of his friends in England that he at all moderated his tone. He must not wound the gentle soul of Archbishop Warham, and he can almost see the kindly prelate's surprised and reproachful look. For a fleeting moment his conscience pricks him, and he writes to the Archbishop to try to reassure him: "Grant," he says, "that there are things in my books which might have been expressed more circumspectly; of a surety they can show you nothing impious." And a few lines further on: "They are railing at my Colloquies over there, although there is scarcely another book more conducible to the banishing from the minds. of men opinions about silly things." 15 Augustine Steuchus, a celebrated divine and exceptional scholar, attempted the useless task of mildly expostulating with him and giving him some good advice, but it was wasted effort and served only to exasperate him. A few sentences from the letter of Steuchus will suffice: I believe you do not condemn sanctity itself, but only superstition and ignorance. But many say that you ought to have done it more temperately and in a better way. For what was the use of attacking, for instance, the defects of certain people, as you did in your Colloquies? How many noxious drafts you gave them to drink? How many fountains of blasphemy you opened up? Is that your prudence, Erasmus, O most worthy censor? If you deem that anyone has in some way detracted from your fame, the smart thereof pierces to the very bottom of your heart, and you prepare your refutations and responses. And do you not think that others feel the smart when you defame them so cruelly? "The name of a whole people must be reflected on very gently," you say. How do you observe that rule, you who, to reach one or two, blast the reputation of a whole Order? Many also wonder why, at your time of life, you insidiously inject into your Colloquies, which in other ways are full of your eloquence and acumen, so many wicked things. Now, I am not defending the lives or manners of lazy or superstitious monks; but I say that there is a better way to redress these evils than by exposing the offendings of a few individuals to be gazed at and noted by the public. . . . I maintain, Erasmus, that many things in your books have hitherto displeased me, especially those things which have bred up for us many contemners of sacred matters.' 16 99 17 Swift once said, "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another." This would seem to be true of Erasmus, who lost no opportunity of fleshing his hatreds and satisfying his grudges, totally regardless of the effect such action on his part might have on the welfare of the Church at large. Apparently unconscious of the bitter and uncharitable feelings he was exciting in those he attacked, and the gaping and deadly wounds he was inflicting with his own hand on the Church of Christ, he either would not or 15 Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1052. 10 Ibid., col. 1926. 17 Thoughts on Various Subjects. could not realize what scandal he was giving to the young. And this disastrous effect he was unwittingly accomplishing, not because he was attacking the monks, not because he was ridiculing fasting and abstinence, not because he was throwing contempt on the religious habits and superstitions of the people, nor because he was making the ceremonial of the Church a subject for jest, but because by these things he was bringing about something which he himself did not foresee, the abolishing of all reverence, and the questioning of all authority, civil as well as ecclesiastical. He could not see this, but Luther saw it clearly. This letter of Steuchus is perhaps one of the most important in the whole correspondence. Erasmus answered it, but he no longer tried to defend the Colloquies. This was 1531, and his ideas were changing. CHAPTER X HUTTEN'S ATTEMPT TO FORCE ERASMUS TO TAKE POSITION; PRIVATE CONCLAVE ON LUTHER: ERASMUS' LOST OPPORTUNITY; LUTHER In our account of the Colloquies we have been again led to anticipate the natural order of events, and must now go back to Erasmus at the moment when he was being urged to champion Luther. At first he had spoken well of him. Answering a letter of Melancthon in which the latter tried to elicit from him an expression of his opinion on Luther, he says: "With us [at Louvain] everyone praises the life of Martin Luther, but about his sentiments there are varying opinions. . . Some things he has criticized wisely; but would that he had been as happy as he has been bold!" 1 So far he had conducted himself with consummate skill in most difficult circumstances, and had made excellent capital out of the mistakes and weaknesses of his opponents. Writing to Albert CardinalArchbishop of Mainz and Imperial Elector, Erasmus does not hesitate to uphold Luther, but aims at the same time to give the impression that he himself was speaking from a totally disinterested standpoint, which was far from true. Luther had so far fought the fight against Rome with ammunition borrowed from the armory of Erasmus; but strangely enough, while the older and more wily man plainly perceived that he was being drawn upon in this way and rejoiced thereat, the younger man seemed quite oblivious of his source of supply. In spite of himself, Luther's soul had been perverted by the cynicism and lack of sincerity of Erasmus. Erasmus had sowed the wind; soon the world would reap the whirlwind. This is how Erasmus puts his own personal attitude towards Luther before the Archbishop of Mainz: About those propositions of Luther's to which they object, I make no question at present; what I do question, however, are the method and the occasion adopted. Luther has dared to cast doubts on indulgences; but others before him have made exceedingly rash statements about them. He has had the temerity to speak somewhat moderately about the power of the Roman Pontiff, but others had previously written of it in extravagant terms, of whom the principal writers were the three Dominicans: Alvarus, Sylvester, and the Cardinal of St. Sixtus. He has been so bold as to contemn the conclusions of St. Thomas, which, however, the Dominicans esteem almost more than the four Gospels. He has presumed to raise some scruples about the matter of Confession, a subject 1 Eras. Ep. 947. which the monks use perpetually for entangling the consciences of men. He has not hesitated in a measure to cast aside the judgments of the Schoolmen, to which these latter attach too much importance, although they are not in exact accord about them, for they change them eventually, introducing new ones to take the place of the old. It has distressed pious minds to hear in the universities scarcely a single discourse about the doctrine of the Gospel, to see those sacred authors so long approved by the Church now considered antiquated, to hear in sermons very little about Christ, but a great deal about the power of the Pope, and the opinions of recent writers thereon. Every discourse openly manifests self-interest, flattery, ambition, and pretence. Even though Luther has written somewhat intemperately, I think that the blame should rest on these very happenings. Whoever favors the doctrine of the Gospel favors the Roman Pontiff, who is the chief herald thereof, although the rest of the bishops are also likewise heralds. All the bishops act in the place of Christ, but among these the Roman Pontiff is preeminent. Of him we must have this feeling: that he desires nothing but the glory of Christ, whose servant he glories in being. They merit very little consideration who ascribe to him through flattery what he himself does not claim and what is not necessary for his Christian flock. And yet some who are causing these tumults are not doing it from zeal for the Pontiff, but are abusing his power for their own enrichment and unjust domination. We have, in my opinion, a pious Pontiff; but in these tempestuous times there are many things of which he is not aware, many things also which even if he wished to do so he could not control, but as Maro says: Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas. He therefore aids the pious endeavors of the Pontiff who exhorts him to the doing of those things which are especially worthy of Christ. It is evident that there are some who incite his Holiness against Luther, nay, against all who dare to murmur a syllable against their dogmas. But great princes like yourself should consider what the constant good will of the Pontiff indicates rather than some favor obtained of him by underhand means. Luther has written much that was imprudent rather than impious, of which the worst in their estimation is that he pays little tribute to Thomas, that he lessens the profits from the indulgences, that he shows small regard for the Mendicant Orders, that he defers less to the dogmas of the Schools than to the Gospels, and that he pays no regard to the crafty subtleties of human disputants." Allowing for his usual exaggeration in asserting that the Dominicans thought almost more of St. Thomas than of the Gospel, and that in the universities Christ was seldom spoken of, Erasmus has here yielded to Melancthon's plea for some moral support in behalf of Luther, and has treated the rising reformer rather handsomely in this letter to the Cardinal-Elector. But party feeling was now running very high, and every man's utterances were being carefully scanned in order that from them his position for or against either side might be gleaned. Ulrich Hutten, a sort of free lance in the political, religious, and social circles of those days, was at this time attached to the court of the Cardinal-Archbishop as one of his secretaries, and to him Erasmus had entrusted the above letter. Hutten, who was a restless and uneasy spirit with a witty and attractive literary gift, and with ambitions and ideals which were not then attainable, half Bayard and half Don Quixote, took Erasmus' letter and, to the latter's supreme dismay, proceeded to print and scatter broadcast copies of it for the effect it might have in bringing recruits to Luther's standard. Now to speak well of Luther in private and to select ears was one thing; but to be thus openly thrust forward by Hutten as the champion of Luther, who was at that very moment under the ban of excommunication, was quite another matter entirely, and probably caused Erasmus considerable anxiety in thus seeing his hand forced. He thus writes to Cardinal-Elector: I regret the publication of the letter which I wrote to your Eminence about Luther. I certainly wrote it with good intentions, but assuredly not for publication. I gave out no copy of it. I enclosed it with other letters to Hutten, telling him that if he deemed it expedient he was to hand it to you at the proper moment, but if not, it was to be suppressed or destroyed. What makes me wonder all the more is, at whose suggestion it was given to the printers without being handed to you. If this was an accident, it was most unlucky; but if it was treachery, it was more than Punic. He was tremendously angry with Hutten for what he deemed an attempt to ally him openly with Luther, and thus to show the world where he stood. This very thing had been going on for the last two years, Luther's friends trying to smoke out the great humanist into the open where he would have to declare himself, and Erasmus, like the seasoned fox that he was, striving his utmost to defeat such a measure. He even went so far as to accuse Hutten of tampering with the wording of the letter to the extent of inserting the word "our" before the name of Luther, in order to give to the world a better idea of the intimacy of the relation in which Erasmus stood with regard to Luther.* He had planted a sowing, the harvest of which he did not want to be forced to acknowledge. Never was there a truer saying than that which alleged that Erasmus had laid the egg which Luther hatched. He 3 Ibid., 1152. * Ibid., 1155, 1217. (With his thorough and indefatigable acumen, it occurred to Allen, in editing the two letters mentioned above for his admirable edition of the Erasmus epistles, to examine all the contemporary copies of them that he could consult, and in no instance was he able to find the "our" interpolated. With all his faults Hutten was a man of honor, as personal honor was understood by the knights of the Middle Ages. Moreover, Erasmus is careful to pass the onus of the charge on to the shoulders of others by saying indefinitely, "I hear" or "They say" that Hutten did thus and so, etc.) |