Nor was he afraid to apply these practical lessons to the circumstances of his own times. Thus, in speaking of the collections made by St. Paul in relief of the sufferers from the famine in Judea (the same he thought as that predicted by Agabus), he pointed out how much better such voluntary collections were than ‘money extorted by bitter exactions under the name of tithes and oblations.’[93] And, referring to the advice to Timothy, ‘to avoid avarice and to follow after justice, piety, faith, charity, patience, and mercy,’ he at once added that ‘priests of our time’ might well be admonished ‘to set such an example as this amongst their own parishioners,’ referring to the example of St. Paul, who chose to ‘get his living by labouring with his hands at the trade of tentmaking, so as to avoid even suspicion of avarice or scandal to the Gospel.’[94]
One other striking characteristic of this exposition must be mentioned—the unaffected modesty which breathes through it, which, whilst not quoting authority, does not claim to be an authority itself, which does not profess to have attained full knowledge, but preserves throughout the childlike spirit of enquiry.[95]
On the whole, the spirit of Colet’s lectures was in keeping with his previous history.
Colet quotes the Neo-Platonist.
The passage already mentioned as quoted from Ficino, the facts that, in a marginal note on the manuscript, added apparently in Colet’s handwriting, there is also a quotation from Pico,[96] and that the names of Plotinus,[97] and ‘Joannes Carmelitanus,’[98] are cited in the course of the exposition—all this is evidence of the influence upon Colet’s mind of the writings of the philosophers of Florence, confirming the inference already drawn from the circumstances of his visit to Italy. But in its comparative freedom from references to authorities of any kind, except the New Testament, Colet’s exposition differs as much from the writings of Ficino and Pico as from those of the Scholastic Divines.
Marks of his love for Dionysius.
In many peculiar phrases and modes of thought, evident traces also occur of that love for the Dionysian writings which Colet is said to have contracted in Italy, and which he shared with the modern Neo-Platonic school.
Origen and Jerome.
In the free critical method of interpretation and thorough acknowledgment of the human element in Scripture, as well as in the Anti-Augustinian views already alluded to, there is evidence equally abundant in confirmation of the statement, that he had acquired when abroad a decided preference for Origen and Jerome over Augustine.