Born in Rotterdam in 1465, died in Switzerland in 1536; an illegitimate son, left an orphan at thirteen and deprived of his inheritance by guardians, who compelled him to enter a monastery; entered in 1491 the services of the Bishop of Cambray, who enabled him to study at the University of Paris; visited England in 1498-99, and again in 1510-14; settled at Basel in 1521; removed to Freiburg in 1529; refused offers of ecclesiastical preferment; endeavored to reform the Church without dismembering it; at first favored, but afterward opposed Luther; published a Latin translation of the New Testament in 1516.
SPECIMENS OF HIS WIT AND WISDOM[39]
Of all birds, the eagle alone has seemed to wise men the apt type of royalty: not beautiful, not musical, not fit for food; but carnivorous, greedy, plundering, destroying, combating, solitary, hateful to all, the curse of all, and with its great powers of doing harm, surpassing them in its desire of doing it.
Princes must be endured, lest tyranny should give way to anarchy, a still greater evil. This has been demonstrated by the experience of many states; and lately the insurrection of the German Boers has taught us that the cruelty of princes is better to be borne than the universal confusion of anarchy.
There is a wretched class of men, of low degree, yet full of malice; not less dingy, nor less filthy, nor less vile than beetles; who nevertheless by a certain obstinate malignity of disposition, tho they can never do good to any mortal, become frequently troublesome to the great. They frighten by their ugliness, they molest by their noise, they offend by their stench; they buzz round us, they cling to us, they lie in ambush for us, so that it is often better to be at enmity with powerful men than to attack these beetles; whom it is a disgrace even to overcome, and whom no one can either shake off or encounter without some pollution.[40]
The generality of mankind place religion in ceremonies or creeds; a certain appointment of psalms, or in bodily exercises. If you examine them about spiritual matters, you will find them merely carnal.
God despised the burnt-offerings, new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, and the appointed feasts of His people, while they were evil-doers, altho He Himself had commanded them; and will any man dare to compare his own paltry institutions with the divine precepts? You may read in Isaiah what contempt and loathing he expresses concerning them. When He speaks of rites, ceremonies, and the multitude of prayers, does He not, as it were, point at those men who measure religion by psalms, prayers, creeds, or other human institutions?
Christ is nothing else than love, simplicity, patience, purity,—in short, all that He himself is; and the devil is nothing but that which draws us away from these ideals.
What shall I say of such as cry up and maintain the cheat of pardons and indulgences? that by these compute the time of each soul's residence in purgatory, and assign them a longer or shorter continuance according as they purchase more or fewer of these paltry pardons? By this easy way of purchasing pardons, any notorious highwayman, any plundering soldier, any bribe-taking judge, shall disburse some part of his unjust gains and so think all his grossest impieties atoned for. So many perjuries, lusts, drunkennesses, quarrels, bloodsheds, cheats, treacheries, debaucheries, shall all be, as it were, struck a bargain for; and such a contract made as if they had paid off all arrears and might now begin a new score.