Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

by Ephraim Emerton

Now each party seemed to Erasmus to be trying to catch him by stirring him up against the other. They told him his books had been burnt in Brabant by Hoogstraaten, hoping to make him write something against the inquisitor which would drive him over definitely into the Lutheran camp. Poor Botzheim at Constance wrote, pene exanimatus ("scared almost to death,"), that Erasmus' books had been publicly condemned at Rome by papal order. These traps had been sprung in vain. He had seen through the trick and kept his peace and the truth had come out. Far from condemning him, the papal party at Rome had done its best to win him to its service, even offering him a considerable benefice if he would come. Then this again had produced countercharges of bribery, which he very properly dismisses by saying: "If I could have been drawn into this fight by bribes I should have been drawn in long ago." Now he hears a third rumour, worse than the other two: the pope has written some kind of a pamphlet against him! but again he sees the trick; they want to make him say something against the pope. Others say that Lutherans are flocking to Basel to consult with him, some even that Luther is in hiding there.

"Would that it were true that all Lutherans and anti-Lutherans too, would come for my advice and agree to follow it; the world would be far better off in my opinion. Many persons have come hither to see and to salute me, sometimes in companies and generally unknown to me; but never has one called himself a Lutheran in my presence; it is not my business to make inquiries and I am no prophet. Before this trouble broke out I was in literary correspondence with almost all the scholars of Germany, to me a most agreeable relation. Of these some have given me the cold shoulder, some are quite estranged from me, and some are my open enemies and seeking my ruin. Some were good friends of mine, who are now more severe towards Luther than I could wish and more than is good for their cause. I dismiss no one from my friendship either because he is too friendly or too hostile to Luther; each acts in good faith.

"Men have come to Basel who were said to be under suspicion of being partisans of Luther, and I am ready to have this all charged upon me, if a single one of them has ever come by my invitation or if I have not protested to my friends that it was exceedingly disagreeable to me. If persons of this or that faction come hither, with what reason can this be laid upon me? I am not the gatekeeper of Basel and hold no magistracy here! Hutten was here as a visitor for a few days and neither came to see me nor did I visit him. And yet if it had depended upon me, I would not have denied him an interview, an old friend and a man whose wonderfully happy and genial talents I cannot even now help admiring.... He could not do without a stove, on account of his health, and I cannot bear one, and so the fact is, we did not see each other."

He would not hesitate, he says, to receive Luther himself, and would give him some wholesome warnings. There is good on both sides. "I am not sure that either side can be put down without grave disaster to many good things." If only it might be permitted him to be a mere spectator of events! But here he is, pulled hither and yon by the parties, each trying to make him declare himself squarely against the other. While one party was accusing him of being the author of most of the Lutheran writings, the other suspected him of having written King Henry's famous answer to Luther. Upon this welcome text Erasmus builds up a long story of his first acquaintance with this royal treatise, a story as unimportant as the book itself. The outcome of it all is that he is firmly convinced that the king wrote the book with his own wits. "Even if he desired the help of scholars, his court is filled with learned and eloquent men." Again they tell him that four years ago he ought to have retired from the stage, content with his great services to theology, his restoration of the true sources of Christianity, etc. All this is very flattering, but he is held to his work by a choragos whose orders he dare not disobey.

Once more, he is charged with speaking too highly of the pope. What he says of Leo is very well, but, they say, how can we be sure of Leo's successor. Well, there have been good popes before Leo, and why not after him? They say "Erasmus ought to declare: 'Thou, pope, art Antichrist! you, bishops, are false leaders! that Roman see of yours is an abomination to God!' and many other such things and worse." This is the old Erasmian method, which he had consistently followed from the beginning—to confine his criticism to evil men and refrain from criticising institutions. If men were good, institutions would be good.

Finally we come to the charge that Erasmus, in his paraphrase of the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, had allowed "a little something" to the freedom of the human will. This is our first encounter with a strictly dogmatic question, the one by which the whole Lutheran position was to stand or fall. We have, however, prepared ourselves for Erasmus' inevitable attitude on this point by noting his insistence, throughout all his moral teaching, upon the individual will as the dominant motive. For the moment he defends himself only by declaring that in his Paraphrase he is merely following all the best authorities in the Church from Origen to Aquinas. He wrote the passage in question in 1517, before Luther had appeared, so that it can in no way be thought of as an attack upon him. Moreover, it is the mildest possible statement of a free-will doctrine.

"Some weight is to be given to our will and our endeavour, but so little that in comparison with the grace of God it seems to be as nothing. No man is condemned, except by his own fault; but no one is saved, except by God's grace.... I saw on the one hand Scylla luring us on to confidence in works, which I believe to be the worst plague of religion. On the other hand I saw Charybdis, a worse monster yet, by whom many are now being attracted, who say: Let us follow our own lusts; whether we torment ourselves or indulge our wills, what God has decreed will happen all the same."

So his language has been moderate, and he has hoped simply to aid men to virtue. The close of this letter is a really eloquent bit of self-analysis.

"If any there be, who cannot love Erasmus because he is a feeble Christian, let him think of me as he will. I cannot be other than I am. If any man has from Christ greater gifts of the Spirit and is sure of himself, let him use them for the glory of Christ. Meanwhile it is more to my mind to follow a more humble and a safer way. I cannot help hating dissension and loving peace and harmony. I see how obscure all human affairs are. I see how much easier it is to stir up confusion than to allay it. I have learned how many are the devices of Satan. I should not dare to trust my own spirit in all things and I am far from being able to pronounce with certainty on the spirit of another. I would that all might strive together for the triumph of Christ and the peace of the Gospel, and that without violence, but in truth and reason, we might take counsel both for the dignity of the priesthood and for the liberty of the people, whom our Lord Jesus desired to be free. To those who go about to this end to the best of their ability Erasmus shall not be wanting. But if anyone desires to throw everything into confusion, he shall not have me either for a leader or a companion. These people claim for themselves the working of the Spirit. Well, let people on whom the divine spirit has breathed jump with good hopes into the ranks of the prophets. That Spirit has not yet seized upon me; when it does, then perhaps I too shall be counted as Saul among the prophets."