CHAPTER XVII

CONTROVERSY WITH BEDDA

It seemed that there was to be no peace for Erasmus, as we shall here have to notice the attacks of two critics of his own side, the Prince of Carpi, an Italian, and Natalis Bedda, a Frenchman. Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi, had been driven by political troubles to take up his residence in Rome, where he was held in the highest consideration by Popes, Cardinals, and other men of rank in the Eternal City. He became much interested in matters theological, probably on account of the world-wide disturbances in religious thought produced by Luther. The results of his studies, as much as his environment, perhaps, had made him hostile to Luther. He appears to have watched the conduct and writings of Erasmus very closely, being probably drawn thereto by the expressed sentiments of Stunica, who was also in Rome at that time and, as we have already related, was attacking Erasmus unsparingly. Having made his own observations and having therefrom deduced conclusions which were more or less correct, Prince Alberto felt compelled to accuse Erasmus of being in some measure to blame for the encouragement he had formerly given Luther. Since by his rank and standing at Rome he was in a position to do Erasmus great harm in the estimation of the Roman ecclesiastical authorities, Erasmus felt that he must set himself right before the Curia, and took the resolution of writing to the Prince and expostulating with him. He began by saying that the Prince was perhaps right in telling the Cardinals that Erasmus had no great knowledge of the sciences and was little versed in philosophy and theology, and that he was not much grieved by that. But he was very much grieved to hear that the Prince had been circulating a report that he Erasmus was the man responsible for all the troubles with which the Church was at that moment contending. He insisted that, on the contrary, he was the very first person to warn his own friends not to take part in Luther's movement, to which he could foresee only one end, and that a calamitous one. He went on

to declare that while many were applauding Luther he himself had stood apart and, from fear that the matter would end in tumult, had counseled the printer Froben not to publish any of Luther's writings. In addition to this, he had sacrificed many friendships among the Germans because of his pronounced opposition to Luther and his firm determination not to be drawn over to his party. Then, with a little perhaps pardonable vanity, he informed the Prince that, had he indeed decided to throw in his lot with Luther, the world would have soon regretted the results of his weighty influence, but that he had resolved never to do anything which would be detrimental to the true interests of the

Roman Church. As for the charge that Luther had drawn much of his teachings from the writings of Erasmus, he replied that no one held those writings in greater contempt than Luther himself, who openly charged that he Erasmus was no theologian. It was true, he said, that he had not written against Luther in the beginning, but at that time he had considered Luther a good man, selected by Heaven to assist in reforming the morals of the clergy, but that he had since found Luther's own methods worthy of reprehension. Then he gave it as his opinion that the unregulated lives of some ecclesiastics, the arrogance of some theologians, and the insupportable tyranny of some monks, were really the primal cause of the present turmoil. It was a well-written Apologia, but it did not seem to convince the Prince of Carpi in the slightest degree. However, the Prince hastened to give an example of what the world expected of Erasmus by hastening himself to break a lance with Luther. This he did by issuing against him a work of considerable merit and no mean ability. To this book he prefixed a preface in which he assumed that Erasmus entertained the same sentiments as Luther, and sent Erasmus a copy. This was hardly fair to Erasmus, who was certainly not deserving of being thus pilloried, but whose delay in stating his position had caused his sentiments to be misunderstood, to his great detriment. In his reply to the Prince he wrote in terms of deference and respect, assuring him that he was mistaken in thinking of him as he did and protesting that, if they could only have a meeting, the Prince would willingly change his opinion. But the latter, doubting the sincerity of Erasmus, refused to be mollified, and set himself to the task of pointing out the errors which he found in his various works. He died before this book was published. After his death, however, it was issued by some of his friends, notably the Spanish scholar Sepulveda, by Floridus Sabinus, and by a monk named Peter of the Franciscan Order. Then Erasmus opened the floodgates of his wrath and assailed the Prince's work savagely, urged all the more furiously thereto by hearing that some of the Franciscans had aided in it. He called him senile, moribund, and destined to fill a monk's cowl, and excelled himself in vituperation.' He sought sympathy from his friends in this new attack, but did not always get it. He complained to his quondam Ferrara acquaintance, Celio Calcagnini, of the treatment the Prince of Carpi had meted out to him, belittling him where he could. But Calcagnini knew the Prince better than Erasmus did, and would not have it so. So he replied to Erasmus' letter in the following terms, which were meant to soothe the great man's wounded vanity and, at the same time, to defend his other friend:

What you told me about Pio di Carpi was not less unpleasant than unexpected. There has been a long friendship subsisting between us ever since he was a young man and I was no more than a boy, at which period we were attending the lectures of the cele

1 Jortin, who had a fund of dry humor, said of this reply of Erasmus that it was "full of spirit, and indeed he always shines in his apologies for himself, being animated with the subject." (Erasmus, Vol. I, p. 358.)

brated Mantuan professor of philosophy Petreto, who was just then giving a course in Dialectics. Than this prince I never knew anyone more refined or gentle; and so far was it from his disposition to detract from anyone's deserving, that the good fellow very often attached himself to those who were most unlike himself, that is, to the undeserving. On this account I cannot help deeming it strange in him that he could have so far degenerated in character as to have inveighed so harshly and unjustly against you; for anyone who loves you not either is jealous of you, or does not know what merits love. And though I build as much on your uprightness as on your prudence, yet my earnest affection for you makes me advise and admonish you not to lend your ears too easily to whisperers and tale-bearers, whom you encourage if you do not chastise, as Domitian once truly said."

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But so far was Erasmus from becoming soothed by the philosophic advice of Calcagnini that he set himself to pillory the Prince of Carpi in one of his most mordant Colloquies, where, under the name of Eusebius, which in Greek means the same as Pio in Italian, he describes his death and funeral services." So the Prince of Carpi, having escaped the wrath of Erasmus by dying, none the less was made to suffer posthumously by being placed in the Colloquies by the side of Andreas d'Asola and so many others, and there held up to the cutting, scornful, and merciless wit of a past master in that art. Montaigne says, "Wit is a dangerous weapon even to the possessor, if he know not how to use it discreetly." And one cannot say that caricaturing one's enemies after their death is making a very discreet use of wit. In fact, one is almost forced to adopt the dictum that "Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth." He was not so much incensed with the Prince on account of what he said of him, as on account of its bringing about his loss of favor with Pope Clement; and he made a great effort to win back again the friendship of that Pontiff in a letter which he sent him from Basle, dated February 13, 1524. At this time, too, he fell into disfavor with the king of France, Francis I, which is not to be wondered at if we remember the events that had just occurred: the taking prisoner of Francis by the Emperor Charles, and the sacking of Rome itself. The two allies Clement and Francis could not readily forget that Erasmus was a pensioner of the hated Emperor who had so humiliated them, and that he himself was of the hated Germanic race. So the moment was not propitious for Erasmus to make much progress in the regard of the much harassed Pontiff, and his letter would seem to have remain unanswered.

With regard to the other opponent whom we have mentioned, Noel or Natalis Bedda, we are compelled to say considerable, both on account of his standing and for the consequences to Erasmus which followed this writer's charges. Many and violent as Erasmus' enemies were in the main, the dubious honor remains with Bedda of being the most

violent of them all. However, with all his faults, he was not at all the man that Drummond depicts for us when he states that he was "an ignorant and narrow-minded fanatic, wedded to scholasticism, a bitter enemy of all generous culture, a bigoted Catholic and a most determined heresy-hunter." " He was principal of the College of Montaigu, and one of the Doctors of the Sorbonne; this will perhaps be sufficient to give us an idea of his education and abilities, if we assume that he must have been in accord with the spirit of the latter institution. From the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge we learn what the theology of the Sorbonne really was:

The general tendency of that theology was that which must underlie all true theology, a perfect mediation between faith and knowledge, religion and science, theology and philosophy; but, in pursuing that tendency, the Sorbonne always kept its doctrines pure, that is, in harmony with the teachings of the church, though without submitting in a slavish manner to ecclesiastical misuses or sacerdotal eccentricities. It was the Sorbonne which drove the scandalous Feast of the Fools out of the church; and it was also the Sorbonne which successfully opposed the introduction of the Peter's-pence and of the Inquisition into France. Among its other merits may be also mentioned, that it established the first printing-press in Paris, 1470; and, as an indication of the high rank it held in the world's estimation, it may be added that it represented the university of Paris at the councils.'

We may safely assume then that Bedda was an ardent champion of the Church wherever it did not conflict with the political rights and privileges of the Gallican king and hierarchy, endowed with the same hatred of anything savoring of heresy as his contemporaries, and possibly more sincere than discreet at times. The same thing can be well predicated of Erasmus, Luther, and most of the prominent actors on the stage at that critical period. Now the Sorbonne was particularly watchful of everything appertaining to the purity and sanctity of religion in all its phases, and had been instrumental in having laws passed by the Parliament prohibiting the publication of anything having relation to faith or morals that had not first been passed upon by itself, or the entire theological faculty of the University. Hence, when Conrad Resch, a German bookseller, tried to have Erasmus' Paraphrase on St. Luke reissued at Paris, he had recourse to the good offices of Francis de Loin, a former president of the Senate but now a royal councilor and intimate friend of Erasmus, to obtain for him the necessary permission to print. De Loin, following the usual practice of the day, sent the Paraphrase to Bedda, who was a syndic, or one of those officials of the theological faculty to whom the examination of such works was generally committed. It may be that Erasmus' now dubious reputation for orthodoxy had preceded his work to Paris, and that Bedda scanned the Paraphrase most closely. Certain it is that, in his official report to De Loin, Bedda pointed out fifty propositions which were either • Erasmus, Vol. II, p. 220. See art. "Sorbonne."

clearly erroneous or at least suspicious. The bookseller, fearing that Bedda might have been actuated by motives that were subjective rather than objective, appealed from him to the Sorbonne sitting as a whole. This body appointed from its whole number commissioners who, having gone over the Paraphrase carefully, made their report to the fac ulty that there were many pernicious things in the work, and advised that permission to print be refused. Then this question was put to the Sorbonne categorically: "Is the teaching of Erasmus Catholic? Can it be followed without danger? Does it not conceal the poison of the prevailing heresy, that is to say, the sentiments of Luther expressed in specious phrases?"

The syndic Bedda and a Doctor of Divinity named William Duchesne were selected to reply to these questions, and after due and fitting time made their reports to the following effect: that the teaching of Erasmus was erroneous in many passages, that it boldly attacked morality, that it treated with impiety and indignity the monastic institution, and that it was heretical in certain regards. This report was accepted as expressing the judgment of the Sorbonne, on April 7, 1525. De Loin, like a good friend, sent Erasmus the heads of the subjects condemned by the Sorbonne, accompanied by good advice as to his future action, following which lead Erasmus wrote to Bedda, asking him to examine and point out similar errors in his other Paraphrases, should there be such, and telling him that there was nothing he had so much at heart as the avoiding of error and the giving of scandal. At the same time he exerted all his powers in minimizing the errors that Bedda had already pointed out, a proceeding which did not serve to make him popular with Bedda, who answered his letter somewhat coldly and advised him to cease writing since what he had written was proving dangerous, unless he would correct it. He complimented him on his style, and said he had a divine genius and eloquent facility of expression. This faint praise accompanying the admonition that he should cease writing aroused the choler of Erasmus, so that he assailed Bedda most vigorously. He informed him that everybody else did not feel that he should cease writing; for the greatest kings, nobles, and potentates, the Popes, Cardinals, and bishops, had constantly exhorted him to continue to write, and he quoted among their number Popes Adrian and Clement, the king and queen of England, the Cardinals of York, Sion, Volterra, and Campegio, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Lincoln. "I imagine," he writes, "that you will not have the presumption to think your opinion in this matter should be taken in preference to that of all these.'

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This burst of what appeared to be self-glorification aroused the ire of Bedda, who declared that Erasmus had uttered it in a moment of petulance, that it manifested overweening pride, and that one could not read it without coming to the conclusion that Erasmus deemed himself above and beyond all other men. Erasmus now began to feel that perhaps he had been too hasty, so he wrote another letter to Bedda in which he regretted his hastiness, and, finding that his works were sure * Eras. Ep. 1581, 11.680-1.