'"Well, then," said he, "if you will not write, at least you can say that we Dominicans have had the best of the argument."
'"How can I do that?" replied I. "You have burnt his books, but I never heard that you had answered them."
'He almost spat upon me. I understand that there is to be a form of prayer for the conversion of Erasmus and Luther.'
But Erasmus was not to escape so easily. Adrian the Sixth, who succeeded Leo, was his old schoolfellow, and implored his assistance in terms which made refusal impossible. Adrian wanted Erasmus to come to him to Rome. He was too wary to walk into the wolf's den. But Adrian required him to write, and reluctantly he felt that he must comply.
What was he to say?
'If his Holiness will set about reform in good earnest,' he wrote to the Pope's secretary, 'and if he will not be too hard on Luther, I may, perhaps, do good; but what Luther writes of the tyranny, the corruption, the covetousness of the Roman court, would, my friend, that it was not true.'
To Adrian himself, Erasmus addressed a letter really remarkable.
'I cannot go to your Holiness,' he said, 'King Calculus will not let me. I have dreadful health, which this tornado has not improved. I, who was the favourite of everybody, am now cursed by everybody—at Louvaine by the monks; in Germany by the Lutherans. I have fallen into trouble in my old age, like a mouse into a pot of pitch. You say, Come to Rome; you might as well say to the crab, Fly. The crab says, Give me wings; I say, Give me back my health and my youth. If I write calmly against Luther I shall be called lukewarm; if I write as he does, I shall stir a hornet's nest. People think he can be put down by force. The more force you try, the stronger he will grow. Such disorders cannot be cured in that way. The Wickliffites in England were put down, but the fire smouldered.
'If you mean to use violence you have no need of me; but mark this—if monks and theologians think only of themselves, no good will come of it. Look rather into the causes of all this confusion, and apply your remedies there. Send for the best and wisest men from all parts of Christendom and take their advice.'
Tell a crab to fly. Tell a pope to be reasonable. You must relieve him of his infallibility if you want him to act like a sensible man. Adrian could undertake no reforms, and still besought Erasmus to take arms for him.