THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS
1501
At Tournehem: 1501--The restoration of theology now the aim of
his life--He learns Greek--John Vitrier--_Enchiridion Militis
Christiani_
The lean years continued with Erasmus. His livelihood remained
uncertain, and he had no fixed abode. It is remarkable that, in spite of
his precarious means of support, his movements were ever guided rather
by the care for his health than for his sustenance, and his studies
rather by his burning desire to penetrate to the purest sources of
knowledge than by his advantage. Repeatedly the fear of the plague
drives him on: in 1500 from Paris to Orleans, where he first lodges with
Augustine Caminade; but when one of the latter's boarders falls ill,
Erasmus moves. Perhaps it was the impressions dating from his youth at
Deventer that made him so excessively afraid of the plague, which in
those days raged practically without intermission. Faustus Andrelinus
sent a servant to upbraid him in his name with cowardice: 'That would be
an intolerable insult', Erasmus answers, 'if I were a Swiss soldier, but
a poet's soul, loving peace and shady places, is proof against it'. In
the spring of 1501 he leaves Paris once more for fear of the plague:
'the frequent burials frighten me', he writes to Augustine.
He travelled first to Holland, where, at Steyn, he obtained leave to
spend another year outside the monastery, for the sake of study; his
friends would be ashamed if he returned, after so many years of study,
without having acquired some authority. At Haarlem he visited his friend
William Hermans, then turned to the south, once again to pay his
respects to the Bishop of Cambray, probably at Brussels. Thence he went
to Veere, but found no opportunity to talk to his patroness. In July
1501, he subsided into quietness at the castle of Tournehem with his
faithful friend Batt.
In all his comings and goings he does not for a moment lose sight of his
ideals of study. Since his return from England he is mastered by two
desires: to edit Jerome, the great Father of the Church, and,
especially, to learn Greek thoroughly. 'You understand how much all this
matters to my fame, nay, to my preservation,' he writes (from Orleans
towards the end of 1500) to Batt. But, indeed, had Erasmus been an
ordinary fame and success hunter he might have had recourse to plenty of
other expedients. It was the ardent desire to penetrate to the source
and to make others understand that impelled him, even when he availed
himself of these projects of study to raise a little money. 'Listen,' he
writes to Batt, 'to what more I desire from you. You must wrest a gift
from the abbot (of Saint Bertin). You know the man's disposition; invent
some modest and plausible reason for begging. Tell him that I purpose
something grand, viz., to restore the whole of Jerome, however
comprehensive he may be, and spoiled, mutilated, entangled by the
ignorance of divines; and to re-insert the Greek passages. I venture to
say, I shall be able to lay open the antiquities and the style of
Jerome, understood by no one as yet. Tell him that I shall want not a
few books for the purpose, and moreover the help of Greeks, and that
therefore I require support. In saying this, Battus, you will be telling
no lies. For I really mean to do all this.'
He was, indeed, in a serious mood on this point, as he was soon to prove
to the world. His conquest of Greek was a veritable feat of heroism. He
had learned the simplest rudiments at Deventer, but these evidently
amounted to very little. In March, 1500, he writes to Batt: 'Greek is
nearly killing me, but I have no time and I have no money to buy books
or to take a master'. When Augustine Caminade wants his Homer back which
he had lent to him, Erasmus complains: 'You deprive me of my sole
consolation in my tedium. For I so burn with love for this author,
though I cannot understand him, that I feast my eyes and re-create my
mind by looking at him.' Was Erasmus aware that in saying this he almost
literally reproduced feelings which Petrarch had expressed a hundred and
fifty years before? But he had already begun to study. Whether he had a
master is not quite clear, but it is probable. He finds the language
difficult at first. Then gradually he ventures to call himself 'a
candidate in this language', and he begins with more confidence to
scatter Greek quotations through his letters. It occupies him night and
day and he urges all his friends to procure Greek books for him. In the
autumn of 1502 he declares that he can properly write all he wants in
Greek, and that extempore. He was not deceived in his expectation that
Greek would open his eyes to the right understanding of Holy Scripture.
Three years of nearly uninterrupted study amply rewarded him for his
trouble. Hebrew, which he had also taken up, he abandoned. At that time
(1504) he made translations from the Greek, he employed it critically in
his theological studies, he taught it, amongst others, to William Cop,
the French physician-humanist. A few years later he was to find little
in Italy to improve his proficiency in Greek; he was afterwards inclined
to believe that he carried more of the two ancient languages to that
country than he brought back.
Nothing testifies more to the enthusiasm with which Erasmus applied
himself to Greek than his zeal to make his best friends share in its
blessings. Batt, he decided, should learn Greek. But Batt had no time,
and Latin appealed more to him. When Erasmus goes to Haarlem to visit
William Hermans, it is to make him a Greek scholar too; he has brought a
handbag full of books. But he had only his trouble for his pains.
William did not take at all kindly to this study and Erasmus was so
disappointed that he not only considered his money and trouble thrown
away, but also thought he had lost a friend.
Meanwhile he was still undecided where he should go in the near future.
To England, to Italy, or back to Paris? In the end he made a fairly long
stay as a guest, from the autumn of 1501 till the following summer,
first at Saint Omer, with the prior of Saint Bertin, and afterwards at
the castle of Courtebourne, not far off.
At Saint Omer, Erasmus became acquainted with a man whose image he was
afterwards to place beside that of Colet as that of a true divine, and
of a good monk at the same time: Jean Vitrier, the warden of the
Franciscan monastery at Saint Omer. Erasmus must have felt attracted to
a man who was burdened with a condemnation pronounced by the Sorbonne on
account of his too frank expressions regarding the abuses of monastic
life. Vitrier had not given up the life on that account, but he devoted
himself to reforming monasteries and convents. Having progressed from
scholasticism to Saint Paul, he had formed a very liberal conception of
Christian life, strongly opposed to practices and ceremonies. This man,
without doubt, considerably influenced the origin of one of Erasmus's
most celebrated and influential works, the _Enchiridion militis
Christiani_.
Erasmus himself afterwards confessed that the _Enchiridion_ was born by
chance. He did not reflect that some outward circumstance is often made
to serve an inward impulse. The outward circumstance was that the castle
of Tournehem was frequented by a soldier, a friend of Batt, a man of
very dissolute conduct, who behaved very badly towards his pious wife,
and who was, moreover, an uncultured and violent hater of priests.[5]
For the rest he was of a kindly disposition and excepted Erasmus from
his hatred of divines. The wife used her influence with Batt to get
Erasmus to write something which might bring her husband to take an
interest in religion. Erasmus complied with the request and Jean Vitrier
concurred so cordially with the views expressed in these notes that
Erasmus afterwards elaborated them at Louvain; in 1504 they were
published at Antwerp by Dirck Maertensz.
This is the outward genesis of the _Enchiridion_. But the inward cause
was that sooner or later Erasmus was bound to formulate his attitude
towards the religious conduct of the life of his day and towards
ceremonial and soulless conceptions of Christian duty, which were an
eyesore to him.
In point of form the _Enchiridion_ is a manual for an illiterate soldier
to attain to an attitude of mind worthy of Christ; as with a finger he
will point out to him the shortest path to Christ. He assumes the friend
to be weary of life at court--a common theme of contemporary literature.
Only for a few days does Erasmus interrupt the work of his life, the
purification of theology, to comply with his friend's request for
instruction. To keep up a soldierly style he chooses the title,
_Enchiridion_, the Greek word that even in antiquity meant both a
poniard and a manual:[6] 'The poniard of the militant Christian'.[7] He
reminds him of the duty of watchfulness and enumerates the weapons of
Christ's militia. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. The general
rules of the Christian conduct of life are followed by a number of
remedies for particular sins and faults.
Such is the outward frame. But within this scope Erasmus finds an
opportunity, for the first time, to develop his theological programme.
This programme calls upon us to return to Scripture. It should be the
endeavour of every Christian to understand Scripture in its purity and
original meaning. To that end he should prepare himself by the study of
the Ancients, orators, poets, philosophers; Plato especially. Also the
great Fathers of the Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine will be found
useful, but not the large crowd of subsequent exegetists. The argument
chiefly aims at subverting the conception of religion as a continual
observance of ceremonies. This is Judaic ritualism and of no value. It
is better to understand a single verse of the psalms well, by this means
to deepen one's understanding of God and of oneself, and to draw a moral
and line of conduct from it, than to read the whole psalter without
attention. If the ceremonies do not renew the soul they are valueless
and hurtful. 'Many are wont to count how many masses they have heard
every day, and referring to them as to something very important, as
though they owed Christ nothing else, they return to their former habits
after leaving church.' 'Perhaps you sacrifice every day and yet you live
for yourself. You worship the saints, you like to touch their relics; do
you want to earn Peter and Paul? Then copy the faith of the one and the
charity of the other and you will have done more than if you had walked
to Rome ten times.' He does not reject formulae and practices; he does
not want to shake the faith of the humble but he cannot suffer that
Christ is offered a cult made up of practices only. And why is it the
monks, above all, who contribute to the deterioration of faith? 'I am
ashamed to tell how superstitiously most of them observe certain petty
ceremonies, invented by puny human minds (and not even for this
purpose), how hatefully they want to force others to conform to them,
how implicitly they trust them, how boldly they condemn others.'
Let Paul teach them true Christianity. 'Stand fast therefore in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage.' This word to the Galatians contains the
doctrine of Christian liberty, which soon at the Reformation was to
resound so loudly. Erasmus did not apply it here in a sense derogatory
to the dogmatics of the Catholic Church; but still it is a fact that the
_Enchiridion_ prepared many minds to give up much that he still wanted
to keep.
The note of the _Enchiridion_ is already what was to remain the note of
Erasmus's life-work: how revolting it is that in this world the
substance and the shadow differ so and that the world reverences those
whom it should not reverence; that a hedge of infatuation, routine and
thoughtlessness prevents mankind from seeing things in their true
proportions. He expresses it later in the _Praise of Folly_ and in the
_Colloquies_. It is not merely religious feeling, it is equally social
feeling that inspired him. Under the heading: Opinions worthy of a
Christian, he laments the extremes of pride of class, national
hostility, professional envy, and rivalry between religious orders,
which keep men apart. Let everybody sincerely concern himself about his
brother. 'Throwing dice cost you a thousand gold pieces in one night,
and meanwhile some wretched girl, compelled by poverty, sold her
modesty; and a soul is lost for which Christ gave his own. You say, what
is that to me? I mind my own business, according to my lights. And yet
you, holding such opinions, consider yourself a Christian, who are not
even a man!'
In the _Enchiridion_ of the militant Christian, Erasmus had for the
first time said the things which he had most at heart, with fervour and
indignation, with sincerity and courage. And yet one would hardly say
that this booklet was born of an irresistible impulse of ardent piety.
Erasmus treats it, as we have seen, as a trifle, composed at the request
of a friend in a couple of days stolen from his studies (though,
strictly speaking, this only holds good of the first draft, which he
elaborated afterwards). The chief object of his studies he had already
conceived to be the restoration of theology. One day he will expound
Paul, 'that the slanderers who consider it the height of piety to know
nothing of _bonae literae_, may understand that we in our youth embraced
the cultured literature of the Ancients, and that we acquired a correct
knowledge of the two languages, Greek and Latin--not without many
vigils--not for the purpose of vainglory or childish satisfaction, but
because, long before, we premeditated adorning the temple of the Lord
(which some have too much desecrated by their ignorance and barbarism)
according to our strength, with help from foreign parts, so that also in
noble minds the love of Holy Scripture may be kindled'. Is it not still
the Humanist who speaks?
We hear, moreover, the note of personal justification. It is sounded
also in a letter to Colet written towards the close of 1504,
accompanying the edition of the _Lucubrationes_ in which the
_Enchiridion_ was first published. 'I did not write the _Enchiridion_ to
parade my invention or eloquence, but only that I might correct the
error of those whose religion is usually composed of more than Judaic
ceremonies and observances of a material sort, and who neglect the
things that conduce to piety.' He adds, and this is typically
humanistic, 'I have tried to give the reader a sort of art of piety, as
others have written the theory of certain sciences'.
The art of piety! Erasmus might have been surprised had he known that
another treatise, written more than sixty years before, by another canon
of the Low Countries would continue to appeal much longer and much more
urgently to the world than his manual: the _Imitatio Christi_ by Thomas
a Kempis.
The _Enchiridion_, collected with some other pieces into a volume of
_Lucubrationes_, did not meet with such a great and speedy success as
had been bestowed upon the _Adagia_. That Erasmus's speculations on true
piety were considered too bold was certainly not the cause. They
contained nothing antagonistic to the teachings of the Church, so that
even at the time of the Counter-Reformation, when the Church had become
highly suspicious of everything that Erasmus had written, the divines
who drew up the _index expurgatorius_ of his work found only a few
passages in the _Enchiridion_ to expunge. Moreover, Erasmus had inserted
in the volume some writings of unsuspected Catholic tenor. For a long
time it was in great repute, especially with theologians and monks. A
famous preacher at Antwerp used to say that a sermon might be found in
every page of the _Enchiridion_. But the book only obtained its great
influence in wide cultured circles when, upheld by Erasmus's world-wide
reputation, it was available in a number of translations, English,
Czech, German, Dutch, Spanish, and French. But then it began to fall
under suspicion, for that was the time when Luther had unchained the
great struggle. 'Now they have begun to nibble at the _Enchiridion_
also, that used to be so popular with divines,' Erasmus writes in 1526.
For the rest it was only two passages to which the orthodox critics
objected.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] That this man should have been John of Trazegnies as Allen thinks
possible and Renaudet accepts, is still all too uncertain; A. 164 t. I.
p. 373; Renaudet, Prereforme 428.
[6] In 1500 (A. 123.21) Erasmus speaks of the _Enchiridion_ of the
Father Augustine, cf. 135, 138; in 1501, A. 152.33, he calls the
_Officia_ of Cicero a 'pugiunculus'--a dagger. So the appellation had
been in his mind for some time.
[7] _Miles_ with Erasmus has no longer the meaning of 'knight' which it
had in medieval Latin.