The fact is that in the splendour of the new invention of printing, the possibilities of accompanying error had not been realized. In just the same spirit the idea went abroad that when a book had been printed, its manuscript original had no value. We have seen how Erasmus was allowed to carry off the manuscript of Valla from Louvain to Paris. Aldus received codices from all parts of Europe, sent by owners with the request that they should be printed; but no desire for their return. In 1531 Simon Grynaeus came from Basle to Oxford and was given precious texts from college libraries to take back with him and have published. Generosity helped to mislead. To keep a manuscript to oneself for personal enjoyment seemed churlish. If it were printed, any one who wished might enjoy it. That any degeneration might come in by the way, that the printed text might contain blunders, was not perceived. The process seemed so straightforward, so mechanical; as certain a method of reproduction as photography. But the human element in it was overlooked. Humanum est errare.

It was the same with the New Testament as with Seneca. When the form of the work had been decided upon—a Greek text side by side with Erasmus' translation, and notes at the end—two young scholars, Gerbell and Oecolampadius, were installed in charge of the book. For the Greek Erasmus had expected, he tells us, to find at Basle some manuscript which he could give to the printers without further trouble. But he was annoyed to find that there was none available which was good enough, and he positively had to go through the one that he selected from beginning to end before he could entrust it to his correctors. In addition to this he put into their hands another manuscript, which had been borrowed from Reuchlin; presumably to help them in case they should have any difficulty in deciphering the first. However, after a time he discovered that they were taking liberties, and following the text of the second manuscript, wherever they preferred its reading: as though the editing were in their own hands. He took it from them and found another manuscript which agreed more closely with the first. For the book of Revelation only one Greek manuscript was available; and at the end five verses and a bit were lacking through the loss of a leaf. Erasmus calmly translated them back from the Latin, but had the grace to warn the reader of the fact in his notes.

As to the translation, an interesting point is that it is modified considerably from the translation which he had made in 1505-6, and is brought closer to the text of the Vulgate. In the second edition of the New Testament, March 1519, he explains in a preliminary apology that he had changed back in this way in 1516 from fear lest too great divergence from the Vulgate might give offence. But the book was on the whole so well received that he soon realized that the time was ripe for more advanced scholarship. His earlier version was the best that he could do, in simplicity of style and fidelity to the original. Accordingly in 1519 he introduced it with the most minute care, even such trivial variations as ac or -que for et being restored. The transformation was not without its effects. Numerous passages were objected to by the orthodox; as for example, when he translates λογος in the first verse of St. John's Gospel by sermo, instead of verbum, as in the Vulgate and the edition of 1516.

The New Testament appeared in March 1516, dedicated by permission to the Pope; in the following autumn came Jerome, in nine volumes, of which four were by Erasmus, dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury: and thus the Head of the Church and one of his most exalted suffragans lent their sanction to an advancement of learning which theological faculties in the universities viewed with the gravest suspicion.

Erasmus had now reached his highest point. He had equipped himself thoroughly for the work he desired to do. He was the acknowledged leader of a large band of scholars, who looked to him for guidance and were eagerly ready to second his efforts; and with the resources of Froben's press at his disposal, nothing seemed beyond his powers and his hopes. Wherever his books spread, his name was honoured, almost reverenced. Material honours and wealth flowed in upon him; and he was continually receiving enthusiastic homage from strangers. He saw knowledge growing from more to more, and bringing with it reform of the Church and that steady betterment of the evils of the world which wise men in every age desire. In all this his part was to be that of a leader: not the only one, but in the front rank. He enjoyed his position, feeling that he was fitted for it; but he was not puffed up. In his dreams of what he would do with his life, he had ever seen himself advancing not the name of Erasmus but the glory of God. In his later years he became impatient of criticism, and resented with great bitterness even difference of opinion, unless expressed with the utmost caution; to hostile critics his language is often quite intolerable. But the spirit underlying this is not mere vanity. No doubt it wounded him to be evil spoken of, to have his pre-eminence called in question, to be shown to have made mistakes: but the real ground of his resentment was rather vexation that anything should arise to mar the unanimity of the humanist advance toward wider knowledge. Conscious of singleness of purpose, it was a profound disappointment to him to have his sincerity doubted, to be treated as an enemy by men who should have been his friends.

Into the discord of the years that followed I do not propose to enter. They were years of disappointment to Erasmus; disappointment that grew ever deeper, as he saw the steady growth of reform broken by the sudden shocks of the Reformation and barred by subsequent reaction. Throughout it all he never lost his faith in the spread of knowledge, and gave his energies consistently to help this great cause. He produced more editions of the Fathers, either wholly or in part: Cyprian, Arnobius, Hilary, Jerome again, Chrysostom, Irenaeus, Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Lactantius, Alger, Basil, Haymo, and Origen; the last named in the concluding months of his life. The storms that beat round him could not stir him from his principles. To neither reformer nor reactionary would he concede one jot, and in consequence from each side he was vilified. He was drawn into a series of deplorable controversies, which estranged him from many; but of his real friends he lost not one. It is pleasant to see the devotion with which Beatus Rhenanus and Boniface Amerbach comforted his last years; never wavering in the service to which they had plighted themselves in the enthusiasm of youth.

The chance survival of the following note enables us to stand by Erasmus' bedside in his last hours. It was written by one of the Frobens, possibly his godson and namesake, Erasmius, to Boniface Amerbach, and it may be dated early in July 1536, perhaps on the 11th, the last sunset that Erasmus was to see. 'I have just visited the Master, but without his knowing. He seems to me to fail very much: for his tongue cleaves to his palate, so that you can scarcely understand him when he speaks. He is drawing his breath so deep and quick, that I cannot but wonder whether he will live through the night. So far he has taken nothing to-day except some chicken-broth. I have sent for Sebastian <Munster, the Hebraist>. If he comes, I will have him introduced into the room, but without the Master's knowledge, in order that he may hear what I have heard. I am sending you this word, so that you may come quickly.'

Erasmus' last words were in his own Dutch speech: 'Liever Got'.

No account of Erasmus must omit to tell how he laboured for peace. Well he might. In his youth he had seen his native Holland torn between the Hoeks and the Cabeljaus, the Duke of Gueldres and the Bishop of Utrecht, with occasional intervention by higher powers. Year after year the war had dragged on, with no decisive settlement, no relief to the poor. One of his friends, Cornelius Gerard, wrote a prose narrative of it; another, William Herman, composed a poem of Holland weeping for her children and would not be comforted. Dulce bellum inexpertis. War sometimes seems purifying and ennobling to those whose own lives have never been jeoparded, who have never seen men die: but not so to those who have known and suffered. Throughout his life Erasmus never wearied of ensuing peace; and for its sake he reproved even kings. In 1504 he was allowed to deliver a panegyric of congratulation before the Archduke Philip the Fair, who had just returned from Spain to the Netherlands; and after sketching a picture of a model prince, inculcated upon him the duty of maintaining peace. In 1514 he wrote to one of his patrons, brother of the Bishop of Cambray, a letter on the wickedness of war, obviously designed for publication and actually translated into German by an admirer a few years later, to give it wider circulation. In 1515 the enlarged Adagia contained an essay on the same theme, under the title quoted above: words which, translated into English, were again and again reprinted during the nineteenth century by Peace Associations and the Society of Friends. In 1516 he was appointed Councillor to Philip's son, Charles, who at 16 had just succeeded to the crowns of Spain. His first offering to his young sovereign was counsel on the training of a Christian prince, with due emphasis on his obligations for peace. In 1517 he greeted the new Bishop of Utrecht, Philip of Burgundy, with a 'Complaint of Peace cast forth from all lands', Querela Pacis vndique profligatae. And besides these direct invocations, in his other writings, his pen frequently returns upon the same high argument. For a brief period in his life it seemed as though peace might come back. Maximilian's death in 1519 followed by Charles' election to the Empire placed the sovereignty of Western and Central Europe in the hands of three young men, who were chivalrous and impressionable, Henry and Francis and Charles: only the year before they had been treating for universal peace. If they would really act in concord, it seemed as though the Golden Age might return, and Christendom show a united face against the watchful and unwearying Turk. But though the sky was clear, the weather was what Oxfordshire folk call foxy. Strife of nations, strife of creeds cannot in a moment be allayed. Suddenly the little clouds upon the horizon swelled up and covered the heaven with the darkness of night; and before the dawn broke into new hope, Erasmus had laid down his pen for ever, and was at rest from his service to the Prince of Peace.

Footnotes