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JOHN COLET, ERASMUS, AND THOMAS MORE.




_By the same Author._

THE ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY Examined in its Relations to the Manorial
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  LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
  London, New York, and Bombay.




  THE OXFORD REFORMERS

  JOHN COLET, ERASMUS, AND THOMAS MORE.

  _BEING A HISTORY OF THEIR FELLOW-WORK._


  BY FREDERIC SEEBOHM.

  ‘Tu interea patienter audi; ac nos ambo, collidentibus
  inter se silicibus, si quis ignis excutiatur, eum avide
  apprehendamus. _Veritatem_ enim quærimus, non opinionis
  offensionem....’ (_Colet_, Eras. Op. v. p. 1292).

  ‘Take no heed what thing many men do, but what thing the
  _very law of nature_, what thing _very reason_, what thing
  _Our Lord himself_ showeth thee to be done’ (_Pico della
  Mirandola_, translated by More: More’s English Works, p.
  13).

  ‘Cur sic arctamus Christi professionem quam Ille latissime
  volnit patere?’ (_Erasmus_, Letter to Volzius, prefixed to
  the ‘Enchiridion’).


  REPRINTED FROM THE THIRD EDITION.


  LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
  LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY.
  1896.

  All rights reserved.




PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.


Since this book was written, years ago, the works of Dean Colet have one
after another been placed within reach of the public, ably edited by my
friend Mr. Lupton, and now I understand that a biography by the same
competent hand is also in the press.

Under these circumstances I have had some hesitation in allowing a Third
Edition to be printed. I have yielded, however, to Mr. Lupton’s pleading
that this history of the fellow-work of the three friends, imperfect as it
always was, and antiquated as it has now become, may live a little longer.

F. S.

THE HERMITAGE, HITCHIN: _March 8, 1887_.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


Two circumstances have enabled me to make this Second Edition more
complete, and I trust more correct, than its predecessor.

First: the remarkable discovery by Mr. W. Aldis Wright, on the blank
leaves of a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, of an
apparently contemporary family register recording, _inter alia_, the date
of the marriage of Sir Thomas More’s parents, and of the birth of Sir
Thomas More himself (see Appendix C), has given the clue, so long sought
for in vain, to the chronology of More’s early life. It has also made it
needful to alter slightly the title of this work.

Secondly: the interesting MSS. of Colet’s, on the ‘Hierarchies of
Dionysius,’ found by Mr. Lupton in the library of St. Paul’s School, and
recently published by him with a translation and valuable
introduction,[1] have supplied a missing link in the chain of Colet’s
mental history, which has thrown much fresh light, as well upon his
connection with the Neo-Platonists of Florence, as upon the position
already taken by him at Oxford, before the arrival of Erasmus.

The greater part of the First Edition was already in the hands of the
public, when I became aware of the importance of this newly discovered
information; but, in October last, I withdrew the remaining copies from
sale, as it seemed to me that it would hardly be fair, under the
circumstances, to allow them to pass out of my hands. They have since been
destroyed.

In publishing this revised and enlarged edition, I wish especially to
tender my thanks to Mr. Lupton for his invaluable assistance in its
revision, and for the free use he has throughout allowed me to make of the
results of his own researches.

I have also to thank the Librarian of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, for the
loan of a beautiful copy of Colet’s MS. on ‘I. Corinthians;’ and Mr.
Bradshaw, for kindly obtaining for me a transcript of the MS. on ‘Romans’
in the University Library.

At Mr. Bradshaw’s suggestion I have added, in the Appendix, a catalogue of
the early editions of the works of Erasmus in my collection. It will at
least serve as evidence of the wide circulation obtained by these works
during the lifetime of their author.

HITCHIN: _May 10, 1869_.




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.


Some portions of this History were published in a somewhat condensed form
in the course of last year in the ‘Fortnightly Review,’ and I have to
thank the Editor for the permission to withdraw further portions, although
already in type, in order that the publication of this volume might not be
delayed.[2]

Having regard to the extreme inaccuracy of the dates of the letters of
Erasmus,[3] the conflicting nature of the evidence relating to the
chronology of More’s early life,[4] and the scantiness of the materials
for anything like a continuous biography of Colet, I should have
undertaken a difficult task had I attempted in this volume, even so far as
it goes, to give anything approaching to an exhaustive biography of Colet,
Erasmus, and More. But my object has not been to write the biography of
any one of them. I have rather endeavoured to trace their _joint_-history
and to point out the character of their _fellow-work_. And with regard to
the latter the evidence is so full, so various, and so consistent as to
leave, I think, little room for misapprehension, either as to whether
their work was indeed _fellow-work_, or as to the general spirit and scope
of the work itself.

I gladly take this opportunity of tendering my best thanks to those who
have aided me in this undertaking.

My warmest thanks are due to the Rev. J. S. Brewer, M.A., as well for the
invaluable aid afforded by his Calendars of the Letters, &c. of Henry
VIII., and for the loan of the proof-sheets of the forthcoming volume, as
for _the revision of the greater part of my translations_; also to Mr.
Gairdner for his ever ready assistance at the Public Record Office; to Dr.
Edward Boehmer, of the University of Halle, for his aid in the collection
of many of the early editions of works of Erasmus quoted in this volume;
to the Senate and the late Librarian of the Cambridge University Library
for the loan of the volume of MSS. marked Gg. 4, 26; and to Mr. Henry
Bradshaw, of King’s College, Cambridge, for much valuable assistance, most
courteously rendered, in the examination of this and other manuscripts at
Cambridge. I have also to thank the Rev. J. H. Lupton, of St. Paul’s
School, for the description given in Appendix C.[5] of a manuscript of
Colet’s in the Library of St. Paul’s School which I had overlooked, and
which I am happy to find is likely soon to be printed by him.

In conclusion, I cannot refrain from adding a tribute of affectionate
regard for the memory of two of my friends--the late Mr. William Tanner of
Bristol, and the late Mr. B. B. Wiffen of Woburn--of whose interest in the
progress of this work I have received many proofs, and of whose kindly
criticism I have gratefully availed myself.

HITCHIN: _March 30, 1867_.




CONTENTS.


                                                                      PAGE

  CHAPTER I.

  1. John Colet returns from Italy to Oxford (1496)                      1

  2. The Rise of the New Learning (1453-92)                              5

  3. Colet’s previous History (1496)                                    14

  4. Thomas More, another Oxford Student (1492-6)                       23

  5. Colet first hears of Erasmus (1496)                                27


  CHAPTER II.

  1. Colet’s lectures on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (1496-7?)     29

  2. Visit from a Priest during the Winter Vacation (1496-7?)           42

  3. Colet on the Mosaic Account of the Creation (1497?)                46

  4. Colet studies afresh the Pseudo-Dionysian Writings (1497?)         60

  5. Colet lectures on ‘I. Corinthians’ (1497?)                         78

  6. Grocyn’s Discovery (1498?)                                         90


  CHAPTER III.

  1. Erasmus comes to Oxford (1498)                                     94

  2. Table-talk on the Sacrifice of Cain and Abel (1498?)               97

  3. Conversation between Colet and Erasmus on the Schoolmen
     (1498 or 1499)                                                    102

  4. Erasmus falls in love with Thomas More (1498)                     113

  5. Discussion between Erasmus and Colet on ‘The Agony in the
     Garden,’ and on the Inspiration of the Scriptures (1499)          116

  6. Correspondence between Colet and Erasmus on the
  Intention of Erasmus to leave Oxford (1499-1500)                     126

  7. Erasmus leaves Oxford and England (1500)                          133


  CHAPTER IV.

  1. Colet made Doctor and Dean of St. Paul’s (1500-5)                 137

  2. More called to the Bar--In Parliament--Offends Henry
     VII.--The Consequences (1500-1504)                                142

  3. Thomas More in Seclusion from Public Life (1504-5)                146

  4. More studies Pico’s Life and Works--His Marriage (1505)           151

  5. How it had fared with Erasmus (1500-5)                            160

  6. The ‘Enchiridion,’ &c. of Erasmus (1501-5)                        173


  CHAPTER V.

  1. Second Visit of Erasmus to England (1505-6)                       180

  2. Erasmus again leaves England for Italy (1506)                     183

  3. Erasmus visits Italy and returns to England (1507-10)             186

  4. More returns to Public Life on the Accession of Henry VIII.
     (1509-10)                                                         189

  5. Erasmus writes the ‘Praise of Folly’ while resting at More’s
     House (1510 or 1511)                                              193


  CHAPTER VI.

  1. Colet founds St. Paul’s School (1510)                             206

  2. His Choice of Schoolbooks and Schoolmasters (1511)                215


  CHAPTER VII.

  1. Convocation for the Extirpation of Heresy (1512)                  222

  2. Colet is charged with Heresy (1512)                               249

  3. More in trouble again (1512)                                      255


  CHAPTER VIII.

  1. Colet preaches against the Continental Wars--The First
     Campaign (1512-13)                                                258

  2. Colet’s Sermon to Henry VIII. (1513)                              262

  3. The Second Campaign of Henry VIII. (1513)                         267

  4. Erasmus visits the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham (1513)        273


  CHAPTER IX.

  1. Erasmus leaves Cambridge, and meditates leaving England
     (1513-14)                                                         276

  2. Erasmus and the Papal Ambassador (1514)                           282

  3. Parting Intercourse between Erasmus and Colet (1514)              284


  CHAPTER X.

  1. Erasmus goes to Basle to print his New Testament (1514)           294

  2. Erasmus returns to England--His Satire upon Kings (1515)          306

  3. Returns to Basle to finish his Works--Fears of the Orthodox
     Party (1515)                                                      312


  CHAPTER XI.

  1. The ‘Novum Instrumentum’ completed--What it really was
     (1516)                                                            320


  CHAPTER XII.

  1. More immersed in Public Business (1515)                           337

  2. Colet’s Sermon on the Installation of Cardinal Wolsey
     (1515)                                                            343

  3. More’s ‘Utopia’ (1515)                                            346

  4. The ‘Institutio Principis Christiani’ of Erasmus (1516)           365

  5. More completes his ‘Utopia’--the Introductory Book (1516)         378


  CHAPTER XIII.

  1. What Colet thought of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ (1516)             391

  2. Reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ in other Quarters
     (1516)                                                            398

  3. Martin Luther reads the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ (1516)               402

  4. The ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum’ (1516-17)                       407

  5. The ‘Pythagorica’ and ‘Cabalistica’ of Reuchlin (1517)            411

  6. More pays a Visit to Coventry (1517?)                             414


  CHAPTER XIV.

  1. The Sale of Indulgences (1517-18)                                 419

  2. More drawn into the Service of Henry VIII.--Erasmus leaves
     Germany for Basle (1518)                                          427


  CHAPTER XV.

  1. Erasmus arrives at Basle--His Labours there (1518)                434

  2. The Second Edition of the New Testament (1518-19)                 442

  3. Erasmus’s Health gives way (1518)                                 455


  CHAPTER XVI.

  1. Erasmus does not die (1518)                                       457

  2. More at the Court of Henry VIII. (1518)                           458

  3. The Evening of Colet’s Life (1518-19)                             461

  4. More’s Conversion attempted by the Monks (1519)                   470

  5. Erasmus and the Reformers of Wittemberg (1519)                    476

  6. Election of Charles V. to the Empire (1519)                       482

  7. The Hussites of Bohemia (1519)                                    484

  8. More’s Domestic Life (1519)                                       497

  9. Death of Colet (1519)                                             503

  10. Conclusion                                                       505


  APPENDICES.

  A. Extracts from MS. Gg. 4, 26, in the Cambridge University
     Library, Translations of which are given at pp. 37, 38 of
     this Work                                                         511

  B. Extracts from MS. on ‘I. Corinthians.’--Emmanuel College
     MS. 3. 3. 12                                                      513

  C. On the Date of More’s Birth                                       521

  D. Ecclesiastical Titles and Preferments of Dean Colet, in
     Order of Time                                                     529

  E. Catalogue of early Editions of the Works of Erasmus in my
     possession                                                        530

  F. Editions of Works of Sir Thomas More in my Possession             542


  INDEX                                                                545




THE OXFORD REFORMERS: COLET, ERASMUS, AND MORE.




CHAPTER I.


I. JOHN COLET RETURNS FROM ITALY TO OXFORD (1496).

[Sidenote: John Colet announces lectures on St. Paul’s Epistles.]

It was probably in Michaelmas Term of 1496[6] that the announcement was
made to doctors and students of the University of Oxford that John Colet,
a late student, recently returned from Italy, was about to deliver a
course of public and gratuitous lectures in exposition of St. Paul’s
Epistles.

[Sidenote: Only graduates in Theology might lecture on the Bible.]

This was an event of no small significance and perhaps of novelty in the
closing years of that last of the Middle Ages; not only because the
Scriptures for some generations had been practically ignored at the
Universities, but still more so because the would-be lecturer had not as
yet entered deacon’s orders,[7] nor had obtained, or even tried to obtain,
any theological degree.[8] It is true that he had passed through the
regular academical course at Oxford, and was entitled, as a Master of
Arts, to lecture upon any other subject.[9] But a degree in Arts did not,
it would seem, entitle the graduate to lecture upon the Bible.[10]

It does not perhaps follow from this, that Colet was guilty of any
flagrant breach of university statutes, which, as a graduate in Arts, he
must have sworn to obey. The very extent to which real study of the
Scriptures had become obsolete at Oxford, may possibly suggest that even
the statutory restrictions on Scripture lectures may have become obsolete
also.[11]

Before the days of Wiclif, the Bible had been free, and Bishop
Grosseteste could urge Oxford students to devote their _best morning
hours_ to Scripture lectures.[12] But an unsuccessful revolution ends in
tightening the chains which it ought to have broken. During the fifteenth
century the Bible was _not_ free. And Scripture lectures, though still
retaining a nominal place in the academical course of theological study,
were thrown into the background by the much greater relative importance of
the lectures on ‘the Sentences.’ What Biblical lectures were given were
probably of a very formal character.[13]

[Sidenote: Commencement of a new movement at Oxford.]

The announcement by Colet of this course of lectures on St. Paul’s
Epistles was in truth, so far as can be traced, the first overt act in a
movement commenced at Oxford in the direction of practical Christian
reform--a movement, some of the results of which, had they been gifted
with prescience, might well have filled the minds of the Oxford doctors
with dismay.

They could not indeed foresee that those very books of ‘the Sentences,’
over which they had pored so intently for so many years, in order to
obtain the degree of Master in Theology, and at which students were still
patiently toiling with the same object in view--they could not foresee
that, within forty years, these very books would ‘be utterly banished from
Oxford,’ ignominiously ‘nailed up upon posts’ as waste paper, their loose
leaves strewn about the quadrangles until some sportsman should gather
them up and thread them on a line to keep the deer within the neighbouring
woods.[14] They could not, indeed, foresee the end of the movement then
only beginning, but still, the announcement of Colet’s lectures was likely
to cause them some uneasiness. They may well have asked, whether, if the
exposition of the Scriptures were to be really revived at Oxford, so
dangerous a duty should not be restricted to those duly authorised to
discharge it? Was every stripling who might travel as far as Italy and
return infected with the ‘new learning’ to be allowed to set up himself as
a theological teacher, without graduating in divinity, and without waiting
for decency’s sake for the bishop’s ordination?

On the other hand, any Oxford graduate choosing to adopt so irregular a
course, must have been perfectly aware that it would be one likely to stir
up opposition, and even ill-will,[15] amongst the older divines; and it
maybe presumed that he hardly would have ventured upon such a step without
knowing that there were at the university others ready to support him.


II. THE RISE OF THE NEW LEARNING (1453-92).

[Sidenote: The old and new school of thought.]

In all ages, more or less, there is a new school of thought rising up
under the eyes of an older school of thought. And probably in all ages the
men of the old school regard with some little anxiety the ways of the men
of the new school. Never is it more likely to be so than at an epoch of
sharp transition, like that on which the lot of these Oxford doctors had
been cast.

[Sidenote: An age of progress and transition.]

[Sidenote: Advance of Infidel arms in Europe.]

We sometimes speak as though our age were _par excellence_ the age of
progress. _Theirs_ was much more so if we duly consider it. The youth and
manhood of some of them had been spent in days which may well have seemed
to be the latter days of Christendom. They had seen Constantinople taken
by the Turks. The final conquest of Christendom by the infidel was a
possibility which had haunted all their visions of the future. Were not
Christian nations driven up into the north-western extremity of the known
world, a wide pathless ocean lying beyond? Had not the warlike creed of
Mahomet steadily encroached upon Christendom, century by century,
stripping her first of her African churches, from thence fighting its way
northward into Spain? Had it not maintained its foothold in Spain’s
fairest provinces for seven hundred years? And from the East was it not
steadily creeping over Europe, nearer and nearer to Venice and Rome, in
spite of all that crusades could do to stop its progress? If, though
little more than half the age of Christianity, it had already, as they
reckoned it had, drawn into its communion five times[16] as many votaries
as there were Christians left, was it a groundless fear that now in these
latter days it might devour the remaining sixth? What could hinder it?

[Sidenote: Internal weakness of the Church.]

A Spartan resistance on the part of united Christendom perhaps might. But
Christendom was not united, nor capable of Spartan discipline. Her
internal condition seemed to show signs almost of approaching dissolution.
The shadow of the great Papal schism still brooded over the destinies of
the Church. That schism had been ended only by a revolution which, under
the guidance of Gerson, had left the Pope the constitutional instead of
the absolute monarch of the Church. The great heresies of the preceding
century had, moreover, not yet been extinguished. The very names of Wiclif
and Huss were still names of terror. Lollardy had been crushed, but it was
not dead. Everywhere the embers of schism and revolution were still
smouldering underneath, ready to break out again, in new fury, who could
tell how soon?

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Defeat of the Moors in Spain, and discovery of America.]

It was in the ears of this apparently doomed generation that the double
tidings came of the discovery of the Terra Nova in the West, and of the
expulsion of the infidel out of Spain.

The ice of centuries suddenly was broken. The universal despondency at
once gave way before a spirit of enterprise and hope; and it has been well
observed, men began to congratulate each other that their lot had been
cast upon an age in which such wonders were achieved.

Even the men of the old school could appreciate these facts in a fashion.
The defeat of the Moors was to them a victory to the Church. The discovery
of the New World extended her dominion. They gloried over both.

But these outward facts were but the index to an internal upheaving of the
mind of Christendom, to which they were blind. The men who were guiding
the great external revolution--reformers in their way--were blindly
stamping out the first symptoms of this silent upheaving. Gerson, while
carrying reform over the heads of Popes, and deposing them to end the
schism or to preserve the unity of the Church, was at the same moment
using all his influence to crush Huss and Jerome of Prague. Queen Isabella
and Ximenes, Henry VII. and Morton, while sufficiently enlightened to
pursue maritime discovery, to reform after a fashion the monasteries under
their rule, and ready even to combine to reform the morals of the Pope
himself in order to avert the dreaded recurrence of a schism,[17] were not
eager to pursue these purposes without the sanction of Papal bulls, and
without showing their zeal for the Papacy by crushing out free thought
with an iron heel and zealously persecuting heretics, whether their faith
were that of the Moor, the Lollard, or the Jew.

[Sidenote: The revival of learning.]

The fall of Constantinople, which had sounded almost like the death-knell
of Christendom, had proved itself in truth the chief cause of her revival.
The advance of the Saracens upon Europe had already told upon the European
mind. The West has always had much to learn from the East. It was, for
instance, by translation from Arabic versions that Aristotle had gained
such influence over those very same scholastic minds to which his native
Greek was an abomination.

This further triumph of infidel arms also influenced Christian thought.
Eastern languages and Eastern philosophies began to be studied afresh in
the West. Exiles who had fled into Italy had brought with them their
Eastern lore. The invention of printing had come just in time to aid the
revival of learning. The printing press was pouring out in clear and
beautiful type new editions of the Greek and Latin classics. Art and
science with literature sprang up once more into life in Italy; and to
Italy, and especially to Florence, which, under the patronage of the
splendid court of Lorenzo de’ Medici, seemed to form the most attractive
centre, students from all nations eagerly thronged.

[Sidenote: Its effect on religion. Revival of Neo-Platonism.]

It was of necessity that the sudden reproduction of the Greek philosophy
and the works of the older Neo-Platonists in Italy should sooner or later
produce a new crisis in religion. A thousand years before, Christianity
and Neo-Platonism had been brought into the closest contact. Christianity
was then in its youth--comparatively pure--and in the struggle for mastery
had easily prevailed. Not that Neo-Platonism was indeed a mere phantom
which vanished and left no trace behind it. By no means. Through the
pseudo-Dionysian writings it not only influenced profoundly the theology
of mediæval mystics, but also entered largely even into the Scholastic
system. It was thus absorbed into Christian theology though lost as a
philosophy.

[Sidenote: The Platonic Academy, Ficino.]

Now, after the lapse of a thousand years, the same battle had to be fought
again. But with this terrible difference; that now Christianity, in the
impurest form it had ever assumed--a grotesque perversion of
Christianity--had to cope with the purest and noblest of the Greek
philosophies. It was, therefore, almost a matter of course that, under the
patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Platonic Academy under Marsilio
Ficino should carry everything before it. Whether the story were literally
true of Ficino himself or not, that he kept a lamp burning in his chamber
before a bust of Plato, as well as before that of the Virgin, it was at
least symbolically true of the most accomplished minds of Florence.

[Sidenote: Plato and Christianity.]

Questions which had slept since the days of Julian and his successors were
discussed again under Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. The leading minds of
Italy were once more seeking for a reconciliation between Plato and
Christianity in the works of the pseudo-Dionysius, Macrobius, Plotinus,
Proclus, and other Neo-Platonists. There was the same anxious endeavour,
as a thousand years earlier, to fuse all philosophies into one. Plato and
Aristotle must be reconciled, as well as Christianity and Plato. The old
world was becoming once more the possession of the new. It was felt to be
the recovery of a lost inheritance, and everything of antiquity, whether
Greek, Roman, Jewish, Persian, or Arabian, was regarded as a treasure. It
was the fault of the Christian Church if the grotesque form of
Christianity held up by her to a reawakening world seemed less pure and
holy than the aspirations of Pagan philosophers. It would be by no merit
of hers, but solely by its own intrinsic power, if Christianity should
retain its hold upon the mind of Europe, in spite of its ecclesiastical
defenders.

Christianity brought into disrepute by the conduct of professed
Christians, was compelled to rest as of old upon its own intrinsic merits,
to stand the test of the most searching scientific criticisms which
Florentine philosophers were able to apply to it. Men versed in Plato and
Aristotle were not without some notion of the value of intrinsic evidence,
and the methods of inductive enquiry. Ficino himself thought it well,
discarding the accustomed scholastic interpreters, to turn the light of
his Platonic lamp upon the Christian religion. From his work, ‘_De
Religione Christianâ_,’ dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, and written in
1474, some notion may be gained of the method and results of his
criticism. That its nature should be rightly understood is important in
connection with the history of the Oxford Reformers.

[Sidenote: The _De Religione Christianâ_ of Ficino.]

Ficino commences his argument by demonstrating that _religion_ is natural
to man; and having, on Platonic authority, pointed out the truth of the
one common religion, and that all religions have something of good in
them, he turns to the Christian religion in particular. Its truth he tries
to prove by a chain of reasoning of which the following are some of the
links.

[Sidenote: Argument of Ficino in support of Christianity.]

He first shows that ‘the disciples of Jesus were not deceivers;’[18] and
he supports this by examining, in a separate chapter, ‘in what spirit the
disciples of Christ laboured;’[19] concluding, after a careful analysis of
the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, that they did not seek their
_own_ advantage or honour but ‘the glory of _Christ_ alone.’ Then he shows
that ‘the disciples of Christ were not _deceived_ by anyone,’[20] and that
the Christian religion was founded, not in human wisdom, but ‘in the
wisdom and power of God;’[21] that Christ was ‘no astrologer,’ but
‘derived his authority from God.’[22] He adduced further the evidence of
miracles, in which he had no difficulty in believing, for he gave two
instances of miracles which had occurred in Florence only four years
previously, and in which he declared to Lorenzo de’ Medici, that,
philosopher as he was, he believed.[23] After citing the testimony of some
Gentile writers, and of the Coran of the Mahometans, and discussing in the
light of Plato, Zoroaster, and Dionysius, the doctrine of the ‘logos,’ and
the fitness of the incarnation, he showed that the result of the coming of
Christ was that men are drawn to love with their whole heart a God who in
his immense love had himself become man.[24] After dwelling on the way in
which Christ lightened the burden of sin,[25] on the errors he dispelled,
the truths he taught,[26] and the example he set,[27] Ficino proceeds in
two short chapters to adduce the testimony of the ‘Sibyls.’[28] This was
natural to a writer whose bias it was to regard as genuine whatever could
be proved to be ancient. But it is only fair to state that he relies much
more fully and discusses at far greater length the prophecies of the
Ancient Hebrew prophets,[29] vindicating the Christian rendering of
certain passages in the old Testament against the Jews, who accused the
Christians of having perverted and depraved them.[30] He concludes by
asserting, that if there be much in Christianity which surpasses human
comprehension, this is a proof of its divine character rather than
otherwise. These are his final words. ‘If these things be divine, they
must exceed the capacity of any human mind. Faith (as Aristotle has it) is
the foundation of knowledge. By faith alone (as the Platonists prove) we
ascend to God. “I believed (said David) and therefore have I spoken.”
Believing, therefore, and approaching the fountain of truth and goodness
we shall drink in a wise and blessed life.’[31]

[Sidenote: Christianity a thing of the heart.]

Thus was the head of the Platonic Academy at Florence turning a critical
eye upon Christianity, viewing it very possibly too much in the light of
the lamp kept continually burning before the bust of Plato, but still, I
think, honestly endeavouring, upon its own intrinsic evidence and by
inductive methods, to establish a reasonable belief in its divine
character in minds sceptical of ecclesiastical authority, and over whom
the dogmatic methods of the Schoolmen had lost their power.[32]
Nevertheless Ficino, as yet, was probably more of an intellectual than of
a practical Christian, and Christianity was not likely to take hold of the
mind of Italy--of re-awakening Europe--through any merely philosophical
disquisitions. The lamp of Plato might throw light on Christianity, but it
would not light up Christian fire in other souls. For Christianity is a
thing of the heart, not only of the head. Soul is kindled only by soul,
says Carlyle; and to teach religion the one thing needful is to find a man
who _has_ religion.[33] Should such a man arise, a man himself on fire
with Christian love and zeal, his torch might light up other torches, and
the fire be spread from torch to torch. But, until such a man should
arise, the lamp of philosophy must burn alone in Florence. Men might come
from far and near to listen to Marsilio Ficino--to share the patronage of
Lorenzo de’ Medici, to study Plato and Plotinus,--to learn how to
harmonise Plato and Aristotle, to master the Greek language and
philosophies,--to drink in the spirit of reviving learning--but, of true
Christian _religion_, the lamp had not yet been lit at Florence, or if lit
it was under a bushel.

[Sidenote: Oxford students in Italy.]

Already Oxford students had been to Italy, and returned full of the new
learning. Grocyn, one of them, had for some time been publicly teaching
Greek at Oxford, not altogether to the satisfaction of the old divines,
for the Latin of the Vulgate was, in their eye, the orthodox language, and
Greek a Pagan and heretical tongue. Linacre, too, had been to Italy and
returned, after sharing with the children of Lorenzo de’ Medici the
tuition of Politian and Chalcondyles.[34]

These men had been to Italy and had returned, to all appearances, mere
humanists. Now five years later Colet had been to Italy and had returned,
_not_ a mere humanist, but an earnest Christian reformer, bent upon giving
lectures, not upon Plato or Plotinus, but upon St. Paul’s Epistles. What
had happened during these four years to account for the change?


III. COLET’S PREVIOUS HISTORY (1496).

[Sidenote: Colet’s return from Italy.]

John Colet was the eldest[35] son of Sir Henry Colet, a wealthy merchant,
who had been more than once Lord Mayor of London,[36] and was in favour at
the court of Henry VII. His father’s position held out to him the
prospect of a brilliant career. He had early been sent to Oxford, and
there, having passed through the regular course of study in all branches
of scholastic philosophy, he had taken his degree of Master of Arts.

[Sidenote: His studies at Oxford.]

On the return of Grocyn and Linacre from Italy full of the new learning,
Colet had apparently caught the contagion. For we are told he ‘eagerly
devoured Cicero, and carefully examined the works of Plato and
Plotinus.’[37]

When the time had come for him to choose a profession, instead of deciding
to follow up the chances of commercial life, or of royal favour, he had
resolved to take Orders.

[Sidenote: Sets out on his travels.]

The death of twenty-one[38] brothers and sisters, leaving him the sole
survivor of so large a family, may well have given a serious turn to his
thoughts. But inasmuch as family influence was ready to procure him
immediate preferment, the path he had chosen need not be construed into
one of great self-denial. It was not until long after he had been
presented to a living in Suffolk and a prebend in Yorkshire, that he left
Oxford, probably in or about 1494, for some years of foreign travel.[39]

The little information which remains to us of what Colet did on his
continental journey, is very soon told.

[Sidenote: Colet studies the Scriptures in Italy.]

He went first into France and then into Italy.[40] On his way there, or
on his return journey, he met with some German monks, of whose primitive
piety and purity he retained a vivid recollection.[41] In Italy he
ardently pursued his studies. But he no longer devoted himself to the
works of Plato and Plotinus. In Italy, the hotbed of the Neo-Platonists,
he ‘_gave himself up_’ (we are told) ‘_to the study of the Holy
Scriptures_,’ after having, however, first made himself acquainted with
the works of the Fathers, including amongst them the mystic writings then
attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. He acquired a decided preference
for the works of Dionysius, Origen, Ambrose, Cyprian, and Jerome over
those of Augustine. Scotus, Aquinas, and other Schoolmen had each shared
his attention in due course. He is said also to have diligently studied
during this period Civil and Canon Law, and especially what Chronicles and
English classics he could lay his hands on; and his reason for doing so is
remarkable--that he might, by familiarity with them, polish his style, and
so prepare himself for the great work of preaching the Gospel in
England.[42]

What it was that had turned his thoughts in this direction no record
remains to tell. Yet the knowledge of what was passing in Italy, while
Colet was there, surely may give a clue, not likely to mislead, to the
explanation of what otherwise might remain wholly unexplained. To have
been in Italy when Grocyn and Linacre were in Italy--between the years
1485 and 1491--was, as we have said, to have drunk at the fountain-head of
reviving learning, and to have fallen under the fascinating influence of
Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Platonic Academy--an influence more likely to
foster the selfish coldness of a semi-pagan philosophy than to inspire
such feelings as those with which Colet seems to have returned from _his_
visit to Italy.[43]

But in the meantime Lorenzo had died, the tiara had changed hands, and
events were occurring during _Colet’s_ stay in Italy--probably in
1495--which may well have stirred in his breast the earnest resolution to
devote his life to the work of religious and political reform.

[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical scandals.]

For to have been in Italy while Colet was in Italy was to have come face
to face with Rome at the time when the scandals of Alexander VI. and Cæsar
Borgia were in everyone’s mouth; to have been brought into contact with
the very worst scandals which had ever blackened the ecclesiastical system
of Europe, at the very moment when they reached their culminating point.

On the other hand, to have been in Italy when Colet was in Italy was to
have come into contact with the first rising efforts at Reform.

[Sidenote: Savonarola.]

If Colet visited Florence as Grocyn and Linacre had done before him, he
must have come into direct contact with Savonarola while as yet his fire
was holy and his star had not entered the mists in which it set in later
years.

[Sidenote: Savonarola’s preaching.]

Recollecting what the great Prior of San Marco was--what his fiery and all
but prophetic preaching was--how day after day his burning words went
forth against the sins of high and low; against tyranny in Church or
State; against idolatry of philosophy and neglect of the Bible in the
pulpit; recollecting how they told their tale upon the conscience of
Lorenzo de’ Medici, and of his courtiers as well as upon the crowds of
Florence;--can the English student, it may well be asked, have passed
through all this uninfluenced? If he visited Florence at all he must have
heard the story of Savonarola’s interview with the dying Lorenzo; he must
have heard the common talk of the people, how Politian and Pico, bosom
friends of Lorenzo, had died with the request that they might be buried in
the habit of the order, and under the shadow of the convent of San
Marco;[44] above all, he must again and again have joined, one would
think, with the crowd daily pressing to hear the wonderful preacher.
Lorenzo de’ Medici had died before Colet set foot upon Italian soil:
probably also Pico and Politian.[45] And the death of these men had added
to the grandeur of Savonarola’s position. He was still preaching those
wonderful sermons, all of them in exposition of Scripture, to which
allusion has been made, and exerting that influence upon his hearers to
which so many great minds had yielded.

[Sidenote: Savonarola’s influence on Pico and Ficino.]

The man who _had_ religion--the one requisite for teaching it--had arisen.
And at the touch of his torch other hearts had caught fire. The influence
of Savonarola had made itself felt even within the circle of the Platonic
Academy. Pico had become a devoted student of the Scriptures and had died
an earnest Christian. Ficino himself, without ceasing to be a Neo-Platonic
philosopher, had also, it would seem, been profoundly influenced for a
time by the enthusiasm the great reformer.[46] And in the light of
Colet’s return to Oxford from Italy, a lover of Dionysius and to lecture
on St. Paul’s Epistles, it is curious to observe that, shortly before
Colet’s visit to Italy, Ficino himself had published translations of some
of the Dionysian writings,[47] and that apparently about the time of
Colet’s visit he was himself lecturing on St. Paul.[48]

[Sidenote: Their influence on Colet.]

If therefore Colet visited Florence, it may well be believed that he came
into direct contact with Savonarola and Ficino. Whilst even if he did not
visit Florence at all (and there appears to be no direct evidence that he
did),[49] there remains abundant evidence, which will turn up in future
chapters, that Colet had studied the writings of Pico,[50] of Ficino,[51]
and of the authors most often quoted in their pages. He thus at least came
directly under _Florentine_ influence, at a time when the fire of
religious zeal, kindled into a flame by the enthusiasm of the great
Florentine Reformer, and fed by the scandals of Rome, was scattering its
sparks abroad.

[Sidenote: Spirit in which Colet returned to Oxford.]

Be this as it may, whatever amount of obscurity may rest upon the history
of the mental struggles through which Colet had passed before that result
was attained, certain it is that he had returned to England with his mind
fully made up, and with a character already formed and bent in a direction
from which it never afterwards swerved. He had returned to England, not to
enjoy the pleasures of fashionable life in London, not to pursue the
chances of Court favour, not to follow his father’s mercantile calling,
not even to press on at once towards the completion of his clerical
course; but, unordained as he was, and without doctor’s degree, in all
simplicity to begin the work which had now become the settled purpose of
his life, by returning to Oxford and announcing this course of lectures on
St. Paul’s Epistles.


IV. THOMAS MORE, ANOTHER OXFORD STUDENT (1492-6).

When Colet, catching the spirit of the new learning from Grocyn and
Linacre, left Oxford for his visit to Paris and Italy, he left behind him
at the university a boy of fifteen, no less devoted than himself to the
study of the Greek language and philosophy.

This boy was _Thomas More_. He was the son of a successful lawyer, living
in Milk Street, Cheapside.

[Sidenote: His early history.]

[Sidenote: Cardinal Morton.]

[Sidenote: More’s genius.]

Brought up in the very centre of London life, he had early entered into
the spirit of the stirring times on which his young life was cast. He was
but five years old when in April 1483 the news of Edward IV.’s death was
told through London. But he was old enough to hear an eyewitness tell his
father, that ‘one Pottyer, dwelling in Redcross Street, without
Cripplegate,’ within half a mile of his father’s door, ‘on the very night
of King Edward’s death, had exclaimed, “By my troth, man, then will my
master the Duke of Glo’ster be king.”’[52] And followed as this was by
Richard’s murder of the young Princes, he never forgot the incident. After
some years’ study at St. Anthony’s School in Threadneedle Street, his
father placed him in domestic service (as was usual in those times) with
the Archbishop and Lord Chancellor Morton,[53] a man than whom no one knew
the world better or was of greater influence in public affairs--the
faithful friend of Edward IV., the feared but cautious enemy of Richard,
the man to whose wisdom Henry VII. in great measure owed his crown. Morton
was the Gamaliel at whose feet young More was brought up, drinking in his
wisdom, storing up in memory his rich historic knowledge, learning the
world’s ways and even something of the ways of kings, till a naturally
sharp wit became unnaturally sharpened, and Morton recognised in the youth
the promise of the future greatness of the man. He was but thirteen or
fourteen at most, yet he would ‘at Christmas time suddenly sometimes step
in among the players, making up an extempore part of his own;’ ... and the
Lord Chancellor ‘would often say unto the nobles that divers times dined
with him, “This child here waiting at table, whosoever shall live to see
it, will prove a marvellous man.”’[54] It was Morton who had sent him to
Oxford ‘for his better furtherance in learning.’[55]

Colet probably had known More from childhood. Their fathers were both too
much of public men to be unknown to each other, and though Colet was
twelve years older than young More when they most likely met at Oxford in
1492-3, their common studies under Grocyn and Linacre were likely to bring
them into contact.[56] More’s ready wit, added to great natural power and
versatility of mind, were such as to enable him to keep pace with others
much older than himself, and to devote himself with equal zeal to the new
learning.

[Sidenote: His fascinating character.]

Whether it was thus at Oxford that Colet had first formed his high opinion
of More’s character and powers, we know not, but certain it is that he was
long after wont to speak of him as the _one genius_ of whom England could
boast.[57] Moreover, along with great intellectual gifts was combined in
the young student a gentle and loving disposition, which threw itself into
the bosom of a friend with so guileless and pure an affection, that when
men came under the power of its unconscious enchantment they literally
_fell in love_ with More. If Colet’s friendship with More dated back to
this period, he must have found in his young acquaintance the germs of a
character somewhat akin to his own. Along with so much of life and
generous loveliness, there was a natural independence of mind which formed
convictions for itself, and a strength and promptness of will whereby
action was made as a matter of course to follow conviction. There was, in
truth, in More’s character a singular union of conservative and radical
tendencies of heart and thought.

But the intercourse between them at Oxford did not last long, for Colet,
as already said, went off on his travels, leaving More buried in his
Oxford studies under Linacre’s tuition.

[Sidenote: More already destined for the Bar.]

It was the father’s purpose that the son at Oxford should be preparing for
his future profession. Jealous lest the temptations of college life should
disqualify him for the severe discipline involved in those legal studies
to which it was to be the preparatory step, he kept him in leading-strings
as far as he possibly could, cutting down his pecuniary allowance to the
smallest amount which would enable him to pay his way, even compelling him
to refer to himself before purchasing the most necessary articles of
clothing as his old ones wore out. He judged that by these means he should
keep his son more closely to his books, and prevent his being allured from
the rigid course of study which in his utilitarian view was best adapted
to fit him for the bar.[58]

[Sidenote: More leaves Oxford.]

[Sidenote: More enters Lincoln’s Inn.]

So far as can be traced, this stern discipline did not fail of its
end;[59] he worked on at Oxford, without getting into mischief, and
certainly without neglecting his books. But there was another snare from
which parental anxiety was not able wholly to preserve him. Before he had
been two years at Oxford, the father found out that he had begun to show
symptoms of fondness for the study of the Greek language and
literature,[60] and might even be guilty of preferring the philosophy of
the Greeks to that of the Schoolmen. This was treading on dangerous
ground, and it seemed to the anxious parent high time that a stop should
be put to new-fangled and fascinating studies, the use of which to a
lawyer he could not discern. So, somewhat abruptly, he took young More
away from the University, and had him at once entered as a student at New
Inn.[61] After the usual course of legal studies at New Inn, he was
admitted in February 1496,[62] just as Colet was returning from Italy, as
a student of Lincoln’s Inn, for a few more years of hard legal study,
preparatory to his call to the Bar.


V. COLET FIRST HEARS OF ERASMUS (1496).

One other circumstance must be mentioned in this chapter.

Whilst Colet was passing through Paris, on his return journey from Italy,
he became acquainted with the French historian Gaguinus, whose work ‘_De
Origine et Gestis Francorum_,’ had been published shortly before.[63]
Colet was in the habit of reading every book of history which came in his
way,[64] and no doubt this history of Gaguinus was no exception to the
rule. Whilst he was at Paris, a letter was shown to him which the
historian had received from a scholar and acquaintance of rising celebrity
in Paris, in which the new history was reviewed and praised.[65] From the
perusal of this letter, Colet formed a high estimate of the learning and
wide range of knowledge of its accomplished writer.[66] But scholars were
plentiful in Paris, and he was not personally introduced to this one in
particular. He was not then, like Gaguinus, one of the lions of Paris,
though he was destined to become one of the lions of History. Colet after
reading his letter did not forget his name. Nor was it a name likely to be
soon forgotten by posterity.

It was, ‘_Erasmus_.’




CHAPTER II.


I. COLET’S LECTURES ON ST. PAUL’S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS (1496-7?).

[Sidenote: The state of Scripture study at Oxford.]

To appreciate the full significance of Colet’s lectures, it is needful to
bear in mind what was the current opinion of the scholastic divines of the
period concerning the Scriptures, and what the practical mode of
exposition pursued by them at the Universities.

The scholastic divines, holding to a traditional belief in the _plenary_
and _verbal_ inspiration of the whole Bible, and remorselessly pursuing
this belief to its logical results, had fallen into a method of exposition
almost exclusively _textarian_. The Bible, both in theory and in practice,
had almost ceased to be a record of real events, and the lives and
teaching of living men. It had become an arsenal of texts; and these texts
were regarded as detached invincible weapons to be legitimately seized and
wielded in theological warfare, for any purpose to which their words might
be made to apply, without reference to their original meaning or context.

[Sidenote: The Bible regarded as verbally inspired. Method of exposition
_textarian_.]

Thus, to take a practical example, when St. Jerome’s opinion was quoted
incidentally that possibly St. Mark, in the second chapter of his Gospel,
might by a slip of memory have written ‘Abiathar’ in mistake for
‘Abimelech,’ a learned divine, a contemporary of Colet’s at Oxford,
nettled by the very supposition, declared positively that ‘that could not
be, unless the Holy Spirit himself could be mistaken;’ and the only
authority he thought it needful to cite in proof of the statement was a
text in Ezekiel: ‘Whithersoever the Spirit went, thither likewise the
wheels were lifted up to follow Him.’[67] It was in vain that the reply
was suggested that ‘it is not for us to define in what manner the Spirit
might use His instrument.’ The divine triumphantly replied, ‘The Spirit
himself in Ezekiel _has_ defined it. The wheels were not lifted up, except
to follow the Spirit.’[68]

[Sidenote: Theory of manifold senses.]

[Sidenote: Literal sense neglected.]

[Sidenote: The Bible a dead book.]

This Oxford divine did not display any peculiar bigotry or blindness. He
did but follow in the well-worn ruts of his scholastic predecessors. It
had been solemnly laid down by Aquinas in the ‘Summa,’ that ‘inasmuch as
God was the author of the Holy Scriptures, and all things are at one time
present to His mind, therefore, under their single text, they express
several meanings.’ ‘Their literal sense,’ he continues, ‘is manifold;
their spiritual sense threefold--viz. allegorical, moral, anagogical.’[69]
And we have the evidence of another well-known Oxford student, also a
contemporary with Colet at the University, that this was then the
prevalent view. Speaking of the dominant school of divines, he remarks:
‘They divide the Scripture into four senses, the literal, tropological,
allegorical, and analogical--the literal sense has become nothing at
all.... Twenty doctors expound one text twenty ways, and with an antitheme
of half an inch some of them draw a thread of nine days long.... They not
only say that the literal sense profiteth nothing, but also that it is
hurtful and noisesome and killeth the soul. And this they prove by a text
of Paul, 2 Cor. iii., “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.”
Lo! say they, the literal sense killeth, the spiritual sense giveth
life.’[70] And the same student, in recollection of his intercourse at the
Universities with divines of the traditional school in these early days,
bears witness that ‘they were wont to look on no more Scripture than they
found in their Duns;’[71] while at another time he complains ‘that some of
them will prove a point of the Faith as well out of a fable of Ovid or any
other poet, as out of St. John’s Gospel or Paul’s Epistles.’[72] Thus had
the scholastic belief in the verbal inspiration of the sacred text led men
blindfold into a condition of mind in which they practically ignored the
Scriptures altogether.[73]

[Sidenote: Colet’s lectures.]

Such was the state of things at Oxford when Colet commenced his lectures.
The very boldness of the lecturer and the novelty of the subject were
enough to draw an audience at once. Doctors and abbots, men of all ranks
and titles, flocked with the students into the lecture hall, led by
curiosity doubtless at first, or it may be, like the Pharisees of old,
bent upon finding somewhat whereof they might accuse the man whom they
wished to silence. But since they came again and again, as the term went
by, _bringing their note-books with them_, it soon became clear that they
continued to come with some better purpose.[74]

[Sidenote: Colet’s style of speaking.]

Colet already, at thirty, possessed the rare gift of saying what he had to
say in a few telling words, throwing into them an earnestness which made
every one feel that they came from his heart. ‘You say what you mean, and
mean what you say. Your words have birth in your heart, not on your lips.
They follow your thoughts, instead of your thoughts being shaped by them.
You have the happy art of expressing with ease what others can hardly
express with the greatest labour.’[75] Such was the first impression made
by Colet’s eloquence upon one of the greatest scholars of the day, who
heard him deliver some of these lectures during another term.

[Sidenote: Colet’s method of exposition.]

From the fragments which remain of what seem to be manuscript notes of
these lectures, written by Colet himself at the ‘urgent and repeated
request,’ as he expressed it, ‘of his faithful auditors,’[76] and now
preserved in the Cambridge Libraries,[77] something more than a
superficial notion may be gained of what these lectures were.

[Sidenote: Not _textarian_.]

They were in almost every particular in direct contrast with those of the
dominant school. They were not _textarian_. They did not consist of a
series of wiredrawn dissertations upon isolated texts. They were no
‘thread of nine days long drawn from an antitheme of half an inch.’ Colet
began at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans, and went through with
it to the end, in a course of lectures, treating it as a whole, and not as
an armoury of detached texts.[78] Nor were they on the model of the
_Catena aurea_, formed by linking together the recorded comments of the
great Church authorities. There is hardly a quotation from the Fathers or
Schoolmen throughout the exposition of the Epistle to the Romans.[79]

[Sidenote: Colet points out the marks of St. Paul’s own character.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s personal interest in St. Paul.]

Instead of following the current fashion of the day, and displaying
analytical skill in dividing the many senses of the sacred text, Colet, it
is clear, had but one object in view, and that object was to bring out the
direct practical meaning which the apostle meant to convey to those to
whom his epistles were addressed. To him they were the earnest words of a
living man addressed to living men, and suited to their actual needs. He
loved those words because he had learned to love the apostle--the
_man_--who had written them, and had caught somewhat of his spirit. He
loved to trace in the epistles the marks of St. Paul’s own character. He
would at one time point out, in his abruptly suspended words, that
‘_vehemence of speaking_’ which did not give him time to perfect his
sentences.[80] At another time he would stop to admire the rare prudence
and tact with which he would temper his speech and balance his words to
meet the needs of the different classes by whom his epistle would be
read.[81] And again he would compare the eager expectations expressed in
the Epistle to the Romans of so soon visiting Rome and Spain, with the far
different realities of the apostle’s after life; recalling to mind the
circumstances of his long imprisonment at Cæsarea, and his arrival at last
in Rome, _four years_ after writing his epistle, to remain a prisoner two
years longer in the Imperial city before he could carry out his intention
of visiting Spain.[82] He loved to tell how, notwithstanding these
cherished plans for the future, the apostle, being a man of great courage,
was prepared, ‘by his faith, and love of Christ,’[83] to bear his
disappointment, and to reply to the prophecy of Agabus, that he was ready,
not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of his
Master, if need be, instead of fulfilling the plans he had laid out for
himself.

[Sidenote: Circumstances of the Roman Christians.]

And whilst investing the epistles with so _personal_ an interest, by thus
bringing out their connection with St. Paul’s character and history, Colet
sought also to throw a sense of reality and life into their teaching, by
showing how specially adapted they were to the circumstances of those to
whom they were addressed. When, for instance, he was expounding the
thirteenth chapter of the Epistle, he would take down his _Suetonius_ in
order to ascertain the state of society at Rome and the special
circumstances which made it needful for St. Paul so strongly to urge Roman
Christians ‘to be obedient to the higher powers, and to pay tribute
also.’[84]

[Sidenote: Colet tries to look at all sides of a doctrine.]

[Sidenote: Question of free will.]

It is very evident, too, how careful he was not to give a one-sided view
of the apostle’s doctrine--what pains he took to realise his actual
meaning, not merely in one text and another, but in the drift of the whole
epistle; now ascertaining the meaning of a passage by its place in the
apostle’s argument;[85] now comparing the expressions used by St. Paul
with those used by St. John, in order to trace the practical harmony
between the Johannine and Pauline view of a truth, which, if regarded on
one side only, might be easily distorted and misunderstood. In expounding
the Epistle to the Romans it was impossible to avoid allusion to the great
question afterwards forced into so unhappy a prominence by the Wittemberg
and Geneva Reformers, as it had already been by Wiclif and Huss--the
question of the freedom of the Will. Upon this question Colet showed an
evident anxiety not to fall into one extreme whilst avoiding the other.
His view seems to have been that the soul which is melted and won over to
God by the power of _love_ is won over _willingly_, and yet through no
merit of its own. Probably his views upon this point would be described as
‘mystic.’ Certainly they were not Augustinian.[86] In concluding a long
digression upon this endless and perplexing question, Colet apologises
for the length to which he had wandered from St. Paul, and excuses
himself on the ground that ‘his zeal and affection towards men’--his
desire ‘to confirm the weak and wavering’--had got the better of his ‘fear
of wearying the reader.’[87]

Connected with this habit of trying to look at all sides of a doctrine,
there is, I think, visible throughout, an earnest attempt to regard it in
its practical connection with human life and conduct rather than to rest
in its logical completeness.

[Sidenote: Colet dwells on the practical aspects of St. Paul’s doctrines.]

[Sidenote: Quotes Marsilio Ficino,]

If he quotes from the Neo-Platonic philosophers of Florence (and almost
the only quotation of any length contained in this manuscript is from the
_Theologia Platonica_ of Marsilio Ficino[88]), it is, not to follow them
into the mazes of Neo-Platonic speculation, but to enforce the practical
point, that whilst, here upon earth, the _knowledge_ of God is impossible
to man, the _love_ of God is not so; and that by how much it is worse to
_hate_ God than to be ignorant of Him, by so much is it better to _love_
Him than to _know_ Him.

[Sidenote: and Aristeas.]

And never does he speak more warmly and earnestly than when after having
urged with St. Paul, that ‘rites and ceremonies neither purify the spirit
nor justify the man,’[89] and having quoted from _Aristeas_ to show how,
on Jewish feast days, seventy priests were occupied in slaying and
sacrificing thousands of cattle, deluging the temple with blood, thinking
it well pleasing to God, he points out how St. Paul covertly condemned
these outward sacrifices, as Isaiah had done before him, by insisting upon
that _living sacrifice of men’s hearts and lives_ which they were meant to
typify.[90] He urges with St. Paul that God is pleased with _living_
sacrifices and not dead ones, and does not ask for sacrifices in cattle,
but in _men_. His will is that their beastly appetites should be slain and
consumed by the fire of God’s Spirit[91] ...; that men should be converted
from a proud trust in themselves to an humble faith in God, and from
self-love to the love of God. To bring this about, Colet thought was ‘the
chief cause, yes the sole cause,’ of the coming of the Son of God upon
earth in the flesh.[92]

[Sidenote: Colet points out the need of ecclesiastical reform.]

Nor was he afraid to apply these practical lessons to the circumstances of
his own times. Thus, in speaking of the collections made by St. Paul in
relief of the sufferers from the famine in Judea (the same he thought as
that predicted by Agabus), he pointed out how much better such voluntary
collections were than ‘money extorted by bitter exactions under the name
of tithes and oblations.’[93] And, referring to the advice to Timothy, ‘to
avoid avarice and to follow after justice, piety, faith, charity,
patience, and mercy,’ he at once added that ‘_priests of our time_’ might
well be admonished ‘to set such an example as this _amongst their own
parishioners_,’ referring to the example of St. Paul, who chose to ‘get
his living by labouring with his hands at the trade of tentmaking, so as
to avoid even suspicion of avarice or scandal to the Gospel.’[94]

One other striking characteristic of this exposition must be
mentioned--the unaffected modesty which breathes through it, which, whilst
not quoting authority, does not claim to be an authority itself, which
does not profess to have attained full knowledge, but preserves throughout
the childlike spirit of enquiry.[95]

       *       *       *       *       *

On the whole, the spirit of Colet’s lectures was in keeping with his
previous history.

[Sidenote: Colet quotes the Neo-Platonist.]

The passage already mentioned as quoted from Ficino, the facts that, in a
marginal note on the manuscript, added apparently in Colet’s handwriting,
there is also a quotation from Pico,[96] and that the names of
Plotinus,[97] and ‘Joannes Carmelitanus,’[98] are cited in the course of
the exposition--all this is evidence of the influence upon Colet’s mind of
the writings of the philosophers of Florence, confirming the inference
already drawn from the circumstances of his visit to Italy. But in its
_comparative_ freedom from references to authorities of _any_ kind, except
the New Testament, Colet’s exposition differs as much from the writings of
Ficino and Pico as from those of the Scholastic Divines.

[Sidenote: Marks of his love for Dionysius.]

In many peculiar phrases and modes of thought, evident traces also occur
of that love for the Dionysian writings which Colet is said to have
contracted in Italy, and which he shared with the modern Neo-Platonic
school.

[Sidenote: Origen and Jerome.]

In the free critical method of interpretation and thorough acknowledgment
of the human element in Scripture, as well as in the Anti-Augustinian
views already alluded to, there is evidence equally abundant in
confirmation of the statement, that he had acquired when abroad a decided
preference for Origen and Jerome over Augustine.

[Sidenote: His independent search for truth.]

Lastly in his freedom from the prevailing vice of the patristic
interpreters--their love of allegorising Scripture--and in his fearless
application of the critical methods of the New learning to the Scriptures
themselves, in order to draw out their literal sense, there is striking
confirmation of the further statement that, whilst in Italy, he had
‘devoted himself wholly’[99] to their study. Colet’s object obviously had
been to study St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans for _himself_, and his
whole exposition confirms the truth of his own declaration in its last
sentence, that ‘he had tried to the best of his power, with the aid of
Divine grace, to bring out St. Paul’s true meaning.’ ‘Whether indeed’ (he
adds modestly) ‘I have done this I hardly can tell, but the greatest
_desire_ to do so I _have_ had.’[100]


II. VISIT FROM A PRIEST DURING THE WINTER VACATION (1496-7?).

[Sidenote: Conversation on the richness of St. Paul’s writings.]

Colet, one night during the winter vacation, was alone in his chambers. A
priest knocked at the door. He was soon recognised by Colet as a diligent
attender of his lectures. They drew their chairs to the hearth, and talked
about this thing and that over the winter fire, in the way men do when
they have something to say, and yet have not courage to come at once to
the point. At length the priest pulled from his bosom a little book.
Colet, amused at the manner of his guest, smilingly quoted the words,
‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ The priest
explained that the little book contained the Epistles of St. Paul,
carefully transcribed by his own hand. It was indeed a treasure, for of
all the writings that had ever been written, he most loved and admired
those of St. Paul; and he added, in a politely flattering tone, that it
was Colet’s lectures during the recent term, which had chiefly excited in
him this affection for the apostle. Colet turned a searching eye upon his
guest, and finding that he was truly in earnest, replied with warmth,
‘Then, brother, I love you for loving St. Paul, for I, too, dearly love
and admire him.’ In the course of conversation, which now turned upon the
object which the priest had at heart, Colet happened to remark how
pregnant with both matter and thought were the Epistles of St. Paul, so
that almost every word might be made the subject of a discourse. This was
just what Colet’s guest wanted. Comparing Colet’s lectures with those of
the scholastic divines, who, as we have heard, were accustomed ‘out of an
antitheme of half an inch to draw a thread of nine days long’ upon some
useless topic, he may well have been struck with the richness of the vein
of ore which Colet had been working, and he had come that he might gather
some hints as to his method of study. ‘Then,’ said he, stirred up by this
remark of Colet’s, ‘I ask you now, as we sit here at our ease, to extract
and bring to light from this hidden treasure, which you say is so rich,
some of these truths, so that I may gain from this our talk whilst sitting
together something to store up in the memory, and at the same time catch
some hints as to how, following your example, I may seize hold of the main
points in the epistles when I read St. Paul by myself.’

[Sidenote: Romans i. taken as an example.]

‘My good friend,’ replied Colet, ‘I will do as you wish. Open your book,
and we will see how many and what golden truths we can gather from the
first chapter only of the Epistle to the Romans.’

‘But,’ added the priest, ‘lest my memory should fail me, I should like to
write them down as you say them.’ Colet assented, and thereupon dictated
to his guest a string of the most important points which struck him as he
read through the chapter. They were, as Colet said, only like detached
rings, carelessly cut from the golden ore of St. Paul, as they sat over
the winter fire, but they would serve as examples of what might be
gathered from a single chapter of the apostle’s writings.

The priest departed, fully satisfied with the result of his visit; and
from the evident pleasure with which Colet told this story in a letter to
Kidderminster, Abbot of Winchcombe,[101] we may learn how his own spirits
were cheered by the proof it gave, that he had not laboured altogether in
vain.

[Sidenote: Letter to an Abbot.]

The letter itself, too, apart from the story which it tells, may give some
insight into his feelings during these months of solitary labour. It
reads, I think, like the letter of a man deeply in earnest, engaged in
what he feels to be a great work; whose sense of the greatness of the work
suggests a natural and noble anxiety, that though he himself should not
live to finish it, it may yet be carried forward by others; whose ambition
it is to die working at his post, leaving behind him, at least, the first
stones laid of a building which others greater than he may carry on to
completion.

After telling the story of the priest’s visit, Colet writes thus:--

    _Colet to the Abbot of Winchcombe._

           *       *       *       *       *

    ‘Thus, Reverend Father, what he [the priest] wrote down at my
    dictation I have wished to detail to you, so that you too, so ardent
    in your love of all sacred wisdom, may see what we, sitting over the
    winter fire, noted offhand in our St. Paul.

    [Sidenote: Colet wants his friend to see why he admires St. Paul’s
    writings.]

    ‘In the first chapter only of the Epistle to the Romans, we found all
    the following truths. [Here follows a long list.]... These we
    extracted, and noted, venerable father, as I said, offhand, in this
    one chapter only. Nor are these all we might have noted. For even in
    the very address one might discover that Christ was promised by the
    prophets, that Christ is both God and man, that Christ sanctifies men,
    that through Christ there is a resurrection, both of the soul and of
    the body. And besides these there are numberless others contained in
    this chapter, which anyone with lynx eyes could easily find and dig
    out, if he wished, for himself. _Paul_, of all others, seems to me to
    be a fathomless _ocean_ of wisdom and piety. But these few, thus
    hastily picked out, were enough for our good priest, who wanted some
    thoughts struck off roundly, and fashioned like rings, from the gold
    of St. Paul. These, as you see, I have written out for you with my own
    hand, most worthy father, that your mind, in its golden goodness,
    might recognise, as from a specimen, how much gold lies treasured up
    in St. Paul.

    ‘I want the Warden also to read this over with you, for his cultivated
    taste and love of everything good is such that I think he will be
    very much pleased with whatever of good it may contain.

    ‘Farewell, most excellent and beloved father.

        ‘Yours, JOHN COLET.’

    ‘When you have read what is contained on this sheet of paper, let me
    have it again, for I have no copy of it; and, although I am not in the
    habit of keeping my letters, and cannot do so, as I send them off just
    as I write them, without keeping a copy; yet if any of them contain
    anything instructive (_aliquid doctrinæ_), I do not like to lose them
    entirely. Not that they are in themselves worth preserving, but that,
    left behind me, they may serve as little memorials of me. And if there
    be any other reason why I should wish to preserve my letters to you,
    this is one, and a chief one--that I should be glad for them to remain
    as permanent witnesses of my regard for you.

    ‘Again, farewell!’

The sole survivor of a family of twenty-two, though himself but thirty,
Colet might well keep always in view the possibility of an early death.


III. COLET ON THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION (1497?).

It would seem that one of Colet’s friends, named _Radulphus_, had been
attempting to expound ‘_the dark places of Scripture_,’ and that in doing
so he had commenced with the words of Lamech in the fourth chapter of
Genesis, as though this were the first ‘dark place’ to be found in the
Bible!

[Sidenote: Letters of Colet on the Mosaic account of creation.]

Out of this circumstance arose a correspondence on the meaning of the
first chapter of Genesis, which Colet thought required explanation as much
as any other portion of Scripture. Four of Colet’s letters to Radulphus,
containing his views on the Mosaic account of the creation, have
fortunately been preserved, bound up with a copy of his manuscript
exposition on the Epistle to the Romans, in the Library of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge.[102] Colet seems to have thought them worth
preserving, as he did the letter to the Abbot of Winchcombe; and as any
attempt to realise the position and feelings of Colet, when commencing his
lectures at Oxford on St. Paul’s epistles, would have been very imperfect
without the story of the priest’s visit, so these letters to Radulphus,
apart from their intrinsic interest, are especially valuable as giving
another practical illustration of the position which Colet had assumed
upon the question of the inspiration and interpretation of the Scriptures;
as showing, perhaps, more clearly than anything else could have done, that
the principles and method which he had applied to St. Paul’s writings,
were not hastily adopted, but the result of mature conviction,--that Colet
was ready to apply them consistently to the Old Testament as well as to
the New, to the first chapter of Genesis as well as to the Epistle to the
Romans.

[Sidenote: First letter to Radulphus.]

Colet begins his first letter by telling Radulphus how surprised he was
that, whilst professing to expound the ‘dark places of Scripture,’ he
should, as already mentioned, have commenced with the words of Lamech,
leaving the first three chapters of Genesis untouched; for these very
chapters, so lightly passed over by Radulphus, seemed to him, he said, ‘so
obscure that they might almost in themselves be that “_abyss_” to which
Moses alluded when he wrote that “darkness covered the face of the
deep.”’[103]

[Sidenote: Use of a knowledge of Hebrew.]

After admitting the impossibility of coming to an accurate understanding
of the meaning of what Moses wrote without a knowledge of Hebrew and
access to Hebrew commentaries, ‘which Origen, Jerome, and all really
diligent searchers of the Scriptures have appreciated,’ he goes on to say
that, notwithstanding their extreme obscurity, and the possibility that
Radulphus might be able to throw more light upon them than he himself
could, he would nevertheless give him some of his notions on the meaning
of the verses from ‘In the beginning,’ &c. to the end of the ‘first day.’

He then began his explanation by saying that, though not unmindful of the
manifold senses of Scripture, he should confine himself to rapidly
following _one_;[104] and this seems to be the only allusion in these
letters to the prevalent theory of the ‘manifold senses.’ Taken in
connection with the full expression of his views upon the subject on a
future occasion, the words here made use of probably must be construed
rather as showing that he did not wish at that moment to enter into the
question with Radulphus, than as intended to give any indication of what
his views were upon it.

[Sidenote: All things created at once in eternity.]

Then he proceeds to state his conviction that the first few verses of
Genesis contain a sort of summary of the whole work of creation. ‘First
of all, I conceive,’ Colet wrote, ‘that in this passage the creation of
the universe has been delivered to us in brief (_summatim_), and that God
created all things _at once_ in his eternity[105]--in that eternity which
transcends all time, and yet is less extended than a point of time, which
has no division of time, and is before all time.’

The world consists primarily of _matter_ and _form_, and the object of
Moses was, Colet thought, to show that both matter and form were created
_at once_ (_simul_). And therefore Moses began with saying, ‘In the
beginning (i.e. in eternity) God created heaven (i.e. form) and the earth’
(i.e. matter).[106] Matter was never without form, but that he might point
out the order of things, Moses added, that ‘the earth (matter) was empty
and void[107] (i.e. without solid and substantial being), and darkness
covered the face of the deep’ (i.e. the matter was in darkness, and
without life and being).[108] Then the text proceeds, ‘The Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.’ ‘See how beautifully’ (wrote Colet),
‘he proceeds in order, showing at one view the creation and union of form
with matter,[109] using the word “water” to express the unstable and fluid
condition of matter.’ Then follow the words, ‘Let there be light’ (i.e.
according to Colet, things assumed form and definition[110]).

Having thus explained the opening verses of Genesis as a statement in
brief--_a summary_--of the whole work of creation, Colet concluded this
first letter by saying, ‘What follows in Moses is a repetition and further
expansion of what he has said above--a distinguishing in _particular_ of
what before was comprehended in the _general_. If you think otherwise,
pray let me have your views. Farewell.’[111]

[Sidenote: Second letter.]

[Sidenote: Colet takes into account the rude multitude for whom Moses
wrote.]

[Sidenote: And that his object was to give them a moral lesson, not a
scientific one.]

Radulphus having, apparently in reply to this letter, requested Colet to
proceed to explain the _other_ days, Colet, in the _second_ letter, takes
up the subject where he left it in the first. Having spoken of form and
matter, Moses proceeds, he says, in proper order, and treats of things in
particular, ‘placing before the eye the arrangement of the world; which he
does in this way, in my opinion’ (wrote Colet), ‘that he may seem to have
regard to the understanding of the vulgar and rude multitude whom he
taught.’[112] Thus, as when trying to understand the Epistle to the
Romans, Colet took down his ‘Suetonius,’ and studied the circumstances of
the Roman Christians to whom the epistle was written, so, in trying to
understand the book of Genesis, Colet seems to have regarded it as written
expressly for the benefit of the children of Israel, and to have called to
mind how rude and uncivilised a multitude Moses had to teach; and he seems
to have come to the conclusion that the object of Moses was not to give to
the learned of future generations a scientific statement of the manner
and order of the creation of the universe, but to teach a _moral_ lesson
to the people whom he was leading out of the bondage and idolatry of
Egypt. And thus, in Colet’s view, Moses, ‘setting aside matters purely
Divine and out of the range of the common apprehension, proceeds to
instruct the unlearned people, by touching rapidly and lightly on the
order of those things with which their eyes were very palpably conversant,
that he might teach them what men are, and for what purpose they were
born, in order that he might be able with less difficulty to lead them on
afterwards to a more civilised life and to the worship of God--_which was
his main object in writing_.[113] And that this was so is made obvious by
the fact, that even amongst things cognisable to the senses, Moses passed
over such as are less palpable, as _air_ and _fire_, fearing to speak of
anything but what can easily be seen, as land, sea, plants, beasts, men;
singling out from amongst stars, the sun and moon, and of fishes, “great
whales.” Thus Moses arranges his details in such a way as to give the
people a clearer notion, and he does this _after the manner of a popular
poet_, in order that he may the more adapt himself to the spirit of simple
rusticity, picturing a succession of things, works, and times, of such a
kind as there certainly could not be in the work of _so great a
Workman_.’[114]

[Sidenote: Moses accommodated himself to the rude minds of the people.]

This recognition by Colet of _accommodation_, on the part of Moses, to the
limited understanding of the rude people whom he taught, occurs over and
over again in these letters; _so_ often, indeed, that in one letter he
apologises to Radulphus for the repetition, being aware, as he says, that
_he_ is not addressing a ‘muddle-headed Hebrew’ (lutulentum Hebræum), but
a most refined philosopher! Thus he explains the difficulty of the
creation of the firmament on the second day by saying, ‘This was made
before, but that simple and uncivilised multitude had to be taught in a
homely and palpable way.’[115]

[Sidenote: Third letter.]

In the third letter Colet proceeds to speak of the third day--the
separation of the waters from the dry land, and the creation of plants and
herbs. Here again everything is explained on the principle of
accommodation. ‘Since the untutored multitude, looking round them, saw
nothing but the sky above, and land and water here below, and then the
things which spring from land and water, and live in them, so Moses suits
his order to their powers of observation.’

[Sidenote: Colet believes in a sort of development of things.]

The firmament or sky was spoken of in the second day; now, therefore, on
the third day, Moses mentions land and water, and the things which spring
from them. Plants and herbs are thus spoken of almost as though they were
a part of land and water; and here Colet gives Radulphus what he speaks of
as a notion of his own, hard, perhaps, for his friend to receive, but
nevertheless his own conviction, that, [instead of each element being
separately created, as it were, out of nothing] ‘fire springs from ether,
air from fire, water from air, and from water, lastly, earth.’ And Moses
probably in speaking of the creation of plants &c. on the third day,
before he came to other things, intended thereby to show, Colet thought,
that the earth is spontaneously productive of plants. He also thought that
Moses mentioned the creation of plants before the heavenly bodies, in
order to show that the germinating principle is in the earth itself, and
not, according to the vulgar idea, in the sun and stars.

[Sidenote: Moses divided the creation into six days, after the manner of a
poet, by a useful and most wise poetic figment.]

At the end of the third letter, Colet naturally stumbles on the difficulty
of explaining how, if all things were created _at once_ ‘in the
beginning,’ before all time, Moses could say at the end of each stage of
his description of the creation, ‘and the evening and the morning were the
first, second, third, &c. _day_:’ and, after fairly losing himself in an
attempt to solve this difficulty, he ends by urging Radulphus to leave
these obscure points, which are practically beyond our range, and to bear
in mind throughout what he had before spoken of, viz. that whilst Moses
wished to speak in a manner not unworthy of God, he wished, at the same
time, in matters within the knowledge of the common people, to satisfy the
common people, and to keep to the order of things; above all things, to
lead the people on to the religion and worship of the one God.[116] ‘The
chief things known to the common people were sky, land and water, stars,
fishes, beasts, and so he deals with them. He arranged them in six days;
_partly_ because the things which readily occur to men’s minds are six in
number:[117]--(1) What is above the sky, (2) sky itself, (3) land,
surrounded by water, and productive of plants, (4) sun and moon in the
sky, (5) fish in the water, (6) beasts inhabiting earth and air, and
_man_, the inhabitant of the whole universe;--and _partly_ and _chiefly_,
that he might lead the people on to the imitation of God, whom, _after the
manner of a poet_, he had pictured as working for six days and resting the
seventh, so that they also should devote every seventh day to rest and to
the contemplation of God and to worship.’[118] ‘For, beyond all doubt,’
Colet proceeds to say, ‘Moses never would have put forward a number of
days for any other purpose than that, by this most useful and most wise
poetic figment, the people might be provoked to imitation by an example
set before them, and so ending their daily labours on the sixth day, spend
the seventh in the highest contemplation of God.’[119] Colet ends his
third letter by saying, ‘Thus you have my notions upon the work of the
third day, but what to make of it I know not. It is enough, as I have
said, to have touched upon it lightly. Farewell.’

[Sidenote: Fourth letter.]

[Sidenote: Colet confesses his uncertainty.]

From the commencement of the fourth letter it would seem that Radulphus
had been from home four days, and Colet jokingly tells him that _he_ had
spent all those four days in getting through _one_ more of the Mosaic
days. ‘And indeed whilst you have been working in the day under the sun,
I, during this time, have been wandering about in the night and the
darkness; neither did I see which way to go, nor do I know at what point I
have arrived.’ And then he went on to tell Radulphus that, while in this
perplexity himself, he seemed to have caught Moses also in a great
mistake, for in concluding each day’s work with the words, ‘the evening
and the morning were the second day, the third day,’ and so on, he ought
not to have said _day_ but _night_. What intervenes between the evening
and the morning must of necessity be _night_! For a _day_ begins in the
morning and ends with the evening! And he went on jokingly to say that
there was a still more pressing reason why Moses, dividing his subjects
into days, might have rather called them _nights_; viz. that ‘they are so
overwhelmed with darkness that nothing could be more like _night_ than
these Mosaic _days_!’ Then looking back upon his attempts to explain their
obscurity, he was obliged to confess that ‘perhaps while he had been
trying to throw some light upon them, he might, after all, have increased
the darkness;’ and he entreated Radulphus ‘to pour into the darkness some
of his light, that he might be enabled thereby to see Colet, and Colet
together with him to see Moses.’[120]

[Sidenote: All things must have been created at once.]

[Sidenote: Accommodation on the part of God to man.]

[Sidenote: Moses uses a most honest and pious poetic figure.]

After this candid confession of uncertainty, Colet tried to explain the
work of the fourth day, and the words, ‘Let there be lights in the
firmament of heaven;’ but the only way he could do so was by resorting
again to the principle of accommodation, which he did in these words: ‘As
we have said, all these were created at once. For it is unworthy of God,
and unbecoming in us, to think of any one thing as created after any
other, as though He had been unable to create them all at once. Hence in
Ecclesiasticus, “He who dwells in eternity created all things _at once_.”
But Moses, _after the manner of a good and pious poet_,[121] as Origen
(against Celsus) calls him, was willing to invent some figure, not
altogether worthy of God, if only it might but be profitable and useful to
men; which race of men is so dear to God, that God himself emptied himself
of his glory, taking the form of a servant, that he might accommodate
himself to the poor heart of man.[122] So all things of God, when given to
man, must needs lose somewhat of their sublimity,[123] and be put in a
form more palpable and more within the grasp of man. Accordingly, the
high knowledge of Moses about God and Divine things and the creation of
the world, when it came to be submitted to the vulgar apprehension,
savoured altogether of the humble and the rustic, so that he had to speak,
not according to _his_ own power of comprehension, but according to the
comprehension of the multitude. Thus, accommodating himself to _their_
comprehension, Moses endeavoured, by this most honest and pious poetic
figure, at once to allure them and draw them on to the worship of
God.’[124]

Here the manuscript abruptly ends[125] in the middle of a reference to the
works of Macrobius, whose sanction Colet was apparently about to quote in
support of his attempt to explain the first chapter of Genesis by
reference to the principle of accommodation.[126]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Where Colet got these views.]

The question may be asked:--‘Whence came this doctrine of accommodation
which Colet here used so boldly?’ It was at least no birth of the
nineteenth century, nor of the fifteenth. It belonged to a period a
thousand years earlier, when men had (as in Colet’s days and in ours) to
reconcile reason and faith--to find a firm basis of _fact_ for
Christianity, instead of resting upon mere ecclesiastical authority.

It will have been noticed that the two authors cited by Colet in these
letters were Origen and Macrobius. Traces of Dionysian influence are also
apparent.[127]

It has already been pointed out, that when, after a thousand years’
interval of restless slumber, the spirit of free enquiry was reawakened by
the revival of learning in Italy, the works of the pre-scholastic fathers
and philosophers were studied afresh. The works of Origen, Macrobius, and,
more than all, of Dionysius, were constantly studied and quoted by such
men as Ficino and Pico. And thus it came to pass that the doctrine of
accommodation, with other apparently new-fangled but really _old_
doctrines, floated, as it were, in the air which Colet had recently been
breathing in Italy.

[Sidenote: The _Heptaplus_ of Pico.]

The immediate source of some of the views contained in the letters to
Radulphus was evidently Pico’s ‘Heptaplus’[128] on the six days’ creation;
a work published in beautiful type, shortly before Colet’s visit to Italy,
and dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici.[129] Comparing this treatise of
Pico’s with Colet’s letters, the small verbal coincidences are too
striking to leave any doubt of the connection.

Nor does this tracing of Colet’s thoughts to their source detract from his
originality so much as might at first sight appear.

Colet found many different germs of thought in Pico. Falling into
congenial soil, this one attained a vigorous growth in his mind, which it
never attained with Pico. Other germs which flourished under Pico took no
root with Colet. The result was, that the spirit of the letters to
Radulphus had little in common with that of the ‘Heptaplus.’ Colet showed
his originality and independence of thought by seizing one rational idea
contained in Pico’s treatise, and leaving the rest. He caught and
unravelled one thread of common sense which Pico had contrived to
interweave with a web of learned but not very wise speculation.


IV. COLET STUDIES AFRESH THE PSEUDO-DIONYSIAN WRITINGS (1497?).

The next glimpse of Colet and his labours at Oxford reveals him immersed
in the study of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings: writing from memory an
abstract of the ‘Celestial’ and ‘Ecclesiastical’ Hierarchies,[130] and
even composing short treatises of his own, based throughout upon Dionysian
speculations.[131]

[Sidenote: The Pseudo-Dionysian writings.]

During the most part of the middle ages the Pseudo-Dionysian writings were
accepted generally as the genuine productions of Dionysius the
Areopagite--i.e. of a disciple of St. Paul himself. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Colet, falling into this current view, should regard the
writings of the disciple with some degree of that interest and reverence
with which he regarded those of the master. For a time it is evident they
exercised a strong fascination on his mind.

It has already been mentioned, that the influence of the Dionysian
writings upon the Neo-Platonists of Florence was natural, seeing that they
were in fact the embodiment of the result of the effervescence produced by
the mixture of Neo-Platonic speculations with the Christianity of a
thousand years earlier.

But whilst it was their _Neo-Platonic_ element which attracted the
attention of Florentine philosophers, it was chiefly, as it seems to me,
their _Christian_ element which fascinated Colet.

[Sidenote: Their intrinsic power.]

Nor can we of the nineteenth century altogether afford to ignore these
writings as forgeries. There must have been in them enough of intrinsic
power, apart from their supposed authorship, to account for the enormous
influence exerted by them for centuries over the highest minds in the
church, in spite of the wildness of speculation in which they seemed to
revel; just as there was enough of intrinsic power in St. Augustine to
account for _his_ mighty influence, in spite of his narrow views upon some
points. It is quite possible that, as the very dogmatism of St. Augustine
may have increased his influence in a dogmatic age, so, inasmuch as the
dogmatic theology of the Schoolmen aimed at a pan-theological settlement
of every possible question, their very wildness of speculation may have
aided the influence of the Dionysian writings. This may partly account for
the remarkable extent to which the works of St. Augustine and Dionysius
furnished, as it were, the weft and woof out of which Aquinas wove his
scholastic web.[132] But nothing but some intrinsic power in these works
themselves, apart from their dogmatism and speculation, could account for
their double position as forming the basis, not only of the Scholastic
Theology itself, but also of so many reactions against the results of its
supremacy. These reactions were not always Augustinian. Some of them were
mystic, and the supposed Dionysius was, so to speak, the prophet of the
Mystics.

One main secret of the intrinsic power of the Dionysian writings,
especially to such men as Colet, lay, undoubtedly, in the severe rebuke
they gave to the ecclesiastical scandals of the times. The state of the
church under Alexander VI. was such that earnest men in Italy had
practically either ceased to believe in it, and in Christianity, as of
divine institution; or were seeking a solution of their difficulties
through those Neo-Platonic speculations, out of which these
Pseudo-Dionysian writings had themselves sprung.

[Sidenote: What the Dionysian writings were.]

Colet doubtless, when he came to Italy, had the same difficulties to
fight. Could this ecclesiastical system, so degraded, so vicious, so
hollow and pernicious, be of God? He could not, and probably there was not
anyone in Europe at that moment who could, from his standing-point, wholly
reject it, without rejecting Christianity along with it. The Dionysian
writings presented a way of escape from this terrible alternative. If they
were genuine (and Colet believed them to be so), then the hierarchical
system and its sacraments, however perverted, were yet of apostolic
origin. These writings apparently described, in the words of a disciple of
St. Paul, their apostolic institution and their original intention and
meaning. But the notion gathered by Colet from Dionysius of the apostolic
intention presented an ideal so utterly pure and holy, as compared with
the hollowness and wickedness of ecclesiastical practice, as he saw it in
Italy, that he must indeed have had a heart of stone had he not been moved
by it.

The following passage will show, in Colet’s own words, how, following the
lead of such men as Pico and Ficino (with whose writings, we have seen, he
was acquainted), he was led to regard the Jewish traditions of the Cabala
as genuine Mosaic traditions, committed to writing by Ezra; and, in like
manner, to accept the Pseudo-Dionysian traditions as genuine apostolic
traditions, committed to writing by a disciple of St. Paul; and, further,
it will place in a clear light the connection between his faith in
Dionysius, his grief over the scandals of the church, and his zeal for
reform.

    [Sidenote: Colet sees the difference between the Dionysian and the
    Papal rites.]

    ‘I know not by what rashness of bishops, in later ages, the ancient
    custom fell into disuse--a custom which, owing to its apostolic
    institution, had the highest authority.... And had not St. Dionysius
    (who seems to me to be such in our church as was Ezra in the synagogue
    of Moses, who willed that the mysteries of the old law should be
    committed to writing, lest in the confusion of affairs and of men the
    record of so much wisdom should perish)--had not Dionysius, I say, in
    like manner, as though divining the future carelessness of mankind,
    left written down by his productive pen what he retained in memory of
    the institutions of the apostle in arranging and regulating the
    church, we should have had no record of this ancient custom.... How it
    befel, (Colet continued) without grievous guilt, that these became
    afterwards wholly changed, I know not; since we must believe that it
    was by the teaching of the Holy Spirit that they ordained all things
    in the church. For the words of our Saviour in St. John are these:
    “Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you
    into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he
    shall hear, that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come.”
    It is because their most holy traditions have been superseded and
    neglected, and men have fallen away from the Spirit of God to their
    own inventions, that, beyond doubt, all things have been wretchedly
    disturbed and confounded; and, as I said before, unless God shall
    have mercy upon us, all things will ‘go to ruin.’[133]

[Sidenote: Purity of the Dionysian standard.]

The truth was that the Dionysian writings, though not of apostolic origin
as Colet supposed, presented, nevertheless, a picture of the
ecclesiastical usages of an age a thousand years earlier than Colet’s; and
putting the earlier and the later usages in contrast, it was impossible
for him not to perceive at once how much more pure and rational in its
spirit and tendencies was the ancient Dionysian system than the more
modern Papal one.

[Sidenote: The Dionysian sacerdotal and ritualistic system is radically
different from the Papal.]

Both were sacerdotal and ritualistic; but the sacerdotalism and ritualism
of Dionysius were radically opposed in spirit to those of the more modern
system. During the interval between the fifth and the fifteenth century,
sacerdotalism had had time to turn almost literally upside-down, and
ritualism with it. It was thus quite natural that Colet, in the light of
Dionysius, should find ‘all things wretchedly disturbed and confounded.’

[Sidenote: The object of religion not to propitiate the Deity, but to
change the heart of man.]

The Dionysian theory, however speculative and vicious as such, at least
according to Colet’s version of it, did not, like the modern theory, tend
towards that grossest heathen conception of religion, according to which
its main object is the propitiation of the Deity, rather than the changing
of the heart of man.

Its gospel was not that Christ offered his sacrifice to propitiate an
unreconciled God--to reconcile God to man. On the contrary, it told of a
God who is ‘beautiful and good,’[134] who had created all things because
He is good, because He is good recalling[135] all things to Himself, by
the sacrifice of Himself redeeming them, not from His own wrath, but from
the power of Evil.

[Sidenote: Cur Deus Homo?]

[Sidenote: Colet on the ‘marvellous victory’ of a ‘suffering Christ.’]

The following passage may be taken in illustration of this:--‘When,
directly after the creation, foolish human nature was allured by the
seductive enticements of the enemy, and fell away from God into a womanish
and dying condition, and was rolling headlong down with rapid course to
death itself, then at length, in His own time, our good, and tender, and
kind, and gentle, and merciful God, giving us all good things at once in
place of all that was bad, willed to take upon Him human nature, and to
enter into it, and rescue it from the power of the adversary, overthrowing
and destroying his empire. For, as St. Paul writes to the Hebrews,
“Forasmuch as the children”--or servants--“are partakers of flesh and
blood,” ... therefore also God himself “made himself of no reputation, and
took upon him the form of a servant,” and “himself likewise took part of
the same” flesh and blood--that is, human nature--“that through death he
might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and
deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage:” that he might destroy, I say, that enemy, not by force, but (as
Dionysius says) by judgment and righteousness; which he calls a hidden
thing and a _mystery_.[136] For it was a marvellous victory, that the
Devil, though victorious, in the very fact of his conquering, should be
conquered; and that Jesus should conquer in the very fact of his being
vanquished on the cross; so that in reality, in the victory on each side,
the matter was otherwise than it seemed. And thus when the adversary that
vanquished man was himself vanquished by God, man was restored, without
giving any just cause of complaint to the devil, to the liberty and light
of God. There was shown to him the path to heaven, trodden by the feet of
Christ, whose footsteps we must follow if we would arrive where he has
gone. A suffering Christ, I say (most marvellous!), and dying as though
vanquished, overcame.... By that death we have been rescued from the dead,
and are the servants of God.’[137]

[Sidenote: Object of Christ’s death.]

Quaint and curious as this view of the connection between the sacrifice of
Christ and the just conquest of the power of Evil may seem to modern ears,
it reflects faithfully the view most current amongst the early Greek
Fathers; and it has at least this merit, that it cannot be translated into
the language of the heathen doctrine of propitiation.

[Sidenote: Modern ‘priests’ act _on behalf of man_ before God.]

It followed that, as the Dionysian theory left no place for the notion
that the sacrifice of Christ was offered to reconcile God to man (seeing
that it upheld the doctrine that it was the sheep that had gone astray,
and rejected the doctrine that the Shepherd had ever deserted the sheep),
so it left no place for a sacerdotal order, according to the heathen
notion of a priesthood. Its priests were not priests according to the
modern definition. It did not--it could not--represent its priesthood as
appearing as heathen priests did (and as some modern priests seem to think
they do)[138] on _behalf of man_ before God, presenting men’s offerings to
him. If Christ’s office, according to Dionysius, were emphatically to
_plead with men_, to bring _them_ back, so the priest’s office was to act
in his stead in the same work.

[Sidenote: According to Dionysius and Colet, priests act on behalf of God
towards man.]

The following passage from Colet’s abstract presents these two dependent
facts in their proper connection:--‘Christ’s office on earth the bishops
[elsewhere he speaks of priests and bishops as identical] everywhere
discharge, and in Him act as He acted, and with like zeal strive for the
purification, illumination, and salvation of mankind by constant preaching
of the truth and diffusion of Gospel light, even as He strove. St. Paul
says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of
reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ.” Acting in
Christ’s stead, they fan the fire which Christ came to send upon the
earth.... (Luke xii. 49, 50.) He baptized, as John testifies, “with the
Holy Ghost and with fire.” For fire purifies, illumines, and perfects.
That fire of the Spirit does this in the souls of men. For the increasing
of this wholesome conflagration amid the forest of men, the bishops are
vicars and ministers of Jesus, and they seek the kindling of mankind in
God. Now this fire is, I doubt not, the holy love of God.[139]... And the
messenger of this goodness, compassion, love, and tenderness of God was
his lovely son Jesus Christ, who ... brought down love to men, that they
being born anew by love, might in turn love their heavenly Father along
with Him.’[140]

[Sidenote: Modern and Dionysian ritualism very different.]

The Dionysian theory of sacerdotalism being thus, in its spirit and
attitude, an exact inversion of the modern one, it might naturally be
expected that the Dionysian ritualism would, in like manner, involve an
inversion of modern ritualistic notions.

This was the case. Instead of idolizing the sacraments as of mystic power
and virtue in themselves, the Dionysian theory represented them as
divinely instituted ceremonies intended to draw mankind by types and
shadows upward to God.

[Sidenote: The Eucharist.]

[Sidenote: Baptism.]

[Sidenote: Sponsors.]

[Sidenote: Priests have no power of loosing and binding.]

It did not, like modern ritualism, tend towards the view that the
Eucharist is a _sacrifice_ in the heathen sense--a continued offering by a
human priesthood of the sacrifice of Christ.[141] On the contrary, it
represented this sacrament as commemorative of the death of Christ, and as
symbolic of the professed communion on the part of men with Christ, and
with one another.[142] It did not set forth the sacrament of baptism as
modern ritualists are so fond of doing, as effecting there and then the
regeneration of the person baptized. But it regarded baptism as a symbolic
_profession_ of change of heart--as the ceremony in which the believer
openly takes his soldier’s oath to Christ, and promises amended
life.[143] It did not represent the sponsors as promising or professing
_in the child’s stead_, that he is then and there regenerated, but
promising that they themselves will do all they can to bring him up as a
child of God.[144] It did not admit in any sacerdotal order, any power to
remit or retain sin, to bind or to loose. On the contrary, it regarded
the priests as God’s ministers, who ought to keep in communion with Him,
so that receiving intimation by the Spirit of what is already bound or
loosed in heaven, they may disclose it on earth.[145]

       *       *       *       *       *

If any sacerdotal theory could be believable, it must be confessed, there
is an intrinsically rational and _Christian_ tone about the Dionysian
theory according to Colet’s rendering of it, strangely lacking in that of
modern sacerdotalists.

Forgetting for the moment the speculative adjuncts to the theory, the
professed knowledge of mysteries unknown, which Colet’s belief in
Dionysius obliged him to accept, but which did not add any force to the
theory itself, it will be seen at once how powerful a rebuke he must have
felt it to be to the ecclesiastical scandals of the closing years of the
fifteenth century. It assumed, as the essential attribute of any
sacerdotal order laying claim to apostolic institution, the attribute of a
really pure and personal holiness. No merely official sanctity imputed
outwardly to a consecrated order, by virtue of its outward consecration,
could possibly satisfy its requirements.[146] And in the same way the
sacraments were nothing apart from the personal spiritual realities which
they were meant to symbolize.

[Sidenote: Religion consists in _love_.]

Underneath, therefore, the wild excess of symbolism and speculation which
lay on the surface, and formed, as it were, the _froth_ of the Dionysian
theology, Colet seems to have found this basis of eternal truth, that
religion is a thing of the heart, not of creed nor of ceremonial
observances; that, in Colet’s own rendering of the Dionysian
theory:--‘Knowledge leads not to eternal life, but _love_. Whoso loveth
God is known of Him. Ignorant love has a thousand times more power than
cold wisdom.’[147]

Colet’s abstracts of the Dionysian treatises abound with passages
expressive of the purity and holiness of heart required of the Christian,
and of the necessity of his love not being merely of the contemplative
kind, but an active love working for Christ and his fellowmen. The
following extracts may be taken as illustrations of this.

[Sidenote: The purity of Christians.]

In concluding the chapter on the meaning of baptism Colet
exclaims:--‘Gracious God! here may one perceive how cleansed and how pure
he that professes Christ ought to be; how inwardly and thoroughly washed;
how white, how shining, how utterly without blemish or spot; in fine, how
perfected and filled, according to his measure, with Christ himself....
May Jesus Christ himself bring it to pass, that we who profess Christ may
both be, and set our affections on, and do all things that are worthy of
our profession.’[148]

[Sidenote: Self-sacrifice for others a blessed thing.]

Speaking of the anointing after baptism of the soldier of Christ, Colet
says:--‘You must strive that you may conquer; you must conquer that you
maybe crowned. Fight in Him who fights in you and prevails--even Jesus
Christ, who has declared war against death, and fights in all.... It is
the rule of combat that we should imitate our leader.... We have no
enemies except sin (which is ever against us), and the evil spirits that
tempt to sin. When these are vanquished in ourselves, then let us, armed
with the armour of God, in charity succour others, even though they be not
for suffering us, even though in their folly they see not their bondage,
even though they would put their deliverers to death. So to love man as to
die in caring for his salvation is most blessed.’[149]

[Sidenote: Colet on the Pope.]

These passages may also be taken as evidence how fully Colet had caught
hold of the spirit, not merely of the froth, of the Dionysian doctrine;
how he had approached it in earnest search after practical religion, and
not merely in the love of speculation. They will also do much to explain
how, drinking deeply at this well of mystic religion, he came back from
Italy, not a mere Neo-Platonic philosopher or ‘humanist,’ but a practical
Reformer. In Italy he had become acquainted with the scandals of Alexander
VI. In his abstract of Dionysius, in speaking of ‘_the highest Bishop whom
we call “the Pope,”_’ he bursts out into these indignant sentences:--‘If
he be a lawful bishop, he of himself does nothing, but God in him. But if
he do attempt anything of _himself_, he is then a breeder of poison. And
if he also bring this to the birth, and carry into execution his own will,
he is wickedly distilling poison to the destruction of the Church. This
has now indeed been done for many years past, and has by this time so
increased as to take powerful hold on all members of the Church; so that,
unless that Mediator who alone can do so, who created and founded the
church out of nothing for Himself (therefore does St. Paul often call it a
“creature”)--unless, I say, the Mediator Jesus lay to his hand with all
speed, our most disordered church cannot be far from death.... Men consult
not God on what is to be done, by constant prayer, but take counsel with
men, whereby they shake and overthrow everything. All (as we must own with
grief, and as I write with both grief and tears) seek their own, not the
things which are Jesus Christ’s, not heavenly things but earthly, what
will bring them to death, not what will bring them to life eternal.’[150]

[Sidenote: Colet on the wickedness of priests.]

The following passage also burns with Colet’s zeal for ecclesiastical
reform:--‘Here let every priest observe, by that sacrament of washing
[before celebration of the eucharist], how clean, how scoured, how fresh
he ought to be, who would handle the heavenly mysteries, and especially
the sacrament of the Lord’s body; how such ought to be so washed and
scoured and polished inwardly, as that not so much as a shadow be left in
the mind whereby the incoming light may be in any wise obscured, and that
not a trace of sin may remain to prevent God from walking in the temple of
our mind. Oh priests! Oh priesthood! Oh the detestable boldness of wicked
men in this our generation! Oh the abominable impiety of those miserable
priests, of whom this age of ours contains a great multitude, who fear not
to rush from the bosom of some foul harlot into the temple of the Church,
to the altar of Christ, to the mysteries of God! Abandoned creatures! on
whom the vengeance of God will one day fall the heavier, the more
shamelessly they have intruded themselves on the Divine office. O Jesu
Christ, wash for us, not our feet only, but our hands and our head!’[151]

[Sidenote: The zeal is Colet’s, not Dionysian.]

In conclusion, I must remind the reader that it would not be fair to take
this sketch of Colet’s abstract of the Dionysian treatises as in any sense
an abstract of the treatises themselves. What I have tried to do is, to
show in what Colet’s own mind was influenced by them. The passages I have
quoted are not passages from Dionysius but from Colet. The radical
conception is most often due to Dionysius; the passages themselves
represent the effervescence produced by the Dionysian conceptions in
Colet’s mind. The enthusiasm--the fire which they kindled there they would
not have kindled in every one’s breast. The fire was indeed very much
Colet’s own. I find passages which _burn_ in Colet’s abstract _freeze_ in
the original. Whilst, therefore, acknowledging the influence of the
Dionysian writings upon Colet’s mind, it must not be forgotten that this
influence was exerted upon the mind of a man not only already acquainted
with the writings of the modern Neo-Platonists and of the Greek Fathers,
but also already devoted to the study of the Scriptures, and bent upon
drawing out for himself from themselves their direct practical meaning.

[Sidenote: Germs of true scientific thought in Dionysius.]

The truth is, that just as in the Greek Fathers, with all their tendency
to allegorise Scripture, there was combined a rational critical element
which formed the germ of a sounder and more scientific method of
Scriptural interpretation--a germ which fructified whenever it fell into a
soil suited to its growth, whether in the fifth and sixth or in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--so in the Pseudo-Dionysian philosophy,
with all its unscientific tendency to revel in the wildest speculation,
there were combined germs of true scientific thought, which in like manner
were sure to fructify in such a mind as Colet’s.

[Sidenote: The relativity of all knowledge.]

Thus in the Dionysian doctrine that God is inscrutable--that all human
knowledge is relative--that man cannot rise to a knowledge of the
absolute--that therefore no conceptions men can form of God can be
accurate, and no language in which they speak of Him can be more than
clumsy analogy--in this principle there is the germ of a rational
understanding of the necessary conditions of Divine revelation involving
the admission of the necessity of _accommodation_ and the _human_ element
in Scripture. Again, in the doctrine that whilst, in this sense, the
_knowledge_ of God is impossible to man, the _love_ of God is not so,
there lies the basis of truth on which alone science can be reconciled
with religion, and religion itself become a power of life.

Lastly, in the very attempt, so striking throughout Dionysius, to find
out in the sacerdotal and sacramental system a symbolic meaning, who does
not recognise the attempt to find out a _rational intention_ in its
institution, which should make it believable in an age of reviving
philosophy and science?


V. COLET LECTURES ON ‘I. CORINTHIANS’ (1497?).

[Sidenote: Colet’s lectures on Corinthians. MSS. at Cambridge.]

If the manuscript exposition of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians
preserved at Cambridge, apparently in Colet’s own handwriting, with his
own latest corrections,[152] may be taken as evidence of what his lectures
on this epistle were, it may be of some value, apart from its own
intrinsic interest, in enabling us to judge how far he adhered to the same
leading views and method of exposition which he had before adopted, and
how far, in preceding chapters, we have been able to judge rightly of what
they were.

I think it will be found that this exposition of the Epistle to the
Corinthians is in perfect harmony with all which had preceded it, and that
it shows evident traces of those phases of thought through which Colet had
been passing since his arrival at Oxford.

Its striking characteristic, like that on the ‘Romans,’ would seem to be
the pains taken to regard it throughout as the letter of a living apostle
to an actual church.

[Sidenote: Colet’s love for St. Paul.]

On the one hand, it teems with passages which show the depth of Colet’s
almost personal affection for St. Paul, and the clearness with which he
realised the special characteristics of St. Paul’s character; his extreme
consideration for others,[153] his modesty,[154] his tolerance, his wise
tact and prudence,[155] his self-denial for others’ good.[156]

[Sidenote: Colet studies the character of the Corinthians.]

On the other hand, no less conspicuous is the attempt on Colet’s part to
realise the condition and peculiar character and circumstances of the
Corinthians, to whom the apostle was writing, as the true key to the
practical meaning of the epistle.

[Sidenote: Pride of the Greek nation.]

Thus Colet, in treating of the commencement of the epistle--an epistle
intended to correct the conduct of the Corinthians in some practical
points in which they had erred--stops to admire the wisdom of St. Paul’s
method in speaking first of that part of their conduct which he could
praise, before he proceeded to blame. And this he did, Colet thought,
‘that by this gentle and mild beginning he might draw them on to read the
rest of his epistle, and lead them to listen more easily to what he had to
blame in their conduct. For (Colet continues) had he at once at starting
been rougher, and accused them more severely, he might indeed have driven
away from himself and his exhortations minds as yet tender and
inexperienced in religion, especially those of that Greek nation, so
arrogant and proud, and prone to be disdainful.[157] Prudently, therefore,
and cautiously had the matter to be handled, having due regard to persons,
places, and seasons, in his observance of which Paul was surely the one
most considerate of all men, who knew so well how to accommodate the means
to the end, that while he sought nothing else but the glory of Jesus
Christ upon earth, and the increase of faith and charity, this man with
divine skill neither did nor omitted anything ever amongst any which
should impede or retard these objects.’[158]

[Sidenote: Colet describes the state of the Corinthian Church.]

The same method receives a further illustration from the way in which
Colet draws a picture of the condition of the Corinthian church, evidently
feeling while he did so, how closely in some points it resembled the
condition of the church in his own day. He surely must have had the
Schoolmen in his mind, as he described some among the Corinthians,
‘derogating from the authority of the Apostles, and especially of St.
Paul, whose name ought to have had the greatest weight amongst them,
setting up institutions in the church according to their own fancy and in
their own wisdom, making the people believe that they knew all about
everything which pertained to the Christian religion, and that they could
easily solve and give an opinion upon every point of doubt that might
arise. So that, in this infant church, many things had come to be allowed
which were abhorrent from the institutions of Paul, wherefrom had arisen
divisions and factions, between which were constant contentions and
altercations, so that all things were going wrong.’[159]

[Sidenote: St. Paul’s modesty and tact.]

Colet’s almost personal affection for St. Paul enabled him also to
realise how, being the ‘first parent of the Corinthian church,’ he was
‘troubled’ at this state of things, not so much at their having tried to
undermine his own authority, as at the danger they were in of making
shipwreck of their faith, after all his pains in piloting their vessel.
‘Therefore, as far as he dared and could’ (writes Colet), ‘he upbraided
those who wished to seem wise, and who conducted the affairs of the
Christian republic more according to their own fancies than according to
the will of God. Which, however, he did everywhere most modestly; the most
pious man seeking rather the reformation of the evils than the blame of
any.’ And therefore it was (Colet thought), that St. Paul in his whole
epistle, and especially in the first part of it, strove to assert that men
of themselves can know and do nothing, to eradicate the false foundation
of trust in themselves, and to lead them to Christ, who alone is the
wisdom of God and the power of God.[160]

And here again, after following St. Paul’s statement, that the wisdom of
man being foolishness, God had chosen the foolish rather than the wise to
hear him and to preach his gospel, Colet was led off into a train of
thought which harmonises well with what has been stated in previous
chapters, in that it shows how fully he had accepted the Dionysian
writings as the genuine writings of St. Paul’s disciple, and how closely
he associated in his mind the name of the disciple with that of the
master.

[Sidenote: Dionysius the Areopagite.]

For he exclaims, ‘What if sometimes some men, endowed with secular wisdom
such as Paul and his disciple, Dionysius the Areopagite, and a few
others, were chosen both to receive the truths of his wisdom, and to teach
them to others, these indeed in teaching others what they had learned from
God, took the greatest pains to appear to know nothing according to this
world, thinking it unworthy to mix up human reason with Divine
revelations.... Hence Paul, in wise and learned Greece, was not afraid to
seem in himself a fool and weak, and to profess that he knew nothing but
Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’[161]

Then follows a passage in which Colet states, in his own language, what
Paul meant when he preached ‘Christ crucified;’[162] a passage very
similar to that already quoted from his abstract of Dionysius, and bearing
the same marks of the modes of thought of a man who, as is affirmed of
Colet, was more inclined to follow Dionysius, Origen, and Jerome, than St.
Augustine.

[Sidenote: The election of men by God not capricious.]

Nor did Colet in this exposition show himself to be any more inclined to
follow Augustine upon the question of election than he showed himself in
his exposition of ‘the Romans.’ He is indeed ready enough to admit, that
men never could of themselves rise out of the darkness of worldly wisdom
to ‘accept the wonderful miracle of Christ,’--‘such is the miserable and
lost condition of men;’ and yet he does not fall into the pitfall of
Augustine’s doctrine, that men were chosen wholly without reference to
their own characters. ‘It would seem,’ he said, ‘that it was not without
reason that God chose, out of the crowd of men grovelling in the darkness
of worldly wisdom, those who had not fallen so far into the depths of this
darkness, and so could more easily be touched by the divine light.... If
God himself be nobility, wisdom, and power, who does not see that Peter,
John, and James, and others like them, even before the truth of God had
shone in the world, surpassed others in wisdom and strength, in proportion
as they were free from their foolishness and impotence, so that no wonder
if God chose those _held_ foolish and impotent, since indeed they were
really the most noble of all the world, most separate, and standing out
farthest from the vileness of the world; so that just as that land which
rises highest is touched by the rays of the rising sun most easily and
most quickly, so in the same way it was of necessity that, at the rising
of that light which lighteth every man coming into this world, it should
first light up those who rose highest amongst men, and stood out, like
mountains in the valleys of men.’[163]

[Sidenote: Accommodation.]

The striking characteristic of Colet’s letters to Radulphus was the stress
laid upon the principle of _accommodation_ on the part of the teacher to
the limited capacities of the taught. This is another point which crops up
again in the MS. on Corinthians. When Colet turned to the practical
teaching of St. Paul to the Corinthians, he seems to have been struck with
the fact, that the rules which St. Paul laid down with reference to
marriage and the like, were to be explained upon this principle.[164]

[Sidenote: Colet on marriage.]

Carried away by the authority of the Dionysian writings, Colet seems not
only to have held the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy, but even to
have regarded marriage as allowed to the laity only by way of concession
to the weakness of the flesh. He had expressed this view in his MS.
treatise on ‘the Sacraments,’ and he repeated it, under cover of St.
Paul’s allusions to marriage in the Epistle to the Corinthians.

[Sidenote: Dionysian influence visible.]

[Sidenote: The celestial spheres and hierarchy.]

The influence of the Dionysian writings is indeed very frequently evident.
Again and again the phraseology used by Colet betrays it, and sometimes a
Dionysian turn of thought leads to a long digression. As might be
expected, a notable example of this occurs when Colet treats of the
chapters in the epistle with which the Dionysian theory of the celestial
hierarchy was intimately connected; in which St. Paul speaks, on the one
hand, of the church as one body with many members, and, on the other, of
celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial, and their differing order of
glory. It was probably about the time that Colet was lecturing on
Corinthians that Linacre was translating the work of Proclus, a
Neo-Platonist of the Alexandrian School, ‘De Spherâ;’ and Grocyn writing a
preface to Linacre’s translation in the form of a letter to Aldus, the
great printer at Venice, by whom it was afterwards published in 1499, in
an edition of the ‘Astronomi veteres.’[165] Astronomy was one of the
sciences which the revival of learning had brought into prominence.[166]
At this very moment Copernicus was pursuing in Italy those studies which
resulted in the overturning of the Ptolemaic system. That system, however,
which had become inseparably interwoven with scholastic theology, was as
yet in undisputed ascendancy. Its crystalline spheres had for generations
been devoutly believed in by the Schoolmen, and classed by them among
‘things celestial;’ and as Luther stood in awe at their magic motions, as
‘no doubt done by some angel,’[167] so poor Colet was led, by Dionysian
influence, to draw strange fanciful analogies between their ‘differing
order of glory’ and that of the ‘celestial hierarchy.’[168] Thus it came
to pass that his exposition of the Epistle to the Corinthians was even
disfigured with diagrams to illustrate these fancied analogies.

[Sidenote: Colet’s zeal for reform.]

Whilst thus pointing out the evidence that Colet was led astray by his
unsuspecting confidence in the genuineness of the Dionysian writings, into
doubtful speculations of this kind, and notions upon even practical
points, from which his own English common sense, if left to itself, might
have protected him, it is but fair to point out also the evidence
contained in this manuscript, of that zeal for ecclesiastical reform which
the purity of the Dionysian ideal of the priesthood at all events helped
to inflame. There is one passage especially, in which he bursts out into
an indignant rebuke of those ‘narrow and small minds’ who do not see that
constant contention and litigation about secular matters on the part of
the clergy ‘is a scandal to the church.’ Their folly, he thinks, would be
ridiculous, were it not rather to be wept over than laughed at, seeing
that it so injures and almost destroys the church. ‘These lost fools (he
continues) of which this our age is full, amongst whom there are some who,
to say the least, ought not to be clergymen at all, but who nevertheless
are regarded as bishops in the church--these lost fools, I say, utterly
ignorant of gospel and apostolic doctrine, ignorant of Divine justice,
ignorant of Christian truth, are wont to say, that the cause of God, the
rights of the church, the patrimony of Christ, the possessions of priests,
_ought_ to be defended by them, and that it would be a sin to neglect to
defend them. O narrowness, O blindness of these men!... with eyes duller
than fishes!’ Colet then points out how the church is brought into
disrepute with the laity by their worldly proceedings; whereas, if the
clergy lived in the love of God and their neighbour, how soon would their
‘true piety, religion, charity, goodness towards men, simplicity,
patience, tolerance of evil ... conquer evil with good! How would it stir
up the minds of men everywhere to think well of the church of Christ! How
would they favour it, love it, be good and liberal towards it, heap gift
upon gift upon it, when they saw in the clergy no avarice, no abuse of
their liberality!’... Finally, after saying that to a priesthood seeking
first the promotion and extension of the kingdom of God upon earth,
neither asking nor expecting anything, all things would have been added;
and asking with what face those, who differ from the laity only in dress
and external appearance, can demand much from the laity, Colet exclaims,
‘Good God! how should we be ashamed of this descent into the world, if we
were mindful of the love of God towards us, of the example of Christ, of
the dignity of the Christian religion, of our name and profession.’[169]

[Sidenote: Imitation of Christ.]

[Sidenote: Character of Christ.]

Passing from this one example of Colet’s zeal for ecclesiastical reform,
there remains only to be mentioned one other feature of this exposition of
Colet’s which must not be overlooked; a feature which might seem to show
that Colet was not wholly unacquainted with the writings of men of the
school of Tauler and Thomas à Kempis, and which seems to connect itself
with a remark of Colet’s, reported by Erasmus, that he had met on his
travels with some German monks, amongst whom were still to be found traces
of primitive religion.[170] I allude to the warmth with which Colet urges
the necessity of following the perfect but not impossible[171] _example of
Christ_, of Christians being bound in a relationship with Him, so close
that their joint love for Christ shall form a bond of brotherhood between
themselves more close than that of blood:[172] so that what is for the
good of the brethren will become the test of what is lawful in Christian
practice[173]--the earnestness with which he tried to realise the secret
of that wonderful example, concluding that it lay in Christ’s keeping
himself as retired as possible from the world--from the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eye, and the pride of life--and as close as possible to
God--in his whole soul being dedicated to God. ‘He was,’ writes Colet,
altogether ‘pious, kind, gentle, merciful, patient of evil, bearing
injuries, in his own integrity shunning empty popular fame, forbidding
both men and demons to publish his mighty power, in his goodness always
doing good even to the evil, as his Father makes His sun to rise on the
just and on the unjust.... His body He held altogether in obedience and
service to his blessed mind ...; eating after long fasts, sleeping after
long watching ...; caring nothing for what belongs to wealth and fortune.
His eye was single, so that his whole body was full of light.... Such is
the leader whom we have on the heavenly road ...; whom, without doubt, if
we do not follow with our whole strength toward heaven, as far as we are
able, we shall never get there!’[174]

[Sidenote: Colet’s love for St. Paul, but greater love for Christ.]

If Colet had risen out of Neo-Platonism to Dionysius and from Dionysius to
St. Paul, it is evident that he did not rest even there. How in the
following few words, overflowing as they do with his personal love for
St. Paul, does he give vent to a still more tender love and reverence for
_Christ_!

    [Sidenote: Colet’s love for Christ.]

    ‘Here I stand amazed, and exclaim those words of _my Paul_, “Oh the
    depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” O wisdom!
    wonderfully good to men and merciful, how justly thy loving-kindness
    can be called the “depth of riches”!--Thou who commending thy love
    towards us hast chosen to be so bountiful to us that Thou givest
    thyself for us, that we may return to Thee and to God. O holy, O kind,
    O beneficent wisdom! O voice, word, and truth of God in man!
    truth-speaking and truth-acting! who hast chosen to teach us humanly
    that we may know divinely; who hast chosen to be in man that we may be
    in God; who lastly hast chosen in man to be humbled even unto
    death--the death even of the cross--that we may be exalted even unto
    life, the life even of God.’[175]

[Sidenote: Contrast between Colet’s method and the Schoolmen’s.]

It may safely be concluded, that if Colet’s manuscript expositions
preserved at Cambridge may be taken as evidence of the nature of his
public lectures, they may well have excited all the interest which they
seem to have done. Doctors of Divinity, coming to listen at first that
they might find something definite to censure, might well indeed find
something to learn. Amongst the students, probably, the seed found a soil
in some degree prepared to receive it. But it must have required an effort
on the part of the most candid and honest adherents of the traditional
school to reach the standpoint from which alone Colet’s method of free
critical interpretation could be found to be in perfect harmony with his
evident love and reverence for the Scriptures. _They_ attributed an extent
of Divine inspiration to the apostle which placed his words on a level in
authority with those of the Saviour himself; while Colet, we are told (and
some of the passages last quoted seem to confirm the statement), was wont
to declare, ‘that when he turned from the Apostles to the wonderful
majesty of Christ, their writings, much as he loved them, seemed to him to
become poor, as it were, in comparison’ [with the words of their
Lord].[176]

Yet they could hardly fail to see, whether they would or not, that while
their own system left the Scriptures hidden in the background, Colet’s
method brought them out into the light, and invested them with a sense of
reality and sacredness which pressed them home at once to the heart.


VI. GROCYN’S DISCOVERY (1498 ?).

Colet was not alone at Oxford in his regard for the Pseudo-Dionysian
writings.

[Sidenote: Grocyn discovers that the Pseudo-Dionysius was not the disciple
of St. Paul.]

Grocyn was so impressed with the genuineness and value of the ‘Celestial
Hierarchy,’ that he consented to deliver a course of lectures upon it,
about this time, in St. Paul’s Cathedral. But having commenced his course
by very strongly asserting its genuineness, and harshly condemning
Laurentius Valla and others who had started doubts, it chanced that when
he had proceeded with his lectures for some weeks, he became himself
convinced, by strong internal evidence, that the work was not written by a
disciple of St. Paul; and being an honest man seeking for truth, and not
arguing for argument’s sake, was obliged candidly to confess the
unpleasant discovery to his audience.[177]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Effect of the discovery on Colet’s mind.]

What effect this unexpected discovery of Grocyn’s had upon the mind of
Colet we are not distinctly informed. Whether Grocyn was able to convince
him of the truth of his mature judgment does not directly appear.[178] He
had so earnestly embraced the Dionysian writings, and they had produced so
profound an impression upon his mind, that it may readily be believed that
he would be very unwilling to admit that they were spurious. Nor, perhaps,
was it needful that he should do so. For, however clearly it might be
proved that they were not written by the disciple of St. Paul, it did not
therefore follow that they were merely a forgery. The Pseudo-Dionysius,
whoever he was, must have been not the less a man of vast moral power and
deep Christian feeling; and possibly he may have had no fraudulent
intention in using the pseudonym of the Areopagite, if he did so. The
conscience of the age in which he lived, so lax on the point of pious
fraud, may possibly have sanctioned his doing so.

It has already been seen that, in accepting the Dionysian speculations,
Colet did so because he believed Dionysius himself to have simply
committed to writing what he had heard from the Apostles themselves, and
because he felt bound to believe that he ‘_took the greatest pains to
appear to know nothing according to this world, thinking it unworthy to
mix up human reason with divine revelations_.’[179]

Supposing that Grocyn’s discovery had convinced Colet that the
speculations of the Dionysian writings were not of apostolic origin--were,
in fact, products of merely ‘human reason’ which the Pseudo-Dionysius had
‘mixed up’ with Scripture truth, as Augustine and the Schoolmen had mixed
up with it their scholastic speculations, it is clear that he would be
bound by the principle set forth in the above passage, to reject the
Dionysian speculations as he had already rejected those of the Schoolmen.

[Sidenote: Colet driven more than ever to the Bible.]

He would be bound to treat the speculations of the Pseudo-Dionysius as of
no more authority than those of St. Augustine or Origen, and the practical
result would be likely to be, that he would be thrown back more completely
than ever upon the Bible itself, and continue all the more earnestly to
apply to its interpretation the sound, common-sense, historical methods
which he had already applied so successfully to the exposition of the
Epistles of St. Paul.

In the meantime it may be readily imagined that, to a man of such deep
feeling and impulsive nature, as the occasional outbursts of burning zeal
in his writings show Colet to have been, such a disappointment would leave
a sore place to which he would not care often to recur in conversation
with his friends.

Such a shock as Grocyn’s discovery must have been to him, may have simply
produced in his mind a sense of bewilderment ending in a suspended
judgment. He may have returned to his accustomed work feeling more than
ever the uncertainty of human speculations, an humbler, a stronger, though
perhaps a sadder man, more than ever inclined to cling closely to the
Scriptures and his beloved St. Paul, and even ready sometimes to turn with
relief, as we are told he did with admiration, from the involved
logic[180] of the Apostle to the simple majesty of Christ!




CHAPTER III.


I. ERASMUS COMES TO OXFORD (1498).

[Sidenote: The character of Erasmus.]

In the spring or summer of 1498, the foreign scholar--Erasmus of
Rotterdam--arrived at Oxford, brought over to England by Lord Mountjoy
from Paris.[181] Erasmus was an entire stranger in England; he did not
know a word of English, but was at once most hospitably received into the
College of St. Mary the Virgin, by the prior Richard Charnock. Colet had
indeed, as already mentioned, heard Erasmus spoken of at Paris as a
learned scholar,[182] but as yet no work of his had risen into note, nor
was even his name generally known. He was scarcely turned thirty--just the
age of Colet;[183] but in his wasted sallow cheeks and sunken eyes were
but few traces left of the physical vigour of early manhood. In place of
the glow of health and strength, were lines which told that midnight oil,
bad lodging, and the harassing life of a poor student, driven about and
ill-served as he had been, had already broken what must have been at best
a frail constitution. But the worn scabbard told of the sharpness and
temper of the steel within. His was a mind restless for mental work, now
fighting through the obstacles of ill-health and poverty, in pursuit of
its natural bent, as it had once had to fight its way out of monastic
thraldom to secure the freedom of action which such a mind required.

[Sidenote: His object in coming to Oxford.]

Though well schooled and stored with learning, yet he had not come to
Oxford to teach, or to make a name by display of intellectual power, but
simply to add new branches of knowledge to those already acquired. Greek
was now to be learned there--thanks to the efforts of Grocyn and
Linacre--and Erasmus had come to Oxford bent upon adding a knowledge of
Greek to his Latin lore. To belong to that little knot of men north of
the Alps who already knew Greek--whose number yet might be counted on his
fingers--this had now become his immediate object of ambition. What he
meant to do with his tools when he had got them, probably was a question
to be decided by circumstances rather than by any very definite plan of
his own. To gain his living by taking pupils, and to live the life of a
scholar at some continental university, was probably the future floating
indistinctly before him.

[Sidenote: Erasmus is introduced to Colet.]

Prior Charnock seems to have at once appreciated Erasmus. He did all in
his power to give him a warm welcome to the university.[184] He seems to
have taken him at once to hear Colet lecture;[185] and he very soon
informed Colet that his new guest turned out to be no ordinary man.[186]
Upon this report Colet wrote to Erasmus a graceful and gentlemanly
letter,[187] giving him a hearty welcome to England and to Oxford, and
professing his readiness to serve him.

Erasmus replied, warmly accepting Colet’s friendship, but at the same time
telling him plainly that he would find in him a man of slender or rather
of no fortune, with no ambition, but warm and open-hearted, simple,
liberal, honest, but timid, and of few words. Beyond this he must expect
nothing. But if Colet could love such a man--if he thought such a man
worthy of his friendship--he might then count him as his own.[188]

[Sidenote: Colet and Erasmus become warm friends.]

Colet _did_ think such a man worthy of his friendship, and from that
moment Erasmus and he were the best of friends. The lord mayor’s son, born
to wealth and all that wealth could command, whilst steeling his heart
against the allurements of city and court life, eagerly received into his
bosom-friendship the poor foreign scholar, whom fortune had used so
hardly, whose orphaned youth had been embittered by the treachery of
dishonest guardians, and who, robbed of his slender patrimony and cast
adrift upon the world without resources, had hitherto scarcely been able
to keep himself from want by giving lessons to private pupils. Whether he
was likely to find in the foreign scholar the fulfilment of his yearnings
after fellowship, it will be for further chapters of this history to
disclose.


II. TABLE-TALK ON THE SACRIFICE OF CAIN AND ABEL (1498?).

[Sidenote: Table-talk at Oxford.]

It chanced that, after the delivery of a Latin sermon, the preacher--an
accomplished divine--was a guest at the long table in one of the Oxford
halls. Colet presided. The divine took the seat of honour to the left of
Colet; Charnock, the hospitable prior, sat opposite; Erasmus next to the
divine; and a lawyer opposite to him. Below them, on either side, a mixed
and nameless group filled up the table. At first the tide of table-talk
ebbed and flowed upon trivial subjects. The conversation turned at length
upon the sacrifices of Cain and Abel--why the one was accepted and the
other not.

[Sidenote: Colet’s views upon sacrifice.]

[Sidenote: The difference between Cain and Abel in the _men_, not in the
offerings.]

Colet--if we may judge from the earnest way in which, in his exposition of
the Epistle to the Romans, he had urged the uselessness of outward
sacrifices, unless accompanied by that _living sacrifice_ of heart and
mind which they were meant to typify--was not likely to advocate any view
which should attribute the acceptance of the one offering and the
rejection of the other, merely to any difference in the offerings
themselves. He would be sure to place the difference in the _character of
the men_. Colet seems on this occasion to have done so, and to have
fancied he saw in the different occupations chosen by the two brothers
evidence of the different spirit under which they acted. The exact course
of the conversation we have no means of following. All we know is, that
Colet took one side, and Erasmus and the divine the other, and that the
chief bone of contention was the suggestion thrown out by Colet, that Cain
had in the first instance offended the Almighty by his distrust in the
Divine beneficence, and too great confidence in his own art and industry,
and that this was proved by his having been the first to attempt to till
the cursed ground; while Abel, with greater resignation, and resting
content with what nature still spontaneously yielded, had chosen the
gentle occupation of a shepherd.[189]

There may have been something fanciful in the view urged by Colet, but it
is evident that it covered a truth which he could not give up, however
hard and long his opponents might argue.

Erasmus was astonished at Colet’s earnestness and power. He seemed to him
‘like one inspired. In his voice, his eye, his whole countenance and
mien, he seemed raised, as it were, out of himself.’[190]

[Sidenote: Erasmus makes up a story about Cain.]

Erasmus and the divine both felt themselves beaten; but it is not always
easy for the vanquished to yield gracefully, and the discussion, growing
warmer as it proceeded, might have risen even to intemperate heat, had not
Erasmus dexterously wound it round to a happy conclusion by pretending to
remember that he had once met with a curious story about Cain in an old
wormeaten manuscript whose title-page time had destroyed. The disputants
were all attention, and Erasmus, having thus tickled their curiosity, was
induced to tell the story, after extracting a promise from the listeners
that they would not treat it as a fable. He then drew upon his ready wit,
and improvised the following story:--

‘This Cain was a man of art and industry, and withal greedy and covetous.
He had often heard from his parents how, in the garden from which they had
been driven, the corn grew as tall as alder-bushes unchoked by tares,
thorns, or thistles. When he brooded over these things, and saw how meagre
a crop the ground produced, after all his pains in tilling it, he was
tempted to resort to treachery. He went to the angel who was the appointed
guardian of paradise, and, plying him with crafty arts, tempted him with
promises to give him secretly just a few grains from the luxuriant crops
of Eden. He argued that so small a theft could not be noticed, and that if
it were, the angel could but fall to the condition men were in. Why was
his condition better than theirs? Men were driven out of the garden
because they had eaten the apple. He, being set to guard the gate, could
enjoy neither paradise nor heaven. He was not even free, as they were, to
wander where he liked upon earth! Many good things were still left to men.
With care and labour the world might be cultivated, and human misery so
far lessened by discoveries and arts of all kinds, that at length men
might not need to be envious even of Eden. It was true that they were
infested by diseases, but human art would find the cure for these in time.
Perhaps some day something might even be found which would make life
immortal. When man by his industry had made the earth into one great
garden, the angel would be shut out from it, as well as from heaven and
Eden. Let him do what he could for men without harm to himself, and then
men would do what they could for him in return. The worst man will carry
the weakest cause, if he be but the best talker. A few grains were
obtained by stealth, and carefully sown by Cain. These being sprung up,
produced an increased number. The multiplied seed was again sown, and the
process repeated time after time. Before many harvests had passed the
produce of the stolen seed covered a wide tract of country. When what was
taking place on earth became too conspicuous to be longer concealed from
heaven, God was exceedingly wroth. “I see,” He said, “how this fellow
delights in toil and sweat; I will heap it upon him to his fill.” He
spoke, and sent a dense army of ants and locusts to blight Cain’s
cornfields. He added to these hailstorms and hurricanes. He sent another
angel to guard the gate of paradise, and imprisoned the one who had
favoured man in a human body. Cain tried to appease God by burnt-offerings
of fruits, but found that the smoke of his sacrifice would not rise
towards heaven. Understanding from this that the anger of God was
determined against him, _he despaired_!’[191]

Thus, with this clever impromptu fable did Erasmus gracefully contrive to
throw the weight of his altered opinion into Colet’s scale, and at the
same time to restore the whole party to wonted good-humour. Meanwhile what
he had seen of Colet made a deep impression upon him. He himself declared
that he never had enjoyed an after-dinner talk so much. It was, he said,
wanting in nothing.[192]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: The position of Colet and Erasmus at Oxford.]

This little glimpse given by Erasmus himself of his first experience of
Oxford life is of value, not only as revealing his own early impressions
of Colet and Oxford, but also as throwing some little light upon the
position which Colet himself had taken in the University after a year’s
labour at his post. That he should be chosen to preside at the long table
on this occasion was a mark at least of honour and respect; while the way
in which _he_ evidently gave the tone to the conversation, and became so
thoroughly the central figure in the group, shows that this respect was
true homage paid to character, and not to mere wealth and station. Then,
again, the fact that Erasmus, a stranger, without purse or name, should
have had assigned to him the second seat of honour, second only to the
special guest of the day, was in itself a proof of the same hearty
appreciation by Charnock and Colet of character, without regard to rank
or station. Would it have been so everywhere? Had Erasmus been so treated
at Paris?[193]

[Sidenote: Erasmus delighted with Colet and Charnock.]

No wonder that the letters of Erasmus, written during these his first
months spent at Oxford, should bear witness to the delight with which he
found himself received, all stranger as he was, into the midst of a group
of warm-hearted friends, with whom, for the first time in his life, he
found what it was to be at _home_. ‘I cannot tell you,’ he wrote to his
friend Lord Mountjoy, ‘how delighted I am with your England. With two such
friends as Colet and Charnock, I would not refuse to live even in
Scythia!’[194]


III. CONVERSATION BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE SCHOOLMEN (1498 or
1499).

But although Erasmus had formed the closest friendship with Colet, and was
learning more and more to understand and admire him, it was long before he
was sufficiently one in heart and purpose to induce Colet to unburden to
him his whole mind.

[Sidenote: Scholastic skill of Erasmus.]

He did so only by degrees. When he thought his friend really in earnest in
any passing argument he would tell him fully what his own views were. But
Colet hated the Schoolmen’s habit of arguing for argument’s sake, and felt
that Erasmus was as yet not wholly weaned from it. It was a habit which
had been fostered by the current practice of asserting wiredrawn
distinctions and abstruse propositions for the mere display of logical
skill; and Colet’s reverence for truth shrunk from this public vivisection
of it merely to feed the pride of the dissector. It pained and disgusted
him.

Erasmus had been educated at Paris in the ‘straitest sect’ of Scholastic
theologians. He had there studied theology in the college of the Scotists,
and been trained in that logical subtlety for which the school of Duns
Scotus was distinguished.[195]

[Sidenote: Colet dislikes the Scotists.]

But he found Colet, instead of regarding the Scotists as wonderfully
clever, declaring that ‘they seemed to him to be stupid and dull and
anything but clever. For to cavil about different sentences and words, now
to gnaw at this and now at that, and to dissect everything bit by bit,
seemed to him to be the mark of a poor and barren mind.’[196]

But Colet had not quarrelled only with the logical method of the
Schoolmen; he owed the scholastic philosophy itself a still deeper grudge.

[Sidenote: What the system of the Schoolmen was.]

The system of the Schoolmen professed to embrace the whole range of
universal knowledge. It was not confined strictly to religion; it
included, also, questions of philosophy and science. And these were
settled by isolated texts from the Bible, or dicta of the earlier
Schoolmen, and not by the investigation of facts. A theology so dogmatic
and capricious could consistently admit of no progress. Every discovery of
science or philosophy, contrary to the dicta of the Schoolmen, must be
regarded as a crime. It was the logical result of an inherent vice in the
system that Brunos and Galileos, in after ages, were tortured by
successors of the Schoolmen into the denial of inconvenient truths.

[Sidenote: The scholastic system not adapted to an age of progress and
discovery.]

This might do all very well in stagnant times, but in an age when the new
art of printing was reviving ancient learning, and new worlds were turning
up in hitherto untracked seas, men who, like Colet, entered into the
spirit of the new era, soon found out that the _summæ theologiæ_ of the
Schoolmen were no sum of theology at all; that their science and
philosophy were grossly deficient; and that if Christianity must in truth
stand or fall with scholastic dogmas, then the accession of new light
would be likely to lead honest enquirers after truth to reject it, and to
accept in its place the refined semi-pagan philosophy which had
accompanied the revival of learning in Italy. Yet these were the
alternatives which the Schoolmen, in common with the champions of dogmatic
creeds in all ages, tried to force upon mankind. Their cry was, as that of
their scholastic successors has been, and is, ‘_Our_ Christianity or
_none_.’

[Sidenote: Colet’s faith in facts and free enquiry.]

[Sidenote: Colet rests on the person of Christ and the ‘Apostles’ Creed.’]

Colet had seen in Italy which of these two alternatives those who came
within the influence of the new learning were inclined to take. But he had
seen or heard, too, in Italy, of a third alternative. He had found a
Christianity, not scholastic, not dogmatic, which did not seem to him to
have anything to fear from free enquiry, for it was itself one of those
facts which free enquiry had brought once more to light: the reproduction
of its ancient records in their original languages was itself one of the
results of the new learning. He had found in the New Testament a simple
record of the facts of the life of Christ, and a few apostolic letters to
the churches. It had brought him, not to an endless web of propositions
to the acceptance of which he must school his mind, but to a _person_ whom
to love, in whom to trust, and for whom to work. He would not rest even in
the teaching of his beloved St. Paul. He had been taught by the Apostle to
look up from him to the ‘wonderful majesty of Christ;’[197] and loyalty to
Christ had become the ruling passion of his life.[198]

Having rejected the _summæ theologiæ_ of the Schoolmen, even before his
faith had been shaken, by Grocyn’s discovery, in Dionysian speculations,
his disappointment also in the latter would seem to have driven him back
upon the Scriptures, upon the writings of St. Paul, above all upon Christ
himself; until at last he had seemed to find in the simple facts of the
Apostles’ Creed the true sum of Christian theology. Having entrenched his
faith behind its simple bulwarks, he could look calmly out upon the world
of philosophy and nature, with a mind free to accept truth wherever he
might find it, without anxiety as to what the revival of ancient learning,
or the discoveries of new-born science, might reveal, anxious chiefly to
find out his own life’s work and duty, and right heartily to do it.

[Sidenote: Colet’s advice to theological students to keep to the Bible and
the Apostles’ Creed.]

And having escaped the trammels of scholastic theology himself, he could
urge others also to do the same. When, therefore, young theological
students came to him in despair, on the point of throwing up theological
study altogether, because of the vexed questions in which they found it
involved, and dreading lest in these days, when everything was called in
question, they might be found unorthodox, he was wont, it seems, to tell
them ‘to keep firmly to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed, and let
divines, if they like, dispute about the rest.’[199]

But Erasmus as yet had far from attained the same standpoint.

[Sidenote: Erasmus came to England disgusted with theology.]

He was himself in the very position above described. His experience in the
Scotist college in Paris had not been lost upon him. It was not only that
its filthy chambers and diet of rotten eggs[200] had ruined his
constitution for life. He had contracted within its walls a disgust of all
theological study. He describes himself as, previously to his visit to
England, ‘abhorring the study of theology;’ and gives, as his double
reason for it, the fear lest he might run foul of settled opinions; and
lest, if he did so, he should be branded with the name of ‘heretic.’[201]

[Sidenote: Erasmus still a Schoolman.]

Disgusted, however, as he was with theology, all his theological training
had hitherto been scholastic in its character, and, apart from his
disgust of theology in general, he does not seem as yet to have contracted
any special disgust of scholastic theology in particular. He was still too
much enamoured of the logic of the Schoolmen, and too often was found to
take the Schoolmen’s side in his discussions with his friend.

[Sidenote: Erasmus praises Aquinas.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s reply.]

Colet and Erasmus[202] had been conversing one day upon the character of
the Schoolmen. Colet had expressed his sweeping disapprobation of the
whole class. Erasmus, whose knowledge of their works was, as he afterwards
acknowledged, by no means deep, at length ventured, in renewing the
conversation at another time, to except Thomas Aquinas from the common
herd, as worthy of praise, alleging in his favour that he seemed to have
studied both the Scriptures and ancient literature--which doubtless he
had. Colet made no reply. And when Erasmus pursued the subject still
further, Colet again passed it off, feigning inattention. But when
Erasmus, in the course of further conversation, again expressed the same
opinion in favour of Aquinas, and spoke more strongly even than before,
Colet turned his full eye upon him in order to learn whether he really
were speaking in earnest; and concluding that it was so--‘What,’ he said
passionately, ‘do you extol to me such a man as Aquinas? If he had not
been very arrogant indeed, he would not surely so rashly and proudly have
taken upon himself to define _all_ things. And unless his spirit had been
somewhat worldly, he would not surely have corrupted the whole teaching of
Christ by mixing with it his profane philosophy.’[203]

Erasmus was taken aback, as he had been at the discussion at the public
table. He had again been arguing without sufficient knowledge to justify
his having any strong opinion at all. Which side he took on the question
at issue was a matter almost of indifference to him. But he saw plainly
that it was not so with Colet. His first allusion to Aquinas, Colet had
resolutely shunned. When compelled to speak his opinion, his soul was
moved to its depths, and had burst forth into this passionate reply. There
must be something real and earnest at the bottom of Colet’s dislike for
Aquinas, else he could not have spoken thus.

So Erasmus betakes himself to the more careful study of the great
schoolman’s writings.

[Sidenote: Erasmus studies Aquinas.]

One may picture him taking down from the shelf the ‘Summa Theologiæ,’ and,
as the first step toward the exploration of its contents, turning to the
prologue. He reads:--

[Sidenote: The ‘Summa.’]

‘Seeing that the teacher of catholic truth should instruct not only those
advanced in knowledge, but that it is a part of his duty to teach
_beginners_ (according to the words of the Apostle to the Corinthians,
“even as unto babes in Christ, I have fed you with milk and not with
strong meat”), it is our purpose in this book to treat of those things
which pertain to the Christian religion in a manner adapted to the
instruction of beginners.

‘For we have considered that novices in this learning have been very much
hindered in [the study of] works written by others; partly, indeed, on
account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles and
arguments, and partly [for other reasons]. To avoid these and other
difficulties we shall endeavour, relying on Divine assistance, to treat of
those things which belong to sacred learning, so far as the subject will
admit, with _brevity_ and clearness.’

[Sidenote: Scholastic ‘milk for babes.’]

What could be better or truer than this? Erasmus might almost have fancied
that Colet himself had written these words, so fully do they seem to fall
in with his views. But turning from the prologue, nothing surely could
open the eyes of Erasmus more thoroughly to the real nature of scholastic
theology than a further glance at the body of the treatise. For what was
he to think of a system of theology a ‘_brief_’ compendium of which
covered no fewer than 1150 folio pages, each containing 2000 words! And
what was he to think of the wisdom of that Christian doctor who prescribed
this ‘Summa’ as ‘_milk_’ specially adapted for the sustenance of
theological ‘_babes_’! To be told first to digest forty-three propositions
concerning the nature of God, each of which embraced several distinct
articles separately discussed and concluded in the eighty-three folios
devoted to this branch of the subject; then fifteen similar propositions
regarding the nature of _angels_, embracing articles such as these:--

    Whether an angel can be in more than one place at one and the same
    time?

    Whether more angels than one can be in one and the same place at the
    same time?

    Whether angels have local motion?

    And whether, if they have, they pass through intermediate space?[204]

--then ten propositions regarding _the Creation_, consisting of an
elaborate attempt to bring into harmony the work of the six days recorded
in Genesis with mediæval notions of astronomy; then forty-five
propositions respecting the nature of _man_ before and after the Fall, the
physical condition of the human body in Paradise, the mode by which it was
preserved immortal by eating of the tree of life, the place where man was
created before he was placed in Paradise, &c.; and then, having mastered
the above subtle propositions, stated ‘briefly and clearly’ in 216 of the
aforesaid folio pages, to be told for his consolation and encouragement
that he had now mastered _not quite one-fifth_ part of this ‘first book’
for beginners in theological study, and that these propositions, and more
than five times as many, were to be regarded by him as the settled
doctrine of the Catholic Church!--what student could fail either to be
crushed under the dead weight of such a creed, or to rise up, and, like
Samson, bursting its green withes, discard and disown it altogether?

[Sidenote: Erasmus goes over to Colet’s view.]

No marvel that Erasmus was obliged to confess that, in the process of
further study of the works of Aquinas, his former high opinion had been
modified.[205] He could understand now how it was that Colet could hardly
control his indignation at the thought, how the simple facts of
Christianity had been corrupted by the admixture of the subtle philosophy
of this ‘best of the Schoolmen.’

And yet we may well be free to own that Colet’s not unnatural hatred of
the scholastic philosophy had blinded him in some degree to the personal
merits of the early Schoolmen. Deeper knowledge of the history of their
times, and study of the personal character at least of some of them, might
have enabled him not only to temper his hatred, but even to recognise that
they occupied in their day a standpoint not widely different altogether
even from his own.

[Sidenote: The merit of the early Schoolmen.]

For as earnestly as Colet himself was now seeking to bring the
Christianity and advanced thought of _his_ age into harmony, the early
Schoolmen had tried to do the same thing in _theirs_. The misfortune of
the Schoolmen was, that they had inherited from St. Augustine, and the
Pseudo-Dionysius, the vicious tendency to fill up blanks in theology by
indulging in hypotheses, capable of receiving the sanction of
ecclesiastical authority, and then to be treated as established, although
altogether unverified by facts. They had also to harmonise the dogmatic
theology so manufactured with a scientific system as dogmatic as itself.
For while theologians had been indulging in hypotheses respecting
‘original sin,’ ‘absolute predestination,’ and ‘irresistible grace,’
natural philosophers had been indulging in similar hypotheses respecting
the ‘crystalline spheres,’ ‘epicycloids,’ and ‘_primum mobile_.’[206] And
seeing that the method by which the Schoolmen attempted to fuse these
_two_ dogmatic systems into _one_, itself consisted of a still further
indulgence in the same vicious mode of procedure, it was but natural that
their attempt as a whole, however well meant, should leave ‘confusion
worse confounded.’

[Sidenote: The demerits of their successors.]

Still it must not be forgotten that they did succeed by this vicious
process in reconciling theology and science to the satisfaction of their
own dogmatic age. This praise is, at least, their due. On the other hand,
their successors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries could not put
forward any such claims for themselves. _They_ did not succeed in
harmonising the theology and the advanced thought of _their_ age. They
strained every nerve to keep them hopelessly apart. They blindly held on
to a worn-out system inherited from their far worthier predecessors, and
spent their strength in denouncing, in no measured terms, the scientific
spirit and inductive method of the ‘new learning.’

Hence there can be little doubt that Colet’s hatred of what in his day was
in truth a huge and bewildering mass of dreary and lifeless subtlety, was
a just and righteous hatred. And though it took some time for Erasmus
thoroughly to accept it, he could in after years, when Colet was no more,
endorse, from the bottom of his heart, Colet’s advice to young theological
students: ‘_Keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed; and let divines, if
they like, dispute about the rest_.’


IV. ERASMUS FALLS IN LOVE WITH THOMAS MORE (1498).

Amongst the broken gleams of light which fall, here and there only, upon
the Oxford intercourse of Erasmus with Colet, there are one or two which
reveal an already existing friendship with Thomas More, but unfortunately
without disclosing how it had begun.

[Sidenote: Introduction of More to Erasmus.]

Erasmus, when passing through London on his way to Oxford, had probably
been introduced by Lord Mountjoy to his brilliant young friend. It is even
possible that there may be a foundation of fact in the story that they had
met for the first time, unknown to each other, at the lord mayor’s table,
or, as is more likely still, at the table of the _ex_-lord mayor, Sir
Henry Colet. Erasmus, having perhaps been told Colet’s saying, that there
was but one genius in England, and that his name was Thomas More, may have
been set opposite to him at table without knowing who he was. More in his
turn may have been told of the logical subtlety of the great scholar newly
arrived from the Scotist college in Paris, without having been personally
introduced to him. If this were so, the rest of the story may easily be
true. They are said to have got into argument during dinner, Erasmus, in
Scotist fashion, ‘defending the worser part,’ till finding in his young
opponent ‘a readier wit than ever he had before met withal,’ he broke
forth into the exclamation, ‘_Aut tu es Morus aut nullus_;’ to which the
ready tongue of More retorted--so runs the story, ‘_Aut tu es Erasmus aut
Diabolus_.’[207] Whether at the lord mayor’s table, or elsewhere, they
_had_ become acquainted, and a correspondence had grown up between them,
one letter of which, like a solitary waif, has been left stranded on the
shore of the gulf which has swallowed the rest. It reads thus:--

    _Erasmus Thomæ Moro suo, S.D._

    ‘I scarcely can get any letters, wherefore I have showered down curses
    on the head of this letter-carrier, by whose laziness or treachery I
    fancy it must be that I have been disappointed of the most eagerly
    expected letters of my dear More (Mori mei). For that you have failed
    on your part I neither want nor ought to suspect. Albeit, I
    expostulated with you most vehemently in my last letter. Nor am I
    afraid that you are at all offended by the liberty I took, for you are
    not ignorant of that Spartan method of fighting “usque ad cutem.”
    This, joking aside, I do entreat you, sweetest Thomas, that you will
    make amends with interest for the suffering occasioned me by the too
    long continued deprivation of yourself and your letters. I expect, in
    short, not a letter, but a huge bundle of letters, which would weigh
    down even an Egyptian porter,’

           *       *       *       *       *

    ‘Vale jucundissime More.[208]

    ‘Oxoniæ: Natali Simonis et Judæ. 1499.’

[Sidenote: Friendship between More and Erasmus.]

Such being the friendship already existing between them, and beginning to
show itself in the use of those endearing superlatives without which
Erasmus, from the first to the last, never could write a letter to More,
it is not surprising that, as winter came on, Erasmus should take the
opportunity afforded by the approaching vacation for a visit to London.
Accordingly we get one chance glimpse of him there, writing a letter to
one of his friends, and expressing his delight with everything he had met
with in England.

Staying as he most likely was with Mountjoy or with More, enjoying the
warmth of their friendship, and feeling himself at home in London as he
had done in Oxford, but never had done before anywhere else, it was
natural that the foreign scholar should paint, in the warmest colours,
this land of friends. Especially of Mountjoy, who had brought him to
England, and who found him the means of living at Oxford, he would
naturally speak in the highest terms. Such was the politeness, the
goodnature, and affectionateness of his noble patron, that he would
willingly follow him, he said, _ad inferos_, if need be.

[Sidenote: Erasmus delighted with England, and with Mountjoy, Colet,
Grocyn, Linacre, and More.]

Nor was it only the warm-heartedness of his English friends which filled
him with delight. His purpose in coming to Oxford he declared to be fully
answered. He had come to England because he could not raise the means for
a longer journey to Italy. To prosecute his studies in Italy had been for
years an object of anxious yearning; but now, after a few months’
experience of Oxford life, he wrote to his friend, who was himself going
to Italy, ‘that he had found in England so much polish and learning--not
showy, shallow learning, but profound and exact, both in Latin and
Greek--that now he would hardly care much about going to Italy at all,
except for the sake of having been there.’ ‘When,’ he added, ‘I listen to
my friend Colet it seems to me like listening to Plato himself. In Grocyn,
who does not admire the wide range of his knowledge? What could be more
searching, deep, and refined than the judgment of Linacre?’ And after this
mention of Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, he adds: ‘Whenever did nature mould
a character more gentle, endearing, and happy than Thomas More’s?’[209]

[Sidenote: Erasmus falls in love with More.]

So that while here, as elsewhere, Colet seems to take his place again as
the chief of the little band of English friends, we learn from this letter
that the picture would not have been complete without the figure of the
fascinating youth with whom Erasmus, like the rest of them, had fallen in
love.

The letter itself was written to Robert Fisher, from London ‘tumultuarie,’
5th December, in 1498 or 1499.


V. DISCUSSION BETWEEN ERASMUS AND COLET ON ‘THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN,’ AND
ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES (1499).

[Sidenote: Erasmus attributes the agony of Christ to fear of death.]

The greater part of 1499 was spent by Erasmus apparently at Oxford. On one
occasion Colet and Erasmus were spending an afternoon together.[210] Their
conversation fell upon the agony of Christ in the garden. They soon, as
usual, found that they did not agree. Erasmus, following the common
explanation of the Schoolmen, saw only in the agony suffered by the
Saviour that natural fear of a cruel death to which in his human nature he
submitted as one of the incidents of humanity. It seemed to him that in
His character as truly _man_, left for the moment unaided by His divinity,
the prospect of the anguish in store for Him might well wring from Him
that cry of fearful and trembling human nature, ‘Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me!’ while the further words, ‘not my
will but Thine be done,’ proved, he thought, that He had not only felt,
but conquered, this human fear and weakness. Erasmus further supported
this view by adducing the commonly received scholastic distinction between
what Christ felt as _man_ and what He felt as _God_, alleging that it was
only as _man_ that He thus suffered.

[Sidenote: Colet objects to this view.]

[Sidenote: Christ was thinking of the Jews, not of Himself.]

Colet dissented altogether from his friend’s opinion. It might be the
commonly received interpretation of recent divines, but in spite of that
he declared his own entire disapproval of it. Nothing could, he thought,
be more inconsistent with the exceeding love of Christ, than the
supposition that, when it came to the point, He shrank in dread from that
very death which He desired to die in His great love of men. It seemed
utterly absurd, he said, to suppose that while so many martyrs have gone
to torture and death patiently and even with joy--the sense of pain being
lost in the abundance of their love--Christ, who was love itself, who came
into the world for the very purpose of delivering guilty man by his own
innocent death, should have shrunk either from the ignominy or from the
bitterness of the cross. The sweat of great drops of blood, the exceeding
sorrow even unto death, the touching entreaty to His Father that the cup
might pass from Him--was all this to be attributed to the mere fear of
death? Colet had rather set it down to anything but that. For it lies in
the essence of love, he said, that it should cast out fear, turn sorrow
into joy, think nothing of itself, sacrifice everything for others. It
could not be that He who loved the human race more than anyone else should
be inconstant and fearful in the prospect of death. In confirmation of
this view he referred to St. Jerome, who alone of all the church fathers
had, he thought, shown true insight into the real cause of Christ’s agony
in the garden. St. Jerome had attributed the Saviour’s prayer, that the
cup might pass from Him, not to the fear of death but to the sense felt by
Him of the awful guilt of the Jews, who, by thus bringing about that death
which He desired to die for the salvation of _all mankind_, seemed to be
bringing down destruction and ruin on themselves--an anxiety and dread
bitter enough, in Colet’s view, to wring from the Saviour the prayer that
the cup might pass from Him, and the drops of bloody sweat in the garden,
seeing that it afterwards did wring from Him, whilst perfecting his
eternal sacrifice on the cross, that other prayer for the very ministers
of his torture, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’
Such was the view expressed by Colet in reply to Erasmus, and in
opposition to the view which he was aware was generally received by
scholastic divines.

Whilst they were in the heat of the discussion it happened that Prior
Charnock entered the room. Colet, with a delicacy of feeling which Erasmus
afterwards appreciated, at once broke off the argument, simply remarking,
as he took leave, that he did not doubt that were his friend, when alone,
to reconsider the matter with care and accuracy, their difference of
opinion would not last very long.

[Sidenote: Erasmus writes to Colet.]

When Erasmus found himself alone and at leisure in his chambers he at
once followed Colet’s advice. He reconsidered Colet’s argument and his
own. He consulted his books. By far the most of the authorities, both
Fathers and Schoolmen, he found beyond dispute to be on his own side. And
his reconsideration ended in his being the more convinced that he had
himself been right and Colet wrong. Naturally finding it hard to yield
when there was no occasion, and feeling sure that this time he had the
best of the argument, he eagerly seized his pen, and with some parade,
both of candour and learning, stated at great length what he thought might
be said on both sides. After having written what, in type, would fill
about fifty of these pages, he confidently wound up his long letter by
saying that, so far as he could see, he had demonstrated his own opinion
to be in accordance with that of the Schoolmen and most of the early
Fathers, and, whilst not contrary to nature, clearly consistent with
reason. But he knew, he said, to whom he was writing, and whether he had
convinced _Colet_ he could not tell. For, he wrote in conclusion, ‘how
rash it is in me, a mere tyro, to dare to encounter a commander--for one,
_whom you call a rhetorician_, to venture upon theological ground, to
enter an arena which is not mine! Still I have not shrunk from daring
everything even with _you_, who are so skilled in all elegant and ancient
lore, who have brought with you from Italy such stores of Greek and Latin,
and who, on this very account, are not as yet appreciated as you ought to
be by theologians. Wherefore, in discussing with you, I have chosen to use
the old and free way of arguing; not only because I prefer it myself, but
also because I knew your dislike to the modern and new-fangled method of
disputation, which, keen and ready as it may seem to some, is in your view
complicated, superstitious, spiritless, and plainly sophistical. And
perhaps you are right.... Yet I would have you take care lest you should
not be able to stand _alone_ against so many thousands. Let us not,
contented with the plain homespun sense of Origen, Ambrose, Jerome,
Augustine, Chrysostom, and others as ancient, grudge to these modern
disputants their more elaborated doctrines.

‘And now I await your attack. I await your mighty war-trumpet. I await
those “Coletian” arrows, surer even than the arrows of Hercules. In the
meantime I will array the forces of my mind; I will concentrate my ranks;
I will prepare my reserves of books, lest I should not be able to stand
your first charge.

‘As to the rest, the matters which you have propounded from the Epistles
of St. Paul, since they are such as it would be dangerous to dispute of, I
had rather enter into them by word of mouth when we are together than by
letter. _Vale!_’

The reply of Colet was short, and very characteristic of the man.

[Sidenote: Colet replies.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s love of truth.]

‘Your letter, most learned Erasmus, as it is very long, so also is it most
eloquent and happy. It is a proof of a tenacious memory, and gives a
faithful review of our discussion.... But it contains nothing to alter or
detract from the opinions which I imbibed from St. Jerome. Not that I am
perverse and obstinate with an uncandid pertinacity, but that (though I
may be mistaken) I think I hold and defend the truth, or what is most like
the truth.... I am unwilling, just now, to grapple with your letter as a
whole; for I have neither leisure nor strength to do so at once, and
without preparation. But I will attack the first part of it--your first
line of battle as it were.... In the meantime do you patiently hear me,
and let us both, if, when striking our flints together, any spark should
fly out, eagerly catch at it. For we seek, not for victory in argument,
but for _truth_, which perchance may be elicited by the clash of argument
with argument, as sparks are by the clashing of steel against steel!’[211]

[Sidenote: Erasmus had followed the theory of the ‘manifold senses’ of
Scripture.]

Erasmus, at the commencement of his long letter, feeling, perhaps, that
after all there might be some truth in Colet’s view not embraced in his
own, had fallen back upon the strange theory, already alluded to as held
by scholastic divines, that the words of the Scriptures, because of their
magic sacredness and absolute inspiration, might properly be interpreted
in several distinct senses. ‘Nothing’ (he had said) ‘forbids our drawing
various meanings out of the wonderful riches of the sacred text, so as to
render the same passage in more than one way. I know that, according to
Job, “the word of God is manifold.” I know that the manna did not taste
alike to all. But if you so embrace _your_ opinion that you condemn and
reject the received opinion, then I freely dissent from you.’

[Sidenote: Colet’s view.]

This was the first line of battle which Colet, in his letter, declared
that he would at once attack. It was a notion of Scripture interpretation
altogether foreign to his own. He yielded to none in his admiration of
the wonderful fulness and richness of the Scriptures. He had made it the
chief matter of his remark to the priest who had called on him during the
winter vacation of 1496-7, and had written to the Abbot of Winchcombe an
account of the priest’s visit in order to press the same point upon him.
But from the method adopted in his expositions of St. Paul’s Epistles, and
the first chapter of Genesis, it appears that he did not hold the theory
of uniform verbal inspiration, which ignored the human element in
Scripture, round which had grown this still stranger theory of the
manifold senses, and upon which alone it could be at all logically held.

It is true that, in his abstract of the Dionysian writings, he had, upon
Dionysian authority, accepted, in a modified form,[212] the doctrine of
the ‘four senses’ of Scripture; and in his letters to Radulphus, whilst
confining himself to the literal sense, he guarded himself against the
denial of the same theory. But he had never sanctioned the gross abuse of
the doctrine to which Erasmus had appealed, which asserted that even the
_literal_ sense of the same passage might be interpreted to mean different
things. It was one thing to hold that some passages must be allegorically
understood and not literally, and that other passages have both a literal
and an allegorical meaning (which Colet seems to have held), or even that
_all_ passages have both a literal and an allegorical meaning (which Colet
did not hold). It was quite another thing to hold that the words of the
same passage might, in their _literal_ sense, mean several different
things, and be used as _texts_ in support of statements not within the
direct intention of their human writer.

[Sidenote: Aquinas on the ‘manifold senses.’]

Thomas Aquinas, in his ‘Summa,’ had indeed laid down a proposition, which
practically amounted to this. For in discussing the doctrine of the ‘four
senses’ of Scripture, he had not only stated that the spiritual sense of
Scripture was threefold, viz. allegorical, moral, and anagogical, but also
that the _literal sense was manifold_. He had laid down the doctrine, that
‘Inasmuch as the literal sense is that which _the author intends_, and
_God_ is the author of Holy Scripture, who comprehends all things in His
mind at one and the same time, it is not inconsistent, as Augustine says
in his twelfth Confession, if even according to the literal sense in the
one letter of the Holy Scriptures there are many senses.’[213]

It may, however, well be doubted whether Aquinas would have sanctioned
altogether the absurd length to which this doctrine was carried by
scholastic disputants.

[Sidenote: Colet on the ‘manifold senses.’]

Whether Colet, since Grocyn’s discovery, had or had not altogether
repudiated the doctrine of ‘manifold senses,’ as one of the notions which
he had once held on Dionysian authority, but which the authority of the
_Pseudo_-Dionysius was not sufficient to establish, it is clear that in
his reply to Erasmus he utterly repudiated the abuse of it to which
Erasmus had appealed. ‘In the first place’ (he wrote), ‘I cannot agree
with you when you state, along with many others, and as I think
mistakenly, that the Holy Scriptures, at least _uno in aliquo genere_, are
so prolific that they give birth to many senses. Not that I would not have
them to be as prolific as possible--their overflowing fecundity and
fulness I, more than others, admire--but that I consider their fecundity
to consist in their giving birth not to many [senses], but to only one,
and that the most true one.’

[Sidenote: Colet’s views on ‘Inspiration.’]

After remarking that whilst the lower forms of life produce the most
numerous offspring, the highest forms of life tend towards _unity_ of
offspring, he argues that the Holy Spirit gives birth in the Scripture,
according to its own power, to one and the same simple truth. What if from
the simple, divine, and truth-speaking words of the Scriptures of the
Spirit of Truth, whether heard or read, many and various persons draw many
and varying senses? He set that down, he said, not to the fecundity of the
Scriptures, but to the sterility of men’s minds, and their incapacity of
getting at the pure and simple truth. If they could but reach _that_,
they would as completely agree as now they differ. He then remarked how
mysterious the inspiration of the Scriptures was; how the Spirit seemed to
him, by reason of its majesty, to have a peculiar method of its own,
singularly absolute and free, blowing where it lists, making prophets of
whom it will, yet so that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the
prophets. He repeated, in conclusion, that he admired the fulness of the
Scriptures, not because each word may be construed in several senses--that
would be want of fulness--but because _quot sententiæ totidem sunt verba,
et quot verba tot sententiæ_. Having said this, he was ready to descend
into the arena, and to join battle with Erasmus on the matter in dispute,
but he could not do so now; he was called away by other engagements, and
must end his letter for the present.[214]

The letters which followed in which Colet further pursued the subject of
the Agony in the Garden, have unfortunately been lost. But enough remains
to give, by a passing glimpse, some idea of the pleasant colloquies and
earnest converse, both by mouth and letter, in which the happy months of
college intercourse glided swiftly by.


VI. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE INTENTION OF ERASMUS
TO LEAVE OXFORD (1499-1500).

[Sidenote: Erasmus at Court.]

The winter vacation of 1499-1500 had apparently dispersed for a while the
circle of Oxford students. Erasmus having, it would seem, some friend at
Court, had joined the Royal party, probably spending Christmas at
Woodstock or some other hunting station. He was at first delighted with
Court manners and field sports, and in a letter,[215] written about this
time, he jocosely told a Parisian friend, that the Erasmus whom he once
had known was now a hunter, and his manners polished up into those of an
experienced courtier. He was greatly struck, he added, with the beauty and
grace of the English ladies, and urged him to let nothing less than the
gout hinder his coming to England.

[Sidenote: But soon tires of Court life.]

But while Court life might captivate at first, Erasmus had soon found out
that its glitter was not gold. As the wolf in the fable lost his relish
for the dainties and delicate fare of the house-dog when he saw the mark
of the collar on his neck, so when Erasmus had seen how little of freedom
and how much of bondage there was in the courtier’s life he had left it
with disgust; choosing rather to return to Oxford to share the more
congenial society of what students might be found there during these
vacation weeks, than to remain longer with ‘be-chained courtiers.’[216] He
was waiting only for time and tide to return to Paris. At present the
weather was too rough for so bad a sailor; and, owing to political
disquiet and danger, it was difficult to obtain the needful permission to
leave the realm.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Erasmus proposes to leave Oxford.]

[Sidenote: Colet urges him to remain at Oxford.]

The fear that Erasmus was so soon to leave Oxford was one which troubled
Colet’s vacation thoughts. To be left alone at Oxford again to fight his
way single-handed was by no means a cheering prospect. But his saddest
feeling was one not merely of sorrow at parting with his new friend--it
was a feeling of disappointment. He had hoped for more than he had found
in Erasmus. That he could have won over Erasmus all at once to his own
views and plans he had never dreamed. The scholar had his own bent of
mind, and of course his own plans. Such was his love of learning for its
own sake, that he was bent on constant and persevering study; and his stay
at Oxford he looked upon merely as one step in the ladder, valuable
chiefly because it led to the next. But Colet longed for fellowship. In
his friend he had sought, and in some measure found, fellow-feeling. But
feeling and action to him were too closely linked to make that all he
wanted. Fellow-feeling was to him but a half-hearted thing unless it
ripened into fellow work; and he had hoped for this in Erasmus. He had
purposely left Erasmus to find out his views and to discern his spirit by
degrees. He had not tried to force him in anywise. He had shown his wisdom
in this. But now that Erasmus talked of leaving Oxford, it was Colet’s
duty to speak out. He could not let him go without one last appeal. He
therefore wrote to him, telling him plainly of his disappointment. He
urged him to remain at Oxford. He urged him, once for all, to come out
boldly, as he himself had done, and to do his part in the great work of
restoring that old and true theology of Christ, so long obscured by the
subtle webs of the Schoolmen, in its pristine brightness and dignity. What
could he do more noble than this? There was plenty of room for both of
them. He himself was doing his best to expound the New Testament. Why
should not Erasmus take some book of the Old Testament, say Genesis or
Isaiah, and expound it, as he had done the Epistles of St. Paul? If he
could not make up his mind to do this at once, Colet urged that, as a
temporary alternative, he should lecture on some secular branch of study.
Anything was better than that he should leave Oxford altogether.[217]

Erasmus received this letter soon after his return from his short
experience of Court life. The tone of disappointment and almost reproof
pervading it Erasmus felt was undeserved on his part, yet it evidently
made a deep impression upon him. Looking back upon his intercourse with
Colet at Oxford, he must have seen how much it had done to change his
views, and felt how powerfully Colet’s influence had worked upon him. Yet
he knew how far his views were from being matured like Colet’s, and how
foolish it would be to begin publicly to teach before his own mind was
fully made up. He knew that Colet had brought him over very much to his
way of thinking, and he was ready to confess himself a disciple of
Colet’s; but he must digest what he had learned, and make it thoroughly
his own, before he could publicly teach it. Perhaps he might one day be
able to join Colet in his work at Oxford; but he thought, and probably
wisely, that the time had not yet come. This at least may be gathered from
his reply to Colet’s letter. With some abridgment and unimportant
omissions, it may be translated thus:--


    _Erasmus to Colet._[218]

    [Sidenote: Reply of Erasmus to Colet’s entreaties.]

    ... ‘In what you say of your dislike to the modern race of divines,
    who spend their lives in mere logical tricks and sophistical cavils,
    in very truth I entirely agree with you.

    [Sidenote: Agrees with Colet in disliking the Scholastic System.]

    ‘Not that, valuing as I do all branches of study, I condemn the
    studies of these men _as such_, but that when they are pursued for
    themselves alone, unseasoned by more ancient and elegant literature,
    they seem to me to be calculated to make men sciolists and
    contentious; whether they can make men wise I leave to others. For
    they exhaust the mental powers by a dry and biting subtlety, without
    infusing any vigour or spirit into the mind. And, worst of all,
    theology, the queen of all science--so richly adorned by ancient
    eloquence--they strip of all her beauty by their incongruous, mean,
    and disgusting style. What was once so clear, thanks to the genius of
    the old divines, they clog with some subtlety or other, thus involving
    everything in obscurity while they try to explain it. It is thus we
    see that theology, which was once most venerable and full of majesty,
    now almost dumb, poor, and in rags.

    ‘In the meantime we are allured by a never-satiated appetite for
    strife. One dispute gives rise to another, and with wonderful gravity
    we fight about straws. Then, lest we should seem to have added nothing
    to the discoveries of the old divines, we audaciously lay down certain
    positive rules according to which God has performed his mysteries,
    when sometimes it might be better for us to believe that a thing _was_
    done, leaving the question of _how_ it was done to the omnipotence of
    God. So, too, for the sake of showing our ingenuity, we sometimes
    discuss questions which pious ears can hardly bear to hear; as, for
    instance, when it is asked whether the Almighty could have taken upon
    Him the nature of the devil or of an ass.

    ‘Besides all this, in our times those men in general apply themselves
    to theology, the chief of all studies, who by reason of their
    obtuseness and lack of sense are hardly fit for any study at all. I
    say this not of learned and upright professors of theology, whom I
    highly respect and venerate, but of that sordid and haughty pack of
    divines who count all learning as worthless except their own.

    [Sidenote: He honours Colet and his work.]

    ‘Wherefore, my dear Colet, in having joined battle with this
    redoubtable race of men for the restoration, in its pristine
    brightness and dignity, of that old and true theology which they have
    obscured by their subtleties, you have in very truth engaged in a work
    in many ways of the highest honour--a work of devotion to the cause of
    theology, and of the greatest advantage to all students, and
    especially the students of this flourishing University of Oxford.
    Still, to speak the truth, it is a work of great difficulty, and one
    sure to excite ill-will. Your learning and energy will, however,
    conquer every difficulty, and your magnanimity will easily overlook
    ill-will. There are not a few, even among divines themselves, both
    able and willing to second your honest endeavours. There is no one,
    indeed, who would not give you a hand, since there is not even a
    doctor in this celebrated University who has not given attentive
    audience to your public readings on the Epistles of St. Paul, now of
    three years’ standing. And which is the most praiseworthy in this,
    _their_ modesty in not being ashamed to learn from a young man without
    doctor’s degree, or _your_ remarkable learning, eloquence, and
    integrity of life, which they have thought worthy of such honour?

    [Sidenote: Erasmus agrees with Colet but is not ready yet to join him
    in fellow-work.]

    ‘I do not wonder that _you_ should put your shoulder under so great, a
    burden, for you are able to bear it, but I do wonder greatly that you
    should call _me_, who am nothing of a man, into the fellowship of so
    glorious a work. For you exhort,--yes, you almost reproachfully urge
    me, that, by expounding either the ancient Moses[219] or the eloquent
    Isaiah, in the same way as you have expounded St. Paul, I should try,
    as you say, to kindle up the studies of this University, now chilled
    by these winter months. But I, who have learned to live in solitude,
    know well how imperfectly I am furnished for such a task; nor do I lay
    claim to sufficient learning to justify my undertaking it. Nor do I
    judge that I have strength of mind enough to enable me to sustain the
    ill-will of so many men stoutly maintaining their own ground. Matters
    of this kind require not a tyro, but a practised general. Nor can you
    rightly call me immodest in refusing to do what I should be far more
    immodest to attempt. You act, my dear Colet, in this matter as wisely
    as they who (as Plautus says) “demand water from a rock.” With what
    face can I teach what I myself have not learned? How shall I kindle
    the chilled warmth of others while I am altogether trembling and
    shivering myself?...

    ‘But you say you expected this of me, and now you complain that you
    were mistaken. You should rather blame yourself than me for this. For
    I have not deceived you. I have neither promised nor held out any
    prospect of any such thing. But you have deceived yourself in not
    believing me when I told you truly what I meant to do.

    [Sidenote: Erasmus is returning to Paris.]

    ‘Nor indeed did I come here to teach poetry and rhetoric, for these
    ceased to be pleasant to me when they ceased to be necessary. I refuse
    the one task because it does not come up to my purpose, the other
    because it is beyond my strength. You unjustly blame me in the one
    case, my dear Colet, because I never intended to follow the profession
    of what are called secular studies. As to the other, you exhort me in
    vain, as I know myself to be too unfit for it. But even though I were
    most fit, still it must not be. For soon I must return to Paris.

    ‘In the meantime, whilst I am detained here, partly by the winter, and
    partly because departure from England is forbidden, owing to the
    flight of some duke,[220] I have betaken myself to this famous
    University that I might rather spend two or three months with men of
    your class than with those be-chained courtiers.

    [Sidenote: But some day will join Colet in fellow-work.]

    ‘Be it, indeed, far from me to oppose your glorious and sacred
    labours. On the contrary, I will promise (since not fitted as yet to
    be a coadjutor) sedulously to encourage and further them. For the
    rest, whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and strength
    I will join you, and, by your side, and in theological teaching, I
    will zealously engage, if not in successful at least in earnest
    labour. In the meantime, nothing could be more delightful to me than
    that we should go on as we have begun, whether daily by word of mouth,
    or by letter, discussing the meaning of Holy Scripture.

    ‘Vale, mi Colete.

    ‘Oxford: at the College of the Canons of the Order of St. Augustine,
    commonly called the College of St. Mary.’[221]


VII. ERASMUS LEAVES OXFORD AND ENGLAND (1500).

Erasmus took leave of Colet, and left Oxford early in January, 1500.

[Sidenote: Erasmus at Lord Mountjoy’s.]

He proceeded to Greenwich, to the country seat of Lord and Lady Mountjoy;
for his patron had, apparently, since his arrival in England, married a
wife.[222]

While he was resting under this hospitable roof, Thomas More came down to
pay him a farewell visit. He brought with him another young lawyer named
Arnold--the son of Arnold the merchant, a man well known in London, and
living in one of the houses built upon the arches of London Bridge.[223]

[Sidenote: More and Erasmus visit the Royal Nursery.]

More, whose love of fun never slept, persuaded Erasmus, by way of
something to do, to take a walk with himself and his friend to a
neighbouring village.

He took them to call at a house of rather imposing appearance. As they
entered the hall, Erasmus was struck with the style of it; it rivalled
even that of the mansion of his noble patron. It was in fact the Royal
Nursery, where all the children of Henry VII., except Arthur the Prince of
Wales, were living under the care of their tutor. In the middle of the
group was Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), then a boy of nine years
old. To his right stood the Princess Margaret, who afterwards was married
to the King of Scotland. On the left was the Princess Maria, a mere child
at play. The nurse held in her arms the Prince Edmund, a baby about ten
months old.[224]

[Sidenote: They see the Prince Henry.]

[Sidenote: Erasmus writes verses upon England.]

More and Arnold at once accosted Prince Henry, and presented him with some
verses, or other literary offering. Erasmus, having brought nothing of
the kind with him, felt awkward, and could only promise to prove his
courtesy to the Prince in the same way on some future occasion. They were
invited to sit down to table, and during the meal the Prince sent a note
to Erasmus to remind him of his promise. The result was that More received
a merited scolding from Erasmus, for having led him blindfold into the
trap; and Erasmus, after parting with More, had to devote three of the few
remaining days of his stay in England to the composition of Latin verses
in honour of England, Henry VII., and the Royal children.[225] He was in
good humour with England. He had been treated with a kindness which he
never could forget; and he was leaving England with a purse full of golden
crowns, generously provided by his English friends to defray the expenses
of his long-wished-for visit to Italy. Under these circumstances it was
not surprising if his verses should be laudatory.[226]

[Sidenote: Leaves for Dover.]

By the 27th January,[227] he was off to Dover, to catch the boat for
Boulogne.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: The three friends are scattered.]

So the three friends were scattered. Each had evidently a separate path of
his own. Their natures and natural gifts were, indeed, singularly
different. They had been brought into contact for one short year, as it
were by chance, and now again their spheres of life seemed likely to lie
wide apart.

How could it be otherwise? Even Colet, who had longed that his friendship
for Erasmus might ripen into the fellowship of fellow-work, could not hope
against hope. The chances that his dream might yet be realised, seemed
slight indeed. ‘Whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and
strength, I will join you!’ So Erasmus had promised. But Colet might well
doubtfully ask himself--‘When will that be?’




CHAPTER IV.


I. COLET MADE DOCTOR AND DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S (1500-5.)

Colet, left alone to pursue the even tenor of his way at Oxford, worked
steadily at his post. It mattered little to him that for years he toiled
on without any official recognition on the part of the University
authorities of the value of his work. What if a Doctor’s degree had never
during these years been conferred upon him? The want of it had never
stopped his teaching. Its possession would have been to him no triumph.

[Sidenote: Colet’s work at Oxford.]

That young theological students were beginning more and more to study the
Scriptures instead of the Schoolmen--for this he cared far more. For this
he was casting his bread upon the waters, in full faith that, whether he
might live to see it or not, it would return after many days. And in
truth--known or unknown to Colet--young Tyndale, and such as he, yet in
their teens, were already poring over the Scriptures at Oxford.[228] The
leaven, silently but surely, was leavening the surrounding mass. But
Colet probably did not see much of the secret results of his work. That it
was his duty to do it was reason enough for his doing it; that it bore at
least some visible fruit was sufficient encouragement to work on with good
heart.

So the years went by; and as often as each term came round, Colet was
ready with his gratuitous course of lectures on one or another of St.
Paul’s Epistles.[229]

[Sidenote: Colet made Doctor and Dean of St. Paul’s.]

It happened that, in 1504, Robert Sherborn, Dean of St. Paul’s, was
nominated, being then in Rome on an embassy, to the vacant see of St.
David’s. It was probably at the same time[230] that Colet was called to
discharge the duties of the vacant deanery, though, as Sherborn was not
formally installed in his bishopric till April 1505, Colet did not receive
the temporalities of his deanery till May in the same year.[231]

Colet is said to have owed this advancement to the patronage of King Henry
VII. The title of Doctor was at length conferred upon him, preparatory to
his acceptance of this preferment, and it would appear as an honorary mark
of distinction.[232]

[Sidenote: Colet’s work in London.]

It was to the work, writes Erasmus, and not to the dignity of the deanery,
that Colet was called. To restore the relaxed discipline of the
College--to preach sermons from Scripture in St. Paul’s Cathedral as he
had done at Oxford--to secure permanently that such sermons should be
regularly preached--this was his first work.[233]

By his remove from Oxford to St. Paul’s the field of his influence was
changed, and in some respects greatly widened. His work now told directly
upon the people at large. The chief citizens of London, and even stray
courtiers, now and then, heard the plain facts of Christian truth, instead
of the subtleties of the Schoolmen, earnestly preached from the pulpit of
St. Paul’s by the son of an ex-lord mayor of London. The citizens found
too, in the new Dean, a man whose manner of life bore out the lessons of
his pulpit.

[Sidenote: The habits of the new Dean.]

He retained as Dean of St. Paul’s the same simplicity of character and
earnest devotion to his work for which he had been so conspicuous at
Oxford. As he had not sought ecclesiastical preferment, so he was not
puffed up by it. Instead of assuming the purple vestments which were
customary, he still wore his plain black robe. The same simple woollen
garment served him all the year round, save that in winter he had it lined
with fur. The revenues of his deanery were sufficient to defray his
ordinary household expenses, and left him his private income free. He gave
it away, instead of spending it upon himself.[234] The rich living of
Stepney, which, in conformity with the custom of the times, he might well
have retained along with his other preferment, he resigned at once into
other hands on his removal to St. Paul’s.[235]

It would seem too that he shone by contrast with his predecessor, whose
lavish good cheer had been such as to fill his table with jovial guests,
and sometimes to pass the bounds of moderation.[236]

[Sidenote: The Dean’s table.]

There was no chance of this with Colet. His own habits were severely
frugal. For years he abstained from suppers, and there were no nightly
revels in his house. His table was neatly spread, but neither costly nor
excessive. After grace, he would have a chapter read from one of St.
Paul’s Epistles or the Proverbs of Solomon, and then contrive to engage
his guests in serious table-talk, drawing out the unlearned, as well as
the learned, and changing the topics of conversation with great tact and
skill. Thus, when the citizens dined at his table, they soon found, as his
Oxford friends had found at _their_ public dinners, that, without being
tedious or overbearing, somehow or other he contrived so to exert his
influence as to send his guests away better than they came.[237]

[Sidenote: Inner circle of intimate friends.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s personal loyalty to Christ.]

Moreover, Colet soon gathered around him here in London, as he had done at
Oxford, an inner circle of personal friends.[238] These were wont often to
meet at his table and to talk on late into the night, conversing sometimes
upon literary topics, and sometimes speaking together of that invisible
Prince whom Colet was as loyally serving now in the midst of honour and
preferment as he had done in an humbler sphere.[239] Colet’s loyalty to
_Him_ seemed indeed to have been deepened rather than diminished by
contact with the outer world. The place which St. Paul’s character and
writings had once occupied in his thoughts and teaching, was now filled by
the character and words of St. Paul’s Master and his.[240] He never
travelled, says Erasmus, without reading some book or conversing of
Christ.[241] He had arranged the sayings of Christ in groups, to assist
the memory, and with the intention of writing a book on them.[242] His
sermons, too, in St. Paul’s Cathedral bore witness to the engrossing
object of his thoughts. It was now no longer St. Paul’s Epistles but the
‘Gospel History,’ the ‘Apostles’ Creed,’ the ‘Lord’s Prayer,’[243] which
the Dean was expounding to the people. And highly as he had held, and
still held, in honour the apostolic writings, yet, as already mentioned,
they seemed to him to shrink, as it were, into nothing, compared with the
wonderful majesty of Christ himself.

[Sidenote: Colet’s sermons at St. Paul’s.]

The same method of teaching which he had applied at Oxford to the writings
of St. Paul he now applied in his cathedral sermons in treating of these
still higher subjects. For he did not, we are told, take an isolated text
and preach a detached discourse upon it, but went continuously through
whatever he was expounding from beginning to end in a course of
sermons.[244] Thus these cathedral discourses of Colet’s were continuous
expositions of the facts of the Saviour’s life and teaching, as recorded
by the Evangelists, or embodied in that simple creed which in Colet’s view
contained the sum of Christian theology. And thus was he practically
illustrating, by his own public example in these sermons, his advice to
theological students, to ‘keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed,
letting divines, if they like, dispute about the rest.’


II. MORE CALLED TO THE BAR--IN PARLIAMENT--OFFENDS HENRY VII.--THE
CONSEQUENCES (1500-1504).

After the departure of Erasmus, More worked on diligently at his legal
studies at Lincoln’s Inn. A few more terms and he received the reward of
his industry in his call to the bar.

[Sidenote: More’s legal studies.]

During the years devoted to his legal curriculum, he had been wholly
absorbed in his law books.

[Sidenote: Grocyn, Linacre, and More all in London.]

[Sidenote: More lectures on the ‘De Civitate Dei.’]

Closely watched by his father, and purposely kept with a stinted
allowance, as at Oxford, so that ‘his whole mind might, be set on his
book,’ the law student had found little time or opportunity for other
studies. But being now duly called to the bar, and thus freed from the
restraints of student life, his mind naturally reverted to old channels of
thought. Grocyn and Linacre in the meantime had left Oxford and become
near neighbours of his in London. Thus the old Oxford circle partially
formed itself again, and with the renewal of old intimacies returned, if
ever lost, the love of old studies. For no sooner was More called to the
bar than he commenced his maiden lectures in the church of St.
Lawrence,[245] in the Old Jewry, and chose for a subject the great work of
St. Augustine, ‘De Civitate Dei.’

His object, we are told, in these lectures was not to expound the
theological creed of the Bishop of Hippo, but the philosophical and
historical[246] arguments contained in those first few books in which
Augustine had so forcibly traced the connection between the history of
Rome and the character and religion of the Romans, attributing the former
glory of the great Roman Commonwealth to the valour and virtue of the old
Romans; tracing the recent ruin of the empire, ending in the sack of Rome
by Alaric, to the effeminacy and profligacy of the modern Romans;
defending Christianity from the charge of having undermined the empire,
and pointing out that if it had been universally adopted by rulers and
people, and carried out into practice in their lives, the old Pagan empire
might have become a truly Christian empire and been saved,--those books
which, starting from the facts of the recent sack of Rome, landed the
reader at last in a discussion of the philosophy of free-will and fate.

Roper tells us that the young lawyer’s readings were well received, being
attended not only by Grocyn, his old Greek master, but also by ‘all the
chief learned of the city of London.’[247]

[Sidenote: More a reader at Furnival’s Inn.]

More was indeed rising rapidly in public notice and confidence. He was
appointed a reader at Furnival’s Inn about this time, and when a
Parliament was called in the spring of 1503-4, though only twenty-five,
he was elected a member of it.

[Sidenote: More in Parliament.]

Sent up thus to enter public life in a Parliament of which the notorious
Dudley was the speaker,[248] the last and probably the most subservient
Parliament of a king who now in his latter days was becoming more and more
avaricious, the mettle of the young member was soon put to the test, and
bore it bravely.

[Sidenote: Demands of the King.]

[Sidenote: More opposes the King’s demands;]

At the last Parliament of 1496-7,[249] the King, in prospect of a war with
Scotland, had exacted from the Commons a subsidy of two-fifteenths, and,
finding they had submitted to this so easily, had, even before the close
of the session, pressed for and obtained the omission of the customary
clauses in the bill, releasing about 12,000_l._ of the gross amount in
relief of decayed towns and cities.[250] Now all was peace. The war with
Scotland had ended in the marriage of the Princess Margaret, whom More had
seen in the royal nursery a few years before, to the King of Scots. But by
feudal right the King, with consent of Parliament,[251] could claim a
‘reasonable aid’ in respect of this marriage of the Princess Royal, in
addition to another for the knighting of Prince Arthur, who, however, in
the meantime, had died. This Parliament of 1503-4 was doubtless called
chiefly to obtain these ‘reasonable aids.’ But with Dudley as speaker the
King meant to get more than his strictly feudal rights. Instead of the two
‘aids,’ he put in a claim (so Roper was informed[252]) for
three-fifteenths! i.e. for half as much again as he had asked for to
defray the cost of the Scottish war. And Dudley’s flock of sheep were
going to pass this bill in silence! Already it had passed two readings,
when ‘at the last debating thereof,’ More, probably the youngest member of
the House, rose from his seat ‘and made such arguments and reasons there
against,’ that the King’s demands (says Roper) ‘were thereby clean
overthrown.’ ‘So that’ (he continues) ‘one of the King’s Privy Chamber,
named Maister Tyler,[253] being present thereat, brought word to the King,
out of the Parliament House, that a beardless boy had disappointed all his
purpose.’

[Sidenote: and successfully.]

Instead of three-fifteenths, which would have realised 113,000_l._[254] or
more, the Parliament Rolls bear witness that the King, with royal clemency
and grace, had to accept a paltry 30,000_l._, being less than a third of
what he had asked for![255]

[Sidenote: Henry VII. offended with More.]

No wonder that, soon after, the King devised a quarrel with More’s father
(who, by the way, was one of the commissioners for the collection of the
subsidy),[256] threw him into the Tower, and kept him there till he had
paid a fine of 100_l._ No wonder that young More himself was compelled at
once to retire from public life, and hide himself from royal displeasure
in obscurity.[257]


III. THOMAS MORE IN SECLUSION FROM PUBLIC LIFE (1504-5).

[Sidenote: More and Lilly think of becoming monks or priests.]

Compelled to seek safety in seclusion, More shut himself up in his
lodgings near the Charterhouse with William Lilly, another old Oxford
student, a contemporary of Colet’s, if not of More’s, at Oxford, who
having spent some years travelling in the East, had recently returned home
fresh from Italy. More seems to have shared with him the intention of
becoming a monk or a priest.[258]

It was possibly not the first time his thoughts had turned in this
direction; but he had hitherto gone cautiously to work, taking no vow,
determined to feel his way, and not to rush blindly into what he might
afterwards repent of.

[Sidenote: More thinks of entering the Charterhouse.]

He had now taken to wearing an ‘inner sharp shirt of hair,’ and to
sleeping on the bare boards of his chamber, with a log under his head for
a pillow, and was otherwise schooling, by his powerful will, his quick and
buoyant nature into accordance with the strict rules of the Carthusian
brotherhood.[259]

[Sidenote: Escapes a royal trap laid for him.]

It was a critical moment in his life. Soon after his father had been
imprisoned and fined, having some business with Fox, Bishop of Winchester,
that great courtier called him aside, pretending to be his friend, and
promised that if he would be ruled by him, he would not fail to restore
him into the King’s favour. But Fox was only setting a trap for him, from
which he was saved by a friendly hint from Whitford,[260] the bishop’s
chaplain. This man told More that his master would not stick to agree to
his own father’s death to serve the King’s turn, and advised him to keep
quite aloof from the King. This hint was not reassuring, but it may have
saved More’s life.

What would have happened to him had he been left alone with misadvising
friends to give hasty vent to the disappointment which thus had crushed
his hopes at the very outset of his career--whether the cloister would
have received him as it did his friend Whitford afterwards, to be another
‘_wretch of Sion_,’ none can tell.

[Sidenote: When Colet comes to London, More chooses him as his spiritual
guide.]

Happily for him it was at this critical moment that Colet came up to
London to assume his new duties at St. Paul’s. More was a diligent
listener to his sermons, and chose him as his father confessor. Stapleton
has preserved a letter from More to Colet,[261] which throws much light
upon the relation between them. It was written in October, 1504, whilst
Colet, after preaching during the summer, was apparently spending his long
vacation in the country. It shows that, under Colet’s advice, More was not
altogether living the life of a recluse.

[Sidenote: More’s letter to Colet.]

[Sidenote: More alludes to Colet’s preaching at St. Paul’s.]

Colet had for some time been absent from his pulpit at St. Paul’s. As More
was one day walking up and down Westminster Hall, waiting while other
people’s suits were being tried, he chanced to meet Colet’s servant.
Learning from him that his master had not yet returned to town, More wrote
to Colet this letter, to tell him how much he missed his wonted delightful
intercourse with him. He told him how he had ever prized his most wise
counsel; how by his most delightful fellowship he had been refreshed; how
by his weighty sermons he had been roused, and by his example helped on
his way. He reminded him how fully he relied upon his guidance--how he had
been wont to hang upon his very beck and nod. Under his protection he had
felt himself gaining strength, now without it he was flagging and undone.
He acknowledged that, by following Colet’s leading, he had escaped almost
from the very jaws of hell; but now, amid all the temptations of city life
and the noisy wrangling of the law courts, he felt himself losing ground
without his help. No doubt the country might be much more pleasant to
Colet than the city, but the city, with all its vice, and follies, and
temptations, had far more need of his skill than simple country folk!
‘There sometimes come, indeed,’ he added, ‘into the pulpit at St. Paul’s,
men who promise to heal the diseases of the people. But, though they seem
to have preached plausibly enough, their lives so jar with their words
that they stir up men’s wounds, rather than heal them.’ But, he said, his
fellow-citizens had confidence in Colet, and all longed for his return. He
urged him, therefore, to return speedily, for their sake and for his,
reminding Colet again that he had submitted himself in all things to his
guidance. ‘Meanwhile,’ he concluded, ‘I shall spend my time with Grocyn,
Linacre, and Lilly; the first, as you know, is the director of my life in
your absence; the second, the master of my studies; the third, my most
dear companion. Farewell, and, as you do, ever love me.’

‘London: 10 Calend. Novembris’ [1504].[262]

[Sidenote: More buries himself in his studies with Lilly.]

Surrounded as he was by Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, More soon began to
devote his leisure to his old studies. Lilly, too, had returned home well
versed in Greek. He had spent some years in the island of Rhodes, to
perfect his knowledge of it.[263] Naturally enough, therefore, the two
friends busied themselves in jointly translating Greek epigrams;[264] and
as, with increasing zeal, they yielded to the charms of the new learning,
it is not surprising if the fascinations of monastic life began to lose
their hold upon their minds. The result was that More was saved from the
false step he once had contemplated.

He had, it would seem, seen enough of the evil side of the ‘religious
life’ to know that in reality it did not offer that calm retreat from the
world which in theory it ought to have done. He had cautiously abstained
from rushing into vows before he had learned well what they meant; and his
experience of ascetic practices had far too ruthlessly destroyed any
pleasant pictures of monastic life in which he may have indulged at first,
to admit of his ever becoming a Carthusian monk.

Still we may not doubt that, in truth, he had a real and natural yearning
for the pure ideal of cloister holiness. Early disappointed love
possibly,[265] added to the rude shipwreck made of his worldly fortunes on
the rock of royal displeasure, had, we may well believe, effectually
taught him the lesson not to trust in those ‘gay golden dreams’ of worldly
greatness, from which, he was often wont to say, ‘we cannot help awaking
when we die;’ and even the penances and scourgings inflicted by way of
preparatory discipline upon his ‘wanton flesh,’ though soon proved to be
of no great efficacy, were not the less without some deep root in his
nature; else why should he wear secretly his whole life long the ‘_sharp
shirt of hair_’ which we hear about at last?[266]

So much as this must be conceded to More’s Catholic biographers, who
naturally incline to make the most of this ascetic phase of his life.[267]

[Sidenote: More disgusted with the cloister.]

But that, on the other hand, he did turn in disgust from the impurity of
the cloister to the better chances which, he thought, the world offered of
living a chaste and useful life, we know from Erasmus; and this his
Catholic biographers have, in their turn, acknowledged.[268]


IV. MORE STUDIES PICO’S LIFE AND WORKS. HIS MARRIAGE (1505).

More appears to have been influenced in the course he had taken, mainly by
two things:--first, a sort of hero-worship for the great Italian, Pico
della Mirandola; and, secondly, his continued reverence for Colet.

[Sidenote: More translates the life and works of Pico.]

[Sidenote: Pico’s warm piety and zeal.]

[Sidenote: A layman to the end.]

The ‘Life of Pico,’ with divers Epistles and other ‘Works’ of his, had
come into More’s hands. Very probably Lilly may have brought them home
with him amongst his Italian spoils. More had taken the pains to
translate them into English. He had doubtless heard all about Pico’s
outward life from those of his friends who had known him personally when
in Italy. But here was the record of Pico’s inner history, for the most
part in his own words; and reading this in More’s translation, it is not
hard to see how strong an influence it may have exercised upon him. It
told how, suddenly checked, as More himself had been, in a career of
worldly honour and ambition, the proud vaunter of universal knowledge had
been transformed into the humble student of the Bible; how he had learned
to abhor scholastic disputations, of which he had been so great a master,
and to search for truth instead of fame. It told how, ‘giving no great
force to outward observances,’ ‘he cleaved to God in very fervent love,’
so that, ‘on a time as he walked with his nephew in an orchard at Ferrara,
in talking of the love of Christ, he told him of his secret purpose to
give away his goods to the poor, and fencing himself with the crucifix,
barefoot, walking about the world, in every town and castle to preach of
Christ.’ It told how he, too, ‘scourged his own flesh in remembrance of
the passion and death that Christ suffered for our sake;’ and urged others
also ever to bear in mind two things, ‘that the Son of God died for thee,
and that thou thyself shall die shortly;’ and how, finally, in spite of
the urgent warnings of the great Savonarola, he remained a layman to the
end, and in the midst of indefatigable study of the Oriental languages,
and, above all, the Scriptures, through their means, died at the early age
of thirty-five, leaving the world to wonder at his genius, and Savonarola
to preach a sermon on his death.[269]

[Sidenote: The Works of Pico.]

And turning from the ‘_Life_ of Pico’ to his ‘_Works_,’ and reading these
in More’s translation, they present to the mind a type of Christianity, so
opposite to the ceremonial and external religion of the monks, that one
may well cease to wonder that More, having caught the spirit of Pico’s
religion, could no longer entertain any notion of becoming a Carthusian
brother.

It will be worth while to examine carefully what these works of Pico’s
were.

[Sidenote: Pico’s letter to his nephew.]

The first is a letter from Pico to his nephew--a letter of advice to a
young man somewhat in More’s position, longing to live to some ‘virtuous
purpose,’ but finding it hard to stem the tide of evil around him. To
encourage his nephew, he speaks of the ‘great peace and felicity it is to
the mind when a man hath nothing that grudgeth his conscience, nor is
appalled with the secret touch of any privy crime.’... ‘Doubtest thou, my
son, whether the minds of wicked men be vexed or not with continual
thought and torment?... The wicked man’s heart is like the stormy sea,
that may not rest. There is to him nothing sure, nothing peaceable, but
all things fearful, all things sorrowful, all things deadly. Shall we,
then, envy these men? Shall we follow them, forgetting our own
country--heaven, and our own heavenly Father--where we were free-born?
Shall we wilfully make ourselves bondmen, and with them, wretched living,
more wretchedly die, and at the last most wretchedly in everlasting fire
be punished?’

[Sidenote: Pico’s faith in Christianity.]

Having warned his nephew against wicked companions, Pico proceeds to make
evident allusion to the sceptical tendencies of Italian society. ‘It is
verily a great madness’ (he says) ‘not to believe the Gospel, whose
_truth_ the blood of martyrs crieth, the voice of Apostles soundeth,
miracles prove, _reason confirmeth_, the world testifieth, the elements
speak, devils confess!’[270] ‘But,’ he continues, ‘a far greater madness
is it, if thou doubt not but that the Gospel is true, to live then as
though thou doubtest not but that it were false.’

[Sidenote: Its reasonableness and harmony with the laws of nature.]

And it is worth notice, that the perception of the reasonableness of
Christianity, and its harmony with the laws of nature, breaks out again a
little further on. Pico writes to his nephew: ‘Take no heed what thing
_many_ men do, but [take heed] _what thing the very law of nature_, what
thing _very reason_, what thing _our Lord himself showeth thee to be
done_.’

[Sidenote: Pico on prayer.]

[Sidenote: Pico on the Scriptures.]

A little further on Pico points out two remedies, or aids, whereby his
nephew may be strengthened in his course. First, charity; and secondly,
prayer. With regard to the first he wrote:--‘Certainly He shall not hear
thee when thou callest on _Him_, if thou hear not first the poor man when
he calleth upon _thee_.’ With regard to prayer, he wrote thus:--‘When I
stir thee to prayer, I stir thee not to the prayer that standeth in many
words, but to that prayer which, in the secret chamber of the mind, in the
privy-closet of the soul, with very affect speaketh unto God, and in the
most lightsome darkness of contemplation, not only presenteth the mind to
the Father, but also uniteth it with Him by unspeakable ways, which only
_they_ know that have assayed. Nor I care not how long or how short thy
prayer be, but how effectual, how ardent.... Let no day pass, then, but
thou once at the leastwise present thyself to God by prayer, and falling
down before Him flat to the ground, with an humble affect of devout mind,
not from the extremity of thy lips, but out of the inwardness of thine
heart, cry these words of the prophet: “The offences of my youth, and mine
ignorances, remember not, good Lord, but after thy goodness remember me.”
What thou shalt in thy prayer ask of God, both the Holy Spirit, which
prayeth for us and eke thine own necessity, shall every hour put into thy
mind, and also what thou shalt pray for thou shalt find matter enough _in
the reading of Holy Scripture_, which that thou wouldst now (setting
poets, fables, and trifles aside) take ever in thine hand I heartily pray
thee; ... there lieth in _them_ a certain heavenly strength quick and
effectual, which with marvellous power transformeth and changeth the
readers’ mind into the love of God, if they be clean and lowly entreated.’
Lastly, he said he would ‘make an end with this one thing. I warn thee (of
which when we were last together I often talked with thee) that thou never
forget these two things; that both the Son of God died for thee, and that
thou thyself shalt die shortly!’[271]

This, then, was the doctrine which Pico, ‘fencing himself with a crucifix,
barefoot, walking about the world, in every town and castle,’ purposed to
preach!

       *       *       *       *       *

The next letter is a reply to a friend of his who had urged him to leave
his contemplative and studious life, and to mix in political affairs, in
which, as an Italian prince, lay his natural sphere. He replied, that his
desire was ‘not _so to embrace Martha as utterly to forsake Mary_’--to
‘love them and use them both, as well study as worldly occupation.’ ‘I
set more’ (he continued) ‘by my little house, my study, the pleasure of my
books, the rest and peace of my mind, than by all your king’s palaces, all
your business, all your glory, all the advantage that ye hawke after, and
all the favour of the court!’

[Sidenote: Pico’s study of Eastern languages.]

Then he tells his friend that what he looks to do is, ‘_to give out some
books of mine to the common profit_,’ and that he is mastering the Hebrew,
Chaldee, and Arabic languages.[272]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Another letter to his nephew.]

Then follows another letter to his nephew, who, in trying to follow the
advice given in his first letter, finds himself slandered and called a
hypocrite by his companions at court. It is a letter of noble
encouragement to stand his ground, and to heed not the scoffs and sneers
of his fellows.

These letters are followed by an exposition of Psalm xvi., in which Pico
incidentally uses his knowledge of the Hebrew text and of Eastern
customs.[273]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Pico’s verses.]

All the foregoing are in prose; after them come More’s translations of
some of Pico’s verses.

The first is entitled, ‘Twelve rules, partly exciting and partly directing
a man in spiritual battle,’ and reminds one of the ‘Enchiridion’ of
Erasmus. The second is named, ‘The twelve weapons of spiritual battle.’
The striking feature in both these metrical works is the holding up of
Christ’s example as an incentive to duty and to love. Thus:--

  ‘Consider, when thou art movèd to be _wroth_,
      He who that was God and of all men the best,
  Seeing himself scorned and scourgèd both,
      And as a thief between two thievès threst,
      With all rebuke and shame; yet from his breast
  Came never sign of wrath or of disdain,
  But patiently endurèd all the pain!’

And again, after speaking of the shortness of life--

  ‘How fast it runneth on, and passen shall
  As doth a dream or shadow on a wall.’

he continues:--

  ‘Think on the very lamentable pain,
  Think on the piteous cross of woeful Christ,
      Think on his blood, beat out at every vein,
      Think on his precious heart carvèd in twain:
  Think how for thy redemption all was wrought.
  _Let him not lose, what he so dear hath bought._’

There is another poem in which the feelings of a lover towards his love
are made to show what the Christian’s feelings ought to be to Christ; and
lastly, there is a solemn and beautiful ‘Prayer of Picus Mirandola to
God,’ glowing with the same adoration of

  ... ‘that mighty love
  Which able was thy dreadful majesty
  To draw down into earth from heaven above
  And crucify God, that we poor wretches, _we_
  Should from our filthy sin yclensèd be!’

and the same earnest longing

  ‘That when the journey of this deadly life
  My silly ghost hath finished, and thence
  Departen must,’ ...
  ‘He may Thee find ...
  In thy lordship, not as a lord, but rather
  As a very tender, loving father!’

[Sidenote: Pico’s enlightened piety.]

I have made these quotations, and thus endeavoured to put the reader in
possession of the contents of this little volume, which More in his
seclusion was translating, because I think they throw some light upon the
current in which his thoughts were moving, and because, whilst the name of
Pico is known to fame as that of a great linguist and most precocious
genius, his enlightened piety and the extent of the influence of his
heroic example have scarcely been appreciated.

This little book, indeed, has a special significance in relation to the
history of the Oxford Reformers. Whatever doubt may rest upon the direct
connection between _their_ views and those of Savonarola, there is here in
More’s translation of these writings of a disciple of Savonarola, another
_in_direct connection between them and that little knot of earnest
Christian men in Italy of which Savonarola was the most conspicuous.

[Sidenote: Position of the Neo-Platonic philosophers of Florence.]

The extracts made and translated by More from Pico’s writings may also
help us to recognise in the Neo-Platonic philosophers of Florence, by
whose writings Colet had been so profoundly influenced, a vein of earnest
Christian feeling of which it may be that we know too little. Like their
predecessors of a thousand years before, they stood between the old world
and the new. They were the men who, when the learning of the old Pagan
world was restored to light, and backed against the dogmatic creed of
priest-ridden degraded Christendom, built a bridge, as it were, between
Christian and Pagan thought. That their bridge was frail and insecure it
may be, but, to a great extent, it served its end. A passage was effected
by it from the Pagan to the Christian shore. Ficino, the representative
Neo-Platonist, who, as has been seen, had aided in its building, had
himself passed over it. Savonarola too had crossed it. Pico had crossed
it. It is true that these men may, to some extent, have Platonised
Christianity in becoming Christian; but it will be recognised at once that
the earnest Christian feeling found by More in Pico, so to speak, rose far
above his Platonism.

[Sidenote: More calls Savonarola a ‘man of God.’]

That the life and writings of such a man should have awakened in his
breast something of hero-worship[274] is, therefore, not surprising. That
he should have singled out these passages, and taken the trouble to
translate them, is some proof that he admired Pico’s practical piety more
than his Neo-Platonic speculations; that he shared with Colet those
yearnings for practical Christian reform with which Colet had returned
from Italy ten years before. That a few years after this translation
should be published and issued in English in More’s name was further proof
of it. For here was a book not only in its drift and spirit boldly taking
Cole’s side against the Schoolmen, and in favour of the study of Scripture
and the Oriental languages, but as boldly holding up Savonarola as ‘a
preacher, as well in cunning as in holiness of living, most famous,’--‘a
holy man’--‘a man of God’[275]--in the teeth of the fact that he had been
denounced by the Pope as a ‘son of blasphemy and perdition,’
excommunicated, tortured, and, refusing to abjure, hung and burned as a
heretic![276]

[Sidenote: Colet’s influence on More.]

And if the fire of hero-worship for Pico had lit up something of heroism
in More’s heart--something which yearned for the battle of life, and not
for the rest of the cloister--so the living example of Colet was ready to
feed the flame into strength and steadiness.

[Sidenote: More marries under Colet’s advice.]

The result was that, in 1505,[277] in spite of early disappointments, and,
it is said, under Colet’s ‘advice and direction,’[278] More married Jane
Colt, of New Hall in Essex, took a house in Bucklersbury, and gave up for
ever all longings for monastic life.


V. HOW IT HAD FARED WITH ERASMUS (1500-5).

Soon after Colet’s elevation to the dignities of Doctor and Dean, a letter
of congratulation arrived from Erasmus.

Colet had written no letter to him, and had almost lost sight of him
during these years. It would seem that, after his departure from Oxford,
Colet had given up all hopes of his aid. Nor had any other kindred soul
risen up to take that place in fellow-work beside him, which at one time
he had hoped the great scholar might have filled.

[Sidenote: Erasmus had not forgotten Colet.]

[Sidenote: The legal robbery of Erasmus at Dover.]

But Erasmus on his side had not forgotten Colet. His intercourse with
Colet at Oxford had changed the current of his thoughts, and the course of
his life. Colet little knew by what slow and painful steps he had been
preparing to redeem the promise he had made on leaving Oxford.

We left him making the best of his way to Dover, with his purse full of
golden crowns, kindly bestowed by his English friends in order that he
might now carry out his long-cherished intention of going to Italy. But
the Fates had decreed against him. King Henry VII. had already reached the
avaricious period of his life and reign. Under cover of an old obsolete
statute, he had given orders to the Custom House officers to stop the
exportation of all precious metals, and the Custom House officers in their
turn, construing their instructions strictly to the letter, had seized
upon Erasmus’s purseful of golden crowns, and relieved him of the burden,
for the benefit of the King’s exchequer.[279] The poor scholar proceeded
without them to cross to Boulogne.

He was a bad sailor, and the hardships of travel soon told upon his
health. He was heart-sick also; as well he might be, for this unlucky loss
of his purse had utterly disconcerted once more his long-cherished plans.
On his arrival at Paris, after a wretched and dangerous journey,[280] he
was taken ill, and recovered only to bear his bitter disappointment as
best he could. Before he had yet recovered from his illness he wrote this
touching letter to Arnold, the young legal friend of More, with whom a few
weeks before he and More had visited the Royal nursery.

    _Erasmus to Arnold._[281]

    [Sidenote: Erasmus gives up all hope of going to Italy.]

    ‘Salve, mi Arnolde. Now for six weeks I having been suffering much
    from a nocturnal ague, of a lingering kind but of daily recurrence,
    and it has nearly killed me. I am not yet free from the disease, but
    still somewhat better. I don’t yet _live_ again, but some hope of life
    dawns upon me. You ask me to tell you my plans. Take this only, to
    begin with: To mortify myself to the world, I dash my hopes. I long
    for nothing more than to give myself rest, in which I might live
    wholly to God alone, weep away the sins of a careless life, devote
    myself to the study of the Holy Scriptures, either read somewhat or
    write. This I cannot do in a monastery or college. One could not be
    more delicate than I am; my health will bear neither vigils, nor
    fasts, nor any disturbance, even when at its best. Here, where I live
    in such luxury, I often fall ill; what should I do amid the labours of
    college life?

    [Sidenote: Cost of going to Italy.]

    ‘I had determined to go to Italy this year, and to work at theology
    some months at Bologna; also there to take the degree of Doctor; then
    in the year of Jubilee to visit Rome; which done, to return to my
    friends and then to settle down. But I am afraid that these things
    that I _would_, I shall _not be able_ to accomplish. I fear, in the
    first place, that my health would not stand such a journey and the
    heat of the climate. Lastly, I reckon that I could not go to Italy,
    nor live there without great expense. It costs a great deal also to
    prepare for a degree. And the Bishop of Cambray gives very sparingly.
    He altogether loves more liberally than he gives, and promises
    everything much more largely than he performs. It is partly my own
    fault for not pressing him. There are so many who are even
    _extorting_. In the meantime I shall do what seems for the best.
    Farewell.’

What was he to do? It was clear that he did not know what to do. The worst
of it was that the unfortunate loss of the price of many months’
leisure,[282] not only obliged him to postpone _sine die_ his project of
visiting Italy, but also to spend a large portion of his time and strength
for the next few years in a struggle almost for subsistence. For the wolf
must in some way or other be kept from the door; and Erasmus was _poor_!

[Sidenote: Poverty of Erasmus.]

[Sidenote: His Greek studies.]

[Sidenote: Erasmus visits Holland.]

For a few months he struggled on at Paris, living in lodgings with an old
fellow student ‘sparingly,’[283] hard at work at a collection of Greek and
Latin proverbs--his _Adagia_--partly in order to raise the wind, partly to
improve himself in Greek. Sometimes borrowing and sometimes begging,
whatever money came to his hands went forthwith first in buying Greek
books and then in clothes.[284] Later in the year, the prevalence of the
Plague in Paris drove him to Orleans. He would have gone to Italy, but he
had not the means.[285] In December he returned to Paris to continue his
struggling life.[286] In a letter written in January, 1501, on the
anniversary of his misfortune at Dover, he described himself ‘as having
now for a whole year been sailing under a stormy sky against the waves and
against the winds.’[287] To add to his troubles, the Plague again broke
out in Paris; and, terrified by the number of funerals passing his door,
the poor scholar fled from the city to spend a few weeks in his native
country.[288] During his stay in Holland he visited the monastery at
Stein,[289] where in early years he had tasted the bitters of the monastic
life. Neither there nor elsewhere in Holland did he find a resting-place.

[Sidenote: Princess of Vere and Battus.]

Fortunately for him, one true friend at least turned up, willing and able
to enter into sympathy with him. This was Battus, tutor to the Marchioness
of Vere. Erasmus had already corresponded with him from Paris, pouring out
his troubles to him, and declaring that he had no other hope but in him
alone.[290] Kept away from Paris by the Plague, and finding not even a
temporary home in Holland, he at last found a refuge for a while from his
fears and cares in a visit to the castle of Tornahens,[291] the residence
of the Marchioness of Vere and of Battus. It had the additional
attraction of being near to St. Omer, where lived a former patron of
Erasmus, the Abbot of St. Bertin.

[Sidenote: Erasmus would like to visit Colet again.]

Whilst staying with Battus he wrote to a friend, that he sometimes thought
of returning to England to spend a month or two more with Colet, in order
to confer further with him on some theological questions. He knew well, he
said, how much good he should gain from doing so, but he could not get
over the unlucky experience of his last voyage. As to his journey to
Italy, that, too, was knocked on the head. He told his friend that he
longed to visit Italy as ardently as ever, but it was out of the question;
for, according to the adage of Plautus, ‘Sine pennis volare haud facile
est.’[292]

[Sidenote: Writes his ‘Enchiridion.’]

Battus also wrote to Lord Mountjoy to tell him with what pleasure he had
embraced Erasmus, but, ‘alas, how ill-treated and spoiled!’ He told him
how he had been commiserating Erasmus on his ill-fortune in England, and
how the philosopher had smiled and bade him put a good face on it, He did
not regret having visited England; he cared more for the friends he had
found in England than for all the gold of Crœsus. Battus concluded by
telling Lord Mountjoy how Erasmus had described to him the courtesy of the
Prior Charnock, the learning of Colet, the good nature of More, the
virtues of his noble patron.[293] It was during this visit to St. Omer, in
the summer of 1501, that Erasmus wrote his ‘Enchiridion.’

There happened to be staying in the castle a lady, a friend of Battus, who
had a bad husband. The latter, whilst holding other divines at arm’s
length, took to Erasmus. The wife, thinking that he possibly might have
some influence over her husband, begged him, without betraying that it
was at her instigation, to write something which might produce in him some
religious impressions.[294] The ‘Enchiridion’ was the result, of which
more will be said by and by.

[Sidenote: John Vitrarius.]

It was at St. Omer also that Erasmus became acquainted with John
Vitrarius--a second John Colet in the earnestness of his Christian zeal
against the corruptions of the church and vices of the clergy, in his love
for St. Paul, in his outspoken preaching, and even in his manner of
preaching, in his dislike of the Scholastic subtlety of Scotus, and even
in his preference for Ambrose, Cyprian, Jerome, and Origen over Augustine.
Erasmus ever afterwards linked the names of Colet and Vitrarius together,
and admitted them both deservedly into his calendar of uncanonised
saints.[295] The ‘Enchiridion’ was submitted to the judgment of Vitrarius,
and obtained his approval.[296]

[Sidenote: Return of Erasmus to Paris.]

After many refreshing days passed at St. Omer, Erasmus returned to Paris
to pursue his literary labours. These, notwithstanding all the hindrances
of ill-health and poverty, never seemed to have flagged.[297] He had
already made up his mind to devote himself to the Herculean task of
correcting the text of St. Jerome’s voluminous works, with a view to their
publication.[298] The first edition of his ‘Adagia’ had been printed in
1501; and during a visit to Louvain and Antwerp, in 1503, he was able to
publish some other works--his afterwards famous ‘Enchiridion’ amongst the
rest.[299] But notwithstanding all his indomitable energy, and the often
repeated kindness of Battus and the Marchioness, it would be difficult to
imagine a longer catalogue of troubles and disappointments--and these too
of that harassing and vexatious kind which are most trying to the
temper--than is contained in the letters of Erasmus during these dreary
years.[300]

He might well have been excused if, lost sight of as it would seem by his
English friends, he had himself forgotten his promise to Colet on leaving
Oxford, amidst the cares of his continental life.

[Sidenote: Erasmus remembers his promise to Colet.]

But whilst these necessities not a little interrupted, as was likely,
those studies to which Colet’s example and precept had urged him, and
lengthened out the preliminary labours which Erasmus had made up his mind
must precede his active participation in Colet’s work, they did not, it
seems, damp his energy, or induce him to look back after putting his hand
to the plough. This and more lies touchingly hinted in the following
letter written by Erasmus to Colet on receipt of the news of the elevation
of his friend to the dignity of Doctor and Dean.

    _Erasmus to Colet._[301]

    ‘If our friendship, most learned Colet, had been of a common-place
    kind, or your habits those of the common run of men, I should indeed
    have been somewhat fearful lest it might have been extinguished, or at
    least cooled, by our long and wide separation.... But I prefer to
    believe that the cause of my having received no letter from you now
    for _several years_, lies rather in your press of business, or
    ignorance of my whereabouts, or even in myself, than in your
    forgetfulness of an old friend....

    ‘I am much surprised that you have not yet given to the world any of
    your commentaries on St. Paul and the Gospels. I know your modesty,
    but surely you ought to conquer that, and print them for the _public
    good_.

    [Sidenote: Erasmus congratulates Colet on his preferment.]

    ‘As to the title of Doctor and Dean, I do not so much congratulate
    _you_ about these--for I know well they will bring you nothing but
    labour--as those for whose good you are to bear them.

    [Sidenote: Wants to devote himself to Scripture studies.]

    [Sidenote: Greek and Hebrew studies.]

    ‘I cannot tell you, dearest Colet, how, by hook and by crook, I
    struggle to devote myself to the study of sacred literature--how I
    regret everything which either delays me or detains me from it. But
    constant ill-fortune has prevented me from extricating myself from
    these hindrances. When in France, I determined that if I could not
    conquer these difficulties I would cast them aside, and that once
    freed from them, with my whole mind I would set to work at these
    sacred studies, and devote the rest of my life to them. Although three
    years before I had attempted something on St. Paul’s Epistle to the
    Romans,[302] and had completed four volumes at one pull, I was
    nevertheless prevented from going on with it, owing chiefly to the
    want of a better knowledge of Greek. Consequently, for nearly these
    three years past, I have buried myself in Greek literature; nor do I
    think the labour has been thrown away. I began also to dip into
    Hebrew, but, deterred by the strangeness of the words, I desisted,
    knowing that one man’s life and genius are not enough for too many
    things at a time. I have read through a good part of the works of
    Origen, under whose guidance I seemed really to get on, for he opened
    to me, as it were, the springs and the method of theological science.

    [Sidenote: The ‘Enchiridion.’]

    ‘I send you [herewith], as a little literary present, some
    lucubrations of mine. Among them is our discussion, when in England,
    on the Agony of Christ, but so altered that you will hardly know it
    again. Besides, your reply and my rejoinder to it could not be found.
    The “Enchiridion” I wrote to display neither genius nor eloquence, but
    simply for this--to counteract the vulgar error of those who think
    that religion consists in ceremonies, and in more than _Jewish_
    observances, while they neglect what really pertains to piety. I have
    tried to teach, as it were, the _art_ of piety in the same way as
    others have laid down the rules of [military] discipline.... The rest
    were written against the grain, especially the “Pæan” and
    “Obsecratio,” which I wrote to please Battus and Anna, the Princess
    of Vere. As to the “Panegyric,”[303] it was so contrary to my taste,
    that I do not remember ever having written anything more reluctantly;
    for I saw that such a thing could not be done without adulation....

    [Sidenote: The ‘Adagia.’]

    [Sidenote: Erasmus wants help from his friends.]

    ‘I wrote, if you recollect, sometime past, about the 100 copies of the
    “Adagia” which I sent at my own expense into England, now three years
    ago. Grocyn wrote me word that he would arrange with the greatest
    fidelity and diligence that they should be sold according to my wish,
    and I do not doubt but that he has performed his promise, for he is
    the best and most honourable man that ever lived in England. Will you
    be so good as to aid me in this matter, so far as to advise and spur
    on those by whom you think the business ought to be settled? For one
    cannot doubt but that, in so long a time, the books must be sold; and
    the money must of necessity have come to somebody’s hand; and it is
    likely to be of more use to me now than ever before. For, by some
    means or other, I must contrive to have a few months entirely to
    myself, that I may extricate myself somehow from my labours in secular
    literature. This I trusted I could have done this winter, had not so
    many hopes proved illusive. Nor, indeed, “with a great sum can I
    obtain this freedom,” even for a few months. I entreat you, therefore,
    to do what you can to aid me, panting as I do eagerly after sacred
    studies, in disengaging myself from those [secular] studies which have
    now ceased to be pleasant to me. It would not do for me to beg of my
    friend, Lord Mountjoy, although it would not seem unreasonable or
    impertinent if, of his own good will, he had chosen to aid me, both
    on the ground of his habitual patronage of my studies, and also
    because the “Adagia” were undertaken at his suggestion, and inscribed
    with his name. I am ashamed of the first edition [of the “Adagia”]
    both on account of the blundering mistakes of the printers, which seem
    made almost on purpose, and because, urged on by others, I hurried
    over the work which had now begun to seem to me dry and poor after my
    study of the Greek authors. Consequently, another edition is resolved
    upon, in which the errors of both author and printer are to be
    corrected, and the work made as useful as possible to students.

    [Sidenote: His Greek studies not thrown away.]

    ‘Although, however, I may for a while be engaged upon an humble task,
    yet whilst thus working in the Garden of the Greeks, I am gathering
    much fruit by the way for the time to come, which may hereafter be of
    use to me in sacred studies. For I have learned this by experience,
    that without Greek one can do nothing in any branch of study; for it
    is one thing to conjecture, and quite another thing to judge--one
    thing to see with other people’s eyes, and quite another thing to
    believe what you see with your own.

    ‘But to what a length this letter has grown! Love, however, will
    excuse loquacity. Farewell, most learned and excellent Colet.

    ‘Pray let me know what has happened to our friend Sixtinus; also what
    your friend the Prior Richard Charnock is doing.

    ‘In order that whatever you may write or send to me may duly come to
    hand, be so good as to have them addressed to Christopher Fisher (a
    most loving friend and patron of all learned men, and you amongst the
    rest), in whose family I am now a guest.’ Paris, 1504 [in error for
    1505].

Thus had the poor scholar worked on, for the most part in silence, during
these years, struggling alone, yet manfully, in the midst of the manifold
hindrances cast in his way by ill-health and straitened means, neither
free-born (as his friend Colet was), and thus able to tread unencumbered
the path of duty, nor finding himself able even ‘with a great sum to
obtain freedom’ for a while. Yet through all had Erasmus kept courageously
to the collar, steadily toiling on through five years of preliminary
labours, with earnest purpose to redeem his promise to Colet--first, fully
to equip himself with the proper tools and then, but not till then, to
join him in fellow work.

[Sidenote: Why Colet had not written.]

Colet surely had forgotten the promise of Erasmus on leaving Oxford, or
perchance the hope it held out was too slender for him to rest on, else he
would hardly have left him during these years without letters of brotherly
encouragement.

It is true that Erasmus still confessed himself to be occupied in merely
preliminary labours. His great work, no less than it had been five years
before, was still in the future. Yet the fire caught from his contact with
Colet at Oxford was at least flickering on the hearth, and with fresh
stirring and fuel might perhaps after all be kindled into active flame.

Colet’s reply to this letter has not come down to us, but from the result
we may be sure that it contained a pressing invitation to revisit England,
and the promise of a warm reception.


VI. THE ‘ENCHIRIDION,’ ETC. OF ERASMUS (1501-5).

In the meantime, closer inspection of the literary present sent by
Erasmus, must have proved to Colet to how large an extent, after so long a
process of study and digestion, his friend had really adopted the views
which he himself had held and consistently preached for the last ten
years.

[Sidenote: The ‘Enchiridion.’]

The ‘Enchiridion’ was, in truth, a re-echo of the very key-note of Colet’s
faith. It openly taught, as Colet now for so many years had been teaching,
that the true Christian’s religion, instead of consisting in the
acceptance of scholastic dogmas, or the performance of outward rites and
ceremonies, really consists in a true, self-sacrificing loyalty to Christ,
his ever-living Prince; that life is a warfare, and that the Christian
must sacrifice his evil lusts and passions, and spend his strength, not in
the pursuit of his own pleasure, but in active service of his
Prince;--such was the drift and spirit of this ‘Handybook of the Christian
Soldier.’[304]

It must not be assumed, however, that Erasmus had adopted all the views
which Colet had expressed in their many conversations at Oxford. On the
contrary, I think there may be traced in the ‘Enchiridion’[305] a tendency
to interpret the text of Scripture _allegorically_, rather than to seek
out its _literal_ meaning--a tendency which must have been somewhat
opposed to the strong convictions of Colet, and even to those of Erasmus,
in after years. But he had just then been studying Origen, and it is not
strange that he should for a while be fascinated, as so many others have
been, by the allegorical method of interpretation adopted by that father.
He had learned so much from his writings, that he yielded the more readily
perhaps in this particular to the force of Origen’s rich imagination.[306]

[Sidenote: Not a success at first.]

[Sidenote: A favourite with the Protestants.]

But if Colet did not find his own views reflected in all points in this
early production of Erasmus, he would not the less rejoice to find its
general tone so spiritual, so anti-ceremonial, and so free from
superstitious adherence to ecclesiastical authority. That it was so, no
stronger proof could be given than the fact that, whilst for years after
it was written it was known only in select circles, and was far from being
a popular book; yet no sooner had the Protestant movement commenced than,
with a fresh preface, it passed through almost innumerable editions with
astonishing rapidity. Nor was it read only by the learned. It was
translated into English by Tyndale, and again in an abridged form reissued
in English by Coverdale. And whilst in this country it was thus treated
almost as a Protestant book, so in Spain also it had a remarkably wide
circulation. ‘The work,’ wrote the Archdeacon of Alcor, in 1527--twenty
years after its first silent publication--‘has gained such applause and
credit to your name, and has proved so useful to the Christian faith, that
there is no other book of our time which can be compared with the
“Enchiridion” for the extent of its circulation, since it is found in
everybody’s hands. There is scarcely anyone in the court of the Emperor,
any citizen of our cities, or member of our churches and convents, no not
even a hotel or country inn, that has not a copy of the “Enchiridion” of
Erasmus in Spanish. The Latin version was read previously by the few who
understood Latin, but its full merit was not perfectly perceived even by
these. Now in the Spanish it is read by all without distinction; and this
short work has made the name of Erasmus a household word in circles where
it was previously unknown and had not been heard of.’[307]

[Sidenote: Anti-Augustinian on free will and grace.]

Strong as must have been the Protestant tendencies of this little book to
have made it so great a favourite with Protestant Reformers, it is worthy
of note that its tone was as moderate and anti-Augustinian upon the great
questions of free will and grace, and in this respect as decidedly opposed
to the extreme Augustinian views adopted by the Protestant Reformers, as
anything that Erasmus ever afterwards wrote during the heat of the
controversy.

To abridge what is said in the ‘Enchiridion’ on this subject into a few
sentences, but retaining, as nearly as may be, the words of Erasmus, it is
this:--

‘The good man is he whose body is a temple of the Holy Spirit; the bad man
is like a whited sepulchre full of dead men’s bones. If the soul loathes
its proper food, if it cannot see what is truth, if it cannot discern the
Divine voice speaking in the inner ear; if, in fact, it has become
_senseless_, it is _dead_. And wherefore dead? Because God, who is its
life, has forsaken it. Now if the soul be dead it cannot be raised into
life again but by the gracious power of God only. But we have God on our
side. Our enemy has been conquered by Christ. In ourselves we are weak; in
Him we are strong. The victory lies in his hands, but he has put it also
in ours. No one need fail to conquer, unless he does not choose to
conquer. Aid is withheld from none who desire it. If we accept it, he will
fight for us, and impute his love as merit to us. The victory is to be
ascribed to him, who alone being sinless, overcame the tyranny of sin; but
we are not on that account to expect it without our own exertions. We must
steer our course between Scylla and Charybdis. We must neither sit down in
idle security, relying on Divine grace; nor, in view of the hardness of
the struggle, lay down our arms in despair.’[308]

Thus early had Erasmus, following the lead of Colet, taken up the position
as regards this question to which he adhered through life.

[Sidenote: Other works of Erasmus.]

[Sidenote: Conversation at Oxford on the ‘Agony of Christ.’]

But the ‘Enchiridion’ was not the only work published by Erasmus during
this interval. Probably annexed to it, and under the same cover, he had
published his long report of the conversation between himself and Colet at
Oxford on the causes of the Agony of Christ in the Garden. This showed at
least that he had not forgotten what had passed between them on that
occasion. As, however, he did not append to it Colet’s reply, it cannot be
concluded that he had given up his own opinion, either on the question
directly in dispute, or on the still more important one, which came out
of it, on the inspiration of the Scriptures and the theory of ‘manifold
senses.’

[Sidenote: The ‘Adagia.’]

Very clearly, however, did the letter which accompanied these works show
that Erasmus had already resolved to dedicate his life to the great work
of bringing out the Scriptures into their proper prominence, and thereby
throwing into the background all that mass of scholastic subtlety which
had for so long formed the food of theologians. If now for years he had
been wading through Greek literature, it was not merely for its own sake,
but with this great object in view. If, on account of his learning and
eloquence, his friends at the court of the Netherlands had pressed him
into their service, and induced him to compose a flattering oration on the
occasion of the return of Philip from Spain, he had counted the labour as
lost, except so far as it probably helped to keep the wolf from the door
for a week or two. Even the two editions of the ‘Adagia’ were evidently
regarded only as stepping-stones to that knowledge without which he felt
that it would be useless for him to attempt to master the Greek New
Testament. Of this he gave further practical proof before his arrival
again in England. For whilst still under the hospitable roof of his friend
Fisher, the Papal protonotary at Paris, he brought out his edition of
Laurentius Valla’s ‘Annotations upon the New Testament;’ a copy of which
he had chanced to light upon in an old library during the previous summer.
And to this edition was prefixed a prefatory letter to this kind host,
remarkable for the boldness of its tone and the freedom of its thought.

[Sidenote: Preface to an edition of Valla’s ‘Annotations on the New
Testament.’]

[Sidenote: Correction of the text of Scripture.]

He knew well, he wrote, that some readers would cry out, ‘Oh, Heavens!’
before they had got to the end of the titlepage; but such as these he
reminded of the advice of Aristophanes: ‘First listen, my friends, and
then you may shriek and bluster!’ He knew, he went on to say, that
theologians, who ought to get more good out of the book than any one else,
would raise the greatest tumult against it; that they would resent as a
sacrilegious infringement of their own sacred province, any interference
of Valla, the grammarian, with the sacred text of the Scriptures. But he
boldly vindicated the right and the necessity of a fair criticism, as in
many passages the Vulgate was manifestly at fault, was a bad rendering of
the original Greek, or had itself been corrupted. If any one should reply
that the theologian is above the laws of grammar, and that the work of
interpretation depends solely upon inspiration, this were, he said, indeed
to claim a new dignity for divines. Were they alone to be allowed to
indulge in bad grammar? He quoted from Jerome to show that he claimed no
inspiration for the translator; and asked what would have been the use of
Jerome’s giving directions for the translation of Holy Scripture if the
power of translating depended upon inspiration. Again, how was it that
Paul was evidently so much more at home in Hebrew than in Greek? Finally
he urged, if there be errors in the Vulgate, is it not lawful to correct
them? Many indeed he knew would object to change any word in the Bible,
because they fancy that in every letter is hid some mystic meaning.
Suppose that it were so, would it not be all the more needful that the
exact original text should be restored?[309]

This was a bold public beginning of that work of Biblical criticism to
which Colet’s example so powerfully urged Erasmus.

The edition of Valla’s ‘Annotations,’ with this letter prefixed to it, was
published at Paris in 1505, while he was busily engaged in bringing out
the second edition of the ‘Adagia.’ And it would seem that he only waited
for the completion of these works before again crossing the Straits to pay
another visit to his English friends.




CHAPTER V.


I. SECOND VISIT OF ERASMUS TO ENGLAND (1505-6).

[Sidenote: Erasmus again is More’s guest.]

Towards the close of 1505, Erasmus arrived in England, to renew his
intimacy with his English friends.[310] He had not this time to visit
Oxford in order to meet them. Colet, Grocyn, Linacre, More, and his friend
Lilly, all were ready to receive him with open arms in London. He seems,
for a time at least, to have been More’s guest.[311]

Since Erasmus had last seen him, the youth had matured into the man. He
had passed through much discipline and mental struggle. But his grey eye
sparkled still with native wit, and a hasty glance round his rooms was
enough to assure his old friend that his tastes were what they used to
be--that in heart and mind, in spite of all that had befallen him, he was
the same high-toned and happy-hearted soul he always had been.

[Sidenote: More’s wife.]

More’s young and gentle wife, fresh from the retirement of her father’s
country home, was too uncultured to attract much notice from the learned
foreigner; but he tells us More had purposely chosen a wife whom he could
mould to his own liking for a life companion. Both were young, and she was
apt to learn. Whilst, therefore, he himself found time to devote to his
favourite Greek books and his lyre, he was imparting by degrees to her his
own fondness for literature and music.[312]

[Sidenote: More’s epigrams.]

Erasmus found him writing Latin epigrams and verses, in which the pent-up
bitter thoughts of the past year or two were making their escape. Some
were on priests and monks--sharp biting satires on their evil side, and by
no means showing abject faith in monkhood.[313]

Nor was he courting back again the favour of offended royalty by melodious
and repentant whinings. Rather his pen gave vent to the chafed and untamed
spirit of the man who knew he had done his duty, and was unjustly
suffering for it. His unrelenting hatred of the king’s avarice and tyranny
may be read in the very headings of his epigrams.[314]

[Sidenote: Translations from Lucian.]

[Sidenote: Fascination of Erasmus for More.]

Erasmus joined More in his studies.[315] He was translating into Latin
some of Lucian’s Dialogues and his ‘Declamatio pro Tyrannicidâ.’ At More’s
suggestion they both wrote a full answer to Lucian’s arguments in favour
of tyrannicide, imitating Lucian’s style as nearly as possible; and
Erasmus, in sending a copy of these essays to a friend, spoke of More in
terms which show how fully he had again yielded to the fascination and
endearing charms of his character. As he had once spoken of the youth, so
now he spoke of the man. Never, he thought, had nature united so fully in
one mind so many of the qualities of genius--the keenest insight, the
readiest wit, the most convincing eloquence, the most engaging manners--he
possessed, he said, every quality required to make a perfect
advocate.[316]

Such a man, with fair play and opportunity, was sure to rise into
distinction. But as yet he must bide his time, waiting for the day when he
could pursue his proper calling at the bar without risk of incurring royal
displeasure.


II. ERASMUS AGAIN LEAVES ENGLAND FOR ITALY (1506).

Erasmus seems to have spent some months during the spring of 1506 with his
English friends, busying himself, as already mentioned, in translating in
More’s company portions of Lucian’s works, and, so far as his letters show
at first sight, not very eagerly pursuing those sacred studies at which he
had told Colet that he longed to labour.

[Sidenote: Erasmus longs to visit Italy, but wants funds.]

Nor was there really anything inconsistent in this. The truth was that, in
order to complete his knowledge of Greek, without which he had declared he
could do nothing thoroughly, he had yet to undertake that journey to Italy
which had been the dream of his early manhood, and the realisation of
which six years ago had only been prevented by his unlucky accident at
Dover. This journey to Italy lay between him and the great work of his
life, and still the adage of Plautus remained inexorable, ‘Sine pennis
volare haud facile est.’

It was therefore that he was translating Lucian. It was therefore that he
dedicated one dialogue to one friend, another to another.[317] It was
therefore that he paid court to this patron of learning and that. It was
not that he was importunate and servilely fond of begging, but that, by
hook or by crook, the necessary means must be found to carry out his
project.

It was thus that we find Grocyn rowing with him to Lambeth to introduce
him to Archbishop Warham, and the two joking together as they rowed back
to town, upon the small pecuniary result of their visit.[318]

[Sidenote: Erasmus leaves for Italy, with two pupils.]

Funds, it appeared, did not come in as quickly as might have been wished,
but at length the matter was arranged. Erasmus was to proceed to Italy,
taking under his wing two English youths, sons of Dr. Baptista, chief
physician to Henry VII. A young Scotch nobleman, the Archbishop of St.
Andrew’s, was also to be placed under the scholar’s care.[319] By this
arrangement Erasmus was, as it were, to work his passage; which he
thankfully agreed to do, and set out accordingly. With what feelings he
left England, and with what longings to return, may be best gathered from
the few lines he wrote to Colet from Paris, after having recovered from
the effects of the journey, including a rough toss of four days across the
Straits:--

    _Erasmus to Colet._

    ‘Paris: June 19, 1506.

    [Sidenote: Letter to Colet from Paris.]

    ‘When, after leaving England, I arrived once more in France, it is
    hard to say how mingled were my feelings. I cannot easily tell you
    which preponderated, my joy in visiting again the friends I had before
    left in France, or my sadness in leaving those whom I had recently
    found in England. For this I can say truly, that there is no whole
    country which has found me friends so numerous, so sincere, learned,
    obliging, so noble and accomplished in every way, as the one City of
    London has done. Each has so vied with others in affection and good
    offices, that I cannot tell whom to prefer. I am obliged to love all
    of them alike. The absence of these must needs be painful; but I take
    heart again in the recollection of the past, keeping them as
    continually in mind as if they were present, and hoping that it may so
    turn out that I may shortly return to them, never again to leave them
    till death shall part us. I trust to you, with my other friends, to do
    your best for the sake of your love and interest for me to bring this
    about as soon and as propitiously as you can.

    ‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am with the disposition of the sons
    of Baptista: nothing could be more modest or tractable; nor could they
    be more diligent in their studies. I trust that this arrangement for
    them may answer their father’s hopes and my desires, and that they may
    hereafter confer great honour upon England. Farewell.’[320]

[Sidenote: Letter to Linacre.]

To Linacre, too, Erasmus wrote in similar terms. He alluded to the
unpleasant consequences to his health of his four days’ experience of the
winds and waves, and wished, he said, that Linacre’s medical skill were at
hand to still his throbbing temples. He expressed, as he had done to
Colet, the hope that he soon might be able to return to England, and that
the task he had undertaken with regard to his two pupils, might turn out
well; and he ended his letter by urging his friend to write to him often.
Let it be in few words, if he liked, but he must write.[321]


III. ERASMUS VISITS ITALY AND RETURNS TO ENGLAND (1507-10).

At length Erasmus really was on his way to Italy, trudging along on
horseback, day after day, through the dirt of continental roads,
accompanied by the two sons of Dr. Baptista, their tutor, and a royal
courier, commissioned to escort them as far as Bologna.

[Sidenote: Erasmus on his way to Italy.]

[Sidenote: German inns.]

It is not easy to realise the toil of such a journey to a jaded delicate
scholar, already complaining of the infirmities of age, though as yet not
forty. Strange places, too, for a fastidious student were the roadside
inns of Germany, of which Erasmus has left so vivid a picture, and into
which he turned his weary head each successive night, after grooming his
own horse in the stable. One room serves for all comers, and in this one
room, heated like a stove, some eighty or ninety guests have already
stowed themselves--boots, baggage, dirt and all. Their wet clothes hang on
the stove iron to dry, while they wait for their supper. There are footmen
and horsemen, merchants, sailors, waggoners, husbandmen, children, and
women--sound and sick--combing their heads, wiping their brows, cleaning
their boots, stinking of garlic, and making as great a confusion of
tongues as there was at the building of Babel! At length, in the midst of
the din and stifling closeness of this heated room, supper is spread--a
coarse and ill-cooked meal--which our scholar scarcely dares to touch, and
yet is obliged to sit out to the end for courtesy’s sake. And when past
midnight Erasmus is shown to his bedchamber, he finds it to be rightly
named--there is nothing in it but a _bed_; and the last and hardest task
of the day is now to find between its rough unwashed sheets some chance
hours of repose.

[Sidenote: Journey over the Alps.]

So, almost in his own words,[322] did Erasmus fare on his way to Italy.
Nor did comforts increase as Germany was left behind. For as the party
crossed the Alps, the courier quarrelled with the tutor, and they even
came to blows. After this, Erasmus was too angry with both to enjoy the
company of either, and so rode apart, composing verses on those
infirmities of age which he felt so rapidly encroaching upon his own frail
constitution.[323] At length the Italian frontier was reached, and
Erasmus, as Luther did three or four years after,[324] began the painful
task of realising what that Italy was about which he had so long and so
ardently dreamed.

[Sidenote: Erasmus in Italy.]

[Sidenote: Erasmus returns to England.]

It is not needful here to trace Erasmus through all his Italian
experience. It presents a catalogue of disappointments and discomforts
upon which we need not dwell. How his arrangement with the sons of
Baptista, having lasted a year, came to an end, and with it the most
unpleasant year of his life;[325] how he took his doctor’s degree at
Turin; how he removed to Bologna to find the city besieged by Roman
armies,[326] headed by Pope Julius himself; how he visited Florence[327]
and Rome;[328] how he went to Venice to superintend a new edition of the
‘Adagia;’ how he was flattered, and how many honours he was promised, and
how many of these promises he found to be, as injuries ought to be,
written on sand;--these and other particulars of his Italian experience
may be left to the biographer of Erasmus. In 1509, on the accession of
Henry VIII. to the English throne, the friends of Erasmus sent him a
pressing invitation to return to England,[329] which he gladly accepted.
For our present purpose it were better, therefore, to see him safely on
his horse again, toiling back on the same packhorse roads, lodging at the
same roadside inns, and meeting the same kind of people as before, but his
face now, after three or four years’ absence, set towards England, where
there are hearts he can trust, whether he can or cannot those in Rome, and
where once again, safely housed with More, he can write and talk to Colet
as he pleases, and forget in the pleasures of the present the toils and
disappointments of the past.[330]

[Sidenote: ‘_Praise of Folly._’]

For what most concerns the history of the Oxford Reformers is this--that
it was to beguile these journeys that Erasmus conceived the idea of his
‘Praise of Folly,’ a satire upon the follies of the times which had grown
up within him at these wayside inns, as he met in them men of all classes
and modes of life, and the keen edge of which was whetted by his recent
visit to Italy and Rome.[331] What most concerns the subject of these
pages is the mental result of the Italian journey, and it was not long
before it was known in almost every wayside inn in Europe.


IV. MORE RETURNS TO PUBLIC LIFE ON THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. (1509-10).

But little can be known of what happened to Colet and More during the
absence of Erasmus in Italy.

That Colet was devoted to the work of his Deanery may well be imagined.

[Sidenote: More thinks of fleeing from England.]

As to More; during the remaining years of Henry VII.’s reign, he was
living in continual fear--thinking of flying the realm[332]--going so far
as to pay a visit to the universities of Louvain and Paris,[333] as though
to make up his mind where to flee to, if flight became needful.[334]

[Sidenote: Empson and Dudley.]

[Sidenote: Henry VII.’s exactions.]

[Sidenote: Henry VII. dies.]

Nor were these fears imaginary. More was not alone in his dread of the
King. Daily the royal avarice was growing more unbounded. Cardinal
Morton’s celebrated fork--the two-pronged dilemma with which benevolences
were extracted from the rich by the clever prelate--had been bad enough.
The legal plunder of Empson and Dudley was worse. It filled every one with
terror. ‘These two ravening wolves,’ writes Hall, who lived near enough to
the time to feel some of the exasperation he described, ‘had such a guard
of false perjured persons appertaining to them, which were by their
commandment empannelled on every quest, that the King was sure to win
whoever lost. Learned men in the law, when they were required of their
advice, would say, “to agree is the best counsel I can give you.” By this
undue means, these covetous persons filled the King’s coffers and enriched
themselves. At this unreasonable and extortionate doing noblemen grudged,
mean men kicked, poor men lamented, preachers openly at Paul’s Cross and
other places exclaimed, rebuked, and detested, but yet they would never
amend.’[335] Then came the general pardon, the result, it was said, of the
remorse of the dying King, and soon after the news of his death.

[Sidenote: Accession of Henry VIII.]

Henry VIII. was proclaimed King, 23rd April, 1509. The same day Empson and
Dudley were sent to the Tower, and on the 17th of August, in the following
year, they were both beheaded.

More was personally known to the new King, and presented to him on his
accession a richly illuminated vellum book, containing verses of
congratulation.[336] These verses have been disparaged as too adulatory in
their tone. And no doubt they were so; but More had written them evidently
with a far more honest loyalty than Erasmus was able to command when he
wrote a welcome to Philip of Spain on his return to the Netherlands. More
honestly did rejoice, and with good reason, on the accession of Henry
VIII. to the throne. It not only assured him of his own personal safety;
it was in measure like the rise of his own little party into power.

[Sidenote: The Oxford Reformers in favour with the King; but no mere
courtiers.]

Not that More and Colet and Linacre were suddenly transformed into
courtiers, but that Henry himself, having been educated to some extent in
the new learning, would be likely at least to keep its enemies in check
and give it fair play. There had been some sort of connection and sympathy
between Prince Henry in his youth and More and his friends; witness More’s
freedom in visiting the royal nursery. Linacre had been the tutor of
Henry’s elder brother, and was made royal physician on Henry’s
accession.[337] From the tone of More’s congratulatory verses it may be
inferred that he and his friends had not concealed from the Prince their
love of freedom and their hatred of his father’s tyranny. For these
verses, however flattering in their tone, were plain and outspoken upon
this point as words well could be. With the _suaviter in modo_ was united,
in no small proportion, the _fortiter in re_. It would be the King’s own
fault if, knowing, as he must have done, More’s recent history, he should
fancy that these words were idle words, or that he could make the man,
whose first public act was one of resistance to the unjust exactions of
his father, into a pliant tool of his own! If he should ever try to make
More into a courtier, he would do so at least with his royal eyes open.

[Sidenote: More made under-sheriff of London.]

How fully Henry VIII. on his part sided with the people against the
counsellors of his father was not only shown by the execution of Dudley,
but also by the appointment, almost immediately after, of Thomas More to
the office of under-sheriff in the City, the very office which Dudley
himself had held at the time when, as speaker of the House of Commons, he
had been a witness of More’s bold conduct--an office which he and his
successor had very possibly used more to the King’s profit than to the
ends of impartial justice.

The young lawyer who had dared to incur royal displeasure by speaking out
in Parliament in defence of the pockets of his fellow-citizens, had
naturally become a popular man in the City. And his appointment to this
judicial office was, therefore, a popular appointment.

[Sidenote: More’s tested high principle.]

The spirit in which More entered upon its responsible duties still more
endeared him to the people. Some years after, by refusing a pension
offered him by Henry VIII., he proved himself more anxious to retain the
just confidence of his fellow-citizens, in the impartiality of his
decisions in matters between them and the King, than to secure his own
emolument or his Sovereign’s patronage.[338] The spirit too in which he
_re_entered upon his own private practice as a lawyer was illustrated both
by his constant habit of doing all he could to get his clients to come to
a friendly agreement before going to law, and also by his absolute refusal
to undertake any cause which he did not conscientiously consider to be a
rightful one.[339] It is not surprising that a man of this tested high
principle should rapidly rise upon the tide of merited prosperity. Under
the circumstances in which More was now placed, his practice at the bar
became rapidly extensive.[340] Everything went well with him. Once more he
was drinking the wine of life.

[Sidenote: More’s domestic happiness.]

There was probably no brighter home--brighter in present enjoyment, or
more brilliant in future prospects--than that home in Bucklersbury, into
which Erasmus, jaded by the journey, entered on his arrival from Italy. He
must have found More and his gentle wife rejoicing in their infant son,
and the merry voices of three little daughters echoing the joy of the
house.[341]


V. ERASMUS WRITES THE ‘PRAISE OF FOLLY’ WHILE RESTING AT MORE’S HOUSE
(1510 OR 1511).

For some days Erasmus was chained indoors by an attack of a painful
disease to which he had for long been subject. His books had not yet
arrived, and he was too ill to admit of close application of any kind.

[Sidenote: The ‘Praise of Folly,’ written in More’s house.]

To beguile his time, he took pen and paper, and began to write down at his
leisure the satirical reflections on men and things which, as already
mentioned, had grown up within him during his recent travels, and served
to beguile the tedium of his journey from Italy to England. It was not
done with any grave design, or any view of publication; but he knew his
friend More was fond of a joke, and he wanted something to do, to take his
attention from the weariness of the pain which he was suffering. So he
worked away at his manuscript. One day when More came home from business,
bringing a friend or two with him, Erasmus brought it out for their
amusement. The fun would be so much the greater, he thought, when shared
by several together. He had fancied Folly putting on her cap and bells,
mounting her rostrum, and delivering an address to her votaries on the
affairs of mankind. These few select friends having heard what he had
already written, were so delighted with it that they insisted on its being
completed. In about a week the whole was finished.[342] This is the simple
history of the ‘Praise of Folly.’

It was a satire upon follies of all kinds. The bookworm was smiled at for
his lantern jaws and sickly look; the sportsman for his love of butchery;
the superstitious were sneered at for attributing strange virtues to
images and shrines, for worshipping another Hercules under the name of St.
George, for going on pilgrimage when their proper duty was at home. The
wickedness of fictitious pardons and the sale of indulgences,[343] the
folly of prayers to the Virgin in shipwreck or distress, received each a
passing censure.

[Sidenote: Grammarians and schools.]

Grammarians were singled out of the regiment of fools as the most servile
votaries of folly. They were described as ‘A race of men the most
miserable, who grow old in penury and filth in their schools--_schools_,
did I say? _prisons! dungeons!_ I should have said--among their boys,
deafened with din, poisoned by a fœtid atmosphere, but, thanks to their
folly, perfectly self-satisfied, so long as they can bawl and shout to
their terrified boys, and box, and beat, and flog them, and so indulge in
all kinds of ways their cruel disposition.’[344]

[Sidenote: The scholastic system.]

After criticising with less severity poets and authors, rhetoricians and
lawyers, Folly proceeded to re-echo the censure of Colet upon the dogmatic
system of the Schoolmen.

[Sidenote: Scholastic science.]

She ridiculed the logical subtlety which spent itself on splitting hairs
and disputing about nothing, and to which the modern followers of the
Schoolmen were so painfully addicted. She ridiculed, too, the prevalent
dogmatic philosophy and science, which having been embraced by the
Schoolmen, and sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority, had become a part
of the scholastic system. ‘With what ease do they dream and prate of the
creation of innumerable worlds, measuring sun, moon, stars, and earth as
though by a thumb and thread; rendering a reason for thunder, wind,
eclipses, and other inexplicable things; never hesitating in the least,
just as though they had been admitted into the secrets of creation, or as
though they had come down to us from the council of the Gods--_with whom,
and whose conjectures, Nature is mightily amused_!’[345]

[Sidenote: Scholastic theology.]

[Sidenote: Foolish questions.]

From dogmatic science Folly turned at once to dogmatic theology, and
proceeded to comment in her severest fashion on a class whom, she
observes, it might have been safest to pass over in silence--divines.[346]
‘Their pride and irritability are such (she said) that they will come down
upon me with their six hundred conclusions, and compel me to recant; and,
if I refuse, declare me a heretic forthwith.... They explain to their own
satisfaction the most hidden mysteries: how the universe was constructed
and arranged--through what channels the stain of original sin descends to
posterity--how the miraculous birth of Christ was effected--how in the
Eucharistic wafer the accidents can exist without a substance, and so
forth. And they think themselves equal to the solution of such questions
as these:--Whether ... God could have taken upon himself the nature of a
woman, a devil, an ass, a gourd, or a stone? And how in that case a gourd
could have preached, worked miracles, and been nailed to the cross? _What_
Peter would have consecrated if he had consecrated the Eucharist at the
moment that the body of Christ was hanging on the Cross? Whether at that
moment Christ could have been called a man? Whether we shall eat and drink
after the resurrection?’[347] In a later edition[348] Folly is made to say
further:--‘These Schoolmen possess such learning and subtlety that I fancy
even the Apostles themselves would need another Spirit, if they had to
engage with this new race of divines about questions of this kind. Paul
was able “to keep the faith,” but when he said, “Faith is the substance of
things hoped for,” he defined it very loosely. He was full of _charity_,
but he treated of it and defined it very illogically in the thirteenth
chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians.... The Apostles knew the
mother of Jesus, but which of them demonstrated so philosophically as our
divines do in what way she was preserved from the taint of original sin?
Peter received the keys, and received them from Him who would not have
committed them to one unworthy to receive them, but I know not whether
_he_ understood (certainly he never touched upon the subtlety!) in what
way the _key of knowledge_ can be held by a man who _has no knowledge_.
They often baptized people, but they never taught what is the formal, what
the material, what the efficient, and what the ultimate cause of baptism;
they say nothing of its delible and indelible character. They worshipped
indeed, but _in spirit_, following no other authority than the gospel
saying, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth.” But it hardly seems to have been revealed to them,
that in one and the same act of worship the picture of Christ drawn with
charcoal on a wall was to be adored, as well as Christ _himself_....
Again, the Apostles spoke of “grace,” but they never distinguished between
“gratiam gratis datam,” and “gratiam gratificantem.” They preached
charity, but did not distinguish between charity “infused” and “acquired,”
nor did they explain whether it was an accident or a substance, created or
_un_created. They abhorred “_sin_,” but I am a fool if they could define
scientifically _what we call sin_, unless indeed they were inspired by the
spirit of the Scotists!’[349]

[Sidenote: There are some who hate the scholastic method.]

After pursuing the subject further, Folly suggests that an army of them
should be sent against the Turks, not in the hope that the Turks might be
converted by them so much as that Christendom would be relieved by their
absence, and then she is made quietly to say:[350]--‘You may think all
this is said in joke, but seriously, there are some, even amongst divines
themselves, versed in better learning, who are disgusted at these (as they
think) frivolous subtleties of divines. There are some who execrate, as a
kind of sacrilege, and consider as the greatest impiety, these attempts to
dispute with unhallowed lips and profane arguments about things so holy
that they should rather be adored than explained, to define them with so
much presumption, and to pollute the majesty of Divine theology with cold,
yea and sordid, words and thoughts. But, in spite of these, with the
greatest self-complacency divines go on spending night and day over their
foolish studies, so that they never have any leisure left for the perusal
of the gospels, or the epistles of St. Paul.’[351]

Finally, Folly exclaims, ‘Are they not the most happy of men whilst they
are treating of these things? whilst describing everything in the infernal
regions as exactly as though they had lived there for years? whilst
creating new spheres at pleasure, one, the largest and most beautiful,
being finally added, that, forsooth, happy spirits might have room enough
to take a walk, to spread their feasts, or to play at ball?’[352]

With this allusion to the ‘empyrean’ heavens of the Schoolmen, the satire
of Folly upon their dogmatic theology reaches its climax. And in the notes
added by Lystrius to a later edition, it was thus further explained in
terms which aptly illustrate the relation of theology and science in the
scholastic system:--

[Sidenote: Dogmatic theology and dogmatic science.]

‘The ancients believed ... in seven spheres--one to each planet--and to
these they added the one sphere of the fixed stars. Next, seeing that
these eight spheres had two motions, and learning from Aristotle that only
one of these motions affected all the spheres, they were compelled to
regard the other motion as _violent_. A superior sphere could not,
however, be moved in its violent motion by an inferior one. So outside all
they were obliged to place a ninth sphere, which they called “primum
mobile.” To these, in the next place, _divines added a tenth_, which they
called the “empyrean sphere,” as though the saints could not be happy
unless they had a heaven of their own!’[353]

And that the ridicule and satire of Erasmus were aimed at the dogmatism of
both science and theology is further pointed out in a previous note, where
the presumption of ‘neoteric divines’ in attempting to account for
everything, however mysterious, is compared to the way in which
‘astronomers, not being able to find out the cause of the various motions
of the heavens, constructed eccentrics and epicycles on the spheres.’[354]

Thus were the scholastic divines censured for just those faults to which
the eyes of Erasmus had been opened ten years before by his conversation
with Colet at Oxford, and words of more bitter satire could hardly have
been used than those now chosen.

[Sidenote: On Monks.]

_Monks_ came in for at least as rough a handling. There is perhaps no more
severe and powerful passage anywhere in the whole book than that in which
Folly is made to draw a picture of their appearance on the Judgment Day,
finding themselves with the goats on the left hand of the Judge, pleading
hard their rigorous observance of the rules and ceremonies of their
respective orders, but interrupted by the solemn question from the Judge,
‘Whence this race of new Jews? I know only of one law which is really
mine; but of that I hear nothing at all. When on earth, without mystery or
parable, I openly promised my Father’s inheritance, not to cowls, matins,
or fastings, but to the practice of faith and charity. I know you not, ye
who know nothing but your own works. Let those who wish to be thought more
holy than I am inhabit their newly-discovered heavens; and let those who
prefer their own traditions to my precepts, order new ones to be built for
them.’ When they shall hear this (continues Folly), ‘and see sailors and
waggoners preferred to themselves, how do you think they will look upon
each other?’[355]

[Sidenote: On kings, &c.]

Kings, princes, and courtiers next pass under review, and here again may
be traced that firm attitude of resistance to royal tyranny which has
already been marked in the conduct of More. If More in his congratulatory
verses took the opportunity of publicly asserting his love of freedom and
hatred of tyranny in the ears of the new King, his own personal friend, as
he mounted the throne, so Erasmus also, although come back to England full
of hope that in Henry VIII. he might find a patron, not only of learning
in general but of himself in particular, took this opportunity of putting
into the mouth of Folly a similar assertion of the sacred rights of the
people and the duties of a king:--

[Sidenote: Duties of princes.]

[Sidenote: Their practice.]

‘It is the duty (she suggests) of a true prince to seek the public and not
his own private advantage. From the laws, of which he is both the author
and executive magistrate, he must not himself deviate by a finger’s
breadth. He is responsible for the integrity of his officials and
magistrates.... But (continues Folly) by my aid princes cast such cares as
these to the winds, and care only for their own pleasure.... They think
they fill their position well if they hunt with diligence, if they keep
good horses, if they can make gain to themselves by the sale of offices
and places, if they can daily devise new means of undermining the wealth
of citizens, and raking it into their own exchequer, disguising the
iniquity of such proceedings by some specious pretence and show of
legality.’[356]

If the memory of Henry VII. was fresh in the minds of More and Erasmus, so
also his courtiers and tools, of whom Empson and Dudley were the
recognised types, were not forgotten. The cringing, servile, abject, and
luxurious habits of courtiers were fair game for Folly.

From this cutting review of kings, princes, and courtiers, the satire,
taking a still bolder flight, at length swooped down to fix its talons in
the very flesh of the Pope himself.

[Sidenote: On the Pope.]

The Oxford friends had some personal knowledge of Rome and her pontiffs.
When Colet was in Italy, the notoriously wicked Alexander VI. was Pope,
and what Colet thought of him has been mentioned. While Erasmus was in
Italy Julius II. was Pope. He had succeeded to the Papal chair in 1503.

[Sidenote: Pope Julius II.]

Julius II., in the words of Ranke, ‘devoted himself to the gratification
of that innate love of war and conquest which was indeed the ruling
passion of his life.... It was the ambition of Julius II. to extend the
dominions of the Church. He must therefore be regarded as the founder of
the Papal States.’[357] Erasmus, during his recent visit, had himself been
driven from Bologna when it was besieged by the Roman army, led by Julius
in person. He had written from Italy that ‘literature was giving place to
war, that Pope Julius was warring, conquering, triumphing, and openly
acting the Cæsar.’[358] Mark how aptly and boldly he now hit off his
character in strict accordance with the verdict of history, when in the
course of his satire he came to speak of popes. Folly drily observes
that--

[Sidenote: On the folly of war.]

‘Although in the gospel Peter is said to have declared, “_Lo, we have left
all, and followed thee_,” yet these Popes speak of “_St. Peter’s
patrimony_” as consisting of lands, towns, tributes, customs, lordships;
for which, when their zeal for Christ is stirred, they fight with fire and
sword at the expense of much Christian blood, thinking that in so doing
they are Apostolical defenders of Christ’s spouse, the Church, from her
enemies. As though indeed there were any enemies of the Church more
pernicious than impious Popes!... Further, as the Christian Church was
founded in blood, and confirmed by blood, and advanced by blood, now in
like manner, as though Christ were _dead_ and could no longer defend his
own, they take to the sword. And although war be a thing so savage that it
becomes wild beasts rather than men, so frantic that the poets feigned it
to be the work of the Furies, so pestilent that it blights at once all
morality, so unjust that it can be best waged by the worst of ruffians, so
impious that it has nothing in common with Christ, yet to the neglect of
everything else they devote themselves to war alone.’[359]

[Sidenote: Pope Julius II. and his fondness for war.]

And this bold satire upon the warlike passions of the Pope was made still
more direct and personal by what followed. To quote Ranke once
more:--‘_Old as Julius now was_, worn by the many vicissitudes of good and
evil fortune, and most of all by the consequences of intemperance and
licentious excess, in the extremity of age he still retained an
indomitable spirit. It was from the tumults of a general war that he hoped
to gain his objects. He desired to be the lord and master of the game of
the world. In furtherance of his grand aim he engaged in the boldest
operations, risking all to obtain all.’[360] Compare with this picture of
the old age of the warlike Pope the following words put by Erasmus into
the mouth of Folly, and printed and read all over Europe in the lifetime
of Julius himself!

‘Thus you may see even decrepid old men display all the vigour of youth,
sparing no cost, shrinking from no toil, stopped by nothing, if only they
can turn law, religion, peace, and all human affairs upside down.’[361]

In conclusion, Folly, after pushing her satire in other directions, was
made to apologise for the bold flight she had taken. If anything she had
said seemed to be spoken with too much loquacity or petulance, she begged
that it might be remembered that it was spoken by _Folly_. But let it be
remembered, also, she added, that

  A fool oft speaks a seasonable truth.

She then made her bow, and descended the steps of her rostrum, bidding her
most illustrious votaries farewell--_valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite_!

[Sidenote: Editions of the ‘Praise of Folly.’]

Such was the ‘Praise of Folly,’ the manuscript of which was snatched from
Erasmus by More or one of his friends, and ultimately sent over to Paris
to be printed there, probably in the summer of 1511, and to pass within a
few months through no less than seven editions.[362]

[Sidenote: Erasmus settled at Cambridge.]

Meanwhile, after recruiting his shattered health under More’s roof,
spending a few months with Lord Mountjoy[363] and Warham,[364] and paying
a flying visit to Paris, it would seem that Erasmus, aided and encouraged
by his friends, betook himself to Cambridge to pursue his studies, hoping
to be able to eke out his income by giving lessons in the Greek language
to such pupils as might be found amongst the University students willing
to learn,--the chance fees of students being supplemented by the promise
of a small stipend from the University.[365]

It seems to have been taken for granted that the ‘new learning’ was now to
make rapid progress, having Henry VIII. for its royal patron, and Erasmus
for its professor of Greek at Cambridge.




CHAPTER VI.


I. COLET FOUNDS ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL (1510).

Fully as Colet joined his friends in rejoicing at the accession to the
throne of a king known to be favourable to himself and his party, he had
drunk by far too deeply of the spirit of self-sacrifice to admit of his
rejoicing with a mere courtier’s joy.

[Sidenote: Colet inherits his father’s fortune.]

Fortune had indeed been lavish to him. His elevation unasked to the
dignity of Doctor and Dean; the popular success of his preaching; the
accession of a friendly king, from whom probably further promotion was to
be had for the asking; and, lastly, the sudden acquisition on his father’s
death of a large independent fortune in addition to the revenues of the
deanery;--here was a concurrence of circumstances far more likely to
foster habits of selfish ease and indulgence than to draw Colet into paths
of self-denial and self-sacrificing labour. Had he enlisted in the ranks
of a great cause in the hasty zeal of enthusiasm, it had had time now to
cool, and here was the triumphal arch through which the abjured hero might
gracefully retire from work amidst the world’s applause.

But Colet, in his lectures at Oxford, had laid great stress upon the
necessity of that living sacrifice of men’s hearts and lives without which
all other sacrifices were empty things, and it seems that after he was
called to the deanery he gave forth ‘A right fruitfull Admonition
concerning the Order of a good Christian Man’s Life,’[366] which passed
through many editions during the sixteenth century, and in which he made
use of the following language:--

[Sidenote: Colet on the duty of self-sacrifice.]

‘Thou must know that thou hast nothing that good is of thyself, but of
God. For the gift of nature and all other temporal gifts of this world ...
well considered have come to thee by the infinite goodness and grace of
God, and not of thyself.... But in especial is it necessary for thee to
know that God of his great grace has made thee his image, having regard to
thy memory, understanding, and free will, and that God is thy maker, and
thou his wretched creature, and that thou art redeemed of God by the
passion of Jesus Christ, and that God is thy helper, thy refuge, and thy
deliverance from all evil.... And, therefore, think, and thank God, and
utterly despise thyself, ... in that God hath done so much for thee, and
thou hast so often offended his highness, and also done Him so little
service. And therefore, by his infinite mercy and grace, call unto thy
remembrance the degree of dignity which Almighty God hath called thee
unto, and according thereunto yield thy debt, and do thy duty.’

Colet was not the man to preach one thing and practise another. No sooner
had he been appointed to the deanery of St. Paul’s, than he had at once
resigned the rich living of Stepney,[367] the residence of his father, and
now of his widowed mother. And no sooner had his father’s fortune come
into his hands, than he earnestly considered how most effectually to
devote it to the cause in which he had laboured so unceasingly at Oxford
and St. Paul’s.

[Sidenote: Colet founds St. Paul’s School.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s object in founding it.]

After mature deliberation he resolved, whilst living and in health, to
devote his patrimony[368] to the foundation of a school in St. Paul’s
Churchyard, wherein 153 children,[369] without any restriction as to
nation or country, who could already read and write, and were of ‘good
parts and capacities,’ should receive a sound Christian education. The
‘Latin adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this world,’
poisoning thereby ‘the old Latin speech, and the very Roman tongue used in
the time of Tully and Sallust, and Virgil and Terence, and learned by St.
Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine,’--all that ‘abusion which the
later blind world brought in, and which may rather be called Blotterature
than Literature,’--should be ‘utterly abanished and excluded’ out of this
school. The children should be taught good literature, both Latin and
Greek, ‘such authors that have with wisdom joined pure chaste
eloquence’--‘specially Christian authors who wrote their wisdom in clean
and chaste Latin, whether in prose or verse; for,’ said Colet, ‘_my intent
is by this school specially to increase knowledge, and worshipping of God
and Our Lord Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and manners in the
children_.’[370]

And, as if to keep this end always prominently in view, he placed an image
of the ‘Child Jesus,’ to whom the school was dedicated, standing over the
master’s chair in the attitude of teaching, with the motto, ‘Hear ye
him;’[371] and upon the front of the building, next to the cathedral, the
following inscription:--‘Schola catechizationis puerorum in Christi Opt.
Max. fide et bonis Literis. Anno Christi MDX.’[372]

The building consisted of one large room, divided into an upper and lower
school by a curtain, which could be drawn at pleasure; and the charge of
the two schools devolved upon a high-master and a sub-master respectively.

[Sidenote: Salaries of the masters.]

[Sidenote: Cost of Colet’s school.]

The forms were arranged so as each to seat sixteen boys, and were provided
each with a raised desk, at which the head boy sat as president. The
building also embraced an entrance-porch and a little chapel for divine
service. Dwelling-houses were erected, adjoining the school, for the
residence of the two masters; and for their support Colet obtained, in the
spring of 1510, a royal license to transfer to the Wardens and Guild of
Mercers in London, real property to the value of 53_l._ per annum[373]
(equivalent to at least 530_l._ of present money). Of this the headmaster
was to receive as his salary 35_l._ (say 350_l._) and the under-master
18_l._ (say 180_l._) per annum. Three or four years after, Colet made
provision for a chaplain to conduct divine service in the chapel, and to
instruct the children in the Catechism, the Articles of the faith, and the
Ten Commandments--in _English_; and ultimately, before his death, he
appears to have increased the amount of the whole endowment to 122_l._
(say 1,200_l._) per annum. So that it may be considered, roughly, that the
whole endowment, including the buildings, cannot have represented a less
sum than 30,000_l._ or 40,000_l._ of present money.[374]

And if Colet thus sacrificed so much of his private fortune to secure a
liberal (and it must be conceded his was a liberal) provision for the
remuneration of the masters who should educate his 153 boys, he must
surely have had deeply at heart the welfare of the boys themselves. And,
in truth, it was so. Colet was like a father to his schoolboys. It has
indeed been assumed that a story related by Erasmus, to exhibit the low
state of education and the cruel severity exercised in the common run of
schools, was intended by him to describe the severe discipline maintained
by Colet and his masters; but I submit that this is a pure assumption,
without the least shadow of proof, and contrary to every kind of
probability. The story itself is dark enough truly, and, in order that
Colet’s name may be cleared once for all from its odium, may as well be
given to the reader as it is found in Erasmus’s work ‘On the Liberal
Education of Boys.’

[Sidenote: Abuses in private schools.]

It occurs, let it be remembered, in a work written by Erasmus to expose
and hold up to public scorn the private schools, including those of
monasteries and colleges, in which honest parents were blindly induced to
place their children--at the mercy, it might be, of drunken dames, or of
men too often without knowledge, chastity, or judgment. It was a work in
which he described these schools as he had described them in his ‘Praise
of Folly,’ and in which he detailed scandals and cruelty too foul to be
translated, with the express object of enforcing his opinion, that if
there were to be any schools at all, they ought to be _public_ schools--in
fact, precisely such schools as that which Colet was establishing. The
story is introduced as an example of the scandals which were sometimes
perpetrated by incompetent masters, in schools of the class which he had
thus harshly, but not _too_ harshly, condemned.

After saying that no masters were more cruel to their boys than those who,
from ignorance, can teach them least (a remark which certainly could not
be intended to refer to Colet’s headmaster), he thus proceeded:--

[Sidenote: Cruelty of some schoolmasters.]

[Sidenote: Story of cruelty, wrongly attributed to Colet.]

‘What can such masters do in their schools but get through the day by
flogging and scolding? I once knew a divine, and intimately too--a man of
reputation--who seemed to think that no cruelty to scholars could be
enough, since he would not have any but flogging masters. He thought this
was the only way to crush the boys’ unruly spirits, and to subdue the
wantonness of their age. Never did he take a meal with his flock without
making the comedy end in a tragedy. So at the end of the meal one or
another boy was dragged out to be flogged.... I myself was once by when,
after dinner, as usual, he called out a boy, I should think, about ten
years old. He had only just come fresh from his mother to school. His
mother, it should be said, was a pious woman, and had especially commended
the boy to him. But he at once began to charge the boy with unruliness,
since he could think of nothing else, and must find something to flog him
for, and made signs to the proper official to flog him. Whereupon the poor
boy was forthwith floored then and there, and flogged as though he had
committed sacrilege. The divine again and again interposed, “That will
do--that will do;” but the inexorable executioner continued his cruelty
till the boy almost fainted. By-and-by the divine turned round to me and
said, “He did nothing to deserve it, but the boys’ spirits must be
subdued.”’[375]

This is the story which we are told it would be difficult to apply to
anyone but Colet,[376] as though Colet were the only ‘divine of
reputation’ ever intimately known to Erasmus! or as though Erasmus would
thus hold up his friend Colet to the scorn of the world!

[Sidenote: Colet’s gentleness and love of children.]

The fact is that no one could peruse the ‘precepts of living’ laid down by
Colet for his school without seeing not only how practical and sound were
his views on the education of the heart, mind, and body of his boys, but
also how at the root of them lay a strong undercurrent of warm and gentle
feelings, a real love of youth.[377]

In truth, Colet was fond of children, even to tenderness. Erasmus relates
that he would often remind his guests and his friends how that Christ had
made children the examples for men, and that he was wont to compare them
to the angels above.[378] And if any further proof were wanted that Colet
showed even a touching tenderness for children, it must surely be found in
the following ‘lytell proheme’ to the Latin Grammar which he wrote for his
school, and of which we shall hear more by-and-by:--

[Sidenote: Colet’s preface to his grammar.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s tenderness towards little children.]

‘Albeit many have written, and have made certain introductions into Latin
speech, called _Donates_ and _Accidens_, in Latin tongue and in English;
in such plenty that it should seem to suffice, yet nevertheless, for the
love and zeal that I have to the new school of Paul’s, and to the children
of the same, I have also ... of the eight parts of grammar made this
little book.... In which, if any new things be of me, it is alonely that I
have put these “parts” in a more clear order, and I have made them a
little more easy to young wits, than (methinketh) they were before:
judging that nothing may be too soft, nor too familiar for little
children, specially learning a tongue unto them all strange. In which
little book I have left many things out of purpose, considering the
tenderness and small capacity of little minds....[378] I pray God all may
be to his honour, and to the erudition and profit of children, my
countrymen _Londoners_ specially, whom, digesting this little work, I had
always before mine eyes, considering more what was for _them_ than to
show any great cunning; willing to speak the things often before spoken,
in such manner as gladly young beginners and tender wits might take and
conceive. Wherefore I pray you, all little babes, all little children,
learn gladly this little treatise, and commend it diligently unto your
memories, trusting of this beginning that ye shall proceed and grow to
perfect literature, and come at the last to be _great clerks_. _And lift
up your little white hands for me_, which prayeth for you to God, to whom
be all honour and imperial majesty and glory. Amen.’

The man who, having spent his patrimony in the foundation of a school,
could write such a preface as this to one of his schoolbooks, was not
likely to insist ‘upon having none but flogging masters.’

[Sidenote: Colet will not trouble them with many rules.]

Moreover, this preface was followed by a short note, addressed to his
‘well-beloved masters and teachers of grammar,’ in which, by way of
apology for its brevity, and the absence of the endless rules and
exceptions found in most grammars, he tells them: ‘In the beginning men
spake not Latin because such rules were made, but, contrariwise, because
men spake such Latin the rules were made. That is to say, Latin speech was
before the rules, and not the rules before the Latin speech.’ And
therefore the best way to learn ‘to speak and write clean Latin is busily
to learn and read good Latin authors, and note how they wrote and spoke.’
‘Wherefore,’ he concludes, ‘after “the parts of speech” sufficiently known
in your schools, read and expound plainly unto your scholars good authors,
and show to them every word, and in every sentence what they shall note
and observe; warning them busily to follow and to do like, both in writing
and in speaking, and be to them your own self also, speaking with them
the pure Latin, very present, and _leave the rules_. For reading of good
books, diligent information of taught masters, studious advertence and
taking heed of learners, hearing eloquent men speak, and finally busy
imitation with tongue and pen, more availeth shortly to get the true
eloquent speech, than all the traditions, rules, and precepts of masters.’

[Sidenote: Lilly’s Epigram.]

Nor would it seem that Colet’s first headmaster, at all events, failed to
appreciate the practical common-sense and gentle regard for the
‘tenderness of little minds,’ which breathes through these prefaces; for
at the end of them he himself added this epigram:--

  Pocula si linguæ cupias gustare Latinæ,
    Quale tibi monstret, ecce _Coletus_ iter!
  Non per Caucaseos montes, aut summa Pyrene;
    Te ista per Hybleos sed via ducit agros.[379]


II. HIS CHOICE OF SCHOOLBOOKS AND SCHOOLMASTERS (1511).

[Sidenote: Linacre’s rejected Grammar.]

[Sidenote: ‘Lilly’s Grammar.’]

The mention of Colet’s ‘Latin Grammar’ suggests one of the difficulties in
the way of carrying out of his projected school, his mode of surmounting
which was characteristic of the spirit in which he worked. It was not to
be expected that he should find the schoolbooks of the old grammarians in
any way adapted to his purpose. So at once he set his learned friends to
work to provide him with new ones. The first thing wanted was a Latin
Grammar for beginners. Linacre undertook to provide this want, and wrote
with great pains and labour a work in six books, which afterwards came
into general use. But when Colet saw it, at the risk of displeasing his
friend, he put it altogether aside. It was too long and too learned for
his ‘little beginners.’ So he condensed within the compass of a few pages
two little treatises, an ‘Accidence’ and a ‘Syntax,’ in the preface to the
first of which occur the gentle words quoted above.[380] These little
books, after receiving additions from the hands of Erasmus, Lilly, and
others, finally became generally adopted and known as _Lilly’s
Grammar_.[381]

This rejection of his Grammar seems to have been a sore point with
Linacre, but Erasmus told Colet not to be too much concerned about it: he
would, he said, get over it in time,[382] which probably he did much
sooner than Colet’s school would have got over the loss which would have
been inflicted by the adoption of a schoolbook beyond the capacity of the
boys.

[Sidenote: ‘De Copiâ Verborum.’]

Erasmus, in the same letter in which he spoke of Linacre’s rejected
grammar, told Colet that he was working at his ‘De Copiâ Verborum,’ which
he was writing expressly for Colet’s school. He told him, too, that he had
sometimes to take up the cudgels for him against the ‘Thomists and
Scotists of Cambridge;’ that he was looking out for an
under-schoolmaster, but had not yet succeeded in finding one. Meanwhile he
enclosed a letter, in which he had put on paper his notions of what a
schoolmaster ought to be, and the best method of teaching boys, which he
fancied Colet might not altogether approve, as he was wont somewhat more
to despise rhetoric than Erasmus did. He stated his opinion that--

[Sidenote: Erasmus on the true method of education.]

‘In order that the teacher might be thoroughly up to his work, he should
not merely be a master of one particular branch of study. He should
himself have travelled through the whole circle of knowledge. In
philosophy he should have studied Plato and Aristotle, Theophrastus and
Plotinus; in Theology the Sacred Scriptures, and after them Origen,
Chrysostom, and Basil among the Greek fathers, and Ambrose and Jerome
among the Latin fathers; among the poets, Homer and Ovid; in geography,
which is very important in the study of history, Pomponius Mela, Ptolemy,
Pliny, Strabo. He should know what ancient names of rivers, mountains,
countries, cities, answer to the modern ones; and the same of trees,
animals, instruments, clothes, and gems, with regard to which it is
incredible how ignorant even educated men are. He should take note of
little facts about agriculture, architecture, military and culinary arts,
mentioned by different authors. He should be able to trace the origin of
words, their gradual corruption in the languages of Constantinople, Italy,
Spain, and France. Nothing should be beneath his observation which can
illustrate history or the meaning of the poets. But you will say what a
load you are putting on the back of the poor teacher! It is so; but I
burden the one to relieve the many. I want the teacher to have traversed
the whole range of knowledge, that it may spare each of his scholars doing
it. A diligent and thoroughly competent master might give boys a fair
proficiency in both Latin and Greek, in a shorter time and with less
labour than the common run of pedagogues take to teach their babble.’[383]

On receipt of this letter and its enclosure, Colet wrote to Erasmus:--

    _Colet to Erasmus._

    ‘London, 1511.[384]

    [Sidenote: Colet agrees with Erasmus.]

    ‘“What! I shall not approve!” So you say! What is there of Erasmus’s
    that I do not approve? I have read your letter “De Studiis” hastily,
    for as yet I have been too busy to read it carefully. Glancing through
    it, not only do I approve everything, but also greatly admire your
    genius, skill, learning, fulness, and eloquence. I have often longed
    that the boys of my school should be taught in the way in which you
    say they should be. And often also have I longed that I could get such
    teachers as you have so well described. When I came to that point at
    the end of the letter where you say that you could educate boys up to
    a fair proficiency in both tongues in fewer years than it takes those
    pedagogues to teach their babble, O Erasmus, how I longed that I could
    make you the master of my school! I have indeed some hope that you
    will give us a helping hand in teaching our teachers when you leave
    those “Cantabrigians.”

    ‘With respect to our friend Linacre, I will follow your advice, so
    kindly and prudently given.

    ‘Do not give up looking for an undermaster, if there should be anyone
    at Cambridge who would not think it beneath his dignity to be under
    the headmaster.

    [Sidenote: The Scotists of Cambridge.]

    ‘As to what you say about your occasional skirmishes with the ranks of
    the Scotists on my behalf, I am glad to have such a champion to defend
    me. But it is an unequal and inglorious contest for you; for what
    glory is it to you to put to rout a cloud of flies? What thanks do you
    deserve from me for cutting down reeds? It is a contest more necessary
    than glorious or difficult!’

While Colet acquiesced in the view expressed by Erasmus as to the high
qualities required in a schoolmaster, he gave practical proof of his sense
of the dignity of the calling by the liberal remuneration he offered to
secure one.

[Sidenote: Salaries of Colet’s masters.]

[Sidenote: Lilly headmaster of Colet’s school.]

[Sidenote: An undermaster wanted.]

[Sidenote: Story of a Cambridge doctor.]

At a time when the Lord Chancellor of England received as his salary 100
marks, with a similar sum for the commons of himself and his clerk, making
in all 133_l._ per annum,[385] Colet offered to the high-master of his
school 35_l._ per annum, and a house to live in besides. This was
practical proof that Colet meant to secure the services of more than a
mere common grammarian. He had in view for his headmaster, Lilly, the
friend and fellow-student of More, who had mastered the Latin language in
Italy, and even travelled farther East to perfect his knowledge of Greek.
He was well versed not only in the Greek authors, but in the manners and
customs of the people, having lived some years in the island of
Rhodes.[386] He had returned home, it is said, by way of Jerusalem, and
had recently opened a private school in London.[387] He was, moreover, the
godson of Grocyn, and himself an Oxford student. He had at one time, as
already mentioned, shared with More some ascetic tendencies, but, like his
friend, had wisely stopped short of Carthusian vows. He was, in truth,
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Colet and his friends, and, in the
opinion of Erasmus, ‘a thorough master in the art of educating
youth.’[388] Thus Colet had found a high-master ready to be fully
installed in his office, as soon as the building was completed. But an
under-master was not so easy to find. Colet had written to Erasmus, in
September, 1511, wishing him to look one out for him,[389] and in the
letter last quoted had again repeated his request. Erasmus wrote again in
October, and informed him that he had mentioned his want to some of the
college dons. One of them had replied by sneeringly asking, ‘Who would put
up with the life of a schoolmaster who could get a living in any other
way?’ Whereupon Erasmus modestly urged that he thought the education of
youth was the most honourable of all callings, and that there could be no
labour more pleasing to God than the Christian training of boys. At which
the Cambridge doctor turned up his nose in contempt, and scornfully
replied, ‘If anyone wants to give himself up entirely to the service of
Christ, let him enter a monastery!’ Erasmus ventured to question whether
St. Paul did not place true religion rather in works of charity--in doing
as much good as possible to our neighbours? The other rejected altogether
so crude a notion. ‘Behold,’ said he, ‘we must leave all; in that is
perfection.’ ‘_He_ scarcely can be said to leave all,’ promptly returned
Erasmus, ‘who, when he has a chance of doing good to others, refuses the
task because it is too humble in the eyes of the world.’ ‘And then,’ wrote
Erasmus, ‘lest I should get into a quarrel, I bade the man good-bye.’[390]

This, he said, was an example of ‘Scotistical wisdom,’ and he told Colet
that he did not care often to meddle with these self-satisfied Scotists,
well knowing that no good would come of it.

       *       *       *       *       *

It would seem that, after all, a worthy under-master did turn up at
Cambridge, willing to work under Lilly, and thereafter to become his
son-in-law;[391] so that with schoolmasters already secured, and
schoolbooks in course of preparation, Colet’s enterprise seemed likely
fairly to get under way so soon as the building should be completed in St.
Paul’s Churchyard.




CHAPTER VII.


I. CONVOCATION FOR THE EXTIRPATION OF HERESY (1512).

[Sidenote: Lollards go to hear Colet’s sermons.]

[Sidenote: Two heretics burned at Smithfield.]

Colet’s labours in connection with his school did not interfere with his
ordinary duties. He was still, Sunday after Sunday, preaching those
courses of sermons on ‘the Gospels, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s
Prayer,’ which attracted by their novelty and unwonted earnestness so many
listeners. The Dean was no Lollard himself, yet those whose leanings were
toward Lollard views naturally found, in Colet’s simple Scripture teaching
from his pulpit at St. Paul’s, what they felt to be the food for which
they were in search, and which they did not get elsewhere. They were wont,
it seems, to advise one another to go and hear Dr. Colet; and it was not
strange if, in the future examination of heretics, a connection should be
traced between Colet’s sermons and the increase of heresy.[392] That
heresy was on the increase could not be doubted. Foxe has recorded that
several Lollards suffered in 1511 under Archbishop Warham, and, strange to
say, Colet’s name appears on the list of judges.[393] Foxe also mentions
no fewer than twenty-three heretics who were compelled by Fitzjames,
Bishop of London, to abjure during 1510 and 1511. And so zealous was the
Bishop in his old age against them that he burned at least two of them in
Smithfield during the autumn of 1511.[394] So common, indeed, were these
martyr-fires, that Ammonius, Latin secretary to Henry VIII., writing from
London, a few weeks after, to Erasmus at Cambridge, could jestingly say,
that ‘he does not wonder that wood is so scarce and dear, the heretics
cause so many holocausts; and yet (he said) their numbers grow--nay, even
the brother of Thomas, my servant, dolt as he is, has himself founded a
sect, and has his disciples!’[395]

It was under these circumstances that a royal mandate was issued, in
November 1511, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to summon a convocation of
his province to meet in St. Paul’s Cathedral, February 6, 1512.[396]

[Sidenote: Convocation summoned.]

The King--under the instigation, it was thought, of Wolsey[397]--was just
then entering into a treaty with the Pope and other princes with a view to
warlike proceedings against France; and the King’s object in calling this
convocation was doubtless to procure from the clergy their share of the
taxation necessary to meet the expenses of equipping an army, which it was
convenient to represent as required ‘for the defence of the _Church_ as
well as the kingdom of England;’ but there was another object for which a
convocation was required besides this of taxation--one more palatable to
Bishop Fitzjames and his party--that of the ‘_extirpation of
heresy_.’[398]

On Friday, February 6, 1512, members of both Houses of Convocation
assembled, it would seem, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, to listen to the sermon
by which it was customary that their proceedings should be opened.

[Sidenote: Colet appointed to preach the opening sermon.]

Dean Colet was charged by the Archbishop with the duty of preaching this
opening address.

It was a task by no means to be envied, but Colet was not the man to shirk
a duty because it was unpleasant. He had accepted the deanery of St.
Paul’s not simply to wear its dignities and enjoy its revenues, but to do
its duties; and one of those duties, perhaps _the_ one to which he had
felt himself most clearly called, had been the duty of _preaching_.
Probably, there was not a pulpit in England which offered so wide a sphere
of influence to the preacher as that of St. Paul’s.

[Sidenote: St. Paul’s Cathedral.]

[Sidenote: St. Paul’s Walk.]

The noble cathedral itself was _then_, in a sense which can hardly be
realised _now_, the centre of the metropolis of England. In architectural
merits, in vastness, and in the beauty of its proportions, it was rivalled
by few in the world; but it was not from these alone that it derived its
importance. Under the shadow of its gracefully-tapering spire, 534 feet in
height, its nave and choir and presbytery extended 700 feet in one long
line of Gothic arches, broken only by the low screen between the nave and
choir. And pacing up and down this nave might be seen men of every class
in life, from the merchant and the courtier down to the mendicant and the
beggar. _St. Paul’s Walk_ was like a ‘change, thronged by men of business
and men of the world, congregated there to hear the news, or to drive
their bargains; while in the long aisles kneeled the devotees of saints or
Virgin, paying their devotions at shrines and altars, loaded with costly
offerings and burning tapers; and in the chantries, priests in monotonous
tones sang masses for departed souls.

[Sidenote: Colet had now preached at St. Paul’s seven years.]

In _this_ cathedral had Colet preached now for seven successive years. He
had preached to the humblest classes in their own English tongue,[399]
and, in order to bring down his teaching to their level, had given them an
English translation of the Paternoster[400] for their use. He had seen
them kneeling before the shrines, and had faithfully warned them against
the worship of images.[401] He had preached to the merchants and citizens
of London, and they had recognised in him a preacher who practised what he
preached, whose life did not give the lie to what he taught; and he had
done all this in spite of any talk his plain-speaking might create amongst
the orthodox, and notwithstanding the open opposition of his bishop. If
poor Lollards found in him an earnestness and simple faith they did not
find elsewhere, he knew that it was not _his_ fault. It was not _he_ who
was making heretics so fast, but the priests and bishops themselves, who
were driving honest souls into heretical ways by the scandal of their
worldly living, and the pride and dryness of their orthodox profession.
And now, when he was called upon to preach to these very priests and
bishops, was he to shrink from the task?

Colet had already, in his lectures at Oxford, given expression to the pain
which ecclesiastical scandals had given him; and in his abstracts of the
Dionysian treatises he had recorded, with grief and tears, his longings
for ecclesiastical reform. These, however, had never been printed. They
lay in manuscript in his own hands, and could easily be suppressed. It
remained to be seen whether seven years’ enjoyment of his own preferment
had closed his lips to the utterance of unpopular truths.

[Sidenote: Condition of the clergy.]

If it were possible so far to look behind the screen of the past as to see
the bishops of the province of Canterbury with the sight and knowledge of
Colet, as he saw them assembled at St. Paul’s on that Friday morning,
then, and then only, would it be possible to appreciate fairly what it
must have cost him to preach the sermon he did on this occasion.

[Sidenote: The bishops and their benefices.]

The Archbishop and some of the bishops were friends of his and of the new
learning; but even some of these were so far carried away by the habits of
the times, as to fall inevitably under the censure of any honest preacher
who should dare to apply the Christian standard to their episcopal
conduct. There might be honourable exceptions to the rule, but, _as a
rule_, the bishops looked upon their sees as _property_ conferred upon
them often for political services, or as the natural result of family
position or influence. The pastoral duties which properly belonged to
their position were too often lost sight of. A bishopric was a thing to be
sued for or purchased by money or influence. It mattered little whether
the aspirant were a boy or a greyheaded old man, whether he lived abroad
or in England, whether he were illiterate or educated. There was one
bishop, for instance, whom Erasmus speaks of as a ‘youth,’ and who was so
illiterate that he had offered Erasmus a benefice and a large sum of money
if he would undertake his tuition for a year--a bribe which Erasmus,
albeit at the time anxiously seeking remunerative work of a kind which
would not interfere with his studies, refused with contempt.[402] Then
there was James Stanley, an old man, whose only title to preferment was
his connection with the Royal Family and a noble house, who, in spite of
his absolute unfitness, had been made Bishop of Ely in 1506, and was now
living, it is said, a life of open profligacy, to the great scandal of the
English Church, and of the noble house to which he belonged.[403]

There was a bishop, too, whom More satirised repeatedly in his epigrams,
under the name of ‘Posthumus;’ at whose promotion he expresses his
delight, inasmuch as, whilst bishops were ‘generally selected at _random_,
this bishop had evidently been chosen with _exceptional care_. If an error
had been made in this case, it could not certainly have arisen from
_haste_ in selection; for had the choice been made out of a thousand, a
_worse or more stupid_ bishop could not possibly have been found!’[404]
From another epigram, it may be inferred that this ‘Posthumus’ was one of
the ignorant Scotists whose opposition the Oxford Reformers had so often
to combat; for More represents him as fond of quoting the text, ‘_The
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life_,’--the text which is mentioned
by Tyndale as quoted by the Scotists against the literal interpretation of
Scripture;--and then he drily remarks, that this bishop was too illiterate
for any ‘_letters_ to have killed him, and that, if they had, he had no
_spirit_ to bring him to life again!’[405]

[Sidenote: The bishops and their benefices.]

These may, indeed, have been exceptional or, at all events, extreme cases;
but, however the bishops of the province of Canterbury had come by their
bishoprics, their general practice seems to have been to use their
benefices only as stepping-stones to higher ones. No sooner were they
promoted to one see than they aspired to another, of higher rank and
greater revenue. This, at least, was no exceptional thing. The Bishop of
Bath and Wells had been Bishop of Hereford; the Bishop of Chichester had
been translated from the see of St. David’s. The Bishop of Lincoln had
been Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. Audley had filled the sees of
Rochester and Hereford in succession, and was now Bishop of Salisbury.
Fitzjames had been first promoted to the see of Rochester, after that to
the see of Chichester, and from thence, in his old age, to the most
lucrative of all--the see of London. Fox had commenced his episcopal
career as Bishop of Exeter; he had from thence been translated, in
succession, to the sees of Bath and Wells, and Durham, and was now Bishop
of Winchester. And be it remembered that these numerous promotions were
not in reward for the successful discharge of pastoral duties: those who
had earned the most numerous and rapid promotions were the men who were
the most deeply engaged in _political_ affairs, sent on embassies, and so
forth, whose benefices were thus the reward of purely secular services,
and who, consequently, had hardly had a chance of discharging with
diligence their spiritual duties. The Bishop of Bath and Wells was a
foreigner, and lived abroad; and so also the Bishop of Worcester owed his
bishopric to Papal provision, and lived and died at Rome. His predecessor
and his successor also both were foreigners.[406]

[Sidenote: Wolsey.]

[Sidenote: Wolsey’s ambition.]

There was also, amongst the clergy of the province of Canterbury, a man
who was to surpass all others in these particulars; who was to be handed
down to posterity as the very type of an ambitious churchman; who was
already high in royal favour, always engaged in political affairs, and
considered to be the instigator of the approaching war; who had the whole
charge of equipping the army committed to his care; who had lately been
promoted to the deanery of Lincoln, and was waiting for the bishopric as
soon as it should be vacant; who had already had conferred upon him, in
addition to the deanery, two rectories, a prebend, and a canonry; who,
before another year was out, without giving up any of these preferments,
was to be made Dean of York; and who was destined to aspire from bishopric
to archbishopric, to hold abbeys and bishoprics _in commendam_, sue for
and obtain from the Pope a cardinal’s hat and legatine authority, and to
rule England in Church and State--England’s king amongst the rest--failing
only in his attempt to get himself elected to the Papal chair. This Dean
of Lincoln, so aspiring, ambitious, fond of magnificence and state, was
sure to be found at his place in a convocation called that the clergy
might tax themselves in support of his warlike policy, and in aid of his
ambitious dreams. Wolsey, we may be sure, would be there to watch
anxiously the concessions of his ‘dismes,’ as Bishop Fitzjames would be
there also, to await the measures to be taken for the ‘extirpation of
heresy.’

It was before an assembly composed of such bishops and churchmen as these,
that Colet rose to deliver the following address:--

    [Sidenote: Colet’s sermon.]

    [Sidenote: Need of reformation in the church.]

    ‘You are come together to-day, fathers and right wise men, to hold a
    council. In which what ye will do, and what matters ye will handle, I
    do not yet know; but I wish that, at length, mindful of your name and
    profession, ye would consider of the reformation of ecclesiastical
    affairs: for never was it more necessary, and never did the state of
    the Church more need your endeavours. For the Church--the spouse of
    Christ--which He wished to be without spot or wrinkle, is become foul
    and deformed. As saith Esaias, “The faithful city is become a harlot;”
    and as Jeremias speaks, “She hath committed fornication with many
    lovers,” whereby she hath conceived many seeds of iniquity, and daily
    bringeth forth the foulest offspring. Wherefore I have come here
    to-day, fathers, to admonish you with all your minds to deliberate, in
    this your Council, concerning the reformation of the Church.

    [Sidenote: Colet’s modesty.]

    ‘But, in sooth, I came not of my own will and pleasure, for I was
    conscious of my unworthiness, and I saw too how hard it would be to
    satisfy the most critical judgment of such great men. I judged it
    would be altogether unworthy, unfit, and almost arrogant in me, a
    servant, to admonish you, my masters!--in me, a son, to teach you, my
    fathers! It would have come better from some one of the fathers,--that
    is, from one of you prelates, who might have done it with weightier
    authority and greater wisdom. But I could not but obey the command of
    the most reverend Father and Lord Archbishop, the President of this
    Council, who imposed this duty, a truly heavy one, upon me; for we
    read that it was said by Samuel the prophet, “Obedience is better than
    sacrifice.” Wherefore, fathers and most worthy sirs, I pray and
    beseech you this day that you will bear with my weakness by your
    forbearance and patience; next, in the beginning, help me with your
    pious prayers. And, before all things, let us pour out our prayers to
    God the Father Almighty; and first, let us pray for his Holiness the
    Pope, for all spiritual pastors, with all Christian people; next, let
    us pray for our most reverend Father the Lord Archbishop, President of
    this Council, and all the lords bishops, the whole clergy, and the
    whole people of England; let us pray, lastly, for this assembly and
    convocation, praying God that He may inspire your minds so
    unanimously to conclude upon what is for the good and benefit of the
    Church, that when this Council is concluded we may not seem to have
    been called together in vain and without cause. Let us all say “the
    _Pater noster_, &c.”’

The Paternoster concluded, Colet proceeded:--

    [Sidenote: Text from Rom. xii.]

    ‘As I am about to exhort you, reverend fathers, to endeavour to reform
    the condition of the Church; because nothing has so disfigured the
    face of the Church as the secular and worldly way of living on the
    part of the clergy, I know not how I can commence my discourse more
    fitly than with the Apostle Paul, in whose cathedral ye are now
    assembled: (Romans xii. 2)--“Be ye not conformed to this world, but be
    ye reformed in the newness of your minds, that ye may prove what is
    the good, and well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.” This the
    Apostle wrote to all Christian men, but emphatically to priests and
    bishops: for priests and bishops are the lights of the world, as the
    Saviour said to them, “Ye are the light of the world;” and again He
    said, “If the light that is in you be darkness, how great will be that
    darkness!” That is, if priests and bishops, the very lights, run in
    the dark way of the world, how dark must the lay-people be! Wherefore,
    emphatically to priests and bishops did St. Paul say, “Be ye not
    conformed to this world, but be ye reformed in the newness of your
    minds.”

    ‘By these words the Apostle points out two things:--First, he
    prohibits our being _conformed_ to the world and becoming _carnal_;
    and then he commands that we be _reformed_ in the Spirit of God, in
    order that we may be _spiritual_. I therefore, following this order,
    shall speak first of _Conformation_, and after that of _Reformation_.

    [Sidenote: Of ‘conformation.’]

    ‘“Be not,” he says, “conformed to this world.” By the _world_ the
    Apostle means the worldly way and manner of living, which consists
    chiefly in these four evils--viz. in _devilish pride_, in _carnal
    concupiscence_, in _worldly covetousness_, and in _worldly
    occupations_. These things are in the world, as St. John testifies in
    his canonical epistle; for he says, “All things that are in the world
    are either the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eye, or the pride
    of life.” These things in like manner exist and reign in the Church,
    and amongst ecclesiastical persons, so that we seem able truly to say,
    “All things that are in the _Church_ are either the lust of the flesh,
    the lust of the eye, or the pride of life!”

    [Sidenote: Pride of life.]

    ‘In the _first_ place, to speak of _pride of life_--what eagerness and
    hunger after honour and dignity are found in these days amongst
    ecclesiastical persons! What a breathless race from benefice to
    benefice, from a less to a greater one, from a lower to a higher! Who
    is there who does not see this? Who that sees it does not grieve over
    it? Moreover, those who hold these dignities, most of them carry
    themselves with such lofty mien and high looks, that their place does
    not seem to be in the humble priesthood of Christ, but in proud
    worldly dominion!--not acknowledging or perceiving what the master of
    humility, Christ, said to his disciples whom he called to the
    priesthood. “The princes of the nations” (said He) “have lordship over
    them, and those who are amongst the great have power. But it shall
    not be so with you: but he who is great among you, let him be your
    minister; he who is chief, let him be the servant of all. For the Son
    of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” By which
    words the Saviour plainly teaches, that magistracy in the Church is
    nothing else than humble service.

    [Sidenote: Lust of the flesh.]

    ‘As to the second worldly evil, which is the _lust of the flesh_--has
    not this vice, I ask, inundated the Church as with the flood of its
    lust, so that nothing is more carefully sought after, in these most
    troublous times, by the most part of priests, than that which
    ministers to sensual pleasure? They give themselves up to feasting and
    banqueting; spend themselves in vain babbling, take part in sports and
    plays, devote themselves to hunting and hawking; are drowned in the
    delights of this world; patronise those who cater for their pleasure.
    It was against this kind of people that Jude the Apostle exclaimed:
    “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran
    greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the
    gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when
    they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear; clouds they are
    without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth,
    without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of
    the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is
    reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.”

    [Sidenote: Covetousness.]

    ‘_Covetousness_ also, which is the _third_ worldly evil, which the
    Apostle John calls _the lust of the eye_, and Paul _idolatry_--this
    most horrible plague--has so taken possession of the hearts of nearly
    all priests, and has so darkened the eyes of their minds, that
    now-a-days we are blind to everything, but that alone which seems to
    be able to bring us gain. For in these days, what else do we seek for
    in the Church than rich benefices and promotions? In these same
    promotions, what else do we count upon but their fruits and revenues?
    We rush after them with such eagerness, that we care not how many and
    what duties, or how great benefices we take, if only they have great
    revenues.

    ‘O Covetousness! Paul rightly called thee “the root of all evil!” For
    from _thee_ comes all this piling-up of benefices one on the top of
    the other; from _thee_ come the great pensions, assigned out of many
    benefices resigned; from _thee_ quarrels about tithes, about
    offerings, about mortuaries, about dilapidations, about ecclesiastical
    right and title, for which we fight as though for our very lives! O
    Covetousness! from _thee_ come burdensome visitations of bishops; from
    _thee_ corruptions of Law Courts, and those daily fresh inventions by
    which the poor people are harassed; from _thee_ the sauciness and
    insolence of officials! O Covetousness! mother of all iniquity! from
    _thee_ comes that eager desire on the part of ordinaries to enlarge
    their jurisdiction; from _thee_ their foolish and mad contention to
    get hold of the probate of wills; from _thee_ undue sequestrations of
    fruits; from _thee_ that superstitious observance of all those laws
    which are lucrative, and disregard and neglect of those which point at
    the correction of morals! Why should I mention the rest?--To sum up
    all in one word: every corruption, all the ruin of the Church, all the
    scandals of the world, come from the covetousness of priests,
    according to the saying of Paul, which I repeat again, and beat into
    your ears, “Covetousness is the root of all evil!”

    [Sidenote: Worldly occupation.]

    [Sidenote: Apostolic priests.]

    [Sidenote: Modern priests.]

    ‘The _fourth_ worldly evil which mars and spots the face of the Church
    is the incessant _worldly occupation_ in which many priests and
    bishops in these days entangle themselves--servants of men rather than
    of God, soldiers of this world rather than of Christ. For the Apostle
    Paul writes to Timothy, “No man that warreth for God entangleth
    himself in the affairs of this life.” But priests are “soldiers of
    God.” Their warfare truly is not carnal, but spiritual: for our
    warfare is to pray, to read, and to meditate upon the Scriptures; to
    minister the word of God, to administer the sacraments of salvation,
    to make sacrifice for the people, and to offer masses for their souls.
    For we are mediators between men and God, as Paul testifies, writing
    to the Hebrews: “Every priest” (he says) “taken from amongst men is
    ordained for men in things pertaining to God, to offer gifts and
    sacrifices for sins.” Wherefore the Apostles, the first priests and
    bishops, so shrank from every taint of worldly things that they did
    not even wish to minister to the necessities of the poor, although
    this was a great work of piety: for they said, “It is not right that
    we should leave the word of God and serve tables; we will give
    ourselves continually to prayer, and the ministry of the word of God.”
    And Paul exclaims to the Corinthians, “If you have any secular
    matters, make those of you judges who are of least estimation in the
    Church.” Indeed from this worldliness, and because the clergy and
    priests, neglecting spiritual things, involve themselves in earthly
    occupation, many evils follow. First, the priestly dignity is
    dishonoured, which is greater than either royal or imperial dignity,
    for it is equal to that of angels. And the splendour of this high
    dignity is obscured by darkness when priests, whose conversation ought
    to be in heaven, are occupied with the things of earth. Secondly, the
    dignity of priests is despised when there is no difference between
    such priests and laymen; but (according to Hosea the prophet) “as the
    people are, so are the priests.” Thirdly, the beautiful order of the
    hierarchy in the Church is confused when the magnates of the Church
    are busied in vile and earthly things, and in their stead vile and
    abject persons meddle with high and spiritual things. Fourthly, the
    laity themselves are scandalised and driven to ruin, when those whose
    duty it is to draw men _from_ this world, teach men to love this world
    by their own devotion to worldly things, and by their love of this
    world are [themselves] carried down headlong into hell. Besides, when
    priests themselves are thus entangled, it must end in _hypocrisy_;
    for, mixed up and confused with the laity, they lead, under a priestly
    exterior, the mere life of a layman. Also their spiritual weakness and
    servile fear, when enervated by the waters of this world, makes them
    dare neither to do nor say anything but what they know will be
    grateful and pleasing to their princes. Lastly, such is their
    ignorance and blindness, when blinded by the darkness of this world,
    that they can discern nothing but earthly things. Wherefore not
    without cause our Saviour Christ admonished the prelates of his
    Church, “Take heed lest your hearts be burdened by surfeiting or
    banqueting, and the cares of this world.” “By the cares (He says) of
    this world!” The hearts of priests weighed down by riches cannot lift
    themselves on high, nor raise themselves to heavenly things.

    [Sidenote: Invasion of heretics.]

    ‘Many other evils there be, which are the result of the worldliness of
    priests, which it would take long to mention; but I have done. These
    are those four evils, O fathers! O priests! by which, as I have said,
    we are conformed to this world, by which the face of the Church is
    marred, by which her influence is destroyed, plainly, far more than it
    was marred and destroyed, either at the beginning by the persecution
    of tyrants, or after that by the invasion of heresies which followed.
    For by the persecution of tyrants the persecuted Church was made
    stronger and more glorious; by the invasion of heretics, the Church
    being shaken, was made wiser and more skilled in Holy Scriptures. But
    after the introduction of this most sinful worldliness, when
    worldliness had crept in amongst the clergy, the root of all spiritual
    life--charity itself--was extinguished. And without this the Church
    can neither be wise nor strong in God.

    [Sidenote: Wicked life of priests the worst kind of heresy.]

    ‘In these times also we experience much opposition from the laity, but
    they are not so opposed to us as we are to ourselves. Nor does _their_
    opposition do us so much hurt as the opposition of our own wicked
    lives, which are opposed to God and to Christ; for He said, “He that
    is not with me is against me.” We are troubled in these days also by
    heretics--men mad with strange folly;--but this heresy of theirs is
    not so pestilential and pernicious to us and the people as the vicious
    and depraved lives of the clergy, which, if we may believe St.
    Bernard, is a species of heresy, and the greatest and most pernicious
    of all; for that holy father, preaching in a certain convocation to
    the priests of his time, in his sermon spake in these words:--“There
    are many who are catholic in their speaking and preaching who are very
    heretics in their actions, for what heretics do by their false
    doctrines these men do by their evil examples--they seduce the people
    and lead them into error of life--and they are by so much worse than
    heretics as actions are stronger than words.” These things said
    Bernard, that holy father of so great and ardent spirit, against the
    faction of wicked priests of his time; by which words he plainly shows
    that there be two kinds of heretical pravity--one of perverse
    doctrine, the other of perverse living--of which the latter is the
    greater and more pernicious; and this reigns in the Church, to the
    miserable destruction of the Church, her priests living after a
    worldly and not after a priestly fashion. Wherefore do you fathers,
    you priests, and all of you of the clergy, awake at length, and rise
    up from this your sleep in this forgetful world: and being awake, at
    length listen to Paul calling unto you, “Be ye not conformed to this
    world.”

    ‘This concerning the _first_ part.

           *       *       *       *       *

    [Sidenote: Reformation.]

    ‘Now let us come to the _second_--concerning _Reformation_.

    ‘“But be ye reformed in the newness of your minds.” What Paul commands
    us secondly is, that we should “be _re_formed into a new mind;” that
    we should savour the things which are of God; that we should be
    reformed to those things which are contrary to what I have been
    speaking of--_i.e._ to humility, sobriety, charity, spiritual
    occupations; just as Paul wrote to Titus, “Denying ungodliness and
    worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
    present world.”

    [Sidenote: Must begin with the bishops.]

    ‘But this reformation and restoration in ecclesiastical affairs must
    needs begin with _you_, our fathers, and then afterwards descend upon
    us your priests and the whole clergy. For you are our chiefs--you are
    our examples of life. To you we look as waymarks for our direction. In
    you and in your lives we desire to read, as in living books, how we
    ourselves should live. Wherefore, if you wish to see our motes, first
    take the beams out of your own eyes; for it is an old proverb,
    “Physician heal thyself.” Do you, spiritual doctors, first assay that
    medicine for the purgation of morals, and then you may offer it to us
    to taste of it also.

    [Sidenote: Existing laws must be enforced.]

    ‘The way, moreover, by which the Church is to be reformed and restored
    to a better condition is not to enact any new laws (for there are laws
    enough and to spare). As Solomon says, “There is no new thing under
    the sun.” The diseases which are now in the Church were the same in
    former ages, and there is no evil for which the holy fathers did not
    provide excellent remedies; there are no crimes in prohibition of
    which there are not laws in the body of the Canon Law. The need,
    therefore, is not for the enactment of new laws and constitutions, but
    for the observance of those already enacted. Wherefore, in this your
    congregation, let the existing laws be produced and recited which
    prohibit what is evil, and which enjoin what is right.

    [Sidenote: Wicked and unlearned men admitted to holy orders.]

    ‘First, let those laws be recited which admonish you, fathers, not to
    lay your hands on any, nor to admit them to holy orders, rashly. For
    here is the source from whence other evils flow, because if the
    entrance to Holy Orders be thrown open, all who offer themselves are
    forthwith admitted without hindrance. Hence proceed and emanate those
    hosts of both unlearned and wicked priests which are in the Church.
    For it is not, in my judgment, enough that a priest can construe a
    collect, propound a proposition, or reply to a sophism; but much more
    needful are a good and pure and holy life, approved morals, moderate
    knowledge of the Scriptures, some knowledge of the Sacraments, above
    all fear of God and love of heavenly life.

    ‘Let the laws be recited which direct that ecclesiastical benefices
    should be conferred on the worthy, and promotions in the Church made
    with just regard to merit; not by carnal affection, nor the
    acceptation of persons, whereby it comes to pass in these days, that
    boys instead of old men, fools instead of wise men, wicked instead of
    good men, reign and rule!

    [Sidenote: Simony.]

    ‘Let the laws be recited against the guilt of simony; which plague,
    which contagion, which dire pestilence, now creeps like a cancer
    through the minds of priests, so that most are not ashamed in these
    days to get for themselves great dignities by petitions and suits at
    court, rewards and promises.

    [Sidenote: Residence of curates.]

    ‘Let the laws be recited which command the personal residence of
    curates at their churches: for many evils spring from the custom, in
    these days, of performing all clerical duties by help of vicars and
    substitutes; men too without judgment, unfit, and often wicked, who
    will seek nothing from the people but sordid gain--whence spring
    scandals, heresies, and bad Christianity amongst the people.

    [Sidenote: Worldly living of priests and monks.]

    ‘Let the laws be rehearsed, and the holy rules handed down from our
    ancestors concerning the life and character of the clergy, which
    prohibit any churchman from being a merchant, usurer, or hunter, or
    common player, or from bearing arms--the laws which prohibit the
    clergy from frequenting taverns, from having unlawful intercourse with
    women--the laws which command sobriety and modesty in vestment, and
    temperance in dress.

    ‘Let also the laws be recited concerning monks and religious men,
    which command that, leaving the broad way of the world, they enter the
    narrow way which leads to life; which command them not to meddle in
    business, whether secular or ecclesiastical; which command that they
    should not engage in suits in civil courts for earthly things. For in
    the Council of _Chalcedon_ it was decreed that monks should give
    themselves up entirely to prayer and fasting, the chastisement of
    their flesh, and observance of their monastic rule.

    [Sidenote: Worldly bishops.]

    ‘Above all, let those laws be recited which concern and pertain to
    _you_, reverend fathers and lords bishops--laws concerning your just
    and canonical election, in the chapters of your churches, with the
    invocation of the Holy Spirit: for because this is not done in these
    days, and prelates are often chosen more by the favour of men than the
    grace of God, so, in consequence, we sometimes certainly have bishops
    too little spiritual--men more worldly than heavenly, wiser in the
    spirit of this world than in the spirit of Christ!

    ‘Let the laws be rehearsed concerning the residence of bishops in
    their dioceses, which command that they watch over the salvation of
    souls, that they disseminate the word of God, that they personally
    appear in their churches at least on great festivals, that they
    sacrifice for their people, that they hear the causes of the poor,
    that they sustain the fatherless, and widows, that they exercise
    themselves always in works of piety.

    ‘Let the laws be rehearsed concerning the due distribution of the
    patrimony of Christ--laws which command that the goods of the Church
    be spent not in sumptuous buildings, not in magnificence and pomp, not
    in feasts and banquets, not in luxury and lust, not in enriching
    kinsfolk nor in keeping hounds, but in things useful and needful to
    the Church. For when he was asked by Augustine, the English bishop, in
    what way English bishops and prelates should dispose of those goods
    which were the offerings of the faithful, Pope Gregory replied (and
    his reply is placed in the _Decretals_, ch. xii. q. 2), that the goods
    of bishops should be divided into four parts, of which one part should
    go to the bishop and his family, another to his clergy, a third for
    repairing buildings, a fourth to the poor.

    [Sidenote: Reform of Ecclesiastical Courts.]

    ‘Let the laws be recited, and let them be recited again and again,
    which abolish the scandals and vices of courts, which take away those
    daily newly-invented arts for getting money, which were designed to
    extirpate and eradicate that horrible covetousness which is the root
    and cause of all evils, which is the fountain of all iniquity.

    [Sidenote: Councils should be held oftener.]

    ‘Lastly, let those laws and constitutions be renewed concerning the
    holding of Councils, which command that Provincial Councils should be
    held more frequently for the reformation of the Church. For nothing
    ever happens more detrimental to the Church of Christ than the
    omission of Councils, both general and provincial.

    ‘Having rehearsed these laws and others, like them, which pertain to
    this matter, and have for their object the correction of morals, it
    remains that with all authority and power their _execution_ should be
    commanded, so that having a law we should at length live according to
    it.

    [Sidenote: The bishops must first be reformed, then the clergy,]

    ‘In which matter, with all due reverence, I appeal most strongly to
    _you_, fathers! For this execution of laws and observance of
    constitutions ought to begin with _you_, so that by your living
    example you may teach us priests to imitate you. Else it will surely
    be said of you, “They lay heavy burdens on other men’s shoulders, but
    they themselves will not move them even with one of their fingers.”
    But you, if you keep the laws, and first reform your own lives to the
    law and rules of the Canons, will thereby provide us with a light, in
    which we shall see what we ought to do--the light, _i.e._ of your good
    example. And we, seeing our fathers keep the laws, will gladly follow
    in the footsteps of our fathers.

    [Sidenote: then the lay part of the Church.]

    ‘The clerical and priestly part of the church being thus reformed, we
    can then with better grace proceed to the reformation of the lay part,
    which indeed it will be very easy to do, if we ourselves have been
    reformed first. For the body follows the soul, and as are the rulers
    in a State such will the people be. Wherefore, if priests themselves,
    the rulers of souls, were good, the people in their turn would become
    good also; for our own goodness would teach others how they may be
    good more clearly than all other kinds of teaching and preaching. Our
    goodness would urge them on in the right way far more efficaciously
    than all your suspensions and excommunications. Wherefore, if you wish
    the lay-people to live according to your will and pleasure, you must
    first live according to the will of God, and thus (believe me) you
    will easily attain what you wish in them.

    ‘You want obedience from them. And it is right; for in the Epistle to
    the Hebrews are these words of Paul to the laity: “Be obedient” (he
    says) “to your rulers, and be subject to them.” But if you desire this
    obedience, first give reason and cause of obedience on your part, as
    the same Paul teaches in the following text--“Watch as those that give
    an account of their souls,” and then they will obey you.

    ‘You desire to be honoured by the people. It is right; for Paul writes
    to Timotheus, “Priests who rule well are worthy of double honour,
    chiefly those who labour in word and doctrine.” Therefore, desiring
    honour, first rule well, and labour in word and doctrine, and then the
    people will hold you in all honour.

    ‘You desire to reap their carnal things, and to collect tithes and
    offerings without any reluctance on their part. It is right; for Paul,
    writing to the Romans, says: “They are your debtors, and ought to
    minister to you in carnal things.” But if you wish to reap their
    carnal things, you must first sow your spiritual things, and then ye
    shall reap abundantly of their carnal things. For that man is hard and
    unjust who desires “to reap where he has not sown, and to gather where
    he has not scattered.”

    ‘You desire ecclesiastical liberty, and not to be drawn before civil
    courts. And this too is right; for in the Psalms it is said, “Touch
    not mine anointed.” But if ye desire this liberty, loose yourselves
    first from worldly bondage, and from the cringing service of men, and
    claim for yourselves that true liberty of Christ, that spiritual
    liberty through grace from sin, and serve God and reign in Him, and
    then (believe me) the people will not touch the anointed of the Lord
    their God!

    ‘You desire security, quiet, and peace. And this is fitting. But,
    desiring peace, return to the God of love and peace; return to Christ,
    in whom is the true peace of the Spirit which passeth all
    understanding; return to the true priestly life. And lastly, as Paul
    commands, “Be ye reformed in the newness of your minds, that ye may
    know those things which are of God; and the peace of God shall be with
    you!”

           *       *       *       *       *

    [Sidenote: Conclusion.]

    ‘These, reverend fathers and most distinguished men, are the things
    that I thought should be spoken concerning the reformation of the
    clergy. I trust that, in your clemency, you will take them in good
    part. If, by chance, I should seem to have gone too far in this
    sermon--if I have said anything with too much warmth--forgive it me,
    and pardon a man speaking out of zeal, a man sorrowing for the ruin of
    the Church; and, passing by any foolishness of mine, consider the
    thing itself. Consider the miserable state and condition of the
    Church, and bend your whole minds to its reformation. Suffer not,
    fathers, suffer not this so illustrious an assembly to break up
    without result. Suffer not this your congregation to slip by for
    nothing. Ye have indeed often been assembled. But (if by your leave I
    may speak the truth) I see not what fruit has as yet resulted,
    especially to the Church, from assemblies of this kind! Go now, in the
    Spirit whom you have invoked, that ye may be able, with his
    assistance, to devise, to ordain, and to decree those things which may
    be useful to the Church, and redound to your praise and the honour of
    God: to whom be all honour and glory, for ever and ever, Amen!’

Comparing this noble sermon with the passages quoted in an earlier chapter
from Colet’s lectures at Oxford and his Abstracts of the Dionysian
writings, it must be admitted that what, fourteen years before, he had
uttered as it were in secret, he had now, as occasion required, proclaimed
upon the housetops. What effect it had upon the assembled clergy no record
remains to tell.

[Sidenote: Wolsey obtains four dismes.]

The object which Wolsey had in view in the convocation was, it may be
presumed, attained to his satisfaction. The clergy granted the King ‘four
dismes,’ to be paid in yearly instalments.[407] And this was the full
amount of taxation usually demanded by English sovereigns from the clergy
in time of war, except in cases of extreme urgency.[408]

Whether Bishop Fitzjames succeeded equally well in securing the inhuman
object which was nearest to his heart, is not equally clear.

[Sidenote: Discussion on the burning of heretics.]

But one authentic picture of a scene which there can be little doubt
occurred in _this_ Convocation has been preserved, to give a passing
glimpse into the nature of the discussion which followed upon the subject
of the ‘extirpation of heresy.’ In the course of the debate, the advocates
of increased severity against poor Lollards were asked, it seems, to point
out, if they could, a single passage in the Canonical Scriptures which
commands the capital punishment of heretics. Whereupon an old divine[409]
rose from his seat, and with some severity and temper quoted the command
of St. Paul to Titus: ‘A man that is an heretic, after the first and
second admonition, reject.’ The old man quoted the words as they stand in
the Vulgate version: ‘Hæreticum hominem post unam et alteram correptionem
_devita_!’--‘_De-vita!_’ he repeated with emphasis; and again, louder
still, he thundered ‘DE-VITA!’ till everyone wondered what had happened to
the man. At length he proceeded to explain that the meaning of the Latin
verb ‘devitare’ being ‘de vita tollere’ (!), the passage in question was
clearly a direct command to punish heretics by death![410]

A smile passed round among those members of Convocation who were learned
enough to detect the gross ignorance of the old divine; but to the rest
his logic appeared perfectly conclusive, and he was allowed to proceed
triumphantly to support his position by quoting, again from the Vulgate,
the text translated in the English version, ‘Suffer not a witch to live.’
For the word ‘witch’ the Vulgate version has ‘maleficus.’ A heretic, he
declared, was clearly ‘maleficus,’ and therefore ought not to be suffered
to live. By which conclusive logic the learned members of the Convocation
of 1512 were, it is said, for the most part completely carried away.[411]

This story, resting wholly or in part upon Colet’s own relation to
Erasmus, is the only glimpse which can be gathered of the proceedings of
this Convocation ‘for the extirpation of heresy.’


II. COLET IS CHARGED WITH HERESY (1512).

[Sidenote: Colet’s sermon printed.]

Before the spring of 1512 was passed, Colet’s Sermon to Convocation was
printed and distributed in Latin, and probably in English[412] also; and
as there was an immediate lull in the storm of persecution, he may
possibly have come off rather as victor than as vanquished, in spite of
the seeming triumph of the persecuting party in Convocation.

The bold position he had taken had rallied round him not a few
honest-hearted men, and had made him, perhaps unconsciously on his part,
the man to whom earnest truth-seekers looked up as to a leader, and upon
whom the blind leaders of the blindly orthodox party vented all their
jealousy and hatred.

[Sidenote: Completion of Colet’s school.]

[Sidenote: Jealousy against Colet’s school.]

He was henceforth a marked man. That school of his in St. Paul’s
Churchyard, to the erection of which he had devoted his fortune, which he
had the previous autumn made his will to endow, had now risen into a
conspicuous building, and the motives of the Dean in building it were of
course everywhere canvassed. The school was now fairly at work. Lilly, the
godson of Grocyn, the late Professor of Greek at Oxford, was already
appointed headmaster; and as he was known to have himself travelled in
Greece to perfect his classical knowledge, it could no longer be doubted
by any that here, under the shadow of the great cathedral, was to be
taught to the boys that ‘heretical Greek’ which was regarded with so much
suspicion. Here was, in fact, a school of the ‘new learning,’ sowing in
the minds of English youth the seeds of that free thought and heresy
which Colet had so long been teaching to the people from his pulpit at St.
Paul’s. More had already facetiously told Colet that he could not wonder
if his school should raise a storm of malice; for people cannot help
seeing that, as in the Trojan horse were concealed armed Greeks for the
destruction of barbarian Troy, so from this school would come forth those
who would expose and upset their ignorance.[413]

No wonder, indeed, if the wrath of Bishop Fitzjames should be kindled
against Colet; no wonder if, having failed in his attempt effectually to
stir up the spirit of persecution in the recent Convocation, he should now
vent his spleen upon the newly-founded school.

But how fully, amid all, Colet preserved his temper and persevered in his
work, may be gathered from the following letter to Erasmus, who, in
intervals of leisure from graver labours, was devoting his literary
talents to the service of Colet’s school, and whose little book, ‘De Copiâ
Verborum,’ was part of it already in the printer’s hands:--

    _Colet to Erasmus._[414]

    ‘Indeed, dearest Erasmus, since you left London I have heard nothing
    of you....

    ‘I have been spending a few days in the country with my mother,
    consoling her in her grief on the death of my servant, who died at
    her house, whom she loved as a son, and for whose death she wept as
    though he had been more than a son. The night on which I returned to
    town I received your letter.

    [Sidenote: A bishop blasphemes Colet’s school.]

    ‘Now listen to a joke! A certain bishop, who is held, too, to be one
    of the wiser ones, has been blaspheming our school before a large
    concourse of people, declaring that I have erected what is a useless
    thing, yea a bad thing--yea more (to give his own words), a temple of
    idolatry. Which, indeed, I fancy he called it, because the poets are
    to be taught there! At this, Erasmus, I am not angry, but laugh
    heartily....

    ‘I send you a little book containing the sermon’ [to the
    Convocation?]. ‘The printers said they had sent some to Cambridge.

    ‘Farewell! Do not forget the verses for our boys, which I want you to
    finish with all good nature and courtesy. Take care to let us have the
    second part of your “Copia.”’

[Sidenote: ‘De Copiâ,’ preface of Erasmus.]

The second part of the ‘Copia’ was accordingly completed, and the whole
sent to the press in May, with a prefatory letter to Colet,[415] in which
Erasmus paid a loving tribute to his friend’s character and work. He dwelt
upon Colet’s noble self-sacrificing devotion to the good of others, and
the judgment he had shown in singling out two main objects at which to
labour, as the most powerful means of furthering the great cause so dear
to his heart.

[Sidenote: Colet’s preaching.]

To implant Christ in the hearts of the common people, by constant
preaching, year after year, from his pulpit at St. Paul’s--this, wrote
Erasmus, had been Colet’s first great work; and surely it had borne much
fruit!

[Sidenote: Colet’s school.]

To found a school, wherein the sons of the people should drink in Christ
along with a sound education--that thereby, as it were in the cradle of
coming generations, the foundation might be laid of the future welfare of
his country--this had been the second great work to which Colet had
devoted time, talents, and a princely fortune.

[Sidenote: Erasmus in praise of Colet’s work.]

‘What is this, I ask, but to act as a father to all your children and
fellow-citizens? You rob yourself to make them rich; you strip yourself to
clothe them. You wear yourself out with toil, that they may be quickened
into life in Christ. In a word, you spend yourself away that you may gain
them for Christ!

‘He must be envious, indeed, who does not back with all his might the man
who engages in a work like this. He must be wicked, indeed, who can
gainsay or interrupt him. That man is an enemy to England who does not
care to give a helping hand where he can.’

Which words in praise of Colet’s self-sacrificing work were not merely
uttered within hearing of those who might hang upon the lips of the aged
Fitzjames or the bishop who had ‘blasphemed’ the school; they passed, with
edition after edition of the ‘Copia’ of Erasmus, into the hands of every
scholar in Europe, until they were known and read of all men![416]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Colet charged with heresy by his bishop.]

But Bishop Fitzjames, whose unabating zeal against heretics had become
the ruling passion of his old age, no longer able to control his hatred of
the Dean, associated with himself two other bishops of like opinion and
spirit in the ignoble work of making trouble for Colet. They resorted to
their usual weapon--_persecution_. They exhibited to the Archbishop of
Canterbury articles against Colet extracted from his sermons. Their first
charge was that he had preached that images ought not to be worshipped.
The second charge was that he had denied that Christ, when He commanded
Peter the third time to ‘feed his lambs,’ made any allusion to the
application of episcopal revenues in hospitality or anything else, seeing
that Peter was a poor man, and had no episcopal revenues at all. The third
charge was, that in speaking once from his pulpit of those who were
accustomed to _read_ their sermons, he meant to give a side-hit at the
Bishop of London, who, on account of his old age, was in the habit of
reading his sermons.[417]

But the Archbishop, thoroughly appreciating as he did the high qualities
of the Dean, became his protector and advocate, instead of his judge.
Colet himself, says Erasmus, did not deign to make any reply to these
foolish charges, and others ‘more foolish still.’[418] And the Archbishop,
therefore, without hearing any reply, indignantly rejected them.

[Sidenote: Proceedings quashed by Warham.]

What the charges ‘_more foolish still_’ may have been Erasmus does not
record. But Tyndale mentions, as a well known fact, that ‘the Bishop of
London would have made Dean Colet of Paules a heretic for _translating the
Paternoster in English_, had not the [Arch]bishop of Canterbury helped
the Dean.’[419] Colet’s English translation or paraphrase of the
Paternoster still remains to show that he was open to the charge.[420] But
for once, at least, the persecutor was robbed of his prey!

       *       *       *       *       *

For a while, indeed, Colet’s voice had been silenced; but now Erasmus was
able to congratulate his friend on his return to his post of duty at St.
Paul’s.

[Sidenote: Erasmus to Colet.]

‘I was delighted to hear from you’ [he wrote from Cambridge], ‘and have to
congratulate you that you have returned to your most sacred and useful
work of preaching. I fancy even this little interruption will be overruled
for good, for your people will listen to your voice all the more eagerly
for having been deprived of it for a while. May Jesus, _Optimus Maximus_,
keep you in safety!’[421]


III. MORE IN TROUBLE AGAIN (1512).

In closing this chapter, it may perhaps be remarked that little has been
heard of More during these the first years of his return to public life.

[Sidenote: More engrossed in business.]

[Sidenote: More writes his history of Richard III.]

The fact is, that he had been too busy to write many letters even to
Erasmus. He had been rapidly drawn into the vortex of public business. His
judicial office of undersheriff of London had required his close attention
every Thursday. His private practice at the bar had also in the meantime
rapidly increased, and drawn largely on his time. When Erasmus wrote to
know what he was doing, and why he did not write, the answer was that More
was constantly closeted with the Lord Chancellor, engaged in ‘grave
business,’[422] and would write if he could. What leisure he could snatch
from these public duties he would seem to have been devoting to his
‘History of Richard III.’[423] the materials for which he probably
obtained through his former connection with Cardinal Morton.

[Sidenote: Death of his wife.]

And were we to lift the veil from his domestic life, we should find the
dark shadow of sorrow cast upon his bright home in Bucklersbury. But a few
short months ago, such was the air of happiness about that household, that
Ammonius, writing as he often did to Erasmus, to tell him all the news,
whilst betraying, by the endearing epithets he used, his fascination for
the loveliness of More’s own gentle nature, had spoken also of his ‘most
good-natured wife,’ and of the ‘children and whole family’ as ‘charmingly
well.’[424]

[Sidenote: His four children.]

Now four motherless children nestle round their widowed father’s
knee.[425] Margaret, the eldest daughter--the child of six years
old--henceforth it will be _her_ lot to fill her lost mother’s place in
her father’s heart, and to be a mother to the little ones. And she too is
not unknown to fame. It was she

  ... ‘who clasped in her last trance
  Her murdered father’s head.’...




CHAPTER VIII.


I. COLET PREACHES AGAINST THE CONTINENTAL WARS--THE FIRST CAMPAIGN
(1512-13).

If Colet returned to his pulpit after a narrow escape of being burned for
heresy, it was to continue to do his duty, and not to preach in future
only such sermons as might escape the censure of his bishop. His honesty
and boldness were soon again put to the test.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Continental wars.]

It was in the summer of 1512 that Henry VIII. for the first time mingled
the blood of English soldiers in those Continental wars which now for some
years became the absorbing object of attention.

European rulers had not yet accepted the modern notion of territorial
sovereignty. Instead of looking upon themselves as the rulers of nations,
living within the settled boundaries of their respective countries, they
still thirsted for war and conquest, and dreamed of universal dominion. To
how great an extent this was so, a glance at the ambitious schemes of the
chief rulers of Europe at this period will show.

How Pope Julius II. was striving to add temporal to spiritual sovereignty,
and desired to be the ‘lord and master of the game of the world,’ has been
already noticed in mentioning how it called forth the satire of Erasmus,
in his ‘Praise of Folly.’ This warlike Pope was still fighting in his old
age. Side by side with Pope Julius was Cæsar Maximilian, Archduke of
Austria, King of the Romans, Emperor of Germany, &c.--fit representative
of the ambitious House of Hapsburg! Not contented with all these titles
and dominions, Maximilian was intriguing to secure by marriages the
restoration of Hungary and Bohemia, and the annexation of the Netherlands,
Franche-Comté, and Artois, as well as of Castile and Arragon, to the
titles and possessions of his royal house. And what he could not secure by
marriages he was trying to secure by arms. Had his success equalled his
lust of dominion, east and west would have been united in the one ‘Holy
Empire’ of which he dreamed, independent even of Papal interference, and
hereditary for ever in the House of Hapsburg. Then there was Louis XII.,
the ‘Most Christian’ King of France, laying claim to a great part of
Italy, pushing his influence and power so far as to strike terror into the
minds of other princes; assuming to himself the rank of the first prince
in Christendom; his chief minister aspiring to succeed Julius II. in the
Papal chair; his son Francis ready to become a candidate for the Empire on
the death of Maximilian. And, lastly, there was Henry VIII. of England,
eager to win his spurs, and to achieve military renown at the first
opportunity; reviving old obsolete claims on the crown of France; ready to
offer himself as a candidate for the Empire when it became vacant, and to
plot to secure the election of Wolsey to the Papal chair! Throw all these
rival claims and objects of ambition into a wild medley, consider to what
plots and counterplots, leagues and breaches of them, all this vast
entanglement of interests and ambitions must give rise, and some faint
idea may be gained of the state of European politics.

[Sidenote: First English expedition.]

Already in December 1511, a Holy Alliance had been formed between Pope
Julius, Maximilian, Ferdinand, and Henry VIII., to arrest the conquests
and humble the ambition of Louis XII. How the clergy had been induced to
tax themselves in support of this holy enterprise has already been seen.
Parliament also had granted a subsidy of two fifteenths and tenths, and
had made some needful provision for the approaching war. Everything was
ready, and in the summer of 1512 the first English expedition sailed.

[Sidenote: Its complete failure.]

Ferdinand persuaded Henry VIII. to aid him in attacking Guienne, and, all
unused to the stratagems of war, he fell into the snare. While his
father-in-law was playing his selfish game, and reducing the kingdom of
Navarre, Henry’s fleet and soldiers were left to play their part alone.
The whole expedition, owing to delays and gross mismanagement, wofully
miscarried. There were symptoms of mutiny and desertion; and at length the
English army returned home utterly demoralised, and in the teeth of their
commands. The English flag was disgraced in the eyes of Europe. French
wits wrote biting satires ‘De Anglorum e Galliis Fugâ,’[426] and in bitter
disappointment Henry VIII., to avoid further disgrace, was obliged to hush
up the affair, allowing the disbanded soldiers to return to their homes
without further inquiry.[427] It was in vain that More replied to the
French wits with epigram for epigram, correcting their exaggerated satire,
and turning the tables upon their own nation.[428] He laid the foundation
of a controversy by which he was annoyed in after-years,[429] and did
little at the time to remove the general feeling of national disgrace
which resulted from this first trial of Henry VIII. at the game of war.

[Sidenote: Colet preaches against the war.]

Meanwhile Colet, ever prone to speak out plainly what he thought, had
publicly from his pulpit expressed his strong condemnation of the war. And
the old Bishop of London, ever lying in wait, like the persecuting
Pharisees of old, to find an occasion of evil against him, eagerly made
use of this pretext to renew the attempt to get him into trouble. He had
failed to bring down upon the Dean the terrors of ecclesiastical
authority, but it would answer his purpose as well if he could provoke
against him royal displeasure. He therefore informed the King, now eagerly
bent upon his Continental wars, that Colet had condemned them; that he had
publicly preached, in a sermon, that an unjust peace was ‘to be preferred
before the justest war.’ While the Bishop was thus whispering evil against
him in the royal ear, others of his party were zealously preaching up the
war, and launching out invectives against Colet and ‘_the poets_,’ as they
designated those who were suspected of preferring classical Latin and
Greek to the ‘_blotterature_,’ as Colet called it, of the monks. By these
means they appear to have hoped to bring Colet into disgrace, and
themselves into favour, with the King.

But it would seem that they watched and waited in vain for any visible
sign of success. The King appeared strangely indifferent alike to the
treasonable preaching of the Dean and to their own effervescent loyalty.

[Sidenote: The King supports Colet against his enemies.]

Unknown to them, the King sent for Colet, and privately encouraged him to
go on boldly reforming by his teaching the corrupt morals of the age, and
by no means to hide his light in times so dark. He knew full well, he
said, what these bishops were plotting against him, and also what good
service he had done to the British nation both by example and teaching.
And he ended by saying, that he would put such a check upon the attempts
of these men, as would make it clear to others that if any one chose to
meddle with Colet it would not be with impunity!

Upon this Colet thanked the King for his kind intentions, but, as to what
he proposed further, beseeched him to forbear. ‘He had no wish,’ he said,
‘that any one should be the worse on his account; he had rather resign his
preferment than it should come to that.’[430]


II. COLET’S SERMON TO HENRY VIII. (1513).

[Sidenote: Preparations for another campaign.]

The spring of 1513 was spent by Henry VIII. in energetic preparations for
another campaign, in which he hoped to retrieve the lost credit of his
arms. The young King, in spite of his regard for better counsellors, was
intent upon warlike achievements. His first failure had made him the more
eager to rush into the combat again. Wolsey, the only man amongst the war
party whose energy and tact were equal to the emergency, found in this
turn of affairs the stepping-stone to his own ambitious fortune. The
preparations for the next campaign were entrusted to his hands.

Rumours were heard that the French would be likely to invade England if
Henry VIII. long delayed his invasion of France. To meet this contingency,
the sheriffs of Somerset and Dorset had been already ordered to issue
proclamations, that every man between sixty and sixteen should be ready in
arms[431] to defend his country. Ever and anon came tidings that the
French navy was moving restlessly about on the opposite shore,[432] in
readiness for some unknown enterprise. Diplomatists were meanwhile weaving
their wily webs of diplomacy, deceiving and being deceived. Even between
the parties to the League there were constant breaches of confidence and
double-dealing. The entangled meshes of international policy were thrown
into still greater confusion, in February, by the death of Julius II., the
head of the Holy Alliance. The new Pope might be a Frenchman, instead of
the leader of the league against France, for anything men knew. The moment
was auspicious for the attempt to bring about a peace. But Henry VIII. was
bent upon war. He urged on the equipment of the fleet, and was impatient
of delay. On March 17 he conferred upon Sir Edward Howard the
high-sounding title of ‘Admiral of England, Wales, Ireland, Normandy,
Gascony, and Aquitaine.’[433] On Saturday, the 21st, he went down to
Plymouth to inspect the fleet in person, and left orders to the Admiral to
put to sea. He had set his heart upon his fleet, and in parting from
Howard commanded him to send him word ‘how every ship did sail.’[434]
With his royal head thus full of his ships and sailors, and eagerly
waiting for tidings of the result of their first trial-trip in the
Channel, Henry VIII. entered upon the solemnities of Holy Passion Week.

[Sidenote: Good Friday.]

On Good Friday, the 27th, the King attended Divine service in the Chapel
Royal. Dean Colet was the preacher for the day. It must have been
especially difficult and even painful for Colet, after the kindness shown
to him so recently by the King, again to express in the royal presence his
strong condemnation of the warlike policy upon which Henry VIII. had
entered in the previous year, and in the pursuit of which he was now so
eagerly preparing for a second campaign. The King too, coming directly
from his fleet full of expectation, was not likely to be in a mood to be
thwarted by a preacher. But Colet was firm in his purpose, and as, when
called to preach before Convocation, he had chosen his text expressly for
the bishops, so now in the royal presence he preached his sermon to the
King.

[Sidenote: Colet’s sermon to Henry VIII.]

‘He preached wonderfully’ (says Erasmus) ‘on the _victory of Christ_,
exhorting all Christians to fight and conquer under the banner of their
King. He showed that when wicked men, out of hatred and ambition, fought
with and destroyed one another, they fought under the banner, not of
Christ, but of the devil. He showed, further, how hard a thing it is to
die a Christian death [on the field of battle]; how few undertake a war
except from hatred or ambition; how hardly possible it is for those who
really have that brotherly love without which “no one can see the Lord”
to thrust their sword into their brother’s blood; and he urged, in
conclusion, that instead of imitating the example of Cæsars and
Alexanders, the Christian ought rather to follow the example of Christ his
Prince.’[435]

[Sidenote: Renewed attempts to get Colet into trouble.]

[Sidenote: The King again supports Colet.]

So earnestly had Colet preached, and with such telling and pointed
allusion to the events of the day, that the King was not a little afraid
that the sermon might damp the zeal of his newly enlisted soldiers.
Thereupon, like birds of evil omen, the enemies of Colet hovered round him
as though he were an owl, hoping that at length the royal anger might be
stirred against him. The King sent for Colet. He came at the royal
command. He dined at the Franciscan monastery adjoining the Palace at
Greenwich. When the King knew he was there, he went out into the monastery
garden to meet him, dismissing all his attendants. And when the two were
quite alone, he bade Colet to cover his head and be at ease with him. ‘I
did not call you here, Dean,’ he said to him, ‘to interrupt your holy
labours, for of these I altogether approve, but to unburden my conscience
of some scruples, that by your advice I may be able more fully to do my
duty.’ They talked together nearly an hour and a half; Colet’s enemies,
meanwhile, impatiently waiting in the court, scarcely able to contain
their fury, chuckling over the jeopardy in which they thought Colet at
last stood with the King. As it was, the King approved and agreed with
Colet in everything he said. But he was glad to find that Colet had not
intended to declare absolutely that there could be no just war, no doubt
persuading himself that his own was one of the very few just ones. The
conversation ended in his expressing a wish that Colet would some time or
other explain himself more clearly, lest the raw soldiers should go away
with a mistaken notion, and think that he had really said that _no_ war is
lawful to Christians.[436] ‘And thus’ (continues Erasmus) ‘Colet, by his
singular discretion and moderation, not only satisfied the mind of the
King, but even rose in his favour.’ When he returned to the palace at
parting, the King graciously drank to his health, embracing him most
warmly, and, promising all the favours which it was in the power of a most
loving prince to grant, dismissed him. Colet was no sooner gone than the
courtiers flocked again round the King, to know the result of his
conference in the convent garden. Whereupon the King replied, in the
hearing of all: ‘Let every one have his own doctor, and let every one
favour his own; this man is the doctor for me.’ Upon this the hungry
wolves departed without their bone, and thereafter no one ever dared to
meddle with Colet. This is Erasmus’s version[437] of an incident which,
especially when placed in its proper historical setting, may be looked
upon as a jewel in the crown both of the young King and of his upright
subject. It has been reported that Colet complied with the King’s wish,
and preached another sermon in favour of the war against France, of the
necessity and justice of which, as strictly _defensive_, the King had
convinced him. But with reference to this second sermon, if ever it was
preached, Erasmus is silent.[438]


III. THE SECOND CAMPAIGN OF HENRY VIII. (1513).

While the King was trying to pacify his conscience, and allay the scruples
raised in his mind by Colet’s preaching, his ambassador (West) was
listening to a Good Friday sermon at the Chapel Royal of Scotland, and
using the occasion to urge upon the Queen to use her influence with the
Scotch king in favour of peace with England. There were rumours that the
Scotch king was playing into the hands of the King of France--that he was
going to send a ‘great ship’ to aid him in his wars. A legacy happened to
be due from England to the Queen of Scotland, and West was instructed to
threaten to withhold payment unless James would promise to keep the peace
with England. James gave shuffling and unsatisfactory replies. There were
troubles ahead in that quarter![439]

[Sidenote: Leo X. in favour of peace.]

The news sent by West from Scotland must have raised some forebodings in
Henry’s mind. The chance of finding one enemy behind him, if he attempted
to invade France, in itself was not encouraging. As to any scruples raised
by Colet’s preaching, his head was probably far too full of the
approaching campaign, and his heart too earnestly set upon the success of
his fleet, to admit of his impartially considering the right and the wrong
of the war in which he was already involved, or the evils it would bring
upon his country. Meanwhile, probably only a few days after Colet’s
sermon was preached, the anxiously expected news reached England of the
election to the Papal chair of Cardinal de’ Medici, an acquaintance of
Erasmus, and the fellow-student of his friend Linacre, under the title of
Leo X. The letter which conveyed the news to Henry VIII. spoke of the
‘gentleness, innocence, and virtue’ of the new Pope, and his anxiety for a
‘_universal peace_.’ He had declared that he would abide by the League,
but the writer expressed his opinion that ‘he would not be fond of war
like Julius--that he would favour literature and the arts, and employ
himself in building [St. Peter’s], but not enter upon any war except from
compulsion, unless it might be against the infidels.’[440]

[Sidenote: Henry VIII. will not listen to it.]

Henry--just then receiving reports from his fleet, dating to April 5,[441]
full of eager expectation and confidence on the part of the Admiral, ‘that
an engagement with the French might be looked for in five or six days, and
that by the aid of God and of St. George they hoped to have a fair day
with them’--was not at all in a humour to hear of a general peace. So on
April 12, all good advice of Colet’s forgotten, he wrote to his minister
at Rome,[442] instructing him to express his joy that Leo X. had adhered
to the Holy League, and to state that he (Henry) could not think of
entertaining any propositions for peace, considering the magnitude and
vast expense of his preparations, at all events without the consent of all
parties. A fleet of 12,000 soldiers, the minister was to say, was already
at sea, and Henry was preparing to invade France himself with 40,000
more, and powerful artillery. It would be most expedient to cripple the
power of the King of France _now_, and prevent his ambition for the
future.[443]

This letter was written on April 12. On the 17th Sir Arthur Plantagenet
came with letters from the fleet, under leave of absence. He could ill be
spared, wrote the Admiral; but his ship had struck upon a rock, and in
great peril he had made a vow that, if it pleased God to deliver him, he
would not eat flesh or fish till he had made a pilgrimage to the shrine of
Our Lady of Walsingham;[444] and accordingly thither he was bound.

[Sidenote: Admiral Howard lost.]

This was only the beginning of troubles. On April 25, Admiral Howard, with
a personal bravery and daring which immortalised his name, boarded the
ship of the French admiral with sixteen companions, but, in the struggle
which ensued, was thrust overboard with ‘morris pykes’ and lost. The
English fleet, disheartened by the loss of its brave admiral, returned to
Plymouth without proper orders, and without having inflicted any
considerable blow upon the French fleet.[445]

The King, just then preparing to cross over to Calais with his main army,
to invade France in person, hastily appointed Thomas Lord Howard admiral
in the place of his brother; and in letters to the captains, gave vent to
his royal displeasure at their return to Plymouth without his
orders--letters which disheartened still more an army which the new
Admiral found ‘very badly ordered, more than half on land, and a great
number stolen away.’[446]

[Sidenote: Henry VIII. invades France in person.]

But still Henry was determined to press on with his enterprise. He wrote
to his ambassadors to urge the King of Spain at once to invade Guienne or
Gascony, as the English navy, though amounting to 10,000 men, was not
sufficient to meet the combined forces of the enemy without Ferdinand’s
aid. Yet for all this, they were to say, ‘he would not forbear the
invasion of France.’[447] He was not even deterred by receipt of
intelligence, before he set sail, that his treacherous father-in-law had
already forsaken him, and made a year’s truce with France.[448] On June 30
the watchers on the walls of Calais beheld the King, with ‘such a fleet as
Neptune never saw before,’ approaching amid ‘great firing of guns from the
ships and towers,’ to commence in good earnest his invasion of France.

Little as did the ‘Oxford Reformers’ sympathise with the war, they were no
indifferent spectators. Even Erasmus for the time could not but share the
feelings of an Englishman, though he had many friends in France, and hated
the war. From the list of the ships of the navy, in the handwriting of
Wolsey, it appears that one or more of them had been christened
‘_Erasmus_.’[449] Some of his intimate friends followed the army in the
King’s retinue. Ammonius, the King’s Latin secretary, was one of them; and
Erasmus was kept informed by his letters of what was going on, and amused
by his quaint sketches of camp-life.[450] He was even ready himself with
an epigram upon the flight of the French after the Battle (or rather the
no-battle) of Spurs. He could not resist the temptation to turn the tables
upon the French poets, who had indulged their vein of satire at the
expense of the English during the last year’s campaign, and had thereby so
nettled the spirit of More and his friends. To the ‘_De Anglorum e Galliis
fugâ_’ of the French poet, Erasmus was now ready with a still more biting
satire, ‘_In fugam Gallorum insequentibus Anglis_.’[451] More also wrote
an epigram, in which he contrasted the bloody resistance of the Nervii to
Cæsar with the feeble opposition offered by their modern French successors
to Henry VIII.[452]

[Sidenote: Success of the campaign.]

It would be out of place here to follow the details of the campaign.
Suffice it to say that, like the first game of a child, it was carelessly
and blunderingly played,--not, however, without buoyant spirit, and that
air of exaggerated grandeur which betokens the inexperienced hand. The
towns of Terouenne and Tournay were indeed taken, and that without much
bloodshed; but they were taken under the selfish advice of Maximilian, who
throughout never lost sight of his own interest, and was pleased enough to
use the lavish purse and the ardent ambition of his young ally to his own
advantage. The power of France was not crippled by the taking of these
unimportant towns. The whole enterprise was confined within the narrow
limits of so remote a corner of France that her soil could hardly be
regarded as really invaded. So small a portion of the French army was
engaged in opposing it, that it was scarcely a war with Louis XII. Henry
VIII. himself spent more time in tournaments and brilliant pageants than
in actual fighting. He was emphatically playing at the game of war.

[Sidenote: Scotch invasion of England.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Flodden.]

But while Henry was thus engaged in France, King James of Scotland, in
spite of treaties and promises, treacherously took opportunity to cross
the borders, and recklessly to invade England with a large but ill-trained
army. Queen Katherine, whom Henry had appointed Regent during his absence,
sharing his love of chivalrous enterprise, zealously mustered what forces
were left in England; and thus it came about, that just as Henry was
entering Tournay, the news arrived of the Battle of Flodden. From 500 to
1,000 English and about 10,000 Scotch, it was reported, lay dead upon that
bloody field. The King of Scots fell near his banner, and at his side
Scotch bishops, lords, and noblemen, amongst whom was the friend and pupil
of Erasmus--the young Archbishop of St. Andrew’s. Queen Katherine wrote,
with a thankful heart, to her royal husband, giving an account of the
great victory, and informing him that she was about to go on pilgrimage to
Our Lady of Walsingham, in performance of past promises, and to pray for
his return.

Before the end of October the King, finding nothing better to do, amid
great show of triumph returned to England. Thus ended this second
campaign, with just sufficient success to induce the King and Wolsey to
prepare for a third.[453]


IV. ERASMUS VISITS THE SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM (1513).

While Sir Arthur Plantagenet and Queen Katherine were going on pilgrimage
to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, to give thanks, the one for the
defeat of the Scots, and the other for deliverance from shipwreck, Erasmus
took it into his head to go on pilgrimage also. He had told his friend
Ammonius, in May, that he meant to visit the far-famed shrine to pray for
the success of the Holy League, and to hang up a _Greek Ode_ as a votive
offering.[454] He appears to have made the pilgrimage from Cambridge in
the autumn of 1513, accompanied by his young friend Robert Aldridge,[455]
afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. It was probably this visit which Erasmus so
graphically described many years afterwards in his Colloquy of the
‘_Religious Pilgrimage_.’

[Sidenote: Erasmus visits the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.]

The College of Canons, under their Sub-prior, maintained chiefly by the
offerings left by pilgrims upon the Virgin’s altar; the Priory Church, a
relic of which still stands to attest its architectural beauty; the small
unfinished chapel of the Virgin herself, the sea-winds whistling through
its unglazed windows; the inner windowless wooden chapel, with its two
doors for pilgrims’ ingress and egress; the Virgin’s shrine, rich in
jewels, gold and silver ornaments, lit up by burning tapers; the dim
religious light and scented air; the Canon at the altar, with jealous eye
watching each pilgrim and his gift, and keeping guard against sacrilegious
theft; the little wicket in the gateway through the outer wall, so small
that a man must stoop low to pass through it, and yet through which, by
the Virgin’s aid, an armed knight on horseback once escaped from his
pursuer; the plate of copper, on which the knight’s figure was engraved in
ancient costume with a beard like a goat, and his clothes fitting close to
his body, with scarcely so much as a wrinkle in them; the little chapel
towards the east, containing the middle joint of St. Peter’s finger, so
large, the pilgrims thought, that Peter must needs have been a very lusty
man; the house hard by, which it was said was ages ago brought suddenly,
one winter time, when all things were covered with snow, from a place a
great way off (though to the eyes of Erasmus its thatch, timber, walls,
and everything about it, seemed of modern date); the concreted milk of the
Holy Virgin, which looked like beaten chalk tempered with the white of an
egg; the bold request of Erasmus, to be informed what evidence there was
of its really being the milk of the Virgin; the contracted brows of the
verger, as he referred them to the ‘authentic record’ of its pedigree,
hung up high against the wall,--all this is described with so much of the
graphic detail of an eyewitness, that one feels, in reading the
‘Colloquy,’ that it must record the writer’s vivid recollections of his
own experience.

[Sidenote: The Greek Ode of Erasmus.]

The concluding incident of the ‘Colloquy,’ whether referring to a future
visit, or only an imaginary one, evidently alludes to the Greek Ode
mentioned in the letter to Ammonius. It tells how that, before they left
the place, the Sub-prior, with some hesitation, modestly ventured to ask
whether his present visitor was the same man who, about two years before,
had hung up a votive tablet inscribed in _Hebrew_ letters: for Erasmus
remarks, they call everything Hebrew which they cannot understand. The
Sub-prior is then made to relate what great pains had been taken to read
the Greek verses; what wiping of glasses; how one wise man thought they
were written in Arabic letters, and another in altogether fictitious ones;
how at length one had been able to make out the title, which was Latin
written in Roman capitals--the verses themselves being in Greek, and
written in Greek capitals. In reward for the explanation and translation
of the Ode, the ‘Colloquy’ goes on to relate that the Sub-prior pulled out
of his bag, and presented to his visitors a piece of wood cut from a beam
on which the Virgin mother had been seen to rest.

Whether this concluding incident related in the ‘Colloquy’ was a real
occurrence or not, it, at all events, confirms the testimony of the
‘Colloquy’ itself to the fact that Erasmus made this pilgrimage in a
satirical and unbelieving mood, and that his votive ode was rather a joke
played upon the ignorant canons, than any proof that he himself was a
worshipper of the Virgin, or a believer in the efficacy of pilgrimages to
her shrine.




CHAPTER IX.


I. ERASMUS LEAVES CAMBRIDGE, AND MEDITATES LEAVING ENGLAND (1513-14).

[Sidenote: Erasmus at Cambridge.]

[Sidenote: His real work.]

[Sidenote: The New Testament and St. Jerome.]

During the autumn of 1513 Erasmus made up his mind to leave Cambridge. He
had come to England on the accession of Henry VIII. with full purpose to
make it his permanent home.[456] That his friends would try to bring this
about had been his last entreaty on leaving England for his visit to
Italy. They had done their best for him. They had found all who cared for
the advance of learning anxious to secure the residence of so great a
scholar in their own country. The promises were indeed vague, but there
were plenty of them, and altogether the chances of a fair maintenance for
Erasmus had appeared to be good. He had settled at Cambridge intending to
earn his living by teaching Greek to the students; expecting, from them
and from the University, fees and a stipend sufficient to enable him to
pay his way. But the drudgery of teaching Greek was by no means the work
upon which Erasmus had set his heart. It was rather, like St. Paul’s
tent-making, the price he had to pay for that leisure which he was bent
upon devoting to his real work. This work was his fellow-work with Colet.
Apart from the aid he was able to give to his friend, by taking up the
cudgels for him at the University, and finding him teachers and
schoolbooks for his school--for all this was done by-the-bye--he was
labouring to make his own proper contribution towards the object to which
both were devoting their all. He was labouring hard to produce an edition
of the New Testament in the original Greek, with a new and free
translation of his own, and simultaneously with this a corrected edition
of the works of St. Jerome--the latter in itself an undertaking of
enormous labour.

In letters written from Cambridge during the years 1511-1513, we catch
stray glimpses of the progress of these great works. He writes to Colet,
in August 1511, that ‘he is about attacking St. Paul,’[457] and in July
1512, that he has finished collating the New Testament, and is attacking
St. Jerome.[458]

To Ammonius, in the camp, during the French campaign of 1513, he writes
that he is working with almost superhuman zeal at the correction of the
text of St. Jerome; and shortly after the close of the campaign against
France, he tells his friend that ‘he himself has been waging no less
fierce a warfare with the blunders of Jerome.’[459] And now, with his
editions of the New Testament and Jerome nearly ready for the press, why
should he waste any further time at Cambridge? He had complained from the
first that he could get nothing out of the students.[460] All these years
he had been, in spite of all his efforts, and notwithstanding an annual
stipend secured upon a living in Kent, through the kindness of Warham, to
a great extent dependent on his friends, obliged most unwillingly to beg,
till he had become thoroughly ashamed of begging.[461] And now this autumn
of 1513 had brought matters to a crisis. At Michaelmas the University had
agreed to pay him thirty nobles,[462] and, on September 1, they had begged
the assistance of Lord Mountjoy in the payment of this ‘enormous stipend’
for their Greek professor, adding, by way of pressing the urgency of their
claim, that they must otherwise soon lose him.[463]

On November 28, Erasmus wrote to Ammonius that he had for some months
lived like a cockle shut up in his shell, humming over his books.
Cambridge, he said, was deserted because of the plague; and even when all
the men were there, there was no large company. The expense was
intolerable, the profits not a brass farthing. The last five months had,
he said, cost him sixty nobles, but he had never received more than one
from his audience. He was going to throw out his sheet-anchor this winter.
If successful he would make his nest, if not he would flit.[464]

[Sidenote: Erasmus leaves Cambridge.]

The result was that in the winter of 1513-14 Erasmus finally left
Cambridge. The disbanding of disaffected and demoralised soldiers had so
increased the number of robbers on the public roads,[465] that travelling
in the winter months was considered dangerous; but Erasmus was anxious to
proceed with the publication of his two great works. He was in London by
February, 1514.

He found Parliament sitting, and the war party having all their own way.
He found the compliant Commons supporting by lavish grants of subsidies
Henry VIII.’s ambition ‘to recover the realm of France, his very true
patrimony and inheritance, and to reduce the same to his obedience,’[466]
and carried away by the fulsome speeches of courtiers who drew a
triumphant contrast between the setting fortunes and growing infirmities
of the French king and the prospects of Henry, who, ‘like the rising sun,
was growing brighter and stronger every day.’[467] While tax-collectors
were pressing for the arrears of half a dozen previous subsidies, and
Parliament was granting new ones, the liberality of English patrons was
likely to decline. Their heads were too full of the war, and their purses
too empty, to admit of their caring much at the moment about Erasmus and
his literary projects.

[Sidenote: Invited to the court of Prince Charles.]

No wonder, therefore, that when his friends at the Court of the
Netherlands urged his acceptance of an honorary place in the Privy Council
of Prince Charles, which would not interfere with his literary labours,
together with a pension which would furnish him with the means to carry
them on--no wonder that under these circumstances Erasmus accepted the
invitation and concluded to leave England.

In reply to the Abbot of St. Bertin, he wrote an elegant letter,[468]
gracefully acknowledging his great kindness in wishing to restore him to
his fatherland. Not that he disliked England, or was wanting in patrons
there. The Archbishop of Canterbury, if he had been a brother or a father,
could not have been kinder to him, and by his gift he still held the
pension out of the living in Kent. But the war had suddenly diverted the
genius of England from its ordinary channels. The price of everything was
becoming dearer and dearer. The liberality of patrons was becoming less
and less. How could they do other than give sparingly with so many
war-taxes to pay? He then proceeded:--

[Sidenote: Letter to the Abbot of St. Bertin.]

‘Oh that God would deign to still the tempest of war! What madness is it!
The wars of Christian princes begin for the most part either out of
ambition or hatred or lust, or like diseases of the mind. Consider also by
whom they are carried on: by homicides, by outcasts, by gamblers, by
ravishers, by the most sordid mercenary troops, who care more for a little
pay than for their lives. These offscourings of mankind are to be received
into your territory and your cities that you may carry on war. Think, too,
of the crimes which are committed under pretext of war, for amid the din
of arms good laws are silent; what rapine, what sacrilege, what other
crimes of which decency forbids the mention! The demoralisation which it
causes will linger in your country for years after the war is over....

‘It is much more glorious to found cities than to destroy them. In our
times it is the _people_ who build and improve cities, while the madness
of princes destroys them. But, you may say, princes must vindicate their
rights. Without speaking rashly of the deeds of princes, one thing is
clear, that there are some princes at least who first do what they like,
and then try to find some pretext for their deeds. And in this hurlyburly
of human affairs, in the confusion of so many leagues and treaties, who
cannot make out a title to what he wants? Meanwhile these wars are not
waged for the good of the _people_, but to settle the question, who shall
call himself their prince.

‘We ought to remember that _men_, and especially Christian men, are
_free_-men. And if for a long time they have flourished under a prince,
and now acknowledge him, what need is there that the world should be
turned upside down to make a change? If even among the heathen,
long-continued consent [of the people] makes a _prince_, much more should
it be so among Christians, with whom royalty is an _administration_, not a
_dominion_.[469]...’

He concluded by urging the abbot to call to mind all that Christ and his
apostles said about peace, and the tolerance of evil. If he did so, surely
he would bring all his influence to bear upon Prince Charles and the
Emperor in favour of a ‘Christian peace among Christian princes.’[470]

In writing to the Prince de Vere on the same subject Erasmus had expressed
his grief that their common country had become mixed up with the wars, and
his wish that he could safely put in writing what he thought upon the
subject.[471] Whether safely or not, he had certainly now dared to speak
his mind pretty fully in the letter to the Abbot of St. Bertin.


II. ERASMUS AND THE PAPAL AMBASSADOR (1514).

Erasmus had other opportunities of speaking out his mind about the war.

[Sidenote: Erasmus dines with Ammonius and the Papal Ambassador in
disguise.]

There was a rumour afloat that a Papal ambassador had arrived in
England--a Cardinal in disguise. It happened that Erasmus was invited to
dine with his friend Ammonius. He went as a man goes to the house of an
intimate friend, without ceremony, and expecting to dine with him alone.
He found, however, another guest at his friend’s table--a man in a long
robe, his hair bound up in a net, and with a single servant attending him.
Erasmus, after saluting his friend, eyed the stranger with some curiosity.
Struck by the military sternness of the man’s look, he asked of Ammonius
in Greek, ‘Who is he?’ He replied, also in Greek, ‘A great merchant.’ ‘I
thought so,’ said Erasmus; and caring to take no further notice of him,
they sat down to table, the stranger taking precedence. Erasmus chatted
with Ammonius as though they had been alone, and, amongst other things,
happened to ask him whether the rumour was true that an ambassador had
come from Leo X. to negotiate a peace between England and France. ‘The
Pope,’ he continued, ‘did not take me into his councils; but if he had I
should not have advised him to propose a peace.’ ‘Why?’ asked Ammonius.
‘Because it would not be wise to talk about peace,’ replied Erasmus.
‘Why?’ ‘Because a peace cannot be negotiated all at once; and in the
meantime, while the monarchs are treating about the conditions, the
soldiers, at the very thought of peace, will be incited to far worse
projects than in war itself; whereas by a _truce_ the hands of the
soldiery maybe tied at once. I should propose a truce of three years, in
order that the terms might be arranged of a _really permanent treaty of
peace_.’ Ammonius assented, and said that he thought this was what the
ambassador was trying to do. ‘Is he a Cardinal?’ asked Erasmus. ‘What made
you think he was?’ said the other. ‘The Italians say so.’ ‘And how do they
know?’ asked Ammonias, again fencing with Erasmus’s question. ‘Is it true
that he is a Cardinal?’ repeated Erasmus by-and-bye, as though he meant to
have a straightforward answer. ‘His spirit is the spirit of a Cardinal,’
evasively replied Ammonius, brought to bay by the direct question. ‘It is
something,’ observed Erasmus, smiling, ‘to have a Cardinal’s spirit!’

The stranger all this time had remained silent, drinking in this
conversation between the two friends.

At last he made an observation or two in Italian, mixing in a Latin word
now and then, as an intelligent merchant might be expected to do. Seeing
that Erasmus took no notice of what he said, he turned round, and in Latin
observed, ‘I wonder you should care to live in this barbarous nation,
unless you choose rather to be all _alone_ here than _first_ at Rome.’

Erasmus astonished and somewhat nettled to hear a merchant talk in this
way, with disdainful dryness replied that he was living in a country in
which there was a very great number of men distinguished for their
learning. He had rather hold the last place among these than be nowhere at
Rome.

Ammonius, seeing the awkward turn that things were taking, and that
Erasmus in his present humour might probably, as he sometimes did, speak
his mind rather more plainly than might be desirable, interposed, and, to
prevent further perplexity, suggested that they should adjourn to the
garden.[472]

Erasmus found out afterwards that the merchant stranger with whom he had
had this singular brush was the Pope’s ambassador himself--_Cardinal
Canossa_!


III. PARTING INTERCOURSE BETWEEN ERASMUS AND COLET (1514).

Meanwhile, in spite of Papal Nuncios, the preparations for the continuance
of the war proceeded as before. There were no signs of peace. The King had
had a dangerous illness, but had risen from his couch ‘fierce as ever
against France.’[473]

With heavy hearts Colet and Erasmus held on their way. The war lay like a
dark cloud on their horizon. It was throwing back their work. How it had
changed the plans of Erasmus has been shown. It had also made Colet’s
position one of greater difficulty. It is true that hitherto royal favour
had protected him from the hatred of his persecutors, but the Bishop of
London and his party were more exasperated against him than ever, and who
could tell how soon the King’s fickle humour might change? His love of
war was growing wilder and wilder. He was becoming intoxicated by it. And
who could tell what the young King might do if his passions ever should
rise into mastery over better feelings? Even the King’s present favour,
though it had preserved Colet as yet unharmed in person, did not prevent
his being cramped and hindered in his work. Whatever he might do was sure
to be misconstrued, and to become the subject of the ‘idle talk of the
malevolent.’[474]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Colet troubled by family disputes.]

It would seem also that other clouds than that of the war cast their
shadow at this time over Colet’s life. By the erection and foundation of
his school, he had reduced his income almost more than he could well
afford,[475] and accustomed, as he was, to abundant means, it was natural
that he should be harassed and annoyed by anything likely still further to
narrow his resources. He seems to have been troubled with vexed questions
of property and family dispute--most irksome of all others to a man who
was giving life and wealth away in a great work.

Erasmus, six months previously, in July 1513, had written to Colet thus:--

[Sidenote: Erasmus advises Colet to give in.]

‘The end of your letter grieved me, for you write that you are more
harassed than usual by the troubles of business. I desire indeed for you
to be removed as far as possible from worldly business; not because I am
afraid lest this world, entangled though it be, should get hold of you and
claim you for its own, but because I had rather such genius, such
eloquence, such learning should be devoted wholly to Christ. What if you
should be unable to extricate yourself from it! Take care lest little by
little you become more and more deeply immersed in it. Perhaps it might be
better to _give in_, rather than to purchase victory at so great a cost.
For peace of mind is worth a great deal. And these things are the thorns
which accompany riches. In the meantime, oppose a good honest conscience
to the idle talk of the malevolent. Wrap yourself up in Christ and in him
alone, and this entangled world will disturb you less. But why should I,
like the sow, preach to Minerva; or, like the sick man, prescribe for the
doctor? Farewell, my best beloved teacher!’--_From Cambridge, July 11
[1513]._[476]

Six months had passed since Erasmus had thus advised his friend to _give
in_ rather than to conquer at the cost of his peace of mind, but Colet had
not yet succeeded in getting rid of his perplexities. It would almost seem
that the same old quarrel was still lingering on unhealed; for there was
now a dispute between Colet and an aged uncle of his, and the bone of
contention was a large amount of property.[477]

[Sidenote: Colet does give in at last.]

One day Colet took Erasmus with him by boat to dine with Archbishop Warham
at Lambeth Palace. As they rowed up the Thames, Colet sat pensively
reading in his book. At dinner, being set opposite his uncle at table,
Erasmus noticed that he was ill at ease, caring neither to talk nor to
eat. And the uncle would doubtless have remained as silent as the nephew,
had not the Archbishop drawn out the garrulousness of his old age by
cheerful conversation. After dinner the three were closeted together.
Erasmus knew not what all this meant. But, as they were rowing back to
town in the boat, Colet said, ‘Erasmus, you’re a happy man, and have done
me a great service;’ and then he went on to tell his friend how angry he
had been with his uncle, and how he had even thought of going to law with
him, but in this state of mind, having taken a copy of the ‘Enchiridion’
with him, he had read the ‘rule’ there given ‘against anger and revenge,’
and it had done him so much good that he had held his tongue at dinner,
and with the Archbishop’s kind assistance after dinner, made up matters
with his uncle.[478]

       *       *       *       *       *

Apart from these cares and troubles, Colet’s heart was naturally saddened
with the thought of so soon parting with his dearest friend, and, as he
now could feel, his ablest fellow-worker. The two were often together.
Colet sometimes would send for Erasmus to be his companion when he dined
out, or when he had to make a journey.[479] At these times Erasmus
testifies that no one could be more cheerful than Colet was. It was his
habit always to take a book with him. His conversation often turned upon
religious subjects; and though in public he was prudently reserved and
cautious in what he said, at these times to his bosom friend he most
freely spoke out his real sentiments.

[Sidenote: Pilgrimage to Canterbury.]

On one occasion Colet and Erasmus paid a visit together to the shrine of
St. Thomas-à-Becket. Going on pilgrimage was now the fashionable thing.
How admirals and soldiers who had narrowly escaped in the war went to the
shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham to fulfil the vows they had made whilst
their lives were in peril; how even Queen Katherine had been to invoke the
Virgin’s aid upon her husband’s French campaign, and to return thanks for
the victory over the Scots, has already been seen. It has also been
mentioned that Erasmus had paid a visit to Walsingham from Cambridge in a
satirical and sceptical mood, and had returned convinced of the absurdity
of the whole thing, doubting the genuineness of the relics, and ridiculing
the credulity of pilgrims. It seems that before leaving England he had a
desire to pay a similar visit to the rival shrine of St. Thomas-à-Becket.

The same ‘Colloquy’ in which Erasmus describes his visit to Walsingham
enables us to picture the two friends on this occasion threading the
narrow rustic lanes of Kent on horseback, making the best of their way to
Canterbury.[480]

[Sidenote: The shrine of St. Thomas-à-Becket.]

As they approach the city the outline of the cathedral church rises
imposingly above all surrounding objects. Its two towers seem to stand, as
it were, bidding welcome to approaching pilgrims. The sound of its bells
rolls through the country far and wide in melodious peals. At length they
reach the city, and, armed with a letter of introduction from Archbishop
Warham, enter the spacious nave of the cathedral. This is open to the
public, and beyond its own vastness and solemn grandeur, presents little
of mark, save that they notice the gospel of Nicodemus among other books
affixed to the columns, and here and there sepulchral monuments of the
nameless dead. A vaulted passage under the steps ascending to the iron
grating of the choir, brings them into the north side of the church. Here
they are shown a plain ancient wooden altar of the Virgin, whereupon is
exhibited the point of the dagger with which St. Thomas’s brain was
pierced at the time of his murder, and whose sacred rust pilgrims are
expected most devoutly to kiss. In the vault below they are next shown the
martyr’s skull, covered with silver, save that the place where the dagger
pierced it is left bare for inspection: also the hair shirt and girdle
with which the saint was wont to mortify his flesh. Thence they are taken
into the choir to behold its treasures--bones without end; skulls,
jaw-bones, teeth, hands, fingers, arms--to all which the pilgrim’s kiss is
duly expected.

[Sidenote: Colet’s disgust at the relics of St. Thomas-à-Becket.]

But Colet having had about enough of this, begins to show evident tokens
of dislike to kiss any more. Whereupon the verger piously shuts up the
rest of his treasures from the gaze of the careless and profane. The high
altar and its load of costly ornaments next claim attention; after which
they pass into the vestry, where is preserved the staff of St. Thomas,
surrounded by a wonderful display of silk vestments and golden
candlesticks. Thence they are conducted up a flight of steps into a chapel
behind the high altar, and shown the face of the saint set in gold and
jewels. Here, again, Colet breaks in upon the dumb show with awkward
bluntness. He asks the guide whether St. Thomas-à-Becket when he lived was
not very kind to the poor? The verger assents. ‘Nor can he have changed
his mind on this point, I should think,’ continues Colet, ‘unless it be
for the better?’ The verger nods a sign of approbation. Whereupon Colet
submits the query whether the saint, having been so liberal to the poor
when a poor man himself, would not now rather permit them to help
themselves to some of his vast riches, in relief of their many
necessities, than let them so often be tempted into sin by their need? And
the guide still listening in silence, Colet in his earnest way proceeds
boldly to assert his own firm conviction that this most holy man would be
even delighted that, now that he is dead, these riches of his should go to
lighten the poor man’s load of poverty, rather than be hoarded up here.
At which sacrilegious remark of Colet’s the verger, contracting his brow
and pouting his lips, looks upon his visitors with a wondering stare out
of his gorgon eyes, and doubtless would have made short work with them
were it not that they have come with letters of introduction from the
archbishop. Erasmus throws in a few pacifying words and pieces of coin,
and the two friends pass on to inspect, under the escort now of the prior
himself, the rest of the riches and relics of the place. All again
proceeds smoothly till a chest is opened containing the rags on which the
saint, when in the flesh, was accustomed to wipe his nose and the sweat
from his brow. The prior, knowing the position and dignity of Colet, and
wishing to do him becoming honour, graciously offers him as a present of
untold value one of these rags! Colet, breaking through all rules of
politeness, takes up the rag between the tips of his fingers with a
somewhat fastidious air and a disdainful chuckle, and then lays it down
again in evident disgust. The prior, not choosing to take notice of
Colet’s profanity, abruptly shuts up the chest and politely invites them
to partake of some refreshment. After which the two friends again mount
their horses, and make the best of their way back to London.

Their way lies through a narrow lane, worn deep by traffic and weather,
and with a high bank on either side. Colet rides to the left of the road.
Presently an old mendicant monk comes out of a house[481] on Colet’s side
of the way, and proceeds to sprinkle him with holy water. Though not in
the best of tempers, Colet submits to this annoyance without quite losing
it. But when the old mendicant next presents to him the upper leather of
an old shoe for his kiss, Colet abruptly demands what he wants with him.
The old man replies that the relic is a piece of St. Thomas’s shoe! This
is more than Colet knows how to put up with. ‘What!’ he says passionately,
turning to Erasmus, ‘do these fools want us to kiss the shoes of every
good man? They pick out the filthiest things they can find, and ask us to
kiss them.’ Erasmus, to counteract the effect of such a remark upon the
mind of the astonished mendicant, gives him a trifle, and the pilgrims
pass on their journey, discussing the difficult question how abuses such
as they have witnessed this day are to be remedied. Colet cannot restrain
his indignant feeling, but Erasmus urges that a rough or sudden remedy
might be worse than the disease. These superstitions must, he thinks, be
tolerated until an opportunity arises of correcting them without creating
disorder.

There can be little doubt that the graphic picture of which the above is
only a rapid sketch was drawn from actual recollections, and described the
real feelings of Erasmus and his bolder friend.

Little did the two friends dream, as they rode back to town debating these
questions, how soon they would find a final solution. Men’s faith was then
so strong and implicit in ‘Our Lady of Walsingham’ that kings and queens
were making pilgrimage to her shrine, and the common people, as they gazed
at night upon the ‘milky way,’ believed that it was the starry pathway
marked out by heaven to direct pilgrims to the place where the milk of the
Holy Virgin was preserved, and called it the ‘_Walsingham way_.’ Little
did they dream that in another five and twenty years the canons would be
convicted of forging relics and feigning miracles, and the far-famed image
of the Virgin dragged to Chelsea by royal order to be there publicly
burned. Then pilgrims were flocking to Canterbury in crowds to adore the
relics and to admire the riches of St. Thomas’s shrine. Little did they
dream that in five and twenty years St. Thomas’s bones would share the
fiery fate of the image of the Virgin, and the gold and jewellery of St.
Thomas’s shrine be carried off in chests upon the shoulders of eight stout
men, and cast without remorse into the royal exchequer![482]




CHAPTER X.


I. ERASMUS GOES TO BASLE TO PRINT HIS NEW TESTAMENT (1514).

[Sidenote: Erasmus crosses the Channel.]

It was on a July morning in the year 1514 that Erasmus again crossed the
Channel. The wind was fair, the sea calm, the sky bright and sunny; but
during the easy passage Erasmus had a heavy heart. He had once more left
his English friends behind him, bent upon a solitary pilgrimage to Basle,
in order that his edition of the letters of St. Jerome and his Greek New
Testament might be printed at the press of Froben the printer. But, always
unlucky on leaving British shores, he missed his baggage from the boat
when, after the bustle of embarkation, he looked to see that all was
right. To have lost his manuscripts--his Jerome, his New Testament, the
labours of so many years--to be on his way to Basle without the books for
the printing of which he was taking the long journey--this was enough to
weigh down his heart with a grief which he might well compare to that of a
parent who has lost his children. It turned out, after all, to be a trick
of the knavish sailors, who threw the traveller’s luggage into another
boat in order to extort a few coins for its recovery. Erasmus, in the end,
got his luggage back again; but he might well say that, though the
passage was a good one, it was an anxious one to him.[483]

[Sidenote: Letter from Servatius.]

On his arrival at the castle of _Hammes_, near Calais, where he had agreed
to spend a few days with his old pupil and friend Lord Mountjoy, he found
waiting for him a letter from Servatius, prior of the monastery of Stein,
in Holland--_the_ monastery into which he had been ensnared when a youth
against his judgment by treachery and foul play.

It was a letter doubtless written with kindly feeling, for the prior had
once been his companion; but still he evidently took it as a letter from
the prior of the convent from which he was a kind of runaway, not only
inviting, but in measure _claiming_ him back again, reproachfully
reminding him of his vows, censuring his wandering life, his throwing off
the habit of his order, and ending with a bribe--the offer of a post of
great advantage if he would return.

Erasmus return! No, truly; that he would not! But the very naming of it
brought back to mind not only the wrongs he had suffered in his youth; the
cruelty and baseness of his guardians; his miserable experience of
monastic life; how hardly he had escaped out of it; his trials during a
chequered wandering life since; but also his entry upon fellow-work with
Colet; the noble-hearted friends with whom he had been privileged to come
in contact; the noble work in which they were now engaged together. What!
give up these to put his neck again under a yoke which had so galled him
in dark times gone by! And for what? To become perchance the
father-confessor of a nunnery! It was as though Pharaoh had sent an
embassy to Moses offering to make him a taskmaster if he would but return
into Egypt.

No wonder that Erasmus, finding this letter from Servatius waiting for him
on his arrival at the castle of his friend, took up his pen to reply
somewhat warmly before proceeding on his journey. His letter lies as a
kind of waymark by the roadside of his wandering life, and with some
abridgment and omissions may be thus translated:--

    _Erasmus to Servatius._

    ‘... Being on a journey, I must reply in but few words, and confine
    myself to matters of the most importance.

    [Sidenote: Erasmus alludes to his youth.]

    [Sidenote: Erasmus hates the monastic life.]

    ‘Men hold opinions so diverse that it is impossible to please
    everybody. That _my_ desire is in very deed to follow that which is
    really the best, God is my witness! It was never my intention to
    change my mode of life or my habit; not because I approved of either,
    but lest I should give rise to scandal. _You_ know well that it was by
    the pertinacity of my guardians and the persuasion of wicked men that
    I was forced rather than induced to enter the monastic life.
    Afterwards, when I found out how entirely unsuited it was for me, I
    was restrained by the taunts of Cornelius Wertem and the bashfulness
    of youth.... But it may be objected that I had a year of what is
    called “probation,” and was of mature age. Ridiculous! As though
    anyone could require that a boy of seventeen, brought up in literary
    studies, should have attained to a self-knowledge rare even in an old
    man--should be able to learn in one year what many men grow grey
    without learning! Be this as it may, I never liked the monastic life;
    and I liked it less than ever after I had tried it; but I was ensnared
    in the way I have mentioned. For all this, I am free to confess that a
    man who is really a good man may live well in any kind of life.

    [Sidenote: His ill health.]

    [Sidenote: His works.]

    ‘I have in the meantime tried to find that mode of living in which I
    should be least prone to evil. And I think assuredly that I have found
    it; I have lived with sober men, I have lived a life of literary
    study, and these have drawn me away from many vices. It has been my
    lot to live on terms of intimacy with men of true Christian wisdom,
    and I have been bettered by their conversation.... Whenever the
    thought has occurred to me of returning into your fraternity it has
    always called back to my remembrance the jealousy of many, the
    contempt of all; converse how cold, how trifling! how lacking in
    Christian wisdom! feastings more fit for the laity! the mode of life,
    as a whole, one which, if you subtract its ceremonies from it, has
    nothing left that seems to me worth having. Lastly, I have called to
    mind my bodily infirmities, now increased upon me by age and toil, by
    reason of which I should have both failed in coming up to your mark
    and also sacrificed my own life. For some years now I have been
    afflicted with the stone, and its frequent recurrence obliges me to
    observe great regularity in my habits. I have had some experience both
    of the climate of Holland and of your particular diet and habits, and
    I feel sure that, had I returned, nothing else could have come of it
    but trouble to you and death to me.

    ‘But it may be that you deem it a blessed thing to die at a good age
    in the midst of your brotherhood. This is a notion which deceives and
    deludes not you alone, but almost everybody. We think that Christ and
    religion consist in certain places, and garments and modes of life,
    and ceremonial observances. It is all up, we think, with a man who
    changes his white habit for a black one, who substitutes a hat for a
    hood, and who frequently changes his residence. I will be bold to say
    that, on the other hand, great injury has arisen to Christian piety
    from what we call the “religious orders,” although it may be that they
    were introduced with a pious motive.... Pick out the most lauded and
    laudable of all of them, and you may look in vain, so far as I can
    see, for any likeness to Christ, unless it be in cold and Judaical
    ceremonies. It is on account of these that they think so much of
    themselves; it is on account of these that they judge and condemn
    others. How much more accordant to the teaching of Christ would it be
    to look upon all Christendom as one home; as it were, one monastery;
    to regard all men as canons and brothers; to count the sacrament of
    baptism the chief religious vow; not to care where you live, if only
    you live well!... And now to say a word about my works. The
    “Enchiridion” I fancy you have read.... The book of “Adagia,” printed
    by Aldus, I don’t know whether you have seen.... I have also written a
    book, “De Rerum et Verborum Copiâ,” which I inscribed to my friend
    Colet.... For these two years past, amongst other things, I have been
    correcting the text of the “Letters of Jerome.”... By the collation of
    Greek and ancient codices, I have also corrected the text of the
    whole New Testament, and made annotations not without theological
    value on more than one thousand places. I have commenced Commentaries
    on St. Paul’s Epistles, which I shall finish when the others are
    published; for I have made up my mind to work at sacred literature to
    the day of my death. Great men say that in these things I am
    successful where others are not. In your mode of life I should
    entirely fail. Although I have had intercourse with so many men of
    learning, both here and in Italy and in France, I have never yet found
    one who advised me to betake myself back again to you.... I beg that
    you will not forget to commend me in your prayers to the keeping of
    Christ. If ever I should come really to know that it would be doing my
    duty to _Him_ to return to your brotherhood, on that very day I will
    start on the journey. Farewell, my once pleasant companion, but now
    reverend father.

    ‘From Hammes Castle, near Calais, 9th July, 1514.’[484]

[Sidenote: Visits the Abbot of St. Bertin.]

[Sidenote: On his way to Basle.]

This bold letter written, Erasmus took leave of his host, and hastened to
repay by a short embrace the kindness of another friend, the Abbot of St.
Bertin.[485] After a two days’ halt to accomplish this object, he again
mounted his horse, and, followed by his servant and baggage, set his face
resolutely towards Basle: cheered in spirit by the marks of friendship
received during the past few days, and anxious to reach his journey’s end
that he might set about his work.

[Sidenote: Accident near Ghent.]

But all haste is not good speed. As he approached the city of Ghent, while
he chanced to be turning _one_ way to speak to his servant, his horse took
fright at something lying on the road, and turned round the _other_ way,
severely straining thereby Erasmus’s back.

It was with the greatest difficulty and torture that he reached Ghent.
There he lay for some days motionless on his back at the inn, unable to
stand upright, and fearing the worst. By degrees, however, he again became
able to move, and to write an amusing account of his adventure to Lord
Mountjoy;[486] telling him that he had vowed to St. Paul that, if restored
to health, he would complete the Commentaries he was writing on the
Epistle to the Romans; and adding that he was already so much better that
he hoped ere long to proceed another stage to Antwerp. Antwerp was
accordingly reached in due course, and from thence he was able to pursue
his journey.

At Louvain he prepared for publication a collection of stray pieces,
including amongst them the ‘_Institutes of a Christian Man_,’ written by
Colet for his school in English prose, and turned into Latin verse by
Erasmus. In the letter prefixed to the collection[487] he spoke of Colet
as a man ‘_than whom, in my opinion, the kingdom of England has not
another more pious, or who more truly knows Christ_.’[488] Two editions of
this volume were published at Cologne in the course of a few months by
different typographers.[489]

[Sidenote: At Maintz.]

[Sidenote: Reuchlin and his friends.]

At Maintz he appears to have halted a while, and he afterwards informed
Colet[490] that ‘much was made of him there.’ That it was so may be
readily conjectured, for it was at Maintz that the Court of Inquisition
had sat in the autumn of the previous year, which, had it not been for the
timely interference of the Archbishop of Maintz, would have condemned the
aged Reuchlin as a heretic. In this city Erasmus would probably fall in
with many of Reuchlin’s friends, and as the matter was now pending the
decision of the authorities at Rome, they may well have tried to secure
his influence with the Pope, to whom he was personally known. Be this as
it may, from the date of his visit to Maintz, Erasmus seems not only never
to have lost an opportunity of supporting the cause of Reuchlin at Rome or
elsewhere, but also to have himself secured the friendship and regard of
Reuchlin’s protector, the archbishop.[491]

[Sidenote: Erasmus at Strasburg.]

Leaving Maintz, he proceeded to Strasburg, where he was surrounded and
entertained by a galaxy of learned men. Another stage brought him to
Schelestadt.[492] The chief men of this ancient town, having heard of his
approach, sent him a present of wines, requested his company to dinner on
the following day, and offered him the escort of one of their number for
the remainder of his journey. Erasmus declined to be further detained, but
gladly accepted the escort of _John Sapidus_.

After having been thus lionised at each stage of the journey, and to
prevent a similar annoyance, on his arrival at Basle, Erasmus requested
his new companion to conceal his name, and if possible to introduce him to
a few choice friends before his arrival was known. Sapidus complied with
this request. He had no difficulty in making his choice.

[Sidenote: Arrives at Basle incognito.]

[Sidenote: Circle of learned men at Basle.]

[Sidenote: Amerbach.]

[Sidenote: His three sons.]

[Sidenote: Froben.]

[Sidenote: Beatus Rhenanus.]

[Sidenote: Lystrius.]

Round the printing establishment of Froben, the printer had gathered a
little group of learned and devoted men, whose names had made Basle famous
as one of the centres of reviving learning. There was a university at
Basle, but it was not this which had attracted the little knot of students
to the city. The patriarch of the group was _Johann Amerbach_. He was now
an old man. More than thirty years had passed since he had first set up
his printing-press at Basle, and during these years he had devoted his
ample wealth and active intellect to the reproduction in type of the works
of the early Church Fathers. The works of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine
had already issued from his press at vast cost of labour, time, and
wealth. To publish St. Jerome’s works before he died, or at least to see
the work in hand, was now the aged patriarch’s ambition. Many years ago he
had imported Froben, that he might secure an able successor in the
printing department. His own three sons, also, he had educated in Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew, so as to qualify them thoroughly for the work he
wished them to continue after he was gone. And the three brothers Amerbach
did not belie their father’s hopes. They had inherited a double portion of
his spirit.[493] Froben, too, had caught the old printer’s mantle, and
worked like him, for love, and not for gain.[494] Others had gathered
round so bright a nucleus. There was Beatus Rhenanus, a young scholar of
great ability and wealth, whose gentle loving nature endeared him to his
intimate companions. He, too, had caught the spirit of reviving learning,
and thought it not beneath his dignity to undertake the duties of
corrector of the press in Froben’s printing-office.[495] Gerard Lystrius,
a youth brought up to the medical profession, with no mean knowledge both
of Greek and Hebrew, had also thrown in his lot with them.[496]

[Sidenote: Erasmus introduced incognito to Froben and his friends.]

Such was the little circle of choice friends into which Sapidus, without
betraying who he was, introduced the stranger who had just arrived in
Basle, who, addressing himself at once to Froben, presented letters from
Erasmus, with whom he said that he was most closely intimate, and from
whom he had the fullest commission to treat with reference to the printing
of his works, so that Froben might regard whatever arrangement he might
make with him as though it had been made with Erasmus himself. Finding
still that he was undiscovered, and wishing to slide easily from under his
_incognito_, he soon added drily that Erasmus and he were ‘so alike that
to see one was to have seen the other!’ Froben then, to his great
amusement, discovered who the stranger was. He was received with open
arms. His bills at the inn were forthwith paid, and himself, servant,
horses, and baggage transferred to the home of Froben’s father-in-law,
there to enjoy the luxuries of private hospitality.

When it was known in the city that Erasmus had arrived he was besieged by
doctors and deans, rectors of the University, poets-laureate, invitations
to dine, and every kind of attention which the men of Basle could give to
so illustrious a stranger.

But Erasmus had come back to Basle not to be lionised, but to push on with
his work. He was gratified; and, indeed, he told his friends, almost put
to the blush by the honours with which he had been received; but, finding
their constant attentions to interfere greatly with his daily labours at
Froben’s office, he was obliged to request that he might be left to
himself.[497]

[Sidenote: Erasmus at work in Froben’s printing office.]

At Froben’s office he found everything prepared to his hand. The train was
already laid for the publication of St. Jerome. Beatus Rhenanus and the
three brothers Amerbach were ready to throw themselves heart and soul into
the work. The latter undertook to share the labour of collating and
transcribing portions which Erasmus had not yet completed, and so the
ponderous craft got fairly under way. By the end of August, he was
thoroughly immersed in types and proof-sheets, and, to use his own
expression, no less busy in superintending his little enterprise than the
Emperor in his war with Venice.[498]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Writes to his English friends.]

Thus he could report well of his journey and his present home to his
English friends. He felt that he had done right in coming to Basle, but,
none the less on that account, that his true home was in the hearts of
these same English friends. In his letters to them he expressed his
longing to return.[499] His late ill-fortune in England he had always set
down to the war, which had turned the thoughts of the nation and the
liberality of patrons into other channels, and he hoped that now, perhaps,
the war being over, a better state of things might reign in England, and
better fortunes be in store for the poor scholar.

What Colet thought of this and things in general, how clouds and storms
seemed gathering round him, may be learned from his reply to his friend’s
letter, brief as was his wont, but touchingly graphic in its little
details about himself and his own life during these passing months. He was
already preparing to resign his preferments, and building a house within
the secluded precincts of the Charterhouse at Sheene near Richmond,
wherein, with a few bosom friends, he hoped to spend the rest of his days
in peace, unmolested by his evil genius, the Bishop of London.

    _Colet to Erasmus._[500]

    [Sidenote: Colet still harassed by Bishop Fitzjames.]

    ‘Dearest Erasmus--I have received your letter written from Basle, 3
    Cal. Sept. I am glad to know where you are, and in what clime you are
    living. I am glad, too, that you are well. See that you perform the
    vow which you say you made to St. Paul. That so much was made of you
    at Maintz, as you tell me, I can easily believe. I am glad you intend
    to return to us some day. But I am not very hopeful about it. As to
    any better fortune for you, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know,
    because those who have the means have not the will, and those who have
    the will have not the means. All your friends here are well. The
    Archbishop of Canterbury keeps as kindly disposed as ever. The Bishop
    of Lincoln [Wolsey] now reigns “Archbishop of York!” The Bishop of
    London never ceases to harass me. Every day I look forward to my
    retirement and retreat with the Carthusians. My nest is nearly
    finished. When you come back to us, so far as I can conjecture, you
    will find me there, “_mortuus mundo_.” Take care of your health, and
    let me know where you go to. Farewell.--_From London, Oct. 20
    (1514)._’


II. ERASMUS RETURNS TO ENGLAND--HIS SATIRE UPON KINGS (1515).

[Sidenote: Erasmus arrives in England.]

Erasmus had at first intended to remain at Basle till the Ides of March
(1515), and then, in compliance with the invitation of his Italian
friends, to spend a few weeks in Italy.[501] But after working six or
eight months at Froben’s office, he was no longer inclined to carry out
the project; and so, a new edition of the ‘Adagia’ being wellnigh
completed, and the ponderous folios of Jerome proceeding to satisfaction,
under the good auspices of the brothers Amerbach, when spring came round
Erasmus took sudden flight from Basle, and turned up, not in Italy, but in
England. Safely arrived in London, he was obliged to do his best, by the
discreet use of his pen, to excuse to his friends at Rome this slight upon
their favours.

[Sidenote: Supports the cause of Reuchlin.]

He wrote, therefore, elegant and flattering letters to the Cardinal
Grimanus, the Cardinal St. George, and Pope Leo,[502] describing the
labours in which he was engaged, the noble assistance which the little
fraternity at Basle were giving, and which could not have been got in
Italy nor anywhere else; alluding in flattering terms to the advantages
offered at Rome, and the kindness he had there received on his former
visit; but describing in still more glowing terms the love and generosity
of his friends in England, and declaring ‘with that frankness which it
becomes a German to use,’ that ‘England was his adopted country, and the
chosen home of his old age.’[503] He also took the opportunity of strongly
urging the two cardinals to use their utmost influence in aid of the cause
of Reuchlin. He told them how grieved he was, in common with all the
learned men of Germany, that these frivolous and vexatious proceedings
should have been taken against a man venerable both on account of age and
service, who ought now in his declining years to be peacefully wearing his
well-earned laurels. And lastly, in his letter to the Pope, Erasmus took
occasion to express his hatred of the wars in which Europe had been
recently involved, and his thankfulness that the efforts of his Holiness
to bring about a peace had at last been crowned with success.

[Sidenote: Peace between England and France.]

[Sidenote: Death of Louis XII. and accession of Francis I.]

Peace had indeed been proclaimed between France and England, while Erasmus
had been working at Basle, but under circumstances not likely to _lessen_
those feelings of indignation with which the three friends regarded the
selfish and reckless policy of European rulers. For peace had been made
with France merely to shuffle the cards. Henry’s sister, the Princess Mary
(whose marriage with Henry’s ally, Prince Charles, ought long ago to have
been solemnised according to contract), had been married to their common
enemy, Louis XII. of France, with whom they had just been together at war.
In November, Henry and his late enemy, Louis, were plotting to combine
against Henry’s late ally, King Ferdinand; and England’s blood and
treasure, after having been wasted in helping to wrest Navarre from France
for Ferdinand, were now to be wasted anew to recover the same province
back to France from Ferdinand.[504] On the first of January this unholy
alliance of the two courts was severed by the death of Louis XII. The
Princess Mary was a widow. The young and ambitious Francis I. succeeded to
the French throne, and he, anxious like Henry VIII. to achieve military
glory, declared his intention, on succeeding to the crown, that ‘the
monarchy of Christendom should rest under the banner of France as it was
wont to do.’[505] Before the end of July he had already started on that
Italian campaign in which he was soon to defeat the Swiss in the great
battle of Marignano--a battle at the news of which Ferdinand and Henry
were once more to be made secret friends by their common hatred of so
dangerous a rival![506]

These international scandals, for such they must be called, wrung from
Erasmus other and far more bitter censure than that contained in his
letter to the Pope. He was laboriously occupied with great works passing
through the printing-press at Basle, but still he stole the time to give
public vent to his pent-up feelings. It little mattered that the actors of
these scandals were patrons of his own--kings and ministers on whose aid
he was to some extent dependent, even for the means wherewith to print his
Greek New Testament. His indignation burst forth in pamphlets printed in
large type, and bearing his name, or was thrust into the new edition of
the ‘Adagia,’ or bound up with other new editions which happened now to be
passing through Froben’s press.[507] And be it remembered that these works
and pamphlets found their way as well into royal courts as into the
studies of the learned.

[Sidenote: Satire upon Kings.]

What could exceed the sternness and bitterness of the reproof contained in
the following passages?--

‘Aristotle was wont to distinguish between a _king_ and a _tyrant_ by the
most obvious marks: the tyrant regarding only his own interest; the king
the interests of his people. But the title of “king,” which the first and
greatest Roman rulers thought to be immodest and impolitic, as likely to
stir up jealousy, is not enough for some, unless it be gilded with the
most splendid lies. Kings who are scarcely men are called “divine;” they
are “invincible,” though they never have left a battlefield without being
conquered; “serene,” though they have turned the world upside down in a
tumult of war; “illustrious,” though they grovel in profoundest ignorance
of everything noble; “Catholic,” though they follow anything rather than
Christ.

‘And these divine, illustrious, triumphant kings ... have no other desire
than that laws, edicts, wars, peaces, leagues, councils, judgments, sacred
or profane, should bring the wealth of others into their exchequer--_i.e._
they gather everything into their leaking reservoir, and, like the eagles,
fatten their eaglets on the flesh of innocent birds.

‘Let any physiognomist worth anything at all consider the look and the
features of an eagle--those rapacious and wicked eyes, that threatening
curve of the beak, those cruel jaws, that stern front ... will he not
recognise at once the image of a king?--a magnificent and majestic king?
Add to this a dark ill-omened colour, an unpleasing, dreadful, appalling
voice, and that threatening scream at which every kind of animal trembles.
Every one will acknowledge this type who has learned how terrible are the
threats of princes, even uttered in jest.... At this scream of the eagle
the people tremble, the senate yields, the nobility cringes, the judges
concur, the divines are dumb, the lawyers assent, the laws and
constitutions give way, neither right nor religion, neither justice nor
humanity, avail. And thus while there are so many birds of sweet and
melodious song, the unpleasant and unmusical scream of the eagle alone has
more power than all the rest.... Of all birds the eagle alone has seemed
to wise men the type of royalty--not beautiful, not musical, not fit for
food; but carnivorous, greedy, hateful to all, the curse of all, and, with
its great powers of doing harm, surpassing them in its desire of doing
it.’[508]

Again:--

‘The office of a prince is called a “dominion,” when in truth a prince has
nothing else to do but to administer the affairs of the commonwealth.

‘The intermarriages between royal families, and the new leagues arising
from them, are called “the bonds of Christian peace,” though almost all
wars and all tumults of human affairs seem to rise out of them. When
princes conspire together to oppress and exhaust a commonwealth, they call
it a “just war.” When they themselves _unite_ in this object, they call it
“_peace_.”

‘They call it the extension of the empire when this or that little town is
added to the titles of the prince at the cost of the plunder, the blood,
the widowhood, the bereavement of so many citizens.’[509]

[Sidenote: Rapid sale of the ‘Praise of Folly.’]

These passages may serve to indicate what feelings were stirred up in the
heart of Erasmus by the condition of international affairs, and in what
temper he returned to England. The works in which they appeared he had
left under the charge of Beatus Rhenanus, to be printed at Basle in his
absence. And some notion of the extent to which whatever proceeded from
the pen of Erasmus was now devoured by the public, may be gained from the
fact that Rhenanus, in April of this very year, wrote to Erasmus, to tell
him that out of an edition of 1,800 of the ‘Praise of Folly’ just printed
by Froben, with notes by Lystrius, only sixty remained in hand.[510]


III. RETURNS TO BASLE TO FINISH HIS WORKS.--FEARS OF THE ORTHODOX PARTY
(1515).

It will be necessary to recur to the position of international affairs ere
long; meanwhile, the quotations we have given will be enough to show that,
buried as Erasmus was in literary labour, he was alive also to what was
passing around him--no mere bookworm, to whom his books and his learning
were the sole end of life. As we proceed to examine more closely the
object and spirit of the works in which he was now engaged, it will become
more and more evident that their interest to him was of quite another kind
to that of the mere bookworm.

[Sidenote: Erasmus returns to Basle.]

Before the summer of 1515 was over he was again on his way to Basle, where
his editions of Jerome and of the New Testament were now really
approaching completion. Their appearance was anxiously expected by learned
men all over Europe. The bold intention of Erasmus to publish the Greek
text of the New Testament with a new Latin translation of his own, a
rival of the sacred Vulgate, had got wind. Divines of the traditional
school had already taken alarm. It was whispered about amongst them that
something ought to be done. The new edition of the ‘Praise of Folly,’ with
notes by Lystrius, had been bought and read with avidity. Men now shook
their heads, who had smiled at its first appearance. They discovered
heresies in it unnoticed before. Besides, the name of Erasmus was now
known all over Europe. It mattered little what he wrote a few years ago,
when he was little known; but it mattered much what he might write now
that he was a man of mark.

[Sidenote: Rumours of opposition.]

While Erasmus was passing through Belgium on his way to Basle, these
whispered signs of discontent found public utterance in a letter from
Martin Dorpius,[511] of the Louvain University, addressed to Erasmus, but
printed, and, it would seem, in the hands of the public, before it was
forwarded to him. He met with it by accident at Antwerp.[512] It was
written at the instigation of others. Men who had not the wit to make a
public protest of this nature for themselves, had urged Martin Dorpius to
employ his talents in their cause, and to become their mouthpiece.[513]

Thus this letter from Dorpius was of far more importance than would at
first sight appear. It had a representative importance which it did not
possess in itself. It was the public protest of a large and powerful
party. As such it required more than a mere private reply from Erasmus,
and deserves more than a passing mention here, for it affords an insight
into the plan and defences of a theological citadel, against which its
defenders considered that Erasmus was meditating a bold attack.

[Sidenote: Letter from Dorpius.]

‘I hear’ (wrote Dorpius, after criticising severely the ‘Praise of
Folly’)--‘I hear that you have been expurgating the epistles of Saint
Jerome from the errors with which they abound ... and this is a work in
all respects worthy of your labour, and by which you will confer a great
benefit on divines.... But I hear, also, that you have been correcting the
text of the New Testament, and that “you have made annotations not without
theological value on more than one thousand places.”’

Here Dorpius evidently quotes the words of the letter of Erasmus to
_Servatius_, so that _he_ too is silently behind the scenes, handing
Erasmus’s letter about amongst his theological friends, perhaps himself
inciting Dorpius to write as he does.

[Sidenote: Dorpius asserts that there are no errors in the Vulgate.]

‘... If I can show you that the Latin translation has in it no errors or
mistakes’ (continued Dorpius), ‘then you must confess that the labour of
those who try to correct it is altogether null and void.... I am arguing
now with respect to the truthfulness and integrity of the translation, and
I assert this of our Vulgate version. For it cannot be that the unanimous
universal Church now for so many centuries has been mistaken, which always
has used, and still both sanctions and uses, this version. Nor in the same
way is it possible that so many holy fathers, so many men of most
consummate authority, could be mistaken, who, relying on the same
version, have defined the most difficult points even in _General
Councils_; have defended and elucidated the faith, and enacted canons to
which even kings have bowed their sceptres. That councils rightly convened
never can err in matters of faith is generally admitted by both divines
and lawyers.... What matters it whether you believe or not that the Greek
books are more accurate than the Latin ones; whether or not _greater_ care
was taken to preserve the sacred books in all their integrity by the
Greeks than by the Latins;--by the Greeks, forsooth, amongst whom the
Christian religion was very often almost overthrown, and who affirmed that
none of the gospels were free from errors, excepting the one gospel of
John. What matters all this when, to say nothing of anything else, amongst
the Latins the Church has continued throughout the inviolate spouse of
Christ?... What if it be contended that the sense, as rendered by the
Latin version, differs in truth from the Greek text? Then, indeed, adieu
to the Greek. I adhere to the Latin because I cannot bring my mind to
believe that the Greek are more correct than the Latin codices.

‘But it may be said, Augustine ordered the Latin rivulets to be supplied
from the Greek fountain-head. He did so; and wisely in his age, in which
neither had any one Latin version been received by the Church as now, nor
had the Greek fountain-head become so corrupt as it now seems to be.

[Sidenote: A single error would destroy the authority of the Bible.]

‘You may say in reply, “I do not want you to change anything in your
codices, nor that you should believe that the Latin version is a false
one. I only point out what discrepancies I discover between the Greek and
Latin copies, and what harm is there in that?” In very deed, my dear
Erasmus, there is great harm in it. Because, about this matter of the
integrity of the Holy Scriptures many will dispute, many will doubt, if
they learn that even one jot or tittle in them is false, ... and then will
come to pass what Augustine described to Jerome: “If any error should be
admitted to have crept into the Holy Scriptures, what authority would be
left to them?” All these considerations, my dear Erasmus, have induced me
to pray and beseech you, by our mutual friendship, by your wonted courtesy
and candour, either to limit your corrections to those passages only of
the New Testament in which you are able, without altering the sense, to
substitute more expressive words; or if you should point out that the
sense requires any alteration at all, that you will reply to the foregoing
arguments in your preface.’

[Sidenote: Erasmus replies to Dorpius.]

Erasmus replied to this letter of Dorpius with singular tact, and
reprinted the letter itself with his reply.

He acknowledged the friendship of Dorpius, and the kind and friendly tone
of his letter. He received, he said, many flattering letters, but he had
rather receive such a letter as this, of honest advice and criticism, by
far. He was knocked up by sea-sickness, wearied by long travel on
horseback, busy unpacking his luggage; but still he thought it was better,
he said, to send some reply, rather than allow his friend to remain under
such erroneous impressions, whether the result of his own consideration,
or instilled into him by others, who had over-persuaded him into writing
this letter, and thus made a cat’s-paw of him, in order to light their
battles without exposure of their own persons.

He told him freely how and when the ‘Praise of Folly’ was written, and
what were his reasons for writing it, frankly and courteously replying to
his criticisms.

He described the labour and difficulty of the correction of the text of
St. Jerome--a work of which Dorpius had expressed his approval. But he
said, with reference to what Dorpius had written upon the New Testament,
he could not help wondering what had happened to him--what could have
thrown all this dust into his eyes!

[Sidenote: There _are_ errors in the Vulgate.]

‘You are unwilling that I should alter anything, except when the Greek
text expresses the sense of the Vulgate more clearly, and you deny that in
the Vulgate edition there are any mistakes. And you think it wrong that
what has been approved by the sanction of so many ages and so many synods
should be unsettled by any means. I beseech you to consider, most learned
Dorpius, whether what you have written be _true_! How is it that Jerome,
Augustine, and Ambrose all cite a text which differs from the Vulgate? How
is it that Jerome finds fault with and corrects many readings which we
find in the Vulgate? What can you make of all this concurrent
evidence--when the Greek versions differ from the Vulgate, when Jerome
cites the text according to the Greek version, when the oldest Latin
versions do the same, when this reading suits the sense much better than
that of the Vulgate,--will you, treating all this with contempt, follow a
version perhaps corrupted by some copyist?... In doing so you follow in
the steps of those vulgar divines who are accustomed to attribute
ecclesiastical authority to whatever in any way creeps into general
use.... I had rather be a common mechanic than the best of their number.’

With regard to some other points, it was, he said, more prudent to be
silent; but he told Dorpius that he had submitted the rough draft of his
Annotations to divines and bishops of the greatest integrity and learning,
and these had confessed that they threw much light on Scripture study. He
concluded with the expression of a hope that even Dorpius himself,
although now protesting against the attempt, would welcome the publication
of the book when it came into his hands.

[Sidenote: Erasmus at Basle.]

This letter[514] written and despatched to the printer, Erasmus proceeded
with his journey. The Rhine, swollen by the rains and the rapid melting of
Alpine snows, had overflowed its banks; so that the journey, always
disagreeable and fatiguing, was this time more than usually so. It was
more like swimming, Erasmus said, than riding. But by the end of
August[515] he was again hard at work in Froben’s printing-office putting
the finishing strokes to his two great works.[516] By the 7th of March,
1516, he was able to announce that the New Testament was out of the
printer’s hands, and the final colophon put to St. Jerome.[517]

It is time therefore that we should attempt to realise what these two
great works were, and what the peculiar significance of their concurrent
publication.




CHAPTER XI.


THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ COMPLETED.--WHAT IT REALLY WAS (1516).

[Sidenote: Main object of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’]

[Sidenote: Not the Greek text.]

The New Testament of Erasmus ought not to be regarded by any means as a
mere reproduction of the Greek text, or criticised even _chiefly_ as such.
The labour which falls to the lot of a pioneer in such a work, the
multiplied chances of error in the collation by a single hand, and that of
a novice in the art of deciphering difficult manuscripts, the want of
experience on the part of the printers in the use of Greek type, the
inadequate pecuniary means at the disposal of Erasmus, and the haste with
which it was prepared, considering the nature of the work,--all tended to
make his version of the Greek text exceedingly imperfect, viewed in the
light of modern criticism. He may even have been careless, and here and
there uncandid and capricious in his choice of readings,--all this, of
which I am incapable of forming a conclusive judgment, I am willing to
grant by-the-bye. The merit of the New Testament of Erasmus does not
mainly rest upon the accuracy of his Greek text,[518] although this had
cost him a great deal of labour, and was a necessary part of his plan.

I suppose the object of an author may be most fairly gathered from his own
express declarations, and that the prefaces of Erasmus to his first
edition--the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ as he called it--are the best evidence
that can possibly be quoted of the purpose of Erasmus in its publication.
To these, therefore, I must beg the reader’s attention.

[Sidenote: Main object to be learned from its prefaces.]

Now a careful examination of these prefaces cannot fail to establish the
identity of the purpose of Erasmus in publishing the ‘Novum Instrumentum’
with that which had induced Colet, nearly twenty years before, to commence
his lectures at Oxford.

During those twenty years the divergence between the two great rival
schools of thought had become wider and wider.

[Sidenote: The Italian school.]

The intellectual tendencies of the philosophic school in Italy had become
more and more decidedly sceptical. The meteor lights of Savonarola, Pico,
and Ficino had blazed across the sky and vanished. The star of semi-pagan
philosophy was in the ascendant, and shed its cold light upon the
intellect of Italy.

Leo X. was indeed a great improvement upon Alexander VI. and Julius
II.--of this there could be no doubt. Instead of the gross sensuality of
the former and the warlike passions of the latter, what Ranke has well
designated ‘_a sort of intellectual sensualism_,’ now reigned in the Papal
court. Erasmus had indeed entertained bright hopes of Leo X. He had
declared himself in favour of a peaceful policy; he was, too, an enemy to
the blind bigotry of the Schoolmen. Nor does he seem to have been openly
irreligious. His choice of Sadolet as one of his secretaries was not like
the act of a man who himself would scoff at the Christian faith; though,
on the other hand, this enlightened Christian was unequally yoked in the
office with the philosophical and worldly Bembo. Under former Popes the
fear of Erasmus had been ‘_lest Rome should degenerate into Babylon_.’ He
hoped now that, under Leo X., ‘the tempest of war being hushed, both
letters and religion might be seen flourishing at Rome.’[519]

[Sidenote: Its sceptical tendencies.]

At the same time he was not blind to the sceptical tendencies of the
Italian schools. Thus whilst in a letter written not long after this
period, expressing his faith in the ‘revival of letters,’ and his belief
that the ‘authority of the Scriptures will not in the long run be lessened
by their being read and understood correctly instead of
incorrectly’--whilst thus, in fact, taking a hopeful view of the
future--we yet find him confessing to a fear, ‘lest, under the pretext of
the revival of ancient literature, Paganism should again endeavour to rear
its head.’[520] The atmosphere of the Papal Court was indeed far more
semi-pagan than Christian. With the revival of classical literature it was
natural that there should be a revival of classical taste. And just as the
mediæval church of St. Peter was demolished to make room for a classical
temple, so it was the fashion in high society at Rome to profess belief in
the philosophy of Pliny and Aristotle and to scoff at the Christian
faith.[521]

The extent to which anti-Christian and sceptical tendencies were carried
in the direction of speculative philosophy was shown by the publication in
this very year, 1516, by _Pomponatius_, whom Ranke speaks of as ‘the most
distinguished philosopher of the day,’[522] of a work in which he denied
the immortality of the soul.[523] This philosopher was, in the words of
Hallam, ‘the most renowned professor of the school of Padua, which for
more than a century was the focus of atheism in Italy.’[524]

[Sidenote: The Italian school Machiavellian in its politics.]

That the same anti-Christian and sceptical tendencies were equally
prevalent in the sphere of practical morality and politics as in that of
speculative philosophy, was also painfully obvious. That popes themselves
had discarded Christianity as the standard of their own morality both in
social and political action, had for generations been trumpeted forth to
the world by their own sensual lives, and their faithless and immoral
political conduct. When in the ‘Praise of Folly’ Erasmus had satirised the
policy of popes, he had put a sting to his description of their
unchristian conduct by adding that they acted ‘_as though Christ were
dead_.’[525] The greatest political philosopher of the age had already
written his great work ‘_The Prince_,’ in which he had _codified_, so to
speak, the maxims of the dominant anti-Christian school of politics, and
framed a system of political philosophy based upon keen and godless
self-interest, and defying, if not in terms denying, both the obligation
and policy of the golden rule--a system which may be best described, in a
word, by reference to the name of its author, as _Machiavellian_.[526]

[Sidenote: The dogmatic school, equally anti-Christian in its practice,]

On the other hand, opposed to the new ‘learning,’ and its anti-Christian
tendencies, was the dogmatic system of the Schoolmen, defended with blind
bigotry by monks and divines of the old school. These had done nothing
during the past twenty years to reconcile their system with the
intellectual tendencies of their age. They were still straining every
nerve to keep Christianity and reviving science hopelessly apart. Their
own rigidly defined scholastic creed, with all its unverified hypotheses,
rested as securely as ever, in their view, on the absolute inspiration of
the Vulgate version of the Bible: witness the letter of Dorpius. No new
light had disturbed the entire satisfaction with which they regarded their
system, or the assurance with which they denounced Greek and Hebrew as
‘heretical tongues,’ derided all attempts at free inquiry, and scornfully
pointed to the sceptical tendencies of the Italian school as the result to
which the ‘new learning’ must inevitably lead.

[Sidenote: and in its politics.]

And yet the practical results of this proudly orthodox philosophy were as
notoriously anti-Christian, both as regards social and political morality,
as was the Machiavellian philosophy, at which these professed Christians
pointed with the finger of scorn. Again and again had Erasmus occasion
bitterly to satirise the gross sensuality in which as a class they
grovelled. Again and again had he to condemn their _political_ influence,
and the part they played in prompting the warlike and treacherous policy
of princes whose courts they infested.[527]

And passages have already been quoted from the ‘Praise of Folly’ in which
Erasmus pointed out how completely they had lost sight of the one rule of
Christian morals--the golden rule of Christ--how they had substituted a
new notion of virtue for the Christian one, and how the very meaning of
the word ‘_sin_’ had undergone a corresponding change in their theological
vocabulary.

[Sidenote: Neither party had practical faith in Christianity.]

Such were the two opposing parties, which, in this age of intellectual
re-awakening and progress, were struggling in hopeless antagonism; both of
them for the sake of ecclesiastical emoluments still professing allegiance
to the Church, and keeping as firm a foothold as possible within her pale,
but both of them practically betraying at the same time their real want of
faith in Christianity by tacitly setting it aside as a thing which would
not work as the rule of social and political life.

Erasmus, in writing the preface to his ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ had his eye
on both these dominant parties. He, like Colet, believed both of them to
be leading men astray. He believed, with Colet, that there _was_ a
Christianity which rested on facts and not upon speculation, and which
therefore had nothing to do with the dogmatic theology of the Schoolmen on
the one hand, and nothing to fear from free inquiry on the other. To
‘call men as with the sound of a trumpet’ to this, was the object of the
earnest ‘Paraclesis’ which he prefixed to his Testament.

He first appealed to the free-thinking philosophic school:--

       *       *       *       *       *

    [Sidenote: The ‘Paraclesis.’]

    [Sidenote: All men should read the Gospels, &c., in their vulgar
    tongue.]

    ‘In times like these, when men are pursuing with such zest all
    branches of knowledge, how is it that the philosophy of Christ should
    alone be derided by some, neglected by many, treated by the few who do
    devote themselves to it with coldness, not to say insincerity? Whilst
    in all other branches of learning the human mind is straining its
    genius to master all subtleties, and toiling to overcome all
    difficulties, why is it that this one philosophy alone is not pursued
    with equal earnestness, at least by those who profess to be
    Christians? Platonists, Pythagoreans, and the disciples of all other
    philosophers, are well instructed and ready to fight for their sect.
    Why do not Christians with yet more abundant zeal espouse the cause of
    _their_ Master and Prince? Shall Christ be put in comparison with Zeno
    and Aristotle--his doctrines with their insignificant precepts?
    Whatever other philosophers may have been, he alone is a teacher from
    heaven; he alone was able to teach certain and eternal wisdom; he
    alone taught things pertaining to our salvation, because he alone is
    its author; he alone absolutely practised what he preached, and is
    able to make good what he promised.... The philosophy of Christ,
    moreover, is to be learned from its few books with far less labour
    than the Aristotelian philosophy is to be extracted from its multitude
    of ponderous and conflicting commentaries. Nor is anxious preparatory
    learning needful to the Christian. Its viaticum is simple, and at hand
    to all. Only bring a pious and open heart, imbued above all things
    with a pure and simple faith. Only be teachable, and you have already
    made much way in this philosophy. It supplies a spirit for a teacher,
    imparted to none more readily than to the simple-minded. Other
    philosophies, by the very difficulty of their precepts, are removed
    out of the range of most minds. No age, no sex, no condition of life
    is excluded from this. The sun itself is not more common and open to
    all than the teaching of Christ. For I utterly dissent from those who
    are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures should be read by the
    unlearned translated into their vulgar tongue, as though Christ had
    taught such subtleties that they can scarcely be understood even by a
    few theologians, or as though the strength of the Christian religion
    consisted in men’s ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it may be
    safer to conceal, but Christ wished his mysteries to be published as
    openly as possible. I wish that even the weakest woman should read the
    Gospel--should read the epistles of Paul. And I wish these were
    translated into all languages, so that they might be read and
    understood, not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks and
    Saracens. To make them understood is surely the first step. It may be
    that they might be ridiculed by many, but some would take them to
    heart. I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them to
    himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum them to
    the tune of his shuttle, that the traveller should beguile with their
    stories the tedium of his journey.’

Then turning more directly to the Schoolmen, Erasmus continued:--

[Sidenote: The Gospels give a living image of the mind of Christ.]

    Why is a greater portion of our lives given to the study of the
    Schoolmen than of the Gospels? The rules of St. Francis and St.
    Benedict may be considered sacred by their respective followers; but
    just as St. Paul wrote that the law of Moses was not glorious in
    comparison with the glory of the Gospel, so Erasmus said he wished
    that these might not be considered as sacred in comparison with the
    Gospels and letters of the Apostles. What are Albertus, Alexander,
    Thomas, Ægidius, Ricardus, Occam, in comparison with Christ, of whom
    it was said by the Father in heaven, ‘This is my beloved Son’? (Oh,
    how sure and, as they say, ‘irrefragable’ his authority!) What, in
    comparison with Peter, who received the command to feed the sheep; or
    Paul, in whom, as a chosen vessel, Christ seemed to be reborn; or
    John, who wrote in his epistles what he learned as he leaned on his
    bosom? ‘If the footprints of Christ be anywhere shown to us, we kneel
    down and adore. Why do we not rather venerate the living and breathing
    picture of Him in these books? If the vesture of Christ be exhibited,
    where will we not go to kiss it? Yet were his whole wardrobe exhibited
    nothing could represent Christ more vividly and truly than these
    evangelical writings. Statues of wood and stone we decorate with gold
    and gems for the love of Christ. They only profess to give us the form
    of his body; these books present us with a living image of his most
    holy mind.[528] Were we to have seen Him with our own eyes, we should
    not have had so intimate a knowledge as they give of Christ, speaking,
    healing, dying, rising again, as it were, in our own actual presence.’

Such was the earnest ‘Paraclesis’[529] with which Erasmus introduced his
Greek and Latin version of the books of the New Testament.

[Sidenote: Method of study.]

To this he added a few pages to explain what he considered the right
‘method’ to be adopted by the Scripture student.[530]

First, as to the spirit in which he should work:--

‘Let him approach the New Testament, not with an unholy curiosity, but
with _reverence_; bearing in mind that his first and only aim and object
should be that he may catch and be changed into the spirit of what he
there learns. It is the food of the soul; and to be of use, must not rest
only in the memory or lodge in the stomach, but must permeate the very
depths of the heart and mind.’

Then, as to what special acquirements are most useful in the prosecution
of these studies:--

‘A fair knowledge of the three languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, of
course, are the first things. Nor let the student turn away in despair at
the difficulty of this. If you have a teacher and the will to learn, these
three languages can be learned almost with less labour than every day is
spent over the miserable babble of one mongrel language under ignorant
teachers. It would be well, too, were the student tolerably versed in
other branches of learning--dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, music,
astrology, and especially in knowledge of the natural objects--animals,
trees, precious stones--of the countries mentioned in the Scriptures; for
if we are familiar with the country, we can in thought follow the history
and picture it to our minds, so that we seem not only to read it, but to
see it; and if we do this, we shall not easily forget it. Besides, if we
know from study of history not only the position of those nations to whom
these things happened, or to whom the Apostles wrote, but also their
origin, manners, institutions, religion, and character, it is wonderful
how much light and, if I may so speak, _life_ is thrown into the reading
of what before seemed dry and lifeless. Other branches of
learning--classical, rhetorical, or philosophical--may all be turned to
account; and especially should the student learn to quote Scripture, not
second-hand, but from the fountain-head, and take care not to distort its
meaning as some do, interpreting the “Church” as the clergy, the laity as
the “world,” and the like. To get at the real meaning, it is not enough to
take four or five isolated words; you must look where they came from, what
was said, by whom it was said, to whom it was said, at what time, on what
occasion, in what words, what preceded, what followed. And if you refer to
commentaries, choose out the best, such as Origen (who is far above all
others), Basil, &c., Jerome, Ambrose, &c.; and even these read with
discrimination and judgment, for they were men ignorant of some things,
and mistaken in others.

‘As to the Schoolmen, I had rather be a pious divine with Jerome than
invincible with Scotus. Was ever a heretic converted by their subtleties?
Let those who like follow the disputations of the schools; but let him who
desires to be instructed rather in piety than in the art of disputation,
first and above all apply himself to the fountain-head--to those writings
which flowed immediately from the fountain-head. The divine is
“invincible” enough who never yields to vice or gives way to evil
passions, even though he may be beaten in argument. That doctor is
abundantly “great” who purely preaches Christ.’

[Sidenote: The ‘Annotations.’]

[Sidenote: Theory of verbal inspiration rejected.]

I have quoted these passages very much at length, that there may be no
doubt whatever how fully Erasmus had in these prefaces adopted and made
himself the spokesman of Colet’s views. An examination of the ‘Novum
Instrumentum’ itself, and of the ‘Annotations’ which formed the second
part of the volume, reveals an equally close resemblance between the
_critical method of exposition_ used by Colet and that here adopted by
Erasmus. There was the same rejection of the theory of verbal inspiration
which was noticed in Colet as the result of an honest attempt to look at
the facts of the case exactly as they were, instead of attempting to
explain them away by reference to preconceived theories.

Thus the discrepancy between St. Stephen’s speech and the narrative in
Genesis, with regard to a portion of the history of the Patriarch Abraham,
was freely pointed out, without any attempt at reconcilement.[531] St.
Jerome’s suggestion was quoted, that Mark, in the second chapter of his
Gospel, had, by a lapse of memory, written ‘Abiathar’ in mistake for
‘Ahimelech,’[532] and that Matthew, in the twenty-seventh chapter, instead
of quoting from Jeremiah, as stated in the text, was really quoting from
the Prophet Zachariah.[533]

The fact that in a great number of cases the quotations from the Old
Testament are by no means exact, either as compared with the Hebrew or
Septuagint text, was freely alluded to, and the suggestion as freely
thrown out that the Apostles habitually quoted from memory, without giving
the exact words of the original.[534]

All these were little indications that Erasmus had closely followed in the
steps of Colet in rejecting the theory of the verbal inspiration of the
Scriptures; and they bear abundant evidence to prove that he did so, as
Colet had done, not because he wished to undermine men’s reverence for the
Bible, but that they might learn to love and to value its pages infinitely
more than they had done before--not because he wished to explain away its
facts, but that men might discover how truly real and actual and
heart-stirring were its histories--not to undermine the authority of its
moral teaching, but to add just so much to it as the authority of the
Apostle who had written, or of the Saviour who had spoken, its Divine
truths, exceeds the authority of the Fathers who had established the
canon, or of the Schoolmen who had buried the Bible altogether under the
rubbish of the thousand and one propositions which they professed to have
extracted from it.

Let it never be forgotten that the Church party which had staked their
faith upon the plenary inspiration of the Bible was the Church party who
had succeeded in putting it into the background. They were the party whom
Tyndale accused of ‘knowing no more Scripture than they found in their
Duns.’ They were the party who throughout the sixteenth century resisted
every attempt to give the Bible to the people and to make it the people’s
book. And they were perfectly logical in doing so. Their whole system was
based upon the absolute inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and even to a
great extent of the Vulgate version. If the Vulgate version was not
verbally inspired, it was impossible to apply to it the theory of
‘manifold senses.’ And if a text could not be interpreted according to
that theory, if it could not properly be strained into meanings which it
was never intended by the writer to convey, the scholastic theology became
a castle of cards. Its defenders adopted, and in perfect good faith
applied to the Vulgate, the words quoted from Augustine: ‘If any error
should be admitted to have crept into the Holy Scriptures, what authority
would be left to them?’ If Colet and Erasmus should undermine men’s faith
in the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures, it would result, in their
view, as a logical necessity, in the destruction of the Christian
religion. For the Christian religion, in their view, consisted in blind
devotion to the Church, and in gulping whole the dogmatic creed which had
been settled by her ‘invincible’ and ‘irrefragable’ doctors.

[Sidenote: The Christian religion loyalty to Christ.]

But this was not the faith of Colet and Erasmus. With them the Christian
religion consisted not in gulping a creed upon any authority whatever, but
in loving and loyal devotion to the _person_ of Christ. They sought in the
books which they found bound up into a Bible not so much an infallible
standard of doctrinal truth as an authentic record of _his_ life and
teaching. Where should they go for a knowledge of Christ, if not to the
writings of those who were nearest in their relations to Him? They valued
these writings because they sought and found in them a ‘living and
breathing picture of Him;’ because ‘nothing could represent Christ more
vividly and truly’ than they did; because ‘they present a living image of
his most holy mind,’ so that ‘even had we seen Him with our own eyes we
should not have had so intimate a knowledge as they give of Christ
speaking, healing, dying, rising again as it were in our own actual
presence.’ It was because these books brought them, as it were, so close
to Christ and the facts of his actual life, that they wished to get as
close to _them_ as they could do. They would not be content with knowing
something of them secondhand from the best Church authorities. The best of
the Fathers were ‘men ignorant of some things, and mistaken in others.’
They would go to the books themselves, and read them in their original
languages, and, if possible, in the earliest copies, so that no mistakes
of copyists or blunders of translators might blind their eyes to the facts
as they were. They would study the geography and the natural history of
Palestine that they might the more correctly and vividly realise in their
mind’s eye the events as they happened. And they would do all this, not
that they might make themselves ‘irrefragable’ doctors--rivals of Scotus
and Aquinas--but that they might catch the Spirit of Him whom they were
striving to know for themselves, and that they might place the same
knowledge within reach of all--Turks and Saracens, learned and unlearned,
rich and poor--by the translation of these books into the vulgar tongue of
each.

The ‘Novum Instrumentum’ of Erasmus was at once the result and the
embodiment of these views.

[Sidenote: Works of St. Jerome.]

Hence it is easy to see the significance of the concurrent publication of
the works of St. Jerome. St. Jerome belonged to that school of theology
and criticism which now, after the lapse of a thousand years, Colet and
Erasmus were reviving in Western Europe. St. Jerome was the father who in
his day strove to give to the people the Bible in their vulgar tongue. St.
Jerome was the father against whom St. Augustine so earnestly strove to
vindicate the verbal inspiration of the Bible. It was the words of St.
Augustine used against St. Jerome that, now after the lapse of ten
centuries, Martin Dorpius had quoted against Erasmus. We have seen in an
earlier chapter how Colet clung to St. Jerome’s opinion, against that of
nearly all other authorities, in the discussion which led to his first
avowal to Erasmus of his views on the inspiration of the Scriptures.
Finally, the Annotations to the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ teem with citations
from St. Jerome.

The concurrent publication of the works of this father was therefore a
practical vindication of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ from the charge of
presumption and novelty. It proved that Colet and Erasmus were teaching no
new doctrines--that their work was correctly defined by Colet himself to
be ‘to restore that old and true theology which had been so long obscured
by the subtleties of the Schoolmen.’

Under this patristic shield, dedicated by permission to Pope Leo, and its
copyright secured for four years by the decree of the Emperor Maximilian,
the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ went forth into the world.




CHAPTER XII.


I. MORE IMMERSED IN PUBLIC BUSINESS (1515).

[Sidenote: More’s practice at the Bar.]

[Sidenote: His second marriage.]

While the work of Erasmus had for some years past lain chiefly in the
direction of laborious literary study, it had been far otherwise with
More. His lines had fallen among the busy scenes and cares of practical
life. His capacity for public business, and the diligence and impartiality
with which he had now for some years discharged his judicial duties as
under-sheriff, had given him a position of great popularity and influence
in the city. He had been appointed by the Parliament of 1515 a
Commissioner of Sewers--a recognition at least of his practical ability.
In his private practice at the Bar he had risen to such eminence, that
Roper tells us ‘there was at that time in none of the prince’s courts of
the laws of this realm any matter of importance in controversy wherein he
was not with the one party of counsel.’[535] Roper further reports that
‘by his office and his learning (as I have heard him say) he gained
without grief not so little as 400_l._ by the year’ (equal to 4,000_l._ a
year in present money). He had in the meantime married a second wife,
Alice Middleton, and taken her daughter also into his household; and thus
tried, for the sake of his little orphans, to roll away the cloud of
domestic sorrow from his home.

Becoming himself more and more of a public man, he had anxiously watched
the course of political events.

[Sidenote: Social results of the wars.]

[Sidenote: Complaint in Parliament.]

The long continuance of war is almost sure to bring up to the surface
social evils which in happier times smoulder on unobserved. It was
especially so with these wars of Henry VIII. Each successive Parliament,
called for the purpose of supplying the King with the necessary ways and
means, found itself obliged reluctantly to deal with domestic questions of
increasing difficulty. In previous years it had been easy for the
flattering courtiers of a popular king, by talking of victories, to charm
the ear of the Commons so wisely, that subsidies and poll-taxes had been
voted without much, if any, opposition. But the Parliament which had met
in February 1515, had no victories to talk about. Whether right or wrong
in regarding ‘the realm of France his very true patrimony and
inheritance,’ Henry VIII. had not yet been able ‘to reduce the same to his
obedience.’ Meanwhile the long continuance of war expenditure had drained
the national exchequer. It is perfectly true that under Wolsey’s able
management the expenditure had already been cut down to an enormous
extent, but during the three years of active warfare--1512, 1513, and
1514--the revenues of more than twelve ordinary years[536] had been spent,
the immense hoards of wealth inherited by the young king from Henry VII.
had been squandered away, and even the genius of Wolsey was unable to
devise means to collect the taxes which former Parliaments had already
voted. The temper of the Commons was in the meantime beginning to change.
They now, in 1515, for the first time entered their complaint upon the
rolls of Parliament, that whereas the King’s noble progenitors had
maintained their estate and the defences of the realm out of the ordinary
revenues of the kingdom, he now, by reason of the improvident grants made
by him since he came to the throne, had not sufficient revenues left to
meet his increasing expenses. The result was that all unusual grants of
annuities, &c., were declared to be void.[537] The Commons then proceeded
to deal with the large deficiency which previous subsidies had done little
to remove. Of the 160,000_l._ granted by the previous Parliament only
50,000_l._ had been gathered, and all they now attempted to achieve was
the collection, under new arrangements, of the remaining 110,000_l._[538]

[Sidenote: Taxes on labourers’ wages.]

It was evident that the temper of the people would not bear further trial;
and no wonder, for the tax which in the previous year had raised a total
of 50,000_l._ was practically an income-tax of sixpence in the pound,
_descending even to the wages of the farm-labourer_. In the coming year
this income-tax of sixpence was to be _twice_ repeated simply to recover
arrears of taxation. What should we think of a government which should
propose to exact from the day-labourer, by direct taxation, a tax equal to
between two and three weeks’ wages!

The selfishness of Tudor legislation--or, perhaps it might be more just
to say of _Wolsey’s_ legislation, for he was the presiding spirit of this
Parliament--was shown no less clearly in its manner of dealing with the
social evils which came under its notice.

Thus the Act of Apparel, with its pains and penalties, was obviously more
likely to give a handle to unscrupulous ministers to be used for purposes
of revenue, than to curb those tastes for grandeur in attire which nothing
was so likely to foster as the example of Wolsey himself.[539]

[Sidenote: Legal interference with wages.]

Thus, too, not content with carrying their income-tax down to the earnings
of the peasant, this and the previous Parliament attempted to interfere
with the wages of the labouring classes solely for the benefit of
employers of labour. The simple fact was that the drain upon the labour
market to keep the army supplied with soldiers, had caused a temporary
scarcity of labour, and a natural rise in wages. Complaints were made,
according to the chronicles, that ‘labourers would in nowise work by the
day, but all by task, and in great,’ and that therefore, ‘especially in
harvest time, the husbandmen [i.e. the farmers and landowners] could
scarce get workmen to help in their harvest.’[540] The agricultural
interest was strongly represented in the House of Commons--the labourers
not at all. So, human nature being the same then as now, the last
Parliament had attempted virtually to re-enact the old statutes of
labourers, as against the labourers, whilst repealing all the clauses
which might possibly prove inconvenient to employers. This Parliament of
1515 completed the work; re-enacted a rigid scale of wages, and imposed
pains and penalties upon ‘artificers who should leave their work except
for the King’s service.’[541] Here again was oppression of the poor to
spare the pockets of the rich.

[Sidenote: Increase of pasture farming.]

Again, the scarcity of labour made itself felt in the increased propensity
of landowners to throw arable land into pasture, involving the sudden and
cruel ejection of thousands of the peasantry, and the enactment of
statutory provisions[542] to check this tendency was not to be wondered
at; but the rumour that many by compounding secretly with the Cardinal
were able to exempt themselves[543] from the penalties of inconvenient
statutes, leads one to suspect that Wolsey thought more of the wants of
the exchequer than of the hardship and misery of ejected peasants.

[Sidenote: Increase of crime and of executions.]

It was natural that the result of wholesale ejections, and the return of
deserting or disbanded soldiers (often utterly demoralised),[544] should
still show itself in the appalling increase of crime. Perhaps it was
equally natural that legislators who held the comforts and lives of the
labouring poor so cheap, should think that they had provided at once a
proper and efficient remedy, when by abolishing benefit of clergy in the
case of felons and murderers, and by abridging the privilege of sanctuary,
they had multiplied to a terrible extent the number of executions.[545]

If the labouring classes were thus harshly dealt with, so also the
mercantile classes did not find their interests very carefully guarded.

[Sidenote: Trade with the Netherlands interrupted.]

The breach of faith with Prince Charles in the matter of the marriage of
the Princess Mary had caused a quarrel between England and the
Netherlands, and this Parliament of 1515 had followed it up by prohibiting
the exportation of Norfolk wool to Holland and Zealand,[546] thus
virtually interrupting commercial intercourse with the Hanse Towns of
Belgium at a time when Bruges was the great mart of the world.

It was not long before the London merchants expressed a very natural
anxiety that the commercial intercourse between two countries so essential
to each other should be speedily resumed. They saw clearly that whatever
military advantage might be gained by the attempt to injure the subjects
of Prince Charles by creating a wool-famine in the Netherlands, would be
purchased at their expense. It was a game that two could play at, and it
was not long before retaliative measures were resorted to on the other
side, very injurious to English interests.

[Sidenote: More sent on an embassy.]

When therefore it was rumoured that Henry VIII. was about to send an
embassy to Flanders, to settle international disputes between the two
countries, it was not surprising that London merchants should complain to
the King of their own special grievances, and pray that their interests
might not be neglected. It seems that they pressed upon the King to attach
‘Young More,’ as he was still called, to the embassy, specially to
represent themselves. So, according to Roper, it was at the suit and
instance of the English merchants, ‘and with the King’s consent,’ that in
May, 1515, More was sent out on an embassy with Bishop Tunstal, Sampson,
and others, into Flanders.

The ambassadors were appointed generally to obtain a renewal and
continuance of the old treaties of intercourse between the two countries,
but More, aided by a John Clifford, ‘governor of the English merchants,’
was specially charged with the _commercial_ matters in dispute: Wolsey
informing Sampson of this, and Sampson replying that he ‘is pleased with
the honour of being named in the King’s commission with Tunstal and “Young
More.”’[547]

The party were detained in the city of Bruges about four months.[548] They
found it by no means easy to allay the bitter feelings which had been
created by the prohibition of the export of wool, and other alleged
injuries.[549] In September they moved on to Brussels,[550] and in October
to Antwerp,[551] and it was not till towards the end of the year that
More, having at last successfully terminated his part in the negotiations,
was able to return home.


II. COLET’S SERMON ON THE INSTALLATION OF CARDINAL WOLSEY (1515).

During the absence of More, on his embassy to Flanders, Wolsey, quit of a
Parliament which, however selfish and careless of the true interests of
the Commonweal, and especially of the poorer classes, had shown some
symptoms of grumbling at Royal demands, had pushed on more rapidly than
ever his schemes of personal ambition.

His first step had been to procure from the Pope, through the good offices
of Henry VIII., a cardinal’s hat. It might possibly be the first step even
to the papal chair; at least it would secure to him a position within the
realm second only to the throne. It chafed him that so unmanageable a man
as Warham should take precedence of himself.

Let us try to realise the magnificent spectacle of the installation of the
great Cardinal, for the sake of the part _Colet_ took in it.

[Sidenote: Installation of Cardinal Wolsey.]

It was on Sunday, November 18, 1515, that the ceremony was performed in
Westminster Abbey. Mass was sung by Archbishop Warham (with whom Wolsey
had already quarrelled), Bishop Fisher acting as crosier-bearer. The
Bishop of Lincoln read the Gospel, and the Bishop of Exeter the Epistle.
The Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, the Bishops of Winchester, Durham,
Norwich, Ely, and Llandaff, the Abbots of Westminster, St. Alban’s, Bury,
Glastonbury, Reading, Gloucester, Winchcombe, and Tewkesbury, and the
Prior of Coventry, were all in attendance ‘in pontificalibus.’ All the
magnates of the realm were collected to swell the pomp of the ceremony.
Before this august assemblage and crowds of spectators Dean Colet had to
deliver an address to Wolsey.

[Sidenote: Colet preaches the sermon.]

As was usual with him, he preached a sermon suited to the occasion, more
so perhaps than Wolsey intended. First speaking to the people, he
explained the meaning of the title of ‘Cardinal,’ the high honour and
dignity of the office, the reasons why it was conferred on Wolsey,
alluding, first, to his merits, naming some of his particular virtues and
services; secondly, to the desire of the Pope to show, by conferring this
dignity on one of the subjects of Henry VIII., his zeal and favour to his
grace. He dwelt upon the great power and dignity of the rank of cardinal,
how it corresponded to the order of ‘Seraphim’ in the celestial hierarchy,
‘which continually burneth in the love of the glorious Trinity.’[552] And
having thus magnified the office of cardinal in the eyes of the people, he
turned to Wolsey--so proud, ambitious, and fond of magnificence--and
addressed to him these few faithful words:

[Sidenote: Colet’s address to Wolsey.]

‘Let not one in so proud a position, made most illustrious by the dignity
of such an honour, be puffed up by its greatness. But remember that our
Saviour, in his own person, said to his disciples, “I came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister,” and “He who is least among you shall be
greatest in the kingdom of heaven;” and again, “He who exalts himself
shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.”’ And then,
with reference to his secular duties, and having perhaps in mind the
rumours of Wolsey’s partiality and the unfairness of recent legislation to
the poorer classes, he added--‘My Lord Cardinal, be glad, and enforce
yourself always to do and execute righteousness to rich and _poor_, with
mercy and truth.’

Then, addressing himself once more to the people, he desired them to pray
for the Cardinal, that ‘he might observe these things, and in
accomplishing the same receive his reward in the kingdom of heaven.’

This sermon ended, Wolsey, kneeling at the altar, had the formal service
read over him by Warham, and the cardinal’s hat placed upon his head. The
‘Te Deum’ was then sung, and, surrounded by dukes and earls, Wolsey left
the Abbey and passed in gorgeous procession to his own decorated halls,
there to entertain the King and Queen, in all pomp and splendour, bent
upon pursuing his projects of self-exaltation, regardless of Colet’s
honest words so faithfully spoken, and little dreaming that they would
ever find fulfilment in his own fall.[553]

[Sidenote: Wolsey made Lord Chancellor.]

Five weeks only after this event, on December 22, Warham resigned the
great seal into the King’s hands, and the Cardinal Archbishop of York
assumed the additional title of Lord Chancellor of England.[554] On the
same day, Parliament, which had met again on November 12 to grant a
further subsidy, was dissolved, and Wolsey commenced to rule the kingdom,
according to his own will and pleasure, for eight years, without a
Parliament, and with but little regard to the opinions of other members of
the King’s council.


III. MORE’S ‘UTOPIA’ (1515).

It was whilst More’s keen eye was anxiously watching the clouds gathering
upon the political horizon, and during the leisure snatched from the
business of his embassy, that he conceived the idea of embodying his
notions on social and political questions in a description of the
imaginary commonwealth of the Island of ‘Utopia’--‘Nusquama’--or
‘Nowhere.’[555]

It does not often happen that two friends, engaged in fellow-work, publish
in the same year two books, both of which take an independent and a
permanent place in the literature of Europe. But this may be said of the
‘Novum Instrumentum’ of Erasmus and the ‘Utopia’ of More.

Still more remarkable is it that two such works, written by two such men,
should, in measure, be traceable to the influence and express the views of
a more obscure but greater man than they. Yet, in truth, much of the merit
of both these works belongs indirectly to Colet.

As the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ upon careful examination, proves to be the
expression, on the part of Erasmus, not merely of his own isolated views,
but of the views held in common by the little band of Oxford Reformers, on
the great subject of which it treats; so the ‘Utopia’ will be found to be
in great measure the expression, on More’s part, of the views of the same
little band of friends on social and political questions. On most of these
questions Erasmus and More, in the main, thought alike: and they owed much
of their common convictions indirectly to the influence of Colet.

The first book of the ‘Utopia’ was written after the second, under
circumstances and for reasons which will in due course be mentioned.

[Sidenote: Second book of the ‘Utopia’ written first.]

The second book was complete in itself, and contained the description, by
Raphael, the supposed traveller, of the Utopian commonwealth. Erasmus
informs us that More’s intention in writing it was to point out where and
from what causes European commonwealths were at fault, and he adds that it
was written with special reference to _English_ politics, with which More
was most familiar.[556]

Whilst, however, we trace its close connection with the political events
passing at the time in England, it must not be supposed that More was so
gifted with prescience that he knew what course matters would take. He
could not know, for instance, that Wolsey was about to take the reins of
government so completely into his own hands, as to dispense with a
Parliament for so many years to come. As yet, More and his friends, in
spite of Wolsey’s ostentation and vanity, which they freely ridiculed, had
a high opinion of his character and powers. It was not unnatural that,
knowing that Wolsey was a friend to education, and, to some extent at
least, inclined to patronise the projects of Erasmus, they should hope for
the best. Hence the satire contained in ‘Utopia’ was not likely to be
directed personally against Wolsey, however much his policy might come in
for its share of criticisms along with the rest.

The point of the ‘Utopia’ consisted in the contrast presented by its ideal
commonwealth to the condition and habits of the European commonwealths of
the period. This contrast is most often left to be drawn by the reader
from his own knowledge of contemporary politics, and hence the peculiar
advantage of the choice by More of such a vehicle for the bold satire it
contained. Upon any other hypothesis than that the evils against which its
satire was directed were admitted to be _real_, the romance of ‘Utopia’
must also be admitted to be harmless. To pronounce it to be dangerous was
to admit its truth.

[Sidenote: International policy of the Utopians.]

Take, _e.g._, the following passage relating to the international policy
of the Utopians:--

‘While other nations are always entering into leagues, and breaking and
renewing them, the Utopians never enter into a league with any nation. For
what is the use of a league? they say. As though there were no natural tie
between man and man! and as though any one who despised this natural tie
would, forsooth, regard mere words! They hold this opinion all the more
strongly, because in that quarter of the world the leagues and treaties of
princes are not observed as faithfully as they should be. For in _Europe_,
and especially in those parts of it where the Christian faith and religion
are professed, the sanctity of leagues is held sacred and inviolate;
partly owing to the justice and goodness of princes, and partly from their
fear and reverence of the authority of the Popes, who, as they themselves
never enter into obligations which they do not most religiously
perform[!], command other princes under all circumstances to abide by
_their_ promises, and punish delinquents by pastoral censure and
discipline. For indeed, with good reason, it would be thought a most
scandalous thing for those whose peculiar designation is “the faithful,”
to be wanting in the faithful observance of treaties. But in those distant
regions ... no faith is to be placed in leagues, even though confirmed by
the most solemn ceremonies. Some flaw is easily found in their wording
which is intentionally made ambiguous so as to leave a loophole through
which the parties may break both their league and their faith. Which
craft--yes, _fraud_ and _deceit_--if it were perpetrated with respect to a
contract between private parties, they would indignantly denounce as
sacrilege and deserving the gallows, whilst those who suggest these very
things to princes, glory in being the authors of them. Whence it comes to
pass that justice seems altogether a plebeian and vulgar virtue, quite
below the dignity of royalty; or at least there must be two kinds of it,
the one for common people and the poor, very narrow and contracted, the
other, the virtue of princes, much more dignified and free, so that _that_
only is unlawful to _them_ which they don’t _like_. The morals of princes
being such in that region, it is not, I think, without reason that the
Utopians enter into no leagues at all. Perhaps they would alter their
opinion if they lived amongst us.’[557]

[Sidenote: Its bitter satire on the policy of princes.]

Read without reference to the international history of the period, these
passages appear perfectly harmless. But read in the light of that
political history which, during the past few years, had become so mixed up
with the personal history of the Oxford Reformers, recollecting ‘_how_
religiously’ treaties had been made and broken by almost every sovereign
in Europe--Henry VIII. and the Pope included--the words in which the
justice and goodness of European princes is so mildly and modestly
extolled, become almost as bitter in their tone as the cutting censure of
Erasmus in the ‘Praise of Folly,’ or his more recent and open satire upon
kings.

[Sidenote: And on the warlike policy of Henry VIII.]

Again, bearing in mind the wars of Henry VIII., and how evidently the love
of military glory was the motive which induced him to engage in them, the
following passage contains almost as direct and pointed a censure of the
King’s passion for war as the sermon preached by Colet in his presence:--

‘The Utopians hate war as plainly brutal, although practised more eagerly
by man than by any other animal. And contrary to the sentiment of nearly
every other nation, they regard nothing more inglorious than glory derived
from war.’[558]

Turning from international politics to questions of internal policy, and
bearing in mind the hint of Erasmus, that More had in view chiefly the
politics of his own country, it is impossible not to recognise in the
‘Utopia’ the expression, again and again, of the _sense of wrong_ stirred
up in More’s heart, as he had witnessed how every interest of the
commonwealth had been sacrificed to Henry VIII.’s passion for war; and
how, in sharing the burdens it entailed, and dealing with the social evils
it brought to the surface, the interests of the poor had been sacrificed
to spare the pockets of the rich; how, whilst the very wages of the
labourer had been taxed to support the long-continued war expenditure, a
selfish Parliament, under colour of the old ‘statutes of labourers,’ had
attempted to cut down the amount of his wages, and to rob him of that fair
rise in the price of his labour which the drain upon the labour market had
produced.

[Sidenote: Satire on recent legislation and the statutes of labourers.]

It is impossible not to recognise that the recent statutes of labourers
was the target against which More’s satire was specially directed, in the
following paragraph:--

[Sidenote: Injustice to the labouring classes.]

‘Let any one dare to compare with the even justice which rules in Utopia,
the justice of other nations; amongst whom, let me die, if I find any
trace at all of equity and justice. For where is the justice, that
noblemen, goldsmiths, and usurers, and those classes who either do nothing
at all, or, in what they do, are of no great service to the commonwealth,
should live a genteel and splendid life in idleness or unproductive
labour; whilst in the meantime the servant, the waggoner, the mechanic,
and the peasant, toiling almost longer and harder than the horse, in
labour so necessary that no commonwealth could endure a year without it,
lead a life so wretched that the condition of the horse seems more to be
envied; his labour being less constant, his food more delicious to his
palate, and his mind disturbed by no fears for the future?...

‘Is not that republic unjust and ungrateful which confers such benefits
upon the gentry (as they are called) and goldsmiths and others of that
class, whilst it cares to do nothing at all for the benefit of peasants,
colliers, servants, waggoners, and mechanics, without which no republic
could exist? Is not that republic unjust which, after these men have spent
the springtime of their lives in labour, have become burdened with age and
disease, and are in want of every comfort, unmindful of all their toil,
and forgetful of all their services, rewards them only by a miserable
death?

[Sidenote: Modern governments a conspiracy of the rich against the poor.]

‘Worse than all, the rich constantly endeavour to pare away something
further from the daily wages of the poor, by private fraud, _and even by
public laws_, so that the already existing injustice (that those from whom
the republic derives the most benefit should receive the least reward), is
made still more unjust _through the enactments of public law_! Thus, after
careful reflection, it seems to me, as I hope for mercy, that our modern
republics are nothing but a conspiracy of the rich, pursuing their own
selfish interests under the name of a republic. They devise and invent all
ways and means whereby they may, in the first place, secure to themselves
the possession of what they have amassed by evil means; and, in the second
place, secure to their own use and profit the work and labour of the poor
at the lowest possible price. And so soon as the rich, in the name of the
public (_i.e._ even in the name of the poor), choose to decide that these
schemes shall be adopted, then they become _law_!’[559]

[Sidenote: The Utopian Commonwealth a true _community_.]

The whole framework of the Utopian commonwealth bears witness to More’s
conviction, that what should be aimed at in his own country and elsewhere,
was a true _community_--not a rich and educated aristocracy on the one
hand, existing side by side with a poor and ignorant peasantry on the
other--but _one people, well-to-do and educated throughout_.

[Sidenote: Every child educated.]

Thus, More’s opinion was, that in England in his time, ‘far more than four
parts of the whole [people], divided into ten, could never read
English,’[560] and probably the education of the other six-tenths was
anything but satisfactory. He shared Colet’s faith in education, and
represented that in Utopia _every child was properly educated_.[561]

[Sidenote: Reduction of the hours of labour.]

Again the great object of the social economy of Utopia was not to increase
the abundance of luxuries, or to amass a vast accumulation in few hands,
or even in national or royal hands, but to _lessen the hours of labour to
the working man_. By spreading the burden of labour more evenly over the
whole community--by taking care that there shall be no idle classes, be
they beggars or begging friars--More expressed the opinion that the hours
of labour to the working man might probably be reduced to _six_.[562]

[Sidenote: General sanitary arrangements.]

Again: living himself in Bucklersbury, in the midst of all the dirt and
filth of London’s narrow streets; surrounded by the unclean,
ill-ventilated houses of the poor, whose floors of clay and rushes, never
cleansed, were pointed out by Erasmus as breeding pestilence, and inviting
the ravages of the sweating sickness; himself a commissioner of sewers,
and having thus some practical knowledge of London’s sanitary
arrangements; More described the towns of Utopia as well and regularly
built, with wide streets, waterworks, hospitals, and numerous common
halls; all the houses well protected from the weather, as nearly as might
be fireproof, three stories high, with plenty of windows, and doors both
back and front, the back door always opening into a well-kept garden.[563]
All this was Utopian doubtless, and the result in Utopia of the still more
Utopian abolition of private property; but the gist and point of it
consisted in the contrast it presented with what he saw around him in
Europe, and especially in England, and men could hardly fail to draw the
lesson he intended to teach.

It will not be necessary here to dwell further upon the details of the
social arrangements of More’s ideal commonwealth,[564] or to enter at
length upon the philosophical opinions of the Utopians; but a word or two
will be needful to point out the connection of the latter with the views
of that little band of friends whose joint history I am here trying to
trace.

[Sidenote: Faith in both science and religion.]

One of the points most important and characteristic is the _fearless faith
in the laws of nature combined with a profound faith in religion_, which
runs through the whole work, and which may, I think, be traced also in
every chapter of the history of the Oxford Reformers. Their scientific
knowledge was imperfect, as it needs must have been, before the days of
Copernicus and Newton; but they had their eyes fearlessly open in every
direction, with no foolish misgivings lest science and Christianity might
be found to clash. They remembered (what is not always remembered in this
nineteenth century), that if there be any truth in Christianity, Nature
and her laws on the one hand and Christianity and her laws on the other,
being framed and fixed by the same Founder, must be in harmony, and that
therefore for Christians to act contrary to the laws of Nature, or to shut
their eyes to facts, on the ground that they are opposed to Christianity,
is--to speak plainly--to fight against one portion of the Almighty’s laws
under the supposed sanction of another; to fight, therefore, without the
least chance of success, and with every prospect of doing harm instead of
good.

[Sidenote: Theory of morals both Utilitarian and Christian.]

Hence the moral philosophy of the Utopians was both Utilitarian and
Christian. Its distinctive features, according to More, were--1st, that
they placed _pleasure_ (in the sense of ‘utility’) as the chief object of
life; and 2ndly, that they drew their arguments in support of this as well
from the principles of religion as from natural reason.[565]

They defined ‘pleasure’ as ‘every emotion or state of body or mind in
which nature leads us to take delight.’ And from reason they deduced, as
modern utilitarians do, that not merely the pleasure of the moment must be
regarded as the object of life, but what will produce the greatest amount
and highest kind of pleasure in the long run; that, _e.g._ a greater
pleasure must not be sacrificed to a lesser one, or a pleasure pursued
which will be followed by pain. And from reason they also deduced that,
nature having bound men together by the ties of Society, and no one in
particular being a special favourite of nature, men are bound, in the
pursuit of pleasure, to regard the pleasures of others as well as their
own--to act, in fact, in the spirit of the golden rule; which course of
action, though it may involve some immediate sacrifice, they saw clearly
never costs so much as it brings back, both in the interchange of mutual
benefits, and in the mental pleasure of conferring kindnesses on others.
And thus they arrived at the same result as modern utilitarians, that,
while ‘nature enjoins _pleasure_ as the end of all men’s efforts,’ she
enjoins such a reasonable and far-sighted pursuit of it that ‘to live by
this rule is “_virtue_.”’

In other words, in Utopian philosophy, ‘_utility_’ was recognised as _a_
criterion of right and wrong; and from experience of what, under the laws
of Nature, is man’s real far-sighted interest, was derived _a_ sanction to
the golden rule. And thus, instead of setting themselves against the
doctrine of utility, as some would do, on the ground of a supposed
opposition to Christianity, they recognised the identity between the two
standards. They recognised, as Mr. Mill urges, that Christians ought to do
now, ‘in the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, the complete spirit of the
ethics of utility.’[566]

The Utopians had no hesitation in defining ‘virtue’ as ‘living according
to nature;’ for, they said, ‘to this end we have been created by God.’
Their religion itself taught them that ‘God in his goodness created men
for happiness;’ and therefore there was nothing unnatural in his
rewarding, with the promise of endless happiness hereafter, that ‘virtue’
which is living according to those very laws of nature which He Himself
established to promote the happiness of men on earth.

Nor was this, in More’s hands, a merely philosophical theory. He made the
right practical use of it, in correcting those false notions of religion
and piety which had poisoned the morality of the middle ages, and soured
the devotion even of those mediæval mystics whose mission it was to uphold
the true religion of the heart. Who does not see that the deep devotion
even of a Tauler, or of a Thomas à Kempis, would have been deepened had
it recognised the truth that the religion of Christ was intended to add
heartiness and happiness to daily life, and not to draw men out of it;
that the highest ideal of virtue is, not to stamp out those feelings and
instincts which, under the rule of selfishness, make a hell of earth, but
so, as it were, to tune them into harmony, that, under the guidance of a
heart of love, they may add to the charm and the perfectness of life? The
ascetic himself who, seeing the vileness and the misery which spring out
of selfish riot in pleasure, condemns natural pleasure as almost in itself
a sin, fills the heaven of his dreams with white robes, golden crowns,
harps, music and angelic songs. Even _his_ highest ideal of perfect
existence is the unalloyed enjoyment of pleasure. He is a Utilitarian in
his dreams of heaven.

More, in his ‘Utopia,’ dreamed of this celestial morality as practised
under earthly conditions. He had banished selfishness from his
commonwealth. He was bitter as any ascetic against vanity, and empty show,
and shams of all kinds, as well as all sensuality and excess; but his
definition of ‘virtue’ as ‘living according to nature’ made him reject the
ascetic notion of virtue as consisting in crossing all natural desires, in
abstinence from natural pleasure, and stamping out the natural instincts.
The Utopians, More said, ‘gratefully acknowledged the tenderness of the
great Father of nature, who hath given us appetites which make the things
necessary for our preservation also agreeable to us. How miserable would
life be if hunger and thirst could only be relieved by bitter drugs.’[567]
Hence, too, the Utopians esteemed it not only ‘madness,’ but also
‘_ingratitude to God_,’ to waste the body by fasting, or to reject the
delights of life, unless by so doing a man can serve the public or promote
the happiness of others.[568]

[Sidenote: The reverence of the Utopians for natural science.]

Hence also they regarded the pursuit of natural science, the ‘searching
out the secrets of nature,’ not only as an agreeable pursuit, but as
‘peculiarly acceptable to God.’[569] Seeing that they believed that ‘the
first dictate of reason is love and reverence for Him to whom we owe all
we have and all we can hope for,’[570] it was natural that they should
regard the pursuit of science rather as a part of their religion than as
in any way antagonistic to it. But their science was not likely to be
speculative and dogmatic like that of the Schoolmen; accordingly, whilst
they were said to be very expert in the mathematical sciences (_numerandi
et metiendi scientia_), they knew nothing, More said, ‘of what even boys
learn here in the “_Parva logicalia_;”’ and whilst, by long use and
observation, they had acquired very exact knowledge of the motions of the
planets and stars, and even of winds and weather, and had invented very
exact instruments, they had never dreamed, More said, of those
astrological arts of divination ‘which are now-a-days in vogue amongst
Christians.’[571]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Their religion broad and tolerant.]

[Sidenote: No man punished for his religion.]

From the expression of so fearless a faith in the consistency of
Christianity with science, it might be inferred that More would represent
the religion of the Utopians as at once broad and tolerant. It could not
logically be otherwise. The Utopians, we are told, differed very widely;
but notwithstanding all their different objects of worship, they agreed
in thinking that there is one Supreme Being who made and governs the
world. By the exigencies of the romance, the Christian religion had only
been recently introduced into the island. It existed there side by side
with other and older religions, and hence the difficulties of complete
toleration in Utopia were much greater hypothetically than they would be
in any European country. Still, sharing Colet’s hatred of persecution,
More represented that it was one of the oldest laws of Utopia ‘that no man
is to be punished for his religion.’ Every one might be of any religion he
pleased, and might use argument to induce others to accept it. It was only
when men resorted to other force than that of persuasion, using reproaches
and violence, that they were banished from Utopia; and _then_, not on
account of their religion, and irrespective of whether their religion were
true or false, but for sowing sedition and creating a tumult.[572]

This law Utopus founded to preserve the public peace, and for the
interests of religion itself. Supposing only one religion to be true and
the rest false (which he dared not rashly assert), Utopus had faith that
in the long run the innate force of truth would prevail, if supported only
by fair argument, and not damaged by resort to violence and tumult. Thus,
he did not punish even avowed atheists, although he considered them unfit
for any public trust.[573]

[Sidenote: Priests of both sexes selected by ballot.]

[Sidenote: Utopian priests.]

Their priests were very few in number, of either sex,[574] and, like all
their other magistrates, elected by ballot (_suffragiis occultis_);[575]
and it was a point of dispute even with the Utopian _Christians_, whether
_they_ could not elect their own Christian priests in like manner, and
qualify them to perform all priestly offices, without any apostolic
succession or authority from the Pope.[576] Their priests were, in fact,
rather conductors of the public worship, inspectors of the public morals,
and ministers of education, than ‘priests’ in any sacerdotal sense of the
word. Thus whilst representing _Confession_ as in common use amongst the
Utopians, More significantly described them as confessing not to the
priests but to the heads of families.[577] Whilst also, as in Europe, such
was the respect shown them that they were not amenable to the civil
tribunals, it was said to be on account of the extreme fewness of their
number, and the high character secured by their mode of election, that no
great inconvenience resulted from this exemption in Utopian practice.

If the diversity of religions in Utopia made it more difficult to suppose
perfect toleration, and thus made the contrast between Utopian and
European practice in this respect all the more telling, so also was this
the case in respect to the conduct of _public worship_.

[Sidenote: Public worship in Utopia.]

The hatred of the Oxford Reformers for the endless dissensions of European
Christians; the advice Colet was wont to give to theological students, ‘to
keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed, and let divines, if they like,
dispute about the rest;’ the appeal of Erasmus to Servatius, whether it
would not be better for ‘all Christendom to be regarded as one monastery,
and all Christians as belonging to the same religious brotherhood,’--all
pointed, if directed to the practical question of public worship, to a
mode of worship in which all of every shade of sentiment could unite.

This might be a dream even then, while as yet Christendom was nominally
united in one Catholic Church; and still more practically impossible in a
country like Utopia, where men worshipped the Supreme Being under
different symbols and different names, as it might be now even in a
Protestant country like England, where religion seems to be the source of
social divisions and castes rather than a tie of brotherhood, separating
men in their education, in their social life, and even in their graves, by
the hard line of sectarian difference. It might be a dream, but it was one
worth a place in the dream-land of More’s ideal commonwealth.

[Sidenote: All sects unite in public worship.]

Temples, nobly built and spacious, in whose solemn twilight men of all
sects meet, in spite of their distinctions, to unite in a public worship
avowedly so arranged that nothing may be seen or heard which shall jar
with the feelings of any class of the worshippers--nothing in which all
cannot unite (for every sect performs its own _peculiar_ rites in
_private_);--no images, so that every one may represent the Deity to his
own thoughts in his own way; no forms of prayer, but such as every one may
use without prejudice to his own private opinion;--a service so expressive
of their common brotherhood that they think it a great impiety to enter
upon it with a consciousness of anger or hatred to any one, without having
first purified their hearts and reconciled every difference; incense and
other sweet odours and waxen lights burned, not from any notion that they
can confer any benefit on God, which even men’s prayers cannot, but
because they are useful aids to the worshippers;[578] the men occupying
one side of the temple, the women the other, and all clothed in white;
the whole people rising as the priest who conducts the worship enters the
temple in his beautiful vestments, wonderfully wrought of birds’ plumage,
to join in hymns of praise, accompanied by music; then priest and people
uniting in solemn prayer to God in a set form of words, so composed that
each can apply its meaning to himself, offering thanks for the blessings
which surround them, for the happiness of their commonwealth, for their
having embraced a religious persuasion which they _hope_ is the most true
one; praying that if they are mistaken they may be led to what is _really_
the true one, so that all may be brought to unity of faith and practice,
unless in his inscrutable will the Almighty should otherwise ordain; and
concluding with a prayer that, as soon as it may please Him, He may take
them to Himself; lastly, this prayer concluded, the whole congregation
bowing solemnly to the ground, and then, after a short pause, separating
to spend the remainder of the day in innocent amusement,--this was More’s
ideal of public worship![579]

Such was the second book of the ‘Utopia,’ probably written by More whilst
on the embassy, towards the close of 1515, or soon after his return. Well
might he conclude with the words, ‘I freely confess that many things in
the commonwealth of Utopia I rather _wish_ than _hope_ to see adopted in
_our own_!’


IV. THE ‘INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS CHRISTIANI’ OF ERASMUS (1516).

Some months before More began to write his ‘Utopia,’ Erasmus had commenced
a little treatise with a very similar object. In the spring of 1515,
while staying with More in London, he had mentioned, in a letter to
Cardinal Grimanus[580] at Rome, that he was already at work on his
‘Institutes of the Christian Prince,’ designed for the benefit of Prince
Charles, into whose honorary service he had recently been drawn.

[Sidenote: Connection between the ‘Utopia’ and the ‘Christian Prince.’]

The similarity in the sentiments expressed in this little treatise and in
the ‘Utopia’ would lead to the conclusion that they were written in
concert by the two friends, as their imitations of Lucian had been under
similar circumstances. Political events must have often formed the topic
of their conversation when together in the spring; and the connection of
the one with the Court of Henry VIII. and the other with that of Prince
Charles, would be likely to give their thoughts a practical direction.
Possibly they may have parted with the understanding that, independently
of each other, both works should be written on the common subject, and
expressing their common views. Be this as it may, while More went on his
embassy to Flanders, and returned to write his ‘Utopia,’ Erasmus went to
Basle to correct the proof-sheets of the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and to
finish the ‘Institutio Principis Christiani.’

On his return from Basle in the spring of the following year Erasmus
brought his manuscript with him, and left it under the care of the
Chancellor of Prince Charles,[581] to be printed by Thierry Martins, the
printer of Louvain, whilst he himself proceeded to England. Thus it was
being printed while Erasmus was in England in August 1516, and while the
manuscript of the second book of More’s ‘Utopia’ was still lying
unpublished, waiting until More should find leisure to write the
Introductory Book which he was intending to prefix to it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The publication by Erasmus of the ‘Christian Prince’ so soon after the
‘Novum Instrumentum’ that the two came before the public together was not
without its significance. It gave to the public expression of the views of
Erasmus that wideness and completeness of range which More had given to
his views by embracing both religious and political subjects in his as yet
unpublished ‘Utopia.’

[Sidenote: Christianity and the laws of nature.]

By laying hold of the truth that the laws of nature and Christianity owe
their origin to the same great Founder, More had adopted the one
standpoint from which alone, in the long run, the Christian in an age of
rapid progress can look calmly on the discoveries of science and
philosophy without fears for his faith. He had trusted his bark to the
current, because he was sure it must lead into the ocean of truth; while
other men, for lack of that faith, were hugging the shore, mistaking
forsooth, in their idle dreams, the shallow bay in which they had moored
their craft for the fathomless ocean itself! This faith of More’s had been
shared by Colet--nay, most probably More had caught it from him. It was
Colet who had been the first of the little group of Oxford Reformers to
proclaim that Christianity had nothing to fear from the ‘new
learning,’--witness his school, and the tone and spirit of his Oxford
lectures. Erasmus, too, had shared in this same faith. In his ‘Novum
Instrumentum’ he had placed Christianity, so far as he was able, in its
proper place--at the head of the advanced thought of the age.

But More had gone one step further. The man who believes that Christianity
and the laws of nature were thus framed in perfect harmony by the same
Founder must have faith in _both_. As he will not shrink from accepting
the results of science and philosophy, so he will not shrink, on the other
hand, from carrying out Christianity into practice in every department of
social and political life.

Accordingly More had fearlessly done this in his ‘Utopia.’ And this Colet
also had done in his own practical way; preaching Christian politics to
Henry VIII. and Wolsey, from his pulpit as occasion required, believing
Christianity to be equally of force in the sphere of international policy
as within the walls of a cloister. And now, in the ‘Institutio Principis
Christiani,’ Erasmus followed in the same track for the special benefit of
Prince Charles, who, then sixteen years old, had succeeded, on the death
of Ferdinand in the spring of 1516, to the crowns of Castile and Aragon,
as well as to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily and of the island of
Sardinia.

[Sidenote: ‘_The Prince_,’ of Machiavelli.]

[Sidenote: Hugo Grotius.]

The full significance of this joint action of the three friends will only
be justly appreciated if it be taken into account that probably, at the
very moment when Erasmus was writing his ‘Christian Prince’ and More his
‘Utopia,’ the as yet unpublished manuscript of ‘_The Prince_’ of
_Machiavelli_ was lying in the study of its author. The semi-pagan school
of Italy was not only drifting into the denial of Christianity itself, but
it had already cast aside the Christian standard of morals as one which
would not work in practice at least in political affairs. The
Machiavellian theory was already avowedly accepted and acted upon in
international affairs by the Pope himself; and indeed, as I have said, it
was not a theory invented by Machiavelli; what that great philosopher had
achieved was rather the codification of the current practice and
traditions of the age.[582] A revolution had to be wrought in public
feeling before the Christian theory of politics could be established in
place of the one then in the ascendant--a revolution to attempt which at
that time might well have seemed like a forlorn hope. But placed as the
Oxford Reformers were, so close to the ears of royalty, in a position
which gave them some influence at least with Henry VIII., with Prince
Charles, and with Leo X., it was their duty to do what they could. And
possibly it may have been in some measure owing to their labours that a
century later Hugo Grotius, the father of the modern international system,
was able in the name of Europe to reject the Machiavellian theory as one
that would not work, and to adopt in its place the Christian theory as the
one which was sanctioned by the laws of nature, and upon which alone it
was safe to found the polity of the civilised world.[583]

It may be worth while to notice also one other point which may be said to
turn upon this perception of the relation of Christianity to the laws of
nature.

To the man who does not recognise the harmony between them, religion and
the world are divorced, as it were. Religion has no place in politics or
business, and scarcely even in family life. These secular matters begin to
be considered as the devil’s concerns. A man must choose whether he will
be a monk or man of the world, or still more often he tries to live at the
same time two separate lives, the one sacred, the other secular, trusting
that he shall be able to atone for the sins of the one by the penances and
devotions of the other. This was the condition into which the dogmatic
creed of the Schoolmen had, in fact, brought its adherents. It is a matter
of notorious history that there _had_ grown up this vicious severance
between the clergy and the laity, and between things religious and
secular, and that in consequence religion had lost its practical and
healthy tone, while worldly affairs were avowedly conducted in a worldly
spirit. The whole machinery of confession, indulgences, and penances bore
witness as well to the completeness of the severance as to the
hopelessness of any reunion.

But to the man who _does_ recognise in the laws of nature the laws of the
Giver of the golden rule, the distinction between things religious and
things secular begins to give way. In proportion as his heart becomes
Christian, and thus catches the spirit of the golden rule, and his mind
becomes enlightened and begins to understand the laws of social and
political economy, in that proportion does his religion lose its ascetic
and sickly character, and find its proper sphere, not in the fulfilment of
a routine of religious observances, but in the honest discharge of the
daily duties which belong to his position in life.

[Sidenote: The ‘_Christian Prince_’ of Erasmus.]

The position assumed by Erasmus in these respects will be best learned by
a brief examination of the ‘Institutes of the Christian Prince.’

First he struck at the root of the notion that a prince having received
his kingdom _jure Divino_ had a right to use it for his own selfish ends.
He laid down at starting the proposition that the one thing which a
‘prince ought to keep in view in the administration of his government is
that same thing which a people ought to keep in view in choosing a prince,
viz. _the public good_.’[584]

Christianity in his view was as obligatory on a prince as on a priest or
monk. Thus he wrote to Prince Charles:--

‘As often as it comes into your mind that you are a prince, call to mind
also that you are a _Christian_ prince.’[585]

[Sidenote: Duties of a Christian Prince to his people.]

But the Christianity he spoke of was a very different thing from what it
was thought to be by many. ‘Do not think,’ he wrote, ‘that Christianity
consists in ceremonies, that is, in the observance of the decrees and
constitutions of the Church. The Christian is not he who is baptized, or
he who is consecrated, or he who is present at holy rites; but he who is
united to Christ in closest affection, and who shows it by his holy
actions.... Do not think that you have done your duty to Christ when you
have sent a fleet against the Turks, or when you have founded a church or
a monastery. There is no duty by the performance of which _you_ can more
secure the favour of God _than by making yourself a prince useful to the
people_.’[586]

Having taken at the outset this healthy and practical view of the
relations of Christianity to the conduct of a prince, Erasmus proceeded to
refer everything to the Christian standard. Thus he continued:--

‘If you find that you cannot defend your kingdom, without violating
justice, without shedding much human blood, without much injury to
religion, rather lay it down and retire from it.’

But he was not to retire from the duties of his kingdom merely to save
himself from trouble or danger. ‘If you cannot defend the interests of
your people without risk to your life, prefer the public good even to your
own life.’[587]... The Christian prince should be a true father to his
people.[588]

The good of the people was from the Christian point of view to override
everything else, even royal prerogatives.

[Sidenote: Limited monarchy the best.]

‘If princes were perfect in every virtue, a pure and simple monarchy
might be desirable; but as this can hardly ever be in actual practice, as
human affairs are now, a _limited monarchy_[589] is preferable, one in
which the aristocratic and democratic elements are mixed and united, and
so balance one another.’[590] And lest Prince Charles should kick against
the pricks, and shrink from the abridgment of his autocratic power,
Erasmus tells him that ‘if a prince wish well to the republic, his power
will not be restrained, but aided by these means.’[591]

After contrasting the position of the pagan and Christian prince, Erasmus
further remarks:--

[Sidenote: Consent of the people makes a Prince.]

‘He who wields his empire as becomes a Christian, does not _part_ with his
right, but he holds it in a different way; both more gloriously and more
safely.... Those are not your subjects whom you _force_ to obey you, for
it is _consent_ which makes a prince, but those are your true subjects who
serve you voluntarily.... The duties between a prince and people are
_mutual_. The people owe _you_ taxes, loyalty, and honour; you in your
turn ought to be to the people a good and watchful prince. If you wish to
levy taxes on your people as of right, take care that you first perform
your part--first in the discharge of your duties pay _your_ taxes to
them.’[592]

[Sidenote: Taxes should not oppress the poor.]

Proceeding from the general to the particular, there is a separate
chapter, ‘De Vectigalibus et Exactionibus,’ remarkable for the clear
expression of the views which More had advanced in his ‘Utopia,’ and
which the Oxford Reformers held in common, with regard to the unchristian
way in which the interests of the poor were too often sacrificed and lost
sight of in the levying of taxes. The great aim of a prince, he contended,
should be to reduce taxation as much as possible. Rather than increase it,
it would be better, he wrote, for a prince to reduce his unnecessary
expenditure, to dismiss idle ministers, to avoid wars and foreign
enterprises, to restrain the rapacity of ministers, and rather to study
the right administration of revenues than their augmentation. If it should
be really necessary to exact something from the people, then, he
maintained, it is the part of a good prince to choose such ways of doing
so as should cause as little inconvenience as possible to those of
_slender means_. It may perhaps be expedient to call upon the rich to be
frugal; but to reduce the _poor_ to hunger and crime would be both most
inhuman and also hardly _safe_.... It requires care also, he continued,
lest the inequality of property should be too great. ‘Not that I would
wish to take away any property from any one by force, but that means
should be taken to prevent the wealth of the multitude from getting into
few hands.’[593]

[Sidenote: Necessaries of life should not be taxed.]

[Sidenote: It is best to tax luxuries.]

Erasmus then proceeded to inquire what mode of taxation would prove least
burdensome to the people. And the conclusion he came to was, that ‘a good
prince will burden with as few taxes as possible such things as are in
_common use amongst the lowest classes_, such things as corn, bread, beer,
wine, clothes, and other things necessary to life. Whereas these are what
are now most burdened, and that in more than one way; first by heavy taxes
which are farmed out, and commonly called _assizes_; then by _customs_,
which again are farmed out in the same way; lastly by _monopolies_, from
which little revenue comes to the prince, while the poor are mulcted with
great charges. Therefore it would be best, as I have said, that a prince
should increase his revenue by contracting his expenditure; ... and if he
cannot avoid taxing something, and the affairs of the people require it,
let those foreign products be taxed which minister not so much to the
necessities of life as to _luxury and pleasure, and which are used only by
the rich_; as, for instance, fine linen, silk, purple, pepper, spices,
ointments, gems, and whatever else is of that kind.’[594]

Erasmus wound up this chapter on taxation by applying the principles of
common honesty to the question of _coinage_, in connection with which many
iniquities were perpetrated by princes in the sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: Honesty in regard to the coinage.]

‘Finally, in coining money a good prince will maintain that good faith
which he owes to both God and man, ... in which matter there are four ways
in which the people are wont to be plundered, as we saw some time ago
after the death of Charles, when a long anarchy more hurtful than any
tyranny afflicted your dominions. First the metal of the coins is
deteriorated by mixture with alloys, next its weight is lessened, then it
is diminished by clipping, and lastly its nominal value is increased or
lowered whenever such a process would be likely to suit the exchequer of
the prince.’[595]

In the chapter on the ‘_Making and Amending of Laws_,’[596] Erasmus in the
same way fixes upon some of the points which are so prominently mentioned
in the ‘Utopia.’

[Sidenote: Prevention of crime rather than punishment.]

Thus he urges that the greatest attention should be paid, not to the
punishment of crimes when committed, but to the prevention of the
commission of crimes worthy of punishment. Again, there is a paragraph in
which it is urged that just as a wise surgeon does not proceed to
amputation except as a last resort, so all remedies should be tried before
_capital punishment_ is resorted to.[597] This was one of the points urged
by More.

[Sidenote: The nobility.]

[Sidenote: War.]

Thus also in speaking of the removal of occasions and causes of crime, he
urged, just as More had done, that idle people should either be set to
work or banished from the realm. The number of priests and monasteries
should be kept in moderation. Other idle classes--especially
soldiers--should not be allowed. As to the nobility, he would not, he
said, detract from the honour of their noble birth, if their character
were noble also. ‘But if they are such as we see plenty nowadays, softened
by ease, made effeminate by pleasure, unskilled in all good arts,
revellers, eager sportsmen, not to say anything worse; ... why should this
race of men be preferred to shoemakers or husbandmen?’[598] The next
chapter is ‘_De Magistratibus et Officiis_,’ and then follows one, ‘_De
Fœderibus_,’[599] in which Erasmus takes the same ground as that taken by
More, that Christianity itself is a bond of union between Christian
nations which ought to make leagues unnecessary.[600] In the chapter ‘_De
Bello suscipiendo_,’ he expressed his well-known hatred of war. ‘A good
prince,’ he said, ‘will never enter upon any war at all unless after
trying all possible means it cannot be avoided. If we were of this mind,
scarcely any wars would ever occur between any nations. Lastly, if so
pestilential a thing cannot be avoided, it should be the next care of a
prince that it should be waged with as little evil as possible to his
people, and as little expense as possible of Christian blood, and as
quickly as possible brought to an end.’ It was natural that, holding as he
did in common with Colet and More such strong views against war, he should
express them as strongly in this little treatise as he had already done
elsewhere. It is not needful here to follow his remarks throughout. It
would involve much repetition. But it may be interesting to inquire what
remedy or substitutes for war be proposed. He mentioned two. First, the
reference of disputes between princes to arbitrators; second, the
disposition on the part of princes rather to concede a point in dispute
than to insist upon it at far greater cost than the thing is worth.[601]

[Sidenote: Conclusion.]

He concludes this, the last chapter of the book, with a personal appeal to
Prince Charles. ‘Christ founded a bloodless empire. He wished it always to
be bloodless. He delighted to call himself the “Prince of _Peace_.” May He
grant likewise that by _your_ good offices and by _your_ wisdom there may
be a cessation at last from the maddest of wars. The remembrance of past
evils will commend peace to our acceptance, and the calamities of former
times redouble the honour of the benefits conferred by _you_!’

This was the ‘Institutio Principis Christiani’ of Erasmus; a work written,
as I have said, while More was writing his ‘Utopia,’ but printed in August
1516, at Louvain, while Erasmus was in England, and while the manuscript
of the ‘Utopia’ was lying unpublished, waiting for the completion of
More’s Introduction.


V. MORE COMPLETES HIS ‘UTOPIA’--THE INTRODUCTORY BOOK (1516).

More’s Introduction was still unwritten, and the ‘Utopia’ thus in an
unfinished state, when Erasmus arrived in England in the autumn of 1516.
Erasmus seems on this occasion to have spent more time with Fisher at
Rochester than with More in London; but he at least paid the latter a
short visit on his way to Rochester,[602] and repeated it before leaving
England. The latter visit seems also to have been more than a flying one,
for we find him writing to Ammonius, that he might possibly stay a few
days longer in England, were he not ‘afraid of making himself a stale
guest to More’s wife.’[603] Encouraged as More doubtless was by Erasmus,
and spurred on by the knowledge that the ‘Institutio Principis Christiani’
was already in the press, he still does not seem to have been able to find
time to complete his manuscript before Erasmus left England. Probably,
however, it was arranged between them that it should be completed and
printed with as little delay as possible at the same press and in the same
type and form as Erasmus’s work.

[Sidenote: ‘Utopia’ sent to the press.]

The manuscript was accordingly sent after Erasmus in October,[604] and by
him and Peter Giles at once placed in the hands of Thierry Martins for
publication at Louvain.[605]

This long delay in the completion of the ‘Utopia’ had been caused by a
concurrence of circumstances. More had been closely occupied by public
matters, in addition to his judicial duties in the city, and a large
private practice at the bar--a combination of pressing engagements likely
to leave him but little leisure for literary purposes. Even when the daily
routine of public labours was completed, there were domestic duties which
it was not in his nature to neglect. He was passionately fond of his home,
and ‘reckoned the enjoyment of his family a necessary part of the business
of the man who does not wish to be a stranger in his own house.’[606]

Nor did the ‘Utopia’ itself suffer from the delay in its publication.
Instead of losing its freshness it gained in interest and point; for, as
it happened, the introductory book was written under circumstances which
gave it a peculiar value which it could not otherwise have had.

On More’s return to England from his foreign mission, he had been obliged
to throw himself again into the vortex of public business. The singular
discretion and ability displayed by him in the conduct of the delicate
negotiations entrusted to his charge on this and another occasion, had
induced Henry VIII. to try to attach him to his court.

[Sidenote: More declines to enter the Royal service.]

Hitherto he had acted more on behalf of the London merchants than directly
for the King. Now Wolsey was ordered to retain him in the King’s service.
More was unwilling, however, to accede to the proposal, and made excuses.
Wolsey, thinking no doubt that he shrank from relinquishing the emoluments
of his position as undersheriff, and the income arising from his practice
at the bar, offered him a pension, and suggested that the King could not,
consistently with his honour, offer him less than the income he would
relinquish by entering his service.[607] More wrote to Erasmus that he had
declined the pension, and thought he should continue to do so; he
preferred, he said, his present judicial position to a higher one, and was
afraid that were he to accept a pension without relinquishing it, his
fellow-citizens would lose their confidence in his impartiality in case
any questions were to arise, as they sometimes did, between them and the
Crown. The fact that he was indebted to the King for his pension might
make them think him a little the less true to their cause.[608] Wolsey
reported More’s refusal to the King, who it seems honourably declined to
press him further at present.[609] Such, however, was More’s popularity in
the city, and the rising estimation in which he was held, that it was
evident the King would not rest until he had drawn him into his
service--yes, ‘_dragged_,’ exclaims Erasmus, ‘for no one ever tried harder
to get admitted to court than he did to keep out of it.’[610]

[Sidenote: Writes the Introductory Book to explain his reasons.]

As the months of 1516 went by, More, feeling that his entry into Royal
service was only a question of time, determined, it would seem, to take
the opportunity, while as yet he was free and unfettered, to insert in the
introduction to his unfinished ‘Utopia’ still more pointed allusion to one
or two matters relating to the social condition of the country and the
policy of Henry VIII.; also at the same time to make some public
explanation of his reluctance to enter the service of his sovereign.

The prefatory book which More now added to his description of the
commonwealth of Utopia was arranged so as to introduce the latter to the
reader in a way likely to attract his interest, and to throw an air of
reality over the romance.

[Sidenote: More’s imaginary story.]

[Sidenote: Meets Raphael.]

More related how he had been sent as an ambassador to Flanders in company
with Tunstal, to compose some important disputes between Henry VIII. and
Prince Charles. They met the Flemish ambassadors at Bruges. They had
several meetings without coming to an agreement. While the others went
back to Brussels to consult their prince, More went to Antwerp to see his
friend Peter Giles. One day, coming from mass, he saw Giles talking to a
stranger--a man past middle age, his face tanned, his beard long, his
cloak hanging carelessly about him, and wearing altogether the aspect of a
seafaring man.

More then related how he had joined in the conversation, which turned upon
the manners and habits of the people of the new lands which Raphael (for
that was the stranger’s name) had visited in voyages he had recently taken
with Vespucci. After he had told them how well and wisely governed were
some of these newly-found peoples, and especially the Utopians, and here
and there had thrown in just criticisms on the defects of European
governments, Giles asked the question, why, with all his knowledge and
judgment, he did not enter into Royal service, in which his great
experience might be turned to so good an account? Raphael expressed in
reply his unwillingness to enter into Royal servitude. Giles explained
that he did not mean any ‘_servitude_’ at all, but _honourable service_,
in which he might confer great public benefits, as well as increase his
own happiness. The other replied that he did not see how he was to be made
happier by doing what would be so entirely against his inclinations. Now
he was free to do as he liked, and he suspected very few courtiers could
say the same.

[Sidenote: Why Raphael will not enter into Royal service.]

Here More put in a word, and urged that even though it might be against
the grain to Raphael, he ought not to throw away the great influence for
good which he might exert by entering the council of some great prince.
Raphael replied that his friend More was doubly mistaken. His talents were
not so great as he supposed, and if they were, his sacrifice of rest and
peace would be thrown away. It would do no good, for nearly all princes
busy themselves far more in military affairs (of which, he said, he
neither had, nor wished to have, any experience), than in the good arts of
peace. They care a great deal more how, by fair means or foul, to acquire
new kingdoms, than how to govern well those which they have already.
Besides, their ministers either are, or think that they are, too wise to
listen to any new counsellor; and, if they ever do so, it is only to
attach to their own interest some one whom they see to be rising in their
prince’s favour.

[Sidenote: Raphael on the number of thieves in England.]

After this, Raphael having made a remark which showed that he had been in
England, the conversation turned incidentally upon _English_ affairs, and
Raphael proceeded to tell how once at the table of Cardinal Morton he had
expressed his opinions freely upon the social evils of England. He had on
this occasion, he said, ventured to condemn the system of the wholesale
execution of thieves, who were hanged so fast that there were sometimes
twenty on a gibbet.[611] The severity was both unjustly great, and also
ineffectual. No punishment, however severe, could deter those from robbing
who can find no other means of livelihood.

Then Raphael is made to allude to three causes why the number of thieves
was so large:--

1st. There are numbers of wounded and disbanded soldiers who are unable to
resume their old employments, and are too old to learn new ones.

2nd. The gentry who live at ease out of the labour of others, keep around
them so great a number of idle fellows not brought up to any trade, that
often, from the death of their lord or their own illness, numbers of these
idle fellows are liable to be thrown upon the world without resources, to
steal or starve. Raphael then is made to ridicule the notion that it is
needful to maintain this idle class, as some argue, in order to keep up a
reserve of men ready for the army, and still more severely to criticise
the notion that it is necessary to keep a standing army in time of peace.
France, he said, had found to her cost the evil of keeping in readiness
these human wild beasts, as also had Rome, Carthage, and Syria, in ancient
times.

[Sidenote: Raphael on the rage for pasture-farming.]

3rd. Raphael pointed out as another cause of the number of thieves--an
evil peculiar to England--the rage for sheep-farming, and the ejections
consequent upon it. ‘For,’ he said, ‘when some greedy and insatiable
fellow, the pest of his county, chooses to enclose several thousand acres
of contiguous fields within the circle of one sheepfold, farmers are
ejected from their holdings, being got rid of either by fraud or force, or
tired out by repeated injuries into parting with their property. In this
way it comes to pass that these poor wretches, men, women, husbands,
wives, orphans, widows, parents with little children--households greater
in number than in wealth, for arable-farming requires many hands--all
these emigrate from their native fields without knowing where to go. Their
effects are not worth much at best; they are obliged to sell them for
almost nothing when they are forced to go. And the produce of the sale
being spent, as it soon must be, what resource then is left to them but
either to steal, and to be hanged, justly forsooth, for stealing, or to
wander about and beg. If they do the latter, they are thrown into prison
as idle vagabonds when they would thankfully work if only some one would
give them employment. For there is no work for husbandmen when there is no
arable-farming. One shepherd and herdsman will suffice for a pasture-farm,
which, while under tillage, employed many hands. Corn has in the meantime
been made dearer in many places by the same cause. Wool, too, has risen in
price, owing to the rot amongst the sheep, and now the little clothmakers
are unable to supply themselves with it. For the sheep are falling into
few and powerful hands; and these, if they have not a _monopoly_, have at
least an _oligopoly_, and can keep up the price.

[Sidenote: On beer-houses, &c.]

‘Add to these causes the increasing luxury and extravagance of the upper
classes, and indeed of all classes--the tippling houses, taverns,
brothels, and other dens of iniquity, wine and beer houses, and places for
gambling. Do not all these, after rapidly exhausting the resources of
their devotees, educate them for crime?

[Sidenote: Practical remedies suggested.]

‘Let these pernicious plagues be rooted out. Enact that those who destroy
agricultural hamlets or towns should rebuild them, or give them up to
those who will do so. Restrain these engrossings of the rich, and the
license of exercising what is in fact a monopoly. Let fewer persons be
bred up in idleness. Let tillage farming be restored. Let the woollen
manufacture be introduced, so that honest employment may be found for
those whom want has already made into thieves, or who, being now vagabonds
or idle retainers, will become thieves ere long. Surely if you do not
remedy these evils, your rigorous execution of justice in punishing
thieves will be in vain, which indeed is more specious than either just or
efficacious. For verily if you allow your people to be badly educated,
their morals corrupted from childhood, and then, when they are men, punish
them for the very crimes to which they have been trained from childhood,
what is this, I ask, but first to make the thieves and then to punish
them?’[612]

Raphael then went on to show that, in his opinion, it was both a bad and a
mistaken policy to inflict the same punishment in the case of both theft
and murder, such a practice being sure to operate as an encouragement to
the thief to commit murder to cover his crime, and suggested that hard
labour on public works would be a better punishment for theft than
hanging.

[Sidenote: More’s connection with Henry VIII.]

After Raphael had given an amusing account of the way in which these
suggestions of his had been received at Cardinal Morton’s table, More
repeated his regret that his talents could not be turned to practical
account at some royal court, for the benefit of mankind. Thus the point of
the story was brought round again to the question whether Raphael should
or should not attach himself to some royal court--the question which Henry
VIII. was pressing upon More, and which he would have finally to settle,
in the course of a few months, one way or the other. It is obvious that,
in framing Raphael’s reply to this question, More intended to express his
own feelings, and to do so in such a way that if, after the publication of
the ‘Utopia,’ Henry VIII. were still to press him into his service, it
would be with a clear understanding of his strong disapproval of the
King’s most cherished schemes, as well as of many of those expedients
which would be likely to be suggested by courtiers as the best means of
tiding over the evils which must of necessity be entailed upon the country
by his persistence in them.

Raphael, in his reply, puts the supposition that the councillors were
proposing schemes of international intrigue, with a view to the
furtherance of the King’s desires for the ultimate extension of his
empire:--

[Sidenote: Evident reference to English politics and More’s position.]

What if Raphael were then to express his own judgment that this policy
should be entirely changed, the notion of extension of empire given up,
that the kingdom was already too great to be governed by one man, and that
the King had better not think of adding others to it? What if he were to
put the case of the ‘Achorians,’ neighbours of the Utopians, who some time
ago waged war to obtain possession of another kingdom to which their king
contended that he was entitled by descent through an ancient marriage
alliance [just as Henry VIII. had claimed France as ‘_his very true
patrimony and inheritance_’], but which people, after conquering the new
kingdom, found the trouble of keeping it a constant burden [just as
England was already finding Henry’s recent conquests in France], involving
the continuance of a standing army, the burden of taxes, the loss of their
property, the shedding of their blood for another’s glory, the destruction
of domestic peace, the corrupting of their morals by war, the nurture of
the lust of plunder and robbery, till murders became more and more
audacious, and the laws were treated with contempt? What if Raphael were
to suggest that the example of these Achorians should be followed, who
under such circumstances refused to be governed by half a king, and
insisted that their king should choose which of his two kingdoms he would
govern, and give up the other; how, Raphael was made to ask, would such
counsel be received?

And further: what if the question of ways and means were discussed for
the supply of the royal exchequer, and one were to propose tampering with
the currency; a second, the pretence of imminent war to justify war taxes,
and the proclamation of peace as soon as these were collected; a third,
the exaction of penalties under antiquated and obsolete laws which have
long been forgotten, and thus are often transgressed; a fourth, the
prohibition under great penalties of such things as are against public
interest, and then the granting of dispensations and licenses for large
sums of money; a fifth, the securing of the judges on the side of the
royal prerogative;--‘What if here again I were to rise’ [Raphael is made
to say] ‘and contend that all these counsels were dishonest and
pernicious, that not only the king’s honour, but also his safety, rests
more upon his people’s wealth than upon his own, who (I might go on to
show) choose a king for their own sake and not for his, viz. that by his
care and labour they might live happily and secure from danger; ... that
if a king should fall into such contempt or hatred of his people that he
cannot secure their loyalty without resort to threats, exactions, and
confiscations, and his people’s impoverishment, he had better abdicate his
throne, rather than attempt by these means to retain the name without the
glory of empire?... What if I were to advise him to put aside his sloth
and his pride, ... that he should live on his own revenue, that he should
accommodate his expenditure to his income, that he should restrain crime,
and by good laws prevent it, rather than allow it to increase and then
punish it, that he should repeal obsolete laws instead of attempting to
exact their penalties?... If I were to make such suggestions as these to
men strongly inclined to contrary views, would it not be telling idle
tales to the deaf?’[613]

Thus was Raphael made to use words which must have been understood by
Henry VIII. himself, when he read them, as intended to convey to a great
extent More’s own reasons for declining to accept the offer which Wolsey
had been commissioned to make to him.

The introductory story was then brought to a close by the conversation
being made again to turn upon the laws and customs of the Utopians, the
detailed particulars of which, at the urgent request of Giles and More,
Raphael agreed to give after the three had dined together. A woodcut in
the Basle edition, probably executed by Holbein, represents them sitting
on a bench in the garden behind the house, under the shade of the trees,
listening to Raphael’s discourse, of which the second book of the ‘Utopia’
proposed to give, as nearly as might be, a verbatim report.

[Sidenote: _Utopia_ published at Louvain.]

With this bold and honest introduction the ‘Utopia’ was published at
Louvain by Thierry Martins, with a woodcut prefixed, representing the
island of Utopia, and with an imaginary specimen of the Utopian language
and characters. It was in the hands of the public by the beginning of the
new year.[614]

Such was the remarkable political romance, which, from its literary
interest and merit, has been translated into almost every modern
language--a work which, viewed in its close relations to the history of
the times in which it was written, and the personal circumstances of its
author when he wrote it, derives still greater interest and importance,
inasmuch as it not only discloses the visions of hope and progress
floating before the eyes of the Oxford Reformers, but also embodies, as I
think I have been able to show, perhaps one of the boldest declarations of
a political creed ever uttered by an English statesman on the eve of his
entry into a king’s service.[615]




CHAPTER XIII.


I. WHAT COLET THOUGHT OF THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ (1516).

Having traced the progress and final publication of these works by Erasmus
and More, the enquiry suggests itself, how were they received?

And first it may naturally be asked, What did Colet think of them,
especially of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’?

[Sidenote: Erasmus envies Colet’s retirement, but works harder than ever.]

[Sidenote: Erasmus begins his Paraphrases.]

An early copy had doubtless been sent to him, and with the volume itself,
it would seem, came a letter from Erasmus, probably from Antwerp, by the
hand of Peter Meghen--‘Unoculus,’ as his friends called him.[616] In this
letter Erasmus had consulted him about his future plans. After the labours
of the past, and suffering as he was from feeble and precarious health, he
had indulged, it would seem, in the expression of longings that he could
share with Colet his prospects of rest. He knew how often Colet had
mentioned the wish to spend his old age in retirement and peace, with one
or two congenial companions, such as Erasmus; and now, just escaped from
his monotonous labours at Basle, he was for the moment inclined to take
Colet at his word. Still, much as he talked of rest, his mind would not
stop working. Witness, for instance, his ‘Institutio Principis
Christiani.’ In fact, while the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ and the works of St.
Jerome had been passing through the press the number of other works of his
had increased rather than lessened. During the very intervals of travel he
was sure to be writing some book. On his way to Basle he had written his
letter to Dorpius, and he had published with it a commentary on the first
Psalm, ‘_Beatus est vir_,’ &c., which, by the way, he had dedicated to his
gentle friend, _Beatus_ Rhenanus, because, said he, ‘_blessed is_ the man
who is such as the Psalm describes.’ New editions, also, of the ‘De
Copiâ,’ of the ‘Praise of Folly,’ and of the ‘Adagia,’ were constantly
being issued from the press of Froben, Martins, Schurerius, or some other
printer; for whatever bore the name of Erasmus now found so ready a sale,
that printers were anxious for his patronage. Visions, too, of future work
kept rising up before him. He wanted to write a commentary on the Epistle
to the Romans; and in writing to Colet it would seem that he had confided
to him his project of adding to his Latin version of the New Testament an
honest exposition of its meaning in the form of a simple _paraphrase_--a
work which it took him years to complete. Thus it came to pass that he had
mentioned these literary projects in the same letter in which he had
expressed himself as envious of Colet’s anticipated rest, and that freedom
from the cares of poverty to which he himself was so constantly a prey.
Doubtless for a moment it had seemed to him easier to wish himself in
Colet’s place than with renewed energy to toil on in his own.

[Sidenote: Colet driven into retirement.]

But every heart knoweth its own bitterness. Colet had his share of
troubles, which made him, in his turn, almost envy Erasmus. He felt as
keenly as Erasmus and More did, how the mad rush of princes to arms had
blasted the happy visions of what had seemed like a golden age
approaching, and he had been the first to speak out what he thought; but
now, while More and Erasmus could speak boldly and get Europe to listen to
what they had to say, he was thwarted and harassed by his bishop, and
obliged to crawl into retirement. His work was almost done. He could not
use his pulpit as he used to do. He had spent his patrimony in the
foundation of his school, and he had not another fortune to spend, for his
uncle’s quarrel and other demands upon the residue had reduced his means
even below his wants. Nor had he much of bodily strength and energy left.
The sole survivor of a family of twenty-two, his health was not likely to
be robust, and now, at fifty, he spoke of himself as growing old, and
alluded with admiration to the high spirits of his still surviving mother,
and the beauty of her happy old age.

[Sidenote: He procures the release from prison of one who had injured
him.]

Still Colet had his heart in the work as much as ever. We do not hear much
of his doings, but what we _do_ hear is all in keeping with his character.
Thus we find him incidentally exerting himself to get some poor prisoner
released from the royal prison, and Erasmus exclaiming, ‘I love that
Christian spirit of Colet’s, for I hear that it was all owing to him, and
him alone, that N. was released, notwithstanding that N., though always
treated in the most friendly way by Colet, and professing himself as
friendly to Colet, had sided with Colet’s enemies at the time that he was
accused by the calumnies of the bishops.’[617]

It was about the time that he was thus returning good for evil to this
unfortunate prisoner, that the letter of Erasmus and the copy of the
‘Novum Instrumentum’ came to his hands.

[Sidenote: Colet’s delight in the success of Erasmus.]

In spite of his own troubles he could hail the labours and success of
Erasmus with delight. Twenty years ago, while alone and single-handed, he
had longed for fellowship; now he could rejoice that in Erasmus he had not
only found a fellow-worker, but a successor who would carry on the work
much further than he could do. He had looked forward with eager
expectation to the appearance of the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and,
anticipating its perusal, had for months past[618] been working hard to
recover the little knowledge of Greek which, during the active business of
life, he had almost lost. And the more he felt that his own work was
drawing to a close, the more was he disposed to encourage Erasmus to go on
with his. He looked upon Erasmus now as the leader of the little band,
forgetting that Erasmus owed, in one sense, almost everything to him.

This is the beautiful letter he wrote after reading the ‘Novum
Instrumentum:’--

    _Colet to Erasmus._

    ‘You cannot easily believe, my dear Erasmus, how much joy your letter
    gave me, which was brought to me by our “one-eyed friend.” For I
    learned from it where you are (which I did not know before), and also
    that you are likely to return to us, which would be very delightful
    both to me and to your other friends, of whom you have a great many
    here.

    [Sidenote: What Colet thought of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’]

    ‘What you say about the New Testament I can understand. The volumes of
    your new edition of it [the “Novum Instrumentum”] are here both
    eagerly bought and everywhere read. By many, your labours are received
    with approval and admiration. There are a few, also, who disapprove
    and carp at them, saying what was said in the letter of Martin Dorpius
    to you. But these are those divines whom you have described in your
    “Praise of Folly” and elsewhere, no less truly than wittily, as men
    whose praise is blame, and by whom it is an honour to be censured.

    ‘For myself, I so love your work, and so clasp to my heart this new
    edition of yours, that it excites mingled feelings. For at one time I
    am seized with sorrow that I have not that knowledge of Greek, without
    which one is good for nothing; at another time I rejoice in that light
    which you have shed forth from the sun of your genius.

    ‘Indeed, Erasmus, I marvel at the fruitfulness of your mind, in the
    conception, production, and daily completion of so much, during a life
    so unsettled, and without the assistance of any large and regular
    income.

    [Sidenote: Edition of ‘Jerome.’]

    ‘I am looking out for your “Jerome,” who will owe much to you, and so
    shall _we_ also when able to read him with your corrections and
    explanations.

    [Sidenote: The ‘Christian Prince.’]

    ‘You have done well to write “De Institutione Principis Christiani.” I
    wish Christian princes would follow good institutes! By their madness
    everything is thrown into confusion....

    ‘As to the “peaceful resting-place” which you say you long for, I
    also wish for one for you, both peaceful and happy; both your age and
    your studies require it. I wish, too, that this your final
    resting-place may be with us, if you think us worthy of so great a
    man; but what we are you have often experienced. Still you have here
    some who love you exceedingly.

    ‘Our friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when I was with him a few
    days ago, spoke much of you, and desired your presence here very much.
    Freed from all business cares, he lives now in quiet retirement.

    ‘What you say about “Christian philosophising” is true. There is
    nobody, I think, in Christendom more fit and suited for that
    profession and work than you are, on account of the wide range of your
    knowledge. _You_ do not say so, but I say so because I think so.

    [Sidenote: Treatise of Erasmus on the First Psalm.]

    ‘I have read what you have written on the First Psalm, and I admire
    your eloquence. I want to know what you are going to write on the
    Epistle to the Romans.

    [Sidenote: The projected ‘Paraphrases’ of Erasmus.]

    ‘Go on, Erasmus. As you have given us the New Testament in Latin,
    illustrate it by your expositions, and give us your commentary most at
    length on the Gospels. Your length is brevity; the appetite increases
    if only the digestive organs are sound. You will confer a great boon
    upon those who delight to read your writings if you will explain the
    meaning [of the Gospels], which no one can do better than you can. And
    in so doing, you will make your name immortal--_immortal_ did I
    say?--the name of Erasmus never can perish; but you will confer
    eternal _glory_ on your name, and, toiling on in the name of Jesus,
    you will become a partaker of his eternal life.

    ‘In deploring your fortune you do not act bravely. In so great a
    work--in making known the Scriptures--your fortune cannot fail you.
    Only put your trust in God, who will be the first to help you, and who
    will stir up others to aid you in your sacred labours.

    ‘That you should call me happy, I marvel! If you speak of fortune,
    although I am not wholly without any, yet I have not much, hardly
    sufficient for my expenses. I should think myself happy if, even in
    extreme poverty, I had a thousandth part of that learning and wisdom
    which you have got without wealth, and which, as it is peculiar to
    yourself, so also you have a way of imparting it, which I don’t know
    how to describe, unless I call it that “Erasmican” way of your own.

    ‘If you will let me, I will become your disciple, even in learning
    Greek, notwithstanding my advanced years (being almost an old man),
    recollecting that Cato learned Greek in his old age, and that you
    yourself, of equal age with me, are studying Hebrew.

    ‘Love me as ever; and, if you should return to us, count upon my
    devotion to your service.--Farewell.

    [Sidenote: Colet’s mother.]

    ‘From the country at Stepney, with my mother, who still lives, and
    wears her advancing age beautifully; often happily and joyfully
    speaking of you. On the Feast of the Translation of St. Edward.’[619]


II. RECEPTION OF THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ IN OTHER QUARTERS (1516).

Colet was not alone in his admiration of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ and its
author.

[Sidenote: Reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ in England.]

William Latimer, of Oxford, one of the earliest Greek scholars in England,
expressed his ardent approval of the new Latin translation, and would have
been glad, he said, if Erasmus had gone still further, and translated even
such words as ‘sabbatum’ and the like into classical Latin.[620]

Warham had all along encouraged Erasmus in his labours, both by presents
of money and constant good offices, and now he recommended the ‘Novum
Instrumentum’ to some of his brother bishops and divines, who, he wrote to
Erasmus, all acknowledged that the work was worthy of the labour bestowed
upon it.[621]

Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, in a large assembly of magnates, when the
conversation turned on Erasmus and his works, declared that his new
version threw so much light on the New Testament, that it was worth more
to him than ten commentaries, and this remark was approved by those
present.[622] The Dean of Salisbury used almost the same words of
commendation.[623]

In fact, it would appear that in England it was received coldly only by
that class of pseudo-orthodox divines, now waning both in numbers and
influence, who had consistently opposed the progress of the new learning,
‘blasphemed’ Colet’s school, and censured the heretical tendencies of
Erasmus as soon as their blind eyes had been opened to them by the recent
edition of the ‘Praise of Folly.’

Thus while Erasmus was in England in the autumn, enjoying at Rochester the
hospitality of Bishop Fisher, who was Chancellor of the University of
Cambridge, he was informed that his ‘Novum Testamentum’ had encountered no
little opposition in some circles at that centre of learning.

[Sidenote: Its reception at Cambridge.]

In one of his letters from the Bishop’s palace to his friend Boville, who
was resident at Cambridge, he mentions a report that a decree had been
formally issued in one of the colleges, forbidding anyone to bring ‘that
book’ within the precincts of the college, ‘by horse or by boat, on wheels
or on foot.’ He hardly knew, he said, whether to laugh at or to grieve
over men ‘so studiously blind to their own interests; so morose and
implacable, harder to appease even than wild beasts! How pitiful for men
to condemn and revile a book which they have not even read, or, having
read, cannot understand! They had possibly heard of the new work over
their cups, or in the gossip of the market, ... and thereupon exclaimed,
“O heavens! O earth! Erasmus has corrected the Gospels!” when it is they
themselves who have _depraved_ them....

‘Are they indeed afraid,’ Erasmus continued, ‘lest it should divert their
scholars, and empty their lecture-rooms? Why do they not examine the
facts? Scarcely thirty years ago, nothing was taught at Cambridge but the
“parva logicalia” of Alexander, antiquated exercises from Aristotle, and
the “Quæstiones” of Scotus. In process of time improved studies were
added--mathematics, a new, or, at all events, a _renovated_ Aristotle, and
a knowledge of Greek letters.... What has been the result of all this? Now
the University is so flourishing, that it can compete with the best
universities of the age. It contains men, compared with whom, theologians
of the old school seem only the _ghosts_ of theologians. These men grieve
because more and more students study with more and more earnestness the
Gospels and the apostolic Epistles. They had rather that they spent all
their time, as heretofore, in frivolous quibbles. Hitherto there have been
theologians who so far from having read the Scriptures, had never read
even the “_Sentences_,” or touched anything beyond the collections of
questions. Ought not,’ exclaimed Erasmus, ‘such men to be called back to
the very fountain-head?’ He then told Boville that he wished his works to
be useful to _all_. He looked to Christ for his chief reward; still he was
glad to have the approval of wise men. He hoped too, that what now was
approved by the _best_ men, would ere long meet with _general_ approval.
He felt sure that posterity would do him justice.[624]

Nor was the opposition to the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ by any means confined
to Cambridge. A few weeks later, very soon after Erasmus had left
England--in October--More wrote to inform him that a set of acute men had
determined to scrutinise closely, and criticise remorselessly, what they
could discover to find fault with. A party of them, with a Franciscan
divine at their head, had agreed to divide the works of Erasmus between
them, and to pick out all the faults they could find as they read them.
But, More added, he had heard that they had already given up the project.
The labour of reading was more laborious and less productive than the
ordinary work of mendicants, and so they had gone back again to that.[625]

The work was indeed full of small errors which might easily give occasion
to adverse critics to exercise their talents. But Erasmus was fully
conscious of this, and within a year of the completion of the first
edition, he was busily at work making all the corrections he could, with a
view to a second edition.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ on the Continent.]

The reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ on the Continent was much the
same as in England. It had some bitter enemies, especially at Louvain and
Cologne.[626] But, on the other hand, letters poured in upon Erasmus from
all sides of warm approval and congratulation,[627] and so great a power
had his name become, that ere long princes competed for his residence
within their dominions; and if their numerous promises had but been
faithfully performed, Erasmus need have had little fear for the future
respecting ‘ways and means.’

[Sidenote: Philip Melanchthon.]

Amongst the numerous tributes of admiration received by Erasmus, was one
forwarded to him by Beatus Rhenanus, in Greek verse,[628] from the pen of
an accomplished and learned youth at the University of Tubingen, already
known by name to Erasmus, and mentioned with honour in the ‘Novum
Instrumentum’--a student devoted to study, and reported to be working so
hard, that his health was in danger of giving way, whom another
correspondent introduced as worthy of the love of ‘Erasmus the first,’
inasmuch as he was likely to prove ‘Erasmus the second.’ His name--then
little known beyond the circle of his intimate friends--was _Philip
Melanchthon_.[629]


III. MARTIN LUTHER READS THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ (1516).

[Sidenote: Letter from Spalatin.]

In the winter of 1516-17, Erasmus received a letter from George Spalatin,
whose name he may have heard before, but to whom he was personally a
stranger. It was dated from the castle of the Elector of Saxony. It was a
letter full of flattering compliments. The writer introduced himself as
acquainted with a friend of Erasmus, and as being a pupil of one of his
old schoolfellows at Deventer. He mentioned his intimacy with the Elector,
whom he reported to be a diligent and admiring reader of the works of
Erasmus, and informed him that these had honourable places on the shelves
of the ducal library. It was, in fact, a letter evidently written with a
definite object; but beating about the bush so long, that one begins to
wonder what matter of importance could require so roundabout an
introduction.

At length the writer disclosed the object of his letter:--‘A friend of
his,’ whose name he did not give, had written to him suggesting that
Erasmus in his Annotations on the Epistle to the Romans, in the ‘Novum
Instrumentum,’ had misinterpreted St. Paul’s expression, _justicia
operum_, or _legis_, and also had not spoken out clearly respecting
‘original sin.’ He believed that if Erasmus would read St. Augustine’s
books against Pelagius, &c., he would see his mistake. His friend
interpreted _justicia legis_, or the ‘righteousness of works,’ not as
referring only to the keeping of the ceremonial law, but to the observance
of the whole decalogue. The observance of the latter might make a
Fabricius or a Regulus, but without Christian faith it would no more
savour of ‘righteousness’ than a medlar would taste like a fig. This was
the weighty question upon which his friend had asked him to consult the
oracle, and a response, however short, would be esteemed a most gracious
favour.[630]

[Sidenote: Martin Luther reads the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’]

This unnamed friend of Spalatin was in fact _Martin Luther_. The singular
coincidence, that not only this letter of Spalatin to Erasmus, but also
the letter of Luther to Spalatin,[631] have been preserved, enables us to
picture the monk of Wittemberg sitting in his room in a corner of the
monastery, pondering over the pages of the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and
‘moved,’ as he reads it, with feelings of grief and disappointment,
because his quick eye discerns that the path in which Erasmus is treading
points in a different direction from his own.

In truth, Luther, though as yet without European fame--not having yet
nailed his memorable theses to the Wittemberg church-door--had for years
past fixed, if I may use the expression, the cardinal points of his
theology. He had already clenched his fundamental convictions with too
firm a grasp ever to relax. He had chosen his permanent standpoint, and
for years had made it the centre of his public teaching in his
professorial chair at the university, and in his pulpit also.

The standpoint which he had so firmly taken was _Augustinian_.

[Sidenote: Luther’s Augustinian tendencies.]

During the four years spent by him in the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt,
into which he had fled to escape from the terrors of conscience, he had
deeply studied, along with the Scriptures, the works of St. Augustine. It
was from the light which these works had shed upon the Epistles of St.
Paul that he had mainly been led to embrace those views upon
‘justification by faith’ which had calmed the tumult and disarmed the
lightnings of his troubled conscience. This statement rests upon the
authority of Melanchthon, and is therefore beyond dispute.[632]

Eight years had passed since he had left Erfurt to become a professor in
the Wittemberg University, and four or five years since his return from
his memorable visit to Rome. During these last years his teaching and
preaching had been full of the Augustinian theology. Melanchthon states
that during this period he had written commentaries on the ‘Romans,’ and
that in them and in his lectures and sermons he had laboured to refute the
prevalent error, that it is possible to merit the forgiveness of sins by
good works, pointing men to the Lamb of God, and throwing great light upon
such questions as ‘penitence,’ ‘remission of sins,’ ‘faith,’ the
difference between the ‘Law’ and the ‘Gospel,’ and the like. He also
mentions that Luther, catching the spirit which the writings of Erasmus
had diffused, had taken to the study of Greek and Hebrew.[633]

We may therefore picture the Augustinian monk--deeply read in the works of
St. Augustine, and, as Ranke expresses it,[634] ‘_embracing even his
severer views_,’ having for years constantly taught them from his pulpit
and professorial chair, clinging to them with a grasp which would never
relax, looking at everything from this immovable Augustinian
standpoint--now in 1516 with a copy of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ before him
on his table in his room in the cloisters of Wittemberg, reading it
probably with eager expectation of finding his own views reflected in the
writings of a man who was looked upon as the great restorer of Scriptural
theology.

[Sidenote: Luther detects the Anti-Augustinian tendencies of Erasmus.]

He reads the Annotations on the Epistle to the Romans. He does not find
Erasmus using the watchwords of the Augustinian theology. He does not find
the words _justicia legis_ understood in the Augustinian sense, as
referring to the observance of the whole moral law, but, rather, explained
as referring to the Jewish ceremonial.

He turns as a kind of touchstone to Chapter V., where the Apostle speaks
of death as ‘having reigned from Adam to Moses over those who had not
sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.’ He finds Erasmus
remarking that he does not think it needful here to resort to the doctrine
of ‘_original sin_,’ however true in itself; he finds him hinting at the
possibility ‘of hating Pelagius more than enough,’ and of resorting too
freely to the doctrine of ‘original sin’ as a means of getting rid of
theological difficulties, in the same way as astrologers had invented a
system of _epicycles_ to get them out of their astronomical ones.[635]

The Augustinian doctrine of ‘original sin’ compared to the _epicycles_ of
the astrologers! No wonder that Luther was _moved_ as he traced in these
Annotations symptoms of wide divergence from his own Augustinian views. In
writing to Spalatin, he told him that he was ‘moved;’ and in asking him to
question Erasmus further on the subject, he added that he felt no doubt
that the difference in opinion between himself and Erasmus was a real one,
because that, as regards the interpretation of Scripture, he saw clearly
that Erasmus preferred Jerome to Augustine, just as much as he himself
preferred Augustine to Jerome. Jerome, evidently on principle, he said,
follows the _historical_ sense, and he very much feared that the great
authority of Erasmus might induce many to attempt to defend that
_literal_, i.e. _dead_, understanding [of the Scriptures] of which the
commentaries of Lyra and almost all after Augustine are full.[636]

Still Luther went on with the study of his ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and we
find him writing again from his ‘hermitage’ at Wittemberg, that every day
as he reads he loses his liking for Erasmus. And again the reason crops
out. Erasmus, with all his Greek and Hebrew, is lacking in Christian
wisdom; ‘just as Jerome, with all his knowledge of five languages, was not
a match for Augustine with his one.’... ‘The judgment of a man who
attributes _anything_ to the human will’ [which Jerome and Erasmus did]
is ‘one thing, the judgment of him who recognises _nothing but grace_’
[which Augustine and Luther did] ‘is quite another thing.’...
‘Nevertheless [continues Luther] I carefully keep this opinion to myself,
lest I should play into the hands of his enemies. May God give him
understanding in his own good time!’[637]

[Sidenote: Difference in principle between Erasmus and Luther.]

This is not the place to discuss the rights of the question between Luther
and Erasmus. It is well, however, that by the preservation of these
letters the fact is established to us, which as yet was unknown to
Erasmus, that this Augustinian monk, as the result of hard-fought mental
struggle, had years before this irrevocably adopted and, if we may so
speak, welded into his very being that Augustinian system of religious
convictions, a considerable portion of which Erasmus made no scruple in
rejecting; that at the root of their religious thought there was a
divergence in principle which must widen as each proceeded on his separate
path--unknown as yet, let me repeat it, to Erasmus, but already fully
recognised, though wisely concealed, by Luther.


IV. THE ‘EPISTOLÆ OBSCURORUM VIRORUM’ (1516-17).

In the meantime symptoms had appeared portending that a storm was brewing
in another quarter against Erasmus. It was not perhaps to be wondered at
that the monks should persist in regarding him as a renegade monk. His
bold reply to the letter of Servatius, and the unsubdued tone in which he
had answered the attack of Martin Dorpius, must have made the monastic
party hopeless of his reconversion to orthodox views. At the same time,
neither his letter to Servatius nor his reply to Dorpius had at all
converted them to his way of thinking. Men perfectly self-satisfied,
blindly believing in the sanctity of their own order, and arrogating to
themselves a monopoly of orthodox learning, were in a state of mind, both
intellectually and morally, beyond the reach of argument, however earnest
and convincing. They still really did believe, through thick and thin,
that the Latin of the Vulgate and the Schoolmen was the sacred language.
They still did believe that Hebrew and Greek were the languages of
heretics; and that to be learned in these, to scoff at the Schoolmen and
to criticise the Vulgate, were the surest proofs of _ignorance_ as well as
impiety.

[Sidenote: ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.’]

It was in the years 1516 and 1517 that the ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum’
were published. They were written in exaggerated monkish Latin, and
professed to be a correspondence chiefly between monks, conveying their
views and feelings upon current events and the tendencies of modern
thought. Of course the picture they gave was a caricature, but
nevertheless it so nearly hit the truth that More wrote to Erasmus that
‘in England it delighted every one. To the learned it was capital fun.
Even the ignorant, who seriously took it all in, smiled at its style, and
did not attempt to defend it; but they said the _weighty opinions_ it
contained made up for that, and under a rude scabbard was concealed a most
excellent blade.’[638]

The first part was full of the monks’ hatred of Reuchlin and the Jews. One
monk writes to his superior to consult him in a difficulty. Two Jews were
walking in the town in a dress so like that of monks that he bowed to them
by mistake. To have made obeisance to a Jew! Was this a venial or a mortal
sin? Should he seek absolution from episcopal authority, or would it
require a dispensation from the Pope?[639]

Side by side with scrupulosity such as this were hints of secret
immorality and scandal. Immense straining at gnats was put in contrast
with the ease with which camels were swallowed within the walls of the
cloister.

[Sidenote: Mention of Erasmus in them.]

In the appendix to the first part Erasmus at length makes his appearance.
The writer of the letter, a medical graduate, informs his learned
correspondent that, being at Strasburg, he was told that a man who was
called ‘Erasmus Roterdamus’ (till then unknown to him) was in the city--a
man said to be most learned in all branches of knowledge. This, however,
he did not believe. He could not believe that so small a man could have so
vast a knowledge. To test the matter, he laid a scheme with one or two
others to meet Erasmus at table, get him into an argument, and confute
him. He thereupon betook himself to his ‘vademecum,’ and crammed himself
with some abstruse medical questions, and so armed entered the field. One
of his friends was a lawyer, the other a speculative divine. They met as
appointed. All were silent. Nobody would begin. At length Erasmus, in a
low tone of voice, began to sermonise (_sermonizare_), and when he had
done, another began to dispute _de ente et essencia_. To which the writer
himself responded in a few words. Then a dead silence again. They could
not draw the lion out. At length their host started another hare--praising
both the deeds and writings of Julius Cæsar. The writer here again put
in. He knew something of _poetry_, and did not believe that Cæsar’s
‘Commentaries’ were written by Cæsar at all. Cæsar was a warrior, and
always engaged in military affairs. Such men never are learned men,
therefore Cæsar cannot have known Latin. ‘I think,’ he continued, ‘that
_Suetonius_ (!) wrote those “Commentaries,” because I never saw anyone
whose style was so like Cæsar’s as his. When I had said this,’ he
continued, ‘Erasmus laughed, and said nothing, because the subtlety of my
argument had confounded him. So I put an end to the discussion. I did not
care to propound my question in medicine, because I knew he knew nothing
about it, since, though himself a poet, he did not know how to solve my
argument in poetry. And I assert before God that there is not as much in
him as people say. He does not know more than other men, although I
concede that in poetry he knows how to speak pretty Latin. But what of
that!’[640]

In the second part, published in 1517, Erasmus makes a more prominent
figure. One correspondent had met him at Basle, and ‘found many perverse
heretics in Froben’s house.’[641] Another writes that he hears Erasmus has
written many books, especially a letter to the Pope, in which he commends
Reuchlin:--

‘That letter, you know, I have seen. One other book of his also I have
seen--a great book--entitled “Novum Testamentum,” and he has sent this
book to the Pope, and I believe he wants the Pope’s authority for it, but
I hope he won’t give it. One holy man told me that he could prove that
Erasmus was a heretic; because he censured holy doctors, and thought
nothing of divines. One of his things, called “Moria Erasmi,” contained,’
he said, ‘many scandalous propositions and open blasphemies. On this
account the book would be burned at Paris. Therefore I do not believe that
the Pope will sanction his “great book.”’[642]

Another reports that his edition of St. Jerome has been examined at
Cologne; that in this work Erasmus says that Jerome was not a Cardinal;
that he thinks evil of St. George and St. Christopher, the relics of the
saints and candles, and the sacrament of confession; that many passages
contain blasphemy against the holy doctors.[643]

These ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum’ were widely read, and proved like an
advertisement, throughout the monasteries of Europe, of the heresy of
Erasmus and his hatred of monks. As by degrees the latter began to
understand that these allusions to Erasmus were intended to bring ridicule
on themselves, instead of, as they thought at first, to censure Erasmus,
it was likely that their anger should know no bounds.[644]


V. THE ‘PYTHAGORICA’ AND ‘CABALISTICA’ OF REUCHLIN (1517).

[Sidenote: Studies of Reuchlin.]

Reuchlin in his zeal for Hebrew had been led to study along with the old
Testament Scriptures, other Hebrew books, especially the ‘Cabala,’ and,
after the fashion of his Jewish teachers, had lost himself in the
‘mystical value of words’ and in the Pythagorean philosophy. He believed,
writes Ranke, that by treading in the footsteps of the ‘Cabala,’ he should
ascend from symbol to symbol, from form to form, till he should reach
that last and purest form which rules the empire of mind, and in which
human mutability approaches to the Immutable and Divine[645]--whatever
that might mean.

Reuchlin had embodied his speculations on these subjects in a work upon
which he wished for the opinion of Erasmus and his friends.

[Sidenote: Reuchlin’s works sent by Erasmus to England.]

Erasmus accordingly sent a copy of this book to Bishop Fisher, with a
letter asking his opinion thereupon.[646] He sent it, it seems, by More,
who, _more suo_, as Fisher jokingly complained, purloined it,[647] so that
it did not reach its destination. What had become of it may be learned
from the following letter from Colet to Erasmus, playful and laconic as
usual, and beaming with that true humility which enabled him to unite with
his habitual strength of conviction an equally habitual sense of his own
fallibility and imperfect knowledge. It is doubly interesting also as the
last letter written by Colet which time has spared.

    _Colet to Erasmus._[648]

    ‘I am half angry with you, Erasmus, that you send messages to me in
    letters to others, instead of writing direct to myself; for though I
    have no distrust of our friendship, yet this roundabout way of
    greeting me through messages in other people’s letters makes me
    jealous lest others should think you loved me less than you do.

    ‘Also, I am half angry with you for another thing--for sending the
    “Cabalistica” of Reuchlin to Bishop Fisher and not to me. I do not
    grudge your sending _him_ a copy, but you might have sent _me_ one
    also. For I so delight in your love, that I am jealous when I see you
    more mindful of others than of myself.

    ‘That book did, however, after all come into my hands first. I read it
    through before it was handed to the bishop.

    ‘I dare not express an opinion on this book. I am conscious of my own
    ignorance, and how blind I am in matters so mysterious, and in the
    works (opibus--_operibus_?) of so great a man. However, in reading it,
    the chief miracles seemed to me to lie more in the words than the
    things; for, according to him, Hebrew words seem to have no end of
    mystery in their characters and combinations.

    [Sidenote: Colet’s opinion on them.]

    ‘O Erasmus! of books and of knowledge there is no end. There is no
    thing better for _us_ in this short life than to live holily and
    purely, and to make it our daily care to be purified and enlightened,
    and really to practise what these “Pythagorica” and “Cabalistica” of
    Reuchlin promise; but, in my opinion, there is no other way for us to
    attain this than by the earnest love and imitation of _Jesus_.
    Wherefore leaving these wandering paths, let us go the short way to
    work. I long, to the best of my ability, to do so.[649]
    Farewell.--_From London, 1517._’


VI. MORE PAYS A VISIT TO COVENTRY (1517?).

It chanced about this time that More had occasion to go to Coventry to see
a sister of his there.

[Sidenote: Coventry.]

[Sidenote: Monastic establishments at Coventry.]

Coventry was a very nest of religious and monastic establishments. It
contained, shut up in its narrow streets, some six thousand souls. On the
high ground in the heart of the city the ancient Monastery and Cathedral
Church of the monks of St. Benedict lifted their huge piles of masonry
above surrounding roofs. By their side, and belonging to the same ancient
order, rose into the air like a rocket the beautiful spire of St.
Michael’s, lightly poised and supported by its four flying buttresses,
whilst in the niches of the square tower, from which these were made to
spring, stood the carved images of saints, worn and crumbled by a
century’s storms and hot suns. There, too, almost within a stone’s throw
of this older and nobler one, and as if faintly striving but failing to
outvie it, rose the rival spires of Trinity Church, and the Church of the
Grey Friars of St. Francis; while in the distance might be seen the square
massive tower of the College of Babbelake, afterwards called the Church of
St. John; the Monastery of the Carmelites or White Friars; and the
Charterhouse, where Carthusian monks were supposed to keep strict vigils
and fasts in lonely and separate cells. And beneath the shadow of the
spire of St. Michael’s stood the Hall of St. Mary, chased over with carved
work depicting the glory of the Virgin Mother, and covered within by
tapestry representing her before the Great Throne of Heaven, the moon
under her feet, and apostles and choirs of angels doing her homage. Other
hospitals and religious houses which have left no trace behind them, were
to be found within the walls of this old city. Far and wide had spread the
fame of the annual processions and festivals, pageants and miracle plays,
which even royal guests were sometimes known to witness. And from out the
babble and confusion of tongues produced by the close proximity of so many
rival monastic sects, rose ever and anon the cry for the martyrdom of
honest Lollards, in the persecution of whom the Pharisees and Sadducees of
Coventry found a temporary point of agreement. It would seem that, not
many months after the time of More’s visit, _seven_ poor gospellers were
burned in Coventry for teaching their children the paternoster and ten
commandments in their own English tongue.[650]

[Sidenote: Fit of Mariolatry at Coventry.]

This was Coventry--its citizens, if not ‘wholly given up to idolatry,’ yet
‘in all things too superstitious,’ and, like the Athenians of old, prone
to run after ‘some new thing.’ At the time of which we speak, they were
the subjects of a strange religious frenzy--a fit of _Mariolatry_.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin had not
yet been finally settled. It was the bone of contention between the rival
monastic orders. The Franciscans or Grey Friars, following Scotus, waged
war with the Dominicans, who followed Aquinas. Pope Sixtus IV. had in 1483
issued a bull favouring the Franciscans and the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception, and Foxe tells us that it was in consequence ‘holden in their
schools, written in their books, preached in their sermons, taught in
their churches, and set forth in their pictures.’ On the other side had
occurred the tragedy of the weeping image of the Virgin, and the detection
and burning of the Dominican monks who were parties to the fraud.

It chanced that in Coventry a Franciscan monk made bold to preach publicly
to the people, that _whoever should daily pray through the Psalter of the
Blessed Virgin could never be damned_. The regular pastor of the place,
thinking that it would soon blow over, and that a little more devotion to
the Virgin could do no harm, took little notice of it at first. But when
he saw the worst men were the most religious in their devotion to the
Virgin’s Psalter, and that, relying on the friar’s doctrine, they were
getting more and more bold in crime, he mildly admonished the people from
his pulpit not to be led astray by this new doctrine. The result was he
was hissed at, derided, and publicly slandered as an enemy of the Virgin.
The friar again mounted his pulpit, recounted miraculous stories in favour
of his creed, and carried the people away with him.

[Sidenote: More’s dispute with a friar.]

More shall tell the rest in his own words:--

‘While this frenzy was at its height, it so happened that I had to go to
Coventry to visit a sister of mine there. I had scarcely alighted from my
horse when I was asked the question, “Whether a person who daily prayed
through the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin could be damned?” I laughed at
the question as absurd. I was told forthwith that my answer was a
dangerous one. A most holy and learned father had declared the contrary. I
put by the whole affair as no business of mine. Soon after I was asked to
supper. I promised, and went. Lo and behold! in came an old, stooping,
heavy, crabbed friar! A servant followed with his books. I saw I must
prepare for a brush. We sat down, and lest any time should be lost, the
point was at once brought forward by our host. The friar made answer as he
already had preached. I held my tongue, not liking to mix myself up in
fruitless and provoking disputations. At last they asked me what view I
took of it. And when I was obliged to speak, I spoke what I thought, but
in few words and offhand. Upon this the friar began a long premeditated
oration, long enough for at least two sermons, and bawled all supper time.
He drew all his argument from the miracles, which he poured out upon us in
numbers enough from the “Marial;” and then from other books of the same
kind, which he ordered to be put on the table, he drew further authority
for his stories. Soon after he had done I modestly began to answer; first,
that in all his long discourse he had said nothing to convince those who
perchance did not admit the miracles which he had recited, and _this might
well be, and a man’s faith in Christ be firm notwithstanding_. And even if
these were mostly true, they proved nothing of any moment; for though you
might easily find a prince who would concede something to his enemies at
the entreaty of his mother, yet never was there one so foolish as to
publish a law which should provoke daring against him by the promise of
impunity to all traitors who should perform certain offices to his mother.

‘Much having been said on both sides, I found that he was lauded to the
skies while I was laughed at as a fool. The matter came at last to that
pass, by the depraved zeal of men who cloaked their own vices under
colour of piety, that the opinion could hardly be put down, though the
Bishop with all his energy tried all the means in his power to do
so.’[651]




CHAPTER XIV.


I. THE SALE OF INDULGENCES (1517-18).

While Erasmus in 1517 was hard at work at the revision of his New
Testament, publishing the first instalment of his Paraphrases,[652]
recommending the ‘Utopia’ and the ‘Christian Prince’ to the perusal of
princes and their courtiers,[653] expressing to his friends at the Papal
Court his trust that under Leo X. Rome herself might become the centre of
peace and religion,[654]--while Erasmus was thus working on hopefully,
preparing the way, as he thought, for a peaceful reform, Europe was
suddenly brought, by the scandalous conduct of princes and the Pope, to
the very brink of revolution.

[Sidenote: Leo X. wants money.]

Leo X. was in want of money. He had no scruple to tax the Christian world
for selfish family purposes any more than his predecessors in the Papal
chair; but times had altered, and he thought it prudent, instead of doing
so openly, to avoid scandal, by cloaking his crime in double folds of
imposture and deception. It mattered little that a few shrewd men might
suspect the dishonesty of the pretexts put forth, if only the multitude
could be sufficiently deluded to make them part with their money.

[Sidenote: Tenths and indulgences.]

A war against the Turks could be proposed and abandoned the moment the
‘tenths’ demanded to pay its expenses were safe in the Papal exchequer. If
_indulgences_ were granted to all who should contribute towards the
building of St. Peter’s at Rome, the profits could easily be devoted to
more pressing uses. So, in the spring of 1517, the payment of a tenth was
demanded from all the clergy of Europe, and commissions were at the same
time issued for the sale of indulgences to the laity. Some opposition was
to be expected from disaffected princes; but experience on former
occasions had proved that these would be easily bribed to connive at any
exactions from their subjects by the promise of a share in the spoil.[655]

Hence the project seemed to the Papal mind justified on Machiavellian
principles, and, judged by the precedents of the past, likely to succeed.

[Sidenote: Satire on indulgences in the ‘Praise of Folly.’]

But the seeds of opposition to Machiavellian projects of this kind had
recently been widely sown. More in his ‘Utopia,’ and Erasmus in his
‘Christian Prince,’ had only a few months before spoken plain words to
people and princes on taxation and unjust exactions. Erasmus, too, in his
‘Praise of Folly,’ had spoken contemptuously of the _crime of false
pardons_, in other words, of Papal _indulgences_.[656] And though
Lystrius, in his recent marginal note on this passage, had explained that
Papal indulgences are not included in this sweeping censure, ‘_unless they
be false_, it being no part of our business to dispute of the pontifical
power,’ yet he had almost made matters worse by adding:--

‘This one thing I know, that what Christ promised concerning the remission
of sins is more certain than what is promised by men, especially since
this whole affair [of indulgences] is of recent date and invention.
Finally a great many people, relying on these pardons, are encouraged in
crime, and never think of changing their lives.’[657]

How eagerly the ‘Praise of Folly’ was bought and read by the people has
already been seen. New editions had recently been exceedingly numerous,
for the notes of Lystrius had opened the eyes of many who had not fully
caught its drift before. An edition in French had moreover appeared, and
(Erasmus wrote) it was thereby made intelligible even to monks, who
hitherto had been too deeply drowned in sensual indulgence to care
anything about it, whose ignorance of Latin was such that they could not
even understand the Psalms, which they were constantly mumbling over in a
senseless routine.[658]

[Sidenote: Luther’s Theses.]

Silently and unseen the leaven had been working; and when, on October 31,
Luther posted up his theses on the church-door at Wittemberg, defying
Tetzel and his wicked trade, he was but the spokesman, perhaps
unconsciously to himself, of the grumbling dissent of Europe.

[Sidenote: Other opposition to indulgences.]

Discontent against the proceedings of the Papal Court was not by any means
confined to Wittemberg. It had got wind that the tenths and indulgences
were resorted to for private family purposes of the Pope’s; that they
were part of a system of imposture and deception; and hence they
encountered opposition, political as well as religious, in more quarters
than one.

[Sidenote: European princes bribed by a share in the spoil.]

[Sidenote: Opposition of German princes.]

Unhappily, the Pope had reckoned with reason on the connivance of princes.
Their exchequers were more than usually empty, and they had proved for the
most part glad enough to sell their consciences, and the interests of
their subjects, at the price of a share in the spoil. Had it been
otherwise the Papal collectors would have been forbidden entrance into the
dominions of many a prince besides Frederic of Saxony! The Pope offered
Henry VIII. a fourth of the moneys received from the sale of indulgences
in England, and the English Ambassador suggested that one-third would be a
reasonable proportion.[659] When in December 1515 the Pope had asked for a
tenth from the English clergy, he had found it needful to abate his demand
by one-half, and even this was refused by Convocation on the ground that
they had already paid six-tenths to enable the King to defend the
patrimony of St. Peter, and that the victories of Henry VIII. had removed
all dangers from the Roman See;[660] and no sooner was there any talk of
the new tenth of 1517, than the Papal collector in England was immediately
sworn, probably as a precautionary measure, not to send any money to
Rome.[661] Prince Charles, in anticipation of the amount to be collected
in his Spanish dominions, obtained a loan of 175,000 ducats. The King of
France made a purse for himself out of the collections in France,[662]
and by the Pope’s express orders paid over a part of what was left direct
to the Pope’s nephew Lorenzo,[663] for whom it was rumoured in select
circles that the money was required. The Elector of Maintz also received a
share of the spoil taken from his subjects.[664] The Emperor had made
common cause with the Pope, in hopes of attaining thereby the realisation
of long-indulged dreams of ambition, and all Europe would have been thus
bought over;[665] had not the princes of the empire unexpectedly refused
to follow his leading, and to grant any taxes on their subjects without
their consent.[666]

[Sidenote: Political condition of Europe.]

[Sidenote: Political scandals.]

These facts will be sufficient to show that the question of Papal taxation
was becoming a serious political question. The ascendency of ecclesiastics
in the courts of princes had, moreover, again and again been the subject
of complaint on the part of the Oxford Reformers. These Papal scandals
revealed a state not only of ecclesiastical, but also of political
rottenness surpassing anything which had yet been seen. Church and State,
the Pope and the Emperor, princes and their ecclesiastical advisers, were
seen wedded in an unholy alliance against the rights of the people.
Ecclesiastical influence, and the practice of Machiavellian principles,
had brought Christendom into a condition of anarchy in which every man’s
hand was against his neighbour. The politics of Europe were in greater
confusion than ever. Not only was the Emperor in league with the Pope
against the interests of Europe, but he was obtaining money from England
under the pretext of siding with England against France and Prince
Charles, while he was at the same moment making a secret treaty with
France and preparing the way for the succession of Charles to the empire.
The three young and aspiring princes--Henry, Francis, and Charles--were
eyeing one another with shifting suspicions, and jealously plotting
against one another in the dark. Europe in the meantime was kept in a
chronic state of warfare. Scotland was kept by France always on the point
of quarrelling with England. The Duke of Gueldres and his ‘black band’
were committing cruel depredations in the Netherlands to the destruction
of the peace and prosperity of an industrious people.[667] Franz von
Sickingen was engaged in what those who suffered from it spoke of as
‘inhuman private warfare.’[668] Such was the state of Germany, that, to
quote the words of Ranke, ‘there was hardly a part of the country which
was not either distracted by private wars, troubled by internal divisions,
or terrified by the danger of an attack from some neighbouring
power.’[669] The administration of civil and criminal law was equally bad.
Again, to quote from the same historian, ‘The criminal under ban found
shelter and protection; and as the other courts of justice were in no
better condition--in all, incapable judges, impunity for misdoers, and
abuses without end--disquiet and tumult had broken out in all parts.
Neither by land nor water were the ways safe: ... the husbandman, by whose
labours all classes were fed, was ruined; widows and orphans were
deserted; not a pilgrim or a messenger or a tradesman could travel along
the roads....’[670] Such, according to Ranke, were the complaints of the
German people in the Diet of Maintz in 1517, and the Diet separated
without even suggesting a remedy.[671]

[Sidenote: Erasmus meditates a journey southward, and then returning to
England.]

It was from a continent thus brought, by the madness of the Pope and
princes, to the very brink of both a civil and a religious revolution,
that Erasmus looked longingly to England as ‘out of the world, and perhaps
the least corrupted portion of it’[672]--as that retreat in which, after
one more journey southwards, to print the second edition of his New
Testament and ‘some other works,’ he hoped at length to spend his
declining years in peaceful retirement. The following portion of a letter
to Colet will also show how fully he saw through the policy of Leo X.,
hated the madness of princes, and shared the indignation of Luther at the
sale of indulgences.

    _Erasmus to Colet._

    [Sidenote: Erasmus on indulgences.]

    [Sidenote: He sees through the Pope’s pretexts.]

    ‘I am obliged, in order to print the New Testament and some other
    books, to go either to Basle, or, more probably, I think, to _Venice_:
    for I am deterred from Basle partly by the plague and partly by the
    death of Lachnerus, whose pecuniary aid was almost indispensable to
    the work. “What,” you will say, “are you, an old man, in delicate
    health, going to undertake so laborious a journey!--in these times,
    too, than which none worse have been seen for six hundred years; while
    everywhere lawless robbery abounds!” But why do you say so? I was
    _born_ to this fate; if I _die_, I die in a work which, unless I am
    mistaken, is not altogether a bad one. But if, this last stroke of my
    work being accomplished according to my intention, I should chance to
    return, I have made up my mind to spend the remainder of my life with
    you, in retirement from a world which is everywhere rotten.
    Ecclesiastical hypocrites rule in the courts of princes. The court of
    Rome clearly has lost all sense of shame; for _what could be more
    shameless than these continued indulgences_? Now a war against the
    Turks is put forth as a pretext, when the real purpose is to drive the
    Spaniards from Naples; for Lorenzo, the Pope’s nephew, who has married
    the daughter of the King of Navarre, lays claim to Campania. If these
    turmoils continue, the rule of the Turks would be easier to bear than
    that of these Christians.’[673]

[Sidenote: ‘Julius de Cœlo exclusus.’]

Erasmus wrote to Warham in precisely the same strain,[674] and shortly
afterwards, on March 5, 1518, in a letter to More, he exclaimed, ‘The Pope
and some princes are playing a fresh game under the pretext of a horrid
war against the Turks. Oh, wretched Turks! unless this is too much like
bluster on the part of us Christians.’ And, he added, ‘They write to me
from Cologne that a book has been printed by somebody, describing “Pope
Julius disputing with Peter at the gate of paradise.” The author’s name is
not mentioned. The German press will not cease to be violent until some
law shall restrain their boldness, to the detriment also of us, who are
labouring to benefit mankind.’[675]

This satire, entitled ‘Julius de Cœlo exclusus,’ was eagerly purchased and
widely read,[676] and was one of a series of satirical pamphlets upon the
Papacy and the policy of the Papal party, for which the way had been
prepared by the ‘Praise of Folly’ and the ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.’
It was one of the signs of the times.


II. MORE DRAWN INTO THE SERVICE OF HENRY VIII.--ERASMUS LEAVES GERMANY FOR
BASLE (1518).

It was at this juncture--at this crisis it may well be called--in European
politics, that More was induced at length, by the earnest solicitations of
Henry VIII., to attach himself to his court under circumstances which
deserve attention.

[Sidenote: ‘Evil May-day.’]

In the spring of 1517, a frenzy more dangerous than that in which the men
of Coventry indulged had seized the London apprentices. Not wholly without
excuse, they had risen in arms against the merchant strangers, who were
very numerous in London, and to some of whom commercial privileges and
licenses had, perhaps, been too freely granted by a minister anxious to
increase his revenue. Thus had resulted the riots of ‘the evil May-day,’
and More had some part to play in the restoration of order in the city.

[Sidenote: More’s embassy to Calais.]

Then, in August 1517, he was sent on an embassy to Calais with Wingfield
and Knight. Their mission ostensibly was to settle disputes between French
and English merchants, but probably its real import was quite as much to
pave the way for more important negotiations.

[Sidenote: Henry VIII. meditates giving up his French conquests.]

No sooner had English statesmen opened their eyes to the fact that
Maximilian had been playing into the hands of the French King against the
interests of England, than, with the natural perversity of men who had no
settled principles to guide their international policy, they began
themselves, out of sheer jealousy, once more to court the favour of the
sovereign against whom they had so long been fruitlessly plotting. They
began secretly to seek to bring about a French alliance with England,
which should out-manœuvre the recent treaty of the Emperor with France.
Thus, by a sudden and unlooked-for turn in continental politics, was
brought about the curious fact that, within a few months of the
publication of the ‘Utopia,’ in which More had advocated such a policy,
the surrender of Henry’s recent conquests in France was under discussion.
By February in the following year (1518) not only was Tournay restored to
France, but a marriage had been arranged between the infant Dauphin of
France and the infant Princess Mary of England. This of course involved
the abandonment, at all events for a time, of Henry’s personal claims on
the crown of France.[677] What share More had in the conversion of the
King to this new policy remains untold; but it is remarkable that within
so short a time his Utopian counsels should have been so far practically
followed, and that he himself should have been chosen as one of the
ambassadors to Calais to prepare the way for it.

[Sidenote: More’s Utopian counsels followed.]

It would be impossible here to enter into a detailed examination of the
political relations of England; suffice it to say, that a pacific policy
seems to have gained the upper hand for the moment, and that even Wolsey
himself seems to have admitted the necessity of so far following More’s
Utopian counsels as to cut down the annual expenditure of the kingdom, and
to husband her resources.[678]

It may have been only a momentary lull in the King’s stormy passion for
war, but it lasted long enough to admit of the renewal of the King’s
endeavours to draw More into his service, and of More’s yielding at last
to Royal persuasions.

[Sidenote: More drawn into court.]

Roper tells us that the immediate occasion of his doing so was the great
ability shown by him in the conduct of a suit respecting a ‘great ship’
belonging to the Pope, which the King claimed for a forfeiture. In
connection with which, Roper tells us that More, ‘in defence on the Pope’s
side, argued so learnedly, that both was the aforesaid forfeiture restored
to the Pope, and himself among all the hearers, for his upright and
commendable demeanour therein, so greatly renowned that for no entreaty
would the King from henceforth be induced any longer to forbear his
service.’[679]

What passed between the King and his new courtier on this occasion, and
upon what conditions More yielded to the King’s entreaties, Roper does not
mention in this connection; but that he maintained his independence of
thought and action, may be inferred from the fact that eighteen years
after, when in peril of his life from Royal displeasure, he had occasion
upon his knees to remind his sovereign of ‘the most godly words that his
Highness spake unto him at his first coming into his noble service--the
most virtuous lesson that ever a prince taught his servant--willing him
_first to look to God, and after God unto him_!’[680]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Henry VIII. rises again in the favour of Erasmus.]

Now that Henry VIII. had apparently changed his policy, now that he was
giving up his pretensions to the crown of France, and no longer talking of
invading her shores, now that he seemed to be calling to his counsels the
very man who, next to Colet, had spoken more plainly than anyone else in
condemnation of that warlike policy in which Henry VIII. had so long
indulged, now that Henry VIII. himself seemed to be returning to his first
love of letters and the ‘new learning,’ the hopes of Erasmus began once
more to rely upon _him_ rather than upon any other of the princes of
Europe. Erasmus had lost his confidence in Leo X. Prince Charles was now
going to Spain, leaving the Netherlands in a state of confusion and
anarchy, a prey to the devastations of the ‘black band,’ and for the
present little could reasonably be expected from him, notwithstanding all
the good advice Erasmus had given him in the ‘Christian Prince.’

While Henry VIII. had been wild after military glory, and had seemed ready
to sacrifice everything to this dominant passion, Erasmus had thought it
useless to waste words upon him which he would not heed; but the war being
over in September 1517, he had sent him a copy of the ‘Christian Prince,’
and encouraged his royal endeavours to still the tempests which during the
past few years had so violently raged in human affairs. Nor is it without
significance that in this letter to Henry VIII. we find him using warm
words in commendation of a trait of the King’s character, which Erasmus
said he admired above all others; viz. this,--that he delighted ‘in the
converse of prudent and learned men, _especially of those who did not know
how to speak just what they thought would please_.’[681]

Under other circumstances such words written to Henry VIII. might have
seemed like satire or perhaps empty adulation, but written as they were
while Henry was as yet unsuccessfully trying to induce More to enter his
service, and only a few months after the publication of the ‘Utopia,’ they
do not read like words of flattery.

When in writing to Fisher he had spoken of England as ‘out of the world,
or perhaps the least corrupted portion of it,’ he had honestly expressed
his real feelings at a time when, whilst continental affairs were in
hopeless confusion and anarchy, there were at least some hopeful symptoms
that a better policy would be adopted for the future by Henry VIII.

[Sidenote: Erasmus thinks More will serve the best of kings.]

It was strictly in accordance with the same feelings that, on hearing that
More had yielded to the King’s wishes, he wrote to him on April 24, 1518,
not to congratulate him on the step he had taken, but to tell him that the
only thing which consoled him in regard to it was the consideration that
he would serve under ‘the best of kings.’ And from this remark he passed
by a natural train of thought to speak of the dangers which would attend
his own projected journey southwards through Germany, and bitterly to
allude to the ‘_novel clemency_’ of the Dukes of Cleves, Juliers, and
Nassau, who had been secretly conspiring to disperse in safety the ‘black
band’ of political ruffians, at whose depredations they had too long
connived. Had their scheme been successful, it would have cast loose these
lawless ruffians upon society without even the control of their robber
leaders. But, as it was, the people took the matter into their own hands,
and disconcerted the conspiracy of their princes. The peasantry,
exasperated by constant depredations, and thirsting for the destruction of
the robbers, had risen in a body and surrounded them. A chance blast from
a trumpet had revealed their whereabouts, and in the _mêlée_ which
followed, more than a thousand were cut to pieces; the rest escaped to
continue their work of plunder.[682] It was not remarkable if, living in
the midst of anarchy such as this, Erasmus should envy the comparative
security of England, and even for the moment be inclined to praise the
harsh justice with which English robbers, instead of being secretly
protected and encouraged, were sent to the gallows.[683]

[Sidenote: Erasmus going to Basle.]

Erasmus had decided upon going to Basle, and in writing to Beatus
Rhenanus[684] to inform him that he intended to do so in the course of the
summer, ‘if it should be safe to travel through Germany,’ he spoke of the
condition of Germany as ‘_worse than that of the infernal regions_,’ on
account of the numbers of robbers; and asked what princes could be about
to allow such a state of things to exist.

‘All sense of shame,’ he wrote, ‘has vanished altogether from human
affairs. I see that the very height of tyranny has been reached. The Pope
and kings count the people not as men, but _as cattle in the market_.’

[Sidenote: Erasmus leaves Louvain for Basle.]

Once more, on May 1, Erasmus wrote to Colet before leaving for Basle, to
tell him that he really was going, in spite of the dangers of travel
through a country full of disbanded ruffians; to complain of the cruel
clemency of princes who spare scoundrels and cut-throats, and yet do not
spare their own subjects, to whom those who oppress their people are
dearer than the people themselves; and to reiterate his intention to fly
back to his English friends as soon as his work at Basle should be
accomplished. And then he ventured on the journey.[685]




CHAPTER XV.


I. ERASMUS ARRIVES AT BASLE--HIS LABOURS THERE (1518).

Erasmus arrived at Basle on Ascension Day, May 13, 1518.[686]

[Sidenote: Erasmus reaches Basle and falls ill.]

But though he had escaped the robbers, and survived the toils of the
journey, he reached Basle in a state of health so susceptible of
infection, that, in the course of a day or two, he found himself laid up
with that very disease which he had mentioned in his letter to Colet as
prevalent at Basle, and as one great reason why he had shrunk from going
there.[687]

But even an attack of this ‘plague’ did not prevent him from beginning his
work at once.

[Sidenote: His reply to Dr. Eck.]

Whilst suffering from its early symptoms, during intervals of pain and
weakness,[688] he wrote a careful reply to a letter he had received from
Dr. Eck, Professor of the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria,
complaining, as Luther had already done, indirectly through Spalatin, of
the anti-Augustinian proclivities of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’[689]

Luther and Eck had already had communications on theological subjects.
The Wittemberg theologian had sent to his Ingolstadt brother for his
approval, through a mutual friend, a set of propositions aimed against the
Pelagian tendencies of the times.[690]

But Eck and Luther, whilst both admirers of St. Augustine, and both
jealous of Erasmus and his anti-Augustinian proclivities, rested their
objections on somewhat different grounds.

[Sidenote: Dr. Eck holds to plenary inspiration.]

Luther looked coldly on the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ mainly because he thought
he found in its doctrinal statements traces of Pelagian heresy. Dr. Eck
objected not so much to any error in doctrine which it might contain, as
_to the method of Biblical criticism which it adopted throughout_. He
objected to the suggestion it contained, that the Apostles quoted the old
Testament from memory, and, therefore, not always correctly. He objected
to the insinuation that their Greek was colloquial, and not strictly
classical.

With regard to the first point, he referred to the well-known, and, as he
thought, ‘most excellent argument of St. Augustine’ against the admission
of _any_ error in the Scriptures, lest the authority of the _whole_ should
be lost. And with regard to the second, he charged Erasmus with making
himself a preceptor to the Holy Spirit, as though the Holy Spirit had been
wanting in attention or learning, and required the defects resulting from
his negligence to be now, after so many centuries, supplied by Erasmus.

He made these criticisms, he wrote, not in the spirit of opposition, but
because he could not agree with the preference shown by Erasmus to Jerome
over Augustine. It was the one point in which the Erasmian creed was at
fault. Nearly all the learned world was Erasmian already, but this one
thing all Erasmians complained of in Erasmus--that he would not study the
works of St. Augustine. If he would but do this, Eck was sure he would
acknowledge that it would be rash indeed to assign to St. Augustine any
other than the highest place amongst the fathers of the Church.[691]

[Sidenote: Reply of Erasmus.]

Erasmus replied[692] to the first objection, that, in his judgment, the
authority of the whole Scriptures would _not_ fall with any slip of memory
on the part of an Evangelist--_e.g._ if he put ‘Isaiah’ by mistake for
‘Jeremiah’--because no point of importance turns upon it. We do not
forthwith think evil of the whole life of Peter because Augustine and
Ambrose affirm that even after he had received the Holy Ghost he fell into
error on some points; and so our faith is not altogether shaken in a whole
book because it has some defects.

With regard to the colloquial Greek of the Apostles, he took the authority
of Jerome, and Origen, and the Greek fathers as good evidence on that
point.

With respect to his preference for Jerome over Augustine, he knew what he
was about. His preference for Jerome was deliberate, and rested on good
grounds. When he came to the passage in Eck’s letter, where he stated that
all Erasmians complained of his one fault--not reading Augustine--he could
not read it without laughing. ‘I know of nothing in me,’ he wrote, ‘why
anyone should wish to be _Erasmian_, and I altogether hate that term of
division. We are all _Christians_, and labour, each in his own sphere, to
advance the glory of Christ.’ But that he had not read the works of
Augustine! Why, they were the very first that he did read of the writings
of the fathers. He had read them over and over again. Let his critics
examine his works, they would find that there was scarcely a work of St.
Augustine which was not there quoted many hundred times. Let him compare
Augustine and Jerome on their merits. Jerome was a pupil of Origen, and
one page of Origen teaches more Christian philosophy than ten of
Augustine. Augustine scarcely knew Greek; at all events was not at home in
Greek writers. Besides this, by his own confession, he was busied with his
bishopric, and could hardly snatch time to learn what he taught to others.
Jerome devoted _thirty-five years_ to the study of the Scriptures.

In the meantime, in conclusion, he observed that the difference of opinion
between himself and Eck upon these points need not interrupt their
friendship, any more than the difference of opinion upon the same point
between Jerome and Augustine interrupted theirs.

Having despatched this reply to Eck, and recovered from what proved a
short but sharp attack of illness, Erasmus wrote to More on the 1st of
June to advise him of his safe arrival at Basle, of his illness and
recovery, and to express the hope that a few months would see his labours
there accomplished. If the Fates were propitious, he hoped to return to
Brabant in September.[693]

       *       *       *       *       *

What were the works which he had come to Basle to publish during these
tumultuous times?

[Sidenote: New editions of works of Erasmus.]

The second edition of the New Testament will require a separate notice
by-and-by. A new and corrected edition of More’s ‘Utopia’ was already in
hand, and waiting only for a letter which Budæus was writing to be
prefixed to it.[694] A new edition of the ‘Institutio Principis
Christiani’ was also to come forth from the press of Froben.[695]

It might seem hopeless to put forth works such as these, expressing views
so far in advance of the practices of the times, but the fact that new
editions were so rapidly called for proved that they were eagerly read. In
the same letter in which Erasmus ridiculed to More the projected
expedition against the Turks, and spoke of the violence of the German
press and the satire which had just appeared, ‘_Julius de Cœlo exclusus_,’
he spoke of his having seen another edition of the ‘Utopia’ just printed
at Paris.[696]

In the previous year, 1517, Froben had printed a sixth edition of the
‘Adagia,’ which had now expanded into a thick folio volume, and become a
receptacle for the views of Erasmus on many chance subjects. In this
edition he had expressed his indignant feelings against the political
anarchy and Papal scandals of the period, and he told More to look
particularly at what he had written on the adage, ‘_Ut fici oculis
incumbunt_;’[697] in which was an allusion to the ‘insatiable avarice,
unbridled lust, most pernicious cruelty, and great tyranny’ of princes;
and to the evil influence of those ecclesiastics who, ever ready to do the
dirty work of princes and popes, abetted and mixed themselves up with the
worst scandals.[698] And again it is remarkable to find how rapidly this
ponderous edition of the ‘Adagia’ must have been sold to admit of another
following in 1520, still further increased in bulk--a large folio volume
of nearly 800 pages.

[Sidenote: Collections of letters printed.]

[Sidenote: Letter to Volzius.]

In addition to these reprints, two separate collections of some of his
letters were printed by Froben in 1518,[699] evidently intended to aid in
spreading more widely those plain-spoken views on various subjects which
he had expressed in his private letters to his friends during the last few
years. Another edition was also called for of the ‘Enchiridion;’ and
Erasmus, on his arrival at Basle, burning as well he might with increased
indignation against the scandals of the times, wrote a new preface, in the
form of a letter to Volzius, the Abbot of a monastery at Schelestadt--a
letter which, containing in almost every line of it pointed allusion to
passing events, was eagerly devoured by thinking men all over Europe, and
passed through several editions in a very short space of time.

It was a letter in which he repeated the conviction which he had learned
twenty years before from Colet, that the true Christian creed was
exceedingly simple, adapted not for the learned alone, but for _all_ men.

And upon this ground he defended the simplicity of his little handy-book,
contrasting it with the ‘_Summa_’ of Aquinas. ‘Let the great doctors,
which must needs be but few in comparison with other men, study and busy
themselves in those great volumes.’ The ‘unlearned and rude multitude,
which Christ died for, ought to be provided for also.’ ‘Christ would that
the way should be plain and open to every man,’ and therefore, we
ourselves ought to endeavour, with all ‘our strength to make it as easy as
can be.’[700]

He then alluded to the war against the Turks, and hinted that it would be
better to try to convert them. Do we wonder, he urged, that Christianity
does not spread? that we cannot convert the Turks? What is the use of
laying before them the ponderous tomes of the Schoolmen, full of ‘thorny
and cumbrous and inextricably subtle imaginations of instants,
formalities, quiddities,’ and the like? We ought to place before them the
simple philosophy of Christ contained in the _Gospels_ and _Apostolic
Epistles_, simplifying even their phraseology; giving them in fact the
pith of them _in as simple and clear a form as possible_. And of what use
would even this be if our lives belied our creed? They must see that we
ourselves are servants and imitators of Jesus Christ, that we do not covet
anything of theirs for ourselves, but that we desire their salvation and
the glory of Christ. This was the true, pure, and powerful theology which
in olden time subjected to Christ the pride of philosophers and the
sceptres of kings.

Erasmus then, after a passing censure of the scandals brought upon
Christianity by the warlike policy of priests and princes, the sale of
indulgences, and so forth, proceeded to criticise the religion of modern
monks, their reliance on ceremonies, their degeneracy, and worldliness.

‘... Once the monastic life was a _retreat_ or _retirement_ from the
world, of men who were called out of idolatry to Christ: now those who are
called monks are found in the very vortex of worldly business, exercising
a sort of tyrannical rule over the affairs of men. They alone are holy,
other men are scarcely Christians. _Why should we thus narrow the
Christian profession, when Christ wished it to be as broad as
possible?_[701] Except the big name, what is a _state_ but one great
monastery? Let no one despise another because his manner of life is
different.... In every path of life let all strive to attain to the mind
of Christ [_scopum Christi_]. Let us assist one another, neither envying
those who surpass us, nor despising those who may lag behind. And if
anyone should excel another, let him beware lest he be like the Pharisee
in the Gospel, who recounted his good deeds to God; rather let him follow
the teaching of Christ, and say, “I am an unprofitable servant.” No one
more truly has faith than he who distrusts himself. No one is really
farther from true religion than he who thinks himself most religious.
Nothing is worse for Christian piety than for what is really of the world
to be misconstrued to be of Christ--for human authority to be preferred to
Divine.’[702]

It was a letter firm and calm in its tone, and well adapted to the end in
view. It was dated from Basle, in August, 1518.

The ‘Enchiridion,’ with this prefatory letter, was published in September,
together with some minor works, amongst which was the ‘Discussion on the
Agony in the Garden,’ including Colet’s reply, in which he had expressed
his views on the theory of the ‘manifold senses’ of Scripture, the whole
forming an elegant quarto volume printed in the very best type of Froben.
Another beautiful edition was published at Cologne in the following year.


II. THE SECOND EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT (1518-19).

The time had come for Erasmus more fully and publicly to reply to the
various attacks which had been made upon the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’

Its most bitter opponents had been the ignorant Scotists and monks who
were caricatured in the ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.’ ‘There are none,’
wrote Erasmus to a friend, ‘who bark at me more furiously than they who
have never seen even the outside of my book. Try the experiment upon any
of them, and you will find what I tell you is true. When you meet any one
of these brawlers, let him rave on at my New Testament till he has made
himself hoarse and out of breath, then ask him gently whether he has read
it. If he have the impudence to say “_yes_,” urge him to produce one
passage that deserves to be blamed. You will find that he cannot.’[703]

To opponents such as these, Erasmus had sufficiently replied by the
re-issue of the ‘Enchiridion’ with the new prefatory letter to Volzius.

But there was another class of objectors to the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ who
were not ignorant and altogether bigoted, and who honestly differed from
the views of Erasmus; some of them, like Luther, because he did not follow
the Augustinian theology; others, like Eck, who adhered to Augustine’s
theory of verbal inspiration; others, again, who were jealous of the
tendencies of the ‘new learning,’ and saw covert heresies in all
departures from the beaten track.

[Sidenote: Second edition of the New Testament.]

The reply of Erasmus to these was a second edition of his New Testament;
and this was already in course of publication at Froben’s press.[704]

Erasmus took pains in the second edition to correct an immense number of
little errors which had crept into the first. But in those points in which
it was the expression of the views of the Oxford Reformers, he altered
nothing, unless it were to express them more clearly and strongly, or to
defend what he had said in the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’

Thus the passage condemned by Luther, in which the resort by theologians
to the doctrine of ‘original sin’ was compared to the invention of
epicycles by mediæval astronomers, was retained in all essential
particulars without modification.[705]

So, too, the passages censured by Eck as inimical to the Augustinian
theory of the inspiration of the Scriptures, were not only retained, but
amplified, while opportunity was taken to strengthen the arguments in
favour of the freer view of inspiration held by the Oxford Reformers.[706]

Again; the main drift and spirit of the body of the work remained
unchanged. Its title, however, was altered from ‘Novum Instrumentum’ to
‘Novum Testamentum.’

In speaking of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ it was observed, that perhaps the
most remarkable portion of the work was the prefatory matter, especially
the ‘Paraclesis.’

[Sidenote: ‘Paraclesis.’]

This ‘Paraclesis’ remained the same in the second edition as in the ‘Novum
Instrumentum,’ including the passages quoted in a former chapter, urging
the translation of the New Testament into every language, so that it might
become the common property of the ploughman and the mechanic, and even of
Turks and Saracens, and ending also with the passage in which Erasmus had
so forcibly summed up the value of the Gospels and Epistles, by pointing
out how ‘living and breathing a picture’ they presented of Christ
‘speaking, healing, dying, and rising again, bringing his life so vividly
before the eye, that we almost seem to have seen it ourselves.’

[Sidenote: ‘Ratio Veræ Theologiæ.’]

Next to the ‘Paraclesis,’ in the first edition, had followed a few
paragraphs treating of the ‘method of theological study.’ This in the
second edition was so greatly enlarged as to become an important feature
of the work. It was also printed separately, and passed through several
editions under the title, ‘_Ratio Veræ Theologiæ_.’

Erasmus in this treatise pointed out, as he had done before, the great
advantages of the study of the New Testament in its original language,
and urged that all branches of knowledge, natural philosophy, geography,
history, classics, mythology, should be brought to bear upon it, again
assigning the reason which he had before given,--‘that we may follow the
story, and seem not only to read it but to _see_ it; for it is wonderful
how much light--how much _life_, so to speak--is thrown by this method
into what before seemed dry and lifeless.’

[Sidenote: Example of the historical method from Origen.]

Contrasting the results of this method with that commonly in use in
lectures and sermons, he exclaimed, ‘How these very things which were
meant to warm and to enliven, themselves lie cold and without any life!’
And then, to give an example of the true method, he recommended the
student to study the homily of Origen on ‘Abraham commanded to sacrifice
his son,’ in which a type or example is set before our eyes, to show that
the power of faith is stronger than all human passions. The object [of
Origen] is to point out, dwelling on each little circumstance, by what and
how many ways the trial struck home over and over again to the heart of
the father. ‘Take, he said, thy _son_. What parent’s heart would not
soften at the name of son? But that the sacrifice might be still greater,
it is added--thy _dearest_ son--and yet more emphatic--_whom thou lovest_.
Here surely, was enough for a human heart to grapple with.... But Isaac
was more than merely a son, he was the son of promise. The good man longed
for posterity, and all his hope depended on the life of this one child. He
was commanded to ascend a high mountain, and it took him _three days_ to
get there. During all the time, what conflicting thoughts must have rent
the heart of the parent! his human affections on the one side, the Divine
command on the other. As they are going, the boy carrying the wood, calls
to his father who bears the fire and the sword, “Father!” and he replies,
“What dost thou want, my son?” How must the heart of the old man have
throbbed with the pulsations of his love! Who would not have been moved
with loving pity for the simplicity of the obedient boy, when he said,
“Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the victim?” In how many ways
was the faith of Abraham tried! And now mark with what firmness, with what
constancy, did he go on doing what he was commanded to do. He did not
reply to God, he did not argue with him concerning his promised
faithfulness, he did not even mourn with his friends and relations over
his childlessness, as most men would have done to lighten their grief.
Seeing the place afar off, he told his servants to stop, lest any of them
should hinder his carrying out what was commanded.... He himself built the
altar; he himself bound the boy and put him on the wood; the sword
quivered in his grasp, and would have slain his only son, on whom all his
cherished hope of posterity depended, had not suddenly the voice of an
angel stayed the old man’s hand.’[707]

Thus (continued Erasmus), but more at length and more elegantly, are these
things related by Origen, I hardly know whether more to the pleasure or
profit of the reader; although, be it observed, they are construed
_altogether according to the historical sense_; nor does he apply any
other method to the Holy Scriptures than that which Donatus applies to the
comedies of Terence when elucidating the meaning of the classics.

It would almost seem that Erasmus might have read Luther’s letter to
Spalatin in which he complained of St. Jerome’s adhering upon principle to
the _historical_ sense, and mourned over the tendency he had seen in
Erasmus to follow his example. Luther spoke of this literal historical
method of interpretation as the reason why, in the hands of commentators
since St. Augustine, the Bible had been a _dead_ book. Erasmus thought, on
the other hand, that the only way to restore the position of the Bible as
a _living_ book was to apply to it the same method which common sense
applied to all other books; to resume, in fact, that literal and
historical method which had been neglected since the days of St. Jerome,
and which Origen had so successfully applied to the story of Abraham in
the passage he had cited. It is singular also that, in quoting from Origen
this example of the skilful application of the historical method, he was
quoting from the father whose rich imagination was mainly responsible for
the theory of ‘the manifold senses.’

The adoption of the common sense historical method of interpreting the
Scriptures, made it possible and needful to rest faith in Christianity on
its own evidences rather than upon the dogmatic authority of the Church,
her fathers, doctors, schoolmen, or councils. To this Erasmus seems to
have been fully alive. He was not prepared to throw aside the authority of
the general consent of Christians, especially of the early fathers, as a
thing of naught, but he was too conscious of the fallibility of all such
authority to rest wholly upon it. Besides, one evident object he had in
view was to gain back again to Christianity those disciples of the new
learning who, in revulsion from the Christianity of Alexander VI., Cæsar
Borgia, and Julius II., were trying to satisfy themselves with a refined
semi-pagan philosophy. And no ecclesiastical authority could avail to undo
what ecclesiastical scandal had done in that quarter.

The stress which in this little treatise Erasmus laid upon internal
evidence will be best illustrated by a few examples.

Take first the following argument for the truth of Christianity.

[Sidenote: Argument for the truth of Christianity.]

He recommends the student ‘attentively to observe, in both New and Old
Testaments, the wonderful compass and consistency of the whole story, if I
may so speak, of Christ becoming a man for our sake. This will help us not
only more rightly to understand what we read, but also to read with
greater faith. For no _lie_ was ever framed with such skill as in
everything to comport with itself. Compare the types and prophecies of the
Old Testament which foreshadowed Christ, and these same things happening
as they were revealed to the eye of faith. Next to them was the testimony
of angels--of Gabriel to the Virgin at his conception, and again of a
choir of angels at his birth. Then came the testimony of the shepherds,
then that of the Magi, besides that of Simeon and Anna. John the Baptist
foretold his coming. He pointed him out with his finger when he came as he
whose _coming_ the prophets predicted. And lest we should not know what to
hope for from him, he added, “Behold him who taketh away the sin of the
world!”...

‘Next observe the whole course of his life, how he grew up to youth,
always in favour with both God and man.... At twelve years of age,
teaching and listening in the temple, he first gave a glimpse of what he
was. Then by his first miracle, at the marriage feast, in private, he made
himself known to a few. For it was not until after he had been baptized
and commended by the voice of his Father and the sign of the dove; lastly,
not until after he had been tried and proved by the forty days’ fast and
the temptation of Satan, that he commenced the work of _preaching_. Mark
his birth, education, preaching, death; you will find nothing but a
perfect example of poverty and humility, yea of innocence. The whole range
of his doctrine, as it was consistent with itself, so it was consistent
with his life, and also consistent with his nature. He taught innocence;
he himself so lived that not even suborned witnesses, after trying in many
ways to do so, could find anything that could plausibly be laid to his
charge. He taught gentleness: he himself was led as a lamb to the
slaughter. He taught poverty, and we do not read that he ever possessed
anything. He warned against ambition and pride: he himself washed his
disciples’ feet. He taught that this was the way to true glory and
immortality: he himself, by the ignominy of the cross, has obtained a name
which is above every name; and whilst he sought no earthly kingdom, he
earned the empire both of heaven and earth. When he rose from the dead, he
taught what he had taught before. He had taught that death is not to be
feared by the good, and on that account he showed himself risen again. In
the presence of the same disciples he ascended into heaven, that we might
know whither we are to strive to follow. Lastly, that heavenly Spirit
descended which by its inspiration made his apostles what Christ wished
them to be. You may perhaps find in the books of Plato or Seneca what is
not inconsistent with the teaching of Christ; you may find in the life of
Socrates some things which are certainly consistent with the life of
Christ; but this wide range, and all things belonging to it in harmonious
agreement _inter se_, you will find in _Christ_ alone. There are many
things in the prophets both divinely said and piously done, many things in
Moses and other men famous for holiness of life, but this complete range
you will not find in any _man_.’[708]...

From this general view of the ‘wonderful compass and consistency of the
whole story’ let us pass with Erasmus to details. We shall find him
following the same method in treating of each point, taking pains to rest
his belief rather on the evidence of _facts_ than upon mere dogmatic
authority.

[Sidenote: Proofs of the innocence of Christ.]

Thus in treating of the ‘_innocence_ of Christ,’ it would have been easy
to have quoted a few authoritative passages from the Apostolic epistles,
and to have relied upon these, but Erasmus chose rather to rest on the
variety of evidence afforded by the many different kinds of witnesses
whose testimony is recorded in the New Testament. After alluding to the
testimony of the voice from heaven, of John the Baptist, and of the
_friends_ of Jesus, he thus proceeds:--

‘... The men who were sent to take him bore witness that “never man spake
as this man.”... _Pilate_ also bore witness, “I am pure from the blood of
this _just man_; see ye to it.” Pilate’s _wife_ also bore witness, “have
nothing to do with that _just person_.”... Hostile judges recognised his
innocence, rejecting the evidence of the many witnesses. They declared,
and themselves were witnesses, that the suborned men _lied_: they had
nothing to object but the saying about the destruction and rebuilding of
the temple.... The wretched _Judas_ confessed, “I have sinned, in
betraying _innocent_ blood.” The centurion at the cross confessed, “truly
this was the Son of God.” The wicked Pharisees confessed that they had
nothing to lay to his charge why he should be crucified, but the saying
about the temple. Thus was he so guiltless, that nothing could even be
_invented_ against him with any show of _probability_.’[709]

[Sidenote: Proofs of Christ’s humanity.]

In the same way, in order to show that Christ was truly a _man_, instead
of quoting texts to prove it, he pointed to the facts ‘that he called
himself the “Son of man;” that he grew up through the usual stages of
growth; that he slept, ate, hungered, and thirsted; that he was wearied by
travel; that he was touched by human passions. We read in Matthew that he
pitied the crowd; in Mark, that he was angry and grieved and groaned in
spirit; in John, that his mind was moved before his passion; that such was
his anguish in the garden that his sweat was like drops of blood; that he
thirsted on the cross, which was what usually happened during crucifixion;
that he wept over the city of Jerusalem; that he wept and was moved at the
grave of Lazarus.’[710]

[Sidenote: Proofs of the divinity of Christ.]

And in the same way to prove Christ’s divinity, Erasmus pointed to his
miracles, and their consistency with his own declarations. Again he
wrote, ‘Who indeed would look for true salvation from a mere man?... He
said that he was sent from heaven, that he was the Son of God, that he had
been in heaven. He called God his Father; and the Jews understood what he
meant by it, for they said, “Thou, a man, makest thyself God.” Lastly, he
rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sent down the Paraclete, by
whom the Apostles were suddenly refreshed.’[711]

[Sidenote: The mode by which Christ influenced the world.]

Another subject upon which Erasmus dwelt was ‘the way which was adopted by
Christ to draw the world under his influence.’ He showed how the prophets
and the preaching of John had prepared the way for him. ‘He did not seek
suddenly to change the world; for it is difficult to remove from men’s
minds what they have imbibed in childhood, and what has been handed down
to them by common consent from their ancestors. First, John went before
with the baptism of repentance; then the Apostles went forth, not yet
announcing the coming Messiah, but only that the kingdom of heaven was at
hand. By means of poor and unlearned men the thing began, ... and for a
long while he bore with the rudeness and distrust of even these, that they
might not seem to have believed rashly. Thomas pertinaciously disbelieved,
and not until he had touched the marks of the nails and the spear did he
exclaim, “My Lord and my God!” When about to ascend to heaven, he
upbraided all of them for their hardness of heart and difficulty in
believing what they had seen.... He added the evidence of miracles, but
even these were nothing but acts of kindness. He never worked a miracle
for anyone who had not faith. The crowd were witnesses of nearly all he
did. He sent the lepers to the priests, not that they might be healed, but
that it might be more clearly known that they were healed.... And for all
the benefits he rendered, he never once took any reward, nor glory, nor
money, nor pleasure, nor rule, so that the suspicion of a corrupt motive
might not be imputed to him. And it was not till after the Holy Spirit had
been sent that the Gospel trumpet was sounded through the whole world,
_lest it should seem that he had sought anything for himself while alive_.
Moreover, there is no testimony held more efficacious amongst mortals than
blood. By his own death, and that of his disciples, he set a seal to the
truth of his teaching. I have already alluded to the consistency of his
whole life.’[712]

[Sidenote: Precepts of the New Testament.]

These passages will serve as examples of the means by which, in this
treatise, Erasmus sought to bring out the facts of the life of Christ as
the true foundation of the Christian faith, instead of the dogmas of
scholastic theology. After thus thoughtfully dwelling upon the facts of
the life of Christ, he proceeds to examine his teaching, and he concludes
that there were two things which he peculiarly and perpetually
inculcated--faith and love--and, after describing them more at length, he
writes, ‘Read the New Testament through, you will not find in it any
precept which pertains to _ceremonies_. Where is there a single word of
meats or vestments? Where is there any mention of fasts and the like?
_Love_ alone He calls _His_ precept. Ceremonies give rise to differences;
from love flows peace.... And yet _we_ burden those who have been made
free by the blood of Christ with all these almost senseless and more than
Jewish constitutions!’[713]

Finally, turning from the New Testament and its theology to the Schoolmen
and theirs, he exclaimed, ‘What a spectacle it is to see a divine of
eighty years old knowing nothing but mere sophisms!’[714] and ended with
the sentences which have already been quoted as the conclusion of the
shorter treatise prefixed to the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’

This somewhat lengthy examination of ‘the method of true theology’ will
not have been fruitless, if it should place beyond dispute what was
pointed out with reference to the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ that its value lay
more in its prefaces, and its main drift and spirit as a whole, than in
the critical exactness of its Greek text or the correctness of its
readings. If it could be said of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ that much of its
value lay in its preface--in its beautiful ‘_Paraclesis_’--it may also be
said that the importance of the second edition was greatly enhanced by the
addition of the ‘_Ratio Veræ Theologiæ_.’

And as, like its forerunner, this second edition went forth under the
shield of Leo X.’s approval, with the additional sanction of the
Archbishops of Basle and of Canterbury, and with all the prestige of
former success, it must have been felt to be not only a firm and
dignified, but also a triumphant reply to the various attacks which had
been made upon Erasmus--a reply more powerful than the keenest satire or
the most bitter invective could have been--a reply in which the honest
dissentient found a calm restatement of what perhaps he had only half
comprehended; the candid critic, the errors of which he complained
corrected; and the blind bigot, the luxury of something further to
denounce.[715]


III. ERASMUS’S HEALTH GIVES WAY (1518).

[Sidenote: Erasmus leaves Basle.]

[Sidenote: Reaches Louvain ill.]

After several months’ hard and close labour in Froben’s office in the
autumn of 1518, Erasmus left Basle, jaded and in poor health. As he
proceeded on his journey to Louvain his maladies increased. Carbuncles
made their appearance, and added to the pains of travel. He reached
Louvain thoroughly ill; and turned into the house of the hospitable
printer, Thierry Martins, almost exhausted. A physician was sent for. He
told Martins and his wife that Erasmus had the plague, and never came
again for fear of contagion. Another was sent for, but he likewise did not
repeat his visit. A third came, and pronounced it not to be the plague. A
fourth, at the first mention of ulcers, was seized with fear, and though
he promised to call again, sent his servant instead. And thus for weeks
lay Erasmus, ill and neglected by the doctors, in the house of the good
printer at Louvain.[716]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Joy of the monks at the report of the death of Erasmus.]

Some monks were drinking together at Cologne, a city where Erasmus had
many bigoted enemies. One of the fraternity of preaching friars brought
to them the news that Erasmus was dead at Louvain! The intelligence was
received with applause by the convivial monks, and again and again was the
applause repeated, when the preacher added, in his monkish Latin, that
Erasmus had died, like a heretic as he was, ‘_sine lux, sine crux, sine
Deus_.’[717]




CHAPTER XVI.


I. ERASMUS DOES NOT DIE (1518).

The monks of Cologne were disappointed. Erasmus did not die. His illness
turned out not to be the plague. After four weeks’ nursing at the good
printer’s house, he was well enough to be removed to his own lodgings
within the precincts of the college. Thence he wrote to Beatus Rhenanus in
these words:--

    _Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus._[718]

           *       *       *       *       *

    [Sidenote: Erasmus describes his illness.]

    ‘My dear Beatus,--Who would have believed that this frail delicate
    body, now weaker from increasing age, after the toils of so many
    journeys, after the labours of so many studies, should have survived
    such an illness? You know how hard I had been working at Basle just
    before.... A suspicion had crossed my mind that this year would prove
    fatal to me, one malady succeeded so rapidly upon another, and each
    worse than the one which preceded it. When the disease was at its
    height, I neither felt distressed with desire of life, nor did I
    tremble at the fear of death. All my hope was in Christ alone, and I
    prayed for nothing to him except that he would do what he thought
    best for me. Formerly, when a youth, I remember I used to tremble at
    the very name of death!...’

Had Erasmus fallen a victim to the plague and died at the house of Martins
the printer, as the friar had reported, and the convivial monks had too
readily believed, it does not seem likely that his death would have been
as dark and godless as they fancied it might have been. As it was, instead
of dying without lighted tapers and crucifix and transubstantiated wafer,
or, in monkish jargon, ‘_sine lux, sine crux, sine Deus_,’ their enemy
_still lived_, and the disappointed monks, instead of ill-concealed
rejoicings over his death, were obliged to content themselves for many
years to come with muttering in quite another tone, ‘It were good for that
man if he had never been born.’[719]


II. MORE AT THE COURT OF HENRY VIII. (1518).

[Sidenote: The sweating sickness.]

[Sidenote: Death of Ammonius.]

While the plague had been raging in Germany, the sweating sickness had
been continuing its ravages in England. Before More left for Calais it had
struck down, after a few days’ illness, Ammonius, with whom Erasmus and
More had long enjoyed intimate friendship. Wolsey also had narrowly
escaped with his life, after repeated attacks. When More returned from the
embassy he found the sickness still raging. In the spring of 1518 the
court was removed to Abingdon, to escape the contagion of the great city;
and whilst there, More, who now was obliged to follow the King wherever he
might go, had to busy himself with precautionary measures to prevent its
spread in Oxford, where it had made its appearance.[720]

[Sidenote: Greeks and Trojans at Oxford.]

Whilst at Abingdon, he was called upon, also, to interfere with his
influence to quiet a foolish excitement which had seized the students at
Oxford. It was not the spread of the sweating sickness which had caused
their alarm; but the increasing taste for the study of Greek had roused
the fears of divines of the old school. The enemies of the ‘new learning’
had raised a faction against it. The students had taken sides, calling
themselves Greeks and Trojans, and, not content with wordy warfare, they
had come to open and public insult. At length, the most virulent abuse had
been poured upon the Greek language and literature, even from the
university pulpit, by an impudent and ignorant preacher. He had denounced
all who favoured Greek studies as ‘heretics;’ in his coarse phraseology,
those who taught the obnoxious language were ‘_diabolos maximos_’ and its
students ‘_diabolos minutulos_.’

More, upon hearing what had been passing, wrote a letter of indignant but
respectful remonstrance to the university authorities.[721] He and Pace
interested the King also in the affair, and at their suggestion he took
occasion to express his royal pleasure that the students ‘would do well to
devote themselves with energy and spirit to the study of Greek
literature;’ and so, says Erasmus, ‘silence was imposed upon these
brawlers.’[722]

[Sidenote: A foolish preacher at Court.]

On another occasion the King and his courtiers had attended Divine
service. The court preacher had, like the Oxford divine, indulged in abuse
of Greek literature and the modern school of interpretation--having
Erasmus and his New Testament in his eye. Pace looked at the King to see
what he thought of it. The King answered his look with a satirical smile.
After the sermon the divine was ordered to attend upon the King. It was
arranged that More should reply to the arguments he had urged against
Greek literature. After he had done so, the divine, instead of replying to
his arguments, dropped down on his knees before the King, and simply
prayed for forgiveness, urging, however, by way of extenuating his fault,
that he was carried away by the spirit in his sermon when he poured forth
all this abuse of the Greek language. ‘But,’ the King here observed, ‘that
spirit was not the spirit of _Christ_, but the spirit of _foolishness_.’
He then asked the preacher what works of Erasmus he had read. He had not
read any. ‘Then,’ said the King, ‘you prove yourself to be a fool, for you
condemn what you have never read.’ ‘I read once,’ replied the divine, ‘a
thing called the “Moria.”’... Pace here suggested that there was a decided
congruity between that and the preacher. And finally the preacher himself
relented so far as to admit:--‘After all I am not so _very_ hostile to
Greek letters, because they were derived from the Hebrew.’ The King,
wondering at the distinguished folly of the man, bade him retire, but with
strict injunctions never again to preach at Court![723]

So far, then, from More’s new position having extinguished his own
opinions or changed his views, he had the satisfaction of being able now
and then to advance the interests of the ‘new learning,’ and to act the
part of its ‘friend at court.’


III. THE EVENING OF COLET’S LIFE (1518-19).

[Sidenote: The sweating sickness.]

The sweating sickness continued its ravages in England, striking down one
here and another there with merciless rapidity. It was generally fatal on
the first day. If the patient survived twenty-four hours he was looked
upon as out of danger. But it was liable to recur, and sometimes attacked
the same person four times in succession. This was the case with Cardinal
Wolsey; whilst several of the royal retinue were attacked and carried off
at once, Wolsey’s strong constitution carried him through four successive
attacks.[724]

[Sidenote: Colet three times attacked by it.]

During the period of its ravages Colet was three times attacked by it and
survived, but with a constitution so shattered, and with symptoms so
premonitory of consumptive tendencies, as to suggest to him that the time
might not be far distant when he too must follow after his twenty-one
brothers and sisters, and leave his aged mother the survivor of all her
children.

Meanwhile an accidental ray of light falls here and there upon the
otherwise obscure life of Colet during these years of peril, revealing
little pictures, too beautiful in their simple consistency with all else
we know of him to be passed by unheeded.

The first glimpse we get of Colet reveals him engaged in the careful and
final completion of the rules and statutes by which his school was to be
governed after his own death. Having spent a good part of his life and his
fortune in the foundation of this school, as the best means of promoting
the cause which he had so deeply at heart, one might have expected that he
would have tried, in fixing his statutes, to give permanence and
perpetuity to his own views. This is what most people try to do by
endowments of this kind.

No sooner do most reformers clear away a little ground, and discover what
they take to be truths, than they attempt, by organising a sect, founding
endowments, and framing articles and trust-deeds, to secure the permanent
tradition of their own views to posterity in the form in which they are
apprehended by themselves. Hence, in the very act of striking off the
fetters of the past, they are often forging the fetters of the future.
Even the Protestant Reformers, whilst on the one hand bravely breaking the
yoke under which their ancestors had lived in bondage, ended by fixing
another on the neck of their posterity. Those who remained in the old
bondage found themselves, as the result of the Reformation, bound still
tighter under Tridentine decrees: whilst those who had joined the exodus,
and entered the promised land of the Reformers, found it to be a land of
almost narrower boundaries than the one they had left. Freed from Papal
thraldom it might be, but bound down by an Augustinian theology as rigid
and dogmatic as that from which they had escaped.

If Colet did not do likewise, he resisted with singular wisdom and success
a temptation which besets every one under his circumstances. That Colet
strove to found no sect of his own has already been seen. If the movement
which he had done so much to set agoing had produced its fruits--if a
school or party had been the result--he had not called it, or felt it to
be, in any way his _own_; he might call it ‘Erasmican’ in joke, and leave
Erasmus indignantly to repudiate ‘that name of division;’ but Erasmus
expressed the view of Colet as well as his own when he said to the abbot,
‘Why should we try to narrow what Christ intended to be broad?’

Perfectly consistent with this feeling, Colet did not now show any anxiety
to perpetuate his own particular views by means of the power which, as the
founder of the endowment, he had a perfect right to exercise. The truth
was, I think, that he retained the spirit of free enquiry--the mind open
to light from whatever direction--to the last, in full faith that the
facts of Christianity--in so far as they are facts--must have everything
to gain and nothing to lose from the discovery of other facts in other
fields of knowledge. As I have before pointed out, the Oxford Reformers
felt that they were living in an age of discovery and progress; they never
dreamed that they had reached finality either in knowledge or creed; it
would have been a sad blow to their hopes if they had been told that they
had. They took a humble view of their own attainments, and had faith in
the future.

[Sidenote: Colet settles the statutes of his school.]

In this spirit do we find Colet in these days of peril from the sweating
sickness, and conscious that his shattered health must soon give way,
settling the statutes of his school with a wisdom seldom surpassed even in
more modern times.

First, with great practical shrewdness, instead of putting his school
under the charge of ecclesiastics or clergymen, he intrusted it entirely
‘to the most honest and faithful fellowship of the _Mercers_ of London.’
As Erasmus expressed it, ‘of the whole concern, he set in charge, not a
bishop, not a chapter, not dignitaries, but married citizens of
established reputation.’[725] Time had been when Colet had regarded
‘marriage’ as almost an unholy thing. But he had seen much both of the
church and the world since then; and as perhaps his faith in Dionysian
speculations had lessened, his English common sense had more and more
asserted its own. He had, as already mentioned, wisely advised Thomas More
to marry. In his ‘Right fruitful Admonition concerning the Order of a good
Christian Man’s Life,’ from which I have quoted before, he had said, ‘If
thou intend to marry, or be married, and hast a good wife, thank our Lord
therefor, for she is of his sending.’ So now he intrusted his school to
‘married citizens;’ and Erasmus adds, ‘when he was asked the reason, he
said, that nothing indeed is certain in human affairs, but that yet
amongst _these_ he had found the least corruption.[726]... He used to
declare that he had nowhere found less corrupt morals than among married
people, because natural affection, the care of their children, and
domestic duties, are like so many rails which keep them from sliding into
all kinds of vice.’[727]

In defining the duties and salaries of the masters of his school, he
provided expressly that they might be married men (and those chosen by him
actually were so);[728] but they were to hold their office ‘in no rome of
continuance and perpetuity, but upon their duty in the school.’ The
chaplain was to be ‘some good, honest, and virtuous man, and to help to
teach in the school.’

Respecting the children he expressed his desire to be that they should not
be received into the school until they could read and write fairly, and
explained ‘what they shall be taught’ in general terms; ‘for,’ said he,
‘it passeth my wit to devise and determine in particular.’

Then, last of all, he added the following clause, headed, ‘Liberty to
Declare the Statutes:’--

[Sidenote: Colet wisely gives power to alter the statutes.]

‘And notwithstanding these statutes and ordinances before written, in
which I have declared my mind and will; yet because in time to come many
things may and shall survive and grow by many occasions and causes which
at the making of this book was not possible to come to mind; in
consideration of the assured truth and circumspect wisdom and faithful
goodness of the most honest and substantial fellowship of the Mercery of
London, to whom I have committed all the care of the school, and trusting
in their fidelity and love that they have to God and man and to the
school; and also believing verily that they shall always dread the great
wrath of God:--_Both all this that is said, and all that is not said,
which hereafter shall come into my mind while I live to be said, I leave
it wholly to their discretion and charity_: I mean of the wardens and
assistances of the fellowship, with such other counsel as they shall call
unto them--good lettered and learned men--_they to add and diminish of
this book and to supply it in every default_; and also to declare in it
every obscurity and darkness as time and place and just occasion shall
require; calling the dreadful God to look upon them in all such business,
and exhorting them to fear the terrible judgment of God, which seeth in
darkness, and shall render to every man according to his works; and
finally, praying the great Lord of mercy, for their faithful dealing in
this matter, now and always to send unto them in this world much wealth
and prosperity, and after this life much joy and glory.’[729]

This done, he wrote in the Book of Statutes the following
memorandum:--‘This book I, John Colet, delivered into the hands of Master
Lilly the 18th day of June 1518, that he may keep it and observe it in the
school.’[730]

[Sidenote: Colet prepares his tomb at St. Paul’s.]

Having completed the statutes of his school, Colet turned his attention to
a few other final arrangements, including certain reforms in the church of
St. Paul’s.[731] He had already prepared a simple tomb for himself at the
side of the choir of the great cathedral with which his labours had been
so closely connected, and the simple inscription, ‘Johannes Coletus,’ was
already carved on the plain monumental stone which was to cover his grave.
Thus he was ready to depart whenever the summons should arrive. But the
pale messenger came not yet.

Meanwhile Colet retained his interest in passing events. If he seemed to
take little part in public affairs, it was not owing to his want of
interest in them. It would almost seem that he sympathised much during
this quiet season with Luther’s attack upon Indulgences, and was a reader
of those of his works--chiefly pamphlets--which had reached England. This,
however, rests only upon the remark of Erasmus, that he was in the habit
of reading heretical books, declaring that he often got more good from
them than from the Schoolmen;[732] and the further statement made
incidentally by Erasmus to Luther, that there were in England some men in
the highest position who thought well of his works.[733] His close
retirement may be accounted for as well by his shattered health as by the
circumstance that Bishop Fitzjames still lived in his grey hairs to harass
him.

It was probably to secure a safe retreat in emergency beyond the
jurisdiction of this bigoted bishop that Colet was building his ‘nest,’ as
he called it, within the precincts of the Charterhouse--not in London, but
at Sheen, near Richmond. Whether he ever really entered this ‘nest,’ so
long in course of preparation, does not appear. Perhaps there was no need
for it.

[Sidenote: Colet receives a letter from Marquard von Hatstein.]

Little as of late he had mixed himself up with public affairs, he was
still looked up to by those who, through the report of Erasmus, recognised
his almost apostolic piety and wisdom. Thus, in his quiet retirement, he
received a letter from Marquard von Hatstein, one of the canons of Maintz,
a connection of Ulrich von Hutten’s,[734] mentioned by Erasmus as ‘a most
excellent young man;’[735] one of the little group of men who, under the
lead of the Archbishop of Maintz, had boldly taken the side of Reuchlin
against his persecutors--a letter which shows so true an appreciation of
Colet’s character and relation to the movement which was now known as
‘Erasmian,’ that it must have been exceedingly grateful to the feelings of
Colet, now that he had set his house in order, and was ready to leave in
other hands the work which he himself had commenced.

    _Marquard von Hatstein to John Colet._[736]

    ‘I have often thought with admiration of _your_ blessedness, who born
    to wealth and of so illustrious a family have added to these gifts of
    fortune manners and intellectual culture abundantly corresponding
    therewith. For such is your learning, piety, and manner of life, such
    lastly your Christian constancy, that notwithstanding all these gifts
    of fortune, you seem to care for little but that you may run in the
    path of Christ in so noble a spirit, that you are not surpassed by any
    even of those who call themselves “mendicants.” For they in many
    things simulate and dissimulate for the sake of sensual pleasures.

    ‘When recently the trumpet of cruel war sounded so terribly, how did
    you hold up against it the image of Christ! the olive-branch of peace!
    You exhorted us to tolerance, to concord, to the yielding up of our
    goods for the good of a brother, instead of invading one another’s
    rights. You told us that there was no cause of war between Christians,
    who are bound together by holy ties in a love more than fraternal. And
    many other things of a like nature did you urge, with so great
    authority, that I may truly say that the virtue of Christ thus set
    forth by Colet was seen from afar. And thus did you discomfit the dark
    designs of your enemies. Men raging against the truth, you conquered
    with the mildness of an apostle. You opposed your gentleness to their
    insane violence. Through your innocence you escaped from any harm,
    even though by their numbers (for there is always the most abundant
    crop of what is bad) they were able to override your better opinion.
    With a skill like that with which Homer published the praises of
    Achilles, Erasmus has studiously held up to the admiration of the
    world and of posterity the name of England, and especially of Colet,
    whom he has so described that there is not a good man of any nation
    who does not honour you. I seem to myself to see that each of you owes
    much to the other, but which of the two owes most to the other I am
    doubtful. For he must have received good from you: seeing that you are
    hardly likely to have been magnified by his colouring pen. You,
    however, if I may freely say what I think, do seem to owe some thanks
    to him for making publicly known those virtues which before were
    unknown to us. Still I fancy you are not the less victor in the matter
    of benefits conferred, since you have blessed Erasmus, a stranger to
    England, otherwise an incomparable man, with so many
    friends--Mountjoy, More, Linacre, Tunstal, &c....

    ‘Having commenced my theological studies, I have learned from the
    conversation and writings of Erasmus to regard you as my exemplar. I
    wish I could really follow you as closely as I long to do. I long, not
    only to improve myself in letters, but to lead a holier life. Farewell
    in Christ. VI. Cal. Maii, Anno MDXX.’ (should be probably 1519).[737]


IV. MORE’S CONVERSION ATTEMPTED BY THE MONKS (1519).

Erasmus was as much hated by the monks in England as by the monks at
Cologne; but they found their attempts to stir up ill-feeling against him
checkmated by the influence of More and his friends.

More’s father was known to be a good Catholic, and probably to belong, as
an old man with conservative tendencies was likely to do, to the orthodox
party. He himself was now too near the royal ear to be a harmless adherent
of the new learning--as they had learned to their cost before now. He was
so popular, too, with all parties! If only he could be detached from
Erasmus and brought over to their own side, what a triumph it would be!

[Sidenote: More receives a letter from a monk.]

So an anonymous letter was written by a monk to More, expressing great
solicitude for his welfare, and fears lest he should be corrupted by too
great intimacy with Erasmus; lest he should be led astray, by too great
love of his writings, into the adoption of his new and foreign doctrines!

The good monk was particularly shocked at the hints thrown out by Erasmus
in his writings, that, after all, the holy doctors and fathers of the
Church were fallible.

He took up the vulgar objections which the letter of Dorpius, and a still
more recent attack upon Erasmus, by an Englishman named Edward Lee, had
put into every one’s mouth, and tried to persuade More to be wise in time,
lest he should become infected with the Erasmian poison.

More’s letter in reply to the over-anxious monk has been preserved.[738]

[Sidenote: His reply.]

He indignantly repelled the insinuation that he was in danger of
contamination from his intimacy with Erasmus, whose New Testament the very
Pope had sanctioned, who lived in the nearest intimacy with such men as
Colet, Fisher, and Warham; to say nothing of Mountjoy, Tunstal, Pace, and
Grocyn. Those who knew Erasmus best, loved him most.

Then turning to the charge made against Erasmus, that he denied the
infallibility of the fathers, More wrote:--

[Sidenote: Alludes to Luther’s clinging by tooth and nail to Augustine.]

‘Do _you_ deny that they ever made mistakes? I put it to you--when
Augustine thought that Jerome had mistranslated a passage, and Jerome
defended what he had done, was not _one of the two_ mistaken? When
Augustine asserted that the Septuagint is to be taken as an indubitably
faithful translation, and Jerome denied it, and asserted that its
translators had fallen into errors, was not one of the two mistaken? When
Augustine, in support of his view, adduced the story of the wonderful
agreement of the different translations produced by the inspired
translators writing in separate cells, and Jerome laughed at the story as
absurd, was not one of the two mistaken? When Jerome, writing on the
Epistle to the Galatians, translated its meaning to be that, Peter was
blamed by Paul for dissimulating, and Augustine denied it, was not one of
them mistaken?... Augustine asserts that demons and angels also have
material and substantial bodies. I doubt not that even _you_ deny this! He
asserts that infants dying without baptism are consigned to physical
torments in eternal punishment--how many are there who believe this now?
unless it be that Luther, _clinging by tooth and nail to the doctrine of
Augustine_, should be induced to revive this antiquated notion....’[739]

I have quoted this passage from More’s letter because it shows clearly,
not only how fully More had adopted the position taken up by Erasmus, but
also how fully his eyes were open to the fact, that the rising reformer of
Wittemberg did ‘_cling by tooth and nail to the doctrine of Augustine_,’
and was likely, by doing so, to be led astray into some of the harsh
views, and, as he thought, obvious errors of that Holy Father.

[Sidenote: But his own view not Pelagian.]

At the same time the following passage may be quoted as proof that, in
rejecting the Augustinian creed, More and his friends did not run into the
other extreme of Pelagianism.

He had told the monk at the beginning of his letter, that after he had
shown how safe was the ground upon which Erasmus and he were walking in
the valley, he would turn round and assail the lofty but tottering
citadel, from which the monk looked down upon them with so proud a sense
of security. So after he had disposed of the monk’s arguments, he began:--

‘Into what factions--into how many sects is the order cut up! Then, what
tumults, what tragedies arise about little differences in the colour or
mode of girding the monastic habit, or some matter of ceremony which, if
not altogether despicable, is at all events not so important as to
warrant the banishment of all charity. How many, too, are there (and this
is surely worst of all) who, relying on the assurances of their monastic
profession, inwardly raise their crests so high that they seem to
themselves to move in the heavens, and reclining among the solar rays, to
look down from on high upon the people creeping on the ground like ants,
looking down thus, not only on the ungodly, but also upon all who are
without the circle of the enclosure of their order, so that for the most
part nothing is holy but what they do themselves.... They make more of
things which appertain specially to the religious order, than of those
valueless and very humble things which are in no way peculiar to them but
entirely common to all Christian people, such as the vulgar
virtues--faith, hope, charity, the fear of God, humility, and others of
the kind. Nor, indeed, is this a new thing. Nay, it is what Christ long
ago denounced to his chosen people, “Ye make the word of God of none
effect through your traditions.”...

‘There are multitudes enough who would be afraid that the devil would come
upon them and take them alive to hell, if, forsooth, they were to set
aside their usual garb, whom nothing can move when they are grasping at
_money_.

[Sidenote: More relates an anecdote.]

‘Are there only a few, think you, who would deem it a crime to be expiated
with many tears, if they were to omit a line in their hourly prayers, and
yet have no fearful scruple at all, when they profane themselves by the
worst and most infamous lies?... Indeed, I once knew a man devoted to the
religious life--one of that class who would nowadays be thought “most
religious.” This man, by no means a novice, but one who had passed many
years in what they call regular observances, and had advanced so far in
them that he was even set over a convent--but, nevertheless, more careless
of the precepts of God than of monastic rites--slid down from one crime to
another, till at length he went so far as to meditate the most atrocious
of all crimes--a crime execrable beyond belief--and what is more, not a
simple crime, but one pregnant with manifold guilt, for he even purposed
to add sacrilege to murders and parricide. When this man thought himself
insufficient without accomplices for the perpetration of so many crimes,
he associated with himself some ruffians and cutpurses. They committed the
most horrible crimes which I ever heard of. They were all of them thrown
together into prison. I do not wish to give the details, and I abstain
from the names of the criminals, lest I should renew anything of past
hatred to an innocent order.

‘But to proceed to narrate the circumstances on account of which I have
mentioned this affair. I heard from those wicked assassins that, when they
came to that religious man in his chamber, they had not spoken of the
crime; but being introduced into his private chapel, they appeased the
sacred Virgin by a salutation on their bent knees according to custom.
_This being properly accomplished, they at length rose purely and piously
to perpetrate their crime!_...

‘Now, I have not mentioned this with the view either to defame the
religion of the monks with these crimes, since the same soil may bring
forth useful herbs and pestiferous weeds, or to condemn the rites of those
who occasionally salute the sacred Virgin, than which nothing is more
beneficial; but because people trust so much in such things that under the
very security which they thus feel they give themselves up to crime.

‘From reflections such as these you may learn the lesson which the
occasion suggests. That you should not grow too proud of your own
sect--nothing could be more fatal. Nor trust in private observances. That
you should _place your hopes rather in the Christian faith than in your
own_; and not trust in those things which you can do _for yourself_, but
in those which you cannot do _without God’s help_. You can fast by
yourself, you can keep vigils by yourself, you can say prayers by
yourself--and you can do these things by the devil! But, verily, Christian
faith, which Christ Jesus truly said to be in spirit; Christian hope,
which, despairing of its own merits, confides only in the mercy of God;
Christian charity, which is not puffed up, is not made angry, does not
seek its own glory,--none, indeed, can attain these except by the grace
and gracious help of God alone.

‘By how much the more you place your trust in those virtues which are
common to Christendom, by so much the less will you have faith in private
ceremonies, whether those of your order or your own; and by how much the
less you trust in them by so much the more will they be useful. For then
at last God will esteem you a faithful servant, when you shall count
yourself good for nothing.’

That these passages prove that More and his friends had not set aside
monasticism, or even Mariolatry, as altogether wrong, cannot be too
clearly recognised. In an age of transition it is the _direction_ of the
thoughts and aims of men which constitutes the radical difference or
agreement between them, rather than the exact distance that each may have
travelled on the same road. Luther himself had not yet in his hatred of
ceremonies travelled so far as the Oxford Reformers, though in after years
he went farther, because he travelled faster than they did. Upon these
questions they were very much practically at one. And if here and there
the three friends observed in Luther an impetuosity which carried him into
extremes, much as they might differ from some of his statements, and the
tone he sometimes adopted, their respect for his moral earnestness, and
their perception of the amount of exasperation to which his hot nature was
exposed, made them readily pardon what they could not approve. They had as
yet little idea--though More’s letter showed that they had _some_--much
less than Luther himself had--how practically important was the difference
between them. For the moment their two orbits seemed almost to coincide.
They seemed even to be approaching each other. They seemed to meet in
their common hatred of the formalism of the monks, in their common attempt
to grasp at the spirit--the reality--of religion through its forms and
shadows. They had little idea that they were crossing each other’s path,
and that ere long, as each pursued his course, the divergence would become
wider and wider.


V. ERASMUS AND THE REFORMERS OF WITTEMBERG (1519).

[Sidenote: Luther protected by the Elector of Saxony.]

In the summer of 1518 Melanchthon had joined Luther at Wittemberg. During
the remainder of that year the controversy on Indulgences was going on.
Rome had taken the matter up. Luther had appeared before the Papal legate
Cajetan, and from his harsh demand of simple recantation, had shrunk with
horror and fled back into Saxony. The legate had threatened that Rome
would never let the matter drop, and urged the Elector of Saxony to send
Luther to Rome. But he had made common cause with the poor monk, and
refused to banish him. Leo X. was afraid to quarrel with Frederic of
Saxony, and under the auspices of Miltitz, aided by the moderation of
Luther and the firmness of his protector, a little oil was thrown on the
troubled waters. But in the spring of 1519, when the Papal tenths came to
be exacted, murmurs were heard again on all sides. Hutten commenced his
series of satirical pamphlets, and it became evident that the storm was
not permanently laid, the lull might last for a while, but fresh tempests
were ahead.[740]

It was during this interval of uncertainty that the first intercourse took
place between Erasmus and the Wittemberg Reformers.

[Sidenote: Melanchthon’s opinion of Erasmus.]

Letters had already passed between Melanchthon and Erasmus; they had been
known to one another by name for some years, and were on the best of
terms. Thus Melanchthon, in writing to a friend of his in January 1519,
spoke of Erasmus as ‘the first to call back theology to her
fountain-head,’[741] and of Luther as belonging to the same school. He
freely admitted how much greater was the learning of Erasmus than that of
Luther, and when in March he received from Froben a copy of the ‘Method of
True Theology,’ told Spalatin that ‘this illustrious man seemed to have
touched upon many points in the same strain as Luther, for in these
things,’ he said, ‘they agreed;’ adding, that Erasmus was ‘freer than
Luther, because he had the assistance of real and sacred learning;’ and he
mentioned this as an illustration of what he had just been saying, ‘that
every good man thought well of their cause.’[742]

[Sidenote: Erasmus’s opinion of Melanchthon.]

Erasmus, on his side, also spoke in the highest possible terms of
Melanchthon. He had great hopes from his youth that he might long survive
himself, and if he did, he predicted that his name would throw that of
Erasmus into the shade.[743]

Whilst, however, Erasmus thus freely acknowledged the friendship and
merits of Melanchthon, he was careful not to commit himself to an approval
of all that Luther was doing. And surely it was wise; for that his strong
Augustinian tendencies were well known to the Oxford Reformers, has
already been seen in More’s letter to the anonymous monk.

[Sidenote: What he says of Luther to Melanchthon.]

On April 2, 1519, in reply to a letter from Melanchthon[744] mentioning
Luther’s desire of his approval, Erasmus wrote, that ‘while every one of
his friends honoured Luther’s private life, _as to his doctrine there were
different opinions_. He himself had not read Luther’s books. Luther had
censured some things deservedly, but he wished that he had done so as
happily as he had freely.’ At the end of this letter he expressed his
affectionate anxiety lest Melanchthon should be wearing himself out by too
hard study.[745]

[Sidenote: Luther writes to Erasmus.]

On March 28, Luther had written a letter to Erasmus, which probably
crossed this on the way between Wittemberg and Louvain. It was a letter in
which he had not made the slightest allusion to any difference of opinion
between himself and Erasmus. On the contrary, he had spoken as though he
held Erasmus in the greatest possible honour. He had spoken of his having
a place, and ‘reigning’ in the hearts of all who really loved literature.
He had been reading the new preface to the ‘Enchiridion,’ and from it and
from his friend Fabricius Capito he had learned that Erasmus had not only
heard but approved of what he had done respecting indulgences. And with
much genuine humility he had begged Erasmus to acknowledge him, however
ignorant and unknown to fame, buried as it were in his cell, _as a brother
in Christ_, by whom he himself was held in the greatest affection and
regard.[746]

[Sidenote: Erasmus replies to Luther.]

To this Erasmus, on May 30, replied, in a letter in which he _did_ address
Luther as a ‘brother in Christ.’ He said he had not yet read the books
which had created so much clamour, and therefore could not judge of them.
He had looked into his Commentaries on the Psalms, was much pleased with
them, and hoped they would prove useful. Some of the best men in England,
even some at Louvain, thought well of him and his writings. As to himself,
he devoted himself, as he had done all along, to the revival of good
literature [including first and foremost the Scriptures]. And it seemed to
him, he said, that more good would come of courteous modesty than of
impetuosity. It was by this that Christ drew the world under his
influence. It was thus that Paul abrogated that Judaical law, treating it
all as typical. It were better to exclaim against _abuses_ of pontifical
authority than against the Popes themselves. ‘May the Lord Jesus daily
impart to you abundantly’ (he concluded) ‘of his own Spirit to his own
glory and the public good.’[747]

Thus he seems to have said the same things to both Melanchthon and Luther.

In the same strain, also, he wrote to others _about_ them.

[Sidenote: What Erasmus says about Luther to others.]

To the exasperated monks, who charged him with aiding and abetting Luther
in writing the books which had caused such a tumult, he replied that, as
he had not read them, he could not even express a decided opinion upon
them.[748]

To Cardinal Wolsey he wrote, that he had only read a few pages of Luther’s
books, not because he disliked them, but because he was so closely
occupied with his own. Luther’s life was such that even his enemies could
not find anything to slander. Germany had young men of learning and
eloquence who would, he foretold, bring her great glory. Eobanus, Hutten,
and Beatus Rhenanus were the only ones he knew personally. If these German
students were too free in their criticisms, it should be remembered to
what constant exasperation they had been submitted in all manner of ways,
both public and private.[749]

To Hutten, who was perhaps the most hot-headed of these German young men,
and whose satire had already proved itself more trenchant and bitter than
any in which Erasmus had ever indulged, he urged moderation, and said
that for himself he had rather spend a month in trying to explain St. Paul
or the Gospels than waste a day in quarrelling.[750]

[Sidenote: Erasmus is writing his ‘Paraphrases.’]

Erasmus was, in fact, working hard at his ‘Paraphrases.’ That on the
Epistle to the Romans had been already printed in 1517, in the very best
type of Thierry Martins, and forming a small and very readable octavo
volume. Those on the next seven epistles[751] now followed in quick
succession in the spring of 1519. How fully the heart of Erasmus was in
his work is incidentally shown by the fact that, being obliged to write a
pamphlet in defence of a former publication of his, he cut it short by
saying that he had rather be working at the Paraphrase on the ‘Galatians,’
which he was just completing.[752] And Erasmus was preparing, in addition
to these Paraphrases on the Epistles, others, at Colet’s desire, more
lengthy, on the Gospels. Here was work enough surely on hand to excuse him
from entering into the Lutheran controversy--work precisely of that kind,
moreover, which he had told Luther that he was devoting himself to. It was
the work which, when he was longing for rest, and his zeal for the moment
was threatening to flag, Colet had urged him to go on with through good
and evil fortune; and which he himself, in his letter to Servatius, had
said he was determined to work at to the day of his death. It is clear
that he was in earnest when he told Hutten that he ‘had rather spend a
month in expounding St. Paul than waste a day in quarrelling.’

It seems to me, therefore, that the attitude of Erasmus towards Luther
was that, not of a coward, but of a man who knew what he was about.


VI. ELECTION OF CHARLES V. TO THE EMPIRE (1519).

On January 12, 1519, Maximilian had died. It is not within the scope of
this history to trace the steps and countersteps, the plots and
counterplots, the bribery and treachery--the Machiavellian means and
devices--in which nearly every sovereign in Europe was implicated, to the
detriment of both conscience and exchequer, and which ended in placing
Charles V., then absent in Spain, at the head of the German empire. With
the accession of the new emperor commenced a new political era, which
belongs to the history of the Protestant Reformation, and not to that of
the Oxford Reformers.

Erasmus was too hard at work at his Paraphrases to admit of his meddling
in politics, even though he himself had an honorary connection with the
court of the prince who was the successful candidate, and had written his
‘_Christian Prince_’ expressly for his benefit.

Colet was living in retirement, suffering from shattered health, too
closely watched by the restless eye of his bishop to take any part in
public affairs.[753]

Even More, though now a constant attendant upon Henry VIII., was probably
not initiated into continental secrets, and even had he shared all the
counsels of Wolsey, any part which he might play would be purely
executive, and belong rather to the history of his own political career
than to that of the fellow-work of the three friends. He probably had
little or nothing really to do with Wolsey’s plottings to secure the
empire for his master, in order that he might, on the death of Leo X.,
secure the Papal chair for himself. But there was one circumstance
connected with the election of the Emperor of too much significance to be
passed over in this history without distinct mention--the part which Duke
Frederic of Saxony played in it; and this shall simply be alluded to in
the words of Erasmus himself.

[Sidenote: Noble conduct of the Elector of Saxony.]

‘The Duke Frederic of Saxony has written twice to me in reply to my
letter. Luther is supported solely by his protection. He says that he has
acted thus for the sake rather of the _cause_ than of the person [of
Luther]. He adds that he will not lend himself to the oppression of
innocence in his dominions by the malice of those who seek their own, and
not the things of Christ.’ And Erasmus goes on to say, that ‘when the
imperial crown was offered to Frederic of Saxony by all [the electors],
with great magnanimity he had refused it, the very day before Charles was
elected. And’ (he writes) ‘Charles never would have worn the imperial
title had it not been declined by Frederic, whose glory in refusing the
honour was greater than if he had accepted it. When he was asked who he
thought should be elected, he said that no one seemed to him able to bear
the weight of so great a name but Charles. In the same noble spirit he
firmly refused the 30,000 florins offered him by our people [_i.e._ the
agents of Charles]. When he was urged that at least he would allow 10,000
florins to be given to his servants, “They may take them” (he said) “if
they like, but no one shall remain my servant another day who accepts a
single piece of gold.”’ ‘The next day’ (continues Erasmus) ‘he took horse
and departed, lest they should continue to bother him. This was related to
me as entirely reliable, by the Bishop of Liege, who was present at the
Imperial Diet.’[754]

Well did the conduct of the Elector of Saxony merit the admiration of
Erasmus. Would that Charles V. had merited as fully the patronage of the
wise Elector!

It was a significant fact that, after all the bribery and wholesale
corruption by which this election was marked, the only prince who in the
event had a chance of success, other than Charles, was the one man who was
superior to corruption, and would not allow even his servants to be
bribed, who did not covet the imperial dignity for himself, but firmly
refused it when offered to him--the protector of Luther against the Pope
and the empire--the hope and strength of the Protestant Revolution which
was now so rapidly approaching.


VII. THE HUSSITES OF BOHEMIA (1519).

While the election of the Emperor was proceeding the famous disputation at
Leipzig took place, which commenced between Carlstadt and Eck, upon the
question of grace and free-will, and was continued between Eck and Luther
on the primacy of the Pope--that remarkable occasion on which, after
pressing Eck into a declaration that all the Greek and other Christians
who did not acknowledge the primacy of the Pope, were heretics and lost,
Luther himself was finally driven to assert, probably as much to his own
surprise as to that of his auditors, ‘that among the articles on which
the Council of Constance grounded its condemnation of John Huss, were some
fundamentally Christian and evangelical.’

[Sidenote: Luther finds he is a Hussite.]

Well might Duke George mutter in astonishment ‘_a plague upon it_.’ A few
months later Luther himself, after pondering the matter over and over with
his New Testament and Melanchthon, was obliged to exclaim, ‘I taught
Huss’s opinions without knowing them, and so did Staupitz: we are all of
us Hussites without knowing it! Paul and _Augustine_ are Hussites! I do
not know what to think for amazement.’[755]

[Sidenote: Letter from Schlechta to Erasmus.]

[Sidenote: The Pyghards of Bohemia.]

Meanwhile, before Luther had come to the conclusion _that he himself_,
with St. Augustine, was a _Hussite_, Erasmus had been in correspondence
with Johannes Schlechta, a Bohemian,[756] on the religious dissensions
which existed in Bohemia and Moravia, and with special reference to the
_Hussite_ sect of the ‘_Pyghards_,’ or United Brethren.[757] Schlechta had
informed Erasmus that, setting aside Jews and unbelieving philosophers
who denied the immortality of the soul, the people were divided into three
sects:--First, the Papal party, including most of the magistrates and
nobility. Secondly, a party to which he himself belonged, who acknowledged
the Papacy, but differed from other good Catholics in dispensing the
Sacrament in both kinds to the laity, and in chanting the Epistle and
Gospel at mass, not in Latin, but in the vulgar tongue; to which customs
they most pertinaciously adhered, on the ground that they were confirmed
and approved in the Council of Basle (1431).[758] Thirdly, the sect of the
‘Pyghards’ [or ‘United Brethren’], who since the times of John Zisca[759]
had maintained their ground through much bloodshed and violence. These, he
said, regarded the Pope and clergy as manifest ‘Anti-christs;’ the Pope
himself sometimes as the ‘Beast,’ and sometimes as the ‘Harlot’ of the
Apocalypse. They chose rude and ignorant and even married laymen as their
priests and bishops. They called each other ‘brothers and sisters.’ They
acknowledged no writings as of authority but the Old and New Testaments.
Fathers and Schoolmen they counted nothing by. Their priests used no
vestments, and no forms of prayer but ‘the Lord’s Prayer.’ They thought
lightly of the sacraments; used no salt or holy water--only pure
water--in baptism, and rejected extreme unction. They saw only simple
bread and wine, no divinity, in the Sacrament of the Altar, and regarded
these only as signs representing and commemorative of the death of Christ,
who they said was in heaven. The suffrages of the saints and prayers for
the dead they held to be vain and absurd, and also auricular confession
and penance. Vigils and fasts they looked upon as hypocritical. The
festivals of the Virgin, Apostles, and Saints, they said, were invented by
the idle; Sunday, Christmas, Good Friday, and Pentecost they observed.
Other pernicious dogmas of theirs were not worthy of mention to Erasmus.
If, however (his Bohemian friend added), the first two of these three
sects could but be united, then perhaps this vicious sect, now much on the
increase, owing to recent ecclesiastical scandals, might, by the aid of
the King, be either _exterminated_ or forced into a better form of creed
and religion. Erasmus, he concluded, had now the whole circumstances of
these Bohemian divisions before him.[760]

Here, then, Erasmus was brought into direct contact with the opinions of
the very sect to which Luther was gradually approaching, but had not yet
discovered his proximity.

The reply of Erasmus may be regarded, therefore, as evidence of his views,
not only on the opinions and practices of the Hussites of Bohemia, but
also as foreshadowing what would be his views with regard to the opinions
and practices of Luther and the Protestant Reformers so soon as they
should publicly profess themselves Hussites.

[Sidenote: Reply of Erasmus.]

‘You point out,’ (Erasmus wrote) ‘that Bohemia and Moravia are divided up
into three sects. I wish, my dear Schlechta, that some pious hand could
unite the three into one!’

The second party (Erasmus said) erred, in his opinion, more in scornfully
rejecting the judgment and custom of the Roman Church than in thinking it
right to take the Eucharist in both kinds, which was not an unreasonable
practice in itself, though it might be better to avoid singularity on such
a point. As to the ‘Pyghards,’ he did not see why it followed that the
Pope was Antichrist, because there had been some bad popes, or that the
Roman Church was the ‘harlot,’ because she had often had wicked cardinals
or bishops. Still, however bad the ‘Pyghards’ might be, he would not
advise a resort to violence. It would be a dangerous precedent. As to
their electing their own priests and bishops, that was not opposed to
primitive practice. St. Nicholas and St. Ambrose were thus elected, and in
ancient times even kings were elected by the people. If they were in the
habit of electing ignorant and unlearned men, that did not matter much, if
only their _holy life_ outweighed their ignorance. He did not see why they
were to be blamed for calling one another ‘brothers and sisters.’ He
wished the practice could obtain amongst all Christians, if only the fact
were consistent with the words. In thinking less highly of the Doctors
than of the Scriptures--that is, in preferring God to man--they were in
the right; but altogether to reject them was as bad as altogether to
accept them. Christ and the Apostles officiated in their everyday dress;
but it is impious to condemn what was instituted, not without good reason,
by the fathers. Vigils and fasts, in moderation, he did not see why they
rejected, seeing that they were commended by the Apostles; but he had
rather that men were _exhorted_ than _compelled_ to observe them. Their
views about festivals were not very different from Jerome’s. Nowadays the
number of festivals had become enormous, and on no days were more crimes
committed. Moreover, the labourer was robbed by so many festivals of his
regular earnings.

As to the cure for these diseases of Bohemia: he desired _unity_, and
expressed his views how unity could be best attained.

[Sidenote: Erasmus thinks the Church should be broad and tolerant.]

‘In my opinion’ (he wrote) ‘many might be reconciled to the Church of Rome
if, instead of everything being defined, we were contented with what is
evidently set forth in the Scriptures or necessary to salvation. And these
things are _few_ in number, and the _fewer_ the easier for _many_ to
accept. Nowadays out of one article we make six hundred, some of which are
such that men might be ignorant of them or doubt them without injury to
piety. It is in human nature to cling by tooth and nail to what has once
been defined. The sum of the philosophy of Christ’ (he continued) ‘lies in
this--that we should know that all our hope is placed in God, who freely
gives us all things through his son Jesus; that by his death we are
redeemed; that we are united to his body in baptism in order that, dead to
the desires of the world, we may so follow his teaching and example as not
only not to admit of evil, but also to deserve well of all; that if
adversity comes upon us we should bear it in the hope of the future reward
which is in store for all good men at the advent of Christ. Thus we should
always be progressing from virtue to virtue, and whilst assuming nothing
to ourselves, ascribe all that is good to God. If there should be anyone
who would inquire into the Divine nature, or the nature (_hypostasis_) of
Christ, or abstruse points about the sacraments, let him do so; only let
him not try to force his views upon others. In the same way as very
verbose instruments lead to controversies, so too many definitions lead to
differences. Nor should we be ashamed to reply on some questions: “God
knows how this should be so, it is enough for me to believe that it is.” I
know that the pure blood and body of Christ are to be taken purely by the
pure, and that he wished it to be a most sacred sign and pledge both of
his love to us and of the fellowship of Christians amongst themselves. Let
me, therefore, examine myself whether there be anything in me inconsistent
with Christ, whether there be any difference between me and my neighbour.
As to the rest, _how_ the same body can exist in so small a form and in so
many places at once, in my opinion such questions can hardly tend to the
increase of piety. I know that I shall rise again, for this was promised
to all by Christ, who was the first who rose from the dead. As to the
questions, with what body, and how it can be the same after having gone
through so many changes, though I do not disapprove of these things being
inquired into in moderation on suitable occasions, yet it conduces very
little to piety to spend too much labour upon them. Nowadays men’s minds
are diverted, by these and other innumerable subtleties, from things of
vital importance. Lastly it would tend greatly to the establishment of
concord, if secular princes, and especially the Roman Pontiff, would
abstain from all tyranny and avarice. For men easily revolt when they see
preparations for enslaving them, when they see that they are not to be
invited to piety but caught for plunder. If they saw that we were innocent
and desirous to do them good, they would very readily accept our
faith.’[761]

It will be seen that the point of this letter turns not _directly_ upon
the difference which Luther had discerned between himself and Erasmus
(viz. that the one rejected and the other accepted the doctrinal system of
St. Augustine), but rather upon questions involving the duty and object of
‘_the Church_.’ From More’s delineation of the Church of Utopia, it has
been seen that the notion of the Oxford Reformers was that the Church was
intended to be broad and tolerant, not to define doctrine and enforce
dogmas, but to afford a practical bond of union whereby Christians might
be kept united in one Christian brotherhood, in spite of their differences
in minor matters of creed. In full accordance with this view, Erasmus had
blamed Schlechta and his party, in this letter, not for holding their
peculiar views respecting the ‘Supper,’ but for making them a ground for
separation from their fellow-Christians. So also he blamed Schlechta
(himself a dissenter from Rome) for his harsh feelings towards the
‘Pyghards’ and his wish ‘to exterminate’ them. So, too, whilst
sympathising strongly with the poor ‘Pyghards’ in many of the points in
which they differed from the Church of Rome, he blamed them for jumping to
the conclusion that the Church was ‘Antichrist,’ and for flying into
extremes. So, too, he blamed the Church herself, as he always had blamed
her, for so narrowing her boundaries as to shut out these
ultra-dissenters of Bohemia from her communion.

Now it is obvious that at the foundation of the position here assumed by
Erasmus, and elsewhere by the Oxford Reformers, lay the conviction that
many points of doctrine were in their nature uncertain and unsettled--that
many attempted definitions of doctrine, on such subjects as those involved
in the Athanasian Creed, in the Augustinian system, and in scholastic
additions to it, were, after all, and in spite of all the ecclesiastical
authority in the world, just as unsettled and uncertain as ever; in fact,
mere hypotheses, which in their nature never _can_ be verified.

[Sidenote: The point at issue between the Oxford Reformers and those who
held by the Augustinian system.]

Here again, therefore, was _indirectly_ involved the point at issue
between Erasmus and Luther; between the Oxford and the Wittemberg
Reformers. For the latter in accepting the Augustinian system still
adhered, in spirit, to the scholastic or dogmatic system of theology. To
treat questions such as those above mentioned as open and unsettled seemed
to them to be playing the part of the sceptic. Luther was honestly and
naturally shocked when he found Erasmus hinting that the doctrine of
‘original sin’ was in some measure analogous to the epicycles of the
astrologer. He was equally shocked again when Erasmus, a few years after,
treated the question of the Freedom of the Will as one insoluble in its
nature, involving the old philosophical questions between free-will and
fate.[762] And why was he shocked? Because the Augustinian system which
he had adopted, treated these questions as finally concluded. And how were
they concluded? By the judgment of the church based upon a verbally
inspired and infallible Bible.

Luther did not indeed assert so strongly the verbal inspiration of the
Bible, much less of the Vulgate version, as Dr. Eck and other Augustinian
theologians had done; yet his standing-point obliged him practically to
assume the truth of this doctrine, as it obliged his successors more and
more strongly to assert it as the years rolled on. And so, whilst
rejecting, even more thoroughly than Erasmus ever did, the ecclesiastical
authority of the Church of Rome, yet it is curious to observe that, in
doing so, Luther did not reject the notion of ecclesiastical authority in
itself, but rather, amidst many inconsistencies, set up the authority of
what he considered to be the _true_ church against that of the church
which he regarded as the _false_ one. As a consistent Augustinian he was
driven to assume, in replying to the Wittemberg prophets on the one hand
and the scepticism of Erasmus on the other, that there is a true church
somewhere, and that somewhere in the true church there is an authority
capable of establishing theological hypotheses. He was not willing that
the Scriptures should be left simply to the private judgment of each
individual for himself. He even allowed himself to claim for the public
ministers of his own church--‘the leaders of the people and the preachers
of the word’--authority ‘not only for themselves but also for others, and
for the salvation of others, to judge with the greatest certainty the
spirit and dogmas of all men.’[763]

Not that Luther always consistently upheld this doctrine any more than
Erasmus consistently upheld its opposite. Luther was often to be found
asserting and using the right of private judgment against the authority of
Rome, as Erasmus was often found upholding the authority of the Catholic
Church and her authorised councils against the rival authority of Luther’s
schismatic and unauthorised church. In times of transition, men _are_
inconsistent; and regard must be had rather to the direction in which they
are moving than the precise point to which at any particular moment they
may have attained. And what I wish to impress upon the reader is
this--that not only Luther, but all other Reformers, from Wickliffe down
to the modern Evangelicals, who have adopted the Augustinian system and
founded their reform upon it, have practically assumed as the basis of
their theology, first, the plenary inspiration of each text contained in
the Scriptures; and, secondly, the existence of an ecclesiastical
authority of some kind capable of establishing theological hypotheses; so
that, _in this respect_, Luther and other Augustinian reformers, instead
of advancing beyond the Oxford Reformers, have lagged far behind, seeing
that they have contentedly remained under a yoke from which the Oxford
Reformers had been labouring for twenty years to set men free.

[Sidenote: The power of St. Augustine.]

In saying this I am far from overlooking the fact, that the Protestant
Reformers, in reverting to a purer form of Augustinian doctrine than that
held by the Schoolmen, did practically by it bring Christianity to bear
upon men with a power and a life which contrasted strangely with the cold
dead religion of the Thomists and Scotists. I am as far also from
underrating the force and the fire of St. Augustine. What, indeed, must
not that force and that fire have been to have made it possible for him to
bind the conscience of Western Christendom for fourteen centuries by the
chains of his dogmatic theology! And when it is considered, on the one
hand, that the greatest of the Schoolmen were _so loyal_ to St. Augustine,
that some of their subtlest distinctions were resorted to expressly to
mitigate the harshness of the rigid results of his system, and thus were
attempts, not to get from under its yoke, but _to make it bearable_;[764]
and, on the other hand, that the chief _reactions_ against scholastic
formalism--those of Wickliffe, Huss, Luther, Calvin, the Portroyalists,
the Puritans, the modern Evangelicals--were _Augustinian_ reactions; so
far from _under_-estimating the power of the man whose influence was so
diverse and so vast, it may well become an object of ever-increasing
astonishment to the student of Ecclesiastical History.

At the same time, these considerations must raise also our estimate of the
need and the value of the firm stand taken 350 years ago by the Oxford
Reformers against this dogmatic power so long dominant in the realm of
religious thought. It has been seen in every page of this history, that
they had taken their standpoint, so to speak, _behind_ that of St.
Augustine; behind even the schism between Eastern and Western Christendom;
behind those patristic hypotheses which grew up into the scholastic
theology; behind that notion of Church authority by which these hypotheses
obtained a fictitious verification; behind the theory of ‘plenary
inspiration,’ without which the Scriptures could not have been converted,
as they were, into a mass of raw material for the manufacture of any
quantity of hypotheses--behind all these--on the foundation of _fact_
which underlies them all.

The essential difference between the standpoints of the Protestant and
Oxford Reformers Luther had been the first to perceive. And the
correctness of this first impression of Luther’s has been singularly
confirmed by the history of the three-and-a-half centuries of Protestant
ascendency in Western Christendom. The Protestant movement, whilst
accomplishing by one revolutionary blow many objects which the Oxford
Reformers were striving and striving in vain to compass by constitutional
means, has been so far antagonistic to their work in other directions as
to throw it back--not to say _to wipe it out of remembrance_--so that in
this nineteenth century those Christians who have desired, as they did, to
rest their faith upon honest facts, and not upon dogmas--upon evidence,
and not upon authority--instead of taking up the work where the Oxford
Reformers left it, have had to begin it again at the beginning, as Colet
did at Oxford in 1496. They have had, like the Oxford Reformers, to combat
at the outset the theory of ‘plenary inspiration,’ and the tendency
inherited along with it from St. Augustine, by both Schoolmen and
Protestant Reformers, to build up a theology, as I have said, upon
unverified hypotheses, and to narrow the boundaries of Christian
fellowship by the imposition of dogmatic creeds so manufactured. They have
had to meet the same arguments and the same blind opposition; to bear the
same taunts of heresy and unsoundness from ascendant orthodox schools; to
be pointed at by their fellow-Christians as insidious enemies of the
Christian faith, because they have striven to present it before the eyes
of a scientific age, as what they think it really is--_not_ a system of
unverified hypotheses, but a faith in _facts_ which it would be
unscientific even in a disciple of the positive philosophy to pass by
unexplored.


VIII. MORE’S DOMESTIC LIFE (1519).

By the aid of a letter from Erasmus to Ulrich Hutten,[765] written in July
1519, one more lingering look may be taken at the beautiful picture of
domestic happiness presented by More’s home. This history would be
incomplete without it.

[Sidenote: More forty years old.]

[Sidenote: His first wife.]

The ‘young More,’ with whom Colet and Erasmus had fallen in love twenty
years ago, was now past forty.[766] The four motherless children,
Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John, awhile ago nestling round their
widowed father’s knee, as the dark shadow of sorrow passed over the once
bright home in Bucklersbury, were now from ten to thirteen years old. The
good stepmother, Alice Middleton, is said to have ruled her household
well, and her daughter had taken a place in the family circle as one of
More’s children. There was a marked absence of jarring or
quarrelling,[767] which in such a household bore witness to the goodnature
of the mistress. She could not, indeed, fill altogether the void left in
More’s heart by the loss of his first wife--the gentle girl brought up in
country retirement with her parents and sisters, whom he had delighted to
educate to his own tastes, in letters and in music, in the fond hope that
she would be to him a lifelong companion,[768] and respecting whom, soon
after his second marriage, in composing the epitaph for the family tomb,
in which _she_ was already laid, he had written this simple line:--

  ‘Cara Thomæ jacet hic Joanna uxorcula Mori!’[769]

[Sidenote: His second wife.]

The ‘dame Alice,’ though somewhat older than her husband and matronly in
her habits, ‘nec bella nec puella,’ as he was fond of jokingly telling
her, out of deference to More’s musical tastes, had learned to sing and to
play on the harp;[770] but, after all, she was more of the housekeeper
than of the wife. It was not to her but to his daughter Margaret that his
heart now clung with fondest affection.

[Sidenote: More’s true piety.]

More himself, Erasmus described to Hutten as humorous without being
foolish, simple in his dress and habits, and, with all his popularity and
success, neither proud nor boastful, but accessible, obliging, and kind to
his neighbours.[771] Fond of liberty and ease he might be, but no one
could be more active or more patient than he when occasion required
it.[772] No one was less influenced by current opinion, and yet no man had
more common sense.[773] Averse as he was to all superstition, and having
shown in his ‘Utopia’ what were regarded in some quarters as freethinking
tendencies, he had to share with Colet the sneers of the ‘orthodox,’ yet a
tone of unaffected piety pervaded his life. He had stated times for
devotion, and when he prayed, it was not as a matter of form, but from his
heart. When, too, as he often did, he talked to his intimate friends of
the life to come, Erasmus tells Hutten that he evidently spoke from his
heart, and not without the brightest hope.[774]

[Sidenote: The children’s animals.]

[Sidenote: Their celebrated monkey.]

He was careful to cultivate in his children not only a filial regard to
himself, but also feelings of mutual interest and intimacy. He made
himself one of them, and took evidently as much pleasure as they did in
their birds and animals--the monkey, the rabbits, the fox, the ferret, and
the weasel.[775] Thus when Erasmus was a guest at his house, More would
take him into the garden to see the children’s rabbit hutches, or to
watch the sly ways of the monkey; which on one occasion so amused Erasmus
by the clever way in which it prevented the weasel from making an assault
upon the rabbits through an aperture between the boards at the back of the
hutch, that he rewarded the animal by making it famous all over Europe,
telling the story in one of his ‘Colloquies.’[776] Whereupon so important
a member of the household did this monkey become, that when Hans Holbein
some years afterwards painted his famous picture of the household of Sir
Thomas More, its portrait was taken along with the rest, and there to this
day it may be seen nestling in the folds of dame Alice’s robes.

[Sidenote: Their interest in his pursuits.]

If More thus took an interest in the children’s animals, so they were
trained to take an interest in his pictures, his cabinet of coins and
curiosities, and his literary pursuits. He did everything he could to
allure his children on in acquiring knowledge. If an astronomer came in
his way he would get him to stay awhile in his house, to teach them all
about the stars and planets.[777] And it surely must have been More’s
children whom Erasmus speaks of as learning the Greek alphabet by shooting
with their bows and arrows at the letters.[778]

[Sidenote: Letter to his children in verse.]

Unhappily of late More had been long and frequently absent from home.
Still, even when away upon an embassy, trudging on horseback dreary stages
along the muddy roads, we find him on the saddle composing a metrical
letter in Latin to his ‘sweetest children, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely,
and John,’ which, when a second edition of his ‘Epigrams’ was called for,
was added at the end of the volume and printed with the rest by the great
printer of Basle[779]--a letter in which he expresses his delight in their
companionship, and reminds them how gentle and tender a father he has been
to them, in these loving words:--

  Kisses enough I have given you forsooth, but stripes hardly ever,
  If I have flogged you at all it has been with the tail of a peacock!

         *       *       *       *       *

  Manners matured in youth, minds cultured in arts and in knowledge,
  Tongues that can speak your thoughts in graceful and elegant language:--
  These bind my heart to yours with so many ties of affection
  That now I love you far more than if you were merely my children.

         *       *       *       *       *

  Go on (for you can!), my children, in winning your father’s affection,
  So that as now your goodness has made me to feel as though never
  I really had loved you before, you may on some future occasion,

         *       *       *       *       *

  Make me to love you so much that my present love may seem nothing!

What a picture lies here, even in these roughly translated lines, of the
gentle relation which during years of early sorrow had grown up between
the widowed father and the motherless children!

It is a companion-picture to that which Erasmus drew in colours so
glowing, of More’s home at Chelsea many years after this, when his
children were older and he himself Lord Chancellor. What a gleam of light
too does it throw into the future, upon that last farewell embrace between
Sir Thomas More and Margaret Roper upon the Tower-wharf, when even stern
soldiers wept to behold their ‘fatherly and daughterly affection!’

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: More’s character.]

This was the man whom Henry VIII. had at last succeeded in drawing into
his court; who reluctantly, this summer of 1519,[780] in order that he
might fulfil his duties to the King, had laid aside his post of
under-sheriff in the city and his private practice at the bar; ‘who now,’
to quote the words of Roper, ‘was often sent for by the King into his
traverse, where sometimes in matters of astronomy, geometry, divinity, and
such other faculties, and sometimes of his worldly affairs, he would sit
and confer with him. And otherwhiles in the night would he have him up
into the leads there to consider with him the diversities, courses,
motions, and operations of the stars and planets.

‘And because he was of a pleasant disposition, it pleased the King and
Queen after the Council had supped for their pleasure commonly to call for
him to be merry with them. Till he,’ continues Roper, ‘perceiving them so
much in his talk to delight that he could not once in a month get leave to
go home to his wife and his children (whose company he most desired), and
to be absent from court two days together but that he should be thither
sent for again; much misliking this restraint of his liberty, began
thereupon somewhat to dissemble his nature, and so by little and little
from his former mirth to disuse himself.’[781]

This was the man who, after ‘trying as hard to keep out of court as most
men try to get into it,’ had accepted office on the noble understanding
that he was ‘first to look unto God, and after God to the King,’ and who
under the most difficult circumstances, and in times most perilous,
whatever may have been his faults and errors, still

  Reverenced his conscience as his King,

and died at last upon the scaffold, a martyr to integrity!


IX. THE DEATH OF COLET (1519).

Erasmus was working hard at his Paraphrases at Louvain, when the news
reached him that _Colet was dead_! On the 11th September Pace had written
to Wolsey that ‘the Dean of Paul’s had lain continually since Thursday _in
extremis_, but was not yet dead.’[782] He had died on the 16th of
September 1519.

[Sidenote: The grief of Erasmus on hearing of it.]

[Sidenote: His estimate of Colet’s character.]

When Erasmus heard of it, he could not refrain from weeping. ‘For thirty
years I have not felt the death of a friend so bitterly,’[783] he wrote to
Lupset, a young disciple of Colet’s. ‘I seem,’ he wrote to Pace, ‘as
though only half of me were alive, Colet being dead. What a _man_ has
_England_ and what a _friend_ have _I_ lost!’ To another Englishman he
wrote, ‘What avail these sobs and lamentations? They cannot bring him back
again. In a little while we shall follow him. In the meantime we should
rejoice for Colet. He now is safely enjoying _Christ_, whom he always had
upon his lips and at his heart.’[784] To Tunstal, ‘I should be
inconsolable for the death of Colet did I not know that my tears would
avail nothing for him and for me;’[785] and to Bishop Fisher, ‘I have
written this weeping for Colet’s death.... I know it is all right with him
who, escaped from this evil and wretched world, is in present enjoyment of
that Christ whom he so loved when alive. I cannot help mourning in the
public name the loss of so rare an example of Christian piety, so
remarkable a preacher of Christian truth!’[786] And, in again writing to
Lupset, a month or two afterwards, a long letter, pouring his troubles, on
account of a bitter controversy which Edward Lee had raised up against
him, into the ears of Lupset, instead of, as had hitherto been his wont,
into the ears of Colet, he exclaimed in conclusion, ‘O true theologian! O
wonderful preacher of evangelical doctrine! With what earnest zeal did he
drink in the philosophy of Christ! How eagerly did he imbibe the spirit
and feelings of St. Paul! How did the purity of his whole life correspond
to his heavenly doctrine! How many years following the example of St.
Paul, did he teach the people without reward!’[787] ‘You would not
hesitate,’ finally wrote Erasmus to Justus Jonas, ‘to inscribe the name of
this man in the roll of the saints although uncanonised by the Pope.’

[Sidenote: More’s estimate of Colet’s character.]

‘For generations,’ wrote More, ‘we have not had amongst us any one man
more learned or holy!’[788]

The inscription on the leaden plate laid on the coffin of Dean Colet[789]
bore witness that he died ‘to the great grief of the whole people, by
whom, for his integrity of life and divine gift of preaching, he was the
most beloved of all his time;’ and his remains were laid in the tomb
prepared by himself in St. Paul’s Cathedral.


X. CONCLUSION.

[Sidenote: The fellow-work of the Oxford Reformers accomplished.]

With the death of Colet this history of the Oxford Reformers may fitly
end. Erasmus and More, it is true, lived on sixteen years after this, and
retained their love for one another to the last. But even _their_ future
history was no longer, to the same extent as it had been, a joint history.
Erasmus never again visited England, and if they did meet during those
long years, it was a chance meeting only, on some occasion when More was
sent on an embassy, and their intercourse could not be intimate.

[Sidenote: The Protestant Reformation a new movement under which theirs
was submerged.]

The fellow-work of the Oxford Reformers was to a great extent accomplished
when Colet died. From its small beginnings during their college
intercourse at Oxford it had risen into prominence and made its power felt
throughout Europe. But now for three hundred years it was to stop and, as
it were, to be submerged under a new wave of the great tide of human
progress. For, as has been said, the Protestant Reformation was in many
respects a new movement, and not altogether a continuation of that of the
Oxford Reformers.

As yet the ‘tragedy of Luther’ had appeared only like the little cloud no
bigger than a man’s hand rising above the horizon. But scarcely had a year
passed from Colet’s death before the whole heavens were overcast by it,
and Christendom was suddenly involved, by the madness of her rulers, in
all the terrors of a religious convulsion, which threatened to shake
social and civil, as well as ecclesiastical, institutions to their
foundations.

[Sidenote: The future course of the survivors could not alter the
fellow-work of the past.]

How Erasmus and More met the storm--how far they stood their ground, or
were carried away by natural fears and disappointment from their former
standing-point--is well worthy of careful inquiry; but it must not be
attempted here. In the meantime, the subsequent course of the two
survivors could not alter the spirit and aim of the fellow-work to which
for so many years past the three friends had been devoting their lives.

Their fellow-work had been to urge, at a critical period in the history of
Christendom, the necessity of that thorough and comprehensive reform which
the carrying out of Christianity into practice in the affairs of nations
and of men would involve.

[Sidenote: Nature of the Reform urged by the Oxford Reformers.]

[Sidenote: Religious Reform.]

Believing Christianity to be true, they had faith that it would work.
Deeply imbued with the spirit of Christianity as the true religion of the
heart, they had demanded, not so much the reform of particular
ecclesiastical abuses, as that the whole Church and the lives of
Christians should be reanimated by the Christian spirit. Instead of
contenting themselves with urging the correction of particular theological
errors, and so tinkering the scholastic creed, they had sought to let in
the light, and to draw men’s attention from dogmas to the facts which lay
at their root. Having faith in free inquiry, they had demanded freedom of
thought, tolerance, education.

[Sidenote: Political Reform.]

Believing that Christianity had to do with secular as well as with
religious affairs, they had urged the necessity, not only of religious but
also of political reform. And here again, instead of attacking particular
abuses, they had gone to the root of the matter, and laid down the _golden
rule_ as the true basis of political society. They not only had censured
the tyranny, vices, and selfishness of princes, but denied the divine
right of kings, assuming the principle that they reign by the consent and
for the good of the nations whom they govern. Instead of simply asserting
the rights of the people against their rulers in particular acts of
oppression, they had advocated, on Christian and natural grounds, the
equal rights of rich and poor, and insisted that the good of the _whole
people as one community_ should be the object of all legislation.

[Sidenote: International Reform.]

Believing lastly in the Christian as well as in the natural brotherhood of
nations, they had not only condemned the selfish wars of princes, but also
claimed that the golden rule, instead of the Machiavellian code, should be
regarded as the true basis of international politics.

Such was the broad and distinctively _Christian_ Reform urged by the
Oxford Reformers during the years of their fellow-work.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Their demand for Reform, though listened to, refused.]

And if ever any reformers had a fair chance of a hearing in influential
quarters, surely it was they. They had direct access to the ears of Leo
X., of Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Francis I.; not to mention
multitudes of minor potentates, lay and ecclesiastical, as well as
ambassadors and statesmen, whose influence upon the politics of Europe was
scarcely less than that of princes. But though they were courted and
patronised by the potentates of Europe, _their reform was refused_.

The destinies of Christendom, by a remarkable concurrence of
circumstances, were thrown very much into the hands of the young Emperor
Charles V.; and, unfortunately for Christendom, Charles V. turned out to
be the opposite of the ‘Christian Prince’ which Erasmus had done his best
to induce him to become. Leo X. also had bitterly disappointed the hopes
of Erasmus. When the time for final decision came, in the Diet of Worms
the Emperor and the Pope were found banded together in the determination
to refuse reform.

[Sidenote: Reform of Luther.]

In the meantime the leadership of the Reform movement had passed into
other and sterner hands. Luther, concentrating his energies upon a
narrower point, had already, in making his attack upon the abuse of
Indulgences, raised a definite quarrel with the Pope. Within fifteen
months of the death of Colet, he had astonished Europe by defiantly
burning the Bull issued against him from Rome. And summoned by the Emperor
to Worms, to answer for his life, he still more startled the world by
boldly demanding, in the name of the German nation from the Emperor and
Princes, that Germany should throw off the Papal yoke from her neck. For
this was practically what Luther did at Worms.[790]

[Sidenote: Luther’s battle-cry at the Diet of Worms.]

The Emperor and Princes had to make up their minds, whether they would
side with the Pope or with the nation, and they decided to side with the
Pope. They thought they were siding with the stronger party, but they were
grievously mistaken. Their defiance of Luther was engrossed on parchment.
Luther’s defiance of _them_, and assertion of the rights of conscience
against Pope and Emperor, rang through the ages. It stands out even now as
a watershed in history dividing the old era from the new.

[Sidenote: The refusal of Reform followed by a period of Revolution.]

In the history of the next three centuries, it is impossible not to trace
the onward swell, as it were, of a great revolutionary wave, which,
commencing with the Peasant War and the Sack of Rome, swept on through the
Revolt of the Netherlands, the Thirty Years’ War, the Puritan Revolution
in England, and the foundation of the great American Republic, until it
culminated and broke in the French Revolution. It is impossible not to
see, in the whole course of the events of this remarkable period, an
onward movement as irresistible and certain in its ultimate progress as
that of the great geological changes which have passed over the physical
world.

It is in vain to speculate upon what might have been the result of the
concession of broad measures of reform whilst yet there was time; but in
view of the bloodshed and misery, which, humanly speaking, might have been
spared, who can fail to be impressed with the terrible responsibility, in
the eye of History, resting upon those by whom, in the sixteenth century,
the reform was refused? They were utterly powerless, indeed, to stop the
ultimate flow of the tide, but they had the terrible power to turn, what
might otherwise have been a steady and peaceful stream, into a turbulent
and devastating flood. They had the terrible power, and they used it, of
involving their own and ten succeeding generations in the turmoils of
revolution.




APPENDIX A.

EXTRACTS FROM MS. Gg. 4, 26, IN THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY,
TRANSLATIONS OF WHICH ARE GIVEN AT PAGES 37, 38 OF THIS WORK.


_Fol. 4 b._ ‘Quapropter concludit Paulus justificatos ex fide, et soli deo
confidentes per Jesum reconciliatos esse deo, restitutosque ad gratiam; ut
apud deum stent et maneant ipsi filii dei, et filiorum dei certam gloriam
expectent. Pro qua adipiscenda interim ferenda sunt omnia patienter: ut
firmitas spei declaretur. Quæ quidem non falletur. Siquidem ex dei amore
et gratia erga nos ingenti reconciliati sumus, alioquin eius filius pro
nobis etiam impiis et contrariis deo non interiisset. Quod si alienatos a
se dilexit, quanto magis reconciliatos et diligit et dilectos conservabit.
Quamobrem firma et stabili spe ac letitia esse debemus, confidereque deo
indubitanter per Jesum Christum; per quem unum hominem est ad deum
reconciliatio. Nam ab illo ipso primo homine, et diffidentia,
impietateque, et scelere ejusdem, totum humanum genus deperiit.

_f. 5 b._ ‘Sed hic notandum est, quod hec gracia nichil est aliud, quam
dei amor erga homines; eos videlicet, quos vult amare, amandoque inspirare
spiritu suo sancto, qui ipse est amor, et dei amor, qui (ut apud Joannem
evangelistam ait salvator) ubi vult spirat. Amati autem et inspirati a deo
vocati sunt, ut, accepto amore, amantem deum redament et eundem amorem
desiderent et expectent. Hec exspectacio et spes, ex amore est. Amor vero
noster est, quia ille nos amat, non (ut scribit Joannes in secunda
epistola) quasi nos prius dilexerimus deum: sed quia ipse prior dilexit
nos, eciam nullo amore dignos, siquidem impios et iniquos, jure ad
sempiternum interitum destinatos. Sed quosdam, quos ille novit et voluit,
deus dilexit, diligendo vocavit, vocando justificavit, justificando
magnificavit. Hec in deo graciosa dileccio et caritas erga homines, ipsa
vocacio et justificacio et magnificacio est: nec quicquid aliud tot verbis
dicimus quam unum quiddam, scilicet amorem dei erga homines eos quos vult
amare. Item cum homines gracia attractos, vocatos, justificatos, et
magnificatos dicimus, nichil significamus aliud, quam homines amantem deum
redamare.

_f. 18._ ... ‘aperte videas providente et dirigente deo res duci, atque ut
ille velit in humanis fieri; non ex vi quidem aliqua illata, quum nichil
est remotius a vi quam divina actio: sed cum hominis natura voluntate et
arbitrio, divina providentia et voluntate latenter et suaviter et quasi
naturaliter comitante, atque una et simul cum eo incedente tam
mirabiliter, ut et quicquid velis egerisque agnoscatur a deo, et quod ille
agnoverit statuitque fore simul id necessario fiat.

_ff. 79, 80._ ‘Hominis anima constat intellectu et voluntate. Intellectu
sapimus. Voluntate possumus. Intellectus sapientia, fides est. Voluntatis
potentia, charitas. Christus autem dei virtus, i.e. potentia, est, et dei
sapientia. Per christum illuminantur mentes ad fidem: qui illuminat omnem
hominem venientem in hunc mundum, et dat potestatem filios dei fieri, iis
qui credunt in nomine ejus. Per christum etiam incenduntur voluntates in
charitatem: ut deum, homines, et proximum ament: in quibus est completio
legis. A deo ergo solo per christum et sapimus et possumus; eo quod in
christo sumus. Homines autem ex se intellectum habent cæcum, et voluntatem
depravatam in tenebrisque ambulant et nesciunt quid faciunt....

‘Christus autem (ut modo dixi) dei virtus, et dei sapientia est. Qui sunt
calidis radiis illius divinitatis acciti ut illi in societate adhereant,
hii quidem sunt _tercii_ [1. Jews; 2. Gentiles; 3. Christians], illi quos
Paulus vocatos et electos in illam gloriam, appellat: quorum mentes
presentia divinitatis illustrantur; voluntates corriguntur; qui fide
cernunt clare sapientiam christi, et amore ejusdem potentiam fortiter
apprehendunt.’




APPENDIX B.

EXTRACTS FROM MS. ON I. CORINTHIANS. EMMANUEL COLLEGE MS. 3. 3. 12.


(_a_) ‘Deus autem ipse animi instar totus in toto est, et totus in
qualibet parte: verumtamen non omnes partes similiter deificat (dei enim
animare deificare est), sed varie, videlicet, ut convenit ad
constructionem ejus, quod est in eo unum, ex pluribus. Hoc compositum
eciam ex deo et hominibus, modo templum dei, modo ecclesia, modo domus,
modo civitas, modo regnum, a _dei_ prophetis appellatur.... In quo quum
Corinthei erant, ut videri voluerunt et professi sunt: sapienter sane
Paulus animadvertens si quid laude dignum in illis erat, inde exorditur,
et gracias agit de eo quod præ se ferunt boni, quodque adhuc fidei et
ecclesiæ fundamentum tenent; ut hoc leni et molli principio alliciat eos
in lectionem reliquæ epistolæ, faciatque quod reprehendit in moribus eorum
facilius audiant. Nam si statim in initio asperior fuisset graviusque
accusasset, profecto teneros adhuc animos et novellos in religione,
presertim in gente ilia Greca, arrogante et superba, ac prona in
dedignationem, a se et suis exhortationibus discussisset. Prudenter igitur
et caute agendum fuit pro racione personarum, locorum et temporum: in
quibus observandis fuit Paulus certe unus omnium consideratissimus, qui
proposito fini ita novit media accommodare: ut quum nihil aliud quesierat
nisi gloriam Jesu christi in terris, et amplificationem fidei ac
charitatis, homo divina usus solertia nihil nec egit nec omisit unquam
apud aliquos, quod ejusmodi propositum vel impediret vel retardaret.
Itaque jam necessario correcturus quamplurima per literas in Corinthiis,
qui, post ejus ab eis discessum, obliqua acciderant, acceptiore utitur
principio et quasi quendam aditum facit ad reliqua, quæ non nihil amara
cogitur adhibere, ut salutaris medicinæ poculum, modo ejus os saccharo
illiniatur, Corinthii libenter admittant et hauriant. Quanquam vero
Corinthii omnes qui fuerunt ex ecclesia christum professi sunt, in
illiusque doctrina et nomine gloriati sunt: tamen super hoc fundamento
nonnullorum erant malæ et pravæ edificationes partim ignorantia partim
malicia superintroductæ. Fuerunt enim quidam parum modesti, idemque non
parum arrogantes, qui deo et christo et christi apostolis non nihil
posthabitis, ceperunt de lucro suo cogitare, ac freti sapientia seculari,
quæ semper plurimum potuit apud Grecos, in plebe sibi authoritatem
quærere, simulque opinionem apostolorum, maxime Pauli, derogare; cujus
tamen adhuc apud Corinthios (ut debuit) nomen plurimum valuit. At illi
nescio qui invidi et impatientes laudis Pauli, et suam laudem ac gloriam
amantes, attentaverunt aliquid institutionis in ecclesia, ut eis venerat
in mentem, utque sua sapientia et opibus probare potuerint, volueruntque
in populo videri multa scire et posse ac quid exposcit christiana religio
nihil ignorare, facileque quid venerat in dubium posse solvere et
sententiam ferre. Qua insolentia nimirum in molli adhuc et nascente
ecclesia molliti sunt multa, multa passi eciam sunt quæ ab institutis
Pauli abhorruere. Item magna pars populi jamdudum et vix a mundo tracti in
eam religionem quæ mundi contemptum edocet et imperat, facile retrospexit
ad mundanos mores: et oculos in opes, potentiam, et sapientiam secularem
conjecit. Unde nihil reluctati sunt, quin qui opibus valuerunt apud eos
iidem authoritate valeant. Immo ab illis illecti prompti illorum nomina
sectati sunt, quo factum fuit ut partes nascerentur et factiones ac
constitutiones sibi diversorum capitum: ut quæque conventicula suum caput
sequeretur. Ex quo dissidio contentiosæ altercationes proruperunt et omnia
simul misere corruerunt in deterius. Quam calamitatem Corinthiensis
ecclesiæ quorundam improbitate inductam, illius primus parens Paulus
molestissime tulit, non tam quod conati sunt infringere suam authoritatem,
quam quod sub malis suasoribus qui bene ceperint navigare in christi archa
periclitarentur. Itaque quantum est ausus et licuit insectatur eos qui
volunt videri sapientes, quique in christiana republica plus suis ingeniis
quam ex deo moliuntur. Quod tamen facit ubique modestissime, homo
piissimus, magis querens reformationem malorum quam aliquorum
reprehensionem. Itaque docet omnem et sapientiam et potentiam a deo esse
hominibus per Jesum christum, qui dei sui patris eterni virtus et
sapientia est, cujus virtute sapiat oportet et possit quisque qui vere
sapiat aliquid et recte possit; hominum autem sapientiam inanem et falsam
affirmat: Item potentiam vel quanquumque quandam enervationem et
infirmitatem: atque hec utraque deo odiosa et detestabilis, ut nihil
possit fieri nec stultius nec impotentius, neque vero quod magis deo
displiceat, quam quempiam suis ipsius viribus conari aliquid in ecclesia
christiana: quam totam suum solius opus esse vult deus; atque quenquam in
eo ex se solo suoque spiritu sapere, ut nulla sit in hominibus prorsus
neque quod possunt bonitate, neque quod sapiunt fide, neque denique quod
sunt quidem spe, nisi ex deo in christo gloriatio, per quem sumus in ipso,
et in deo, a quo sane solo possumus et sapimus, et sumus denique quicquid
sumus. Hoc in tota hac epistola contendit Paulus asserere: verum maxime et
apertissime in prima parte: in qua nititur eradicare et funditus tollere
falsam illam opinionem, qua homines suis viribus se aliquid posse
arbitrantur, qua sibi confisi, tum deo diffidunt, turn deum negligunt. Quæ
hominum arrogantia et opinio de seipsis, fons est malorum et pestis, ut
impossible sit eam societatem sanam et incolumem esse, in qua possunt
aliquid, qui suis se viribus aliquid posse arbitrantur. Secundum vero
Pauli doctrinam, quæ est christi doctrina et evangeliis consona (siquidem
unus est author et idem spiritus) nihil quisquam ad se ipsum, sed duntaxat
ad deum spectare debet, ei se subjicere totum, illi soli servire, postremo
ab illo expectare omnia et ex illo solo pendere: ut quicquid in christiana
republica (quæ dei est civitas) vel vere sentiat, vel recte agat ab illo
id totum credat proficisci, et acceptum deum referat.’--_Leaf_ a 4, _et
seq._

(_b_) ‘Quod si quando voluerit quempiam preditum sapientia seculari,
cujusmodi Paulus et ejus discipulus Dionysius Areopagita ac nonnulli alii
veritates sapientiæ suæ, et accipere et ad alios deferre: profecto hi
nunciaturi aliis quod a deo didicerint, dedita opera nihil magis
curaverunt quam ut ex seculo nihil sapere viderentur; existimantes
indignum esse ut cum divinis revelatis humana racio commisceatur: nolentes
eciam id committere quo putetur veritati credi magis suasione hominum quam
virtute dei.

‘Hinc Paulus in docta et erudita Grecia nihil veritus est, ex se videri
stultus et impotens, ac profiteri se nihil scire nisi Jesum christum et
eundem crucifixum: nec posse quicquam nisi per eundem ut per stulticiam
predicationis salvos faciat credentes et ratiocinantes confundet.’--_Leaf_
3, 4.

(_c_) ‘Idem etiam potentes non sua quidem potentia et virtute, sed solius
dei per Jesum christum dominum nostrum, in quo illud venerandum et
adorandum miraculum, quod deus ipse coierit cum humana natura; quod
quiddam compositum ex deo et homine (quod Greci vocant “Theantropon”) hic
vixit in terris, et pro hominum salute versatus est cum hominibus, ut eos
deo patri suo revocatos reconciliaret: quod idem præstitit in probatione
et ostensione virtutis defensioneque justiciæ usque ad mortem, mortem
autem crucis: quod deinde victa morte, fugato diabolo, redempto humano
genere, ut liberam habeat potestatem, omnino sine adversarii querela,
eligendi ad se quos velit, ut quos velit vocet, quos vocet justificet.
Quod (inquam) sic victa et prostrata morte, mortisque authore, ex morte
idem resurrexit vivens, ac vivum se multis ostendit, multisque argumentis
comprobavit. Quod tum postremo cernentibus discipulis sursum ut erat deus
et homo ascendit ad patrem, illic ex celo progressum sui inchoati operis
in terris, et perfectionem despecturus, ac quantum sibi videbitur continuo
adjuturus. Quod deinde post hæc tandem opportuno tempore, rebus maturis,
contrariis deo rationibus discussis, longe et a creaturis suis
exterminatis injusticia videlicet et ignorantia, in quarum profligatione
nunc quotidie dei et sapientia et virtus in suis ministris operatur,
operabiturque usque in finem. Quod tum (inquam) post satis longum
conflictum et utrinque pugnam inter lucem et tenebras, deo et angelis
spectantibus, tandem ille idem dux et dominus exercituum, qui, hic primus,
bellum induxit adversariis et cum hostibus manum ipse conseruit, patientia
et morte vincens, in subsidium suorum prelucens et prepotens, rediet, ut
fugata malitia et stultitia, illustret et bona faciet omnia: utque
postremo, resuscitans mortuos, ipsam mortem superet sua immortalitate, et
absorbeat, ac victuros secum rapiat in celum, morituros a se longe in
sempiternam mortem discutiat in tenebras illas exteriores, ut per ipsum in
reformato mundo sola vita deinceps in perpetuum sapientia et justitia
regnet.’--_Leaf_ b. 5.

(_d_) ‘Quamobrem non ab re quidem videtur factum fuisse a deo, ut illo
vulgo hominum et quasi fæce in fundo residente longe a claritate
posthabita, qui in tam altam obscuritatem non fuerint delapsi, prius et
facilius a divine lumine attingerentur, qui fuerunt qui minus in vallem
mundi miserique descenderunt, qui altius multo extantes quam alii, merito
priores exorto justiciæ sole illuminati fuerunt; qui supra multitudinem
varietatem et pugnam hujus humilis mundi, simplices, sui similes, et
quieti, extiterunt, tanto propiores deo quanto remotius a deo distaverint.
Quod si deus ipse est ipsa nobilitas, sapientia, et potentia; quis non
videt Petrum, Joannem, Jacobum, et id genus reliquos, etiam antequam
veritas dei illuxerat in terras, tanto aliis sapientia et viribus
præstitisse, quanto magis abfuerint ab illorum stultitia et impotentia, ut
nihil sit mirum, si deus, cujus est bonis suis, meliores eligere et
accommodare, eos habitos stultos et impotentes delegerit, quando quidem
revera universi mundi nobiliores fuerunt, a vilitateque mundi magis
sejuncti, altiusque extantes: ut quemadmodum id terræ quod altius eminet,
exorto sole facilius et citius radiis tangitur; ita similiter fuit necesse
prodeunte luce quæ illuminaret omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum,
prius irradiaret eos qui magis in hominibus eminuerint et quasi montes ad
hominum valles extiterint. Ad alios autem qui sunt in imo in regione
frigoris, nebulosa sapientia obducti, et tardius penetrant divini radii,
et illic difficilius illuminant et citius destituunt, nisi forte
vehementius incumbentes rarifecerint nubem et lenifecerint hominem ut
abjectis omnibus quæ habet, evolet in christum. Quod si fecerit, tum
emergit in conditionem et statum Petri ac talium parvulorum quos dudum
contempserit, ut per eam viam ascendat ad veritatem qui ipse est christus
qui dixit, “Nisi conversi fueritis et efficiamini sicut parvuli non
intrabitis in regnum cælorum.” Qui parvuli, sine dubio, sunt majores illis
qui magni in mundo reputantur, ac ideo jure a deo ad sua mysteria
antepositi.’--_Leaf_ b. 8.

(_e_) ‘Angustis sane et minutis sunt animis qui hoc non vident, quique
sentiunt de secularibus rebus contendendum esse, et in hisce jus quærendum
suum; qui ignorant quæ sit divina justitia, quæ injustitia; quique etiam
homunciones, quorum stultitia haud scio ridenda ne sit magis quam
deflenda, sed certe deflenda; quoniam ex ea ecclesia calamitatem sentit,
ac pæne eversionem. Sed illi homunciones perditi (quibus hoc nostrum
seculum plenum est) in quibusque sunt etiam qui minime debent esse
ecclesiastici viri, et qui habentur in ecclesia primarii. Illi (inquam)
ignari penitus evangelicæ et apostolicæ doctrinæ, ignari divinæ justitiæ,
ignari christianæ veritatis, soliti sunt dicere causam dei, jus ecclesiæ,
patrimonium christi, bona sacerdotii, defendi a se oportere et sine
peccato non posse non defendi. O angustia! O cæcitas! O miseria istorum,
qui quum ineunt rationem perdendi omnia, non solum hæc secularia, sed illa
quoque etiam sempiterna; quumque ipsa perdunt, putant se tamen eadem
acquirere, defendere et conservare; qui ipso rerum exitu ubique in
ecclesia homines, ipsis piscibus oculis durioribus, non cernunt quæ
contentionibus judiciisque dispendia religionis, diminutio auctoritatis,
negligentia christi, blasphemia dei, sequitur. Ea etiam ipsa denique, quæ
ipsi vocant “bona ecclesiæ,” quæque putant se suis litigationibus vel
tenere vel recuperare; quæ quotidie paulatim et latenter tum amittunt, tum
ægre custodiunt, siquidem magis vi quam hominum liberalitate et charitate,
quo nihil ecclesia indignius esse potest. In qua procul dubio eadem debet
esse ratio conservandi quæ data fuerint quondam, quæ fuerit comparandi.
Amor dei et proximi, desiderium celestium, contemptus mundanorum, vera
pietas, religio, charitas, benignitas erga homines, simplicitas,
patientia, tolerantia malorum, studium semper bene faciendi vel omnibus
hominibus ut [in constanti] bono malum vincant, hominum animos conscitavit
ubique tandem ut de ecclesia christi bene opinarentur, ei faveant, eam
ament, in eam benefici et liberales sint, darentque incessanter, datisque
etiam data accumulent, quum viderant in ecclesiasticis viris nullam
avaritiam, nullum abusum liberalitatis suæ. Quod si qui supremam partem
teneant in christiana ecclesia (id est sacerdotes) virtutem (quæ
acquisivit omnia) perpetuo tenuissent adhucve tenerent; profecto si staret
causa, effectus sequeretur, vel auctus vel conservatus, hominesque
ecclesiastici non solum quieti possiderent sua; sed plura etiam acciperent
possidenda. Sed quum aquæ (ut ait David) intraverant usque animos nostros,
quumque cupiditatis et avaritiæ fluctibus obruimur, nec illud audimus,
Divitiæ si affluant, nolite cor apponere, quumque neglecta illa virtute et
justitia et studio conservandi amplificandique regni dei in terris, quod
sacerdotio nec exposcenti nec expectanti ejusmodi acquisivit omnia, animos
suos (proh nephas!) in illos appendices et pendulas divitias converterint,
quod onus est potius ecclesiæ quam ornamentum, tunc ita illo retrospectu
canes illi et sues ad vomitum, et ad volutabrum luti, infirmaverunt se
amissa pulchra et placida conservatrice rerum virtute; ut quum vident
recidere a se quotidie quod virtus comparavit, impotentes dimicant et
turpiter sane confligunt inter se et cum laicis cum sui nominis infamia et
ignominia religionis, et ejus rei etiam quam maxime quærunt indies majore
dispendio ac perditione non videntes cæci, si qui [       ] acquisierit
aliquid necessario ejus contrarium idem auferre oportere. Contemptus mundi
mundanarumque rerum quem docuit christus comparavit omnia; contra earundem
amor amittet et perdet omnia. Quis non videt quum virtute præstitimus, nos
tunc bona mundi jure exigere non potuisse nisi quatenus tenuiter ad victum
vestitumque pertineat quo jubet Paulus contenti simus. Quis (inquam) non
videt multo minus nunc nos exigere debere, quum omnis virtutis expertes
sumus, quumque ab ipsis laicis nihil fere nisi tonsa coma, et corona,
capitio, et demissa toga, differimus, nisi hoc dicat quispiam (deridens
nos), quum nunc sumus relapsi in mundum, quæ sunt mundi et partem nostram
in mundo nos expostulare posse; ut non amplius dicamus, Dominus pars
hæreditatis nostræ; sed nobis dicatur, Mercedem vestram recepistis. O bone
deus, quam puderet nos hujus descensus in mundum, si essemus memores
amoris dei erga nos, exempli christi, dignitatis religionis christianæ,
professionis et nominis nostri.’--_Leaf_ d. 3-5.

(_f_) ‘Hic obstupesco et exclamo illud Pauli mei, “O altitudo divitiarum
sapientiæ et scientiæ dei.” O sapientia admirabiliter bona hominibus et
misericors, ut jure tua pia benignitas altitudo divitiarum potest
appellari, qui commendans charitatem tuam in nobis voluisti in nos tam
esse liberalis ut temetipsum dares pro nobis, ut tibe et deo nos
redderemur. O pia, O benigna, O benefica sapientia, O os, verbum, et
veritas dei in homine, verbum veridicum et verificans, qui voluisti nos
docere humanitus ut nos divinitus sapiamus, qui voluisti esse in homine ut
nos in deo essemus. Qui denique voluisti in homine humiliari usque ad
mortem, mortem autem crucis, ut nos exaltaremur usque ad vitam, vitam
autem dei.’




APPENDIX C.


ON THE DATE OF MORE’S BIRTH.

The following correspondence in ‘Notes and Queries’ (Oct. 1868) may be
considered, I think, to set at rest the date of Sir Thomas More’s birth.


No. 1 (Oct. 17, 1868).

‘Some months ago I found the following entries, relating to a family of
the name of More, on two blank leaves of a MS. in the Gale collection, in
the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The class mark of the volume is
“O. 2. 21.” Its contents are very miscellaneous. Among other things is a
copy of the poem of Walter de Biblesworth, printed by Mr. Thomas Wright in
his volume of _Vocabularies_ from the Arundel MS. The date of this is
early fourteenth century. The names of former possessors of the volume are
“Le: Fludd” and “G. Carew;” the latter being probably Sir George Carew,
afterwards Earl of Totness. The entries which I have copied are on the
last leaf and the last leaf but one of the volume. I have added the dates
in square brackets, and expanded the contractions:

‘“M{d} quod die dominica in vigilia Sancti Marce Evangeliste Anno Regni
Regis Edwardi quarti post conquestum Anglie quartodecimo Johannes More
Gent. maritatus fuit Agneti filie Thome Graunger in parochia sancti Egidij
extra Crepylgate london. [24 April, 1474.]

‘“M{ed} quod die sabbati in vigilia sancti gregorij pape inter horam
primam & horam secundam post Meridiem eiusdem diei Anno Regni Regis
Edwardi quarti post conquestum Anglie xv{o} nata fuit Johanna More filia
Johannis More Gent. [11 March, 1474-5.]

‘“M{d} quod die veneris proximo post Festum purificacionis beate Marie
virginis videlicet septimo die Februarij inter horam secundam et horam
terciam in Mane natus fuit Thomas More filius Johannis More Gent. Anno
Regni Regis Edwardi quarti post conquestum Anglie decimo septimo. [7 Feb.
1477-8.]

‘“M{d} quod die dominica videlicet vltimo die Januarij inter horam
septimam et horam octauam ante Meridiem Anno regni Regis Edwardi quarti
decimo octauo nata fuit Agatha filia Johannis More Gentilman. [31 Jan.
1478-9.]

‘“M{d} quod die Martis videlicet vj{to} die Junij inter horam decimam &
horam vndecimam ante Meridiem natus fuit Johannes More filius Johannis
More Gent. Anno regni Regis Edwardi quarti vicesimo. [6 June, 1480.]

‘“Me{d} quod die lune viz. tercio die Septembris inter horam secundam &
horam terciam in Mane natus fuit Edwardus Moore filius Johannis More Gent.
Anno regni regis Edwardi iiij{ti} post conquestum xxj{o}. [3 Sept. 1481.]

‘“M{d} quod die dominica videlicet xxij{o} die Septembris anno regni regis
Edwardi iiij{ti} xxij{o} inter horam quartam & quintam in Mane nata fuit
Elizabeth More filia Johannis More Gent.” [22 Sept. 1482.]

‘It will be seen that these entries record the marriage of a John More,
gent., in the parish church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and the births of
his six children, Johanna, Thomas, Agatha, John, Edward, and Elizabeth.

‘Now it is known that Sir Thomas More was born, his biographers vaguely
say, _about_ 1480 in Milk Street, Cheapside, which is in the parish of St.
Giles, Cripplegate; that he was the son of Sir John More, afterwards Lord
Chief Justice, who, at the time of his son’s birth, was a barrister, and
would be described as “John More, gent.”; and that he had two sisters,
Jane or Joane (Wordsworth’s _Eccl. Biog._ ii. 49), married to Richard
Stafferton, and Elizabeth, wife to John Rastall the printer, and mother of
Sir William Rastall (born 1508), afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the
Queen’s Bench.

‘The third entry above given records the birth of Thomas, son of John
More, who had been married in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and
may be presumed to have lived in the parish. The date of his birth is
Feb. 7, 1477-8; that is, according to modern reckoning, 1478, and
therefore “_about_ 1480.” Oddly enough, the day of the week in this entry
is wrong. It is Friday, which in 1477-8 was Feb. 6. But Thomas was born
between two and three in the morning of Saturday, Feb. 7. The confusion is
obvious and natural.

‘The second and last entries record the births of his sisters Johanna and
Elizabeth. The former of these names appears to have been a favourite in
the family of Sir John More, and was the name of his grandmother, the
daughter of John Leycester.

‘I may add, that the entries are all in a contemporary hand, and their
formal character favours the supposition that they were made by some one
familiar with legal documents, and probably by a lawyer.

‘This remarkable series of coincidences led me at first to believe that I
had discovered the entry of the birth of Sir Thomas More. But, upon
investigation, I was met by a difficulty which at present I have been
unable to solve. In the life of the Chancellor by Cresacre More, his
great-grandson, the name of Sir Thomas More’s mother is said to have been
“Handcombe of Holliwell in Bedfordshire.” This fact is not mentioned by
Roper, who lived many years in his house, and married his favourite
daughter, or by any other of his biographers. The question, therefore, is
whether the authority of Cresacre More on this point is to be admitted as
absolute. He was not born till nearly forty years after Sir Thomas More’s
death, and his book was not written till between eighty and ninety years
after it. We must take into consideration these facts in estimating the
amount of weight to be attached to his evidence as to the name of his
great-great-grandmother.

‘Were there then two John Mores of the rank of gentlemen, both apparently
lawyers, living at the same time, in the same parish, and both having
three children bearing the same names; or was John More, who married Agnes
Graunger, the future Chief Justice and father of the future Chancellor? To
these questions, in the absence of Cresacre More’s statement, the
accumulation of coincidences would have made it easy to give a very
positive answer. Is his authority to be weighed against them?

‘Stapylton’s assertion that Sir Thomas More had no brothers presents no
difficulty, as they may have died in infancy. The entries which I have
quoted would explain why he was called Thomas, after his maternal
grandfather.

‘If any heraldic readers of “Notes and Queries” could find what are the
arms quartered with those of More upon the Chancellor’s tomb at Chelsea,
they would probably throw some light upon the question. Mr. Hunter
describes them as “three bezants on a chevron between three unicorns’
heads.”

‘WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT.

‘Trinity College, Cambridge.’


No. 2 (Oct. 31, 1868).

‘There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that Mr. Wright’s discovery
has set at rest the perplexing question of the true date of Sir Thomas
More’s birth. In the note in the Appendix to my “Oxford Reformers” I was
obliged to leave the question undecided, whilst inclined to believe that
the weight of evidence preponderated in favour of the received date--1480.
What appeared almost incontrovertible evidence in favour of 1480 was the
evidence of the pictures of Sir Thomas More’s family by Holbein. The most
certainly authentic of these is the original pen-and-ink sketch in the
Basle Museum. Upon Mechel’s engraving of this (dated 1787), Sir Thomas’s
age is marked “50,” and at the bottom of the picture is the inscription,
“Johannes Holbein ad Vivum delin.: Londini: 1530.” This seemed to be
almost conclusive evidence that he was born in 1480. If Sir Thomas was
born in Feb. 1478, according to the newly discovered entries, and was
fifty when the picture was sketched by Holbein, the sketch obviously
cannot have been made in 1530, but two or three years earlier.

‘Now if it may be supposed that the sketch was made during the summer or
autumn of 1527, I think it will be found that all other chronological
difficulties will vanish before the newly discovered date.

‘1. More himself would be in his fiftieth year in 1527.

‘2. Ann Cresacre, marked on the sketch as “15,” would have only recently
completed her fifteenth year, as, according to her tombstone, she was in
her sixty-sixth year in Dec. 1577; and according to the inscription on the
Burford picture she was born in 3 Henry VIII.

‘3. Margaret Roper, marked on the sketch “22,” would be born in 1505 or
1506, and this would allow of More’s marriage having taken place in 20
Henry VII. 1505, as stated on the Burford picture.

‘4. Sir Thomas would be forty-one in July, 1519, and this accords with
Erasmus’s statement in his letter to Hutten of that date (_Epist._
ccccxlvii.)--“ipse novi hominem, non majorem annis _viginti tribus_, nam
_nunc non multum excessit quadragesimum_.” He would be only one year past
forty. Erasmus first became acquainted with More probably in the course of
1498, when (being born in February) he was in his twentieth year. The
“viginti tribus” must in any case be an error.

‘5. John More, jun., marked “19” in the sketch, would be “more or less
than thirteen” as reported by Erasmus in 1521. (_Epist._ dcv.)

‘6. More’s epigram, which speaks of “quinque lustra” (_i.e._ twenty-five
years), having passed since he was “quater quatuor” (sixteen), and thus
makes him forty-one when he wrote it, would (if he was born in 1478) give
1519 as the date of the epigram; and this corresponds with the fact, that
the Basle edition of 1518 (_Mori Epigrammata_, Froben) did not contain it,
while it was inserted in the second edition of 1520.

‘7. There is a passage in More’s “History of Richard III.,” in which the
writer speaks of having himself overheard a conversation which took place
in 1483.

‘Mr. Gairdner, in his “Letters, &c. of Richard III. and Henry VII.” (vol.
ii. preface, p. xxi), rightly points out that, if born in 1480, More,
being then only three years old, could not have remembered overhearing a
conversation. But if born in Feb. 1478, he would be in his sixth year, and
could easily do so.

‘On the whole, therefore, the newly discovered date dispels all the
apparent difficulties with which the received date is beset, if only it
may be assumed that the true date of the Basle sketch was 1527, and not
(as inscribed upon Mechel’s engraving and upon the English pictures of the
family of Sir Thomas More) 1530.

‘Since I published my “Oxford Reformers” I have obtained a photograph of
the Basle sketch itself, which dispels this difficulty also, as it bears
upon it _no date at all_.

‘The date, 1530, on the pictures appears to rest upon no good authority.
Holbein, in fact, had left England the year before. I therefore have
little doubt that the remarkable document discovered by Mr. Wright is
perfectly genuine.

‘Should the arms quartered with those of More upon the Chancellor’s tomb
at Chelsea prove to be the arms of “Graunger,” the evidence would indeed
be complete.

‘FREDERIC SEEBOHM.

‘Hitchin.’


No. 3 (Oct. 31, 1868).

‘Mr. Wright will find the lineage of Sir Thomas More and his father
discussed at some length in my “Judges of England,” vol. v. pp. 190-206;
and I have very little doubt that the John More whose marriage is recorded
in the first entry was the person who afterwards became a Judge (not Chief
Justice, as Mr. Wright by mistake calls him), and that Thomas More, whose
birth is recorded in the third entry, was the illustrious Lord Chancellor.
The only difficulty arises from John More’s wife being named “Agnes
daughter of Thomas Graunger;” but this difficulty is easily discarded,
since Cresacre More, who wrote between eighty and ninety years after the
Chancellor’s death, is the only author who gives another name, and his
other biographer, who wrote immediately after his death, gives the lady no
name at all.

‘John More married three times; and he must have been a very young man on
his first marriage with Agnes Graunger (supposing that to be the name of
his first wife), by whom only he had children.

‘I have stated in my account that there were two John Mores who were
contemporaries at a period considerably earlier, one of Lincoln’s Inn and
the other of the Middle Temple. Of the lineage of the latter there is no
account; but of the former I have stated my conviction that he was the
father of the John More whose marriage is here recorded, and consequently
the grandfather of Sir Thomas More; and thus, as both the John Mores had
originally filled dependent employment in Lincoln’s Inn, the modest
description of his origin given by Sir Thomas in his epitaph, “familiâ non
celebri, sed honestâ natus,” is at once accounted for.

‘EDWARD FOSS.’


No. 4 (Oct. 31, 1868).

‘Permit me to set your correspondent right in a minor particular, which he
looks to as confirming his theory, though I trust he may be able to
substantiate it otherwise. Mr. Wright says--“Milk Street, Cheapside ... is
in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate:” it is not so, as several
parishes intervene; Milk Street is _within_ the walls, whereas St. Giles’s
is _without_. Mr. Wright might have seen this by the wording of his first
quotation:--“in parochia Egidij extra Crepylgate;” the word “extra”
implies beyond the walls. Milk Street is in the _ward_ of Cripplegate
Within, not in the _parish_ of St. Giles Without, Cripplegate--a
distinction not obvious to strangers.

‘A great part of the district now called Cripplegate _Without_ was
originally moor or fen: we have a Moorfields, now fields no more; and a
“More” or Moor Lane. I cannot suppose the latter to have been named after
the author of “Utopia;” but as he really emanated from this locality,
possibly his family was named from the neighbouring moor. The Chancellor
bore for his crest “a Moor’s head affrontée sable.” I would not wish to
affront his memory by adding more, but your readers will find something on
this subject _antè_, 3rd S. xii. 199, 238.

‘A. H.’


No. 5 (Nov. 5, 1868).

‘I am indebted to your correspondents, Mr. Foss and A. H., for their
corrections of two inaccuracies in my paper on Sir Thomas More.
Fortunately, neither of these affects the strength of my case. It is
sufficient that Milk Street and the church of St. Giles’, Cripplegate, are
so near as to render it probable that a resident in the one might be
married at the other. If, therefore, for “the same parish” I substitute
“the same ward,” my case remains substantially as strong as before. My
mistake arose from not observing that the map in Strype’s edition of
Stow’s _Survey_, which I consulted, was a map of Cripplegate Ward, and not
of the parish of St. Giles’.

‘Before writing to you, I had, of course, consulted Mr. Foss’s _Judges of
England_, but found nothing there bearing upon the point on which I wanted
assistance, viz., the name and arms of Sir Thomas More’s mother.

‘WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT.

‘Trinity College, Cambridge.’




APPENDIX D.


ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES AND PREFERMENTS OF DEAN COLET, IN ORDER OF
TIME.[791]

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Date of|    Description of     |      Authority         |    Date of
  Appointment   Preferment, &c.    |                        |   Avoidance
  ---------|-----------------------|------------------------|--------------
  Aug. 6,  |Rectory of St. Mary,   |Reg. Norw. xii. f. 116, |Sept. 16, 1519
    1485   |  Denington, Suffolk   |  quoted by Kennett     |  per mortem
           |                       |                        |
  (?)      |Prebend of Goodeaster, |Wharton, _de Decanis_,  |Jan. 26, 1503
           |  in Collegiate Church |  p. 234                |  per resign.
           |  of St.               |                        |
           |  Martin-le-Grand      |                        |
           |                       |                        |
  (?)      |Vicarage of St. Dunstan|Reg. Hill, Lond., quoted|Sept, 21, 1505
           |  and All Saints,      |  by Kennett            |  per resign.
           |  Stepney              |                        |
           |                       |                        |
  Sept. 30,|Rectory of St.         |Reg. Episcop. apud ædes |End of 1493
    1490   |  Nicholas, Thyrning,  |  Bucdenæ, quoted by    |
           |  Hunts and Northampton|  Kennett               |
           |                       |                        |
  March 5, |Prebend of Botevant, in|Le Neve’s _Fasti_       |
    1493-4 |  Cathedral Church of  |  (1854), vol. iii. p.  |
           |  York                 |  176                   |
           |                       |                        |
           |[During this interval, |                        |
           |  Colet was apparently |                        |
           |  on the Continent]    |                        |
           |                       |                        |
  Dec. 17, |Deacon                 |Reg. Savage, Lond.,     |
    1497   |                       |  quoted by Kennett     |
           |                       |                        |
  March 25,|Priest (by Knight said |Memorand. a Willi.      |
    1497-8 |  to be on Feast of    |  Smyth, Lincoln, quoted|
           |  ‘_St. Ann_,’ i.e.    |  by Kennett            |
           |  July 26, in error    |                        |
           |  probably for         |                        |
           |  ‘_Ann_unciation,’    |                        |
           |  i.e. March 25)       |                        |
           |                       |                        |
  1501(?)  |S.T.B. (Bachelor of    |Anthony à Wood (sub anno|
           |  Divinity)            |  1501, on mere         |
           |                       |  conjecture, apparently|
           |                       |  dating back from the  |
           |                       |  assumed date of the   |
           |                       |  D.D.), quoted by      |
           |                       |  Kennett               |
           |                       |                        |
  1502     |Prebend of Durnesford, |Wharton, _de  Decanis_, |
           |  in Cathedral Church  |  p. 234.               |
           |  of Salisbury         |                        |
           |                       |                        |
  1504     |S.T.P. (Doctor of      |Ant. à Wood, sub anno   |
           |  Divinity)            |  1504 (probably only   |
           |                       |  conjectured by Wood,  |
           |                       |  as there appears to be|
           |                       |  no record at Oxford), |
           |                       |  quoted by Kennett     |
           |                       |                        |
  May 5,   |Prebend of Mora, in    |Reg. Hill. f. 51, quoted|Sept. 16, 1519
    1505   |  Cathedral Church of  |  by Le Neve, _Fasti_,  |  per mortem
           |  St. Paul, London     |  ii. 411               |
           |                       |                        |
  1505 (?) |Deanery of St. Paul’s, |Le Neve, ib. p. 411.    |Ditto ditto
           |  London               |                        |
           |                       |                        |
  1516     |Treasurership of       |Reg. Cicestrense, quoted|
           |  Chichester Cathedral |  by Le Neve, i. 268    |
           |  (Dean Colet?)        |                        |
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------




APPENDIX E.

CATALOGUE OF EARLY EDITIONS OF THE WORKS OF ERASMUS IN MY POSSESSION.


A.D.

1506. D. Erasmi &c. Adagiorum Collectanea, Rursus ab eodem recognita atque
aucta ... [also] Erasmi varia epigrammata.

    In ædibus Joannis Barbier xviii. Martij M.DVI.

1506. D. Erasmi &c. Adagiorum Collectanea, Rursus ab eodem recognita atque
aucta ... [but without the epigrams].

    Ex ædibus Ascensianis pridie natalis dominici M.DVI.

1508. Erasmi Rot. Adagiorum chiliades tres, ac centuriæ fere todidem.

    Venetiis in ædibus Aldi, mense Sept. MDVIII.

1511. Moriæ Encomium Erasmi Roterodami Declamatio.

    Argentorati in ædibus M. Schurerii, mense augusto anno M.D.XI.

1512. Collectanea Adagiorum &c. Erasmi. Ex Tertia Recognitione. (With
prefatory letter of Schurerius dated xiiii. Calendas Julii MDIX.)

    Argentorati [Strasburg] stanneis calamis denuo exscripta in officina
    Matthiæ Schurerii, mense Junio anno M.D.XII.

1512. De ratione studii, &c.

Officium discipulorum ex Quintiliano.

Concio de puero Jesu, &c.

Expostulatio Jesu ad mortales.

Carmina scholaria.

    Argentorati, Ex ædibus Schurerianis mense Julio M.D.XII.

1513. De Duplici Copia rerum ac verborum Commentarii duo. [A reprint of
the first edition of Paris.]

    Argentorat. M. Schurerius exscripsit, mense Januario M.D.XIII.

1514. De ratione studii, &c.

Officium discipulorum ex Quintiliano.

Concio de puero Jesu ad mortales.

Carmina scholaria.

    Argentorati ex ædibus M. Schurerii, mense Augusto, anno M.D.XIIII.

1514. Parabolarum sive Similium liber. (Prefatory letter of Erasmus to
Ægidius dated MDXIIII. Idibus Octobreis.)

    Argentorati ex ædibus Schurerianis, mense Decembri MD.XIIII. (First
    edition?)

1514. Opuscula aliquot, Erasmo Rot. castigatore et interprete. Cato ...
amplectens præcepta Mimi Publiani, Septem Sapientum celebria dicta,
Institutum Christiani hominis, &c.

    Colonie in edibus Martini Werdenensis, XII. Kalendas Decembres.

1514(?). De duplici Copia Verborum ac rerum commentarii duo. Ab Authore
ipso diligentissime recogniti et emaculati atque in plerisque locis aucti.

Item Epistola Erasmi ad Jacobum Vuymphelingium Selestatinum.

Item Parabolæ, &c.

    Argentorat. Schurerius.

1515. Enchiridion Militis Christiani. (Without the letter to Volzius.)

    Lypsi in ædibus Valentini Schumans.. Sexto Calendae Septembris,
    M.D.XV.

1515. Enchiridion Militis Christiani. (Without the letter to Volzius.)

Disputatio de Tedio et Pavore Christi.

Exhortatio ad virtutem, &c.

Precatio ad Virginis filium Jesum.

Pæan virgini Matri, &c.

Obsecratio ad Mariam ...

Oratio in laudem pueri Jesu.

Enarratio allegorica in Primum Psalmum.

Carmen de casa natalitia pueri Jesu.

Carmina complura de puero Jesu.

Carmina de angelis.

Carmen Græcanicum Virgini sacrum Mariæ.

    Argentorati apud M. Schurerium, mense Septembri, M.D.XV.

1515. Erasmi Roterodami Ennarratio in Primum Psalmum Davidicum.

Martini Dorpii ad eundem Epistola, de Moriæ Encomio, &c.

Erasmi ad Dorpium Apologia.

    Louanii Theodoricus Martinus excudebat, Mense Octobr, MDXV.

1515. Cato Erasmi. Opuscula aliquot: Precepta Mimi Publiani; Septem
sapientum celebria dicta; Institutum christiani hominis, &c.

    Colonie in edibus Quentell. M.CCCCC.XV.

1516. Novum Instrumentum.

    Basileæ in ædibus Joannis Frobenii Hammelburgensis, Mense Februario
    Anno M.D.XVI.

1516. Collectanea Adagiorum, &c.

    Argentorati M. Schurerius ... exscripsit, Mense Maio M.D.XVI.

1516. Enchiridion, &c. (containing the same matter as the Strasburg
edition of 1515).

    Argentorati apud M. Schurerium, Mense Junio, M.D.XVI.

1516. Institutio Principis Christiani ... cum aliis nonnullis,
viz.:--Precepta Isocratis, &c.; Panegyricum gratulatorium, &c. ad
Principem Philippum; Libellus Plutarchi de discrimine adulatoris et amici.

    Louanii apud Theodoricum Martinum Alustensem, Mense Augusto, MDXVI.

1516. Erasmi Roterodami Epistolæ; ad Leonem X, ad Cardinalem Grimannum, ad
Cardinalem S. Georgii, ad Martinum Dorpium. Ejusdem in laudem urbis
Selestadii Panegyricum Carmen.

    Lypsiæ impressit Valentinus Schuman. A.D. M.CCCCC.XVI.

1517. Aliquot Epistole saneque elegantes Erasmi Roterodami, et ad hunc
aliorum eruditissimorum hominum, antehac nunquam excusæ præter unam et
alteram. (Containing 39 letters.)

    Lovanii apud Theodoricum Martinum, anno M.D.XVII. mense Aprili.

1517. Scarabeus, cum scholiis.

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium, Mense Maio, M.D.XVII.

1517. Bellum.

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium, Mense Aprili, M.D.XVII.

1517. De Octo Orationis Partium constructione Libellus ... Erasmo autore.

    Basileæ; In officina Adæ Petri, mense Augusto, M.D.XVII.

1517. Enchiridion, etc. (containing the same matter as the Strasburg
edition of 1515).

    Argentorati apud M. Schurerium mense Novembri, M.D.XVII.

1517. In epistolam Pauli ad Romanos Paraphrasis. (First edition.)

    Louanii Ex officina Theodo. Martin. Mense Novembri, M.D.XVII.

1518. Aliquot Epistolæ saneque elegantes Erasmi Roterodami, et ad hunc
aliorum eruditissimorum hominum. (Containing 56 letters.)

    In Aedibus Frobenianis apud inclytam Germaniae Basiliam; mense
    Januario, Anno M.D.XVIII.

1518. De Optimo Reip. Statu deque nova insula Vtopia libellus vere aureus
... Thomæ Mori.

Epigrammata ... Thomæ Mori.

Epigrammata Des. Erasmi Rot.

    Basiliæ apud Joannem Frobenium, mense Martio M.D.XVIII.

1518. Enchiridion militis Christiani. (With prefatory letter to Volzius.)

Disputatiuncula de Pavore, &c. Jesu.

Jo: Coleti Responsio.

Basilius in Esaiam e Græco versus.

Epistola exhortatoria, &c.

Precatio ... ad Jesum.

Pæan ... virgini matri, &c.

Concio de puero Jesu.

Enarratio primi Psalmi.

Ode de casa natalitia pueri Jesu.

Expostulatio Jesu.

Hymni de Michaele, &c.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, M.D.XVIII. Quintili mense.

1518. Auctarium selectarum aliquot Epistolarum Erasmi Roterodami ad
Eruditos, et horum ad illum.

    Apud inclytam Basileam (Prefatory letter of Beatus Rhenanus dated XI.
    Calendas Septembreis M.D.XVIII.)

1518. Institutio boni et Christiani principis, &c.

Præcepta Isocratis, &c.

Panegyricus &c. ad Principem Philippum.

Libellus Plutarchi, &c.

    Basileæ apud J. Frobenium, mense Julio MDXVIII.

Also, Plutarchi opuscula quædam D. Erasmo Rot. ... Philippo Melanchthone
&c. interpretibus.

    Basileæ apud J. Frobenium, mense Septembri M.D.XVIII.

1518. Querela Pacis undique gentium ejectæ ... also:--

In genere Consolatorio de Morte declamatio.

    Lipsiæ ex ædibus Valentini Schumann, 1518.

1519. Ratio seu Compendium veræ Theologiæ.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, mense Januario M.D.XIX.

1519. Paraclesis.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, mense Februario M.D.XIX.

1519. Novum Testamentum omne, multo quam antehac diligentius ab Erasmo
Rot. recognitum, &c. (Second edition.)

    Basileæ in ædibus Joannis Frebenii, M.D.XIX. mense Martio.

1519. D. Erasmi Rot. in Novum Testamentum ab eodem denuo recognitum
Annotationes.

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium, mense Martio M.D.XIX.

1519. Collectanea Adagiorum, &c.

    Argentorati M. Schurerius ... exscripsit mense Martio 1519.

1519. In Hymnum Aviæ Christi Annæ dictum ab Erasmo Roteradamo Scholia
Jacobi Spiegel Selestadiensis.

    In officina excusoria Segismundi Grim. Medici et Marci Vuyrsung,
    Augustæ Vindelicorum [Augsburg] M.D.XIX. quarto Non. Mar.

1519. D. Erasmi Rot. Apologia pro declamatione de laude matrimonii.

    Apud Joannem Frobenium, mense Maio M.D.XIX.

1519. De ratione studii, &c. (Containing the same pieces as the edition of
1512.)

    Argentorati Ex ædibus M. Schurerii, mense Junio M.D.XIX.

1519. In Epistolam Pauli ad Galatas Paraphrasis per Erasmum Rot. recens ab
illo conscripta et nunc primum typis excusa....

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, mense Augusto M.D.XIX.

1519. Ex Novo Testamento Quatuor Evangelia jam denuo ab Erasmo Roter.
recognita, emendata ac liberius versa, &c.

    Lipsi ex officina industrii Valentini Schumanni. 1519. 15 Kalendas
    Novembris.

1519. Moriæ encomium iterum, pro castigatissimo castigatius, una cum
Listrii commentariis, &c.

    Basileæ in ædibus Jo. Frobenii, mense Novembri, M.D.IX.

1519(?). Erasmi Rot. Apologia, refellens suspiciones quorundam
dictitantium dialogum D. Jacobi Latomi.... (To which is added, but in
different type, the ‘Dialogus’ of Latomus.)

    Basle. Froben. (The woodcut on the title-page has the inscription,
    HANS HOLB.)

1519. Enchiridion, &c. (Containing the same matter as the Basle edition of
1518.)

    Coloniæ, apud Eucharium Cervicornum, MDXIX.

1519. D. Erasmi Rot. Opuscula, containing Paraclesis, Ratio seu Compendium
veræ theologiæ, and Argumenta in omneis Apostolorum epistolas.

    Lipsiæ apud Melchiorem Lottheaum. 1519.

1519. In Epistolam Pauli ad Galatas Paraphrasis per Erasmum Roterodamum,
recens ab illo conscripta, et nunc primum typis excusa.

    Lypsiæ ex officina Schumanniana. 1519.

1520. Enchiridion Militis Christiani (with letter to Volzius). (At the end
is added the Letter of Erasmus to John Colet, from Oxford, Eras. _Op._ v.
p. 1263, and referred to supra, p. 133.)

    Moguntiæ, apud Joannem Schœffer, M.D.XX. mense Januario.

1520. Paraphrases D. Erasmi in Epistolas Pauli Apostoli ad Rhomanos,
Corinthios, et Galatas....

    Basileæ, in æd. Frob. per Hieronymum Frob. Joan. Filium. Mense
    Januario MDXX.

1520. Paraphrases in Epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios, Philippenses et
Colossenses et in duas ad Thessalonicenses....

    Basileæ in ædibus Joannis Frobenii, mense Martio MDXX.

1520. Paraphrases in Epistolas Pauli ad Timotheum duas, ad Titum unam et
ad Philemonem unam.

    Basileæ in ædibus Joannis Frobenii, mense Martio MDXX.

1520. Annotationes Edovardi Leei in Annotationes Novi Testamenti D.
Erasmi. (With the replies of Erasmus.)

    Basileæ ex ædibus Joannis Frobenii, mense Maio M.D.XX.

1520. Annotationes Edovardi Leei in Annotationes Novi Testamenti D.
Erasmi.

    Basileæ ex ædibus Joannis Frob. xii. Calendas Augustas M.D.XX.

1520. De Ratione Studii, &c.

Officium Discipulorum ex Quintiliano.

Concio de puero Jesu, &c.

Expostulatio Jesu ad Mortales.

Carmina Scholaria.

    Selestadii in ædibus Lazari Schurerii, mense Augusto, anno M.D.XX.

1520. Apologia Erasmi ... de ‘In principio erat Sermo.’

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, M.D.XX.

And also, with continuous paging,

Epistolæ aliquot eruditorum virorum ex quibus perspicuum quanti sit
Eduardi Leei virulentia

    Basileæ ex ædibus Joannis Frobenii, MDXX. mense Augusto.

1520. Parabolarum sive Similium Liber. Ex secunda recognitione.

    Selestadii in ædibus Lazari Schurerii, mense Augusto M.D.XX.

1520. Adagia. Ex quarta Autoris recognitione.

    Basileæ in ædibus Joannis Frobenii, mense Octobri M.D.XX.

1520. Antibarbarorum D. Erasmi Rot. Liber unus.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, M.D.XX.

1520. D. Erasmi Rot. Epistola ad Cardinalem Moguntinum, qua commonefacit
illius celsitudinem de causa Doctoris Martini Lutheri.

    Selestadii in officina Schueriana, sumptu Nicolai Cuferii bibliopolæ
    Selestadiensis, M.D.XX.

1521. De duplici copia verborum ac rerum Commentarii duo.

De ratione studii.

De laudibus literariæ societatis, reipublicæ ac magistratuum urbis
Argentinæ.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, mense Februario, M.D.XXI.

1521. Parabolæ sive similia.

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium, mense Julio M.D.XXI.

1521. De duplici Copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo.

De laudibus literariæ societatis, &c.

Epistola ad Wimphelingum.

    Moguntiæ ex ædibus Joannis Schœffer, mense Augusto MD.XXI.

1521. Epistolæ D. Erasmi Roterodami ad diversos, et aliquot aliorum ad
illum per amicos eruditos, ex ingentibus fasciculis schedarum collectæ.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, M.D.XXI. Pridie Cal. Septembris.

1522. Collectanea Adagiorum, &c.

    Moguntiæ in ædibus Joannis Schœffer, Anno supra sesquimillesimum XXII.
    mense Februario.

1522. Enchiridion militis Christiani.

    Argentinæ apud Joannem Knoblochium mense Februario MDXXII.

1522. Novum testamentum omne tertio jam recognitum.

    Anno MDXXII. (Basle).

1522. D. Erasmi Rot. in novum testamentum ab eodem tertio recognitum
Annotationes.

    Basileæ M.D.XXII. mense Februario.

1522. Paraphrasis in Evangelium Matthæi, nunc primum nata et ædita, &c.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frob. mense Martio MDXXII.

1522. Querela Pacis.

    Argentinæ apud Joannem Knoblouchum, mense Martio M.D.XXII.

1522. Ratio seu Methodus Compendio perveniendi ad veram Theologiam,
postremum ab ipso autore castigata et locupletata. Paraclesis. (Also
Letter from Hutten to Erasmus.)

    Basileæ in ædibus Joannis Frobenii, MDXXII. mense Junio.

1522. Moriæ Encomium, &c.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frob. mense Julio MDXXII.

1522. De Conscribendis Epistolis, recognitum ab autore et locupletatum.

Parabolarum sive similium liber ab autore recognitus.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frob. M.D.XXII. mense Augusto.

1522. Familiarium Colloquiorum Formulæ. (The Prefatory Letter to Froben’s
Son is dated ‘pridie Calendas Martias, MDXXII.’)

    (A reprint of the first edition of Basle.)

    Argentorati expensis Joannis Knoblouchii et Pauli Getz. MDXXII. mense
    Octobri.

1522. De Conscribendis Epistolis Opus ... recognitum ab autore et
locupletatum.

    Argentorati ex ædibus Joannis Knoblouchii, MDXXII. mense Octobri.

1522. Ad Christophorum Episc. Basil. Epistola Apologetica de interdicto
esu carnium, &c. cum aliis nonnullis novis, &c. (Containing Apologia
contra Stunicam.)

    Argentorati ædibus Joannis Knoblouchii MDXXII. octavo calendas decemb.

1522. Ad R. Christophorum Episcopum Basiliensem, epistola apologetica de
interdicto esu carnium, &c.

    In officina excusoria Sigismundi, Augustæ Vindelicorum [Augsburg],
    M.D.XXII.

1522. Paraclesis.

    Augustæ Vindelicorum, MDXXII.

1522. Enchiridion Militis Christiani, which may be called in Englische the
Hansom Weapon of a Christen Knight replenished with many Goodly and Godly
Preceptes: made by the famous Clerke Erasmus of Roterdame, and newly
corrected and imprinted.

    Imprinted at London by Johan Byddell, dwellynge at the sygne of the
    Sonne, against the Cundyte in Fletestrete, where they be for to sell.
    Newly corrected in the yere of our Lorde god, M.CCCCC[X]*XII.

    * This letter has evidently dropped out of its place in the printing.

1523. Enchiridion Militis Christiani.

    Apud Sanctam Ubiorum Agrippinam, M.D.XXIII. In ædibus Eucharii
    Cervicorni, impensa et ære integerrimi bibliopolæ Godefridi Hittorpii
    civis Coloniensis, mense Martio.

1523. Paraphrasis in Evangelium Joannis Apostoli. (First edition.)

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, mense Martio MDXXIII.

1523. Catalogus omnium Erasmi Lucubrationum, ipso autore, cum aliis
nonnullis. (Containing Letters of Erasmus to Botzhem, and to Marcus
Laurinus.)

    Basileæ in ædibus Joannis Frobenii, mense Aprili M.D.XXIII.

1523. Enchiridion Militis Christiani.

    Parisiis in ædibus Simonis Colinæi, Pridie Calendas Maii MD.XXIII.

1523. Enchiridion Militis Christiani. (With Letter to Volzius.)

    Argentorati excudebat Joan. Knob. mense Octobri M.D.XXIII.

1523. Querela Pacis, &c.

    Argent. J. Cnoblochus excudebat apud Turturem, mense Novembri
    MD.XXIII.

1523. Virginis Matris apud Lauretum Cultæ Liturgia, per Erasmum
Roterodamum.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, Anno M.D.XXIII. mense Novembri.

1523. Ratio seu methodus compendio perveniendi ad veram Theologiam,
postremum ab ipso autore castigata et locupletata.

Paraclesis, and letter from Hutten to Erasmus.

    Basle. Froben. MDXXIII.

1523. Ad Christophorum episcopum Basiliensem epistola apologetica Erasmi
Roterodami de interdicto esu carnium, &c.

    Apud Sanctam Coloniam MD.XX.III.

1523(?). Spongia Erasmi adversus aspergines Hutteni.

    Without date or printer’s name.

1523 or 4. Precatio dominica ... opus recens ac modo natum et mox excusum.
(Prefatory letter dated nono calend. Novemb. MDXXIII.)

    Froben. Basle.

1524. De Octo orationis partium constructione libellus.

    Parisiis in ædibus Simonis Colinæi, mense Januario MDXXIV.

1524. De libero Arbitrio ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΗ. (Bound with this copy is the De servo
Arbitrio Mar. Lutheri, ad D. Erasmum Roterodamum. Wittembergæ, 1526.)

    Basileæ apud Joan. Frob. mense Septemb. M.D.XXIIII.

1524. De Libero Arbitrio ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΗ, sive Collatio, D. Erasmi Roterod.

    Antwerpiæ apud Michaelem Hillenium Hoochstratanum, mense Septemb.
    MD.XX.IIII.

1524. De immensa dei misericordia D. Erasmi Rot. Concio.

Virginis et Martyris comparatio per eundem. Nunc primum et condita et
edita.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frob. mense Septemb. MD.XXIV.

1524. Tomus Primus Paraphraseon D. Erasmi Rot. in novum testamentum.
(Containing the Paraphrases on the Four Gospels and the ‘Acts.’)

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium MDXXIV.

1524. 1. Exomologesis sive modus Confitendi, opus nunc primum et natum et
excusum.

2. Paraphrasis in tertium Psalmum.

3. Duo diplomata Papæ Adriani sexti cum responsionibus.

4. Epistola de morte.

5. Apologia ad Stunicæ conclusiones.

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frob. MD.XXIIII.

1524. D. Eras. Rot. Breviores aliquot Epistolæ, studiosis juvenibus
admodum utiles. (Apparently a selection of Letters from the Basle
collection of 1521.)

    Parisiis. Apud Simonem Colinæum.

1526. Familiarium Colloquiorum opus ... recognitum, magnaque accessione
auctum. (From p. 246 to p. 750 is all additional matter not included in
the first edition. This edition is the first which contained the
Vindication of the Colloquies, ‘D. Erasmus Roterodamus De utilitate
colloquiorum, ad lectorem.’)

    Basileæ apud Joan. Frob. mense Junio, M.D.XXVI.

1526. Erasmi Rot. Detectio præstigiarum cujusdam libelli germanice
scripti, ficto authoris titulo, cum hac inscriptione, Erasmi et Lutheri
opiniones de Cœna domini.

    Norembergæ apud Joan. Petreium M.D.XXVI. mense Junio.

1526. Hyperaspistes Diatribæ ad versus servum Arbitrium Martini Lutheri.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frob. M.D.XXVI.

1526. Moriæ encomium, nunc postremum ab ipso religiose recognitum,
doctissimique Gerardi Listrii commentariis illustratum.

    Eucharius Cervicornus excudebat M.D.XXVI.

1526. Lingua, opus novum et hisce temporibus aptissimum. (Prefatory Letter
of Erasmus dated Postridie Idus Augusti 1525.)

    [Cologne.] Anno M.D.XXVI.

1527. Novum Testamentum. (Fourth edition.)

    Basileæ in ædibus Jo. Frobenii. M.D.XXVII. mense martio.

1527. Hyperaspistæ liber secundus.

    Anno M.D.XXVII. mense Novembri. (No name of printer or place where
    printed.)

1527. Hyperaspistæ liber secundus, opus nunc primum excusum.

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium, MD.XXVII.

1530. Utilissima consultatio de bello Turcis inferendo et obiter enarratus
Psalmum XXVIII. per Des. Erasmum Roterodamum. Opus recens et natum et
æditum.

    Lutetiæ Parisiorum, mense Junio MDXXX.

1530. De Civilitate morum Puerilium per Des. Erasmum Rot. Libellus nunc
primum et conditus et æditus.

    Parisiis Expensis Christiani Wechel, MDXXX. mense Octobri.

1530. Lingua.

    Apud sanctam Coloniam quarto Idus Novembris M.D.XXX.

1532. D. Erasmi Rot. Dilutio eorum quæ Judocus Clithoveus scripsit
adversus declamationem suasoriam matrimonii.

Epistola de delectu ciborum, &c. In elenchum Alberti Pii brevissima
scholia.

    Froben, MDXXXII.

1533. De sarcienda Ecclesiæ concordia, &c. (nunc primum typis excusa).

    Basileæ ex officina Frobeniana, M.D.XXXIII.

1534. De preparatione ad mortem, nunc primum et conscriptus et æditus.

Accedunt aliquot epistolæ seriis de rebus, in quibus item nihil est non
novum ac recens. (Containing, inter alia, Sir Thos. More’s Letter to
Erasmus on resigning the chancellorship, and appended thereto his
epitaph.)

    Basileæ in officina Frobeniana per Hieronymum Frobenium et Nicolaum
    Episcopium, MDXXXIIII.

1536. Ecclesiastæ sive de ratione concionandi libri quatuor, opus recens,
denuo ab autore recognitum.

    Basileæ in officina Frobeniana per Hieronymum Frobenium et Nicolaum
    Episcopium, mense Augusto MDXXXVI.

1542. D. Erasmi Rot. in Novum Testamentum Annotationes ab ipso autore jam
postremum sic recognitæ ac locupietatæ ut propemodum novum opus videri
possit. (Reprint of the fifth and last edition.)

    Basileæ in officina Frobeniana M.D.XLII.




APPENDIX F.

EDITIONS OF WORKS OF SIR THOMAS MORE IN MY POSSESSION.


A.D.

1516. (Dec.) Utopia (First edition).--‘Libellus vere aureus nec minus
salutaris quam festivus de optimo reip. statu, deque nova Insula Vtopia
authore clarissimo viro Thoma Moro inclytæ Civitatis Londinensis cive et
Vicecomite, cura M. Petri Aegidii Antuerpiensis, et arte Theodorici
Martini Alustensis, Typographi almæ Louaniensium Academiæ, nunc primum
accuratissime editus.’

    Without date, but containing a Prefatory Letter from Petrus Aegidius
    to Hier. Buslidius, dated MDXVI. cal. Novembris; and a Letter from
    Joannes Paludanus to Petrus Aegidius, dated calen. Decemb.

1518. Utopia (Second edition).--‘De Optimo Reip. statu deque nova Insula
Vtopia, libellus vere aureus,’ &c. Also,

Epigrammata clarissimi disertissimique viri Thomæ Mori. Also,

Epigrammata Des. Erasmi Rot.

    Basileæ apud Jo. Frobenium, mense Martio MDXVIII.

1518. Ditto ditto.

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium, mense Novembri MDXVIII. (HANS HOLB.
    inscribed in the woodcut on the title-page).

1520. Epigrammata clarissimi disertissimique viri Thomæ Mori, Britanni, ad
emendatum exemplar ipsius autoris excusa. (With some additional Epigrams,
including More’s Letter to his Children.)

    Basileæ apud Joannem Frobenium, mense Decembri M.D.XX.

1557. The Workes of Sir Thomas More, Knyght, sometime Lorde Chauncellorr
of England, wrytten by him in the Englysh tongve.

    Printed at London, at the costes and charges of John Cawod, John Waly,
    and Richarde Tottell. Anno 1557.

1563. Thomæ Mori Angliæ ornamenti eximii Lucubrationes, ab innumeris
mendis repurgatæ.

    Basil, apud Episcopium F. 1563.

1566. Thomæ Mori Angli ... Omnia, quæ hucusque ad manus nostras
peruenerunt, Latina opera....

    Lovanii, apud Joannem Bogardum sub Bibliis Aureis. Anno 1566.

1568. Doctissima D. Thomæ Mori clarissimi ac disertiss. viri Epistola, in
qua non minus facetè quàm piè, respondet Literis Joannis Pomerani, hominis
inter Protestantes nominis non obscuri.

Opusculum ... ex Authoris quidem autographo emendato, dum viveret,
exemplari desumptum, nunquam vero ante hac in lucem editum.

    Lovanii, ex officina Joannis Fouleri. MD.LXVIII. (Not included in any
    of the above collections of More’s works.)

1588. Tres Thomæ ... D. Thomæ Mori ... Vita, authore Thoma Stapletono
Anglo.

    Dvaci, Ex officina Joannis Bogardi. M.D.LXXXVIII.

1612. Ditto ditto.

    Coloniæ Agrippinæ, Sumptibus Bernardi Gualteri. MDC.XII.

    (Stapleton had access to a collection of More’s papers, made by
    Harris, his private secretary, and has preserved Latin translations of
    his letters to his children, &c., not in the collected works.)




INDEX.


  _Alcor, Alfonso Fernandez_, Archdeacon of, on the circulation of the
        ‘Enchiridion’ in Spain, 174

  _Amerbach_, printer at Basle, 302.
    His sons, _id._

  _Ammonius_, 223, 256, 270, 283, 284.
    Death of, 458.
    Describes More’s family, 256

  _Aquinas_, the ‘Summa’ of, 108-110, 440.
    On Scripture inspiration, 33, 123.
    Erasmus and Colet on, 107 _et seq._

  _Augustine_, Colet prefers Origen and Jerome to, 16, 41.
    Colet differs from, 36, 82.
    Luther’s adherence to, 404, 472.
    Eck charges Erasmus with not having read his works, 435 _et seq._
    The power of his dogmatic theology, 494.
    Difference between the Augustinian standpoint and that of the Oxford
        Reformers, 494-497


  _Baptista, Dr._, Erasmus takes his sons to Italy, 186

  _Battus_, tutor to the Marchioness de Vere.
    Kindness to Erasmus, 164-167

  _Bembo_, secretary to Leo X., 322

  _Bishops_, promotion of, 226-230.
    Ignorance of some, 227

  _Boville_, at Cambridge, Erasmus writes to, 399


  _Cain_, conversation on sacrifice of, 97 _et seq._
    Erasmus tells a story about, 99

  _Chalcondyles_, 14

  _Charles, Prince_ (Charles V.), invites Erasmus to Flanders, 279.
    Henry VIII. breaks faith with, 308.
    ‘Institutio Principis Christiani’ written for, 368.
    Connives at Indulgences, 422.
    Erasmus loses his faith in, 430.
    Election to the Empire, 482

  _Charnock_, the Prior, head of the College of St. Mary the Virgin at
        Oxford, 94.
    His reception of Erasmus, 96.
    Dines with Colet, Erasmus, &c., 97.
    Mention of, 102, 118, 165, 171

  _Colet, Sir Henry_, 14, 113

  _Colet, John_, ordained deacon, 2, _n._
    His father, 14.
    His family, 15.
    His mother, 15, _n._, 251, 397.
    Graduates at Oxford in Arts, 15.
    Enters the Church, _id._
    His preferments, _id._
    Visits France and Italy, and what he studies there, _id._
    At Florence (?), 17.
    Whether influenced by Savonarola, 18, 37, _n._, 158.
    Studies Pico and Ficino’s works, 21, 22.
    Returns to Oxford, 22.
    Lectures on St. Paul’s Epistles, 1, 32.
    His mode of interpretation not textarian, 33.
    Acknowledges human element in Scriptures, 34.
    Differs from St. Augustine, 36, 82.
    MS. on the ‘Romans,’ 33-42.
    Rejects theory of uniform inspiration of Scripture, _id._
    Acquaintance with Thomas More, 24.
    First hears of Erasmus, 27.
    Conversation with a priest on St. Paul’s writings, 42.
    Letter to Abbot of Winchcombe, 45.
    On the Mosaic account of the Creation--theory of accommodation--
       letters to Radulphus on, 43-58.
    Pico’s ‘Heptaplus,’ 59.
    Abstracts of the Dionysian writings, 60-77.
    On the object of Christ’s death, 67.
    On priests, 68.
    On the sacraments, 70.
    On sponsors, 71.
    On self-sacrifice, 74.
    On the Pope and ecclesiastical scandals, 75.
    Lectures on I. Corinthians, 78-89.
    Whether convinced that the Pseudo-Dionysian writings were spurious, 91.
    His warm reception of Erasmus, 95.
    His view of Cain and Abel’s sacrifices, 98.
    Erasmus’s admiration of his earnestness, 98.
    His position at Oxford, 101.
    His appreciation of Erasmus, _id._
    Conversation with Erasmus on the Schoolmen, 102-112.
    Advice to theological students, 106.
    Discussion with Erasmus on Christ’s agony in the garden, 116-118.
    His love of truth, 121.
    On the theory of ‘manifold senses’ of Scripture, 122.
    On Scripture inspiration, _id._
    Disappointed at Erasmus leaving Oxford, 126.
    Urges him to expound Moses or Isaiah, 128, 131.
    Left alone at Oxford, 133.
    Dean of St. Paul’s, 137, 138.
    His work in London, habits, preaching, &c., 139-142.
    More on his preaching, 148.
    He advises More to marry, 160.
    Preaches and practises self-sacrifice, 206-207.
    Succeeds to his father’s property, 206.
    Resigns living of Stepney, 208.
    Founds St. Paul’s School, 208-210.
    Colet’s gentleness and love of children, 211-215.
    Preface to his Grammar, 213.
    Advice to his masters, 214.
    Rejects Linacre’s Grammar, 216.
    Writes a Grammar, _id._
    On the true method of education, 216-219.
    Letter to Erasmus, 218.
    Wants an under-schoolmaster, 220.
    Sermons liked by the Lollards, 222.
    Colet’s preaching, 225.
    Sermon to Convocation of 1512, 230 _et seq._
    Completes his school, 250.
    Letter to Erasmus, 251.
    Erasmus in praise of Colet’s preaching and school, 253.
    Persecuted by Fitzjames, 254.
    Defended by Warham, _id._
    Returns to his preaching, 255.
    Preaches against Henry VIII.’s wars, 261.
    Defended against Fitzjames by the King, 262.
    Ditto, ditto, again, Good Friday sermon, 264.
    His troubles about property--quarrel with his uncle, &c., 285.
    Visits St. Thomas’s shrine with Erasmus, 287 _et seq._
    Letter to Erasmus--harassed by Fitzjames, 305.
    Sermon on installation of Cardinal Wolsey, 343.
    Procures release of a prisoner, 393.
    Letter to Erasmus on ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ &c., 394; ditto on
        Reuchlin’s speculations, 412.
    Attacked by sweating sickness, 461.
    Fixes statutes of his school, 462.
    His views on marriage, 464.
    Makes his will and prepares his tomb, 466.
    Interest in passing events, _id._
    Letter from Marquard von Hatstein, 468.
    Colet’s retirement from public life, 482.
    Death of Colet, 503.
    Character of, 504.
    Colet’s MS. on Romans, extracts from, App. A; MS. on I. Corinthians,
        extracts from, App. B.
    Colet’s preferments, App. D.

  _Colt, Jane_, More’s first wife, 160, 180, 193, 256, 498.
    Dies, 256.
    Epitaph, 498

  _Convocation_ of 1512, 223 _et seq._
    Colet’s sermon to, 230 _et seq._

  _Coventry_, description of, 414.
    Mariolatry there, 416

  _Croke, Richard_, at Paris gets first edition of the ‘Praise of Folly’
        printed there, 204, _n._


  _Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagit_, his writings, Colet studies, 16.
    Translated by Ficino, 21.
    Abstracts of his ‘Hierarchies’ made by Colet, 60-73.
    Influence of, on Colet, 41, 58, _n._, 82, 84, 91, 345.
    Grocyn rejects as spurious, 91

  _Dorpius, Martin_, attacks Erasmus, 313.
    Reply of Erasmus, 316.
    Mention of, by Colet, 395


  _Eck, Dr._, controversy with Erasmus, 434-437.
    Ditto with Luther, 484

  _Education_, satire on prevalent modes of, 194, 211 _et seq._
    Colet’s views on, 208, 214.
    Erasmus on the true method of, 217.
    Schoolmasters looked down upon, 220.
    In Utopia, universal, 353.
    Four-tenths of English people cannot read, 353

  _Eobanus_, 480

  ‘_Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum_,’ 407-411

  _Erasmus_ at Paris, 28.
    Comes to Oxford, 94.
    Character and previous history, 94-96.
    Object in coming to Oxford, 96.
    His reception by Charnock and Colet, _id._
    Converses on sacrifices of Cain and Abel, and tells a story about
        Cain, 99.
    Admires Colet, 101, 102.
    Delight with Oxford circle, 102.
    Conversation with Colet on the Schoolmen, 106-108.
    Studies Aquinas, 108.
    Falls in love with Thomas More, 113.
    Letter to More, 114.
    Delighted with England, 115.
    Conversation with Colet on the agony of Christ, 117-120.
    Theory of ‘manifold senses’ of Scripture, 121-125.
    Correspondence with Colet on leaving Oxford, 126-133.
    At Court, 126.
    Promises to join Colet someday, 133.
    Leaves Oxford, 133.
    With More visits the royal nursery, 134.
    Leaves England for Italy, 135.
    Robbed at Dover by the Custom House officers, 161.
    Cannot go to Italy on account of his poverty, 162.
    His troubles from poverty and ill-health, 163-165.
    Friendship with Battus and Marchioness de Vere, 164-166.
    ‘Adagia,’ 163.
    ‘Enchiridion,’ 165.
    Remembers his promise to Colet, 167-172.
    Letter to Colet, his works, poverty, study of Greek, admiration for
        Origen, 168.
    His ‘Enchiridion,’ 173.
    Its popularity, 174.
    Views expressed in it on free-will Anti-Augustinian, 175.
    Report of discussion on the ‘agony of Christ,’ 176.
    His ‘Adagia,’ 177.
    Preface to Valla’s ‘Annotations,’ 177-179.
    In England, a second time visits More, 180.
    Again starts for Italy, 183.
    Is to instruct the sons of Dr. Baptista, &c., 184.
    Letter to Colet and Linacre from Paris, 185.
    Visits Italy, 186-188.
    Description of German inns, 186.
    Quarrel with the tutor of his pupils, 187.
    Disappointed with Italy, 187.
    Returns to England to More’s home on the accession of Henry VIII., 188.
    The ‘Praise of Folly,’ 193-204.
    When first edition published, 204, _n._
    Goes to Cambridge, 205.
    His views on schools, 210-212.
    His ‘De Copiâ Verborum,’ 216, 251.
    ‘On the true method of education,’ 217.
    Skirmishes with the Scotists, 219.
    Defends Colet’s school, 251.
    Epigram on battle of Spurs, 271.
    At Walsingham, 273.
    Work at Cambridge, 276.
    Leaves Cambridge, 279.
    Invited to the court of Prince Charles, 279.
    Letter to Abbot of St. Bertin against war, 280.
    Brush with Cardinal Canossa, 282.
    Intercourse with Colet, 284 _et seq._
    Letter to Colet, 286.
    With Colet visits St. Thomas’s shrine, 288 _et seq._
    Goes to Basle, 294.
    Letter to Servatius, 296 _et seq._
    Accident at Ghent, 300.
    Reaches Maintz, 301.
    Strasburg, _id._
    Reaches Basle, _incog._, 302.
    At Froben’s office, 234.
    Writes to England, 305.
    Returns to England, 306.
    Letters to Rome, 307.
    Supports Reuchlin, _id._
    Satire upon kings, 309.
    Edition of 1,800 of ‘Praise of Folly’ sold, 312.
    On his way to Basle again, 312.
    Replies to attack from Dorpius, 316.
    Reaches Basle, 318.
    The ‘Novum Instrumentum’ and its prefaces--the ‘Paraclesis,’ &c.,
        321-335.
    St. Jerome, 335.
    ‘Institutio Principis Christiani,’ 365-377.
    ‘Paraphrases’ and other works, 392.
    Colet reads the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ and encourages him to go on,
        394-397.
    Reception of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ in other quarters, 398.
    By Luther, 402.
    Erasmus mentioned in ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,’ 408.
    Denounces international scandals and Indulgences, 420 and 425-426 and
        433.
    Journey to Basle, 433.
    Arrival, 434.
    Attack from the plague, _id._
    Correspondence with Eck, _id._
    His labours at Basle, 438.
    Letter to Volzius, 438-440.
    Second edition of ‘New Testament’ and ‘Ratio Veræ Theologiæ,’ 442-454.
    His health gives way--ill at Louvain, 455.
    Does not die--letter to Rhenanus, 457.
    His opinion of Luther and Melanchthon, 477-481.
    Correspondence on the Hussites of Bohemia, 484 _et seq._
    On ‘The Church’ and Toleration, 488-491.
    Grieves on the death of Colet, 503-504.
    His opinion of Colet’s character, _id._
    Early editions of works of, App. E


  _Ferdinand of Spain_, 260, 308, 361

  _Ficino, Marsilio_, 9, 11-14, 19, 20, _n._, 39.
    His ‘De Religione Christiana,’ 11-12

  _Fisher, Bishop_, Erasmus visits, 399.
    Erasmus writes to, 412, 431, 503

  _Fisher, Christopher_, More’s host at Paris, 171, 177

  _Fisher, Robert_, 116

  _Fitzjames, Bishop of London_, zeal against heresy, 222-223, 230, 247.
    Promotions, 228.
    Mention of, 179.
    Hatred of Colet and his school, 241, 253.
    Tries to convict Colet of heresy, 254.
    Never ceases to harass him, 249, 306, 467

  _Flodden_, Battle of, 272

  _Florence_, Grocyn and Linacre at, 14.
    _See_ ‘Platonic Academy’

  _Fox, Bishop of Winchester_, 147.
    Praises the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ 398

  _Froben, John_, his printing-press and circle of learned men at Basle,
        302.
    Reception of Erasmus, 303, 304, 318, _n._
    Mention of, in ‘Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,’ 410


  _Gerson_, ends the schism, 6.
    Persecutes Huss, &c.

  _Giles’, Peter_, connection with the ‘Utopia,’ 381-382, 389

  _Grocyn_, at Florence, 14.
    At Oxford, _id._
    More studies under, 25.
    Opinion of Erasmus of, 115.
    Rejects Pseudo-Dionysian writings as spurious, 90, 91.
    Writes preface to Linacre’s translation of Proclus, 85.
    In London, 142, 149, 170.
    Patronises More’s lectures, 143.
    Goes with Erasmus to Lambeth, 183

  _Grotius, Hugo_, rejects the Machiavellian theory of politics, 369


  _Hatstein’s, Marquard von_, letter to Colet, 468

  _Henry VII._, zeal for reform, and against dissent, 8.
    Presents Colet to the deanery of St. Paul’s, 138.
    Avaricious, 144, 161, 189, 190.
    More offends him by opposing a subsidy, 145, 147

  _Henry VIII._, More and Erasmus visit, when a boy, 134.
    Accession of, 190.
    More’s verses on, _id._
    His continental wars, 223.
    His ambition, 259.
    His first campaign, 223, 260.
    Colet preaches against it, but without offending Henry VIII., 261.
    Ditto, ditto, against second campaign, 262-272.
    Invades France, 270.
    Peace with France, 308.
    Evil results of his wars, 338.
    Connives at the Pope’s Indulgences, 422.
    Change in policy, 428.
    Draws More into his service, 429

  _Heresy_, on the increase, 222, 223.
    Convocation for extirpation of, 223 _et seq._
    Colet on, 238.
    Discussion on burning of heretics, 248.
    Colet accused of, 254

  _Holbein, Hans_, woodcut by, in ‘Utopia,’ 389.
    Picture of More’s family, 500, and Appendix C

  _Howard, Admiral_, 263.
    Death of, 269

  _Hussites_ of Bohemia.
    Luther discovers that he is one, 485.
    Their opinions and sects, and Erasmus’s views on the same, 485-491

  _Hutten, Ulrich_, 480, 497


  _Indulgences_, sale of, 419.
    Erasmus denounces, 420, 426, 441.
    Luther denounces, 421.
    Princes bribed to allow of, 422

  _Isabella_ of Spain, zeal for reform, 8.
    Persecutes, _id._


  _Jerome_, Colet prefers to Augustine, 16, 41.
    Erasmus also, 435, 437.
    Follows his opinion on the cause of the agony of Christ, 118.
    Erasmus opposes it, 120.
    Colet adheres to it, 120.
    Erasmus quotes, against inspiration of the Vulgate translation, 317.
    Erasmus edits works of, 317, 319.
    Erasmus in praise of, 437

  _Jonas, Justus_, Erasmus writes to, 504

  _Julius II._, satire on, by Erasmus, 202, 203.
    His ambition, 258.
    Holy Alliance, 263.
    _Julius de cœlo exclusus_, 426, 427


  _Kings_, satire of Erasmus on, 200, 309-311


  _Latimer, William_, on the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ 398

  _Lee, Edward_, 470, 504

  _Leo X._, a friend of Erasmus, and inclined to peace, 268.
    His intellectual sensualism, 321.
    Patronises the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ 336.
    His Indulgences, &c., 418 _et seq._
    Censure of Erasmus on, 433

  _Lilly, William_, in companionship with More, 146, 149, 152, 181.
    His grammar, 148.
    Master of St. Paul’s School, 215, 250, 466.
    Had travelled in the East, 150, 250.
    Had a large family, 464, _n._

  _Linacre_ at Florence, 14.
    At Oxford, _id._
    Erasmus admires him, 116.
    Translation of Proclus’ ‘De Spherâ,’ 85.
    His Latin Grammar, 216.
    Letter of Erasmus to, 185

  _Lollards_ attend Colet’s sermons, 222.
    Many abjure, _id._
    Some burned, 223

  _Lorenzo de’ Medici_, 9, 11, 14, 17, 18, 20, _n._, 59

  _Louis XII._ of France, 259.
    At war with Henry VIII.; loses Tournay, &c., 272.
    Alliance with England.
    Dies, 308

  _Lupset_, disciple of Colet’s, 504

  _Luther_ reads the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ 402, 407.
    His early history and rigid Augustinian standpoint, 404, 472.
    Erasmus’s opinion of, 478, 479.
    Finds out he is a Hussite, 484, 485.
    The Reform of, contrasted with that of the Oxford Reformers, 492, 497

  _Lystrius, Gerard_, 303.
    Adds notes to the ‘Praise of Folly,’ 312, 313, 420


  _Machiavelli_, his School of Politics.
    ‘The Prince’ and its maxims, 323, 324, 368, 369

  _Mahometanism._
    _See_ Turks

  _Macrobius_, quoted by Colet, 57.
    Mentioned, 10, 58, 59

  _Martins, Thierry_, printer at Antwerp, 167, _n._
    At Louvain, 366, 379, 389, 419, _n._, 455, 458, 481

  _Maximilian_, 259, 482

  _Melanchthon_, Ode on Erasmus, 401, 402.
    Erasmus’s appreciation of, 476-478

  _More, Thomas_, his early history, 23.
    Fascinating character, 25.
    Comes to Oxford, 25.
    His father’s strictness, 26.
    Erasmus meets him in London, 113.
    Erasmus falls in love with him, 114, 116.
    Visits royal nursery with Erasmus and Arnold, 134.
    His legal studies, 27, 142.
    Oxford friends join him in London, _id._
    Lectures on St. Augustine’s ‘De Civitate Dei,’ 143.
    Reader at Furnival’s Inn--enters Parliament, 143, 144.
    Procures the rejection of part of a subsidy, 145.
    Offends Henry VII., 145, 146.
    Seeks retirement, _id._
    In lodgings near the Charterhouse, 147.
    Colet’s influence on him, 148.
    He studies Pico’s Life and Works, 151-158.
    Erasmus visits him, 181.
    His satire upon monks and confession, _id._
    Unrelenting hatred of the King’s avarice and tyranny--his epigrams,
        182.
    Leaves the Charterhouse--marries, 159, 160.
    His home in Bucklersbury and three daughters, 193.
    Connection with Henry VIII., 190-192.
    His practice at the bar, and appointment as undersheriff, _id._
    Erasmus visits him and writes the ‘Praise of Folly’ at his house, 193.
    More on Colet’s school, 251.
    Epigrams against French criticisms on the war, 260.
    Public duties, 256, 338.
    Writes History of Richard III., _id._
    His first wife dies, _id._
    His practice at the bar--second marriage, 337.
    Sent on an embassy, 343.
    Second book of ‘Utopia,’ 346-365.
    Introductory book to, 378-390.
    Attempt of Henry VIII. to make him a courtier, 380.
    Visit to Coventry--strange frenzy there, 414-418.
    Second embassy, 427.
    Enters Henry VIII.’s service, 429.
    At the court of Henry VIII., 458.
    Letter to the University of Oxford, 459.
    A monk attempts his conversion--More’s reply, 470-475.
    His character and domestic life, 497-502.
    Opinion of character of Colet, 504.
    Date of More’s birth, note on, Appendix C.
    Works of, App. F

  _Morton, Cardinal_, zeal for reform, and against heretics, 8.
    More’s connection with, 24, 256, 386

  _Moses_, Colet’s views on; his account of the Creation, 46 _et seq._
    Colet urges Erasmus to lecture on Moses or Isaiah, 128, 131

  _Mountjoy, Lord_, 94, 115, 134, 165, 170, 205, 295, 469, 471


  _Neo-platonists_, 9-13, 39, 41, 61, 77, 158, 159


  _Origen_, the works of, Colet studies, and prefers to those of
        Augustine, 16.
    Erasmus studies, 169.
    His method of allegorical interpretation, 174, 445

  _Original sin_, allusion to, 403, 492

  _Oxford Reformers of 1498._
    (_See_ ‘Colet,’ ‘Erasmus,’ and ‘More.’)
    Difference between their standpoint and that of Luther and all
        Augustinian Reformers, 492-497.
    Nature of the Reform urged by, 506.
    Result of its rejection, 507-509


  _Parliament_ of 1503-4.
    Subsidy opposed by More in, 145.
    Of 1514, 279.
    Of 1515, complaints of results of Henry VIII.’s extravagance and the
        wars, 338.
    Levy taxes on labourers, 268; and interfere with wages, 340-341.
    Statute on pasture-farming, 341.
    Rigid punishment of crimes, _id._
    Eight years without a Parliament, 346

  _Pico della Mirandola_, influenced by Savonarola, 19.
    Death of, 18-20.
    His ‘Heptaplus,’ 19, _n._, 59.
    More translates his life and works, 152-158.
    His faith in Christianity, and in the laws of nature, 154.
    On prayer, 154.
    On the Scriptures, 155.
    Study of Eastern languages, 156.
    His verses, 157.
    On the love of Christ, 152-157

  _Platonic Academy_, 9, 13, 17, 19

  _Plotinus_, 10, 14, 16, 41

  _Pole, De la_, 133

  _Politian_, 14, 18

  _Pomponatius_, sceptical tendencies of, 323

  _Popes_, satire of Erasmus on, 201, 426.
    Colet on, 74, 75

  _Proclus_, 10

  _Pyghards_, of Bohemia.
    _See_ Hussites


  _Radulphus_ (who?), Colet’s letters to, 41-57

  _Reuchlin_, mention of, 301.
    Erasmus supports, 307.
    His ‘Pythagorica,’ &c. Colet’s opinion of, 411, 413

  _Rhenanus, Beatus_, 303, 304, 311, 312, 392, 432, 457


  _Sacrifice_, Colet’s views on, 39, 206.
    Of Cain and Abel, conversation on, 97 _et seq._

  _Sadolet_, secretary to Leo X., 321

  _Sapidus, John_, escorts Erasmus to Basle, 302

  _Savonarola_, influence of, 17-22.
    Do. on Colet (?) _id._ and 37, _n._
    Whether any connection between his views and Colet’s, _id._
    Indirect connection with the Oxford Reformers through More’s
        translation of Pico’s life and works, 158, 159

  _Saxony, Frederic_, Elector of, protects Luther, 477-483.
    His noble conduct on election of Charles V., _id._

  _Schlechta’s, Johannes_, of Bohemia, correspondence with Erasmus, 485-491

  _Scriptures_, position of study of, at Oxford, 2.
    Do. plenary inspiration, 29.
    Interpretation textarian, _id._
    Theory of ‘manifold senses,’ 31, 121-124.
    Aquinas on do., 30, 122.
    Tyndale’s account of, 30, 31.
    Scriptures practically ignored, 14.
    Colet’s mode of interpretation (_see_ Colet).
    The theory of accommodation, 52-57.
    ‘Manifold senses,’ Colet on inspiration, 124.
    Valla’s ‘Annotations,’ preface of Erasmus, 177.
    Pico on the Scriptures, 155.
    Colet translates portions of, 155.
    Dorpius maintains verbal inspiration of Vulgate version, 315.
    Eck also, 435.
    Erasmus rejects it, 317, 331, 436, 443.
    Advocates translation of, into all languages, 327.
    Method of study of, 329, 445.
    Difference between the Oxford and the Wittemberg Reformers on the
        inspiration of, 492-497

  _Servatius_, prior of Stein monastery, Holland, correspondence with
        Erasmus, 295, 299

  _Sherborn, Robert_, Bishop of St. David’s, 138

  _Spalatin, George_, writes to Erasmus, 402

  _St. Andrews_, Archbishop of, under Erasmus’s tuition, 184.
    Killed in battle of Flodden, 272

  _St. Bertin_, Abbot of, 165.
    Letters of Erasmus to, 280.
    Erasmus visits, 299

  _St. Paul’s School_, founded by Colet, 209.
    Salaries of masters, 209.
    Cost of, to Colet, 210.
    Completion of, 250.
    Jealousy against, 251.
    Statutes of, 463-466

  _Sweating sickness_, 458, 461


  _Taxation_, of clergy, for Henry VIII.’s wars, 247.
    Amount of a ‘tenth,’ _id._ _n._
    Of labourers, 340.
    War taxes, 339.
    Erasmus on, 374-376.
    Amount of a ‘fifteenth,’ 145

  _Tunstal_, More on an embassy with, 343.
    Erasmus writes to, 503

  _Turks_, five times as numerous as Christians, 6, _n._
    Threaten to overwhelm Christianity, 6.
    Defeat of the Moors in Spain, 7

  _Tyndale_, describes position of Scripture study at Oxford, 3, _n._
    Estimate of number of Mahometans and Christians, 6, _n._
    On the scholastic modes of Scripture interpretation and the theory of
        ‘manifold senses,’ 31.
    At Oxford before Colet leaves, 136.
    Studies Scriptures there, _id._
    Translates the ‘Enchiridion,’ 174


  _United brethren_, of Bohemia.
    _See_ Hussites

  _Utopia_, contents of second book of, 347-365.
    Introductory book of, 378-390


  _Valla, Laurentius_, Erasmus studies the works of, and writes the
        preface to his Annotations of, 177

  _Vere_, Marchioness de, aids Erasmus, 164-167

  _Volzius_, abbot of monastery at Schelestadt, Erasmus’s letter to, 439


  _Walsingham_, pilgrimage to, 269-272.
    Erasmus visits, 273-275

  _Warham_, Erasmus visits, 184, 205.
    Gives Erasmus a pension, 205.
    Defends Erasmus against Fitzjames, 254

  _Wars_, Colet’s sermons against Henry VIII.’s, 261, 264, 468.
    Erasmus against, 203, 280, 311.
    More’s ‘Utopian’ opinions on, 351

  _Winchcombe_, Kidderminster, Abbot of, Colet’s letter to, 45

  _Wolsey_, begins continental wars, 223.
    His rapid promotion, 229.
    Archbishop of York, 306.
    Installed Cardinal, 343.
    Lord Chancellor, 346


  _Ximenes_, zeal for reform, and against dissent, 7


  _Zisca, John_, 486




FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Lupton’s volume (_Bell and Daldy_, 1869) has a double interest.
Apart from the interest it derives from its connection with Colet, it is
also interesting as placing, I believe, for the first time, before the
English reader, a full abstract of two of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings,
to which attention has recently been called by Mr. Westcott’s valuable
article in the _Contemporary Review_.

[2] To avoid any charge of plagiarism I may also state, that a portion of
the materials comprised in this volume has been made use of in articles
contributed by me to the North British Review, in the years 1859 and 1860.

[3] Where not otherwise stated, all references to these letters and to the
collected works of Erasmus (Eras. _Op._), refer to the Leyden edition.

[4] See note on the date of More’s birth in Appendix C.

[5] Of the First Edition. This has since been published by Mr. Lupton.

[6] In a letter written in the winter of 1499-1500, Colet is spoken of as
‘_Jam triennium enarranti_,’ &c. See _Erasmus to Colet_, prefixed to
_Disputatio de Tædio et Pavore Christi_, Eras. _Op._ v. p. 1264, A. Colet
was in Paris, apparently on his way home from his continental tour, soon
after the publication of the work of the French historian Gaguinus, _De
Orig. et Gest. Francorum_. (See Eras. Epist. xi.) The first edition,
according to Panzer and Brunet, of this work, was that of _Paris_. Prid.
Kal. Oct. 1495. Colet may thus have returned home in the spring of 1496,
and proceeded to Oxford after the long vacation. Erasmus states, ‘Reversus
ex Italia, mox relictis parentum ædibus, Oxoniæ maluit agere. Illic
publice et gratis Paulinas Epistolas omnes enarravit.’--_Op._ iii. p. 456,
B.

[7] He was ordained deacon December 17, 1497. Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p.
22 (Lond. 1724), on the authority, doubtless, of Kennett, who refers to
_Reg. Savage, Lond._

[8] Erasmus Jodoco Jonæ: Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, C. ‘In theologica
professione nullum omnino gradum nec assequutus erat, nec ambierat.’

[9] ‘The degree of Master in Arts conferred also, and this was practically
its chief value, the right of lecturing, and therefore of receiving money
for lectures, at Oxford.’--_Monumenta Academica_; Rev. II. Anstey’s
_Introduction_, p. lxxxix.

[10] One of the statutes decreed as follows:--‘Item statutum est, quod non
liceat alicui præterquam Bachilaris Theologiæ, legere bibliam
biblice.’--_Ibid._ p. 394. That the word ‘legere,’ in these statutes,
means practically to ‘lecture,’ see Mr. Anstey’s _Introduction_, p.
lxxxix.

[11] It is possible also that Colet’s mode of lecturing did not come
within the meaning of the technical phrase, ‘legere bibliam _biblice_,’
which is said to have meant ‘reading chapter by chapter, with the
accustomed glosses, and such explanations as the reader could
add.’--_Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge_: by
George Peacock, D.D., Dean of Ely. Lond. 1841, p. xlvi. n. See also Mr.
Anstey’s _Introduction_, p. lxxi, on the doubtful meaning of ‘legere
_cursorie_.’

[12] See the remarkable letter of Bishop Grosseteste to the ‘Regents in
Theology’ at Oxford--date 1240 or 1246--_Roberti Grosseteste Epistolæ_,
pp. 346-7, of which the following is Mr. Luard’s summary:--‘Skilful
builders are always careful that foundation stones should be really
capable of supporting the building. The best time is the morning. Their
lectures, therefore, especially in the morning, should be from the Old and
New Testaments, _in accordance with their ancient custom_ and the example
of Paris. Other lectures are more suitable at other times.’--P. cxxix.

[13] It would not be likely that statutes, framed in some points specially
to guard against Lollard views, and probably early in the fifteenth
century, should ignore the Scriptures altogether. Thus, before inception
in theology, by Masters in Theology (see Mr. Anstey’s _Introduction_, p.
xciv), three years’ attendance on biblical lectures was required, and the
inceptor must have lectured on some canonical book of the Bible
(_Monumenta Academica_, p. 391), according to the statutes. They also
contained the following provision:--‘Ne autem lecturæ variæ confundantur,
_et ut expeditius_ in lectura bibliæ procedatur, statutum est, ut bibliam
biblice seu cursorie legentes quæstiones non dicant nisi tantummodo
literales.’--_Ibid._ p. 392. The regular course of theological training at
Oxford may be further illustrated by the following passage from Tindale’s
‘Practice of Prelates.’ Tindale, when a youth, was at Oxford during a
portion of the time that Colet was lecturing on St. Paul’s Epistles.

‘In the universities they have ordained that no man shall look on the
Scripture until he be noselled in heathen learning eight or nine years,
and armed with false principles with which he is clean shut out of the
understanding of the Scripture.... And when he taketh his first degree, he
is sworn that he shall hold none opinion condemned by the Church.... And
then when they be admitted to study divinity, because the Scripture is
locked up with such false expositions and with false principles of natural
philosophy that they cannot enter in, they go about the outside and
dispute all their lives about words and vain opinions, pertaining as much
unto the healing of a man’s heel as health of his soul. Provided yet ...
that none may preach except he be admitted of the Bishops.’--_Practice of
Prelates_, p. 291. Parker Society.

What the biblical lectures were it is difficult to understand, for Erasmus
wrote (Eras. Epist. cxlviii.): ‘Compertum est hactenus quosdam fuisse
theologos, qui adeo nunquam legerant divinas literas, ut nec ipsos
Sententiarum libros evolverent, neque quicquam omnino attingerent præter
quæstionum gryphos.’--P. 130, C.

[14] Ellis’s _Letters_, 2nd series, vol. ii. pp. 61, 62. Letter of Richard
Layton and his Associates to Lord Cromwell, upon his Visitation of the
University of Oxford, Sept. 12, 1535.

[15] ‘Provinciam sumsisti ... (ne quid mentiar) et negotii et invidiæ
plenam.’--Eras. Coleto: Eras. _Op._ v. p. 1264, A.

[16] ‘The Turks being in number five times more than we Christians.’ And
again, ‘Which multitude is not the fifth part so many as they that consent
to the law of Mahomet.’--_Works of Tyndale and Frith_, ii. pp. 55 and 74.

[17] See British Museum Library, under the head ‘Garcilaso,’ No. 1445, _g_
23, being the draft of private instructions from Ferdinand and Isabella to
the special English Ambassador, and headed, ‘Year 1498. The King and Queen
concerning the correction of Alexander VI.’ The original Spanish MS. was
in the hands of the late B. B. Wiffen, Esq., of Mount Pleasant, near
Woburn, and an English translation of this important document was
reprinted by him in the Life of Valdes, prefixed to a translation of his
_CX Considerations_. Lond. Quaritch, 1865, p. 24.

[18] Chap. v.

[19] Chap. vi.

[20] Chap. vii.

[21] Chap. viii.

[22] Chap. ix.

[23] Chap. x.

[24] Chap. xix.

[25] Chap. xx.

[26] Chap. xxii.

[27] Chap. xxiii.

[28] Chaps. xxiv. and xxv.

[29] Chaps. xxvi.-xxxiv.

[30] Chap. xxxvi.

[31] Chap. xxxvii.

[32] _Villari_, in his ‘Life and Times of Savonarola,’ book i. chap. iv.,
does not seem to me to give, by any means, a fair abstract of the ‘_De
Religione Christianâ_,’ though his chapter on Ficino is valuable in other
respects. I have used the edition of Paris, 1510.

[33] ‘Chartism,’ chap. x. ‘Impossible.’

[34] _Pauli Jovii Elogia Doctorum Virorum_: Basileæ, 1556, p. 145. The
period of the stay of Grocyn and Linacre in Italy was probably between
1485 and 1491. They therefore probably returned to England before the
notorious Alexander VI. succeeded, in 1492, to Innocent VIII. See
Johnson’s _Life of Linacre_, pp. 103-150. And Wood’s _Athen. Oxon._ vol.
i. p. 30. Also _Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon._ ii. 134.

[35] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 455, F.

[36] Erasmus Jodoco Jonæ: _Op._ iii. p. 455, F. Also Sir Henry Colet’s
Epitaph, quoted in Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 7.

[37] ‘Et libros Ciceronis avidissime devorarat et Platonis Plotinique
libros non oscitanter excusserat.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, A.

[38] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 455, F. ‘Mater, quæ adhuc superest [in 1520],
insigni probitate mulier, marito suo undecim filios peperit, ac totidem
filias ..., sed ex omnibus ille [Colet] superfuit solus, cum illum nosse
cœpissem’ [in 1498].

[39] See list of Colet’s preferments in the Appendix.

[40] ‘Adiit Galliam, mox Italiam.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, A.

[41] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 459, A.

[42] _Ibid._ p. 456, B. The words of Erasmus are the following:--‘Ibi se
totum evolvendis sacris auctoribus dedit, sed prius per omnium literarum
genera magno studio peregrinatus, priscis illis potissimum delectabatur
Dionysio, Origene, Cypriano, Ambrosio, Hieronymo. Atque inter veteres
nulli erat iniquior quam Augustino. Neque tamen non legit Scotum, ac
Thomam aliosque hujus farinæ, si quando locus postulabat. In utriusque
juris libris erat non indiligenter versatus. Denique nullus erat liber
historiam aut constitutiones continens majorum, quem ille non evolverat.
Habet gens Britannica qui hoc præstiterunt apud suos, quod Dantes ac
Petrarcha apud Italos. Et horum evolvendis scriptis linguam expolivit, jam
tum se præparans ad præconium sermones Evangelici.’

[43] Savonarola’s first sermon in the Duomo at Florence was preached in
1491.--Villari, i. p. 122.

[44] See Villari, i. 232. Anno 1494.

[45] Lorenzo de’ Medici died in 1492; Pico and Politian in 1494. Colet
left England early in 1494 probably, but as he visited France on his way
to Italy, the exact time of his reaching Italy cannot be determined.

[46] The influence of Savonarola on the religious history of Pico was very
remarkable.

In a sermon preached after Pico’s death, Savonarola said of Pico, ‘He was
wont to be conversant with me, and to break with me the secrets of his
heart, in which I perceived that he was by privy inspiration called of God
unto religion:’ i.e. to become a monk. And he goes on to say that, for
_two years_, he had threatened him with Divine judgment ‘if he
fore-sloathed that purpose which our Lord had put in his mind.’--More’s
_English Works_, p. 9.

Pico died in November, 1494. The intimacy of which Savonarola speaks dated
back therefore to 1492 or earlier.

According to the statement of his nephew, J. F. Pico, the change in Pico’s
life was the result of the disappointment and the troubles consequent upon
his ‘vainglorious disputations’ at Rome in 1486 (when Pico was
twenty-three). By this he was ‘wakened,’ so that he ‘drew back his mind
flowing in riot, and turned it to Christ!’ Pico waited a whole year in
Rome after giving his challenge, and the disappointment and troubles were
not of short duration. They may be said to have commenced perhaps after
the year of waiting, i.e. in 1487, when he left Rome. He was present at
the disputations at Reggio in 1487, and this does not look as though as
yet he had altogether lost his love of fame and distinction. There he met
Savonarola; and there that intimacy commenced which resulted in
Savonarola’s return, _at the suggestion of Pico_, to Florence. (J. F.
Pico’s _Vita Savonarolæ_, chap. vi.; Harford’s _Life of Michael Angelo_,
i. p. 128; and Villari, i. pp. 82, 83.) In 1490, as the result of his
first studies of Holy Scripture, according to J. F. Pico (being
twenty-eight), he published his _Heptaplus_, which is full of his
cabalistic and mystic lore, and betokens a mind still entangled in
intellectual speculations rather than imbued with practical piety. He had,
however, already burnt his early love songs, &c.; and it is evident the
change had for some time been going on.

About the time when Savonarola commenced preaching in Florence, in 1491
(three years before his death, according to J. F. Pico), Pico disposed of
his patrimony and dominions to his nephew, and distributed a large part of
the produce amongst the poor, consulting Savonarola about its disposal (J.
F. Pico’s _Life of Savonarola_, chap. xi. ‘_De mira Hieronymi lenitate et
amore paupertatis_’), and appointing as his almoner _Girolamo Benivieni_,
a devout and avowed believer in Savonarola’s prophetic gifts. This was
doubtless the time when Pico was wont to break to Savonarola ‘the secrets
of his heart;’ the time also to which J. F. Pico alludes when he speaks of
him as ‘talking of the love of Christ;’ and adding, ‘the substance I have
left, after certain books of mine finished, I intend to give out to poor
folk, and fencing myself with the crucifix, barefoot, walking about the
world, in every town and castle, I purpose to preach of Christ.’--Vide
infra, p. 153. In 1492, a few weeks after Lorenzo’s death, he wrote three
beautiful letters to his nephew (Pici _Op._ pp. 231-236. Vide infra, pp.
153-156)--letters as glowing with earnest Christian piety as the
_Heptaplus_ was overflowing with cabalistic subtleties. His religion now,
at all events, had the true ring about it. It belonged to his heart, not
his head only. Then follow the remaining two years of his life when
Savonarola exerted his influence (but without success) to induce him to
enter a religious order. On Sept. 21, 1494, he was present at Savonarola’s
famous sermon, in which he predicted the calamities which were coming upon
Italy and the approach of the French army, listening to which Pico himself
said that he ‘was filled with horror, and that his hair stood on end’
(narrated by Savonarola in his _Compendium Revelationum_); and lastly in
November, as Charles entered Florence, Pico was peacefully dying. He was
buried in the robes of Savonarola’s order and within the precincts of
Savonarola’s church of St. Mark. In the light of Savonarola’s sermon, and
the facts above stated, it can hardly be doubted that whilst, in one
sense, brought about by the disappointment of his worldly ambitions, the
change of life in Pico was at least, _in measure_, the result of his
contact with the great Florentine reformer.

With regard to the history of Savonarola’s influence on _Ficino’s_
religious character, the facts are not so easily traced. In early years he
is said to have been more of a Pagan than a Christian. Before writing his
_De Religione Christianâ_, he seems to have become fully persuaded of the
truth of Christianity. The book itself shows this. And there is a letter
of his (Ficini Op. i. p. 640, Basle ed.), written while he was composing
it, during an illness, in which he says that the words of Christ give him
more comfort than philosophy, and his vows paid to the Virgin more bodily
good than medicine. He also says that his father, a doctor, was once
warned in a dream, while sleeping under an oak tree, to go to a patient
who was praying to the Virgin for aid.

But the religion of a man resting on dreams, and visions, and vows made to
the Virgin, was not necessarily of a very deep and practical character.
Superstition and philosophy were easily united without the heart taking
fire. Schelhorn (in his _Amœnitates Literariæ_, i. p. 73) quotes from
Wharton’s appendix to Cave, the following statement, ‘Rei philosophicæ
nimium deditus, religionis et pietatis curam posthabuisse dicitur, donec
Savonarolæ Florentiam advenientis eloquentiam admiratus, concionibus ejus
audiendis animum adjecit, dumque flosculis Rhetorices inhiavit, pietatis
igniculos recepit: reliquamque dein vitam religionis officiis impendit.’
Wharton does not give his authority. Fleury (vol. xxiv. p. 363) makes a
similar statement; also Brucker (_Historia critica Philosophiæ_, iv. p.
52); also Du Pin; also Harford in his _Life of Michael Angelo_ (i. p. 72)
on the authority of Spondanus, who himself gives no contemporary
authority. See also Mr. Lupton’s _Introduction_ to Colet’s _Celestial and
Ecclesiastical Hierarchies of Dionysius_, where the subject is discussed.
I am informed, through the kindness of Count P. Guicciardini, of Florence,
that in Ficino’s _Apologia_, which exists in the MSS. _Stroziani_ of
_Libr. Magliabecchiana_, class viii. cod. 315, he says of himself that
‘for five years he was one of the many who were deceived by the Hypocrite
of Ferrara,’ whom he calls ‘Antichrist.’ The truth therefore seems to be
that he was profoundly influenced by Savonarola’s enthusiasm, but only for
a time.

[47] Ficino’s editions of his translations of the Dionysian treatises on
the ‘Divine Names’ and the ‘Mystic Theology’ seem to have been published
at Florence in 1492 and 1496.--Fabricii _Bibliotheca Græca_, vii. pp. 10,
11.

[48] Herzog’s _Encyclopædia_, article on ‘Marsilius Ficinus.’

[49] Mr. Harford, in his _Life of Michael Angelo_, vol. i. p. 57, mentions
Colet, among others, as studying at Florence, and cites ‘_Tiraboschi_, vi.
pt. 2, p. 382, edit. Roma, 4to. 1784.’ But I cannot find any mention of
Colet in Tiraboschi, after careful search.

In opposition to the likelihood of his having been at Florence it may be
asked, why Colet never alludes to it in his letters or elsewhere? In
reply, it may be said that we have nothing of Colet’s own writing relating
to his early life. All we know of it is derived from Erasmus, and the only
allusion by Colet to his Italian journey which Erasmus has preserved is
the passing remark that he (Colet) had there become acquainted with
certain _monks_ of true wisdom and piety.--Eras. _Op._ iii. 459, A.
‘Narrans sese apud Italos comperisse quosdam monachos vere prudentes ac
pios.’ Whether Savonarola’s monks were amongst these is a matter of mere
speculation.

[50] See marginal note on his ‘Romans,’ in the Cambridge University
Library, MS. Gg. 4, 26, leaf 3_a_, in which he refers to him--‘_Hec
Mirandula_,’ and cites a passage from Pico’s _Apologia_, Basle edition of
_Pici Opera_, p. 117. There is also a long and almost literal extract from
Pico in the MS. on the ‘Ecclesiastical Hierarchy,’ in the St. Paul’s
School Library. See Mr. Lupton’s translation, p. 161.

[51] See an extract from Ficino in Colet’s MS. on ‘Romans,’ leaf 13_b_.
Another is pointed out by Mr. Lupton, p. 36, _n._

[52] ‘Quem ego sermonem ab eo memini, qui colloquentes audiverat, jam tum
patri meo renunciatum, cum adhuc nulla proditionis ejus suspicio
haberetur.’--Thomæ Mori ‘_Latina Opera_,’ Lovanii, 1566, fol. 46. As to
the authorship of the history of Richard III. see Mr. Gairdner’s preface
to _Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._ vol. ii. p. xxi. As More was
born in February, 1478, there is no difficulty in accepting the
authenticity of this incident, which, when 1480 was assumed as the date of
More’s birth, seemed quite impossible, as More would only have been three
years old when it occurred, and could not have remembered the
conversation.

[53] Roper, Singer’s ed. p. 3. Morton was not made a cardinal till 1493.

[54] Roper, p. 4.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Colet probably left Oxford for the Continent about 1494. The most
probable date of More’s stay at Oxford was 1492 and 1493. This leaves 1494
and 1495 for his studies at New Inn, previous to his entry at Lincoln’s
Inn, in February, 1496.

[57] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 477, A. Speaking of More, Erasmus writes:
‘Joannes Coletus, vir acris exactique judicii, in familiaribus colloquiis
subinde dicere solet, Britanniæ non nisi unicum esse ingenium.’

[58] Stapleton’s _Tres Thomæ_, Colon. 1612 ed. chap. i. pp. 155-6. ‘Hanc
ob causam sic ei necessaria subministravit ut ne quidem teruncium in sua
potestate eum habere permitteret, præter id quod ipsa necessitas
postulabat. Quod adeò strictè observavit, ut nec ad reficiendos attritos
calceos, nisi à patre peteret, pecuniam haberet.’ See also Eras. _Op._
iii. p. 475, A, respecting his father’s motive.

[59] Stapleton’s _Tres Thomæ_, Colon. 1612, p. 156.

[60] ‘Juvenis ad Græcas literas ac philosophiæ studium sese applicuit adeo
non opitulante patre ... ut ea conantem omni subsidio destitueret ac pene
pro abdicato haberet, quod a patriis studiis desciscere videretur, nam is
Britannicarum legum peritiam profitetur.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 475, A.

[61] ‘Sic voluit pater qui eum ad Græcarum literarum et philosophiæ
studium omni subsidio destituit, ut ad istud (i.e. English Law)
induceret.’--Stapleton’s _Tres Thomæ_, p. 168.

[62] XII. February,--11 Henry VII. Foss’s _Judges of England_, v. p. 207.

[63] Vide supra, p. 1, _n._

[64] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, B. ‘Nullus erat liber, _historiam_ aut
constitutiones continens majorum, quod non evolverat.’

[65] Eras. Epist. App. ccccxxxvii.

[66] Eras. Epist. xi.

[67] ‘Ut tribuatur lapsui memoriæ in evangelista gravatim audio. Qui si
spiritu sancto inspiratus scripsit, memoria falli non potuit, nisi et ille
etiam falli potuerit, quo ductore scripsit. Dicit mihi Ezechiel: Quocunque
ibat spiritus, illuc pariter et rotæ elevabantur sequentes
eum.’--_Annotationes Ed. Leei in annotationes Novi Testamenti Desiderii
Erasmi._ Basil. 1520, pp. 25, 26. Lee studied at Oxford during a portion
of the time of Colet’s residence there. Knight states that he was sent to
St. Mary Magd. College (the college where Colet is supposed to have taken
his degree of M.A.) in 1499.--_Knight’s Erasmus_, p. 286.

[68] ‘Quod dicis (non est nostrum definire, quomodo spiritus ille suum
temperârit organum) verum quidem est, sed spiritus ipse in Ezechiele
definivit: Rotæ non elevabantur nisi sequentes spiritum.’--_Annotationes
Edvardi Leei_, p. 26.

[69] Aquinas, _Summa_, pt. 1, quest. i. article x.

[70] Tyndale’s _Obedience of a Christian Man_, chap. ‘On the Four Senses
of the Scriptures.’

[71] Preface to the Five Books of Moses.

[72] Tyndale’s _Obedience of a Christian Man_, chap. ‘On the Four Senses
of Scripture.’ That Tyndale was at Oxford during Colet’s stay there (i.e.
before 1506), see the evidence given by his biographers. It appears that
he was born about 1484. Fox says ‘_he was brought up from a child in the
University of Oxford_,’ and there is no reason to suppose that he removed
to Cambridge before 1509. See Tyndale’s _Doctrinal Treatises_, xiv. xv.
and authorities there cited.

[73] Sir Thomas More in a letter to the University of Oxford (Jortin’s
_Erasmus_, ii. App. p. 664, 4to ed.) complains of a Scotist preacher
because ‘_neque integrum ullum Scripturæ caput tractavit, quæ res in usu
fuit veteribus_ [this was the old method revived by Colet]; neque dictum
aliquod brevius e Sacris literis, qui mos apud nuperos inolevit [the
scholastic method]; sed thematum loco delegit Britannica quædam anilia
proverbia.’ [The practical result of the textarian method when pushed to
its ultimate results.]

[74] Eras. Jodoco Jonæ: Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, C. ‘Nullus erat illic
doctor vel theologiæ vel juris, nullus abbas, aut alioqui dignitate
præditus, quin illum audiret, etiam allatis codicibus.’

[75] Eras. Coleto: Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 40, F. Epist. xli.

[76] ‘Tamen certe multum ac diu rogatus a quibusdam amicis, et eisdem
interpretantibus nobis Paulum fidis auditoribus, quibuscum pro amicicia
quod in superiorem epistolæ partem scriptum est a nobis communicavi,
adductus fui tandem ut promitterem, quod est ceptum modo me perrecturum,
et in reliquam epistolam quod reliquum est enarrationis
adhibiturum.’--Cambridge University Library MS. Gg. 4, 26, fol. 27_b_.

[77] A copy of Colet’s exposition of ‘Romans,’ with corrections apparently
in Colet’s handwriting, is in the Cambridge University Library; MS. Gg. 4,
26. A fair copy, apparently by Peter Meghen, is in the Library of Corpus
Christi College Cambridge, MS. No. 355.

Amongst the ‘Gale MSS.’ in Trinity Library, Cambridge, is a MS. (O. 4, 44)
said to be Colet’s, containing short notes or abstracts of the Apostolic
Epistles. Through the kindness of Mr. Wright I had a copy taken of this
MS., but on close comparison of passages with the _Annotationes_ of
Erasmus, I was obliged to conclude that the writer had before him an
edition of the latter not earlier than that of 1522. This MS. cannot,
therefore, have been written by Colet. Possibly it may have been written
by Lupset, Colet’s disciple. The copy in the Trinity Library is in a later
hand.

[78] This appears to have been the character also of the Expositions of
Marsilio Ficino. See Fragment on ‘Romans.’--Ficini _Opera_, ed. 1696, pp.
426-472.

[79] The _names_ of Origen, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine are
mentioned, but incidentally, and without any quotations of any length
being given from them.

[80] ‘--est ex vehementia loquendi imperfecta et suspensa
sententia.’--MSS. Gg. 4, 26, fol. 23, _in loco_. Rom. ix. 22.

[81] ‘Ita Paulus mira prudentia et arte temperat orationem suam in hac
epistola, et eam quasi librat tam pari lance, et Judeos et Gentes simul,
etc.’--Ibid. fol. 26.

[82] MSS. Gg. 4, 26, fols. 59_b_, 61_a_.

[83] Ibid. fol. 60. ‘Sed ille homo magno animo, fide, et amore Christi,
fuit paratus non solum ligari,’ &c.

[84] Ibid. fols. 42-45 (_in loco_, Rom. xiii.). In these pages Colet
compares with great care the information to be collected from passages in
the Epistle to the Romans and in the Acts of the Apostles with what is
recorded by Suetonius, and admires St. Paul’s ‘sapientissima admonitio
opportune sane adhibita.’--Ibid. fols. 42_b_ and 43_a_. Again, at fol.
44_a_, Colet says, ‘Hæc autem refero ut magna Pauli consideratio et
prudentia animadvertatur; qui cum non ignoravit Claudium Cesarem tenuisse
rempublicam, qui fuit homo vario ingenio et improbis moribus, &c.’...

[85] In his exposition of Romans (chap. iv.) he says:--‘Sed caute
circumspicienda sunt omnia Pauli, antequam de ejus mente aliqua feratur
sentencia. Nunquam enim censuisset revocandum ad ecclesiam fornicatorem
illum, quem tradidit Sathanæ in prima Epistola ad Corinthios, si
peccatoribus post baptismum nullum penitendi locum reliquisset.’--Ibid.
fol. 6_b_.

[86] It would be difficult in short quotations to give a correct
impression of the doctrinal standpoint assumed by Colet in his exposition
of the Epistle to the Romans. But it may be interesting to enquire,
whether any connection can be traced between his views and those of
Savonarola, on this point.

Now _Villari_ states that a ‘fundamental point’ in Savonarola’s doctrine
was his ‘_conception of love_, which he sometimes says is the _same as
grace_,’ and that it was through this conception of love that Savonarola,
‘to a certain extent,’ explained the ‘mystery of human liberty and Divine
omnipotence.’--Villari’s _Savonarola and his Times_, bk. i. c. vii. p.
110.

Whether there be any real connection between Savonarola’s teaching and the
following passages from Colet’s exposition, I leave the reader to judge.

‘Wherefore St. Paul concludes, men are justified by faith, and trusting in
God alone by Jesus Christ, are reconciled to God and restored into grace;
so that with God they stand, and remain themselves sons of God.... If He
loved us when alienated from Him, how much more will He love us when we
are reconciled; and preserve those whom He loves. Wherefore we ought to be
firm and stable in our hope and joy, and, nothing doubting, trust in God
through Jesus Christ, by whom alone men are reconciled to God.’--MS. fol.
5. After speaking of that _grace_ which where sin had abounded did much
more abound unto eternal life, Colet proceeds:--‘But here it is to be
noted that this _grace_ is nothing else than the _love_ of God towards
men--towards those, i.e. whom He wills to love, and, in loving, to inspire
with His Holy Spirit; which itself is love and the love of God; which (as
the Saviour said, according to St. John’s Gospel) _blows where it lists_.
But, loved and inspired by God, they are also _called_; so that accepting
this love, they may love in return their loving God, and long for and wait
for the same love. This waiting and hope springs from _love_. _This love
truly is ours because He loves us_: not (as St. John writes in his 2nd
Epistle) as though we had first loved God, but because He first loved us,
even when we were worthy of no love at all; but indeed impious and wicked,
destined by right to eternal death. But some, i.e. those whom He knew and
chose, He also loved, and in loving called them, and in calling them
justified them, and in justifying them glorified them. This gracious love
and charity in God towards men is _in itself_ the calling and
justification and glorification.... And when we speak of men as drawn,
called, justified, and glorified by _grace_, we mean nothing else than
that men _love in return God who loves them_.’--MS. Gg. 4, 26, fol. 6.

Again: ‘Thus you see that things are brought about by a providing and
directing God, and that they happen as He wills in the affairs of men, not
from any force from without (_illata_)--since nothing is more remote from
force than the Divine action--but by the natural desire and will of man,
the Divine will and providence secretly and silently, and, as it were,
naturally accompanying (_comitante_) it, and going along with it so
wonderfully, that whatever you do and choose was known by God, and what
God knew and decreed to be, of necessity comes to pass.’--MS. fol. 18.

The following passage is from Colet’s exposition of the Epistle to the
Corinthians (MS. 4, 26, p. 80). ‘The mind of man consists of _intellect_
and _will_. By the _intellect_ we know: by the _will_ we have power to act
(_possumus_). From the knowledge of the intellect comes faith: from the
power of the will charity. But Christ, the power of God, is also the
wisdom of God. Our minds are illuminated to faith by Christ, “_who
illumines every man coming into this world_, and He gives power to become
the sons of God to those who believe in His name.” By Christ also our
wills are kindled in charity to love God and our neighbour; in which is
the fulfilment of the law. From God alone therefore, through Christ, we
have both knowledge and power; for by Him we are in Christ. Men, however,
have in themselves a blind intellect, and a depraved will, and walk in
darkness, not knowing what they do.... Those who by the warm rays of his
divinity are so drawn that they keep close in communion with Him, are
indeed they whom Paul speaks of as called and elected to His glory,’ &c.

For the Latin of these extracts see Appendix (A).

In further proof that Colet’s views (like Savonarola’s) were not
Augustinian upon the question of the ‘freedom of the will,’ may be cited
the following words of Colet (see _infra_, chap, iv.): ‘But in especial is
it necessary for thee to know that God of his great grace hath made thee
his image, having regard to thy memory, understanding, and _free-will_.’
Probably both Colet and Savonarola, in common with other mystic
theologians, had imbibed their views directly or indirectly from the works
of the Pseudo-Dionysius and the Neo-Platonists.

[87] ‘Ex quodam nostro studio et pietate in homines ... non tam verentes
legentium fastidium, quam cupientes confirmacionem infirmorum et
vacillantium.’--Fol. 22_b_.

[88] MS. Gg. 4, 26, fols. 13_b_ to 15_a_.

[89] Ibid. fol. 3_b_.

[90] Ibid. fols. 28_b_ and 29.

[91] Ibid. fol. 29.

[92] MS. Gg. 4, 26, fol. 30_b_.

[93] Ibid. fol. 59_b_. ‘Elicienda est dulci doctrina prompta voluntas non
acerba exaccione extorquenda pecunia nomine decimarum et oblacionum.’

[94] Ibid. fol. 60_a_.

[95] See particularly fol. 27 and 61_b_.

[96] MS. Gg. 4, 26, fol. 3_a_.

[97] Ibid. fol. 7_b_.

[98] Ibid. fol. 15_b_. _Ioannes Baptista Mantuanus_, general of the
Carmelites, an admirer of Pico.--See Pici _Opera_, p. 262.

[99] ‘Ibi se totum evolvendis sacris auctoribus dedit.’--Eras. _Op._ iii.
p. 456 B.

[100] ‘... conatique sumus quoad potuimus divina gratia adjuti veros
illius sensus exprimere. Quod quam fecimus haud scimus sane, voluntatem
tamen habuimus maximam faciendi.’--_ffinis argumenti in Epistolam Pauli ad
Romanos._ Oxonie.

[101] Cambridge University Library, MSS. Gg. 4, 26, p. 62, _et seq._, and
printed in Knight’s _Life of Colet_, App. p. 311.

[102] In the volume of manuscripts marked 355.

[103] ‘In quibus mihi videtur tanta caligo ut totus ille sermo contentus
in ipsis tribus capitulis appareat esse ille abyssus super cujus faciem
dicit Moises tenebras fuisse.’

[104] ‘Non me latet plures esse sensus, sed unum persequar cursim.’

[105] ‘... universa simul creasse sua eternitate.’

[106] ‘In principio (i.e. eternitate) creavit Deus cœlum (formam) et
terram (materiam).’

[107] ‘... inanis et vacua.’

[108] ‘Terra (materia) erat inanis et vacua (hoc est sine solida et
substantiali entitate) et tenebræ, &c. (i.e. tenebrosa fuit materia,
&c.).’

[109] ‘Vide quam bellè pergit ordine, significans summariam creacionem
copulationemque formæ cum materia.’

[110] ‘... forma et terminacio rerum.’

[111] ‘Quæ sequuntur in Moyse est repetitio et latior explicacio
superiorum, ac _speciatim_ distinctio earum rerum quas primum _generatim_
complexus est. Tu aliud si sentis fac nos te queso participes. Vale.’

[112] ... ‘Particulatim res aggreditur, et mundi digestionem ante oculos
ponit, quod sic facit _meo judicio_, ut sensus vulgi et rudis multitudinis
quam docuit racionem habuisse videatur.’

[113] See quotation from Chrysostom to a similar effect: _Summa_, prima
pars, lxvii. art. iv. conclusio. After speaking of the views of Augustine
and Basil, Aquinas says:--

‘Chrysostomus (Homil. 2 in Gen. circa medium illius tom. i.) autem
assignat aliam rationem quia Moyses loquebatur rudi populo qui nihil nisi
corporalia poterat capere, quem etiam ab idololatria revocare volebat,’
&c.

[114] ‘... Et hoc more poetæ alicujus popularis, quo magis consulat
spiritui simplicis rusticitatis, fingens successionem rerum operum et
temporum cujusmodi apud tantum Opificem certè nulla esse potest.’

[115] ‘Crassiter et pingue docenda fuit stulta illa et macra multitudo.’

[116] ‘(1) Moysen digna Deo loqui voluisse. (2) In rebus vulgo cognitis
vulgo satisfacere. (3) Ordinem rerum servare. In primis populum ad
religionem et cultum unius Dei traducere.’

[117] ‘Partim quia sex numero facile in rebus homini in mentem venire
possunt.’

[118] ‘Maxime ... ut imitacio divina (quem, more poetæ, finxit sex dies
operatum esse, septimo quievisse) populum septimo quoque die ad quietem et
contemplacionem Dei et cultum adduceret.’

[119] ‘Nunquam dierum numerum statuisset, nisi ut illo utilissimo et
sapientissimo figmento, quasi quodam proposito exemplari populum ad
imitandum provocaret, ut sexto quoque die diurnis actibus fine imposito,
septimo in summa Dei contemplatione persisterent.’

[120] ‘Salve Radulphe, ac cum salute puto te rediisse quod tibi opto.
Quatuor ut arbitror dies transiisti: ego interea vix unum Moysaicum diem
transii. Immo tu elaborâsti in die sub sole; ego hoc tempore in nocte et
tenebris vagatus sum, nec vidi quo eundum esset: nec quo perveni
intelligo. Sed incepto pergendum erat, ac tandem inveni exitum ut poteram.
In quo difficili errore, videor mihi apud Moysen magnum errorem
deprehendisse. Nam quum cujusque diei opus concluserat hiis verbis, _Et
factum est vespere et mane dies unus, secundus, tercius_, non addidisset
dies sed _nox_ pocius _una_, _secunda_, et _tercia_, propterea quod
inchoante vespere deinde mane sequente, est necesse quod intercedat inter
antecedens vesper et subsequens mane nox sit. Dies enim incipit mane,
vesperi terminatur. Sed maxime profecto quæ Moyses scribens in dies
distinxerat, noctes appellâsset magis, propterea quod offuse sint tantis
tenebris ut nihil possit nocti videri similius quam dies Moysaicus. Quas
nocturnas tenebras cum opinione aliqua lucis conati sumus discutere,
fortasse nos quoque tenebrosi tenebras auximus, noctesque produximus.
Attamen prestat nos recte facere voluisse, ac quicquid est quod egimus, si
tibi obscurum videatur infunde tum aliquid luminis tui, ut et nos videas,
utque nos eciam simul tecum Moysen videre possimus.’

[121] ‘More boni piique poetæ.’

[122] ‘Homunculorum cordi consuleret.’

[123] ... ‘A sua sublimitate degenerent.’

[124] ‘Honestissimo et piissimo figmento simul inescare et trahere eos ut
Deo inserviant.’

[125] For the above abstracts of these interesting letters I am mainly
indebted to the kind assistance of my friend Henry Bradshaw, Esq., of
King’s College, Cambridge, who has also furnished me with the following
description of the manuscript.

    _Letters to Radulphus._

    1. Beginning (p. 195): ‘Miror sane te optime Radulphe quum voluisti
    ...;’ ending (p. 199): ‘... fac nos te queso participes. Vale.’

    2. Beginning (p. 199): ‘Parumper de reliquis diebus uti petis in calce
    Epistole. Facta mentione de materia et forma ...;’ ending (p. 207);
    ‘... scribendi paululum levaverim. Vale.’

    3. Beginning (p. 207): ‘Tercium nunc deinceps diem aggrediamur,
    memores semper ...;’ ending (p. 222): ‘... leviter nos in hiis rebus
    lucubrasse. Vale.’

    4. Beginning (p. 222): ‘Salve Radulphe, ac cum salute puto te rediisse
    quod tibi opto ...’ breaking off at the end of the quire (p. 226):
    ‘... id licere facere docet Macrobius in Comen[tario edito]....’

⁂ These letters follow Colet’s Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, in
the volume marked 355, in Corpus Christi College Library.

The _Exposition_ is written in the handwriting of Colet’s scribe, Peter
Meghen, the ‘monoculus Brabantinus,’ and there are corrections and
alterations throughout, evidently by Colet himself.

The _letters to Radulphus_ are merely _bound with_ the other. Only two
quires are now remaining: the handwriting is not the same, but similar.

[126] The following appears to be the passage Colet was about to quote:
‘Aut sacrarum rerum notio, sub _figmentorum_ velamine, _honestis_ et tecta
rebus et vestita nominibus enuntiatur; et hoc est solum figmenti genus,
quod cautio de divinis rebus admittit.’--_In Somnium Scipionis_, lib. i.
c. 2. The ‘aut’ with which the sentence begins refers to its being an
alternative of two kinds of mythical writing, about which Macrobius has
been speaking. I am indebted to Mr. Lupton for this reference.

[127] The following passage from Mr. Lupton’s translation of Colet’s
abstract of Dionysius’s _De celesti Hierarchiâ_ (pp. 12, 13) will show
that he may have derived some of his thoughts from that source. ‘Thus led
he forth those uninstructed Hebrews, like boys, to school; in order that
like children, playing with dolls and toys, they might represent in shadow
what they were one day to do in reality as men: herein imitating little
girls, who in early age play with dolls, the images of sons, being
destined afterwards in riper years to bring forth real sons: ... “When I
was a child,” says St. Paul, “I understood as a child; but when I became a
man, I put away childish things.” From childishness and images and
imitations Christ has drawn us, who has shone upon our darkness, and has
taught us the truth, and has made us that believe to be men, in order that
we, “with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be
changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of
the Lord.”’...

‘In these foreshadowings and signs, metaphors are borrowed from all
quarters by Moses--a theologian and observer of nature of the deepest
insight--inasmuch as there are not words proper to express the Divine
attributes. For nothing is fitted to denote God Himself, who is not only
unutterable but even inconceivable. Wherefore he is most truly expressed
by negations; since you may state what He is not, but not what He is; for
whatever positive statement you make concerning Him, you err, seeing that
He is none of those things which you can say. Still because a hidden
principle of the Deity resides in all things, on account of that faint
resemblance, the sacred writers have endeavoured to indicate Him by the
names of all objects, not only of the better but of the worse kind, lest
the duller sort of people, attracted by the beauty of the fairer objects,
should think God to be that very thing which He is called.’

The above is _Colet’s amplification_ of the passage in Dionysius (chap.
ii.). The latter part of it is a pretty close rendering of the original.

[128] ‘Heptaplus Johannis Pici Mirandulæ de Septiformi sex dierum Geneseos
Enarratione.’

[129] The first edition is without date, but the publisher’s letter at the
commencement, to Lorenzo de’ Medici, shows that it was published during
the lifetime of the latter, i.e. before 1492--probably in 1490.

[130] The letter preceding the abstract of the ‘Celestial Hierarchy,’ in
the Cambridge MS. Gg. 4, 26, is evidently a copy by the same hand as the
letter to the Abbot of Winchcombe. Possibly the Abbot may be the person to
whom it was addressed.

[131] These treatises were:--1. ‘De Compositione Sancti Corporis Christi
mistici.’--Camb. MS. Gg. 4, 26.

2. ‘On the Sacraments of the Church,’ printed with a very valuable
introduction and notes, by the Rev. J. H. Lupton, M.A., from the MS. in
the St. Paul’s School Library. (Bell and Daldy, 1867.)

3. A short essay in the Camb. MS. Gg. 4, 26, commencing ‘Deus immensum
bonum,’ &c.

Mr. Lupton is publishing Colet’s abstracts of the ‘Celestial’ and
‘Ecclesiastical’ Hierarchy of Dionysius, from the MSS. at St. Paul’s
School; and it will be seen how much use I have made in this chapter of
his admirable translation. I have expressed in the preface to this edition
the obligations I am under to Mr. Lupton for bringing to light these
interesting MSS., and thus materially assisting in restoring some lost
links in the history of Colet’s inner life and opinions.

[132] Balthasar Corderius, in his prefatory observations to his edition of
the works of St. Dionysius (Paris 1644), speaks of Dionysius as being the
originator of the Scholastic Theology, and proves it by giving four folio
pages of references to passages in the ‘Summa’ of Aquinas, where the
authority of Dionysius is quoted.

[133] Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 135, 136.

[134] ‘God, who is one, beautiful and good--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
the Trinity which created all things--is at once the purification of
things to unity, their illumination to what is beautiful, and their
perfection to what is good.’--Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 15, 24.

[135] ‘God created all things because He is good (p. 16); and because He
is good, He also recalls to himself all things according to their
capacity, that He may bountifully communicate himself to them.’

[136] All after this is Colet’s own addition to what is said in Dionysius.

[137] Mr. Lupton’s translation of Colet’s Abstract of the _Eccl. Hier._ p.
92. In a short essay contained in the MSS. Gg. 4, 26, of the Cambridge
University Library, entitled ‘De compositione sancti corporis Christi
mistici, quæ est ecclesia, quæ sine anima ejus, Spiritu scilicet,
dispergitur et dissipatur.’ Colet, after showing how men, if left to
themselves, would wander apart and become scattered; and that the purpose
of God is, that they should be united in one body the church by the
Spirit, as by a magnet, goes on to say, ‘Predestinatum fuit hominem qui
decidit a Deo retrahi ad Deum non posse quidem nisi per Deum factum
hominem.... Mortuus est ut liberos faceret homines ad talem vitam, ut
debita cujusque hominum in illius morte soluta, nunc desinentes peccare
deinceps liberi sint justiciæ, ut non amplius maneamus in peccato,’
&c.--Ff. 70_b_, 71_a_.

[138] Wilberforce, in his _Doctrine of the Incarnation_, third edition,
1850, thus expressed the modern sacerdotal theory. In the word _Priest_,
in primitive languages, ‘the notion of the setting apart those who should
act _on man’s behalf towards God_ is everywhere visible.’--P. 229.

‘Now if Christ is still maintaining a real intercession (if He still
pleads that sacrifice) then is there ample place for that sacerdotal
system, by which some actual _thing_ is still to be effected, and in which
some agents must still be employed.’--P. 381. ‘We put the Priestly office
under the law in a line with the ministerial office under the Gospel; we
assert, that if the title of Priest could be given fitly to the first, it
belongs also to the second.’--P. 383. ‘Any persons who discharge an office
which has reference to God, and who present to Him what is offered by men,
may be called Priests.’--P. 384.

[139] See the same views expressed by Colet in his exposition of
‘Corinthians.’--Emmanuel Col. MS. 3, 3, 12, leaf g, 2.

[140] Colet’s Abstract of the _Ecc. Hier._ ch. ii. s. 2. Mr. Lupton’s
translation, pp. 61, 62. Colet writes a little further on:--‘The office of
the bishop is, like Christ, to preach constantly and diligently the truth
he has received. For he is, as it were, a messenger midway between God and
men, to announce to men heavenly things, as Christ did.’--Pp. 63, 64.

[141] ‘Through this bread and this cup, that which is offered as a true
sacrifice in heaven is present as a real though immaterial agent in the
church’s ministrations. So that what is done by Christ’s ministers below
is a constituent part of that general work which the one great High Priest
performs in heaven: through the intervention of his heavenly Head, the
earthly sacrificer truly exhibits to the Father that body of Christ which
is the one only sacrifice for sins; each visible act has its efficacy
through those invisible acts of which it is the earthly expression, and
things done on earth are one with those done in heaven.’--Wilberforce’s
_Doctrine of the Incarnation_, pp. 372, 373.

[142] Colet’s abstract of the _Eccl. Hier._ ch. iii. Mr. Lupton’s
translation, pp. 78-94. Whilst not disapproving in _others_ daily
attendance ‘ad mensam Dominicam,’ Erasmus tells us that Colet did not make
a _daily_ habit of it _himself_.--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 459, E.

[143] _Eccl. Hier._ ch. ii. Colet speaks in his abstract (Mr. Lupton’s
translation, p. 65) of the Christian being ‘brought to the captain of the
army, the bishop,’ that by the soldier’s oath, &c. ‘_he may own himself a
soldier of Christ_.’ He concludes this section as follows:--

‘Such was the custom and ceremony of baptism and the washing of
regeneration in the primitive church, instituted by the holy apostles,
_whereby the more excellent baptism of the inner man is signified_. And
this form differs very greatly from the one we make use of in this age.
And herein I own that I marvel!... The apostles being fully taught by
Jesus Christ, knew well what are convenient symbols and appropriate signs
for the mysteries. So that one may suspect either rashness or neglect on
the part of their successors in what has been added to or taken from their
ordinances.’

Then follows a section on the ‘spiritual contemplation of baptism,’ in
which occurs the passage beginning ‘Gracious God!’ &c.--_Infra_, p. 73.
_Eccl. Hier._ ch. ii. s. 3, pp. 76, 77 of Mr. Lupton’s translation.

[144] ‘Meanwhile the foster father who has undertaken the rearing of the
child in Christ, gives a pledge and sacred promise, on behalf of the
infant, of all things that true Christianity demands, viz. a renouncing of
all sin, &c.... And this he says, _not in the child’s stead_, since it
would be a fond thing for another to speak in place of one that was in
ignorance; but when, in his own person, he speaks of renouncing, he
professes that _he will bring it to pass, so far as he can_, that the
little infant, as soon as ever it is capable of instruction, shall in
reality and in his life utterly renounce, &c....

‘When the bishop, I say, hears him saying, “I renounce,” _which means, as
Dionysius explains it_, “_I will take care that the infant_ renounce,”
&c.... Thus we see how in the primitive church, by the ordinance of the
apostles, infants were not admitted unreservedly to the sacred rights, but
on condition only that some one would be surety for them, that when they
came to years of discretion they should thenceforward set before them in
reality the pattern of Christ.

‘Mark thus how great a burden he takes upon himself who promises to be a
godfather,’ &c.--Mr. Lupton’s translation of Colet’s abstract of the
_Eccl. Hier._ ch. viii. pp. 158, 159.

[145] ‘Men execute the previous decisions of God, and by the ministry of
men that is at length disclosed on earth,’ &c.--Mr. Lupton’s translation,
p. 149. ‘It must be heedfully marked, lest bishops should be presumptuous,
that it is not the part of men to loose the bonds of sins: nor does the
power pertain to them of loosing or binding anything.’... ‘And if they do
not proceed according to revelation, moved by the Spirit of God ... they
abuse the power given to them, both to the blaspheming of God and the
destruction of the Church.’--_Ibid._ 150.

[146] See Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 459, C and D.

[147] Mr. Lupton’s translation of Colet’s abstract of the _Eccl. Hier._ p.
83. This was a strictly Dionysian thought and one shared also by Pico.
‘The little affection of an old man or an old woman to Godward (were it
never so small), he set more by than all his own knowledge as well of
natural things as godly.’... He writeth thiswise [to Politian], ‘Love God
(while we be in this body), we rather may than either know Him, or by
speech utter Him.’--Life of Picus, E. of Mirandula, _Sir Thomas More’s
Works_, p. 7.

To the same purport is the passage from Ficino, quoted by Colet in his MS.
on the ‘Romans.’--Vide supra, p. 37.

[148] Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 76, 77.

[149] Ibid. p. 73.

[150] Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 150, 151.

[151] Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 90, 91. See also pp. 123-126, where
Colet inveighs warmly against the nomination by secular princes of worldly
bishops.

[152] Camb. University Library, MS. Gg. 4, 26. There is a beautiful copy
embodying these corrections in the hand of Peter Meghen, in the Library of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, MS. 3, 3, 12.

[153] Emmanuel Col. MS. leaf e, 5: ‘Homo unus omnium divinissimus et
consideratissimus.’ See also leaf k, 6.

[154] Leaf a, 5. ‘Quod tamen facit ubique modestissime homo piissimus.’

[155] ‘Velit ergo prudentissimus Paulus.’--Leaf k, 3.

[156] Leaf k, 6, and p. 8.

[157] In another place Colet writes, ‘Fuit illa græca natio illis argutiis
versatilibus humani ingenii semper prompta ad arguendum et
redarguendum.’--Leaf c, 2.

[158] Emmanuel Col. MS. 3, 3, 12, leaf a, 4, and Appendix (B, a).

[159] Abridged quotation. Leaf a, 5, and Appendix (B, a).

[160] Emmanuel Col. MS. leaf a, 5, 6, and Appendix (B, a).

[161] Leaf b, 4, and Appendix (B, b). See a very similar remark with
reference to St. Paul and Dionysius in _Joan. Fran. Pici Mirand. De Studio
Div. et Hum. Philosophiæ_ lib. i. ch. iii. J. F. Pico was living when
Colet was in Italy.

[162] Appendix (B, c).

[163] Appendix (B, d). Emmanuel Coll. MS. leaf b, 6, and b, 8.

[164] ‘In these matters regard must be had to condition and strength....
It was thus that Moses taught the truth and justice of God, as it was
brought down to the level of sensible things, and diluted for the ancient
Hebrews. It was thus that Christ taught to the disciples what they were
able to bear. It was thus, lastly, that Paul, both gently and sparingly
gave to the Corinthians, as it were, milk instead of meat.... He spoke
wisdom to the perfect, to the imperfect he accommodated as it were
foolish, more humble and more homely things. With this design, also, he
tolerated indulgently less perfect and less absolute morals for a time,
dealing gently with them as far as was lawful, not thinking how much was
lawful to himself, but what was expedient to others; not how much he
himself could bear, but what was adapted to the Corinthians.’...--Leaf c,
7. See also leaf e, 6.

[165] 1 See Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 1263, and Ibid. p. 184, E. ‘1499 was the
date of the 1st edition, which is comprised in eight pages, and forms the
last treatise in a volume of ancient writers on astronomy, edited by
Aldus. It is intituled, “Procli Diadochi Sphæra, Astronomiam discere
Incipientibus Vtilissima, Thomâ Linacro Britanno Interprete.”’--Johnson’s
_Life of Linacre_, p. 152.

[166] In a letter from Politian to Franciscus Casa, there is a description
of an ‘orrery’ made at Florence. The letter was written 1484.--_Illustrium
Virorum Epistolæ ab Angelo Politiano_, n. 1523, fol. lxxxiii.

[167] Luther’s _Table Talk_, ‘Of Astronomy and Astrology.’

[168] So also in Pico’s _Heptaplus_ the same kind of speculation is much
indulged in.

[169] Emmanuel Col. MS. 3, 3, 12, leaves d, 3 to d, 5, and Appendix (B,
e). See also leaf n, 2.

[170] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 459, A.

[171] Leaf g, 4.

[172] Emmanuel Col. MS. Leaf i, 1 to leaf i, 3.

[173] Leaf k, 7 and 8.

[174] Leaves g, 5 to g, 7.

[175] Emmanuel MS. Leaf f, 6, and Appendix (B, f).

[176] ‘Plurimum tribuebat Epistolis Apostolicis, sed ita suspiciebat
admirabilem illam Christi majestatem ut ad hanc quodammodo sordescerent
Apostolorum scripta.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 459, F. See also this view
supported by Erasmus in his _Ratio Veræ Theologiæ_. ‘Nec fortassis
absurdum fuerit, in sacris quoque voluminibus ordinem auctoritatis aliquem
constituere,’ &c.--Eras. _Op._ v. p. 92, C; and _Ibid._ p. 132, C.

[177] Eras. _Op._ vi. p. 503, F; _Annotationes in loco_, Acts xvii. v. 34.
The edition of 1516 does not mention the anecdote at all. Those of 1519
and 1522 mention it as having occurred ‘ante complures annos.’ Also see
‘Declamatio adversus Censuram Facultatis Theol. Parisien.’ Eras. _Op._ ix.
p. 917 and Epist. mccv. The former was written in 1530 or 1531, and in it
he says:--‘Is ante annos triginta, Londini in æde Divi Pauli,’ &c.: which
gives the date of Grocyn’s lectures as some time before 1500 or 1501. The
publication of the Paris edition of Dionysius, in 1498, may have called
forth these lectures.

[178] Jewell, however, mentions John Colet as believing that the
Areopagite was not the author of these ancient writings.--_Of Private
Masse_, ed. 1611, p. 8.

[179] Vide supra, p. 82.

[180] ‘Apostoli sermo ... (qui in hoc loco _artificiosissimus_
est)....’--MS. on _1 Corinthians_, Emmanuel Coll. leaf a, 6.

[181] The date of Erasmus’s coming to England may be approximately fixed
as follows. Epist. xxix. dated 12th April, and evidently written in 1500,
after his visit to England, mentions a fever which nearly killed Erasmus
_two years before_. Comparing this with what is said in the ‘Life’
prefixed to vol i. of Eras. _Op._, Epist. vi. vii. and viii., dated 3
Feb., 4 Feb., and 12 Feb., seem to belong to Feb. 1498. Epist. vi. ix. and
v. seem to place his studies with Mountjoy, at Paris, in the spring of
that year. Epist. xxii. seems to mention the projected visit to England.
Epist. xiv. ‘Londini tumultuarie,’ 5 Dec., is evidently written after he
had been to Oxford and seen Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, and yet,
comparatively soon after his arrival in England. It alludes to his coming
to England, but gives no hint that he is going to leave England. In the
winter of 1499-1500 he was at Oxford, intending to leave, but delayed by
political reasons. He really did leave England 27 Jan. 1500. Whilst,
therefore, it is just possible that Epist. xiv. may have been written in
Dec. 1499, it is more probable that it was written in Dec. 1498, and that
the first experience of Erasmus at Oxford had been during the previous
summer and autumn. This seems to comport best both with Epist. vi. ix. v.
and xxii., and also with the circumstances connected with his stay in
England, mentioned in this chapter. See also the next note. The years
attached to the early letters of Erasmus are not in the least to be relied
on.

[182] Coletus Erasmo: Eras. Epist. xi.

[183] ‘Hic (at Oxford) hominem nosse cœpi, nam eodem tum me Deus nescio
quis adegerat; natus tum erat annos ferme triginta, me minor duobus aut
tribus mensibus.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, B. Erasmus, according to his
monument at Rotterdam (Eras. _Op._ i. (7)) was born 28 Oct. 1467. Colet
would be born, say, Jan. 1467-8, if three months younger, and would be
‘annos ferme triginta, in the spring of 1498.’ According to Colet’s
monument he would be 31 at that date, as he died 16 Sept. 1519, and the
inscription states ‘vixit annos 53.’--Knight’s _Colet_, p. 261.

[184] Epist. xii. Sixtinus Erasmo.

[185] Else how could Erasmus describe Colet’s style of speaking so clearly
in his first letter to him?--Epist. xli.

[186] ‘Virum optimum et bonitate præditum singulari.’--Eras. Epist. xi.

[187] Coletus Erasmo: Epist. xi.

[188] Eras. Epist. xli. _Op._ iii. p. 40, D.

[189] ‘Dicebat Coletus, Caym ea primum culpa Deum offendisse, quod tanquam
conditoris benignitate diffisus, suæque nimium confisus industriæ, terram
primus prosciderit, quum Abel, sponte nascentibus contentus, oves
paverit.’--Eras. Epist. xliv. _Op._ iii. p. 42, F. Compare MS. G. g. 4,
26, fols. 4-6 and 29, 30, and Erasmus’s Paraphrases, _in loco_, Hebrews
xi. 4.

[190] ‘At ille unus vincebat omnes; visus est sacro quodam furore
debacchari, ac nescio quid homine sublimius augustiusque præferre. Aliud
sonabat vox, aliud tuebantur oculi, alius vultus, alius adspectus,
majorque videri, afflatus est numine quando.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. 42, F.

[191] Eras. Epist. xliv.

[192] Erasmus Sixtino, Epist. xliv. _Op._ iii. p. 42, C.

[193] See his colloquy, _Ichthyophagia_, in which he describes his college
experience at Paris, especially his physical hardships. The latter are
probably caricatured, and perhaps too much magnified for the description
to be taken literally.

[194] Erasmus to Lord Mountjoy: Epist. xlii. Oxoniæ, 1498.

[195] ‘Beatus Rhenanus Cæsari Carolo.’--Eras. _Op._ i. leaf * * * 1.

[196] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 458, D and E.

[197] Eras. _Op._ iii. pt. 1, p. 459, F.

[198] ‘Siquidem magnum erat, Coletum, in ea fortuna, constanter sequutum
esse, non quo vocabat natura, sed quo Christus,’ &c.--_Ibid._ p. 461, E.

[199] See the following extract from the colloquy of Erasmus, ‘_Pietas
puerilis_,’ edition Argent. 1522, leaf e, 4, and Basileæ, 1526, p. 92, and
Eras. _Op._ i. p. 653.

‘_Erasmus._ Many abstain from divinity because they are afraid lest they
should waver in the catholic faith, when they see there is nothing which
is not called in question.

‘_Gaspar._ I believe firmly what I read in the Holy Scriptures, and the
creed called the Apostles’, and I don’t trouble my head any further. I
leave the rest to be disputed and defined by the clergy, if they please.

‘_Erasmus._ What _Thales_ taught you that philosophy?

‘_Gaspar._ I was for some time in domestic service’ [as More was in the
house of Cardinal Morton before he was sent to Oxford], ‘with that
honestest of men, _John Colet_. _He imbued me with these precepts._’ See
Argent. 1522, leaf c, 4.

[200] ‘Illic in collegio Montis Acuti ex putribus ovis et cubiculo infecto
concepit morbum, h.e. malam corporis, antea purissimi,
affectionem.’--_Vita_, prefixed to Eras. _Op._ i. written by himself. See
the letter to Conrad Goclenius.

[201] ‘A studio theologiæ abhorrebat, quod sentiret animum non propensum,
ut omnia illorum fundamenta subverteret; deinde futurum, ut hæretici nomen
inureretur.’--_Vita_, prefixed to Eras. _Op._ i.

[202] See for this anecdote, Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 458, E and F.

[203] ‘Tanquam afflatus spiritu quodam, “Quid tu, inquit, mihi prædicas
istum, qui nisi habuisset multum arrogantiæ, non tanta temeritate tantoque
supercilio definisset omnia; et nisi habuisset aliquid spiritus mundani,
non ita totam Christi doctrinam sua profana philosophia
contaminasset.”’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 458, F.

[204] _Summa_, i. quest. 52, 53.

[205] ‘Omnino decessit aliquid meæ de illo existimationi.’--Eras. _Op._
iii. pt. 1, 458, F.

[206] See _The Praise of Folly_, Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 462, where the
dogmatic science of the age is as severely satirised by Erasmus as the
dogmatic theology of the Schoolmen. Thus Folly is made to say:--‘With what
ease, truly, do they indulge in day-dreams (_delirant_), when they invent
innumerable worlds, and measure the sun, moon, and stars, and the earth,
as though by thumb and thread; and render a reason for thunder, winds,
eclipses, and other inexplicable things, without the least hesitation, as
though they had been the secret architects of all the works of nature, or
as though they had come down to us from the council of the gods. _At whom
and whose conjectures nature is mightily amused!_’

[207] Cresacre More’s _Life of Sir Thomas More_, p. 93.

[208] Erasmi aliquot Epistolæ: Paris, 1524, p. 33. Eras. _Op._ iii. Epist.
lxiii. 1521 ed. p. 291. Whether written in 1498 or 1499 is doubtful.

[209] Erasmus Roberto Piscatori: Epist. xiv.

[210] The incidents related in this section are taken from
_Disputatiuncula de Tædio, Pavore, Tristitiâ Jesu, instante Supplicio
Crucis, deque Verbis, quibus visus est Mortem deprecari, ‘Pater, si fieri
potest, transeat a me calix iste.’_--Eras. _Op._ v, pp. 1265-1294.

[211] Eras. _Op._ v. pp. 1291 and 1292.

[212] ‘From this order, any one may perceive the reason of the _four
senses_ in the old law which are customary in the church. The _literal_
is, when the actions of the men of old time are related. When you think of
the image, even of the Christian church which the law foreshadows, then
you catch the _allegorical_ sense. When you are raised aloft, so as from
the shadow to conceive of the reality which both represent, then there
dawns upon you the _anagogic_ sense. And when from signs you observe the
instruction of individual man, then all has a _moral_ tone for you.... In
the writings of the New Testament, saving when it pleased the Lord Jesus
and his Apostles to speak in parables, as Christ often does in the
Gospels, and St. John throughout in the Revelation, all the rest of the
discourse, in which either the Saviour teaches his disciples more plainly,
or the disciples instruct the churches, has the sense that appears on the
surface. Nor is one thing said and another meant, but the very thing is
meant which is said, and the sense is wholly literal. Still, inasmuch as
the church of God is figurative, conceive always an _anagoge_ in what you
hear in the doctrines of the church, the meaning of which will not cease
till the figure has become the truth. From this moreover conclude, that
where the literal sense is, then the allegorical sense is _not_ always
along with it; but, on the other hand, that where there is the allegorical
sense, the literal sense is always underlying it.’--Colet’s abstract of
the _Eccl. Hier._, Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 105-107; and see Mr.
Lupton’s note on this passage.

[213] Summa, pt. i. quest. 1, article x. Conclusio.

[214] Eras. _Op._ v. pp. 1291 to 1294. This reply of Colet to the long
letter of Erasmus does not seem to have been published in the early
editions of the latter. Thus I do not find it in the editions of
Schurerius, Argent. 1516, and again 1517. The earliest print of it that I
have seen is that appended to the _Enchiridion_, &c. Basle, 1518.

[215] Eras. _Op._ iii. Epist. lxv. Erasmus Fausto Andrelino, 1521 ed. p.
260.

[216] ‘Torquatis istis aulicis.’--Eras. _Op._ v. p. 126, E.

[217] Colet’s letter to Erasmus has been lost, but the above may be
gathered from the reply of Erasmus.

[218] Eras. _Op._ v. p. 1263.

[219] It is possible that Colet himself had, at one time, thought of
expounding the book of Genesis, but the manuscript letters to Radulphus
appended to the copy of the MS. on the ‘Romans,’ in the library of Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, contain no allusion to any such intention.

[220] Probably De la Pole. See Mr. Gairdner’s _Letters and Papers, &c. of
Richard III. and Henry VII._ vol. i. p. 129, and vol. ii. preface, p. xl;
and appendix, p. 377; where Mr. Gairdner mentions under date, 20th Aug. 14
Henry VII. (1499) a ‘Proclamation, against leaving the kingdom without
license,’ and adds ‘N.B. clearly in consequence of the flight of Edmund De
la Pole.’ If this prohibition extended through December, it fixes the date
of this letter as written in the winter of 1499-1500.

[221] Eras. _Op._ v. p. 1263. This letter is generally found prefixed to
the various editions of the _Disputatiuncula de Tædio Christi_. And this
is often appended to editions of the _Enchiridion_.

[222] Epist. lxiv. Erasmus to Mountjoy, and also see Epist. xlii.

[223] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 26, E. Epist. xxix.

[224] The fact that Erasmus saw Prince _Edmund_ fixes the date of his
departure from England to 1500, instead of 1499. He left England 27th
Jan., and it could not be in 1499, for Prince Edmund was not born till
Feb. 21, 1499.

[225] See the mention of this incident in Erasmus’s letter to Botzhem,
printed as _Catalogus Omnium Erasmi Roterdami Lucubrationum, ipso Autore_,
1523, Basil, fol. a. 6, and reprinted by Jortin, app. 418, 419.

[226] For the verses see Eras. _Op._ i. p. 1215.

[227] See Ep. xcii. and lxxxi.

[228] ‘He [Tyndale] was born (about 1484) about the borders of Wales, and
brought up from a child in the University of Oxford, where he, by long
continuance, grew and increased as well in the knowledge of tongues and
other liberal arts, as specially in the knowledge of the Scriptures,
whereunto his mind was singularly addicted; insomuch that he, lying there
in Magdalen Hall, read privily to certain students and fellows of Magdalen
College, some parcel of divinity, instructing them in the knowledge and
truth of the Scriptures.’--Quoted from Foxe in the biographical notice of
William Tyndale, prefixed to his Doctrinal Treatises, p. xiv, Parker
Society, 1848. Magdalen College is supposed to have been the college in
which Colet resided at Oxford; as, according to Wood, some of the name of
Colet are mentioned in the records, though not John Colet himself.

[229] ‘How many years did he (Colet) following the example of St. Paul,
teach the people _without reward_!’--Eras. Epist. cccclxxxi. Eras. _Op._
iii. p. 532, E.

[230] In Colet’s epitaph it is stated ‘administravit 16;’ as he died in
1519, this will bring the commencement of his administration to 1504, at
latest. See also the note in the Appendix on Colet’s preferments.

[231] Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, p. 184.

[232] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, C.

[233] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, D.

[234] Ibid. E. and F.

[235] Walter Stone, LL.D., was admitted to the vicarage of Stepney, void
by the resignation of D. Colet, Sept. 21, 1505.--Kennett’s MSS. vol. xliv.
f. 234 b (Lansdowne, 978). He seems to have retained his rectory of
Denyngton.

[236] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 465, E.

[237] Ibid. E. and F.

[238] Grocyn and Linacre had also removed to London. More was already
there.

[239] ‘Impense delectabatur amicorum colloquiis quæ sæpe differebat in
multam noctem. Sed omnisillius sermo, aut de literis erat, aut de
Christo.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 457. A.

[240] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 459, F.

[241] Ibid. p. 457, A.

[242] Ibid. p. 459, F.

[243] Ibid. p. 456, E.

[244] ‘Porro in suo templo non sumebat sibi carptim argumentum ex
Evangelio aut ex epistolis Apostolicis sed unum aliquod argumentum
proponebat, quod diversis concionibus ad finem usque prosequebatur: puta
Evangelium Matthæi, Symbolum Fidei, Precationem Dominicam.’--Eras. _Op._
iii. p. 456, D, E.

[245] Grocyn was apparently rector of this parish up to 1517, when he
vacated it.--Wood’s _Ath. Oxon._ p. 32.

[246] Stapleton, p. 160.

[247] Roper, Singer’s ed. 1822, p. 5.

[248] Rot. Parl. vi. 521, B.

[249] 12 Henry VII. c. 12, also Rot. Parl. vi. p. 514.

[250] 12 Henry VII. c. 13.

[251] See 3 Edward I. c. 36, and 25 Edward III. s. 5, c. 11.

[252] Roper, p. 7.

[253] Possibly, ‘_our trusty and right well-beloved knight and
counseller_,’ _Sir William Tyler_, who had so often partaken of the royal
bounty, being made ‘Controller of Works,’ ‘Messenger of Exchequer,’
‘Receiver of certain Lordships,’ &c. &c. (see Rot. Parl. vi. 341, 378 b,
404 b, 497 b), and who was remembered for good in chap. 35 of this very
Parliament.

[254] A fifteenth of the three estates was estimated by the Venetian
ambassador, in 1500, to produce 37,930_l._--See _Italian Relation of
England_, Camden Soc. p. 52. The amount of a ‘fifteenth’ was fixed in
1334, by 8 Ed. III. Blackstone (vol. i. p. 310) states that the amount was
fixed at about 29,000_l._ This was probably the amount, exclusive of the
quota derived from the estates of the clergy, which latter was estimated
at 12,000_l._ by the Venetian ambassador in 1500. This being added would
raise Blackstone’s estimate to 41,000_l._ in all. From this, however,
about 4,000_l._ was always excused to ‘poor towns, cities, &c.,’ so that
the nett actual amount would be about 37,000_l._ according to Blackstone,
which agrees well with the Venetian estimate.

[255] 19 Henry VII. c. 32, Jan. 25, 1503, Rot. Parl. vi. 532-542. In lieu
of two reasonable aids, one for making a knight of Prince Arthur deceased,
and the other of marriage of Princess Margaret to the King of Scots, and
also great expenses in wars, the Commons grant 40,000_l._ less 10,000_l._
remitted, ‘_of his more ample grace and pity, for that the poraill of his
comens should not in anywise be contributory or chargeable to any part of
the said sum of 40,000l._’ The 30,000_l._ to be paid by the shires in the
sums stated, and to the payment every person to be liable having lands,
&c. to the yearly value of 20_s._ of free charter lands, or of 26_s._
8_d._ of lands held at will, or any person having goods or cattalls to the
value of x marks or above, not accounting their cattle for their plough
nor stuff or implement of household.

[256] John More was one of the commissioners for Herts.

[257] This story is told in substantially the same form in the manuscript
life of More by Harpsfield, written in the time of Queen Mary, and
dedicated to William Roper.--_Harleian MSS._ No. 6253, fol. 4.

[258] ‘Meditabatur adolescens sacerdotium cum suo Lilio.’--Stapleton,
_Tres Thomæ_, ed. 1588, p. 18, ed. 1612, p. 161. See also Roper, pp. 5, 6.

[259] Stapleton and Roper, _ubi supra_.

[260] Richard Whitford himself, retiring soon after from public life,
entered the monastery called ‘Sion,’ near Brentford in Middlesex, and
wrote books, in which he styled himself ‘_the_ wretch of Sion.’ See Roper,
p. 8, and Knight’s _Life of Erasmus_, p. 64.

[261] Stapleton, ed. 1588, p. 20, ed. 1612, p. 163.

[262] That this letter was written in 1504 is evident. First, it cannot
well have been written before Colet had commenced his labours at St.
Paul’s; secondly, it cannot have been written in Oct. 1505, because it
speaks of Colet as still holding the living of Stepney, which he resigned
Sept. 21, 1505. Also the whole drift of it leads to the conclusion that
More was unmarried when he wrote it. And he married in 1505, according to
the register on the Burford picture, which, the correct date of More’s
birth having been found and from it the true date of Holbein’s sketch,
seems to be amply confirmed by the age there given of More’s eldest
daughter, Margaret Roper. She is stated to be twenty-two on the sketch
made in 1528, and so was probably born in 1506.

[263] _Mori Epigrammata_: Basle, 1518, p. 6. See the prefatory letter by
Beatus Rhenanus.

[264] Ibid.

[265] See Epigram entitled ‘_Gratulatur quod eam repererit Incolumem quam
olim ferme Puer amaverat_.’--_Epigrammata_: Basle, 1520, p. 108, and
_Philomorus_, pp. 37-39.

[266] ‘From whence [the Tower], the day before he suffered, he sent his
shirt of hair, not willing to have it seen, to my wife, his dearly beloved
daughter.’--Roper, p. 91.

[267] Walter’s _Life of More_, London, 1840, pp. 7, 8. Cresacre More’s
_Life of More_, pp. 24-26.

[268] ‘Maluit igitur maritus esse castus quam sacerdos impurus.’--_Erasmus
to Hutten_: Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 75, c. Stapelton, 1612 ed. pp. 161, 162.
Cresacre More’s _Life of More_, pp. 25, 26. Even Walter allows that his
‘finding that at that time religious orders in England had somewhat
degenerated from their ancient strictness and fervour of spirit,’ was the
cause of his ‘altering his mind.’--Walter’s _Life of More_, p. 8.

[269] Sir Thomas More’s _Works_, pp. 1-34; and see the note on Pico’s
religious history, and his connection with Savonarola, above, p. 19.

[270] Compare this with the line of argument pursued by Marsilio Ficino in
his _De Religione Christianâ_. Vide supra, p. 11.

[271] This remarkable letter was written, ‘Ferrariæ, 15 May, 1492’ (Pici
_Op._ p. 233), scarcely six weeks after Pico’s visit to the deathbed of
Lorenzo de Medici.

[272] This letter is dated in More’s translation M.cccclxxxxii. from
_Paris_, in mistake for M.cccclxxxvi. from _Perugia_. See Pici _Op._ p.
257.

[273] See More’s _Works_, p. 19, _in loco_, v. 6.

[274] Stapleton, ed. 1612, p. 162. Cresacre More’s _Life of Sir T. More_,
p. 27.

[275] Sir T. More’s _Works_, p. 9.

[276] There is a copy of this translation of More’s in the British Museum
Library. ‘276, c. 27, _Pico, &c._, 4{o}, _London_, 1510.’ This is probably
the original edition. More may have waited till Henry VIII.’s accession
before daring to publish it.

[277] This date of More’s marriage is the date given in the register
contained on the Burford family picture; and as it is in no way dependent
on the other dates, probably it rested upon some family tradition or
record. It is confirmed by the age of Margaret Roper on the Basle
sketch--22 in 1528. Vide supra, p. 149, n. 1.

[278] Cresacre More’s _Life of Sir T. More_, p. 39.

[279] Erasmus Botzhemo: _Catalogus Omnium Erasmi Lucubrationum_: Basle,
1523.

[280] Epist. lxxxi. He arrived at Paris ‘postridie Calend, Februarias’ (p.
73, E.), i.e. Feb. 2, 1500.

[281] Epist. iii. This letter is dated in the Leyden edition, 1490, and in
the edition of 1521, p. 264, M.LXXXIX. (_sic_), but it evidently was
written shortly after the illness of Erasmus at Paris in the spring of
1500. See also the mention of ‘Arnold’ in Epist. xxix. (Paris, 12 April)
and a repetition in it of much that is said in this letter respecting
Erasmus’s illness and intention of visiting Italy. See also Epist. dii.
App.

[282] ‘In Britannico littore pecuniola mea, studiorum meorum alimonia,
naufragium fecit.’--Epist. xcii. p. 84 C.

[283] ‘_Tenuiter._’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 73, F. Epist. lxxxi. and see also
lxxx.

[284] Erasmus to Battus: Epist. xxix. Paris, 12 April, probably in 1500.
See also Epist. lxxx. ‘Græscæ literæ animum meum propemodum enecant: verum
neque precium datur, neque suppetit, quo libros, aut præceptoris operam
redimam. Et dum hæc omnia tumultuor, vix est unde vitam sustineam.’

[285] Epist. xciv.

[286] Epistolæ xxxvi. lxxvi. lxxi. (20 Nov.), lxxii. (9 Dec.), xciv. xcix.
(11 Dec.), lxxiii. (11 Dec.), and lxxiv. seem to belong to this period of
flight to Orleans. Epist. xv. and lxxvii. (14 Dec.), lxxviii. (18 Dec.),
and xci. (14 Jan.), seem to mark the date of his return to Paris.

[287] Epist. xcii. Paris, 27 Jan. 1500 (should be 1501).

[288] Epist. xxxix.

[289] Epist. ccccvii. App.

[290] ‘Nec est in ullo mortalium aliquid solidæ spei, nisi in uno
Batto.’--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 48, C. Epist. liii.

[291] Epist. xxx. 2 July [1501] seems to be the first letter written from
St. Omer, where Erasmus was then staying with the Abbot. See also Epist.
xxxix., where he speaks of having been terrified at Paris with the numbers
of funerals. On 12 July and 18 July he writes Epist. liv.-lviii.
(‘Tornaco’ evidently meaning the castle of Tornahens). Epist. lix. also
was written about the same time. Epist. xcviii. 30 July, if written by
Erasmus, shows he was still at St. Omer. All these letters seem to belong
to the year 1501.

[292] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 52, E. Epist. lix.

[293] Epist. lxii.

[294] Erasmus to Botzhem: _Catalogus Omnium Erasmi Lucubrationum_: Basle,
1523, leaf b, 4.

[295] Erasmus to Justus Jonas: Epist. ccccxxxv.

[296] ‘Ea quum placerent etiam eruditis, præsertim Ioanni Viterio
Franciscano cujus erat in illis regionibus autoritas summa.’--_Letter to
Botzhem_, leaf b, 4. There can be no doubt that the John Viterius
mentioned in this letter is the same person as the Vitrarius of the letter
to Justus Jonas. See also Mr. Lupton’s introduction to his translation of
Colet on Dionysius.

[297] Eras. Epist. clxxiii.

[298] Ibid. xciv.

[299] _Lucubratiunculæ aliquot Erasmi_: Antwerp, 1503. _Biogr. de Thierry
Martins_: par A. F. Van Iseghem: Alost, 1852, 8vo. See also Letter to
Botzhem (_Catalogus, &c._), fol. b, 4.

[300] It is very difficult to fix the true dates of these letters, and to
ascertain to what year they belong. Epist. ccccxlvi. App., from Louvain,
mentions the death of Battus, and that the Marchioness of Vere had married
below her. He speaks of himself as buried in Greek studies.

[301] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 94. Epist. cii. Dated 1504, but should be
probably 1505.

[302] See Erasmus Edmundo: Epist xcvi. ‘ex arce Courtemburnensi.’

[303] The Panegyric upon Philip, King of Spain, on his return to the
Netherlands. See Epist. ccccxlv. App. Erasmus Gulielmo Goudano.

[304] More literally ‘The _Pocket Dagger_ of the Christian Soldier.’ But
Erasmus himself regarded it as a ‘Handybook.’ See _Enchiridion_, ch. viii.
English ed. 1522. ‘We must haste to that which remaineth lest it should
not be an “Enchiridion,” that is to say “a lytell treatyse hansome to be
caryed in a man’s hande,” but rather a great volume.’

[305] See especially chap. ii. _Allegoria de Manna_, Eras. _Op._ v. fol.
6-10, &c.

[306] It is evident that Erasmus had not yet appreciated as fully as he
did afterwards the _historical_ method which Colet had applied to St.
Paul’s Epistles to get at their real meaning and ‘spirit.’

[307] Alfonso Fernandez, Archdeacon of Alcor, to Erasmus: Palencia, Nov.
27, 1527. _Life and Writings of Juan de Valdès_, by Benjamin Wiffen:
London, Quaritch, 1865, p. 41.

[308] The above is an abridged translation from the _Enchiridion_, ed.
Argent. June, 1516, pp. 7, 8, which, being published before the Lutheran
controversy commenced, is probably a reprint of the earlier editions. The
editions of 1515 are the earliest that I have seen.

[309] This letter was republished in the edition of some letters of
Erasmus printed at Basle, 1521, p. 221, and see also Eras. _Op._ iii.
Epist. ciii.

[310] Letter to Fox, Bishop of Winchester. London, Cal. Jan. 1506. Eras.
_Op._ i. p. 214.

[311] Erasmus’s letter to Botzhem, _Catalogus, &c._ Basle, 1523, leaf b,
3.

[312] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 475, D.

[313] The epigrams have no dates, and it is impossible, therefore, to say
positively which of them were written during this period. The following
translation of one of them from Cayley’s _Life of Sir Thomas More_, vol.
i. p. 270 (with this reservation as to its date), may be taken as a
sample:--

  A squall arose; the vessel’s tossed;
  The sailors fear their lives are lost.
  ‘Our sins, our sins,’ dismayed they cry,
  ‘Have wrought this fatal destiny!’

  A monk it chanced was of the crew,
  And round him to confess they drew.
  Yet still the restless ship is tossed,
  And still they fear their lives are lost.

  One sailor, keener than the rest,
  Cries, ‘With our sins she’s still oppress’d;
  Heave out that monk, who bears them all,
  And then full well she’ll ride the squall.’

  So said, so done; with one accord
  They threw the caitiff overboard.
  And now the bark before the gale
  Scuds with light hull and easy sail.

  Learn hence the weight of sin to know,
  With which a ship could scarcely go.

[For the Latin, see _Epigrammata Thomæ Mori_, Basilæ, 1520, pp. 72, 73.]

[314] E. g.:--

    ‘T. Mori in Avarum.’

    ‘Dives Avarus Pauper est.’

    ‘Sola Mors Tyrannicida est.’

    ‘Quid inter Tyrannum et Principem.’

    ‘Sollicitam esse Tyranni Vitam.’

    ‘Bonum Principem esse Patrem non Dominum.’

    ‘De bono Rege et Populo.’

    ‘De Principe bono et malo.’

    ‘Regem non satellitium sed virtus reddit tutum.’

    ‘Populus consentiens regnum dat et aufert.’

    ‘Quis optimus reipub. status.’

[315] Alluding to this time, Erasmus spoke of More as ‘Tum studiorum
sodali.’--Letter to Botzhem, 1523, leaf b, 3.

[316] See letter of Erasmus to Richard Whitford, Eras. _Op._ i. p. 265,
dated May, ex rure (1506).

[317] Lucian’s dialogue called _Somnium_ he sent to Dr. Christopher
Urswick, a well-known statesman (Eras. _Op._ i. p. 243); _Toxaris, sive de
Amicitiâ_, to Fox, Bishop of Winchester (_Ibid._ p. 214); _Timon_ to Dr.
Ruthall, afterwards Bishop of Durham (_Ibid._ p. 255); _De Tyrannicidâ_,
to Dr. Whitford, chaplain to Fox (_Ibid._ p. 267).

[318] See an amusing account of this visit to Lambeth Palace in the letter
to Botzhem (_Catalogus_, leaf a, 5); also Knight’s _Life of Erasmus_, p.
83.

[319] See Knight’s _Life of Erasmus_, pp. 96-101. _Adagia._ _Op._ ii. 554.
Epist. dccclxxiv. and dccccliii.

[320] Eras. _Op._ iii. Epist. civ.

[321] Epist. cv.

[322] See his Colloquy, _Diversoria_.

[323] Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 755. Erasmus to Botzhem, leaf a, 4.

[324] Luther visited Rome in 1510, or a year or two later. Luther’s
_Briefe_, De Wette, 1. xxi.

[325] ‘Nullum enim annum vixi insuavius!’--Erasmus to Botzhem, leaf a, 4.

[326] Eras. Ep. cccclxxxvi. App.

[327] Epist. cccclxxxvii. App.

[328] Eras. to Botzhem, leaf b, 8.

[329] Mountjoy to Erasmus, Epist. x., dated May 27, 1497, but should be
1509.

[330] It is difficult to fix the date of the arrival of Erasmus in
England. He was at Venice in the autumn of 1508. (See the Aldine edition
of his _Adagia_, dated Sept. 1508.) After this he wintered at Padua (see
_Vita Erasmi_, prefixed to Eras. _Op._ i.); and after this went to Rome
(ibid.). This brings the chronology to the spring of 1509. In April, 1509,
Henry VIII. ascended the English throne. On May 27, 1509, Lord Mountjoy
wrote to Erasmus, who seems to have been then at Rome, pressing him to
come back to England (Eras. Epist. x., the date of which is fixed by its
contents).

The letter prefixed to the _Praise of Folly_ is dated _ex rure, ‘quinto
Idas Junias,’_ and states that the book is the result of his meditations
during his long journeys on horseback on his way from Italy to England.
This letter must have been dated June 9, 1510, at earliest, or 1511, at
latest. 1510 is the probable date (see _infra_, note at p. 204). The later
editions of the _Praise of Folly_ put the year 1508 to this letter; but
the edition of August, 1511 (Argent.) gives no year, nor does the Basle
edition of 1519, to which the notes of Lystrius were appended. So that the
printed date is of no authority, and it is entirely inconsistent with the
history of the book as given by Erasmus. The first edition, printed by
_Gourmont_, at Paris, I have not seen, but, according to Brunet, it has
_no date_. In the absence of direct proof, it is probable on the whole
that Erasmus returned to England between the autumn of 1509 and June,
1510.

[331] See the letter to More prefixed to the _Praise of Folly_.

[332] Roper, p. 9.

[333] See More’s letter to Dorpius, in which he mentions this visit.

[334] Roper, p. 6.

[335] Hall, ed. 1548, fol. lix.

[336] _Epigrammata Mori_: Basil, 1520, p. 17.

[337] Johnson’s _Life of Linacre_, pp. 179 _et seq._

[338] Vide _infra_, p. 380.

[339] Stapleton, 1588 ed. pp. 26, 27.

[340] Roper, p. 9.

[341] More’s son John--nineteen in 1528, according to Holbein’s
sketch--was probably born in 1509. More’s three daughters, Margaret,
Elizabeth, and Cicely, were all older.

[342] See the letter of Erasmus to Botzhem, ed. Basle, 1523, leaf b, 3,
and Jortin, App. 428. Also _Erasmi ad Dorpium Apologia_, Louvain, 1515,
leaf F, iv.

[343] Argent. 1511, leaf D, iii., where occurs the marginal reading,
‘Indulgentias taxat.’

[344] Argent. 1511, E, 8, and Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 457.

[345] Argent. 1511, leaf E, viii., and Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 462.

[346] Argent, 1511, leaf F, and Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 465.

[347] Argent. 1511, leaf F, and Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 465.

[348] Basle, 1519, p. 178 _et seq._, and Eras. _Op._ ix. pp. 466 _et seq._

[349] Basle, 1519, p. 181.

[350] Basle, 1519, p. 183, and Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 468.

[351] Basle, 1519, p. 183, and Argent. 1511, leaf F; which contains,
however, only part of this paragraph.

[352] Basle, 1519, p. 185. Argent. 1511, leaf F, ii., and Eras. _Op._ iv.
p. 469.

[353] Basle, 1519, pp. 185 and 186.

[354] Ibid. p. 180.

[355] This paragraph is not inserted in the edition Argent. 1511, but
appears in the Basle edition, 1519, p. 192, and Eras. _Op._ iv. pp. 473,
474.

[356] Argent. 1511, leaf F, viii. and Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 479.

[357] Ranke, _Hist. of the Popes_, chap. ii. s. 1.

[358] Erasmus Buslidiano: Bononiæ, 15 Cal. Dec. 1506, Eras. _Op._ i. p.
311.

[359] Argent. 1511, leaf G, iii. Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 484.

[360] Ranke, _Hist. of the Popes_, chap. ii. s. 1 (abridged quotation).

[361] _Moriæ Encomium_: Argent. M.DXI. leaf G, iii. This edition contains
all the above passages on Popes, and was published during the lifetime of
Julius II., as he did not die till the spring of 1513.

[362] Erasmus writes: ‘It was sent over into France by the arrangement of
those at whose instigation it was written, and there printed from a copy
not only full of mistakes, but even incomplete. Upon this within a few
months it was reprinted more than seven times in different
places.’--_Erasmi ad Dorpium Apologia_, Louvain, 1515.

See also Erasmus to Botzhem, where Erasmus says ‘Aderam Lutetiæ quum per
Ricardum Crocum pessimis formulis depravatissime excuderetur.’ (First
edition of this letter: Basle, 1523; leaf b, 4.) In the copy fixed to
Eras. _Op._ i. ‘_nescio quos_’ is substituted for ‘_Ricardum Crocum_,’
_who was not the printer, but the friend of More who got it published_.
(See Erasmus to Colet, Epist. cxlix. Sept. 13, 1511 (wrongly dated 1513),
where Erasmus says of Crocus, ‘qui nunc Parisiis dat operam bonis
literis.’ Erasmus was at Paris in April 1511. (See Epistolæ clxix., cx.,
and clxxv. taken in connection with each other.)) In a catalogue of the
works of Erasmus (a copy of which is in the British Museum Library),
entitled _Lucubrationum Erasmi Roterodami Index_, and printed by Froben,
at Basle, in 1519, it is stated that the _Moriæ Encomium_ was ‘sæpius
excusum, _primum Lutetiæ per Gormontium, deinde Argentorati per
Schurerium_,’ &c. The latter edition is the earliest which I have been
able to procure, and it is dated ‘mense Augusti M.DXI.’ But the date of
the first edition printed at Paris by Gourmont I have not been able to fix
certainly. According to Brunet, it had no date attached.

After staying at More’s house, and there writing the book itself, he may
have added the prefatory letter ‘Quinto Idus Junias,’ 1510, ‘ex rure,’
whilst spending a few months with Lord Mountjoy, as we learn he did from a
letter to Servatius from ‘London from the Bishop’s house’ (Brewer, No.
1418, Epist. cccclxxxv., under date 1510), it is most probable that in
1511 Erasmus paid a visit to Paris, being at Dover 10 April, 1511; at
Paris 27 April (see _Epistolæ_ clxix., cx., and clxxv.); and thus was
there when the first edition was printed. His letters from Cambridge do
not seem to begin till Aug. 1511. See Brewer, Nos. 1842, Epist. cxvi.; and
1849, Epist. cxviii. No. 1652 belongs, I think, to 1513. Possibly No.
1842, Epist. cxvi., belongs to a later date; and, if so, No. 1849, Epist.
cxviii., may be the first of his Cambridge letters, and with this its
contents would well agree.

[363] Brewer, No. 1418. Eras. Epist. App. cccclxxxv., and see cccclxxxiv.,
dated 1 April, London.

[364] Brewer, No. 1478. Eras. Epist. cix. 6, Id. Feb., and it seems, in
March 1511, Warham gave him a pension out of the rectory of Aldington.
Knight, p. 155.

[365] Brewer, No. 4427.

[366] ‘A right fruitfull Admonition concerning the Order of a good
Christian Man’s Life, very profitable for all manner of Estates, &c., made
by the famous Doctour Colete sometime Deane of Paules. Imprinted at London
for Gabriell Cawood, 1577.’--Brit. Museum Library.

[367] In Sept. 1505. Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 265, and n. a.

[368] ‘Insumpto patrimonio universo vivus etiam ac superstes solidam
hæreditatem cessi,’ &c. Letter of Colet to Lilly, dated 1513, prefixed to
the several editions of _De Octo Orationis Partibus, &c._

[369] The number of the ‘miraculous draught of fishes.’

[370] Statutes of St. Paul’s School. Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 364. See
also the letter from Colet to Lilly, prefixed to the _Rudiments of
Grammar_, 1510. Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 124, n. r.

[371] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 457, c.

[372] Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 109.

[373] Brewer’s _Calendar of State Papers_, Henry VIII., vol. i. No. 1076,
under date June 6, 1510.

[374] Compare licenses mentioned in Brewer’s _Calendar of State Papers_ of
Henry VIII. (vol. i. Nos. 1076, 3900, and 4659), with documents given in
Knight’s _Life of Colet_, _Miscellanies_, No. v. and No. iii.

[375] ‘De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis.’--Eras. _Op._ i. p.
505.

[376] Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 175, and copied from him by Jortin,
vol. i. pp. 169, 170.

[377] Take the following examples: ‘Revere thy elders. Obey thy superiors.
Be a fellow to thine equals. Be benign and loving to thy inferiors. Be
always well occupied. Lose no time. Wash clean. Be no sluggard. Learn
diligently. Teach what thou hast learned lovingly.’--Colet’s _Precepts of
Living for the Use of his School_. Knight’s _Life of Colet_.
_Miscellanies_, No. xi.

[378] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 458, D.

[379] This epigram and the above-mentioned prefaces are inserted by Knight
in his _Life of Colet_ (_Miscellanies_, No. xiii.), and were taken by him
from what he calls _Grammatices Rudimenta_, London, M.DXXXIIII. in ‘_Bibl.
publ. Cantabr. inter MS. Reg._’ But see note 1 on the next page. They were
in the preface to Colet’s _Accidence_.

[380] See also the characteristic letter from Colet to Lilly, prefixed to
the _Syntax_. The editions of 1513, 1517, and 1524 are entitled,
_Absolutissimus de Octo Orationis Partium Constructione Libellus_. The
_Accidence_ was entitled, _Coleti Editio unà cum quibusdam_, &c.

[381] Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 126.

[382] Eras. Epist. cxlix. Erasmus to Colet, Sept. 13, 1513 (Brewer, i.
4447), but should be 1511. See 4528 (Eras. Epist. cl.), which mentions the
_De Copiâ_ being in hand, which was printed in May 1512. (?)

[383] _De Ratione Studii Commentariolus_: Argent. 1512, mense Julio, and
printed again with additions, Argent. 1514, mense Augusto. The above
translation is greatly abridged.

[384] Eras. Epist. App. iv.

[385] In 4 Henry VIII. (1513) Lord Chancellor Warham received 100 marks
salary, and 100 marks for commons of himself and clerk--200 marks, or
133_l._ Brewer, i. Introduction, cviii. note (3).

[386] Prefatory Letter of Beatus Rhenanus, prefixed to the edition of
More’s _Epigrammata_, printed at Basle, 1518 and 1520.

[387] Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 370. _Miscellanies_, No. vi.

[388] ‘Recte instituendæ pubis artifex.’ Preface of Erasmus to _De Octo
Orationis Partium Constructione_, etc. Basle, 1517.

[389] Colet to Erasmus, Sept. 1511, not 1513 (Brewer, No. 4448), for the
same reason as Nos. 4447 and 4528.

[390] Eras. Epist. cl. Brewer, p. 458. Dated October 29, 1513, but, as it
mentions the _De Copiâ_ being in hand, it must have been written in 1511.

[391] John Ritwyse, or Rightwyse.

[392] ‘Moreover, that Thomas Geffrey caused this John Butler divers
Sundays to go to London to hear Dr. Colet.’--Foxe, ed. 1597, p. 756.

[393] Ibid. p. 1162.

[394] William Sweeting and John Brewster, on October 18, 1511.--Foxe, ed.
1597, p. 756.

[395] Eras. Epist. cxxvii. Brewer, i. No. 1948.

[396] Brewer, i. p. 2004.

[397] Ibid. i. Introduction.

[398] Brewer, i. p. 4312. Warham to Henry VIII.--a document referring to
this convocation as held at St. Paul’s from Feb. 6, 1511 (i.e. 1512) to
Dec. 17 following. This document is in many places wholly illegible, but
these words are visible: ‘concessimus ... [pro defensione ecclesiæ]
Anglicanæ et hujus inclyti regni vestri Angliæ; necnon ad sedandum et
extirpandum hereses et schismata in universali ecclesia quæ his diebus
plus solito pullulant.’

[399] That Colet preached in English, see the remark of Erasmus that he
had studied _English_ authors in order to polish his style and to prepare
himself for preaching the gospel.--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 456, B. It may also
be inferred from the Lollards going to hear his sermons. In his rules for
his school he directed that the chaplain should instruct the children in
the Catechism and the Articles of the faith and the Ten Commandments in
_English_.--Knight’s _Life of Colet_. _Miscellanies_, Num. v. p. 361.

[400] Tyndale, p. 168 (Parker Society).

[401] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 460, D.

[402] Erasmus to Werner: Eras. Ep. Lond. ed. lib. xxxi. Ep. 23. The person
alluded to in this letter was clearly not James Stanley, as has sometimes
been assumed.

[403] Cooper’s _Athenæ Cantab._ p. 16. Also _Philomorus_, Lond. Pickering,
1842, pp. 55-57, and _Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_, p. 70.

[404] Epigram ‘In Posthumum Episcopum.’

[405] Epigram ‘In Episcopum illiteratum, de quo ante Epigramma est sub
nomine Posthumi.’ There is no reason, I think, to conclude that More’s
satire was directed in these epigrams against the Bishop of Ely. There may
have been plenty of Scotists whom the cap might fit as well, or better. In
the same year that Stanley was made Bishop of Ely, Fitzjames was made
Bishop of London. The late Dean Milman (_Annals of St. Paul’s_, p. 120)
shows, however, that Fitzjames was not unlearned, as he had been Warden of
Merton and Vice-chancellor of Oxford.

[406] _Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_, p. 298; and Knight’s _Life of Erasmus_,
p. 229.

[407] Brewer, i. 4312.

[408] A ‘tenth,’ of the clergy, produced in 1500 about 12,000_l._ See
Italian Relation of England, C. S. p. 52. Four-tenths would be equal to
about half a million sterling in present money.

‘If the King should go to war, he ... immediately compels the clergy to
pay him one, two, or three fifteenths or tenths ... and more if the
urgency of the war should require it.’--_Ibid._ p. 52.

[409] ‘Senex quidam theologus et imprimis severus.’--_Erasmi
Annotationes_, edit. 1519, p. 489; and edit. 1522, p. 558. ‘Senex quidam
severus et vel supercilio teste theologus, magno stomacho,
respondit.’--_Erasmi Moriæ Encomium_, Basle, 1519, p. 225.

[410] See note of Erasmus in his ‘_Annotationes_,’ _in loco_ Titus iii.
10; also the _Praise of Folly_, where the story is told in connection with
further particulars. The exact coincidence between the two accounts of the
old divine’s construction of Titus iii. 10 leads to the conclusion that
the rest of the story, as given in the _Praise of Folly_, may also very
probably be literally true. Knight, in his _Life of Colet_, concludes that
as the story is told in the _Praise of Folly_, the incident must have
occurred in a _previous convocation_, as this satire was written _before_
1512.--Knight, pp. 199, 200. But the story is not inserted in the editions
of 1511 and of 1515, whilst it is inserted in the Basle edition of the
_Encomium Moriæ_, November 12, 1519, published just after Colet’s death
(p. 226). Nor is the first part of the story relating to Titus iii. 10 to
be found in the first edition of the _Annotationes_ (1516). The story is
first told by Erasmus in the second edition (1519), published just before
Colet’s death, and then without any mention of Colet’s name; the latter
being possibly omitted lest, as Bishop Fitzjames was still living, its
mention should be dangerous to Colet. It was not till the third edition
was published (in 1522), when both Colet and Colet’s persecutor were dead,
that Erasmus added the words, ‘Id, ne quis suspicetur meum esse commentum,
accepi _ex Johanne Coleto_, viro spectatæ integritatis, quo præsidente res
acta est.’--_Annotationes_, 3rd ed. 1522, p. 558.

[411] _Praise of Folly_, 1519, p. 226.

[412] There is an old English translation given by Knight in his _Life of
Colet_ (pp. 289-308), printed by ‘Thomas Berthelet, regius impressor,’ and
without date. _Pynson_ was the King’s printer in 1512 (Brewer, i. p.
1030), and accordingly he printed the Latin edition of 1511, _i.e._
1512.--Knight, p. 271. Knight speaks of the old English version as
‘written probably by the Dean himself,’ but he gives no evidence in
support of his conjecture.--See Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 199.

[413] ‘Neque valde miror si clarissimæ scholæ tuæ rumpantur invidia.
Vident enim uti ex equo Trojano prodierunt Græci, qui barbaram diruere
Trojam, sic è tuâ prodire _scholâ_ qui ipsorum arguunt atque subvertunt
inscitiam.’--Stapleton’s _Tres Thomæ_, p. 166, ed. 1612; p. 23, ed. 1588.

[414] Brewer, vol. ii. No. 3190. The true date, 1512, is clearly fixed by
the allusion to the ‘De Copia,’ &c.--Eras. Epist. App. ccccvi.

[415] Dated ‘M.DXII. iii. Kal. Maias: Londini.’

[416] The first edition was printed at Paris by Badius. Another was
printed by Schurerius (Argentorat.), January 1513. And, in Oct. 1514,
Erasmus sent to Schurerius a _revised_ copy for publication.

[417] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 460, D and E.

[418] Ibid. p. 460, E.

[419] 3 Tyndale, p. 168 (Parker Society).

[420] ‘The Seven Peticyons of the Paternoster, by Joan Colet, Deane of
Paules,’ inserted in the collection of Prayer entitled ‘_Horæ beate Marie
Virginis secundum usum Sarum totaliter ad longum_.’--Knight’s _Life of
Colet_, App. _Miscellanies_, No. xii. p. 450.

[421] Eras. Epist. cvii. Brewer, No. 3495, under date 1st Nov. 1512.

[422] Eras. Epist. cxxviii. and cxvi.

[423] ‘Written by Master Thomas More, then one of the undersheriffs of
London, about the year 1513.’--_More’s English Works_, p. 35.

[424] ‘Morus noster melitissimus, cum sua facillima conjuge ... et liberis
ac universa familia pulcherrime valet.’--Ammonius to Erasmus: Epist.
clxxv. This letter, dated May 19, 1515, evidently belongs to an earlier
date. It is apparently in reply to Epist. cx. dated April 27, from Paris,
and written by Erasmus during his stay there in 1511.

[425] The date of the death of More’s first wife it is not easy exactly to
fix. Cresacre More says, ‘His wife Jane, as long as she lived, which was
but some six years, brought unto him almost every year a child.’--_Life of
Sir T. More_, p. 40. This would bring her death to 1511, or 1512.

[426] _Philomorus_, p. 71.

[427] See Brewer, i. preface p. xl et seq., and authorities there cited.

[428] ‘_In Brixium Germanum falsa scribentem de Chordigera._’ ‘_In eundem:
Versus excerpti e Chordigera Brixii_;’ ‘_Postea de eadem Chordigera_;’
‘_Epigramma Mori alludens ad versus superiores: Aliud de eodem_,’
&c.--_Mori Epigrammata._

[429] See the several epigrams relating to Brixius in _Mori Epigrammata_.
For the wearisome correspondence which resulted from the publication of
these epigrams and the ‘_Antimorus_’ of Brixius in reply, see Eras. _Op._
iii., index under the head ‘Brixius (Germanus).’ See also _Philomorus_, p.
71.

[430] Eras. _Op._ iii. pp. 460, 461. See also ‘_Richardi Pacei ... de
Fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur, liber_.’ Basle, 1517, Oct. And Cresacre
More’s _Life of More_, App.

[431] Brewer, i. 3723.

[432] Ibid. 3752, 3821.

[433] Ibid. 3809.

[434] Brewer, i. xlvii, and No. 3820. Edward Lord Howard to Henry VIII.

[435] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 461. Compare _Enchiridion_, ‘Canon VI.’

[436] Colet, and Erasmus, and More, notwithstanding their very severe
condemnation of the wars of the period, and wars in general, never went so
far as to lay down the doctrine, that ‘_All_ War is unlawful to the
Christian.’

[437] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 461, A, E.

[438] Knight’s _Life of Colet_, p. 207, note quoted from _Antiq.
Britann._, Sub. Wil. Warham, ed. Han. p. 306.

[439] Brewer, Nic. West to Henry VIII. 3838.

[440] Brewer, i. 3780.

[441] Ibid. 3857. Sir E. Howard to Wolsey.

[442] Henry VIII. to Cardinal Bainbridge. Brewer, i. 3876.

[443] Brewer, i. 3876.

[444] Ibid. 3903, Sir E. Howard to Henry VIII.

[445] Ibid. 4005, Echyngham to Wolsey.

[446] Brewer, i. 4019, Thomas Lord Howard to Wolsey; 4020, Thomas Lord
Howard to Henry VIII.

[447] Ibid. 4055, Henry VIII. to his ambassadors in Arragon.

[448] Ibid. 4075, Fox to Wolsey.

[449] Ibid. 3977, 5761.

[450] Eras. Epist. cxix. Brewer, i. 4427, Erasmus to Ammonius.

[451] Erasmi _Epigrammata_: Basle, 1518, p. 353; and Eras. _Op._ i. p.
1224, F.

[452] _De Deditione Nerviæ, Mori Epigrammata_: Basle, 1518, p. 263, and
ed. 1522, p. 98.

[453] For the particulars mentioned in this section, it will be seen how
much I am indebted to Mr. Brewer. See vol. i. of his Calendar, preface pp.
l-lv, in addition to the particular authorities cited.

[454] Eras. Epist. cxiv. Brewer, i. 1652.

[455] See mention of Aldridge in Eras. Epist. dcclxxxii.

[456] _Compendium Vitæ Erasmi_: Eras. _Op._ i. preface.

[457] Eras. Epist. cxvii. Brewer, i. 1847.

[458] Eras. Epist. cxv. Brewer, i. 4336. The allusion to the ‘De Copia’
(printed in May 1512) fixes the date.

[459] Eras. Epist. cxxix. Brewer, i. 4576. See also Brewer, i. 2013, which
belongs to the same autumn. Epist. cxli.

[460] From the letters referred to by Brewer, i. p. 963, Nos. 5731 (Eras.
Epist. clxv.), 5732, 5733, and 5734, it would seem that he had undertaken
the education of a boy to whom he had been ‘_more than a father_.’ This
does not prove that he was in the habit at Cambridge of taking private
pupils, as possibly this boy was placed under his care somewhat in the
same way as More had been placed with Cardinal Morton.

[461] See Eras. Epist. cl. Brewer, i. 4528.

[462] Eras. Epist. cxix. Brewer, i. 4427.

[463] Brewer, i. 4428.

[464] Eras. Epist. cxxxi. Brewer, i. 2001, under the date 1511. The
allusion to the King of Scots, as well as the passage quoted, fix the date
1513. See also Eras. Epist. cxxix. Brewer, i. 4576.

[465] Eras. Epist. cxxxi. Brewer, i. 2001.

[466] 5 Henry VIII. c. i.

[467] Brewer, i. 4819. Notes of a speech in this parliament.

[468] Eras. Epist. cxliv.

[469] Compare More’s _Epigrams_, headed: ‘Populus consentiens Regnum dat
et aufert,’ and ‘Bonum Principem esse patrem non dominum.’

[470] Eras. Epist. cxliv. and published among ‘Auctarium Selectarum
aliquot Epistolarum Erasmi,’ &c. Basil, 1518, p. 62. The above extracts
are abridged in the translation.

[471] Eras. Epist. cxliii.

[472] Eras. Germano Brixio: Eras. Epist. mccxxxix.

[473] Brewer, i. 4845, 5173, and 4727.

[474] Eras. Epist. cxv. Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 107, D. Brewer, i. 4336.

[475] Eras. Epist. cxv. Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 106, E and F.

[476] Eras. Epist. cxv.

[477] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 785, A.

[478] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 785, A, C.

[479] _Ibid._ p. 457, A. See also Eras. Epist. viii. App.

[480] The companion of Erasmus was, according to the ‘Colloquy,’
‘_Gratianus Pullus_, an Englishman, learned and pious, but with less
liking for this part of religion than I could wish.’ ‘A _Wickliffite_, I
fancy!’ suggested the other spokesman in the ‘Colloquy.’ ‘I do not think
so’ (was the reply), ‘_although he had read his books_, somewhere or
other.’--_Colloquia_: Basle, 1526, p. 597. In his letter to Justus Jonas,
Erasmus mentions that Colet was in the habit of reading heretical
books.--Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 460, A. It has been suggested also
(_Pilgrimages to Walsingham_, &c. by J. G. Nichols, F.S.A. Westminster,
1849, p. 127), that as in the same letter he describes Colet as wearing
_black_ vestments (_pullis_ vestibus), instead of the usual purple (Eras.
_Op._ iii. p. 457, B.), hence the name ‘_Pullus_’ may in itself point to
Colet. There is also an allusion by Erasmus in his treatise, ‘_Modus
Orandi_,’ to his visit to the shrine of St. Thomas-à-Becket, in which he
says, ‘Vidi ipse quum ostentarent linteola lacera quibus ille dicitur
abstersisse muccum narium, abbatem ac cæteros, qui adstabant, aperto
scriniolo venerabundos procidere ad genua, ac manibus etiam sublatis
adorationem gestu repræsentare. Ista _Joanni Coleto, nam is mecum aderat_,
videbantur indigna, mihi ferenda videbantur donec se daret opportunitas ea
citra tumultum corrigendi.’--Eras. _Op._ v. p. 1119, F, and p. 1120, A.
This allusion to Colet so accurately comports with what is said in the
Colloquy of ‘Gratianus Pullus,’ that the one seems most probably suggested
only as a _nom de plume_ for the other. I am further indebted to Mr.
Lupton for the suggestion that when Ammonius, writing to Erasmus (Epist.
clxxv.), says ‘tuus _Leucophæus_ salvere te jubet,’ he alludes to Colet:
‘Leucophæus’ being a Greek form of the same nickname as ‘Pullus’ might be
in a Latin form. Mr. Lupton has also shown that ‘_Gratian_’ is a rendering
of ‘_John_.’ See his introduction to his edition of _Colet on the
Sacraments of the Church_, pp. 6, 7. So that the identification of Colet
with the _Gratianus Pullus_ of the Colloquy is now complete.

[481] The lazar-house of Harbledown. See Dean Stanley’s _Historical
Memorials of Canterbury_, ed. 1868, p. 243.

[482] The colloquy from which the particulars given in this section have
been obtained is entitled _Peregrinatio Religionis ergo_. It was not
contained in the edition of 1522 (Argent.), but it was inserted probably
in that of 1524 (which, however, I have not seen). It was contained in the
Basle edition of 1526, which is probably a reprint of that of 1524, the
prefatory letter at the beginning being dated Calen. Aug. 1524.

[483] Eras. Ammonio: Eras. Epist. clix.

[484] Eras. Epist. App. viii. There is a reference in the letter to Wolsey
as ‘Episcopus Lincolniensis,’ and this confirms the correctness of the
date, as Wolsey was translated to the Archbishopric of York Aug.
1514.--_Fasti Eccl. Anglicanæ_, p. 310.

[485] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 160, A.

[486] Eras. Epist. clxxxii. Partly written at Antwerp, but finished at
Basle, Aug. 29, 1514.

[487] The letter is dated ‘Lovanii, A.D. mdxiiii. Kal. Aug.’

[488] ‘Quo viro non alium habet mea quidem sententia Anglorum Imperium vel
magis pium, vel qui Christum verius sapiat.’

[489] _Cato Erasmi. Opuscula aliquot Erasmo Roterodamo Castigatore et
Interprete, &c._ ‘Colonie in edibus Quentell. A.D. mcccccxv;’ and Ibid.
‘Colonie in edibus Martini Werdenensis xii. Kal. Dec. (1514?)’

[490] Coletus Erasmo: Epist. lxxxv. App.

[491] Ranke’s _History of the Reformation_, bk. ii. c. 1. See Erasmus’s
mention of Reuchlin in the letter written this autumn to Wimphelingus,
appended to the 2nd edition of _De Copiâ_. Schelestadt, 1514; and Eras.
Epist. clxvii. and clxviii. As to his friendship with the Archbishop of
Maintz, _vide_ Epist. cccxxxiv.

[492] See letter to Wimphelingus, Basle, xi. Kal. Oct. 1514, _ubi supra_,
for these and the following particulars.

[493] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 1249; and see Epist. clxxiv. Erasmus to Leo X.
p. 154, C and D.

[494] Epist. dccccxxii. Eras. _Op._ iii. pp. 1054, 1055.

[495] See the _Life of Beatus Rhenanus_, by John Sturmius, ‘Vita
clarissimorum Historicorum.’ Buderi, 1740, pp. 53-62; and Eras. _Op._ iii.
pp. 154, C, &c. (see Index under his name); and especially the prefatory
letter from Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus, prefixed to ‘Enarratio in Primum
Psalmum, Beatus vir,’ &c. Louvain, 1515. There is also a mention of him
worth consulting in Du Pin’s _Ecclesiastical Writers_, iii. p. 399.

[496] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 222, E; and the letter to Wimphelingus.

[497] Erasmus to Mountjoy, Epist. clxxxii., and the letter above mentioned
to Wimphelingus.

[498] Epist. clxxxii.

[499] Epist. Erasmi clix. and Epist. lxxxv. App.

[500] Epist. lxxxv. App.

[501] Epist. ad Wimphelingum.

[502] Epist. clxvii. clxviii. and clxxiv.

[503] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 141, C and D.

[504] Brewer, i. lxix, and ii. i, _et seq._

[505] Ibid. ii. xxxviii.

[506] Brewer, ii. liv.

[507] See Eras. Epist. App. xxvii. xxi. and xxiii. These letters are dated
1515; and, from the mention of the New Testament as not yet placed in
Froben’s hand, this date would seem to be correct.

[508] Eras. _Op._ ii. pp. 870-2; and in part translated in Hallam’s
_Literature of the Middle Ages_, part I, c. iv. These passages are quoted
from the explanation given in the Adagia of the proverb, ‘_Scarabeus
Aquilam quærit_.’ They occur in the edition separately printed by Froben
in large type and in an octavo form, entitled ‘Scarabeus:’ Basle, mense
Maio, 1517, ff. 21-23.

[509] Eras. _Op._ ii. p. 775. From the _Adagia_, ‘Sileni Alcibiadis.’

[510] Eras. Epist. App. xxi. That this edition was printed in 1515, see
mention of it in Erasmus’s letter to Dorpius, dated Antwerp, 1515, and
published at Louvain, Oct. 1515.

[511] Martinus Dorpius Erasmo: _D. Erasmi, &c. Enarratio in Primum
Psalmum, &c. &c._ Louvain, Oct. 1515.

[512] See the commencement of the reply of Erasmus.

[513] ‘Martinus Dorpius instigantibus quibusdam primus omnium cœpit in me
velitari.... Scirem illum non odio mei huc venisse, sed juvenem tum, ac
natura facilem, aliorum impulsu protrudi.’--_Erasmus Botzemo, Catalogus_,
&c. Basle, 1523; leaf b, 5.

[514] Erasmus to Dorpius: _D. Erasmi, &c. Enarratio in Primum Psalmum, &c.
&c._ Louvain, Oct. 1515.

[515] Erasmus to Wolsey: Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 1565; App. Epist. lxxiv.
wrongly dated 1516 instead of 1515.

[516] In a letter prefixed to the _Erasmi Epigrammata_, Basle, 1518,
Froben pays a just tribute to the good humour and high courtesy of Erasmus
while at work in his printing-office, interrupted as he often was, in the
midst of his laborious duties, by frequent requests from all kinds of
people for an epigram or a letter from the great scholar.--Pp. 275, 276.

[517] Erasmus Urbano Regio: Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 1554, App. Epist. liii.

[518] In one place he even supplied a portion of the Greek text which was
missing by translating the Latin back into Greek!

[519] _Epist. ad Car. Grymanum_, prefixed to the Paraphrase on the Epistle
to the Romans. Edition Louvain, 1517.

[520] Erasmus Gwolfgango Fabricio Capitoni: Epist. ccvii. _Op._ iii. p.
189, 89, A, C, Feb. 22, 1516, from Antwerp, but probably the year should
be 1518. See also his reference to the same pagan tendencies of Italian
philosophy in his treatise entitled ‘_Ciceronianus_,’ and the letter
prefixed to it.

[521] Ranke’s _History of the Popes_, i. ch. ii. sec. 3.

[522] _Ubi supra._

[523] See the authorities mentioned by Ranke, and also Hallam’s
_Literature of Europe_, chap. iv. ed. 1837, p. 435.

[524] Hallam, p. 436.

[525] Moria, ed. 1511, Argent. fol. G. iii.

[526] Hallam’s _Literature of the Middle Ages_, ed. 1837, p. 555, _et
seq._

[527] Compare the satire on Monks in ‘_Scarabeus_,’ and the colloquy
called ‘_Charon_,’ with the following passage, in which Erasmus alludes to
the continental wars of Henry VIII.: ‘Id enim temporis adornabatur bellum
in Gallos, et hujus fabulæ non minimam partem Minoritæ duo agebant, quorum
alter, fax belli, mitram meruit, alter bonis lateribus vociferabatur in
concionibus in _Poetas_. Sic enim designabat Coletum,’ &c. Eras. _Op._
iii. p. 460, F.

[528] Compare the similar views expressed in the _Enchiridion_ (Canon V.)
fifteen years before.

[529] Both the above passages are slightly abridged in the
translation.--_Novum Instrumentum_, leaf aaa, 3 to bbb.

[530] _Id._ leaf bbb to bbb 5. The quotations in this case also are
abridged.

[531] _Novum Instrumentum_: Annotationes in loco Acts vii. p. 382:--‘Et
hunc locum annotavit Hieronymus in Libro ad Pammachium de Optimo Genere
Interpretandi, qui secus habeatur in Genesi, ubi legitur quod Abraham
emerit ab Ephron Etheo filio Saor juxta Hebron quadringentis drachmis
speluncam duplicem, et agrum circa eam, sepelieritque in ea Saram uxorem
suam; atque in eodem legimus libro postea revertentem de Mesopotamia Jacob
cum uxoribus et filiis suis posuisse tabernaculum ante Salem, urbem
Sichymorum, quæ est in terra Chanaan, et habitasse ibi et emisse partem
agri, in quo habebat tentoria, ab Emor patre Sychem, centum agnis, et
statuisse ibi altare et invocasse deum Israhel. Proinde Abraham non emit
specum ab Emor patre Sychem, sed ab Ephron filio Saor, nec sepultus est in
Sychem sed in Hebron, quæ corrupte dicitur Arboch. Porro duodecim
patriarchæ non sunt sepulti in Arboch sed in Sychem, qui ager non est
emptus ab Abraham sed a Jacob. Hunc nodum illic nectit Hieronymus nec eum
dissolvit.’

[532] In loco Mark ii. p. 299, where Erasmus writes:--‘Divus Hieronymus in
libello de Optimo Genere Interpretandi indicat nomen Abiathar pro
Achimelech esse positum, propterea quod libro Regum primo, capite 22, ubi
refertur hujusce rei historia, nulla mentio hat Abiathar sed duntaxat
Achimelech. Sive id acciderit lapsu memoriæ, sive vitio scriptorum, sive
quod ejusdem hominis vocabulum sit Abiathar et Abimelech; nam Lyra putat,
Abiathar fuisse filium Achimelech qui sub patre functus sit officio
paterno, et eo cæso jussu Saulis comes fuerit fugæ Davidicæ.’

[533] In loco Matt. xxvii. p. 290:--‘Annotavit hunc quoque locum divus
Hieronymus in libro cui titulus de Optimo Genere Interpretandi, negans
quod his citat ex Hieremia Matthæus, prorsus exstare apud Hieremiam, verum
apud Zachariam prophetam, sed ita ut quæ retulit evangelista, parum
respondeant ad Hebraicam veritatem, ac multo minus ad vulgatam editionem
Septuaginta. Etenim ut idem sit sensus tamen inversa esse verba, imo pene
diversa. Cæterum locus est apud Zachariam, cap. ii., si quis velit
excutere. Nam res perplexior est quam ut his paucis explicari possit, et
prope πάρεργον est. Refert Hieronymus Hieremaiam apocryphum sibi exhibitum
a quodam Judæo factionis Nazarenæ in quo hæc ad verbum ut ab evangelista
citantur haberentur. Verum non probat ut apostolus ex apocryphis adduxerit
testimonium, præsertim cum his mos sit evangelistis et apostolis ut,
neglectis verbis, sensum utcumque reddant in citandis testimoniis.’

[534] See especially _Novum Instrumentum_, pp. 295, 290, 377, 382, 270.

[535] Roper, 9.

[536]

  1512      £286,269
  1513       699,714
  1514       155,757
           ---------
          £1,141,740

  1515       £74,007
  1516       130,779
  1517        78,887
             -------
            £283,673

See Brewer, ii. preface, cxciv.

[537] 6 Henry VIII. c. 24.

[538] Ibid. c. 26.

[539] 6 Henry VIII. c. 1. The draft of this Act in the final form in which
it was adopted when Parliament met again in the autumn, is in Wolsey’s
handwriting.--Brewer.

[540] Grafton, p. 104. Holinshed, ii. 835, under date 6 Henry VIII.

[541] 4 Henry VIII. c. 5, and 6 Henry VIII. c. 3.

[542] 6 Henry VIII. c. 5.

[543] Lord Herbert’s History, under date 1521, ed. 1649, p. 108; and
Grafton, pp. 1016-1018.

[544] Brewer, i. Nos. 4019 and 4020.

[545] 4 Henry VIII. c. 2, and 6 Henry VIII. c. 6.

[546] 6 Henry VIII. c. 12.

[547] Brewer, ii. 422 (7 May), 480, and 534; also Roper, 10.

[548] Brewer, ii. 672, 679, 733, 782, 807.

[549] Ibid. 672 and 733.

[550] Ibid. 904 and 922.

[551] Ibid. 1067.

[552] ‘First after the Trinity come the _Seraphic_ spirits, all _flaming
and on fire_.... They are _loving_ beings of the highest order, &c.’
Colet’s abstract of the _Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius_. Mr. Lupton’s
translation, p. 20.

[553] Fiddes’ _Life of Wolsey_. Collections, p. 252, quoted from MS. in
Herald’s office. Cerem. vol. iii. p. 219, &c. Brewer, ii. 1153.

[554] Brewer, ii. 1335.

[555] Eras. Epist. ccli. and App. lxxxvii.

[556] Erasmus to Hutten, Epist. ccccxlvii. Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 476, F.

[557] Utopia, 1st ed. T. Martins. Louvain [1516], chap. ‘De Fœderibus.’
Leaf k, ii.

[558] Utopia, 1st ed. ‘De Re Militari.’ Leaf k, iii.

[559] _Utopia_, 1st ed. Leaves m, iv. v.

[560] More’s English Works: _The Apology_, p. 850.

[561] _Utopia_, 1st ed. Leaf h, i.

[562] _Utopia_, 1st ed. Leaf f, iii.

[563] _Ibid._ chap. ‘De Urbibus,’ Leaf f, i.

[564] I may be allowed to refer the reader to the valuable mention of
‘Utopia’ in the preface to Mr. Brewer’s _Calendar of the Letters, &c. of
Henry VIII._ vol. ii. cclxvii _et seq._, where its connection with the
political and social condition of Europe at the time is well pointed out.

[565] In support of the abstract here given of the moral philosophy of the
Utopians, see _Utopia_, 1st ed. Leaf h, ii. _et seq._

For the following careful translation of the most material part of it, I
am indebted to the Rev. W. G. Rouse, M.A.

‘The same points of moral philosophy are discussed by the Utopians as by
us. They inquire what is “_good_” in respect as well of the mind as of the
body, as also of external things; also, whether the title “_good_” be
applicable to all these, or to the mental qualities alone. They discuss
“_virtue_” and “_pleasure_.” But their first and principal topic of debate
is concerning human “_happiness_”--on what thing or things they consider
it to depend.

‘But here they seem more inclined than they should be to that party which
advocates “_pleasure_,” as being that which they define as either the
whole, or the most important part of human happiness. And, what is more
surprising, they even draw arguments in support of so nice an opinion from
the principles of religion, which is usually sombre and severe, and of a
stern and melancholy character. For they never dispute about happiness
without joining some principles drawn from religion to those derived from
rational philosophy; without which, reason is, in their opinion, defective
and feeble in the search for true happiness. Their religious principles
are as follow. The soul is immortal, and, by the goodness of God, born to
happiness. He has appointed rewards after this life for man’s virtues and
good deeds--punishment for his sins. Now, though these principles
appertain to _religion_, yet they think that they are led by _reason_ to
believe and assent to them. Apart from these principles, they
unhesitatingly declare that no man can be so foolish as not to see that
pleasure is to be pursued for its own sake through thick and thin; so long
as he takes care only not to let a less pleasure stand in the way of a
greater, and not to pursue any pleasure which is followed in its turn by
pain.

‘For they consider “_virtue_” austere and hard to strive after; and they
deem it the greatest madness for a man not only to exclude all
“_pleasure_” from life, but even voluntarily to suffer pain without
prospect of future profit (for what profit can there be, if you gain
nothing after death, after having spent the whole of your life without
pleasure, that is, in misery?).

‘But now they do not place happiness in the enjoyment of every kind of
pleasure, but in that only which is honest and good. For they think that
our nature is attracted to happiness, as to its supreme good, by that very
“_virtue_” to which alone the opposite party ascribes happiness. For they
define “_virtue_,” the living in accordance with nature; inasmuch as, to
this end, we are created by God. They believe that he follows the guidance
of nature who obeys the dictates of reason in the pursuit or avoidance of
anything; and they say that reason first of all inflames men with a love
and reverence for the Divine Majesty, to whom we owe it both that we
exist, and that we are capable of happiness; and secondly, that reason
impresses upon us and urges us to pass our lives with the least amount of
care and the greatest amount of pleasure ourselves; and, as we are bound
to do by the natural ties of society, to give our assistance to the rest
of mankind towards attaining the same ends. For never was there a man so
stern a follower of “virtue,” or hater of pleasure, who, whilst thus
enjoining upon you labours, watchings, and discomfort, would not tell you
likewise to relieve the want and misfortunes of others to the utmost of
your ability, and would not think it commendable for men to be of mutual
help and comfort to one another in the name of humanity. If, then, it be
in human nature (and no virtue is more peculiar to man) to relieve the
misery of others, and, by removing their troubles, to restore them to the
enjoyment of life, that is, to pleasure--does not nature, which prompts
men to do this for others, urge them also to do it for themselves? For a
joyful life--that is, a life of pleasure--is either an evil--in which
case, not only should you not help others to lead such a life, but, as far
as you can, prevent them from leading it, as being hurtful and deadly; or,
if it be a good thing, and if it be not only lawful, but a matter of duty
to enable others to lead such a life--why should it not be good for
yourself first of all, who ought not to be less careful of yourself than
of others? For when nature teaches you to be kind to others, she does not
bid you to be hard and severe to yourself in return. Nature herself then,
in their belief, enjoins a happy life--that is, “_pleasure_”--as the end
of all our efforts; and to live by this rule, they call “_virtue_.”

‘But, since nature urges men to strive together to make life more cheerful
(which, indeed, she rightly does; for no man is so much raised above the
condition of his fellows as to be the only favourite of nature, which
cherishes alike all whom she binds together by the tie of a common shape),
she surely bids you urgently to beware of attending so much to your own
interest as to prejudice the interest of others. They think, therefore,
that not only all contracts between private citizens should be kept, but
also public laws, which either a good prince has legally enacted, or a
people neither oppressed by tyranny, nor circumvented by fraud, has
sanctioned by common consent for the apportionment of the conveniences of
life; that is, the material of pleasure. Within the limits of these laws,
it is common prudence to look after your own interests; it is a matter of
duty to have regard for the public weal also. But to attempt to deprive
another of pleasure in favouring your own, is to do a real injury. On the
other hand, to deprive yourself of something in order that you may give it
to another, that is indeed an act of humanity and kindness which in itself
never costs so much as it brings back. For it is not only repaid by the
interchange of kindnesses; but also the very consciousness of a good
action done and the recollection of the love and gratitude of those whom
you have benefited, afford more pleasure to the mind, than the thing from
which you have abstained would have afforded to the body. And, lastly, God
repays the loss of these small and fleeting pleasures with vast and
endless joy; a doctrine of the truth of which religion easily convinces a
believing mind.

‘Thus, on these grounds, they determine that, all things being carefully
weighed and considered, all our actions, and our very virtues among them,
regard pleasure and happiness after all as their object.’--_Utopia_, 1st
ed. Leaf h, ii. _et seq._

[566] J. S. Mill’s _Essay on Utilitarianism_, p. 24.

[567] _Utopia_ 1st ed. Leaf i, i.

[568] Leaf i, ii.

[569] Leaf i, iii.

[570] Leaf h, ii.

[571] Leaves h, i. and ii.

[572] Leaf l, iv.

[573] Ibid.

[574] Leaf m, ii.

[575] Leaf m, i.

[576] Leaf l, iii.

[577] Leaf m, iii.

[578] It is impossible not to see in this a ritualism rather of the
_Dionysian_ than of the modern sacerdotal type.

[579] _Utopia_, 1st ed. ‘De Religionibus Vtopiensium.’

[580] Epist. clxvii. Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 144, A.

[581] Erasmus to Savage: Epist. clxxvi. June 1, 1516. Brewer, 1976.

[582] ‘There is certainly a steadiness of moral principle and Christian
endurance, which tells us that it is better not to exist at all than to
exist at the price of virtue; but few indeed of the countrymen and
contemporaries of Machiavel had any claim to the practice, whatever they
might have to the profession, of such integrity. _His crime in the eyes of
the world, and it was truly a crime, was to have cast away the veil of
hypocrisy, the profession of a religious adherence to maxims which at the
same moment were violated._’--Hallam’s _Literature of the Middle Ages_,
chap. vii. s. 31.

[583] ‘Whatever may be thought of the long-disputed question as to
Machiavelli’s motives in writing, his work certainly presents to us a
gloomy picture of the state of public law and European society in the
beginning of the sixteenth century: one mass of dissimulation, crime, and
corruption, which called loudly for a great teacher and reformer to arise,
who should speak the unambiguous language of truth and justice to princes
and people, and stay the ravages of this moral pestilence.

‘Such a teacher and reformer was _Hugo Grotius_, who was born in the
latter part of the same century and flourished in the beginning of the
seventeenth.... He was one of those powerful minds which have paid the
tribute of their assent to the truth of Christianity.’--Wheaton’s
_Elements of International Law_: London, 1836, pp. 18, 19.

[584] 1st ed. leaf c, i.

[585] 1st ed. leaf d, ii. Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 567.

[586] 1st ed. leaf d, iii. Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 567.

[587] Leaf d, iii.

[588] 1st ed. leaf f, ii. Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 574.

[589] ‘Monarchia temperata,’ in the marginal reading.

[590] Abridged quotation, 1st ed. leaf f, iv. Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 576.

[591] _Ibid._

[592] 1st ed. leaf g, iii. Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 579.

[593] Leaf l, i.

[594] 1st. ed. leaf l, i. Eras. _Op._ iv. pp. 593, 594.

[595] _Ibid._ Charles the Bold was the prince alluded to.

[596] Eras. _Op._ iv. p. 595, _et seq._

[597] 1st ed. leaf l, iv.

[598] Leaf m, i.

[599] Eras. _Op._ iv. 603.

[600] 1st ed. leaf o, i. Eras. _Op._ iv. pp. 607 _et seq._

[601] 1st ed. leaf o, iii.

[602] On August 5 he seems to have been in London, and to have written a
letter from thence to Leo X. Eras. Epist. clxxxi. Brewer, ii. 2257.

On August 17 he writes from Rochester to Ammonius, that he is spending ten
days there. Eras. Epist. cxlvi. Brewer, ii. 2283. And again on August 22.
Eras. Epist. cxlvii. Brewer, ii. 2290. On the 31st he writes to Boville
from the same place. Eras. Epist. cxlviii. Brewer, ii. 2321.

[603] Erasmus to Ammonius: Epist. cxxxiii. Brewer, ii. 2323, without date.

[604] Eras. Epist. lxxxvii. App. and ccxviii. Brewer, ii. 2409.

[605] Erasmus Ægidio: Epist. cccxlv. November 18, 1518. The mention of St.
Jerome as not yet finished (see Epist. ccxviii.; Brewer, 2409), fixes the
date 1516. Brewer, ii. 2558.

[606] Letter from More to Peter Giles, prefixed to ‘Utopia.’

[607] Roper, pp. 9, 10. Eras. _Op._ iii. pp. 474, 476.

[608] More to Erasmus: Eras. Epist. ccxxvii.

[609] Roper, 10.

[610] Erasmus to Hutten: Epist. ccccxlvii. Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 476, B.

[611] Leaf b, 4.

[612] Leaves b, iv to c, ii. These extracts are somewhat abridged and
condensed.

[613] Leaves d, ii. _et seq._ These extracts are somewhat abridged and
condensed.

[614] Eras. Epist. App. xliv. (Brewer, ii. 2748), in which Lord Mountjoy
acknowledges the receipt of a copy sent by Erasmus, dated Jan. 4, 1516;
i.e. 1517 in modern reckoning.

[615] The extracts from the Utopia, translations of which are given in
this chapter, have in all cases been taken from the first edition
(Louvain, 1516), but very few alterations were made in subsequent
editions. The first edition was published in Dec. 1516. I am indebted to
Mr. Lupton for the suggestion that the publication of some letters of
Vespucci at Florence, in 1516, may have suggested More’s use of that
voyager’s name in his introductory book.

Erasmus, writing from Antwerp to More, March 1 [1517], says: ‘Utopiam tuam
recognitam, huc quam primum mittito, et nos exemplar, aut Basilium
mittemus aut Lutetiam.’--Epist. ccviii.

Erasmus sent it to Froben of Basle, by whom a corrected edition was
published in March, 1518, and another in November of the same year. See
Appendix F.

[616] Eras. Epist. cclvi. Brewer, ii. 2000; from St. Omer; and see ccxxv.
Brewer, ii. 1976.

[617] Epist. clviii. Erasmus to Ammonius: June 5, 1514; in error for 1516.

[618] More to Erasmus: Eras. Epist. lii. App. London, Feb. 25, 1516.

[619] Eras. Epist. lxxxiv. App. Brewer, ii. 2941, dated ‘in die sancti
Edwardi, in festo _suæ_ [? secundæ] translationis, sive 13 Octobris,
1516.’ Probably ‘_second_ translation of St. Edward,’ on June 20, 1516.
The words ‘sive 13 Oct.’ are not found in the copy of this letter in
_Aliquot Epistolæ, &c._ (Basle, 1518, pp. 249, 252), nor in the ed. of
1640. The earlier date seems to harmonise more with the contents of the
letter than the later date.

[620] Eras. Epist. lxxxvii. App. Brewer, ii. 2492.

[621] Eras. Epist. Waramus Erasmo, cclxi. _Aliquot Epistolæ, &c._ Basle,
1518, p. 231.

[622] Eras. Epist. ccxxi. App.

[623] Thomæ Mori ad Monachum Epistola: _Epistolæ aliquot Eruditorum
Virorum_. Basle, 1520, p. 122.

[624] Erasmus to Boville, from the Bishop’s palace at Rochester, pridie
calendas Septembris. _Aliquot Epistolæ, &c._ Basle, 1518, pp. 234-246.
Eras. Epist. cxlviii. Brewer, ii. 2321. The above is only an abstract of
this letter, and some of the quotations are abridged.

[625] More to Erasmus: Epist. lxxxvii. App. dated Oct. 31, 1516.

[626] Erasmus to Ammonius, from Brussels, December 29, 1516. Brewer, ii.
2709.

[627] Epist. cclvi. June 1517; should be 1516. Brewer, ii. 2000.

[628] Bearing date, Tubingen, Aug. 21, 1516. Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 1595. It
was first printed probably at the back of the titlepage of ‘_Epigrammata
Des. Erasmi Roterodami_.’ Basle, March 1518.

[629] Œcolampadius Erasmo: Eras. Epist. ccxxxviii.; also cxix. App. and
ccccxi.

[630] Spalatinus Erasmo: Eras. Epist. xciv. App.

[631] Luther’s _Briefe_. De Wette, i. 40, No. xxii.

[632] Philippi Melanchthonis _Vita Martini Lutheri_, chap. v. ‘Vita ejus
monastica.’

[633] Philippi Melanchthonis _Vita Martini Lutheri_, chap. vi. vii.

[634] Ranke refers to the period before 1516. See _Hist. of Reformation_,
vol. i. bk. ii. ch. i.

[635] _Novum Instrumentum_, folio, 433.

[636] Luther to Spalatin: Luther’s _Briefe_. De Wette, No. xxii.

[637] Luther an Joh. Lange: De Wette, No. xxix. p. 52.

[638] More to Erasmus: Epist. lxxxvii. App. Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 1575, A
and B.

[639] Vol. i. Epist. 2.

[640] Vol. i. App. 1.

[641] Vol. ii. Ep. 9.

[642] Vol. ii. Ep. 49.

[643] Ibid. Ep. 68.

[644] One of the best and most valuable essays on the _Epistolæ Obscurorum
Virorum_ will be found in No. cv. of the _Edinburgh Review_, March 1831.

[645] Ranke’s _History of the Reformation_, bk. ii. chap. 1.

[646] Epist. cxxxiii. App.

[647] Ibid. ccccxxviii. App.

[648] Ibid. ccxlvi. App.

[649] ‘Sed, meo judicio, nulla via assequemur, quam ardenti amore et
imitatione Jesu. Quare relictis ambagibus, ad brevitatem brevi compendio
eamus: ego pro viribus volo.’ These sentences remind one of the
conversation between Tauler and Nicholas of Basle, in the beautiful story
of the _Master and the Man_, where the master says, ‘Verum est, charissime
fili, quod ais. Adhuc enim durior mihi videtur esse hic sermo tuus.’ And
the layman replies, ‘Et tamen ipse me rogasti, Domine Magister, ut
compendiosissimum ad supremam hujus vitæ perfectionem iter tibi
demonstrarem. Et certe securiorem ego, quàm sit ista, viam ad imitandum
exemplar sacratissimæ humanitatis Christi nullam novi.’ _Thauleri Opera_,
p. 16. Paris. 1623.

[650] Foxe, ed. 1597, p. 887.

[651] Thomæ Mori ad Monachum Epistola. _Epistolæ aliquot Eruditorum
Virorum_: Basle, 1520, pp. 128, 129. The letter does not state exactly the
date of this singular occurrence.

[652] _On the Romans_: Louvain, 1517, at the press of Martins.

[653] Erasmus to Cope, ccv. Brewer, ii. p. 2962. See also cciii. and cciv.
and Erasmus to Henry VIII. cclxviii.

[654] Erasmus to Cardinal Grymanus, prefixed to the _Paraphrases on the
Romans_. Dated, Id. Nov. 1517.

[655] Mountjoy to Wolsey: Brewer, ii. p. 1259; and Bishop of Worcester to
Wolsey: ibid. No. 4179. Ranke’s _Hist. of the Reformation_, bk. ii. chap.
1.

[656] One early edition, without date, has in the margin, ‘Fictæ
pontificum condonationes vel indulgentiæ;’ and Lystrius, in his note on
this passage, says, ‘Has vulgo vocant indulgentias.’ The marginal note in
the Argent. edition of 1511 reads, ‘indulgentias taxat.’

[657] Basle, ed. 1519, p. 141.

[658] Eras. Epist. cclxiv. Aug. 29, 1517.

[659] Bishop of Worcester to Wolsey: Brewer, ii. p. 4179.

[660] Papers relating to the Convocation: Brewer, ii. p. 1312.

[661] Ranke’s _History of the Reformation_, London, 1845, i. p. 333.
Brewer, ii. p. 3160 and 3688.

[662] Brewer, ii. p. 3818, and preface, ccv.

[663] Ranke, p. 332.

[664] Ibid. p. 333.

[665] Ibid. p. 350.

[666] Ibid. p. 356.

[667] Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus: Epist. clxiv. App. Brewer, ii. p. 3614.
Ranke, p. 378.

[668] Ranke, pp. 239 and 379.

[669] Ibid. p. 359.

[670] Ranke, p. 239.

[671] Ibid. p. 241.

[672] Erasmus to Fisher: cccvi. App. Brewer, ii. p. 3989.

[673] Eras. Epist. App. cccv. Brewer, ii. p. 3992.

[674] Eras. Epist. App. cclxix.

[675] Epist. App. cclxv. Brewer, ii. p. 3991.

[676] Ægidius to Erasmus: Epist. ccccxxxvi. Brewer, ii. p. 4238.

[677] See Brewer’s preface to vol. ii. pp. cxlvii-clvii.

[678] See Brewer, ii. cxlii-clxi (preface).

[679] Roper, p. 11.

[680] Roper, p. 48.

[681] Epist. cclxviii.

[682] Epist. App. cccxi. and cclxxxii. Brewer, ii. p. 4111.

[683] Erasmus to Henry VIII.: Brewer, iii. No. 226.

[684] March 13, 1518. Eras. Epist. App. cclxxiv. Brewer, ii. p. 4005.

[685] Epist. ccxlvii. Brewer, ii. p. 4138. Eras. Epist. Basle, 1521, p.
217.

[686] Eras. Epist. App. cclxxxiv.-v.

[687] Ibid. App. cccv.

[688] Eras. _Op._ iii. 401 E.

[689] Eras. Epist. ccciii. first printed in _Auctarium selectarum
Epistolarum Erasmi, &c._ Basle, 1518, p. 39.

[690] Luther’s _Briefe_. De Wette. Epist. No. xxxvii.

[691] Eras. Epist. ccciii.

[692] Epist. ccclxxvi. dated May 15, 1518, and first printed at p. 45 of
the _Auctarium selectarum Epistolarum, &c._ Basle, 1518.

[693] Erasmus to More, App. cclxxxv. Brewer, ii. p. 4204; and in App.
cclxxxiv. Ibid. ii. p. 4203.

[694] Brewer, ii. p. 3991. Eras. Epist. App. cclxv.

[695] _Lucubrationum Erasmi Index_: Frobenius, Basle, 1519.

[696] Epist. cclxv. App. Brewer, ii. p. 3991. Dated March 5, 1518.

[697] Eras. Epist. App. cccxi. Brewer, ii. p. 4110.

[698] _Adagia_: Basle, 1520-21, p. 494. I have not seen the edition of
1517, but it is mentioned in _Lucubrationum Erasmi Index_; Basle, 1519.

[699] _Auctarium selectarum aliquot Epistolarum Erasmi_, &c.: Basle, with
preface by Beatus Rhenanus, dated xi. Calendas Septembris, 1518, and
‘_Aliquot Epistolæ sane quam elegantes Erasmi Roterodami, et ad hunc
aliorum eruditissimorum hominum_.’ Basle, Jan. 1518. The latter includes
Colet’s letter to Erasmus on the _Novum Instrumentum_. An edition,
containing some of the letters of Erasmus and others, had also been
printed by Martins at Louvain in April, 1517.

[700] English translation. London: Jno. Byddell, 1522.

[701] ‘Cur sic arctamus Christi professionem quam ille latissime voluit
patere?’

[702] These passages are condensed in the translation.

[703] Erasmus to Laurinus: Epist. ccclvi. See Jortin, i. 140.

[704] The Epistle at the beginning from Leo X. to Erasmus, bears date
Sept. 1518. March 1519 is the date printed at the end.

[705] _Novum Testamentum_, 2nd ed. p. 266.

[706] _Novum Testamentum_, pp. 209, 93, 82, 83.

[707] _Novum Testamentum_, 2nd ed. pp. 19, 20.

[708] _Novum Testamentum_, 2nd ed. pp. 28, 29.

[709] _Novum Testamentum_, 2nd ed. pp. 34, 35.

[710] _Ibid._ p. 32.

[711] _Novum Testamentum_, 2nd ed. p. 32. These passages are abridged in
the translation.

[712] _Novum Testamentum_, 2nd ed. pp. 35, 36.

[713] _Novum Testamentum_, 2nd ed. p. 42.

[714] _Ibid._ p. 61.

[715] When, after the 3rd edition had been published and a 4th was in
preparation, in 1526, a Doctor of the Sorbonne attacked the New Testament
of Erasmus, he was able triumphantly to ask him, ‘what he wanted?’ His New
Testament had already been ‘scattered abroad by the printers in thousands
of copies over and over again.’ His critic ‘_should have written in
time_!’--Erasmus to the Faculty of Paris. Jortin, ii. App. No. xlix. p.
492.

[716] Eras. _Op._ iii. pp. 374, 375.

[717] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 432, D and E.

[718] Eras. Epist. ccclvii.

[719] Eras. _Op._ iii. 1490, D. Brewer, ii. Nos. 3670, 3671, dated Sept.
1517.

[720] Brewer, preface, ccxi.

[721] Jortin’s _Life of Erasmus_, App. p. 662-667.

[722] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 408, b.

[723] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 408.

[724] _Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII._ ii. p. 127.

[725] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 457, E. See also Mr. Lupton’s _Introduction_ to
his edition of _Dean Colet on the Sacraments of the Church_, pp. 19 and
26.

[726] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 457, E.

[727] _Ibid._ p. 459, A and B.

[728] William Lilly was married and had several children. The sur-master,
John Rightwyse, married his daughter. Mr. Lupton informs me, that in vol.
iv. of Stow’s _Historical Collections_ (Harleian, No. 450), fol. 58 _b_,
is a Latin epitaph, in ten lines, by Lilly on his wife. Her name is spelt
‘Hagnes,’ and (if the reading be correct) they appear to have had fifteen
children.

[729] Knight’s _Life of Colet_. _Miscellanies_, No. v.

[730] The original of this book with Colet’s signature is still preserved
at the Mercers’ Hall.

[731] Knight, p. 227. He drew up a body of statutes, which, however, were
never accepted by the chapter.--Milman’s _Annals of St. Paul’s_, p. 124.

[732] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 460, A.

[733] _Ibid._ p. 445, B.

[734] _Ibid._ p. 751, E.

[735] Strausz. Leipzig, 1858, vol. i. p. 123.

[736] _Epistolæ aliquot Eruditorum, &c._ Appended to _Apologia Erasmi,
&c._ Basil 1520, pp. 139, 140.

[737] This letter possibly may not have reached England before Colet’s
death; but it is most likely that the date is wrong, as so often is the
case with these letters--the year not being often added by the writer
himself at the time, but by some copyist subsequently.

[738] ‘Epistola clarissimi viri Thomæ Mori, qua refellit rabiosam
maledicentiam monachi cujusdam juxta indocti atque arrogantis.’--_Epistolæ
aliquot Eruditorum Virorum, &c._ Basileæ, M.DXX. pp. 92-138. Also Jortin’s
_Life of Erasmus_, Appendix.

[739] ‘Nisi quod Lutherus fertur Augustini doctrinam mordicus tenens
antiquatam sententiam rursus instaurare.’--p. 99.

[740] For the above particulars see Ranke’s _History of the Reformation_,
bk. ii. c. iii.

[741] _Melanchthonis Epistolæ_: Bretschneider, i. p. 63, and p. 66.

[742] March 1519, Bretschneider, i. p. 75.

[743] Erasmus to Œcolampadius, 1518, Epist. cccliv.

[744] Dated January 5, from Wittemberg. Bretschneider, i. p. 59.

[745] Epist. ccccxi.

[746] Luther’s _Briefe_. De Wette, vol. i. Epist. cxxx. p. 249.

[747] Louvain, May 30, 1519. Eras. Epist. ccccxxvii.

[748] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 444, E and F.

[749] Epist. cccxvii. May 8, 1519.

[750] Epist. ccccxiii. Ap. 23, 1519.

[751] Eras. Epist. Laurentio: Louvain, Feb. 1519, prefixed to the Basle
edition of the Five Epistles, 1520.

[752] _Apologia pro Declamatione de Laude Matrimonii_: Basil. 1519.

[753] Colet seems even to have retired from the office of preacher before
the King on Good Friday, which he had filled in 1510, 1511, 1512, 1513,
1515, 1516, and 1517. Brewer, ii. pp. 1445-1474. In 1518 the sermon was
preached by the Dean of Sarum, p. 1477.

[754] Epist. cccclxxiv. Erasmus to Fisher: Louvain, Oct. 17, 1519.

[755] Ranke, bk. ii. c. iii. De Wette, i. No. ccviii. p. 425. That Luther
had found a point of unison between himself and the Hussites, not only in
their common opposition to Papal authority, but also in their common
adoption of the severest views of St. Augustine, see ‘_Assertio omnium
articulorum M. Lutheri per Bullam Leonis X. novissimam damnatorum_.’ Mense
Martio M.DXXI. Leaves Kk, ii. and iii. ‘Habes, miserande Papa, quid hic
oggannias. Unde et hunc articulum necesse est revocare, male enim dixi
quod liberum arbitrium ante gratiam sit res de solo titulo, sed
simpliciter debui dicere, lib. arb. est figmentum in rebus, seu titulus
sine re. Quia nulli est in manu sua quippiam cogitare mali aut boni, sed
omnia (ut Viglephi articulus _Constantiæ_ damnatus recte docet) de
necessitate absoluta eveniunt.’ These articles were condemned as a part of
the heresy of John Huss, of whom Luther in the same treatise had
said:--‘Et in faciem tuam sanctissime Vicarie Dei, tibi libere dico, omnia
damnata Joannis Huss esse evangelica et Christiana,’ &c. (_Ibid._ leaf Hh,
iii.)

[756] See Epist. ccccxii. Louvain, April 23, 1519.

[757] _History of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren._ By the
Rev. John Holmes. London, 1825, vol. i. chaps. i. and ii.

[758] This middle party were called ‘Calixtines.’ See introduction to
Holmes’s _History_, vol. i. p. 21, where the facts mentioned in this
letter are detailed, very much in accordance with Schlechta’s account.

[759] John Zisca was a Hussite. He died in 1424, nine years after the
death of Huss, and on his monument was inscribed, ‘_Here lies John Zisca,
who having defended his country against the encroachments of Papal
tyranny, rests in this hallowed place in spite of the Pope_.’--Ibid. p.
20.

[760] Epist. cccclxiii. Dated Oct. 10, 1519.

[761] Epist. cccclxxviii. Dated Nov. 1, 1519. The letter is a long one,
and these quotations are somewhat abridged in translation.

[762] Luther replied:--‘Absint a nobis Christianis Sceptici.... Nihil apud
Christianos notius et celebratius, quam assertio. Tolle assertiones et
Christianissimum tulisti.... Spiritus Sanctus non est scepticus, nec dubia
aut opiniones in cordibus nostris scripsit, sed assertiones, ipsa vita, et
omni experientia, certiores et firmiores.’--_De Servo Arbitrio_ Mar.
Lutheri. Wittembergæ, 1526, pp. 7-12.

[763] ‘Ideo alteram est judicium externum, quo non modo pro nobis ipsis,
sed et pro aliis et propter aliorum salutem, certissime judicamus spiritus
et dogmata omnium. Hoc judicium est publici ministerii in verbo et officii
externi, et maxime pertinet ad duces et præcones verbi &c.’--_De Servo
Arbitrio_ Mar. Lutheri. Wittembergæ, 1526, p. 82.

[764] See Mozley’s _Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination_. Chap. x.
_Scholastic Doctrine of Predestination._ And see the particular instance
there given on the subject of infants dying in original sin, p. 307.
‘Being by nature reprobate, and not being included within the remedial
decree of predestination, they were ... [according to the pure Augustinian
doctrine] ... subject to the sentence of eternal punishment.... The
Augustinian schoolman [Aquinas] could not expressly contradict this
position, but what he could not contradict he could explain. Augustine had
laid down that the punishment of such children was the mildest of all
punishment in hell.’... Aquinas ‘laid down the further hypothesis, that
this punishment was not pain of body or mind, but _want of the Divine
vision_.’

[765] Epist. ccccxlvii.

[766] See note on the date, More’s birth, Appendix C.

[767] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 475, E.

[768] _Ibid._ C and D. One is tempted to think that More intended to
describe his first wife in the epigram, ‘Ad Candidum qualis uxor
deligenda,’ very freely translated into English verse by Archdeacon
Wrangham as follows:--

  Far from her lips’ soft door
    Be noise or silence stern,
  And hers be learning’s store,
    Or hers the power to learn.

  With books she’ll time beguile,
    And make true bliss her own,
  Unbuoyed by Fortune’s smile,
    Unbroken by her frown.

  So still thy heart’s delight,
    And partner of thy way,
  She’ll guide thy children right,
    When myriads go astray.

  So left all meaner things,
    Thou’lt on her breast recline,
  While to her lyre she sings
    Strains, Philomel, like thine;

  While still thy raptured gaze
    Is on her accents hung,
  As words of honied grace
    Steal from her honied tongue.

Quoted from _Philomorus_, p. 42.

[769] More’s English _Works_, p. 1420.

[770] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 475, D and E.

[771] Eras. _Op._ iii. p. 476, D, &c.

[772] _Ibid._ p. 474, B.

[773] _Ibid._ p. 474, E.

[774] _Ibid._ p. 477, B.

[775] _Ibid._ p. 474, E and F.

[776] Colloquy entitled _Amicitia_.

[777] Stapleton’s _Tres Thomæ_, p. 257.

[778] Eras. _Op._ i. p. 511, E.

[779] _Mori Epigrammata_: Basle, 1520, p. 110. The first edition was
printed at Basle along with the _Utopia_ in 1518, and does not contain
these verses.

[780] Mackintosh’s _Life of Sir Thomas More_, p. 73, quoting ‘City
Records.’

[781] Roper, p. 12.

[782] Ellis, _Original Letters_, 3rd series, letter lxxx.

[783] Epist. cccclxvii.

[784] Ibid. cccclxx.

[785] Epist. cccclxxi.

[786] Ibid. cccclxxiv.

[787] Eras. _Op._ iii. Epist. cccclxxxi., and _Epistolæ aliquot Eruditorum
Virorum_: Basil. 1520, p. 46.

[788] Ibid. p. 122. ‘Coletum nomino, quo uno viro neque doctior neque
sanctior apud nos aliquot retro seculis quisque fuit.’

[789] Ashmolean MSS. Oxford 77-141 a. I have to thank Mr. Coxe for the
following copy of the inscription: ‘Joannes Coletus, Henrici Coleti iterum
prætoris Londini filius, et hujus templi decanus, magno totius populi
mœrore, cui, ob vitæ integritatem et divinum concionandi munus, omnium sui
temporis fuit chariss., decessit anno a Christo nato 1519 et inclyti regis
Henrici Octavi 11, mensis Septembris 16. Is in cœmeterio Scholam condidit
ac magistris perpetua stipendia contulit.’

[790] Luther in his famous speech at the Diet, after alluding to his
doctrinal and devotional works, and offering to retract whatever in them
was contrary to Scripture, emphatically refused to retract what he had
written against the Papacy, on the ground that were he to do so, it would
be ‘like throwing both doors and windows right open’ to Rome to the injury
of the German nation. And in his German speech he added an exclamation,
most characteristic, at the very idea of the absurdity of its being
thought possible, that he could retract anything on this point:--‘Good
God, what a great cloak of wickedness and tyranny should I be!’ See
Förstermann’s _Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der evangelischen
Kirchen-Reformation_, vol. i. p. 70: Hamburg, 1842.

[791] I am mainly indebted to Mr. Lupton for this list.




Transcriber’s Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}.






End of Project Gutenberg's The Oxford Reformers, by Frederic Seebohm