Imitation of Christ.
Character of Christ.
Passing from this one example of Colet’s zeal for ecclesiastical reform, there remains only to be mentioned one other feature of this exposition of Colet’s which must not be overlooked; a feature which might seem to show that Colet was not wholly unacquainted with the writings of men of the school of Tauler and Thomas à Kempis, and which seems to connect itself with a remark of Colet’s, reported by Erasmus, that he had met on his travels with some German monks, amongst whom were still to be found traces of primitive religion.[170] I allude to the warmth with which Colet urges the necessity of following the perfect but not impossible[171] example of Christ, of Christians being bound in a relationship with Him, so close that their joint love for Christ shall form a bond of brotherhood between themselves more close than that of blood:[172] so that what is for the good of the brethren will become the test of what is lawful in Christian practice[173]—the earnestness with which he tried to realise the secret of that wonderful example, concluding that it lay in Christ’s keeping himself as retired as possible from the world—from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life—and as close as possible to God—in his whole soul being dedicated to God. ‘He was,’ writes Colet, altogether ‘pious, kind, gentle, merciful, patient of evil, bearing injuries, in his own integrity shunning empty popular fame, forbidding both men and demons to publish his mighty power, in his goodness always doing good even to the evil, as his Father makes His sun to rise on the just and on the unjust.... His body He held altogether in obedience and service to his blessed mind ...; eating after long fasts, sleeping after long watching ...; caring nothing for what belongs to wealth and fortune. His eye was single, so that his whole body was full of light.... Such is the leader whom we have on the heavenly road ...; whom, without doubt, if we do not follow with our whole strength toward heaven, as far as we are able, we shall never get there!’[174]
Colet’s love for St. Paul, but greater love for Christ.
Colet’s love for Christ.
If Colet had risen out of Neo-Platonism to Dionysius and from Dionysius to St. Paul, it is evident that he did not rest even there. How in the following few words, overflowing as they do with his personal love for St. Paul, does he give vent to a still more tender love and reverence for Christ!
‘Here I stand amazed, and exclaim those words of my Paul, “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” O wisdom! wonderfully good to men and merciful, how justly thy loving-kindness can be called the “depth of riches”!—Thou who commending thy love towards us hast chosen to be so bountiful to us that Thou givest thyself for us, that we may return to Thee and to God. O holy, O kind, O beneficent wisdom! O voice, word, and truth of God in man! truth-speaking and truth-acting! who hast chosen to teach us humanly that we may know divinely; who hast chosen to be in man that we may be in God; who lastly hast chosen in man to be humbled even unto death—the death even of the cross—that we may be exalted even unto life, the life even of God.’[175]
Contrast between Colet’s method and the Schoolmen’s.
It may safely be concluded, that if Colet’s manuscript expositions preserved at Cambridge may be taken as evidence of the nature of his public lectures, they may well have excited all the interest which they seem to have done. Doctors of Divinity, coming to listen at first that they might find something definite to censure, might well indeed find something to learn. Amongst the students, probably, the seed found a soil in some degree prepared to receive it. But it must have required an effort on the part of the most candid and honest adherents of the traditional school to reach the standpoint from which alone Colet’s method of free critical interpretation could be found to be in perfect harmony with his evident love and reverence for the Scriptures. They attributed an extent of Divine inspiration to the apostle which placed his words on a level in authority with those of the Saviour himself; while Colet, we are told (and some of the passages last quoted seem to confirm the statement), was wont to declare, ‘that when he turned from the Apostles to the wonderful majesty of Christ, their writings, much as he loved them, seemed to him to become poor, as it were, in comparison’ [with the words of their Lord].[176]
Yet they could hardly fail to see, whether they would or not, that while their own system left the Scriptures hidden in the background, Colet’s method brought them out into the light, and invested them with a sense of reality and sacredness which pressed them home at once to the heart.
VI. GROCYN’S DISCOVERY (1498 ?).
Colet was not alone at Oxford in his regard for the Pseudo-Dionysian writings.