Erasmus gave himself two months before answering these first advances of Luther. His reply is what we might, from our previous knowledge, have predicted. The letter appeals to him strongly[123]:
"Beloved brother in Christ, your letter was most acceptable, at once showing the subtilty of your genius and breathing the very spirit of Christ."
Then his own personality comes in and he is completely absorbed in the effect of Luther's action upon himself.
"I have no words to tell you what an excitement your books have raised here. Up to the present moment the false suspicion cannot be torn from the minds of these creatures that your works have been written by my assistance and that I am the standard-bearer of this 'faction' as they call it. Some think that a handle is given them for attacking sound learning, toward which they have a deadly hatred as an offence against Her Theological Majesty, for whom they care vastly more than they do for Christ,—and also for quashing me, whom they fancy to be of some avail in encouraging learning.
"The whole affair is carried on with shoutings, with insolent cunning, with slander and trickery, so that if I had not seen it—nay, even felt it myself, I would never have believed, on any authority, that theologians could be so insane. You might suppose it was a regular plague; and yet the poison of this evil began with a few and crept into the many, so that now a great part of this much frequented university is infected with this poisonous disease. I have sworn that you were totally unknown to me, that I had not yet read your books, and therefore that I neither approved nor disapproved anything in them. I only advised them not to keep bawling out so hatefully to the people about your books, which they had not yet read, but to await the judgment of those whose opinion ought to have most weight. I begged them to consider whether it was well to abuse before a promiscuous crowd things which ought more properly to be refuted in books or discussed by learned men, especially as there was but one opinion as to the excellence of the author's life. But nothing did any good;—so furious are they in their underhanded and scandalous discussions."
He, Erasmus, becomes at once the central point in his own field of vision. Luther has friends in England, even some in Louvain.
"But I keep myself, so far as I can, integrum [shall we say 'uncompromised'?] in order that I may the better serve the reviving cause of letters; and I think a well-mannered reserve will accomplish more than violence, etc. We ought to keep an even temper, lest it be spoiled by anger, hatred, or vainglory; for in the very midst of a zeal for religion these things are apt to be lying in wait for us. I am not urging you to do all this, but just to keep on as you are doing. I have glanced over (degustavi) your commentaries on the Psalms; they appeal to me greatly and I hope they will be of great value."
We have omitted a string of commonplaces about moderation and gentleness, which must have helped to make this letter rather cold comfort to Luther. If it meant anything to him, it meant that Erasmus really agreed with his views on indulgences and the state of the Church in general, but was already dreading the effect of putting these views boldly and clearly before the world. What Luther wanted in the spring of 1519 was not pious exhortation to keep his temper, but a grip of the hand and a frank word of approval. Whether Erasmus was going to have a bad time with the men of darkness at Louvain could not interest him. The question was: would Erasmus stand by him,—yes or no? and so far the answer was not encouraging. To one who knew the kind of language Erasmus was wont to apply to his opponents, it must have seemed grotesquely out of place for him to exhort Luther to gentleness of speech.