Erasmus arrived at Basle on Ascension Day, May 13, 1518.[686]
Erasmus reaches Basle and falls ill.
But though he had escaped the robbers, and survived the toils of the journey, he reached Basle in a state of health so susceptible of infection, that, in the course of a day or two, he found himself laid up with that very disease which he had mentioned in his letter to Colet as prevalent at Basle, and as one great reason why he had shrunk from going there.[687]
But even an attack of this ‘plague’ did not prevent him from beginning his work at once.
His reply to Dr. Eck.
Whilst suffering from its early symptoms, during intervals of pain and weakness,[688] he wrote a careful reply to a letter he had received from Dr. Eck, Professor of the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, complaining, as Luther had already done, indirectly through Spalatin, of the anti-Augustinian proclivities of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’[689]
Luther and Eck had already had communications on theological subjects. The Wittemberg theologian had sent to his Ingolstadt brother for his approval, through a mutual friend, a set of propositions aimed against the Pelagian tendencies of the times.[690]
But Eck and Luther, whilst both admirers of St. Augustine, and both jealous of Erasmus and his anti-Augustinian proclivities, rested their objections on somewhat different grounds.
Dr. Eck holds to plenary inspiration.
Luther looked coldly on the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ mainly because he thought he found in its doctrinal statements traces of Pelagian heresy. Dr. Eck objected not so much to any error in doctrine which it might contain, as to the method of Biblical criticism which it adopted throughout. He objected to the suggestion it contained, that the Apostles quoted the old Testament from memory, and, therefore, not always correctly. He objected to the insinuation that their Greek was colloquial, and not strictly classical.