A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY
1514-16
On the way to success and satisfaction--His Prior calls him back
to Steyn--He refuses to comply--First journey to Basle:
1514-16--Cordial welcome in Germany--Johannes Froben--Editions
of Jerome and the New Testament--A Councillor to Prince Charles:
_Institutio Principis Christiani_, 1515--Definitive dispensation
from Monastic Vows: 1517--Fame--Erasmus as a spiritual
centre--His correspondence--Letter-writing as an art--Its
dangers--A glorious age at hand
Erasmus had, as was usual with him, enveloped his departure from England
with mystery. It was given out that he was going to Rome to redeem a
pledge. Probably he had already determined to try his fortune in the
Netherlands; not in Holland, but in the neighbourhood of the princely
court in Brabant. The chief object of his journey, however, was to visit
Froben's printing-office at Basle, personally to supervise the
publication of the numerous works, old and new, which he brought with
him, among them the material for his chosen task, the New Testament and
Jerome, by which he hoped to effect the restoration of theology, which
he had long felt to be his life-work. It is easy thus to imagine his
anxiety when during the crossing he discovered that his hand-bag,
containing the manuscripts, was found to have been taken on board
another ship. He felt bereft, having lost the labour of so many years; a
sorrow so great, he writes, as only parents can feel at the loss of
their children.
To his joy, however, he found his manuscripts safe on the other side. At
the castle of Hammes near Calais, he stayed for some days, the guest of
Mountjoy. There, on 7 July, a letter found him, written on 18 April by
his superior, the prior of Steyn, his old friend Servatius Rogerus,
recalling him to the monastery after so many years of absence. The
letter had already been in the hands of more than one prying person,
before it reached him by mere chance.
It was a terrific blow, which struck him in the midst of his course to
his highest aspirations. Erasmus took counsel for a day and then sent a
refusal. To his old friend, in addressing whom he always found the most
serious accents of his being, he wrote a letter which he meant to be a
justification and which was self-contemplation, much deeper and more
sincere than the one which, at a momentous turning-point of his life,
had drawn from him his _Carmen Alpestre_.
He calls upon God to be his witness that he would follow the purest
inspiration of his life. But to return to the monastery! He reminds
Servatius of the circumstances under which he entered it, as they lived
in his memory: the pressure of his relations, his false modesty. He
points out to him how ill monastic life had suited his constitution, how
it outraged his love of freedom, how detrimental it would be to his
delicate health, if now resumed. Had he, then, lived a worse life in the
world? Literature had kept him from many vices. His restless life could
not redound to his dishonour, though only with diffidence did he dare to
appeal to the examples of Solon, Pythagoras, St. Paul and his favourite
Jerome. Had he not everywhere won recognition from friends and patrons?
He enumerates them: cardinals, archbishops, bishops, Mountjoy, the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and, lastly, John Colet. Was
there, then, any objection to his works: the _Enchiridion_, the
_Adagia_? (He did not mention the _Moria_.) The best was still to
follow: Jerome and the New Testament. The fact that, since his stay in
Italy, he had laid aside the habit of his order and wore a common
clerical dress, he could excuse on a number of grounds.
The conclusion was: I shall not return to Holland. 'I know that I shall
not be able to stand the air and the food there; all eyes will be
directed to me. I shall return to the country, an old and grey man, who
left it as a youth; I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed
to the contempt even of the lowest, I, who am accustomed to be honoured
even by the greatest.' 'It is not possible', he concludes, 'to speak out
frankly in a letter. I am now going to Basle and thence to Rome,
perhaps, but on my return I shall try to visit you ... I have heard of
the deaths of William, Francis and Andrew (his old Dutch friends).
Remember me to Master Henry and the others who live with you; I am
disposed towards them as befits me. For those old tragedies I ascribe to
my errors, or if you like to my fate. Do not omit to commend me to
Christ in your prayers. If I knew for sure that it would be pleasing to
Him that I should return to live with you, I should prepare for the
journey this very day. Farewell, my former sweetest companion, now my
venerable father.'
Underlying the immediate motives of his high theological aspirations,
this refusal was doubtless actuated by his ancient, inveterate,
psychological incentives of disgust and shame.[13]
* * * * *
Through the southern Netherlands, where he visited several friends and
patrons and renewed his acquaintance with the University of Louvain,
Erasmus turned to the Rhine and reached Basle in the second half of
August 1514. There such pleasures of fame awaited him as he had never
yet tasted. The German humanists hailed him as the light of the
world--in letters, receptions and banquets. They were more solemn and
enthusiastic than Erasmus had found the scholars of France, England and
Italy, to say nothing of his compatriots; and they applauded him
emphatically as being a German himself and an ornament of Germany. At
his first meeting with Froben, Erasmus permitted himself the pleasure of
a jocular deception: he pretended to be a friend and agent of himself,
to enjoy to the full the joy of being recognized. The German environment
was rather to his mind: '_My_ Germany, which to my regret and shame I
got to know so late'.
Soon the work for which he had come was in full swing. He was in his
element once more, as he had been at Venice six years before: working
hard in a large printing-office, surrounded by scholars, who heaped upon
him homage and kindness in those rare moments of leisure which he
permitted himself. 'I move in a most agreeable Museon: so many men of
learning, and of such exceptional learning!'
Some translations of the lesser works of Plutarch were published by
Froben in August. The _Adagia_ was passing through the press again with
corrections and additions, and the preface which was originally destined
for Badius. At the same time Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, was also at
work for Erasmus, who had, on passing through the town, entrusted him
with a collection of easy Latin texts; also M. Schuerer at Strassburg,
who prepared the _Parabolae sive similia_ for him. For Froben, too,
Erasmus was engaged on a Seneca, which appeared in 1515, together with a
work on Latin construction. But Jerome and the New Testament remained
his chief occupation.
Jerome's works had been Erasmus's love in early youth, especially his
letters. The plan of preparing a correct edition of the great Father of
the Church was conceived in 1500, if not earlier, and he had worked at
it ever since, at intervals. In 1513 he writes to Ammonius: 'My
enthusiasm for emending and annotating Jerome is such that I feel as
though inspired by some god. I have almost completely emended him
already by collating many old manuscripts. And this I do at incredibly
great expense.' In 1512 he negotiated with Badius about an edition of
the letters. Froben's partner, Johannes Amerbach, who died before
Erasmus's arrival, had been engaged for years on an edition of Jerome.
Several scholars, Reuchlin among others, had assisted in the undertaking
when Erasmus offered himself and all his material. He became the actual
editor. Of the nine volumes, in which Froben published the work in 1516,
the first four contained Erasmus's edition of Jerome's letters; the
others had been corrected by him and provided with forewords.
His work upon the New Testament was, if possible, still nearer his
heart. By its growth it had gradually changed its nature. Since the time
when Valla's _Annotationes_ had directed his attention to textual
criticism of the Vulgate, Erasmus had, probably during his second stay
in England from 1505 to 1506, at the instance of Colet, made a new
translation of the New Testament from the Greek original, which
translation differed greatly from the Vulgate. Besides Colet, few had
seen it. Later, Erasmus understood it was necessary to publish also a
new edition of the Greek text, with his notes. As to this he had made a
provisional arrangement with Froben, shortly after his arrival at Basle.
Afterwards he considered that it would be better to have it printed in
Italy, and was on the point of going there when, possibly persuaded by
new offers from Froben, he suddenly changed his plan of travel and in
the spring of 1515 made a short trip to England--probably, among other
reasons, for the purpose of securing a copy of his translation of the
New Testament, which he had left behind there. In the summer he was back
at Basle and resumed the work in Froben's printing-office. In the
beginning of 1516 the _Novum Instrumentum_ appeared, containing the
purified Greek text with notes, together with a Latin translation in
which Erasmus had altered too great deviations from the Vulgate.
From the moment of the appearance of two such important and, as regards
the second, such daring theological works by Erasmus as Jerome and the
New Testament, we may say that he had made himself the centre of the
scientific study of divinity, as he was at the same time the centre and
touchstone of classic erudition and literary taste. His authority
constantly increased in all countries, his correspondence was
prodigiously augmented.
But while his mental growth was accomplished, his financial position was
not assured. The years 1515 to 1517 are among the most restless of his
life; he is still looking out for every chance which presents itself, a
canonry at Tournay, a prebend in England, a bishopric in Sicily, always
half jocularly regretting the good chances he missed in former times,
jesting about his pursuit of fortune, lamenting about his 'spouse,
execrable poverty, which even yet I have not succeeded in shaking off my
shoulders'. And, after all, ever more the victim of his own restlessness
than of the disfavour of fate. He is now fifty years old and still he
is, as he says, 'sowing without knowing what I shall reap'. This,
however, only refers to his career, not to his life-work.
In the course of 1515 a new and promising patron, John le Sauvage,
Chancellor of Brabant, had succeeded in procuring for him the title of
councillor of the prince, the youthful Charles V. In the beginning of
1516 he was nominated: it was a mere title of honour, promising a yearly
pension of 200 florins, which, however, was paid but irregularly. To
habilitate himself as a councillor of the prince, Erasmus wrote the
_Institutio Principis Christiani_, a treatise about the education of a
prince, which in accordance with Erasmus's nature and inclination deals
rather with moral than with political matters, and is in striking
contrast with that other work, written some years earlier, _il Principe_
by Machiavelli.
When his work at Basle ceased for the time being, in the spring of 1516,
Erasmus journeyed to the Netherlands. At Brussels he met the chancellor,
who, in addition to the prince's pension, procured him a prebend at
Courtray, which, like the English benefice mentioned above, was
compounded for by money payments. At Antwerp lived one of the great
friends who helped in his support all his life: Peter Gilles, the young
town clerk, in whose house he stayed as often as he came to Antwerp.
Peter Gilles is the man who figures in More's _Utopia_ as the person in
whose garden the sailor tells his experiences; it was in these days that
Gilles helped Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, to pass the first edition of
the _Utopia_ through the press. Later Quentin Metsys was to paint him
and Erasmus, joined in a diptych; a present for Thomas More and for us a
vivid memorial of one of the best things Erasmus ever knew: this triple
friendship.
In the summer of 1516 Erasmus made another short trip to England. He
stayed with More, saw Colet again, also Warham, Fisher, and the other
friends. But it was not to visit old friends that he went there. A
pressing and delicate matter impelled him. Now that prebends and church
dignities began to be presented to him, it was more urgent than ever
that the impediments in the way of a free ecclesiastical career should
be permanently obviated. He was provided with a dispensation of Pope
Julius II, authorizing him to accept English prebends, and another
exempting him from the obligation of wearing the habit of his order. But
both were of limited scope, and insufficient. The fervent impatience
with which he conducted this matter of his definite discharge from the
order makes it probable that, as Dr. Allen presumes, the threat of his
recall to Steyn had, since his refusal to Servatius in 1514, hung over
his head. There was nothing he feared and detested so much.
With his friend Ammonius he drew up, in London, a very elaborate paper,
addressed to the apostolic chancery, in which he recounts the story of
his own life as that of one Florentius: his half-enforced entrance to
the monastery, the troubles which monastic life had brought him, the
circumstances which had induced him to lay his monk's dress aside. It is
a passionate apology, pathetic and ornate. The letter, as we know it,
does not contain a direct request. In an appendix at the end, written in
cipher, of which he sent the key in sympathetic ink in another letter,
the chancery was requested to obviate the impediments which Erasmus's
illegitimate birth placed in the way of his promotion. The addressee,
Lambertus Grunnius, apostolic secretary, was most probably an imaginary
personage.[14] So much mystery did Erasmus use when his vital interests
were at stake.
The Bishop of Worcester, Silvestro Gigli, who was setting out to the
Lateran Council, as the envoy of England, took upon himself to deliver
the letter and to plead Erasmus's cause. Erasmus, having meanwhile at
the end of August returned to the Netherlands, awaited the upshot of his
kind offices in the greatest suspense. The matter was finally settled in
January 1517. In two letters bearing the signature of Sadolet, Leo X
condoned Erasmus's transgressions of ecclesiastical law, relieved him of
the obligation to wear the dress of his order, allowed him to live in
the world and authorized him to hold church benefices in spite of any
disqualifications arising from illegitimacy of birth.
So much his great fame had now achieved. The Pope had moreover accepted
the dedication of the edition of the New Testament, and had, through
Sadolet, expressed himself in very gracious terms about Erasmus's work
in general. Rome itself seemed to further his endeavours in all
respects.
Erasmus now thought of establishing himself permanently in the
Netherlands, to which everything pointed. Louvain seemed to be the most
suitable abode, the centre of studies, where he had already spent two
years in former times. But Louvain did not attract him. It was the
stronghold of conservative theology. Martin van Dorp, a Dutchman like
Erasmus, and professor of divinity at Louvain, had, in 1514, in the name
of his faculty, rebuked Erasmus in a letter for the audacity of the
_Praise of Folly_, his derision of divines and also his temerity in
correcting the text of the New Testament. Erasmus had defended himself
elaborately. At present war was being waged in a much wider field: for
or against Reuchlin, the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors of
the _Epistolae obscurorum virorum_ had so sensationally taken up the
cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded with the same suspicion with
which he distrusted Dorp and the other Louvain divines. He stayed during
the remainder of 1516 and the first half of 1517 at Antwerp, Brussels
and Ghent, often in the house of Peter Gilles. In February 1517, there
came tempting offers from France. Budaeus, Cop, Etienne Poncher, Bishop
of Paris, wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I, would
present him with a generous prebend if he would come to Paris. Erasmus,
always shy of being tied down, only wrote polite, evasive answers, and
did not go.
* * * * *
In the meantime he received the news of the papal absolution. In
connection with this he had, once more, to visit England, little
dreaming that it would be the last time he should set foot on British
soil. In Ammonius's house of Saint Stephen's Chapel at Westminster on 9
April 1517, the ceremony of absolution took place, ridding Erasmus for
good of the nightmare which had oppressed him since his youth. At last
he was free!
Invitations and specious promises now came to him from all sides.
Mountjoy and Wolsey spoke of high ecclesiastical honours which awaited
him in England. Budaeus kept pressing him to remove to France. Cardinal
Ximenes wanted to attach him to the University of Alcala, in Spain. The
Duke of Saxony offered him a chair at Leipzig. Pirckheimer boasted of
the perfections of the free imperial city of Nuremberg. Erasmus,
meanwhile, overwhelmed again with the labour of writing and editing,
according to his wont, did not definitely decline any of these offers;
neither did he accept any. He always wanted to keep all his strings on
his bow at the same time. In the early summer of 1517 he was asked to
accompany the court of the youthful Charles, who was on the point of
leaving the Netherlands for Spain. But he declined. His departure to
Spain would have meant a long interruption of immediate contact with the
great publishing centres, Basle, Louvain, Strassburg, Paris, and that,
in turn, would have meant postponement of his life-work. When, in the
beginning of July, the prince set out for Middelburg, there to take ship
for Spain, Erasmus started for Louvain.
He was thus destined to go to this university environment, although it
displeased him in so many respects. There he would have academic duties,
young latinists would follow him about to get their poems and letters
corrected by him and all those divines, whom he distrusted, would watch
him at close quarters. But it was only to be for a few months. 'I have
removed to Louvain', he writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'till I
shall decide which residence is best suited to old age, which is already
knocking at the gate importunately.'
As it turned out, he was to spend four years (1517-21) at Louvain. His
life was now becoming more stationary, but because of outward
circumstances rather than of inward quiet. He kept deliberating all
those years whether he should go to England, Germany or France, hoping
at last to find the brilliant position which he had always coveted and
never had been able or willing to grasp.
The years 1516-18 may be called the culmination of Erasmus's career.
Applauding crowds surrounded him more and more. The minds of men were
seemingly prepared for something great to happen and they looked to
Erasmus as the man! At Brussels, he was continually bothered with visits
from Spaniards, Italians and Germans who wanted to boast of their
interviews with him. The Spaniards, with their verbose solemnity,
particularly bored him. Most exuberant of all were the eulogies with
which the German humanists greeted him in their letters. This had begun
already on his first journey to Basle in 1514. 'Great Rotterdamer',
'ornament of Germany', 'ornament of the world' were some of the simplest
effusions. Town councils waited upon him, presents of wine and public
banquets were of common occurrence. No one expresses himself so
hyperbolically as the jurist Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg. 'I am pointed
out in public', he asserts, 'as the man who has received a letter from
Erasmus.' 'Thrice greatest hero, you great Jove' is a moderate
apostrophe for him. 'The Swiss', Zwingli writes in 1516, 'account it a
great glory to have seen Erasmus.' 'I know and I teach nothing but
Erasmus now,' writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and Henry
Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside Erasmus, as Alcibiades
stood beside Socrates. And Beatus Rhenanus devotes to him a life of
earnest admiration and helpfulness that was to prove of much more value
than these exuberant panegyrics. There is an element of national
exaltation in this German enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently
stimulated mood into which Luther's word will fall anon.
The other nations also chimed in with praise, though a little later and
a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall promise him immortality,
Etienne Poncher exalts him above the celebrated Italian humanists,
Germain de Brie declares that French scholars have ceased reading any
authors but Erasmus, and Budaeus announces that all Western Christendom
resounds with his name.
This increase of glory manifested itself in different ways. Almost every
year the rumour of his death was spread abroad, malignantly, as he
himself thinks. Again, all sorts of writings were ascribed to him in
which he had no share whatever, amongst others the _Epistolae obscurorum
virorum_.
But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. The time was
long since past when he asked More to procure him more correspondents.
Letters now kept pouring in to him, from all sides, beseeching him to
reply. A former pupil laments with tears that he cannot show a single
note written by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully sought an introduction
from one of his friends, before venturing to address him. In this
respect Erasmus was a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to answer
what he could, although so overwhelmed by letters every day that he
hardly found time to read them. 'If I do not answer, I seem unkind,'
says Erasmus, and that thought was intolerable.
We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that time, occupied more
or less the place of the newspaper at present, or rather of the literary
monthly, which arose fairly directly out of erudite correspondence. It
was, as in antiquity--which in this respect was imitated better and more
profitably, perhaps, than in any other sphere--an art. Even before 1500
Erasmus had, at Paris, described that art in the treatise, _De
conscribendis epistolis_, which was to appear in print in 1522. People
wrote, as a rule, with a view to later publication, for a wider circle,
or at any rate, with the certainty that the recipient would show the
letter to others. A fine Latin letter was a gem, which a man envied his
neighbour. Erasmus writes to Budaeus: 'Tunstall has devoured your letter
to me and re-read it as many as three or four times; I had literally to
tear it from his hands.'
Unfortunately fate did not always take into consideration the author's
intentions as to publicity, semi-publicity or strict secrecy. Often
letters passed through many hands before reaching their destination, as
did Servatius's letter to Erasmus in 1514. 'Do be careful about
letters,' he writes more than once; 'waylayers are on the lookout to
intercept them.' Yet, with the curious precipitation that characterizes
him, Erasmus was often very careless as to what he wrote. From an early
age he preserved and cared for his letters, yet nevertheless, through
his itinerant life, many were lost. He could not control their
publication. As early as 1509 a friend sent him a manuscript volume of
his own (Erasmus's) letters, that he had picked up for sale at Rome.
Erasmus had it burnt at once. Since 1515 he himself superintended the
publication of his letters; at first only a few important ones;
afterwards in 1516 a selection of letters from friends to him, and after
that ever larger collections till, at the end of his life, there
appeared a new collection almost every year. No article was so much in
demand on the book market as letters by Erasmus, and no wonder. They
were models of excellent style, tasteful Latin, witty expression and
elegant erudition.
The semi-private, semi-public character of the letters often made them
compromising. What one could say to a friend in confidence might
possibly injure when many read it. Erasmus, who never was aware how
injuriously he expressed himself, repeatedly gave rise to
misunderstanding and estrangement. Manners, so to say, had not yet
adapted themselves to the new art of printing, which increased the
publicity of the written word a thousandfold. Only gradually under this
new influence was the separation effected between the public word,
intended for the press, and the private communication, which remains in
writing and is read only by the recipient.
Meanwhile, with the growth of Erasmus's fame, his earlier writings, too,
had risen in the public estimation. The great success of the
_Enchiridion militis christiani_ had begun about 1515, when the times
were much riper for it than eleven years before. 'The _Moria_ is
embraced as the highest wisdom,' writes John Watson to him in 1516. In
the same year we find a word used, for the first time, which expresses
better than anything else how much Erasmus had become a centre of
authority: _Erasmiani_. So his German friends called themselves,
according to Johannes Sapidus. More than a year later Dr. Johannes Eck
employs the word still in a rather friendly sense, as a generally
current term: 'all scholars in Germany are Erasmians,' he says. But
Erasmus did not like the word. 'I find nothing in myself', he replies,
'why anyone should wish to be an Erasmicus, and, altogether, I hate
those party names. We are all followers of Christ, and to His glory we
all drudge, each for his part.' But he knows that now the question is:
for or against him! From the brilliant latinist and the man of wit of
his prime he had become the international pivot on which the
civilization of his age hinged. He could not help beginning to feel
himself the brain, the heart and the conscience of his times. It might
even appear to him that he was called to speak the great redeeming word
or, perhaps, that he had already spoken it. The faith in an easy triumph
of pure knowledge and Christian meekness in a near future speaks from
the preface of Erasmus's edition of the New Testament.
How clear did the future look in those years! In this period Erasmus
repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of a golden age, which is on the
point of dawning. Perennial peace is before the door. The highest
princes of the world, Francis I of France, Charles, King of Spain, Henry
VIII of England, and the emperor Maximilian have ensured peace by the
strongest ties. Uprightness and Christian piety will flourish together
with the revival of letters and the sciences. As at a given signal the
mightiest minds conspire to restore a high standard of culture. We may
congratulate the age, it will be a golden one.
But Erasmus does not sound this note long. It is heard for the last time
in 1519; after which the dream of universal happiness about to dawn
gives place to the usual complaint about the badness of the times
everywhere.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] For a full translation of this important letter see pp. 212-18.
[14] The name Grunnius may have been taken from Jerome's epistles, where
it is a nickname for a certain Ruffinus, whom Jerome disliked very much.
It appears again in a letter of 5 March 1531, LB. X 1590 A.