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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
Around 1840 two French travelers returning from Journeys to Italy passed by Basle and reflected on Erasmus, who—so both believed—had helped form the city's modern character. One was Louis Veuillot, fresh from his Roman conversion and exercising for the first time the pen that was to make him the most formidable ultramontane publicist of the age. The other was Jules Michelet, historian of France, future apostle of the people's liberation, finding here already in the rapid flow of the Rhine an analogy for the irresistible progress of the human mind.
* This paper is concerned with a certain kind of Erasmus interpretation as it appears among historians, critics, and essayists in England, France, and Germany in the nineteenth century. The picture of Erasmus in the theological writing of die time has been left for separate treatment. The paper arises from work in the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, which was made possible by a Fulbright award and I would like to record my gratitude to the officers of both the Library and the Fulbright program. I have also been greatly assisted by the staffs of the Fisher Library, University of Sydney, and the Macquarie University library. The lively essay by J. Lindeboom, ‘Erasmus in de Waardeering van het Nageslacht', Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidskunde, VII (1936), 117-131, deals generally with the present theme but does not treat the biographers and essayists who are our main concern. Despite its restricted title, the dissertation by Hans-Joachim Wulschner, Erasmus von Rotterdam im 19. Jahrhundert. Sein Bild in der deutschen Literatur, vornehmlich gesehen im Hinblick aufseinen Gegenspieler Ulrich von Hutten (Free University of Berlin, 1955) treats comprehensively the literature on Erasmus from the Enlightenment to the mid-twentieth century. However, it does not identify a liberal tradition in nineteenth-century literature and for that period concentrates on the contrast Erasmus-Hutten and on the problem of Erasmus’ role in the Reformation. It deals only summarily with the non-German literature.
1 Les pèlerinages de Suisse. Oeuvres complètes, II (Paris, 1924), 221-223.
2 Two visits, August 1838; August 1843. Journal, I (1821-1848), ed. Paul Viallaneix (Paris, 1959), pp. 286, 528-531. The picture is more ambiguous in Michelet's history of France. The publication of the Adagia in 1500, by giving contemporaries a clear view of classical humanity, was the last drop which broke the dykes and sent a renewing flood over Europe. But Erasmus himself, especially when compared with the lyrical, heroic Luther, was ‘a clever man, but cold, with little fervour'. Histoire de France au seiztime siéile, VII (Paris, 1855), 203; VIII, 414.
3 Flitner, A., Erasmus im Urteil seiner Nachwelt. Das Literarische Erasmusbild von Beatus Rhenanus bis zujean le Clerc (Tübingen, 1952), pp. 156–162.Google Scholar
4 Ibid., pp. 121-123; W. Kaegi, ‘Erasmus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert', Gedenkschrift zum 400. Todestage des Erasmus von Rotterdam (Basle, 1936), pp. 216-221.
5 Jortin, J., The Life of Erasmus, 2 vols. (London, 1758, 1760)Google Scholar; Hess, S., Erasmus von Rotterdam nach seinem Leben und Schriften, 2 vols. (Zürich, 1790).Google Scholar
6 Hess, op. cit., 1, ix-x, 506.
8 Quoted Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1892), xxx, 202.
9 Quarterly Review, CVI, no. 211 (July 1859), 3-4.
10 See Flitner, op. cit., pp. 137-146.
11 See e.g. R. Fruin, ‘Erasmiana', Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidskunde, N.S., x (1880), 85; L. Geiger, ‘Neue Schriften zur Geschichte des Humanismus', Historische Zeitschrift, XXXIII (1875), p. 80.
13 Savonarola, Erasmus and Other Essays (London, 1870).
14 He was born in 1791.
15 History of the Jews, 3 vols. (1829); History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire, 3 vols. (1840); History of Latin Christianity: including that of the Popes, to the Pontificate of Pope Nicholas V, 6 vols. (1854-1855).
16 Preface. Quoted A. Milman, Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. A Biographical Sketch (London, 1900), pp. 143-144.
17 History of Latin Christianity, Book XIV, ch. 10. Quoted ibid., pp. 227-228.
18 Cf. D. Forbes, The Liberal Anglican Idea of History (Cambridge, 1952), p. 75.
19 W. E. H. Lecky, ‘Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's”, Historical and Political Essays (London, 1908), p. 257.
20 Milman, he. cit., p. 2. On Erasmus’ writings on marriage Milman is silent—that was an opportunity missed.
21 Ibid., p. 35.
22 Ibid., pp. 41-42.
23 Lecky, op. cit, pp. 260-261.
24 Milman, op. cit., p. 52.
25 Erasmus at vol. VIII (Edinburgh, 1878), 512-518. Pattison's other subjects were Bentley, Casaubon, Grotius, Lipsius, More, Macaulay.
26 J. Morley, ‘On Pattison's Memoirs', Works, vol. VI, Critical Miscellanies (London, 1921), pp. 261-262, 265.
27 Memoirs (London, 1885), pp. 100-101.
28 Ibid., p. 208.
29 Green, V. H. H., Oxford Common Room. A Study of Lincoln College and Mark Pattison (London, 1957), p. 118.Google Scholar
30 Pattison, he. cit., p. 515.
31 Ibid., p. 517.
32 The uses made of this comparison in the Erasmus literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would repay full study.
33 Op. cit., p. 516.
34 ‘I cannot travel by railway without working out in my mind a better timetable than that in use', p. 254.
35 Morley, op. cit., pp. 240-241, 256-257.
36 Pattison, op. cit.,p. 515.
37 Erasmus. His Life and Character as Shown in his Correspondence and Works, 2 vols. (London, 1873); Theological Review, IV, no. XXI Quly 1867), 331-351 ('The Youth of Erasmus’); v, no. XXI (April 1868); 163-189 ('Erasmus in England’); no. XXIII (October 1868), 527-546 (“The Greek Testament of Erasmus’); vn, no. xxx (July 1870), 331-354 ('Erasmus and the Reformation’).
38 E.g., G. Masson, Revue des questions historiques, xv (1874), pp. 243.
39 i, vii; II, 367-369. Masson declared this identification ‘quite simply absurd'. The views of Mr. Jowett and Dean Stanley would have made Erasmus as well as Luther recoil with horror, hoc. cit., p. 244.
41 II, 180-186, 249, 355.
42 II, 343. It is surprising that Drummond shows little interest in Erasmus’ political writings. He thought the precepts of the Education of a Christian Prince ‘tolerably obvious' and ‘the plain mercantile principle that to purchase peace will always cost less than to carry on war’ the most noteworthy argument of the Complaint of Peace, i, 260, 404.
44 II, 2, 12, 66-67, 110.
45 Theological Review, x, no. XLII (July 1873), 405-416.
46 Life and Letters of Erasmus (London, 1895). See especially pp. 212-214. Cf. H. Paul, The Life of Froude (London, 1905), pp. 403-409.
47 Respectively, A. R. Pennington, The Life and Character of Erasmus (London, 1875); C. Butler, The Life of Erasmus: with Historical Remarks on the State of Literature between Tenth and Sixteenth Centuries (London, 1825). On Butler see D.N.B., VIII (London, 1886), pp. 45-47.
48 Froude, op. cit, p. 322. The well-known if unbalanced work by the Quaker man of letters Frederic Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers of 1498: A History of the Fellow-work of John Colet, Erasmus and Thomas More (London, 1867; 2nd edition under somewhat different title, 1869), is not an exception to the above generalization. See e.g. its Conclusion, but more particularly the passages in which Seebohm compares the Oxford and Wittenberg Reformers. On Seebohm, see D.N.B. 1912-21 (Oxford, 1927), pp. 488-490.
49 Paris, 1874, p. 236.
50 It is worth remarking that the German specialist L. Geiger thought the literary and reflective section of Feugere's book superior to the biographical though it, too, lacked unity and was a collection of more or less good essays rather than a truly scholarly work. Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1875), II, 1249-62.
51 4th series, III (1835), 253-300, 381-423, 509-550.
52 Feugère, op. cit., p. x; W. Bauer, Etude sur Erasme et ses rapports avec la Réforme (thèse publiquement soutenue devant la Faculti de Theologie protestante de Montauban en juillet 1878, Montauban, 1878), pp. 39-40.
53 See Sainte-Beuve, Revue des deux monies, 4th series, VIII (1836), 270-286; Nisard, ibid., pp. 495-506. Also Nouvelle biographie géné'rale, 38 (Paris, 1862), cols. 93-96.
55 Sainte-Beuve, op. cit., p. 273.
56 Causeries du Lundi (31 Dec. 1849), Eng. tr. by E.J. Trechmann (London, n.d.), p. 192. ‘I will leave to the great renown of Erasmus the glory of science and the intellect, but I will never cease to revindicate under this name the right of a refined and mitigated good sense, of a reason that regards, that observes, that chooses, that has no wish to appear to believe more than it does believe; in a word, I will never cease, in the face of arrogant philosophies and even of faith armed with talent, to assert the right, I will not say of the lukewarm, but of neutrals'.
57 Nisard, pp. 396-398, 423, 516-517. Erasmus, bent unceasingly over his work and oblivious of time and season, was typical of the century: ‘II n'y eut pas de saisons, pas de printemps, pas de loisirs, pas une heure perdue, pas une pensee sans but, pas un caprice, pour cette epoque de revolution et de conquSte!’ p. 517. Actually, says Nisard, moderates like Erasmus in entering the arena often did so to poor effect, ‘rather as an actor, arrived after the raising of the curtain, throws over his shoulders the first costume that comes to hand, in order not to keep the audience waiting', p. 407. This metaphor was often borrowed by later writers.
58 Ibid., pp. 410-411, 539-540, 543.
59 Ibid., p. 286.
60 Ibid., pp. 286-289, 293.
61 Ibid., pp. 386-387. Nisard is presumably rejecting Hegelianism. Elsewhere, speaking of the free-will controversy, he says that the historical fatalists, ‘who interest Providence in all the follies of men’ and let good arise out of evil, are not embarrassed by seeing the best minds of an age devoured by useless controversies. He would rather accept that 'there are actions as well as lives lost without fruit in the work of humanity', p. 411.
62 Ibid., p. 385.
63 Ibid., p. 296. Cf. ‘Je veux bien que les homines de passion soient ceux de l'avenir, mais accordez-moi que les hommes de sens sont ceux de la duree et de l'étemité'. p. 387.
64 Dictionnaire de biographicfranfaise, II (Paris, 1936), col. 660.
65 Erasme. Libre-penseur du XVIe siécle (Paris, 1889), pp. vi, 418-419.
66 Ibid., pp. xi-xii. A work still relevant, Amiel asserts, in view of Lourdes and La Salette and the infallibility decree of 1870, p. 92.
67 Ibid., pp. 160, 174, 217, 265, 358. His Christian philosophy, Amiel concludes, was 'un compose de metaphysique et de morale, analogue au Sermon sur la montagne, i la Profession defoi du vicaire Savoyard, au Dieu des bonnes gens de Beranger, au deisme philosophique, qui s'arrete devant l'atheisme … .’ p. 446.
68 Ibid., p. 338.
69 Ibid., pp. 443-445.
70 Ibid., pp. 161,197-198.
71 Ibid,, pp. 261-262. Similarly, Erasmus was not and could not be a supporter of unlimited freedom of the press, ‘dont nous n'eprouvons que trop les inconvenients aujourd'hui'. But, Amiel asserts, one may remain a ‘liberal', though admitting restraints on excesses of the pen, p. 318.
72 Despite its title, Erasme. Prkurseur et initiateur de I'esprit moderne, the biography by H. Durand de Laur, 2 vols. (Paris, 1872), does not belong to the tradition we are discussing. What Durand de Laur meant by his title is indicated by the following from his introduction: Erasmus ‘wished to remain Christian, which distinguishes him essentially from Voltaire. He wished further to remain Catholic, which separates him profoundly from Luther… . On the threshold of the modern world, Erasmus, with penetrating gaze, saw the vast transformation which was in preparation and at the same time the great problem which was presenting itself: how to reconcile the life of the Church to the new spirit, to knowledge and liberty?’ Unlike Luther and Voltaire, he wished to maintain the whole chain of tradition, to associate pagan wisdom with Christian truth ‘et, de cette union conclue sous les auspices des Muses, faire sortir I'esprit moderne'. 1, x-xi.
73 Flitner, op. cit., p. 149.
74 Berlin, 1828. In 1819 at the age of twenty-one Muller suddenly lost his sight.
75 ‘Desiderius Erasmus in seiner Stellung zur Reformation', Zeitschrift für diegesammte lutherische Theologie und Kirche, Jahrgang 27, 3 (1866), p. 481. See also Stichart, F. O., Erasmus von Rotterdam. Seine Stellung zu der Kirche und zu den kirchlichen Bewegungen seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1870).Google Scholar
76 Cf. Pfeiffer, R., Humanitas Erasmiana (Leipzig-Berlin, 1931), p. 21.Google Scholar See Wulschner, op. cit., passim.
77 E.g., Johannes Janssen in his History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages, Eng. tr. III (London, 1900), 6-7, 14.
78 Above all the influential article by Moritz Kerker, ‘Erasmus und sein theologischer Standpunkt', Theologische Quartalschrift, Jahrgang 41, 4 (1859), 531-566.
79 Theologische Studien und Kritiken, II, I (1829), 178-208; cf. the work of the Basle theologians K. R. Hagenbach, Real-Encyklopddie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, ed. J. Herzog, IV (Stuttgart-Hamburg, 1855), 114-121, and R. Stahelin, ibid., 2nd ed., IV (Leipzig, 1879), 278-290, and Erasmus Stellung zur Reformation hauptsdchlich von seinen Beziehungen zu Basel aus beleuchtet (Basle, 1873). Cf. my ‘Erasmus and the Mediating School', Journal of Religious History, IV, no. 4 (Dec. 1967), 302-316.
80 E.g., H. A. Erhard in J. S. Ersch and J. G. Gruber (eds.), Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wissenschaften und Künste, XXXVI (Leipzig, 1842), 155-212.
81 ‘Warum blieb Desiderius Erasmus, Luthers freisinniger Zeitgenosse Katholik? Eine unparteiische Untersuchung', IX, 3 (1839), 99-151.
82 The book began as a biography of Wilibald Pirckheimer. But Hagen's interest was in the history of ideas and, while he gave Pirckheimer a special place in the first volume, he was encouraged by reviewers to devote the later volumes wholly to his general theme. 1, v-vii; II, vi.
83 II, viii; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, x (Leipzig, 1879), 341-343. Cf. W. K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), pp. 156.
84 II, ix-x; III, vii. Thus the reforming movement was ‘das eigentliche Wesen'; the Protestant Church was ‘nur eine Abart davon'.
85 1. 78-79. 301-303.
86 1, 256.
87 1, 309, 316, 320.
88 1, 408.
89 III, 13 ff., 20 ff., 36-39. Hagen anticipated Dilthey in showing a particular interest in Sebastian Franck. The sects, he said, stood to the Protestant Church then as the freer religious tendencies of today stand to pietism and a dominant orthodoxy, in, viii-ix.
90 III, 42-43.
91 1, 254-255; III, 43, 65-67. It is revealing that, in the controversy between Erasmus and Hutten, Hagen's sympathy is with Hutten, the straightforward soldier, in the freewill controversy it is with Erasmus, who was there breaking with Luther's dogmatism and biblicism. m, 69, 86-87. Cf. Wulschner, op. tit., pp. 69-70.
92 Plitt, loc. cit., p. 480.
93 Neue deutsche Biographie, VI (Berlin, 1964), 144-145; EncyclopaediaJudaica, VII (Berlin, 1931), col. 161-162. Geiger's work on Erasmus is in Historische Zeitschrift, XXXIII (1875), 71-85 and Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und Deutschland. Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen, II, 8 (Berlin, 1882), 526-548.
94 E.g., R. Fruin (see n. II), W. Vischer, Erasmiana (Basle, 1876), A. Horawitz, ‘Erasmiana', Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Classe (Vienna), xc (1878), 387-457; xcv (1879), 575-609; CII (1882), 755-798; CVIII (1884), 773-856, and various works of Karl Hartfelder.
95 Historische Zeitschrift, XXXIII, 76-83. See also n. 50. Geiger reviewed the biography of Durand de Laur in Gottingischegelehrte Anzeigen (1872), pp. 1921-63.
96 Historische Zeitschrift, XXXIII, 73-75; Renaissance und Humanismus, pp. 530, 532.
97 Renaissance und Humanismus, pp. 528, 533 ff. Geiger rejected for the modern critic Erasmus’ own refusal to judge any man by his features. Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1872), pp. 1937-40.
98 Renaissance und Humanismus, pp. 541-542; Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1872), p. I943.
99 Historische Zeitschrift, XXXIII, 72-73, 83-84; Renaissance und Humanismus, pp. 542- 545. The nationalist element is very apparent in Geiger. He is at pains to prove Erasmus a German. Only in Germany was Erasmus both giver and receiver; elsewhere he was one or the other. One may regret only that he did not make himself perfectly clear on this point, thus opening the way for the English and the French to lay claim to him! The conflict with Hutten poses Geiger with a painful dilemma. In the end he states frankly a preference for the virile knight. Renaissance und Humanismus, pp. 527-528, 545-548; Historische Zeitschrift, XXXIII, 71-72.
100 ‘Auffassung und Analyse des Menschen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert', Gesammelte Schriften II (Leipzig-Berlin, 1914), 42-43. This essay was first published in 1891-1892. Like Hagen, Dilthey thought all the tendencies of the time found expression in Erasmus, 'ein Damon mit hundert Angesichtern von ganz verschiedenem Ausdruck und Mienenspiel'; all eyes turned to him, p. 43.
101 Ibid., pp. 73-77. Like Hagen again, Dilthey said that the Reformation failed to come up to the measure of itself; its imperfect outcome was Lutheran orthodoxy, p. 73.
102 ‘Protestantisches Christentum und Kirche in der Neuzeit’ in P. Hinneberg, Die Kultur der Gegenwart, 1, IV, 1, 2nd ed. (Leipzig-Berlin, 1909), 475.
103 Ibid., p. 478.
104 Troeltsch in ‘Meine Biicher', Gesammelte Schriften, IV (Tübingen, 1925), 7-8.
105 J. von Walter, ‘Das Ende der Erasmusrenaissance', Christentum und Frömmigkeit. Gesammelte Vorträge und Aufsdtze (Gutersloh, 1941), pp. 153-162.
106 Die Renaissance des Christentums im 16.Jahrhundert (Tubingen-Leipzig, 1904), p. 26. As long as the Sermon on the Mount occupies a place in the New Testament, Wernle says, 'hat eine schlichte sittliche Laientheologie, wie Erasmus sie vertrat, das Recht unter den Christen gehört zu werden'. p. 17.
107 Hinneberg, op. cit., p. 475; Wernle, op. cit., pp. 22-23, 27. Troeltsch concludes: 'Erasmus bleibt ein selbstandiger Typus der Reform, den man völlig unparteiisch als solchen würdigen kann oder können sollte'. Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 774.
108 F.W. Kampschulte, Die Universität Erfurt in ihrem Verhältnisse zu dent Humanismus und der Reformation, I (Trier, 1858); W. Maurenbrecher, Geschichte der katholischen Reformation (Nördlingen, 1880); K. Hartfelder, ‘Der humanistische Freundeskreis des Desiderius Erasmus in Konstanz', Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, N.F., VIII (1893), 1-33; cf. his ‘Erziehung und Untenicht im Zeitalter des Humanismus’ in K. A. Schmid (ed.), Geschichte der Erziehung vom Anfang an bis auf unsere Zeit, II, 2 (Stuttgart, 1889); K. Müller, Kirchengeschichte, II, 1 (Tübingen-Leipzig, 1902). For a discussion of this whole development, see G. Wolf, Quellenkunde der deutschen Reformationsgeschichte, 1 (Gotha, 191-5). 368-374.
104 Troeltsch in ‘Meine Biicher', Gesammelte Schriften, IV (Tübingen, 1925), 7-8.
105 J. von Walter, ‘Das Ende der Erasmusrenaissance', Christentum und Frömmigkeit. Gesammelte Vorträge und Aufsdtze (Gutersloh, 1941), pp. 153-162.
106 Die Renaissance des Christentums im 16.Jahrhundert (Tubingen-Leipzig, 1904), p. 26. As long as the Sermon on the Mount occupies a place in the New Testament, Wernle says, 'hat eine schlichte sittliche Laientheologie, wie Erasmus sie vertrat, das Recht unter den Christen gehört zu werden'. p. 17.
107 Hinneberg, op. cit., p. 475; Wernle, op. cit., pp. 22-23, 27. Troeltsch concludes: 'Erasmus bleibt ein selbstandiger Typus der Reform, den man völlig unparteiisch als solchen würdigen kann oder können sollte'. Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 774.
108 F.W. Kampschulte, Die Universität Erfurt in ihrem Verhältnisse zu dent Humanismus und der Reformation, I (Trier, 1858); W. Maurenbrecher, Geschichte der katholischen Reformation (Nördlingen, 1880); K. Hartfelder, ‘Der humanistische Freundeskreis des Desiderius Erasmus in Konstanz', Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, N.F., VIII (1893), 1-33; cf. his ‘Erziehung und Untenicht im Zeitalter des Humanismus’ in K. A. Schmid (ed.), Geschichte der Erziehung vom Anfang an bis auf unsere Zeit, II, 2 (Stuttgart, 1889); K. Müller, Kirchengeschichte, II, 1 (Tübingen-Leipzig, 1902). For a discussion of this whole development, see G. Wolf, Quellenkunde der deutschen Reformationsgeschichte, 1 (Gotha, 191-5). 368-374.
