the question is one for which he did not care, however much we may wish he had. And, curiously, where his strength as well as his weakness most appears is in his edition of the New Testament. The inaccuracies of his text, the few and the poor authorities he consulted, the haste of the editor, the hurry of the publisher, the carelessness of the printer, and the facility with which he inserted in the third and later editions a text like 1 John V. 7, which he had omitted in the first and second, are all instances of weakness familiar even to the unlearned.
But the sagacity-which saw in the Epistle to the Hebrews a work instinct with the spirit but without the style of Paul, which doubted whether John the Apostle were the author of the Apocalypse, which discerned in Luke the Greek of a writer skilled in literature, which perceived in the Gospels quotations from a memory which could be at fault, or which inferred textual errors even where the authorities were agreed-is characteristic of the honest scholar and indicative of the courageous man. What is still more significant, is the deliberate way in which as an editor and exegete he repeats the views and reaffirms the arguments of his more occasional works. Stunica charged him with the impiety of casting doubt on the claims and the authority of the Roman See and of denying the primacy of Peter. The Church, Erasmus said, was the congregation of all men throughout the whole world who agreed in the faith of the Gospel. As to the Lord's Supper, he saw neither good nor use in a body imperceptible to the senses; and he found no place in Scripture which said that the Apostles had consecrated bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord. Heathenism of life and Judaism of worship had come upon the Church from the neglect of the Gospel. Ceremonies were positive laws made by Bishops or Councils, Popes or Orders which could not supersede the laws of nature or of God. The priest who wore a lay habit or let his hair grow was punished; but if he became a debauchee he might yet remain a pillar of the Church.
These were brave things for a man so timid as Erasmus and so desirous of standing well with the authorities of the Church to say; and in saying them he was governed by this historical idea:—things unknown to the New Testament were unnecessary to the Christian religion; what contradicted the mind of Christ or hindered the realisation of His ends was injurious to His Church. This idea determined the attitude of Erasmus both to Rome and to Protestantism. He, indeed, honestly believed that where Lutheranism reigned there literature perished; and that to restore the knowledge of the New Testament was to bring back the mind of Christ, who was the one teacher God had appointed, and therefore the sole and supreme authority in His Church. Hence, his difference from Luther was as inevitable as his difference from Rome, and more absolute, for in the one case he differed from a man, in the other from a system. It has often been said that his De libéra arbitrio enabled him to express his difference from Luther without expressing his agreement with Rome,
