true Catholic devotion to relics and images-then More rejects them from his heart. But they are not my words, he adds, “the book being made by another man, though he were my darling never so dear" (p. 422). But the real truth is that in the Moria Erasmus never said more or meant more than to "jest upon the abuses of such things."

In this regard it is of interest to understand what was the real opinion of Erasmus in regard to devotions to particular saints and their images and relics. This is all the more important, as most people regard the account of his two pilgrimages to Walsingham and to Canterbury as full and conclusive evidence of his sentiments. In his tract Enchiridion Militis Christiani, published at Louvain in 1518, his views are stated with absolute clearness. "There are some," he says, "who honour certain saints with some special ceremonies. One salutes St. Christopher each day, and only in presence of his image. Why does he wish to see it? Simply because he will then feel safe that day from any evil death. Another honours Saint Roch-but why? Because he thinks that he will drive away infection from his body. Others murmur prayers to St. Barbara or St. George, so as not to fall into the hands of any enemy. One man fasts for St. Apollonia, not to have toothache. Some dedicate a certain portion of their gains to the poor so that their merchandise is not destroyed in shipwreck," &c.1

Our author's point is that in these and such-like things people pray for riches, &c., and do not think much about the right use of them; they pray for health and go on living evil lives. In so far such prayers to the saints are mere superstitions, and do not much differ from the pagan superstitions; the cock to Esculapius, the tithe to Hercules, the bull to Neptune. But," he says, "" I praise those who ask from St. Roch a life protected from disease if they would consecrate that life to Christ. I

Opera omnia (ed. Leclerc), tom. v., col. 26.

He

would praise them more if they would pray only for increased detestation of vice and love virtue. I will tolerate infirmity, but with Paul I show the better way." would think it, consequently, a more perfect thing to pray only for grace to avoid sin and to please God, and to leave life and death, sickness, health and riches to Him and His will.

"You," he says farther on, "venerate the saints, you rejoice to possess their relics, but you despise the best thing they have left behind them, namely, the example of a pure life. No devotion is so pleasing to Mary as when you imitate her humility; no religion is so acceptable to the saints and so proper in itself as striving to copy their virtue. Do you wish to merit the patronage of Peter and Paul? Imitate the faith of the one and the charity of the other and you will do more than if you had made ten journeys to Rome. Do you wish to do something to show high honour to St. Francis? You are proud, you are a lover of riches, you are quarrelsome; give these to the saint, rule your soul and be more humble by the example of Francis; despise filthy lucre, and covet rather the good of the soul. Leave contentions aside and overcome evil by good. The saint will receive more honour in this way than if you were to burn a hundred candles to him. You think it a great thing if clothed in the habit of St. Francis you are borne to the grave. This dress will not profit you when you are dead if, when alive, your morals were unlike his."

"People," he continues, "honour the relics of St. Paul, and do not trouble to listen to his voice still speaking. They make inuch of a large portion of one of his bones looked at through a glass, and think little of honouring him really by understanding what he teaches and trying to follow that." It is the same so often with the honour shown to the crucifix. "You honour," he says, "the representation of Christ's face fashioned of stone or of wood or painted in colours, the image of His mind ought

to be more religiously honoured, which, by the work of the Holy Spirit, is set forth in the gospels. No Apelles ever sketched the form and figure of a human body in such a perfect way as to compare with the mental image formed in prayer."

Erasmus then passes on to speak at length of what should lie at the foundation of all true devotion to the saints. The spirit which actuates is that which matters. To put up candles to images of the saints and not to observe God's laws; to fast and to abstain and not to set a guard on the tongue, to give way to detraction and evil speaking of all kinds; to wear the religious habit and to live the life of a worldling under it; to build churches and not to build up the soul; to keep Sunday observances externally but not to mind what the spirit gives way tothese are the things that really matter. "By your lips you bless and in your heart you curse. Your body is shut up in a narrow cell, and in thought you wander over the whole world. You listen to God's word with the ears of your body; it would be more to the purpose if you listened inwardly. What doth it profit not to do the evil which you desire to accomplish? What doth it profit to do good outwardly and to do the opposite inwardly? Is it much to go to Jerusalem in the body when in the spirit it is to thee but Sodom and Egypt and Babylon?"1

In his tract De amabili Ecclesia concordia, printed in 1533, Erasmus lays down the same principle. It is, he writes, a pious and good thing to believe that the saints who have worked miracles in the time of their lives on earth can help us now that they are in heaven. As long as there is no danger of real superstition, it is absurd to try to prevent people invoking the saints. Though superstition in the cultus of the saints is, of course, to be prevented, "the pious and simple affection is sometimes to be

allowed even if it be mixed with some error." As for the representations of the saints in churches, those who disapprove of them should not for that reason "blame those who, without superstition, venerate these images for the love of those they represent, just as a newlymarried woman kisses a ring or present left or sent by her absent spouse out of affection for him." Such affection cannot be displeasing to God, since it comes not from superstition, but from an abundance of affectionate feeling, and exactly the same view should be taken of the true devotion shown to the relics of the saints, provided that it be ever borne in mind that the highest honour that can be paid to them consists in imitation of their lives.

Considering the importance of "indulgences " or "pardons," as they were frequently called, in the Reformation controversies, it is curious that very little is made of them in the literature of the period preceding the religious changes. If we except the works of professed followers of Luther, there is hardly any trace of serious objection being raised to the fundamental idea of "indulgences" in their true sense. Here and there may be found indications of some objection to certain abuses which had been allowed to creep into the system, but these proceeded from loyal sons of the Church rather than from those ill affected to the existing ecclesiastical authority, or those who desired to see the abolition of all such grants of spiritual favours. The lawyer, SaintGerman, for instance, may be taken as an example of the acute layman, who, although professing to be a Catholic and an obedient son of the Church, was credited by his contemporaries with holding advanced if not somewhat heterodox views on certain matters of current controversy. What he has to say about "pardons" and "indulgences" is neither very startling nor indeed very different from what all serious-minded churchmen of that day held. He considered that the people generally were shocked at

finding "the Pope and other spiritual rulers" granting "pardons" for the payment of money. This, he considered, had been brought prominently into notice at the time he was writing by the indulgences granted to those who should contribute to the building of St. Peter's when "it has appeared after, evidently that it has not been disposed to that use. And that has caused many to think that the said pardons were granted rather of covetousness than of charity, or for the health of the souls of the people. And thereupon some have fallen in a manner into despising "pardons" as though pardons "granted upon such covetousness would not avail . . . and verily it were a great pity that any misliking of pardons should grow in the hearts of the people for any misdemeanour in the grantor or otherwise, for they are right necessary.

I suppose that if certain pardons were granted freely without money, for the saying of certain appointed prayers, then all misliking of pardons would shortly cease and vanish away.

"1

Christopher Saint-German speaks much in the same way as to the evil of connecting payment of money with the granting of indulgences, in the work in connection with which his name is chiefly known, A Dyaloge in English between a Student and a Doctor of Divinity. "If it were so ordered by the Pope," he writes, "that there might be certain general pardons of full remission in diverse parts of the realm, which the people might have for saying certain orisons and prayers without paying any money for it, it is not unlikely that in a short time there would be very few that would find any fault with 'pardons.' For verily it is a great comfort to all Christian people to remember that our Lord loved His people so much that to their relief and comfort leave behind Him so great a treasure as is the power to grant pardons, which, as I

1 A treatise concerning the division between the spiritualitie and the temporalitie London: R. Redman (1532 ?), fol. 27.