(Latin, 1530), Basil (Greek, 1532, the first Greek author printed
in Germany), and Origen (Latin, 1536). In these editions, partly
texts, partly translations, it is impossible to determine the
respective shares of Erasmus and his many helpers. The
prefaces and dedications are all written by him, and some of
them, as that to the Hilarius, are of importance for the history
as well of the times as of Erasmus himself. Of his most important
edition, that of the Greek text of the New Testament, something
will be said farther on.
In this “mill,” as he calls it, Erasmus continued to grind incessantly for eight years. Besides his work as editor, he was always writing himself some book or pamphlet called for by the event of the day, some general fray in which he was compelled to mingle, or some personal assault which it was necessary to repel. But though painfully conscious how much his reputation as a writer was damaged by this extempore production, he was unable to resist the fatal facility of print. He was the object of those solicitations which always beset the author whose name upon the title page assures the sale of a book. He was besieged for dedications, and as every dedication meant a present proportioned to the circumstances of the dedicatee, there was a natural temptation to be lavish of them. Add to this a correspondence so extensive as to require him at times to write forty letters in one day. “I receive daily,” he writes, “letters from remote parts, from kings, princes, prelates and men of learning, and even from persons of whose existence I was ignorant.” His day was thus one of incessant mental activity; but hard work was so far from breeding a distaste for his occupation, that reading and writing grew ever more delightful to him (literarum assiduitas non modo mihi fastidium non parit, sed voluptatem; crescit scribendo scribendi studium).
Shortly after Froben’s death the disturbances at Basel, occasioned by the zealots for the religious revolution which was in progress throughout Switzerland, began to make Erasmus desirous of changing his residence. He selected Freiburg in the Breisgau, as a city which was still in the dominion of the emperor, and was free from religious dissension. Thither he removed in April 1529. He was received with public marks of respect by the authorities, who granted him the use of an unfinished residence which had been begun to be built for the late emperor Maximilian. Erasmus proposed only to remain at Freiburg for a few months, but found the place so suited to his habits that he bought a house of his own, and remained there six years. A desire for change of air—he fancied Freiburg was damp—rumours of a new war with France, and the necessity of seeing his Ecclesiastes through the press, took him back to Basel in 1535. He lived now a very retired life, and saw only a small circle of intimate friends. A last attempt was made by the papal court to enlist him in some public way against the Reformation. On the election of Paul III. in 1534, he had, as usual, sent the new pope a congratulatory letter. After his arrival in Basel, he received a complimentary answer, together with the nomination to the deanery of Deventer, the income of which was reckoned at 600 ducats. This nomination was accompanied with an intimation that more was in store for him, and that steps would be taken to provide for him the income, viz., 3000 ducats, which was necessary to qualify for the cardinal’s hat. But Erasmus was even less disposed now than he had been before to barter his reputation for honours. His health had been for some years gradually declining, and disease in the shape of gout gaining upon him. In the winter of 1535–1536 he was confined entirely to his chamber, many days to his bed. Though thus afflicted he never ceased his literary activity, dictating his tract On the Purity of the Church, and revising the sheets of a translation of Origen which was passing through the Froben press. His last letter is dated the 28th of June 1536, and subscribed “Eras. Rot. aegra manu.” “I have never been so ill in my life before as I am now,—for many days unable even to read.” Dysentery setting in carried him off on the 12th of July 1536, in his 70th year.
By his will, made on the 12th of February 1536, he left what he had to leave, with the exception of some legacies, to Bonifazius Amerbach, partly for himself, partly in trust for the benefit of the aged and the infirm, or to be spent in portioning young girls, and in educating young men of promise. He left none of the usual legacies for masses or other clerical purposes, and was not attended by any priest or confessor in his last moments.
Erasmus’s features are familiar to all, from Holbein’s many portraits or their copies. Beatus Rhenanus, “summus Erasmi observator,” as he is called by de Thou, describes his person thus: “In stature not tall, but not noticeably short; in figure well built and graceful; of an extremely delicate constitution, sensitive to the slightest changes of climate, food or drink. After middle life he suffered from the stone, not to mention the common plague of studious men, an irritable mucous membrane. His complexion was fair; light blue eyes, and yellowish hair. Though his voice was weak, his enunciation was distinct; the expression of his face cheerful; his manner and conversation polished, affable, even charming.” His highly nervous organization made his feelings acute, and his brain incessantly active. Through his ready sympathy with all forms of life and character, his attention was always alive. The active movement of his spirit spent itself, not in following out its own trains of thought, but in outward observation. No man was ever less introspective, and though he talks much of himself, his egotism is the genial egotism which takes the world into its confidence, not the selfish egotism which feels no interest but in its own woes. He says of himself, and justly, “that he was incapable of dissimulation” (Ep. xxvi. 19; 1152). There is nothing behind, no pose, no scenic effect. It may be said of his letters that in them “tota patet vita senis.” His nature was flexible without being faultily weak. He has many moods and each mood imprints itself in turn on his words. Hence, on a superficial view, Erasmus is set down as the most inconsistent of men. Further acquaintance makes us feel a unity of character underlying this susceptibility to the impressions of the moment. His seeming inconsistencies are reconciled to apprehension, not by a formula of the intellect, but by the many-sidedness of a highly impressible nature. In the words of J. Nisard, Erasmus was one of those “dont la gloire a été de beaucoup comprendre et d’affirmer peu.”
This equal openness to every vibration of his environment is the key to all Erasmus’s acts and words, and among them to the middle attitude which he took up towards the great religious conflict of his time. The reproaches of party assailed him in his lifetime, and have continued to be heaped upon his memory. He was loudly accused by the Catholics of collusion with the enemies of the faith. His powerful friends, the pope, Wolsey, Henry VIII., the emperor, called upon him to declare against Luther. Theological historians from that time forward have perpetuated the indictment that Erasmus sided with neither party in the struggle for religious truth. The most moderate form of the censure presents him in the odious light of a trimmer; the vulgar and venomous assailant is sure that Erasmus was a Protestant at heart, but withheld the avowal that he might not forfeit the worldly advantages he enjoyed as a Catholic. When by study of his writings we come to know Erasmus intimately, there is revealed to us one of those natures to which partisanship is an impossibility. It was not timidity or weakness which kept Erasmus neutral, but the reasonableness of his nature. It was not only that his intellect revolted against the narrowness of party, his whole being repudiated its clamorous and vulgar excesses. As he loathed fish, so he loathed clerical fanaticism. Himself a Catholic priest—“the glory of the priesthood and the shame”—the tone of the orthodox clergy was distasteful to him; the ignorant hostility to classical learning which reigned in their colleges and convents disgusted him. In common with all the learned men of his age, he wished to see the power of the clergy broken, as that of an obscurantist army arrayed against light. He had employed all his resources of wit and satire against the priests and monks, and the superstitions in which they traded, long before Luther’s name was heard of. The motto which was already current in his lifetime, “that Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it,” is so far true, and no more. Erasmus would have suppressed the monasteries, put an end to the domination
