§ 71. ERASMUS. 418
it under protest in the third edition (1522), because he had rashly promised to do so if a single Greek MS. could be found to contain it.! He doubted the genuineness of the pericope’ of the adulteress (John 8:1-11), though he retained it in the text. He disputed the orthodox punctuation of Rom. 9:5. He rejected the Pauline origin of Hebrews, and questioned the Johannean authorship of the Apocalypse. He judged Mark to be an abridgment of Matthew. He admitted lapses of memory and errors of judgment in the Apostles. He denied any other punishment in hell except “the perpetual anguish of mind which accompanies habitual sin.” As to the Lord’s Supper, he said, when asked his opinion by the magistrate of Basel about the book of Cicolampadius and his figurative interpretation,” that it was learned, eloquent, well written, and pious, but contrary to the general belief of the church from which it was dangerous to depart. There is good reason to believe that he doubted transubstantiation. He was also suspected of leaning to Arianism, because he summed up the teaching of Scripture on the Trinity in this sentence: “The Father is very frequently called God, the Son sometimes, the Holy Spirit never;” and he adds: “ Many of the fathers who worshiped the Son with the greatest piety, yet scrupled to use the word homoousion, which is nowhere to be found in Holy Scripture.”? He moderated the doctrine of hereditary sin, and defended human freedom in his notes on Romans. He emphasized the moral, and depreciated the doctrinal, element in Christianity. He deemed the Apos-
1... ‘ne cui sit ansa calumniandi. Tametsi suspicor codicem illum ad nostros esse correctum.’’ — Opera, VI. 1080. The Codex Montfortianus, now in Dublin, was probably written between 1519-1522, and the disputed passage interpolated with the purpose of injuring the reputation of Erasmus. See J. R. Harris, The Origin of the Leicester Codex of the N. Test., London and Cambridge, 1887, p. 46 sqq.
2 De genuina verborum Domini: Hoc est corpus meum, etc., juxta vetustissimos auctores expositione liber. Basil., 1525.
8 See the Preface to his edition of St. Hilary on the Trinity, published at Basel, 1523,
414 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
tles’ Creed sufficient, and was willing to allow within this limit freedom for theological opinions. ‘ Reduce the number of dogmas,” he advised Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, “to a minimum; you can do it without injury to Christianity; on other points, leave every one free to believe what he pleases ; then religion will take hold on life, and you can correct the abuses of which the world justly complains.”
He had a high opinion of the morality and piety of the nobler heathen, such as Socrates, Cicero, and Plutarch. “The Scriptures,” he says in his Colloquies, “* deserve, indeed, the highest authority ; but I find also in the writings of the ancient heathen and in the poets so much that is pure, holy and divine, that I must believe that their hearts were divinely moved. The spirit of Christ is perhaps more widely diffused than we imagine, and many will appear among the saints who are not in our catalogue.”! Then, after quoting from Cicero and Socrates, he says, “I can often hardly restrain myself from exclaiming, ‘ Holy Socrates, pray for us.’ ”
The same liberal sentiments we find among the early Greek fathers (Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen), and in Zwingli.
Bigoted Catholics hated and feared him, as much as the liberal admired and lauded -him. “He laid the egg,” they said, “which Luther hatched.” They perverted his name into Hrrasmus because of his errors, Arasmus because he ploughed up old truths and traditions, Hrasinus because he had made himself an ass by his writings. They even called him Behemoth and Antichrist. The Sorbonne condemned thirty-seven articles extracted from his writings in 1527.
1 “ Fortasse latius se fundit spiritus Christi quam nos interpretamur, et multi sunt in consortio sanctorum qui non sunt apud nos in catalogo.’”’— Coll., in the conversation entitled Convivium Religiosum.
2 He himself alludes to this saying: ‘‘ Ego peperi ovum, Lutherus exclusit’’ (Op. III. 840), but adds, ‘‘ Ego posui ovum Se Lutherus exclusit pullum longe dissimillimum.”