The life and character of Erasmus

Preface

When the author of this volume — whose public services in the diocese of Lincoln are entitled to grateful recognition — requested me to write a short Preface to it, I was unwilling, though with little leisure at command, to decline the invitation, from regard to the subject, and to the writer.

Erasmus was one of the principal instruments employed by divine Providence, for conferring great benefits, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, on human society; and the study of his life inspires feelings of thankfulness, while it supplies lessons of instruction, which are especially seasonable at tlie present time.

The capture of Constantinople by the Turks, and the dissolution of the Eastern Empire, were calamities which Europe regarded with dismay. But the evil was overruled for o-ood. Greek teachers emigrated from the Eastern capital. The Learning and Literature of Greece were driver westward by the tide of barbarism and unbelief ; and being aided by the discovery

IV PEEFACE.

■of Printing, were made ministerial to the revival of Letters, and to the Reformation of the Church.

Erasmus, born in Holland, at Rotterdam, in 1467, and educated at De venter — where he was a school-fellow of a future Pope, Adrian YI. — felt the influence of these events. Many years elapsed before he mastered the Greek language, but by dint of severe study, especially at Oxford and Cambridge, he became qualified to bestow one of the greatest blessings on the world that it received for fifteen hundred years. He published the first edition of the Greek Testament, at the printing press of Froben, at Basle, in the year of our Lord, 1516.

In other respects also, circumstances, seemingly unfavourable to Christianity, were made conducive to its ■ rapid difi'usion. The continuation of the use of the Latin language in the public services of the Church was doubtless in many respects a spiritual evil. But this also was controlled for good. It preserved Latin from becoming a dead language, at least among welleducated men, and it made Latin to be, in a certain sense, universal.

Erasmus was an enterprising traveller ; he was a citizen of the world ; he resided at Louvain, Padua^ Florence, Rome, Paris, and Basle. He spent much time in England ; he knew no modern language except his own, in which few foreigners could converse with him, but he was everywhere at home. He came to Oxford with letters of introduction to Charnock, Prior of the Augustinians, in the College of St. Mary, in 1497, and soon after his arrival received a Latin letter from John Colet, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, then at Oxford,

PREFACE. V

and wrote a reply to him in the same language. This was the beginning of a long friendship, happy and useful to both, and to the world.

Tlie same may be said of the intercourse of Erasmus with the dear friend of Dean Colet, Sir Thomas More, and with his predecessor in the chancellorship, Cardinal Wolsey, and Archbishop Warham, and their royal master, Henry the Eighth. If Europe had not then possessed a common language for learned men, it is probable "that some of the best friendships would never have been formed, and the light of pure and primitive Christianity would not have been rekindled, and diffused so rapidly throughout the world.

At the present time we speak of the publication of numerous successive editions of a contemporary brochure as a remarkable event : the circulation, however, of the author's orio'inal words is limited to a narrow range. But how different was the case even in the earlier part of the sixteenth century. The " Morm Encommiii" (or "Praise of Folly ") of Erasmus, and afterwards his '* Colloqiues" might be called religious and political essays or pamphlets, and were disseminated everywhere by thousands of copies, and were eagerly read by popes and cardinals, kings^ princes, and statesmen, bishops, abbots, and clergy secular and regular, and by judges, civiHans, canonists, and magistrates, and many other laymen, and also by fair ladies in all parts of Europe, and their influence was proportioned to their diffiision.

Some religious meetings of learned and pious men of different churches and countries have lately been held ; and there is reason to hope that conferences of

VI PEEFACE.

this kind may become more frequent, and be conducive to tlie advancement of Christian truth and Christian peace.

Would it not be worth while to consider whether one common language — especially Latin, with the same pronunciation — might not be adopted with advantage at such consultations as these ? Would not this be better than that the members of a Conference should speak in their own tongue, and that the rest should wait for an oral translation of what Jiad been said ?

The services of Erasmus in editing the works of ancient Fathers of the Church, especially St. Jerome, and of Latin translations of portions of St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil, claim thankful commemoration. His patristic studies prepared and qualified him for the execution of a great work which was recommended to general acceptance by the depth and variety of its learning, by the tolerant moderation of its temper, and by the gracefulness and terseness of its language — his Paraphrase of the New Testament. This was translated into English by Nicolas Udal, Master of Eton College, and every parish in England was required by the royal authority of Edward YI. and Queen Elizabeth to procure a copy of it for general access in the parish church.

No one can say how much the English Church and Nation have been indebted — from that time to this day — to the benefits thus conferred upon them by the learned scholar of Rotterdam.

Erasmus was not a Luther ; and Luther was not an Erasmus. The one was a complement of the other.

PEEFACE. VU

Their differences are brought out sharply and clearly in the epistolary correspondence between them. If Erasmus had displayed in his writings the vehement indignation of the great German Reformer, his Paraphrase of the New Testament would not have met with the general acceptance it enjoyed. None of Luther's works attained equal celebrity. But if Luther had been an Erasmus, some of the worst corruptions of the papacy would have escaped unscathed. Each of the two had his special mission ; and so far as that mission was a holy one, let the Giver of all Good be praised.

We who live now may learn much from them both. Erasmus, like Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in Ital}", and like the author of " Piers Ploughman's Vision,"* and Chaucer in the fourteenth century, and like our Colet in the fifteenth and sixteenth, desired to see a Reformation of the Church within the Church, and proceeding from the Church. The Reformation which he wished for, and which Colet advocated in his celebrated sermon preached before the English Convocation at St. Paul's, in loll, was rather a Reformation of nnannevSj of bishops, clergy, and people, than of doctrines. Not that any of these illustrious men had the slightest sympathy with those dogmas which are now made the foundation of the Romish system, — especially that of the personal Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff/ and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Erasmus clung tenaciously to the authority of the Church, but not to that of the Fope. He freely

* The author of Piers Ploughman's Creed is more antidogmatic.

Vlll PEEFACE.

satirized the licentious Alexander VI., Borgia, and the bellicose Julius II., and in his "Axioms" communicated to Spalatinus, and probably through him to the Elector Frederick of Saxony, he did not hesitate to censure Pope Leo X.'s bull, condemnatory of Luther, as "offensive to all good men;" and he even went so far as to suggest the abolition of the festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin.''' But he hoped that by the circulation and study of the Holy Scriptures, and by the reading of the writings of the Christian fathers, and by the discipline of such schools as his learned friend Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, had founded and munificently endowed (and for which Erasmus provided religious exercises of devotion), and by the indirect influence of classical literature and elegant scholarship, and by his own sportive pasquinades and satirical raillery on religious pilgrimages, such as that to the shrine of St. Mary of Walsingham, and St. Thomas of Canterbury, and on other abuses which he exposed to ridicule with the caustic wit of a Rabelais, many of the worst corruptions and errors of Komanism, which he regarded as due to ignorance and barbarism, and to the influence of scholastic theology, would gradually and quietly melt away and disappear.

But the spirit of Wicklifle had revived in Martin Luther, and he, with others like him, were eager for immediate results, and boldly attacked dogmas which lay at the root of these practices. Doubtless in so doing- Luther assailed some things that might have been

* See his interesting discourse " De Amabili Ecclesise Concordia," written only three years before his death, in Browne's •" Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum," vol. i. p. 462.

PKEFACE. IX

spared, and spared others tliat might have been, assailed.*

Erasmus sacriticed truth to a love of unity. Luther sacrificed unity to a love of truth. Who can say whether both truth and unity might not have been preserved ?

In its hatred of the Papacy Germany lost episcopacj^ She forfeited that form of ecclesiastical government which had been continued in the Church from the time of the Apostles for 1500 years. The consequences of this loss are now manifest to all. St. Jerome never said a wiser thing than that there is " no schism which does not generate a heresy;" and Tertullian said no less truly that when a disruption takes place, and conflicting sects split off from tlie Church, then- only term of communion among themselves is discord, their only " unity is in schism ;" and the consequences are seen, not only in bitter religious strife, but in civil turmoils and confusion.

Let us not, however, take on ourselves to censure either of those great men, Erasmus and Luther, but let us learn wisdom from both.

The study of their history and of that of their contemporaries has a special interest for the " old Catholics " of German}^, Holland^ Switzerland, and Italy at the present time, and for all who sympathize with them in their noble endeavour to reform the Church by an appeal to Holy Scripture and to primitive Chris-

* Luther's reckless dictum concerning the Epistle .of St. James is one of the specimens of that arbitrary self- dogmatism and lawlessness of private opinion which unhappily marred and damaged his work.

X PKEFACE.

tian antiquity. It is fraught with solemn warnings and salutary instruction to them and to ourselves.

A great conflict is at hand, which will probably be more violent that that of the sixteenth century. Two forms of anti-Christianism are rising in Europe ; antagonistic to each other, and driving each other by an excess of reaction to more dangerous extremes, both hostile to the truth and to unity in Church and State; both tending to confusion in doctrine, discipline, and civil polity, — Ultramontanism on the one side, and Unbelief on the other. The country of Luther is th& battle-field of this struggle. The fatherland of Erasmus is also concerned in it. Germany and Holland have felt also the effects of the counter-movement of L " old Catholicism" begun at Munich, and continued at / Cologne, Fribourg, and Bonn.

The conflict of Ultramontanism and Unbelief will probably extend throughout Europe and. the world. Sounds of its approach are heard among ourselves. How [shall we meet it ? History testifles that a well-organized Ultramontanism can never be effectually counteracted by a sceptical Secularism, or by a revolutionary Rationalism. Neither of these will save the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of a country. They create nothing ; they construct nothing ; they conserve nothing. They are only potent — and very energetic they are — in destruction. Nor will a discordant Sectarianism, or a creedless Erastianism — the one distracting the Church, the other seeking to tyrannize over it — preserve a state from disruption. The conflicts of the seventeenth century in England, when

PREFACE. XI

Sectarianism and Erastianism had full scope, warn us of this.

Aerius and Erastus are, in fact, the best allies of Hildebrand, because they weaken the Christian Church, which is the only safeguard against the schisms and heresies of Rome, and against her temporal and spiritual domination. Our only hope of security and success against the two tremendous powers, TJltramontanism and InfideUty, which are marshalled against each other, and are now threatening to overwhelm the world in anarchy and ruin, is in reading carefully the history of the past, and in learning the lessons, such as are contained in the present volume, which it teaches, that the security of churches, monarchies, and states depends on obedience to the Will and Word of God, and on the maintenance of that sound form of Evangelical and Catholic doctrine, and Apostolical form of Church government, which is contained in the Holy Scriptures, and which was received by the primitive Church, and which was cleared from corruptions at the English Reformation in the sixteenth century by wise, learned, and holy men, who, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, steered a middle course between the temporizing moderation of an Erasmus and the rash courage of a Luther ; and while they waged war against Error were not guilty of schism, but contended manfully for the Faith, while they steadfastly maintained the unity of the Church.

C. Lincoln.

The writer wishes to add the following observations.

ICll PREFACE.

He undertook the work for the purpose of supplying the want of a Life of Erasmus in a volume of moderate size in our, own language. Knight's "Life," and Jortin's " Life," both published in the last century, are unsatisfactory; the former for several reasons, but for this reason in particular, that the author confines himself almost entirely to the connections of Erasmus in England ; and the latter, because it is long and discursive, and has not the least pretensions to arrangement. Besides, these books are to be found only in old libraries, and are not available for the general reader. The only complete Life in English since Jortin's and Knight's time, before last year, is that of Butler, which is very far from conveying to the reader all which ought to be known in regard to Erasmus. Mr. Seebohm in his "Oxford Eeformers," published a few years ago, relates only a part of the Life ; and D^ean Milman in his Essay, originally published as an article in the " Quarterly Beview," as well as Mr. Froude, in his " Short Studies on Great Subjects," have given only rapid, though lively sketches of this distinguished man. In foreign languages, there are " Lives of Erasmus," which Dean Milman has well described.

When the Memoir was for the most part compiled, Mr. Drummond's " Life " made its appearance. This fact is mentioned to show that the writer has not borrowed from him the details which are now brought before the public. On some important points he differs from Mr. Drummond ; and feels especially that his work does not bring forward all the lessons to which attention is called in the following pages.

PREFACE. xm

Circumstances have occurred which have delayed the publication to the present time.

It only remains to say that the editions of Erasmus's works referred to in the pages of the following Life, as " edit. Bas." and " edit. Lugd.," are the Basle edition of 1540, and the Leyden edition of 1703.

Arthur R. Pennington.