ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST
Significance of the _Adagia_ and similar works of later
years--Erasmus as a divulger of classical culture--
Latin--Estrangement from Holland--Erasmus as a
Netherlander
Meanwhile renown came to Erasmus as the fruit of those literary studies
which, as he said, had ceased to be dear to him. In 1500 that work
appeared which Erasmus had written after his misfortune at Dover, and
had dedicated to Mountjoy, the _Adagiorum Collectanea_. It was a
collection of about eight hundred proverbial sayings drawn from the
Latin authors of antiquity and elucidated for the use of those who
aspired to write an elegant Latin style. In the dedication Erasmus
pointed out the profit an author may derive, both in ornamenting his
style and in strengthening his argumentation, from having at his
disposal a good supply of sentences hallowed by their antiquity. He
proposes to offer such a help to his readers. What he actually gave was
much more. He familiarized a much wider circle than the earlier
humanists had reached with the spirit of antiquity.
Until this time the humanists had, to some extent, monopolized the
treasures of classic culture, in order to parade their knowledge of
which the multitude remained destitute, and so to become strange
prodigies of learning and elegance. With his irresistible need of
teaching and his sincere love for humanity and its general culture,
Erasmus introduced the classic spirit, in so far as it could be
reflected in the soul of a sixteenth-century Christian, among the
people. Not he alone; but none more extensively and more effectively.
Not among all the people, it is true, for by writing in Latin he limited
his direct influence to the educated classes, which in those days were
the upper classes.
Erasmus made current the classic spirit. Humanism ceased to be the
exclusive privilege of a few. According to Beatus Rhenanus he had been
reproached by some humanists, when about to publish the _Adagia_, for
divulging the mysteries of their craft. But he desired that the book of
antiquity should be open to all.
The literary and educational works of Erasmus, the chief of which were
begun in his Parisian period, though most of them appeared much later,
have, in truth, brought about a transmutation of the general modes of
expression and of argumentation. It should be repeated over and over
again that this was not achieved by him single-handed; countless others
at that time were similarly engaged. But we have only to cast an eye on
the broad current of editions of the _Adagia_, of the _Colloquia_, etc.,
to realize of how much greater consequence he was in this respect than
all the others. 'Erasmus' is the only name in all the host of humanists
which has remained a household word all over the globe.
Here we will anticipate the course of Erasmus's life for a moment, to
enumerate the principal works of this sort. Some years later the
_Adagia_ increased from hundreds to thousands, through which not only
Latin, but also Greek, wisdom spoke. In 1514 he published in the same
manner a collection of similitudes, _Parabolae_. It was a partial
realization of what he had conceived to supplement the _Adagia_--
metaphors, saws, allusions, poetical and scriptural allegories, all to
be dealt with in a similar way. Towards the end of his life he published
a similar thesaurus of the witty anecdotes and the striking words or
deeds of wisdom of antiquity, the _Apophthegmata_. In addition to these
collections, we find manuals of a more grammatical nature, also piled up
treasury-like: 'On the stock of expressions', _De copia verborum et
rerum_, 'On letter-writing', _De conscribendis epistolis_, not to
mention works of less importance. By a number of Latin translations of
Greek authors Erasmus had rendered a point of prospect accessible to
those who did not wish to climb the whole mountain. And, finally, as
inimitable models of the manner in which to apply all that knowledge,
there were the _Colloquia_ and that almost countless multitude of
letters which have flowed from Erasmus's pen.
All this collectively made up antiquity (in such quantity and quality as
it was obtainable in the sixteenth century) exhibited in an emporium
where it might be had at retail. Each student could get what was to his
taste; everything was to be had there in a great variety of designs.
'You may read my _Adagia_ in such a manner', says Erasmus (of the later
augmented edition), 'that as soon as you have finished one, you may
imagine you have finished the whole book.' He himself made indices to
facilitate its use.
In the world of scholasticism he alone had up to now been considered an
authority who had mastered the technicalities of its system of thought
and its mode of expression in all its details and was versed in biblical
knowledge, logic and philosophy. Between scholastic parlance and the
spontaneously written popular languages, there yawned a wide gulf.
Humanism since Petrarch had substituted for the rigidly syllogistic
structure of an argument the loose style of the antique, free,
suggestive phrase. In this way the language of the learned approached
the natural manner of expression of daily life and raised the popular
languages, even where it continued to use Latin, to its own level.
The wealth of subject-matter was found with no one in greater abundance
than with Erasmus. What knowledge of life, what ethics, all supported by
the indisputable authority of the Ancients, all expressed in that fine,
airy form for which he was admired. And such knowledge of antiquities in
addition to all this! Illimitable was the craving for and illimitable
the power to absorb what is extraordinary in real life. This was one of
the principal characteristics of the spirit of the Renaissance. These
minds never had their desired share of striking incidents, curious
details, rarities and anomalies. There was, as yet, no symptom of that
mental dyspepsia of later periods, which can no longer digest reality
and relishes it no more. Men revelled in plenty.
And yet, were not Erasmus and his fellow-workers as leaders of
civilization on a wrong track? Was it true reality they were aiming at?
Was their proud Latinity not a fatal error? There is one of the crucial
points of history.
A present-day reader who should take up the _Adagia_ or the
_Apophthegmata_ with a view to enriching his own life (for they were
meant for this purpose and it is what gave them value), would soon ask
himself: 'What matter to us, apart from strictly philological or
historical considerations, those endless details concerning obscure
personages of antique society, of Phrygians, of Thessalians? They are
nothing to me.' And--he will continue--they really mattered nothing to
Erasmus's contemporaries either. The stupendous history of the sixteenth
century was not enacted in classic phrases or turns; it was not based on
classic interests or views of life. There were no Phrygians and
Thessalians, no Agesilauses or Dionysiuses. The humanists created out of
all this a mental realm, emancipated from the limitations of time.
And did their own times pass without being influenced by them? That is
the question, and we shall not attempt to answer it: to what extent did
humanism influence the course of events?
In any case Erasmus and his coadjutors greatly heightened the
international character of civilization which had existed throughout the
Middle Ages because of Latin and of the Church. If they thought they
were really making Latin a vehicle for daily international use, they
overrated their power. It was, no doubt, an amusing fancy and a witty
exercise to plan, in such an international _milieu_ as the Parisian
student world, such models of sports and games in Latin as the
_Colloquiorum formulae_ offered. But can Erasmus have seriously thought
that the next generation would play at marbles in Latin?
Still, intellectual intercourse undoubtedly became very easy in so wide
a circle as had not been within reach in Europe since the fall of the
Roman Empire. Henceforth it was no longer the clergy alone, and an
occasional literate, but a numerous multitude of sons of burghers and
nobles, qualifying for some magisterial office, who passed through a
grammar-school and found Erasmus in their path.
Erasmus could not have attained to his world-wide celebrity if it had
not been for Latin. To make his native tongue a universal language was
beyond him. It may well puzzle a fellow-countryman of Erasmus to guess
what a talent like his, with his power of observation, his delicacy of
expression, his gusto and wealth, might have meant to Dutch literature.
Just imagine the _Colloquia_ written in the racy Dutch of the sixteenth
century! What could he not have produced if, instead of gleaning and
commenting upon classic Adagia, he had, for his themes, availed himself
of the proverbs of the vernacular? To us such a proverb is perhaps even
more sapid than the sometimes slightly finical turns praised by Erasmus.
This, however, is to reason unhistorically; this was not what the times
required and what Erasmus could give. It is quite clear why Erasmus
could only write in Latin. Moreover, in the vernacular everything would
have appeared too direct, too personal, too real, for his taste. He
could not do without that thin veil of vagueness, of remoteness, in
which everything is wrapped when expressed in Latin. His fastidious mind
would have shrunk from the pithy coarseness of a Rabelais, or the rustic
violence of Luther's German.
Estrangement from his native tongue had begun for Erasmus as early as
the days when he learned reading and writing. Estrangement from the land
of his birth set in when he left the monastery of Steyn. It was
furthered not a little by the ease with which he handled Latin. Erasmus,
who could express himself as well in Latin as in his mother tongue, and
even better, consequently lacked the experience of, after all, feeling
thoroughly at home and of being able to express himself fully, only
among his compatriots. There was, however, another psychological
influence which acted to alienate him from Holland. After he had seen at
Paris the perspectives of his own capacities, he became confirmed in the
conviction that Holland failed to appreciate him, that it distrusted and
slandered him. Perhaps there was indeed some ground for this conviction.
But, partly, it was also a reaction of injured self-love. In Holland
people knew too much about him. They had seen him in his smallnesses and
feebleness. There he had been obliged to obey others--he who, above all
things, wanted to be free. Distaste of the narrow-mindedness, the
coarseness and intemperance which he knew to prevail there, were summed
up, within him, in a general condemnatory judgement of the Dutch
character.
Henceforth he spoke as a rule about Holland with a sort of apologetic
contempt. 'I see that you are content with Dutch fame,' he writes to his
old friend William Hermans, who like Cornelius Aurelius had begun to
devote his best forces to the history of his native country. 'In Holland
the air is good for me,' he writes elsewhere, 'but the extravagant
carousals annoy me; add to this the vulgar uncultured character of the
people, the violent contempt of study, no fruit of learning, the most
egregious envy.' And excusing the imperfection of his juvenilia, he
says: 'At that time I wrote not for Italians, but for Hollanders, that
is to say, for the dullest ears'. And, in another place, 'eloquence is
demanded from a Dutchman, that is, from a more hopeless person than a
B[oe]otian'. And again, 'If the story is not very witty, remember it is
a Dutch story'. No doubt, false modesty had its share in such sayings.
After 1496 he visited Holland only on hasty journeys. There is no
evidence that after 1501 he ever set foot on Dutch soil. He dissuaded
his own compatriots abroad from returning to Holland.
Still, now and again, a cordial feeling of sympathy for his native
country stirred within him. Just where he would have had an opportunity,
in explaining Martial's _Auris Batava_ in the _Adagia_, for venting his
spleen, he availed himself of the chance of writing an eloquent
panegyric on what was dearest to him in Holland, 'a country that I am
always bound to honour and revere, as that which gave me birth. Would I
might be a credit to it, just as, on the other hand, I need not be
ashamed of it.' Their reputed boorishness rather redounds to their
honour. 'If a "Batavian ear" means a horror of Martial's obscene jokes,
I could wish that all Christians might have Dutch ears. When we consider
their morals, no nation is more inclined to humanity and benevolence,
less savage or cruel. Their mind is upright and void of cunning and all
humbug. If they are somewhat sensual and excessive at meals, it results
partly from their plentiful supply: nowhere is import so easy and
fertility so great. What an extent of lush meadows, how many navigable
rivers! Nowhere are so many towns crowded together within so small an
area; not large towns, indeed, but excellently governed. Their
cleanliness is praised by everybody. Nowhere are such large numbers of
moderately learned persons found, though extraordinary and exquisite
erudition is rather rare.'
They were Erasmus's own most cherished ideals which he here ascribes to
his compatriots--gentleness, sincerity, simplicity, purity. He sounds
that note of love for Holland on other occasions. When speaking of lazy
women, he adds: 'In France there are large numbers of them, but in
Holland we find countless wives who by their industry support their
idling and revelling husbands'. And in the colloquy entitled 'The
Shipwreck', the people who charitably take in the castaways are
Hollanders. 'There is no more humane people than this, though surrounded
by violent nations.'
In addressing English readers it is perhaps not superfluous to point out
once again that Erasmus when speaking of Holland, or using the epithet
'Batavian', refers to the county of Holland, which at present forms the
provinces of North and South Holland of the kingdom of the Netherlands,
and stretches from the Wadden islands to the estuaries of the Meuse.
Even the nearest neighbours, such as Zealanders and Frisians, are not
included in this appellation.
But it is a different matter when Erasmus speaks of _patria_, the
fatherland, or of _nostras_, a compatriot. In those days a national
consciousness was just budding all over the Netherlands. A man still
felt himself a Hollander, a Frisian, a Fleming, a Brabantine in the
first place; but the community of language and customs, and still more
the strong political influence which for nearly a century had been
exercised by the Burgundian dynasty, which had united most of these low
countries under its sway, had cemented a feeling of solidarity which did
not even halt at the linguistic frontier in Belgium. It was still rather
a strong Burgundian patriotism (even after Habsburg had _de facto_
occupied the place of Burgundy) than a strictly Netherlandish feeling of
nationality. People liked, by using a heraldic symbol, to designate the
Netherlander as 'the Lions'. Erasmus, too, employs the term. In his
works we gradually see the narrower Hollandish patriotism gliding into
the Burgundian Netherlandish. In the beginning, _patria_ with him still
means Holland proper, but soon it meant the Netherlands. It is curious
to trace how by degrees his feelings regarding Holland, made up of
disgust and attachment, are transferred to the Low Countries in general.
'In my youth', he says in 1535, repeating himself, 'I did not write for
Italians but for Hollanders, the people of Brabant and Flemings.' So
they now all share the reputation of bluntness. To Louvain is applied
what formerly was said of Holland: there are too many compotations;
nothing can be done without a drinking bout. Nowhere, he repeatedly
complains, is there so little sense of the _bonae literae_, nowhere is
study so despised as in the Netherlands, and nowhere are there more
cavillers and slanderers. But also his affection has expanded. When
Longolius of Brabant plays the Frenchman, Erasmus is vexed: 'I devoted
nearly three days to Longolius; he was uncommonly pleasing, except only
that he is too French, whereas it is well known that he is one of
us'.[4] When Charles V has obtained the crown of Spain, Erasmus notes:
'a singular stroke of luck, but I pray that it may also prove a blessing
to the fatherland, and not only to the prince'. When his strength was
beginning to fail he began to think more and more of returning to his
native country. 'King Ferdinand invites me, with large promises, to come
to Vienna,' he writes from Basle, 1 October 1528, 'but nowhere would it
please me better to rest than in Brabant.'
[Illustration: V. Doodles by Erasmus in the margin of one of his
manuscripts.]
[Illustration: VI. A manuscript page of Erasmus]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Allen No. 1026.4, cf. 914, intr. p. 473. Later Erasmus was made to
believe that Longolius was a Hollander, cf. LBE. 1507 A.