§ 72. ERASMUS AND THE REFORMATION. 421
and illustrates with many anecdotes, its use and abuse. After its publication he wrote to his friends, “ Erasmus will henceforth be mute, having parted with his tongue.”
But a year after appeared his book on the Institution of Christian Matrimony (1526), dedicated to Queen Catherine of England. It contains the views of an unmarried man on the choice of a mate, the duties of parents, and the education of children. He justly blames Tertullian and Jerome (he might have included all the fathers) for their extravagant laudation of celibacy, and suggests doubts on the sacramental character of marriage.
One of his last works was a Catechism on the Apostles’ Creed, the Decalogue, and the Lord’s Prayer, which he dedicated to the father of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn. For the same nobleman he wrote a short devotional work on preparation for death.
§ 72. Hrasmus and the Reformation.
I. Erasmus: De Libero Arbitrio diatribe (1524), in Opera ed. Lugd. IX. Pars I. 1215 sqq., in WALCH, XVIII. Hyperaspiste diatribes libri duo contra Seroum Arbitr. M. Lutheri, in 2 parts (1526 and 1527), in Opera IX. Pars II. 1249 sqq., and in ΑΙ, XVIII.
LUTHER: De Servo Arbitrio ad Erasmum Roterodamum, Wittemberge, 1525. On the last p. of the first ed. before me is the date *“*Mense Decembri, Anno MDXXV.” German in Watcu, XVIII. ἘΠῚ. ed. Opera Lat. VII. 113 sqq. Letters of Luther to Erasmus and about Erasmus in ΤΑΙ ΘΗ, XVIII., and in DE WETTE, I. pp. 39, 52, 87, 247; 11. 49; III. 427; IV. 497.
II. CHuLesus: Erasmus und Luther, in “‘ Zeitschr. f. hist. Theol.,’’ 1845. DOLLINGER in his Die Reformation, 1846, vol. i. pp. 1-20. KERKER: Er. u. sein theol. Standpunkt, in the ‘‘ Theol. Quartalschrift,’’ 1859. D. F. Strauss: Ulrich von Hutten, 4th ed. Bonn, 1878, pp. 448-484, 511-514, and passim. PLitT: Hrasmus in 8. Stellung zur Reformation, Leipz., in the ‘Zeitschrift f. hist. Theol.,’”? 1866, No. III. Rup. STAHELIN: Eras. Stellung z. Reformation, Basel, 1873 (35 pp.; comp. his art. in Herzog 2, quoted in ὃ 71). FrRoupE: Times of Erasmus and Luther. Three Lect., delivered at Newcastle, 1867 (in the first series of his ‘‘Short Studies on Great Subjects,’? New York ed., 1873, pp. 87-127), brilliant but inaccurate, and silent on the free-will controversy. DrRuMm-
422 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
MOND: Erasmus, etc., 1873, vol. II. chs. xiii._xv. E. WALTER: Eras mus und Melanchthon, Bernburg, 1879. A. GiLLy: Erasme de Rotterd., sa situation en face de l’église et de la libre pensée, Arras, 1879. Comp. also KATTENBUSCH : Luther’s Lehre vom unfreien Willen, Gottingen, 1875, and KOsTLin: Luther’s Theologie, vol. II. 32-55.
Erasmus was eighteen years older than Luther, and stood at the height of his fame when the reformer began his work. He differed from him as Jerome differed from Augustin, or Eusebius from Athanasius. Erasmus was essentially a scholar, Luther a reformer ; the one was absorbed in literature, the other in religion. Erasmus aimed at illumination, Luther at reconstruction; the former reached the intellect of the edu cated, the latter touched the heart of the people. Erasmus labored for freedom of thought, Luther for freedom of conscience. Both had been monks, Erasmus against his will, Luther by free choice and from pious motives; and both hated and opposed monkery, but the former for its ignorance and
ERAsSMus. From a Portrait by Holbein.
bigotry, the latter for its self-righteousness and obstruction of the true way to justification and peace. Erasmus followed maxims of worldly wisdom; Luther, sacred principles and convictions. The one was willing, as he confessed, to sacrifice “ἃ part of the truth for the peace of the church,” and his personal comfort; the other was ready to die for the gospel at any moment. Erasmus was a trimmer-and timeserver, Luther every inch a moral hero.
Luther wrote upon his tablet (1536), “Res et ee Philippus; verba sine re Hrasmus ; res sine verbis Lutherus ; nec res nec verba Carolostadius.” But Luther himself was the master of