expedient that there should be one ruler possessing full authority over others, but which authority no doubt should be free from all idea of tyranny. Because

I have criticised certain points in the See of Rome, I have not for that reason ever departed from it. Who would not uphold the dignity of one who, by manifesting the virtues of the Gospel, represents Christ to us?" The paradoxes of Luther are not worth dying for. "There is no question of articles of faith, but of such matters as 'Whether the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff was established by Christ:''whether cardinals are necessary to the Christian Church:''whether confession is de jure divino :' 'whether bishops can make their laws binding under pain of mortal sin:' whether free will is necessary for salvation:''whether faith alone assures salvation,' &c. If Christ gave him grace," Erasmus hopes that "he would be a martyr for His truth, but he has no desire whatever to be one for Luther."

This last point was immediately taken up by the Lutherans. Von Hutten, as it has already been said, had died before the publication of the Spongia, and the reply to Erasmus was undertaken by Otto Brunfels. He rejected Erasmus's suggestion that nearly all that the Lutherans were fighting for were matters of opinion. They were matters of faith, he says, and no uncertainty could be admitted on this point. In order to make the matter clear, he enumerates a great number of tenets of Lutheranism which they hold to as matters of revealed certainty. For instance that Christ is the only head of the Church; that the Church has no corporate existence; that the mass is no sacrifice; that justification comes by faith alone; that our works are sins and cannot justify; that good men cannot sin; that there are only two Sacraments; that the Pope's traditions are heretical and against Scripture; that the religious state is from the devil; and several score more of similar points more or less important.

That Erasmus's views upon the necessity of the Papacy

If

"In

expressed in the Spongia were not inconsistent with his previous position there is ample evidence in his letters, to which he himself appeals. Replying, for example, to one who had written to him deploring the religious differences in Bohemia, Erasmus declares that, in his opinion, it is needful for unity that there should be one head. If the prince is tyrannical, he should be reduced to order by the teaching and authority of the Roman Pontiff. the bishop play the tyrant, there is still the authority of the Roman Pontiff, who is the dispenser of the authority and the Vicar of Christ. He may not please all, but who that really rules can expect to do that? my opinion," he adds, "those who reject the Pope are more in error than those who demand the Eucharist under two kinds." Personally, he would have allowed this, although he thinks that, as most Christians have now the other custom, those who demand it as a necessity are unreasonable and to be greatly blamed. Above all others, he reprobates the position of those who refuse to obey, speak of the Pope as Antichrist, and the Roman Church as a "harlot" because there have been bad Popes. There have been bad cardinals and bishops, bad priests and princes, and on this ground we ought not to obey bishop or pastor or king or ruler. In the same letter he rebukes those who desire to sweep away vestments and ceremonies on the plea that they may not have been used in apostolic times.

Later on, in another letter, he complained that people call him a favourer of Luther. This is quite untrue. "I would prefer," he says, "to have Luther corrected rather than destroyed; then I should prefer that it should be done without any great social tumults. Christ I acknowledge; Luther I know not. I acknowledge the Roman Church, which, in my opinion, is Catholic. I praise those

'Ep. 478.

who are on the side of the Roman Pontiff, who is supported by every good man."

Again, the following year, writing on the subject of the invocation of Papal authority against Luther, he says: "I do not question the origin of that authority, which is most certainly just, as in ancient times from among many priests equal in office one was chosen as the bishop; so now from the bishops it is necessary to make choice of one Pontiff, not merely to prevent discords, but to temper the tyrannical exercise of authority on the part of the other bishops and secular princes." "

The publication of Erasmus's book against Luther and of his reply to von Hutten made little change, however, in the adverse feeling manifested against him by those who were most busily engaged in combating the spread of Lutheran opinions. As he wrote to King Henry VIII., the noisy tumults and discords made him long for the end of life, when he might hope at least to find peace. Luckily for him, he still retained the confidence of the Pope and some of the best churchmen in Europe. Had he not done so, the very violence of the attack against his good name might have driven him out of the Church in spite of himself. Kind words, he more than once said, would have done more for the cause of peace in the Church than all the biting sarcasm and unmeasured invective that was launched against Luther, and those who, like Erasmus, either were, or were supposed to be, associated with his cause. Luther was not delicate about the choice of his language when he had an enemy to pelt, but some of the preachers and pamphlet-writers on the orthodox side were his match in this respect. In this way Erasmus puts the responsibility for "the tragedy" of Lutheranism upon the theologians, and in part especially upon the Dominicans and Carmelites. "Ass," "pig," "sow," 99.66 heretic," "antichrist," and "pest of the world," are terms named by

' Ep. 501.

2 Ep. 563.

3 Ep. 600.

Erasmus as samples of the epithets launched from the pulpit, or more deliberately set up in type, as arguments against Luther and himself.1

In writing to one of the cardinals after the publication of his Spongia, there is a touch of sadness in his complaints, that having been forced to do battle with the "Lutherans as against a hydra of many heads," Catholics should still try and make the world believe that he was really a Lutheran at heart. "I have never," he declares, "doubted about the sovereignty of the Pope, but whether this supremacy was recognised in the time of St. Jerome, I have my doubts, on account of certain passages I have noted in my edition of St. Jerome. In the same place, however, I have marked what would appear to make for the contrary opinion; and in numerous other places I call Peter Prince of the apostolic order,' and the Roman Pontiff, Christ's Vicar and the Head of His Church, giving him the highest power according to Christ."

Probably a more correct view of Erasmus's real mind can hardly be obtained than in part of a letter already quoted (Ep. 501) addressed to Bishop Marlianus of Tuy in Galicia, on March 25, 1520. "I would have the Church," he writes, "purified, lest the good in it suffer by conjunction with the evil. In avoiding the Scylla of Luther, however, I would have care taken to avoid Charybdis. If this be sin, then I own my guilt. I have sought to save the dignity of the Roman Pontiff, the honour of Catholic theology, and to look to the welfare of Christendom. I have, as yet, read no whole work of Luther, however short, and I have never even in jest defended his paradoxes. Be assured that if any movement is set on foot which is injurious to the Christian religion and dangerous to the public peace or the supremacy of the Holy See, it does not proceed from Erasmus.

In all I have written, I have not deviated one hair's

But every

breadth from the teaching of the Church. wise man knows that practices and teachings have been introduced into the Church partly by custom, partly by the canonists, partly by means of scholastic definitions, partly by the tricks and arts of secular sovereigns, which have no sound sanction. Many great people have begged me to support Luther, but I have ever replied that I would be ready to take his part when he was on the Catholic side. They have asked me to draw up a formula of faith; I have said that I know of none save the creed of the Catholic Church, and every one who consults me I urge to submit to the authority of the Pope."1

In many ways Erasmus regarded the rise of Lutheranism as the greatest misfortune. Not only did it tend to make good men suspicious of the general revival of letters, with which without reason they associated it, but the necessity of defending the Catholic position against the assaults of the new sectaries naturally obscured the need of reform within the Church itself, for which farseeing and good men had long been looking. To Bishop Tunstall he expressed his fears lest in pulling up the tares, some, and perchance much, of the precious wheat might perish. Whilst, undoubtedly, there was in Luther's work a great deal that he cordially detested, there was also much that would never have been condemned, had the points been calmly considered by learned men, apart from the ferment of revolt. "This, however, I promise you," he adds, "that for my part I will never forsake the Church." 112

This same sentiment he repeats the following year, 1526: "From the judgment of the Church I am not able to dissent, nor have I ever dissented." Had this tempest not risen up, he said, in another letter from Basle, he had hoped to have lived long enough to have seen a general