THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ COMPLETED.--WHAT IT REALLY WAS (1516).
[Sidenote: Main object of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’]
[Sidenote: Not the Greek text.]
The New Testament of Erasmus ought not to be regarded by any means as a
mere reproduction of the Greek text, or criticised even _chiefly_ as such.
The labour which falls to the lot of a pioneer in such a work, the
multiplied chances of error in the collation by a single hand, and that of
a novice in the art of deciphering difficult manuscripts, the want of
experience on the part of the printers in the use of Greek type, the
inadequate pecuniary means at the disposal of Erasmus, and the haste with
which it was prepared, considering the nature of the work,--all tended to
make his version of the Greek text exceedingly imperfect, viewed in the
light of modern criticism. He may even have been careless, and here and
there uncandid and capricious in his choice of readings,--all this, of
which I am incapable of forming a conclusive judgment, I am willing to
grant by-the-bye. The merit of the New Testament of Erasmus does not
mainly rest upon the accuracy of his Greek text,[518] although this had
cost him a great deal of labour, and was a necessary part of his plan.
I suppose the object of an author may be most fairly gathered from his own
express declarations, and that the prefaces of Erasmus to his first
edition--the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ as he called it--are the best evidence
that can possibly be quoted of the purpose of Erasmus in its publication.
To these, therefore, I must beg the reader’s attention.
[Sidenote: Main object to be learned from its prefaces.]
Now a careful examination of these prefaces cannot fail to establish the
identity of the purpose of Erasmus in publishing the ‘Novum Instrumentum’
with that which had induced Colet, nearly twenty years before, to commence
his lectures at Oxford.
During those twenty years the divergence between the two great rival
schools of thought had become wider and wider.
[Sidenote: The Italian school.]
The intellectual tendencies of the philosophic school in Italy had become
more and more decidedly sceptical. The meteor lights of Savonarola, Pico,
and Ficino had blazed across the sky and vanished. The star of semi-pagan
philosophy was in the ascendant, and shed its cold light upon the
intellect of Italy.
Leo X. was indeed a great improvement upon Alexander VI. and Julius
II.--of this there could be no doubt. Instead of the gross sensuality of
the former and the warlike passions of the latter, what Ranke has well
designated ‘_a sort of intellectual sensualism_,’ now reigned in the Papal
court. Erasmus had indeed entertained bright hopes of Leo X. He had
declared himself in favour of a peaceful policy; he was, too, an enemy to
the blind bigotry of the Schoolmen. Nor does he seem to have been openly
irreligious. His choice of Sadolet as one of his secretaries was not like
the act of a man who himself would scoff at the Christian faith; though,
on the other hand, this enlightened Christian was unequally yoked in the
office with the philosophical and worldly Bembo. Under former Popes the
fear of Erasmus had been ‘_lest Rome should degenerate into Babylon_.’ He
hoped now that, under Leo X., ‘the tempest of war being hushed, both
letters and religion might be seen flourishing at Rome.’[519]
[Sidenote: Its sceptical tendencies.]
At the same time he was not blind to the sceptical tendencies of the
Italian schools. Thus whilst in a letter written not long after this
period, expressing his faith in the ‘revival of letters,’ and his belief
that the ‘authority of the Scriptures will not in the long run be lessened
by their being read and understood correctly instead of
incorrectly’--whilst thus, in fact, taking a hopeful view of the
future--we yet find him confessing to a fear, ‘lest, under the pretext of
the revival of ancient literature, Paganism should again endeavour to rear
its head.’[520] The atmosphere of the Papal Court was indeed far more
semi-pagan than Christian. With the revival of classical literature it was
natural that there should be a revival of classical taste. And just as the
mediæval church of St. Peter was demolished to make room for a classical
temple, so it was the fashion in high society at Rome to profess belief in
the philosophy of Pliny and Aristotle and to scoff at the Christian
faith.[521]
The extent to which anti-Christian and sceptical tendencies were carried
in the direction of speculative philosophy was shown by the publication in
this very year, 1516, by _Pomponatius_, whom Ranke speaks of as ‘the most
distinguished philosopher of the day,’[522] of a work in which he denied
the immortality of the soul.[523] This philosopher was, in the words of
Hallam, ‘the most renowned professor of the school of Padua, which for
more than a century was the focus of atheism in Italy.’[524]
[Sidenote: The Italian school Machiavellian in its politics.]
That the same anti-Christian and sceptical tendencies were equally
prevalent in the sphere of practical morality and politics as in that of
speculative philosophy, was also painfully obvious. That popes themselves
had discarded Christianity as the standard of their own morality both in
social and political action, had for generations been trumpeted forth to
the world by their own sensual lives, and their faithless and immoral
political conduct. When in the ‘Praise of Folly’ Erasmus had satirised the
policy of popes, he had put a sting to his description of their
unchristian conduct by adding that they acted ‘_as though Christ were
dead_.’[525] The greatest political philosopher of the age had already
written his great work ‘_The Prince_,’ in which he had _codified_, so to
speak, the maxims of the dominant anti-Christian school of politics, and
framed a system of political philosophy based upon keen and godless
self-interest, and defying, if not in terms denying, both the obligation
and policy of the golden rule--a system which may be best described, in a
word, by reference to the name of its author, as _Machiavellian_.[526]
[Sidenote: The dogmatic school, equally anti-Christian in its practice,]
On the other hand, opposed to the new ‘learning,’ and its anti-Christian
tendencies, was the dogmatic system of the Schoolmen, defended with blind
bigotry by monks and divines of the old school. These had done nothing
during the past twenty years to reconcile their system with the
intellectual tendencies of their age. They were still straining every
nerve to keep Christianity and reviving science hopelessly apart. Their
own rigidly defined scholastic creed, with all its unverified hypotheses,
rested as securely as ever, in their view, on the absolute inspiration of
the Vulgate version of the Bible: witness the letter of Dorpius. No new
light had disturbed the entire satisfaction with which they regarded their
system, or the assurance with which they denounced Greek and Hebrew as
‘heretical tongues,’ derided all attempts at free inquiry, and scornfully
pointed to the sceptical tendencies of the Italian school as the result to
which the ‘new learning’ must inevitably lead.
[Sidenote: and in its politics.]
And yet the practical results of this proudly orthodox philosophy were as
notoriously anti-Christian, both as regards social and political morality,
as was the Machiavellian philosophy, at which these professed Christians
pointed with the finger of scorn. Again and again had Erasmus occasion
bitterly to satirise the gross sensuality in which as a class they
grovelled. Again and again had he to condemn their _political_ influence,
and the part they played in prompting the warlike and treacherous policy
of princes whose courts they infested.[527]
And passages have already been quoted from the ‘Praise of Folly’ in which
Erasmus pointed out how completely they had lost sight of the one rule of
Christian morals--the golden rule of Christ--how they had substituted a
new notion of virtue for the Christian one, and how the very meaning of
the word ‘_sin_’ had undergone a corresponding change in their theological
vocabulary.
[Sidenote: Neither party had practical faith in Christianity.]
Such were the two opposing parties, which, in this age of intellectual
re-awakening and progress, were struggling in hopeless antagonism; both of
them for the sake of ecclesiastical emoluments still professing allegiance
to the Church, and keeping as firm a foothold as possible within her pale,
but both of them practically betraying at the same time their real want of
faith in Christianity by tacitly setting it aside as a thing which would
not work as the rule of social and political life.
Erasmus, in writing the preface to his ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ had his eye
on both these dominant parties. He, like Colet, believed both of them to
be leading men astray. He believed, with Colet, that there _was_ a
Christianity which rested on facts and not upon speculation, and which
therefore had nothing to do with the dogmatic theology of the Schoolmen on
the one hand, and nothing to fear from free inquiry on the other. To
‘call men as with the sound of a trumpet’ to this, was the object of the
earnest ‘Paraclesis’ which he prefixed to his Testament.
He first appealed to the free-thinking philosophic school:--
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The ‘Paraclesis.’]
[Sidenote: All men should read the Gospels, &c., in their vulgar
tongue.]
‘In times like these, when men are pursuing with such zest all
branches of knowledge, how is it that the philosophy of Christ should
alone be derided by some, neglected by many, treated by the few who do
devote themselves to it with coldness, not to say insincerity? Whilst
in all other branches of learning the human mind is straining its
genius to master all subtleties, and toiling to overcome all
difficulties, why is it that this one philosophy alone is not pursued
with equal earnestness, at least by those who profess to be
Christians? Platonists, Pythagoreans, and the disciples of all other
philosophers, are well instructed and ready to fight for their sect.
Why do not Christians with yet more abundant zeal espouse the cause of
_their_ Master and Prince? Shall Christ be put in comparison with Zeno
and Aristotle--his doctrines with their insignificant precepts?
Whatever other philosophers may have been, he alone is a teacher from
heaven; he alone was able to teach certain and eternal wisdom; he
alone taught things pertaining to our salvation, because he alone is
its author; he alone absolutely practised what he preached, and is
able to make good what he promised.... The philosophy of Christ,
moreover, is to be learned from its few books with far less labour
than the Aristotelian philosophy is to be extracted from its multitude
of ponderous and conflicting commentaries. Nor is anxious preparatory
learning needful to the Christian. Its viaticum is simple, and at hand
to all. Only bring a pious and open heart, imbued above all things
with a pure and simple faith. Only be teachable, and you have already
made much way in this philosophy. It supplies a spirit for a teacher,
imparted to none more readily than to the simple-minded. Other
philosophies, by the very difficulty of their precepts, are removed
out of the range of most minds. No age, no sex, no condition of life
is excluded from this. The sun itself is not more common and open to
all than the teaching of Christ. For I utterly dissent from those who
are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures should be read by the
unlearned translated into their vulgar tongue, as though Christ had
taught such subtleties that they can scarcely be understood even by a
few theologians, or as though the strength of the Christian religion
consisted in men’s ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it may be
safer to conceal, but Christ wished his mysteries to be published as
openly as possible. I wish that even the weakest woman should read the
Gospel--should read the epistles of Paul. And I wish these were
translated into all languages, so that they might be read and
understood, not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks and
Saracens. To make them understood is surely the first step. It may be
that they might be ridiculed by many, but some would take them to
heart. I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them to
himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum them to
the tune of his shuttle, that the traveller should beguile with their
stories the tedium of his journey.’
Then turning more directly to the Schoolmen, Erasmus continued:--
[Sidenote: The Gospels give a living image of the mind of Christ.]
Why is a greater portion of our lives given to the study of the
Schoolmen than of the Gospels? The rules of St. Francis and St.
Benedict may be considered sacred by their respective followers; but
just as St. Paul wrote that the law of Moses was not glorious in
comparison with the glory of the Gospel, so Erasmus said he wished
that these might not be considered as sacred in comparison with the
Gospels and letters of the Apostles. What are Albertus, Alexander,
Thomas, Ægidius, Ricardus, Occam, in comparison with Christ, of whom
it was said by the Father in heaven, ‘This is my beloved Son’? (Oh,
how sure and, as they say, ‘irrefragable’ his authority!) What, in
comparison with Peter, who received the command to feed the sheep; or
Paul, in whom, as a chosen vessel, Christ seemed to be reborn; or
John, who wrote in his epistles what he learned as he leaned on his
bosom? ‘If the footprints of Christ be anywhere shown to us, we kneel
down and adore. Why do we not rather venerate the living and breathing
picture of Him in these books? If the vesture of Christ be exhibited,
where will we not go to kiss it? Yet were his whole wardrobe exhibited
nothing could represent Christ more vividly and truly than these
evangelical writings. Statues of wood and stone we decorate with gold
and gems for the love of Christ. They only profess to give us the form
of his body; these books present us with a living image of his most
holy mind.[528] Were we to have seen Him with our own eyes, we should
not have had so intimate a knowledge as they give of Christ, speaking,
healing, dying, rising again, as it were, in our own actual presence.’
Such was the earnest ‘Paraclesis’[529] with which Erasmus introduced his
Greek and Latin version of the books of the New Testament.
[Sidenote: Method of study.]
To this he added a few pages to explain what he considered the right
‘method’ to be adopted by the Scripture student.[530]
First, as to the spirit in which he should work:--
‘Let him approach the New Testament, not with an unholy curiosity, but
with _reverence_; bearing in mind that his first and only aim and object
should be that he may catch and be changed into the spirit of what he
there learns. It is the food of the soul; and to be of use, must not rest
only in the memory or lodge in the stomach, but must permeate the very
depths of the heart and mind.’
Then, as to what special acquirements are most useful in the prosecution
of these studies:--
‘A fair knowledge of the three languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, of
course, are the first things. Nor let the student turn away in despair at
the difficulty of this. If you have a teacher and the will to learn, these
three languages can be learned almost with less labour than every day is
spent over the miserable babble of one mongrel language under ignorant
teachers. It would be well, too, were the student tolerably versed in
other branches of learning--dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, music,
astrology, and especially in knowledge of the natural objects--animals,
trees, precious stones--of the countries mentioned in the Scriptures; for
if we are familiar with the country, we can in thought follow the history
and picture it to our minds, so that we seem not only to read it, but to
see it; and if we do this, we shall not easily forget it. Besides, if we
know from study of history not only the position of those nations to whom
these things happened, or to whom the Apostles wrote, but also their
origin, manners, institutions, religion, and character, it is wonderful
how much light and, if I may so speak, _life_ is thrown into the reading
of what before seemed dry and lifeless. Other branches of
learning--classical, rhetorical, or philosophical--may all be turned to
account; and especially should the student learn to quote Scripture, not
second-hand, but from the fountain-head, and take care not to distort its
meaning as some do, interpreting the “Church” as the clergy, the laity as
the “world,” and the like. To get at the real meaning, it is not enough to
take four or five isolated words; you must look where they came from, what
was said, by whom it was said, to whom it was said, at what time, on what
occasion, in what words, what preceded, what followed. And if you refer to
commentaries, choose out the best, such as Origen (who is far above all
others), Basil, &c., Jerome, Ambrose, &c.; and even these read with
discrimination and judgment, for they were men ignorant of some things,
and mistaken in others.
‘As to the Schoolmen, I had rather be a pious divine with Jerome than
invincible with Scotus. Was ever a heretic converted by their subtleties?
Let those who like follow the disputations of the schools; but let him who
desires to be instructed rather in piety than in the art of disputation,
first and above all apply himself to the fountain-head--to those writings
which flowed immediately from the fountain-head. The divine is
“invincible” enough who never yields to vice or gives way to evil
passions, even though he may be beaten in argument. That doctor is
abundantly “great” who purely preaches Christ.’
[Sidenote: The ‘Annotations.’]
[Sidenote: Theory of verbal inspiration rejected.]
I have quoted these passages very much at length, that there may be no
doubt whatever how fully Erasmus had in these prefaces adopted and made
himself the spokesman of Colet’s views. An examination of the ‘Novum
Instrumentum’ itself, and of the ‘Annotations’ which formed the second
part of the volume, reveals an equally close resemblance between the
_critical method of exposition_ used by Colet and that here adopted by
Erasmus. There was the same rejection of the theory of verbal inspiration
which was noticed in Colet as the result of an honest attempt to look at
the facts of the case exactly as they were, instead of attempting to
explain them away by reference to preconceived theories.
Thus the discrepancy between St. Stephen’s speech and the narrative in
Genesis, with regard to a portion of the history of the Patriarch Abraham,
was freely pointed out, without any attempt at reconcilement.[531] St.
Jerome’s suggestion was quoted, that Mark, in the second chapter of his
Gospel, had, by a lapse of memory, written ‘Abiathar’ in mistake for
‘Ahimelech,’[532] and that Matthew, in the twenty-seventh chapter, instead
of quoting from Jeremiah, as stated in the text, was really quoting from
the Prophet Zachariah.[533]
The fact that in a great number of cases the quotations from the Old
Testament are by no means exact, either as compared with the Hebrew or
Septuagint text, was freely alluded to, and the suggestion as freely
thrown out that the Apostles habitually quoted from memory, without giving
the exact words of the original.[534]
All these were little indications that Erasmus had closely followed in the
steps of Colet in rejecting the theory of the verbal inspiration of the
Scriptures; and they bear abundant evidence to prove that he did so, as
Colet had done, not because he wished to undermine men’s reverence for the
Bible, but that they might learn to love and to value its pages infinitely
more than they had done before--not because he wished to explain away its
facts, but that men might discover how truly real and actual and
heart-stirring were its histories--not to undermine the authority of its
moral teaching, but to add just so much to it as the authority of the
Apostle who had written, or of the Saviour who had spoken, its Divine
truths, exceeds the authority of the Fathers who had established the
canon, or of the Schoolmen who had buried the Bible altogether under the
rubbish of the thousand and one propositions which they professed to have
extracted from it.
Let it never be forgotten that the Church party which had staked their
faith upon the plenary inspiration of the Bible was the Church party who
had succeeded in putting it into the background. They were the party whom
Tyndale accused of ‘knowing no more Scripture than they found in their
Duns.’ They were the party who throughout the sixteenth century resisted
every attempt to give the Bible to the people and to make it the people’s
book. And they were perfectly logical in doing so. Their whole system was
based upon the absolute inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and even to a
great extent of the Vulgate version. If the Vulgate version was not
verbally inspired, it was impossible to apply to it the theory of
‘manifold senses.’ And if a text could not be interpreted according to
that theory, if it could not properly be strained into meanings which it
was never intended by the writer to convey, the scholastic theology became
a castle of cards. Its defenders adopted, and in perfect good faith
applied to the Vulgate, the words quoted from Augustine: ‘If any error
should be admitted to have crept into the Holy Scriptures, what authority
would be left to them?’ If Colet and Erasmus should undermine men’s faith
in the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures, it would result, in their
view, as a logical necessity, in the destruction of the Christian
religion. For the Christian religion, in their view, consisted in blind
devotion to the Church, and in gulping whole the dogmatic creed which had
been settled by her ‘invincible’ and ‘irrefragable’ doctors.
[Sidenote: The Christian religion loyalty to Christ.]
But this was not the faith of Colet and Erasmus. With them the Christian
religion consisted not in gulping a creed upon any authority whatever, but
in loving and loyal devotion to the _person_ of Christ. They sought in the
books which they found bound up into a Bible not so much an infallible
standard of doctrinal truth as an authentic record of _his_ life and
teaching. Where should they go for a knowledge of Christ, if not to the
writings of those who were nearest in their relations to Him? They valued
these writings because they sought and found in them a ‘living and
breathing picture of Him;’ because ‘nothing could represent Christ more
vividly and truly’ than they did; because ‘they present a living image of
his most holy mind,’ so that ‘even had we seen Him with our own eyes we
should not have had so intimate a knowledge as they give of Christ
speaking, healing, dying, rising again as it were in our own actual
presence.’ It was because these books brought them, as it were, so close
to Christ and the facts of his actual life, that they wished to get as
close to _them_ as they could do. They would not be content with knowing
something of them secondhand from the best Church authorities. The best of
the Fathers were ‘men ignorant of some things, and mistaken in others.’
They would go to the books themselves, and read them in their original
languages, and, if possible, in the earliest copies, so that no mistakes
of copyists or blunders of translators might blind their eyes to the facts
as they were. They would study the geography and the natural history of
Palestine that they might the more correctly and vividly realise in their
mind’s eye the events as they happened. And they would do all this, not
that they might make themselves ‘irrefragable’ doctors--rivals of Scotus
and Aquinas--but that they might catch the Spirit of Him whom they were
striving to know for themselves, and that they might place the same
knowledge within reach of all--Turks and Saracens, learned and unlearned,
rich and poor--by the translation of these books into the vulgar tongue of
each.
The ‘Novum Instrumentum’ of Erasmus was at once the result and the
embodiment of these views.
[Sidenote: Works of St. Jerome.]
Hence it is easy to see the significance of the concurrent publication of
the works of St. Jerome. St. Jerome belonged to that school of theology
and criticism which now, after the lapse of a thousand years, Colet and
Erasmus were reviving in Western Europe. St. Jerome was the father who in
his day strove to give to the people the Bible in their vulgar tongue. St.
Jerome was the father against whom St. Augustine so earnestly strove to
vindicate the verbal inspiration of the Bible. It was the words of St.
Augustine used against St. Jerome that, now after the lapse of ten
centuries, Martin Dorpius had quoted against Erasmus. We have seen in an
earlier chapter how Colet clung to St. Jerome’s opinion, against that of
nearly all other authorities, in the discussion which led to his first
avowal to Erasmus of his views on the inspiration of the Scriptures.
Finally, the Annotations to the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ teem with citations
from St. Jerome.
The concurrent publication of the works of this father was therefore a
practical vindication of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ from the charge of
presumption and novelty. It proved that Colet and Erasmus were teaching no
new doctrines--that their work was correctly defined by Colet himself to
be ‘to restore that old and true theology which had been so long obscured
by the subtleties of the Schoolmen.’
Under this patristic shield, dedicated by permission to Pope Leo, and its
copyright secured for four years by the decree of the Emperor Maximilian,
the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ went forth into the world.