, to far larger numbers, the message was contained in the Colloquies.
The Colloquia gave rise to much more hatred and contest than the Moria, and not without reason, for in them Erasmus attacked persons. He allowed himself the pleasure of ridiculing his Louvain antagonists. Lee had already been introduced as a sycophant and braggart into the edition of 1519, and when the quarrel was assuaged, in 1522, the reference was expunged. Vincent Dirks was caricatured in The Funeral (1526) as a covetous friar, who extorts from the dying testaments in favour of his order. He remained. Later sarcastic observations were added about Beda and numbers of others. The adherents of Oecolampadius took a figure with a long nose in the Colloquies for their leader: 'Oh, no,' replied Erasmus, 'it is meant for quite another person.' Henceforth all those who were at loggerheads with Erasmus, and they were many, ran the risk of being pilloried in the Colloquia. It was no wonder that this work, especially with its scourging mockery of the monastic orders, became the object of controversy.
Erasmus never emerged from his polemics. He was, no doubt, serious when he said that, in his heart, he abhorred and had never desired them; but his caustic mind often got the better of his heart, and having once begun to quarrel he undoubtedly enjoyed giving his mockery the rein and wielding his facile dialectic pen. For understanding his personality it is unnecessary here to deal at large with all those fights on paper. Only the most important ones need be mentioned.
Since 1516 a pot had been boiling for Erasmus in Spain. A theologian of the University at Alcalá, Diego Lopez Zuñiga, or, in Latin, Stunica, had been preparing Annotations to the edition of the New Testament: 'a second Lee', said Erasmus. At first Cardinal Ximenes had prohibited the publication, but in 1520, after his death, the storm broke. For some years Stunica kept persecuting Erasmus with his criticism, to the latter's great vexation; at last there followed a rapprochement, probably as Erasmus became more conservative, and a kindly attitude on the part of Stunica.
No less long and violent was the quarrel with the syndic of the Sorbonne, Noel Bedier or Beda, which began in 1522. The Sorbonne was prevailed upon to condemn several of Erasmus's dicta as heretical in 1526. The effort of Beda to implicate Erasmus in the trial of Louis de Berquin, who had translated the condemned writings and who was eventually burned at the stake for faith's sake in 1529, made the matter still more disagreeable for Erasmus.
It is clear enough that both at Paris and at Louvain in the circles of the theological faculties the chief cause of exasperation was in the Colloquia. Egmondanus and Vincent Dirks did not forgive Erasmus for having acridly censured their station and their personalities.
More courteous than the aforementioned polemics was the fight with a high-born Italian, Alberto Pio, prince of Carpi; acrid and bitter was one with a group of Spanish monks, who brought the Inquisition to bear upon him. In Spain 'Erasmistas' was the name of those who inclined to more liberal conceptions of the creed.
In this way the matter accumulated for the volume of Erasmus's works which contains, according to his own arrangement, all his Apologiae: not 'excuses', but 'vindications'. 'Miserable man that I am; they just fill a volume,' exclaimed Erasmus.
Two of his polemics merit a somewhat closer examination: that with Ulrich von Hutten and that with Luther.
Plate XXI. MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK
Plate XXII. ULRICH VON HUTTEN
Hutten, knight and humanist, the enthusiastic herald of a national German uplift, the ardent hater of papacy and supporter of Luther, was certainly a hot-head and perhaps somewhat of a muddle-head. He had applauded Erasmus when the latter still seemed to be the coming man and had afterwards besought him to take Luther's side. Erasmus had soon discovered that this noisy partisan might compromise him. Had not one of Hutten's rash satires been ascribed to him, Erasmus? There came a time when Hutten could no longer abide Erasmus. His knightly instinct reacted on the very weaknesses of Erasmus's character: the fear of committing himself and the inclination to repudiate a supporter in time of danger. Erasmus knew that weakness himself: 'Not all have strength enough for martyrdom,' he writes to Richard Pace in 1521. 'I fear that I shall, in case it results in a tumult, follow St. Peter's example.' But this acknowledgement does not discharge him from the burden of Hutten's reproaches which he flung at him in fiery language in 1523. In this quarrel Erasmus's own fame pays the penalty of his fault. For nowhere does he show himself so undignified and puny as in that 'Sponge against Hutten's mire', which the latter did not live to read. Hutten, disillusioned and forsaken, died at an early age in 1523, and Erasmus did not scruple to publish the venomous pamphlet against his former friend after his demise.
Hutten, however, was avenged upon Erasmus living. One of his adherents, Henry of Eppendorff, inherited Hutten's bitter disgust with Erasmus and persecuted him for years. Getting hold of one of Erasmus's letters in which he was denounced, he continually threatened him with an action for defamation of character. Eppendorff's hostility so thoroughly exasperated Erasmus that he fancied he could detect his machinations and spies everywhere even after the actual persecution had long ceased.