Latest / Erasmus and the Age of Reformation / 17 - Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizinga

Transcript

17 - Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizinga · Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation. This
0:05
Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
0:09
Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
0:14
Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Ritobutros. Erasmus and the Age
0:20
Speaker 1: of Reformation by Johann Huizinga, translated by Frederic Jan Huppmann,
0:27
Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen, Erasmus at Basil, fifteen twenty one to fifteen
0:33
Speaker 1: twenty nine. It is only towards the evening of life
0:38
Speaker 1: that the picture of Erasmus acquires the features with which
0:42
Speaker 1: it was to go down to posterity. Only at Basil,
0:46
Speaker 1: delivered from the troublesome pressure of parties wanting to enlist him,
0:51
Speaker 1: Transplanted from an environment of haters and opponents, at Louvain
0:56
Speaker 1: two a circle of friends, kindred spirits, helpers and admirers,
1:02
Speaker 1: emancipated from the courts of princes, independent of the patronage
1:06
Speaker 1: of the great. Unremittingly devoting his tremendous energy to the
1:11
Speaker 1: work that was dear to him, did he become Holbind's Erasmus.
1:16
Speaker 1: In those late years he approaches most closely to the
1:20
Speaker 1: ideal of his personal life. He did not think that
1:24
Speaker 1: there were still fifteen years in store for him. Long before.
1:29
Speaker 1: In fact, since he became forty years old in fifteen
1:33
Speaker 1: o six, Erasmus had been in an old age mood.
1:38
Speaker 1: The last act of the play has begun, he keeps saying.
1:41
Speaker 1: After fifteen seventeen he now felt practically independent as to
1:47
Speaker 1: money matters. Many years had passed before he could say that.
1:52
Speaker 1: But peace of mind did not come with competence. It
1:56
Speaker 1: never came. He never became truly placid, and so as
2:00
Speaker 1: Holbein's picture seems to represent him, he was always too
2:05
Speaker 1: much concerned about what people said or thought of him.
2:09
Speaker 1: Even at Basil, he did not feel thoroughly at home.
2:13
Speaker 1: He still speaks repeatedly of a removal in the near
2:16
Speaker 1: future to Rome, to France, to England, or back to
2:21
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. Physical rest, at any rate, which was not
2:26
Speaker 1: in him, was granted him by circumstances. For nearly eight
2:30
Speaker 1: years he now remained at Basil, and then he lived
2:34
Speaker 1: at Fribourg for six Erasmus at Basil is a man
2:39
Speaker 1: whose ideals of the world and society have failed him.
2:43
Speaker 1: What remains of that happy expectation of a golden age
2:47
Speaker 1: of peace and light, in which he had believed as
2:51
Speaker 1: late as fifteen seventeen. What of his trust in good
2:55
Speaker 1: will and rational insight, in which he wrote the Institute
3:00
Speaker 1: Utio Principice Christiani for the youthful Charles the Fifth. To Erasmus,
3:06
Speaker 1: all the weal of state and society had always been
3:10
Speaker 1: merely a matter of personal morality and intellectual enlightenment. By
3:17
Speaker 1: recommending and spreading those two he at one time thought
3:21
Speaker 1: he had introduced the great renovation himself. From the moment
3:25
Speaker 1: when he saw that the conflict would lead to an
3:28
Speaker 1: exasperated struggle, he refused any longer to be anything but
3:33
Speaker 1: a spectator. As an actor in the great ecclesiastical combat,
3:38
Speaker 1: Erasmus had voluntarily left the stage, but he does not
3:44
Speaker 1: give up his ideal. Let us resist. He concludes an
3:48
Speaker 1: epistle about Gospel philosophy, not by taunts and threats, not
3:53
Speaker 1: by force of arms and injustice, but by simple discretion,
3:58
Speaker 1: by benefits, by gentleness and tolerance. Towards the close of
4:03
Speaker 1: his life, he prays, if thou, o God deign'st to
4:07
Speaker 1: renew that Holy Spirit in the hearts of all, then
4:11
Speaker 1: also will those external disasters cease, bring order to this chaos.
4:17
Speaker 1: Lord Jesus, let thy spirit spread over these waters of
4:21
Speaker 1: sadly troubled Dogmas. Concord, peace, sense of duty, and kindliness
4:28
Speaker 1: were all valued highly by Erasmus, yet he rarely saw
4:33
Speaker 1: them realized in practical life. He becomes disillusioned after the
4:38
Speaker 1: short spell of political optimism. He never speaks of the
4:42
Speaker 1: times any more, but in bitter terms. A most criminal age,
4:48
Speaker 1: he says. And again, the most unhappy and most depraved
4:52
Speaker 1: age imaginable in vain. Had he always written in the
4:57
Speaker 1: cause of peace, querula passis the complaint of peace, the
5:01
Speaker 1: adage dulcibellum in expertise, war is sweet to those who
5:07
Speaker 1: have not known it, oratio de passe et discordia. And
5:11
Speaker 1: more still, Erasmus thought rather highly of his pacifistic labors,
5:18
Speaker 1: that polygraph who never leaves off persecuting war by means
5:22
Speaker 1: of his pen. Thus he makes a character of the
5:26
Speaker 1: colloquies designate himself. According to a tradition noted by Melancthon,
5:33
Speaker 1: Pope Julius is said to have called him before him
5:36
Speaker 1: in connection with his advice about the war with Venice,
5:40
Speaker 1: and to have remarked to him angrily that he should
5:44
Speaker 1: stop writing on the concerns of princes. You do not
5:48
Speaker 1: understand those things. Erasmus had, in spite of a certain
5:53
Speaker 1: innate moderation, a wholly non political mind. He lived too
5:58
Speaker 1: much outside of practical reality and thought too naively of
6:03
Speaker 1: the corrigibility of mankind to realize the difficulties and necessities
6:09
Speaker 1: of government. His ideas about a good administration were extremely primitive, and,
6:16
Speaker 1: as is often the case with scholars of a strong
6:19
Speaker 1: ethical bias, very revolutionary at bottom, though he never dreamed
6:25
Speaker 1: of drawing the practical inferences. His friendship with political and
6:30
Speaker 1: juridical thinkers as more Budaeus and Zeesius had not changed him.
6:37
Speaker 1: Questions of forms of government, law or right did not
6:41
Speaker 1: exist for him. Economic problems he saw in idyllic simplicity.
6:47
Speaker 1: The prince should reign gratuitously and impose as few taxes
6:51
Speaker 1: as possible. The good prince as all that loving citizens possess.
6:57
Speaker 1: The unemployed should be simply driven away. We feel in
7:01
Speaker 1: closer contact with the world of facts when he enumerates
7:05
Speaker 1: the works of peace for the prince, the cleaning of towns,
7:09
Speaker 1: building of bridges, halls, and streets, draining of pools, shifting
7:14
Speaker 1: of river beds, the diking and reclamation of moors. It
7:19
Speaker 1: is the nether lander who speaks here, and at the
7:22
Speaker 1: same time the man in whom the need of cleansing
7:25
Speaker 1: and clearing away is a fundamental trait of character. Vague
7:30
Speaker 1: politicians like Erasmus are prone to judge princes very severely,
7:36
Speaker 1: since they take them to be responsible for all wrongs.
7:40
Speaker 1: Erasmus praises them personally, but condemns them in general. From
7:46
Speaker 1: the kings of his time, he had for a long
7:49
Speaker 1: time expected peace in church and state. They had disappointed him.
7:55
Speaker 1: But his severe judgment of princes he derived rather from
7:59
Speaker 1: classical reasa than from political experience of his own times.
8:04
Speaker 1: In the later editions of the Adagia, he often reverts
8:09
Speaker 1: to princes their task and their neglect of duty, without
8:13
Speaker 1: ever mentioning special princes. There are those who sow the
8:17
Speaker 1: seeds of dissension between their townships in order to fleece
8:22
Speaker 1: the poor unhindered, and to satisfy their gluttony by the
8:26
Speaker 1: hunger of innocent citizens. In the Adage Scarabius aquilum quait,
8:32
Speaker 1: he represents the prince under the image of the Eagle
8:36
Speaker 1: as the great cruel, robber and persecutor. In another ought
8:41
Speaker 1: regim ot fatuum naci oportere, and in Dulce Bellum in expertise,
8:48
Speaker 1: he utters his frequently quoted dictum, the people found and
8:52
Speaker 1: developed towns. The folly of princes devastates them. The princes
8:58
Speaker 1: conspire with the Pope and perhaps with the Turk, against
9:02
Speaker 1: the happiness of the people, he writes to Colette in
9:06
Speaker 1: fifteen eighteen. He was an academic critic, writing from his study.
9:12
Speaker 1: A revolutionary purpose was as feign to Erasmus as it
9:16
Speaker 1: was to More when writing the Utopia. Bad monarchs should
9:21
Speaker 1: perhaps be suffered now, and then the remedy should not
9:25
Speaker 1: be tried. It may be doubted whether Erasmus exercised much
9:30
Speaker 1: real influence on his contemporaries by means of his diatribes
9:34
Speaker 1: against princes. One would fain believe that his ardent love
9:39
Speaker 1: of peace and bitter arraignment of the madness of war
9:43
Speaker 1: had some effect. They have undoubtedly spread pacific sentiments in
9:48
Speaker 1: the broad circles of intellectuals who read Erasmus, but unfortunately,
9:54
Speaker 1: the history of the sixteenth century shows little evidence that
9:58
Speaker 1: such sentiments bore in actual practice. However this may be,
10:04
Speaker 1: Erasmus's strength was not in these political declamations. He could
10:09
Speaker 1: never be a leader of men, with their passions and
10:13
Speaker 1: their harsh interests. His life work lay elsewhere. Now at Basil,
10:20
Speaker 1: though tormented more and more frequently by his painful complaint
10:24
Speaker 1: which he had already carried for so many years, he
10:28
Speaker 1: could devote himself more fully than ever before to the
10:32
Speaker 1: great task he had set himself, the opening up of
10:36
Speaker 1: the pure sources of Christianity, the exposition of the truth
10:40
Speaker 1: of the Gospel in all the simple comprehensibility in which
10:44
Speaker 1: he saw it. In a broad stream flowed the additions
10:48
Speaker 1: of the fathers of classic authors, the new editions of
10:53
Speaker 1: the New Testament, of the adagia of his own letters,
10:57
Speaker 1: together with paraphrases of the New Testament, commentaries on Psalms,
11:03
Speaker 1: and a number of new theological, moral, and philological treatises.
11:09
Speaker 1: In fifteen twenty two he was ill for months on end.
11:14
Speaker 1: Yet in that year Arnobius and the Third edition of
11:18
Speaker 1: the New Testament succeeded Cyprian, whom he had already annotated
11:24
Speaker 1: at Leuvain and edited in fifteen twenty closely followed by
11:29
Speaker 1: Hillary in fifteen twenty three, and next by a new
11:33
Speaker 1: edition of Jerome in fifteen twenty four. Later appeared Ernaeus
11:40
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty six, Ambrose fifteen twenty seven, Augustine fifteen twenty
11:47
Speaker 1: eight to fifteen twenty nine, and a Latin translation of
11:51
Speaker 1: Chrysostom in fifteen thirty. The rapid succession of these comprehensive
11:57
Speaker 1: works proves that the work was done as Erasmus always worked, hastily,
12:03
Speaker 1: with an extraordinary power of concentration and a surprising command
12:08
Speaker 1: of his mnemonic faculty, but without severe criticism and the
12:13
Speaker 1: painful accuracy that modern philology requires in such editions. Neither
12:20
Speaker 1: the polemical Erasmus nor the witty humorist had been lost
12:25
Speaker 1: in the erudite divine and the disillusioned reformer the paper warrior,
12:31
Speaker 1: we would further gladly have dispensed with, but not the
12:35
Speaker 1: humorist for many treasures of literature. But the two are
12:39
Speaker 1: linked inseparably. As the colloquies prove, what was said about
12:44
Speaker 1: the moria may be repeated here. If in the literature
12:49
Speaker 1: of the world only the colloquies and the Moria have
12:52
Speaker 1: remained alive, that choice of history is right, not in
12:57
Speaker 1: the sense that in literature only Erasmus's pleasantest, lightest, and
13:02
Speaker 1: most readable works were preserved, whereas the ponderous theological erudition
13:09
Speaker 1: was silently relegated to the shelves of libraries. It was
13:14
Speaker 1: indeed Erasmus's best work that was kept alive in the
13:18
Speaker 1: Moria and the Colloquies. With these his sparkling wit has
13:23
Speaker 1: charmed the world. If only we had space here to
13:27
Speaker 1: assign to the Erasmus of the Colloquies his just and
13:31
Speaker 1: lofty place in that brilliant constellation of sixteenth century followers
13:37
Speaker 1: of Democritus, Rabelais, Ariosto, Montaigne, Servantes and ben Jonson. When
13:45
Speaker 1: Erasmus gave the Colloquies their definite form at Basil, they
13:50
Speaker 1: had already had a long and curious genesis. At first,
13:55
Speaker 1: they had been no more than Familiarium colloquiorium formulae models
14:00
Speaker 1: of colloquial Latin conversation, written at Paris before fifteen hundred
14:06
Speaker 1: for the use of his pupils. Augustine Camenade, the shabby friend,
14:12
Speaker 1: who was fond of living on young Erasmus's genius, had
14:16
Speaker 1: collected them and had turned them to advantage within a
14:20
Speaker 1: limited compass. He had long been dead when one Lamberhellonius
14:25
Speaker 1: of Liege sold the manuscript that he had got from
14:29
Speaker 1: Camanade to Froben at Basel beetus Rehnanus. Although then already
14:35
Speaker 1: Erasmus's trusted friend, had it printed at once without the
14:40
Speaker 1: latter's knowledge, that was in fifteen eighteen. Erasmus was justly
14:45
Speaker 1: offended at it, the more so as the book was
14:49
Speaker 1: full of slovenly blunders and solecisms. So he at once
14:53
Speaker 1: prepared a better edition himself, published by Martense at Leuvain
14:59
Speaker 1: in fifteen ninety. At that time the work really contained
15:03
Speaker 1: but one true dialogue, the nucleus of the latter, Convivium profanum.
15:10
Speaker 1: The rest were formulae of etiquette and short talks. But
15:14
Speaker 1: already in this form it was, apart from its usefulness
15:19
Speaker 1: to Latinus, so full of happy wit and humorous invention
15:24
Speaker 1: that it became very popular. Even before fifteen twenty two,
15:29
Speaker 1: it had appeared in twenty five editions, mostly reprints, at Antwerp, Paris, Strasbourg, Cologne, Krakau,
15:38
Speaker 1: de vent Leipzig, London, Vienna, Mayence At basil. Erasmus himself
15:46
Speaker 1: revised an edition which was published in March fifteen twenty
15:51
Speaker 1: two by Froben, dedicated to the latter's six year old son,
15:56
Speaker 1: the author's godchild, Johannes Erasmius Froben. Soon after, he did
16:02
Speaker 1: more than revise. In fifteen twenty three and fifteen twenty four,
16:07
Speaker 1: first ten new dialogues. Afterwards four and again six were
16:13
Speaker 1: added to the formulae, and at last, in fifteen twenty six,
16:18
Speaker 1: the title was changed to Familiarum Colloquiorum Opus. It remained
16:24
Speaker 1: dedicated to the boy Froben, and went on growing, with
16:28
Speaker 1: each new edition, a rich and motley collection of dialogues,
16:33
Speaker 1: each a masterpiece of literary form, well knit, spontaneous, convincing,
16:39
Speaker 1: unsurpassed in lightness, vivacity, and fluent Latin, each one a
16:45
Speaker 1: finished one act play. From that year on, the stream
16:50
Speaker 1: of additions and translations flowed almost uninterruptedly for two centuries.
16:57
Speaker 1: Erasmus's mind had lost nothing of its acuteness and freshness, when,
17:02
Speaker 1: so many years after the Moria he again set foot
17:06
Speaker 1: in the field of satire, as to form. The colloquies
17:10
Speaker 1: are less confessedly satirical than the morea with its telling subject,
17:16
Speaker 1: the praise of folly. The latter at once introduces itself
17:20
Speaker 1: as a satire, whereas at first sight the colloquies might
17:25
Speaker 1: seem to be mere innocent genre pieces. But as to
17:29
Speaker 1: the contents, they are more satirical, at least more directly so.
17:35
Speaker 1: The Moria as a satire is philosophical and general. The
17:40
Speaker 1: colloquia are up to date and special. At the same time,
17:45
Speaker 1: they combine more the positive and negative elements in the Moria.
17:51
Speaker 1: Erasmus's own ideal dwells unexpressed behind the representation in the colloquia,
17:58
Speaker 1: he continually and clearly puts it in the foreground. On
18:02
Speaker 1: this account, they form, notwithstanding all the jests and mockery,
18:07
Speaker 1: a profoundly serious moral treaties, and are closely akin to
18:12
Speaker 1: the Encyridian militis Christiani. What Erasmus really demanded of the
18:18
Speaker 1: world and of mankind, how he pictured to himself that
18:22
Speaker 1: passionately desired purified Christian society of good morals, fervent faith,
18:29
Speaker 1: simplicity and moderation, kindliness, toleration, and peace. This we can
18:36
Speaker 1: nowhere else find so clearly and well expressed, as in
18:40
Speaker 1: the colloquia. In these last fifteen years of his life,
18:44
Speaker 1: Erasmus resumes by means of a series of moral dogmatic disquisitions,
18:50
Speaker 1: the topics he broached in the Enchyridian, the exposition of
18:55
Speaker 1: simple general Christian conduct, untrammeled and natural ethics, that is
19:02
Speaker 1: his message of redemption. It came to many out of
19:05
Speaker 1: exomologesis Deusucarnium lingua, Institutio Christiani, Matrimonia Vidua Christiana Ecclesiastes, but
19:16
Speaker 1: to far larger numbers the message was contained in the colloquies.
19:22
Speaker 1: The colloquia give rise to much more hatred and contest
19:27
Speaker 1: than the Mooria, and not without reason, for in them
19:31
Speaker 1: Erasmus attacked persons. He allowed himself the pleasure of ridiculing
19:36
Speaker 1: his luvain antagonists. Lee had already been introduced as a
19:41
Speaker 1: sycophant and Braggart into the addition of fifteen nineteen, and
19:46
Speaker 1: when the quarrel was assuaged in fifteen twenty two, the
19:51
Speaker 1: reference was expunged. Vincent Dirk's was caricatured in the Funeral
19:56
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty six as a covetous fri who extorts from
20:01
Speaker 1: the dying testaments in favor of his order. He remained. Later,
20:07
Speaker 1: sarcastic observations were added about Beda and numbers of others.
20:13
Speaker 1: The adherents of Occhio Lampadius took a figure with a
20:17
Speaker 1: long nose in the colloquies for their leader. Oh no,
20:21
Speaker 1: replied Erasmus, it is meant for quite another person. Henceforth,
20:27
Speaker 1: all those who were at loggerheads with Erasmus, and they
20:30
Speaker 1: were many, ran the risk of being pilloried in a colloquia.
20:35
Speaker 1: It was no wonder that this work, especially with its
20:39
Speaker 1: scourging mockery of the monastic orders, became the object of controversy.
20:45
Speaker 1: Erasmus never emerged from his polemics. He was no doubt
20:50
Speaker 1: serious when he said that in his heart he abhorred
20:54
Speaker 1: and had never desired them, But his caustic mind often
20:59
Speaker 1: got the better of his life heart, And having once
21:01
Speaker 1: begun to quarrel, he undoubtedly enjoyed giving his mockery the rain,
21:06
Speaker 1: and wielding his facile dialectic pen for understanding his personality.
21:13
Speaker 1: It is unnecessary here to deal at large with all
21:17
Speaker 1: those fights on paper. Only the most important ones need
21:21
Speaker 1: be mentioned. Since fifteen sixteen, a pot had been boiling
21:26
Speaker 1: for Erasmus. In Spain, a theologian of the University at Alcala,
21:32
Speaker 1: Diego Lopez Zuniga, or in Latin Stunica, had been preparing
21:38
Speaker 1: annotations to the addition of the New Testament, a second Lee,
21:43
Speaker 1: said Erasmus. At first Cardinal Ximenez had prohibited the publication,
21:49
Speaker 1: but in fifteen twenty, after his death, the storm broke.
21:54
Speaker 1: For some years Stunica kept persecuting Erasmus with his criticism
21:59
Speaker 1: to the last great Vexation. At last there followed a rapprochement,
22:04
Speaker 1: probably as Erasmus became more conservative and a kindly attitude
22:10
Speaker 1: on the part of Stunica. No less long and violent
22:14
Speaker 1: was the quarrel with the Syndic of the Sorbonne Noel
22:18
Speaker 1: Bedier or Beda, which began in fifteen twenty two. The
22:23
Speaker 1: sorban was prevailed upon to condemn several of Erasmus's dicta
22:28
Speaker 1: as heretical. In fifteen twenty six, the effort of Beda
22:33
Speaker 1: to implicate Erasmus in the trial of Louis de Berquin,
22:37
Speaker 1: who had translated the condemned writings, and who was eventually
22:41
Speaker 1: burned at the stake for Faith's sake in fifteen twenty
22:45
Speaker 1: nine made the matter still more disagreeable for Erasmus. It
22:51
Speaker 1: is clear enough that both at Paris and at Louvain,
22:55
Speaker 1: in the circles of the theological faculties, the chief cause of
22:59
Speaker 1: exasperation was in the colloquia. Egmondanus and Vincent Dirks did
23:05
Speaker 1: not forgive Erasmus for having accridly censured their station and
23:10
Speaker 1: their personalities. More courteous than the aforementioned polemics was the
23:17
Speaker 1: fight with a high born Italian, Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi.
23:22
Speaker 1: Acrid and bitter was one with a group of Spanish
23:25
Speaker 1: monks who brought the inquisition to bear upon him. In Spain,
23:30
Speaker 1: Erasmistus was the name of those who inclined to more
23:34
Speaker 1: liberal conceptions of the creed. In this way the matter
23:39
Speaker 1: accumulated for the volume of Erasmus's works, which contains, according
23:45
Speaker 1: to his own arrangement, all his apologie, not excuses, but vindications.
23:52
Speaker 1: Miserable man that I am, They just fill a volume,
23:55
Speaker 1: exclaimed Erasmus. Two of his polemics merit somewhat closer examination,
24:02
Speaker 1: that with Ulrich von Hutten and that with Luther Hutton
24:07
Speaker 1: Knight and humanist, the enthusiastic herald of a national German uplift,
24:13
Speaker 1: the ardent hater of papacy and supporter of Luther. Was
24:18
Speaker 1: certainly a hot head and perhaps somewhat of a muddlehead.
24:22
Speaker 1: He had applauded Erasmus when the latter still seemed to
24:26
Speaker 1: be the coming man, and had afterwards besought him to
24:29
Speaker 1: take Luther's side. Erasmus had soon discovered that this noisy
24:35
Speaker 1: partisan might compromise him, had not one of Hutton's rash
24:40
Speaker 1: satires been ascribed to him Erasmus. There came a time
24:45
Speaker 1: when Hutton could no longer abide Erasmus. His knightly instinct
24:50
Speaker 1: reacted on the very weaknesses of Erasmus's character, the fear
24:55
Speaker 1: of committing himself and the inclination to repudiate a supporter
24:59
Speaker 1: in teme of danger. Erasmus knew that weakness himself. Not
25:05
Speaker 1: all have strength enough for martyrdom. He writes to Richard
25:09
Speaker 1: Pace in fifteen twenty one, I fear that I shall
25:13
Speaker 1: in case it results in a tumult, follows Saint Peter's example.
25:18
Speaker 1: But this acknowledgment does not discharge him from the burden
25:22
Speaker 1: of Hutton's reproaches, which he flung at him in fiery
25:26
Speaker 1: language in fifteen twenty three. In this quarrel, Erasmus's own
25:32
Speaker 1: fame pays the penalty of his fault. For nowhere does
25:36
Speaker 1: he show himself so undignified and puny as in that
25:41
Speaker 1: sponge against Hutton's mire, which the latter did not live
25:45
Speaker 1: to read. Hutton, disillusioned and forsaken, died at an early
25:50
Speaker 1: age in fifteen twenty three, and Erasmus did not scruple
25:55
Speaker 1: to publish the venomous pamphlet against his former friend. After
26:00
Speaker 1: his demise. Hutton, however, was avenged upon Erasmus's living. One
26:06
Speaker 1: of his adherents, Henry of Eppendorf, inherited Hutton's bitter disgust
26:11
Speaker 1: with Erasmus and persecuted him for years. Getting hold of
26:16
Speaker 1: one of Erasmus's letters in which he was denounced, he
26:20
Speaker 1: continually threatened him with an action for defamation of character.
26:25
Speaker 1: Ependorf's hostility so thoroughly exasperated Erasmus that he fancied he
26:31
Speaker 1: could detect his machinations and spies everywhere, even after the
26:36
Speaker 1: actual persecution had long ceased. End of Chapter seventeen,