to his learning. … Luther has rightly found fault with some things, would that he had done so with a success equal to his courage.”[693] His letters to England are in the same strain: “All are agreed in praise of this man’s life. It is in itself no small matter that his conduct is so blameless that even his enemies can find nothing with which to reproach him.”[694]
To Luther himself, on May 30, 1519, in reply to a friendly and very submissive letter received from him, he complains of the attacks made upon him at Louvain as the alleged prime instigator of the Lutheran movement. He had replied—what as a matter of fact deprives the testimony he had given in his favour of much of its weight—that Luther was quite unknown to him (“te mihi ignotissimum esse”), that he had not yet read his books and was therefore unable to express either approval or disapproval. “I hold myself, as far as is permissible, aloof (‘me integrum servo’), that I may be of greater service to the revival of learning. More is gained by well-mannered modesty than by storming.” He adds other admonitions to peaceableness and prudence, and, after some cautious expressions of praise and thanks for his Commentary on the Psalms,[695] at which he had been able to cast only a cursory glance, finally wishes him “a daily increase of the Spirit of Christ to His honour and the public weal.”[696] By this letter, which appeared in print a few weeks later, Erasmus offended both parties; to Luther’s followers the author appeared too reticent, and to be wanting in cordiality; to his opponents he seemed unduly to favour the innovations. To justify himself he sent out several letters, one being to Archbishop Albert of Mayence on November 1, 1519. In this he admits the existence of “certain sparks of an excellent, evangelical spirit” in Luther, “who is not striving after either honours or riches” and “at whose writings the best minds take no offence.” Luther should not “be suppressed, but rather brought to a right frame of mind”; he finds fault with the fact that in him an honest man has been unfairly and publicly defamed; Luther had only too just cause for his proceeding in the thousand abuses prevailing in ecclesiastical life and in theology. Here again he is careful to add, as usual, that he had not found time to peruse Luther’s writings.[697] This letter, which was to reach Albert through Hutten, and with which he at once became acquainted, Luther calls an “egregia epistola,” which might well be printed.[698] Hutten, in point of fact, had the letter printed before handing it to the addressee, and, on his own responsibility, altered the name “Lutherus” into the more significant “Lutherus noster.”[699]
Erasmus, while thus whitewashing and indirectly furthering Luther’s cause, wrote with less restraint to Zwingli: “It seems to me that I have taught well-nigh all that Luther teaches, only less violently, and without so many enigmas and paradoxes.”[700] It was his desire to be reckoned a leader in every field.
After the breach between Luther and the ecclesiastical past had been consummated in 1520, Erasmus became more and more guarded in his utterances, whether public or private. His blame of Luther becomes ever more severe, though he is still desirous of finding a via media, and is willing to approve of far too much in Luther’s action. The excommunication of the heretic by the ecclesiastical authorities he describes in one of his letters after the publication of the Bull as an unfortunate mistake, showing want of charity; a peaceful adjustment of the controversy might easily have been reached by means of a council of wise men; this course his biassed mind still regarded as feasible.[701]
It was on July 6, 1520, only a few days before Luther broke out into the exclamation: “The dice have fallen in my favour” (above, p. 24), that Erasmus, alarmed at the tone of Luther’s controversial writings, wrote to Spalatin warning him that Luther was utterly wanting in moderation and that Christ was surely not guiding his pen.[702] He now exerted himself to dissociate from Luther those of his friends who had not as yet entirely gone over to him, and to retain them for the Church, for instance, Justus Jonas.[703] As for himself he declared he would never be dragged away, either in life or death, from communion with the ecclesiastical authority ordained by God.[704] His complaints concerning Luther’s unrestrained violence and vituperation were ceaseless;[705] he saw the effect on Luther of the popular feeling, and the great applause he met with, he even attributed his obstinacy in great measure to the “plaudits of the world’s stage,” which had turned his head.[706] In his letters he also gives expression to a happy thought: the upheaval accomplished by the Wittenberg Professor was indeed a misfortune for his own age, but it might also be a remedy for the future. On November 20, 1522, he wrote to King Ferdinand: “God grant that this drastic and bitter remedy, which, in consequence of Luther’s apostasy, has stirred up all the world like a body that is sick in every part, may have a wholesome effect for the recovery of Christian morals.”[707] Erasmus also set to work to compose practical booklets on religion and worship. A “Modus confitendi” he published in 1525 was frequently reprinted later; its aim was to restore to honour the Sacrament of Penance so maltreated by the innovators. At a later date he even composed a sort of Catechism, the “Explanatio symboli” (1533).
“In Luther I find to my surprise two different persons,” Erasmus wrote on March 13, 1526, to Bishop Michael of Langres. “One writes in such a way that he seems to breathe the apostolic spirit, the other makes use of such unbecoming invective as to appear to be altogether unmindful of it.”[708] To another bishop, on September 1, 1528, he writes: “Whatever of good there may be in Luther’s teaching and exhortations we shall put in practice, not because it emanates from him, but because it is true and agrees with Holy Scripture.”[709]
He continued to scourge the abuses in ecclesiastical life and to demand a reformation, but he did so in a fashion more measured and dignified than formerly, so that well-disposed Catholics for the most part agreed with him.
Owing to the new position he assumed, the Popes did not repel him, but showed him favour and confidence. They were desirous of retaining him and his enormous influence for the good of the Church. A Spanish theologian, who had written an “Antapologia” against Erasmus to reinforce the attack made upon him by Prince Carpi, tells us that Clement VII, after glancing through the work, said to him: “The Holy See has never set the seal of its approbation on the spirit of Erasmus and his writings, but it has spared him in order that he might not separate himself from the Church and embrace the cause of Lutheranism to the detriment of our interests.”[710] According to one account, Paul III even wished to make him a cardinal; Erasmus, however, refused this dignity on account of his age.
Luther for his part was fond of saying, that he merely spoke out plainly what Erasmus in his timidity only ventured to hint at. He himself, he tells a correspondent, had led the believing Christians into the Promised Land, whereas Erasmus had conducted them only as far as the land of Moab.[711] He recognised, however, the great difference between himself and Erasmus in their fundamental theological views, for instance, as to the condition of man stained by original sin, as to his free-will for doing what is good, his justification and pardon, on all of which the Humanist scholar held fast to the traditional teaching of the Church because, so Luther says, he could not, or would not, understand the Bible. Luther was well aware that, as time went on, Erasmus frequently protested that he had never had any intention of writing anything contrary to the revealed Word of God as taught by Holy Scripture and the common faith of Christendom; that he submitted himself to the decisions of the Popes, that he was ready to accept, as the Voice of God, what the authorities of the Church taught, even though he might not understand the reasons, and be personally inclined to embrace the opposite. His standpoint was accordingly miles removed from that of Luther with its unfettered freedom in religious matters.[712]
In one of his Apologies Erasmus states of his earlier writings—in which, it is true he often goes too far—that “neither Lutherans nor anti-Lutherans could clearly show him to have called into question any single dogma of the Church”; though numbers had tried hard to do so, they had merely succeeded in “bringing forward affinities, congruities, grounds for scandal and suspicion, and not a few big fibs.”[713] Concerning his tendency to scepticism he says nothing.
Of the excessive zeal of certain critics he says in the same passage: “Some theologians, in their hatred for Luther, condemn good and pious sayings which do not emanate