About 1484 both his parents died. The father left a modest estate to his two sons, but their guardians absorbed most of it, and steered the youths into a monastic career as one requiring no patrimony at all. They protested, wishing to go to a university; finally they were persuaded—Erasmus, we are told, by the promise of access to many books. The older son accepted his fate, and rose to be (Erasmus reported) strenuus compotor nec scortator ignavus—“a mighty toper and no mean fornicator.”1 Desiderius took vows as an Augustinian canon in the priory of Emmaus at Steyn. He tried hard to like monastic life, even wrote an essay De contemptu mundi to convince himself that a monastery was just the place for a lad of avid spirit and queasy stomach. But his stomach complained of fasts and turned at the smell of fish; the vow of obedience proved yet more irksome than that of chastity; and perhaps the monastic library ran short on classics. The kindly prior took pity on him, and lent him as secretary to Henry of Bergen, Bishop of Cambrai. Erasmus now (1492) accepted ordination as a priest.
But wherever he was he had one foot elsewhere.2 He envied the young men who had gone on from their local schooling to universities. Paris exuded an aroma of learning and lust that could intoxicate keen senses across great distances. After some years of able service, Desiderius induced the Bishop to send him to the University of Paris, armed with just enough money to survive. He listened impatiently to lectures, but consumed the libraries. He attended plays and parties, and occasionally explored feminine charms;3 he remarks, in one of his Colloquies, that the most pleasant way of learning French was from the filles de joie. 4 Nevertheless his strongest passion was for literature, the musical magic of words opening the door to a world of imagination and delight. He taught himself Greek; in time the Athens of Plato and Euripides, Zeno and Epicurus became as familiar to him as the Rome of Cicero, Horace, and Seneca; and both cities were almost as real to him as the left bank of the Seine. Seneca seemed to him as good a Christian as St. Paul, and a much better stylist (a point on which, perhaps, his taste was not quite sound). Wandering at will through the centuries, he discovered Lorenzo Valla, the Neapolitan Voltaire; he relished the elegant Latin and reckless audacity with which Valla had flayed the forgery of the “Donation of Constantine,” had noted serious errors in the Vulgate, and had debated whether epicureanism might not be the wisest modus vivendi; Erasmus himself would later startle theologians, and comfort some cardinals, by seeking to reconcile Epicurus and Christ.5 Echoes of Duns Scotus and Ockham still resounded in Paris; nominalism was in the ascendant, and threatened such basic doctrines as transubstantiation and the Trinity. These escapades of thought damaged the young priest’s orthodoxy, leaving him not much more than a profound admiration for the ethics of Christ.
His addiction to books was almost as expensive as a vice. To add to his allowance he gave private instruction to younger students, and went to live with one of them. Even so he had not enough to be comfortable. He importuned the Bishop of Cambrai: “My skin and my purse both need filling—the one with flesh, the other with coins. Act with your usual kindness”;6 to which the Bishop responded with his usual moderation. One pupil, the Lord of Vere, invited him to his castle at Tournehem in Flanders; Erasmus was charmed to find in Lady Anne of Vere a patroness of genius; she recognized this condition in him, and helped him with a gift, which was soon consumed. Another rich pupil, Mount joy, took him to England (1499). There, in the great country houses of the aristocracy, the harassed scholar found a realm of refined pleasure that turned his monastic past into a shuddering memory. He reported his progress to a friend in Paris, in one of those innumerable, inimitable letters that are now his most living monument:
We are getting on. If you are wise you too will fly over here.... If you only knew the blessings of Britain! .... To take one attraction out of many: there are nymphs here with divine features, so gentle and kind.... Moreover, there is a fashion that cannot be commended enough. Wherever you go you are received on all hands with kisses; when you leave you are dismissed with kisses; if you go back your salutes are returned to you.... Wherever a meeting takes place there are salutes in abundance; wherever you turn you are never without them. O Faustus! if you had once tasted how soft and fragrant those lips are, you would wish to be a traveler, not for ten years, like Solon, but for your whole life in England.7
At Mountjoy’s house in Greenwich Erasmus met Thomas More, then only twenty-two, yet distinguished enough to secure the scholar an introduction to the future Henry VIII. At Oxford he was almost as charmed by the informal companionship of students and faculty as he had been by the embraces of country-house divinities. There he learned to love John Colet, who, though “assertor and champion of the old theology,” astonished his time by practicing Christianity. Erasmus was impressed by the progress of humanism in England:
When I hear my Colet I seem to be listening to Plato himself. In Grocyn who does not marvel at such a perfect world of learning? What can be more acute, profound, and delicate than the judgment of Linacre? What has nature ever created more gentle, sweet, and happy than the genius of Thomas More? 8
These men influenced Erasmus profoundly for his betterment. From a vain and flighty youth, drunk with the wine of the classics and the ambrosia of women, he was transformed into an earnest and painstaking scholar, anxious not merely for shillings and renown, but for some lasting and beneficent achievement. When he left England (January 1500) he had formed his resolve to study and edit the Greek text of the New Testament as the distilled essence of that real Christianity which, in the judgment of reformers and humanists alike, had been overlaid and concealed by the dogmas and accretions of centuries.
His pleasant memory of this first visit to England was darkened by the final hour. At Dover, passing through the customs, the money that his English friends had given him, amounting to some £20 ($2,000?), was confiscated by the authorities, as the English law forbade the export of gold or silver. More, not yet a great lawyer, had mistakenly advised him that the prohibition applied only to English currency; and Erasmus had changed the pounds into French coins. Neither his stumbling English nor his prancing Latin availed to deflect the avid orthodoxy of the law; and Erasmus embarked for France practically penniless. “I suffered shipwreck,” he said, “before I went to sea.”9
II. THE PERIPATETIC
Stationing himself for a few months in Paris, he published his first significant work, Collectanea adagiorum, a collection of 818 adages or quotations, mostly from classical authors. The revival of learning—i.e., of ancient literature—had set a fashion of adorning one’s opinions with a snatch from some Greek or Latin author; we see the custom in extreme form in Montaigne’s Essays and Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy; it lingered into the eighteenth century in the forensic oratory of England. Erasmus accompanied each adage with a brief comment, usually pointed to current interest and salted with satiric wit; so, he observed, “priests are said in Scripture to devour the sins of the people; and they find sins so hard to digest that they must have the best wine to wash them down.”10 The book was a boon to writers and speakers; it sold so well that for a year Erasmus could feed himself unaided. Moreover, Archbishop Warham, relishing the book despite its barbs, sent the author a gift of money and offered him a benefice in England; Erasmus, however, was not prepared to abandon the Continent for an island. In the next eight years he published several revisions of the Adagia, expanding it to 3,260 entries. Sixty editions appeared in his lifetime; translations were issued from the original Latin into English, French, Italian, German, and Dutch; altogether it was among the “best sellers” of its time.
Even so the proceeds were meager; and food was not enough. Pinched for pounds, Erasmus wrote (December 12, 1500) to his friend James Batt, who was tutoring a son of the Lady Anne of Vere, asking him to
point out to her how much more credit I shall do her by my learning than the other divines whom she maintains. They preach ordinary sermons; I write what will live forever. They, with their silly rubbish, are heard in one or two c
hurches; my works will be read by all who know Latin and Greek in every country in the world. Such unlearned ecclesiastics abound everywhere; men like me are scarcely found in many centuries. Repeat all this to her unless you are too superstitious to tell a few fibs for a friend.11
When this approach failed, he wrote again in January, suggesting that Batt tell the lady that Erasmus was losing his eyesight, and adding: “Send me four or five gold pieces of your own, which you will recover out of the Lady’s money.”12 As Batt did not enter this trap, Erasmus wrote directly to the lady, comparing her with the noblest heroines of history and the fairest concubines of Solomon, and predicting for her an eternity of fame.13 To this ultimate vanity she succumbed; Erasmus received a substantial gift, and recovered his eyesight. The custom of the time forgave a writer for begging aid from patrons, since publishers were not yet equipped to sustain even widely read authors. Erasmus could have had benefices, episcopacies, even, later, a cardinal’s hat; he refused such offers time and again in order to remain a “free lance,” intellectually fetterless. He preferred to beg in freedom rather than decay in bonds.
In 1502, fleeing plague, Erasmus moved to Louvain. Adrian of Utrecht, head of the university, offered him a professorship; Erasmus declined. Returning to Paris, he settled down to earn his living by his pen—one of the earliest modern attempts at that reckless enterprise. He translated Cicero’s Offices, Euripides’ Hecuba, and Lucian’s Dialogues. Doubtless this jolly skeptic shared in forming Erasmus’ mind and style. In 1504 Erasmus wrote to a friend:
Good heavens! with what humor, with what rapidity does Lucian deal his blows, turning everything to ridicule, and letting nothing pass without a touch of mockery. His hardest strokes are aimed at the philosophers... on account of their supernatural assumptions, and at the Stoics for their intolerable arrogance.... . He uses no less liberty in deriding the gods, whence the surname of atheist was bestowed upon him—an honorable distinction coming from the impious and superstitious.14
On a second visit to England (1505–06) he joined Colet in a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. Describing this trip under fictitious names in one of his Colloquies, he told how “Gratian” (Colet) offended their monastic guide by suggesting that some of the wealth that adorned the cathedral might be used to alleviate poverty in Canterbury; how the monk showed them milk that had really come from the Virgin’s breast, and “an amazing quantity of bones,” all of which had to be kissed reverently; how Gratian balked at kissing an old shoe that Becket was said to have worn; and how, as a climactic favor and a sacred souvenir the guide offered Gratian a cloth allegedly used by the saint to wipe his brow and blow his nose, and still showing evidences thereof, whereat Gratian grimaced and rebelled. The two humanists, mourning for humanity, returned to London.15
Good fortune came to Erasmus there. Henry VII’s physician was sending two sons to Italy; Erasmus was engaged to accompany them as “general guide and supervisor.” He stayed with the lads at Bologna for a year, devouring the libraries, and adding daily to his fame for learning, Latinity, and wit. Till this time he had worn the garb of an Augustinian canon—black robe, mantle, and cowl, and a white hood usually carried on the arm; now (1506) he discarded these for the less conspicuous dress of a secular priest, and claimed to have received permission for this change from Pope Julius II, then in Bologna as a military conqueror. For reasons unknown to us he returned to England in 1506, and lectured on Greek at Cambridge. But in 1508 we find him again in Italy—preparing an enlarged edition of his Adagia for the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice. Passing on to Rome (1509), he was charmed by the easy life, fine manners, and intellectual cultivation of the cardinals. He was amused—as Luther, in Rome the year before, had been shocked—by the inroads that pagan themes and ways had made in the capital of Christendom. What offended Erasmus more was the martial policy, ardor, and pursuits of Julius II; there he agreed with Luther; but he agreed also with the cardinals, who warmly approved the frequent absences of the pugnacious Pope. They welcomed Erasmus to their social gatherings, and offered him some ecclesiastical sinecure if he would settle in Rome.
Just as he was learning to love the Eternal City, Mountjoy sent him word that Henry VII had died, that the friend of the humanists had become Henry VIII, and that all doors and preferments would now be open to Erasmus if he would come back to England. And along with Mountjoy’s letter came one from Henry VIII himself:
Our acquaintance began when I was a boy. The regard which I then learned to feel for you has been increased by the honorable mention you have made of me in your writings, and by the use to which you have applied your talents in the advancement of Christian truth. So far you have borne your burden alone; give me now the pleasure of assisting and protecting you so far as my power extends.... . Your welfare is precious to us all.... I propose therefore that you abandon all thought of settling elsewhere. Come to England, and assure yourself of a hearty welcome. You shall name your own terms; they shall be as liberal and honorable as you please. I recollect that you once said that when you were tired of wandering you would make this country the home of your old age. I beseech you, by all that is holy and good, carry out this promise of yours. We have not now to learn the value of either your acquirements or your advice. We shall regard your presence among us as the most precious possession that we have.... . You require your leisure for yourself; we shall ask nothing of you save to make our realm your home.... . Come to me, therefore, my dear Erasmus, and let your presence be your answer to my invitation.16
How could so courteous and generous an invitation be refused? Even if Rome made him a cardinal, Erasmus’ tongue would be tied; in England, surrounded by influential friends and protected by a powerful king, he might write more freely and yet be safe. Half reluctantly he bade farewell to the humanists of Rome, to the great palaces and libraries, to the cardinals who had favored him. He made his way again over the Alps, and to Paris, and to England.
III. THE SATIRIST
He stayed there five years, and in all that time he received from the King nothing more than an occasional salutation. Was Henry too busy with foreign relations or domestic relatives? Erasmus waited and fretted. Mountjoy came to the rescue with a gift; Warham dowered him with the revenues of a parish in Kent; and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of Cambridge University, appointed him professor of Greek at £13 ($1,300) a year. To raise this income to the maintenance of a servant and a horse, Erasmus dedicated his publications to his friends, who responded ever inadequately.
In the first year of this third sojourn in England, and in the home of Thomas More, Erasmus wrote in seven days his most famous book, The Praise of Folly. Its Latinized Greek title, Encomium Moriae, was a pun on More’s name, but moros was Greek for fool, and moria for folly. Erasmus kept the work in manuscript for two years, then went briefly to Paris to have it printed (1511). Forty editions were published in his lifetime; there were a dozen translations; Rabelais devoured it; as late as 1632 Milton found it “in everyone’s hand” at Cambridge.
Moria in Erasmus’ use meant not only folly, absurdity, ignorance, and stupidity, but impulse, instinct, emotion, and unlettered simplicity, as against wisdom, reason, calculation, intellect. The whole human race, we are reminded, owes its existence to folly, for what is so absurd as the male’s polymorphous pursuit of the female, his feverish idealization of her flesh, his goatish passion for copulation? What man in his senses would pay for such detumescence with the lifelong bondage of monogamy? What woman in her senses would pay for it with the pains and tribulations of motherhood? Is it not ridiculous that humanity should be the accidental by-product of this mutual attrition? If men and women paused to reason, all would be lost.17
This illustrates the necessity of folly, and the foolishness of wisdom. Would bravery exist if reason ruled?18 Would happiness be possible?—or was Ecclesiastes right in believing that “he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, and in much wisdom is much grief”? Who wo
uld be happy if he knew the future? Fortunately science and philosophy are failures, are ignored by the people, and do no great damage to the vital ignorance of the race. The astronomers “will give you to a hair’s breadth the dimensions of the sun, moon, and stars, as easily as they would do that of a flagon or a pipkin,” but “nature laughs at their puny conjectures.”19 The philosophers confound the confused and darken the obscure; they lavish time and wit upon logical and metaphysical subtleties with no result but wind; we should send them, rather than our soldiers, against the Turks, who would retreat in terror before such bewildering verbosity.20 The physicians are no better; “their whole art as now practiced is one incorporated compound of imposture and craft.”21 As for the theologians, they
will tell you to a tittle all the successive proceedings of Omnipotence in the creation of the universe; they will explain the precise manner of original sin being derived from our first parents; they will satisfy you as to how .... our Saviour was conceived in the Virgin’s womb, and will demonstrate, in the consecrated wafer, how accidents may subsist without a subject.... how one body can be in several places at the same time, and how Christ’s body in heaven differs from His body on the cross or in the sacrament.22
Think also of the nonsense purveyed as miracles and prodigies—apparitions, curative shrines, evocations of Satan, and “such like bugbears of superstition.”