Referring to the use of the term "Lutherans," about which Erasmus was so much distressed, Hutten says:
"Therefore, although I have never had Luther for my master or my companion and am carrying on this business on my own account, and although I am most terribly opposed to being counted in any party whatever, nevertheless, since it is a fact that those who are opposed to the Roman tyranny—among whom I desire above all things to be reckoned—and those who dare to speak the truth and who are turning back from human ordinances to the teaching of the Gospel, are commonly called Lutherans, therefore I am ready to bear the burden of this nickname, lest I seem to deny my faith in the cause.... Now you know why I accept the name of Lutheran, and anyone can see that for the same reasons you too are a Lutheran, and that so much the more than I or anyone else as you are a better writer and a more accomplished orator."
One may search the writings of Erasmus from beginning to end without finding an utterance to compare with this in decision and clear-cut discrimination of the truth. At great length and with the appearance of entire sincerity Hutten warns Erasmus of the danger he is now in of appearing to be only the hired man of the papacy. He may still, in his heart, be true to his former convictions; but who will believe it? All this bragging about his great friends at Rome with their flattering offers can only confirm the Lutherans in their distrust of him. If he will not be warned now, then let him go on
"to fulfil the hopes of those who have long been looking about for a leader for the enemies of the truth. Gird yourself; the thing is ripe for action; it is a task worthy of your old age; put forth your strength; bend to the work! You shall find your enemies ready! the party of the Lutherans, which you would like to crush to earth, is waiting for the battle and cannot refuse it. Our hearts are full of courage; we are sustained by a certain hope and, relying upon our conscious rectitude and honour, we will decline no challenge, no matter whither you may call us. Nay, that you may see how great is the faith that is in us, the more furiously you assault us, the keener you shall find us in defending the cause of truth.... One half of you will stand with us and be in our camp; your fight will be, not so much with us as with your own genius and your own writings. You will turn your learning against yourself and will be eloquent against your own eloquence. Your writings will be fighting back and forth with each other."
The Lutherans will trust in God and joyfully take up the encounter.
There can be no doubt that Hutten was uttering the voice of the great Lutheran party, as it must now be called. Although called out by a personal attack, the Expostulatio keeps itself throughout on higher than personal grounds. It is not an apology for Hutten; it is a fierce outburst of honest indignation against a man who seemed to be throwing away a noble mind and conspicuous gifts through lack of courage and simple honesty. Hutten's expressions of admiration for his opponent have the ring of absolute sincerity. He had admired him above all other men, and his wrath is tempered by pain and honest sorrow at his failure to lead where none could lead so well. If Hutten made the mistake which so many have made since his time, of asking from Erasmus a kind of service for which he was by nature unfitted, it was a mistake which honours him who made it. The time for balancing good and evil had gone. If anything was to be done, it must be by the united action of all who were in substantial agreement upon the great essential questions of the hour. There had been enough of apologising and trimming, and this great word of Hutten was the proclamation of what was inevitably to come.
When it came into Erasmus' hands he determined at once to reply, and the result was the famous pamphlet which he called Spongia adversus aspergines Hutteni, "a sponge to wipe out the bespatterings of Hutten." It is a work twice as long as the Expostulatio, written, so its author says, in six days during the month of July, 1523, but not published until the autumn and after the death of Hutten, which occurred August 29th. The Spongia is as distinctly a work of personal apology as the Expostulatio was the opposite. It takes up, one by one, the points made by Hutten and deals with them after the fashion with which we are now so familiar that any extended examination would in no way enlarge our understanding of Erasmus' true position. The greater part of Hutten's charges he accepts in one or another sense and then tries to take away their force. The most common way of doing this is by showing that he has never really been inconsistent with himself, but has only adapted himself for the moment to given conditions lest the one great cause of pure learning should suffer by too great zeal. Nowhere does Erasmus show himself a more complete master of the word "if." He will admit everything with an "if." Hutten has accused him of keeping on too good terms with the pope after all the abuse which he has heaped upon things papistical—very well, he has praised popes, but he has done this because he believed them to be men who meant well to the cause of Christ. If otherwise he would be the last to praise them.
Erasmus' analysis of the papal power here is a monument of his skill in turning about words to suit his purpose.
"I have never," he says, "spoken inconsistently of the Roman See. Tyranny, greed, and other vices, ancient grounds of complaint common to all good men, I have never approved. Nor have I ever totally condemned indulgences, though I have always hated this shameless trade in them. What I think about ceremonies, my books declare in many places. But when have I abused the Canon Law or the papal decretals? Whatever he means by 'calling the pope to order' I am not quite clear. I suppose he will admit that there is a church at Rome; for the multitude of its sins cannot cause it to be any the less a church—if this is not so then we have no churches at all. And I assume that it is an orthodox church; for if certain bad men are mingled with the rest, yet the church abides in the good ones. And I suppose he will allow that this church has a bishop, and that this bishop is a metropolitan ... now then among metropolitans what is there absurd in giving the first place to the Roman pontiff? for this great power which they have been usurping to themselves during several centuries, no one has ever heard me defend.
"But Hutten will not endure a wicked pope;—why, that is what we are all praying for, that the pope may be a man worthy of his apostolic office. But, if he be not that, let him be deposed; and by the same token, let all bishops be deposed who do not duly perform their functions. But an especial plague of the world has been flowing now for many years from Rome. Would that it could be denied! Now, however, has come a pope who is striving, as I believe, with all his might, to give back to us that See and that Curia purified."