I. WHAT COLET THOUGHT OF THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ (1516).
Having traced the progress and final publication of these works by Erasmus
and More, the enquiry suggests itself, how were they received?
And first it may naturally be asked, What did Colet think of them,
especially of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’?
[Sidenote: Erasmus envies Colet’s retirement, but works harder than ever.]
[Sidenote: Erasmus begins his Paraphrases.]
An early copy had doubtless been sent to him, and with the volume itself,
it would seem, came a letter from Erasmus, probably from Antwerp, by the
hand of Peter Meghen--‘Unoculus,’ as his friends called him.[616] In this
letter Erasmus had consulted him about his future plans. After the labours
of the past, and suffering as he was from feeble and precarious health, he
had indulged, it would seem, in the expression of longings that he could
share with Colet his prospects of rest. He knew how often Colet had
mentioned the wish to spend his old age in retirement and peace, with one
or two congenial companions, such as Erasmus; and now, just escaped from
his monotonous labours at Basle, he was for the moment inclined to take
Colet at his word. Still, much as he talked of rest, his mind would not
stop working. Witness, for instance, his ‘Institutio Principis
Christiani.’ In fact, while the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ and the works of St.
Jerome had been passing through the press the number of other works of his
had increased rather than lessened. During the very intervals of travel he
was sure to be writing some book. On his way to Basle he had written his
letter to Dorpius, and he had published with it a commentary on the first
Psalm, ‘_Beatus est vir_,’ &c., which, by the way, he had dedicated to his
gentle friend, _Beatus_ Rhenanus, because, said he, ‘_blessed is_ the man
who is such as the Psalm describes.’ New editions, also, of the ‘De
Copiâ,’ of the ‘Praise of Folly,’ and of the ‘Adagia,’ were constantly
being issued from the press of Froben, Martins, Schurerius, or some other
printer; for whatever bore the name of Erasmus now found so ready a sale,
that printers were anxious for his patronage. Visions, too, of future work
kept rising up before him. He wanted to write a commentary on the Epistle
to the Romans; and in writing to Colet it would seem that he had confided
to him his project of adding to his Latin version of the New Testament an
honest exposition of its meaning in the form of a simple _paraphrase_--a
work which it took him years to complete. Thus it came to pass that he had
mentioned these literary projects in the same letter in which he had
expressed himself as envious of Colet’s anticipated rest, and that freedom
from the cares of poverty to which he himself was so constantly a prey.
Doubtless for a moment it had seemed to him easier to wish himself in
Colet’s place than with renewed energy to toil on in his own.
[Sidenote: Colet driven into retirement.]
But every heart knoweth its own bitterness. Colet had his share of
troubles, which made him, in his turn, almost envy Erasmus. He felt as
keenly as Erasmus and More did, how the mad rush of princes to arms had
blasted the happy visions of what had seemed like a golden age
approaching, and he had been the first to speak out what he thought; but
now, while More and Erasmus could speak boldly and get Europe to listen to
what they had to say, he was thwarted and harassed by his bishop, and
obliged to crawl into retirement. His work was almost done. He could not
use his pulpit as he used to do. He had spent his patrimony in the
foundation of his school, and he had not another fortune to spend, for his
uncle’s quarrel and other demands upon the residue had reduced his means
even below his wants. Nor had he much of bodily strength and energy left.
The sole survivor of a family of twenty-two, his health was not likely to
be robust, and now, at fifty, he spoke of himself as growing old, and
alluded with admiration to the high spirits of his still surviving mother,
and the beauty of her happy old age.
[Sidenote: He procures the release from prison of one who had injured
him.]
Still Colet had his heart in the work as much as ever. We do not hear much
of his doings, but what we _do_ hear is all in keeping with his character.
Thus we find him incidentally exerting himself to get some poor prisoner
released from the royal prison, and Erasmus exclaiming, ‘I love that
Christian spirit of Colet’s, for I hear that it was all owing to him, and
him alone, that N. was released, notwithstanding that N., though always
treated in the most friendly way by Colet, and professing himself as
friendly to Colet, had sided with Colet’s enemies at the time that he was
accused by the calumnies of the bishops.’[617]
It was about the time that he was thus returning good for evil to this
unfortunate prisoner, that the letter of Erasmus and the copy of the
‘Novum Instrumentum’ came to his hands.
[Sidenote: Colet’s delight in the success of Erasmus.]
In spite of his own troubles he could hail the labours and success of
Erasmus with delight. Twenty years ago, while alone and single-handed, he
had longed for fellowship; now he could rejoice that in Erasmus he had not
only found a fellow-worker, but a successor who would carry on the work
much further than he could do. He had looked forward with eager
expectation to the appearance of the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and,
anticipating its perusal, had for months past[618] been working hard to
recover the little knowledge of Greek which, during the active business of
life, he had almost lost. And the more he felt that his own work was
drawing to a close, the more was he disposed to encourage Erasmus to go on
with his. He looked upon Erasmus now as the leader of the little band,
forgetting that Erasmus owed, in one sense, almost everything to him.
This is the beautiful letter he wrote after reading the ‘Novum
Instrumentum:’--
_Colet to Erasmus._
‘You cannot easily believe, my dear Erasmus, how much joy your letter
gave me, which was brought to me by our “one-eyed friend.” For I
learned from it where you are (which I did not know before), and also
that you are likely to return to us, which would be very delightful
both to me and to your other friends, of whom you have a great many
here.
[Sidenote: What Colet thought of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’]
‘What you say about the New Testament I can understand. The volumes of
your new edition of it [the “Novum Instrumentum”] are here both
eagerly bought and everywhere read. By many, your labours are received
with approval and admiration. There are a few, also, who disapprove
and carp at them, saying what was said in the letter of Martin Dorpius
to you. But these are those divines whom you have described in your
“Praise of Folly” and elsewhere, no less truly than wittily, as men
whose praise is blame, and by whom it is an honour to be censured.
‘For myself, I so love your work, and so clasp to my heart this new
edition of yours, that it excites mingled feelings. For at one time I
am seized with sorrow that I have not that knowledge of Greek, without
which one is good for nothing; at another time I rejoice in that light
which you have shed forth from the sun of your genius.
‘Indeed, Erasmus, I marvel at the fruitfulness of your mind, in the
conception, production, and daily completion of so much, during a life
so unsettled, and without the assistance of any large and regular
income.
[Sidenote: Edition of ‘Jerome.’]
‘I am looking out for your “Jerome,” who will owe much to you, and so
shall _we_ also when able to read him with your corrections and
explanations.
[Sidenote: The ‘Christian Prince.’]
‘You have done well to write “De Institutione Principis Christiani.” I
wish Christian princes would follow good institutes! By their madness
everything is thrown into confusion....
‘As to the “peaceful resting-place” which you say you long for, I
also wish for one for you, both peaceful and happy; both your age and
your studies require it. I wish, too, that this your final
resting-place may be with us, if you think us worthy of so great a
man; but what we are you have often experienced. Still you have here
some who love you exceedingly.
‘Our friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when I was with him a few
days ago, spoke much of you, and desired your presence here very much.
Freed from all business cares, he lives now in quiet retirement.
‘What you say about “Christian philosophising” is true. There is
nobody, I think, in Christendom more fit and suited for that
profession and work than you are, on account of the wide range of your
knowledge. _You_ do not say so, but I say so because I think so.
[Sidenote: Treatise of Erasmus on the First Psalm.]
‘I have read what you have written on the First Psalm, and I admire
your eloquence. I want to know what you are going to write on the
Epistle to the Romans.
[Sidenote: The projected ‘Paraphrases’ of Erasmus.]
‘Go on, Erasmus. As you have given us the New Testament in Latin,
illustrate it by your expositions, and give us your commentary most at
length on the Gospels. Your length is brevity; the appetite increases
if only the digestive organs are sound. You will confer a great boon
upon those who delight to read your writings if you will explain the
meaning [of the Gospels], which no one can do better than you can. And
in so doing, you will make your name immortal--_immortal_ did I
say?--the name of Erasmus never can perish; but you will confer
eternal _glory_ on your name, and, toiling on in the name of Jesus,
you will become a partaker of his eternal life.
‘In deploring your fortune you do not act bravely. In so great a
work--in making known the Scriptures--your fortune cannot fail you.
Only put your trust in God, who will be the first to help you, and who
will stir up others to aid you in your sacred labours.
‘That you should call me happy, I marvel! If you speak of fortune,
although I am not wholly without any, yet I have not much, hardly
sufficient for my expenses. I should think myself happy if, even in
extreme poverty, I had a thousandth part of that learning and wisdom
which you have got without wealth, and which, as it is peculiar to
yourself, so also you have a way of imparting it, which I don’t know
how to describe, unless I call it that “Erasmican” way of your own.
‘If you will let me, I will become your disciple, even in learning
Greek, notwithstanding my advanced years (being almost an old man),
recollecting that Cato learned Greek in his old age, and that you
yourself, of equal age with me, are studying Hebrew.
‘Love me as ever; and, if you should return to us, count upon my
devotion to your service.--Farewell.
[Sidenote: Colet’s mother.]
‘From the country at Stepney, with my mother, who still lives, and
wears her advancing age beautifully; often happily and joyfully
speaking of you. On the Feast of the Translation of St. Edward.’[619]
II. RECEPTION OF THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ IN OTHER QUARTERS (1516).
Colet was not alone in his admiration of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ and its
author.
[Sidenote: Reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ in England.]
William Latimer, of Oxford, one of the earliest Greek scholars in England,
expressed his ardent approval of the new Latin translation, and would have
been glad, he said, if Erasmus had gone still further, and translated even
such words as ‘sabbatum’ and the like into classical Latin.[620]
Warham had all along encouraged Erasmus in his labours, both by presents
of money and constant good offices, and now he recommended the ‘Novum
Instrumentum’ to some of his brother bishops and divines, who, he wrote to
Erasmus, all acknowledged that the work was worthy of the labour bestowed
upon it.[621]
Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, in a large assembly of magnates, when the
conversation turned on Erasmus and his works, declared that his new
version threw so much light on the New Testament, that it was worth more
to him than ten commentaries, and this remark was approved by those
present.[622] The Dean of Salisbury used almost the same words of
commendation.[623]
In fact, it would appear that in England it was received coldly only by
that class of pseudo-orthodox divines, now waning both in numbers and
influence, who had consistently opposed the progress of the new learning,
‘blasphemed’ Colet’s school, and censured the heretical tendencies of
Erasmus as soon as their blind eyes had been opened to them by the recent
edition of the ‘Praise of Folly.’
Thus while Erasmus was in England in the autumn, enjoying at Rochester the
hospitality of Bishop Fisher, who was Chancellor of the University of
Cambridge, he was informed that his ‘Novum Testamentum’ had encountered no
little opposition in some circles at that centre of learning.
[Sidenote: Its reception at Cambridge.]
In one of his letters from the Bishop’s palace to his friend Boville, who
was resident at Cambridge, he mentions a report that a decree had been
formally issued in one of the colleges, forbidding anyone to bring ‘that
book’ within the precincts of the college, ‘by horse or by boat, on wheels
or on foot.’ He hardly knew, he said, whether to laugh at or to grieve
over men ‘so studiously blind to their own interests; so morose and
implacable, harder to appease even than wild beasts! How pitiful for men
to condemn and revile a book which they have not even read, or, having
read, cannot understand! They had possibly heard of the new work over
their cups, or in the gossip of the market, ... and thereupon exclaimed,
“O heavens! O earth! Erasmus has corrected the Gospels!” when it is they
themselves who have _depraved_ them....
‘Are they indeed afraid,’ Erasmus continued, ‘lest it should divert their
scholars, and empty their lecture-rooms? Why do they not examine the
facts? Scarcely thirty years ago, nothing was taught at Cambridge but the
“parva logicalia” of Alexander, antiquated exercises from Aristotle, and
the “Quæstiones” of Scotus. In process of time improved studies were
added--mathematics, a new, or, at all events, a _renovated_ Aristotle, and
a knowledge of Greek letters.... What has been the result of all this? Now
the University is so flourishing, that it can compete with the best
universities of the age. It contains men, compared with whom, theologians
of the old school seem only the _ghosts_ of theologians. These men grieve
because more and more students study with more and more earnestness the
Gospels and the apostolic Epistles. They had rather that they spent all
their time, as heretofore, in frivolous quibbles. Hitherto there have been
theologians who so far from having read the Scriptures, had never read
even the “_Sentences_,” or touched anything beyond the collections of
questions. Ought not,’ exclaimed Erasmus, ‘such men to be called back to
the very fountain-head?’ He then told Boville that he wished his works to
be useful to _all_. He looked to Christ for his chief reward; still he was
glad to have the approval of wise men. He hoped too, that what now was
approved by the _best_ men, would ere long meet with _general_ approval.
He felt sure that posterity would do him justice.[624]
Nor was the opposition to the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ by any means confined
to Cambridge. A few weeks later, very soon after Erasmus had left
England--in October--More wrote to inform him that a set of acute men had
determined to scrutinise closely, and criticise remorselessly, what they
could discover to find fault with. A party of them, with a Franciscan
divine at their head, had agreed to divide the works of Erasmus between
them, and to pick out all the faults they could find as they read them.
But, More added, he had heard that they had already given up the project.
The labour of reading was more laborious and less productive than the
ordinary work of mendicants, and so they had gone back again to that.[625]
The work was indeed full of small errors which might easily give occasion
to adverse critics to exercise their talents. But Erasmus was fully
conscious of this, and within a year of the completion of the first
edition, he was busily at work making all the corrections he could, with a
view to a second edition.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ on the Continent.]
The reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ on the Continent was much the
same as in England. It had some bitter enemies, especially at Louvain and
Cologne.[626] But, on the other hand, letters poured in upon Erasmus from
all sides of warm approval and congratulation,[627] and so great a power
had his name become, that ere long princes competed for his residence
within their dominions; and if their numerous promises had but been
faithfully performed, Erasmus need have had little fear for the future
respecting ‘ways and means.’
[Sidenote: Philip Melanchthon.]
Amongst the numerous tributes of admiration received by Erasmus, was one
forwarded to him by Beatus Rhenanus, in Greek verse,[628] from the pen of
an accomplished and learned youth at the University of Tubingen, already
known by name to Erasmus, and mentioned with honour in the ‘Novum
Instrumentum’--a student devoted to study, and reported to be working so
hard, that his health was in danger of giving way, whom another
correspondent introduced as worthy of the love of ‘Erasmus the first,’
inasmuch as he was likely to prove ‘Erasmus the second.’ His name--then
little known beyond the circle of his intimate friends--was _Philip
Melanchthon_.[629]
III. MARTIN LUTHER READS THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ (1516).
[Sidenote: Letter from Spalatin.]
In the winter of 1516-17, Erasmus received a letter from George Spalatin,
whose name he may have heard before, but to whom he was personally a
stranger. It was dated from the castle of the Elector of Saxony. It was a
letter full of flattering compliments. The writer introduced himself as
acquainted with a friend of Erasmus, and as being a pupil of one of his
old schoolfellows at Deventer. He mentioned his intimacy with the Elector,
whom he reported to be a diligent and admiring reader of the works of
Erasmus, and informed him that these had honourable places on the shelves
of the ducal library. It was, in fact, a letter evidently written with a
definite object; but beating about the bush so long, that one begins to
wonder what matter of importance could require so roundabout an
introduction.
At length the writer disclosed the object of his letter:--‘A friend of
his,’ whose name he did not give, had written to him suggesting that
Erasmus in his Annotations on the Epistle to the Romans, in the ‘Novum
Instrumentum,’ had misinterpreted St. Paul’s expression, _justicia
operum_, or _legis_, and also had not spoken out clearly respecting
‘original sin.’ He believed that if Erasmus would read St. Augustine’s
books against Pelagius, &c., he would see his mistake. His friend
interpreted _justicia legis_, or the ‘righteousness of works,’ not as
referring only to the keeping of the ceremonial law, but to the observance
of the whole decalogue. The observance of the latter might make a
Fabricius or a Regulus, but without Christian faith it would no more
savour of ‘righteousness’ than a medlar would taste like a fig. This was
the weighty question upon which his friend had asked him to consult the
oracle, and a response, however short, would be esteemed a most gracious
favour.[630]
[Sidenote: Martin Luther reads the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’]
This unnamed friend of Spalatin was in fact _Martin Luther_. The singular
coincidence, that not only this letter of Spalatin to Erasmus, but also
the letter of Luther to Spalatin,[631] have been preserved, enables us to
picture the monk of Wittemberg sitting in his room in a corner of the
monastery, pondering over the pages of the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and
‘moved,’ as he reads it, with feelings of grief and disappointment,
because his quick eye discerns that the path in which Erasmus is treading
points in a different direction from his own.
In truth, Luther, though as yet without European fame--not having yet
nailed his memorable theses to the Wittemberg church-door--had for years
past fixed, if I may use the expression, the cardinal points of his
theology. He had already clenched his fundamental convictions with too
firm a grasp ever to relax. He had chosen his permanent standpoint, and
for years had made it the centre of his public teaching in his
professorial chair at the university, and in his pulpit also.
The standpoint which he had so firmly taken was _Augustinian_.
[Sidenote: Luther’s Augustinian tendencies.]
During the four years spent by him in the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt,
into which he had fled to escape from the terrors of conscience, he had
deeply studied, along with the Scriptures, the works of St. Augustine. It
was from the light which these works had shed upon the Epistles of St.
Paul that he had mainly been led to embrace those views upon
‘justification by faith’ which had calmed the tumult and disarmed the
lightnings of his troubled conscience. This statement rests upon the
authority of Melanchthon, and is therefore beyond dispute.[632]
Eight years had passed since he had left Erfurt to become a professor in
the Wittemberg University, and four or five years since his return from
his memorable visit to Rome. During these last years his teaching and
preaching had been full of the Augustinian theology. Melanchthon states
that during this period he had written commentaries on the ‘Romans,’ and
that in them and in his lectures and sermons he had laboured to refute the
prevalent error, that it is possible to merit the forgiveness of sins by
good works, pointing men to the Lamb of God, and throwing great light upon
such questions as ‘penitence,’ ‘remission of sins,’ ‘faith,’ the
difference between the ‘Law’ and the ‘Gospel,’ and the like. He also
mentions that Luther, catching the spirit which the writings of Erasmus
had diffused, had taken to the study of Greek and Hebrew.[633]
We may therefore picture the Augustinian monk--deeply read in the works of
St. Augustine, and, as Ranke expresses it,[634] ‘_embracing even his
severer views_,’ having for years constantly taught them from his pulpit
and professorial chair, clinging to them with a grasp which would never
relax, looking at everything from this immovable Augustinian
standpoint--now in 1516 with a copy of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ before him
on his table in his room in the cloisters of Wittemberg, reading it
probably with eager expectation of finding his own views reflected in the
writings of a man who was looked upon as the great restorer of Scriptural
theology.
[Sidenote: Luther detects the Anti-Augustinian tendencies of Erasmus.]
He reads the Annotations on the Epistle to the Romans. He does not find
Erasmus using the watchwords of the Augustinian theology. He does not find
the words _justicia legis_ understood in the Augustinian sense, as
referring to the observance of the whole moral law, but, rather, explained
as referring to the Jewish ceremonial.
He turns as a kind of touchstone to Chapter V., where the Apostle speaks
of death as ‘having reigned from Adam to Moses over those who had not
sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.’ He finds Erasmus
remarking that he does not think it needful here to resort to the doctrine
of ‘_original sin_,’ however true in itself; he finds him hinting at the
possibility ‘of hating Pelagius more than enough,’ and of resorting too
freely to the doctrine of ‘original sin’ as a means of getting rid of
theological difficulties, in the same way as astrologers had invented a
system of _epicycles_ to get them out of their astronomical ones.[635]
The Augustinian doctrine of ‘original sin’ compared to the _epicycles_ of
the astrologers! No wonder that Luther was _moved_ as he traced in these
Annotations symptoms of wide divergence from his own Augustinian views. In
writing to Spalatin, he told him that he was ‘moved;’ and in asking him to
question Erasmus further on the subject, he added that he felt no doubt
that the difference in opinion between himself and Erasmus was a real one,
because that, as regards the interpretation of Scripture, he saw clearly
that Erasmus preferred Jerome to Augustine, just as much as he himself
preferred Augustine to Jerome. Jerome, evidently on principle, he said,
follows the _historical_ sense, and he very much feared that the great
authority of Erasmus might induce many to attempt to defend that
_literal_, i.e. _dead_, understanding [of the Scriptures] of which the
commentaries of Lyra and almost all after Augustine are full.[636]
Still Luther went on with the study of his ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and we
find him writing again from his ‘hermitage’ at Wittemberg, that every day
as he reads he loses his liking for Erasmus. And again the reason crops
out. Erasmus, with all his Greek and Hebrew, is lacking in Christian
wisdom; ‘just as Jerome, with all his knowledge of five languages, was not
a match for Augustine with his one.’... ‘The judgment of a man who
attributes _anything_ to the human will’ [which Jerome and Erasmus did]
is ‘one thing, the judgment of him who recognises _nothing but grace_’
[which Augustine and Luther did] ‘is quite another thing.’...
‘Nevertheless [continues Luther] I carefully keep this opinion to myself,
lest I should play into the hands of his enemies. May God give him
understanding in his own good time!’[637]
[Sidenote: Difference in principle between Erasmus and Luther.]
This is not the place to discuss the rights of the question between Luther
and Erasmus. It is well, however, that by the preservation of these
letters the fact is established to us, which as yet was unknown to
Erasmus, that this Augustinian monk, as the result of hard-fought mental
struggle, had years before this irrevocably adopted and, if we may so
speak, welded into his very being that Augustinian system of religious
convictions, a considerable portion of which Erasmus made no scruple in
rejecting; that at the root of their religious thought there was a
divergence in principle which must widen as each proceeded on his separate
path--unknown as yet, let me repeat it, to Erasmus, but already fully
recognised, though wisely concealed, by Luther.
IV. THE ‘EPISTOLÆ OBSCURORUM VIRORUM’ (1516-17).
In the meantime symptoms had appeared portending that a storm was brewing
in another quarter against Erasmus. It was not perhaps to be wondered at
that the monks should persist in regarding him as a renegade monk. His
bold reply to the letter of Servatius, and the unsubdued tone in which he
had answered the attack of Martin Dorpius, must have made the monastic
party hopeless of his reconversion to orthodox views. At the same time,
neither his letter to Servatius nor his reply to Dorpius had at all
converted them to his way of thinking. Men perfectly self-satisfied,
blindly believing in the sanctity of their own order, and arrogating to
themselves a monopoly of orthodox learning, were in a state of mind, both
intellectually and morally, beyond the reach of argument, however earnest
and convincing. They still really did believe, through thick and thin,
that the Latin of the Vulgate and the Schoolmen was the sacred language.
They still did believe that Hebrew and Greek were the languages of
heretics; and that to be learned in these, to scoff at the Schoolmen and
to criticise the Vulgate, were the surest proofs of _ignorance_ as well as
impiety.
[Sidenote: ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.’]
It was in the years 1516 and 1517 that the ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum’
were published. They were written in exaggerated monkish Latin, and
professed to be a correspondence chiefly between monks, conveying their
views and feelings upon current events and the tendencies of modern
thought. Of course the picture they gave was a caricature, but
nevertheless it so nearly hit the truth that More wrote to Erasmus that
‘in England it delighted every one. To the learned it was capital fun.
Even the ignorant, who seriously took it all in, smiled at its style, and
did not attempt to defend it; but they said the _weighty opinions_ it
contained made up for that, and under a rude scabbard was concealed a most
excellent blade.’[638]
The first part was full of the monks’ hatred of Reuchlin and the Jews. One
monk writes to his superior to consult him in a difficulty. Two Jews were
walking in the town in a dress so like that of monks that he bowed to them
by mistake. To have made obeisance to a Jew! Was this a venial or a mortal
sin? Should he seek absolution from episcopal authority, or would it
require a dispensation from the Pope?[639]
Side by side with scrupulosity such as this were hints of secret
immorality and scandal. Immense straining at gnats was put in contrast
with the ease with which camels were swallowed within the walls of the
cloister.
[Sidenote: Mention of Erasmus in them.]
In the appendix to the first part Erasmus at length makes his appearance.
The writer of the letter, a medical graduate, informs his learned
correspondent that, being at Strasburg, he was told that a man who was
called ‘Erasmus Roterdamus’ (till then unknown to him) was in the city--a
man said to be most learned in all branches of knowledge. This, however,
he did not believe. He could not believe that so small a man could have so
vast a knowledge. To test the matter, he laid a scheme with one or two
others to meet Erasmus at table, get him into an argument, and confute
him. He thereupon betook himself to his ‘vademecum,’ and crammed himself
with some abstruse medical questions, and so armed entered the field. One
of his friends was a lawyer, the other a speculative divine. They met as
appointed. All were silent. Nobody would begin. At length Erasmus, in a
low tone of voice, began to sermonise (_sermonizare_), and when he had
done, another began to dispute _de ente et essencia_. To which the writer
himself responded in a few words. Then a dead silence again. They could
not draw the lion out. At length their host started another hare--praising
both the deeds and writings of Julius Cæsar. The writer here again put
in. He knew something of _poetry_, and did not believe that Cæsar’s
‘Commentaries’ were written by Cæsar at all. Cæsar was a warrior, and
always engaged in military affairs. Such men never are learned men,
therefore Cæsar cannot have known Latin. ‘I think,’ he continued, ‘that
_Suetonius_ (!) wrote those “Commentaries,” because I never saw anyone
whose style was so like Cæsar’s as his. When I had said this,’ he
continued, ‘Erasmus laughed, and said nothing, because the subtlety of my
argument had confounded him. So I put an end to the discussion. I did not
care to propound my question in medicine, because I knew he knew nothing
about it, since, though himself a poet, he did not know how to solve my
argument in poetry. And I assert before God that there is not as much in
him as people say. He does not know more than other men, although I
concede that in poetry he knows how to speak pretty Latin. But what of
that!’[640]
In the second part, published in 1517, Erasmus makes a more prominent
figure. One correspondent had met him at Basle, and ‘found many perverse
heretics in Froben’s house.’[641] Another writes that he hears Erasmus has
written many books, especially a letter to the Pope, in which he commends
Reuchlin:--
‘That letter, you know, I have seen. One other book of his also I have
seen--a great book--entitled “Novum Testamentum,” and he has sent this
book to the Pope, and I believe he wants the Pope’s authority for it, but
I hope he won’t give it. One holy man told me that he could prove that
Erasmus was a heretic; because he censured holy doctors, and thought
nothing of divines. One of his things, called “Moria Erasmi,” contained,’
he said, ‘many scandalous propositions and open blasphemies. On this
account the book would be burned at Paris. Therefore I do not believe that
the Pope will sanction his “great book.”’[642]
Another reports that his edition of St. Jerome has been examined at
Cologne; that in this work Erasmus says that Jerome was not a Cardinal;
that he thinks evil of St. George and St. Christopher, the relics of the
saints and candles, and the sacrament of confession; that many passages
contain blasphemy against the holy doctors.[643]
These ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum’ were widely read, and proved like an
advertisement, throughout the monasteries of Europe, of the heresy of
Erasmus and his hatred of monks. As by degrees the latter began to
understand that these allusions to Erasmus were intended to bring ridicule
on themselves, instead of, as they thought at first, to censure Erasmus,
it was likely that their anger should know no bounds.[644]
V. THE ‘PYTHAGORICA’ AND ‘CABALISTICA’ OF REUCHLIN (1517).
[Sidenote: Studies of Reuchlin.]
Reuchlin in his zeal for Hebrew had been led to study along with the old
Testament Scriptures, other Hebrew books, especially the ‘Cabala,’ and,
after the fashion of his Jewish teachers, had lost himself in the
‘mystical value of words’ and in the Pythagorean philosophy. He believed,
writes Ranke, that by treading in the footsteps of the ‘Cabala,’ he should
ascend from symbol to symbol, from form to form, till he should reach
that last and purest form which rules the empire of mind, and in which
human mutability approaches to the Immutable and Divine[645]--whatever
that might mean.
Reuchlin had embodied his speculations on these subjects in a work upon
which he wished for the opinion of Erasmus and his friends.
[Sidenote: Reuchlin’s works sent by Erasmus to England.]
Erasmus accordingly sent a copy of this book to Bishop Fisher, with a
letter asking his opinion thereupon.[646] He sent it, it seems, by More,
who, _more suo_, as Fisher jokingly complained, purloined it,[647] so that
it did not reach its destination. What had become of it may be learned
from the following letter from Colet to Erasmus, playful and laconic as
usual, and beaming with that true humility which enabled him to unite with
his habitual strength of conviction an equally habitual sense of his own
fallibility and imperfect knowledge. It is doubly interesting also as the
last letter written by Colet which time has spared.
_Colet to Erasmus._[648]
‘I am half angry with you, Erasmus, that you send messages to me in
letters to others, instead of writing direct to myself; for though I
have no distrust of our friendship, yet this roundabout way of
greeting me through messages in other people’s letters makes me
jealous lest others should think you loved me less than you do.
‘Also, I am half angry with you for another thing--for sending the
“Cabalistica” of Reuchlin to Bishop Fisher and not to me. I do not
grudge your sending _him_ a copy, but you might have sent _me_ one
also. For I so delight in your love, that I am jealous when I see you
more mindful of others than of myself.
‘That book did, however, after all come into my hands first. I read it
through before it was handed to the bishop.
‘I dare not express an opinion on this book. I am conscious of my own
ignorance, and how blind I am in matters so mysterious, and in the
works (opibus--_operibus_?) of so great a man. However, in reading it,
the chief miracles seemed to me to lie more in the words than the
things; for, according to him, Hebrew words seem to have no end of
mystery in their characters and combinations.
[Sidenote: Colet’s opinion on them.]
‘O Erasmus! of books and of knowledge there is no end. There is no
thing better for _us_ in this short life than to live holily and
purely, and to make it our daily care to be purified and enlightened,
and really to practise what these “Pythagorica” and “Cabalistica” of
Reuchlin promise; but, in my opinion, there is no other way for us to
attain this than by the earnest love and imitation of _Jesus_.
Wherefore leaving these wandering paths, let us go the short way to
work. I long, to the best of my ability, to do so.[649]
Farewell.--_From London, 1517._’
VI. MORE PAYS A VISIT TO COVENTRY (1517?).
It chanced about this time that More had occasion to go to Coventry to see
a sister of his there.
[Sidenote: Coventry.]
[Sidenote: Monastic establishments at Coventry.]
Coventry was a very nest of religious and monastic establishments. It
contained, shut up in its narrow streets, some six thousand souls. On the
high ground in the heart of the city the ancient Monastery and Cathedral
Church of the monks of St. Benedict lifted their huge piles of masonry
above surrounding roofs. By their side, and belonging to the same ancient
order, rose into the air like a rocket the beautiful spire of St.
Michael’s, lightly poised and supported by its four flying buttresses,
whilst in the niches of the square tower, from which these were made to
spring, stood the carved images of saints, worn and crumbled by a
century’s storms and hot suns. There, too, almost within a stone’s throw
of this older and nobler one, and as if faintly striving but failing to
outvie it, rose the rival spires of Trinity Church, and the Church of the
Grey Friars of St. Francis; while in the distance might be seen the square
massive tower of the College of Babbelake, afterwards called the Church of
St. John; the Monastery of the Carmelites or White Friars; and the
Charterhouse, where Carthusian monks were supposed to keep strict vigils
and fasts in lonely and separate cells. And beneath the shadow of the
spire of St. Michael’s stood the Hall of St. Mary, chased over with carved
work depicting the glory of the Virgin Mother, and covered within by
tapestry representing her before the Great Throne of Heaven, the moon
under her feet, and apostles and choirs of angels doing her homage. Other
hospitals and religious houses which have left no trace behind them, were
to be found within the walls of this old city. Far and wide had spread the
fame of the annual processions and festivals, pageants and miracle plays,
which even royal guests were sometimes known to witness. And from out the
babble and confusion of tongues produced by the close proximity of so many
rival monastic sects, rose ever and anon the cry for the martyrdom of
honest Lollards, in the persecution of whom the Pharisees and Sadducees of
Coventry found a temporary point of agreement. It would seem that, not
many months after the time of More’s visit, _seven_ poor gospellers were
burned in Coventry for teaching their children the paternoster and ten
commandments in their own English tongue.[650]
[Sidenote: Fit of Mariolatry at Coventry.]
This was Coventry--its citizens, if not ‘wholly given up to idolatry,’ yet
‘in all things too superstitious,’ and, like the Athenians of old, prone
to run after ‘some new thing.’ At the time of which we speak, they were
the subjects of a strange religious frenzy--a fit of _Mariolatry_.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin had not
yet been finally settled. It was the bone of contention between the rival
monastic orders. The Franciscans or Grey Friars, following Scotus, waged
war with the Dominicans, who followed Aquinas. Pope Sixtus IV. had in 1483
issued a bull favouring the Franciscans and the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception, and Foxe tells us that it was in consequence ‘holden in their
schools, written in their books, preached in their sermons, taught in
their churches, and set forth in their pictures.’ On the other side had
occurred the tragedy of the weeping image of the Virgin, and the detection
and burning of the Dominican monks who were parties to the fraud.
It chanced that in Coventry a Franciscan monk made bold to preach publicly
to the people, that _whoever should daily pray through the Psalter of the
Blessed Virgin could never be damned_. The regular pastor of the place,
thinking that it would soon blow over, and that a little more devotion to
the Virgin could do no harm, took little notice of it at first. But when
he saw the worst men were the most religious in their devotion to the
Virgin’s Psalter, and that, relying on the friar’s doctrine, they were
getting more and more bold in crime, he mildly admonished the people from
his pulpit not to be led astray by this new doctrine. The result was he
was hissed at, derided, and publicly slandered as an enemy of the Virgin.
The friar again mounted his pulpit, recounted miraculous stories in favour
of his creed, and carried the people away with him.
[Sidenote: More’s dispute with a friar.]
More shall tell the rest in his own words:--
‘While this frenzy was at its height, it so happened that I had to go to
Coventry to visit a sister of mine there. I had scarcely alighted from my
horse when I was asked the question, “Whether a person who daily prayed
through the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin could be damned?” I laughed at
the question as absurd. I was told forthwith that my answer was a
dangerous one. A most holy and learned father had declared the contrary. I
put by the whole affair as no business of mine. Soon after I was asked to
supper. I promised, and went. Lo and behold! in came an old, stooping,
heavy, crabbed friar! A servant followed with his books. I saw I must
prepare for a brush. We sat down, and lest any time should be lost, the
point was at once brought forward by our host. The friar made answer as he
already had preached. I held my tongue, not liking to mix myself up in
fruitless and provoking disputations. At last they asked me what view I
took of it. And when I was obliged to speak, I spoke what I thought, but
in few words and offhand. Upon this the friar began a long premeditated
oration, long enough for at least two sermons, and bawled all supper time.
He drew all his argument from the miracles, which he poured out upon us in
numbers enough from the “Marial;” and then from other books of the same
kind, which he ordered to be put on the table, he drew further authority
for his stories. Soon after he had done I modestly began to answer; first,
that in all his long discourse he had said nothing to convince those who
perchance did not admit the miracles which he had recited, and _this might
well be, and a man’s faith in Christ be firm notwithstanding_. And even if
these were mostly true, they proved nothing of any moment; for though you
might easily find a prince who would concede something to his enemies at
the entreaty of his mother, yet never was there one so foolish as to
publish a law which should provoke daring against him by the promise of
impunity to all traitors who should perform certain offices to his mother.
‘Much having been said on both sides, I found that he was lauded to the
skies while I was laughed at as a fool. The matter came at last to that
pass, by the depraved zeal of men who cloaked their own vices under
colour of piety, that the opinion could hardly be put down, though the
Bishop with all his energy tried all the means in his power to do
so.’[651]