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HEROES OF THE REFORMATION.


   I.--Martin Luther (1483-1546). THE HERO OF THE REFORMATION. By
   Henry Eyster Jacobs, D.D., LL.D.

   II.--Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560). THE PROTESTANT PRECEPTOR
   OF GERMANY. By James William Richard, D.D.

   III.--Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536). THE HUMANIST IN THE
   SERVICE OF THE REFORMATION. By Ephraim Emerton, Ph.D.

   G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
   NEW YORK AND LONDON




    _Heroes of the Reformation_

    EDITED BY
    Samuel Macauley Jackson
    PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY, NEW YORK
    UNIVERSITY

    Διαιρέσεις χαρισμάτων, τὸ δὲ αὐτὸ πνεῦμα.
    DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS, BUT THE SAME SPIRIT.


DESIDERIUS ERASMUS




  [Illustration]




  [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS BY HOLBEIN.
  ORIGINAL IN THE LOUVRE.]




    DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
    OF ROTTERDAM


    BY
    EPHRAIM EMERTON, PH.D.
    WINN PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY


    O Erasme Roterodame, wo wiltu bleiben? Sieh, was vermag die
    ungerecht tyranney der weltlichen gewahlt, der macht der
    finsternuss? Hör, du ritter Christi, reith hervor neben den
    herrn Christum, beschüz die wahrheit, erlang der martärer cron.
                                         A. DÜRER'S DIARY, 1521.


    G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
    NEW YORK AND LONDON
    The Knickerbocker Press
    1899




    COPYRIGHT, 1899
    BY
    G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
    Entered at Stationers' Hall, London


    The Knickerbocker Press, New York




PREFACE


A complete and satisfactory life of Erasmus of Rotterdam still
remains to be written. Its author will have to be a thorough student
of the classic literatures, a theologian familiar with every form
of Christian speculation, a historian, to whom the complicated
movement of the Reformation is altogether intelligible, an educator,
a moralist, and a man of humour. Only to such a person--if such there
ever were--could the writing of this life be a wholly congenial task.
The subject has been approached by different writers from all the
points of view indicated, but no biography has yet shown the whole
range or value of Erasmus' varied activities.

The limitations of the present volume have fortunately been clearly
defined by the title of the series in which it forms a part. Its
function is to deal with Erasmus as a factor in the Protestant
Reformation of the sixteenth century. With the very peculiar and
often elusive personality of the man it has to do only in so far
as it serves to suggest an explanation of his attitude towards the
world-movement of his time. I say "suggest an explanation" rather
than "explain," because, with all diligence, I cannot hope to have
made clear all of the many problems involved in the inquiry. At
every stage of the study of Erasmus one has to ask first what he
believed himself to be doing, then what he wished others to believe
he was doing, then what others did think he was doing, and finally
what the man actually _was_ doing. And all this has to be learned
chiefly from his own words and from his reports of the words of
others.

His life was full of strange incongruities, and any story of his life
which should seek to cover these incongruities by any fictitious
theory of consistency would but ill reflect the truth. And yet,
with all its pettinesses and weaknesses, its contradictions and its
comings-short of natural demands upon it, this life has, after all,
an element of the heroic. If there be a heroism of persistent work
and cheerful endurance, of steady exclusion of all distractions, of
refusal to commit oneself to anything or anybody which might impede
one's chosen line of duty, then we may gladly admit Erasmus into the
choice company of the Heroes of the Reformation.

Such a distinction would vastly have amused him. He would have seized
his pen and dashed off to some friend, who would spread the word,
some such disclaimer as this: "Well, of all things in the world, now
they are calling me a hero! If you never laughed before, laugh now to
your heart's content. I a hero! a man afraid of my shadow,--a man of
books, a hater of conflict, a man, who, if he were put to the test
would, I fear, follow the example of Peter and deny his Lord. And,
not content with this,