made head of this institution.1 Erasmus, who attended some lectures on theology given by Adrian of Utrecht,2 was offered the position of instructor at the college, but, with his habitual independence, declined.3 The humanist of Rotterdam had by this time risen to sufficient prominence to be selected by the civic authorities as the proper person to present a congratulatory address to their sovereign, Philip the Handsome, Archduke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy, on his return to the Netherlands from Spain. The address, of which perhaps only a short portion was declaimed, while the rest was presented in book form under the appropriate title of The Panegyric, took place at the royal castle in Brussels on January 6, 1504. Philip was graciously pleased with the work and bestowed upon its author fifty livres as a token of favor. The oration5 was, inevitably, stuffed with fulsome laudation of the duke and all his relatives, which Erasmus defended in private as a necessary sugar-coating for the pill of good advice: For there is no more effective method of reforming a prince than setting before him, under the guise of praise, the example of a good monarch. . . . How, with more impunity, or with more severity, could you reprove a wicked prince better than by magnifying clemency in his person? How could you better animadvert on his rapacity, violence, or lust, than by lauding his benignity, moderation, and chastity? Nor was this excuse wholly disingenuous. The orator did indeed inculcate a number of royal virtues, especially that of keeping the peace. Erasmus continued to study at Louvain throughout the year 1504, during which time he received several 1 Allen, i, p. 200; ii, p. xix. Godet: La Congrégation de Montaigu, p. 125. 2 Erasmus to Adrian VI, August 1, 1522; LB. ep. 633, col. 723. 3 Allen, epp. 172, 171. His name does not even appear in the matriculation book ir these years; see H. de Voecht: "Excerpts from the Registers of Louvain University," English Historical Review, 1922, 89 ff. small subsidies or "alms" from the government.1 He also made some money by composing epitaphs for wealthy patrons.2 While in the Netherlands Erasmus composed and published the work which, more than any other, gave a complete and rounded exposition of "the philosophy of Christ," as he loved to call the form of religion taught by him throughout life. For some years past piety had been a growing interest, until, from a small seed, it waxed a tree that overshadowed all other business of life, even that of enjoying and studying the classics. Erasmus was one of those happy natures that blossom and ripen into perfection ever so gradually. For him there was apparently no convulsion, no "conversion" such as stands at the head of many a prophet's career. No blinding light smote him to the ground, no revelation of the Holy Ghost taught him the secret of justification by faith, no visions of the Trinity dazzled his eyeballs. As a youth he had learned religion; even while, as a student at Paris, he found life gay rather than godly, his early poems and letters showed a slowly strengthening character and an ever deeper interest in the gospel. It is, perhaps, remarkable that with Standonck and "Gryllard" and the monks to make piety repulsive, and with Valla and Andrelinus to make irreligion attractive, he did not become a complete rationalist and Epicurean. Instead, he learned from both humanists and schoolmen, and never forgot the lesson that meticulous religiosity is horrible and that reason has her rights in weighing the claims of dogma. The peculiar quality of the Erasmian ideal of an undogmatic religion and an ethical piety, founded alike on the Sermon on the Mount and on the teachings of Greek philosophy, was rooted in two schools with which 1 Allen, ep. 181, introduction; and M. de Foronda y Aguilera: Estancias y Viages del Emperador Carlos V, 1914, p. 19: "A Fr. Erasmo agustino como limosna para ayudarle a pagar la escuela de Lovania donde estaba estudiando." Receipt of Finances, Lille, 1504. 2 Allen, ep. 178, 51 n. he early came in contact, that called the "devotio moderna" of the Brethren of the Common Life, and that of the Florentine Platonic Academy.1 Widely different, indeed mutually hostile, as appeared the sources of the inspiration of the German mystics and of the Italian humanists, both agreed in asserting, against the stiffening of religion through dogma and organization, the claims of an inner, personal piety. The mystic, by emphasizing the rôle of the spirit, the other by cherishing the rights of reason, arrived at the point where theology and ritual alike were regarded as hindrances to the inner life, and where the ethical interest emerged uppermost. In the almost godless Valla on the one hand, and in Godintoxicated Tauler on the other, one finds a kindred ideal of Christianity as a life rather than a creed or a ceremony. Priest and sacrament shrank in importance before the assertion of the new individualism. The deep piety of the German mystics permeated the schools of the Brethren of the Common Life, and left its traces in Erasmus's earliest writings, such as the Antibarbari, mainly concerned as they are with classical learning. Upon him, as little of a mystic as a religious man can be, the lesson was stamped that, as Thomas à Kempis had taught, the true worship of Christ was imitation of him, not verbal assent to a creed or exploitation of sacramental grace. Here, also, he learned that the pure philosophy of Christ was inwardly related to all the truths of antiquity, to the Stoic mastery of self and faith in predestination, to the Platonic idealism and otherworldliness. Plato, he soon discovered, was a theologian, Socrates a saint, Cicero inspired, and Seneca not far from Paul. "Their philosophy," he once said, "lies rather in the affections than in syllogisms; it is a 1 On this see P. Mestwerdt: Die Anfänge des Erasmus und die Devotio Moderna, 1917; H. Ernst: "Die Frömmigkeit des Erasmus," Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1919, pp. 46 ff; E. Troeltsch: Die Kultur der Gegenwart: Geschichte der Christlichen Religion, 1909, pp. 476 ff; P. Imbart de la Tour: Les Origines de la Réforme, ii, 413. J. Lindeboom: Erasmus: Onderzoek naar zijne theologie en zijn godsdienstig Gemoedsbestaan, 1909. |