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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erasmus, by Jebb Richard Claverhouse
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Erasmus
-
-Author: Jebb Richard Claverhouse
-
-Release Date: February 20, 2020 [EBook #61464]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERASMUS ***
-
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-Produced by Carlos Colón, the University of California and
-the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
-Libraries.)
-
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-
- ERASMUS.
-
-
-
-
- London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
- CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
- AVE MARIA LANE.
- Glasglow: 263, ARGYLE STREET.
-
-
- [Illustration]
-
-
- Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
- New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
- Bombay: E. SEYMOUR HALE.
-
-
-
-
- ERASMUS
-
- _THE REDE LECTURE
- DELIVERED IN THE SENATE-HOUSE
- ON JUNE 11, 1890_
-
-
- BY
-
- R. C. JEBB, LITT. D.
-
- REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE
- IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
-
-
- SECOND EDITION.
-
-
- CAMBRIDGE:
- AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
- 1897
-
-
-
-
- Cambridge:
- PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
- AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
-
-
-
-
-ERASMUS.
-
-
-Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam on the 27th of October,
-1467. His father, Gerhard de Praet, belonged to a respectable family
-at Gouda, a small town of south Holland, not far from Rotterdam: his
-mother, Margaret, was the daughter of a physician at Sevenberg in
-Brabant. Gerhard's parents were resolved that he should become a monk.
-Meanwhile he was secretly betrothed to Margaret. His family succeeded
-in preventing their marriage, but not their union. After the birth of
-a son--the elder and only brother of Erasmus--Gerhard fled to Rome. A
-false rumour of Margaret's death there induced him, in his despair, to
-enter the priesthood. On returning to Holland, he found Margaret living
-at Gouda with his two boys. He was true to the irrevocable vows which
-parted him from her. After a few years, during which the supervision of
-their children's education had been a common solace, she died, while
-still young; and Gerhard, broken-hearted, soon followed her to the
-grave.
-
-The boy afterwards so famous had been given his father's Christian
-name, Gerhard, meaning 'beloved.' Desiderius is barbarous Latin for
-that, and Erasmus is barbarous Greek for it. If the great scholar
-devised those appellations for himself, it must have been at an early
-age. Afterwards, when he stood godfather to the son of his friend
-Froben the printer, he gave the boy the correct form of his own second
-name,--viz., Erasmius. The combination, Desiderius Erasmus, is probably
-due to the fact that he had been known as Gerhard Gerhardson. It was a
-singular fortune for a master of literary style to be designated by two
-words which mean the same thing, and are both incorrect.
-
-He was sent to school at Gouda when he was four years old. Here it was
-perceived that he had a fine voice; and so he was taken to Utrecht, and
-placed in the Cathedral choir. But he had no gift for music. At nine
-years of age he was removed from Utrecht to a good school at Deventer.
-His precocious genius soon showed itself, and his future eminence was
-predicted by the famous Rudolph Agricola--one of the first men who
-brought the new learning across the Alps.
-
-Erasmus was only thirteen when he lost both parents, and was left
-to the care of three guardians. They wished him to become a monk:
-it was the simplest way to dispose of a ward. The boy loathed the
-idea; he knew his father's story; and now it seemed as if the same
-shadow was to fall on his own life also. However, the guardians sent
-him to a monastic seminary at Hertogenbosch, where the brethren
-undertook to prepare youth for the cloister. The three years which
-he spent there--_i.e._, from thirteen to sixteen--were wholly wasted
-and miserable: he learned nothing, and his health, never strong,
-was injured by cruel severities. 'The plan of these men,' he said
-afterwards, 'when they see a boy of high and lively spirit, is to
-break and humble it by stripes, by threats, by reproaches, and various
-other means.' The struggle with the monks and his guardians was a long
-one; when menaces failed, they tried blandishments,--especially they
-promised him a paradise of literary leisure. At last he gave in. When
-he was about eighteen, he took the vows of a Canon Regular of the order
-of St Augustine. Looking back afterwards on the arts by which he had
-been won, he asks, 'What is kidnapping, if this is not?'
-
-The next five years--till he was twenty-three--were spent in his
-monastery at Stein, near Gouda. The general life of the place was
-odious to him; but he found one friend, named William Hermann. They
-used to read the Latin classics together--secretly, for such studies
-were viewed with some suspicion. It was then that he laid the basis of
-his Latin style, and became thoroughly familiar with some of the best
-Latin authors.
-
-In 1491 he left the monastery, having been invited by the Bishop of
-Cambray, Henry de Bergis, to reside with him as his secretary. Soon
-afterwards he took orders; and the Bishop subsequently enabled him to
-enter the University of Paris, for the purpose of studying theology. He
-was then, perhaps, about twenty-seven years of age.
-
-At this point we may attempt,--aided by Holbein, and by tradition--to
-form some idea of his personal appearance. Erasmus was a rather small
-man, slight, but well-built; he had, as became a Teuton, blue eyes,
-yellowish or light brown hair, and a fair complexion. The face is a
-remarkable one. It has two chief characteristics,--quiet, watchful
-sagacity,--and humour, half playful, half sarcastic. The eyes are
-calm, critical, steadily observant, with a half-latent twinkle in them;
-the nose is straight, rather long, and pointed; the rippling curves of
-the large mouth indicate a certain energetic vivacity of temperament,
-and tenacity of purpose; while the pose of the head suggests vigilant
-caution, almost timidity. As we continue to study the features, they
-speak more and more clearly of insight and refinement; of a worldly yet
-very gentle shrewdness; of cheerful self-mastery; and of a mind which
-has its weapons ready at every instant. But there is no suggestion of
-enthusiasm,--unless it be the literary enthusiasm of a student. It is
-difficult to imagine those cool eyes kindled by any glow of passion, or
-that genial serenity broken by a spiritual struggle. This man, we feel,
-would be an intellectual champion of truth and reason; his wit might be
-as the spear of Ithuriel, and his satire as the sword of Gideon; but he
-has not the face of a hero or a martyr.
-
-On entering the University of Paris, Erasmus took up his residence at
-the Montaigu College. It was on the south side of the Seine, not far
-from the Sorbonne, and is said to have stood on the site now occupied
-by the Library of St. Geneviève. The Rector of the College was a man
-of estimable character; but he believed in extreme privation--which
-he had himself endured in youth--as the best school for students of
-theology. Erasmus has described the life there. The work imposed on
-the students was excessively severe. They were also half starved; meat
-was proscribed altogether; eggs, usually the reverse of fresh, formed
-the staple of food; the inmates had to fetch their drinking water from
-a polluted well. When wine was allowed, it was such as implied by the
-nickname 'Vinegar College' (a Latin pun on Montaigu). Many of the
-sleeping-rooms were on a ground-floor where the plaster was mouldering
-on the damp walls, and in such a neighbourhood that the air breathed
-by the sleepers--when they could sleep--was pestilential. One year's
-experience of this place--these are the words of Erasmus--doomed many
-youths of the brightest gifts and promise either to death, or to
-blindness, or to madness, or to leprosy; 'some of these,' he says, 'I
-knew myself,--and assuredly every one of us ran the danger.' Similar
-testimony is given by his younger contemporary, Rabelais:--'The unhappy
-creatures at that College are treated worse than galley-slaves among
-the Moors and Tartars, or than murderers in a criminal prison.'
-
-No wonder Erasmus, a delicate man at the best, soon fell ill; indeed,
-his constitution was permanently impaired. He went back to the Bishop
-at Cambray. Then, after a short visit to Holland, he returned to
-Paris--but not to the Montaigu College. He rented a one-room lodging,
-and resolved to support himself during his University course by taking
-private pupils. It was a hard struggle that he went through then; but
-better days were at hand. He had already become known in Paris as a
-scholar of brilliant promise, and especially as an admirable Latinist.
-Latin was then the general language, not only of learning, but of
-polite intercourse between persons of different nationalities; and to
-speak Latin with fluent grace--an art in which Erasmus was already
-pre-eminent--was the best passport to cultivated society in Paris,
-whose University attracted students from all countries. Then he had
-a bright and nimble fancy, a keen sense of humour, a frank manner,
-and also rare tact; in short, he was a delightful companion, without
-ever seeking to dominate his company. One of his pupils was a young
-Englishman, William Blunt, Lord Mountjoy, who was studying at Paris.
-Mountjoy settled an annual pension of a hundred crowns on Erasmus, and
-presently persuaded him to visit England.
-
-This was in 1498. Erasmus was now thirty-one. For eighteen years--ever
-since he left the school at Deventer--his life had been a hard one.
-The coarse rigours of Hertogenbosch, the midnight oil of Stein, the
-miseries of the Montaigu College, the later battle with poverty
-in Paris--all these had left their marks on that slight form, and
-that keen, calm face. Men who met him in England must have found it
-difficult to believe that he was so young. The sallow cheeks, the
-sunken eyes, the bent shoulders, the worn air of the whole man seemed
-to speak of a more advanced age. But neither then, nor at any later
-time, was he other than youthful in buoyant vivacity of spirit, in
-restless activity of mind, in untiring capacity for work.
-
-And now a new world opened before him. In England he was not only an
-honoured guest, but, for the first time, perhaps, since he left school,
-he found himself among men from whom he had something to learn. He went
-to Oxford, with a letter of introduction to Richard Charnock, Prior
-of a house of his own order, the Canons Regular of St Augustine, and
-was hospitably received by him in the College of St Mary the Virgin.
-At that time the scholastic theology and philosophy still held the
-field in both the English Universities--as everywhere else, north of
-the Alps. But at Oxford there were a few eminent men who had studied
-the new learning in Italy, and had brought the love for it home with
-them. Erasmus was just too late to see William Selling of All Souls
-College, who died in 1495,--one of the first Englishmen who endeavoured
-to introduce Greek studies in this country. And he was too early to
-meet William Lilly, who was still abroad then. But he met some other
-scholars who were among the earliest teachers or advocates of Greek
-at Oxford,--William Grocyn, William Latimer, and Thomas Linacre;--the
-last-named, who became Founder of the Royal College of Physicians,
-had studied at Florence under Politian and Chalcondyles. Erasmus
-speaks with especial praise of Grocyn's comprehensive learning, and of
-Linacre's finished taste. It is certain that his intercourse with the
-Oxford Hellenists must have been both instructive and stimulating to
-him; we can see, too, that it strengthened his desire to visit Italy.
-On the other hand, his letters show that when he left Oxford in 1500,
-he had not advanced far in the study of Greek. The years from 1500 to
-1505, during which he worked intensely hard at Greek by himself in
-Paris, were those in which his knowledge of that language was chiefly
-built up.
-
-The two Oxonians with whom Erasmus formed the closest friendship
-were John Colet and Thomas More. Colet was just a year his senior,
-and was then lecturing on St Paul's Epistles in what was quite a
-new way,--endeavouring to bring out their meaning historically and
-practically. He was not a Greek scholar; but it was he who, more than
-anyone else, encouraged Erasmus to print the New Testament in the
-original tongue. Thomas More, who was then a youth of twenty, had left
-Oxford, and was reading law in London, where Erasmus first met him. The
-story that they met at dinner, and that, before an introduction, each
-recognised the other by his wit, is perhaps apocryphal. At any rate, it
-expresses the truth that such perfectly congenial minds would be drawn
-to each other at once.
-
-In the winter of 1499 Erasmus visited Lord Mountjoy at Greenwich. It
-would seem, too, that he had a glimpse of Henry VII.'s Court. He writes
-that he has become 'a better horse-man, and a tolerable courtier.' In
-January, 1500, just before Erasmus left England, Thomas More went down
-from London to Greenwich, to say farewell,--bringing with him another
-young lawyer named Arnold. More proposed a walk, and took his friends
-to call at a large house in the neighbouring village of Eltham. They
-were shown into a hall where some children were at play: it was, in
-fact, the royal nursery. The eldest, a boy of nine years old, was the
-future Henry VIII.; he was not then Prince of Wales, but Duke of
-York, his brother Arthur being still alive. The tutor in charge of
-the children was John Skelton, the poet. Three days afterwards, in
-fulfilment of a promise, Erasmus sent the little Prince a Latin poem;
-it is in praise of England, and of Henry VII. There is no doubt that
-the praise of England came from his heart: his letters show that.
-
-At the end of January, 1500, he sailed from Dover for France. A
-serious mishap befell him just before he went on board. He carried
-with him a considerable sum of money, contributed by friends for the
-purpose of enabling him to visit Italy. The custom-house officers at
-Dover deprived him of nearly the whole, on plea of a law forbidding
-the exportation of gold coin of the realm above a certain amount. His
-friends at court afterwards tried to recover it for him,--but in vain.
-On reaching Paris, he fell ill. When he recovered, he set hard to work.
-The next five years were spent chiefly at Paris, with occasional visits
-to Orleans or the Netherlands. They form a quiet yet memorable period
-of his life. In 1500 he published his first collection of proverbial
-sayings from the classics,--the _Adagia_,--which, in its enlarged
-form, afterwards brought him so much fame. And during these years his
-incessant labour at Greek gradually qualified him for yet greater
-tasks. He had no teacher in Paris; and, though not absolutely in want,
-he had difficulty in buying all the books that he required.
-
-Towards the end of 1505 Erasmus paid a second visit to
-England,--staying only about six months. On this occasion he visited
-Cambridge. The Grace Book of our University shows that permission was
-given to Desiderius Erasmus to take the degrees of B.D. and D.D. by
-accumulation. It would seem, however, that he took the degree of B.D.
-only; so Dr John Caius says, and he must be right, if it is true that
-in the doctor's diploma which Erasmus received at Turin in 1506 he
-was described as a bachelor of theology. Had he possessed the higher
-degree, it would have been mentioned in the Turin document. During this
-second visit he saw a good deal of More and other old acquaintances.
-Grocyn took him to Lambeth, and introduced him to Warham, Archbishop of
-Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England,--who, in the sequel, was one
-of his best friends.
-
-He had now become able to realise the dream of his youth--to visit
-Italy. It was arranged that he should accompany the two sons of Dr
-Baptista Boyer, chief physician to Henry VII., who were going to Genoa;
-a royal courier was to escort them as far as Bologna. The party left
-Dover in the spring of 1506, and were tossed about for four days in
-the Channel. After a rest at Paris, they set out on horse-back for
-Turin. Erasmus has vividly described the squalid German inns, which he
-contrasts with those of France. Another discomfort of the journey was
-that the tutor and the courier quarrelled a good deal. At Turin--his
-companions having left him--he stayed several weeks, and received from
-the University the degree of Doctor in Theology.
-
-The stay of Erasmus in Italy lasted three years--from the summer of
-1506 to that of 1509. It is well to remember what was the general
-state of things in Italy at that time,--for the impressions which
-Erasmus received there had a strong and lasting effect upon his mind.
-In literature the humanistic revival had now passed its zenith, and
-was declining into that frivolous pedantry which Erasmus afterwards
-satirised in the 'Ciceronian.' Architecture, sculpture and painting
-were indeed active; Bramante, Michael Angelo and Raphael were at
-work. But the fact which chiefly arrested the attention of Erasmus
-was that Italian soil was the common ground on which the princes of
-Europe were prosecuting their intricate ambitions, and that the Pope
-had unsheathed the sword in pursuit of temporal advantage. Julius
-II. was already an elderly man, but full of military ardour. Venice
-seemed to be his ulterior object; meanwhile, in the autumn of 1506,
-he had reduced Perugia and Bologna. Erasmus was in Bologna when the
-Pope entered in November, and the late roses of that strangely mild
-autumn were strewn in his path by the shouting multitudes who hailed
-him as a warrior equal to his Roman namesake of old, the conqueror
-of Gaul. Erasmus was at Rome, too, in the following March, when the
-Pope celebrated his triumph with a martial pomp which no Caesar could
-have surpassed. Then came the revolt of Genoa from France,--the futile
-war of Maximilian, 'Emperor Elect,' against Venice,--and lastly the
-iniquitous League of Cambray, by which Maximilian, the Pope, Louis XII.
-and Ferdinand of Spain banded themselves together for the spoliation of
-the Venetian Republic. Such things as these sank deep into the heart
-of Erasmus. 'When princes purpose to exhaust a commonwealth'--he wrote
-afterwards--'they speak of a just war; when they unite for that object,
-they call it peace.'
-
-But there was a bright side also to his years in Italy; in many places
-he enjoyed intercourse with learned men; and he formed some enduring
-friendships. At Venice he spent several months with Aldus in 1508,
-and saw an enlarged edition of the _Adagia_ through his famous press.
-The kind of reputation which he had now won may be seen from his own
-account of his visit to Cardinal Grimani at Rome, in 1509: it is a
-characteristic little story, and ought to be told in his own words.
-'There was no one to be seen in the courtyard of the Cardinal's
-palace,' he says, 'or in the entrance-hall.... I went upstairs alone.
-I passed through the first, the second, the third room;--still no one
-to be seen, and not a door shut; I could not help wondering at the
-solitude. Coming to the last room, I there found only one person,--a
-Greek, I thought,--a physician,--with his head shaved, standing at the
-open door. I asked him if I could see the Cardinal; he replied that he
-was in an inner room, with some visitors. As I said no more, he asked
-me my business. I replied, 'I wished to pay my respects to him, if it
-had been convenient, but as he is engaged, I will call again.' I was
-just going away, but paused at a window to look at the view; the Greek
-came back to me, and asked if I wished to leave any message. 'You need
-not disturb him,' I said,--'I will call again soon.' Then he asked my
-name, and I told him. The instant he heard it, before I could stop him,
-he hurried into the inner room, and quickly returning, begged me not to
-go--I should be admitted directly. The Cardinal received me, not as a
-man of his high degree might have received one of my humble condition,
-but like an equal: a chair was placed for me, and we conversed for
-more than two hours. He would not even allow me to be uncovered,--a
-wonderful condescension in a man of his rank. Grimani pressed Erasmus
-to stay permanently at Rome. But he replied that he had just received a
-summons to England, which left him no choice.
-
-In the April of that year, 1509, the little boy whom Erasmus had seen
-in the nursery at Eltham had become Henry VIII.; and in May, Mountjoy
-had written to his old tutor, urging him to return. Erasmus reached
-England early in the summer of 1510. Soon afterwards, in More's house
-at Bucklersbury, he rapidly wrote his famous satire, the _Encomium
-Moriac_, or 'Praise of Folly,' in which Folly celebrates her own
-praises as the great source of human pleasures. He had been meditating
-this piece on the long journey from Rome; it is a kaleidoscope of
-his experiences in Italy, and of earlier memories. As to the title,
-_Moria_, the Greek word for 'folly,' was a playful allusion, of course,
-to the name of his wise and witty host. This 'Praise of Folly' is
-a satire, not only in the modern but in the original sense of that
-word,--a medley. All classes, all callings, are sportively viewed on
-the weak side. But in relation to the author's own life and times,
-the most important topics are the various abuses in the Church, the
-pedantries of the schoolmen, and the selfish wars of kings. If this
-eloquent Folly, as Erasmus presents her, most often wears the mocking
-smile of Lucian or Voltaire, there are moments also when she wields the
-terrible lash of Juvenal or of Swift. The popularity of the satire,
-throughout Europe, was boundless. The mask of jest which it wore was
-its safeguard; how undignified, how absurd it would have been for a
-Pope or a King to care what was said by Folly! And, just for that
-reason, the _Encomium Moriae_ must be reckoned among the forces which
-prepared the Reformation.
-
-Where was Erasmus to settle now? That was the great question for him.
-He decided it by going to Cambridge, on the invitation of Fisher,
-the Bishop of Rochester, who was then Chancellor of the University.
-Rooms were assigned to him in Queens' College, of which Fisher had
-been President a few years before. In that beautiful old cloister at
-Queens', where the spirit of the fifteenth century seems to linger,
-an entrance at the south-east corner gives access to a small court
-which is known as the court of Erasmus. His lodgings were in a square
-turret of red brick at the south-east angle of the court. His study
-was probably a good-sized room which is now used as a lecture-room; on
-the floor above this was his bedroom, with an adjoining attic for his
-servant. From the south windows of these rooms--looking on the modern
-Silver Street--he had a wide view over what was then open country,
-interspersed with cornfields; the windings of the river could be seen
-as far as the Trumpington woods. The walk on the west side of the
-Cam, which is called the walk of Erasmus, was not laid out till 1684:
-in his time it was open ground, with probably no trees upon it. His
-first letter from Cambridge is dated Dec. 1510, and this date must
-be right, or nearly so. He says himself that he taught Greek here
-before he lectured on theology; and also that, after his arrival, the
-commencement of his Greek teaching was delayed by ill-health. Now he
-was elected to the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity in 1511, and
-in those days the election was ordered to take place on the last day
-of term before the Long Vacation. His residence, then, can hardly have
-begun later than the early part of 1511.
-
-It is interesting to think of him--now a man of forty-four, but
-prematurely old in appearance--moving about the narrow streets or quiet
-courts of that medieval Cambridge which was just about to become the
-modern--a transformation due, in no small measure, to the influence
-of his own labours. Eleven of our Colleges existed. Peterhouse was in
-the third century of its life; others also were of a venerable age.
-Erasmus would have heard the rumour that a house of his own order, the
-Hospital of the Brethren of St John, was about to be merged in a new
-and more splendid foundation, the College of St John the Evangelist.
-Where Trinity College now stands, he would have seen the separate
-institutions which, after another generation, were to be united by
-Henry VIII.; he would have seen a hostel of the Benedictines where
-Magdalene College was soon to arise; the Franciscans on the site of
-Sidney Sussex, and the Dominicans on the site of Emmanuel. North of
-Queens' College, he would have found the convent of the Carmelites; and
-then, rising in lonely majesty--with no other College buildings as yet
-on its south side--the chapel of King's, completed as to the walls, but
-not yet roofed.
-
-When Erasmus began his Greek lectures in his rooms at Queens', his
-text-book was the elementary grammar of Manuel Chrysoloras, entitled
-the 'Questions',--which had been the standard book all through the
-fifteenth century. He next took up the larger and more advanced grammar
-of Theodorus Gaza, published in 1495,--which he afterwards translated
-into Latin. We have a specimen of his own Greek composition at this
-period. In 1511 he went from Cambridge to visit the celebrated shrine
-of the Virgin at Walsingham in Norfolk--the same where, two years
-later, Queen Catherine gave thanks after the battle of Flodden. As a
-votive offering, he hung up on the wall a short set of Greek iambics,
-which are extant: they are to the effect that, while others bring rich
-gifts and crave worldly blessings, he asks only for a pure heart. There
-are some faults of metre, but the diction is classical and idiomatic:
-probably no one in Europe at that time, unless it were Budaeus, could
-have written better. When Erasmus revisited Walsingham a little later,
-he found that these verses had sorely puzzled the monks and their
-friends; there had been much wiping of eye-glasses; and opinions
-differed as to whether the characters were Arabic, or purely arbitrary.
-Erasmus did not get many hearers for his Greek lectures, and was rather
-disappointed; but some, at least, of his pupils were ardent; thus he
-describes Henry Bullock of Queens'--the 'Bovillus' of his letters--as
-'working hard at Greek.' And the impulse which he gave can be judged
-from the rapid progress of the new learning at Cambridge. Writing to
-him in 1516--three years after he had left--Bullock says, 'people here
-are devoting themselves eagerly to Greek literature.' In a letter to
-Everard, the Stadtholder of Holland, in 1520, Erasmus says:--'Theology
-is flourishing at Paris and at Cambridge as nowhere else: and why?
-Because they are adapting themselves to the tendencies of the age;
-because the new studies, which are ready, if need be, to storm an
-entrance, are not repelled by them as foes, but received as welcome
-guests.' In another letter he remarks that, while Greek studies have
-been instituted in both the English Universities, at Cambridge they
-are pursued peacefully (_tranquille_),--owing, he says, to Fisher's
-influence. He is alluding to those struggles at Oxford between the
-adherents of the schoolmen and the new learning which came to a head in
-the 'Trojan' and 'Grecian' riots of 1519, and led to Wolsey's founding
-the readership of Greek. Oxford had been, in England, the great
-theological University of the middle ages, and the scholastic system
-died hardest there.
-
-Erasmus taught Greek without any formal appointment, so far as we know,
-from the University; though Fisher, the Chancellor, may have arranged
-that he should receive a stipend. The first man formally appointed
-Greek reader was Richard Croke in 1519; who speaks, indeed, of Erasmus
-as having been 'professor of Greek,' but probably means simply
-lecturer. The official status of Erasmus was that of Lady Margaret
-Professor of Divinity. The election to the Chair was then biennial.
-At the end of his term--_i.e._, in the summer of 1513--Erasmus was
-re-elected. This is a noteworthy fact. The electing body comprised the
-whole Faculty of Theology, regulars as well as seculars. The 'Praise of
-Folly' must by that time have been well-known here. If Erasmus was not
-universally acceptable to the schoolmen or to the monks of Cambridge,
-at any rate the general respect for his character and attainments
-carried the day.
-
-When we try to imagine him in his rooms at Queens', we are not to
-picture him as a popular teacher, with the youth of the university
-crowding to learn from him; his life here was that of a recluse
-student, in weak health, whose surroundings were in some respects
-uncongenial to him, but who had a group of devoted pupils, and some
-chosen older friends. From 1508 to the end of his life he suffered
-from a painful organic disease, which obliged him to be careful of his
-diet. When he dined in the old College hall at Queens', above the west
-cloister--now part of the President's Lodge--the ghosts of the College
-benefactors, whose heads are carved on the oak wainscoting, would have
-been grieved if they could have known what he thought of Cambridge
-beverages; he writes to his Italian friend Ammonius--afterwards
-Latin Secretary to Henry VIII.--begging for a cask of Greek wine.
-His favourite exercise was riding; and he made frequent excursions.
-Meanwhile he accomplished a surprising amount of work. He was busy
-with the text of Seneca, with translations from Basil, with Latin
-manuals for St Paul's School, just founded by his friend Colet--and
-with much else. It was here that he began revising the text of Jerome's
-works. 'My mind is in such a glow over Jerome,' he writes, 'that I
-could fancy myself actually inspired.' But there is one labour above
-all that entitles those rooms in the old tower at Queens' to be
-reckoned among the sacred places of literature. It was there in 1512
-that the Lady Margaret Professor completed a collation of the Greek
-Text of the New Testament. Four years later, his edition--the first
-ever published--appeared at Basle.
-
-In 1513 Cambridge was visited by the plague, and nearly every one
-fled from it. During some months of the autumn, Erasmus had scarcely
-heard a foot-fall in the cloister beneath his rooms. At the end of the
-year, he finally left the University. Some of his reasons for going
-can be conjectured from his letters. They express disappointment with
-England; and they speak of poverty. It is well to observe the sense
-in which these complaints are to be understood. After 1510 Erasmus was
-never actually indigent. Archbishop Warham had offered him the Rectory
-of Aldington in Kent; Erasmus declined it, because he could not speak
-English--he never learned any modern language, and besides his own
-vernacular, spoke Latin only: then Warham gave him a pension from the
-benefice. Fisher and Mountjoy were also liberal. At Cambridge, with
-these resources, and the stipend of his Chair, it has been computed
-that his income must have been equivalent to about £700 at the present
-day. But his mode of living, though not profuse, was not frugal. Thus
-he himself enumerates the following heads of his expenditure;--servants
-('_famulorum_')--the aid of amanuenses--the cost of keeping a horse,
-or horses (ιπποτροφἱá)--frequent journeys--and social or charitable
-obligations: he disliked, he says, to be penurious ('_hic animus
-abhorrens a sordibus_'). The fact seems to be that he had formed
-exaggerated hopes of what Henry VIII. would do for him. His immediate
-motive for departure, however, was probably the desire to supervise the
-printing of the Greek Testament. There was then no English press where
-such a work could be done so well as abroad. He had heard that Froben,
-the famous printer at Basle, was about to publish the works of Jerome;
-and to Basle he went. Another circumstance helped to decide him. Prince
-Charles,--afterwards the Emperor Charles V.,--had offered him the post
-of honorary privy-councillor, with a pension,--and this without binding
-him to live in the Netherlands. At this time Erasmus would have been
-welcomed in any country of Europe; Cardinal Canossa, the Papal legate,
-was anxious to secure him for Rome. At a later period, when his fame
-stood yet higher, Henry VIII. would have been glad to lure him back;
-but it was then too late.
-
-So, in 1514, Erasmus left England--not to return, except for a few
-months in the following year. He was now forty-seven. Twenty-two years
-of life remained to him. The history of these years is essentially that
-of his untiring and astonishing literary activity. In his external
-life there is little to record beyond changes of residence,--from
-Basle to the University of Louvain in Brabant,--from Louvain back to
-Basle,--from Basle to Freiburg,--and once more to Basle, where, in
-1536, he died. The clue to this later period is given by two threads,
-which are indeed but strands of a single cord,--his influence on the
-revival of learning, and his attitude towards the Reformation.
-
-In the younger days of Erasmus the Italian cultivation of classical
-literature had attained its highest point, and was already verging
-towards decline. More than a century had passed since Petrarch
-had kindled the first enthusiasm. It requires some effort of the
-imagination for us to realise what that movement meant. The men of the
-fourteenth century lived under a Church which claimed the surrender
-of the reason, not only in matters of faith, but in all knowledge:
-philosophy and science could speak only by the doctors whom she
-sanctioned. When the fourteenth century began to study the classics,
-the first feeling was one of joy in the newly revealed dignity of the
-human mind; it was a strange and delightful thing, as they gradually
-came to know the great writers of ancient Greece and Rome, to see the
-reason moving freely, exploring, speculating, discussing, without
-restraint. And then those children of the middle age were surprised
-and charmed by the forms of classical expression,--so different from
-anything that had been familiar to them. Borrowing an old Latin word,
-they called this new learning _humanity_; for them, however, the phrase
-had a depth of meaning undreamt of by Cicero. Now, for the first time,
-they felt that they had entered into full possession of themselves;
-nothing is more characteristic of the Italian renaissance than the
-self-asserting individuality of the chief actors; each strives to throw
-the work of his own spirit into relief; the common life falls into the
-background; the history of that age is the history of men rather than
-of communities.
-
-In the progress of this Italian humanism three chief phases may be
-roughly distinguished. The first closes with the end of the fourteenth
-century,--the time of Petrarch and his immediate followers,--the
-morning-time of discovery. Then, in the first half of the fifteenth
-century, the discovered materials were classified, and organised
-in great libraries; Greek manuscripts, too, were translated into
-Latin,--not that the versions might be taken as substitutes for the
-original, but to aid the study of Greek itself. The men of this second
-period were gathered around Cosmo de' Medici at Florence, or Nicholas
-V. at Rome. The third stage was that in which criticism, both of form
-and of matter, was carried to a higher level, chiefly by the joint
-efforts of scholars grouped in select societies or academies, such as
-the Platonic academy at Florence, of which Ficino was the centre.
-The greatest man of this time,--the greatest genius of the literary
-renaissance in Italy,--was Angelo Poliziano; he died in 1494, when
-Erasmus was twenty-seven.
-
-With Erasmus a new period opens. Two things broadly distinguish him,
-as a scholar, from the men before and after him. First, he was not
-only a refined humanist, writing for the fastidious few, and prizing
-no judgment but theirs; he took the most profitable authors of
-antiquity,--profitable in a moral as well as a literary sense,--chose
-out the best things in them,--and sought to make these things widely
-known,--applying their wisdom or wit to the circumstances of his own
-day. Secondly, in all his work he had an educational aim,--and this
-of the largest kind. The evils of his age,--in Church, in State,
-in the daily lives of men,--seemed to him to have their roots in
-ignorance,--ignorance of what Christianity meant,--ignorance of what
-the Bible taught,--ignorance of what the noblest and most gifted minds
-of the past, whether Christian or pagan, had contributed to the
-instruction of the human race. Let true knowledge only spread, and
-under its enlightening and humanising influence a purer religion and a
-better morality will gradually prevail. Erasmus was a man of the world;
-but with his keen intellect, so quickly susceptible to all impressions,
-he made the mistake, not uncommon for such temperaments, of overrating
-the rapidity with which intellectual influences permeate the masses of
-mankind. However, no one was ever more persistently or brilliantly true
-to an idea than Erasmus was to his; and it is wonderful how much he
-achieved.
-
-His services to the new learning took various forms. He wrote
-school-books, bringing out his view that boys were kept too long
-over grammar, and ought to begin reading some good author as soon
-as possible. His own _Colloquies_ were meant partly as models of
-colloquial Latin; the book was long a standard one in education. These
-lively dialogues are prose idylls with an ethical purpose,--the
-dramatic expression of the writer's views on the life of the day. Thus
-the dialogue between the Learned Lady and the Abbot depicts monastic
-illiteracy; that between the Soldier and the Carthusian brings out the
-seamy side of the military calling. Lucian has influenced the form;
-but the dramatic skill which blends earnestness with humour is the
-author's own; there are touches here and there which might fairly be
-called Shakspearian. Then he made collections of striking thoughts and
-fine passages in the classics. His chief book of this kind was the
-_Adagia_. Many of the classical proverbs are made texts for little
-essays on the affairs of the day. Thus he takes up a Latin proverb,
-'The beetle pursues the eagle'--based on the fable of the beetle
-avenging itself for an insult by destroying the eagle's eggs--the moral
-being that the most exalted wrong-doer is never safe from the vengeance
-of the humblest victim. This suggests to him an ingenious satire on
-the misdeeds of great princes--typified by the eagle--and their
-results. Later in life, he brought out the _Apophthegms_--a collection
-of good sayings, chiefly from Plutarch. His editions of classical
-authors were numerous: the best was that of Terence,--his favourite
-poet; the next best was that of Seneca. His principal editions of
-Greek authors belong to the last five years of his life, and were less
-important. Speaking of these editions generally, we may say that they
-were valuable in two ways,--by making the authors themselves more
-accessible, and by furnishing improved texts. Then he made many Latin
-translations from Greek poetry and prose. Mention is due also to his
-dialogue on the pronunciation of Greek and Latin,--published in 1528.
-It was especially a protest against the confusion of the vowels in
-the modern Greek pronunciation, and against the modern disregard of
-quantity in favour of the stress accent. His views ultimately fixed
-the continental pronunciation of Greek, which is still known in Greece
-by his name (ἡ 'Ερáσμου προφορá). At Cambridge it was introduced a
-little later by Thomas Smith and John Cheke. Along with this dialogue
-appeared another,--the amusing _Ciceronian_. It is an appeal to
-common-sense against an absurd affectation which marked the dotage of
-Italian humanism. Bembo and his disciples would not use a single word
-or phrase which did not occur in Cicero. Their purism moreover rejected
-all modern terms: a Cardinal became an 'augur,' a nun a 'vestal,' the
-Papal tiara was 'the fillet of Romulus.' Most ludicrous of all, because
-Cicero was a statesman, the modern Ciceronian, writing to his friends
-from the profound seclusion of his study, deemed it a stylistic duty to
-imply that he lived in a vortex of politics. The gist of what Erasmus
-says is merely that other ancients besides Cicero wrote good Latin, and
-that a true Ciceronianism would adjust itself to its surroundings. No
-one, it should be added, had a more intelligent admiration for Cicero
-than Erasmus himself.
-
-We see, then, the peculiar place which he holds in the history of
-the new learning. It may be allowed that, if the study of classical
-antiquity be viewed as a progressive science, he did much less to
-advance it than was done by some other great scholars of a later
-period. He did not enlarge the boundaries of knowledge in that field
-as they were afterwards enlarged by the special labours of Joseph
-Scaliger, of Isaac Casaubon, or of Richard Bentley. But the work which
-Erasmus did was one which, at that time, was of the first necessity
-for the northern nations. In his genial, popular way he made them feel
-the value and charm of the classics as literature; he himself was, in
-fact, a learned man of letters rather than a critical specialist. Let
-us remember what the state of northern Europe, as regards literature,
-was in his boyhood. It was sunk,--to use his own words,--in utter
-barbarism. To know Greek was the next thing to heresy. 'I did my
-best,' he says, 'to deliver the rising generation from this slough of
-ignorance, and to inspire them with a taste for better studies. I
-wrote, not for Italy, but for Germany and the Netherlands.'
-
-The circulation of his more popular writings, all over Europe, was
-so enormous that one can compare it only to that of some widely-read
-modern journal, or of some extraordinarily popular novel. For instance,
-a Paris bookseller once heard, or invented, a rumour that the Sorbonne
-was going to condemn the _Colloquies_ of Erasmus as heretical; and,
-being a shrewd man, he instantly printed a new edition of 24,000
-copies. A moral treatise by Erasmus, called the _Enchiridion_ ('the
-Christian Soldier's Dagger'), which was a favourite alike with
-Catholics and with Protestants, was translated into every language
-of Europe. A Spanish ecclesiastic, writing in 1527, declares that a
-version of it was in the hands of all classes throughout Spain,--even
-the smallest country inn could usually show a copy. It may be doubted
-whether any author's works were ever so frequently reprinted within
-his life-time as were those of Erasmus. And wherever his books went,
-they carried with them the influence of his spirit,--his love of
-good literature, his loyalty to reason, his quiet common-sense, his
-hatred of war, his versatile wit, nourished by varied observation of
-life,--wit which could play gracefully around the slightest theme, or
-strike with a keen edge at falsehood and wrong,--his desire to make it
-felt that a good life is not an affair of formal observance, but must
-begin in the heart.
-
-The works which entitle Erasmus to be called the parent of Biblical
-criticism are connected with his secular studies by a closer tie than
-might appear at first sight. His principal concern was always with
-literature as such; he was, moreover, a practical moralist, anxious to
-aid in correcting the evils of his time: but he was not distinctively
-a theologian; and towards dogmatic theology, in particular, he had
-little inclination. Now, in pursuing his paramount aim--to make the
-world better by the humanising influences of literature--the enemy
-with which he had to do battle was the scholastic philosophy. Hear his
-words when he is asking how Christians are to convert Turks:--'Shall we
-put into their hands an Occam, a Durandus, a Scotus, a Gabriel, or an
-Alvarus? What will they think of us, when they hear of our perplexed
-subtleties about Instants, Formalities, Quiddities, and Relations?'
-This was the dreary wilderness of pedantry that had hitherto passed for
-knowledge. And the scholastic philosophy was securely entrenched behind
-the scholastic theology. The weapons of that theology were Biblical
-texts, isolated from their context, and artificially interpreted:
-the one way to disarm it was to make men know what the Bible really
-said and meant. Therefore Erasmus felt that his first duty, both as a
-moralist and as a man of letters, was to promote a knowledge of the
-Bible. He was not a Hebrew scholar, and could do nothing at first
-hand with the Old Testament; that province was left to Reuchlin. But
-in 1516 he published the Greek Testament,--the first edition which
-had appeared; for the Complutensian edition, though printed two years
-earlier, was not issued till 1522. He also wrote a new Latin version of
-the New Testament, endeavouring to make it more exact than the Vulgate;
-and added notes. Further, he wrote a series of Latin Paraphrases on all
-the books of the New Testament except Revelation. These were intended
-to exhibit the substance and thought of the several books in a more
-modern form, and so to bring them home more directly to the ordinary
-reader's mind. The paraphrases were presently translated into English,
-and every Parish Church in England was furnished with a copy. In the
-remarkable 'Exhortation' prefixed to his Greek Testament, Erasmus
-observes that, while the disciples of every other philosophy derive it
-from the fountain-head, the Christian doctrine alone is not studied at
-its source. He would like to see the Scriptures translated into every
-language, and put into the hands of all. 'I long,' he says, 'that the
-husbandman should sing them to himself as he follows the plough,
-that the weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the
-traveller should beguile with them the weariness of his journey.' Then,
-as to interpretation,--from the medieval expositors, the schoolmen,
-he appealed to the primitive interpreters, the Fathers of the early
-Church, who stood nearer to those documents alike in time and in
-spirit. And first of all to Jerome; for Jerome had essayed, in the
-fourth century, a work analogous to that which Erasmus was attempting
-in the sixteenth. Thus it was fitting that his edition of Jerome should
-appear almost simultaneously with his Greek Testament. He afterwards
-edited other Latin Fathers; and it was through his translations from
-the Greek Fathers, especially Chrysostom and Athanasius, that their
-writings first became better known in the West.
-
-So far, all that Erasmus had said and done was in accord with that
-general movement of thought which led up to the Reformation. When
-Luther came forward, it was expected by many that Erasmus would place
-himself at his side. But Erasmus never departed an inch from his
-allegiance to Rome; and in the year before his death Paul III., in
-appointing him Provost of Deventer, formally acknowledged the services
-which he had rendered in combating the new opinions. It is important to
-see as clearly as possible what his position was.
-
-Luther made his protest at Wittenberg in 1517. For four years after
-that, Erasmus hoped that the matter might be peaceably adjusted.
-Luther was personally a stranger to him, but had a great admiration
-for his work, and wrote to him, as to an intellectual leader of whose
-sympathy he hoped that he might feel sure; Erasmus wrote back kindly,
-but guardedly, urging counsels of moderation. When Frederick of Saxony
-consulted him, he spoke in Luther's favour. But after 1521 all hopes
-of conciliation were at an end: peace between Rome and Luther was
-thenceforth impossible. And now both sides began to press Erasmus.
-The Romanists cried, 'This is all your doing; as the monks say, you
-laid the egg, and Luther has hatched it: you must now lose no time in
-speaking out, and making it clear that you are loyal to the Church of
-which you are a priest.' The Lutherans said: 'You know that you agree
-with us in your heart; you yourself have made a scathing exposure of
-the very abuses which we are attacking; be true to yourself, and take
-your place among our leaders.' Erasmus suffered, but remained silent.
-At last he decided to write against Luther, and in 1524 published
-his treatise on Free Will. Luther held that, owing to original sin,
-divine grace alone can turn man's will to good; Erasmus defended the
-doctrine of the Church, that, while grace is the indispensable and
-principal agent, the will is so far free as to allow for some human
-merit in preferring good to evil. Luther replied, and Erasmus rejoined.
-Thenceforth the Lutherans regarded Erasmus as an opponent;--some of
-them, as a traitor; while his own side felt that he had not done them
-much good. For the question handled by him, however important in
-itself, was not the question of the hour. And indeed many will feel
-that this particular controversy was the greatest mistake in the life
-of Erasmus. Not because he entered the lists against Luther--it is
-intelligible that he should have felt himself constrained to do so--but
-because, having decided to fight, he did not raise the main issue. That
-issue was,--Which is the greater evil,--to endure the corruptions, or
-to rebel? It was open to him to contend that rebellion was the greater:
-but, if he was not prepared to enter on that ground, then it would have
-been better to keep silence.
-
-What were the trains of thought and feeling which determined his course
-at that great crisis? A careful study of his own utterances will show
-that the considerations which swayed him were of three distinct kinds;
-we might describe them as ecclesiastical, intellectual, and personal.
-
-In the first place, it is apparent that Erasmus regarded the prospect
-of schism, not only from a churchman's point of view, but also as
-a danger to social order. He thinks of the Roman Church under the
-image of a temporal State. Grave abuses have indeed crept into the
-constitution, but the State contains within itself the only legitimate
-agencies for reform. A citizen is entitled to lift up his voice against
-the abuses; but his loyalty to the head of the State must remain
-intact; if that head delays or declines to interfere, the citizen must
-be patient. And, even in denouncing evils, he must consider whether
-there is not a point at which denunciation, as tending to excite
-turbulence, may not do more harm than good. Such a view was the more
-natural in an age when men's minds had so long been familiar with the
-conception which was the basis of the Holy Roman Empire. No faults
-in any grade of the ecclesiastical hierarchy could do away with the
-feeling that Pope and Emperor were, by divine appointment, the joint
-guardians of human welfare, and that a revolt against the authority of
-the Church was an assault on the framework which held society together.
-The peculiar attitude of Erasmus,--his reluctance to take part in
-the conflict, and the attacks made on him from both sides,--gave to
-his conduct the appearance of greater irresolution than can justly
-be laid to his charge. About one thing--this should be distinctly
-remembered--he never wavered. He never at any moment contemplated
-rebellion against the authority of Rome; he was as remote from that as
-were the two English friends whose views as to the abuses in the Church
-most nearly agreed with his own, John Colet and Thomas More. The real
-source of his embarrassment was that he approved, in a large measure,
-of Luther's objects, while he strongly disapproved of his methods.
-
-Further, he disliked the Lutheran movement as threatening to impede
-the quiet progress of literature, and this in two ways,--first, by
-creating a general turmoil,--secondly, by giving the schoolmen and
-the monks a pretext for saying that the new learning was a source of
-social disorder. There is a striking letter of his, written to Alberto
-Pio, Prince of Carpi, in 1525. He points out that the foes of the new
-learning had been most anxious to identify it with the Lutheran cause,
-in order to damage two enemies at once. Then, further,--he disliked all
-appeals to passion, or blind partisanship; his hope for the world was
-in the growing sway of reason. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards,
-another gifted mind, in looking back, took much the same view that
-Erasmus had taken in looking forward. Goethe deplored Luther's
-violence. But Luther might have quoted Ajax. To dream that such evils
-could be cured by the gentle magic of literature was indeed to chant
-incantations over a malady that craved the surgeon's knife.
-
-As might have been expected, some critics of Erasmus ascribed his
-attitude to worldly motives; but this was unjust, as many details of
-his life show. When Paul III. wished to make him a Cardinal, and to
-provide him with the necessary income, he declined. He was ambitious of
-praise, but not of wealth or rank. Personal considerations influenced
-him only in this sense, that he knew his own unfitness for the part
-of a leader or a combatant at such a time. His right place was in
-his study, and he grudged every hour lost to his proper work. 'I
-would rather work for a month at expounding St Paul,' he said to a
-correspondent, 'than waste a day in quarrelling.' In character and
-temperament he was the most perfect contrast to Luther. We remember the
-story of Luther being awakened in the night by a noise in his room; he
-lit a candle, but could find nothing; he then became certain that the
-invisible Enemy of his soul was present in that room,--and yet he lay
-down, and went calmly to sleep. There is the essence of the man--the
-intensely vivid sense of the supernatural, and the instinctive
-recourse to it as an explanation--and the absolute faith. Erasmus was
-once in a town where a powder-magazine exploded, and destroyed a house
-which had harboured evil-doers; some one remarked that this showed the
-divine anger against guilt; Erasmus quietly answered that, if such
-anger was indeed there, it was rather against the folly which had built
-a powder-magazine so near a town. The man who said that could never
-have fought at Luther's side.
-
-Erasmus was a great literary precursor of the Reformation; he armed the
-hands of the Lutherans: but to call him, as some have done, a Reformer
-before the Reformation, seems hardly an appropriate description. If,
-in our own day, those who are denominated Old Catholics had confined
-themselves to urging the advisability of certain reforms, without
-disputing the authority of the Pope or proposing to secede from
-communion with Rome, their position would have been analogous to that
-of Erasmus. Viewed as a whole, his conduct was essentially consistent
-and independent.
-
-His imperishable claim to the gratitude of the world, and especially
-of the Teutonic peoples, rests on the part which he sustained in
-a contest of even larger scope than that waged by Luther,--in the
-great preliminary conflict between the old and the new conception of
-knowledge, between the bondage and the enfranchisement of the human
-mind, between a lifeless formalism in religion and the spirit of
-practical Christianity. From youth to old age, through many trials,
-he worked with indomitable energy in the cause of light; and it was
-his great reward, that, before he died, he saw the dawn of a new age
-beginning for the nations of the north,--not without clouds and storm,
-but with the assurance that the reign of darkness was past.
-
-
-CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
-
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erasmus, by Jebb Richard Claverhouse
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Erasmus
-
-Author: Jebb Richard Claverhouse
-
-Release Date: February 20, 2020 [EBook #61464]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERASMUS ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Carlos Colón, the University of California and
-the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
-Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="box">Transcriber's Notes:<br />
-<br />
-
-
-Blank pages have been eliminated.<br />
-<br />
-Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
-original.<br />
-<br />
-A few typographical errors have been corrected.<br />
-<br />
-The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.</p></div>
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-
-<h1>ERASMUS.</h1></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="center p6">London: C. J. CLAY <span class="smcap">AND</span> SONS,<br />
-CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,<br />
-AVE MARIA LANE.<br />
-Glasglow: 263, ARGYLE STREET.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter2em"><img src="images/illo1.jpg" width="120"
-height="113" alt="" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<p class="center">Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.<br />
-New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.<br />
-Bombay: E. SEYMOUR HALE.</p></div>
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="center p6 large">ERASMUS</p>
-
-<p class="p2 center"><i>THE REDE LECTURE
-DELIVERED IN THE SENATE-HOUSE
-ON JUNE 11, 1890</i></p>
-
-<p class="p4 center">BY</p>
-
-<p class="center">R. C. JEBB, <span class="smcap">Litt. D.</span></p>
-
-<p class="center">REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE<br />
-IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.</p>
-
-<p class="p4 center">SECOND EDITION.</p>
-
-<p class="p4 center">CAMBRIDGE:<br />
-AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS<br />
-1897</p></div>
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="center p6">Cambridge:<br />
-PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,<br />
-AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.</p></div>
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2>ERASMUS.</h2></div>
-
-
-<p>Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam
-on the 27th of October, 1467. His
-father, Gerhard de Praet, belonged to a respectable
-family at Gouda, a small town of
-south Holland, not far from Rotterdam: his
-mother, Margaret, was the daughter of a physician
-at Sevenberg in Brabant. Gerhard's
-parents were resolved that he should become
-a monk. Meanwhile he was secretly betrothed
-to Margaret. His family succeeded in preventing
-their marriage, but not their union.
-After the birth of a son&mdash;the elder and only
-brother of Erasmus&mdash;Gerhard fled to Rome.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
-A false rumour of Margaret's death there induced
-him, in his despair, to enter the priesthood.
-On returning to Holland, he found
-Margaret living at Gouda with his two boys.
-He was true to the irrevocable vows which
-parted him from her. After a few years, during
-which the supervision of their children's education
-had been a common solace, she died, while
-still young; and Gerhard, broken-hearted, soon
-followed her to the grave.</p>
-
-<p>The boy afterwards so famous had been given
-his father's Christian name, Gerhard, meaning
-'beloved.' Desiderius is barbarous Latin for
-that, and Erasmus is barbarous Greek for it. If
-the great scholar devised those appellations for
-himself, it must have been at an early age.
-Afterwards, when he stood godfather to the son
-of his friend Froben the printer, he gave the boy
-the correct form of his own second name,&mdash;viz.,
-Erasmius. The combination, Desiderius Erasmus,
-is probably due to the fact that he had
-been known as Gerhard Gerhardson. It was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
-singular fortune for a master of literary style
-to be designated by two words which mean
-the same thing, and are both incorrect.</p>
-
-<p>He was sent to school at Gouda when he
-was four years old. Here it was perceived that
-he had a fine voice; and so he was taken to
-Utrecht, and placed in the Cathedral choir.
-But he had no gift for music. At nine years of
-age he was removed from Utrecht to a good
-school at Deventer. His precocious genius soon
-showed itself, and his future eminence was predicted
-by the famous Rudolph Agricola&mdash;one of
-the first men who brought the new learning
-across the Alps.</p>
-
-<p>Erasmus was only thirteen when he lost both
-parents, and was left to the care of three guardians.
-They wished him to become a monk: it
-was the simplest way to dispose of a ward. The
-boy loathed the idea; he knew his father's
-story; and now it seemed as if the same shadow
-was to fall on his own life also. However, the
-guardians sent him to a monastic seminary at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
-Hertogenbosch, where the brethren undertook
-to prepare youth for the cloister. The
-three years which he spent there&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, from
-thirteen to sixteen&mdash;were wholly wasted and
-miserable: he learned nothing, and his health,
-never strong, was injured by cruel severities.
-'The plan of these men,' he said afterwards,
-'when they see a boy of high and lively spirit, is
-to break and humble it by stripes, by threats, by
-reproaches, and various other means.' The
-struggle with the monks and his guardians was
-a long one; when menaces failed, they tried
-blandishments,&mdash;especially they promised him a
-paradise of literary leisure. At last he gave in.
-When he was about eighteen, he took the vows
-of a Canon Regular of the order of St Augustine.
-Looking back afterwards on the arts by which
-he had been won, he asks, 'What is kidnapping,
-if this is not?'</p>
-
-<p>The next five years&mdash;till he was twenty-three&mdash;were
-spent in his monastery at Stein, near
-Gouda. The general life of the place was odious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
-to him; but he found one friend, named William
-Hermann. They used to read the Latin classics
-together&mdash;secretly, for such studies were viewed
-with some suspicion. It was then that he laid the
-basis of his Latin style, and became thoroughly
-familiar with some of the best Latin authors.</p>
-
-<p>In 1491 he left the monastery, having been
-invited by the Bishop of Cambray, Henry de
-Bergis, to reside with him as his secretary. Soon
-afterwards he took orders; and the Bishop
-subsequently enabled him to enter the University
-of Paris, for the purpose of studying
-theology. He was then, perhaps, about twenty-seven
-years of age.</p>
-
-<p>At this point we may attempt,&mdash;aided by
-Holbein, and by tradition&mdash;to form some idea
-of his personal appearance. Erasmus was a
-rather small man, slight, but well-built; he had,
-as became a Teuton, blue eyes, yellowish or
-light brown hair, and a fair complexion. The
-face is a remarkable one. It has two chief
-characteristics,&mdash;quiet, watchful sagacity,&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
-humour, half playful, half sarcastic. The eyes
-are calm, critical, steadily observant, with a
-half-latent twinkle in them; the nose is straight,
-rather long, and pointed; the rippling curves of
-the large mouth indicate a certain energetic
-vivacity of temperament, and tenacity of purpose;
-while the pose of the head suggests vigilant
-caution, almost timidity. As we continue to
-study the features, they speak more and more
-clearly of insight and refinement; of a worldly
-yet very gentle shrewdness; of cheerful self-mastery;
-and of a mind which has its weapons
-ready at every instant. But there is no suggestion
-of enthusiasm,&mdash;unless it be the literary
-enthusiasm of a student. It is difficult to
-imagine those cool eyes kindled by any glow
-of passion, or that genial serenity broken by a
-spiritual struggle. This man, we feel, would be
-an intellectual champion of truth and reason;
-his wit might be as the spear of Ithuriel, and
-his satire as the sword of Gideon; but he has
-not the face of a hero or a martyr.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>On entering the University of Paris, Erasmus
-took up his residence at the Montaigu College. It
-was on the south side of the Seine, not far from
-the Sorbonne, and is said to have stood on the
-site now occupied by the Library of St. Geneviève.
-The Rector of the College was a man of
-estimable character; but he believed in extreme
-privation&mdash;which he had himself endured in
-youth&mdash;as the best school for students of theology.
-Erasmus has described the life there.
-The work imposed on the students was excessively
-severe. They were also half starved;
-meat was proscribed altogether; eggs, usually
-the reverse of fresh, formed the staple of
-food; the inmates had to fetch their drinking
-water from a polluted well. When wine was
-allowed, it was such as implied by the
-nickname 'Vinegar College' (a Latin pun on
-Montaigu). Many of the sleeping-rooms were
-on a ground-floor where the plaster was mouldering
-on the damp walls, and in such a neighbourhood
-that the air breathed by the sleepers&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>when
-they could sleep&mdash;was pestilential. One
-year's experience of this place&mdash;these are the
-words of Erasmus&mdash;doomed many youths of
-the brightest gifts and promise either to
-death, or to blindness, or to madness, or to
-leprosy; 'some of these,' he says, 'I knew
-myself,&mdash;and assuredly every one of us ran
-the danger.' Similar testimony is given by
-his younger contemporary, Rabelais:&mdash;'The
-unhappy creatures at that College are treated
-worse than galley-slaves among the Moors
-and Tartars, or than murderers in a criminal
-prison.'</p>
-
-<p>No wonder Erasmus, a delicate man at the
-best, soon fell ill; indeed, his constitution was
-permanently impaired. He went back to the
-Bishop at Cambray. Then, after a short visit
-to Holland, he returned to Paris&mdash;but not to
-the Montaigu College. He rented a one-room
-lodging, and resolved to support himself during
-his University course by taking private pupils.
-It was a hard struggle that he went through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
-then; but better days were at hand. He had
-already become known in Paris as a scholar of
-brilliant promise, and especially as an admirable
-Latinist. Latin was then the general language,
-not only of learning, but of polite intercourse
-between persons of different nationalities; and
-to speak Latin with fluent grace&mdash;an art in
-which Erasmus was already pre-eminent&mdash;was
-the best passport to cultivated society in Paris,
-whose University attracted students from all
-countries. Then he had a bright and nimble
-fancy, a keen sense of humour, a frank manner,
-and also rare tact; in short, he was a delightful
-companion, without ever seeking to dominate
-his company. One of his pupils was a young
-Englishman, William Blunt, Lord Mountjoy,
-who was studying at Paris. Mountjoy settled
-an annual pension of a hundred crowns on
-Erasmus, and presently persuaded him to visit
-England.</p>
-
-<p>This was in 1498. Erasmus was now thirty-one.
-For eighteen years&mdash;ever since he left the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
-school at Deventer&mdash;his life had been a hard
-one. The coarse rigours of Hertogenbosch,
-the midnight oil of Stein, the miseries of the
-Montaigu College, the later battle with poverty
-in Paris&mdash;all these had left their marks on that
-slight form, and that keen, calm face. Men
-who met him in England must have found it
-difficult to believe that he was so young. The
-sallow cheeks, the sunken eyes, the bent shoulders,
-the worn air of the whole man seemed to
-speak of a more advanced age. But neither
-then, nor at any later time, was he other than
-youthful in buoyant vivacity of spirit, in restless
-activity of mind, in untiring capacity for work.</p>
-
-<p>And now a new world opened before him.
-In England he was not only an honoured guest,
-but, for the first time, perhaps, since he left
-school, he found himself among men from whom
-he had something to learn. He went to Oxford,
-with a letter of introduction to Richard Charnock,
-Prior of a house of his own order, the Canons
-Regular of St Augustine, and was hospitably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
-received by him in the College of St Mary the
-Virgin. At that time the scholastic theology
-and philosophy still held the field in both the
-English Universities&mdash;as everywhere else, north
-of the Alps. But at Oxford there were a few
-eminent men who had studied the new learning
-in Italy, and had brought the love for it home
-with them. Erasmus was just too late to see
-William Selling of All Souls College, who died
-in 1495,&mdash;one of the first Englishmen who
-endeavoured to introduce Greek studies in
-this country. And he was too early to meet
-William Lilly, who was still abroad then. But
-he met some other scholars who were among
-the earliest teachers or advocates of Greek at
-Oxford,&mdash;William Grocyn, William Latimer, and
-Thomas Linacre;&mdash;the last-named, who became
-Founder of the Royal College of Physicians,
-had studied at Florence under Politian and
-Chalcondyles. Erasmus speaks with especial
-praise of Grocyn's comprehensive learning, and
-of Linacre's finished taste. It is certain that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
-his intercourse with the Oxford Hellenists must
-have been both instructive and stimulating to
-him; we can see, too, that it strengthened his
-desire to visit Italy. On the other hand, his
-letters show that when he left Oxford in
-1500, he had not advanced far in the study
-of Greek. The years from 1500 to 1505,
-during which he worked intensely hard at
-Greek by himself in Paris, were those in which
-his knowledge of that language was chiefly
-built up.</p>
-
-<p>The two Oxonians with whom Erasmus
-formed the closest friendship were John Colet
-and Thomas More. Colet was just a year his
-senior, and was then lecturing on St Paul's
-Epistles in what was quite a new way,&mdash;endeavouring
-to bring out their meaning historically
-and practically. He was not a Greek
-scholar; but it was he who, more than anyone
-else, encouraged Erasmus to print the New
-Testament in the original tongue. Thomas
-More, who was then a youth of twenty, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
-left Oxford, and was reading law in London,
-where Erasmus first met him. The story that
-they met at dinner, and that, before an introduction,
-each recognised the other by his wit, is
-perhaps apocryphal. At any rate, it expresses
-the truth that such perfectly congenial minds
-would be drawn to each other at once.</p>
-
-<p>In the winter of 1499 Erasmus visited Lord
-Mountjoy at Greenwich. It would seem, too,
-that he had a glimpse of Henry VII.'s Court.
-He writes that he has become 'a better horse-man,
-and a tolerable courtier.' In January,
-1500, just before Erasmus left England, Thomas
-More went down from London to Greenwich, to
-say farewell,&mdash;bringing with him another young
-lawyer named Arnold. More proposed a walk,
-and took his friends to call at a large house in
-the neighbouring village of Eltham. They were
-shown into a hall where some children were at
-play: it was, in fact, the royal nursery. The
-eldest, a boy of nine years old, was the future
-Henry VIII.; he was not then Prince of Wales,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
-but Duke of York, his brother Arthur being
-still alive. The tutor in charge of the children
-was John Skelton, the poet. Three days afterwards,
-in fulfilment of a promise, Erasmus sent
-the little Prince a Latin poem; it is in praise of
-England, and of Henry VII. There is no
-doubt that the praise of England came from his
-heart: his letters show that.</p>
-
-<p>At the end of January, 1500, he sailed from
-Dover for France. A serious mishap befell him
-just before he went on board. He carried with
-him a considerable sum of money, contributed
-by friends for the purpose of enabling him to
-visit Italy. The custom-house officers at Dover
-deprived him of nearly the whole, on plea of a
-law forbidding the exportation of gold coin of
-the realm above a certain amount. His friends
-at court afterwards tried to recover it for him,&mdash;but
-in vain. On reaching Paris, he fell ill.
-When he recovered, he set hard to work. The
-next five years were spent chiefly at Paris, with
-occasional visits to Orleans or the Netherlands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
-They form a quiet yet memorable period of his
-life. In 1500 he published his first collection of
-proverbial sayings from the classics,&mdash;the <i>Adagia</i>,&mdash;which,
-in its enlarged form, afterwards brought
-him so much fame. And during these years his
-incessant labour at Greek gradually qualified
-him for yet greater tasks. He had no teacher in
-Paris; and, though not absolutely in want, he
-had difficulty in buying all the books that he
-required.</p>
-
-<p>Towards the end of 1505 Erasmus paid a
-second visit to England,&mdash;staying only about
-six months. On this occasion he visited Cambridge.
-The Grace Book of our University
-shows that permission was given to Desiderius
-Erasmus to take the degrees of B.D. and D.D.
-by accumulation. It would seem, however, that
-he took the degree of B.D. only; so Dr John
-Caius says, and he must be right, if it is true
-that in the doctor's diploma which Erasmus
-received at Turin in 1506 he was described as a
-bachelor of theology. Had he possessed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
-higher degree, it would have been mentioned in
-the Turin document. During this second visit
-he saw a good deal of More and other old
-acquaintances. Grocyn took him to Lambeth,
-and introduced him to Warham, Archbishop of
-Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England,&mdash;who,
-in the sequel, was one of his best friends.</p>
-
-<p>He had now become able to realise the
-dream of his youth&mdash;to visit Italy. It was
-arranged that he should accompany the two
-sons of Dr Baptista Boyer, chief physician to
-Henry VII., who were going to Genoa; a royal
-courier was to escort them as far as Bologna.
-The party left Dover in the spring of 1506, and
-were tossed about for four days in the Channel.
-After a rest at Paris, they set out on horse-back
-for Turin. Erasmus has vividly described
-the squalid German inns, which he contrasts
-with those of France. Another discomfort of
-the journey was that the tutor and the courier
-quarrelled a good deal. At Turin&mdash;his companions
-having left him&mdash;he stayed several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
-weeks, and received from the University the
-degree of Doctor in Theology.</p>
-
-<p>The stay of Erasmus in Italy lasted three
-years&mdash;from the summer of 1506 to that of 1509.
-It is well to remember what was the general
-state of things in Italy at that time,&mdash;for the
-impressions which Erasmus received there had
-a strong and lasting effect upon his mind. In
-literature the humanistic revival had now passed
-its zenith, and was declining into that frivolous
-pedantry which Erasmus afterwards satirised in
-the 'Ciceronian.' Architecture, sculpture and
-painting were indeed active; Bramante, Michael
-Angelo and Raphael were at work. But the
-fact which chiefly arrested the attention of
-Erasmus was that Italian soil was the common
-ground on which the princes of Europe were
-prosecuting their intricate ambitions, and that
-the Pope had unsheathed the sword in pursuit
-of temporal advantage. Julius II. was already
-an elderly man, but full of military ardour.
-Venice seemed to be his ulterior object; mean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>while,
-in the autumn of 1506, he had reduced
-Perugia and Bologna. Erasmus was in Bologna
-when the Pope entered in November, and the
-late roses of that strangely mild autumn were
-strewn in his path by the shouting multitudes
-who hailed him as a warrior equal to his Roman
-namesake of old, the conqueror of Gaul.
-Erasmus was at Rome, too, in the following
-March, when the Pope celebrated his triumph
-with a martial pomp which no Caesar could
-have surpassed. Then came the revolt of Genoa
-from France,&mdash;the futile war of Maximilian,
-'Emperor Elect,' against Venice,&mdash;and lastly
-the iniquitous League of Cambray, by which
-Maximilian, the Pope, Louis XII. and Ferdinand
-of Spain banded themselves together for the
-spoliation of the Venetian Republic. Such
-things as these sank deep into the heart of
-Erasmus. 'When princes purpose to exhaust
-a commonwealth'&mdash;he wrote afterwards&mdash;'they
-speak of a just war; when they unite for that
-object, they call it peace.'</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But there was a bright side also to his years
-in Italy; in many places he enjoyed intercourse
-with learned men; and he formed some enduring
-friendships. At Venice he spent several months
-with Aldus in 1508, and saw an enlarged
-edition of the <i>Adagia</i> through his famous
-press. The kind of reputation which he had
-now won may be seen from his own account
-of his visit to Cardinal Grimani at Rome, in
-1509: it is a characteristic little story, and ought
-to be told in his own words. 'There was no
-one to be seen in the courtyard of the Cardinal's
-palace,' he says, 'or in the entrance-hall.... I
-went upstairs alone. I passed through the first,
-the second, the third room;&mdash;still no one to be
-seen, and not a door shut; I could not help
-wondering at the solitude. Coming to the last
-room, I there found only one person,&mdash;a Greek,
-I thought,&mdash;a physician,&mdash;with his head shaved,
-standing at the open door. I asked him if I
-could see the Cardinal; he replied that he was
-in an inner room, with some visitors. As I said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
-no more, he asked me my business. I replied,
-'I wished to pay my respects to him, if it had
-been convenient, but as he is engaged, I will
-call again.' I was just going away, but paused
-at a window to look at the view; the Greek
-came back to me, and asked if I wished to leave
-any message. 'You need not disturb him,' I
-said,&mdash;'I will call again soon.' Then he asked
-my name, and I told him. The instant he heard
-it, before I could stop him, he hurried into the
-inner room, and quickly returning, begged me
-not to go&mdash;I should be admitted directly. The
-Cardinal received me, not as a man of his high
-degree might have received one of my humble
-condition, but like an equal: a chair was placed
-for me, and we conversed for more than two
-hours. He would not even allow me to be
-uncovered,&mdash;a wonderful condescension in a
-man of his rank. Grimani pressed Erasmus to
-stay permanently at Rome. But he replied that
-he had just received a summons to England,
-which left him no choice.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In the April of that year, 1509, the little
-boy whom Erasmus had seen in the nursery at
-Eltham had become Henry VIII.; and in May,
-Mountjoy had written to his old tutor, urging
-him to return. Erasmus reached England early
-in the summer of 1510. Soon afterwards, in
-More's house at Bucklersbury, he rapidly wrote
-his famous satire, the <i>Encomium Moriac</i>, or
-'Praise of Folly,' in which Folly celebrates her
-own praises as the great source of human
-pleasures. He had been meditating this piece
-on the long journey from Rome; it is a kaleidoscope
-of his experiences in Italy, and of earlier
-memories. As to the title, <i>Moria</i>, the Greek
-word for 'folly,' was a playful allusion, of course,
-to the name of his wise and witty host. This
-'Praise of Folly' is a satire, not only in the
-modern but in the original sense of that word,&mdash;a
-medley. All classes, all callings, are sportively
-viewed on the weak side. But in relation to the
-author's own life and times, the most important
-topics are the various abuses in the Church, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
-pedantries of the schoolmen, and the selfish wars
-of kings. If this eloquent Folly, as Erasmus
-presents her, most often wears the mocking smile
-of Lucian or Voltaire, there are moments also
-when she wields the terrible lash of Juvenal
-or of Swift. The popularity of the satire,
-throughout Europe, was boundless. The mask
-of jest which it wore was its safeguard; how
-undignified, how absurd it would have been
-for a Pope or a King to care what was said by
-Folly! And, just for that reason, the <i>Encomium
-Moriae</i> must be reckoned among the forces
-which prepared the Reformation.</p>
-
-<p>Where was Erasmus to settle now? That
-was the great question for him. He decided it
-by going to Cambridge, on the invitation of
-Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, who was then
-Chancellor of the University. Rooms were
-assigned to him in Queens' College, of which
-Fisher had been President a few years before.
-In that beautiful old cloister at Queens', where
-the spirit of the fifteenth century seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
-linger, an entrance at the south-east corner
-gives access to a small court which is known
-as the court of Erasmus. His lodgings were in
-a square turret of red brick at the south-east
-angle of the court. His study was probably a
-good-sized room which is now used as a lecture-room;
-on the floor above this was his bedroom,
-with an adjoining attic for his servant. From
-the south windows of these rooms&mdash;looking on
-the modern Silver Street&mdash;he had a wide view
-over what was then open country, interspersed
-with cornfields; the windings of the river could
-be seen as far as the Trumpington woods. The
-walk on the west side of the Cam, which is
-called the walk of Erasmus, was not laid out till
-1684: in his time it was open ground, with
-probably no trees upon it. His first letter from
-Cambridge is dated Dec. 1510, and this date
-must be right, or nearly so. He says himself
-that he taught Greek here before he lectured on
-theology; and also that, after his arrival, the
-commencement of his Greek teaching was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
-delayed by ill-health. Now he was elected to
-the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity in
-1511, and in those days the election was ordered
-to take place on the last day of term before the
-Long Vacation. His residence, then, can hardly
-have begun later than the early part of 1511.</p>
-
-<p>It is interesting to think of him&mdash;now a man
-of forty-four, but prematurely old in appearance&mdash;moving
-about the narrow streets or quiet
-courts of that medieval Cambridge which was just
-about to become the modern&mdash;a transformation
-due, in no small measure, to the influence of his
-own labours. Eleven of our Colleges existed.
-Peterhouse was in the third century of its life;
-others also were of a venerable age. Erasmus
-would have heard the rumour that a house of
-his own order, the Hospital of the Brethren of
-St John, was about to be merged in a new and
-more splendid foundation, the College of St John
-the Evangelist. Where Trinity College now
-stands, he would have seen the separate institutions
-which, after another generation, were to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
-be united by Henry VIII.; he would have seen
-a hostel of the Benedictines where Magdalene
-College was soon to arise; the Franciscans on
-the site of Sidney Sussex, and the Dominicans
-on the site of Emmanuel. North of Queens'
-College, he would have found the convent of the
-Carmelites; and then, rising in lonely majesty&mdash;with
-no other College buildings as yet on its
-south side&mdash;the chapel of King's, completed as
-to the walls, but not yet roofed.</p>
-
-<p>When Erasmus began his Greek lectures in
-his rooms at Queens', his text-book was the
-elementary grammar of Manuel Chrysoloras,
-entitled the 'Questions',&mdash;which had been the
-standard book all through the fifteenth century.
-He next took up the larger and more advanced
-grammar of Theodorus Gaza, published in 1495,&mdash;which
-he afterwards translated into Latin.
-We have a specimen of his own Greek composition
-at this period. In 1511 he went from
-Cambridge to visit the celebrated shrine of the
-Virgin at Walsingham in Norfolk&mdash;the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
-where, two years later, Queen Catherine gave
-thanks after the battle of Flodden. As a votive
-offering, he hung up on the wall a short set of
-Greek iambics, which are extant: they are to the
-effect that, while others bring rich gifts and crave
-worldly blessings, he asks only for a pure heart.
-There are some faults of metre, but the diction
-is classical and idiomatic: probably no one in
-Europe at that time, unless it were Budaeus,
-could have written better. When Erasmus revisited
-Walsingham a little later, he found that
-these verses had sorely puzzled the monks and
-their friends; there had been much wiping of
-eye-glasses; and opinions differed as to whether
-the characters were Arabic, or purely arbitrary.
-Erasmus did not get many hearers for his Greek
-lectures, and was rather disappointed; but some,
-at least, of his pupils were ardent; thus he describes
-Henry Bullock of Queens'&mdash;the 'Bovillus'
-of his letters&mdash;as 'working hard at Greek.' And
-the impulse which he gave can be judged from
-the rapid progress of the new learning at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
-Cambridge. Writing to him in 1516&mdash;three
-years after he had left&mdash;Bullock says, 'people
-here are devoting themselves eagerly to Greek
-literature.' In a letter to Everard, the Stadtholder
-of Holland, in 1520, Erasmus says:&mdash;'Theology
-is flourishing at Paris and at Cambridge
-as nowhere else: and why? Because
-they are adapting themselves to the tendencies
-of the age; because the new studies, which are
-ready, if need be, to storm an entrance, are not
-repelled by them as foes, but received as welcome
-guests.' In another letter he remarks that, while
-Greek studies have been instituted in both the
-English Universities, at Cambridge they are
-pursued peacefully (<i>tranquille</i>),&mdash;owing, he says,
-to Fisher's influence. He is alluding to those
-struggles at Oxford between the adherents of
-the schoolmen and the new learning which came
-to a head in the 'Trojan' and 'Grecian' riots of
-1519, and led to Wolsey's founding the readership
-of Greek. Oxford had been, in England,
-the great theological University of the middle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
-ages, and the scholastic system died hardest
-there.</p>
-
-<p>Erasmus taught Greek without any formal
-appointment, so far as we know, from the
-University; though Fisher, the Chancellor, may
-have arranged that he should receive a stipend.
-The first man formally appointed Greek reader
-was Richard Croke in 1519; who speaks, indeed,
-of Erasmus as having been 'professor of Greek,'
-but probably means simply lecturer. The official
-status of Erasmus was that of Lady Margaret
-Professor of Divinity. The election to the Chair
-was then biennial. At the end of his term&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>,
-in the summer of 1513&mdash;Erasmus was re-elected.
-This is a noteworthy fact. The electing body
-comprised the whole Faculty of Theology,
-regulars as well as seculars. The 'Praise of
-Folly' must by that time have been well-known
-here. If Erasmus was not universally acceptable
-to the schoolmen or to the monks of
-Cambridge, at any rate the general respect for
-his character and attainments carried the day.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>When we try to imagine him in his rooms
-at Queens', we are not to picture him as a
-popular teacher, with the youth of the university
-crowding to learn from him; his life here was
-that of a recluse student, in weak health, whose
-surroundings were in some respects uncongenial
-to him, but who had a group of devoted pupils,
-and some chosen older friends. From 1508 to
-the end of his life he suffered from a painful
-organic disease, which obliged him to be careful
-of his diet. When he dined in the old College
-hall at Queens', above the west cloister&mdash;now
-part of the President's Lodge&mdash;the ghosts of the
-College benefactors, whose heads are carved on
-the oak wainscoting, would have been grieved
-if they could have known what he thought of
-Cambridge beverages; he writes to his Italian
-friend Ammonius&mdash;afterwards Latin Secretary
-to Henry VIII.&mdash;begging for a cask of Greek
-wine. His favourite exercise was riding; and
-he made frequent excursions. Meanwhile he
-accomplished a surprising amount of work. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
-was busy with the text of Seneca, with translations
-from Basil, with Latin manuals for St
-Paul's School, just founded by his friend Colet&mdash;and
-with much else. It was here that he began
-revising the text of Jerome's works. 'My mind
-is in such a glow over Jerome,' he writes, 'that
-I could fancy myself actually inspired.' But
-there is one labour above all that entitles those
-rooms in the old tower at Queens' to be reckoned
-among the sacred places of literature. It was
-there in 1512 that the Lady Margaret Professor
-completed a collation of the Greek Text of the
-New Testament. Four years later, his edition&mdash;the
-first ever published&mdash;appeared at Basle.</p>
-
-<p>In 1513 Cambridge was visited by the plague,
-and nearly every one fled from it. During some
-months of the autumn, Erasmus had scarcely
-heard a foot-fall in the cloister beneath his
-rooms. At the end of the year, he finally
-left the University. Some of his reasons for
-going can be conjectured from his letters.
-They express disappointment with England;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
-and they speak of poverty. It is well to observe
-the sense in which these complaints are to be
-understood. After 1510 Erasmus was never
-actually indigent. Archbishop Warham had
-offered him the Rectory of Aldington in Kent;
-Erasmus declined it, because he could not speak
-English&mdash;he never learned any modern language,
-and besides his own vernacular, spoke Latin
-only: then Warham gave him a pension from
-the benefice. Fisher and Mountjoy were also
-liberal. At Cambridge, with these resources, and
-the stipend of his Chair, it has been computed
-that his income must have been equivalent to
-about £700 at the present day. But his mode
-of living, though not profuse, was not frugal.
-Thus he himself enumerates the following heads
-of his expenditure;&mdash;servants ('<i>famulorum</i>')&mdash;the
-aid of amanuenses&mdash;the cost of keeping a
-horse, or horses (ιπποτροφἱá)&mdash;frequent journeys&mdash;and
-social or charitable obligations: he
-disliked, he says, to be penurious ('<i>hic animus
-abhorrens a sordibus</i>'). The fact seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
-be that he had formed exaggerated hopes of
-what Henry VIII. would do for him. His
-immediate motive for departure, however, was
-probably the desire to supervise the printing of
-the Greek Testament. There was then no
-English press where such a work could be done
-so well as abroad. He had heard that Froben,
-the famous printer at Basle, was about to publish
-the works of Jerome; and to Basle he went.
-Another circumstance helped to decide him.
-Prince Charles,&mdash;afterwards the Emperor Charles
-V.,&mdash;had offered him the post of honorary privy-councillor,
-with a pension,&mdash;and this without
-binding him to live in the Netherlands. At this
-time Erasmus would have been welcomed in
-any country of Europe; Cardinal Canossa, the
-Papal legate, was anxious to secure him for
-Rome. At a later period, when his fame stood
-yet higher, Henry VIII. would have been glad
-to lure him back; but it was then too late.</p>
-
-<p>So, in 1514, Erasmus left England&mdash;not to
-return, except for a few months in the following<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
-year. He was now forty-seven. Twenty-two
-years of life remained to him. The history of
-these years is essentially that of his untiring
-and astonishing literary activity. In his external
-life there is little to record beyond changes of
-residence,&mdash;from Basle to the University of
-Louvain in Brabant,&mdash;from Louvain back to
-Basle,&mdash;from Basle to Freiburg,&mdash;and once more
-to Basle, where, in 1536, he died. The clue
-to this later period is given by two threads,
-which are indeed but strands of a single cord,&mdash;his
-influence on the revival of learning, and
-his attitude towards the Reformation.</p>
-
-<p>In the younger days of Erasmus the Italian
-cultivation of classical literature had attained its
-highest point, and was already verging towards
-decline. More than a century had passed since
-Petrarch had kindled the first enthusiasm. It
-requires some effort of the imagination for us
-to realise what that movement meant. The men
-of the fourteenth century lived under a Church
-which claimed the surrender of the reason, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
-only in matters of faith, but in all knowledge:
-philosophy and science could speak only by the
-doctors whom she sanctioned. When the fourteenth
-century began to study the classics, the
-first feeling was one of joy in the newly revealed
-dignity of the human mind; it was a strange
-and delightful thing, as they gradually came to
-know the great writers of ancient Greece and
-Rome, to see the reason moving freely, exploring,
-speculating, discussing, without restraint.
-And then those children of the middle age were
-surprised and charmed by the forms of classical
-expression,&mdash;so different from anything that had
-been familiar to them. Borrowing an old Latin
-word, they called this new learning <i>humanity</i>;
-for them, however, the phrase had a depth of
-meaning undreamt of by Cicero. Now, for the
-first time, they felt that they had entered into
-full possession of themselves; nothing is more
-characteristic of the Italian renaissance than the
-self-asserting individuality of the chief actors;
-each strives to throw the work of his own spirit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
-into relief; the common life falls into the background;
-the history of that age is the history of
-men rather than of communities.</p>
-
-<p>In the progress of this Italian humanism
-three chief phases may be roughly distinguished.
-The first closes with the end of the
-fourteenth century,&mdash;the time of Petrarch and
-his immediate followers,&mdash;the morning-time of
-discovery. Then, in the first half of the fifteenth
-century, the discovered materials were classified,
-and organised in great libraries; Greek manuscripts,
-too, were translated into Latin,&mdash;not
-that the versions might be taken as substitutes
-for the original, but to aid the study of Greek
-itself. The men of this second period were
-gathered around Cosmo de' Medici at Florence,
-or Nicholas V. at Rome. The third stage
-was that in which criticism, both of form
-and of matter, was carried to a higher level,
-chiefly by the joint efforts of scholars grouped
-in select societies or academies, such as the
-Platonic academy at Florence, of which Ficino<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
-was the centre. The greatest man of this time,&mdash;the
-greatest genius of the literary renaissance
-in Italy,&mdash;was Angelo Poliziano; he died in
-1494, when Erasmus was twenty-seven.</p>
-
-<p>With Erasmus a new period opens. Two
-things broadly distinguish him, as a scholar,
-from the men before and after him. First, he
-was not only a refined humanist, writing for the
-fastidious few, and prizing no judgment but
-theirs; he took the most profitable authors of
-antiquity,&mdash;profitable in a moral as well as a
-literary sense,&mdash;chose out the best things in
-them,&mdash;and sought to make these things widely
-known,&mdash;applying their wisdom or wit to the
-circumstances of his own day. Secondly, in all
-his work he had an educational aim,&mdash;and this
-of the largest kind. The evils of his age,&mdash;in
-Church, in State, in the daily lives of men,&mdash;seemed
-to him to have their roots in ignorance,&mdash;ignorance
-of what Christianity meant,&mdash;ignorance
-of what the Bible taught,&mdash;ignorance of
-what the noblest and most gifted minds of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
-past, whether Christian or pagan, had contributed
-to the instruction of the human race. Let true
-knowledge only spread, and under its enlightening
-and humanising influence a purer religion
-and a better morality will gradually prevail.
-Erasmus was a man of the world; but with his
-keen intellect, so quickly susceptible to all
-impressions, he made the mistake, not uncommon
-for such temperaments, of overrating
-the rapidity with which intellectual influences
-permeate the masses of mankind. However, no
-one was ever more persistently or brilliantly
-true to an idea than Erasmus was to his; and
-it is wonderful how much he achieved.</p>
-
-<p>His services to the new learning took various
-forms. He wrote school-books, bringing out his
-view that boys were kept too long over grammar,
-and ought to begin reading some good author as
-soon as possible. His own <i>Colloquies</i> were meant
-partly as models of colloquial Latin; the book
-was long a standard one in education. These
-lively dialogues are prose idylls with an ethical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
-purpose,&mdash;the dramatic expression of the writer's
-views on the life of the day. Thus the dialogue
-between the Learned Lady and the Abbot depicts
-monastic illiteracy; that between the Soldier
-and the Carthusian brings out the seamy side of
-the military calling. Lucian has influenced the
-form; but the dramatic skill which blends
-earnestness with humour is the author's own;
-there are touches here and there which might
-fairly be called Shakspearian. Then he made
-collections of striking thoughts and fine passages
-in the classics. His chief book of this kind was
-the <i>Adagia</i>. Many of the classical proverbs are
-made texts for little essays on the affairs of the
-day. Thus he takes up a Latin proverb, 'The
-beetle pursues the eagle'&mdash;based on the fable of
-the beetle avenging itself for an insult by destroying
-the eagle's eggs&mdash;the moral being that
-the most exalted wrong-doer is never safe from
-the vengeance of the humblest victim. This
-suggests to him an ingenious satire on the misdeeds
-of great princes&mdash;typified by the eagle&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>and
-their results. Later in life, he brought out
-the <i>Apophthegms</i>&mdash;a collection of good sayings,
-chiefly from Plutarch. His editions of classical
-authors were numerous: the best was that of
-Terence,&mdash;his favourite poet; the next best was
-that of Seneca. His principal editions of Greek
-authors belong to the last five years of his life,
-and were less important. Speaking of these
-editions generally, we may say that they were
-valuable in two ways,&mdash;by making the authors
-themselves more accessible, and by furnishing
-improved texts. Then he made many Latin
-translations from Greek poetry and prose.
-Mention is due also to his dialogue on the pronunciation
-of Greek and Latin,&mdash;published in
-1528. It was especially a protest against the
-confusion of the vowels in the modern Greek
-pronunciation, and against the modern disregard
-of quantity in favour of the stress accent. His
-views ultimately fixed the continental pronunciation
-of Greek, which is still known in Greece
-by his name (ἡ 'Ερáσμου προφορá). At Cam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>bridge
-it was introduced a little later by Thomas
-Smith and John Cheke. Along with this
-dialogue appeared another,&mdash;the amusing <i>Ciceronian</i>.
-It is an appeal to common-sense against
-an absurd affectation which marked the dotage
-of Italian humanism. Bembo and his disciples
-would not use a single word or phrase which
-did not occur in Cicero. Their purism moreover
-rejected all modern terms: a Cardinal became
-an 'augur,' a nun a 'vestal,' the Papal tiara was
-'the fillet of Romulus.' Most ludicrous of all,
-because Cicero was a statesman, the modern
-Ciceronian, writing to his friends from the
-profound seclusion of his study, deemed it a
-stylistic duty to imply that he lived in a vortex
-of politics. The gist of what Erasmus says is
-merely that other ancients besides Cicero wrote
-good Latin, and that a true Ciceronianism would
-adjust itself to its surroundings. No one, it
-should be added, had a more intelligent admiration
-for Cicero than Erasmus himself.</p>
-
-<p>We see, then, the peculiar place which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
-holds in the history of the new learning. It
-may be allowed that, if the study of classical
-antiquity be viewed as a progressive science, he
-did much less to advance it than was done by
-some other great scholars of a later period. He
-did not enlarge the boundaries of knowledge in
-that field as they were afterwards enlarged by
-the special labours of Joseph Scaliger, of Isaac
-Casaubon, or of Richard Bentley. But the work
-which Erasmus did was one which, at that time,
-was of the first necessity for the northern nations.
-In his genial, popular way he made
-them feel the value and charm of the classics
-as literature; he himself was, in fact, a learned
-man of letters rather than a critical specialist.
-Let us remember what the state of northern
-Europe, as regards literature, was in his boyhood.
-It was sunk,&mdash;to use his own words,&mdash;in
-utter barbarism. To know Greek was the next
-thing to heresy. 'I did my best,' he says, 'to
-deliver the rising generation from this slough of
-ignorance, and to inspire them with a taste for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
-better studies. I wrote, not for Italy, but for
-Germany and the Netherlands.'</p>
-
-<p>The circulation of his more popular writings,
-all over Europe, was so enormous that one can
-compare it only to that of some widely-read
-modern journal, or of some extraordinarily
-popular novel. For instance, a Paris bookseller
-once heard, or invented, a rumour that the
-Sorbonne was going to condemn the <i>Colloquies</i>
-of Erasmus as heretical; and, being a shrewd
-man, he instantly printed a new edition of 24,000
-copies. A moral treatise by Erasmus, called
-the <i>Enchiridion</i> ('the Christian Soldier's Dagger'),
-which was a favourite alike with Catholics
-and with Protestants, was translated into every
-language of Europe. A Spanish ecclesiastic,
-writing in 1527, declares that a version of it was
-in the hands of all classes throughout Spain,&mdash;even
-the smallest country inn could usually
-show a copy. It may be doubted whether any
-author's works were ever so frequently reprinted
-within his life-time as were those of Erasmus.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
-And wherever his books went, they carried with
-them the influence of his spirit,&mdash;his love of
-good literature, his loyalty to reason, his quiet
-common-sense, his hatred of war, his versatile
-wit, nourished by varied observation of life,&mdash;wit
-which could play gracefully around the
-slightest theme, or strike with a keen edge at
-falsehood and wrong,&mdash;his desire to make it felt
-that a good life is not an affair of formal observance,
-but must begin in the heart.</p>
-
-<p>The works which entitle Erasmus to be
-called the parent of Biblical criticism are connected
-with his secular studies by a closer tie
-than might appear at first sight. His principal
-concern was always with literature as such; he
-was, moreover, a practical moralist, anxious to
-aid in correcting the evils of his time: but he
-was not distinctively a theologian; and towards
-dogmatic theology, in particular, he had little
-inclination. Now, in pursuing his paramount
-aim&mdash;to make the world better by the humanising
-influences of literature&mdash;the enemy with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
-which he had to do battle was the scholastic
-philosophy. Hear his words when he is asking
-how Christians are to convert Turks:&mdash;'Shall
-we put into their hands an Occam, a Durandus,
-a Scotus, a Gabriel, or an Alvarus? What will
-they think of us, when they hear of our perplexed
-subtleties about Instants, Formalities, Quiddities,
-and Relations?' This was the dreary wilderness
-of pedantry that had hitherto passed for
-knowledge. And the scholastic philosophy was
-securely entrenched behind the scholastic theology.
-The weapons of that theology were
-Biblical texts, isolated from their context, and
-artificially interpreted: the one way to disarm
-it was to make men know what the Bible really
-said and meant. Therefore Erasmus felt that
-his first duty, both as a moralist and as a man
-of letters, was to promote a knowledge of the
-Bible. He was not a Hebrew scholar, and could
-do nothing at first hand with the Old Testament;
-that province was left to Reuchlin. But in 1516
-he published the Greek Testament,&mdash;the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
-edition which had appeared; for the Complutensian
-edition, though printed two years earlier,
-was not issued till 1522. He also wrote a new
-Latin version of the New Testament, endeavouring
-to make it more exact than the Vulgate;
-and added notes. Further, he wrote a series of
-Latin Paraphrases on all the books of the New
-Testament except Revelation. These were
-intended to exhibit the substance and thought
-of the several books in a more modern form,
-and so to bring them home more directly to the
-ordinary reader's mind. The paraphrases were
-presently translated into English, and every
-Parish Church in England was furnished with
-a copy. In the remarkable 'Exhortation' prefixed
-to his Greek Testament, Erasmus observes
-that, while the disciples of every other philosophy
-derive it from the fountain-head, the Christian
-doctrine alone is not studied at its source. He
-would like to see the Scriptures translated into
-every language, and put into the hands of all.
-'I long,' he says, 'that the husbandman should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
-sing them to himself as he follows the plough,
-that the weaver should hum them to the tune of
-his shuttle, that the traveller should beguile with
-them the weariness of his journey.' Then, as
-to interpretation,&mdash;from the medieval expositors,
-the schoolmen, he appealed to the primitive
-interpreters, the Fathers of the early Church,
-who stood nearer to those documents alike in
-time and in spirit. And first of all to Jerome;
-for Jerome had essayed, in the fourth century, a
-work analogous to that which Erasmus was
-attempting in the sixteenth. Thus it was
-fitting that his edition of Jerome should appear
-almost simultaneously with his Greek Testament.
-He afterwards edited other Latin Fathers;
-and it was through his translations from the
-Greek Fathers, especially Chrysostom and
-Athanasius, that their writings first became
-better known in the West.</p>
-
-<p>So far, all that Erasmus had said and done
-was in accord with that general movement
-of thought which led up to the Reformation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
-When Luther came forward, it was expected
-by many that Erasmus would place himself at
-his side. But Erasmus never departed an inch
-from his allegiance to Rome; and in the year
-before his death Paul III., in appointing him
-Provost of Deventer, formally acknowledged the
-services which he had rendered in combating
-the new opinions. It is important to see as
-clearly as possible what his position was.</p>
-
-<p>Luther made his protest at Wittenberg in
-1517. For four years after that, Erasmus hoped
-that the matter might be peaceably adjusted.
-Luther was personally a stranger to him, but
-had a great admiration for his work, and wrote
-to him, as to an intellectual leader of whose
-sympathy he hoped that he might feel sure;
-Erasmus wrote back kindly, but guardedly,
-urging counsels of moderation. When Frederick
-of Saxony consulted him, he spoke in Luther's
-favour. But after 1521 all hopes of conciliation
-were at an end: peace between Rome and
-Luther was thenceforth impossible. And now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
-both sides began to press Erasmus. The
-Romanists cried, 'This is all your doing; as
-the monks say, you laid the egg, and Luther
-has hatched it: you must now lose no time in
-speaking out, and making it clear that you are
-loyal to the Church of which you are a priest.'
-The Lutherans said: 'You know that you agree
-with us in your heart; you yourself have made
-a scathing exposure of the very abuses which
-we are attacking; be true to yourself, and take
-your place among our leaders.' Erasmus suffered,
-but remained silent. At last he decided
-to write against Luther, and in 1524 published
-his treatise on Free Will. Luther held that,
-owing to original sin, divine grace alone can turn
-man's will to good; Erasmus defended the doctrine
-of the Church, that, while grace is the
-indispensable and principal agent, the will is so
-far free as to allow for some human merit in
-preferring good to evil. Luther replied, and
-Erasmus rejoined. Thenceforth the Lutherans
-regarded Erasmus as an opponent;&mdash;some of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
-them, as a traitor; while his own side felt that
-he had not done them much good. For the question
-handled by him, however important in itself,
-was not the question of the hour. And indeed
-many will feel that this particular controversy
-was the greatest mistake in the life of Erasmus.
-Not because he entered the lists against Luther&mdash;it
-is intelligible that he should have felt himself
-constrained to do so&mdash;but because, having
-decided to fight, he did not raise the main issue.
-That issue was,&mdash;Which is the greater evil,&mdash;to
-endure the corruptions, or to rebel? It was
-open to him to contend that rebellion was the
-greater: but, if he was not prepared to enter on
-that ground, then it would have been better to
-keep silence.</p>
-
-<p>What were the trains of thought and feeling
-which determined his course at that great crisis?
-A careful study of his own utterances will show
-that the considerations which swayed him were
-of three distinct kinds; we might describe them
-as ecclesiastical, intellectual, and personal.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In the first place, it is apparent that Erasmus
-regarded the prospect of schism, not only from
-a churchman's point of view, but also as a danger
-to social order. He thinks of the Roman Church
-under the image of a temporal State. Grave
-abuses have indeed crept into the constitution,
-but the State contains within itself the only
-legitimate agencies for reform. A citizen is
-entitled to lift up his voice against the abuses;
-but his loyalty to the head of the State must
-remain intact; if that head delays or declines to
-interfere, the citizen must be patient. And,
-even in denouncing evils, he must consider
-whether there is not a point at which denunciation,
-as tending to excite turbulence, may not
-do more harm than good. Such a view was the
-more natural in an age when men's minds had
-so long been familiar with the conception which
-was the basis of the Holy Roman Empire. No
-faults in any grade of the ecclesiastical hierarchy
-could do away with the feeling that Pope and
-Emperor were, by divine appointment, the joint<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
-guardians of human welfare, and that a revolt
-against the authority of the Church was an
-assault on the framework which held society
-together. The peculiar attitude of Erasmus,&mdash;his
-reluctance to take part in the conflict, and
-the attacks made on him from both sides,&mdash;gave
-to his conduct the appearance of greater irresolution
-than can justly be laid to his charge.
-About one thing&mdash;this should be distinctly remembered&mdash;he
-never wavered. He never at
-any moment contemplated rebellion against the
-authority of Rome; he was as remote from that
-as were the two English friends whose views as
-to the abuses in the Church most nearly agreed
-with his own, John Colet and Thomas More.
-The real source of his embarrassment was that
-he approved, in a large measure, of Luther's
-objects, while he strongly disapproved of his
-methods.</p>
-
-<p>Further, he disliked the Lutheran movement
-as threatening to impede the quiet progress of
-literature, and this in two ways,&mdash;first, by creating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
-a general turmoil,&mdash;secondly, by giving the
-schoolmen and the monks a pretext for saying
-that the new learning was a source of social
-disorder. There is a striking letter of his,
-written to Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi, in 1525.
-He points out that the foes of the new learning
-had been most anxious to identify it with the
-Lutheran cause, in order to damage two enemies
-at once. Then, further,&mdash;he disliked all appeals
-to passion, or blind partisanship; his hope for
-the world was in the growing sway of reason.
-Two hundred and fifty years afterwards, another
-gifted mind, in looking back, took much the
-same view that Erasmus had taken in looking
-forward. Goethe deplored Luther's violence.
-But Luther might have quoted Ajax. To
-dream that such evils could be cured by the
-gentle magic of literature was indeed to chant
-incantations over a malady that craved the
-surgeon's knife.</p>
-
-<p>As might have been expected, some critics
-of Erasmus ascribed his attitude to worldly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
-motives; but this was unjust, as many details of
-his life show. When Paul III. wished to make
-him a Cardinal, and to provide him with the
-necessary income, he declined. He was ambitious
-of praise, but not of wealth or rank.
-Personal considerations influenced him only in
-this sense, that he knew his own unfitness for
-the part of a leader or a combatant at such a
-time. His right place was in his study, and he
-grudged every hour lost to his proper work. 'I
-would rather work for a month at expounding
-St Paul,' he said to a correspondent, 'than waste
-a day in quarrelling.' In character and temperament
-he was the most perfect contrast to
-Luther. We remember the story of Luther
-being awakened in the night by a noise in his
-room; he lit a candle, but could find nothing;
-he then became certain that the invisible Enemy
-of his soul was present in that room,&mdash;and yet he
-lay down, and went calmly to sleep. There is
-the essence of the man&mdash;the intensely vivid
-sense of the supernatural, and the instinctive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
-recourse to it as an explanation&mdash;and the absolute
-faith. Erasmus was once in a town where
-a powder-magazine exploded, and destroyed a
-house which had harboured evil-doers; some
-one remarked that this showed the divine anger
-against guilt; Erasmus quietly answered that,
-if such anger was indeed there, it was rather
-against the folly which had built a powder-magazine
-so near a town. The man who said
-that could never have fought at Luther's
-side.</p>
-
-<p>Erasmus was a great literary precursor of
-the Reformation; he armed the hands of the
-Lutherans: but to call him, as some have done,
-a Reformer before the Reformation, seems hardly
-an appropriate description. If, in our own day,
-those who are denominated Old Catholics had
-confined themselves to urging the advisability of
-certain reforms, without disputing the authority
-of the Pope or proposing to secede from communion
-with Rome, their position would have
-been analogous to that of Erasmus. Viewed as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
-a whole, his conduct was essentially consistent
-and independent.</p>
-
-<p>His imperishable claim to the gratitude of
-the world, and especially of the Teutonic peoples,
-rests on the part which he sustained in a contest
-of even larger scope than that waged by Luther,&mdash;in
-the great preliminary conflict between the
-old and the new conception of knowledge, between
-the bondage and the enfranchisement of
-the human mind, between a lifeless formalism
-in religion and the spirit of practical Christianity.
-From youth to old age, through many
-trials, he worked with indomitable energy in
-the cause of light; and it was his great reward,
-that, before he died, he saw the dawn of a new
-age beginning for the nations of the north,&mdash;not
-without clouds and storm, but with the
-assurance that the reign of darkness was past.</p>
-
-
-<p class="center p4">CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.</p>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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