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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Olivia Erasmus and the Age
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  Speaker 1: of Reformation by Johann Huizingra, translated by Frederic Jan Hopmann.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen, Controversy with Luther and growing Conservatism fifteen twenty
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  Speaker 1: four to twenty six. Erasmus persuaded to write against Luther
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  Speaker 1: De Libero Arbitrio fifteen twenty four. Luther's answer De Servo
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  Speaker 1: Arbitrio Erasmus's indefiniteness contrasted with Luther's extreme rigor. Erasmus henceforth
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  Speaker 1: on the side of Conservatism. The Bishop of Basil and
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  Speaker 1: Ecolampidaeus Erasmus half hearted dogmatics, Confession, Ceremonies, Worship of the
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  Speaker 1: Saints Eucharist Institutio Christiani Matremoni fifteen twenty six, feels surrounded
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  Speaker 1: by enemies. At length, Erasmus was led, in spite of all,
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  Speaker 1: to do what he had always tried to avoid. He
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  Speaker 1: wrote against Luther, but it did not in the least
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  Speaker 1: resemble the Guesta. Erasmus at one time contemplated, in the
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  Speaker 1: cause of peace and Christendom and uniformity of faith, to
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  Speaker 1: call a halt to the impetuous Luther, and thereby to
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  Speaker 1: recall the world to its senses in the great act
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  Speaker 1: of the Reformation. Their polemics were merely an afterplay. Not
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus alone was disillusioned and tired. Luther, too, was past
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  Speaker 1: his heroic prime, circumscribed by conditions, forced into a world
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  Speaker 1: of affairs. A disappointed man, Erasmus had wished to persevere
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  Speaker 1: in his resolution, to remain a spectator of the great tragedy, if,
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  Speaker 1: as appears, from the wonderful success of Luther's cause, God
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  Speaker 1: wills all this. Thus did Erasmus reason, and he has
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  Speaker 1: perhaps judged such a drastic surgeon as Luther, necessary for
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  Speaker 1: the corruption of these times. Then it is not my
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  Speaker 1: business to withstand him. But he was not left in
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  Speaker 1: peace while he went on protesting that he had nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with Luther and had differed widely from him.
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  Speaker 1: The defenders of the Old Church adhered to the standpoint
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  Speaker 1: urged as early as fifteen twenty by Nicholas of Egmund.
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  Speaker 1: Before the Rector of Luvaan. So long as he refuses
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  Speaker 1: to write against Luther, we take him to be a Lutheran.
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  Speaker 1: So matters stood that you are looked upon as a Lutheran.
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  Speaker 1: Here is certain, Vives wrote to him from the Netherlands
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  Speaker 1: in fifteen twenty two. Ever, stronger became the pressure to
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  Speaker 1: write against Luther. From Henry the eighth came a call
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  Speaker 1: communicated by erasmus old friend Turnstall, from George of Saxony,
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  Speaker 1: from Rome itself. Whence Pope Adrian the sixth, his old patron,
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  Speaker 1: had urged him shortly before his death. Erasmus thought he
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  Speaker 1: could refuse no longer. He tried some dialogs in the
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  Speaker 1: style of the colloquies, but did not get on with them,
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  Speaker 1: and probably they would not have pleased those who were
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  Speaker 1: desirous of enlisting his services. Between Luther and Erasmus himself self,
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  Speaker 1: there had been no personal correspondence since the former had
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  Speaker 1: promised him in fifteen twenty Well, then, Erasmus, I shall
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  Speaker 1: not mention your name again. Now that Erasmus had prepared
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  Speaker 1: to attack Luther, however, there came an epistle from the latter,
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  Speaker 1: written on the fifteenth of April fifteen twenty four, in
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  Speaker 1: which the Reformer, in his turn, requested Erasmus in his
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  Speaker 1: own words, please remain now what you have always professed yourself,
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  Speaker 1: desirous of being a mere spectator of our tragedy. There
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  Speaker 1: is a ring of ironical contempt in Luther's words, but
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus called the letter rather humane. I had not the
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  Speaker 1: courage to reply with equal humanity because of the sycophants.
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  Speaker 1: In order to be able to combat Luther with a
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  Speaker 1: clear conscience, Erasmus had naturally to choose a point on
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  Speaker 1: which he differed from Luther. In his heart. It was
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  Speaker 1: not one of the more superficial parts of the church structure.
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  Speaker 1: For these he either with Luther cordially rejected, such as ceremonies, observances, fasting,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, or though more moderately than Luther, he had
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  Speaker 1: his doubts about them, as the sacraments or the primacy
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  Speaker 1: of Saint Peter. So he naturally came to the point
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  Speaker 1: where the deepest gulf yawned between their natures, between their
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  Speaker 1: conceptions of the essence of faith, and thus to the
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  Speaker 1: central and eternal problem of good and evil, guilt and compulsion,
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  Speaker 1: liberty and bondage, God and man. Luther confessed in his
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  Speaker 1: reply that here, indeed the vital point had been touched.
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  Speaker 1: De libero arbitrio diatribe, A Disquisition upon free Will appeared
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  Speaker 1: in September fifteen twenty four. Was Erasmus qualified to write
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  Speaker 1: about such a subject in conformity with his method and
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  Speaker 1: with his evident purpose to vindicate authority and tradition. This time,
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus developed the argument that scripture teaches doctor's affirm, philosophers prove,
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  Speaker 1: and human reason testifies man's will to be free. Without
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  Speaker 1: acknowledgment of free will, the terms of God's justice and
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  Speaker 1: God's mercy remain without meaning. What would be the sense
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  Speaker 1: of the teachings, reproofs admonitions of script if all happened
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  Speaker 1: according to mere and inevitable necessity, to what purpose is
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  Speaker 1: obedience praised? If for good and evil works we are
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  Speaker 1: equally but tools to God, as the hatchet to the carpenter.
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  Speaker 1: And if this were so, it would be dangerous to
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  Speaker 1: reveal such a doctrine to the multitude, for morality is
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  Speaker 1: dependent upon the consciousness of freedom. Luther received the treaties
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  Speaker 1: of his antagonist with disgust and contempt in writing his
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  Speaker 1: reply However, he suppressed these feelings outwardly and observed the
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  Speaker 1: rules of courtesy. But his inward anger is revealed in
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  Speaker 1: the contents itself of de Servio arbitrio on the Will
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  Speaker 1: not Free. For here he really did what Erasmus had
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  Speaker 1: just reproached him with, trying to heal a dislocated member
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  Speaker 1: by tugging at it in the opposite direction, more fiercely
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  Speaker 1: than ever before. His formidable, boorish mind drew the startling
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  Speaker 1: inferences of his burning faith without any reserve. He now
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  Speaker 1: accepted all the extremes of absolute determinism in order to
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  Speaker 1: confute in determinism in explicit terms. He was now forced
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  Speaker 1: to have recourse to those primitive metaphors of exalted faith,
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  Speaker 1: striving to express the inexpressible God's two wills, which do
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  Speaker 1: not coincide. God's eternal hatred of mankind, a hatred not
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  Speaker 1: only on account of demerits and the works of free will,
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  Speaker 1: but a hatred that existed even before the world was created,
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  Speaker 1: and that metaphor of the human will, which, as a
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  Speaker 1: riding beast, stands in the middle between God and the devil,
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  Speaker 1: and which is mounted by one or the other without
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  Speaker 1: being able to move towards either of the two contending writers,
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  Speaker 1: if anywhere, Luther's doctrine in de servio arbitrio means a
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  Speaker 1: recrudescence of faith and a straining of religious conceptions. But
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  Speaker 1: it was Luther who here stood on the rock bed
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  Speaker 1: of a profound and mystic faith, in which the absolute
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  Speaker 1: conscience of the eternal pervades all In him, All conceptions
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  Speaker 1: like dry straw, were consumed in the glow of God's majesty.
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  Speaker 1: For him, each human cooperation to attain to salvation was
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  Speaker 1: a profanation of God's glory. Erasmus's mind, after all, did
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  Speaker 1: not truly live in the ideas which were here disputed,
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  Speaker 1: of sin and grace, of redemption and the glory of
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  Speaker 1: God as the final cause of all that is was
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  Speaker 1: then Erasmus's cause in all respects inferior. Was Luther right
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  Speaker 1: at the core? Perhaps Doctor Murray rightly reminds us of
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  Speaker 1: Hegel's saying that tragedy is not the conflict between right
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  Speaker 1: and wrong, but the conflict between right and right. The
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  Speaker 1: combat of Luther and Erasmus proceeded beyond the point at
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  Speaker 1: which our judgment is forced to halt, and has to
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  Speaker 1: accept an equivalence, nay, a compatibility of affirmation and negation.
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  Speaker 1: And this fact that they here were fighting with words
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  Speaker 1: and metaphors in a sphere beyond that which may be
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  Speaker 1: known and expressed, was understood by Erasmus. Erasmus, the man
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  Speaker 1: of fine shades, for whom ideas eternally blended into each
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  Speaker 1: other and interchanged, called a proteus by Luther. Luther, the
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  Speaker 1: man of over emphatic expression about all matters. The Dutchman
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  Speaker 1: who seized the sea was opposed by the German who
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  Speaker 1: looks out on mountain tops. This is quite true that
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  Speaker 1: we cannot speak of God but with inadequate words. Many
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  Speaker 1: problems should be deferred not to the ecumenical council, but
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  Speaker 1: till the time when the glass and darkness having been
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  Speaker 1: taken away, we shall see God face to face what
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  Speaker 1: is free of error. There are in sacred literature certain
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  Speaker 1: sanctuaries into which God has not willed that we should penetrate. Further,
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  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church had, on the point of free will,
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  Speaker 1: reserved itself some slight proviso left a little elbow room
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  Speaker 1: to the consciousness of human liberty under grace. Erasmus conceived
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  Speaker 1: that liberty in a considerably broader spirit. Luther absolutely denied it.
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  Speaker 1: The opinion of contemporaries was at first too much dominated
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  Speaker 1: by their participation in the Great Struggle. As such, they
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  Speaker 1: applauded Erasmus because he struck boldly at Luther, or the
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  Speaker 1: other way about. According to their sympathies. Not only Vivus
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  Speaker 1: applauded Erasmus, but also more orthodox Catholics such as Stolat.
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  Speaker 1: The German humanists, unwilling for the most part to break
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  Speaker 1: with the ancient Church, were moved by Erasmus's attack to
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  Speaker 1: turn their backs still more upon Luther, Mutianus, Jesus, and Perkheimer.
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  Speaker 1: Even Melanchton inclined to erasmus standpoint. Others like Capito, once
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  Speaker 1: a zealous supporter, now washed their hands of him. Soon Calvin,
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  Speaker 1: with the iron cogency of his argument, was completely to
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  Speaker 1: take Luther's side. It is worth while to quote the
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  Speaker 1: opinion of a contemporary Catholic scholar about the relations of
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus and Luther. Erasmus, says F. X Chefel, with his
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  Speaker 1: concept of free, unspoiled human nature, was intrinsically much more
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  Speaker 1: foreign to the Church than Luther. He only combated it, however,
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  Speaker 1: with haughty skepticism, for which reason Luther, with a subtle psychology,
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  Speaker 1: upbraided him for liking to se speak of the shortcomings
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  Speaker 1: and the misery of the Church of Christ in such
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  Speaker 1: a way that his readers could not help laughing, instead
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  Speaker 1: of bringing his charges with deep sighs, as beseemed before God.
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  Speaker 1: The Hyperaspedes of voluminous Treaties, in which Erasmus again addressed Luther,
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  Speaker 1: was nothing but an epilogue, which need not be discussed
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  Speaker 1: here at length. Erasmus had thus at last openly taken
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  Speaker 1: sides for Apart from the dogmatical point at issue itself,
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  Speaker 1: the most important part about Delibero arbituo was that in
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  Speaker 1: it he had expressly turned against the individual religious conceptions
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  Speaker 1: and had spoken in favor of the authority and tradition
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  Speaker 1: of the Church. He had always regarded himself as a Catholic.
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  Speaker 1: Neither death nor life shall draw me from the communion
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  Speaker 1: of the Catholic Church, he writes in fifteen twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: and in the Hyperaspodes in fifteen twenty six, quote, I
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  Speaker 1: have never been an apostate from the Catholic Church. I
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  Speaker 1: know that in this church, which you call the Papa.
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  Speaker 1: There are many who displease me, But such I also
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  Speaker 1: see in your church. One bears more easily the evils
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  Speaker 1: to which one is accustomed. Therefore I bear with this
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  Speaker 1: church until I shall see a better And it cannot
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  Speaker 1: help bearing with me until I shall myself be better.
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  Speaker 1: And he does not sail badly who steers a middle
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  Speaker 1: course between two several evils. But was it possible to
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  Speaker 1: keep to that course? On either side? People turned away
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  Speaker 1: from him. I, who, formerly in countless letters was addressed
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  Speaker 1: as thrice great hero, Prince of letters, son of studies,
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  Speaker 1: maintainer of true theology, am now ignored or represented in
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  Speaker 1: quite different colors. He writes how many of his old
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  Speaker 1: friends and congenial spirits had already gone. A sufficient number remained. However,
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  Speaker 1: who thought and hoped as Erasmus did, his untiring pen
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  Speaker 1: still continued to propagate, especially by means of his letters,
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  Speaker 1: the moderating and purifying influence of his mind. Throughout all
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  Speaker 1: the countries of Europe. Scholars, high church dignitaries, nobles, students,
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  Speaker 1: and civil magistrates were his correspondents. The Bishop of Basil himself,
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  Speaker 1: Christopher of Untenheim, was a man after Erasmus heart a
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  Speaker 1: zealous advocate of humanism, he had attempted as early as
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  Speaker 1: fifteen o three to reform the clergy of his bishopric
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  Speaker 1: by means of synodal statutes, without much success. Afterwards, he
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  Speaker 1: had called scholars like Ecolampidaeus, Capito and Wimpfeling to Basil.
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  Speaker 1: That was before the Great Struggle began, which was soon
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  Speaker 1: to carry away Ecolampadius and Capito much further than the
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  Speaker 1: Bishop of Basil or Erasmus approved. In fifteen twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus addressed the bishop in a treatise de Interdictio isu
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  Speaker 1: Carnium on the prohibition of eating meat. This was one
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  Speaker 1: of the last occasions on which he directly opposed the
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  Speaker 1: established order. The bishop, however, could no longer control the mood.
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  Speaker 1: A considerable number of the commonality of Basil and the
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  Speaker 1: majority of the Council were already on the side of
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  Speaker 1: radical Reformation. About a year after Erasmus, Johannes Ecolampidaeus, whose
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  Speaker 1: first residence at Basil had also coincided with his. At
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  Speaker 1: that time he had helped Erasmus with Hebrew for the
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  Speaker 1: addition of the New Testament, returned to the town with
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  Speaker 1: the intention of organizing the resistance to the old order there.
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  Speaker 1: In fifteen twenty three, the council appointed him professor of
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  Speaker 1: Holy Scripture in the university. At the same time four
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  Speaker 1: Catholic professors lost their places. He succeeded in obtaining general
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  Speaker 1: permission for unlicensed preaching. Soon, a far more hot headed agitator,
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  Speaker 1: the impetuous Guillom Ferrell, also arrived for active work at
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  Speaker 1: Basil and in the environs. He is the man who
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  Speaker 1: will afterwards reform Geneva and persuade Calvin to stay there.
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  Speaker 1: Though at first Ecolampidaeus began to introduce novelties into the
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  Speaker 1: church service with caution, Erasmus saw these innovations with alarm,
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  Speaker 1: especially the fanaticism of Ferrell, whom he hated bitterly. It
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  Speaker 1: was these men who retarded what he still desired and
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  Speaker 1: thought possible a compromise. His lambient spirit, which never fully
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  Speaker 1: decided in favor of a definite opinion, had, with regard
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  Speaker 1: to most of the disputed points, gradually fixed on a
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  Speaker 1: half conservative midway standpoint, by means of which, without denying
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  Speaker 1: his deepest conviction, he tried to remain faithful to the Church.
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  Speaker 1: In fifteen twenty four. He had expressed his sentiments about
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  Speaker 1: confession in the Treaties Exomologesis on the Way to Confess.
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  Speaker 1: He accepts it half way. If not instituted by Christ
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  Speaker 1: or the Apostles, it was in any case by the Fathers.
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  Speaker 1: It should be piously preserved. Confession is of excellent use,
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  Speaker 1: though at times a great evil. In this way he
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  Speaker 1: tries to admonish either party, neither to agree with nor
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  Speaker 1: to assail the deniers, though inclining to the side of
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  Speaker 1: the believers. In the long list of his polemics, he
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  Speaker 1: gradually finds opportunities to define his views somewhat circumstantially, for
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  Speaker 1: instance in the Answers to Alberto Pio of fifteen twenty
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  Speaker 1: five and fifteen twenty nine. Subsequently, it is always done
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  Speaker 1: in the form of an apologia, whether he is attacked
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  Speaker 1: for the colloquia, for the morea Jerome, the paraphrases, or
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  Speaker 1: anything else. At last, he recapitulates his views to some
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  Speaker 1: extent in Deamabelei Ecclesia Concordia on the Amiable Concord of
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  Speaker 1: the Church of fifteen thirty three, which, however, ranks hardly
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  Speaker 1: any more among his reformatory endeavors. On most points, Rasmus
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  Speaker 1: succeeds in finding moderate and conservative formula. Even with regard
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  Speaker 1: to ceremonies, he no longer merely rejects. He finds a
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  Speaker 1: kind word to say, even for fasting, which he had
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  Speaker 1: always abhorred, for the veneration of relics send for church festivals.
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  Speaker 1: He does not want to abolish the worship of the Saints.
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  Speaker 1: It no longer entails danger of idolatry. He is even
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  Speaker 1: willing to admit the images quote. He who takes the
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  Speaker 1: imagery out of life deprives it of its highest pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: We often discern more in images than we conceive from
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  Speaker 1: the written word. Regarding Christ's substantial presence in the sacrament
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  Speaker 1: of the altar, he holds fast to the Catholic view,
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  Speaker 1: but without fervor, only on the ground of the Church's consensus,
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  Speaker 1: and because he cannot believe that Christ, who is truth
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  Speaker 1: and love, would have suffered his bride to cling so
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  Speaker 1: long to so horrid an error as to worship a
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  Speaker 1: crust of bread instead of him. But for these reasons
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  Speaker 1: he might at need accept Ecolopidaeus' view from the period
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  Speaker 1: at Basle dates one of the purest and most beneficial
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  Speaker 1: moral treatises of Erasmuss, the Institutio Christiani Matrimony on Christian
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  Speaker 1: Marriage of fifteen twenty six, written for Catharine of Aragon,
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  Speaker 1: Queen of England, quite in the spirit of the Inchuriodon,
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  Speaker 1: save for a certain diffuseness betraying old age. Later follows
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  Speaker 1: Da Viduo Christiani The Christian Widow for Mary of Hungary,
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  Speaker 1: which is as impeccable but less interesting. All this did
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  Speaker 1: not disarm the defenders of the Old Church. They held
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  Speaker 1: fast to the clear picture of Erasmus creed that arose
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  Speaker 1: from the colloquies, and that could not be called purely Catholic.
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  Speaker 1: There it appeared only too clearly that, however much Erasmus
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  Speaker 1: might desire to leave the letter intact, his heart was
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  Speaker 1: not in the convictions, which were vital to the Catholic Church. Consequently,
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  Speaker 1: the colloquies were later, when Erasmus's works were expurgated, placed
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  Speaker 1: on the index in the lump with the Moria and
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  Speaker 1: a few other works. The rest is caute legenda to
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  Speaker 1: be read with caution. Much was rejected of the annotations
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  Speaker 1: to the New Testament of the paraphrases and the Apologia,
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  Speaker 1: very little of the Kirridean, of the Ratio Verari Theologia,
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  Speaker 1: and even of the Exmologesus. But this was after the
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  Speaker 1: fight against the living Erasmus had long been over. So
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  Speaker 1: long as he remained at Basil or elsewhere as the
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  Speaker 1: same center of a large intellectual group whose force could
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  Speaker 1: not be estimated, just because it did not stand out
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  Speaker 1: as a party, it was not known what turn he
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  Speaker 1: might yet take, what influence his mind might yet have
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  Speaker 1: on the Church. He remained a king of minds in
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  Speaker 1: his quiet study. The hatred that was felt for him,
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  Speaker 1: the watching of all his words and actions were of
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  Speaker 1: a nature as only falls to the lot of the
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  Speaker 1: acknowledged great. The chorus of enemies who laid the fault
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  Speaker 1: of the whole Reformation on Erasmus was not silenced. Quote
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  Speaker 1: he laid the eggs which Luther and Zwingli have hatched
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  Speaker 1: end quote With vexation. Erasmus quoted ever new specimens of
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  Speaker 1: narrow minded, malicious and stupid controversy. At Constance, there lived
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  Speaker 1: a doctor who hung his portrait on the wall merely
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  Speaker 1: to spit at it as often as he passed it.
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus jestingly compares his fate to that of Saint Casianus,
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  Speaker 1: who was stabbed to death by his pupils with pencils.
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  Speaker 1: Had he not been pierced to the quick for many
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  Speaker 1: years by the pens and tongues of countless people, and
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  Speaker 1: did he not live in that torment without death bringing
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  Speaker 1: the end? The keen sensitiveness to opposition was seated very
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  Speaker 1: deeply with Erasmus, and he could never forbear irritating others
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  Speaker 1: into opposing him. End of Chapter eighteen, recording by Olivia