In such a mortal strife as this where was there room for poor Erasmus? The answer to this question is the history of the seventeen remaining years of his life—years as full of activity as any that had gone before them. Protest as he might that this struggle was none of his, it is evident that it formed the real undertone of his thought and drew from him the utterances by which his character as a public man has ever since been estimated. We may, without unduly stretching the meaning of his changing attitude towards the reform, divide it into three stages. Until 1520 we feel the note of sympathy and the desire merely to restrain excesses. After that year, and increasingly as the economic and social results began to appear, we find the attitude of direct hostility becoming more pronounced. Finally, under the increasing pressure to justify himself in this hostility, we find Erasmus laying down in more formal shape his philosophical and theological position as against that of the Lutheran party.
EXIMIO THEOLOGO JO.
LANGIO.
S. p. Vir optime. Lei me miseresceret, ni tam virulenter rem gessisset, ita tractatur etiam a suis Anglis. Habet et Hispania Leum alterum. Zuniga quidam edidit librum ut audio satis virulentum adversus Fabrum ac me. Vetuerat Cardinalis Toletanus defunctus. Eo mortuo prodidit sua venena. Opus nondum vidi. Id caveat ne liber veniat in manus meas. Nescio quem finem hic tumultus sit habiturus. Nam omnino res ad seditionem spectat, a qua semper abhorrui. Si necesse est ut oriantur scandala, certe a me [non] proficisci. Devotis animis conspirant isti, ac summorum regum aulas oppugnant, ac vereor, ne expugnent. De Philippo, Œcolampadio quod scio cognoveram ex aliorum litteris. Utramque epistolam tuam accepi. Bene vale vir in domino mihi colende.
Lovanii, postrid. Cal. Aug.
ERASMUS ex animo tuus.
TO THE DISTINGUISHED THEOLOGIAN
JOHANNES LANGE.
Greeting.
Most Excellent Sir: