Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

by Ephraim Emerton

In this long letter, written obviously with a view to publication, we have epitomised, as Erasmus himself wished it to appear, the story of his leaving Louvain and his attitude toward the chief questions of the great reform. Nothing that we can add would be more significant than the concluding paragraph. If only all men could see both sides of every question as he did, and would join with him in pious exhortation to everyone else to be good, he would be delighted to be their leader and companion. This is only one of those numerous "ifs"—though an unusually large one—by which Erasmus so often saved himself in difficult places. It meant simply that he did not propose to commit himself at all. The Laurinus letter was the reply to numerous criticisms against the course of Erasmus in the years between 1520 and 1523, years in which the various aspects of the great reform movement were becoming more and more clearly defined. We discern in it with great distinctness the view of Erasmus taken by the leading spirits of the Lutheran party.

Nowhere is this Lutheran judgment of his position so vigorously demonstrated as in his famous conflict with Ulrich von Hutten. Hutten's personality was totally antipodal to that of Erasmus. Born of a noble family in Würtemberg in 1488, Hutten received the training of a soldier and took his part in the violent feuds which, in the absence of a strong central government in Germany, were continually wasting the energies and the resources of the great class of the lower nobility. But Hutten was more than a soldier. He had early come under the influence of Reuchlin, his countryman, and had given himself with great zeal to the cause of learning. He had mastered the technique of the scholar's profession, had made himself an accomplished Latinist in both prose and verse, and had learned as much Greek as was needed to decorate his Latin style. In his way he was as marked an individual as Erasmus. He, too, was a homeless man, an outcast from his family and his narrower Swabian fatherland, a wanderer, seeking a living by methods even more precarious and more questionable than Erasmus had employed, everywhere at home if only the sun of princely or private favour would shine upon him for the moment. But here the resemblance ends. Hutten let his individuality carry him into wild and reckless living and finally to ruin, but he did not let it alienate him from the great movements of humanity going on about him. In the Reformation he was quick to discern all those elements of social and economic change which were sure to follow upon the religious appeal. What repelled and estranged Erasmus, the man of peace, attracted and held Hutten, the man of strife. In Luther's proclamation of a salvation by faith he saw the hope of a social and religious reconstruction, in which, inevitably, the religious system of the Middle Ages must go to the wall. He was too little of a speculative genius to be drawn into the logical extravagances of the radical party of Münzer and his like, but the prospect of a glorious fight, with the weapons alike of the intellect and of the flesh, filled him with a holy joy as it filled Erasmus with a holy horror. Without waiting to consider or to make certain whither it would lead him, he threw himself with passionate energy into the Lutheran cause. Already he had made himself known, admired, and feared by his part in the Epistolæ obscurorum virorum, that merciless satire on the schoolmen which had done more than any other one thing to draw the forces of light together into one camp over against the forces of darkness. This contribution to what others regarded as his own work did not, however, if we may take his word for it, please Erasmus. He wanted to keep all the satirising to himself, that it might be held within prudent limits. Thus his earliest impressions of Hutten were not favourable. He seems to have felt in him by "a certain instinct of nature," as he might have said, an "unsafe" person. His early approach toward him is cautious. Hutten sends him his works and begs for his friendship. Erasmus replies with reserve, counsels him to keep out of fights, to devote himself to the Muses, and to preserve his own dignity. Then we have the famous and charming letter[142] in which Erasmus describes to Hutten the work and character of Thomas More. But soon it is evident that Hutten is getting out of all patience with Erasmus. The letters of 1518 and 1519, with their anxious balancing of views, were in circulation, and had made upon this upright and downright fighting man the impression of a trimming, fretful, petty spirit. In August, 1520, he writes to Erasmus in a totally altered style.[143] He has now no time or temper for compliments. In short, rapid sentences he puts the case to the great man as one in which all shilly-shallying was out of place.

"While Reuchlin's affair was all in a glow, you seemed to be in a more weakly terror of those people [istos] than you ought to have been. And now in Luther's case, you have been trying as hard as you can to persuade his enemies that you were as far as possible from defending the common good of the Christian world, while they knew you really believed just the opposite. That does not seem to be an altogether becoming thing to do.... You know with what glee they are carrying about certain letters of yours in which while you are trying to escape from blame, you are putting blame on others in a hateful fashion enough. In the same way you have been abusing the Epistolæ obscurorum, though you admired them powerfully once; and you are damning Luther because he has set in motion some things that ought not to have been moved, when you yourself have been handling the same subjects everywhere throughout your writings. And yet you will never make them believe that you are not desirous of the same things. You will just hurt us and at the same time will not pacify them. You are irritating the more and rousing hatred by trying to hide a thing so open as this."

We are quite prepared to understand how unwelcome to Erasmus such direct and unequivocal language as this must have been. He had no use for any argument that had not two sides to it. Events were moving rapidly. While the affair of Luther was being tried at Worms in the summer of 1521 Hutten was watching and planning for the social overturn which he confidently expected, and out of which, he hoped, a new Germany, regenerated in body and soul, was to arise. In the winter of 1521-22 he drifted to Basel and spent some time there. As yet there was no open breach between him and Erasmus. He seems to have wished to meet him personally and to have met a flat refusal. In the letter to Laurinus Erasmus declares that he was perfectly willing to see Hutten, but as he could not endure a room with a stove in it, and Hutten could not be in a room without a stove, an interview was impossible! This silly story reappears in various other connections. It is quite unworthy of serious examination, but was undoubtedly a mere cover for some deeper cause. What this was may readily be supplied. Writing to Melanchthon after Hutten's death,[144] Erasmus says:

"As to my refusing Hutten an interview, the reason was not so much the fear of exciting hostility; there was another thing which, however, I did not touch upon in my Spongia. He was in utter poverty and was seeking some nest to die in. Now I was expected to take this 'miles gloriosus,' pox and all, into my house and with him that whole chorus of 'evangelicals' by name—and nothing but the name."

We may be quite sure that here was Erasmus' real grievance. He might pretend that he had never seen anyone at Basel who called himself a Lutheran, but he knew that if he took Hutten into his house and appeared on friendly terms with him, he could keep up this pretence no longer. He knew also by a former experience that any expressions favourable to Luther would be made the most of by Hutten. He could not afford such a friend and he shut his door in his face.

Hutten's patience, never, we may believe, overmuch enduring, was at an end. He made up his mind to make such a public attack upon Erasmus as would compel him to speak out and thus commit himself once for all on one side or the other. Erasmus heard of this intention and wrote him a short letter[145] of expostulation, warning and threatening him at once. In this letter he gives away his case as to the Basel incident in the most complete fashion. He says:

"I did not refuse you an interview when you were here, but begged you through Eppendorf, in the gentlest manner, that, if it was only a complimentary visit, you would stay away, on account of the enmity with which I have long been burdened even to the risk of my life. What use is there in gaining enmity when one cannot thereby be any help to one's friend?"