Part 15 (1/2)

CHAPTER XX

LAST YEARS

Religious and political contrasts grow sharper--The co strife in Germany still suspended--Erasmus finishes his _Ecclesiastes_--Death of Fisher and More--Erasmus back at Basle: 1535--Pope Paul III wants to make him write in favour of the cause of the Council--Favours declined by Erasmus--_De Puritate Ecclesiae_--The end: 12 July 1536

During the last years of Erasreat issues which kept the world in suspense were rapidly taking threatening forms Wherever compromise or reunion had before still sees, binding for of 1529 Eras Catholic ot the 'recess' of 1526, favourable for the Evangelicals, revoked, only the Lutherans a what they had obtained; and secured a prohibition of any further changes or novelties The Zwinglians and Anabaptists were not allowed to enjoy the least tolerance This was ielical princes and tohich henceforth was to give the naether (19 April 1529) And not only between Catholics and Protestants in the Empire did the rupture become complete Even before the end of that year the question of the Lord's supper proved an insuperable stulians and Lutherans

Luther parted fro with the words, 'Your spirit differs from ours'

In Switzerland civil war had openly broken out between the Catholic and the Evangelical cantons, only calmed for a short time by the first peace of Kappel The treaties of Cambray and Barcelona, which in 1529 restored at least political peace in Christendoer draw froe, like those hich the concord of 1516 had inspired him A month later the Turks appeared before Vienna

All these occurrences could not but distress and alar his letters of that period we are more than ever impressed by the fact that, for all the width and liveliness of his s of his ti his own ideas or his person, his perceptions are vague and weak If he still meddles occasionally with questions of the day, he does so in the eneralities, without e war on the Turks' (March 1530) is written in the forue that, at the close, he himself anticipates that the reader may exclaim: 'But now say clearly: do you think that war should be declared or not?'

In the su under the auspices of the Eood peace and Christian truth' The Augsburg Confession, defended all too weakly by Melanchthon, was read here, disputed, and declared refuted by the Emperor

Erasmus had no share in all this Many had exhorted hi; but he had in vain expected a summons from the Emperor At the instance of the Emperor's counsellors he had postponed his proposed removal to Brabant in that autumn till after the decision of the Diet But his services were not needed for the drastic resolution of repression hich the Ele in Ger were followed by the for all Protestant territories and towns of Germany in their opposition to the Eli was killed in the battle of Kappel against the Catholic cantons, soon to be followed by Oecolaht', writes Erasmus, 'that those two leaders have perished If Mars had been favourable to them, we should now have been done for'

In Switzerland a sort of equilibrium had set in; at any rate matters had cole was postponed for many years The Emperor had understood that, to coet the Pope to hold the Council which would abolish the acknowledged abuses of the Church The religious peace of Nure (1532) put the seal upon this turn of i the advocates of et a chance of being heard But Erasmus had become too old to actively participate in the decisions (if he had ever seriously considered such participation) He does write a treatise, though, in 1533, 'On the sweet concord of the Church', like his 'Advice on the Turks' in the form of an interpretation of a psalm (83) But it would seem as if the old vivacity of his style and his power of expression, so long uni The same remark applies to an essay 'On the preparation for death', published the sa these years he turned his attention chiefly to the coreat hichup and coical ideas: _Ecclesiastes_ or, _On the Way to preach_ Erasnified part of an ecclesiastic's duties As preachers, he had hly valued Colet and Vitrarius As early as 1519 his friend, John Becar of Borselen, urged him to follow up the _Enchiridion_ of the Christian soldier and the _Institutio_ of the Christian prince, by the true instruction of the Christian preacher

'Later, later,' Erasmus had promised him, 'at present I have too much work, but I hope to undertake it soon' In 1523 he had already made a sketch and some notes for it It was reat friend and brother-spirit, who eagerly looked forward to it and urged the author to finish it The work gradually grew into the s: a forest of a work, _operis sylvam_, he calls it himself In four books he treated his subject, the art of preaching well and decorously, with an inexhaustible abundance of examples, illustrations, schemes, etc But was it possible that a work, conceived already by the Erased, while he hiiven up the boldness of his earlier years, could still be a revelation in 1533, as the _Enchiridion_ had been in its day?

_Ecclesiastes_ is the work of a er sharply reacts upon the needs of his time As the result of a correct, intellectual, tasteful instruction in a suitable , in accordance with the purity of the Gospel, Erasmus expects to see society improve 'The people become more obedient to the authorities, more respectful towards the law, reater concord, reater dislike of adultery Servants obey ly, artisans work better, merchants cheat no more'

At the same time that Erasmus took this work to Froben, at Basle, to print, a book of a young Frenchman, who had recently fled froh the press of another Basle printer, Thomas Platter It too was to be a manual of the life of faith: the _Institution of the Christian Religion_, by Calvin

Even before Erasmus had quite completed the _Ecclesiastes_, the man for whom the work had been meant was no more Instead of to the Bishop of Rochester, Eras, Christopher of Stadion John Fisher, to set a seal on his spiritual endeavours, rese those of Erasmus in so many respects, had left behind, as a testimony to the world, for which Erasmus knew himself too weak, that of martyrdom On 22 June 1535, he was beheaded by co faithful to the old Church

Together with More he had steadfastly refused to take the oath to the Statute of Supremacy Not teeks after Fisher, Thomas More mounted the scaffold The fate of those two noblest of his friends grieved Eraser done: to write a poem But rather than in the fine Latin measure of that _Carmen herocue of sincere disnation in his letters They are hardly there In the words devoted to Fisher's death in the preface to the _Ecclesiastes_ there is no heartfelt emotion Also in his letters of those days, he speaks with reserve 'Would More had never ical cause to the theologians' As if More had died for aught but simply for his conscience!

When Eras He had in June 1535 gone to Basle, to work in Froben's printing-office, as of old; the _Ecclesiastes_ was at last going to press and still required careful supervision and the final touches during the process; the _Adagia_ had to be reprinted, and a Latin edition of Origenes was in preparation The old, sick man was cordially received by the many friends who still lived at Basle Hieronyed the business with two relatives, sheltered him in his house _Zum Luft_ In the hope of his return a room had been built expressly for him and fitted up as was convenient for him Erasmus found that at Basle the ecclesiastical storms which had formerly driven him away had subsided Quiet and order had returned He did feel a spirit of distrust in the air, it is true, 'but I think that, on account of e, of habit, and of what little erudition I possess, I have now got so far that I arded the removal as an experiment He did not e of air, he would return to his fine, well-appointed, co If he should prove able to bear it, then the choice was between the Netherlands (probably Brussels, Malines or Antwerp, perhaps Louvain) or Burgundy, in particular Besancon Towards the end of his life he clung to the illusion which he had been cherishi+ng for a long tiood for hi pathetic in the proportions which this wine-question gradually assuht be overlooked, but the thievish wagoners drink up or spoil what is ireatly whether he will return to Freiburg In October he sold his house and part of his furniture and had the rest transported to Basle After the summer he hardly left his rooh the formidable worker in him still yearned for more years and time to labour, his soul was ready for death Happy he had never felt; only during the last years he utters his longing for the end He was still, curiously enough, subject to the delusion of being in the thick of the struggle 'In this arena I shall have to fall,' he writes in 1533 'Only this consoles ht, which, if Christ be favourable, will bring the end of all labour and trouble' Two years later his voice sounds n to callworld to His rest'

Most of his old friends were gone Warham and Mountjoy had passed away before More and Fisher; Peter Gilles, so er than he, had departed in 1533; also Pirckheimer had been dead for years Beatus Rhenanus shows hi his friends' letters of the last few years, and repeating: 'This one, too, is dead' As he grewpersecuted becaer 'My friends decrease, my enemies increase,' he writes in 1532, when Warhaher In the autumn of 1535 he thinks that all his former servant-pupils betray him, even the best beloved ones like Quirin Talesius and Charles Utenhove They do not write to him, he complains

[Illustration: XXIV CARDINAL JEROME ALEANDER]

In October 1534, Pope Clement VII was succeeded by Paul III, who at once zealously took up the Council-question Theof a Council was, in the eyes of many, the only means by which union could be restored to the Church, and now a chance of realizing this seeians were invited to help in preparing the great work

Erasmus did not omit, in January 1535, to address to the new Pope a letter of congratulation, in which he professed his willingness to co-operate in bringing about the pacification of the Church, and warned the Pope to steer a cautious middle course On 31 May followed a reply full of kindliness and acknowledgeraced by God with so , reeable to your ion, by the spoken and the written word, before and during the Council, and in this manner by this last work of piety, as by the best act to close a life of religion and so s, to refute your accusers and rouse your adreater strength have seen his way to co-operate actively in the council of the great? Undoubtedly, the Pope's exhortation correctly represented his inclination But once faced by the necessity of hard, clear resolutions, ould he have effected? Would his spirit of peace and toleration, of reserve and co struggle? He was spared the experiment