Why Colet had not written.
Colet surely had forgotten the promise of Erasmus on leaving Oxford, or perchance the hope it held out was too slender for him to rest on, else he would hardly have left him during these years without letters of brotherly encouragement.
It is true that Erasmus still confessed himself to be occupied in merely preliminary labours. His great work, no less than it had been five years before, was still in the future. Yet the fire caught from his contact with Colet at Oxford was at least flickering on the hearth, and with fresh stirring and fuel might perhaps after all be kindled into active flame.
Colet’s reply to this letter has not come down to us, but from the result we may be sure that it contained a pressing invitation to revisit England, and the promise of a warm reception.
VI. THE ‘ENCHIRIDION,’ ETC. OF ERASMUS (1501-5).
In the meantime, closer inspection of the literary present sent by Erasmus, must have proved to Colet to how large an extent, after so long a process of study and digestion, his friend had really adopted the views which he himself had held and consistently preached for the last ten years.
The ‘Enchiridion.’
The ‘Enchiridion’ was, in truth, a re-echo of the very key-note of Colet’s faith. It openly taught, as Colet now for so many years had been teaching, that the true Christian’s religion, instead of consisting in the acceptance of scholastic dogmas, or the performance of outward rites and ceremonies, really consists in a true, self-sacrificing loyalty to Christ, his ever-living Prince; that life is a warfare, and that the Christian must sacrifice his evil lusts and passions, and spend his strength, not in the pursuit of his own pleasure, but in active service of his Prince;—such was the drift and spirit of this ‘Handybook of the Christian Soldier.’[304]
It must not be assumed, however, that Erasmus had adopted all the views which Colet had expressed in their many conversations at Oxford. On the contrary, I think there may be traced in the ‘Enchiridion’[305] a tendency to interpret the text of Scripture allegorically, rather than to seek out its literal meaning—a tendency which must have been somewhat opposed to the strong convictions of Colet, and even to those of Erasmus, in after years. But he had just then been studying Origen, and it is not strange that he should for a while be fascinated, as so many others have been, by the allegorical method of interpretation adopted by that father. He had learned so much from his writings, that he yielded the more readily perhaps in this particular to the force of Origen’s rich imagination.[306]