R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

Long before the Renaissance had run its course in Italy, its influences had begun to pass the Alps. But there is one man who, above all others, must be regarded as the herald of humanism in the North. It is the distinction of Erasmus that by the peculiar qualities of his genius, and by the unique popularity of his writings, he prepared the advent of the New Learning, not in his native Holland alone, but throughout Europe. Before indicating the special directions which the Renaissance took in particular countries, it is fitting to speak of him whose work affected them all.

Born at Rotterdam in 1467, Erasmus was approaching manhood when Italian humanism, having culminated in the days of Politian, was about to decline. His own training was not directly due to Italy. When he was a schoolboy at Deventer, his precocious ability was recognised by Rudolf Agricola, whom he has designated as “the first who brought from Italy some breath of a better culture.” Erasmus avers that, in his boyhood, northern Europe was barbarously ignorant of humane literature. A knowledge of Greek was “the next thing to heresy.” “I did my best,” he says, “to deliver the rising generation from this slough of ignorance, and to inspire them with a taste for better studies.” He made himself a good scholar by dint of hard private work, suffering privations which left him a chronic invalid. In 1498 he visited Oxford, meeting there some of the earliest English humanists. From 1500 to 1505 he was in Paris, working hard at Greek. He spent the years 1506-9 in Italy. From the close of 1510 to that of 1513 he was at Cambridge, where he lectured on Greek, and also held the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity. There, in 1512, he completed his collation of the Greek text of the New Testament. In 1516, his edition of it, the first ever published, was brought out by Froben at Basel. He left England in 1514, to return only for a few months somewhat later. His life, after 1514, was passed chiefly at Basel, where he died in 1536. Those twenty-two years were full of marvellous literary activity.

The attitude of Erasmus towards humanism had a general affinity with that of Petrarch and the other leaders of the Italian revival. Like them, he hailed a new conception of knowledge, an enlargement of the boundaries within which the intellect and imagination could move. Like them, he welcomed the recovered literatures of Greece and Rome as inestimable organs of that mental and spiritual enfranchisement. But there was also a difference. To Petrarch, as to the typical Italian humanist generally, the New Learning was above all things an instrument for the self-culture of the individual. To Erasmus, on the other hand, self-culture was, in itself,—greatly though he valued it,—a secondary object, subservient to a greater end. He regarded humanism as the most effectual weapon for combating that widespread ignorance which he considered to be the root of many evils that were around him. He saw the abuses in the Church, the scandals among the clergy, the illiteracy prevalent in some of the monastic Orders. Kings wrought untold misery for selfish aims: “when princes purpose to exhaust a commonwealth,” he said, “they speak of a just war; when they unite for that object, they call it peace.” The pedantries of the Schoolmen, though decaying, were still obstacles to intellectual progress. The moral standards in public and private life were deplorably low. Erasmus held that the first step towards mitigating such evils was to disseminate as widely as possible the civilising influence of knowledge; and in humanism he found the knowledge best suited for the purpose. He overrated the rapidity with which such an influence could permeate the world. But he was constant to his object, and did much towards attaining it.

Thus, in all his work, his aim was essentially educational. He was an ardent and indefatigable student. But through all his labours there ran the purpose of a practical moralist, who hoped to leave human society better than he had found it. No aspect of the Renaissance interested him which he did not think conducive to that end. He cared nothing for its metaphysics, archaeology, or art. All his own writings illustrate his ruling motive. The Adagia are maxims or proverbial sayings, culled from the classics, which he often applies to the affairs of his own day. The Colloquia are lively dialogues, partly meant to serve as models of Latin writing, which convey, in a dramatic guise, his views on contemporary questions. The Apophthegms are pointed sayings from various authors, largely from Plutarch. An educational and ethical aim also guided his choice of books to be edited. His best edition of a classic was that of his favourite poet Terence. Next in merit, perhaps, stood his edition of Seneca. An equal importance can scarcely be claimed for his editions of Greek classics, belonging chiefly to the last five years of his life; though they did the service of making the authors more accessible, and of supplying improved texts. He also promoted a wider knowledge of Greek poetry and prose by several Latin translations. But that purpose which gave unity to his life-work received its highest embodiment in his contributions to Biblical criticism and exegesis. The Scholastic Theology had been wont to use isolated texts, detached from their context, and artificially interpreted. The object of Erasmus was to let all men know what the Bible really said and meant. We have seen that his edition of the Greek Testament was the earliest. He also made a Latin version of the New Testament, aiming at an accuracy greater than that of the Vulgate. He wrote Latin paraphrases of the books of the New Testament (except Revelation), with the object of exhibiting the thought in a more modern form. Lastly, he recalled attention from the medieval expositors of Christian doctrine to the Fathers of the early Church. He edited Jerome, and some other Latin Fathers; he also made Latin translations from some of the Greek Fathers, especially from Chrysostom and Athanasius, and so helped to make their writings better known in the West. He wished to see the Scriptures translated into every language, and given to all. “I long,” he said, “that the husbandman should sing them to himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveller should beguile with them the weariness of his journey.” The more popular writings of Erasmus had a circulation throughout Europe which even now would be considered enormous. When it was rumoured that the Sorbonne intended to brand his Colloquia as heretical, a Paris bookseller deemed it well to hurry through the press an edition of 24,000 copies. We hear that in 1527 a Spanish version of his Encheiridion (a manual of Christian ethics) could be found in many country-inns throughout Spain. It would probably be difficult to name an author whose writings were so often reprinted in his lifetime as were those of Erasmus. He was not, indeed, a Scaliger, a Casaubon, or a Bentley. He -did not contribute, in the same sense or in a similar degree, to the progress of scientific scholarship. But no one else so effectively propagated the influence of humanism. Of all scholars who have popularised scholarly literature Erasmus was the most brilliant, the man whose aims were loftiest, and who produced lasting effects over the widest area. His work was done, too, at the right moment for the North. A genial power was needed to thaw the frost-bound soil, and to prepare those fruits which each land was to bring forth in its own way.

The energies of the Italian Renaissance had been concentrated on the literature and art of ancient Greece and Rome. The Italian mind had a native and intimate sympathy with classical antiquity. For Italy, the whole movement of the Renaissance is virtually identical with the restoration of classical learning. It is otherwise when we follow that movement into northern Europe. Humanism is still, indeed, the principal organ through which the new spirit works; but the operations of the spirit itself become larger and more varied. The history of the Classical Revival passes, on one side, into that of the Reformation; on another, into provinces which belong to modern literature. It might be said that the close of the Italian Renaissance is also, in strictness, the close of the process by which a knowledge of classical antiquity was restored: what remained, was to diffuse the results throughout Europe, and to give them a riper development. But it is desirable to indicate, at least in outline, the general conditions under which humanism first entered the countries of the North. We may begin with Germany.