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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty one of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Wain Cook. Erasmus and
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  Speaker 1: the Age of Reformation by Johann Huizinga, translated by Frederic
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  Speaker 1: Jan Hofmann, Chapter twenty one conclusion. Looking back on the
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  Speaker 1: life of Erasmus, the question still arises, why has he
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  Speaker 1: remained so great? For ostensibly his endeavors ended in failure.
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  Speaker 1: He withdraws an alarm from the tremendous struggle, which he
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  Speaker 1: rightly calls a tragedy. The sixteenth century bold envehement thunders
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  Speaker 1: past him, disdaining his ideal of moderation and tolerance. Latin
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  Speaker 1: literary erudition, which to him was the epitome of all
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  Speaker 1: true culture, has gone out as such. Erasmus, so far
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  Speaker 1: as regards the greater part of his writings, is among
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  Speaker 1: the great ones who are no longer read. He has
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  Speaker 1: become a name. But why does that name still sound
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  Speaker 1: so clear and articulate? Why does he keep regarding us
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  Speaker 1: as if he still knew a little more than he
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  Speaker 1: has ever been willing to utter. What has he been
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  Speaker 1: to his age and what was he to be for
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  Speaker 1: later generations? Has he been rightly called the precursor of
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  Speaker 1: the modern spirit? Regarded as the child of the sixteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: he does seem to differ from the general tenor of
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  Speaker 1: his times. Among those vehemently passionate, drastically energetic, and violent
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  Speaker 1: natures of the great ones of his day, Erasmus stands
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  Speaker 1: as the man of too few prejudices, with a little
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  Speaker 1: too much delicacy of tape, with a deficiency, though not indeed,
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  Speaker 1: in every department of that stultitia which he had praised
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  Speaker 1: as a necessary constituent of life. Erasmus is the man
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  Speaker 1: who is too sensible and moderate for the heroic. What
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  Speaker 1: a surprising difference there is between the accent of Erasmus
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  Speaker 1: and that of Luther Calvin and Saint Theresa. What a
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  Speaker 1: difference also between his accent, that is, the accent of humanism,
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  Speaker 1: and that of Albrechdeua, of Michelangelo, or of Shakespeare. Erasmus
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  Speaker 1: seems at times the man who was not strong enough
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  Speaker 1: for his age. In that robust sixteenth century, it seems
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  Speaker 1: as if the oaken strength of Luther was necessary, the
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  Speaker 1: steely edge of Calvin, the white heat of Loyola, not
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  Speaker 1: the velvet softness of Erasmus. Not only were there force
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  Speaker 1: in their fervor necessary, but also their depth, their unsparing,
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  Speaker 1: undaunted consistency, sincerity, and outspokenness. They cannot bear that smile
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  Speaker 1: which makes Luther speak of the guileful being looking out
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  Speaker 1: of Erasmus's features. His piety is too even for them,
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  Speaker 1: too limp. Loyola has testified that the reading of the
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  Speaker 1: Encredian Militis Christiani relaxed his fervor and made his devotion
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  Speaker 1: grow cold. He saw that warrior of Christ differently, and
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  Speaker 1: the glowing colors of the Spanish Christian medieval ideal of chivalry.
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus had never passed through those depths of self reprobation
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  Speaker 1: and that consciousness of sin which Luther had transversed with toil.
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  Speaker 1: He saw no devil to fight with, and tears were
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  Speaker 1: not familiar to him. Was he altogether unaware of the
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  Speaker 1: deepest mystery, or did it rest in him too deep
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  Speaker 1: for utterance. Let us not suppose too quickly that we
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  Speaker 1: are more nearly allied to Luther or to Loyola, because
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  Speaker 1: their figures appeal to us more. If, at present our
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  Speaker 1: admiration goes out again to the ardently pious and to
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  Speaker 1: spiritual extremes, it is partly because our unstable time requires
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  Speaker 1: strong stimuli. To appreciate Erasmus, we should begin by giving
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  Speaker 1: up our admiration of the extravagant, and for many this
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  Speaker 1: requires a certain effort. At present it is extremely easy
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  Speaker 1: to break the staff over Rasmus. His faults lie on
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  Speaker 1: the surface, and though he wished to hide many things,
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  Speaker 1: he never hid his weaknesses. He was much too concerned
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  Speaker 1: about what people thought, and he could not his tongue.
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  Speaker 1: His mind was too rich and facile, always suggesting a
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  Speaker 1: superfluity of arguments, cases, examples, and quotations. He could never
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  Speaker 1: let things slide. All his life he grudged himself leisure
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  Speaker 1: to rest and collect himself, to see how unimportant, after all,
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  Speaker 1: was the calmotion round about him. If only he went
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  Speaker 1: his own way, courageously, rest and independence he desired more
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  Speaker 1: ardently of all things, there was no more restless and
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  Speaker 1: dependent creature. Judge him as one of the too delicate
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  Speaker 1: constitution who ventures out in a storm. His will power
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  Speaker 1: was great enough. He worked night and day amidst the
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  Speaker 1: most violent, bodily suffering, with a great ideal steadfastly before him,
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  Speaker 1: never satisfied with its own achievements. He was not self
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  Speaker 1: sufficient as an intellectual type. Erasmus was one of a
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  Speaker 1: rather small group, the absolute idealists, who at the same
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  Speaker 1: time are thoroughly moderate. They cannot bear the world's imperfections.
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  Speaker 1: They feel constrained to oppose, but extremes are uncongenial to them.
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  Speaker 1: They shrink back from action because they know it pulls
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  Speaker 1: down as much as it erects, and so they withdraw
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  Speaker 1: themselves and keep calling that everything should be different. But
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  Speaker 1: when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with tradition and conservatism. Here, too,
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  Speaker 1: is a fragment of Erasmus's life tragedy. He was the
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  Speaker 1: man who saw the new and coming things more clearly
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  Speaker 1: than any one else, who must needs quarrel with the old,
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  Speaker 1: and yet could not accept the new. He tried to
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  Speaker 1: remain in the fold of the old church after having
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  Speaker 1: damaged it seriously, and renounce the Reformation and to a
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  Speaker 1: certain extent, even humanism, after having furthered both with all
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  Speaker 1: his strength. Our final opinion about Erasmus has been concerned
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  Speaker 1: with negative quality so far, what was his positive importance.
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  Speaker 1: Two facts make it difficult for the modern mind to
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  Speaker 1: understand Erasmus's positive importance. First that his influence was extensive
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  Speaker 1: rather than intensive, and therefore less historically discernible at definite points.
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  Speaker 1: And second that his influence has ceased. He has done
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  Speaker 1: his work and will speak to the world no more
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  Speaker 1: like Saint Jerome, his revered model, and Voltaire, with whom
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  Speaker 1: he has been occasionally compared, he has his reward, but
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  Speaker 1: like them he has been the enlightener of an age
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  Speaker 1: from whom a broad stream of culture emanated. As historic
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  Speaker 1: investigation of the French Revolution is becoming more and more
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  Speaker 1: aware that the true history of France during that period
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  Speaker 1: should be looked for in those groups which, as Center
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  Speaker 1: or Marius, seem for a long time but a drove
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  Speaker 1: of supernumeraries, and understands that it should occasionally protect its
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  Speaker 1: size a little from the lightning flashes of the Gironde
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  Speaker 1: and mountain thunderstorm. So the history of the Reformation period
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  Speaker 1: should pay attention, and it has done so for a
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  Speaker 1: long time, to the broad central sphere permeated by the
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  Speaker 1: Rasmian spirit. One of his opponents said, quote Luther has
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  Speaker 1: drawn a large part of the church to himself. Zingli
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  Speaker 1: and Oecolampadius also some part, but Erasmus the largest end Quote.
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  Speaker 1: Erasmusen's public was numerous and of high culture. He was
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  Speaker 1: the only one of the humanists who really wrote for
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  Speaker 1: all the world, that is to say, for all educated people.
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  Speaker 1: He accustomed a whole world to another and more fluent
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  Speaker 1: mode of expression. He shifted the interest he influenced by
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  Speaker 1: his perfect clarity of the exposition, even through the medium
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  Speaker 1: of Latin, the style of the vernacular languages. Apart from
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  Speaker 1: the numberless translations of his works for his contemporaries, Erasmus
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  Speaker 1: put on many it's new stops, one might say of
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  Speaker 1: the great organ of human expression, as Rousseau was to
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  Speaker 1: do two centuries later. He might well think with some
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  Speaker 1: complacency of the influence he had exerted on the world.
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  Speaker 1: Quote from all parts of the world, he writes, towards
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  Speaker 1: the close of his life. I am daily thanked by
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  Speaker 1: many because they have been kindled by my works, whatever
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  Speaker 1: may be their merit, into a zeal for a good
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  Speaker 1: disposition and sacred literature. And they who have never seen
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  Speaker 1: a round Asthmus yet know and love him from his
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  Speaker 1: books end quote. He was glad that his translations from
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  Speaker 1: the Greek had become so proofless. He had everywhere led
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  Speaker 1: many to take up Greek and holy scriptures quote which
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  Speaker 1: otherwise they would have never read. End quote. He had
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  Speaker 1: been an introducer and an initiator. He might leave the
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  Speaker 1: stage after having said his say. His word signified something
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  Speaker 1: beyond classical sense and biblical disposition. It was, at the
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  Speaker 1: same time the first enunciation of the creed of education
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  Speaker 1: and perfectibility, of warm social feeling, and of faith in
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  Speaker 1: human nature, of peaceful kindness and toleration. Quote Christ dwells everywhere,
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  Speaker 1: piety is practiced under every garment, if only a kindly
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  Speaker 1: disposition is not wanting end quote. In all these ideas
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  Speaker 1: and convictions, Erasmus really heralds a later age. In the
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  Speaker 1: sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, those thoughts remained an undercurrent in
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  Speaker 1: the eighteenth Erasmus's message of deliverance or fruit. In this respect,
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  Speaker 1: he has most certainly been a precursor and a preparer
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  Speaker 1: of the modern mind of Rousseau, Herder Pistolosi, and of
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  Speaker 1: the English and American thinkers it is only part of
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  Speaker 1: the modern mind which is represented by all this to
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  Speaker 1: a number of its developments. Erasmus was wholly a stranger
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  Speaker 1: to the evolution of natural science of the newer philosophy
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  Speaker 1: of political economy. But in so far as people still
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  Speaker 1: believe in the ideal that moral education and general tolerance
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  Speaker 1: may make humanity happier, humanity owes much to Erasmus. This
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  Speaker 1: does not imply that Erasmus's mind did not directly and
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  Speaker 1: fruitful influence his own times. Although Catholics regarded him in
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  Speaker 1: the heat of the struggle as the corruptor of the
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  Speaker 1: Church and Protestants as the betrayer of the Gospel, yet
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  Speaker 1: his word of moderation kindliness did not pass by unheard
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  Speaker 1: or unheeded on either side. Eventually, neither camp finally rejected Erasmus.
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  Speaker 1: Rome did not brand him as an archerretic, but only
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  Speaker 1: warned the faithful to read him with caution. Protestant history
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  Speaker 1: has been studious to reckon him as one of the reformers.
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  Speaker 1: Both obeyed in this the pronouncement of a public opinion
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  Speaker 1: which was above parties, and which continued to admire and
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  Speaker 1: revere Erasmus to the reconstruction of the Catholic Church and
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  Speaker 1: the erection of the Evangelical churches. Not only the names
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  Speaker 1: of Luther and Loyola are linked. The moderate, the intellectual,
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  Speaker 1: the conciliating have also had their share of the work.
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  Speaker 1: Figures like Mlengthoni here sat ale At there, both nearly
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  Speaker 1: allied to Erasmus and sympathetically disposed towards him. The frequently
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  Speaker 1: repeated attempts to arrive at some compromise in the great
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  Speaker 1: religious conflict, though they might be doomed to end in failure,
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  Speaker 1: emanated from the Erasmian spirit. Nowhere did that spirit take
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  Speaker 1: roots so easily as in the country they gave Erasmus birth.
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  Speaker 1: A curious detail shows us that it was not the
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  Speaker 1: exclusive privilege of either great party. Of his two most
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  Speaker 1: favored pupils of later years, both Netherlanders, whom, as the
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  Speaker 1: actors of the colloquy Astragalismus the Game of Knucklebones, he
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  Speaker 1: has immortalized together the one Querenttalisius died for his attachment
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  Speaker 1: to the Spanish cause and the Catholic faith. He was
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  Speaker 1: hanged in fifteen seventy two by the citizens of Haarlem,
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  Speaker 1: where he was the Burgomaster. The other Charles Utenhove, was
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  Speaker 1: sedulous on the side of the revolt and the reformed religion.
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  Speaker 1: At Ghent, in concert with the Prince of Orange, he
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  Speaker 1: turned against the narrow minded Protestant terrorism of the Zealots.
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  Speaker 1: A Dutch historian recently tried to trace back the opposition
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  Speaker 1: of the Dutch against the King of Spain to the
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  Speaker 1: influence of Erasmus's political thought in his Arraignment of Bad Princes. Wrongly,
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  Speaker 1: I think Erasmus's political dietribes were far too academic and
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  Speaker 1: too general for that. The desire of resistance and revolt
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  Speaker 1: arose from quite other causes. The Gix were not Erasmus's progeny,
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  Speaker 1: but there is much that is Erasmian in the spirit
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  Speaker 1: of their great leader, William of Orange, whose vision ranged
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  Speaker 1: so widely beyond the limitations of religious hatred. Thoroughly permeated
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  Speaker 1: by the Erasmian spirit, too, was that class of municipal
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  Speaker 1: magistrates who were soon to take the lead and to
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  Speaker 1: set the fashion in the established republic. Histories want, as
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  Speaker 1: always with an aristocracy, to take their faults very seriously.
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  Speaker 1: After all, perhaps no other aristocracy, unless it be that
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  Speaker 1: of Venice, had ruled a state so long, so well,
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  Speaker 1: and with so little violence. If in the seventeenth century
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  Speaker 1: the institutions of Holland in the eyes of foreigners were
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  Speaker 1: the admired models of prosperity, charity and social discipline, and
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  Speaker 1: patterns of gentleness and wisdom, however defective they may seem
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  Speaker 1: to us, then the honor of all this is due
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  Speaker 1: to the municipal aristocracy. If in the Dutch patriciate of
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  Speaker 1: that time those aspirations lived and were translated into action,
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  Speaker 1: it was Erasmus's spirit of social responsibility which inspired them.
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  Speaker 1: The history of Holland is far less bloody and cruel
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  Speaker 1: than that of any of the surrounding countries. Not for
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  Speaker 1: naught did Erasmus praise as truly Dutch those qualities which
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  Speaker 1: we may also call truly Erasmian gentleness, kindness, moderation, a
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  Speaker 1: generally diffused moderate erudition, not romantic virtues, if you like,
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  Speaker 1: but are they less salutary. One more instance, in the
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  Speaker 1: Republic of the Seven Provinces, the atrocious executions of witches
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  Speaker 1: and wizards ceased more than a century before they did
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  Speaker 1: in all other countries. This was not owing to the
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  Speaker 1: merit of the reformed pastors. They shared the popular belief
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  Speaker 1: which demanded persecution. It was the magistrates whose enlightenment, even
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  Speaker 1: as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, no
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  Speaker 1: longer tolerated these things. Again, we are entitled to say,
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  Speaker 1: though Erasmus was not one of those who combated this practice,
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  Speaker 1: the spirit which breathes from this is that of Erasmus.
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  Speaker 1: Cultured humanity has cause to hold Erasmus's memory in a
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  Speaker 1: sty if for no other reason than that he was
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  Speaker 1: the fervently sincere preacher of that general kindliness which the
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  Speaker 1: world still so urgently needs. End of chapter twenty one.
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  Speaker 1: End of Erasmus and Age of Reformation by Johann Huizinga,
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  Speaker 1: translated by Frederic Jan Hoppamann