With the art peculiar to him, he came to persuade himself, that the champion of free-will was hostile to the idea of any Divine supremacy over the human will, scoffed at all religion, denied the Godhead and was worse than any persecutor of the Church; he was confirmed in this belief by the sarcastic sayings about his Evangel, to which Erasmus gave vent in his correspondence and conversations, and which occasionally came to Luther’s knowledge. It is true that if we look at the matter through Luther’s spectacles we can understand how certain darker sides of Erasmus and his Humanist school repelled him. Luther fixed on these, and, as was his wont, harshly exaggerated and misrepresented them. The too-great attention bestowed on the outward form, seemingly to the detriment of the Christian contents, displeased him greatly; still more so did the undeniable frivolity with which sacred things, still dear to him, were treated. At the same time it was strange to him, and rightly so, how little heed the Humanists who remained faithful to the Church paid to the principle of authority and of ecclesiastical obedience, preferring to follow the lax example set by Erasmus himself, more particularly during the first period of his career; they appeared to submit to the yoke of the Church merely formally and from force of habit, and showed none of that heart-felt conviction and respect for her visible supremacy which alone could win the respect of those without.[584]
Schlaginhaufen has noted down the following remark made by Luther in 1532 when a picture of Erasmus was shown him. “The cunning of his mode of writing is perfectly expressed in his face. He does nothing but mock at God and religion. When he speaks of our Holy Christ, of the Holy Word of God and the Holy Sacraments, these are mere fine, big words, a sham and no reality.... Formerly he annoyed and confuted the Papacy, now he draws his head out of the noose.”[585] In the same year, and according to the same reporter, he declared: “Erasmus is a knave incarnate.... Were I in good health, I should inveigh against him. To him the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are something ludicrous.... Erasmus is as sure there is no God as I am that I can see. Lucian himself was not so bold and impudent as Erasmus.”[586]
At Easter of the following year Veit Dietrich, who lived in Luther’s house, announced in a letter to Nuremberg, that the storm was about to break: Luther was arming himself against Erasmus, reading his books carefully and gathering together his blasphemies. The same writer in a collection of Luther’s conversations not yet published quotes the following outbursts: “Erasmus makes use of ambiguities, intentionally and with malice, this I shall prove against him.... Were I to cut open Erasmus’s heart, I should find nothing but mockeries of the Trinity, the Sacraments, etc. To him the whole thing is a joke.”[587]
And yet, at that very time, Erasmus, who, as years passed, had come to regret his earlier faults of the pen,[588] was engaged in composing serious and useful works, in which, though not unfaithful to his older style, he sought to defend the dogmas of religion and the authority of the Church. In March his “Explanatio symboli, decalogi et dominicæ precationis” was issued at Basle by Froben; another important work of the same year, appearing in the guise of an exposition of Psalm lxxxiv., contained counsels how best to restore the unity of the Church and to root out abuses. Therein he does not deny the duty of submitting to the Church, but recommends both sides to be ready to give and take.
When Luther’s little son Hans had, in his Latin lessons, to study some works composed by Erasmus for the young, his father wrote out for him the following warning: “Erasmus is a foe to all religion and an arch-enemy of Christ; he is the very type of an Epicurus and Lucian. This I, Martin Luther, declare in my own handwriting to you, my very dear son Johann, and, through you, to all my children and the holy Church of Christ.”[589]
Luther’s pent-up wrath at length vented itself in print. He had received a letter sent him from Magdeburg, on Jan. 28, 1534, by Nicholas Amsdorf, the old friend who knew so well how to fan the flames of enthusiasm for the new teaching, and who now pointed out Erasmus as the source whence George Wicel had drawn all his material for his latest attack on Lutheranism.[590] It was high time, he wrote, that Luther should paint Erasmus “in his true colours and show that he was full of ignorance and malice.” This he would best do in a tract “On the Church,” for this was the Erasmians’ weak point: They stick to the Church, because “bishops and cardinals make them presents of golden vessels,” and then “they cry out: Luther’s teaching is heresy, having been condemned by Emperor and Pope.” “I, on the other hand, see all about me the intervention and the wonders of God; I see that faith is a gift of God Who works when and where He wills, just as he raised His Son Christ from the dead. Oh, that you could see the country folk here and admire in them the glory of Christ!”
The letter pleased Luther so well that he determined to print it, appending to it a lengthy answer to Amsdorf, both being published together.[591]
In this answer, before launching out into invective against Erasmus he joins in his friend’s enthusiastic praise of the Evangel which has dawned: “Our cause was heard at Augsburg before the Emperor and the whole world, and has been found blameless; they could not but recognise the purity of our teaching.... We have confessed Christ before the evil generation of our day, and He too will confess us before God the Father and His angels.” “Wicel, I shall vanquish by silence and contempt, as my custom is. How many books I have disposed of and utterly annihilated merely by my silence, Eck, Faber, Emser, Cochlæus and many others could tell. Had I to fight with filth, I should, even if victorious, get dirty in the process. Hence I leave them to revel in their blasphemy, their lying and their calumny.”
He might, he proceeds, leave Erasmus too to dissolve into smoke like those others. For a long time past he had looked on him as one crazy (“delirus”); since he had given birth to the “viperaspides” (i.e. “brood of vipers,” a play on the title of the “Hyperaspistes”) he had given up all hopes of his theology, but would follow Amsdorf’s advice and expose his malice and ignorance to the world.