Five Years Without a King
He stayed in England five years and in all that time heard nothing from the king but an occasional greeting. Was Henry busy with foreign relatives or domestic kin? Erasmus waited and ate his heart out. Mountjoy came to his rescue with a gift; Warham granted him the income of a parish church in Kent; and John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and chancellor of Cambridge, appointed him professor of Greek at an annual salary of £13 (1,300 dollars, the book's figure). To raise this income to what would support a servant and a horse, he dedicated his works to friends, who usually answered his requests, though not enough.
The Praise of Folly
In the first year of his third stay in England, in the house of Thomas More, he wrote in seven days his most famous book, the Praise of Folly. Its Greek title, Latinized as Encomium Moriae, is a kind of pun on More's name, for the Greek moros means "foolish" and moria means "folly." Erasmus kept the work in manuscript for two years, then made a short trip to Paris to have it printed (1511). In his lifetime it was reissued forty times and translated into several languages. Rabelais read it, or rather devoured it; and long afterward, in 1632, Milton at Cambridge saw a copy of it "in everyone's hands."
Folly, in the sense Erasmus uses it, means not only madness, nonsense, ignorance and stupidity, but also natural talent, instinct, feelings, and the simplicity and purity that come from unlettered life, as against wisdom, reasoning, calculation and intellect. In this book Erasmus points out that the human race owes its existence to folly: what is more absurd than the attraction of man to woman, which appears in a thousand forms, and his passionate admiration of her body? If a man were in his right mind, would he ever put the marriage yoke on his neck for the sake of easing desire? If a woman were in her right mind, would she endure the pain and toil of childbirth and motherhood for the sake of a passing pleasure? Is it not laughable that humanity should be a by-product of this mutual wear and tear? If men and women, out of reason, were to refrain from it, humanity would perish.
Folly Against the Wise
From this example the necessity of folly and the foolishness of wisdom is clear. If reason ruled human existence, would any courage be left? Would happiness be possible? Does not the Preacher of Solomon speak truly when he says that "in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow"? Who would be happy knowing the future? It is a mercy that science and philosophy are not popular and that people do not heed them, and so no damage is done to the vital ignorance of the human race. Astronomers "speak to you of the exact dimensions of the sun, moon and stars as easily as of a pot or a kettle," but "nature laughs at the worthlessness of their guesses and hypotheses." Philosophers make complexities more complex and obscurities more obscure. They waste their time and intelligence on logical and metaphysical tricks that end in nothing but wind. How good it would have been if, instead of armies and soldiers, we had sent this nonsense to fight the Turks, for then all the Turks would take flight from these misleading "long-windedness." Physicians are no better than philosophers: "what they now practice under the name of medicine is nothing but a mixture of hypocrisy and trickery."
As for theologians, they will tell you the whole continuing course of the creation of the world down to a tiny particle by God's absolute power; they will explain the exact manner of original sin that came from our first parents; and they will convince you how the seed of our world's savior was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In the consecrated wafer of the Eucharist they will show you how events may occur without anyone to act or cause them; how one can be in several places at once; and how Christ's body in heaven differs from his body on the cross and from his body in the Eucharist. Think too of the trifles and absurdities that go by the name of miracles: apparitions, healing tombs, conjuring of devils, and "tubes of this kind, made and fashioned by the hand of superstition."
Monks, Priests and Popes
These absurdities are a good shop for the priests and clergy who run them and bring in an easy income. What shall I say of those who keep up the fraudulent trade of dispensing pardons and selling indulgences, who keep the count of time and stay of each soul in purgatory and lengthen or shorten it according to the sums they obtain from selling these shameless indulgences and pardons? Or of those who pretend, with magic formulas or by stringing together prayers and counting beads (which some religious frauds devised for amusement or, more likely, for profit), to obtain wealth, honor, joy, long life, youth in old age, and even after death a seat at the right hand of Jesus the Savior?
The satire goes on to include monks, friars, inquisitors, cardinals and popes. The monks wear the people out with their begging and think they conquer heaven with their sleepy psalm-chanting. Ordinary priests are thirsty and hungry for money; "they are shrewder and craftier in the art of seizing tithes, alms, casual incomes and the like." All clergy, of every rank, class and color, are successful at burning witches. The popes, for their wealth, honors, right to rule, offices, ecclesiastical decrees, laxity, sale of pardons, ceremonies and taxation, excommunications and bans, greed for accumulation, worldly policy and bloody wars, in no way resemble Christ's apostles. How can such a Church survive except through human folly, simplicity and gullibility? The Praise of Folly provoked open anger in theologians. Martin Dorp wrote to Erasmus: "You must know that your book has caused distress even among those who were previously your devoted admirers."
Julius Excluded from Heaven
But the satire Erasmus used in this ruinous comedy was very mild compared with his next work. The third and last year of Erasmus's teaching at Cambridge (1513) coincided with the death of Pope Julius II. In 1514 a satire or dialogue called Julius Excluded from Heaven (Julius Exclusus) appeared in Paris. Erasmus, apart from outright denial, tried hard to conceal his authorship; but copies circulated among his friends, and More, carelessly, listed it among Erasmus's works. It deserves a place here as a sharp sample of Erasmus the satirist. The dead warrior pope finds the gate of heaven shut against him, and the apostle Peter guards it stubbornly.
Julius insists on his titles, "P.M.," which he says means Pontifex Maximus; Peter answers that it means Pestis Maxima, "the greatest plague." Julius demands entry as one who has been called "holy," "most holy," "his holiness"; Peter replies that being holy and being called holy are not the same, and looks him over: signs of irreligion and impiety abound, beneath the priestly robe a blood-stained war dress, wild eyes, an insolent mouth, a shameless brow, a body marked by the wounds of sin; "you are Julius the Emperor, come back from hell." Julius threatens excommunication; Peter asks by what right. "By the best of rights. You are only a priest, perhaps not even that; open the door."
Peter asks what merit he brings: has he taught true religion? "No, I was busy with war." Has he led souls to Christ by example of purity and piety? "I sent many to Tartarus." Has he worked a miracle? "Miracles are out of fashion." Julius boasts of his career: of Ligurian birth, nephew of the great Pope Sixtus IV, enriched by him with church property, made cardinal; troubles and misfortunes befell him, but he always knew he would become pope, and so it came about, partly through French help, partly by usury, partly by promises; not even Croesus could have found the money needed; the bankers could tell Peter. As pope he raised the Church's income, created new offices and sold them, minted new coins, annexed Bologna, made all the princes of Europe obey him, tore up treaties, led great armies to war, filled Rome with splendid palaces, and left five million in the papal treasury. Why Bologna? "Because I wanted its revenue." The scene continues with Julius defending the pope's immunity: only a general council could correct a pope, and a council could be convened only with the pope's consent, so no crime whatever can remove him. "Not even murder?" "Not even murder." "Not even the sale of church offices?" "Not even if done six hundred times." (The book's version of the dialogue includes sexual and violent charges against Julius and a violent outburst by Peter against such popes; these are summarized here and not reproduced.) "A privilege indeed for my successors to be the wickedest of men and safe from reckoning."
Julius argues that he has enlarged the Church: he filled Rome with palaces, servants, soldiers and offices; and he recalls Peter's own days of beggarly bishops and hunger: "now look at our great churches, at the bishops each like a king, at the cardinals with splendid retinues, at horses and mules with harness of gold and jewels." Above all, he himself, the greatest pontiff, was carried on golden chair on soldiers' shoulders, waving like a king to the crowd that praised him, amid cannon, trumpets and drums, war machines, torches, and kings of the earth coming to kiss his foot. Peter answers: "Impudent wretch! Trickery, usury and fraud made you pope. I brought pagan Rome to Christ; you have thrown it back into the pit of unbelief. Paul did not speak of cities sacked and armies crushed, but of shipwrecks, chains, hardships and scourgings; these were his glories as Christ's disciple; he boasted of souls saved from Satan, not of money gathered." Julius: "All this is new to me." Peter: "Yes, with your plots and treaties, your armies and conquests, you have had no time to read the Gospels. You pretend to be a Christian while being worse than the Turks. You think as the Turks do, and if there is a difference between you and them, it is that you are worse." Julius threatens to take the gate by force with sixty thousand damned, and Peter ends in lament: poor man, wretched Church; when the Church has such a head, it is no wonder that few ask for admission here.
The criticism is of course very one-sided. A man as base as the one pictured here could never have cleared Italy of invaders, laid the foundation of a new St. Peter's in place of the old, discovered and guided Michelangelo and Raphael and fostered their art, united Christian and classical civilization in the Vatican, or appeared, under Raphael's hand, in the portrait of Julius II in the Uffizi, as a deep thinker, anxiously careful. And poor Erasmus, even as he called all priests to the poverty of the apostles, himself held out a hand of entreaty to his friends for money! That a priest should write so deadly an indictment of a pope shows the revolutionary spirit of the time. In 1518, the second year of Luther's revolt, Peter Gilles of Antwerp wrote to Erasmus: "Here they sell Julius Exclusus everywhere; everyone buys it; and everyone talks about it." It is no wonder if the religious reformers later reproached Erasmus for sounding the trumpet of revolution and then fleeing.
The Colloquies
In 1514 another work by Erasmus stirred the intellectual world of western Europe. From 1497 on, Erasmus had been writing dialogues in familiar style; his apparent aim was to teach Latin writing and speaking, but amid very varied matter he discussed everyday life so as to rouse schoolboys from their daily dullness. His friend Beatus Rhenanus, with his permission, printed some of these conversations under the title "Rules for Everyday Conversation, by Erasmus of Rotterdam, useful not only for polishing the child's language but also for improving his morals." In later editions more colloquies were added, and it came out as one of Erasmus's principal works.
The book is a strange collection: serious discussions of marriage and morals; exhortations to piety and devotion; exposure of the absurdities and improprieties of human customs and beliefs, mingled with sharp, sometimes indecorous irony and jokes; all in a colloquial Latin that was surely harder to write than the formal, learned kind. An English translator of 1724 said of it: "No book better overthrows the opinions of the popes and superstitions in a delightful and yet instructive way." Though this is somewhat exaggerated, there is no doubt that Erasmus, with his sweet and satirical manner, made this "textbook of Latin composition" a vehicle for attacking the failings and misconduct of the clergy once again. He attacks and condemns the traffic in relics, the abuse of excommunication, the money-grubbing of priests and friars, false miracles that feed on credulity, saints' legends made up for material ends, excess in fasting, and the shocking contrast between the Christianity of the Church and the Christianity of Christ. He calls the most faithful supporters and customers of Christianity a crowd of monks and hangers-on. He advises a young woman who wishes to preserve her virginity to "avoid those fat, gluttonous friars," saying that chastity is more endangered in monasteries than outside them. He deplores the high price put on virginity, praises love in marriage and rates it above celibacy, and laments that people who match good horse with good horse give their healthy, lively daughters to sick men for material gain; he proposes that marriages be prevented for persons with grave diseases or incapacities. With these serious ideas he mixes much humor, some of it coarse; the book's cruder jokes and remarks are omitted here.
Critics complained that these conversations were bold and sharp in manner for teaching Latin composition. One critic claimed they were corrupting all the youth of Freiburg. Charles V held that teaching them in schools was a crime punishable by death. Luther agreed with the emperor: "On my deathbed I will forbid my sons to read the Colloquies of Erasmus." The anger made the book a success. Soon after publication 24,000 copies were sold; until 1550 only the Bible sold more; in the meantime Erasmus had almost made the Bible his own.