thrown out that the Apostles habitually quoted from CHAP. XI. memory, without without giving the exact words of the original.1 All these were little indications that Erasmus had closely followed in the steps of Colet in rejecting the theory of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures; and they bear abundant evidence to prove that he did so, as Colet had done, not because he wished to undermine men's reverence for the Bible, but that they might learn. to love and to value its pages infinitely more than they had done before-not because he wished to explain away its facts, but that men might discover how truly real and actual and heart-stirring were its histories— not to undermine the authority of its moral teaching, but to add just so much to it as the authority of the Apostle who had written, or of the Saviour who had spoken, its Divine truths, exceeds the authority of the fathers who had established the canon, or of the Schoolmen who had buried the Bible altogether under the rubbish of the thousand and one propositions which they professed to have extracted from it. Let it never be forgotten that the Church party which had staked their faith upon the plenary inspiration of the Bible was the Church party who had succeeded in putting it into the background. They were the party whom Tyndale accused of knowing no more 'Scripture than they found in their Duns.' They were the party who throughout the sixteenth century resisted every attempt to give the Bible to the people, and to make it the people's book. fectly logical in doing so. And they were per- 1 See especially Novum Instrumentum, pp. 295, 290, 377, 382, 270. A.D. 1516. 6 CHAP. XI. based upon the absolute inspiration of the Holy ScripA.D. 1516. tures, and even to a great extent of the Vulgate version. If the Vulgate version was not verbally inspired, it was impossible to apply to it the theory of manifold senses.' And if a text could not be interpreted according to that theory, if it could not properly be strained into meanings which it was never intended by the writer to convey, the scholastic theology became a castle of cards. Its defenders adopted, and in perfect good faith applied to the Vulgate, the words quoted from Augustine: If any error should be admitted to have crept into the 'Holy Scriptures, what authority would be left to them?' If Colet and Erasmus should undermine men's faith in the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures, it would result in their view, as a logical necessity, in the destruction of the Christian religion. For the Christian religion, in their view, consisted in blind devotion to the Church, and in gulping whole the dogmatic creed which had been settled by her 'invincible' and ‘irre'fragable' doctors. The Christian religion loyalty to Christ. But this was not the faith of Colet and Erasmus. With them the Christian religion consisted not in gulping a creed upon any authority whatever, but in loving and loyal devotion to the person of Christ. They sought in the books which they found bound up into a Bible, not so much an infallible standard of doctrinal truth as an authentic record of his life and teaching. Where should they go for a knowledge of Christ, if not to the writings of those who were nearest in their relations to Him? They valued these writings because they sought and found in them a living and breathing picture of Him;' because nothing could represent 'Christ more vividly and truly' than they did because 6 A.D. 1516. they present a living image of his most holy mind,' SO CHAP. XI. that 6 even had we seen Him with our own eyes we • should not have had so intimate a knowledge as they give of Christ speaking, healing, dying, rising again as 'it were in our own actual presence.' It was because these books brought them, as it were, so close to Christ and the facts of his actual life, that they wished to get as close to them as they could do. They would not be content with knowing something of them secondhand from the best Church authorities. The best of the Fathers were 'men ignorant of some things, and mistaken in ' others.' They would go to the books themselves, and read them in their original languages, and, if possible, in the earliest copies, so that no mistakes of copyists or blunders of translators might blind their eyes to the facts as they were. They would study the geography and the natural history of Palestine, that they might the more correctly and vividly realise in their mind's eye the events as they happened. And they would do all this, not that they might make themselves 'irrefragable' doctors-rivals of Scotus and Aquinas-but that they might catch the Spirit of Him whom they were striving to know for themselves, and that they might place the same knowledge within reach of all-Turks and Saracens, learned and unlearned, rich and poor-by the translation of these books into the vulgar tongue of each. The Novum Instrumentum' of Erasmus was at once the result and the embodiment of these views. Hence it is easy to see the significance of the con- Works of St. current publication of the works of St. Jerome. Jerome belonged to that school of theology and criticism which now, after the lapse of a thousand St. Jerome. CHAP. XI. years, Colet and Erasmus were reviving in Western A. D. 1516. Europe. St. Jerome was the father who in his day strove to give to the people the Bible in their vulgar tongue. St. Jerome was the father against whom St. Augustine so earnestly strove to vindicate the verbal inspiration of the Bible. It was the words of St. Augustine used against St. Jerome that, now after the lapse of ten centuries, Martin Dorpius had quoted against Erasmus. We have seen in an earlier chapter how Colet clung to St. Jerome's opinion, against that of nearly all other authorities, in the discussion which led to his first avowal to Erasmus of his views on the inspiration of the Scriptures. Finally, the Annotations to the Novum Instrumentum' teem with citations from St. Jerome. 6 The concurrent publication of the works of this father was therefore a practical vindication of the • Novum Instrumentum' from the charge of presumption and novelty. It proved that Colet and Erasmus were teaching no new doctrines-that their work was correctly defined by Colet himself to be' to restore that ' old and true theology which had been so long obscured by the subtleties of the Schoolmen.' Under this patristic shield, dedicated by permission to Pope Leo, and its copyright secured for four years by the decree of the Emperor Maximilian, the Novum • Instrumentum' went forth into the world. CHAPTER XII. 1. MORE IMMERSED IN PUBLIC BUSINESS (1515). A.D. 1515. WHILE the work of Erasmus had for some years past CHAP. XII. lain chiefly in the direction of laborious literary study, it had been far otherwise with More. His lines had fallen among the busy scenes and cares of practical life. His capacity for public business, and the diligence and impartiality with which he had now for some years discharged his judicial duties as under-sheriff, had given him a position of great popularity and influence in the city. He had been appointed by the Parliament of 1515 a Commissioner of Sewers—a recognition at least of his practical ability. In his private practice at the Bar he had risen to such eminence, that Roper tells us 'there was at that time in none of the prince's courts of the laws of this realm any matter of importance ' in controversy wherein he was not with the one party ' of counsel.' Roper further reports that by his office ' and his learning (as I have heard him say) he gained 'without grief not so little as 400l. by the year' (equal to 4,000l. a year in present money). He had in His second the meantime married a second wife, Alice Middleton, and taken her daughter also into his household; and thus tried, for the sake of his little orphans, to roll away the cloud of domestic sorrow from his home. 1 1 Roper, 9. More's practice at the Bar. marriage. |