It may, however, well be doubted whether Aquinas would have sanctioned altogether the absurd length to which this doctrine was carried by scholastic disputants.
Colet on the ‘manifold senses.’
Whether Colet, since Grocyn’s discovery, had or had not altogether repudiated the doctrine of ‘manifold senses,’ as one of the notions which he had once held on Dionysian authority, but which the authority of the Pseudo-Dionysius was not sufficient to establish, it is clear that in his reply to Erasmus he utterly repudiated the abuse of it to which Erasmus had appealed. ‘In the first place’ (he wrote), ‘I cannot agree with you when you state, along with many others, and as I think mistakenly, that the Holy Scriptures, at least uno in aliquo genere, are so prolific that they give birth to many senses. Not that I would not have them to be as prolific as possible—their overflowing fecundity and fulness I, more than others, admire—but that I consider their fecundity to consist in their giving birth not to many [senses], but to only one, and that the most true one.’
Colet’s views on ‘Inspiration.’
After remarking that whilst the lower forms of life produce the most numerous offspring, the highest forms of life tend towards unity of offspring, he argues that the Holy Spirit gives birth in the Scripture, according to its own power, to one and the same simple truth. What if from the simple, divine, and truth-speaking words of the Scriptures of the Spirit of Truth, whether heard or read, many and various persons draw many and varying senses? He set that down, he said, not to the fecundity of the Scriptures, but to the sterility of men’s minds, and their incapacity of getting at the pure and simple truth. If they could but reach that, they would as completely agree as now they differ. He then remarked how mysterious the inspiration of the Scriptures was; how the Spirit seemed to him, by reason of its majesty, to have a peculiar method of its own, singularly absolute and free, blowing where it lists, making prophets of whom it will, yet so that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. He repeated, in conclusion, that he admired the fulness of the Scriptures, not because each word may be construed in several senses—that would be want of fulness—but because quot sententiæ totidem sunt verba, et quot verba tot sententiæ. Having said this, he was ready to descend into the arena, and to join battle with Erasmus on the matter in dispute, but he could not do so now; he was called away by other engagements, and must end his letter for the present.[214]
The letters which followed in which Colet further pursued the subject of the Agony in the Garden, have unfortunately been lost. But enough remains to give, by a passing glimpse, some idea of the pleasant colloquies and earnest converse, both by mouth and letter, in which the happy months of college intercourse glided swiftly by.
VI. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE INTENTION OF ERASMUS TO LEAVE OXFORD (1499-1500).
Erasmus at Court.
The winter vacation of 1499-1500 had apparently dispersed for a while the circle of Oxford students. Erasmus having, it would seem, some friend at Court, had joined the Royal party, probably spending Christmas at Woodstock or some other hunting station. He was at first delighted with Court manners and field sports, and in a letter,[215] written about this time, he jocosely told a Parisian friend, that the Erasmus whom he once had known was now a hunter, and his manners polished up into those of an experienced courtier. He was greatly struck, he added, with the beauty and grace of the English ladies, and urged him to let nothing less than the gout hinder his coming to England.