goodness, he was introduced by Richard Charnock at Oxford in October, 1499. Of him, too, Erasmus has left a charming sketch, a biography so true, so beautiful, so vivid, that a good part of it must needs be quoted.1 Colet was born at London of honorable and wealthy parents. His father was twice mayor. His mother, yet living, a woman of great goodness, bore her husband eleven sons and as many daughters, of whom John was the eldest and would therefore have been the sole heir according to British law, even if the others had survived, but only one of them was alive when I first began to know him. In addition to such advantages of fortune he had a distinguished and elegant person. As a youth at home he diligently learned scholastic philosophy and obtained the reputation of a proficient in the seven liberal arts. In all of these was he happily versed, for he devoured the books of Cicero and diligently searched the works of Plato and Plotinus, nor did he leave any part of mathematics untouched. After this eager commerce with good letters he went to France and Italy. There he gave himself to the study of sacred authors, but after he had wandered through all kinds of literature, he still loved best the primitive writers, Dionysius, Origen, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Jerome. Among the ancients he was more hostile to none than to Augustine. He even read Scotus and Aquinas when he had the opportunity. He was well versed in the Canon and Civil Laws. In short there was no book on the history and institutions of the past which he did not study. The English nation has authors who have accomplished that for her tongue which Dante and Petrarch have for Italian. By studying them he polished his speech so as to be able to preach the gospel. Returning from Italy, he soon left his parents' house, preferring to live at Oxford. There he publicly and without reward lectured on Paul's Epistles. Here I first began to know the man— for some god or other sent me thither. He was about thirty years old, two or three months younger than I. In theology he neither took nor sought any degree, yet there was no doctor of theology or law nor any abbot nor other dignitary who did not attend his lectures and bring with them their books. They may have done this to 1 Allen, ep. 1211. 2 "Nulli inter veteres iniquior quam Augustino"; it has been proposed to translate this, "To none did he give greater attention than to Augustine," for as a matter of fact Colet quotes Augustine more than anyone else, and with approval. J. H. Lupton: Colet on the Mosaic Account of Creation, introduction, xlv; Colet's Lectures on Romans, p. xxxix; Life of Colet, 1887, p. 57. But I cannot find any good lexical authority for so translating “iniquior.' The text is surprising, and is either corrupt or Erasmus's pen slipped and put in one too many negatives. But see Allen's note, iv, p. 515, line 273. honor Colet's authority or to encourage his zeal, but at any rate old men were not ashamed to learn from a youth and doctors from one not a doctor. Later when the degree of doctor was offered him honoris causa he took it rather to comply with custom than because he desired it. ... Let me now make a few remarks about his nature, his paradoxical opinions, and the trials by which his natural piety was buffeted. Though endowed with a notably lofty mind which could brook no evil, yet he confessed to me that he was inclined to lust, luxury, and sleep, and not altogether safe from love of money. Against these temptations he fought with philosophy, sacred studies, watching, fasting, and prayer with such success that during his whole life he remained pure from stains of the world. As far as I could gather from his conversation, he kept the flower of his virginity till his death. He spent his wealth in pious uses and struggled against pride, even allowing himself to be admonished by a boy. He drove away concupiscence and drowsiness by perpetual abstinence from food, by sobriety, by unwearied labors and holy conversation. Whenever chance forced him either to joke with the merry or to converse with women or to participate in a rich banquet you might see traces of his natural bent. Therefore he abstained from the society of laymen and even from their banquets, to which, if he were forced, he would take some one like me, so that he might avoid their conversation by talking Latin. He would then eat a morsel of one kind of food only, with one or two drinks of beer, abstaining from wine, which, though he took little, he loved when good. Thus he kept guard on himself and abstained from all things by which he might offend. For he was not ignorant that the eyes of all were upon him. I never saw a richer nature. He delighted in men of similar mind, though preferring to apply himself to the things that prepare for a future life. He philosophized in every circumstance, even when he relaxed his mind with pleasant stories. The purity and simplicity of his nature found delight in boys and girls, for Christ summons his disciples to imitate them and compares them to angels. His opinions differed from those commonly held, but in these points he yielded with wonderful prudence lest he should offend some one or damage his own reputation, for he was not ignorant how unjust are the judgments of men and how prone to believe evil and how much easier it is to contaminate a man's fame with slander than to restore it with praise. Yet among learned friends he freely professed what he thought. He said he considered the Scotists to whom the common herd attributed a peculiar acumen, stupid fools and anything but ingenious. For to argue about the opinions and words of others, gnawing first at this and then at that, and cutting up everything into little bits, is the work of a sterile and poor mind. He was more harsh to Thomas Aquinas even than to Scotus. Once when I praised Aquinas; . . . after a silence he looked sharply at me to see whether I spoke in earnest or in irony, and when he saw that I spoke from my mind, replied, as though filled with a certain spirit: "Why do you praise to me a man who, had he not had so much arrogance, would never have defined all things in such a rash and supercilious way, and who, had he not had a worldly spirit, would never have contaminated the doctrine of Christ with his profane philosophy?" I admired his earnestness and began to expound to him the work of Aquinas. What need of words? He entirely disagreed with my whole estimate. Though no one had more Christian piety, yet he cared little for monastic vows, gave little or nothing to monks and left them nothing at his death. Not that he disliked the profession, but that the men did not live up to it. He himself vowed to withdraw from the world if he could ever find a company sincerely dedicated to an evangelical life. He delegated this search to me when I went to Italy, saying that when he was in Italy he had found among the Italians some monks really prudent and pious.1 . . . He was wont to say that he never found less vice than among married people, . . . and though he lived so chastely yet was he less hard on priests who offended in this point than on the proud, hateful, evil-speaking, slanderous, unlearned, vain, avaricious, and ambitious. . . . He said that the numerous colleges in England thwarted good studies and were nothing but temptations to idleness. The influence on Erasmus of this stimulating personality was as immediate as it was profound. The sketch just quoted, written many years afterward, rightly mentions some of the points which particularly impressed him; Colet's love of primitive texts, and dislike for the later dogmaticians, Scotus, Aquinas, and even Augustine; his criticism of the monastic life. In a letter written shortly after their meeting Erasmus emphasizes some of these same points, heaping ridicule on the "new theologians" who have reduced divinity to absurdity, by asking and discussing questions such as, "Could God have become incarnate in a devil or in 1 Colet was probably thinking of the "Platonic Academy" of Florence, the leading light of which, in his day, was Pico de la Mirandola. On the saintly and beautiful lives of these men, cf. P. Monnier: Le Quattrocento, 1908, vol. ii, pp. 75 ff. He may possibly have also met Savonarola. 2 In the original sense of foundations for poor students. an ass?" At the same time he upholds the authentic theology of the Bible and the fathers. From this time on we see him turning his attention more and more to Jerome, regarded as the champion of humanistic theology, to the Bible, and to the study of Greek.1 Erasmus, on his side, made a favorable impression on Colet, who soon suggested that his friend should place his talents at the disposition of the university by lecturing either on divinity or on poetry and rhetoric. Erasmus replied that the former he felt above his power and the latter below his purpose.2 A sample of the friends' conversations is given in some letters on a serious theological topic, namely Christ's agony in the garden. Erasmus maintained the conventional view that it was due to Jesus' apprehension, as a man, of the suffering he was about to go through; Colet, following a hint of Jerome, that it was due to his sorrow at the crime about to be committed by the Jews. The admirable spirit of the discussion may be seen in the words of Erasmus, "that he would rather be conquered than conquering—that is, taught than teaching." When Erasmus returned to England in 1505 he renewed his personal intercourse with Colet, to whom he wrote, just before his arrival expressing his ardent desire to devote his life to theology. He found his friend in a new office, of which the account may best be given in Erasmus's own words: 5 From his sacred labors at Oxford Colet was called to London by the favor of King Henry VII to be dean of St. Paul's, that he might preside over the cathedral chapter of him whose writings he so much loved. This is a dignity of the first rank in England, even though others have larger emoluments. This excellent man, as though summoned to a labor rather than an honor, restored 1 October, 1499. Allen, i, 246 ff. Cf. A. Humbert: Les origines de la théologie moderne. 1911, 184 ff. 2 Allen, ep. 108; Nichols, ep. 108. * Allen, epp. 109-111. Allen, ep. 181; Nichols, ep. 180; December, 1504. Allen, ep. 1211. • Some time between June 20, 1505, and June 20, 1506. Allen, iv, p. xxii. the relaxed discipline of the chapter and instituted the new custom of preaching every holy day in his church, besides delivering other sermons in the palace and elsewhere. In his homilies he did not take the text at random from the lesson of the day, but chose one line of argument to which he adhered for several consecutive discourses-for example, the gospel of Matthew, the creed, the Lord's prayer. He drew large audiences, among whom were many of the chief men of the city and court. He brought back to frugality the table of the dean, which under pretext of hospitality had ministered to luxury. Colet, according to his long-established custom, went without the evening meal. At his late lunch he had a few guests; the viands, though frugal, were clean and quickly served, and the conversation was such as to delight only good and learned men. After grace a boy would read aloud a chapter from the Epistles of Paul or from the Proverbs of Solomon. From these he would choose a passage, the meaning of which he would inquire both from the learned and from intelligent laymen. His words, no matter how pious and serious, were never tedious or haughty. At the end of the meal, when all had eaten enough to satisfy nature, though not appetite, he introduced another subject, so that his guests departed refreshed in mind and in body, better than when they came and not overloaded with food. If there was no one at hand able to converse (for he delighted not in everyone) the boy would read a passage of Scripture. He sometimes took me for a comrade on an outing which he enjoyed more than anything else; a book was always our companion, and our words were only of Christ. He was so impatient of all that was low that he could not bear even a barbarism or solecism in speech. He strove for neatness in his household furniture, his table, his clothes, and his books, but not for magnificence. He wore only dark clothes, though commonly the priests and theologians there wore purple. The outer garment was of simple wool; when the cold required it he wore an inner garment of skin. The income of his office he gave to his steward for household expenses; he himself applied his ample patrimony to pious uses. For when at his father's death he inherited a large fortune, fearing lest it might breed some evil in him if he kept it, he constructed a new school in the churchyard of St. Paul's, and dedicated it to the boy Jesus. He built a magnificent school-house in which two masters might live and he gave them a large salary that they might teach the boys gratuitously, but made the stipulation that only so many pupils should be received. He divided them into four classes. Into the first, that of catechumens, none were received who could not read and write. The second class was taught by the under master, the third by the upper master. Each class was divided from the others by a curtain which could be drawn and withdrawn at pleasure. |