Chapter X

DOCTRINAL OPPOSITION TO THE REFORMATION--FREEDOM OF THE
WILL--THE EUCHARIST--THE "SPIRIT"

1523-1527

There can be no doubt that Erasmus was urged from many sides to write something decisive against the Lutheran party. He held back as long as he could, partly, we may be sure, from real sympathy with the chief purpose of the reform and partly from a dread of committing himself to, he knew not precisely what. To estimate his position aright we must bear in mind that the real meaning of the reform party was developing year by year, taking on ever new aspects as one interest after another came to be connected with the original kernel of opposition. So far as outward things were concerned Erasmus was barred from many lines of attack by his own damning record. In these matters he could only indulge in vague exhortations to moderation and in voluminous, but not very convincing, apologies.

He was therefore compelled, if he wished to meet the pressure of the Roman party by some open service, to turn to the more speculative side of the reform. He there found a topic naturally adapted to draw out his hostility, the topic of the freedom of the human will. It was a subject especially suited to the Erasmian method. Its problem involved the riddle of the ages: To what degree is the action of man determined by his own will and to what degree by some power--Fate, God, Devil, call it what we may--outside himself? That man had a will of his very own had never been totally denied. The question was, how far was this will free to act?

Within the history of Christianity this problem had early found its expression in the great Augustinian-Pelagian controversy of the fifth century. Both of these parties had admitted that man's will was somehow affected by the divine will. The difference, the hopeless and perpetual difference, had been on the question of the possibility of _good_ action through the human impulse alone. This possibility the Pelagian party had maintained, adding, however, that such original good impulse of the human will was immediately aided by the divine grace. The party of Augustine had denied the possibility of any _good_ action without a _previous_ impulse of the divine grace. The Church, sane and clever always in the long run, had steered its course carefully between the two extremes. It had condemned Pelagius as a heretic and reverenced Augustine as a saint; but it had never gone to those lengths of opinion which might be discovered in Augustine's writings by one who wished to find them there.

In other words, the Church had instinctively recognised that the problem is insoluble. As the practical administrator of a system of morals, it had concerned itself only with providing a machinery whereby the consequences of evil action could be averted from its faithful members. It had never said to them, "You are compelled to these sins by a power you cannot resist," but it had said, "You will infallibly sin and you will suffer for your sins, unless you remove them by the means we offer." So far that had worked. The world had accepted the situation and gone merrily on, knowing when it sinned, but knowing also that a kind and indulgent Church would see to it that its sins were taken care of at a very reasonable charge. Only from time to time men like Savonarola and groups of men like the Waldensians had raised their cry of protest and called men back again to the sense of direct responsibility to, and direct dependence on, God alone.

That was the essence also of Luther's protest. Every individual Christian was once again called upon to deal directly with his God. So far the Lutheran teaching was in complete harmony with the whole drift of Erasmus' thought. But here we find another illustration of similar conclusions reached by different ways. Erasmus was quite satisfied to let the whole speculative side of the question take care of itself. Luther could not rest until he had harmonised his practical aims with some theological principle, which should give them consistency and support. That principle he found in the Augustinian doctrine of predestination and the unfree will. Erasmus was content, as the Church was, to accept both sides of the controversy at once, and trim them to suit each other. Luther cared little for nice distinctions, but convinced himself that the salvation of his cause lay in emphasising, so far as a mind so eminently sound and human as his could do, the idea of a divine fate, responsible--yes, he would even say this if he must--responsible even for the seeming evil of this world.

Now it is obvious that, viewed abstractly, the whole group of ideas we call "Augustinian" are open to the gravest question. They seem to sap the foundations of Christian morality and to throw men back upon the dreary fatalisms from which it was the mission of Christianity to release them. In fact, however, it cannot be denied that from time to time they have worked, where other means have failed, to recall men sharply and uncompromisingly to the sense of sin and thereby to a more vivid and convincing moral purpose. Such a time was come once more in the day of Luther and Erasmus and Calvin. This theology may have been illogical, but it worked. It ought, perhaps, in all reason, to have sent men flying off into a mad indifference to morality, since nothing they could do would influence their ultimate fate; but for every weak and shuffling conscience which broke under this burden there were a hundred others that were steeled and nerved by it to a complete moral regeneration. The doctrine of the impotent will has produced some of the most masterful wills before which the world has ever had to bend.

Here, then, was a point upon which Erasmus might safely attack Luther without compromising himself. His essay on the Freedom of the Will[152] was announced some time before its appearance. In the course of the year 1523 he sent a rough draft to King Henry VIII., promising, if this seemed worth while to the king "and other learned men," to finish it as soon as his health and certain engagements would permit. A letter of Luther to Erasmus in 1524 suggests that he had heard of his intention to attack in some way the doctrines of the Reformation, though he nowhere alludes to the subject of free will. This letter is interesting as showing the lofty tone of a man who believes himself to be the spokesman of a cause higher than any human considerations. He, like Hutten, sees in Erasmus an ally who, after the measure of the gift of God, is fighting the same battle. Only he feels the limitations of that gift.

[152] _De libero arbitrio Διατρίβη sive collatio_, ix., 1215-1247.

"I see that God has not yet granted you the courage and the
insight to join freely and confidently with me in fighting those
monsters. Nor am I the man to demand of you what goes beyond
my own strength and my own limitations. But weakness like my
own and a measure of the gift of God I have borne with in you
and have respected it. For this plainly the whole world cannot
deny: that learning flourishes and prevails, whereby men have
come to the true understanding of Scripture and this is a great
and splendid gift of God in you. In truth I have never wished
that you should go beyond your own limitations and mingle in our
camp, for though you might help us greatly with your genius and
eloquence, yet since your heart is not in it it would be safer
to serve within your own gift. The only thing to be feared was
that you would sometime be persuaded by our enemies to publish
some attack upon our _doctrine_, and then necessity would compel
me to answer you to your face. I have restrained others who
were trying to draw you into the arena with things they had
already written, and that was the reason why I wished Hutten's
_Expostulatio_ had never been published,--and still more your
_Spongia_, through which, if I am not mistaken, you now see how
easy it is to write about moderation and to accuse Luther of
lacking it, but how difficult, nay, impossible it is to practice
it except through a singular gift of the Spirit.

"Believe me, then, or not, yet Christ is my witness that I pity
you from my heart, because the hatred and the active efforts of
so many and so great men are stirred up against you. I cannot
believe that you are not disturbed by these things, since your
human virtue is unequal to such a burden. And yet perchance
they too are moved by a justifiable warmth, because they feel
themselves attacked by you with unworthy methods....

"I, however, have up to this time restrained my pen, no matter
how bitterly you have stung me, and have told my friends, in
letters which you have read, that I was going to restrain it
until you should come out openly.... Now then, what can I do?
Either way is most trying to me. I could wish--if I could be
the mediator--that my allies would cease to attack you with
such zeal and would permit your old age to fall asleep in the
peace of God and this they would do, in my opinion, if they
would consider your infirmity and the greatness of our cause,
which has long since passed beyond your limitations; especially
now that the matter has gone so far that there is little to
fear for our cause, even if Erasmus fight against it with all
his might, nay, though sometimes he scatter stings and bites.
Yet, on the other hand, my dear Erasmus, if only you would
consider their weakness and would restrain from those biting
and cutting figures of rhetoric, so that if you cannot or dare
not go with us altogether, you may at least leave us alone and
deal with your own subjects. For that they [Erasmus' 'Lutheran'
assailants] are but ill bearing your attacks, there is good
reason, namely, because their human weakness greatly dreads the
name and authority of Erasmus and because to be once bitten by
Erasmus is quite a different thing from being crushed by all the
papists together.

"I desire to have said these things, most excellent Erasmus,
in witness of my friendly feeling towards you. I pray that God
may give you a spirit worthy of your fame; but if God delays
with his gift to you, I beg you meanwhile, if you can do no
more, to remain a spectator of our conflict and not to join
forces with our opponents, especially not to publish books
against me, as I will publish nothing against you. Finally,
consider that those who complain that they are attacked under
the Lutheran name are men like you and me, in whom much ought to
be overlooked and forgiven. As Paul says: 'Bear ye one another's
burdens.' There has been biting enough; now let us see to it
that we be not consumed by mutual strife, a spectacle the more
wretched inasmuch as it is perfectly certain that neither side
is at heart opposed to true piety and that if it were not for
obstinacy, each would be quite satisfied with its own. Pardon my
feeble speech and farewell in the Lord."

The impression of this letter is one of sad but confident sincerity. Luther is not afraid of Erasmus because he is unshakably convinced of the justice of his own cause, but he would gladly be spared the necessity of going into an encounter which would make even more evident to the world than it was already the difference between his own and Erasmus' views of reform. His tone is lofty, arrogant if we will, because he is speaking for what he believes to be divine truth and to a man who seemed to him as yet untouched by the real divine spark. He acknowledges his indebtedness to the great scholar, but cannot see why Erasmus may not continue to find full scope for his talents on the lines he has been following. He did not succeed in staying the publication of the essay on free will, but at all events the moderation of its tone shows a notable effort on the part of Erasmus to avoid irritating language.

The treatise, published in 1524, is a short one, covering sixteen folio pages. It consists chiefly of a careful historical examination of passages of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testaments, in which the subject seems to be alluded to. So far as the argument itself is concerned, the work is of little interest. Erasmus for the most part carefully avoids original discussion and holds himself closely to authority. Since the beginning, he says, there has never been anyone to deny free will entirely except "Manichæus" and Wiclif. Yet Luther gives no weight to all this and falls back upon Scripture. Very good, but this is only what all do. "Both sides accept and revere the same Scripture. The battle is only about the meaning of Scripture," and in getting at the meaning we ought to pay respect to talent and learning. Of course the only sound interpretation comes through the gift of the Spirit; but where is the Spirit? The chances are much greater that it is to be found among those to whom God has given ordination, just as we believe more easily that grace is given to a baptised man than to an unbaptised one.

"If Paul commands his time, in which the gift of the Spirit was
flourishing, to prove the spirits, whether they be of God, what
must we do in this fleshly age? How then shall we judge the
spirits? by learning? On both sides there are men of learning.
By the life? there are sinners on both sides. In the other life
is the whole choir of the saints who approve the freedom of the
will. 'But,' they say, 'those were mortals'; true, and I am
comparing men with men, not men with gods. I am asked: 'What
have majorities to do with the meaning of Scripture?' I answer:
'What have minorities to do with it?' I am asked: 'How does the
mitre help in understanding Scripture?' I answer: 'How does the
cloak help or the cowl?' I am asked: 'What has the understanding
of philosophy to do with the understanding of Scripture?' I
answer: 'What has ignorance to do with it?' I am asked: 'What
can be done for a knowledge of Scripture by a Council, in which
it may happen that no one has the Spirit?' I answer: 'What can
be done by private gatherings of a few men, among whom it is far
more probable that no one has the Spirit?' ...

"If you ask them by what proof they know the true sense of
Scripture, they reply, 'By the witness of the Spirit.' If you
ask how _they_ come to have the Spirit, rather than those
whose miracles have been known to all the world, they reply as
if there had been no Gospel in the world for thirteen hundred
years. If you ask of them a life worthy of the Spirit, they
reply that they are justified by faith, not by works. If you ask
for miracles they tell you that these have long since ceased
and that there is no need of them in the present clear light of
Scripture. If you deny that Scripture is clear on this point,
upon which so many of the greatest men have been involved in
darkness, the circle comes round again to its beginning."

Now all this is very clever--too clever, in fact; for it amounts to nothing but an elaborate defence of the principle of human authority in belief. By means of this introduction, Erasmus sets himself squarely against the principle of free interpretation of the original sources of Christianity by the light of reason and knowledge, for which the Reformation was really working and towards which he himself by his own New Testament work had been contributing.

Another principle of Erasmus, especially irritating to Luther, was that the truth should not always be spoken, a maxim as obviously true as the application of it was liable to gross abuse.

"Let us then suppose," he says, "that it be true in some sense,
as Wiclif and Luther have said, that 'whatever is done by us,
is done, not by free will but by pure necessity,' what more
inexpedient than to publish this paradox to the world? Or, let
us suppose that in a certain sense it is true, as Augustine
somewhere says: 'God works both good and evil in us, and
rewards his own good works in us and punishes his own evil
works in us,' what a door to impiety this saying would open to
countless mortals, if it were spread abroad in the world!...
What weak man would keep up the perpetual and weary conflict
against the flesh? What evil man would strive to correct his
life? Who could persuade his soul to love with his whole heart a
God who has prepared a hell glowing with eternal tortures that
he may there avenge upon miserable men his own misdeeds as if he
delighted in human tortures?"

Here was an objection to Augustinianism as old as Augustine himself, but the fact was that it had never yet been sustained and was not likely to be. Even if it had been, that could not affect the principle Erasmus was now concerned with; namely, that truth which seemed likely to make any confusion in the world ought not to be spoken.[153]

[153] In a letter to Aloisius Marlianus (iii.¹, 545-C), Erasmus
says: "I know that everything ought to be borne rather than that
the public order should be disturbed; I know it is the part of
piety sometimes to hide the truth, and that the truth ought not
to be put forth in every place, nor at every time, nor in every
presence, nor in every way, nor always in its entirety."

Having fortified himself on these preliminary points, Erasmus lays out the problem with great clearness and then proceeds with the examination of scripture passages on both sides. It would be idle to follow this process, by which, proverbially, anyone can prove anything. Of course Erasmus finds the weight of Scripture on his side, as his opponents found it on theirs. Far more important and interesting is his own personal declaration of faith. Put in a word, it was that one ought to allow to man _some_ share in his own good actions; not a great share, only "_non nihil_." In fact, this is really the only thing he finds to criticise in the Lutheran doctrine, the overemphasis on the element of grace in human action.

"[154]Doubtless to them [the Lutherans] it seems perfectly in
harmony with the simple obedience of the Christian soul that man
should depend wholly upon the will of God, should place all his
hope and trust in His promises, and, knowing how wretched he is
of himself, should marvel and adore His boundless mercy which
is poured out upon us freely in such large measure and should
entrust himself wholly to His will, whether He wishes to save
or to condemn; that man should take no credit to himself for
His kindnesses, but should ascribe all the glory to His grace,
bearing in mind that man is only the living organ of the divine
spirit, purified and consecrated by His free goodness, ruled
and governed by His inscrutable wisdom. There is nothing here
which anyone can claim for his own strength and yet one may with
confidence hope from Him the reward of eternal life--not because
he has deserved it by good deeds, but because it has seemed best
to His goodness to promise it to His faithful. It is the part of
men earnestly to pray God that he may impart and increase His
spirit in us, to give thanks if any good is done through us, to
worship His power in all things, to marvel at His wisdom, and to
love His goodness.

[154] ix., 1241-F.

"All this I too most heartily approve. It agrees with holy Scripture. It answers to the profession of those who, once dead to the world, are at the same time buried with Christ by baptism, so that through mortifying the flesh, they may live and act in the spirit of Jesus, in whose body they are implanted by faith. Truly a pious opinion and worthy of all approval, which takes away from us all pride, which lays all the glory and all our hope upon Christ, which casts out all fear of men or demons and makes us distrustful of our own defences, but bold and full of courage in God. I applaud all this gladly until it becomes extravagant. For when I hear that man is so completely without merit that all the works, even of pious men, are sinful; when I hear that our wills can do no more than clay in the hand of the potter; when I hear that all we do or will is to be referred to absolute necessity,--my mind is disturbed by many scruples."

We see how near he comes to the Lutheran position. Its emphasis on the sinfulness of man and the direct responsibility to God appeals to him. Only, like so many before and since, he revolts against the injustice of a theory which would punish man for sins he has not committed. He cannot escape from the ordinary standards of human reward and punishment. His idea of God is offended by what seems to him a cruel and unfeeling conception. He cannot ascribe to God any quality which would be a disgrace to manhood.

"Surely everyone would call him a cruel and unjust master,
who should flog a slave to death because he was not beautiful
enough or had a crooked nose or was otherwise deformed. Would
not the slave be right in complaining to the master who was
slaying him: 'Why should I be punished for what I cannot help?'
And he would be still more justified in saying this if it were
in the power of the master to remedy the defect of the slave,
as it is in the power of God to change our wills or if the
master had caused in the slave the very defect at which he now
takes offence, as, for example, if he had cut off his nose
or disfigured his face with scars, as God, according to some
people, has wrought all the evil that is in us."[155]

[155] ix., 1243-B.

This is the familiar argument of all anti-Augustinianism from the beginning until now. So long as the discussion has to be carried on with the weapons of the ancient theology, it is hard to see how the issue can be stated otherwise. So long as both parties were acting on the theory of a universe with a God outside of it and assumed the existence of good and evil as absolute entities, they must necessarily part company in their definitions of this God and of his relation to good and evil. Each would fall back upon such human analogies as seemed to come nearest to his own divine ideal. The real issue was far beyond the comprehension of either party. Each was seeking a solution where no solution was possible. Erasmus said:

"In my judgment free will might have been so defined as to avoid
that confidence in our own merits and those other difficulties
which Luther avoids and also the difficulties I have enumerated
above, without losing those valuable things which Luther
praises. This solution seems to me to be found in the opinion
of those who ascribe entirely to grace the first impulse by
which our minds are set in motion, and only in the course of
this motion allow a something to the will of man which has not
withdrawn itself from the grace of God. But since all things
have three parts, beginning, progress, and completion, they
ascribe the two extremes to grace and only in the progress
admit that the free will does something;--but even this it does
in such a way that in the same individual act two causes work
together, the grace of God and the will of man, grace being
the principal cause and the will the secondary cause, which of
itself can do nothing, whereas the principal cause is sufficient
to itself. Just as the native force of fire burns and yet the
principal cause [of the burning] is God, who acts through the
fire and would be sufficient alone, whereas the fire if this
should withdraw itself could accomplish nothing without it."[156]

[156] ix., 1244-A.

This has an almost Pelagian sound. It is in fact nearly the attitude of the moderate anti-Augustinian party of the fifth century, when it was trying to show how orthodox it was. Erasmus goes on to illustrate the same point with abundant and clever illustration, and finally comes to the question of "original sin," the inevitable _crux_ of the whole discussion.

"[157]They exaggerate original sin beyond all measure," he
says; "they would have it that the most splendid powers of our
human nature are so corrupted by it, that we can do nothing of
ourselves except to be ignorant of God and to hate Him. Not even
he who is justified by faith can do any act which is not a sin;
this very _tendency_ to sin left over to us from the sin of our
first parents they call sin, and declare it irresistible, so
that there is no command of God which even a man justified by
faith can fulfil; but so many commands of God have no other aim
than that God's grace may be magnified through his granting of
salvation without regard to our merits!... If God has burdened
man with so many commands which have no other effect than to
make him hate God the more, do they not make him out more
unmerciful than Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, who purposely made
many laws which he expected most persons would not obey unless
insisted upon, then for a while overlooked offences until he saw
that almost everyone had violated them, and then began to call
them to account, and so made everyone hate him?

[157] ix., 1246-B.

"This kind of extravagance Luther seems to delight in, in order that he might, as the saying is, split the evil knot of others' excesses with an evil wedge. The foolish audacity of certain men had gone to extremes. They were selling the merits, not only of themselves, but of all the saints. And for what kind of works? for incantations, for muttering of psalms, eating of fish, fastings, vestments, titles. Now Luther drove out this nail with another by saying that there are no merits of saints at all, but that all the works of pious men are sins, and will bring damnation, unless faith and God's mercy come to their aid.

"Again, the other party was making a profitable trade out of confessions and penances, wherein they had terribly ensnared the consciences of men; and also out of Purgatory, about which they had handed down certain marvellous notions. This error their opponents would correct by saying that confession is a device of Satan and ought not to be required; that works can give no satisfaction for sin since Christ has completely paid the penalty for the sins of all men, and, finally, that there is no such thing as Purgatory. So one side says that the decrees even of their little priors can bind us by the pains of hell and does not hesitate to promise eternal life to those who obey them. The other side tries to moderate this extravagance by saying that all the decrees of popes, councils, and bishops are heretical and anti-Christian. If one side had exalted extravagantly the power of the pope, the other says such things about him as I dare not repeat. Again, one party says that the vows of monks and priests bind men by the pains of hell, and that for ever; the other says that such vows are utterly impious and ought not to be taken;--or, if they have been taken, ought not to be kept. Now it is from the collision of such excesses as this that the thunders and lightnings have arisen which are now shattering the world. If both sides are to go on thus bitterly defending their extreme views I perceive that the battle will be like that between Achilles and Hector, who were so equal in savagery that only death could separate them.... I prefer the opinion of those who attribute something to free will, but a great deal to grace. For we ought not so to avoid the Scylla of pride as to be swept into the Charybdis of despair and indifference."

So the treatise ends as it began, by showing what all reasonable men knew before, that the question has two sides to it, but without giving that kind of decided utterance which the critical moment demanded. Viewed as an abstract treatment, quite independently of the circumstances, it was a moderate, clever, good-tempered discussion of a philosophic problem; but it did not give that clear note of leadership for which, above all else, men were listening. Intellectually, Erasmus' position was as superior to that of Luther as was the temper of his argument better than that of Luther's reply. The _De libero arbitrio_ was welcomed by all the moderates of the day and doubtless did its work in holding to the _status quo_ many a wavering spirit which otherwise might have been drawn into the reforming ranks. While the weight of the argument is obviously thrown as far as possible on Luther's side, it called attention sharply to the weakest points in the Reformation theology.

As soon as the "Free Will" was published, Erasmus hastened, as usual, to justify himself by writing in all directions to the persons whose approval was of most value to him,--to Henry VIII., Wolsey, and Fisher in England, to Melanchthon and Duke George in Germany, and to Aleander in Italy. He represents the work as a proof of his courage--"a bold deed in Germany," he says to Wolsey, while to Aleander he complains that enemies of his in Italy are abusing him for unsound scholarship.

"They call me '_Errasmus_' in Rome, as if your writers had
never made a mistake. They say I am unfriendly to Italy,
whereas no one speaks more heartily than I of the genius of
the Italians.... I have no doubt that you and I would get on
beautifully, if we could only live together."

Luther waited a full year before replying to the Diatribe. It was a year of especial trial to him, for within those months it seemed as if the worst prophecies of his worst enemies were being fulfilled. All the social and economic restlessness of the time was beginning to make use of his teaching as a justification for revolt against the existing order of society. Wholly against his will he found himself held responsible for confusions he abhorred and for doctrines which seemed to him worse, if possible, than those he had undertaken to combat. His immediate duty was to clear himself of these imputations; to show how utterly foreign to his spirit and his aims were the theology of Carlstadt, the communistic speculations of Münzer, and the revolutionary radicalism of the peasant leaders. He accomplished this for all who were able to follow his argumentation in the remarkable series of pamphlets published in 1524 and 1525. Then he returned to the assault of Erasmus. The most striking quality of the long and laboured treatise, _De servo arbitrio_,[158] with which he replied to the Diatribe, is its perfect frankness. Indeed Luther was almost compelled to frankness by his detestation of what seemed to him the perilously shifty method of his opponent. Erasmus had deprecated violence; Luther reminds him that no great good ever came into the world without commotion and overturn of an existing order. Christ came, not to send peace, but a sword. Erasmus had said that true things were not to be uttered at all times and had given certain illustrations; Luther disposes of this point by showing that the things proposed in these illustrations were not true and therefore, of course, ought not to be told at any time. Erasmus had asked: "If there is no freedom of will, who will try to amend his life?" Luther frankly replied, "No man. No man can. The elect will be amended by the divine spirit; the rest will perish unamended." Erasmus had said that a door would be opened to all iniquity by this doctrine. Luther says: "So be it; that is a part of the evil that is to be borne; but at the same time there is opened to the elect a door to salvation, an entrance into heaven, a way to God."

[158] Walch, Luther's _Werke_, xviii., 2049. An English
translation by Henry Cole. London, 1823.

On the crucial point of authority for faith, Erasmus had especially assailed what seemed to him the vague and uncertain evidence of "the Spirit." Luther replies that he is far enough from agreeing with those whose sole reliance is upon the "Spirit," of which they boast. He has had a bitter enough fight with them for a year past. In the same way he has been attacking the papacy because there one is always hearing that the Scriptures are obscure and ambiguous, and that we ought to seek at Rome for the interpreting Spirit,--the most disastrous thing possible.

"Now we hold this, that spirits are to be tried and proved
by a twofold judgment; the one an internal, whereby a man,
enlightened by the Holy Spirit or by a special gift of God may,
so far as he and his own salvation are concerned, decide with
the utmost certainty and distinguish the doctrines and opinions
of all men. As is written [1 Cor. ii. 15.], 'the spiritual
man judgeth all things, but is judged by no man.' This is an
essential part of faith, and is necessary for everyone, even
for a private Christian. This is what we have called above the
internal clearness of Holy Scripture and is perhaps what those
persons meant who replied to you, that all things were to be
decided by the judgment of the Spirit. But this kind of judgment
cannot avail for another person, and is not in question here;
for no one, I believe, can doubt that it stands as I have said.

"Therefore there is a second kind of judgment, an external,
whereby, not only for ourselves but for others and as regards
the salvation of others, we may most surely judge the spirits
and opinions of all men. This judgment belongs to the public
ministry of the Word and to the external office and especially
to the leaders and heralds of the Word. This we make use of when
we strengthen the weak in the faith and confute our opponents.
This we have called above the 'external clearness of Scripture.'
And so we say that all spirits are to be tried in the sight of
the Church with Scripture as the judge."

After this long introduction, Luther proceeds to take up, one after another, Erasmus' references to Scripture, and to show that he has misunderstood them because he has applied to them a false principle of judgment. We are not concerned with this theological fencing. Our interest is in the attitude of the two men towards the ultimate question of authority. Erasmus, the "individual," the man of the Renaissance, the apostle of light, the fearless critic of evils in Church and society, approaches this great doctrinal question with the timidity of a scholastic, and refers it finally to the judgment of the great authorities of the Church. Luther, the man of feeling, the thinker who only prayed to be instructed, who gloried in being the slave of a higher will, comes out here in reality as a champion of the boldest liberty of human judgment. He would settle all things by Scripture, but he would read his Scripture with his own eyes and interpret it by the light of that evidence of the Spirit which he and he alone could read for himself. His tone is one of mingled humility and arrogance, but we have no reason to question his sincerity in either character. His arrogance was that of a man who felt with Paul: "Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel." He closes, as he began, by praising Erasmus' learning, thanking him for having gone straight at the heart of the question, instead of worrying him, as others were doing, "about the papacy, purgatory, indulgences, and such nonsense," and warning him that henceforth he had better stick to his trade of literature and let theology alone.

* * * * *

By the year 1525 the Lutheran doctrine may be regarded as substantially complete, in the form which it was to take in the Augsburg Confession of 1530. Erasmus had indeed, as Luther said, gone straight to the point by which that doctrine must stand or fall, and in rejecting it he had made it impossible for anyone to rank him with the reforming party. At the same time he had shown how completely he was out of sympathy, even theologically, with the system of salvation by _bona opera_, which the Church was trying to maintain. More than ever therefore he found himself out of tune with both parties and, since all the world was now rapidly ranging itself on one side or the other, he experienced a growing sense of isolation that was to colour his remaining years.

Logically this isolation was the natural outcome of lifelong habit. To be free of all obligations was, we have continually noted, Erasmus' chief desire, and that motive, consistently followed, could lead nowhere else than to isolation. Yet here we touch once more upon that other side of his nature which had always been in conflict with the instinct of freedom. In spite of his individuality he needed approval. The breath of adulation was sweet to him. He could be shabby enough to a friend, if he thought himself injured, but that very sensitiveness betrayed his need of friendship. We cannot wonder therefore that henceforth, with increasing age and infirmity, his utterances take on a tone of increasing sadness and sense of loss.

More and more, too, as the doctrines of the reformers spread downward into all classes of society and outward over all countries, it became clearer and clearer to the established authorities that their real quarrel was not with this or that doctrinal quibble, nor with one or the other religious sect or social organisation, but with the underlying spirit of all these. It availed little that Erasmus rejected the doctrine of the Unfree Will, that he refused to be a Lutheran or a Zwinglian, an Anabaptist or a socialist. The powers threatened by all these felt, and rightly felt, that he stood for something more dangerous still,--a something without which none of the sects could have stood alone for a moment. That something was the spirit of criticism and of science based upon a first-hand knowledge of the sources of Christian truth.

The year 1525 marks a distinct reactionary movement. As, on the one hand, the social and economic disturbances were the severest strain on the new religious awakening, so, on the other hand, they were the final argument to convince the powers of conservatism that it was now or never with them. For a moment the Church had seemed to waver. In electing as pope Adrian VI., a Northerner, an intimate of the young emperor, a school-fellow of Erasmus, and well known as a man of enlightened and moderate views, the Roman Curia had seemed to cut itself loose from an exclusively Roman policy. That policy had more than once brought the papacy to the brink of ruin and was to do so more than once again, but for the moment reformers of all grades believed that a substantial progress had been made. The early action of Adrian had confirmed this belief; but the pressure was too great; the papacy was stronger than the pope. Adrian died in 1523 after a disappointing administration of a single year, and the proverbial swing of the papal pendulum brought to the chair of Peter once more an Italian--not indeed a Roman, but a man as completely identified with the curial policy as Adrian had been unfamiliar with it.

Giulio dei' Medici, nephew of the great Lorenzo, devoted from his earliest years to the ecclesiastical profession, a politician trained in the same school with Macchiavelli, and accepting the papacy as the natural culmination of his ambition, was precisely the kind of man to rally all the resources of the Church in defence of its imperilled traditions. In that rally, at this perilous crisis, no half-way allegiance could be useful. Whatever hopes might have been placed upon Erasmus by Leo and Adrian were by this time pretty effectually dissipated. The kind of sledge-hammer blows which the papacy of 1525 needed to have struck in its defence were certainly not to come from such an arm as this.

Yet there occurred no official breach with any of the great Catholic powers. On the accession of Clement VII. Erasmus sent him an early letter of congratulation. He almost repeats the language of similar addresses to former popes. Things have been going badly enough, but now the right man for the emergency has come. Especially the cause of learning may well expect the greatest things from a Medicean pope. He has resisted all pressure to take sides against the papacy, and yet Stunica is raging against him in Italy unpunished, to the disgrace of Rome and the injury of the papal name.

"[159]Believe me, most holy Father, whoever is hiring that
play-actor, a man born for this kind of trickery, is doing a
very poor service to the papacy or to the cause of the public
peace; he is simply serving some private hatred and to that
end making use of another's folly.... I have always submitted
myself and all my works to the judgment of the Roman Church,
not intending to resist, even if it should give a verdict
unfavourable to me. For I will suffer everything rather than be
a rebel; and therein I place my confidence that your Holiness'
sense of justice will not permit me to be given up to the mad
hatred of a few men.... The Emperor and the Lady Margaret are
calling me back to Brabant. The French king is inviting me with
mountains of gold to come to him. But nothing shall tear me from
Rome but death,--or the gravel more cruel than death,--if only
I can be sure that your justice will protect me against false
accusations."

[159] iii.¹, 783-E.

The familiar reference to the mountains of French gold, which have been serving their turn with him any time these ten years past, but which have no foundation in fact, serve to indicate the value of these declarations. It is unlikely that Erasmus had the least intention of going to Rome. The phrase about his call to Brabant appears again, somewhat elaborated, in a letter to Cardinal Campeggio, dated 1526, but almost certainly of even date (February, 1524) with the one to Clement just quoted. He speaks here of his very feeble health, which has compelled him to take a house by himself where he can have an open fireplace. He cannot leave in the winter, but is planning a vacation trip for the coming summer, and would gladly betake himself _isthuc_,--presumably to the German Diet at Nuremberg whither Campeggio was coming as papal legate. He goes on to say of how little use he can be under the circumstances, though he will gladly do what he can in the cause of peace. He promises Campeggio to come to the Diet if he can, at the same moment that he is assuring Clement that nothing shall tear him (_avellere_) from his beloved Rome, if he is able to move from Basel at all. If we doubt his intention to go to Rome we may be still more certain that a German Diet in 1524 was the very last place where he would have cared to show himself. This, by the way, was the Diet at which Campeggio was warned not to wear his cardinal's hat, and not to make the sign of benediction or of the cross.[160]

[160] Ranke, History of Germany, bk. iii., ch. iv.

So far as we can ever say that Erasmus had intentions about his future, we may venture to believe that he meant to end his days at Basel. On one subject it was almost impossible for him to exaggerate, and that was the awful agony of his disease in its acute stages and the great weakness and depression in the interval. The wonder is that he could have kept so steadily at work and could so often, in the midst of his reproaches upon fortune and his enemies, display that keen, playful humour which was his greatest charm.

* * * * *

On one other doctrinal question, of vast importance in the history of the Reformation, we must examine the utterances of Erasmus; namely, on the question of the Eucharist. While the problem of the freedom of the will involved the most profound philosophical speculation, the eucharistic controversy had to deal with a matter which, viewed from one side, was a mere question of usage, but from another led at once into a region where blind faith was plainly set in opposition to human reason. From an early day the organised Church had seen the value of the ideas which had taken form in the service of the Eucharist and had insisted with absolutely unwavering determination upon the doctrinal formula which expressed them. First brought sharply before the mediæval world by the controversy of Paschasius in the ninth century, the issue was revived by Berengar of Tours in the eleventh, and all the ingenuity of the early scholasticism of Anselm's day was displayed in giving to the idea a foundation that could be neither misunderstood nor evaded. Thus crystallised into a philosophic reality by the great formulators of the thirteenth century, the crass statement of the Church had been questioned anew by Wiclif. Hus had, on this point, it is true, professed allegiance to the Church, but the Hussite party, by its passionate insistence upon the right of the laity to receive the Eucharist under both forms, had protested against the whole conception of the sacrament as a sacrifice. So also the tendency of the great mystical movement had been to accustom men's minds to a spiritual interpretation of outward forms.

That was the stage in which the Reformation found the whole subject of the Eucharist. Luther early became clear on two points: first, that the celebration of the Eucharist as a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, without any reference whatever to the individual communicant,--indeed, as was oftenest the case, without any lay communicant at all,--was an outrageous violation of every truly Christian conception of the institution, a mere piece of heathen idolatry. But, secondly, Luther still clung to the notion that a something mysterious and miraculous took place when the formula of benediction was duly uttered by the priest, and that this something must still be expressed in terms of the church tradition. "_Hoc est corpus meum_" must have some literal and physical meaning. Especially as he saw the "fanatics," who were not afraid to use their reason and take the consequences, going far ahead of him and repudiating all the mystery of the consecrated symbol, he found himself drawn more and more into sympathy with the traditional view. The Eucharist question thus became the test of distinction not only between Catholic and Protestant but between moderate and radical Protestant as well. Plain men like Landgraf Philip of Hessen, who wanted above all else to see all the forces of Protestantism united in one great assault, were shocked and puzzled to find that men who seemed to them to stand for precisely the same things were held apart by such a mere speculative problem as this.

Luther said, and said truly, of his Protestant doctrinal opponents, "these men are of another spirit," and at the Conference of Marburg, in 1529, when the whole future of Protestantism seemed to hang upon the union of the Swiss with the German branch, his personal insistence upon the out-and-out literalness of the Catholic symbol prevented that union forever. He saved the Lutheran Church from the reproach of fanaticism and left the Swiss Church free to follow its more liberal course. That is where the Eucharist question drew near Erasmus. He began to feel the approach of danger and, characteristically, to prepare for it. We have no special treatise on the subject from his hand, though he is said to have written and suppressed two such. His expressions in regard to it are scattered through his apologetic writings. In the "Apology against Certain Spanish Monks," published in 1528, there is a chapter[161] in which he replies to criticism on this point. Here, as everywhere, he tries to draw a clear line between what is essential and what is non-essential to the Christian faith. Hutten, he says, found fault with him because he was not willing to expose himself to all perils for the sake of Luther's doctrine, but he had replied:

[161] ix., 1064-1066.

"I would gladly be a martyr for Christ, if he would give me
strength, but I am not willing to be a martyr for Luther....
Now if it were an important article of faith that the Mass
is not a sacrifice, as Luther maintains, death ought to be
sought and inflicted on its account.... What I call articles
of faith are those handed down in all the creeds which the
Church repeats,--and yet I do not deny the use of this phrase
for some doctrines that are not expressed in the creeds. As to
the reasons why the Eucharist is called a sacrifice, there is
still a difference among theologians as there is also on many
points about the primacy of the pope.... When I have stated that
we ought to agree with the Church in all points, even if man's
reason and the apparent meaning of Scripture were opposed, I
make it clear enough that I will conform at once, if anyone
will prove to me what the Church teaches on this point."

As regards the communion in both kinds, his critics tried to trip him on the ground of a letter to Bohemia in which he had seemed to show some favour to the new-old doctrine. He protests that he never meant to question the teaching of the Church but only to suggest that more weighty reasons than he had as yet heard ought to be given for changing a practice which undoubtedly prevailed in the early centuries of the Church.

"Nor do I doubt that there were such reasons, which perhaps on
account of some scruple they preferred not to mention;--for
it is not an impious thing in itself to partake under both
forms.... As for the charge that on this point as on many
others I agree with Luther, if I should say that is a straight
lie, they would think me lacking in courtesy; but bad luck to
that crafty book from which these extracts are taken! I try to
persuade men to conform to the requirements of the Roman Church
in partaking of the Eucharist; is that agreeing with Luther? Let
anyone read what he writes on this business!"

So anxious was Erasmus to set himself right with the world on this all-important topic, that in 1530, after his removal to Freiburg, he published an edition of a treatise by one Algerus, a Benedictine monk of Liege, who died at Cluny in 1131. This work, entitled A Treatise on the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord, was written in refutation of Berengar of Tours. In his dedication[162] Erasmus says: "I have never doubted the reality of the body of the Lord, and yet somehow by the reading of this work my faith has been not a little confirmed, and my reverence increased." In the course of this dedication he shows us very plainly the working of his mind. The _doctrine_ he admits to be of original validity, but as to its _form_, and as to the precise expressions one ought to use, there has been an historical development and this has come about by human means, through the natural process of controversy.

[162] iii., 1274-1277.

"Would that they who have followed Berengar in his errors would
follow him also in his repentance, and that their error may turn
to the advantage of the Church! There are innumerable questions
about this sacrament, as, how the change of substance takes
place; how accidents can exist without a substance; how the
bread and the wine retain the colour, the smell, the taste, the
power of satisfying, of intoxicating, and of nourishing which
they had before they were consecrated; at what moment they begin
and cease to be the body and blood of Christ; whether, if the
form be destroyed another substance succeeds; how the same body
may be in innumerable places; how the very body of a man can be
under the least crumb of bread and many other things which may
properly be discussed by those of trained intelligence. For the
multitude it is enough to believe that after the consecration
the bread and the wine are the true body and blood of the Lord,
which cannot be divided, nor injured, nor is exposed to any
harm, whatever may happen to the elements.... In short, in
answer to all the doubts of human reasoning, there comes to us
the unlimited power of God, to whom nothing is impossible and
nothing difficult."

In other words, Erasmus in 1530 is perfectly satisfied with the same mental attitude which Paschasius had displayed in the ninth century, at a moment when European culture was but just rising above its lowest point. His only criticism is reserved for the excesses of the Church system. His description of the proper state of mind of the devout worshipper is spiritual enough to be adopted by the most eager Protestant.

"Once," he says, "when the Church was in its best estate, it
knew but one sacrament and the bishop alone performed it. The
throng of sacramental persons were attracted first by piety and
then by gain. At length the thing has gone so far that many
study for the priesthood precisely as one man learns to be a
mechanic, another a cobbler, another a mason or a tailor. To
these the Mass is only a means of livelihood."

Whenever we find Erasmus protesting with especial vehemence that he does not believe a thing, we may be tolerably sure that he has already given good reason for suspicion that he did believe it. In the case of the Eucharist such suspicion was well grounded. The objections to the doctrine, even on its philosophical side, were such as must have appealed strongly to his common sense. The abuses of it in practice, especially the whole theory of the Mass as a sacrifice, performed by the priest at so much per performance, were precisely of the kind against which he had declaimed all his life long. When the doctrine began to be criticised by the reformers, especially by his Swiss neighbours, he allowed himself some tolerably free expressions of opinion. The leader of Swiss thought on this, as on most theological subjects, was Œcolampadius, the reformed preacher of Basel. He had published his view, and Erasmus' friend, Bilibald Pirkheimer of Nuremberg, had replied, defending a view resembling that of Luther. In June, 1526, Erasmus wrote to Pirkheimer reviewing very briefly the state of the reforming ideas in the several European countries. He says[163]:

[163] iii.¹, 941-A.

"I should not be displeased with the view of Œcolampadius,
if the consent of the Church were not against it. _For I see
no meaning in a body without sensible form_, nor what use it
could be if it were perceived by the senses, provided only
that a spiritual grace were present in the elements. And yet I
cannot depart from the consent of the Church and never have so
departed. You differ from Œcolampadius in such a way that you
seem to prefer to agree with Luther rather than with the Church.
You quote Luther with a little more respect than was necessary,
when you might have cited the authority of others.... With your
usual prudence _you will not show this letter to anyone_."

In the year following he begins a letter to Pirkheimer thus[164]:

[164] iii.¹, 1028-A.

"From your pen, my dear Bilibald, I have never feared anything,
having long tested your cautious considerateness and your
persistent loyalty in friendship; but it did offend me to have
Œcolampadius mixing up my name in his books without any reason,
when he knows from me, that it is unpleasant to me to be named
by him, more unpleasant to be abused, and most unpleasant to be
praised. He keeps it up without end. I have never ascribed
anything of this to my dear Bilibald; for many things grieve us
which we can ascribe to no one. If I had some little doubt about
your unusually long silence, that ought not to surprise you,
considering the changeableness of human affections.... And I do
not regret my little suspicions since they have brought me these
longed-for letters."

Apparently Erasmus suspected that Pirkheimer had, after all, let Œcolampadius know that he was inclined to the spiritual view of the Eucharist. Farther on he writes:

"I said _among friends_ that I could follow his opinion, if the
authority of the Church would approve it; but I added that I
could by no means differ from the Church. But by 'Church' I mean
the consent of all Christian people.... How much the authority
of the Church avails with others I know not, but it is so
important to me that I could agree with Arians or Pelagians, if
the Church should approve what they taught. Not that the words
of Christ are not sufficient for me, but it is no wonder that I
follow as interpreter the Church, upon the authority of which I
believe in the canonical Scriptures. Others perhaps have more
talent or more strength than I, but I rest nowhere so safely
as in the certain judgment of the Church. Of reasons and
argumentations there is no end."

In short, Erasmus had on this subject, as he had usually had on all controverted points, one opinion for his friends and another for the world. His array of "ifs" and "buts" was only a cover for his nervous dread of committing himself to something. His attitude on this question is throughout characteristic. If it meant anything, it would be a complete justification for the suspension of all thought on any speculative question. To say that one would be inclined to a belief if only the Church would approve it, is to emasculate one's own intelligence. It could not help things to say that the Church meant to him the consent of all Christian people. At that moment there was no consent of all Christian people, and the only conceivable way by which such consent could be reached was by a full and free comparison of the honest views of honest men, in order that essentials might be emphasised and non-essentials eliminated. It is a poor defence of the brightest and clearest mind of his day, to say that he refused to take his manly part in the clearing up of precisely those speculative questions about which discussion must necessarily arise. It was idle for him to talk about avoiding dissensions. The dissensions were there, and the real question was not how to suppress them, but how to solve them so that right-minded and intelligent men could know where they stood.

The worst thorn in Erasmus' side on this question was Conrad Pelicanus, one of the reformed preachers of Basel. The chief offence of Pelicanus was that he had sought to support his spiritual view of the Eucharist by declaring that Erasmus really believed just as he did. We have three letters of Erasmus to him, all of 1526, and each more violent than the other. Let us notice only the most decided of these expressions.

"It is my way when I am with learned friends, especially when
there are present none of the weaker sort, to discourse freely
on all kinds of subjects, for the purpose of making inquiries,
sometimes to try them or for mental exercise, and perhaps I am
more outspoken in this matter than I ought to be. But I will
confess to the charge of murder, if any mortal has ever heard me
say in jest or in earnest this word: that in the Eucharist there
is merely bread and wine or that it is not the real body and
blood of our Lord as some are now maintaining in their books.
Nay, I call upon Christ himself to be my enemy, if that opinion
ever found a lodgment in my mind. For if ever at any time any
flighty thoughts have touched my mind I have easily thrown
them off by considering the measureless love of God to me, and
by weighing the words of Holy Scripture, which have compelled
even Luther, whom you set above all schools, all popes, all men
of sound doctrine, and councils, to profess what the Catholic
Church professes though he is wont freely to differ from her....

"If I should confess to you as to a friend debauchery or theft,
how utterly against all laws of friendship it would be if you
were to babble it even to one person, to the peril of your
friend. Now, when you are scattering abroad among all men the
most dreadful of all charges, of things which my tongue, though
a free one, has never uttered, nor my mind ever conceived, how
can you be forgiven for what you are doing, my Evangelical
friend? Did you think to abuse the authority of my name in order
to enforce a belief you have yourself but lately begun to hold?
I pray you, in the name of Christ, is that an Evangelical thing,
to make so dreadful a charge against a friend in order to drag
more persons into a new sect, as if we had not sects enough
already? If your doctrine is a truly pious one, have you no
other means of persuading men to it except this empty statement,
that Erasmus agrees with you? But if my opinion is worth so much
to you, why do you hold it of no account on the many points on
which I differ from you?...

"If you are convinced that in the Eucharist there is nothing
but bread and wine, I would rather be torn limb from limb than
profess what you profess and would rather suffer anything than
depart this life with such a crime confessed against my own
conscience.... I will suffer you to babble out before all men
whatever I have said, in intimate discourse, sober or drunk, in
jest or in earnest, but I will not suffer you to make me the
author or the supporter of that dogma; for it was never either
on my tongue or in my heart."

The best summary of the view he wished others to take of his own opinions on this point is found in a letter to his former pupil, the Polish baron John à Lasco.[165]

[165] iii.¹, 917, D-F.

"I seem to read between the lines of Luther's writings, that
Pelicanus has given him some hints from our conversations,--the
same who has nearly stirred up another disturbance here. He had
spread a rumour that he had the same opinions on the Eucharist
as I had. I wrote him a letter of remonstrance, but without
giving names. This letter of [to?] Pelicanus was shown by Berus
and Cantiuncula to a few persons, was even read in the Council,
and finally was translated into German and spread far and wide,
to my great distress. Pelicanus replied by letter. I wrote him
to stop his writing and, if he wanted anything of me, to come
to me. He came. I asked the man what he meant by his letters.
He tried various evasions, but when I pressed him he finally
confessed that he had said he believed the same as I. I asked
him what then he did believe that could be in agreement with
me? He replied after many attempts at evasion: 'I believe that
in the Eucharist are the body and blood of the Lord; isn't that
what you believe?' 'Assuredly,' I replied. 'Do you believe they
are there by way of a symbol?' 'No,' he said, 'but I believe
the _efficacy_ (_virtutem_) of Christ is present.' I went on:
'Don't you believe that the _substance_ of the body is present?'
He confessed that he did not believe it. After that I asked
him if he had ever professed this opinion in my presence. He
confessed what is the truth, that he had never done so. Then I
demanded whether he had ever heard this opinion from me. He said
he had never heard it and, what was more, he had often heard the
opposite. I continued: 'You pretend to others that I agree with
you, and when you say this, you understand in your own mind that
you agree with me so far as to believe that the body of the Lord
is present; while those who hear you understand that I agree
with you in accepting the opinion of Œcolampadius.'"

The more Erasmus protested, the less could he convince the advanced reformers that he did not in his heart agree with them. His fate was that of any man who tries to shift and shuffle in a crisis when honest men are forming their opinions and are grouping themselves accordingly. He was left outside all the groups, and could not even persuade the one all-embracing, ever hospitable Church that he belonged heartily within her fold.