СНАР. A.D. 1518. house in order, and was ready to leave in other hands the work which he himself had commenced. Marquard von Hatstein to John Colet.1 I have often thought with admiration of your blessedness, who born to wealth and of so illustrious 'a family have added to these gifts of fortune man'ners and intellectual culture abundantly corresponding therewith. For such is your learning, piety, and 'manner of life, such lastly your Christian constancy, 'that notwithstanding all these gifts of fortune, you seem to care for little but that you may run in the path of Christ in so noble a spirit, that you are not surpassed by any even of those who call themselves ""mendicants." For they in many things simulate and 'dissimulate for the sake of sensual pleasures. 'When recently the trumpet of cruel war sounded so terribly, how did you hold up against it the image ' of Christ! the olive-branch of peace! You exhorted us to tolerance, to concord, to the yielding up of our goods for the good of a brother, instead of invading one another's rights. You told us that there was no 'cause of war between Christians, who are bound together by holy ties in a love more than fraternal. And many other things of a like nature did you urge, 'with so great authority, that I may truly say that the 'virtue of Christ thus set forth by Colet was seen from afar. And thus did you discomfit the dark designs ' of your enemies. Men raging against the truth, you conquered with the mildness of an apostle. You 1 Epistolæ aliquot Eruditorum, &c. Appended to Apologia Erasmi, &c. Basil, 1520, pp. 139, 140. 6 'opposed your gentleness to their insane violence. 6 6 Through your innocence you escaped from any harm, even though by their numbers (for there is always 'the most abundant crop of what is bad) they were ' able to override your better opinion. With a skill like that with which Homer published the praises of Achilles, Erasmus has studiously held up to the ad'miration of the world and of posterity the name of England, and especially of Colet, whom he has so described that there is not a good man of any nation 'who does not honour you. I seem to myself to see 'that each of you owes much to the other, but which of the two owes most to the other I am doubtful. For he must have received good from you: seeing • that you are hardly likely to have been magnified by his colouring pen. You, however, if I may freely say 'what I think, do seem to owe some thanks to him for making publicly known those virtues which before 6 were unknown to us. Still I fancy you are not the 'less victor in the matter of benefits conferred, since you have blessed Erasmus, a stranger to England, ' otherwise an incomparable man, with so many friends -Mountjoy, More, Linacre, Tunstal, &c. . . 6 Having commenced my theological studies, I have 'learned from the conversation and writings of Erasmus to regard you as my exemplar. I wish I could really follow you as closely as I long to do. I long, not only to improve myself in letters, but to lead a holier ' life. Farewell in Christ. VI. Cal. Maii, Anno MDXX.' (should be probably 1519).1 1 This letter possibly may not have reached England before Colet's death; but it is most likely that the date is wrong, as so often is the case with these letters-the year CHAP. XVI. A.D. 1518. CHAP. A.D. 1519. More receives a a monk. IV. MORE'S CONVERSION ATTEMPTED BY THE MONKS (1519). Erasmus was as much hated by the monks in England as by the monks at Cologne; but they found their attempts to stir up ill-feeling against him checkmated by the influence of More and his friends. More's father was known to be a good Catholic, and probably to belong, as an old man with conservative tendencies was likely to do, to the orthodox party. He himself was now too near the royal ear to be a harmless adherent of the new learning-as they had learned to their cost before now. He was so popular, too, with all parties! If only he could be detached from Erasmus and brought over to their own side, what a triumph it would be! So an anonymous letter was written by a monk to letter from More, expressing great solicitude for his welfare, and fears lest he should be corrupted by too great intimacy with Erasmus; lest he should be led astray, by too great love of his writings, into the adoption of his new and foreign doctrines! The good monk was particularly shocked at the hints thrown out by Erasmus in his writings, that, after all, the holy doctors and fathers of the Church were fallible. He took up the vulgar objections which the letter of Dorpius, and a still more recent attack upon Erasmus, by an Englishman named Edward Lee, had put into every one's mouth, and tried to persuade More to be wise in time, lest he should become infected with the Erasmian poison. More's letter in reply to the over-anxious monk has been preserved.1 CHAP. XVI. He indignantly repelled the insinuation that he was A.D. 1519. in danger of contamination from his intimacy with His reply. Erasmus, whose New Testament the very Pope had sanctioned, who lived in the nearest intimacy with such men as Colet, Fisher, and Warham; to say nothing of Mountjoy, Tunstal, Pace, and Grocyn. Those who knew Erasmus best, loved him most. Then turning to the charge made against Erasmus, that he denied the infallibility of the fathers, More wrote: 6 6 6 Do you deny that they ever made mistakes? I put ' it to you-when Augustine thought that Jerome had ' mistranslated a passage, and Jerome defended what he ' had done, was not one of the two mistaken? When Augustine asserted that the Septuagint is to be taken as 'an indubitably faithful translation, and Jerome denied it, and asserted that its translators had fallen into errors, was not one of the two mistaken? When Augustine, ' in support of his view, adduced the story of the won⚫derful agreement of the different translations produced by the inspired translators writing in separate cells, and Jerome laughed at the story as absurd, was not one of the two mistaken? When Jerome, writing on the Epistle to the Galatians, translated its meaning to 'be that Peter was blamed by Paul for dissimulating, and Augustine denied it, was not one of them mistaken?... Augustine asserts that demons and angels 1 Epistola clarissimi viri Thomæ | tolæ aliquot Eruditorum Virorum, 'Mori, qua refellit rabiosam maledi- &c. Basilea, м.DXX. pp. 92-138. 'centiam monachi cujusdam juxta Also Jortin's Life of Erasmus, Ap'indocti atque arrogantis.'-Epis- pendix. CHAP. A.D. 1519. also have material and substantial bodies. I doubt not that even you deny this! He asserts that infants dying without baptism are consigned to physical tor'ments in eternal punishment-how many are there Alludes to 'who believe this now? unless it be that Luther, clinging clinging by by tooth and nail to the doctrine of Augustine, should be induced to revive this antiquated notion. Luther's tooth and nail to Augustine. But his own views '1 I have quoted this passage from More's letter because it shows clearly, not only how fully More had adopted the position taken up by Erasmus, but also how fully his eyes were open to the fact, that the rising reformer of Wittemberg did 'cling by tooth and nail to the doctrine of Augustine,' and was likely, by doing so, to be led astray into some of the harsh views, and, as he thought, obvious errors of that Holy Father. At the same time the following passage may be not Pela- quoted as proof that, in rejecting the Augustinian creed, More and his friends did not run into the other extreme of Pelagianism. gian. He had told the monk at the beginning of his letter, that after he had shown how safe was the ground upon which Erasmus and he were walking in the valley, he would turn round and assail the lofty but tottering citadel, from which the monk looked down upon them with so proud a sense of security. So after he had disposed of the monk's arguments, he began :— Into what factions-into how many sects is the order cut up! Then, what tumults, what tragedies ' arise about little differences in the colour or mode of girding the monastic habit, or some matter of ceremony which, if not altogether despicable, is at all events not 1 'Nisi quod Lutherus fertur Au'gustini doctrinam mordicus tenens antiquatam sententiam rursus in'staurare.'-p. 99. |