§ 69. REUCHLIN AND ERASMUS. 639
numerous marginal corrections, to the printer.^ The manuscript of the Apocalypse was borrowed from Reuchlin, and disappeared, but was rediscovered, in 1861, by Dr. Delitzsch in the library of Qittingen-Wallerstein at Mayhingen, Bavaria. It was defective on the last leaf and supplemented by Erasmus, who translated the last six verses from the Vulgate into indifferent Greek, for he was a better Latinist than Hellenist.
In ^11, Erasmus published five editions of the Greek Testament — 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527 and 1535^ Besides, more than 30 unauthorized reprints appeared in Venice, Strassburg, Basel, Paris and other cities. He made several improvements, but his entire apparatus never exceeded eight MSS. The 4th and the 5th editions were the basis of the textus receptus^^hioh ruled supreme till the time of Lachmann and Tregelles. His notes and paraphrases on the New Testament, the Apocalypse excepted, were translated into English, and a copy given to ever;^ parish in 1547. Zwingli copied the Pauline Epistles from the 1st Greek edition with his own hand in the convent at Einsiedeln, 1516. From the 2d edition of 1519, Luther prepared his German translation on the Wartburg, 1522, and Tyndale his English version, 1526.
Thus Erasmus directly contributed to the preparation of the vernacular versions which he so highly commended in his Preface to the 1st edition [of his Greek Testament. He there expressed the hope that the Scriptures might be translated into every tongue and put into the hands of every reader, to give strength and comfort to the husbandman at his plough, to the weaver at his shuttle, to the traveller on his journey and to the woman at her distaff. He declared it a miserable thing that thousands of educated Christians had never read the New Testament. In editing the Greek original, it was his purpose, so he says, to enable the theologians to study Christianity at its fountain-head. It was high praise
1 Frcecipitatum fuit verius quam editttm, says Erasmus himself in the Preface. The 2d edition also contains several pages of errors, some of which have affected Luther's version. The 3d edition first inserts the spurious passage of the three heavenly witnesses, 1 John 6 : 7, to remove any occasion of offence, ne cuiforet ansa calumniandi.
640 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
when (Ecolampadius confessed he had learned from Erasmus that" in the Sacred Books nothing was to be sought but Christ," nihil in sacris scripturis prceter Christum qucerendum.^
It was a common sayini^, to wliich Erasmus himself refers, that hi' laid the c^^'^ wliich Luther hatched. Ilis relations to the Wittenberg Reformer and to the movement of the Reformation is presented in the 6th volume of this series. Here it is enough to say that Erasmus desired a reformation by gradual education and gentle persuasion within the limits of tlje old Church system. He disapproved of the violent measures of Luther and Zwingli, and feared that they would do mucli harm to the cause of learning and refined culture, which he had more at heart than religion.
He and Luther never met, and he emphatically disavowed all responsibility for Luther's course and declared he had had no time to read Luther's books. And yet, in a letter to Zwingli, he confessed that most of the positions taken by Luther he had himself taken before Luther's appearance. The truth is that Erasmus was a critical scholar and not a man of action or of deep fervor of conviction. At best, he was a moralist. He went through no such religious experiences as Luther, and Luther early wrote to Lange that he feared Erasmus knew little of the grace of God. The early part of the 16th century was a period when tlie critic needed to be supplemented. Erasmus had no mind for the fray of battle. His piety was not deep enough to brave a rupture with the old order. He courted the flattery of the pope, though his pen poured forth ridicule against him. And nowhere is the difference of the two men shown in clearer light than in their treatment of Leo X., whom, when it was to his advantage, Erasmus lauded as a paragon of culture. ^ He did not see that something more was needed tlian literature and satire to work a change. The times required the readiness for martyrdom, and Erasmus' religious conviction was not sufficient to make him ready to suffer for principle. On most controverted points, Emerton well says he liad one opinion for liis friends and another for the world. HeJackfid-bDilLilie-cajidur and the courage to be.
1 Nichols, II. 635. « Nichols, II. 198, 314, 622.