Erasmus of Rotterdam - M. Wilkinson |
Christ I know, Luther I do not know; the Roman Church I know, and death will not part me from it. So wrote Erasmus early in 1520, when the question of Luther became pressing, if not dangerous. In November of the next year he wrote:
"I have no more to do with Luther than with any one else. I would sooner his errors were corrected than himself lost, but, as he has been scattering poison, the hand of the scatterer must gather it again."
And, more uncharitably:
"They may roast or boil Luther for all I care, it will be but one person the less in the world; but, in the interests of humanity as a whole, the papal party have been foolish. There is to be some sort of Edict—may it prosper! I do not care anything about Luther's fate; but I like peace, and when once peace is disturbed the scum always comes to the surface."
How modern a touch! Do we not say the same thing after our experience of the past seven years? Erasmus was always in favour of stability at any price. No sentiment could have been less in favour of heresy than all this. Erasmus, at the same time, was wholly opposed to over definition, and many of the disputes of the day were centred round matters the discussion of which, if not exactly irreverent, was wholly unprofitable.
Erasmus disliked intolerance and probably in his heart thought that Catholicism was rather overlaid by definition; his dislike and fear of a false theology rigidly defined and intolerant, into which the Reformation very soon developed, was one cause of his hostility to Luther. The prevailing uncertainty was a constant irritation to him, and when irritated Erasmus became flippant and sarcastic. He diagnosed the troubles of the times with remarkable accuracy in his correspondence with his friends, but once his perspicacity failed him: "The present tempest will not last long." Alas, it has raged for 400 years, and still is raging. Erasmus truly claimed, in a letter to Leo X, that he was the first to suspect danger in Luther when he warned Froben against publishing his works. He was now living at Basel so as to be better able to supervise his publications, and Louvain, as we have seen, was not a particularly comfortable abode. In the midst of the crisis Leo X died and Adrian VI ascended the papal throne. He was an old schoolfellow of Erasmus, in the Deventer days, as well as a fellow countryman. The new Pope was extremely simple and austere in life, and determined on a reform of discipline and the decrease of the expenses of the Vatican. A remarkably pious and excellent man, he was perhaps rather too complete an antithesis in character to his predecessor; he was somewhat of a shock to Roman circles, and frankly, was not wholly the kind of Pope the days demanded. Something of a statesman, or, at any rate, a Pope who had a wide insight into men and things and touched by the Renaissance was the great need. Unfortunately, too, as a Dutchman and foreigner, he was not persona grata in Rome. Adrian had had little personal connection with Rome before his election. He and Charles were equally in earnest about reform, and he was above all determined to enquire into the abuses of the Roman Court which were arousing so much excitement throughout Europe. We know how great was the exaggeration of those who were personally interested in revolution, but some reform was desirable and no one could have been more suitable than the austere Adrian to carry it out.
Authorities were becoming annoyed at Erasmus's persistent silence on the subject of Luther in public, though he was eloquent enough in his private letters, and the Pope was not over-pleased at a letter from his old school-fellow. Finally, he was obliged to turn to his old friend, now the most learned and influential man in Europe, for help in his task (December 1 522). This correspondence is interesting, for it reveals their attitude and their esteem for each other in spite of the difference between the two—the earnestness of the Pope and the touch of levity in Erasmus's replies: "Arouse yourself and rise in defence of the cause of God, and for it make use of the excellent gifts of intellect which you have received from Him." ("Exsurge, exsurge in adjutorium causae Dei et praeclaris dotibus ingenii quas ab eo accepisti utere.") Adrian reminds him that he can recall those who have been misled by Luther and bids him think of the words of St. James: "He that recovers a sinner from the error of his ways shall cover the multitude of his sins." Erasmus replied at length as to his good disposition, but referred to his ill health, and made the well-known parallel that to ask him to go to Rome was like asking a crab to fly. Erasmus's mind was like highly tempered steel which cuts everything that it touches. Adrian quickly stopped the outcry of the Louvain Carmelites, and Erasmus enjoyed his protection as well as that of the Emperor, the Imperial Chancellor, the Elector of Mainz, and many others.
Adrian VI, the last non-Italian to occupy the throne of St. Peter, reigned but a short time. His constitution was but ill adapted for a permanent residence in Rome, and his plans were not allowed time in which to mature. Giulio de' Medici became St. Peter's successor as Clement VII. In Germany all was chaos. The Reformation had broken loose, monasteries and nunneries were destroyed, and the inmates dispersed, some of whom married. The shrines of the saints and images were pulled down and the crudest of doctrines, more particularly on the subject of predestination and free will, were becoming widely spread.
Luther was brought out from his obscurity at Wartburg by the Elector of Saxony, partly to combat the extremists and partly to organize the newly invented religion. Of all violent men Ulrich von Hutten was ever the most outrageous, and it was the fresh attack upon himself led by this man that determined Erasmus to act. So long as Luther was obscure and in danger Erasmus had no wish to attack him, but, as the active organizer of an ever-growing schism, the conditions became altered. Clement appealed earnestly to him to use his great powers on the side of the Church. Before all Erasmus had to settle Von Hutten's attack. This was done in the Spongia adversus Aspergines Hutteni, 1523. Their friendship, long undermined, came utterly to an end; although Erasmus said of Hutten that he was his own worst enemy and shortly afterwards his meteoric career came to an end. Erasmus, now living mainly at Basel, was supported by pensions from three sources—Mountjoy's, Warham's, and the Emperor's; these three, as well as Blessed Thomas More, Blessed John Fisher, and the Duke in Saxony, combined with the Pope in exhorting Erasmus to deal plainly with the Lutheran heresy. At this time Luther wrote to Erasmus in a superior tone, very unlike the letters to which our scholar was accustomed: it was not exactly hostile, but Erasmus decided on war, and ended his reply: "I could desire for you a better spirit were you not wholly satisfied with your own. Wish for me what you like except your spirit, unless the Lord change it." ("Optarem tibi meliorem mentem nisi tibi tua tam valde placeret. Mihi optatis quod voles modo ne tuam mentem nisi tibi Dominus istam mutaverit.")
Erasmus originally meditated on a philosophical colloquy, the Eirenicon, but rejected it as not sufficiently pointed, and decided to attack more directly Luther's system by a book on free will, De Libero Arbitrio. Some have seen in this a mere attempt to confuse the issue, and to bemuse the world with a metaphysical discussion which could be protracted indefinitely without leading anywhere in particular.
Froude, an unsafe guide in Catholic matters, was no doubt right in this case, when he maintained that the contrary was in Erasmus's mind and that he designed to pierce the very heart of Luther's system. In the famous disputation Erasmus defined free will thus: "Free will is the power of choice by which every human being can apply himself to the things which lead to everlasting safety, or turn himself away from them." ("Liberum arbitrium est vis humanae voluntatis qua se possit homo applicare ad ea quae perducunt ad aeternam salutem, aut ab iisdem avertere.")
It was an admirable definition for his purpose, though it is obvious that its scope is limited to the actual controversy. Erasmus triumphed easily. He said that the Servum Arbitrium of Luther was an old heresy, many times condemned and recently in Wiclif's case. His superior learning told: he cited all the Fathers and said that St. Augustine, if not misinterpreted, was certainly mistaken in this matter and that the vast majority of early authorities are for the freedom of the will. He said that Scripture, if you isolate texts, is contradictory, and such texts can be made to prove anything apart from the authority of the Church, and even so he interpreted the disputed ones very differently to Luther. Moreover, Erasmus considered that all these disputations scandalize the feeble and make for the edification of none. It was Erasmus's last great triumph: Fisher congratulated him on his victory, so did Henry VIII, and the theologians enquired exultingly, "Where is now your Luther?" Luther was forced to reply, which he did with his usual violence, in remarkable contrast to the calm abstraction of Erasmus. In his reply, however, to Luther's De Servo Arbitrio, Hyperaspistes, Erasmus is almost as violent, and exercises his ingenuity in deriding Luther's marriage. Erasmus, besides observing the Church's law in his own case, had probably a vague dislike of matrimony in general. In December 1524 Erasmus wrote a wise and moderate letter to Melanchthon.
"What is the object of destroying images and changing the Canon of the Mass? What is the good in telling youths that the Pope is Antichrist and that confession carries the plague; that they cannot do right if they try, that all things work from necessity, and that man can do nothing?"
More and his English friends, though well pleased with the two attacks of Erasmus on Luther, still desired him to make a complete and final demolition of the enemy. In a letter to More and in another to the Dominican Faber he expressed his inner thoughts, troubles, and difficulties. Externally matters went from bad to worse. The question of the "divorce" was beginning to agitate the world. Clement VII, allied with Francis I, was at war with the Emperor, and shortly Charles's mixed army of Catholic Spaniards 97) ?> and German Lutherans captured and sacked the Eternal City. Plunder and sacrilege seems to have been carried out indifferently by Catholic and heretic. The only leaders of the rabble calling itself the Imperial army who could have restrained the horrors which were perpetrated in Rome, the Constable de Bourbon, the Prince of Orange, and even Freundsberg, all died before the assault. Erasmus was in despair. He had hoped that the Pope and Emperor would work together. Now he feared that, for political reasons, Charles would maintain the Pope in the Imperial interest, even as the Kings of France, after Philip IV's struggle with Boniface VIII, used the Popes at Avignon in the French interest. He wrote to Warham:
"Men now suppose that the Pope and Emperor will make a composition and that Clement will come out on the Emperor's side. It is all wrong; no peace will come in that manner. The Pope ought to be neutral between States."
These words of Erasmus might with advantage have been scattered broadcast over Europe during the last seven years. Erasmus is always modern; one cannot have a thought but one finds that he has been there beforehand. His residence at Basel was probably dictated by the fact that, in a stormy time, Erasmus preferred neutral ground. To reside in Italy or Germany would render him liable to be identified too much with contending factions. To France, since his early days, he was never attracted, and indeed the constant warfare of Charles and Francis would have made his residence there invidious as a subject of the former. At Basel he was in touch with all these territories, and communications to all parts were easy. Basel even then, to use an anachronism, was the greatest junction in Europe. Fresh trouble was awaiting Erasmus, for, whilst Luther's works, written in German, had but little circulation outside Germany, Erasmus's in Latin were read throughout Europe, and the Spanish theologians were taking alarm. Charles, whose orthodoxy since his attack on the Pope did not seem to be above suspicion, allowed the demand of the Inquisition to examine the writings of Erasmus. At the same time he stopped the violent attacks which were being made on him in Spain, and, in a letter December, 1527, assured him of his esteem, told him that the enquiry was simply pro forma, and added that the whole Church was indebted to him. All the same, partly owing to the European political situation, partly to the English divorce question, Charles was inclining more and more to the conservative side, and issued a severe Edict for the repression of heresy in all its forms. Erasmus could not blame the Emperor and the Archduke Ferdinand, for they were good patrons of his; but he lamented the death of thousands of human beings which he foresaw would be probable, and he was not deceived. It was not so much, he thought, a question as to what heretics deserved, but as to what was expedient for Christendom.
"The heretics challenged the Church and Emperor, and have deserved what they have got, but I wish this war to end; it is better to cure a sick man than to kill him."
Erasmus at times, in his eagerness to check the abuse of pilgrimages and miracles, goes beyond the limit of accuracy:
"I have spoken of miracles. The Christian religion does not require miracles at the present time, and there are none."
No Catholic could possibly assent to that theory. He assists at the wonder of the Mass every week, possibly every day; besides the fact that there are many well-authenticated cases of miracles from the earliest times to our own days. The attitude of mind which regards as authentic every miracle up to the death of St. John and every subsequent miraculous event as imaginary is most strange and illogical. Erasmus's stories of the depravity of monastic life are the result of his own unhappy experiences at Steyn, which coloured the rest of his life. People in good faith, doubtless, have often quoted Erasmus and said:
"Here is a picture of monastic life on the eve of the Reformation, and it is the work of a Catholic, not of a Lutheran; if not true, it would have been immediately exposed."
Certainly Erasmus stands in a wholly different category to the Commissioners of Henry VIII, whose reports no one would heed unless he were already committed to approval of the dissolution at any cost, and it is not possible to ascribe dishonesty to him. The explanation no doubt is that the particular instances which Erasmus records were true; most regrettable, certainly, but does anyone suppose that every monk and priest is perfect? If such stories justified suppression, where would suppression stop? A sort of parallel are the stories, very one-sided, of public school life which appear now from time to time. Again, the particular instances are likely enough true and most regrettable; but no case could be made out for the destruction of such and such a school, still less—for the argument amounts to this—for the suppression of every public school.
With the outbreak of the Peasants' Revolt and the Anabaptist movement, ruin, social and moral, seemed imminent, and as the sky grew darker and darker, Erasmus became more serious and his bright nature became eclipsed; but he continued his labours at scholarship as though there were no world convulsion in progress. His real convictions are contained in a letter of April 1529 to Ludwig Ber. Personal discomfort and difficulty were to approach Erasmus ever closer. We have seen how he had been living in semi-retirement at Basel; now the Lutheran storm came to drive him from his quiet retreat. The reformers had been gradually growing in strength, and when they found themselves to be in a majority on the city council the change was quickly effected. Erasmus described, in a letter to Pirkheimer, the removal of altars, pictures, and images and the general defacing of the churches, similar to, but less violent than, the Gothic stupidity shown in Edward VI.'s reign. Basel almost immediately passed beyond the pure Lutheran phase. Erasmus had an interview with Oecolampadius, who desired him to stay; the reformer still hankered after the great scholar, but a heretic town was no suitable abode for him. He obtained an invitation from the Archduke Ferdinand to go to Freiburg in Breisgau, a town which was then within Austrian territory. Erasmus's pensions, except that from Warham, were not paid very regularly; but valuable presents, mostly in the form of plate, from his admirers, as well ecclesiastics as laymen, helped him greatly; his expenses at Freiburg seem to have been higher than in Basel. Otherwise he was well contented with the change.
In England matters took a decided plunge towards schism. Erasmus hoped and thought that the supple Campeggio would arrange the difficulty between Henry VIII and the Queen, as he confided to Mountjoy; but the matter passed on to the decision of the Pope. Clement VII, a naturally weak and placable man, whose political vision was often obscured, showed himself the true successor of St. Peter when spiritual matters were concerned. Even to please the King of England, who, up to a certain point, and especially in the affair of Luther, had deserved well of the Holy See, and even to avert a very probable schism, the Pope could not give judgment in his favour. When all is said, Henry, blinded by his desire for Anne Boleyn, turned savagely on the Pope, for the sole reason that Clement could not possibly declare his marriage to be null. Erasmus never gave any pronouncement on the subject, but, as may be expected from his innate love of peace and his conviction that personal interests are nothing when compared with the fate of a country like England, he hoped that, at any rate, Katherine would give way. Erasmus never did anything really base; but to maintain peace he would go some way in condoning a wrong, and he lived in very difficult times.
He was now somewhat out of favour at the Vatican; the Pope was inclined to suspect that he was at the bottom of the welter, spiritual, moral, and material, in which Europe was involved, and his friends at Rome lacked influence or energy, so he complained to Sadolet early in 1530. The summer of that year saw the meeting of the Diet at Augsburgwhere where Melanchthon presented the famous Confession, by far the most conservative of reformed formulae. Practically nothing was denied, and the chief fault which the Catholics found was not its rejection of but its omitting to state the Catholic doctrine; in deference to Erasmus, Melanchthon had even left out all reference to the unfree will. It is a much more Catholic production than Edward VI's Prayer Book. It was well that the violent Luther could not be present; he was under the ban of the Empire; but even so all attempts at compromise failed. Charles declared that the cities must conform within six months, and called the Lutherans a sect. Some of the princes were annoyed and withdrew. Charles was equally irritated, and an Edict to enforce the restoration of the Catholic services and the restitution of church property was issued. We must remember that if "the sweet and reasonable" Melanchthon's confession was tolerable, the acts of many of its professors were intolerable, as may be judged from the Edict. The prescription of Catholic services, the seizure of Church property, the destruction of shrines and images, the forcible expulsion of monks and nuns, were going on unchecked in many places. Erasmus thought that, whilst the ultra-conservative party had shown over-eagerness to persecute, the Lutherans, as a wholly upstart faction and a minority, had been far too exacting.
Erasmus was probably mistaken in thinking that Charles's real inclinations were for toleration, and attached too much importance to his own influence with the Emperor. That may have been true before the Reformation showed itself in the form of anarchy and fanaticism; but Charles's naturally obstinate character was hardening under the open contempt of his authority. As a matter of fact, owing to the menace of the Turks and the attitude of Henry and Francis, the enforcement of the Edict was suspended. With relative peace in Europe Erasmus began to experience greater happiness. Clement VII again showed him favour, and the King of the Romans desired to confer on him some important ecclesiastical office. His state of health and age, for a man who had passed sixty was at our period very old, prevented his acceptance, and Erasmus had, as well, a sentiment that matters had gone too far for the way of reason and moderation which he always favoured. Things, although quieter on the Continent, were getting worse in England as Henry developed his anti-Papal policy. More was dismissed from the Chancellorship, and heresy made great strides: although a gentle and humane man, he had ever been a strong opponent of error, and some stern measures had been carried out whilst he held the seal.
Warham died, and in him Erasmus lost one of his best friends and supporters; he did not lose his pension, for Cranmer, the new Primate and the last Archbishop but one of Canterbury, albeit a heretic, continued to pay it. The Act of Succession was passed, and More and Fisher having refused to swear to it, were committed to the Tower, 1534. Clement's unhappy reign ended soon after, and with the election of Paul III better times dawned. He had long been in favour of a council for reform and had intended to summon one as soon as possible. The times were not favourable to moderation the Anabaptist rising, which Erasmus regarded as the direct work of the devil, had been stamped out at Munster. Paul, however, was determined on the council and appointed new Cardinals, amongst whom he wished to include Erasmus and Blessed John Fisher. The Pope knew him for a holy and learned man, a partisan of moderate reform, and a friend of Erasmus he could have given no better proof of his sincerity in the matter of reform. He had even tried to come to some understanding with Henry VIII, and must have been ignorant, strange as it seems, of the fact that the bishop was in the Tower; otherwise he would not have contemplated an act which would arouse the tyrant's rage.
Meantime, Erasmus fell seriously ill; he was advised to try a change of air, and returned to Basel, though Freiburg was obviously the more healthy place of the two. Here he received the great shock of the news of the martyrdom of Blessed Thomas More and Blessed John Fisher, his dearest friends, and seemed for sometime to be unable to credit it. Erasmus had known Henry only in his younger days, when he appeared as a brilliant patron of arts, soldier and statesman, and could not believe that he had fallen into the horrible ways in which he finished his reign. His health grew steadily worse, and it was clear that he was never likely to leave Basel, but even in August, 1535, he spoke of an early return to Freiburg and of his intention not to remain in the Swiss city. The fate of the bishop and of the ex-Chancellor was only too clearly confirmed, and Erasmus wrote:
"They were the wisest and most holy of Englishmen. By the loss of More I feel to have myself died; we had only one soul between us."
If a man, as is often alleged, can be judged from his friends, Erasmus must take a very high place. All his friends and correspondents were men of distinction and worth. Some indeed fell into heresy, and with them he parted; but none of them were low or futile, and amongst his few intimate friends we find the names of the greatest and most saintly men of the day.
Erasmus might have had the red hat at any time. Paul was most anxious to confer it, if he had wished; but his ambitions, even his interest in life, were gone. Within a year he was dead, July 11th–12th, 1536. He died in loneliness attended only, it would seem, by a Portuguese friend and scholar, Damiao de Goes, and was buried in the desolated cathedral.
Erasmus was unfortunate at the end in the sense in which many illustrious men have outlived their popularity. If he had died after the triumph of the Liberum Arbitrium, he would have gone down to posterity not only as one of the greatest scholars of history, but as one of the great champions of Catholicism. He would have incurred the undying hostility of Protestants, it is true; but he has achieved that more or less as it is, and he would have avoided the suspicions with which many Catholics at the time and after regarded him. There are some grounds for these suspicions. It was unfortunate that he died in a heretic town without the offices of the Church, but that was not his fault. His intention, as we have seen, was to leave Basel but he was anticipated by his fatal illness. To the end he protested most dutifully—servilely a French Protestant historian calls it—his complete submission to the Holy See. His refusal to accept the high honour which Paul III designed for him was made on perfectly genuine grounds. His health was gone, and his end not far distant. The judicial murder of his dearest friends had robbed his life of further interest. Such an attitude may not be strictly tenable; there are always interests left; but it is hard to blame such a welcome proof of his capacity for affection—a capacity which many of his acts and writings would otherwise leave in doubt. In his moderation he was much in advance of his times, and to be in advance of one's times does not make for material happiness. Erasmus's influence on the course of the political and religious events of his day was slight. Dr. Karl Hartfelder well writes:
"The tragedy of his life lies wholly in this, that his simple perseverance under the Catholic banner gained him no thanks from the followers of the strong Catholic party. From Aleander onwards, right up to Dollinger and his successors, Erasmus is portrayed as the typical frivolous skeptic and man of characterless uncertainty." ("Das Tragische seines Leben liegt nur darin, dass sein aushalten unter der Katholischen Fahne gerade bei den Anhangern der strengen Katholischen Richtung keinen Dank gefunden hat. Von Aleander bis herunter auf Dellinger and dessen Nachtreten escheint Erasmus als der Typus frivoler skepsis and charakterloser Unzuverlassigkeit.")
It is not necessary to labour his influence on the future of learning. Erasmus was constitutionally and intellectually incapable of leading a popular movement; in fact, he despised all such and the facile enthusiasms which attends those movements. His tastes were aristocratic; he believed in an aristocracy of intellect and had a decided leaning towards an aristocracy of birth. His mind, in this respect like Pascal's, whom he resembles in no other single way, was of an incurably sceptic type, and he lived in times when such an attitude was most easily justified and produced. In all times of upheaval, strife, and misery, the greater minds show this tendency: nothing is worth struggling for; the world is literally very evil; take refuge in the things of the intellect. With the exception of his works on the Fathers and the New Testament his writings were critical and destructive; even when he entered the lists on behalf of the Church, he annihilated Luther's system rather than defended the threatened and vital doctrines.
In modern times Erasmus has more than come into his own: where controversy between the forces of all that is best in conservatism and in innovation is concerned, the Erasmian method is generally approved, and there are few who would not agree with his sentiment that warfare and slaughter for the sake of opinion are futile. At the same time Erasmus, and most modern thinkers, would hold that some opinions are so pernicious that in the interests of humanity they must be stamped out. He had no doubts about the Anabaptists; he would have as little about some of our modern pests. The world's debt to Erasmus is very great. When all is said he was a beau genie, a loyal friend, humane and generous, a man of surpassing intellectual powers. Is it any wonder that, amongst so much that is true and noble, we find frailties and human weaknesses?
"God alone knows how the end will come. We are being punished, it seems, for our sins. No annoyance will, however, withdraw me from the Church, but at times I have almost felt provoked to it. I will not assail the mother by whom I was washed at the font and fed with the Sacrament. To avenge a distinct wrong I will not imperil my soul. One can now understand how Tertullian and Wiclif were driven into schism by malicious attacks. I will not be so driven, although the attack made upon me is most unprovoked. All my efforts, and crime, if so they consider it, have been to promote true learning. It is true that I wished monks to remember their rule, and thought that the study of Scripture and the Fathers was preferable to the exclusive pursuit of the scholastics. I ever hoped that the Popes and Cardinals might live in manner nearer to that of the Apostles, but I never desired them harm or abolition. As to the disputations about the manner of the Presence, it is incredible that Christ would so long have allowed the Church to be in error on such a matter. [What Erasmus means is the very practical argument that, after 1,500 years of belief in the Real and Substantial Presence, it is very improbable that a few men should be inspired to discover its falsity.] The Lutheran theory that any one person is as qualified in himself, apart from ecclesiastical order, as any other to ordain, absolve, and consecrate is sheer lunacy. [Luther held, as his own opinion, that wherever literally the two or three were gathered there was the Church in all its power. This theory does not figure in the Confession.] At the same time it is of no use for monks and prelates to think that they can stop the spread of error by mere shouting, nor will they be able to re-establish their old authority over the mass of the people. Some men are wicked, but that is no reason to give up our belief in the Church."
To Warham, Faber, and Tunstall he wrote in a very similar strain.