IV. ERASMUS FALLS IN LOVE WITH THOMAS MORE (1498).

Amongst the broken gleams of light which fall, here and there only, upon the Oxford intercourse of Erasmus with Colet, there are one or two which reveal an already existing friendship with Thomas More, but unfortunately without disclosing how it had begun.

CHAP. III.

A.D. 1498.

tion of

Erasmus.

Erasmus, when passing through London on his way Introducto Oxford, had probably been introduced by Lord More to Mountjoy to his brilliant young friend. It is even possible that there may be a foundation of fact in the story, that they had met for the first time, unknown to each other, at the lord mayor's table, or, as is more likely still, at the table of the ex-lord mayor Sir Henry Colet. Erasmus, having perhaps been told Colet's saying, that there was but one genius in England, and that his name was Thomas More, may have been set opposite to him at table without knowing who he was. More in his turn may have been told of the logical subtlety of the great scholar newly arrived from the Scotist college in Paris, without having been personally introduced to him. If this were so, the rest of the story may easily be true. They are said to have got into argument during dinner, Erasmus, in Scotist fashion, defending the worser part,' till finding in his young opponent a readier wit than ' ever he had before met withal,' he broke forth into the exclamation, Aut tu es Morus aut nullus;' to which the ready tongue of More retorted-so runs the story, Aut tu es Erasmus aut Diabolus.' Whether at the lord mayor's table, or elsewhere, they had become acquainted, and a correspondence had grown up between

6

6

1 Cresacre More's Life of Sir Thomas More, p. 93,

I

CHAP. III. them, one letter of which, like a solitary waif, has been left stranded on the shore of the gulf which has swal1498-9. lowed the rest. It reads thus :

A.D.

Friendship between

Erasmus.

6

Erasmus Thomæ Moro suo, S. D.

I scarcely can get any letters, wherefore I have 'showered down curses on the head of this letter-carrier, by whose laziness or treachery I fancy it must be 'that I have been disappointed of the most eagerly expected letters of my dear More (Mori mei). For that 'you have failed on your part I neither want nor ought to suspect. Albeit, I expostulated with you most

เ

6

vehemently in my last letter. Nor am I afraid that you are at all offended by the liberty I took, for you are not ignorant of that Spartan method of fighting "us""que ad cutem." This, joking aside, I do entreat you, 6 sweetest Thomas, that you will make amends with in'terest for the suffering occasioned me by the too long 'continued deprivation of yourself and your letters. I expect, in short, not a letter but a huge bundle of letters, which would weigh down even an Egyptian 'porter'

'Vale jucundissime More.1

'Oxoniæ: Natali Simonis et Judæ. 1499.'

Such being the friendship already existing between More and them, and beginning to show itself in the use of those endearing superlatives, without which Erasmus, from the first to the last, never could write a letter to More, it is not surprising that, as winter came on, Erasmus should take the opportunity afforded by the approaching

1 Erasmi aliquot Epistolæ: Paris, 1524, p. 33. Eras. Op. iii. Epist.

lxiii. 1521 ed. p. 291. Whether written in 1498 or 1499 is doubtful

A.D. 1498-9.

vacation, for a visit to London. Accordingly we get CHAP. III. one chance glimpse of him there, writing a letter to one of his friends, and expressing his delight with everything he had met with in England.

Staying as he most likely was with Mountjoy or with More, enjoying the warmth of their friendship, and feeling himself at home in London as he had done in Oxford, but never had done before anywhere else, it was natural that the foreign scholar should paint, in the warmest colours, this land of friends. Especially of Mountjoy, who had brought him to England, and who found him the means of living at Oxford, he would naturally speak in the highest terms. Such was the politeness, the goodnature, and affectionateness of his noble patron, that he would willingly follow him, he said, ad inferos, if need be.

delighted

with

Colet,

Linacre,

Nor was it only the warm-heartedness of his English Erasmus friends which filled him with delight. His purpose in with Engcoming to Oxford he declared to be fully answered. He land, and had come to England because he could not raise the Mountjoy, means for a longer journey to Italy. To prosecute Grocyn, his studies in Italy had been for years an object of and More. anxious yearning; but now, after a few months' experience of Oxford life, he wrote to his friend, who was himself going to Italy, that he had found in England so much polish and learning-not showy, 'shallow learning, but profound and exact, both in Latin ' and Greek-that now he would hardly care much ' about going to Italy at all, except for the sake of having 'been there.' 'When,' he added, 'I listen to my friend Colet, it seems to me like listening to Plato himself. In Grocyn, who does not admire the wide range ' of his knowledge? What could be more searching,

6

CHAP. III. deep, and refined than the judgment of Linacre?' A.D. 1499. And after this mention of Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, he adds: Whenever did nature mould a character 'more gentle, endearing, and happy than Thomas 'More's ? '1

Erasmus

falls in

love with More.

So that while here, as elsewhere, Colet seems to take his place again as the chief of the little band of English friends, we learn from this letter that the picture would not have been complete without the figure of the fascinating youth with whom Erasmus, like the rest of them, had fallen in love.

The letter itself was written to Robert Fisher, from London, tumultuarie,' 5th December, in 1498 or 1499.

Erasmus attributes

the agony to fear of

of Christ

death.

V. DISCUSSION BETWEEN ERASMUS AND COLET ON THE < AGONY IN THE GARDEN,' AND ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES (1499).

The greater part of 1499 was spent by Erasmus apparently at Oxford. On one occasion Colet and Erasmus were spending an afternoon together.2 Their conversation fell upon the agony of Christ in the garden. They soon, as usual, found that they did not agree. Erasmus, following the common explanation of the Schoolmen, saw only in the agony suffered by the Saviour that natural fear of a cruel death to which in his human nature he submitted as one of the incidents of humanity. It seemed to him that in

1 Erasmus Roberto Piscatori: Jesu, instante Supplicio Crucis, Epist. xiv. deque Verbis, quibus visus est Mortem deprecari, Pater, si fieri potest, 'transeat a me calix iste.'-Eras. Op. v. pp. 1265–1294.

2 The incidents related in this section are taken from Disputatiuncula de Tædio, Pavore, Tristitiá

.

His character as truly man, left for the moment un- CHAP. III. aided by His divinity, the prospect of the anguish.D. 1499. in store for Him might well wring from Him that cry of fearful and trembling human nature, Father, if 'it be possible, let this cup pass from me!' while the further words, 'not my will but Thine be done,' proved, he thought, that He had not only felt, but conquered, this human fear and weakness. Erasmus further supported this view by adducing the commonly received scholastic distinction between what Christ felt as man and what He felt as God, alleging that it was only as man that He thus suffered.

Colet dissented altogether from his friend's opinion. It might be the commonly received interpretation of recent divines, but in spite of that he declared his own entire disapproval of it. Nothing could, he thought, be more inconsistent with the exceeding love of Christ, than the supposition that, when it came to the point, He shrank in dread from that very death which He desired to die in His great love of men. It seemed utterly absurd, he said, to suppose that while so many martyrs have gone to torture and death patiently and even with joy-the sense of pain being lost in the abundance of their love-Christ, who was love itself, who came into the world for the very purpose of delivering guilty man by his own innocent death, should have shrunk either from the ignominy or from the bitterness of the cross. The sweat of great drops of blood, the exceeding sorrow even unto death, the touching entreaty to His Father that the cup might pass from Him-was all this to be attributed to the mere fear of death? Colet had rather set it down to anything but that. For it lies in the essence of love, he

Colet objects to this view.