Part 4 (2/2)

[6] In 1500 (A 12321) Erasustine, cf 135, 138; in 1501, A 15233, he calls the _Officia_ of Cicero a 'pugiunculus'--a dagger So the appellation had been in his er the ht' which it had in medieval Latin

CHAPTER VII

YEARS OF TROUBLE--LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND

1502-6

Death of Batt: 1502--First stay at Louvain: 1502-4--Translations froain--Valla's _Annotationes_ on the New Testaland: 1505-6--More patrons and friends--Departure for Italy: 1506--_Carmen Alpestre_

Circumstances continued to remain unfavourable for Erasainst ood friend Batt had died It is a pity that no letters written by Erasmus directly after his bereavelad to have for that faithful helper a monument in addition to that which Erasmus erected to his memory in the _Antibarbari_ Anna of Veere had reht henceforth be left out of account In October 1502, Henry of Bergen passed away 'I have commemorated the Bishop of Cambray in three Latin epitaphs and a Greek one; they sent uilders, that also in death he should remain true to himself' In Francis of Busleiden, Archbishop of Besancon, he lost at about the same time a prospective new patron He still felt shut out froue

In the late suue,' he says The university of Louvain, established in 1425 to wean the Netherlands in spiritualof the sixteenth century, one of the strongholds of theological tradition, which, however, did not prevent the progress of classical studies How else should Adrian of Utrecht, later pope but at that tiy, have forthwith undertaken to get him a professorshi+p? Erasmus declined the offer, however, 'for certain reasons,' he says Considering his great distress, the reasons ent indeed One of them which he mentioned is not very clear to us: 'I aues which kno to hurt much, it is true, but have not learned to profit any one'

His spirit of liberty and his ardent love of the studies to which he wanted to devote himself entirely, were, no doubt, his chief reasons for declining

But he had to ular earnings He wrote some prefaces and dedicated to the Bishop of Arras, Chancellor of the University, the first translation from the Greek: some _Declamationes_ by Libanius When in the autumn of 1503 Philip le Beau was expected back in the Netherlands frohs of distaste, a panegyric to celebrate the safe return of the prince It cost hiht,' says the man who composed with such incredible facility, when his heart was in the work 'What is harder than to write with aversion; what is ood writing?' It ly as possible; the practice was so repulsive to him that in his preface he roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this whole class of composition was not to his taste

At the end of 1504 Erasmus was back at Paris, at last Probably he had always meant to return and looked upon his stay at Louvain as a temporary exile The circumstances under which he left Louvain are unknown to us, because of the almost total lack of letters of the year 1504 In any case, he hoped that at Paris he would sooner be able to attain his great end of devoting hiy 'I cannot tell you, dear Colet,' he writes towards the end of 1504, 'how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature; how I dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me But the disfavour of Fortune, who always looks at me with the saet clear of those vexations So I returned to France with the purpose, if I cannot solve the myself of them in one way or another After that I shall devote ive up the remainder of my life to them' If only he can find the means to work for sole himself from profane literature Can Colet not find out for hiard to the proceeds of the hundred copies of the _Adagia_ which, at one tiland at his own expense? The liberty of a few ht for littleto e of the huence so as to be able to realize his shi+ning ideal of restoring theology

It is remarkable that the sauide and example on the road to pure Latinity and classic antiquity, Lorenzo Valla, by chance becay In the su in the old library of the Premonstratensiana greater delight'), he found a manuscript of Valla's _Annotationes_ on the New Testament It was a collection of critical notes on the text of the Gospels, the Epistles and Revelation

That the text of the Vulgate was not stainless had been acknowledged by Rome itself as early as the thirteenth century Monastic orders and individual divines had set themselves to correct it, but that purification had not amounted to much, in spite of Nicholas of Lyra's work in the fourteenth century

It was probably the falling in with Valla's _Annotationes_ which led Erasmus, as formerly more inspired with the resolution to edit Jerome and to comment upon Paul (he was to do both at a later date), to turn to the task of taking up the New Testament as a whole, in order to restore it in its purity In March 1505 already Josse Badius at Paris printed Valla's _Annotationes_ for Erasmus, as a sort of advertisement of what he hie

Erasmus did not conceal from himself that Valla, the humanist, had an ill name with divines, and that there would be an outcry about 'the intolerable te harassed all the _disciplinae_, did not scruple to assail holy literature with his petulant pen' It was another programme much more explicit and defiant than the _Enchiridion_ had been

Once ain for England in the autumn of 1505 He speaks of serious reasons and the advice of sensible people He ia_, published by John Philippi at Paris in 1505, had probably helped hi; the edition cannot have been to his taste, for he had been dissatisfied with his work and wanted to extend it by weaving his new Greek knowledge into it Fro voice had sounded, the voice of his superior and friend Servatius, de an account of his departure from Paris

Evidently his Dutch friends had still no confidence in Erasmus, his work, and his future

In many respects that future appeared land than it had seemed anywhere, thus far There he found the old friends, men of consideration and importance: Mountjoy, hom, on his arrival, he stayed some months, Colet, and More There he found some excellent Greek scholars, whose conversation pro; not Colet, who knew little Greek, but More, Linacre, Grocyn, Latih ecclesiastics ere to be his friends and patrons: Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury Soon he would also find a friend whose congenial spirit and interests, to some extent, made up for the loss of Batt: the Italian Andrew A pro before Erasmus was armed with a dispensation fro the obstacles in the way of accepting an English benefice

Translations from Greek into Latin were for him an easy and speedy ue by Lucian, followed by others, for Foxe; the _Hecuba_ and the _Iphigenia_ of Euripides for Warha his letters

Clearly his relations with Holland were not yet satisfactory Servatius did not reply to his letters Eras over hiure of that friend, to whom he was linked by so many silken ties, yonder in the monastery of Steyn, where his return was looked forward to, sooner or later, as a beacon-light of Christendo Erasmus from the 'statutes and customs of the ustine?'

Probably he did On 1 April 1506, Erasreatly esteeland The king has promised me a curacy: the visit of the prince necessitated a postponement of this business'[8]

He iain how best to devote the remainder of my life (how much that will be, I do not know) entirely to piety, to Christ I see life, even when it is long, as evanescent and dwindling; I know that I ath has been encroached upon, not a little, by study and also, somewhat, by misfortune I see that no deliverance can be hoped froain, day after day Therefore I have resolved, content with my mediocrity (especially now that I have learned as much Greek as suffices me), to applyof my soul I should have done so before and have husbanded the precious years when they were at their best But though it is a tardy husbandry that people practise when only little remains at the bottoly as the quantity and quality of what is left diminishes'

Was it a fit of melancholy which made Erasmus write those words of repentance and renunciation? Was he surprised in the middle of the pursuit of his life's aim by the consciousness of the vanity of his endeavours, the consciousness, too, of a great fatigue? Is this the deepest foundation of Eras, which he reveals for a moment to his old and intie tallies very ill with the first sentences of the letter, which are altogether concerned with success and prospects In a letter he wrote the next day, also to Gouda and to a trusted friend, there is no trace of theof his future We do not notice that the tremendous zeal hich he continues his studies is relaxed for a moment And there are other indications that towards Servatius, who knew him better than he could wish, and who,power over hih he despised the world

Meanwhile nothing calish prebend But suddenly the occasion offered to which Erasmus had so often looked forward: the journey to Italy The court-physician of Henry VII, Giovanni Battista Boerio, of Genoa, was looking for a master to accompany his sons in their journey to the universities of Italy Erased hi to the young fellows, but only with supervising and guiding their studies In the beginning of June 1506, he found himself on French soil once more For two summer months the party of travellers stayed at Paris and Erasmus availed himself of the opportunity to have several of his works, which he had brought froland, printed at Paris He was by noell-known and favourite author, gladly welcomed by the old friends (he had been reputed dead) and made much of Josse Badius printed all Erasmus offered him: the translations of Euripides and Lucian, a collection of _Epigraia_

In August the journey was continued As he rode on horseback along the Alpine roads the most important poeinated He had been vexed about his travelling coht consolation in co poetry The result was the ode which he called _Carmen equestre vel potius alpestre_, about the inconveniences of old age, dedicated to his friend William Cop

Erasmus was one of those who early feel old He was not forty and yet fancied hie How quickly it had come! He looks back on the course of his life: he sees hier for study, as a youth engrossed in poetry and scholasticis He surveys his enormous erudition, his study of Greek, his aspiration to scholarly fae has suddenly coain we hear the note of renunciation of the world and of devotion to Christ Farewell jests and trifles, farewell philosophy and poetry, a pure heart full of Christ is all he desires henceforward