"They are all mine," says she, "those people who have no greater delight than to relate miracles, or hear monstrous lies, and who employ them to dissipate the ennui of others, and, at the same time, to fill their own purses, (I allude, particularly, to priests and preachers.) Near them are those who have adopted the foolish, yet pleasing persuasion, that if they cast a look at a bit of wood or a picture representing Polyphemus or Christopher, they will, at least, outlive that day."—"Alas! what follies," continues Moria, "follies at which even I myself can scarcely help blushing! Do we not see each country laying claim to its particular saint? Each misery has its saint and its candle. This one relieves you in toothache, that one gives assistance at childbirth, a third restores your stolen goods, a fourth saves you in shipwreck, and a fifth keeps watch over your flocks. Some of these are all-powerful in many things at once. This is particularly the case with the Virgin, the mother of God, to whom the vulgar attribute almost more than to her Son.97 In the midst of all these follies, if some odious sage arise, and, giving a counternote, exclaim, (as in truth he may,) 'You will not perish miserably if you live as Christians.98 You will redeem your sins, if to the money which you give you add hatred of the sins themselves, tears, vigils, prayers, fastings, and a thorough change in your mode of life. Yon saint will befriend you if you imitate his life.'—If some sage, I say, charitably duns such words into their ears, Oh! of what felicity does he not deprive their souls, and into what trouble, what despondency, does he not plunge them! The mind of man is so constituted that imposture has a much stronger hold upon it than truth.99 If there is any saint more fabulous than another, for instance, a St. George, a St. Christopher, or a St. Barbara, you will see them adored with much greater devotion than St. Peter, St. Paul, or Christ himself."100
Folly, however, does not stop here; she applies her lash to the bishops themselves, "who run more after gold than after souls, and think they have done enough when they make a theatrical display of themselves, as Holy Fathers, to whom adoration is due, and when they bless or anathematise." The daughter of "the Fortunate Isles" has the hardihood even to attack the Court of Rome, and the pope himself, who, spending his time in diversion, leaves Peter and Paul to perform his duty. "Are there," says she, "more formidable enemies of the Church than those impious pontiffs, who, by their silence, allow Jesus Christ to be destroyed, who bind him by their mercenary laws, falsify him by their forced interpretations, and strangle him by their pestilential life?"101
Holbein appended to the Praise of Folly, most grotesque engravings, among which the pope figures with his triple crown. Never, perhaps, was a work so well adapted to the wants of a particular period. It is impossible to describe the impression which it produced throughout Christendom. Twenty-seven editions were published in the lifetime of Erasmus; it was translated into all languages, and served more than any other to confirm the age in its antisacerdotal tendency.
But to this attack by popular sarcasm, Erasmus added the attack of science and erudition. The study of Greek and Latin literature had opened up a new prospect to the modern genius which began to be awakened in Europe. Erasmus entered with all his heart into the idea of the Italians, that the school of the ancients was that in which the sciences ought to be studied, that, abandoning the inadequate and absurd books which had hitherto been used, it was necessary to go to Strabo for geography, to Hippocrates for medicine, to Plato for philosophy, to Ovid for mythology, and to Pliny for natural history. But he took a farther step, the step of a giant, destined to lead to the discovery of a new world, of more importance to humanity than that which Columbus had just added to the old world. Following out his principle, Erasmus insisted that men should no longer study theology in Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, but go and learn it from the Fathers of the Church, and, above all, from the New Testament. He showed that it was not even necessary to keep close to the Vulgate, which swarmed with faults, and he rendered an immense service to truth, by publishing his critical edition of the Greek text of the New Testament, a text as little known in the West as if it never had existed. This edition appeared at Bâsle in 1516, the year before the Reformation. Erasmus thus did for the New Testament what Reuchlin had done for the Old. Theologians were thenceforth able to read the word of God in the original tongues, and at a later period to recognise the purity of doctrine taught by the Reformers.
"I wish," said Erasmus on publishing his New Testament, "to bring to its level that frigid, wordy, disputatious thing, termed Theology. Would to God the Christian world may derive advantage from the work, proportioned to the pain and toil which it has cost." The wish was accomplished. It was in vain for the monks to exclaim, "He is trying to correct the Holy Spirit." The new Testament of Erasmus sent forth a living light. His paraphrases on the Epistles and Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John; his editions of Cyprian and Jerome; his translations of Origen, Athanasius, and Chrysostom; his "True Theology;"102 his "Preacher;"103 his Commentaries on several of the Psalms, contributed greatly to spread a taste for the word of God and pure theology. The effect of his labours even went farther than his intentions. Reuchlin and Erasmus restored the Bible to the learned; Luther restored it to the people. We have not yet described all that Erasmus did. When he restored the Bible, he called attention to its contents. "The highest aim of the revival of philosophical studies," said he, "should be to give a knowledge of the pure and simple Christianity of the Bible." An admirable sentiment! Would to God the organs of philosophy, in our day, were as well acquainted with their calling! "I am firmly resolved," continued he, "to die studying the Scriptures; it is my joy and my peace."104 "The sum of all Christian philosophy," he elsewhere says, "is reduced to this: To place all our hope in God, who through grace without our merits, gives us everything by Jesus Christ: To know that we are ransomed by the death of his Son: To die to worldly lusts, and walk conformably to his doctrine and his example, not only doing no injury to any, but, on the contrary, doing good to all: To bear trials patiently, in the hope of future recompence: in fine, to claim no credit to ourselves because of our virtues, but give thanks to God for all our faculties, and all our works. These are the feelings which ought to pervade the whole man, until they have become a second nature."105
Then raising his voice against the great mass of ecclesiastical injunctions, regarding dress, fasts, feast-days, vows, marriage, and confessions, by which the people were oppressed, and the priest was enriched, Erasmus exclaims, "In churches, the interpretation of the gospel is scarcely thought of.106 The better part of sermons must meet the wishes of the commissaries of indulgences. The holy doctrine of Christ must be suppressed, or interpreted contrary to its meaning, and for their profit. Cure is now hopeless, unless Christ himself turn the hearts of kings and pontiffs, and awaken them to enquire after true piety."
The works of Erasmus rapidly succeeded each other. He laboured incessantly, and his writings were read just as they came from his pen. That spirit, that native life, that rich, refined, sparkling and bold intellect, which, without restraint, poured out its treasures before his contemporaries, carried away and entranced vast numbers of readers, who eagerly devoured the works of the philosopher of Rotterdam. In this way he soon became the most influential man in Christendom, and saw pensions and crowns raining down upon him from all quarters.
When we contemplate the great revolution, which, at a later period, renewed the Church, it is impossible not to own that Erasmus was used by many as a kind