10

so. In that judgment is my refuge and my haven, as it will be also an honor to my labor. I rest therefore in you alone and in your regard for me, as also in your admirable virtue and learning.' This was true humility on the part of a man who was as great in his own sphere as Erasmus was in his. This was an admirable diffidence: not the kind that springs from a lack of confidence in one's own ability, else he would never have undertaken the task, but a diffidence which comes from an absence of intellectual pride—and this, after all, is only another name for humility. True humility would at all times rather be right than be great, or brilliant, or imposing. This was, in our opinion, the one quality which had always been wanting in Erasmus. He was not careful enough in statement, and this is not to be wondered at when we reflect on his swiftness of composition and the tremendous output of his fertile brain. Let us illustrate what we mean by a concrete example. In the letter to Emsted about the true monk, which we have quoted on a previous page, Erasmus says: "What, I say, if, crucifying their flesh by fasting, by midnight watchings, and by toil, they supplement those things which Christ's sufferings lack, and, as it were, immolate themselves for the salvation of the people?" Now we make no pretensions to theological learning, and have avoided the discussion of questions of divinity; but any man who remembers what the mission. of Christ on earth was must recognize a heresy in this quotation. We know not if Erasmus was ever taken to task for it, and we give it simply as an example of his loose way of stating things. Sadoleti, we venture to say, would not have written this in the first place, but if he had he would have meekly retracted it without argument or defense. Yet we dare to say here in Erasmus' behalf that at no time during his whole life was he intentionally and wilfully heretical, and that if he fell into heresy occasionally, as in the present instance, it was due to his rhetoric more than to his doctrine. He always loved and hated in the superlative degree; so that, if we reduce to the positive terms his former inexcusable disparagement of the monks and his present fulsome eulogy of them, we shall free him from much unnecessary exaggeration.

To make up in some degree for his anxieties, his failing health, and his unpaid salary as an Imperial Councilor, gifts of considerable value began to flow in on him, among which may be mentioned one of two hundred florins from the state of Holland, one from the town council of Besançon possibly accompanying an invitation to make that town his future residence, for which favor we may remember he had petitioned them, and a princely gift from the King of Portugal, which came to him through the hands of his great admirer Damian à Goes, that king's secretary. In writing to the secretary in acknowledgment of the gift, he mentions that he had been much importuned to give his opinion on the divorce which King Henry was striving to obtain from Queen Katherine at the hands of the Pope. But Erasmus was too wary to burn his 10 Ibid., 1469E-F.

11

"Quid, quod ieiuniis, vigiliis, laboribus crucifigentes carnem suam, quantum licet, supplent ea quæ desunt passionibus Christi, ac seipsos quodammodo immolant pro salute populi."

fingers with such a flagrant subject as that, and certainly spoke the truth when he said, "No mortal ever heard a syllable from me either in approval or disapproval of that matter." To the above-mentioned gifts must be added the contents of a dispatch-box from Queen Maria of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands for the Emperor, enclosing an invitation for him to return to Brabant, three hundred florins for traveling expenses, and an offer of an annual salary. His joy was so great at the prospect that he bought horses for the journey; but, his infirmities increasing, he was obliged for the time to forego the trip, promising, however, that he would surely go in the following spring. Meanwhile he did not allow his name and memory to fade from the minds of his learned contemporaries, since we find letters from many of them, but filled mainly with the amenities of scholarly correspondence. Bembo replies to one from Erasmus, in which the latter had been urging him to employ the press of Froben in the printing of some of his works. Erasmus also mentions that he had a letter from Melancthon, who makes the rather astonishing statement that he is disgusted with his friends. As Melancthon had made a similar statement in the preface to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, we are obliged to accept the fact. We have every reason to feel sure that Erasmus' interest in Luther was by this time entirely dead, and that he would have been rejoiced to see Melancthon, for whom he had an affection of a sort, back again in the Catholic fold. He could measure Melancthon's extravagations by his own, and wonder whether or not these had been at all worth while. For himself they were causing nothing but regret, in view of the fact that the uncharitable and injudicious still refused to believe in his sincerity. So he writes to friends in Seville in a regretful strain:

How many times have I refuted the manifest and impudent calumnies of those people! and yet, as if I had done nothing about such matters, to this very day they are taunting me with the old falsehoods, and that even by means of published books in which they say, "Erasmus makes Confession optional; he condemns all ceremonies; he derides devotion to the saints; he makes fun of ecclesiastical rites; he rejects Christian fasts; he disapproves of abstinence from meats; he dissolves the vow of sacerdotal celibacy, puts an end to the vows and observances of the monks, and censures human enactments." What more do they say? Why, that I have smoothed the path for Luther. Now those who have some little regard for decency, in order to calumniate me with greater security, say that they think that personally I am a good man, and that I did not write such things for the purpose of exciting these disturbances, and even praise me very much that I am now writing differently. Now this is the very essence of black malignity, this is pure malice itself. Let others endure such patronizing; I will not be so defended. This I have candidly confessed, and do still confess, that, if I had foreseen such an age as the present one would come to pass, either I would not have written many things which I have, or I would have written 1 Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1472A-D.

them otherwise, and I would not have done many things which I have done. They say that it is the part of a wise man to calculate what may happen. I admit it, but one cannot divine everything that may occur, and I acknowledge my folly and thoughtlessness in some ways.*

18

These are, we must confess, differences without distinction. All he wanted was to be let alone and have his mistakes forgotten, but, unfortunately for him, human nature was not so constituted, and he resented the kindly efforts of his friends to set him right before the world almost as vehemently as he resented the calumnies of his enemies.

13 Ibid., col. 1486c-D.

CHAPTER XXIV

SICKNESS; LUTHER ON ERASMUS; DEATH OF CLEMENT VII

Though constant sickness had not dimmed his mental keenness, it had begun to incapacitate him for continuing his labors with his former ardor. There were now long intervals of forced inactivity when his hand could not hold a pen and when he could do nothing but ponder. Through his open windows floated in the chanting of the monks from the neighboring Franciscan monastery, that Order which he had stigmatized so often, and which had returned his invectives with compound interest. He was having softened moods in which his hatreds seemed to him unreasonable, and his antagonisms unjustifiable. He writes:

I live here so close to the Franciscans that from my room I can hear them singing just as though I were in their chapel. We are very friendly together because there is no malice amongst them. They have with them a preacher, a good and modest man, who often cites Erasmus with honor in his sermons.1

The question "Had it all been worth while?" must have presented itself to him very often at this period; and, with death, the great mystery, to be solved in the very near future, he must have had serious doubts as to whether or not his judgments had always been wise at the critical moment. He was in frequent pain, and was learning, perhaps for the first time, how sublime a thing it is "to suffer and be strong." A long and painful life was bringing him some physical courage at last, and he was no coward when he penned the following lines to John Choler:

Would that I might have more joyful news to write you about my health; but this pain in my feet, or in my hands, or over my whole body, attacking as it does every limb, darts away to a new spot when it has sufficiently scourged the old haunt, the unbearable pain thereof lasting generally about four days; then, when the swelling appears, it becomes less painful, but, after the manner of generals, takes many fortresses and, leaving behind a garrison therein, proceeds to take another, there fighting with renewed fury, returning on the slightest provocation to the original spot of onset, which it makes worse than ever. It will not bear even the lightest touch, so that you might call it a thistle, which the Greek proverb warns you not to handle. I am beginning to fear that this little old body of mine, tortured by so much suffering and distress, may not long hold out. Freiburg, February 19, 1534.'

1

1 Eras. Ep. (LB) col, 1284a.

2

Ibid., col. 1491A-B.

He seems to face it very manfully and is fully resolved not to capitulate to this enemy at least. So, throwing back his head once more, he faces his self-appointed work. But the acute articular rheumatism, of which he has given here almost a classical description, would not permit him to do very much during this incoming year of 1534, and we have no work issued by him bearing this date. Two of his hostile critics were dead, Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi, and Stunica. The former had died while the last of his works against Erasmus was going through the press, as we have already stated, so that Erasmus was in the very unsatisfactory position of replying to a man who could no longer defend himself. Stunica, as we have also noted, when on his deathbed, had sent for his friend Sepulveda, like himself a Spaniard, and had entrusted to his care some animadversions on Erasmus, with instructions to send them to the latter, who was at liberty to make whatever use of them he thought proper. Sepulveda performed the request of his dying friend to the letter, and, after expressing his own high regard for Erasmus' attainments, drew his attention to some slips in geography that had escaped the latter's notice in the haste of composition, with the idea that Erasmus might feel gratified to have the opportunity of correcting such errors in forthcoming editions of his works. That Sepulveda did this with all becoming courtesy and respect we will show by quoting that part of his letter to Erasmus:

. . . I take this occasion, out of my good will and regard for you, to caution you not to be forgetful when it is a question of discussing the localities of cities, but to review your Strabo, Mela, Pliny, and Ptolemy; because, during the last few days, while I was looking over your Epistles of St. Jerome, I came across certain notes of yours in which I had wished that you had been less careless. For in the epistle to Evagrius you write that Rhegium is a town in Greece, and that Constantinople is in Macedonia, although the latter town, which was first called Byzantium, is in that part of Thrace which is most remote from Macedonia, while Rhegium is in Brutia where Italy is separated from Sicily by a narrow strait. Now if you had had in mind Cicero's ancient epithet of Magna Graecia, you ought to have remembered that when he speaks of Greece simply he is not referring to that part of Italy, but to Attica and its neighboring territory. I remember also, but the passage has slipped my memory, that in another note you say that Nicopolis, so called from the victory of Augustus, was a city in Thrace, when it is in reality in Epirus near Actium, at which place Antony was overcome in a naval battle. But you were probably led astray by the fact that there was another town of the same name in Thrace. In your edition of Cicero's De senectute I note that you make Capua to be a town of Apulia, when it is the capital of Campania, and formerly, with the exception of Rome, the noblest town of Italy. It is due to the same want of attention that you set me down as a Portuguese in your Ciceronianus, when you knew I was from Corduba, as I informed you in that pamphlet which I spoke of above. So I