I. ERASMUS COMES TO OXFORD (1498).
[Sidenote: The character of Erasmus.]
In the spring or summer of 1498, the foreign scholar--Erasmus of
Rotterdam--arrived at Oxford, brought over to England by Lord Mountjoy
from Paris.[181] Erasmus was an entire stranger in England; he did not
know a word of English, but was at once most hospitably received into the
College of St. Mary the Virgin, by the prior Richard Charnock. Colet had
indeed, as already mentioned, heard Erasmus spoken of at Paris as a
learned scholar,[182] but as yet no work of his had risen into note, nor
was even his name generally known. He was scarcely turned thirty--just the
age of Colet;[183] but in his wasted sallow cheeks and sunken eyes were
but few traces left of the physical vigour of early manhood. In place of
the glow of health and strength, were lines which told that midnight oil,
bad lodging, and the harassing life of a poor student, driven about and
ill-served as he had been, had already broken what must have been at best
a frail constitution. But the worn scabbard told of the sharpness and
temper of the steel within. His was a mind restless for mental work, now
fighting through the obstacles of ill-health and poverty, in pursuit of
its natural bent, as it had once had to fight its way out of monastic
thraldom to secure the freedom of action which such a mind required.
[Sidenote: His object in coming to Oxford.]
Though well schooled and stored with learning, yet he had not come to
Oxford to teach, or to make a name by display of intellectual power, but
simply to add new branches of knowledge to those already acquired. Greek
was now to be learned there--thanks to the efforts of Grocyn and
Linacre--and Erasmus had come to Oxford bent upon adding a knowledge of
Greek to his Latin lore. To belong to that little knot of men north of
the Alps who already knew Greek--whose number yet might be counted on his
fingers--this had now become his immediate object of ambition. What he
meant to do with his tools when he had got them, probably was a question
to be decided by circumstances rather than by any very definite plan of
his own. To gain his living by taking pupils, and to live the life of a
scholar at some continental university, was probably the future floating
indistinctly before him.
[Sidenote: Erasmus is introduced to Colet.]
Prior Charnock seems to have at once appreciated Erasmus. He did all in
his power to give him a warm welcome to the university.[184] He seems to
have taken him at once to hear Colet lecture;[185] and he very soon
informed Colet that his new guest turned out to be no ordinary man.[186]
Upon this report Colet wrote to Erasmus a graceful and gentlemanly
letter,[187] giving him a hearty welcome to England and to Oxford, and
professing his readiness to serve him.
Erasmus replied, warmly accepting Colet’s friendship, but at the same time
telling him plainly that he would find in him a man of slender or rather
of no fortune, with no ambition, but warm and open-hearted, simple,
liberal, honest, but timid, and of few words. Beyond this he must expect
nothing. But if Colet could love such a man--if he thought such a man
worthy of his friendship--he might then count him as his own.[188]
[Sidenote: Colet and Erasmus become warm friends.]
Colet _did_ think such a man worthy of his friendship, and from that
moment Erasmus and he were the best of friends. The lord mayor’s son, born
to wealth and all that wealth could command, whilst steeling his heart
against the allurements of city and court life, eagerly received into his
bosom-friendship the poor foreign scholar, whom fortune had used so
hardly, whose orphaned youth had been embittered by the treachery of
dishonest guardians, and who, robbed of his slender patrimony and cast
adrift upon the world without resources, had hitherto scarcely been able
to keep himself from want by giving lessons to private pupils. Whether he
was likely to find in the foreign scholar the fulfilment of his yearnings
after fellowship, it will be for further chapters of this history to
disclose.
II. TABLE-TALK ON THE SACRIFICE OF CAIN AND ABEL (1498?).
[Sidenote: Table-talk at Oxford.]
It chanced that, after the delivery of a Latin sermon, the preacher--an
accomplished divine--was a guest at the long table in one of the Oxford
halls. Colet presided. The divine took the seat of honour to the left of
Colet; Charnock, the hospitable prior, sat opposite; Erasmus next to the
divine; and a lawyer opposite to him. Below them, on either side, a mixed
and nameless group filled up the table. At first the tide of table-talk
ebbed and flowed upon trivial subjects. The conversation turned at length
upon the sacrifices of Cain and Abel--why the one was accepted and the
other not.
[Sidenote: Colet’s views upon sacrifice.]
[Sidenote: The difference between Cain and Abel in the _men_, not in the
offerings.]
Colet--if we may judge from the earnest way in which, in his exposition of
the Epistle to the Romans, he had urged the uselessness of outward
sacrifices, unless accompanied by that _living sacrifice_ of heart and
mind which they were meant to typify--was not likely to advocate any view
which should attribute the acceptance of the one offering and the
rejection of the other, merely to any difference in the offerings
themselves. He would be sure to place the difference in the _character of
the men_. Colet seems on this occasion to have done so, and to have
fancied he saw in the different occupations chosen by the two brothers
evidence of the different spirit under which they acted. The exact course
of the conversation we have no means of following. All we know is, that
Colet took one side, and Erasmus and the divine the other, and that the
chief bone of contention was the suggestion thrown out by Colet, that Cain
had in the first instance offended the Almighty by his distrust in the
Divine beneficence, and too great confidence in his own art and industry,
and that this was proved by his having been the first to attempt to till
the cursed ground; while Abel, with greater resignation, and resting
content with what nature still spontaneously yielded, had chosen the
gentle occupation of a shepherd.[189]
There may have been something fanciful in the view urged by Colet, but it
is evident that it covered a truth which he could not give up, however
hard and long his opponents might argue.
Erasmus was astonished at Colet’s earnestness and power. He seemed to him
‘like one inspired. In his voice, his eye, his whole countenance and
mien, he seemed raised, as it were, out of himself.’[190]
[Sidenote: Erasmus makes up a story about Cain.]
Erasmus and the divine both felt themselves beaten; but it is not always
easy for the vanquished to yield gracefully, and the discussion, growing
warmer as it proceeded, might have risen even to intemperate heat, had not
Erasmus dexterously wound it round to a happy conclusion by pretending to
remember that he had once met with a curious story about Cain in an old
wormeaten manuscript whose title-page time had destroyed. The disputants
were all attention, and Erasmus, having thus tickled their curiosity, was
induced to tell the story, after extracting a promise from the listeners
that they would not treat it as a fable. He then drew upon his ready wit,
and improvised the following story:--
‘This Cain was a man of art and industry, and withal greedy and covetous.
He had often heard from his parents how, in the garden from which they had
been driven, the corn grew as tall as alder-bushes unchoked by tares,
thorns, or thistles. When he brooded over these things, and saw how meagre
a crop the ground produced, after all his pains in tilling it, he was
tempted to resort to treachery. He went to the angel who was the appointed
guardian of paradise, and, plying him with crafty arts, tempted him with
promises to give him secretly just a few grains from the luxuriant crops
of Eden. He argued that so small a theft could not be noticed, and that if
it were, the angel could but fall to the condition men were in. Why was
his condition better than theirs? Men were driven out of the garden
because they had eaten the apple. He, being set to guard the gate, could
enjoy neither paradise nor heaven. He was not even free, as they were, to
wander where he liked upon earth! Many good things were still left to men.
With care and labour the world might be cultivated, and human misery so
far lessened by discoveries and arts of all kinds, that at length men
might not need to be envious even of Eden. It was true that they were
infested by diseases, but human art would find the cure for these in time.
Perhaps some day something might even be found which would make life
immortal. When man by his industry had made the earth into one great
garden, the angel would be shut out from it, as well as from heaven and
Eden. Let him do what he could for men without harm to himself, and then
men would do what they could for him in return. The worst man will carry
the weakest cause, if he be but the best talker. A few grains were
obtained by stealth, and carefully sown by Cain. These being sprung up,
produced an increased number. The multiplied seed was again sown, and the
process repeated time after time. Before many harvests had passed the
produce of the stolen seed covered a wide tract of country. When what was
taking place on earth became too conspicuous to be longer concealed from
heaven, God was exceedingly wroth. “I see,” He said, “how this fellow
delights in toil and sweat; I will heap it upon him to his fill.” He
spoke, and sent a dense army of ants and locusts to blight Cain’s
cornfields. He added to these hailstorms and hurricanes. He sent another
angel to guard the gate of paradise, and imprisoned the one who had
favoured man in a human body. Cain tried to appease God by burnt-offerings
of fruits, but found that the smoke of his sacrifice would not rise
towards heaven. Understanding from this that the anger of God was
determined against him, _he despaired_!’[191]
Thus, with this clever impromptu fable did Erasmus gracefully contrive to
throw the weight of his altered opinion into Colet’s scale, and at the
same time to restore the whole party to wonted good-humour. Meanwhile what
he had seen of Colet made a deep impression upon him. He himself declared
that he never had enjoyed an after-dinner talk so much. It was, he said,
wanting in nothing.[192]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The position of Colet and Erasmus at Oxford.]
This little glimpse given by Erasmus himself of his first experience of
Oxford life is of value, not only as revealing his own early impressions
of Colet and Oxford, but also as throwing some little light upon the
position which Colet himself had taken in the University after a year’s
labour at his post. That he should be chosen to preside at the long table
on this occasion was a mark at least of honour and respect; while the way
in which _he_ evidently gave the tone to the conversation, and became so
thoroughly the central figure in the group, shows that this respect was
true homage paid to character, and not to mere wealth and station. Then,
again, the fact that Erasmus, a stranger, without purse or name, should
have had assigned to him the second seat of honour, second only to the
special guest of the day, was in itself a proof of the same hearty
appreciation by Charnock and Colet of character, without regard to rank
or station. Would it have been so everywhere? Had Erasmus been so treated
at Paris?[193]
[Sidenote: Erasmus delighted with Colet and Charnock.]
No wonder that the letters of Erasmus, written during these his first
months spent at Oxford, should bear witness to the delight with which he
found himself received, all stranger as he was, into the midst of a group
of warm-hearted friends, with whom, for the first time in his life, he
found what it was to be at _home_. ‘I cannot tell you,’ he wrote to his
friend Lord Mountjoy, ‘how delighted I am with your England. With two such
friends as Colet and Charnock, I would not refuse to live even in
Scythia!’[194]
III. CONVERSATION BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE SCHOOLMEN (1498 or
1499).
But although Erasmus had formed the closest friendship with Colet, and was
learning more and more to understand and admire him, it was long before he
was sufficiently one in heart and purpose to induce Colet to unburden to
him his whole mind.
[Sidenote: Scholastic skill of Erasmus.]
He did so only by degrees. When he thought his friend really in earnest in
any passing argument he would tell him fully what his own views were. But
Colet hated the Schoolmen’s habit of arguing for argument’s sake, and felt
that Erasmus was as yet not wholly weaned from it. It was a habit which
had been fostered by the current practice of asserting wiredrawn
distinctions and abstruse propositions for the mere display of logical
skill; and Colet’s reverence for truth shrunk from this public vivisection
of it merely to feed the pride of the dissector. It pained and disgusted
him.
Erasmus had been educated at Paris in the ‘straitest sect’ of Scholastic
theologians. He had there studied theology in the college of the Scotists,
and been trained in that logical subtlety for which the school of Duns
Scotus was distinguished.[195]
[Sidenote: Colet dislikes the Scotists.]
But he found Colet, instead of regarding the Scotists as wonderfully
clever, declaring that ‘they seemed to him to be stupid and dull and
anything but clever. For to cavil about different sentences and words, now
to gnaw at this and now at that, and to dissect everything bit by bit,
seemed to him to be the mark of a poor and barren mind.’[196]
But Colet had not quarrelled only with the logical method of the
Schoolmen; he owed the scholastic philosophy itself a still deeper grudge.
[Sidenote: What the system of the Schoolmen was.]
The system of the Schoolmen professed to embrace the whole range of
universal knowledge. It was not confined strictly to religion; it
included, also, questions of philosophy and science. And these were
settled by isolated texts from the Bible, or dicta of the earlier
Schoolmen, and not by the investigation of facts. A theology so dogmatic
and capricious could consistently admit of no progress. Every discovery of
science or philosophy, contrary to the dicta of the Schoolmen, must be
regarded as a crime. It was the logical result of an inherent vice in the
system that Brunos and Galileos, in after ages, were tortured by
successors of the Schoolmen into the denial of inconvenient truths.
[Sidenote: The scholastic system not adapted to an age of progress and
discovery.]
This might do all very well in stagnant times, but in an age when the new
art of printing was reviving ancient learning, and new worlds were turning
up in hitherto untracked seas, men who, like Colet, entered into the
spirit of the new era, soon found out that the _summæ theologiæ_ of the
Schoolmen were no sum of theology at all; that their science and
philosophy were grossly deficient; and that if Christianity must in truth
stand or fall with scholastic dogmas, then the accession of new light
would be likely to lead honest enquirers after truth to reject it, and to
accept in its place the refined semi-pagan philosophy which had
accompanied the revival of learning in Italy. Yet these were the
alternatives which the Schoolmen, in common with the champions of dogmatic
creeds in all ages, tried to force upon mankind. Their cry was, as that of
their scholastic successors has been, and is, ‘_Our_ Christianity or
_none_.’
[Sidenote: Colet’s faith in facts and free enquiry.]
[Sidenote: Colet rests on the person of Christ and the ‘Apostles’ Creed.’]
Colet had seen in Italy which of these two alternatives those who came
within the influence of the new learning were inclined to take. But he had
seen or heard, too, in Italy, of a third alternative. He had found a
Christianity, not scholastic, not dogmatic, which did not seem to him to
have anything to fear from free enquiry, for it was itself one of those
facts which free enquiry had brought once more to light: the reproduction
of its ancient records in their original languages was itself one of the
results of the new learning. He had found in the New Testament a simple
record of the facts of the life of Christ, and a few apostolic letters to
the churches. It had brought him, not to an endless web of propositions
to the acceptance of which he must school his mind, but to a _person_ whom
to love, in whom to trust, and for whom to work. He would not rest even in
the teaching of his beloved St. Paul. He had been taught by the Apostle to
look up from him to the ‘wonderful majesty of Christ;’[197] and loyalty to
Christ had become the ruling passion of his life.[198]
Having rejected the _summæ theologiæ_ of the Schoolmen, even before his
faith had been shaken, by Grocyn’s discovery, in Dionysian speculations,
his disappointment also in the latter would seem to have driven him back
upon the Scriptures, upon the writings of St. Paul, above all upon Christ
himself; until at last he had seemed to find in the simple facts of the
Apostles’ Creed the true sum of Christian theology. Having entrenched his
faith behind its simple bulwarks, he could look calmly out upon the world
of philosophy and nature, with a mind free to accept truth wherever he
might find it, without anxiety as to what the revival of ancient learning,
or the discoveries of new-born science, might reveal, anxious chiefly to
find out his own life’s work and duty, and right heartily to do it.
[Sidenote: Colet’s advice to theological students to keep to the Bible and
the Apostles’ Creed.]
And having escaped the trammels of scholastic theology himself, he could
urge others also to do the same. When, therefore, young theological
students came to him in despair, on the point of throwing up theological
study altogether, because of the vexed questions in which they found it
involved, and dreading lest in these days, when everything was called in
question, they might be found unorthodox, he was wont, it seems, to tell
them ‘to keep firmly to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed, and let
divines, if they like, dispute about the rest.’[199]
But Erasmus as yet had far from attained the same standpoint.
[Sidenote: Erasmus came to England disgusted with theology.]
He was himself in the very position above described. His experience in the
Scotist college in Paris had not been lost upon him. It was not only that
its filthy chambers and diet of rotten eggs[200] had ruined his
constitution for life. He had contracted within its walls a disgust of all
theological study. He describes himself as, previously to his visit to
England, ‘abhorring the study of theology;’ and gives, as his double
reason for it, the fear lest he might run foul of settled opinions; and
lest, if he did so, he should be branded with the name of ‘heretic.’[201]
[Sidenote: Erasmus still a Schoolman.]
Disgusted, however, as he was with theology, all his theological training
had hitherto been scholastic in its character, and, apart from his
disgust of theology in general, he does not seem as yet to have contracted
any special disgust of scholastic theology in particular. He was still too
much enamoured of the logic of the Schoolmen, and too often was found to
take the Schoolmen’s side in his discussions with his friend.
[Sidenote: Erasmus praises Aquinas.]
[Sidenote: Colet’s reply.]
Colet and Erasmus[202] had been conversing one day upon the character of
the Schoolmen. Colet had expressed his sweeping disapprobation of the
whole class. Erasmus, whose knowledge of their works was, as he afterwards
acknowledged, by no means deep, at length ventured, in renewing the
conversation at another time, to except Thomas Aquinas from the common
herd, as worthy of praise, alleging in his favour that he seemed to have
studied both the Scriptures and ancient literature--which doubtless he
had. Colet made no reply. And when Erasmus pursued the subject still
further, Colet again passed it off, feigning inattention. But when
Erasmus, in the course of further conversation, again expressed the same
opinion in favour of Aquinas, and spoke more strongly even than before,
Colet turned his full eye upon him in order to learn whether he really
were speaking in earnest; and concluding that it was so--‘What,’ he said
passionately, ‘do you extol to me such a man as Aquinas? If he had not
been very arrogant indeed, he would not surely so rashly and proudly have
taken upon himself to define _all_ things. And unless his spirit had been
somewhat worldly, he would not surely have corrupted the whole teaching of
Christ by mixing with it his profane philosophy.’[203]
Erasmus was taken aback, as he had been at the discussion at the public
table. He had again been arguing without sufficient knowledge to justify
his having any strong opinion at all. Which side he took on the question
at issue was a matter almost of indifference to him. But he saw plainly
that it was not so with Colet. His first allusion to Aquinas, Colet had
resolutely shunned. When compelled to speak his opinion, his soul was
moved to its depths, and had burst forth into this passionate reply. There
must be something real and earnest at the bottom of Colet’s dislike for
Aquinas, else he could not have spoken thus.
So Erasmus betakes himself to the more careful study of the great
schoolman’s writings.
[Sidenote: Erasmus studies Aquinas.]
One may picture him taking down from the shelf the ‘Summa Theologiæ,’ and,
as the first step toward the exploration of its contents, turning to the
prologue. He reads:--
[Sidenote: The ‘Summa.’]
‘Seeing that the teacher of catholic truth should instruct not only those
advanced in knowledge, but that it is a part of his duty to teach
_beginners_ (according to the words of the Apostle to the Corinthians,
“even as unto babes in Christ, I have fed you with milk and not with
strong meat”), it is our purpose in this book to treat of those things
which pertain to the Christian religion in a manner adapted to the
instruction of beginners.
‘For we have considered that novices in this learning have been very much
hindered in [the study of] works written by others; partly, indeed, on
account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles and
arguments, and partly [for other reasons]. To avoid these and other
difficulties we shall endeavour, relying on Divine assistance, to treat of
those things which belong to sacred learning, so far as the subject will
admit, with _brevity_ and clearness.’
[Sidenote: Scholastic ‘milk for babes.’]
What could be better or truer than this? Erasmus might almost have fancied
that Colet himself had written these words, so fully do they seem to fall
in with his views. But turning from the prologue, nothing surely could
open the eyes of Erasmus more thoroughly to the real nature of scholastic
theology than a further glance at the body of the treatise. For what was
he to think of a system of theology a ‘_brief_’ compendium of which
covered no fewer than 1150 folio pages, each containing 2000 words! And
what was he to think of the wisdom of that Christian doctor who prescribed
this ‘Summa’ as ‘_milk_’ specially adapted for the sustenance of
theological ‘_babes_’! To be told first to digest forty-three propositions
concerning the nature of God, each of which embraced several distinct
articles separately discussed and concluded in the eighty-three folios
devoted to this branch of the subject; then fifteen similar propositions
regarding the nature of _angels_, embracing articles such as these:--
Whether an angel can be in more than one place at one and the same
time?
Whether more angels than one can be in one and the same place at the
same time?
Whether angels have local motion?
And whether, if they have, they pass through intermediate space?[204]
--then ten propositions regarding _the Creation_, consisting of an
elaborate attempt to bring into harmony the work of the six days recorded
in Genesis with mediæval notions of astronomy; then forty-five
propositions respecting the nature of _man_ before and after the Fall, the
physical condition of the human body in Paradise, the mode by which it was
preserved immortal by eating of the tree of life, the place where man was
created before he was placed in Paradise, &c.; and then, having mastered
the above subtle propositions, stated ‘briefly and clearly’ in 216 of the
aforesaid folio pages, to be told for his consolation and encouragement
that he had now mastered _not quite one-fifth_ part of this ‘first book’
for beginners in theological study, and that these propositions, and more
than five times as many, were to be regarded by him as the settled
doctrine of the Catholic Church!--what student could fail either to be
crushed under the dead weight of such a creed, or to rise up, and, like
Samson, bursting its green withes, discard and disown it altogether?
[Sidenote: Erasmus goes over to Colet’s view.]
No marvel that Erasmus was obliged to confess that, in the process of
further study of the works of Aquinas, his former high opinion had been
modified.[205] He could understand now how it was that Colet could hardly
control his indignation at the thought, how the simple facts of
Christianity had been corrupted by the admixture of the subtle philosophy
of this ‘best of the Schoolmen.’
And yet we may well be free to own that Colet’s not unnatural hatred of
the scholastic philosophy had blinded him in some degree to the personal
merits of the early Schoolmen. Deeper knowledge of the history of their
times, and study of the personal character at least of some of them, might
have enabled him not only to temper his hatred, but even to recognise that
they occupied in their day a standpoint not widely different altogether
even from his own.
[Sidenote: The merit of the early Schoolmen.]
For as earnestly as Colet himself was now seeking to bring the
Christianity and advanced thought of _his_ age into harmony, the early
Schoolmen had tried to do the same thing in _theirs_. The misfortune of
the Schoolmen was, that they had inherited from St. Augustine, and the
Pseudo-Dionysius, the vicious tendency to fill up blanks in theology by
indulging in hypotheses, capable of receiving the sanction of
ecclesiastical authority, and then to be treated as established, although
altogether unverified by facts. They had also to harmonise the dogmatic
theology so manufactured with a scientific system as dogmatic as itself.
For while theologians had been indulging in hypotheses respecting
‘original sin,’ ‘absolute predestination,’ and ‘irresistible grace,’
natural philosophers had been indulging in similar hypotheses respecting
the ‘crystalline spheres,’ ‘epicycloids,’ and ‘_primum mobile_.’[206] And
seeing that the method by which the Schoolmen attempted to fuse these
_two_ dogmatic systems into _one_, itself consisted of a still further
indulgence in the same vicious mode of procedure, it was but natural that
their attempt as a whole, however well meant, should leave ‘confusion
worse confounded.’
[Sidenote: The demerits of their successors.]
Still it must not be forgotten that they did succeed by this vicious
process in reconciling theology and science to the satisfaction of their
own dogmatic age. This praise is, at least, their due. On the other hand,
their successors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries could not put
forward any such claims for themselves. _They_ did not succeed in
harmonising the theology and the advanced thought of _their_ age. They
strained every nerve to keep them hopelessly apart. They blindly held on
to a worn-out system inherited from their far worthier predecessors, and
spent their strength in denouncing, in no measured terms, the scientific
spirit and inductive method of the ‘new learning.’
Hence there can be little doubt that Colet’s hatred of what in his day was
in truth a huge and bewildering mass of dreary and lifeless subtlety, was
a just and righteous hatred. And though it took some time for Erasmus
thoroughly to accept it, he could in after years, when Colet was no more,
endorse, from the bottom of his heart, Colet’s advice to young theological
students: ‘_Keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed; and let divines, if
they like, dispute about the rest_.’
IV. ERASMUS FALLS IN LOVE WITH THOMAS MORE (1498).
Amongst the broken gleams of light which fall, here and there only, upon
the Oxford intercourse of Erasmus with Colet, there are one or two which
reveal an already existing friendship with Thomas More, but unfortunately
without disclosing how it had begun.
[Sidenote: Introduction of More to Erasmus.]
Erasmus, when passing through London on his way to Oxford, had probably
been introduced by Lord Mountjoy to his brilliant young friend. It is even
possible that there may be a foundation of fact in the story that they had
met for the first time, unknown to each other, at the lord mayor’s table,
or, as is more likely still, at the table of the _ex_-lord mayor, Sir
Henry Colet. Erasmus, having perhaps been told Colet’s saying, that there
was but one genius in England, and that his name was Thomas More, may have
been set opposite to him at table without knowing who he was. More in his
turn may have been told of the logical subtlety of the great scholar newly
arrived from the Scotist college in Paris, without having been personally
introduced to him. If this were so, the rest of the story may easily be
true. They are said to have got into argument during dinner, Erasmus, in
Scotist fashion, ‘defending the worser part,’ till finding in his young
opponent ‘a readier wit than ever he had before met withal,’ he broke
forth into the exclamation, ‘_Aut tu es Morus aut nullus_;’ to which the
ready tongue of More retorted--so runs the story, ‘_Aut tu es Erasmus aut
Diabolus_.’[207] Whether at the lord mayor’s table, or elsewhere, they
_had_ become acquainted, and a correspondence had grown up between them,
one letter of which, like a solitary waif, has been left stranded on the
shore of the gulf which has swallowed the rest. It reads thus:--
_Erasmus Thomæ Moro suo, S.D._
‘I scarcely can get any letters, wherefore I have showered down curses
on the head of this letter-carrier, by whose laziness or treachery I
fancy it must be that I have been disappointed of the most eagerly
expected letters of my dear More (Mori mei). For that you have failed
on your part I neither want nor ought to suspect. Albeit, I
expostulated with you most vehemently in my last letter. Nor am I
afraid that you are at all offended by the liberty I took, for you are
not ignorant of that Spartan method of fighting “usque ad cutem.”
This, joking aside, I do entreat you, sweetest Thomas, that you will
make amends with interest for the suffering occasioned me by the too
long continued deprivation of yourself and your letters. I expect, in
short, not a letter, but a huge bundle of letters, which would weigh
down even an Egyptian porter,’
* * * * *
‘Vale jucundissime More.[208]
‘Oxoniæ: Natali Simonis et Judæ. 1499.’
[Sidenote: Friendship between More and Erasmus.]
Such being the friendship already existing between them, and beginning to
show itself in the use of those endearing superlatives without which
Erasmus, from the first to the last, never could write a letter to More,
it is not surprising that, as winter came on, Erasmus should take the
opportunity afforded by the approaching vacation for a visit to London.
Accordingly we get one chance glimpse of him there, writing a letter to
one of his friends, and expressing his delight with everything he had met
with in England.
Staying as he most likely was with Mountjoy or with More, enjoying the
warmth of their friendship, and feeling himself at home in London as he
had done in Oxford, but never had done before anywhere else, it was
natural that the foreign scholar should paint, in the warmest colours,
this land of friends. Especially of Mountjoy, who had brought him to
England, and who found him the means of living at Oxford, he would
naturally speak in the highest terms. Such was the politeness, the
goodnature, and affectionateness of his noble patron, that he would
willingly follow him, he said, _ad inferos_, if need be.
[Sidenote: Erasmus delighted with England, and with Mountjoy, Colet,
Grocyn, Linacre, and More.]
Nor was it only the warm-heartedness of his English friends which filled
him with delight. His purpose in coming to Oxford he declared to be fully
answered. He had come to England because he could not raise the means for
a longer journey to Italy. To prosecute his studies in Italy had been for
years an object of anxious yearning; but now, after a few months’
experience of Oxford life, he wrote to his friend, who was himself going
to Italy, ‘that he had found in England so much polish and learning--not
showy, shallow learning, but profound and exact, both in Latin and
Greek--that now he would hardly care much about going to Italy at all,
except for the sake of having been there.’ ‘When,’ he added, ‘I listen to
my friend Colet it seems to me like listening to Plato himself. In Grocyn,
who does not admire the wide range of his knowledge? What could be more
searching, deep, and refined than the judgment of Linacre?’ And after this
mention of Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, he adds: ‘Whenever did nature mould
a character more gentle, endearing, and happy than Thomas More’s?’[209]
[Sidenote: Erasmus falls in love with More.]
So that while here, as elsewhere, Colet seems to take his place again as
the chief of the little band of English friends, we learn from this letter
that the picture would not have been complete without the figure of the
fascinating youth with whom Erasmus, like the rest of them, had fallen in
love.
The letter itself was written to Robert Fisher, from London ‘tumultuarie,’
5th December, in 1498 or 1499.
V. DISCUSSION BETWEEN ERASMUS AND COLET ON ‘THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN,’ AND
ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES (1499).
[Sidenote: Erasmus attributes the agony of Christ to fear of death.]
The greater part of 1499 was spent by Erasmus apparently at Oxford. On one
occasion Colet and Erasmus were spending an afternoon together.[210] Their
conversation fell upon the agony of Christ in the garden. They soon, as
usual, found that they did not agree. Erasmus, following the common
explanation of the Schoolmen, saw only in the agony suffered by the
Saviour that natural fear of a cruel death to which in his human nature he
submitted as one of the incidents of humanity. It seemed to him that in
His character as truly _man_, left for the moment unaided by His divinity,
the prospect of the anguish in store for Him might well wring from Him
that cry of fearful and trembling human nature, ‘Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me!’ while the further words, ‘not my
will but Thine be done,’ proved, he thought, that He had not only felt,
but conquered, this human fear and weakness. Erasmus further supported
this view by adducing the commonly received scholastic distinction between
what Christ felt as _man_ and what He felt as _God_, alleging that it was
only as _man_ that He thus suffered.
[Sidenote: Colet objects to this view.]
[Sidenote: Christ was thinking of the Jews, not of Himself.]
Colet dissented altogether from his friend’s opinion. It might be the
commonly received interpretation of recent divines, but in spite of that
he declared his own entire disapproval of it. Nothing could, he thought,
be more inconsistent with the exceeding love of Christ, than the
supposition that, when it came to the point, He shrank in dread from that
very death which He desired to die in His great love of men. It seemed
utterly absurd, he said, to suppose that while so many martyrs have gone
to torture and death patiently and even with joy--the sense of pain being
lost in the abundance of their love--Christ, who was love itself, who came
into the world for the very purpose of delivering guilty man by his own
innocent death, should have shrunk either from the ignominy or from the
bitterness of the cross. The sweat of great drops of blood, the exceeding
sorrow even unto death, the touching entreaty to His Father that the cup
might pass from Him--was all this to be attributed to the mere fear of
death? Colet had rather set it down to anything but that. For it lies in
the essence of love, he said, that it should cast out fear, turn sorrow
into joy, think nothing of itself, sacrifice everything for others. It
could not be that He who loved the human race more than anyone else should
be inconstant and fearful in the prospect of death. In confirmation of
this view he referred to St. Jerome, who alone of all the church fathers
had, he thought, shown true insight into the real cause of Christ’s agony
in the garden. St. Jerome had attributed the Saviour’s prayer, that the
cup might pass from Him, not to the fear of death but to the sense felt by
Him of the awful guilt of the Jews, who, by thus bringing about that death
which He desired to die for the salvation of _all mankind_, seemed to be
bringing down destruction and ruin on themselves--an anxiety and dread
bitter enough, in Colet’s view, to wring from the Saviour the prayer that
the cup might pass from Him, and the drops of bloody sweat in the garden,
seeing that it afterwards did wring from Him, whilst perfecting his
eternal sacrifice on the cross, that other prayer for the very ministers
of his torture, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’
Such was the view expressed by Colet in reply to Erasmus, and in
opposition to the view which he was aware was generally received by
scholastic divines.
Whilst they were in the heat of the discussion it happened that Prior
Charnock entered the room. Colet, with a delicacy of feeling which Erasmus
afterwards appreciated, at once broke off the argument, simply remarking,
as he took leave, that he did not doubt that were his friend, when alone,
to reconsider the matter with care and accuracy, their difference of
opinion would not last very long.
[Sidenote: Erasmus writes to Colet.]
When Erasmus found himself alone and at leisure in his chambers he at
once followed Colet’s advice. He reconsidered Colet’s argument and his
own. He consulted his books. By far the most of the authorities, both
Fathers and Schoolmen, he found beyond dispute to be on his own side. And
his reconsideration ended in his being the more convinced that he had
himself been right and Colet wrong. Naturally finding it hard to yield
when there was no occasion, and feeling sure that this time he had the
best of the argument, he eagerly seized his pen, and with some parade,
both of candour and learning, stated at great length what he thought might
be said on both sides. After having written what, in type, would fill
about fifty of these pages, he confidently wound up his long letter by
saying that, so far as he could see, he had demonstrated his own opinion
to be in accordance with that of the Schoolmen and most of the early
Fathers, and, whilst not contrary to nature, clearly consistent with
reason. But he knew, he said, to whom he was writing, and whether he had
convinced _Colet_ he could not tell. For, he wrote in conclusion, ‘how
rash it is in me, a mere tyro, to dare to encounter a commander--for one,
_whom you call a rhetorician_, to venture upon theological ground, to
enter an arena which is not mine! Still I have not shrunk from daring
everything even with _you_, who are so skilled in all elegant and ancient
lore, who have brought with you from Italy such stores of Greek and Latin,
and who, on this very account, are not as yet appreciated as you ought to
be by theologians. Wherefore, in discussing with you, I have chosen to use
the old and free way of arguing; not only because I prefer it myself, but
also because I knew your dislike to the modern and new-fangled method of
disputation, which, keen and ready as it may seem to some, is in your view
complicated, superstitious, spiritless, and plainly sophistical. And
perhaps you are right.... Yet I would have you take care lest you should
not be able to stand _alone_ against so many thousands. Let us not,
contented with the plain homespun sense of Origen, Ambrose, Jerome,
Augustine, Chrysostom, and others as ancient, grudge to these modern
disputants their more elaborated doctrines.
‘And now I await your attack. I await your mighty war-trumpet. I await
those “Coletian” arrows, surer even than the arrows of Hercules. In the
meantime I will array the forces of my mind; I will concentrate my ranks;
I will prepare my reserves of books, lest I should not be able to stand
your first charge.
‘As to the rest, the matters which you have propounded from the Epistles
of St. Paul, since they are such as it would be dangerous to dispute of, I
had rather enter into them by word of mouth when we are together than by
letter. _Vale!_’
The reply of Colet was short, and very characteristic of the man.
[Sidenote: Colet replies.]
[Sidenote: Colet’s love of truth.]
‘Your letter, most learned Erasmus, as it is very long, so also is it most
eloquent and happy. It is a proof of a tenacious memory, and gives a
faithful review of our discussion.... But it contains nothing to alter or
detract from the opinions which I imbibed from St. Jerome. Not that I am
perverse and obstinate with an uncandid pertinacity, but that (though I
may be mistaken) I think I hold and defend the truth, or what is most like
the truth.... I am unwilling, just now, to grapple with your letter as a
whole; for I have neither leisure nor strength to do so at once, and
without preparation. But I will attack the first part of it--your first
line of battle as it were.... In the meantime do you patiently hear me,
and let us both, if, when striking our flints together, any spark should
fly out, eagerly catch at it. For we seek, not for victory in argument,
but for _truth_, which perchance may be elicited by the clash of argument
with argument, as sparks are by the clashing of steel against steel!’[211]
[Sidenote: Erasmus had followed the theory of the ‘manifold senses’ of
Scripture.]
Erasmus, at the commencement of his long letter, feeling, perhaps, that
after all there might be some truth in Colet’s view not embraced in his
own, had fallen back upon the strange theory, already alluded to as held
by scholastic divines, that the words of the Scriptures, because of their
magic sacredness and absolute inspiration, might properly be interpreted
in several distinct senses. ‘Nothing’ (he had said) ‘forbids our drawing
various meanings out of the wonderful riches of the sacred text, so as to
render the same passage in more than one way. I know that, according to
Job, “the word of God is manifold.” I know that the manna did not taste
alike to all. But if you so embrace _your_ opinion that you condemn and
reject the received opinion, then I freely dissent from you.’
[Sidenote: Colet’s view.]
This was the first line of battle which Colet, in his letter, declared
that he would at once attack. It was a notion of Scripture interpretation
altogether foreign to his own. He yielded to none in his admiration of
the wonderful fulness and richness of the Scriptures. He had made it the
chief matter of his remark to the priest who had called on him during the
winter vacation of 1496-7, and had written to the Abbot of Winchcombe an
account of the priest’s visit in order to press the same point upon him.
But from the method adopted in his expositions of St. Paul’s Epistles, and
the first chapter of Genesis, it appears that he did not hold the theory
of uniform verbal inspiration, which ignored the human element in
Scripture, round which had grown this still stranger theory of the
manifold senses, and upon which alone it could be at all logically held.
It is true that, in his abstract of the Dionysian writings, he had, upon
Dionysian authority, accepted, in a modified form,[212] the doctrine of
the ‘four senses’ of Scripture; and in his letters to Radulphus, whilst
confining himself to the literal sense, he guarded himself against the
denial of the same theory. But he had never sanctioned the gross abuse of
the doctrine to which Erasmus had appealed, which asserted that even the
_literal_ sense of the same passage might be interpreted to mean different
things. It was one thing to hold that some passages must be allegorically
understood and not literally, and that other passages have both a literal
and an allegorical meaning (which Colet seems to have held), or even that
_all_ passages have both a literal and an allegorical meaning (which Colet
did not hold). It was quite another thing to hold that the words of the
same passage might, in their _literal_ sense, mean several different
things, and be used as _texts_ in support of statements not within the
direct intention of their human writer.
[Sidenote: Aquinas on the ‘manifold senses.’]
Thomas Aquinas, in his ‘Summa,’ had indeed laid down a proposition, which
practically amounted to this. For in discussing the doctrine of the ‘four
senses’ of Scripture, he had not only stated that the spiritual sense of
Scripture was threefold, viz. allegorical, moral, and anagogical, but also
that the _literal sense was manifold_. He had laid down the doctrine, that
‘Inasmuch as the literal sense is that which _the author intends_, and
_God_ is the author of Holy Scripture, who comprehends all things in His
mind at one and the same time, it is not inconsistent, as Augustine says
in his twelfth Confession, if even according to the literal sense in the
one letter of the Holy Scriptures there are many senses.’[213]
It may, however, well be doubted whether Aquinas would have sanctioned
altogether the absurd length to which this doctrine was carried by
scholastic disputants.
[Sidenote: Colet on the ‘manifold senses.’]
Whether Colet, since Grocyn’s discovery, had or had not altogether
repudiated the doctrine of ‘manifold senses,’ as one of the notions which
he had once held on Dionysian authority, but which the authority of the
_Pseudo_-Dionysius was not sufficient to establish, it is clear that in
his reply to Erasmus he utterly repudiated the abuse of it to which
Erasmus had appealed. ‘In the first place’ (he wrote), ‘I cannot agree
with you when you state, along with many others, and as I think
mistakenly, that the Holy Scriptures, at least _uno in aliquo genere_, are
so prolific that they give birth to many senses. Not that I would not have
them to be as prolific as possible--their overflowing fecundity and
fulness I, more than others, admire--but that I consider their fecundity
to consist in their giving birth not to many [senses], but to only one,
and that the most true one.’
[Sidenote: Colet’s views on ‘Inspiration.’]
After remarking that whilst the lower forms of life produce the most
numerous offspring, the highest forms of life tend towards _unity_ of
offspring, he argues that the Holy Spirit gives birth in the Scripture,
according to its own power, to one and the same simple truth. What if from
the simple, divine, and truth-speaking words of the Scriptures of the
Spirit of Truth, whether heard or read, many and various persons draw many
and varying senses? He set that down, he said, not to the fecundity of the
Scriptures, but to the sterility of men’s minds, and their incapacity of
getting at the pure and simple truth. If they could but reach _that_,
they would as completely agree as now they differ. He then remarked how
mysterious the inspiration of the Scriptures was; how the Spirit seemed to
him, by reason of its majesty, to have a peculiar method of its own,
singularly absolute and free, blowing where it lists, making prophets of
whom it will, yet so that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the
prophets. He repeated, in conclusion, that he admired the fulness of the
Scriptures, not because each word may be construed in several senses--that
would be want of fulness--but because _quot sententiæ totidem sunt verba,
et quot verba tot sententiæ_. Having said this, he was ready to descend
into the arena, and to join battle with Erasmus on the matter in dispute,
but he could not do so now; he was called away by other engagements, and
must end his letter for the present.[214]
The letters which followed in which Colet further pursued the subject of
the Agony in the Garden, have unfortunately been lost. But enough remains
to give, by a passing glimpse, some idea of the pleasant colloquies and
earnest converse, both by mouth and letter, in which the happy months of
college intercourse glided swiftly by.
VI. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE INTENTION OF ERASMUS
TO LEAVE OXFORD (1499-1500).
[Sidenote: Erasmus at Court.]
The winter vacation of 1499-1500 had apparently dispersed for a while the
circle of Oxford students. Erasmus having, it would seem, some friend at
Court, had joined the Royal party, probably spending Christmas at
Woodstock or some other hunting station. He was at first delighted with
Court manners and field sports, and in a letter,[215] written about this
time, he jocosely told a Parisian friend, that the Erasmus whom he once
had known was now a hunter, and his manners polished up into those of an
experienced courtier. He was greatly struck, he added, with the beauty and
grace of the English ladies, and urged him to let nothing less than the
gout hinder his coming to England.
[Sidenote: But soon tires of Court life.]
But while Court life might captivate at first, Erasmus had soon found out
that its glitter was not gold. As the wolf in the fable lost his relish
for the dainties and delicate fare of the house-dog when he saw the mark
of the collar on his neck, so when Erasmus had seen how little of freedom
and how much of bondage there was in the courtier’s life he had left it
with disgust; choosing rather to return to Oxford to share the more
congenial society of what students might be found there during these
vacation weeks, than to remain longer with ‘be-chained courtiers.’[216] He
was waiting only for time and tide to return to Paris. At present the
weather was too rough for so bad a sailor; and, owing to political
disquiet and danger, it was difficult to obtain the needful permission to
leave the realm.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Erasmus proposes to leave Oxford.]
[Sidenote: Colet urges him to remain at Oxford.]
The fear that Erasmus was so soon to leave Oxford was one which troubled
Colet’s vacation thoughts. To be left alone at Oxford again to fight his
way single-handed was by no means a cheering prospect. But his saddest
feeling was one not merely of sorrow at parting with his new friend--it
was a feeling of disappointment. He had hoped for more than he had found
in Erasmus. That he could have won over Erasmus all at once to his own
views and plans he had never dreamed. The scholar had his own bent of
mind, and of course his own plans. Such was his love of learning for its
own sake, that he was bent on constant and persevering study; and his stay
at Oxford he looked upon merely as one step in the ladder, valuable
chiefly because it led to the next. But Colet longed for fellowship. In
his friend he had sought, and in some measure found, fellow-feeling. But
feeling and action to him were too closely linked to make that all he
wanted. Fellow-feeling was to him but a half-hearted thing unless it
ripened into fellow work; and he had hoped for this in Erasmus. He had
purposely left Erasmus to find out his views and to discern his spirit by
degrees. He had not tried to force him in anywise. He had shown his wisdom
in this. But now that Erasmus talked of leaving Oxford, it was Colet’s
duty to speak out. He could not let him go without one last appeal. He
therefore wrote to him, telling him plainly of his disappointment. He
urged him to remain at Oxford. He urged him, once for all, to come out
boldly, as he himself had done, and to do his part in the great work of
restoring that old and true theology of Christ, so long obscured by the
subtle webs of the Schoolmen, in its pristine brightness and dignity. What
could he do more noble than this? There was plenty of room for both of
them. He himself was doing his best to expound the New Testament. Why
should not Erasmus take some book of the Old Testament, say Genesis or
Isaiah, and expound it, as he had done the Epistles of St. Paul? If he
could not make up his mind to do this at once, Colet urged that, as a
temporary alternative, he should lecture on some secular branch of study.
Anything was better than that he should leave Oxford altogether.[217]
Erasmus received this letter soon after his return from his short
experience of Court life. The tone of disappointment and almost reproof
pervading it Erasmus felt was undeserved on his part, yet it evidently
made a deep impression upon him. Looking back upon his intercourse with
Colet at Oxford, he must have seen how much it had done to change his
views, and felt how powerfully Colet’s influence had worked upon him. Yet
he knew how far his views were from being matured like Colet’s, and how
foolish it would be to begin publicly to teach before his own mind was
fully made up. He knew that Colet had brought him over very much to his
way of thinking, and he was ready to confess himself a disciple of
Colet’s; but he must digest what he had learned, and make it thoroughly
his own, before he could publicly teach it. Perhaps he might one day be
able to join Colet in his work at Oxford; but he thought, and probably
wisely, that the time had not yet come. This at least may be gathered from
his reply to Colet’s letter. With some abridgment and unimportant
omissions, it may be translated thus:--
_Erasmus to Colet._[218]
[Sidenote: Reply of Erasmus to Colet’s entreaties.]
... ‘In what you say of your dislike to the modern race of divines,
who spend their lives in mere logical tricks and sophistical cavils,
in very truth I entirely agree with you.
[Sidenote: Agrees with Colet in disliking the Scholastic System.]
‘Not that, valuing as I do all branches of study, I condemn the
studies of these men _as such_, but that when they are pursued for
themselves alone, unseasoned by more ancient and elegant literature,
they seem to me to be calculated to make men sciolists and
contentious; whether they can make men wise I leave to others. For
they exhaust the mental powers by a dry and biting subtlety, without
infusing any vigour or spirit into the mind. And, worst of all,
theology, the queen of all science--so richly adorned by ancient
eloquence--they strip of all her beauty by their incongruous, mean,
and disgusting style. What was once so clear, thanks to the genius of
the old divines, they clog with some subtlety or other, thus involving
everything in obscurity while they try to explain it. It is thus we
see that theology, which was once most venerable and full of majesty,
now almost dumb, poor, and in rags.
‘In the meantime we are allured by a never-satiated appetite for
strife. One dispute gives rise to another, and with wonderful gravity
we fight about straws. Then, lest we should seem to have added nothing
to the discoveries of the old divines, we audaciously lay down certain
positive rules according to which God has performed his mysteries,
when sometimes it might be better for us to believe that a thing _was_
done, leaving the question of _how_ it was done to the omnipotence of
God. So, too, for the sake of showing our ingenuity, we sometimes
discuss questions which pious ears can hardly bear to hear; as, for
instance, when it is asked whether the Almighty could have taken upon
Him the nature of the devil or of an ass.
‘Besides all this, in our times those men in general apply themselves
to theology, the chief of all studies, who by reason of their
obtuseness and lack of sense are hardly fit for any study at all. I
say this not of learned and upright professors of theology, whom I
highly respect and venerate, but of that sordid and haughty pack of
divines who count all learning as worthless except their own.
[Sidenote: He honours Colet and his work.]
‘Wherefore, my dear Colet, in having joined battle with this
redoubtable race of men for the restoration, in its pristine
brightness and dignity, of that old and true theology which they have
obscured by their subtleties, you have in very truth engaged in a work
in many ways of the highest honour--a work of devotion to the cause of
theology, and of the greatest advantage to all students, and
especially the students of this flourishing University of Oxford.
Still, to speak the truth, it is a work of great difficulty, and one
sure to excite ill-will. Your learning and energy will, however,
conquer every difficulty, and your magnanimity will easily overlook
ill-will. There are not a few, even among divines themselves, both
able and willing to second your honest endeavours. There is no one,
indeed, who would not give you a hand, since there is not even a
doctor in this celebrated University who has not given attentive
audience to your public readings on the Epistles of St. Paul, now of
three years’ standing. And which is the most praiseworthy in this,
_their_ modesty in not being ashamed to learn from a young man without
doctor’s degree, or _your_ remarkable learning, eloquence, and
integrity of life, which they have thought worthy of such honour?
[Sidenote: Erasmus agrees with Colet but is not ready yet to join him
in fellow-work.]
‘I do not wonder that _you_ should put your shoulder under so great, a
burden, for you are able to bear it, but I do wonder greatly that you
should call _me_, who am nothing of a man, into the fellowship of so
glorious a work. For you exhort,--yes, you almost reproachfully urge
me, that, by expounding either the ancient Moses[219] or the eloquent
Isaiah, in the same way as you have expounded St. Paul, I should try,
as you say, to kindle up the studies of this University, now chilled
by these winter months. But I, who have learned to live in solitude,
know well how imperfectly I am furnished for such a task; nor do I lay
claim to sufficient learning to justify my undertaking it. Nor do I
judge that I have strength of mind enough to enable me to sustain the
ill-will of so many men stoutly maintaining their own ground. Matters
of this kind require not a tyro, but a practised general. Nor can you
rightly call me immodest in refusing to do what I should be far more
immodest to attempt. You act, my dear Colet, in this matter as wisely
as they who (as Plautus says) “demand water from a rock.” With what
face can I teach what I myself have not learned? How shall I kindle
the chilled warmth of others while I am altogether trembling and
shivering myself?...
‘But you say you expected this of me, and now you complain that you
were mistaken. You should rather blame yourself than me for this. For
I have not deceived you. I have neither promised nor held out any
prospect of any such thing. But you have deceived yourself in not
believing me when I told you truly what I meant to do.
[Sidenote: Erasmus is returning to Paris.]
‘Nor indeed did I come here to teach poetry and rhetoric, for these
ceased to be pleasant to me when they ceased to be necessary. I refuse
the one task because it does not come up to my purpose, the other
because it is beyond my strength. You unjustly blame me in the one
case, my dear Colet, because I never intended to follow the profession
of what are called secular studies. As to the other, you exhort me in
vain, as I know myself to be too unfit for it. But even though I were
most fit, still it must not be. For soon I must return to Paris.
‘In the meantime, whilst I am detained here, partly by the winter, and
partly because departure from England is forbidden, owing to the
flight of some duke,[220] I have betaken myself to this famous
University that I might rather spend two or three months with men of
your class than with those be-chained courtiers.
[Sidenote: But some day will join Colet in fellow-work.]
‘Be it, indeed, far from me to oppose your glorious and sacred
labours. On the contrary, I will promise (since not fitted as yet to
be a coadjutor) sedulously to encourage and further them. For the
rest, whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and strength
I will join you, and, by your side, and in theological teaching, I
will zealously engage, if not in successful at least in earnest
labour. In the meantime, nothing could be more delightful to me than
that we should go on as we have begun, whether daily by word of mouth,
or by letter, discussing the meaning of Holy Scripture.
‘Vale, mi Colete.
‘Oxford: at the College of the Canons of the Order of St. Augustine,
commonly called the College of St. Mary.’[221]
VII. ERASMUS LEAVES OXFORD AND ENGLAND (1500).
Erasmus took leave of Colet, and left Oxford early in January, 1500.
[Sidenote: Erasmus at Lord Mountjoy’s.]
He proceeded to Greenwich, to the country seat of Lord and Lady Mountjoy;
for his patron had, apparently, since his arrival in England, married a
wife.[222]
While he was resting under this hospitable roof, Thomas More came down to
pay him a farewell visit. He brought with him another young lawyer named
Arnold--the son of Arnold the merchant, a man well known in London, and
living in one of the houses built upon the arches of London Bridge.[223]
[Sidenote: More and Erasmus visit the Royal Nursery.]
More, whose love of fun never slept, persuaded Erasmus, by way of
something to do, to take a walk with himself and his friend to a
neighbouring village.
He took them to call at a house of rather imposing appearance. As they
entered the hall, Erasmus was struck with the style of it; it rivalled
even that of the mansion of his noble patron. It was in fact the Royal
Nursery, where all the children of Henry VII., except Arthur the Prince of
Wales, were living under the care of their tutor. In the middle of the
group was Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), then a boy of nine years
old. To his right stood the Princess Margaret, who afterwards was married
to the King of Scotland. On the left was the Princess Maria, a mere child
at play. The nurse held in her arms the Prince Edmund, a baby about ten
months old.[224]
[Sidenote: They see the Prince Henry.]
[Sidenote: Erasmus writes verses upon England.]
More and Arnold at once accosted Prince Henry, and presented him with some
verses, or other literary offering. Erasmus, having brought nothing of
the kind with him, felt awkward, and could only promise to prove his
courtesy to the Prince in the same way on some future occasion. They were
invited to sit down to table, and during the meal the Prince sent a note
to Erasmus to remind him of his promise. The result was that More received
a merited scolding from Erasmus, for having led him blindfold into the
trap; and Erasmus, after parting with More, had to devote three of the few
remaining days of his stay in England to the composition of Latin verses
in honour of England, Henry VII., and the Royal children.[225] He was in
good humour with England. He had been treated with a kindness which he
never could forget; and he was leaving England with a purse full of golden
crowns, generously provided by his English friends to defray the expenses
of his long-wished-for visit to Italy. Under these circumstances it was
not surprising if his verses should be laudatory.[226]
[Sidenote: Leaves for Dover.]
By the 27th January,[227] he was off to Dover, to catch the boat for
Boulogne.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The three friends are scattered.]
So the three friends were scattered. Each had evidently a separate path of
his own. Their natures and natural gifts were, indeed, singularly
different. They had been brought into contact for one short year, as it
were by chance, and now again their spheres of life seemed likely to lie
wide apart.
How could it be otherwise? Even Colet, who had longed that his friendship
for Erasmus might ripen into the fellowship of fellow-work, could not hope
against hope. The chances that his dream might yet be realised, seemed
slight indeed. ‘Whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and
strength, I will join you!’ So Erasmus had promised. But Colet might well
doubtfully ask himself--‘When will that be?’