The Age of Erasmus / Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London

by P. S. Allen

1. They call the Gospels, the Epistles and the Acts, together with the Old Testament where it agrees with the New, 'the Law of Christ'; and they attack and deride the Doctors of the Church.

2. They say the Pope has no more power in administering the sacraments of the Church, and in other ecclesiastical matters, than a simple priest has.

3. They say that in the practice of the Church nothing is to be added to what Christ and the Apostles taught and did.

4. They hold the pure text of the Gospel without any gloss.

5. They allege that the Church is in error, and that they themselves are the brethren of Christ and the true imitators of the Apostles.

Amongst the special errors are denials of the validity of indulgences and of the efficacy of masses for the dead; and the general simplicity of their conduct is shown in their practices at birth and death, baptism requiring only pure water, not holy oil and the chrism, and extreme unction banished from the death-bed.

Finally the good Dominican gives a brief account of the life of these Brethren 'without obedience'. In his preface he expresses his difficulty in gathering the truth about them: 'for they are as inconstant as the moon, and the practices alleged against them in the past are denied by them to-day.' But he concludes honestly that though their faith is 'abhominable' to true Christians, their life is good enough. His good sense is further shown by his refusal to accept an absurd story about their method of choosing their leaders. 'When one of these is to be chosen', so ran the tale, 'the community meets together. And as they sit in silence, the windows being open, a great fly enters and buzzes over them, settling at length on the head of one; who is then set apart for a season. And when he is brought back, he is found to be learned in Latin and theology and whatever else is necessary, though he were rude and ignorant before.' This Lilienstayn finds clearly false: the simple life of the Brethren he illustrates by their practice. 'They have Bibles in Bohemian, which they read. Their women wear veils, and no colours, only black, white and grey. They all labour with their hands.' Thus their life to him was 'good enough'. It may remind us in many points of the Quakers.

The attacks upon them led the Brethren to reply. In 1507 they composed an Apologia addressed to the King, to show that they were not without rule, without law and without obedience, and to defend the manner of their life. This was printed at Nuremberg in 1507, and again in 1518; but of the original editions I have not been able to see a copy. The attacks continued. In 1512 another ponderous volume appeared, composed by Jacob Ziegler, the well-known Bavarian scientist, to demonstrate the falsity of their opinions. What finally impelled the Brethren to court countenance from Erasmus is not clear; possibly the cool reception the Utraquists had had from Luther the year before, with the rather contemptuous suggestion that their style and opinions were more like Erasmus' than his own. The episode has escaped Erasmus' biographers; and I cannot find any mention of it except an allusion in one of his letters, and a description in a treatise on the Brethren by Joachim Camerarius the elder (1500-1574). Camerarius' book was not published till 1605; but we can perhaps trace the source of his information. From 1518 onwards he spent some years at Erfurt. In January 1521 Erasmus describes the visit of the Brethren's envoys as having occurred six months before; at Antwerp, according to Camerarius, where he may be traced in June 1520. If we recall that it was in July that Draco came from Erfurt to pay his visit of homage, it seems quite likely that on his return he may have given to Camerarius the detailed record which the latter has preserved.

By that time Erasmus' name was well known in Central Europe. 'Both from Hungary and Bohemia' he says in 1518 'bishops and men of position write to thank me for my New Testament.' Apart from the learned world there were others, too, who must have known him; for a Bohemian translation had just appeared of the new preface to his Enchiridion, a preface in which he had written with an almost Lutheran freedom about abuses in the Church, and had extolled the life of simple Christianity. This was a book to appeal at once to the Brethren. Another of his works which may have had its effect in attracting them was the Julius Exclusus. This exquisitely witty satire dealt freely with the Pope and his office, the Pope whom the Brethren accounted no more than a simple priest; and though its licence was too bold for Erasmus ever to admit its authorship—indeed, as we have seen, he consistently denied it—, it was attributed to him on all sides, in company with others, his secret being on the whole well kept. The Julius was translated into Bohemian, somewhere about this time: but from the nature of it, a kind of book to which publishers as well as authors were loath to put their names, it cannot be definitely placed. So it was, too, with the Moria, which had been translated by Gregory Hruby Gelenski, father of the scholar, Sigismund Gelenius; but of which no contemporary edition survives.

If the Brethren had seen Erasmus' final letter to Slechta, they might well have been encouraged to hope much from him. But of this there is no indication. Slechta was hardly likely to communicate it to them; and though such documents often leaked out against the owner's will, its first appearance in print was in 1521, in Erasmus' Epistolae ad diuersos. I cannot find any translation into a vernacular except a German version by John Froben of Andernach which appeared at Nuremberg in 1531.