How natural the expectation was that Erasmus would do this we may see from an entry in the diary of Albert Dürer.[139] It was the year 1521. Luther on his return from Worms had been spirited away, no one knew whither. Rumours of his death were spread abroad and carried terror to his numerous followers. The simple-hearted painter who the year before had visited Erasmus in the Low Countries was overwhelmed with dismay. In the midst of his prosaic little jottings down of travels, paintings, presents, and petty bargainings he suddenly breaks out into a wail of despair:
"Ah God! is Luther dead; who will henceforth so clearly set forth the Gospel to us? Ah God! what might he not have written in the next ten or twenty years! Oh! all ye pious Christian men, help me earnestly to pray and mourn for this God-inspired man, and pray to God that he send us another enlightened man.
"Oh! Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou? Behold what the unjust tyranny of earthly power, the might of darkness, can do. Hear, thou champion of Christ! ride forth by the side of the Lord Christ; defend the truth; gain the martyr's crown! As it is, thou art but a frail old man. I have heard thee say thou hadst given thyself but a couple more years of active service; spend them, I pray, to the profit of the Gospel and the true Christian faith and believe me the gates of Hell, the See of Rome, as Christ has said, will not prevail against thee. And though thou becomest like thy master Christ and bearest shame from the liars of this world and so diest a little earlier, yet wilt thou so much the sooner pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou shalt drink of the cup he drank of, so wilt thou reign with him and judge with equity them that have done foolishness. O Erasmus! stand by us, that God may praise thee, as is written of David; for thou art mighty and thou canst slay Goliath; for God stands by the holy Christian churches, as he stands also among the Romans, according to his divine will."
Doubtless this heartfelt petition of the excellent Dürer represents the first impulse of many an honest soul who thought of Erasmus as a man straightforward as himself, and without any special knowledge of him jumped to the conclusion that here was the natural leader of a redeemed generation. No such illusion could long affect anyone who had come to know him in his true character.
It is somewhat difficult to imagine what Erasmus would have done if his personal safety had been seriously brought into question. It is not impossible that, if the issue of retraction or punishment had ever been squarely presented to him by any authority capable of enforcing its judgment, he might have risen to a higher plane of action than he was ever in fact called upon to reach. Such attacks as he had to meet were wholly from individuals, representing no recognised authority either of Church or State, and his defence was always that the highest persons in both these worlds had approved him. This judgment is at all events more favourable than Erasmus was sometimes inclined to demand for himself. Writing to Richard Pace in the critical year 1521 he says[140]:
"What help could I give Luther, by making myself the companion of his danger, except that two men should perish instead of one? I cannot wonder enough at the temper in which he has written, and surely he has brought great enmity upon the friends of sound learning. He has given us many splendid sayings and warnings; but would that he had not spoiled his good things by his intolerable faults. But even if everything he wrote had been right, I had no intention of putting my head in danger for the sake of the truth. It isn't every one that has the strength for martyrdom, and I sadly fear that if any tumult should arise, I should follow the example of Peter. I obey the decrees of emperor and pope when they are right, because that is my duty; when they are wrong I bear it, because that is the safe plan. This I believe to be permitted even to good men if there is no hope of improvement."
There was precisely the point. Erasmus was ready to bear the ills of the world because he saw no power at hand disposed to remedy them. When others began to take the remedy into their own hands, then he could see in their efforts only riot, confusion, sedition, and all their attendant brood of horrors.