Erasmus meditates a journey southward, and then returning to England.
It was from a continent thus brought, by the madness of the Pope and princes, to the very brink of both a civil and a religious revolution, that Erasmus looked longingly to England as ‘out of the world, and perhaps the least corrupted portion of it’[672]—as that retreat in which, after one more journey southwards, to print the second edition of his New Testament and ‘some other works,’ he hoped at length to spend his declining years in peaceful retirement. The following portion of a letter to Colet will also show how fully he saw through the policy of Leo X., hated the madness of princes, and shared the indignation of Luther at the sale of indulgences.
Erasmus to Colet.
Erasmus on indulgences.
He sees through the Pope’s pretexts.
‘I am obliged, in order to print the New Testament and some other books, to go either to Basle, or, more probably, I think, to Venice: for I am deterred from Basle partly by the plague and partly by the death of Lachnerus, whose pecuniary aid was almost indispensable to the work. “What,” you will say, “are you, an old man, in delicate health, going to undertake so laborious a journey!—in these times, too, than which none worse have been seen for six hundred years; while everywhere lawless robbery abounds!” But why do you say so? I was born to this fate; if I die, I die in a work which, unless I am mistaken, is not altogether a bad one. But if, this last stroke of my work being accomplished according to my intention, I should chance to return, I have made up my mind to spend the remainder of my life with you, in retirement from a world which is everywhere rotten. Ecclesiastical hypocrites rule in the courts of princes. The court of Rome clearly has lost all sense of shame; for what could be more shameless than these continued indulgences? Now a war against the Turks is put forth as a pretext, when the real purpose is to drive the Spaniards from Naples; for Lorenzo, the Pope’s nephew, who has married the daughter of the King of Navarre, lays claim to Campania. If these turmoils continue, the rule of the Turks would be easier to bear than that of these Christians.’[673]
‘Julius de Cœlo exclusus.’
Erasmus wrote to Warham in precisely the same strain,[674] and shortly afterwards, on March 5, 1518, in a letter to More, he exclaimed, ‘The Pope and some princes are playing a fresh game under the pretext of a horrid war against the Turks. Oh, wretched Turks! unless this is too much like bluster on the part of us Christians.’ And, he added, ‘They write to me from Cologne that a book has been printed by somebody, describing “Pope Julius disputing with Peter at the gate of paradise.” The author’s name is not mentioned. The German press will not cease to be violent until some law shall restrain their boldness, to the detriment also of us, who are labouring to benefit mankind.’[675]
This satire, entitled ‘Julius de Cœlo exclusus,’ was eagerly purchased and widely read,[676] and was one of a series of satirical pamphlets upon the Papacy and the policy of the Papal party, for which the way had been prepared by the ‘Praise of Folly’ and the ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.’ It was one of the signs of the times.
II. MORE DRAWN INTO THE SERVICE OF HENRY VIII.—ERASMUS LEAVES GERMANY FOR BASLE (1518).
It was at this juncture—at this crisis it may well be called—in European politics, that More was induced at length, by the earnest solicitations of Henry VIII., to attach himself to his court under circumstances which deserve attention.