Erasmus delighted with England, and with Mountjoy, Colet, Grocyn, Linacre, and More.Erasmus falls in love with More.
Nor was it only the warm-heartedness of his English friends which filled him with delight. His purpose in coming to Oxford he declared to be fully answered. He had come to England because he could not raise the means for a longer journey to Italy. To prosecute his studies in Italy had been for years an object of anxious yearning; but now, after a few months’ experience of Oxford life, he wrote to his friend, who was himself going to Italy, ‘that he had found in England so much polish and learning—not showy, shallow learning, but profound and exact, both in Latin and Greek—that now he would hardly care much about going to Italy at all, except for the sake of having been there.’ ‘When,’ he added, ‘I listen to my friend Colet it seems to me like listening to Plato himself. In Grocyn, who does not admire the wide range of his knowledge? What could bemore searching, deep, and refined than the judgment of Linacre?’ And after this mention of Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, he adds: ‘Whenever did nature mould a character more gentle, endearing, and happy than Thomas More’s?’[209]
So that while here, as elsewhere, Colet seems to take his place again as the chief of the little band of English friends, we learn from this letter that the picture would not have been complete without the figure of the fascinating youth with whom Erasmus, like the rest of them, had fallen in love.
The letter itself was written to Robert Fisher, from London ‘tumultuarie,’ 5th December, in 1498 or 1499.
V. DISCUSSION BETWEEN ERASMUS AND COLET ON ‘THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN,’ AND ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES (1499).
Erasmus attributes the agony of Christ to fear of death.
The greater part of 1499 was spent by Erasmus apparently at Oxford. On one occasion Colet and Erasmus were spending an afternoon together.[210]Their conversation fell upon the agony of Christ in the garden. They soon, as usual, found that they did not agree. Erasmus, following the common explanation of the Schoolmen, saw only in the agony suffered by the Saviour that natural fear of a cruel death to which in his human nature he submitted as one of the incidents of humanity. It seemed to him that inHis character as trulyman, left for the moment unaided by His divinity, the prospect of the anguish in store for Him might well wring from Him that cry of fearful and trembling human nature, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!’ while the further words, ‘not my will but Thine be done,’ proved, he thought, that He had not only felt, but conquered, this human fear and weakness. Erasmus further supported this view by adducing the commonly received scholastic distinction between what Christ felt asmanand what He felt asGod, alleging that it was only asmanthat He thus suffered.
Colet objects to this view.Christ was thinking of the Jews, not of Himself.
Colet dissented altogether from his friend’s opinion. It might be the commonly received interpretation of recent divines, but in spite of that he declared his own entire disapproval of it. Nothing could, he thought, be more inconsistent with the exceeding love of Christ, than the supposition that, when it came to the point, He shrank in dread from that very death which He desired to die in His great love of men. It seemed utterly absurd, he said, to suppose that while so many martyrs have gone to torture and death patiently and even with joy—the sense of pain being lost in the abundance of their love—Christ, who was love itself, who came into the world for the very purpose of delivering guilty man by his own innocent death, should have shrunk either from the ignominy or from the bitterness of the cross. The sweat of great drops of blood, the exceeding sorrow even unto death, the touching entreaty to His Father that the cup might pass from Him—was all this to be attributed to the mere fear of death? Colet had rather set it down to anything but that. For it lies in the essence of love, hesaid, that it should cast out fear, turn sorrow into joy, think nothing of itself, sacrifice everything for others. It could not be that He who loved the human race more than anyone else should be inconstant and fearful in the prospect of death. In confirmation of this view he referred to St. Jerome, who alone of all the church fathers had, he thought, shown true insight into the real cause of Christ’s agony in the garden. St. Jerome had attributed the Saviour’s prayer, that the cup might pass from Him, not to the fear of death but to the sense felt by Him of the awful guilt of the Jews, who, by thus bringing about that death which He desired to die for the salvation ofall mankind, seemed to be bringing down destruction and ruin on themselves—an anxiety and dread bitter enough, in Colet’s view, to wring from the Saviour the prayer that the cup might pass from Him, and the drops of bloody sweat in the garden, seeing that it afterwards did wring from Him, whilst perfecting his eternal sacrifice on the cross, that other prayer for the very ministers of his torture, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’ Such was the view expressed by Colet in reply to Erasmus, and in opposition to the view which he was aware was generally received by scholastic divines.
Whilst they were in the heat of the discussion it happened that Prior Charnock entered the room. Colet, with a delicacy of feeling which Erasmus afterwards appreciated, at once broke off the argument, simply remarking, as he took leave, that he did not doubt that were his friend, when alone, to reconsider the matter with care and accuracy, their difference of opinion would not last very long.
Erasmus writes to Colet.
When Erasmus found himself alone and at leisurein his chambers he at once followed Colet’s advice. He reconsidered Colet’s argument and his own. He consulted his books. By far the most of the authorities, both Fathers and Schoolmen, he found beyond dispute to be on his own side. And his reconsideration ended in his being the more convinced that he had himself been right and Colet wrong. Naturally finding it hard to yield when there was no occasion, and feeling sure that this time he had the best of the argument, he eagerly seized his pen, and with some parade, both of candour and learning, stated at great length what he thought might be said on both sides. After having written what, in type, would fill about fifty of these pages, he confidently wound up his long letter by saying that, so far as he could see, he had demonstrated his own opinion to be in accordance with that of the Schoolmen and most of the early Fathers, and, whilst not contrary to nature, clearly consistent with reason. But he knew, he said, to whom he was writing, and whether he had convincedColethe could not tell. For, he wrote in conclusion, ‘how rash it is in me, a mere tyro, to dare to encounter a commander—for one,whom you call a rhetorician, to venture upon theological ground, to enter an arena which is not mine! Still I have not shrunk from daring everything even withyou, who are so skilled in all elegant and ancient lore, who have brought with you from Italy such stores of Greek and Latin, and who, on this very account, are not as yet appreciated as you ought to be by theologians. Wherefore, in discussing with you, I have chosen to use the old and free way of arguing; not only because I prefer it myself, but also because Iknew your dislike to the modern and new-fangled method of disputation, which, keen and ready as it may seem to some, is in your view complicated, superstitious, spiritless, and plainly sophistical. And perhaps you are right.... Yet I would have you take care lest you should not be able to standaloneagainst so many thousands. Let us not, contented with the plain homespun sense of Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, and others as ancient, grudge to these modern disputants their more elaborated doctrines.
‘And now I await your attack. I await your mighty war-trumpet. I await those “Coletian” arrows, surer even than the arrows of Hercules. In the meantime I will array the forces of my mind; I will concentrate my ranks; I will prepare my reserves of books, lest I should not be able to stand your first charge.
‘As to the rest, the matters which you have propounded from the Epistles of St. Paul, since they are such as it would be dangerous to dispute of, I had rather enter into them by word of mouth when we are together than by letter.Vale!’
The reply of Colet was short, and very characteristic of the man.
Colet replies.Colet’s love of truth.
‘Your letter, most learned Erasmus, as it is very long, so also is it most eloquent and happy. It is a proof of a tenacious memory, and gives a faithful review of our discussion.... But it contains nothing to alter or detract from the opinions which I imbibed from St. Jerome. Not that I am perverse and obstinate with an uncandid pertinacity, but that (though I may be mistaken) I think I hold and defend the truth, or what is most like the truth....I am unwilling, just now, to grapple with your letter as a whole; for I have neither leisure nor strength to do so at once, and without preparation. But I will attack the first part of it—your first line of battle as it were.... In the meantime do you patiently hear me, and let us both, if, when striking our flints together, any spark should fly out, eagerly catch at it. For we seek, not for victory in argument, but fortruth, which perchance may be elicited by the clash of argument with argument, as sparks are by the clashing of steel against steel!’[211]
Erasmus had followed the theory of the ‘manifold senses’ of Scripture.Colet’s view.
Erasmus, at the commencement of his long letter, feeling, perhaps, that after all there might be some truth in Colet’s view not embraced in his own, had fallen back upon the strange theory, already alluded to as held by scholastic divines, that the words of the Scriptures, because of their magic sacredness and absolute inspiration, might properly be interpreted in several distinct senses. ‘Nothing’ (he had said) ‘forbids our drawing various meanings out of the wonderful riches of the sacred text, so as to render the same passage in more than one way. I know that, according to Job, “the word of God is manifold.” I know that the manna did not taste alike to all. But if you so embraceyouropinion that you condemn and reject the received opinion, then I freely dissent from you.’
This was the first line of battle which Colet, in his letter, declared that he would at once attack. It was a notion of Scripture interpretation altogether foreign to his own. He yielded to none in his admiration of thewonderful fulness and richness of the Scriptures. He had made it the chief matter of his remark to the priest who had called on him during the winter vacation of 1496-7, and had written to the Abbot of Winchcombe an account of the priest’s visit in order to press the same point upon him. But from the method adopted in his expositions of St. Paul’s Epistles, and the first chapter of Genesis, it appears that he did not hold the theory of uniform verbal inspiration, which ignored the human element in Scripture, round which had grown this still stranger theory of the manifold senses, and upon which alone it could be at all logically held.
It is true that, in his abstract of the Dionysian writings, he had, upon Dionysian authority, accepted, in a modified form,[212]the doctrine of the ‘four senses’ ofScripture; and in his letters to Radulphus, whilst confining himself to the literal sense, he guarded himself against the denial of the same theory. But he had never sanctioned the gross abuse of the doctrine to which Erasmus had appealed, which asserted that even theliteralsense of the same passage might be interpreted to mean different things. It was one thing to hold that some passages must be allegorically understood and not literally, and that other passages have both a literal and an allegorical meaning (which Colet seems to have held), or even thatallpassages have both a literal and an allegorical meaning (which Colet did not hold). It was quite another thing to hold that the words of the same passage might, in theirliteralsense, mean several different things, and be used astextsin support of statements not within the direct intention of their human writer.
Aquinas on the ‘manifold senses.’
Thomas Aquinas, in his ‘Summa,’ had indeed laid down a proposition, which practically amounted to this. For in discussing the doctrine of the ‘four senses’ of Scripture, he had not only stated that the spiritual sense of Scripture was threefold, viz. allegorical, moral, and anagogical, but also that theliteral sense was manifold. He had laid down the doctrine, that ‘Inasmuch as the literal sense is that whichthe author intends, andGodis the author of Holy Scripture, who comprehends all things in His mind at one and the same time, it is not inconsistent, as Augustine says in his twelfth Confession, if even according to the literal sense in the one letter of the Holy Scriptures there are many senses.’[213]
It may, however, well be doubted whether Aquinas would have sanctioned altogether the absurd length to which this doctrine was carried by scholastic disputants.
Colet on the ‘manifold senses.’
Whether Colet, since Grocyn’s discovery, had or had not altogether repudiated the doctrine of ‘manifold senses,’ as one of the notions which he had once held on Dionysian authority, but which the authority of thePseudo-Dionysius was not sufficient to establish, it is clear that in his reply to Erasmus he utterly repudiated the abuse of it to which Erasmus had appealed. ‘In the first place’ (he wrote), ‘I cannot agree with you when you state, along with many others, and as I think mistakenly, that the Holy Scriptures, at leastuno in aliquo genere, are so prolific that they give birth to many senses. Not that I would not have them to be as prolific as possible—their overflowing fecundity and fulness I, more than others, admire—but that I consider their fecundity to consist in their giving birth not to many [senses], but to only one, and that the most true one.’
Colet’s views on ‘Inspiration.’
After remarking that whilst the lower forms of life produce the most numerous offspring, the highest forms of life tend towardsunityof offspring, he argues that the Holy Spirit gives birth in the Scripture, according to its own power, to one and the same simple truth. What if from the simple, divine, and truth-speaking words of the Scriptures of the Spirit of Truth, whether heard or read, many and various persons draw many and varying senses? He set that down, he said, not to the fecundity of the Scriptures, but to the sterility of men’s minds, and their incapacity of getting at the pureand simple truth. If they could but reachthat, they would as completely agree as now they differ. He then remarked how mysterious the inspiration of the Scriptures was; how the Spirit seemed to him, by reason of its majesty, to have a peculiar method of its own, singularly absolute and free, blowing where it lists, making prophets of whom it will, yet so that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. He repeated, in conclusion, that he admired the fulness of the Scriptures, not because each word may be construed in several senses—that would be want of fulness—but becausequot sententiæ totidem sunt verba, et quot verba tot sententiæ. Having said this, he was ready to descend into the arena, and to join battle with Erasmus on the matter in dispute, but he could not do so now; he was called away by other engagements, and must end his letter for the present.[214]
The letters which followed in which Colet further pursued the subject of the Agony in the Garden, have unfortunately been lost. But enough remains to give, by a passing glimpse, some idea of the pleasant colloquies and earnest converse, both by mouth and letter, in which the happy months of college intercourse glided swiftly by.
VI. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE INTENTION OF ERASMUS TO LEAVE OXFORD (1499-1500).
Erasmus at Court.
The winter vacation of 1499-1500 had apparently dispersed for a while the circle of Oxford students. Erasmus having, it would seem, some friend at Court, had joined the Royal party, probably spending Christmas at Woodstock or some other hunting station. He was at first delighted with Court manners and field sports, and in a letter,[215]written about this time, he jocosely told a Parisian friend, that the Erasmus whom he once had known was now a hunter, and his manners polished up into those of an experienced courtier. He was greatly struck, he added, with the beauty and grace of the English ladies, and urged him to let nothing less than the gout hinder his coming to England.
But soon tires of Court life.
But while Court life might captivate at first, Erasmus had soon found out that its glitter was not gold. As the wolf in the fable lost his relish for the dainties and delicate fare of the house-dog when he saw the mark of the collar on his neck, so when Erasmus had seen how little of freedom and how much of bondage there was in the courtier’s life he had left it with disgust; choosing rather to return to Oxford to share the more congenial society of what students might be found there during these vacation weeks, than to remain longer with ‘be-chained courtiers.’[216]He was waiting only for time and tide to return to Paris.At present the weather was too rough for so bad a sailor; and, owing to political disquiet and danger, it was difficult to obtain the needful permission to leave the realm.
Erasmus proposes to leave Oxford.Colet urges him to remain at Oxford.
The fear that Erasmus was so soon to leave Oxford was one which troubled Colet’s vacation thoughts. To be left alone at Oxford again to fight his way single-handed was by no means a cheering prospect. But his saddest feeling was one not merely of sorrow at parting with his new friend—it was a feeling of disappointment. He had hoped for more than he had found in Erasmus. That he could have won over Erasmus all at once to his own views and plans he had never dreamed. The scholar had his own bent of mind, and of course his own plans. Such was his love of learning for its own sake, that he was bent on constant and persevering study; and his stay at Oxford he looked upon merely as one step in the ladder, valuable chiefly because it led to the next. But Colet longed for fellowship. In his friend he had sought, and in some measure found, fellow-feeling. But feeling and action to him were too closely linked to make that all he wanted. Fellow-feeling was to him but a half-hearted thing unless it ripened into fellow work; and he had hoped for this in Erasmus. He had purposely left Erasmus to find out his views and to discern his spirit by degrees. He had not tried to force him in anywise. He had shown his wisdom in this. But now that Erasmus talked of leaving Oxford, it was Colet’s duty to speak out. He could not let him go without one last appeal. He therefore wrote to him, telling him plainly of his disappointment. He urged him to remain at Oxford.He urged him, once for all, to come out boldly, as he himself had done, and to do his part in the great work of restoring that old and true theology of Christ, so long obscured by the subtle webs of the Schoolmen, in its pristine brightness and dignity. What could he do more noble than this? There was plenty of room for both of them. He himself was doing his best to expound the New Testament. Why should not Erasmus take some book of the Old Testament, say Genesis or Isaiah, and expound it, as he had done the Epistles of St. Paul? If he could not make up his mind to do this at once, Colet urged that, as a temporary alternative, he should lecture on some secular branch of study. Anything was better than that he should leave Oxford altogether.[217]
Erasmus received this letter soon after his return from his short experience of Court life. The tone of disappointment and almost reproof pervading it Erasmus felt was undeserved on his part, yet it evidently made a deep impression upon him. Looking back upon his intercourse with Colet at Oxford, he must have seen how much it had done to change his views, and felt how powerfully Colet’s influence had worked upon him. Yet he knew how far his views were from being matured like Colet’s, and how foolish it would be to begin publicly to teach before his own mind was fully made up. He knew that Colet had brought him over very much to his way of thinking, and he was ready to confess himself a disciple of Colet’s; but he must digest what he had learned, and make it thoroughly his own, before he could publicly teach it.Perhaps he might one day be able to join Colet in his work at Oxford; but he thought, and probably wisely, that the time had not yet come. This at least may be gathered from his reply to Colet’s letter. With some abridgment and unimportant omissions, it may be translated thus:—
Erasmus to Colet.[218]Reply of Erasmus to Colet’s entreaties.Agrees with Colet in disliking the Scholastic System.... ‘In what you say of your dislike to the modern race of divines, who spend their lives in mere logical tricks and sophistical cavils, in very truth I entirely agree with you.‘Not that, valuing as I do all branches of study, I condemn the studies of these menas such, but that when they are pursued for themselves alone, unseasoned by more ancient and elegant literature, they seem to me to be calculated to make men sciolists and contentious; whether they can make men wise I leave to others. For they exhaust the mental powers by a dry and biting subtlety, without infusing any vigour or spirit into the mind. And, worst of all, theology, the queen of all science—so richly adorned by ancient eloquence—they strip of all her beauty by their incongruous, mean, and disgusting style. What was once so clear, thanks to the genius of the old divines, they clog with some subtlety or other, thus involving everything in obscurity while they try to explain it. It is thus we see that theology, which was once most venerable and full of majesty, now almost dumb, poor, and in rags.‘In the meantime we are allured by a never-satiatedappetite for strife. One dispute gives rise to another, and with wonderful gravity we fight about straws. Then, lest we should seem to have added nothing to the discoveries of the old divines, we audaciously lay down certain positive rules according to which God has performed his mysteries, when sometimes it might be better for us to believe that a thingwasdone, leaving the question ofhowit was done to the omnipotence of God. So, too, for the sake of showing our ingenuity, we sometimes discuss questions which pious ears can hardly bear to hear; as, for instance, when it is asked whether the Almighty could have taken upon Him the nature of the devil or of an ass.‘Besides all this, in our times those men in general apply themselves to theology, the chief of all studies, who by reason of their obtuseness and lack of sense are hardly fit for any study at all. I say this not of learned and upright professors of theology, whom I highly respect and venerate, but of that sordid and haughty pack of divines who count all learning as worthless except their own.He honours Colet and his work.‘Wherefore, my dear Colet, in having joined battle with this redoubtable race of men for the restoration, in its pristine brightness and dignity, of that old and true theology which they have obscured by their subtleties, you have in very truth engaged in a work in many ways of the highest honour—a work of devotion to the cause of theology, and of the greatest advantage to all students, and especially the students of this flourishing University of Oxford. Still, to speak the truth, it is a work of great difficulty, and one sure to excite ill-will. Your learning and energywill, however, conquer every difficulty, and your magnanimity will easily overlook ill-will. There are not a few, even among divines themselves, both able and willing to second your honest endeavours. There is no one, indeed, who would not give you a hand, since there is not even a doctor in this celebrated University who has not given attentive audience to your public readings on the Epistles of St. Paul, now of three years’ standing. And which is the most praiseworthy in this,theirmodesty in not being ashamed to learn from a young man without doctor’s degree, oryourremarkable learning, eloquence, and integrity of life, which they have thought worthy of such honour?Erasmus agrees with Colet but is not ready yet to join him in fellow-work.‘I do not wonder thatyoushould put your shoulder under so great, a burden, for you are able to bear it, but I do wonder greatly that you should callme, who am nothing of a man, into the fellowship of so glorious a work. For you exhort,—yes, you almost reproachfully urge me, that, by expounding either the ancient Moses[219]or the eloquent Isaiah, in the same way as you have expounded St. Paul, I should try, as you say, to kindle up the studies of this University, now chilled by these winter months. But I, who have learned to live in solitude, know well how imperfectly I am furnished for such a task; nor do I lay claim to sufficient learning to justify myundertaking it. Nor do I judge that I have strength of mind enough to enable me to sustain the ill-will of so many men stoutly maintaining their own ground. Matters of this kind require not a tyro, but a practised general. Nor can you rightly call me immodest in refusing to do what I should be far more immodest to attempt. You act, my dear Colet, in this matter as wisely as they who (as Plautus says) “demand water from a rock.” With what face can I teach what I myself have not learned? How shall I kindle the chilled warmth of others while I am altogether trembling and shivering myself?...‘But you say you expected this of me, and now you complain that you were mistaken. You should rather blame yourself than me for this. For I have not deceived you. I have neither promised nor held out any prospect of any such thing. But you have deceived yourself in not believing me when I told you truly what I meant to do.Erasmus is returning to Paris.‘Nor indeed did I come here to teach poetry and rhetoric, for these ceased to be pleasant to me when they ceased to be necessary. I refuse the one task because it does not come up to my purpose, the other because it is beyond my strength. You unjustly blame me in the one case, my dear Colet, because I never intended to follow the profession of what are called secular studies. As to the other, you exhort me in vain, as I know myself to be too unfit for it. But even though I were most fit, still it must not be. For soon I must return to Paris.‘In the meantime, whilst I am detained here, partly by the winter, and partly because departure from England is forbidden, owing to the flight of someduke,[220]I have betaken myself to this famous University that I might rather spend two or three months with men of your class than with those be-chained courtiers.But some day will join Colet in fellow-work.‘Be it, indeed, far from me to oppose your glorious and sacred labours. On the contrary, I will promise (since not fitted as yet to be a coadjutor) sedulously to encourage and further them. For the rest, whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and strength I will join you, and, by your side, and in theological teaching, I will zealously engage, if not in successful at least in earnest labour. In the meantime, nothing could be more delightful to me than that we should go on as we have begun, whether daily by word of mouth, or by letter, discussing the meaning of Holy Scripture.‘Vale, mi Colete.‘Oxford: at the College of the Canons of the Order of St. Augustine, commonly called the College of St. Mary.’[221]
Erasmus to Colet.[218]
Reply of Erasmus to Colet’s entreaties.Agrees with Colet in disliking the Scholastic System.
... ‘In what you say of your dislike to the modern race of divines, who spend their lives in mere logical tricks and sophistical cavils, in very truth I entirely agree with you.
‘Not that, valuing as I do all branches of study, I condemn the studies of these menas such, but that when they are pursued for themselves alone, unseasoned by more ancient and elegant literature, they seem to me to be calculated to make men sciolists and contentious; whether they can make men wise I leave to others. For they exhaust the mental powers by a dry and biting subtlety, without infusing any vigour or spirit into the mind. And, worst of all, theology, the queen of all science—so richly adorned by ancient eloquence—they strip of all her beauty by their incongruous, mean, and disgusting style. What was once so clear, thanks to the genius of the old divines, they clog with some subtlety or other, thus involving everything in obscurity while they try to explain it. It is thus we see that theology, which was once most venerable and full of majesty, now almost dumb, poor, and in rags.
‘In the meantime we are allured by a never-satiatedappetite for strife. One dispute gives rise to another, and with wonderful gravity we fight about straws. Then, lest we should seem to have added nothing to the discoveries of the old divines, we audaciously lay down certain positive rules according to which God has performed his mysteries, when sometimes it might be better for us to believe that a thingwasdone, leaving the question ofhowit was done to the omnipotence of God. So, too, for the sake of showing our ingenuity, we sometimes discuss questions which pious ears can hardly bear to hear; as, for instance, when it is asked whether the Almighty could have taken upon Him the nature of the devil or of an ass.
‘Besides all this, in our times those men in general apply themselves to theology, the chief of all studies, who by reason of their obtuseness and lack of sense are hardly fit for any study at all. I say this not of learned and upright professors of theology, whom I highly respect and venerate, but of that sordid and haughty pack of divines who count all learning as worthless except their own.
He honours Colet and his work.
‘Wherefore, my dear Colet, in having joined battle with this redoubtable race of men for the restoration, in its pristine brightness and dignity, of that old and true theology which they have obscured by their subtleties, you have in very truth engaged in a work in many ways of the highest honour—a work of devotion to the cause of theology, and of the greatest advantage to all students, and especially the students of this flourishing University of Oxford. Still, to speak the truth, it is a work of great difficulty, and one sure to excite ill-will. Your learning and energywill, however, conquer every difficulty, and your magnanimity will easily overlook ill-will. There are not a few, even among divines themselves, both able and willing to second your honest endeavours. There is no one, indeed, who would not give you a hand, since there is not even a doctor in this celebrated University who has not given attentive audience to your public readings on the Epistles of St. Paul, now of three years’ standing. And which is the most praiseworthy in this,theirmodesty in not being ashamed to learn from a young man without doctor’s degree, oryourremarkable learning, eloquence, and integrity of life, which they have thought worthy of such honour?
Erasmus agrees with Colet but is not ready yet to join him in fellow-work.
‘I do not wonder thatyoushould put your shoulder under so great, a burden, for you are able to bear it, but I do wonder greatly that you should callme, who am nothing of a man, into the fellowship of so glorious a work. For you exhort,—yes, you almost reproachfully urge me, that, by expounding either the ancient Moses[219]or the eloquent Isaiah, in the same way as you have expounded St. Paul, I should try, as you say, to kindle up the studies of this University, now chilled by these winter months. But I, who have learned to live in solitude, know well how imperfectly I am furnished for such a task; nor do I lay claim to sufficient learning to justify myundertaking it. Nor do I judge that I have strength of mind enough to enable me to sustain the ill-will of so many men stoutly maintaining their own ground. Matters of this kind require not a tyro, but a practised general. Nor can you rightly call me immodest in refusing to do what I should be far more immodest to attempt. You act, my dear Colet, in this matter as wisely as they who (as Plautus says) “demand water from a rock.” With what face can I teach what I myself have not learned? How shall I kindle the chilled warmth of others while I am altogether trembling and shivering myself?...
‘But you say you expected this of me, and now you complain that you were mistaken. You should rather blame yourself than me for this. For I have not deceived you. I have neither promised nor held out any prospect of any such thing. But you have deceived yourself in not believing me when I told you truly what I meant to do.
Erasmus is returning to Paris.
‘Nor indeed did I come here to teach poetry and rhetoric, for these ceased to be pleasant to me when they ceased to be necessary. I refuse the one task because it does not come up to my purpose, the other because it is beyond my strength. You unjustly blame me in the one case, my dear Colet, because I never intended to follow the profession of what are called secular studies. As to the other, you exhort me in vain, as I know myself to be too unfit for it. But even though I were most fit, still it must not be. For soon I must return to Paris.
‘In the meantime, whilst I am detained here, partly by the winter, and partly because departure from England is forbidden, owing to the flight of someduke,[220]I have betaken myself to this famous University that I might rather spend two or three months with men of your class than with those be-chained courtiers.
But some day will join Colet in fellow-work.
‘Be it, indeed, far from me to oppose your glorious and sacred labours. On the contrary, I will promise (since not fitted as yet to be a coadjutor) sedulously to encourage and further them. For the rest, whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and strength I will join you, and, by your side, and in theological teaching, I will zealously engage, if not in successful at least in earnest labour. In the meantime, nothing could be more delightful to me than that we should go on as we have begun, whether daily by word of mouth, or by letter, discussing the meaning of Holy Scripture.
‘Vale, mi Colete.
‘Oxford: at the College of the Canons of the Order of St. Augustine, commonly called the College of St. Mary.’[221]
VII. ERASMUS LEAVES OXFORD AND ENGLAND (1500).
Erasmus took leave of Colet, and left Oxford early in January, 1500.
Erasmus at Lord Mountjoy’s.
He proceeded to Greenwich, to the country seat of Lord and Lady Mountjoy; for his patron had, apparently, since his arrival in England, married a wife.[222]
While he was resting under this hospitable roof, Thomas More came down to pay him a farewell visit. He brought with him another young lawyer named Arnold—the son of Arnold the merchant, a man well known in London, and living in one of the houses built upon the arches of London Bridge.[223]
More and Erasmus visit the Royal Nursery.
More, whose love of fun never slept, persuaded Erasmus, by way of something to do, to take a walk with himself and his friend to a neighbouring village.
He took them to call at a house of rather imposing appearance. As they entered the hall, Erasmus was struck with the style of it; it rivalled even that of the mansion of his noble patron. It was in fact the Royal Nursery, where all the children of Henry VII., except Arthur the Prince of Wales, were living under the care of their tutor. In the middle of the group was Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), then a boy of nine years old. To his right stood the Princess Margaret, who afterwards was married to the King of Scotland. On the left was the Princess Maria, a mere child at play. The nurse held in her arms the Prince Edmund, a baby about ten months old.[224]
They see the Prince Henry.Erasmus writes verses upon England.
More and Arnold at once accosted Prince Henry, and presented him with some verses, or other literaryoffering. Erasmus, having brought nothing of the kind with him, felt awkward, and could only promise to prove his courtesy to the Prince in the same way on some future occasion. They were invited to sit down to table, and during the meal the Prince sent a note to Erasmus to remind him of his promise. The result was that More received a merited scolding from Erasmus, for having led him blindfold into the trap; and Erasmus, after parting with More, had to devote three of the few remaining days of his stay in England to the composition of Latin verses in honour of England, Henry VII., and the Royal children.[225]He was in good humour with England. He had been treated with a kindness which he never could forget; and he was leaving England with a purse full of golden crowns, generously provided by his English friends to defray the expenses of his long-wished-for visit to Italy. Under these circumstances it was not surprising if his verses should be laudatory.[226]
Leaves for Dover.
By the 27th January,[227]he was off to Dover, to catch the boat for Boulogne.
The three friends are scattered.
So the three friends were scattered. Each had evidently a separate path of his own. Their natures and natural gifts were, indeed, singularly different. They had been brought into contact for one short year, as it were by chance, and now again their spheres of life seemed likely to lie wide apart.
How could it be otherwise? Even Colet, who had longed that his friendship for Erasmus might ripen into the fellowship of fellow-work, could not hope against hope. The chances that his dream might yet be realised, seemed slight indeed. ‘Whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and strength, I will join you!’ So Erasmus had promised. But Colet might well doubtfully ask himself—‘When will that be?’
I. COLET MADE DOCTOR AND DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S (1500-5.)
Colet, left alone to pursue the even tenor of his way at Oxford, worked steadily at his post. It mattered little to him that for years he toiled on without any official recognition on the part of the University authorities of the value of his work. What if a Doctor’s degree had never during these years been conferred upon him? The want of it had never stopped his teaching. Its possession would have been to him no triumph.
Colet’s work at Oxford.
That young theological students were beginning more and more to study the Scriptures instead of the Schoolmen—for this he cared far more. For this he was casting his bread upon the waters, in full faith that, whether he might live to see it or not, it would return after many days. And in truth—known or unknown to Colet—young Tyndale, and such as he, yet in their teens, were already poring over the Scriptures at Oxford.[228]The leaven, silently but surely, wasleavening the surrounding mass. But Colet probably did not see much of the secret results of his work. That it was his duty to do it was reason enough for his doing it; that it bore at least some visible fruit was sufficient encouragement to work on with good heart.
So the years went by; and as often as each term came round, Colet was ready with his gratuitous course of lectures on one or another of St. Paul’s Epistles.[229]
Colet made Doctor and Dean of St. Paul’s.
It happened that, in 1504, Robert Sherborn, Dean of St. Paul’s, was nominated, being then in Rome on an embassy, to the vacant see of St. David’s. It was probably at the same time[230]that Colet was called to discharge the duties of the vacant deanery, though, as Sherborn was not formally installed in his bishopric till April 1505, Colet did not receive the temporalities of his deanery till May in the same year.[231]
Colet is said to have owed this advancement to the patronage of King Henry VII. The title of Doctor was at length conferred upon him, preparatory to his acceptance of this preferment, and it would appear as an honorary mark of distinction.[232]
Colet’s work in London.
It was to the work, writes Erasmus, and not to the dignity of the deanery, that Colet was called. To restore the relaxed discipline of the College—to preach sermons from Scripture in St. Paul’s Cathedral as he had done at Oxford—to secure permanently that such sermons should be regularly preached—this was his first work.[233]
By his remove from Oxford to St. Paul’s the field of his influence was changed, and in some respects greatly widened. His work now told directly upon the people at large. The chief citizens of London, and even stray courtiers, now and then, heard the plain facts of Christian truth, instead of the subtleties of the Schoolmen, earnestly preached from the pulpit of St. Paul’s by the son of an ex-lord mayor of London. The citizens found too, in the new Dean, a man whose manner of life bore out the lessons of his pulpit.
The habits of the new Dean.
He retained as Dean of St. Paul’s the same simplicity of character and earnest devotion to his work for which he had been so conspicuous at Oxford. As he had not sought ecclesiastical preferment, so he was not puffed up by it. Instead of assuming the purple vestments which were customary, he still wore his plain black robe. The same simple woollen garment served him all the year round, save that in winter he had it lined with fur. The revenues of his deanery were sufficient to defray his ordinary household expenses, and left him his private income free. He gave it away, instead of spending it upon himself.[234]The rich living of Stepney, which, in conformity with the custom of the times, he might well have retainedalong with his other preferment, he resigned at once into other hands on his removal to St. Paul’s.[235]
It would seem too that he shone by contrast with his predecessor, whose lavish good cheer had been such as to fill his table with jovial guests, and sometimes to pass the bounds of moderation.[236]
The Dean’s table.
There was no chance of this with Colet. His own habits were severely frugal. For years he abstained from suppers, and there were no nightly revels in his house. His table was neatly spread, but neither costly nor excessive. After grace, he would have a chapter read from one of St. Paul’s Epistles or the Proverbs of Solomon, and then contrive to engage his guests in serious table-talk, drawing out the unlearned, as well as the learned, and changing the topics of conversation with great tact and skill. Thus, when the citizens dined at his table, they soon found, as his Oxford friends had found attheirpublic dinners, that, without being tedious or overbearing, somehow or other he contrived so to exert his influence as to send his guests away better than they came.[237]
Inner circle of intimate friends.Colet’s personal loyalty to Christ.
Moreover, Colet soon gathered around him here in London, as he had done at Oxford, an inner circle of personal friends.[238]These were wont often to meet at his table and to talk on late into the night, conversing sometimes upon literary topics, and sometimes speaking together of that invisible Prince whom Colet was asloyally serving now in the midst of honour and preferment as he had done in an humbler sphere.[239]Colet’s loyalty toHimseemed indeed to have been deepened rather than diminished by contact with the outer world. The place which St. Paul’s character and writings had once occupied in his thoughts and teaching, was now filled by the character and words of St. Paul’s Master and his.[240]He never travelled, says Erasmus, without reading some book or conversing of Christ.[241]He had arranged the sayings of Christ in groups, to assist the memory, and with the intention of writing a book on them.[242]His sermons, too, in St. Paul’s Cathedral bore witness to the engrossing object of his thoughts. It was now no longer St. Paul’s Epistles but the ‘Gospel History,’ the ‘Apostles’ Creed,’ the ‘Lord’s Prayer,’[243]which the Dean was expounding to the people. And highly as he had held, and still held, in honour the apostolic writings, yet, as already mentioned, they seemed to him to shrink, as it were, into nothing, compared with the wonderful majesty of Christ himself.
Colet’s sermons at St. Paul’s.
The same method of teaching which he had applied at Oxford to the writings of St. Paul he now applied in his cathedral sermons in treating of these still higher subjects. For he did not, we are told, take an isolated text and preach a detached discourse upon it, but went continuously through whatever he was expounding from beginning to end in a course of sermons.[244]Thusthese cathedral discourses of Colet’s were continuous expositions of the facts of the Saviour’s life and teaching, as recorded by the Evangelists, or embodied in that simple creed which in Colet’s view contained the sum of Christian theology. And thus was he practically illustrating, by his own public example in these sermons, his advice to theological students, to ‘keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed, letting divines, if they like, dispute about the rest.’
II. MORE CALLED TO THE BAR—IN PARLIAMENT—OFFENDS HENRY VII.—THE CONSEQUENCES (1500-1504).
After the departure of Erasmus, More worked on diligently at his legal studies at Lincoln’s Inn. A few more terms and he received the reward of his industry in his call to the bar.