Favet præterea ipsis sancta Grocini et theologo digna severitas, Linacri πολυμαθεια et acre judicium, Tunstali non legibus magis quam utrique linguæ familiaris facundia, Stopleii triplex lingua, Mori candida et eloquentissima urbanitas, Pacei mores doctrina et ingenium, ab ipso Erasmo, optimo eruditionis censore, commendati; quem vos olim habuistis Græcarum literarum professorum, utinamque potuissetis retinere. Succedo in Erasmi locum ego, bone Deus, quam infra illum, et doctriná et famâ, quamquam me, ne omnino nihili fiam, principes viri, theologici doctores, jurium etiam et medicinæ, artium præterea professores innumeri, et præceptorem agnovere, et quod plus est, a scholis ad ædes, ab ædibus ad scholas honorificentissime comitati perduxere. Dii me perdant, viri Cantabrigienses, si ipsi Oxonienses stipendio multorum nobilium præter victum me non invitavere. Sed ego pro mea in hanc academiam et fide et observantia, &c.
In his second oration, Croke exhorts the Cantabrigians not to give up the study of Greek. Si quisquam omnium sit qui vestræ reipublicæ bene consulere debeat, is ego sum, viri Cantabrigienses. Optime enim vobis esse cupio, et id nisi facerem, essem profecto longe ingratissimus. Ubi enim jacta literarum mearum fundamenta, quibus tantum tum apud nostrates, tum vero apud exteros quoque principes, favoris mihi comparatum est; quibus ea fortuna, ut licet jam olim consanguineorum iniquitate paterna hæreditate sim spoliatus, ita tamen adhuc vivam, ut quibusvis meorum majorum imaginibus videar non indignus. He was probably of the ancient family of Croke. Peter Mosellanus calls him, in a letter among those of Erasmus, juvenis cum imaginibus.
Audio ego plerosque vos a litteris Græcis dehortatos esse. Sed vos diligenter expendite, qui sint et plane non alios fore comperitis, quam qui igitur linguam oderunt Græcam quia Romanam non norunt. Cæterum jam deprehendo quid facturi sint, qui nostras literas odio prosequuntur, confugiunt videlicet ad religionem, cui uni dicent omnia postponenda. Sentio ego cum illis, sed unde quæso orta religio, nisi è Græciâ? quid enim novum testamentum, excepto Matthæo? quid enim vetus? nunquid Deo auspice a septuaginta Græcè redditum? Oxonia est colonia vestra; uti olim non sine summa laude a Cantabrigia deducta, ita non sine summo vestro nunc dedecore, si doctrina ab ipsis vos vinci patiamini. Fuerunt olim illi discipuli vestri, nunc erunt præceptores? Utinam quo animo hæc a me dicta sunt, eo vos dicta interpretemini; crederetisque, quod est verissimum, si quoslibet alios, certe Cantabrigienses minime decere literarum Græcarum esse desertores.
The great scarcity of this tract will serve as an apology for the length of these extracts, illustrating, as they do, the commencement of classical literature in England.
[590] Numeratos illos quidem, sed non intellectos. I am not quite sure of this meaning.
Unpopularity of The monks. 50. In this sentence Erasmus intimates, what is abundantly confirmed by other testimony, that the mendicant orders had lost their ancient hold upon the people. There was a growing sense of the abuses prevailing in the church, and a desire for a more scriptural and spiritual religion. We have seen already that this was the case seventy years before. And in the intermediate period the exertions of a few eminent men, especially Wessel of Groningen, had not been wanting to purify the doctrines and discipline of the clergy. More popular writers assailed them with satire. Thus everything was prepared for the blow to be struck by Luther; better indeed than he was himself; for it is well known that he began his attack on indulgences with no expectation or desire of the total breach with the see of Rome which ensued.[591]
[591] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheranismi, p. 226. Gerdes, Hist. Evang. sæc. xvi. renovat. vols. i. and iii. Milner’s Church History, vol. iv. Mosheim, sæc. xv. et xvi. Bayle, art. Wessel. For Wessel’s character as a philosopher, who boldly opposed the scholastics of his age, see Brucker, iii. 859.
The book excites odium. 51. The Encomium Moriæ was received with applause by all who loved merriment, and all who hated the monks; but grave men, as usual, could not bear to see ridicule employed against grave folly and hypocrisy. A letter of one Dorpius, a man, it is said, of some merit, which may be read in Jortin’s Life of Erasmus,[592] amusingly complains, that while the most eminent divines and lawyers were admiring Erasmus, his unlucky Moria had spoiled all, by letting them see that he was mischievously fitting asses’ ears to their heads. The same Dorpius, who seems, though not an old man, to have been a sworn vassal of the giant Ignorance, objects to anything in Erasmus’s intended edition of the Greek Testament, which might throw a slur on the accuracy of the Vulgate.
[592] ii. 336.
Erasmus attacks the monks. 52. Erasmus was soon in a state of war with the monks; and in his second edition of the New Testament printed in 1518, the notes, it is said, are full of invectives against them. It must be confessed that he had begun the attack, without any motive of provocation, unless zeal for learning and religion is to count for such, which the parties assailed could not be expected to admit, and they could hardly thank him for “spitting on their gaberdine.” No one, however, knew better how to pay his court; and he wrote to Leo X. in a style rather too adulatory, which in truth was his custom in addressing the great, and contrasts with his free language in writing about them. The custom of the time affords some excuse for this panegyrical tone of correspondence, as well as for the opposite extreme of severity.