I. ERASMUS GOES TO BASLE TO PRINT HIS NEW TESTAMENT (1514).
[Sidenote: Erasmus crosses the Channel.]
It was on a July morning in the year 1514 that Erasmus again crossed the
Channel. The wind was fair, the sea calm, the sky bright and sunny; but
during the easy passage Erasmus had a heavy heart. He had once more left
his English friends behind him, bent upon a solitary pilgrimage to Basle,
in order that his edition of the letters of St. Jerome and his Greek New
Testament might be printed at the press of Froben the printer. But, always
unlucky on leaving British shores, he missed his baggage from the boat
when, after the bustle of embarkation, he looked to see that all was
right. To have lost his manuscripts--his Jerome, his New Testament, the
labours of so many years--to be on his way to Basle without the books for
the printing of which he was taking the long journey--this was enough to
weigh down his heart with a grief which he might well compare to that of a
parent who has lost his children. It turned out, after all, to be a trick
of the knavish sailors, who threw the traveller’s luggage into another
boat in order to extort a few coins for its recovery. Erasmus, in the end,
got his luggage back again; but he might well say that, though the
passage was a good one, it was an anxious one to him.[483]
[Sidenote: Letter from Servatius.]
On his arrival at the castle of _Hammes_, near Calais, where he had agreed
to spend a few days with his old pupil and friend Lord Mountjoy, he found
waiting for him a letter from Servatius, prior of the monastery of Stein,
in Holland--_the_ monastery into which he had been ensnared when a youth
against his judgment by treachery and foul play.
It was a letter doubtless written with kindly feeling, for the prior had
once been his companion; but still he evidently took it as a letter from
the prior of the convent from which he was a kind of runaway, not only
inviting, but in measure _claiming_ him back again, reproachfully
reminding him of his vows, censuring his wandering life, his throwing off
the habit of his order, and ending with a bribe--the offer of a post of
great advantage if he would return.
Erasmus return! No, truly; that he would not! But the very naming of it
brought back to mind not only the wrongs he had suffered in his youth; the
cruelty and baseness of his guardians; his miserable experience of
monastic life; how hardly he had escaped out of it; his trials during a
chequered wandering life since; but also his entry upon fellow-work with
Colet; the noble-hearted friends with whom he had been privileged to come
in contact; the noble work in which they were now engaged together. What!
give up these to put his neck again under a yoke which had so galled him
in dark times gone by! And for what? To become perchance the
father-confessor of a nunnery! It was as though Pharaoh had sent an
embassy to Moses offering to make him a taskmaster if he would but return
into Egypt.
No wonder that Erasmus, finding this letter from Servatius waiting for him
on his arrival at the castle of his friend, took up his pen to reply
somewhat warmly before proceeding on his journey. His letter lies as a
kind of waymark by the roadside of his wandering life, and with some
abridgment and omissions may be thus translated:--
_Erasmus to Servatius._
‘... Being on a journey, I must reply in but few words, and confine
myself to matters of the most importance.
[Sidenote: Erasmus alludes to his youth.]
[Sidenote: Erasmus hates the monastic life.]
‘Men hold opinions so diverse that it is impossible to please
everybody. That _my_ desire is in very deed to follow that which is
really the best, God is my witness! It was never my intention to
change my mode of life or my habit; not because I approved of either,
but lest I should give rise to scandal. _You_ know well that it was by
the pertinacity of my guardians and the persuasion of wicked men that
I was forced rather than induced to enter the monastic life.
Afterwards, when I found out how entirely unsuited it was for me, I
was restrained by the taunts of Cornelius Wertem and the bashfulness
of youth.... But it may be objected that I had a year of what is
called “probation,” and was of mature age. Ridiculous! As though
anyone could require that a boy of seventeen, brought up in literary
studies, should have attained to a self-knowledge rare even in an old
man--should be able to learn in one year what many men grow grey
without learning! Be this as it may, I never liked the monastic life;
and I liked it less than ever after I had tried it; but I was ensnared
in the way I have mentioned. For all this, I am free to confess that a
man who is really a good man may live well in any kind of life.
[Sidenote: His ill health.]
[Sidenote: His works.]
‘I have in the meantime tried to find that mode of living in which I
should be least prone to evil. And I think assuredly that I have found
it; I have lived with sober men, I have lived a life of literary
study, and these have drawn me away from many vices. It has been my
lot to live on terms of intimacy with men of true Christian wisdom,
and I have been bettered by their conversation.... Whenever the
thought has occurred to me of returning into your fraternity it has
always called back to my remembrance the jealousy of many, the
contempt of all; converse how cold, how trifling! how lacking in
Christian wisdom! feastings more fit for the laity! the mode of life,
as a whole, one which, if you subtract its ceremonies from it, has
nothing left that seems to me worth having. Lastly, I have called to
mind my bodily infirmities, now increased upon me by age and toil, by
reason of which I should have both failed in coming up to your mark
and also sacrificed my own life. For some years now I have been
afflicted with the stone, and its frequent recurrence obliges me to
observe great regularity in my habits. I have had some experience both
of the climate of Holland and of your particular diet and habits, and
I feel sure that, had I returned, nothing else could have come of it
but trouble to you and death to me.
‘But it may be that you deem it a blessed thing to die at a good age
in the midst of your brotherhood. This is a notion which deceives and
deludes not you alone, but almost everybody. We think that Christ and
religion consist in certain places, and garments and modes of life,
and ceremonial observances. It is all up, we think, with a man who
changes his white habit for a black one, who substitutes a hat for a
hood, and who frequently changes his residence. I will be bold to say
that, on the other hand, great injury has arisen to Christian piety
from what we call the “religious orders,” although it may be that they
were introduced with a pious motive.... Pick out the most lauded and
laudable of all of them, and you may look in vain, so far as I can
see, for any likeness to Christ, unless it be in cold and Judaical
ceremonies. It is on account of these that they think so much of
themselves; it is on account of these that they judge and condemn
others. How much more accordant to the teaching of Christ would it be
to look upon all Christendom as one home; as it were, one monastery;
to regard all men as canons and brothers; to count the sacrament of
baptism the chief religious vow; not to care where you live, if only
you live well!... And now to say a word about my works. The
“Enchiridion” I fancy you have read.... The book of “Adagia,” printed
by Aldus, I don’t know whether you have seen.... I have also written a
book, “De Rerum et Verborum Copiâ,” which I inscribed to my friend
Colet.... For these two years past, amongst other things, I have been
correcting the text of the “Letters of Jerome.”... By the collation of
Greek and ancient codices, I have also corrected the text of the
whole New Testament, and made annotations not without theological
value on more than one thousand places. I have commenced Commentaries
on St. Paul’s Epistles, which I shall finish when the others are
published; for I have made up my mind to work at sacred literature to
the day of my death. Great men say that in these things I am
successful where others are not. In your mode of life I should
entirely fail. Although I have had intercourse with so many men of
learning, both here and in Italy and in France, I have never yet found
one who advised me to betake myself back again to you.... I beg that
you will not forget to commend me in your prayers to the keeping of
Christ. If ever I should come really to know that it would be doing my
duty to _Him_ to return to your brotherhood, on that very day I will
start on the journey. Farewell, my once pleasant companion, but now
reverend father.
‘From Hammes Castle, near Calais, 9th July, 1514.’[484]
[Sidenote: Visits the Abbot of St. Bertin.]
[Sidenote: On his way to Basle.]
This bold letter written, Erasmus took leave of his host, and hastened to
repay by a short embrace the kindness of another friend, the Abbot of St.
Bertin.[485] After a two days’ halt to accomplish this object, he again
mounted his horse, and, followed by his servant and baggage, set his face
resolutely towards Basle: cheered in spirit by the marks of friendship
received during the past few days, and anxious to reach his journey’s end
that he might set about his work.
[Sidenote: Accident near Ghent.]
But all haste is not good speed. As he approached the city of Ghent, while
he chanced to be turning _one_ way to speak to his servant, his horse took
fright at something lying on the road, and turned round the _other_ way,
severely straining thereby Erasmus’s back.
It was with the greatest difficulty and torture that he reached Ghent.
There he lay for some days motionless on his back at the inn, unable to
stand upright, and fearing the worst. By degrees, however, he again became
able to move, and to write an amusing account of his adventure to Lord
Mountjoy;[486] telling him that he had vowed to St. Paul that, if restored
to health, he would complete the Commentaries he was writing on the
Epistle to the Romans; and adding that he was already so much better that
he hoped ere long to proceed another stage to Antwerp. Antwerp was
accordingly reached in due course, and from thence he was able to pursue
his journey.
At Louvain he prepared for publication a collection of stray pieces,
including amongst them the ‘_Institutes of a Christian Man_,’ written by
Colet for his school in English prose, and turned into Latin verse by
Erasmus. In the letter prefixed to the collection[487] he spoke of Colet
as a man ‘_than whom, in my opinion, the kingdom of England has not
another more pious, or who more truly knows Christ_.’[488] Two editions of
this volume were published at Cologne in the course of a few months by
different typographers.[489]
[Sidenote: At Maintz.]
[Sidenote: Reuchlin and his friends.]
At Maintz he appears to have halted a while, and he afterwards informed
Colet[490] that ‘much was made of him there.’ That it was so may be
readily conjectured, for it was at Maintz that the Court of Inquisition
had sat in the autumn of the previous year, which, had it not been for the
timely interference of the Archbishop of Maintz, would have condemned the
aged Reuchlin as a heretic. In this city Erasmus would probably fall in
with many of Reuchlin’s friends, and as the matter was now pending the
decision of the authorities at Rome, they may well have tried to secure
his influence with the Pope, to whom he was personally known. Be this as
it may, from the date of his visit to Maintz, Erasmus seems not only never
to have lost an opportunity of supporting the cause of Reuchlin at Rome or
elsewhere, but also to have himself secured the friendship and regard of
Reuchlin’s protector, the archbishop.[491]
[Sidenote: Erasmus at Strasburg.]
Leaving Maintz, he proceeded to Strasburg, where he was surrounded and
entertained by a galaxy of learned men. Another stage brought him to
Schelestadt.[492] The chief men of this ancient town, having heard of his
approach, sent him a present of wines, requested his company to dinner on
the following day, and offered him the escort of one of their number for
the remainder of his journey. Erasmus declined to be further detained, but
gladly accepted the escort of _John Sapidus_.
After having been thus lionised at each stage of the journey, and to
prevent a similar annoyance, on his arrival at Basle, Erasmus requested
his new companion to conceal his name, and if possible to introduce him to
a few choice friends before his arrival was known. Sapidus complied with
this request. He had no difficulty in making his choice.
[Sidenote: Arrives at Basle incognito.]
[Sidenote: Circle of learned men at Basle.]
[Sidenote: Amerbach.]
[Sidenote: His three sons.]
[Sidenote: Froben.]
[Sidenote: Beatus Rhenanus.]
[Sidenote: Lystrius.]
Round the printing establishment of Froben, the printer had gathered a
little group of learned and devoted men, whose names had made Basle famous
as one of the centres of reviving learning. There was a university at
Basle, but it was not this which had attracted the little knot of students
to the city. The patriarch of the group was _Johann Amerbach_. He was now
an old man. More than thirty years had passed since he had first set up
his printing-press at Basle, and during these years he had devoted his
ample wealth and active intellect to the reproduction in type of the works
of the early Church Fathers. The works of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine
had already issued from his press at vast cost of labour, time, and
wealth. To publish St. Jerome’s works before he died, or at least to see
the work in hand, was now the aged patriarch’s ambition. Many years ago he
had imported Froben, that he might secure an able successor in the
printing department. His own three sons, also, he had educated in Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew, so as to qualify them thoroughly for the work he
wished them to continue after he was gone. And the three brothers Amerbach
did not belie their father’s hopes. They had inherited a double portion of
his spirit.[493] Froben, too, had caught the old printer’s mantle, and
worked like him, for love, and not for gain.[494] Others had gathered
round so bright a nucleus. There was Beatus Rhenanus, a young scholar of
great ability and wealth, whose gentle loving nature endeared him to his
intimate companions. He, too, had caught the spirit of reviving learning,
and thought it not beneath his dignity to undertake the duties of
corrector of the press in Froben’s printing-office.[495] Gerard Lystrius,
a youth brought up to the medical profession, with no mean knowledge both
of Greek and Hebrew, had also thrown in his lot with them.[496]
[Sidenote: Erasmus introduced incognito to Froben and his friends.]
Such was the little circle of choice friends into which Sapidus, without
betraying who he was, introduced the stranger who had just arrived in
Basle, who, addressing himself at once to Froben, presented letters from
Erasmus, with whom he said that he was most closely intimate, and from
whom he had the fullest commission to treat with reference to the printing
of his works, so that Froben might regard whatever arrangement he might
make with him as though it had been made with Erasmus himself. Finding
still that he was undiscovered, and wishing to slide easily from under his
_incognito_, he soon added drily that Erasmus and he were ‘so alike that
to see one was to have seen the other!’ Froben then, to his great
amusement, discovered who the stranger was. He was received with open
arms. His bills at the inn were forthwith paid, and himself, servant,
horses, and baggage transferred to the home of Froben’s father-in-law,
there to enjoy the luxuries of private hospitality.
When it was known in the city that Erasmus had arrived he was besieged by
doctors and deans, rectors of the University, poets-laureate, invitations
to dine, and every kind of attention which the men of Basle could give to
so illustrious a stranger.
But Erasmus had come back to Basle not to be lionised, but to push on with
his work. He was gratified; and, indeed, he told his friends, almost put
to the blush by the honours with which he had been received; but, finding
their constant attentions to interfere greatly with his daily labours at
Froben’s office, he was obliged to request that he might be left to
himself.[497]
[Sidenote: Erasmus at work in Froben’s printing office.]
At Froben’s office he found everything prepared to his hand. The train was
already laid for the publication of St. Jerome. Beatus Rhenanus and the
three brothers Amerbach were ready to throw themselves heart and soul into
the work. The latter undertook to share the labour of collating and
transcribing portions which Erasmus had not yet completed, and so the
ponderous craft got fairly under way. By the end of August, he was
thoroughly immersed in types and proof-sheets, and, to use his own
expression, no less busy in superintending his little enterprise than the
Emperor in his war with Venice.[498]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Writes to his English friends.]
Thus he could report well of his journey and his present home to his
English friends. He felt that he had done right in coming to Basle, but,
none the less on that account, that his true home was in the hearts of
these same English friends. In his letters to them he expressed his
longing to return.[499] His late ill-fortune in England he had always set
down to the war, which had turned the thoughts of the nation and the
liberality of patrons into other channels, and he hoped that now, perhaps,
the war being over, a better state of things might reign in England, and
better fortunes be in store for the poor scholar.
What Colet thought of this and things in general, how clouds and storms
seemed gathering round him, may be learned from his reply to his friend’s
letter, brief as was his wont, but touchingly graphic in its little
details about himself and his own life during these passing months. He was
already preparing to resign his preferments, and building a house within
the secluded precincts of the Charterhouse at Sheene near Richmond,
wherein, with a few bosom friends, he hoped to spend the rest of his days
in peace, unmolested by his evil genius, the Bishop of London.
_Colet to Erasmus._[500]
[Sidenote: Colet still harassed by Bishop Fitzjames.]
‘Dearest Erasmus--I have received your letter written from Basle, 3
Cal. Sept. I am glad to know where you are, and in what clime you are
living. I am glad, too, that you are well. See that you perform the
vow which you say you made to St. Paul. That so much was made of you
at Maintz, as you tell me, I can easily believe. I am glad you intend
to return to us some day. But I am not very hopeful about it. As to
any better fortune for you, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know,
because those who have the means have not the will, and those who have
the will have not the means. All your friends here are well. The
Archbishop of Canterbury keeps as kindly disposed as ever. The Bishop
of Lincoln [Wolsey] now reigns “Archbishop of York!” The Bishop of
London never ceases to harass me. Every day I look forward to my
retirement and retreat with the Carthusians. My nest is nearly
finished. When you come back to us, so far as I can conjecture, you
will find me there, “_mortuus mundo_.” Take care of your health, and
let me know where you go to. Farewell.--_From London, Oct. 20
(1514)._’
II. ERASMUS RETURNS TO ENGLAND--HIS SATIRE UPON KINGS (1515).
[Sidenote: Erasmus arrives in England.]
Erasmus had at first intended to remain at Basle till the Ides of March
(1515), and then, in compliance with the invitation of his Italian
friends, to spend a few weeks in Italy.[501] But after working six or
eight months at Froben’s office, he was no longer inclined to carry out
the project; and so, a new edition of the ‘Adagia’ being wellnigh
completed, and the ponderous folios of Jerome proceeding to satisfaction,
under the good auspices of the brothers Amerbach, when spring came round
Erasmus took sudden flight from Basle, and turned up, not in Italy, but in
England. Safely arrived in London, he was obliged to do his best, by the
discreet use of his pen, to excuse to his friends at Rome this slight upon
their favours.
[Sidenote: Supports the cause of Reuchlin.]
He wrote, therefore, elegant and flattering letters to the Cardinal
Grimanus, the Cardinal St. George, and Pope Leo,[502] describing the
labours in which he was engaged, the noble assistance which the little
fraternity at Basle were giving, and which could not have been got in
Italy nor anywhere else; alluding in flattering terms to the advantages
offered at Rome, and the kindness he had there received on his former
visit; but describing in still more glowing terms the love and generosity
of his friends in England, and declaring ‘with that frankness which it
becomes a German to use,’ that ‘England was his adopted country, and the
chosen home of his old age.’[503] He also took the opportunity of strongly
urging the two cardinals to use their utmost influence in aid of the cause
of Reuchlin. He told them how grieved he was, in common with all the
learned men of Germany, that these frivolous and vexatious proceedings
should have been taken against a man venerable both on account of age and
service, who ought now in his declining years to be peacefully wearing his
well-earned laurels. And lastly, in his letter to the Pope, Erasmus took
occasion to express his hatred of the wars in which Europe had been
recently involved, and his thankfulness that the efforts of his Holiness
to bring about a peace had at last been crowned with success.
[Sidenote: Peace between England and France.]
[Sidenote: Death of Louis XII. and accession of Francis I.]
Peace had indeed been proclaimed between France and England, while Erasmus
had been working at Basle, but under circumstances not likely to _lessen_
those feelings of indignation with which the three friends regarded the
selfish and reckless policy of European rulers. For peace had been made
with France merely to shuffle the cards. Henry’s sister, the Princess Mary
(whose marriage with Henry’s ally, Prince Charles, ought long ago to have
been solemnised according to contract), had been married to their common
enemy, Louis XII. of France, with whom they had just been together at war.
In November, Henry and his late enemy, Louis, were plotting to combine
against Henry’s late ally, King Ferdinand; and England’s blood and
treasure, after having been wasted in helping to wrest Navarre from France
for Ferdinand, were now to be wasted anew to recover the same province
back to France from Ferdinand.[504] On the first of January this unholy
alliance of the two courts was severed by the death of Louis XII. The
Princess Mary was a widow. The young and ambitious Francis I. succeeded to
the French throne, and he, anxious like Henry VIII. to achieve military
glory, declared his intention, on succeeding to the crown, that ‘the
monarchy of Christendom should rest under the banner of France as it was
wont to do.’[505] Before the end of July he had already started on that
Italian campaign in which he was soon to defeat the Swiss in the great
battle of Marignano--a battle at the news of which Ferdinand and Henry
were once more to be made secret friends by their common hatred of so
dangerous a rival![506]
These international scandals, for such they must be called, wrung from
Erasmus other and far more bitter censure than that contained in his
letter to the Pope. He was laboriously occupied with great works passing
through the printing-press at Basle, but still he stole the time to give
public vent to his pent-up feelings. It little mattered that the actors of
these scandals were patrons of his own--kings and ministers on whose aid
he was to some extent dependent, even for the means wherewith to print his
Greek New Testament. His indignation burst forth in pamphlets printed in
large type, and bearing his name, or was thrust into the new edition of
the ‘Adagia,’ or bound up with other new editions which happened now to be
passing through Froben’s press.[507] And be it remembered that these works
and pamphlets found their way as well into royal courts as into the
studies of the learned.
[Sidenote: Satire upon Kings.]
What could exceed the sternness and bitterness of the reproof contained in
the following passages?--
‘Aristotle was wont to distinguish between a _king_ and a _tyrant_ by the
most obvious marks: the tyrant regarding only his own interest; the king
the interests of his people. But the title of “king,” which the first and
greatest Roman rulers thought to be immodest and impolitic, as likely to
stir up jealousy, is not enough for some, unless it be gilded with the
most splendid lies. Kings who are scarcely men are called “divine;” they
are “invincible,” though they never have left a battlefield without being
conquered; “serene,” though they have turned the world upside down in a
tumult of war; “illustrious,” though they grovel in profoundest ignorance
of everything noble; “Catholic,” though they follow anything rather than
Christ.
‘And these divine, illustrious, triumphant kings ... have no other desire
than that laws, edicts, wars, peaces, leagues, councils, judgments, sacred
or profane, should bring the wealth of others into their exchequer--_i.e._
they gather everything into their leaking reservoir, and, like the eagles,
fatten their eaglets on the flesh of innocent birds.
‘Let any physiognomist worth anything at all consider the look and the
features of an eagle--those rapacious and wicked eyes, that threatening
curve of the beak, those cruel jaws, that stern front ... will he not
recognise at once the image of a king?--a magnificent and majestic king?
Add to this a dark ill-omened colour, an unpleasing, dreadful, appalling
voice, and that threatening scream at which every kind of animal trembles.
Every one will acknowledge this type who has learned how terrible are the
threats of princes, even uttered in jest.... At this scream of the eagle
the people tremble, the senate yields, the nobility cringes, the judges
concur, the divines are dumb, the lawyers assent, the laws and
constitutions give way, neither right nor religion, neither justice nor
humanity, avail. And thus while there are so many birds of sweet and
melodious song, the unpleasant and unmusical scream of the eagle alone has
more power than all the rest.... Of all birds the eagle alone has seemed
to wise men the type of royalty--not beautiful, not musical, not fit for
food; but carnivorous, greedy, hateful to all, the curse of all, and, with
its great powers of doing harm, surpassing them in its desire of doing
it.’[508]
Again:--
‘The office of a prince is called a “dominion,” when in truth a prince has
nothing else to do but to administer the affairs of the commonwealth.
‘The intermarriages between royal families, and the new leagues arising
from them, are called “the bonds of Christian peace,” though almost all
wars and all tumults of human affairs seem to rise out of them. When
princes conspire together to oppress and exhaust a commonwealth, they call
it a “just war.” When they themselves _unite_ in this object, they call it
“_peace_.”
‘They call it the extension of the empire when this or that little town is
added to the titles of the prince at the cost of the plunder, the blood,
the widowhood, the bereavement of so many citizens.’[509]
[Sidenote: Rapid sale of the ‘Praise of Folly.’]
These passages may serve to indicate what feelings were stirred up in the
heart of Erasmus by the condition of international affairs, and in what
temper he returned to England. The works in which they appeared he had
left under the charge of Beatus Rhenanus, to be printed at Basle in his
absence. And some notion of the extent to which whatever proceeded from
the pen of Erasmus was now devoured by the public, may be gained from the
fact that Rhenanus, in April of this very year, wrote to Erasmus, to tell
him that out of an edition of 1,800 of the ‘Praise of Folly’ just printed
by Froben, with notes by Lystrius, only sixty remained in hand.[510]
III. RETURNS TO BASLE TO FINISH HIS WORKS.--FEARS OF THE ORTHODOX PARTY
(1515).
It will be necessary to recur to the position of international affairs ere
long; meanwhile, the quotations we have given will be enough to show that,
buried as Erasmus was in literary labour, he was alive also to what was
passing around him--no mere bookworm, to whom his books and his learning
were the sole end of life. As we proceed to examine more closely the
object and spirit of the works in which he was now engaged, it will become
more and more evident that their interest to him was of quite another kind
to that of the mere bookworm.
[Sidenote: Erasmus returns to Basle.]
Before the summer of 1515 was over he was again on his way to Basle, where
his editions of Jerome and of the New Testament were now really
approaching completion. Their appearance was anxiously expected by learned
men all over Europe. The bold intention of Erasmus to publish the Greek
text of the New Testament with a new Latin translation of his own, a
rival of the sacred Vulgate, had got wind. Divines of the traditional
school had already taken alarm. It was whispered about amongst them that
something ought to be done. The new edition of the ‘Praise of Folly,’ with
notes by Lystrius, had been bought and read with avidity. Men now shook
their heads, who had smiled at its first appearance. They discovered
heresies in it unnoticed before. Besides, the name of Erasmus was now
known all over Europe. It mattered little what he wrote a few years ago,
when he was little known; but it mattered much what he might write now
that he was a man of mark.
[Sidenote: Rumours of opposition.]
While Erasmus was passing through Belgium on his way to Basle, these
whispered signs of discontent found public utterance in a letter from
Martin Dorpius,[511] of the Louvain University, addressed to Erasmus, but
printed, and, it would seem, in the hands of the public, before it was
forwarded to him. He met with it by accident at Antwerp.[512] It was
written at the instigation of others. Men who had not the wit to make a
public protest of this nature for themselves, had urged Martin Dorpius to
employ his talents in their cause, and to become their mouthpiece.[513]
Thus this letter from Dorpius was of far more importance than would at
first sight appear. It had a representative importance which it did not
possess in itself. It was the public protest of a large and powerful
party. As such it required more than a mere private reply from Erasmus,
and deserves more than a passing mention here, for it affords an insight
into the plan and defences of a theological citadel, against which its
defenders considered that Erasmus was meditating a bold attack.
[Sidenote: Letter from Dorpius.]
‘I hear’ (wrote Dorpius, after criticising severely the ‘Praise of
Folly’)--‘I hear that you have been expurgating the epistles of Saint
Jerome from the errors with which they abound ... and this is a work in
all respects worthy of your labour, and by which you will confer a great
benefit on divines.... But I hear, also, that you have been correcting the
text of the New Testament, and that “you have made annotations not without
theological value on more than one thousand places.”’
Here Dorpius evidently quotes the words of the letter of Erasmus to
_Servatius_, so that _he_ too is silently behind the scenes, handing
Erasmus’s letter about amongst his theological friends, perhaps himself
inciting Dorpius to write as he does.
[Sidenote: Dorpius asserts that there are no errors in the Vulgate.]
‘... If I can show you that the Latin translation has in it no errors or
mistakes’ (continued Dorpius), ‘then you must confess that the labour of
those who try to correct it is altogether null and void.... I am arguing
now with respect to the truthfulness and integrity of the translation, and
I assert this of our Vulgate version. For it cannot be that the unanimous
universal Church now for so many centuries has been mistaken, which always
has used, and still both sanctions and uses, this version. Nor in the same
way is it possible that so many holy fathers, so many men of most
consummate authority, could be mistaken, who, relying on the same
version, have defined the most difficult points even in _General
Councils_; have defended and elucidated the faith, and enacted canons to
which even kings have bowed their sceptres. That councils rightly convened
never can err in matters of faith is generally admitted by both divines
and lawyers.... What matters it whether you believe or not that the Greek
books are more accurate than the Latin ones; whether or not _greater_ care
was taken to preserve the sacred books in all their integrity by the
Greeks than by the Latins;--by the Greeks, forsooth, amongst whom the
Christian religion was very often almost overthrown, and who affirmed that
none of the gospels were free from errors, excepting the one gospel of
John. What matters all this when, to say nothing of anything else, amongst
the Latins the Church has continued throughout the inviolate spouse of
Christ?... What if it be contended that the sense, as rendered by the
Latin version, differs in truth from the Greek text? Then, indeed, adieu
to the Greek. I adhere to the Latin because I cannot bring my mind to
believe that the Greek are more correct than the Latin codices.
‘But it may be said, Augustine ordered the Latin rivulets to be supplied
from the Greek fountain-head. He did so; and wisely in his age, in which
neither had any one Latin version been received by the Church as now, nor
had the Greek fountain-head become so corrupt as it now seems to be.
[Sidenote: A single error would destroy the authority of the Bible.]
‘You may say in reply, “I do not want you to change anything in your
codices, nor that you should believe that the Latin version is a false
one. I only point out what discrepancies I discover between the Greek and
Latin copies, and what harm is there in that?” In very deed, my dear
Erasmus, there is great harm in it. Because, about this matter of the
integrity of the Holy Scriptures many will dispute, many will doubt, if
they learn that even one jot or tittle in them is false, ... and then will
come to pass what Augustine described to Jerome: “If any error should be
admitted to have crept into the Holy Scriptures, what authority would be
left to them?” All these considerations, my dear Erasmus, have induced me
to pray and beseech you, by our mutual friendship, by your wonted courtesy
and candour, either to limit your corrections to those passages only of
the New Testament in which you are able, without altering the sense, to
substitute more expressive words; or if you should point out that the
sense requires any alteration at all, that you will reply to the foregoing
arguments in your preface.’
[Sidenote: Erasmus replies to Dorpius.]
Erasmus replied to this letter of Dorpius with singular tact, and
reprinted the letter itself with his reply.
He acknowledged the friendship of Dorpius, and the kind and friendly tone
of his letter. He received, he said, many flattering letters, but he had
rather receive such a letter as this, of honest advice and criticism, by
far. He was knocked up by sea-sickness, wearied by long travel on
horseback, busy unpacking his luggage; but still he thought it was better,
he said, to send some reply, rather than allow his friend to remain under
such erroneous impressions, whether the result of his own consideration,
or instilled into him by others, who had over-persuaded him into writing
this letter, and thus made a cat’s-paw of him, in order to light their
battles without exposure of their own persons.
He told him freely how and when the ‘Praise of Folly’ was written, and
what were his reasons for writing it, frankly and courteously replying to
his criticisms.
He described the labour and difficulty of the correction of the text of
St. Jerome--a work of which Dorpius had expressed his approval. But he
said, with reference to what Dorpius had written upon the New Testament,
he could not help wondering what had happened to him--what could have
thrown all this dust into his eyes!
[Sidenote: There _are_ errors in the Vulgate.]
‘You are unwilling that I should alter anything, except when the Greek
text expresses the sense of the Vulgate more clearly, and you deny that in
the Vulgate edition there are any mistakes. And you think it wrong that
what has been approved by the sanction of so many ages and so many synods
should be unsettled by any means. I beseech you to consider, most learned
Dorpius, whether what you have written be _true_! How is it that Jerome,
Augustine, and Ambrose all cite a text which differs from the Vulgate? How
is it that Jerome finds fault with and corrects many readings which we
find in the Vulgate? What can you make of all this concurrent
evidence--when the Greek versions differ from the Vulgate, when Jerome
cites the text according to the Greek version, when the oldest Latin
versions do the same, when this reading suits the sense much better than
that of the Vulgate,--will you, treating all this with contempt, follow a
version perhaps corrupted by some copyist?... In doing so you follow in
the steps of those vulgar divines who are accustomed to attribute
ecclesiastical authority to whatever in any way creeps into general
use.... I had rather be a common mechanic than the best of their number.’
With regard to some other points, it was, he said, more prudent to be
silent; but he told Dorpius that he had submitted the rough draft of his
Annotations to divines and bishops of the greatest integrity and learning,
and these had confessed that they threw much light on Scripture study. He
concluded with the expression of a hope that even Dorpius himself,
although now protesting against the attempt, would welcome the publication
of the book when it came into his hands.
[Sidenote: Erasmus at Basle.]
This letter[514] written and despatched to the printer, Erasmus proceeded
with his journey. The Rhine, swollen by the rains and the rapid melting of
Alpine snows, had overflowed its banks; so that the journey, always
disagreeable and fatiguing, was this time more than usually so. It was
more like swimming, Erasmus said, than riding. But by the end of
August[515] he was again hard at work in Froben’s printing-office putting
the finishing strokes to his two great works.[516] By the 7th of March,
1516, he was able to announce that the New Testament was out of the
printer’s hands, and the final colophon put to St. Jerome.[517]
It is time therefore that we should attempt to realise what these two
great works were, and what the peculiar significance of their concurrent
publication.