These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame.'
When was luxury ever more reckless? When were vice and adultery ever more widespread or less punished or less condemned?... Who does not think poverty the last extreme of misfortune and disgrace?"
It is the cry, familiar to all ages, especially of course at times when civilisation has reached a high point, that all honour may be bought for money and place. It shows no especial acuteness on Erasmus' part, but it does prove his courage and his clear Christian insight. That he should fancy the heroes of the classic world to have been superior to the modern Christians of his own day was a natural part of the classic enthusiasm in which he lived. Nor can we doubt that it greatly strengthened the moral argument in his time to add these examples of purely non-Christian virtue to those furnished by the well-worn heroes of the Jewish past.
A very characteristic touch is found in Erasmus' reference to the prevailing rage for information, also a vice of an over-eager age.[62]
"Let me speak of another error. They call him a clever man and skilled in affairs who, catching at all kinds of rumours, knows what is going on all over the world: what is the fortune of the merchants, what the tyrant of the Britains is planning, what is the news at Rome, what is the latest happening in Gaul, how the Dacians and Scythians are getting on, what the princes are thinking about,—in short, the man who is eager to do battle about every kind of affairs among every race of men, that man they call wise. But what is more senseless, more foolish, than to be running after things remote, that have nothing to do with yourself, and not even to think of what is going on in your own heart and what belongs especially to you. You talk about the troubles in Britain; tell rather what is troubling your own heart,—envy, lust, ambition; how far these have been sent under the yoke,—what hope there is of victory,—how far the war is advanced,—how the plan of campaign is laid out. If in these things you are watchful, with eyes and ears well trained, if you are cunning and cautious, then indeed I will declare you to be a clever man."
A very interesting example of Erasmus' insistence upon the essential thing and his indifference to names and forms is in the chapter which describes the opinions worthy of the Christian. It has almost a socialistic ring, so sharply does he emphasise the duty of Christian charity.[63]
"You thought it was only monks to whom property was forbidden and poverty enjoined? You were wrong; both commands apply to all Christians. The law punishes you if you take what belongs to another; it does not punish you if you take what is yours away from your brother when he needs it; but Christ will punish both. If you are a magistrate the office should not make you more fierce, but the responsibility should make you more cautious. 'But,' you say, 'I do not hold a church office; I am not a priest or a bishop.' Quite so, but you are a Christian, are you not? See to it whose man you be, if you are not a man of the Church. Christ is come into such contempt in the world, that they think it a fine thing and a royal to have no dealings with him and despise a person the more, the more closely he is bound to him. Do you not hear every day some angry layman throwing in our faces as a violent reproach the words 'Clerk!' 'Priest!' 'Monk!' and that with the same temper and the same voice as if he were charging us with incest or sacrilege? Of a truth I wonder why they don't attack Baptism, or like the Saracens assault the name of Christ as something infamous. If they would say 'bad Clerk!' 'unworthy Priest!' 'impious Monk!' we could bear it as coming from those who were rebuking the character of the man and not the profession of virtue. But those who call the rape of virgins, the plunder of war, the gain and loss of money at dice deeds of glory, these people have no word to throw at another more full of contempt and shame than 'Monk!' or 'Priest!'—though it is clear enough what these people, Christians in nothing but the name, think of Christ.
"There is not one Lord for bishops and another for civil rulers; both are vicegerents of the same Lord and both must render an account to him. The office of the Christian prince is not to excel others in wealth, but, as far as possible, to seek the advantage of all. Turn not what belongs to the public to your own profit, but spend whatever is yours, even yourself, for the public good. The people owe much to you, but you owe everything to them. High-sounding names, 'Invictus,' 'Sacrosanctus,' 'Majestas,' though your ears are forced to hear them, yet ascribe them all to Christ, to whom alone they belong. The crime of læsæ majestatis, which others bring forward with frightful clamour,—let this be to you a very small matter. He alone violates the majesty of the prince who, under the name of a prince, does things contrary to law, cruel, violent, or criminal. Let no attack move you so little as one which touches you personally. Remember that you are a public person, and that it is your duty to think only of the public good. If you are wise consider, not how great you are, but how great a burden rests upon your shoulders. The greater danger you are in, so much the less seek indulgence for yourself, and choose the model for your administration, not from your fathers or from your partisans, but from Christ. What can be more absurd than that a Christian prince should set up Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar, or Pompey as an example to himself?... Nothing is so becoming, so splendid, so glorious in kings as to attain as nearly as may be to the perfect likeness of Jesus, the supreme king, greatest and best.... 'Apostolus,' 'Pastor,' 'Episcopus,' these are names of duties, not of government; 'Papa,' 'Abbas,' are titles of love, not of dominion. But why should I go into this ocean of vulgar errors?"
The Enchiridion closes with five chapters of remedies against certain vices: lust, avarice, ambition, arrogance, and anger. These prescriptions have to us so obvious a sound that one easily overlooks their real importance. Their value consists in this: that in an age of formal righteousness they direct the conscience of the individual man straight back to the sources of all Christian living, to the plain teaching of Jesus and the plain argument of common sense. We ought to follow Scripture,—yes, but because Solomon kept a harem of concubines, that is no example for us. Peter denied the Christ for whom he afterward died; but that is no excuse for perjury. The Christian law is thus made plain to the individual conscience.
It has seemed worth while to go into the contents of this little book with more care than its extent might appear to warrant, because it is the earliest formulated expression of those principles of interpretation which form the basis of Erasmus' whole mature life and thought. It is for him, as it were, a programme, which he was to fill out in detail, in the long series of writings that now began to flow rapidly from his pen. In it he made his challenge to the world, yet with such moderation, such careful weighing and balancing of views, that he evidently hoped to win the support of all classes in what he began to feel was his life-work.