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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation. This
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  Speaker 1: is the LibriVox recording. All Librivoux recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: libripox dot org. Recording by Mario Pineda et Asthmus and
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  Speaker 1: the Age of Reformation by Johann Hushingha, translated by Frederic
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  Speaker 1: John Hoppman. Chapter thirteen a Asmus's mind continued at Asmus's mind,
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  Speaker 1: intellectual tendencies, the world encumbered by beliefs and forms. Truth
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  Speaker 1: must be simple, back to the pure sources holy scripture
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  Speaker 1: in the original languages, Biblical humanism, critical work on the
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  Speaker 1: text of a scripture, practice better than dogma. At Asthmus's
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  Speaker 1: talent and wit, delight in words and things, perlixity, observation
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  Speaker 1: of details, a build realism, ambiguousness, the nuance inscretability of
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  Speaker 1: the ultimate ground of all things, simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness.
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  Speaker 1: Those are, to Erasmus the dominant requirements. Also when we
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  Speaker 1: pass from his ethical anesthetic concepts to his intellectual point
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  Speaker 1: of view. Indeed, the two can hardly be kept apart.
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  Speaker 1: The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with human constitutions and
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  Speaker 1: opinions and scholastic dogmas, and overburdened with the tyrannical authority
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  Speaker 1: of odors. And because of all this, the strength of
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  Speaker 1: Gospel doctrine is flagging. Faith requires simplification. He argued, what
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  Speaker 1: would the tark say of our scholasticism? Collect word to
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  Speaker 1: him one day? There is no end to books and science.
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  Speaker 1: Let us therefore leave all roundabout roads and go by
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  Speaker 1: a shortcut to the truth. Truth must be simple. The
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  Speaker 1: language of truth is simple, says Seneca. Will. Then nothing
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  Speaker 1: is simpler, no truer than Christ. I should wish Erasmus
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  Speaker 1: says elsewhere, that this simple and pure Christ may be
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  Speaker 1: deeply impressed upon the minor men, and that I dim
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  Speaker 1: best attainable in this way, that we, supported by our
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  Speaker 1: knowledge and the original languages, should philosophize at the sources themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Here a new watchwork comes to the fore, back to
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  Speaker 1: the sources. It is not merely an intellectual philological requirement.
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  Speaker 1: It is equally un ethical and esthetic necessity of life.
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  Speaker 1: The original impure. All that is not yet overground or
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  Speaker 1: has not passed through many hands, has such a puntent
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  Speaker 1: charm and Asthmus compared it to an apple which we
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  Speaker 1: ourselves pick off. The three to recall the world to
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  Speaker 1: the ancient simplicity of science, to lead it back from
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  Speaker 1: the now turbid pools to those living in most pure
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  Speaker 1: fountain heads, those more limpid sources of gospel doctrine, those
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  Speaker 1: he saw the task of divinity. The metaphor of the
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  Speaker 1: olympid water is not without meaning. Here it reveals the
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  Speaker 1: psychological quality of verasums spherupent principle. How is it he
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  Speaker 1: exclaims that people give themselves so much trouble about the
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  Speaker 1: details of all sorts of remote philosophical systems, and neglect
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  Speaker 1: to go to the source of Christianity in itself. Although
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  Speaker 1: this wisdom, which is so excellent that once for all
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  Speaker 1: it put the wisdom of all the world to shame,
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  Speaker 1: may be drawn from these few books as from a
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  Speaker 1: crystal incerce, with far less trouble than is the wisdom
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  Speaker 1: of Aristotle from so many thorny books, and with much
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  Speaker 1: more fruit. The equipment for that journey is simple and
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  Speaker 1: at everyone's immediate disposal. This philosophy is accessible to everybody.
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  Speaker 1: Christ desires that his mysteries should be spread as widely
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  Speaker 1: as possible. I should wish that all good wives read
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  Speaker 1: the Gospel and Paul's Epenstils, that they were translated into
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  Speaker 1: all languages. That out of these the husbandmen sang, while
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  Speaker 1: ploughing the weaver at his loom, that with such stories
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  Speaker 1: the travelers should beguile his wayfaring. This sort of philosophy
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  Speaker 1: is rather a matter of disposition than on syllogisms, rather
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  Speaker 1: of life, than on disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition,
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  Speaker 1: rather of transformation than of logic. What is the philosophy
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  Speaker 1: of Christ, which he himself caused renacentia, but the insaturation
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  Speaker 1: of nature created good. Moreover, though no one has taught
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  Speaker 1: us this so absolutely and effectively as Christ, yet also
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  Speaker 1: in pagan books much may be found that is in
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  Speaker 1: accordance with it. Such was the view of life in
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  Speaker 1: these biblical humanists. As often as Erasmus reverts to these matters,
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  Speaker 1: his voice sounds clearest. Let no one, he says in
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  Speaker 1: the preface to the Notes to the New Testament, take
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  Speaker 1: up this work as he takes up Julius no test
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  Speaker 1: etique or Politianus miscellanis. We are in the presence of
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  Speaker 1: Holy things here it is no question of eloquence. These
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  Speaker 1: matters are best recommended to the world by simplicity and purity.
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  Speaker 1: It would be ridiculous to display human iridition here, impious
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  Speaker 1: to pride oneself on human eloquence. But Erasmus never was
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  Speaker 1: so eloquent himself as just then, what here raises him
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  Speaker 1: about his usual level of force and fervor is the
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  Speaker 1: fact that he fights a battle, the battle for the
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  Speaker 1: right of biblical criticism. It revolts him that people should say,
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  Speaker 1: study Holy Scripture and the Bulgate when they know that
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  Speaker 1: the texts of differences that are not corrupt. Although we
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  Speaker 1: have the Greek text by which to go back to
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  Speaker 1: the original form and primary meaning. He is now reproached
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  Speaker 1: because he dares, as a mere grammarian to assail the
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  Speaker 1: text of Holy Scripture on the score of futile mistakes
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  Speaker 1: or irregularities. Details they are, yes, But because of these
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  Speaker 1: details we sometimes see even great minds stumble and brave
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  Speaker 1: Philological trifling is necessary? Why we suppercise as to our
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  Speaker 1: food or clothes or money matters? And why does this
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  Speaker 1: accuracy displeases us? In the byd literature alone. He crawls
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  Speaker 1: along the ground. They say, he wearies himself out about
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  Speaker 1: wars and syllables. Why do we slight any word of
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  Speaker 1: him whom we venerate and worship under the name of
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  Speaker 1: the world. But be it so, Let whoever wishes imagine
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  Speaker 1: that I have not been able to achieve anything better,
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  Speaker 1: and not of sluggishness of mind and coldness of heart,
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  Speaker 1: or lack of erudition, have taken the lowest task upon myself.
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  Speaker 1: It is still a Christian idea to think all work good,
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  Speaker 1: that is done with pious zeal. We bring along the bricks,
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  Speaker 1: But to build the temple of God, he does not
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  Speaker 1: want to be intractable. Let the bulgate be kept for
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  Speaker 1: use in the liturgy, for sermons in schools. But he
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  Speaker 1: who at home reads or edition will understand his own
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  Speaker 1: the better. In consequence, he Erasmus is prepared to render
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  Speaker 1: account and acknowledge himself to have been wrong when convicted
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  Speaker 1: of error. Erasmus perhaps never quite realize how much his
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  Speaker 1: philological critical method must shake the foundations of the Church.
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  Speaker 1: He was surprised at his adversaries, who could not but
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  Speaker 1: believe that all their authority would perish at once when
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  Speaker 1: these sacred books might be read in a purified form,
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  Speaker 1: and when people try to understand them in the original,
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  Speaker 1: he did not feel what the unassatable authority of a
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  Speaker 1: sacred book meant. He rejoices because Holy scripture is approached
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  Speaker 1: so much more closely, because all sorts of shadings are
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  Speaker 1: brought to to lie by considering not only what is said,
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  Speaker 1: but also by whom, from whom, at what time, on
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  Speaker 1: one occasion, what precedes, and what follows, in short, by
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  Speaker 1: the method of historical philological criticism. To him, it seemed
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  Speaker 1: so especially pious when reading in scripture and coming across
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  Speaker 1: a place which seemed contrary to the doctrine of Christ
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  Speaker 1: of the divinity of his nature, to believe, rather than
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  Speaker 1: one did not understand the phrase, or that the text
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  Speaker 1: may be corrupt unperceived. He passed from a mendation of
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  Speaker 1: the different versions to the correction of the contents. The
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  Speaker 1: epistles were not all written by the apostles to whom
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  Speaker 1: they are attributed. The apostles themselves made mistakes at times.
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  Speaker 1: The foundation of his spiritual life was no longer unity.
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  Speaker 1: To Erasmus, it was, on the one hand, a strong
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  Speaker 1: desire from an upright, simple, pure and humbly belief the
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  Speaker 1: earnest wished to be a good Christian, but it was
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  Speaker 1: also the irresistible intellectual and esthetic need of the good taste,
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  Speaker 1: the harmony, the clear and exact expression of the air ancients,
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  Speaker 1: the dislike of what was cumbrous and involved at Asthmus
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  Speaker 1: thought that good learning may render good service for the
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  Speaker 1: necessary verification of the faith and its forms. The measure
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  Speaker 1: of church hymns should be corrected. That Christian expression and
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  Speaker 1: classicism were incompatible. He never believed the man who in
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  Speaker 1: the sphere of sacred studies asked every author for his credentials,
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  Speaker 1: remained unconscious of the fact that he acknowledged the authority
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  Speaker 1: of the Ancients without any evidence. Howe natively, he appeals
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  Speaker 1: to antiquity again and again to justify some bold feet.
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  Speaker 1: He is critical, they say, were not the ancients critical?
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  Speaker 1: He permits himself to insert digressions, So did the Ancients,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera. Et Asthmus is in profound sympathy without revered antiquity.
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  Speaker 1: By his fundamental conviction that it is the practice of
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  Speaker 1: life which matters not. He is the great philosopher who
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  Speaker 1: knows the tenets of the Stoics or peripathetics by road.
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  Speaker 1: But he who expresses the meaning of philosophy by his
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  Speaker 1: life and his morals, for that is its purpose. He
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  Speaker 1: is truly the mind who teaches, not by artful syllogisms,
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  Speaker 1: by his disposition, by his face and his eyes, by
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  Speaker 1: his life itself. That wealth should be despised to live
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  Speaker 1: up to that standard is what Christs himself calls renaiscentia.
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only, but
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  Speaker 1: in that sense it is closely allied to the idea
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  Speaker 1: of the Renaissance as a historical phenomenon. The worldly and
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  Speaker 1: pagan sides of the i regnaiscence have nearly always been
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  Speaker 1: oerted et asthmusis much more than Aretino or Castigione, the
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  Speaker 1: representative of the spirit of his age, and one over
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  Speaker 1: whose Christian sentiment the sweet gale of antiquity had passed.
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  Speaker 1: And that very union of a strong Christian endeavor and
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  Speaker 1: the spirit of antiquity is the explanation of Erasmus's wonderful success.
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  Speaker 1: The mere intention and the contents of the mind do
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  Speaker 1: not influence the world if the form of expression does
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  Speaker 1: not cooperate. In Erasmus, the quality of his talent is
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  Speaker 1: a very important factor. His perfect clearness and is of expression.
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  Speaker 1: His liveliness, wat imagination, gusto, and humor have lent a
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  Speaker 1: charm to all he wrote, which to his contemporaries was
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  Speaker 1: irresistible and captivates even us as soon as we read them.
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  Speaker 1: In all that constitutes his talent, e Asthmus is perfectly
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  Speaker 1: and altogether a representative of the Renaissance. There is, in
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  Speaker 1: the first place his eternal apropos, but he writes, is
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  Speaker 1: never vague, never dark, It is always plausible, Everything seemingly
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  Speaker 1: flows of itself like a fountain. It always rings through
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  Speaker 1: us to tone, turn of phrase and accent, because almost
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  Speaker 1: the light harmony of Ariosto. And it is like Ariosto,
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  Speaker 1: never tragic, never truly heroic. It carries us away, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: but it is never itself truly ruptured. The more ardistic
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  Speaker 1: aspects of Erasmus's talent come out most clearly, though they
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  Speaker 1: are everywhere in evidence in those two recreations after more
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  Speaker 1: serious labor, the Moria and Commune and the Cologuia. But
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  Speaker 1: just those two have been of enormous importance for his
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  Speaker 1: influence upon his times. For while your own reach tens
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  Speaker 1: of readers, and the New Testament hundreds. The Moura and
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  Speaker 1: Colochis went out two thousands, and their importance is heightened
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  Speaker 1: in that Erasmus has nowhere else expressed himself so spontaneously
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  Speaker 1: in each of the cologies, even in the first purely
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  Speaker 1: formulary ones, there is a sketch for a comedy, a novelette,
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  Speaker 1: or is attire. There is hardly a sentence without its point,
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  Speaker 1: an expression without a vivid fancy. There are unrivaled nicetes.
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  Speaker 1: The abote of the Abbatis et Elo Ditae Colloquium is
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  Speaker 1: a Moliar character. Pishubi noticed how well Erasmus always sustains
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  Speaker 1: his characters as his scenes, because he sees them in
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  Speaker 1: the Woman in childbed. He never forgets for a moment
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  Speaker 1: that Euphrapellus is an artist. At the end of the
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  Speaker 1: game of knuckle bonds, when the interlocutors, after having elucidated
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  Speaker 1: the whole nomenclature of the Latin game of knucklebands, are
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  Speaker 1: going to play themselves, Carolus says, but shut the door first,
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  Speaker 1: lest the cook should see us playing like two boys.
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  Speaker 1: As Halbind illustrated in more, we should wish to possess
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  Speaker 1: the Cologguia Worth illustrations by Brugal so closely allied this Erasmus,
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  Speaker 1: with the clear vision of incidents to that of this
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  Speaker 1: great master. The posision of drunkards on Palm Sunday, the
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  Speaker 1: saving of the sheep wrecked crew, the all men waiting
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  Speaker 1: for the traveling card while the drivers are still drinking.
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  Speaker 1: All these are Dutch genre pieces of the best sort.
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  Speaker 1: We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance,
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  Speaker 1: and Asthmus is certainly a realist in the sense of
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  Speaker 1: having an insageable hunger for knowledge of the tangible world.
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  Speaker 1: He wants to know things and their names, the particulars
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  Speaker 1: of each thing, be it never so remote, such as
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  Speaker 1: those terms of games and rules of games. Or the Romans.
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  Speaker 1: Read carefully the description of the decorative painting on the
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  Speaker 1: garden house of the Combibian religiousu. It is nothing but
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  Speaker 1: an object lesson a graphic representation of the forms of reality.
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  Speaker 1: In its joy over the material universe and the supple
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  Speaker 1: pli and ward, the Renaissance rebels in the profession of
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  Speaker 1: imagery and expressions, the resounding enumeration of names and things
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  Speaker 1: which Rebelae always gives are not unknown to Erasmus, but
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  Speaker 1: he uses them for intellectual and useful purposes. In the
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  Speaker 1: Kopia verbottom Alghredum, one fit of varied power of expression
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  Speaker 1: succeeds an author. He gives fifty ways of saying, your
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  Speaker 1: letter has given me much pleasure, or I think that
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  Speaker 1: it is going to reign. The esthetic impulse is here
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  Speaker 1: that of a theme and variations to display, or the
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  Speaker 1: wealth imitations of the logic of language. Elsewhere, too, Erasmus
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  Speaker 1: indogenes is proclivity for accumulating the treasures of his genius.
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  Speaker 1: He and his contemporaries can never restrain themselves from giving
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  Speaker 1: all the instances instead of one. In Ragioba theology, in
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  Speaker 1: the Pernuntatie in Lingua, in Ecclesiasts, the collections of Adeja Parabole,
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  Speaker 1: and above Theemata are altogether based on this eagerness of
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  Speaker 1: the Renaissance, which by the way, was an inheritance of
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  Speaker 1: the Middle Ages themselves to luxuriate in the wealth of
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  Speaker 1: the tangible world, to rebel in words and things. The
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  Speaker 1: senses are open for the nights observation of the curious,
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  Speaker 1: though Erasmus does not know that need of proving the
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  Speaker 1: secrets of nature, which inspired the Leonardo da Vinci a
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  Speaker 1: Paracelsus a Besalius. He is, also, by his keen observation,
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  Speaker 1: a child of his time. For peculiarities in the habits
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  Speaker 1: of customs of nations, he has an open eye. He
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  Speaker 1: notices the gate of Swiss soldiers of Dandies sit, how
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  Speaker 1: Picard's pronounce French. He notices that in all pictures the
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  Speaker 1: sitters are always represented with half closed eyes and tightly
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  Speaker 1: shut lips as signs of modesty, and how some Spaniards
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  Speaker 1: still honor this expression in life, while German art prefers
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  Speaker 1: lips pouring as for a kiss. His lively sense of
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  Speaker 1: anecdote to which he gives the rhine in all his writings,
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  Speaker 1: belongs here. And in spite of all Israelism. The world
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  Speaker 1: which Erasmus sees and renders is not altogether that of
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  Speaker 1: the sixteenth century. Everything is biled by Latin between the
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  Speaker 1: authors line and reality intervenes his antique diction. At bottom,
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  Speaker 1: the world of his mind is imaginary. It is a
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  Speaker 1: subdued and limited sixteenth century reality which he reflects together
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  Speaker 1: with his coarseness. He likes all that is violent and
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  Speaker 1: direct in his times. Compare with the artists, with Luther
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  Speaker 1: and Calvin, with his statesmen, the navigators, the soldiers, and
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  Speaker 1: the scientists. At Asthmus confronts the world as a recluse.
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  Speaker 1: It is only the influence of Latin. In spite of
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  Speaker 1: all his receptiveness and sensitiveness, e Asthmus is never fully
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  Speaker 1: in contact with life. All through his work, not a
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  Speaker 1: bird sings, not a wind rustles. But that reserve of
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  Speaker 1: fear of directness is not merely a negative quality. It
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  Speaker 1: also results from a consciousness of the indefiniteness of the
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  Speaker 1: ground of all things, from the awe of the ambiguity
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  Speaker 1: of all That is, if a Asmus often hovers over
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  Speaker 1: the border line between earnestness and mockery, if he hardly
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  Speaker 1: ever gives an incisive conclusion, it is not only due
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  Speaker 1: to consciousness and fear to commit himself. Everywhere he sees
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  Speaker 1: the shadings, the blending of the meaning of words. The
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  Speaker 1: terms of things are no longer to him as to
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  Speaker 1: the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals mountain in gold,
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  Speaker 1: or as stars in the firmament. I like assertions so
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  Speaker 1: little that I would easily take size with the sceptics
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  Speaker 1: wherever it is allowed by the unviolable authority of Holy
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  Speaker 1: Scripture and the decrease of the church. What is exempt
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  Speaker 1: from error? All subtle contentions of theological speculation arise from
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  Speaker 1: a dangerous curiosity and lead to impious authorsity. What have
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  Speaker 1: all the great controversies about the Trinity and the Virgin
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  Speaker 1: Mary profited? We have defined so much that, without danger
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  Speaker 1: to our salvation, might have remained unknown or undecided. The
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  Speaker 1: essentials of our religion are peace and unanimity. This can
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  Speaker 1: hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few points
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  Speaker 1: as possible, and leave many questions to individual judgment. Numerous
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  Speaker 1: problems are now postponed till the Eugonomenical Council. It would
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  Speaker 1: be much better to putrow such questions till the time
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  Speaker 1: when the glass shall be removed and the darkness cleared away,
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  Speaker 1: and we shall see God face to face. There are
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  Speaker 1: sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed
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  Speaker 1: that we should prove. And if we try to penetrate there,
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  Speaker 1: we grow up in every deeper darkness the farther we proceed,
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  Speaker 1: so that we recognize, in this manner to the inscrutable
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  Speaker 1: Majesty of the buying wisdom, and the imbecility of human understanding.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter thirteen,