We are not for a moment to suppose that the real audience to which this reply was addressed was the Faculty of Paris asleep or awake; it was the reading world. A more splendid advertisement for the Colloquies than this theological prosecution could hardly be imagined. Erasmus says[176] that a certain Parisian publisher, upon the rumour, "perhaps started by the publisher himself," that the Colloquies were about to be condemned, got out an elegant handy edition of twenty-four thousand, and that it was at once in everyone's hands.
In England, where Erasmus might have expected to find his best defenders and his most sympathetic readers, the Colloquies were condemned in the same year (1526) as at Paris.
A work which brought much later reproach upon its author was the Institution of Christian Marriage, written in 1526 and dedicated to Queen Katherine of England. Our interest in it is in the bearing upon marriage of the changes in public sentiment wrought by the Reformation; and especially in that whole great problem of the relation between marriage as the foundation of human society and the whole monastic and priestly limitation of it. Erasmus reaches this point after a long and systematic review of the canonical regulations as to marriage. He examines first the evil effect upon society of the entrance into the monastic life of persons already under the obligations of marriage, a thing which he says was never favoured even in times most kindly disposed towards monasticism itself unless with full consent of the other party.[177] That Erasmus had not entire confidence even in the supervision of marriage by the most responsible ecclesiastical authorities is shown by a striking passage[178] in which he foreshadows the principle of civil marriage:
"It would in great measure do away with the controversies that spring from words present and future, from marriage celebrated and marriage consummated, from signs, nods, and writings, if the heads of the Church would deign to decree that no marriage should be considered complete (ratum) until each party, before special magistrates and witnesses, in clear words, soberly and freely, shall declare his marriage to the other party, and that these words should be preserved in writing."
The great body of the essay is taken up with admirable injunctions as to the conduct of married life and the education of children. Erasmus avoids here any consideration of what was becoming one of the burning questions of the day, the right of "reformed" monks or priests to enter into lawful marriage, but returns at the very close to the relation between marriage and the clerical life. The burden of his thought here is the duty of parents and all concerned to make sure that the youth proposing either to take orders or to become a monk shall be quite clear as to his calling and perfectly free to follow it or not.[179] Throughout this very attractive dissertation there is a noticeable calmness of style, joined, however, with entire clearness and decision upon the essential points. It is one of the best illustrations of Erasmus' lifelong insistance upon the higher value of the life of nature as compared with any life of mere formalism.
That Erasmus' silence on the question of clerical marriage was not due to lack of thought on the subject is clear from a letter to C. Hedio, Lutheran preacher at Strassburg in 1524, two years before the treatise on Christian Marriage.[180]
"And yet before all 'Papists'—as these people call them—I have always freely declared that marriage should not be denied to priests who shall be ordained in future, if they cannot be continent, and I would say nothing else to the pope himself; not because I do not prefer continence, but because I find scarcely a man who preserves his continence. Meanwhile what use is there of such a swarm of priests? I never persuaded anyone to marriage; but neither did I ever stand in the way of anyone who wished to marry."
Erasmus recognises the need of reform in every detail; he professes agreement with every view of the reformers, but he will not advocate any specific action, because it will open up some new outlet for human frailty. To follow him would be to condemn the world, once for all, to hopeless inactivity, simply because the world's business must be done by finite human beings.
One naturally compares with this elaborate defence of natural and wise living, in the Christian Marriage, another treatise also written two years earlier, dedicated to the sisters of a nunnery near Cologne and called A Comparison of the Virgin and the Martyr.[181] The good ladies, it seems, had frequently sent Erasmus presents of confectionery and had begged him to write something for them,—a very pious desire, he says, but a poor choice of a man. He only wishes that he could find in the fragrant stories of Holy Writ something to refresh their minds as their little gifts have refreshed his body. So he runs on with a page or two of pretty fancies about virginity and then, in equally fanciful strain, about martyrdom. On the whole, virginity has the advantage.