Part 9 (1/2)

The sae and woman In the problem of sexual relations he distinctly sides with the woreat deal of tenderness and delicate feeling in his conception of the position of the girl and the woman Few characters of the _Colloquies_ have been draith so irl with the lover and the cultured woman in the witty conversation with the abbot Erasienic Let us beget children for the State and for Christ, says the lover, children endowed by their upright parents with a good disposition, children who see the good exaain he reverts to the mother's duty to suckle the child herself He indicates how the house should be arranged, in a simple and cleanly manner; he occupies himself with the problem of useful children's dress Who stood up at that tiirl, and for the prostitute coer of e of Europe, so violently abhorred by Erase should at once be declared null and void by the Pope Erasmus does not hold with the easy social theory, still quite current in the literature of his time, which casts upon women all the blaes who live in a state of nature, he says, the adultery of iven

Here it appears, at the same time, that Erasmus knew, be it half in jest, the conception of natural virtue and happiness of naked islanders in a savage state It soon crops up again in Montaigne and the following centuries develop it into a literary dogma

CHAPTER XIII

ERASMUS'S MIND-CONTINUED

Erasmus's mind: Intellectual tendencies--The world encumbered by beliefs and forms--Truth must be siinal languages--Biblical humanism--Critical work on the texts of Scripture--Practice better than dogs--Prolixity--Observation of details--A veiled realisuousness--The 'Nuance'--Inscrutability of the ultis

Simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness, those are to Erasmus the dominant requirements, also e pass from his ethical and aesthetic concepts to his intellectual point of view; indeed, the two can hardly be kept apart

The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with humas, and overburdened with the tyrannical authority of orders, and because of all this the strength of gospel doctrine is flagging Faith requires siued What would the Turks say of our scholasticism? Colet wrote to him one day: 'There is no end to books and science Let us, therefore, leave all roundabout roads and go by a short cut to the truth'

Truth e of truth is si is simpler nor truer than Christ' 'I should wish', Erasht be deeply impressed upon the mind of men, and that I deem best attainable in this way, that we, supported by our knowledge of the original languages, should philosophize _at the sources_ themselves'

Here a neord comes to the fore: back to the sources! It is not ical requirement; it is equally an ethical and aesthetic necessity of life The original and pure, all that is not yet overgrown or has not passed through many hands, has such a potent charm Erasmus compared it to an apple which we ourselves pick off the tree To recall the world to the ancient simplicity of science, to lead it back fro and ospel doctrine--thus he saw the task of divinity Thehere; it reveals the psychological quality of Erasmus's fervent principle

'How is it', he exclaiive themselves so much trouble about the details of all sorts of reo to the sources of Christianity itself?' 'Although this wisdom, which is so excellent that once for all it put the wisdom of all the world to shame, may be drawn from these few books, as from a crystalline source, with far less trouble than is the wisdom of Aristotle from so many thorny books and with much more fruit The equipment for that journey is simple and at everyone's immediate disposal This philosophy is accessible to everybody Christ desires that his mysteries shall be spread as widely as possible I should wish that all good wives read the Gospel and Paul's Epistles; that they were translated into all languages; that out of these the husband, the weaver at his loouile his wayfaring This sort of philosophy is rather a isms, rather of life than of disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition, rather of transforic What is the philosophy of Christ, which he himself calls _Renascentia_, but the insaturation of Nature created good?--ht us this so absolutely and effectively as Christ, yet also in pagan books much may be found that is in accordance with it'

Such was the view of life of this biblical humanist As often as Erasmus reverts to these matters, his voice sounds clearest 'Let no one', he says in the preface to the notes to the New Testament, 'take up this work, as he takes up Gellius's _Noctes atticae_ or Poliziano's Miscellanies We are in the presence of holy things; here it is no question of eloquence, these matters are best recommended to the world by simplicity and purity; it would be ridiculous to display human erudition here, impious to pride oneself on human eloquence' But Erasmus never was so eloquent himself as just then

What here raises him above his usual level of force and fervour is the fact that he fights a battle, the battle for the right of biblical criticism It revolts hiate when they know that the texts show differences and are corrupt, although we have the Greek text by which to go back to the original for

He is now reproached because he dares, as a rammarian, to assail the text of Holy Scripture on the score of futile ularities 'Details they are, yes, but because of these details we soical trifling is necessary 'Why are we so precise as to our food, our clothes, our money-matters and why does this accuracy displease us in divine literature alone? He crawls along the ground, they say, he wearies hiht any word of Him e venerate and worshi+p under the naine that I have not been able to achieve anything better, and out of sluggishness of mind and coldness of heart or lack of erudition have taken this lowest task upon ood that is done with pious zeal We bring along the bricks, but to build the temple of God'

He does not want to be intractable Let the Vulgate be kept for use in the liturgy, for sermons, in schools, but he who, at home, reads our edition, will understand his own the better in consequence He, Erase hi when convicted of error

Erasical-critical method must shake the foundations of the Church He was surprised at his adversaries 'who could not but believe that all their authority would perish at once when the sacred books ht be read in a purified forinal' He did not feel what the unassailable authority of a sacred book meant He rejoices because Holy Scripture is approached so ht to light by considering not only what is said but also by whom, for whom, at what time, on what occasion, what precedes and what follows, in short, by the ical criticis Scripture and co across a place which seemed contrary to the doctrine of Christ or the divinity of his nature, to believe rather that one did not understand the phrase _or that the text ht be corrupt_

Unperceived he passed from emendation of the different versions to the correction of the contents The epistles were not all written by the apostles to whom they are attributed The apostles themselves made mistakes, at tier a unity to Eras desire for an upright, siood Christian But it was also the irresistible intellectual and aesthetic need of the good taste, the harmony, the clear and exact expression of the Ancients, the dislike of as cuht render good service for the necessary purification of the faith and its forms The measure of church hymns should be corrected That Christian expression and classicism were incompatible, he never believed The man who in the sphere of sacred studies asked every author for his credentials reed the authority of the Ancients without any evidence How navely he appeals to Antiquity, again and again, to justify some bold feat! He is critical, they say? Were not the Ancients critical? He perressions? So did the Ancients, etc

Erasmus is in profound sympathy with that revered Antiquity by his fundamental conviction that it is the practice of life which reat philosopher who knows the tenets of the Stoics or Peripatetics by rote--but he who expresses theof philosophy by his life and his morals, for that is its purpose He is truly a divine who teaches, not by artful syllogisms, but by his disposition, by his face and his eyes, by his life itself, that wealth should be despised

To live up to that standard is what Christ himself calls _Renascentia_

Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only But in that sense it is closely allied to the idea of the Renaissance as a historical phenoan sides of the Renaissance have nearly always been overrated Eraslione, the representative of the spirit of his age, one over whose Christian sentiale of Antiquity had passed And that very union of strong Christian endeavour and the spirit of Antiquity is the explanation of Erasmus's wonderful success

The mere intention and the contents of the mind do not influence the world, if the form of expression does not cooperate In Erasmus the quality of his talent is a very important factor His perfect clearness and ease of expression, his liveliness, wit, iusto and humour have lent a charm to all he wrote which to his contemporaries was irresistible and captivates even us, as soon as we read him In all that constitutes his talent, Erasether a representative of the Renaissance There is, in the first place, his eternal _a propos_ What he writes is never vague, never dark--it is always plausible Everything sees true as to tone, turn of phrase and accent It has alht haric, never truly heroic It carries us away, indeed, but it is never itself truly enraptured

The more artistic aspects of Erash they are everywhere in evidence--in those two recreations after more serious labour, the _Moriae Encomium_ and the _Colloquia_ But just those two have been of enormous importance for his influence upon his times For while Jerome reached tens of readers and the New Testament hundreds, the _Moria_ and _Colloquies_ went out to thousands And their ihtened in that Erasmus has nowhere else expressed himself so spontaneously

In each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely formulary ones, there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a satire There is hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression without a vivid fancy There are unrivalled niceties The abbot of the _Abbatis et eruditae colloquium_ is a Moliere character It should be noticed hoell Erasmus always sustains his characters and his scenes, because he _sees_ theets for a a elucidated the whole no to play themselves, Carolus says: 'but shut the door first, lest the cook should see us playing like two boys'

As Holbein illustrated the _Moria_, we should wish to possess the _Colloquia_ with illustrations by Brueghel, so closely allied is Erasreat master