AT LOUVAIN
1517-18
Erasmus at Louvain, 1517--He expects the renovation of the
Church as the fruit of good learning--Controversy with Lefevre
d'Etaples--Second journey to Basle, 1518--He revises the edition
of the New Testament--Controversies with Latomus, Briard and
Lee--Erasmus regards the opposition of conservative theology
merely as a conspiracy against good learning
When Erasmus established himself at Louvain in the summer of 1517 he had
a vague presentiment that great changes were at hand. 'I fear', he
writes in September, 'that a great subversion of affairs is being
brought about here, if God's favour and the piety and wisdom of princes
do not concern themselves about human matters.' But the forms which that
great change would assume he did not in the least realize.
He regarded his removal as merely temporary. It was only to last 'till
we shall have seen which place of residence is best fit for old age,
which is already knocking'. There is something pathetic in the man who
desires nothing but quiet and liberty, and who through his own
restlessness, and his inability not to concern himself about other
people, never found a really fixed abode or true independence. Erasmus
is one of those people who always seem to say: tomorrow, tomorrow! I
must first deal with this, and then ... As soon as he shall be ready
with the new edition of the New Testament and shall have extricated
himself from troublesome and disagreeable theological controversies, in
which he finds himself entangled against his wish, he will sleep, hide
himself, 'sing for himself and the Muses'. But that time never came.
Where to live when he shall be free? Spain, to which Cardinal Ximenes
called him, did not appeal to him. From Germany, he says, the stoves and
the insecurity deter him. In England the servitude which was required of
him there revolted him. But in the Netherlands themselves, he did not
feel at his ease, either: 'Here I am barked at a great deal, and there
is no remuneration; though I desired it ever so much, I could not bear
to stay there long'. Yet he remained for four years.
Erasmus had good friends in the University of Louvain. At first he put
up with his old host Johannes Paludanus, Rhetor of the University, whose
house he exchanged that summer for quarters in the College of the Lily.
Martin Dorp, a Dutchman like himself, had not been estranged from him by
their polemics about the _Moria_; his good will was of great importance
to Erasmus, because of the important place Dorp occupied in the
theological faculty. And lastly, though his old patron, Adrian of
Utrecht, afterwards Pope, had by that time been called away from Louvain
to higher dignities, his influence had not diminished in consequence,
but rather increased; for just about that time he had been made a
cardinal.
Erasmus was received with great complaisance by the Louvain divines.
Their leader, the vice-chancellor of the University, Jean Briard of Ath,
repeatedly expressed his approval of the edition of the New Testament,
to Erasmus's great satisfaction. Soon Erasmus found himself a member of
the theological faculty. Yet he did not feel at his ease among the
Louvain theologians. The atmosphere was a great deal less congenial to
him than that of the world of the English scholars. Here he felt a
spirit which he did not understand and distrusted in consequence.
In the years in which the Reformation began, Erasmus was the victim of a
great misunderstanding, the result of the fact that his delicate,
aesthetic, hovering spirit understood neither the profoundest depths of
the faith nor the hard necessities of human society. He was neither
mystic nor realist. Luther was both. To Erasmus the great problem of
Church and State and society, seemed simple. Nothing was required but
restoration and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt
sources of Christianity. A number of accretions to the faith, rather
ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared away. All should be reduced
to the nucleus of faith, Christ and the Gospel. Forms, ceremonies,
speculations should make room for the practice of true piety. The Gospel
was easily intelligible to everybody and within everybody's reach. And
the means to reach all this was good learning, _bonae literae_. Had he
not himself, by his editions of the New Testament and of Jerome, and
even earlier by the now famous _Enchiridion_, done most of what had to
be done? 'I hope that what now pleases the upright, will soon please
all.' As early as the beginning of 1517 Erasmus had written to Wolfgang
Fabricius Capito, in the tone of one who has accomplished the great
task. 'Well then, take you the torch from us. The work will henceforth
be a great deal easier and cause far less hatred and envy. _We_ have
lived through the first shock.'
Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May 1517: 'Was anyone born under such
inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure discipline (scholasticism)
does not revolt him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's
diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? But it is
still much greater that he should have effected by the same labour the
emergence of sacred truth itself out of that Cimmerian darkness, even
though divinity is not yet quite free from the dirt of the sophist
school. If that should occur one day, it will be owing to the beginnings
made in our times.' The philologist Budaeus believed even more firmly
than Erasmus that faith was a matter of erudition.
It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone accepted the cleansed
truth at once. How could people continue to oppose themselves to what,
to him, seemed as clear as daylight and so simple? He, who so sincerely
would have liked to live in peace with all the world, found himself
involved in a series of polemics. To let the opposition of opponents
pass unnoticed was forbidden not only by his character, for ever
striving to justify himself in the eyes of the world, but also by the
custom of his time, so eager for dispute.
There were, first of all, his polemics with Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples,
or in Latinized form, Faber Stapulensis, the Parisian theologian, who as
a preparer of the Reformation may, more than anyone else, be ranked with
Erasmus. At the moment when Erasmus got into the travelling cart which
was to take him to Louvain, a friend drew his attention to a passage in
the new edition of Faber's commentary on St. Paul's epistles, in which
he controverted Erasmus's note on the Second Epistle to the Hebrews,
verse 7. Erasmus at once bought Faber's book, and soon published an
_Apologia_. It concerned Christ's relation to God and the angels, but
the dogmatic point at issue hinged, after all, on a philological
interpretation of Erasmus.
Not yet accustomed to much direct wrangling, Erasmus was violently
agitated by the matter, the more as he esteemed Faber highly and
considered him a congenial spirit. 'What on earth has occurred to the
man? Have others set him on against me? All theologians agree that I am
right,' he asserts. It makes him nervous that Faber does not reply again
at once. Badius has told Peter Gilles that Faber is sorry about it.
Erasmus in a dignified letter appeals to their friendship; he will
suffer himself to be taught and censured. Then again he growls: Let him
be careful. And he thinks that his controversy with Faber keeps the
world in suspense: there is not a meal at which the guests do not side
with one or the other of them. But finally the combat abated and the
friendship was preserved.
Towards Easter 1518, Erasmus contemplated a new journey to Basle, there
to pass through the press, during a few months of hard labour, the
corrected edition of the New Testament. He did not fail to request the
chiefs of conservative divinity at Louvain beforehand to state their
objections to his work. Briard of Ath declared he had found nothing
offensive in it, after he had first been told all sorts of bad things
about it. 'Then the new edition will please you much better,' Erasmus
had said. His friend Dorp and James Latomus, also one of the chief
divines, had expressed themselves in the same sense, and the Carmelite
Nicholas of Egmond had said that he had never read Erasmus's work. Only
a young Englishman, Edward Lee, who was studying Greek at Louvain, had
summarized a number of criticisms into ten conclusions. Erasmus had got
rid of the matter by writing to Lee that he had not been able to get
hold of his conclusions and therefore could not make use of them. But
his youthful critic had not put up with being slighted so, and worked
out his objections in a more circumstantial treatise.
[Illustration: XVII. VIEW OF BASLE, 1548]
Thus Erasmus set out for Basle once more in May 1518. He had been
obliged to ask all his English friends (of whom Ammonius had been taken
from him by death in 1517) for support to defray the expenses of the
journey; he kept holding out to them the prospect that, after his work
was finished, he would return to England. In a letter to Martin Lypsius,
as he was going up the Rhine, he answered Lee's criticism, which had
irritated him extremely. In revising his edition he not only took it but
little into account, but ventured, moreover, this time to print his own
translation of the New Testament of 1506 without any alterations. At the
same time he obtained for the new edition a letter of approval from the
Pope, a redoubtable weapon against his cavillers.
At Basle Erasmus worked again like a horse in a treadmill. But he was
really in his element. Even before the second edition of the New
Testament, the _Enchiridion_ and the _Institutio Principis Christiani_
were reprinted by Froben. On his return journey, Erasmus, whose work had
been hampered all through the summer by indisposition, and who had, on
that account, been unable to finish it, fell seriously ill. He reached
Louvain with difficulty (21 September 1518). It might be the pestilence,
and Erasmus, ever much afraid of contagion himself, now took all
precautions to safeguard his friends against it. He avoided his quarters
in the College of the Lily, and found shelter with his most trusted
friend, Dirck Maertensz, the printer. But in spite of rumours of the
plague and his warnings, first Dorp and afterwards also Ath came, at
once, to visit him. Evidently the Louvain professors did not mean so
badly by him, after all.
[Illustration: XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament printed by Froben
in 1520]
But the differences between Erasmus and the Louvain faculty were deeply
rooted. Lee, hurt by the little attention paid by Erasmus to his
objections, prepared a new critique, but kept it from Erasmus, for the
present, which irritated the latter and made him nervous. In the
meantime a new opponent arose. Directly after his return to Louvain,
Erasmus had taken much trouble to promote the establishment of the
_Collegium Trilingue_, projected and endowed by Jerome Busleiden, in his
testament, to be founded in the university. The three biblical
languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were to be taught there. Now when
James Latomus, a member of the theological faculty and a man whom he
esteemed, in a dialogue about the study of those three languages and of
theology, doubted the utility of the former, Erasmus judged himself
concerned, and answered Latomus in an _Apologia_. About the same time
(spring 1519) he got into trouble with the vice-chancellor himself.
Erasmus thought that Ath had publicly censured him with regard to his
'Praise of Marriage', which had recently appeared. Though Ath withdrew
at once, Erasmus could not abstain from writing an _Apologia_, however
moderate. Meanwhile the smouldering quarrel with Lee assumed ever more
hateful forms. In vain did Erasmus's English friends attempt to restrain
their young, ambitious compatriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him
furtively. He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and
dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum
he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan, even the old
taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve once more. The points
at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In
his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy
weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to
ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his
English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the
greatest trouble in keeping them back'.
Alack! Germany had other causes of disturbance: it is 1520 and the three
great polemics of Luther were setting the world on fire.
Though one may excuse the violence and the petty spitefulness of Erasmus
in this matter, as resulting from an over-sensitive heart falling
somewhat short in really manly qualities, yet it is difficult to deny
that he failed completely to understand both the arguments of his
adversaries and the great movements of his time.
It was very easy for Erasmus to mock the narrow-mindedness of
conservative divines who thought that there would be an end to faith in
Holy Scripture as soon as the emendation of the text was attempted.
'"They correct the Holy Gospel, nay, the Pater Noster itself!" the
preacher exclaims indignantly in the sermon before his surprised
congregation. As if I cavilled at Matthew and Luke, and not at those
who, out of ignorance and carelessness, have corrupted them. What do
people wish? That the Church should possess Holy Scripture as correct as
possible, or not?' This reasoning seemed to Erasmus, with his passionate
need of purity, a conclusive refutation. But instinct did not deceive
his adversaries, when it told them that doctrine itself was at stake if
the linguistic judgement of a single individual might decide as to the
correct version of a text. And Erasmus wished to avoid the inferences
which assailed doctrine. He was not aware of the fact that his
conceptions of the Church, the sacraments and the dogmas were no longer
purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated to his
philological insight. He could not be aware of it because, in spite of
all his natural piety and his fervent ethical sentiments, he lacked the
mystic insight which is the foundation of every creed.
It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him unable to understand
the real grounds of the resistance of Catholic orthodoxy. How was it
possible that so many, and among them men of high consideration, refused
to accept what to him seemed so clear and irrefutable! He interpreted
the fact in a highly personal way. He, the man who would so gladly have
lived in peace with all the world, who so yearned for sympathy and
recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty, saw the ranks of haters
and opponents increase about him. He did not understand how they feared
his mocking acrimony, how many wore the scar of a wound that the _Moria_
had made. That real and supposed hatred troubled Erasmus. He sees his
enemies as a sect. It is especially the Dominicans and the Carmelites
who are ill-affected towards the new scientific theology. Just then a
new adversary had arisen at Louvain in the person of his compatriot
Nicholas of Egmond, prior of the Carmelites, henceforth an object of
particular abhorrence to him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus
found his fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the narrower sense
of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, William of Vianen, Ruurd Tapper.
The persecution increases: the venom of slander spreads more and more
every day and becomes more deadly; the greatest untruths are impudently
preached about him; he calls in the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor,
against them. But it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write
for the erudite, who are few; we shall bark to stir up the people. After
1520 he writes again and again: 'I am stoned every day'.
But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not without reason, at
the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no longer be blind to the fact that
the great struggle did not concern him alone. On all sides the battle
was being fought. What is it, that great commotion about matters of
spirit and of faith?
The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it is a great and wilful
conspiracy on the part of the conservatives to suffocate good learning
and make the old ignorance triumph. This idea recurs innumerable times
in his letters after the middle of 1518. 'I know quite certainly', he
writes on 21 March 1519 to one of his German friends, 'that the
barbarians on all sides have conspired to leave no stone unturned till
they have suppressed _bonae literae_.' 'Here we are still fighting with
the protectors of the old ignorance'; cannot Wolsey persuade the Pope to
stop it here? All that appertains to ancient and cultured literature is
called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they
indicate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, that is to
say all that they have not learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole
tragedy--under these terms he usually refers to the great theological
struggle--originates in the hatred of _bonae literae_. 'This is the
source and hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic
study and the _bonae literae_.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom it
is impossible to conquer, though their cause is a bad one. And meanwhile
envy harasses the _bonae literae_, which are attacked at his (Luther's)
instigation by these gadflies. They are already nearly insufferable,
when things do not go well with them; but who can stand them when they
triumph? Either I am blind, or they aim at something else than Luther.
They are preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.'
This was written by Erasmus to a member of the University of Leipzig in
December 1520. This one-sided and academic conception of the great
events, a conception which arose in the study of a recluse bending over
his books, did more than anything else to prevent Erasmus from
understanding the true nature and purport of the Reformation.