Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

by Ephraim Emerton

We are always told that Erasmus here in the Enchiridion began his unceasing warfare upon the monks; but if we read closely we see how carefully he guarded himself against direct assault upon this or any other established institution. Not the name "monk" was a reproach, but the name "bad monk." He even goes so far as to identify himself with the clerical order. It was well enough to fast or even to use images and relics, so long as one saw through the forms to the meaning underneath; but the moment a man found himself relying upon the forms, no matter who he was, pope, priest, or layman, that moment he was in danger.

Erasmus says that the Enchiridion attracted little attention at first, but afterward had a great sale. We can well believe that the full force of its criticism was not felt until the first stirrings of the Protestant Reformation brought men sharply face to face with the problems it had outlined. It cannot be called precisely a controversial book, yet the germs of the bitterest controversies of the Reformation time are contained in it. Erasmus professed the utmost reverence for the existing institutions of the Church, and there is nothing in his later life to make us doubt the sincerity of this profession. He was by nature averse to all the violence and confusion that must attend any great social change. But it was clear to him that his age had wandered far from the ideals of the founders of these institutions. His remedy was to point out to men how widely they had erred and to show them once more in plain and direct language the true foundations of the Christian life.

It is noticeable that with all his protests of respect, Erasmus nowhere urges the appeal to the existing order in the Church as final. Men may fast, worship saints, take vows, seek absolution; but their real salvation is to be found in none of these things. As this little book went out into the world in the year 1503, it remained to be seen which aspect of its teaching would prove the more effectual, whether its real meaning would penetrate alike to friends and enemies. Some light on this point may be gained from a letter[64] of Erasmus written in 1518 to his friend Volzius and afterward published as a preface to a new edition of the Enchiridion. In this letter he says that his work was criticised as unlearned, because it did not use the quibbling methods of the schools. But he was not trying "to train men for the prize-ring of the Sorbonne, but rather for the peace which belongs to the Christian." There is no lack of books on theology;

"there are as many commentaries on the 'Sentences' of Petrus Lombardus as there are theologians. There is no end of little summas, which mix up one thing with another over and over again and after the manner of apothecaries fabricate and refabricate old things from new, new from old, one from many, and many from one. The result is that there are so many books about right living that no one can ever live long enough to read them. As if a doctor should prescribe for a man in a dangerous illness that he should read the books of Jacobus à Partibus and all the likes of them and there he would find out how to mend his health."

There were books enough, Heaven knew! but not life enough to read them, and this multitude of quarrelling doctors were only obscuring the true art of living, which Christ meant to make plain and simple to all. These so-called philosophers are obstacles, not helps, to the true Christian life.

"They could never have enough of discussing in what words they ought to speak of Christ, as if they were dealing with some horrid demon, who would bring destruction upon them if they failed to invoke him in proper terms, instead of with a most gentle Saviour, who asks nothing of us but a pure and upright life."

Erasmus makes here the very practical and constructive suggestion, that

"a commission of pious and learned men should bring together into a compendium from the purest sources of the gospels and the apostles and from their most approved commentators, the whole philosophy of Christ, with as much simplicity as learning, as much brevity as clearness. What pertains to the faith should be treated in as few articles as possible; what belongs to life, also in few words, and so put that men may know that the yoke of Christ is easy and pleasant, not cruel; that they have been given fathers, not tyrants; pastors, not robbers; called to salvation, not betrayed into slavery.

"Now then," he says, "that is precisely the purpose I was filled with when I wrote my Enchiridion. I saw the multitude of Christians corrupted, not only in their passions, but also in their opinions. I saw those who professed to be pastors and doctors generally abusing the name of Christ to their own profit,—to say nothing of those at whose nod the affairs of men are tossed hither and thither, but at whose vices, open as they are, it is hardly permitted to raise a groan. And in such a turmoil of affairs, in such corruption of the world, in such a conflict of human opinions, whither was one to flee, except to the sacred anchor of the Gospel teaching?

"I would not defile the divine philosophy of Christ with human decrees. Let Christ remain what he is, the centre, with certain circles about him. I would not move the centre from its place. Let those who are nearest Christ, priests, bishops, cardinals, popes, whose duty it is to follow the Lamb wherever he goes, embrace that most perfect part and, so far as may be, hand it on to the next in order. Let the second circle contain temporal princes, whose arms and whose laws are in the service of Christ.... In the third circle let us place the mass of the people as the dullest part of this world, but yet, dull as it is, a member of the body of Christ. For the eyes are not the only members of the body, but also the hands and the feet. And for these we ought to have consideration, so that, as far as possible, they may be called to those things which are nearer to Christ,—for in this body he who is now but a foot may come to be an eye.... So a mark is to be set before all, toward which they may strive, and there is but one mark, namely Christ and his pure doctrine. But if, instead of a heavenly mark you set an earthly one, there will be nothing towards which one may properly strive. That which is highest is meant for all, that we may at least attain to some moderate height.... The perfection of Christ is in our motives, not in the form of our life, in our minds, not in dress or food. There are some among the monks whom the third circle would scarcely accept,—I am speaking now of good ones, but weak. There are some, even among men twice married, whom Christ would think worthy of the first circle. It is no offence to any particular form of life if what is best and most perfect is put forth as a standard for all. Every kind of life has its own peculiar dangers and he who shows them up makes no reflection upon the institution, but is rather defending its cause."