The careful analysis of Colet's character which concludes this sketch is quite different from Erasmus' usual undiscriminating praise of what suited himself. He presents Colet to us as an eminently human personage, inclined by nature to all the joys of earthly life, and yet subduing all lower temptations by the force of his unconquerable will. He was a man of strongly marked individual opinions, yet so careful of the feelings of others that he avoided discussion excepting among friends or when it was forced upon him. At such times, however, he spoke as one compelled by an inner impulse of which he was no longer master. In the first interview of which we have any record, at a dinner at St. Mary's, in Oxford, a discussion arose on the very speculative question of the meaning of the story of Cain's sacrifice. Erasmus and an unknown theologian took sides against Colet[43]:
"'Not Hercules himself can prevail against two' say the Greeks, but he alone conquered us all. He seemed to be intoxicated with a sacred frenzy and to utter things more lofty and more noble than belong to men. His voice took on another sound, his eyes a different expression, his face and figure were changed; he seemed to grow larger, and at times to be inspired with a something divine."
So in this later, more careful account Erasmus refers to Colet's view of Thomas Aquinas. He himself, it appears, had come to have some respect for Aquinas and had made various attempts to draw out Colet on the subject. He had so far failed, but one day, returning again to the charge, he found Colet's eyes fixed upon him,
"as if watching whether I were in jest or in earnest. But when he saw that I was speaking from my heart, he cried out, as if inspired by some spirit:—'Don't speak to me of the man! If he had not been a most arrogant creature he would not have defined all things with such boldness and with such haughtiness. If he had not had something of the spirit of this world, he would not so have corrupted the whole teaching of Christ with his profane philosophy.'"
The result was that Erasmus looked more carefully into his Aquinas and greatly revised his judgment of him.
Remembering that this sketch of Colet was written two or three years after Luther had nailed his Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, we may gain from it a good insight into the views not only of Colet, but of Erasmus as well, upon many of the doubtful questions of the early Reformation days. Nowhere, perhaps, in Erasmus' writings do we find more temperate and cautious suggestions. Already we may discern in clear outline the determining motives of his position in the great struggle. In his pet abhorrence, the monastic system, Colet went with him to the point of free criticism of faithless and irreligious monks, but, like Erasmus himself when he was, so to speak, in the witness-box, he had nothing to say against the monastic life in itself. He had little to do with monks and gave them nothing at his death, but he professed great affection for the life of seclusion and often declared that he would enter it himself
"if he could find anywhere an order really devoted to apostolic living. When I was setting out for Italy, he commissioned me to inquire on this point, saying that he had heard that in Italy there were some monks really sensible and pious. For he did not follow the vulgar opinion which calls that 'religion' which is sometimes only weakness of intellect. He used to say that he nowhere found greater virtue than among married people, since they were restrained from falling into many vices by their natural affections, by the care of children and by their household duties.
"On this account he was more charitable towards the fleshly sins of the clergy. He used to say that he hated pride and avarice in a priest more than if he kept a hundred concubines. Not indeed that he thought incontinence in priest or monk was a trifling fault, but that the other vices seemed to him farther removed from true piety. There was no kind of person more hateful to him than those bishops who acted more like wolves than like shepherds, commending themselves to the crowd by their sacred offices, their ceremonies, their benedictions and indulgences when really they were heart and soul devoted to this world, to glory and to greed.
"From Dionysius and the other early Fathers he had learned certain things which he did not so far adopt as ever to go against the laws of the church, but yet far enough to make him less opposed to those who did not approve the worship everywhere in the churches of images painted or in wood, stone, bronze, gold and silver. He had the same feeling toward those who doubted whether a priest openly and plainly wicked could properly perform the sacraments;—not by any means that he favoured their error! but in wrath against those who by a life openly and every way corrupt gave ground for such suspicions. The numerous colleges, founded in England at vast expense, he used to say only stood in the way of good learning and were nothing but so many enticements to laziness. Nor did he have a very high opinion of the Universities where the all-corrupting ambition and greed of the professors destroyed the integrity of all science.
"While he strongly approved the auricular confession, saying that nothing gave him such comfort and good feeling, yet he as strongly condemned its too anxious and frequent repetition. While it is the custom in England for priests to celebrate mass almost every day, he was content to do so on Sundays and holidays and very rarely on other occasions.... Yet he by no means condemned the practice of those who go daily to the Lord's table. Although he was himself a most learned man, yet he disapproved of that painful and laborious learning which, gathered from a knowledge of all branches and the reading of all authors, is as it were lugged in by every handle. He always said that in this way the native soundness and simplicity of the mind were worn away and men were made less sane and less adapted to the innocence and to the pure affection of Christianity. He greatly admired the apostolic letters, but so reverenced the wonderful majesty of Christ that compared with this the writings of the apostles seemed to become as it were defiled.... There are countless things accepted to-day in the universities from which he greatly differed and which he used to discuss at times with his intimate friends. With others, however, he concealed his views for fear of two evils, first, that he would make the matter worse, and second, that he would ruin his own reputation. There was no book so heretical that he would not read it carefully, saying that he often got more profit from it than from the books of those who make such fine definitions and often come to worship the leaders of their school and sometimes even themselves."