I knew nothing of it at the time, and that it was done without the knowledge either of the elector or of the magistrates.
Tetzel was not the only opponent resolved to take the field against me, although I had maintained nothing in my propositions inconsistent with the avowed doctrines of these hirelings
; and had indeed advanced my propositions more by way of doubt than in a positive manner.
"John Eck* made his appearance in a violent attack upon me ; but as his observations were more in the nature of mere abuse than of conclusive argument, that person did a vast deal of harm to his own party, while he rendered me unintentional service.
"Another antagonist also entered the lists against me, in the person of Dominican, who, with the pedantry peculiar to his office of censor in the metropolis of popery, chose to answer all m}^ propositions in a way most convenient to himself, by declaring, in a manner altogether begging the question, that they were all heretical.
I exposed the absurdity of this method of proceeding, which however is the usual style of argument adopted by the Eomish tyrants and their slaves.
"Prierio again attacked me; but when I found « Vice-chancellor of the University of Ingolstadt. f Master of the Apostolical Chamber at Kome, and licenser of books.
THE LIFE AND TIMES the man asserting that the authority of the pope was superior to the councils and canons of the church, and that even the sacred Scriptures depended for their interpretation on the mere dictum of tliat representative of antichrist, I thought it unnecessary to reply further than b}^ simply declaring my ccftiviction that the said Prierio's book, being a compound of blasphemies and lies, must certainly have been the work of the devil; and that if the pope and cardinals sanctioned such writings, which I did not believe, although
Rome must be the seat of antichrist, the centre of abomination, and the synagogue of Satan.
"Who is antichrist, if the pope is not antichrist ?
Oh, Satan, Satan, how long wilt thou be suffered to abuse the patience of God by thy great wickedness ?
Unhappy, abandoned, blasphemous Rome, the wrath of God is upon thee; and thou richly deservest it, for thou art the habitation of all that is impure and disgusting—a very pantheon of impiety.
"In this way passed the year 1517, I maintaining the truth, and these apologists for impiety railing against me Avith their false accusations; for hitherto pope Leo had taken no notice of the matter, not wishing, as I afterwards understood, to interfere at all, thinking that the zeal of both parties would soon subside.
"Meantime I began to consider what measures to adopt, for I knew that no reasonings of mine would have an}^ weight with such obstinate and inOF MAETIN LUTHER.
Solent disputants as Tetzel, Eck, and Prierio, bigoted slaves of that system of iniquity and licentiousness wliich I myself had witnessed wlien at Home."*
The controversy thus succinctly sketched by Luther, grew daily in its proportions and in its radical differences of opinion.
It has been well said that the second series of theses put forth by Tetzel, and mentioned by Luther in the quotation just given, form an important epoch in the They changed the ground of dispute ; they transported it from the indulgence-markets to the halls of the Vatican, and diverted it from Tetzel to the pope.
In the place of that despicable broker whom Luther had so firmly grasped, they substituted the sacred person of the head of the church.
Luther was filled with astonishment.
It is probable that he would ere long have taken that step himself, but his enemies spared him the trouble.
It was henceforth no question of a discredited traffic, but of Home itself; and the blow by which a daring hand had tried to demolish Tetzel's shoj), shook the very foundations of the pontifical throne. t
Meantime edition after edition of the theses of the "Wittemberg heretic"^ was exhausted.
"Men conversed about them in all the convents, and in all the universities.
"The pious monks who had entered the cloisters to save their souls, all upright and honorable men, were • delighted at this simple and striking confeso L. 0pp.
THE LIFE AND TIMES sion of the truth, and heartily desired that Luther would continue the work he had begun.
"At length 'one man had found courage to undertake the perilous struggle.
This was a reparation accorded to Christendom ; the public conscience was satisfied.
Piety saw in these theses a blow aimed at every superstition ; the new theology hailed in them the defeat of the scholastic dogmas ; princes and magistrates considered them as a barrier raised against the invasions of the ecclesiastical power ; and the nation rejoiced at seeing so positive a veto opposed by this monk to the cupidity of the It now becomes of interest to scrutinize somewhat in detail the features of this fierce indulgence controversy, whose outlines have been already sketched, and which God meant should precede and usher in the Saxon monk's resistless onset upon the But before going into the babel of this dispute, let us pause to note the effect which the theses had upon two of the most famous thinkers of that epoch, both of whom had been active, not precisely in assaulting the Roman polity, but in lopping off some of its excrescences, and in lampooning its vices.
The first of these illustrious men, John Reuchlin, had risen by his diligence and genius from indigence and obscurity, to the very foremost rank among the scholars of his country.
Eeuchlin's childish voice having attracted the attention of the margrave of Baden, in the choir of the church at Pforzheim, he w^as won to show the boy especial favor, and in 1473 selected him to bear his son company to the university of Paris.
Hero the young German supported himself by transcribing for the wealthier students the rhapsodies of Homer and the orations of Isocrates.
It was at Paris that Keuchlin was initiated into a loiOAvledge of the Greek—the celebrated Spartan Ilermonymos, and Jolin Wessel, being at that time the great lights of the university.
Eeuchhn's mind was early familiarized with the arguments of the Greek dissent from the Roman tenets, and he had frequently listened to arguments from Wessel intended to j)roYe that " the power of plenary absolution belongs to God alone
; that it is not necessary to confess our sins to a priest ; and that there is no purgatory, unless it be God himself, who is a devouring fire, and who cleanseth from all impurity."
Wessel was also accustomed to affirm that " the doctrine of the infallibihty of the pope was absurd, and that all human satisfactions were blasphemy against Christ, who has reconciled and completely justified mankind."
Although Eeuchlin appears not to have adopted these branded heresies of the Paris professor, the habitual repetition of them in his hearing, the earnestness with which Wessel held them, and his great learning, broadened the intellect of the German scholar, persuaded him that men might differ vitally from the Roman creed, and still be worthy of respect, and taught him that wisdom was not locked up in the Vatican, nor the exclusive property of the popes.
At the age of twenty Reuchlin taught philosophy, We have seen liow severely the Greek and Hebrew tongues were condemned by the Papal theologians
Reuchlin's Greek lectures were noised abroad, and the schoolmen began to sputter and complain, Eeuchlin wrote, " The Romans make wry faces and cry out, pretending that all these literary pursuits are contrary to the Koman piety, because the Greeks are schismatics.
Oh what toil and suffering must be undergone to restore wisdom and learning to After a life of vicissitudes ; after filling a professorship at Tubingen
; after a journey into Italy in 1483—when he surj)rised the pontiff, by the pronunciation before the Eoman court of a Latin oration, into the exclamation, " This man certainly deserves to rank with the best orators of France and Italy"— after a second visit to Rome in 1498, on an important mission, where he employed his time and money in acquiring the Hebrew tongue under the learned
Israehte Abdias Sphoma, Keuchlin finally returned to Germany, and taking up his residence at Wurtemberg, accomplished those labors which were so useful to Luther and to the Keformation.*
It was about this time that he was drawn into his famous controversy with the monks.
It seems that a baptized Jew named Pfifferkorn, who dwelt at Cologne, and lived upon intimate terms with the inquisitor Hochstraateu, had, in connection with the Dominicans ever ready to swoop and batten upon any prey, solicited and obtained from the emperor Maximilian a decree authorizing the seizure and public burning of all the Hebrew books, the Bible excepted, upon which they could lay their hands, on the ground that these works teemed with abuse of the Saviour.
Afterwards the emperor was won to reconsider Lis decree, and lie called upon Eeuclilin for liis opinion concerning tlie character of the Hebrew books.
The eminent scholar, grieved to see such a holocaust of valuable and rare books, went carefully over the list, and selecting those which seemed peculiarly full of blasphemies, told Maximilian that he thought those might safely be burned ; but as for the rest, he advised that they be returned to their owners, and excluded from the sentence.
This advice the emperor adopted; whereupon " the inquisitor and his proselj'tc," says D'Aubign^, "like hungry ravens who see their prey escaping them, raised a furious clamor.
" They picked out different passages from Eeuchlin's works, and perverted their meaning, declaring the author a heretic, and accusing him of a secret inclination to Judaism, and threatening him with the dungeons of the Inquisition.
"Beuchlin at first gave way to alarm; but as these men became more insolent, and prescribed disgraceful conditions, he published, in 1513, a 'Defence against his Cologne slanderers,' in which he described the whole party in the liveliest colors.
" The Dominicans swore to be avenged, and hoped by a stroke of authority to uphold their tottering power.
Hochstraaten had a tribunal formed at Mentz against Eeuchlin, and the writings of this learned man were committed to the flames.
" Then the innovators, the masters an el disciples or MAETIN LUTHEE. of the new scliool, feeling tliemselves all attacked in tlie person of Eeuclilin, rose up like one man.
The times had changed; Germany and literature were not Spain and the Inquisition.
'' This great literary movement had called a public opinion into existence.
Even the superior clergy were almost entirely gained over to it.
Eeuclilin appealed to Leo X.
This pope, who was no friend to the ignorant and fanatical monks, referred the whole matter to the bishop of Spires, who declared Keuchlin innocent, and condemned the monks to pay the expenses of the investigation.
" The Dominicans, those stanch supports of the Papacy, had recourse in their exasperation to the infallible decrees of Bome
; and Leo X., not knowing how to act between these two hostile powers, issued a mandate de supersedendoy"
Luther, acknowledging all that Reuchlin had done, WTTote to him after his victory over the Dominicans " The Lord has been at work in you, that the light of holy Scripture might begin to shine in that Germany where, for so many ages, alas, it was not only stifled, but entirely extinct."t
When Keuchlin first re.ad Luther's theses, he was resting at Wurtemberg, weary and sad from his prolonged conflict with the unscrupulous monks.
But now new life flooded in upon his heart, and ho exclaimed, " Thanks be to God, at length they have found a man who will give them so much to do that * D'Aubigne, chap. VII.
See remarks on Eeuchlin.
THE LIFE AND TIMES they will be compelled to let mj old age end in peace.
Reuclilin acquires additional importance in tlie eyes of thoughtful students, when it is remembered that it was under his active supervision that Melanct]ion, the St. John of the Reformation, was trained.
The other of these men was Erasmus, the famous sage of Botterdam.
The early history of this philosopher was singularly romantic.
His father, a celebrated village wit named Gerard, a native of Gouda, in the Netherlands, having, on account of the irregularities of his life, been persuaded by his relatives to enter a convent, deserted his wife before the birth of her son, and repairing to Rome, buried himself in the gloom of the cloister.
Of the birth of Erasmust he therefore remained ignorant.
Returning afterwards to Holland, he was surprised to learn that his wife still lived, and that a son had been born to him.
Repenting, but too late as he imagined, his hasty resolution to quit the Avorld, he still determined to adhere to his sacerdotal vows.
Erasmus was tenderly reared by his parents, who, though forced by the monastic discipline to live * Mai Vita Eeuclilin. t His name was properly Gerard, of course.
This, after a custom then in vogue, ho translated into Greek, Bccond name, and iuto Latin, Besiderius, for the firat name. apart, centred their love upon tlieir cliild until liis thirteenth year, when, worn out by suflfering, his poor mother's spirit winged its way to that bourne where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
The father, beating his restless heart to pieces against the wall of his sullen cloister, did not long survive his Margaret, so that Erasmus was thus early orphaned, and forced to relinquish his school, at which his parents had kept him from his fourth year.
Forced to win his own way, the precocious wit of the future philosoi)her did not desert him.
His guardians had intended to rear him up in a cloister, but an invincible dislike to a monastic life, caused doubtless by a remembrance of the misery his father's assumption of the monkish gown had created in his family, made it impossible to persuade him to embrace an ecclesiastical career.
Although he studied for a while in several monasteries, he at length worked his way to Paris, and entering the university there, pursued his studies in extreme indigence, but with the most indefatigable industry and the most brilliant success.
Although he engaged without intermission in the pursuit of knowledge, he is said to have assisted reluctantly in the scholastic disputes, and to have avoided the study of theology, lest he should discover any errors, and be in consequence denounced as a heretic* sSeckendorf, D'Axibigne, Mathesius.
In due time Erasmus was graduated with eclat; then commencing to teach, he speedily collected about him troops of pupils, and made, by the elegance of his style, and his remarkable familiarity
. with the lore of the ancients, many friends among the most eminent scholars of Christendom.
Having thus laid firm and broad the foundations of his fame, he continued to rear the magnificent temple of his Hterary reputation from year to year, until, at the commencement of the Reformation, he had "put on the top-stone wdth shoutings," and was everywhere hailed as the foremost scholar and writer of his times.
This remarkable man, "knowing the public taste, had very early shaken off the ties of the schools and of the cloister, and devoting himself to literature, displaj'ed in his writings those shrewd observations, that clear, lively, and enhghtened wit, which at once amuse and instruct."
It was not loDg ere Erasmus was eacferlv courted by the different princes of Europe, who desired to add the brilliant light of his genius to the lustre of their courts.
But we are assured that he was inexhaustible in finding excuses to escape from their invitations.
He preferred gaining his living with his printer Frobenius, by correcting books, and by the receipts Avhich accrued to him from the immense sales of his own works, to liviug surrounded by luxury and purchased favors in the splendid courts of Charles v., Henry YIII. of England, or Francis encircling liis head with the cardinal's hat that was offered him/'
" The influence of Erasmus upon the Reformation," says D'Aubign^, "has been overrated by one party, and depreciated by another.
He never was, and never could have been a reformer, but he j^repared the way for others.
" Not only did he diffuse over his age a love of learning, and a spirit of inquiry and examination that led others much further than he went himself; but still more, under the protection of great prelates and powerful princes, he was able to unveil and combat the vices of the church by the most cutting satires.
"Erasmus, in fact, attacked the monks and the prevailing abuses in two ways.
He first adopted a popular method.
This fair little man, whose halfclosed blue eyes keenly observed all that was passing, on whose lips was ever a slight sarcastic smile, whose manner was timid and embarrassed, and whom it seemed that a puff of wind would blow down, scattered in every direction his elegant and biting sarcasms against the theology and devotion of his age.
" His natural character and the events of his life had rendered this disposition habitual.
Even in those writings where we should have least expected it, his sarcastic humor breaks out, and he transfixed, as with needle points, those schoolmen and * "A principibus facile milii coutingeret fortuna, nisi mihi minime dulcis csset libertas."
THE LIFE AND TIMES those ignorant monks against whom he had declared war.
" Preceding authors had akeady popularized the idea of that element of foUv which has crejat into all the opinions and actions of human life.
" Erasmus seized upon it, and introduces Folly in her own person, Moria, daughter of Plutus, born in the Fortunate Isles, fed on drunkenness and impertinence, and queen of a powerful empire
; she gives a description of it, depicting successiveh^ all the states in the world that belong to her ; but she dwells particularly on the churchmen who will not acknowledge her benefits, though she loads them with her favors.
" She overwhelms with her gibes and sarcasms that labyrinth of dialectics in which the theologians had bewildered themselves, and those extravagant syllogisms, by which they pretended to support the church.
She unveils the disorders, ignorance, filthy habits, and absurdities of the monks.
' They all belong to me,' says she, ' those folks whose greatest pleasure is in relating miracles, or listening to marvellous lies, and who make use of them in an especial manner to beguile the dulness of others, and to fill their own purses—I speak
, particularly of priests and preachers In the same category are those who enjoy the foolish but sweet persuasion that if they chance to see a piece of wood or a picture representing Polyphemus or Christopher, they will not die that day.'
"'Alas, what follies,' continues 1G7 almost ashamed of tliem myseK.
Do we not see every country claiming its peculiar saint?
Eacli trouble lias its saint, and every saint his candle.
; that assists women in childbed ; a third restores what a thief has stolen ; a fourth preserves you in shipwreck ; and a fifth protects your flocks.
There are some who have many virtues at once, and especially the vu-gin mother of God, in whom the people place more confidence than in her Son.
' If in the midst of all these mummeries, some wise man should rise and give utterance to these harsh truths 'You shall not perish miserably if you live like
Christians—you shall redeem your sins, if to your alms you add repentance, tears, watchings, prayer, fasting, and a complete change in your way of life
; this saint will protect you if you imitate his conduct I say, some wise man should charitably utter these things in their ears. Oh, of what happiness would it not rob their souls, and into what trouble, what distress, would it not plunge them
The mind of man is so constituted that imposture has more hold upon it than truth.
If there is one saint more apocryphal than another—a Barbara—you will see him worshipjjed with greater fervency than " But Moria does not stop here
: she attacks the bishops, ' who run more after gold than after * "Aiit ipsnm Christum." Encomium Morise, 0pp. IV., THE LIFE AND TIMES souls, and who think they have done enough for Jesus Christ, when they take their seats with theatrical pomp, hke holy fathers to whom adoration belongs, and utter blessings or anathemas.'
" The daughter of the Isles even ventures to attack the court of Kome, and the pope himself, who, passing his time in amusements, leaves the duties of his ministry to St. Peter and St. Paul.
' Can there be any greater enemies to the church,' she queries, ' than those imliol}' pontiffs who by thensilence allow Jesus
Christ to be forgotten ; who bind him by their mercenary regulations ; who falsify his doctrines by forced interpretations, and crucify him a second time by their scandalous lives ?'^
" Holbein added the most grotesque illustrations to the jpraise offolly, in which the pope figured with his triple crown.
" It is impossible to describe the impression this little book produced throughout Christendom.
Twenty-seven editions appeared in the lifetime of : it was translated into every Euroj)ean language, and contributed more than any other to confirm the antisacerdotal tendency of the age.
" But to the popular attack of sarcasm, Erasmus added science and learning.
Greek and Latin literature had opened a new prospect to the modern genius that was beginning to awaken from its slumber in Erasmus eagerly embraced the idea of the Italians, that the sciences ought to be studied in the schools of the * Encomium Moiia;, 0pp. IV.