[Geldenhauer] had moved to that city. He is now at Augsburg, where he is the Professor of Poetry at a salary, they say, of sixty florins. It is a good thing that two of the [Evangelical] leaders have perished, Zwingli in battle, and Oecolampadius shortly afterwards, of fever and abscess, for if the god of battle had favored them it would have been all over with us.'

15

And so he goes on for a whole page, filling the sheet with his suspicions and making insinuations about the motives and actions of his contemporaries, finally winding up his letter with the news that he had babbled to Caminga about Hayo Hermannus having contracted syphilis, and that probably Caminga had spoken of the fact in an unpleasant way to others, from whence he surmises that Hermannus might have taken offense. A more suspicious, malicious, futile, or childish letter surely never was written by any noble mind, and we are forced to the conclusion that the mind of Erasmus was being weakened by overwork, worry, and premature old age. Those unfortunate Colloquies were again causing him trouble at Louvain, where it seems that from one of them, namely, Pietas puerilis, he was accused of holding the same opinions concerning Confession and Fasting that Luther held. There is not much doubt that, when he wrote that colloquy several years before, he did entertain views similar to those expressed by the Reformer; and, when we think of what he was in his prime, the manner in which he now tries to explain them away is pitiful. The orthodoxy of his writings was so constantly being brought into question that some at length were afraid of having his books dedicated to them, as we learn from himself when he writes to Alfonzo Valdés, the Imperial Secretary:

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. . I would long since have dedicated some one of my lucubrations to yourself, only that by this sort of attention some are pleased while others are offended; hence I often refrain from doing it for my best friends, so as not to stir up any unpleasantness for them.' And so the year 1531 ended, leaving him with fewer friends but more enemies. He found it hard to live at peace with his neighbors, and even the young men who used to act as his amanuenses were not able to stand his petulance for very long. He was old and alone, and might have said with Macbeth:

my way of life

Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have; but, in their stead,

Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth honour, breath,

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
(Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Sc. 3.)

15 Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1421D-1422B.

16

• Ibid., col. 1426A.

CHAPTER XXIII

ADVICE OF FRIENDS; DEATH OF WARHAM; RECANTATION OF ERASMUS

All this time of trouble and turmoil must have materially lessened his literary output, but nevertheless he had managed to edit the works of St. Basil and bring them out in a beautiful Greek edition. It was to his old and really genuine friend Sadoleti that he dedicated it. This bishop, who might in his old age be surely called saintly, accepted the dedication with his usual courtesy, and took the opportunity to give Erasmus additional suggestion along the same lines that he had followed in his previous letter. After expressing his sorrow that Erasmus is being assailed by so many, he continues:

But if I were in your place I would make one final reply to everybody, partly excusing the acts and counsels of my youth, if, perchance, there were anything in my writings of those days which was too free, and partly retracting modestly and wisely things of that sort, even though they did not really, but only apparently, seem to furnish an excuse to envious tongues, just as we see the greatest doctors, most holy men, to have done; in a word, so showing my entire understanding of the Catholic faith that no one could have any doubt of what I believed. This work once published, I would maintain a perpetual silence towards the malevolent, whose insolent and unjust calumnies this itself and the truth, as well as your eminent fame and virtue, would refute.1

Excellent advice, if he would have taken it. There are some creatures of the air whose antennæ are so delicate that they vibrate to the faintest breeze. Erasmus' mental antennæ were so exquisitely subtle that the slightest sound of disapproval, the slightest breath of criticism, was torture to his nervous organization, and impelled him to frantic bursts of denial and defense, which were as ineffective as they were undignified. And it was an illogical desire to avoid the crushing humiliation to his pride that a retraction of his statements would undoubtedly cause him, with the consequent mental anguish from which he shrank, that made him spend so much of his valuable time in "Replies," "Apologies," and what not, in a vain attempt to save his face and disappoint his enemies. This was patent to everybody, and prompted his friends of all ranks to try to make him aware of his folly. Even Cardinal Cajetan, the typical Italian ecclesiastic, as Erasmus has so often and not very graciously depicted him in these letters, besought him, as so many others had done, to correct his works, retracting whatever was offensive in them, and acting towards fair criticism with more moderation. He always answered such appeals by admitting his faults; then, 1 Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1437E-1438A.

by a most perverse mental process, he would proceed to defend them. Thus he says to Cajetan:

Indeed your good will towards me is made more evident to me by the fact that you point out a reason for your prudent and friendly counsel, which is that I might be able to put a check on the suspicions and hatreds of men, while at the same time I am procuring for myself repose for my studies and my declining years against those who are railing at me. What your Eminence advises I have already of my own accord put into effect in large measure, having noted and corrected many passages in which there was undoubtedly an error either of my own or the printer's. Moreover, the moderation that you request I have already shown, in the opinion of everyone, when I was replying to the censures of the Parisian theologians which they recently issued in the name of the Faculty, but which were really the work of one restless spirit who is of such a character that he is barely tolerated in his own college.

2

After giving Bedda this vicious slap, he proceeds to defend his works, as we have so often described before, and ends by telling the Cardinal that, though he had already decided to do what that eminent personage advised, he would now do it with the greatest alacrity, seeing that he had such an illustrious approver:

I had decided to collect together from my writings whatever was open to the calumnies and wicked opinions of certain people, then to interpret or emend such suspected passages so that the name of no man or no Order may be hurt by any imputation of mine. I am aware that some will make a victory for themselves out of this, and exclaim that Erasmus has been brought low; but that which is conducive to the tranquillity of the Church is far more important to me than what is conducive to my reputation. If I stand approved by Christ, and by you and your compeers who have combined true learning with true piety, I have conquered sufficiently. I do not long for dignities or benefices, creature of a day that I am; but it will be very gratifying to me if the Sovereign Pontiff favor me in this action, and show this favor by some outward manifestation."

Even More, who knew better than many men Erasmus' extreme sensitiveness, made an appeal to his better nature, and did it with all the tenderness of a kind and gentle heart:

For if at times something moves certain people, who are neither wicked nor ignorant, to wish that you had restrained your pen when treating a particular subject, what does it greatly matter? since not only has this happened to every other writer, but also,

2 Ibid., col. 1446B-C.

Ibid., col. 1447A-B. It has often been said by some of his biographers that Erasmus spurned all dignities and benefices, but the last sentence of this letter surely contains the strongest kind of a hint that a good fat sinecure would not be displeasing to him.

while pointing out your faults, they themselves have been so unable to control themselves that they have fallen into the very same error, which has been more manifest than was befitting their honor, and more frequent than ought to appear in any work. Therefore, it is more difficult to pardon them, since they cannot be unaware how candidly you admitted that, before these pestilent heresies had arisen which in various localities are destroying everything, you had treated certain subjects in such a way that, had you been able to foresee that such enemies of religion as these were about to come forth, you would have treated such far more gently and less pungently, but which, as you had treated them at that time rather strongly, only served to stimulate the various vices of some persons which are esteemed to be virtues. He who would wish to attribute this to you as a fault will labor hard doubtlessly before he will find any satisfactory way to excuse the very holiest doctors of the ancient Church; for surely, if they saw this age of ours as they beheld their own, they would have made many statements each to his own age more cautiously and more clearly. Now, since they failed to do so, because while they were ministering to the evils which confronted them future evils did not enter their minds, the same thing happened to them, forsooth, that these people are now blaming you for. . . . Go on in the good work, Erasmus, but if anything moves the anxious solicitude of any good man, even without much need, let it not irk you to yield somewhat to his pious sentiments; but in all other regards pay no attention to the yelpings of the malevolent, but proceed on your way, helping learning, promoting virtue, without allowing yourself to be hindered. . . . Nor am I unaware how dangerous it is to admit amongst us these new kinds of errors; and, although they have been hitherto checked by the care of the bishops and the authority of the king, it is marvelous how artfully they have crept in at first, and with what boldness they are now endeavoring to rush in on us. Nor do two of our own people refrain from sending into this kingdom from Belgium, where they have betaken themselves as to a refuge, every kind of heresy, by means of books written in our language, in which they have translated the Scriptures badly and interpreted them worse. To the most of these we have made suitable replies, so that I do not greatly fear for a person who has read any of them, except that some men willingly and favorably peruse anything that is novel just from a feeling of levity, or anything that is pernicious just from a spirit of malice, so that they do not assent to it because they believe it to be true, but because they wish it to be true. But such a class of men, to whom it is a pleasure to be wicked, you can in no way satisfy. It is my desire, as far as I am able, to protect those who fall away from the truth, not of their own will, but owing to the adroit fallacies of others. Farewell, most learned Erasmus, and deserve well of polite learning. From our house at Chelsea, June 14, 1532.*

Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1440E-1441E.

Could anything be more gentle than this advice of More's, or more effective if followed? This was leading him up the difficult heights by word and example. But he would not follow, for he knew his weaknesses and felt that the higher he climbed the greater would be his fall. He was a far different Erasmus from the one that had foregathered with More thirty years before. Age and infirmity had changed him, and the joy of life was his no longer. It was now easier for him to indulge his querulousness than to change entirely his nature at this late day. So when again the hated name of Franciscan was brought to his notice, in spite of all his promises to Campegio, to Sadoleti, to Tunstall, and to so many others, he sat him down to his besetting foible and wrote the most malicious, satiric, and consistently offensive diatribe against the Franciscans that even his pen had ever perpetrated. We shall not go into it, for it is useless. Even More in this very letter told him that "certain people," meaning undoubtedly the monks, as under that term Erasmus used to allude to them, were "neither wicked nor ignorant," and surely More was in a position to know. But let us pass to something more pleasant. Writing to one of the young men whom he had formerly employed on a trip to England, but who was now Pensionary of the town of Haarlem, he sends him a very chatty letter which contains some matters of interest:

I am again engaged on that most distressing task of getting out the Adages, which are once more being printed. My work on the Apothegms I have amplified by two chapters. I have also enlarged my Declarations. The Colloquies are again in demand, a work just as hateful to me as it is profitable to the publishers." Jerome is being printed at Paris, after being revised by me with incredible loss of rest, so that I have not had time to write more at length on the matters that you wished at this time. . . . You know, I suppose, that Lee has been made Archbishop of York, and that More has obtained permission from the king to resign the chancellorship at his own earnest entreaty. Perhaps he feared the hatred to follow in the event of the repudiation [of Queen Katherine] against which he has always advised. Canterbury [Warham] died in August, and there truly perished my sacred anchor. Aleander, adorned with a double mitre, for he is bishop of both Brindisi and Oretinus, is filling the office of English ambassador at the Imperial Court. My friends are growing fewer, while my enemies are increasing. I have now written to those to whom you wished me to write. You will make excuses for my bad conduct, and I will find excuses for the rest."

There is more of this letter, but it does not readily lend itself to quotation on account of the very free tone Erasmus assumes towards women. This correspondent, Quirinus Talesius, had just married, a fact which gives Erasmus the opportunity to express his sentiments about women, sentiments which are not very elevated, but were possibly the ones that were current on the subject in his day. His remark about The italics are mine. Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1456D-F.

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