History of the Reformation, vol. 1

Chapter 8

Erasmus—Erasmus a Canon—At Paris—His Genius—His Reputation—His Influence—Popular Attack—Praise of Folly—Gibes—Churchmen—Saints—Folly and the Popes—Attack on Science—Principles—Greek New Testament—His Profession of Faith—His Labors and Influence—His Failings—Two Parties—Reform without Violence—Was such possible?—Unreformed Church—His Timidity—His Indecision—Erasmus loses his Influence with all Parties

One man—the great writer of the opposition at the beginning of the sixteenth century—had already appeared, who considered it as the grand affair of his life to attack the doctrines of the schools and of the convents. HRSCV1 40.2

Reuchlin was not twelve years old when this great genius of the age was born. A man of no small vivacity and wit, named Gerard, a native of Gouda in the Low Countries, loved a physician’s daughter. The principles of Christianity did not govern his life, or at least his passions silenced them. His parents and his nine brothers urged him to embrace a monastic life. He fled from his home, leaving the object of his affections on the point of becoming a mother, and repaired to Rome. The frail Margaret gave birth to a son. Gerard was not informed of it; and some time after he received from his parents the intelligence that she whom he had loved was no more. Overwhelmed with grief, he entered the priesthood, and devoted himself entirely to the service of God. He returned to Holland: Margaret was still living! She would not marry another, and Gerard remained faithful to his sacerdotal vows. Their affection was concentrated on their son. His mother had taken the tenderest care of him: the father, after his return, sent him to school, although he was only four years old. He was not yet thirteen, when his teacher, Sinthemius of Deventer, one day embraced him with rapture, exclaiming, “This child will attain the highest pinnacle of learning! It was Erasmus of Rotterdam. About this time his mother died, and not long after his broken-hearted father followed her to the grave. HRSCV1 40.3

The youthful Erasmus was now alone. He entertained the greatest dislike for a monastic life, which his guardians urged him to embrace, but to which, from his very birth, we might say, he had been opposed. At last, he was persuaded to enter a convent of canons regular, and scarcely had he done so when he felt himself oppressed by the weight of his vows. He recovered a little liberty, and we soon find him at the court of the Archbishop of Cambray, and somewhat later at the university of Paris. He there pursued his studies in extreme poverty, but with the most indefatigable industry. As soon as he could procure any money, he employed it in purchasing—first, Greek works, and then clothes. Frequently did the indigent Hollander solicit in vain the generosity of his protectors; and hence, in afterlife, it was his greatest delight to furnish the means of support to youthful but poor students. Engaged without intermission in the pursuit of truth and of knowledge, he reluctantly assisted in the scholastic disputes, and shrank from the study of theology, lest he should discover any errors in it, and be in consequence denounced as a heretic. HRSCV1 40.4

It was at this period that Erasmus became conscious of his powers. In the study of the ancients he acquired a correctness and elegance of style, that placed him far above the most eminent scholars of Paris. He began to teach; and thus gained powerful friends. He published some writings, and was rewarded by admiration and applause. He knew the public taste, and shaking off the last ties of the schools and of the cloister, he devoted himself entirely to literature, displaying in all his writings those shrewd observations, that clear, lively, and enlightened wit which at once amuse and instruct. HRSCV1 40.5

The habit of application, which he contracted at this period, clung to him all his life: even in his journeys, which were usually on horseback, he was not idle. He used to compose on the road, while riding across the country, and as soon as he reached the inn, committed his thoughts to writing. It was thus he composed his celebrated Praise of Folly, in a journey from Italy to England. HRSCV1 40.6

Erasmus early acquired a great reputation among the learned: but the exasperated monks vowed deadly vengeance against him. Courted by princes, he was inexhaustible in finding excuses to escape from their invitations. He preferred gaining his living with the printer Frobenius by correcting books, to living surrounded with luxury and favors in the splendid courts of Charles V, Henry VIII, or Francis I, or to encircling his head with the cardinal’s hat that was offered him. HRSCV1 40.7

Henry the Eighth having ascended the throne in 1509, Lord Mountjoy invited Erasmus, who had already been in England, to come and cultivate literature under the scepter of their Octavius. In 1510 he lectured at Cambridge, maintaining with Archbishop Warham, John Colet, and Sir Thomas More, those friendly relations which continued until their death. In 1516 he visited Basle, where he took up his abode in 1521. HRSCV1 40.8

What was his influence on the Reformation? HRSCV1 41.1

It has been overrated by one party, and depreciated by another. Erasmus never was, and never could have been a reformer; but he prepared the way for others. Not only did he diffuse over his age a love of learning, and a spirit of inquiry and examination that led others much farther than he went himself;—but still more under the protection of great prelates and powerful princes, he was able to unveil and combat the vices of the Church by the most cutting satires. HRSCV1 41.2

Erasmus, in fact, attacked the monks and the prevailing abuses in two ways. He first adopted a popular method. This fair little man, whose half-closed blue eyes keenly observed all that was passing,—on whose lips was ever a slight sarcastic smile,—whose manner was timid and embarrassed,—and whom, it seemed, that a puff of wind would blow down,—scattered in every direction his elegant and biting sarcasms against the theology and devotion of his age. His natural character and the events of his life had rendered this disposition habitual. Even in those writings where we should have least expected it, his sarcastic humor suddenly breaks out, and he immolated, as with needle-points, those schoolmen and those ignorant monks against whom he had declared war. There are many points of resemblance between Voltaire and Erasmus. Preceding authors had already popularized the idea of that element of folly which has crept into all the opinions and actions of human life. Erasmus seized upon it, and introduced Folly in her own person, Moria, daughter of Plutus, born in the Fortunate Isles, fed on drunkenness and impertinence, and queen of a powerful empire. She gives a description of it. She depicts successively all the states in the world that belong to her, but she dwells particularly on the churchmen, who will not acknowledge her benefits, though she loads them with her favors. She overwhelms with her gibes and sarcasms that labyrinth of dialectics in which the theologians had bewildered themselves, and those extravagant syllogisms, by which they pretended to support the Church. She unveils the disorders, ignorance, filthy habits, and absurdities of the monks. HRSCV1 41.3

“They all belong to me,” says she, “those folks whose greatest pleasure is in relating miracles, or listening to marvelous lies, and who makes use of them in an especial manner to beguile the dulness of others, and to fill their own purses (I speak particularly of priests and preachers)! In the same category are those who enjoy the foolish but sweet persuasion that if they chance to see a piece of wood or a picture representing Polyphemus or Christopher, they will not die that day.” HRSCV1 41.4

“Alas! what follies,” continues Moria; “I am almost ashamed of them myself! Do we not see every country claiming its peculiar saint? Each trouble has its saint, and every saint his candle. This cures the toothache; that assists women in childbed; a third restores what a thief has stolen; a fourth preserves you in shipwreck; and a fifth protects your flocks. There are some who have many virtues at once, and especially the Virgin-mother of God, in whom the people place more confidence than in her Son….. If in the midst of all these mummeries some wise man should rise and give utterance to these harsh truths: ‘You shall not perish miserably if you live like Christians;—you shall redeem your sins, if to your alms you add repentance, tears, watchings, prayer, fasting, and a complete change in your way of life;—this saint will protect you, if you imitate his conduct;’—If, I say, some wise man should charitably utter these things in their ears, oh! of what happiness would he not rob their souls, and into what trouble, what distress would he not plunge them! The mind of man is so constituted that imposture has more hold upon it than truth. If there is one saint more apocryphal than another—a St. George, St. Christopher, or St. Barbara—you will see him worshipped with greater fervency than St. Peter, St. Paul, or even than Christ himself.” HRSCV1 41.5

But Moria does not stop here: she attacks the bishops “who run more after gold than after souls, and who think they have done enough for Jesus Christ, when they take their seats complacently and with theatrical pomp, like Holy Fathers to whom adoration belongs, and utter blessings or anathemas.” The daughter of the Fortunate Isles even ventures to attack the Court of Rome and the pope himself, who, passing his time in amusements, leaves the duties of his ministry to St. Peter and St. Paul. “Can there be any greater enemies to the Church than these unholy pontiffs, who by their silence allow Jesus Christ to be forgotten; who bind him by their mercenary regulations; who falsify his doctrine by forced interpretations; and crucify him a second time by their scandalous lives?” HRSCV1 41.6

Holbein added the most grotesque illustrations to the Praise of Folly, in which the pope figured with his triple crown. Perhaps no work has ever been so thoroughly adapted to the wants of the age. It is impossible to describe the impression this little book produced throughout Christendom. Twenty-seven editions appeared in the life-time of Erasmus: it was translated into every European language, and contributed more than any other to confirm the anti-sacerdotal tendency of the age. HRSCV1 41.7

But to the popular attack of sarcasm Erasmus united science and learning. The study of Greek and Latin literature had opened a new prospect to the modern genius that was beginning to awaken from its slumber in Europe. Erasmus eagerly embraced the idea of the Italians that the sciences ought to be studied in the schools of the ancients, and that, laying aside the inadequate and absurd works that had hitherto been in use, men should study geography in Strabo, medicine in Hippocrates, philosophy in Plato, mythology in Ovid, and natural history in Pliny. But he went a step further, and it was the step of a giant, and must necessarily have led to the discovery of a new world of greater importance to the interests of humanity than that which Columbus had recently added to the old. Erasmus, following out his principle, required that men should no longer study theology in Scotus and Aquinas, but go and learn it in the writings of the Fathers of the Church, and above all in the New Testament. He showed that they must not even rest contented with the Vulgate, which swarmed with errors; and he rendered an incalculable service to truth by publishing his critical edition of the Greek text of the New Testament—a text as little known in the West as if it had never existed. This work appeared at Basle in 1516, one year before the Reformation. Erasmus thus did for the New Testament what Reuchlin had done for the Old. Henceforward divines were able to read the Word of God in the original languages, and at a later period to recognize the purity of the Reformed doctrines. HRSCV1 42.1

“It is my desire,” said Erasmus, on publishing his New Testament, “to lead back that cold disputer of words, styled theology, to its real fountain. Would to God that this work may bear as much fruit to Christianity as it has cost me toil and application!” This wish was realized. In vain did the monks cry out, “He presumes to correct the Holy Ghost!” The New Testament of Erasmus gave out a bright flash of light. His paraphrases on the Epistles, and on the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John; his editions of Cyprian and Jerome; his translations of Origen, Athanasius, and Chrysostom; his Principles of True Theology, his Preacher, and his Commentaries on various Psalms, contributed powerfully to diffuse a taste for the Word of God and for pure theology. The result of his labors even went beyond his intentions. Reuchlin and Erasmus gave the Bible to the learned; Luther, to the people. HRSCV1 42.2

Erasmus did still more: by his restoration of the New Testament, he restored what that revelation taught. “The most exalted aim in the revival of philosophical studies,” said he, “will be to obtain a knowledge of the pure and simple Christianity of the Bible.” A noble sentiment! and would to God that the organs of our modern philosophy understood their mission as well as he did! “I am firmly resolved,” said he again, “to die in the study of the Scriptures; in them are all my joy and all my peace.” “The sum of all christian philosophy,” said he on another occasion, “amounts to this:—to place all our hopes in God alone, who by his free grace, without any merit of our own, gives us everything through Christ Jesus; to know that we are redeemed by the death of his Son; to be dead to worldly lusts; and to walk in conformity with his doctrine and example, not only injuring no man, but doing good to all; to support our trials patiently in the hope of a future reward; and finally, to claim no merit to ourselves on account of our virtues, but to give thanks to God for all our strength and for all our works. This is what should be instilled into man, until it becomes a second nature.” HRSCV1 42.3

Then raising his voice against that mass of church-regulations about dress, fasting, feast-days, vows, marriage, and confession, which oppressed the people and enriched the priests, Erasmus exclaims: “In the churches they scarcely ever think of explaining the Gospel. The greater part of their sermons must be drawn up to please the commissaries of indulgences. The most holy doctrine of Christ must be suppressed or perverted to their profit. There is no longer any hope of cure, unless Christ himself should turn the hearts of rulers and of pontiffs, and excite them to seek for real piety.” HRSCV1 42.4

The writings of Erasmus followed one another in rapid succession. He labored unceasingly, and his works were read just as they came from his pen. This animation, this native energy, this intellect so rich and so delicate, so witty and so bold, that was poured without any reserve in such copious streams upon his contemporaries, led away and enchanted the immense public who devoured the works of the philosopher of Rotterdam. He soon became the most influential man in Christendom, and crowns and pensions were showered upon him from every side. HRSCV1 42.5

If we cast our eyes on the great revolution that somewhat later renewed the Church, we cannot help acknowledging that Erasmus served as a bridge to many minds. Numbers who would have been alarmed by the evangelical truths presented in all their strength and purity, allowed themselves to be drawn along by him, and ultimately became the most zealous partisans of the Reformation. HRSCV1 42.6

But the very circumstances that fitted him for the work of preparation, disqualified him for its accomplishment. HRSCV1 43.1

“Erasmus is very capable of exposing error,” said Luther, “but he knows not how to teach the truth.” The Gospel of Christ was not the fire at which he kindled and sustained his energy,—the center whence his activity radiated. He was in an eminent degree a man of learning, and only in consequence of that was he a Christian. He was too much the slave of vanity to acquire a decided influence over his age. He anxiously calculated the result that each step he took might have upon his reputation. There was nothing he liked better than to talk about himself and his fame. “The pope,” wrote he with a childish vanity to an intimate friend, at the period when he declared himself the opponent of Luther, “the pope has sent me a diploma full of kindness and honorable testimonials. His secretary declares that this in an unprecedented honor, and that the pope dictated every word himself.” HRSCV1 43.2

Erasmus and Luther, viewed in connection with the “Reformation, are the representatives of two great ideas,—of two great parties in their age, and indeed in every age. The one composed of men of timid prudence; the other, of men of resolution and courage. These two parties were in existence at that epoch, and they are personified in their illustrious chiefs. The men of prudence thought that the study of theological science would gradually bring about a reformation of the Church, and that, too, without violence. The men of action thought that the diffusion of more correct ideas among the learned would not put an end to the superstitions of the people, and that the correction of this or of that abuse, so long as the whole life of the Church was not renewed, would be of little effect. HRSCV1 43.3

“A disadvantageous peace,” Erasmus used to say, “is better than the most righteous war.” He thought—and how many Erasmuses have lived since, and are living even in our own days! he thought that a reformation which might shake the Church would endanger its overthrow; he witnessed with alarm men’s passions aroused into activity; evil everywhere mixed up with the little good that might be effected; existing institutions destroyed without the possibility of others being set up in their place; and the vessel of the Church, leaking on every side, at last swallowed up by the tempest. “Those who bring the sea into new beds,” said he, “often attempt a work that deceives their expectations; for the terrible element, once let in, does not go where they would with it, but rushes whithersoever it pleases, and causes great devastation.” “Be that as it may,” added he, “let troubles be everywhere avoided! It is better to put up with ungodly princes than to increase the evil by any change.” HRSCV1 43.4

But the courageous portion of his contemporaries were prepared with an answer. History had sufficiently proved that a free exposition of the truth and a decided struggle against falsehood could alone ensure the victory. If they had temporized, the artifices of policy and the wiles of the papal court would have extinguished the truth in its first glimmerings. Had not conciliatory measures been employed for ages? Had not council after council been convoked to reform the Church? All had been unavailing. Why now pretend to repeat an experiment that had so often failed? HRSCV1 43.5

Undoubtedly a thorough reform could not be accomplished without violence. But when has anything good or great ever appeared among men without causing some agitation? Would not this fear of seeing evil mingled with good, even had it been reasonable, have checked the noblest and the holiest undertakings? We must not fear the evil that may arise out of a great agitation, but we must take courage to resist and to overcome it. HRSCV1 43.6

Is there not besides an essential difference between the commotion originating in human passions, and that which emanates from the Spirit of God? One shakes society, the other strengthens it. What an error to imagine with Erasmus that in the then existing state of Christendom,—with that mixture of contrary elements, of truth and falsehood, life and death—a violent collision could be prevented! As well strive to close the crater of Vesuvius when the angry elements are already warring in its bosom! The Middle Ages had seen more than one violent commotion, when the sky was less threatening with storms than at the time of the Reformation. Men had not then to think of checking and of repressing, but of directing and guiding. HRSCV1 43.7

Who can tell what frightful ruin might not have occurred if the Reformation had not burst forth? Society, the prey of a thousand elements of destruction, destitute of any regenerating or conservative qualities, would have been terribly convulsed. Certainly this would have really been a reform in Erasmus’s fashion, and such as many moderate but timid men of our days still dream of, which would have overturned christian society. The people, wanting that knowledge and that piety which the Reformation brought down even to the lowest ranks, abandoned to their violent passions, and to a restless spirit of revolt, would have been let loose, like a furious and exasperated wild beast, whose rage no chains can any longer control. HRSCV1 43.8

The Reformation was no other than an interposition of the Spirit of God among men,—a regulating principle that God sent upon earth. It is true that it might stir up the fermenting elements hidden in the heart of man; but God overruled them. The evangelical doctrines, the truth of God, penetrating the masses of the people, destroyed what was destined to perish, but everywhere strengthened what ought to be maintained. The effect of the Reformation on society was to reconstruct; prejudice alone could say that it was an instrument of destruction. It has been said with reason, with reference to the work of reform, that “the ploughshare might as well think that it injures the earth it breaks up, while it is only fertilizing it.” HRSCV1 44.1

The leading principle of Erasmus was: “Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.” This principle is good, and Luther acted upon it. But when the enemies of the light endeavour to extinguish it, or to wrest the torch from the hand of him who bears it, must we (for the sake of peace) allow him to do so? must we not resist the wicked? HRSCV1 44.2

Erasmus was deficient in courage. Now, that quality is as indispensable to effect a reformation as to take a town. There was much timidity in his character. From his early youth he trembled at the name of death. He took the most extraordinary care of his health. He spared no sacrifice to remove from a place in which a contagious malady was reigning. The desire of enjoying the comforts of life exceeded even his vanity, and this was his motive for rejecting more than one brilliant offer. HRSCV1 44.3

He had, therefore, no claims to the character of a reformer. “If the corrupted morals of the court of Rome call for a prompt and vigorous remedy, that is no business of mine,” said he, “nor of those who are like me.” He had not that strength of faith which animated Luther. While the latter was ever prepared to lay down his life for the truth, Erasmus candidly observed, “Let others aspire the martyrdom: as for me, I do not think myself worthy of such an honor. I fear that if any disturbance were to arise, I should imitate Peter in his fall.” HRSCV1 44.4

By his conversation and by his writings Erasmus had prepared the way for the Reformation more than any other man; and yet he trembled when he saw the approach of that very tempest which he himself had raised. He would have given anything to restore the calm of former times, even with all its dense vapors. But it was too late: the dike was broken. It was no longer in man’s power to arrest the flood that was at once to cleanse and fertilize the world. Erasmus was powerful as God’s instrument; when he ceased to be that, he was nothing. HRSCV1 44.5

Ultimately Erasmus knew not what party to adopt. None pleased him, and he feared all. “It is dangerous to speak,” said he, “and it is dangerous to be silent.” In every great religious movement there will be found these wavering characters,—respectable on many accounts, but injurious to the truth, and who, from their unwillingness to displease any, offend all. HRSCV1 44.6

What would have become of the Truth, had not God raised up more courageous champions than Erasmus? Listen to the advice he gives Viglius Zuichem, who was afterwards president of the supreme court at Brussels, as to the manner in which he should behave towards the sectarians—for thus he had already begun to denominate the Reformers: “My friendship for you leads me to desire that you will keep aloof from the contagion of the sects, and that you will give them no opportunity of saying, Zuichem is become one of us. If you approve of their teaching, you should at least dissemble, and, above all, avoid discussions with them. A lawyer should finesse with these people, as the dying man did with the devil, who asked him, What do you believe? The poor man, fearful of being caught in some heresy, if he should make a confession of his faith, replied, What the Church believes. The devil demanded, And what does the Church believe?—What I believe.—Once more he was questioned, What do you believe?—and the expiring man answered once more, What the Church believes!” Thus Duke George of Saxony, Luther’s mortal enemy, having received an equivocal answer to a question he had put to Erasmus, said to him: “My dear Erasmus, wash me the fur without wetting it!” Secundus Curio, in one of his works, describes two heavens—the papal and the christian. He found Erasmus in neither, but discovered him revolving between both in never-ending orbits. HRSCV1 44.7

Such was Erasmus. He needed that inward emancipation which alone gives perfect liberty. How different would he have been had he abandoned self, and sacrificed all for truth! But after having endeavoured to effect certain reforms with the approbation of the heads of the Church; after having deserted the Reformation for Rome, when he saw that these two things could not go hand in hand;—he lost ground with all parties. On the one side, his recantations could not repress the anger of the fanatical partisans of the papacy: they felt all the evil he had done them, and would not pardon him. Furious monks loaded him with abuse from the pulpits: they called him a second Lucian—a fox that had laid waste the Lord’s vineyard. A doctor of Constance had hung the portrait of Erasmus in his study, that he might be able at any moment to spit in his face.—But, on the other hand, Erasmus, deserting the standard of the Gospel, lost the affection and esteem of the noblest men of the age in which he lived, and was forced to renounce, there can be little doubt, those heavenly consolations which God sheds in the heart of those who act as good soldiers of Christ. This at least seems to be indicated by those bitter tears, those painful vigils, that broken sleep, that tasteless food, that loathing of the study of the Muses (formerly his only consolation), those saddened features, that pale face, those sorrowful and downcast eyes, that hatred of existence which he calls “a cruel life,” and those longings after death, which he describes to his friends. Unhappy Erasmus! HRSCV1 44.8

The enemies of Erasmus went, in my opinion, a little beyond the truth, when they exclaimed on Luther’s appearance: “Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it.” HRSCV1 45.1