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ERASMUS

Familiar Colloquies

Desiderius Erasmus, the most learned ecclesiastic of the fifteenth century, and the friend of Luther and other reformers, was born at Rotterdam on October 28, 1466, and died at Basel on July 12, 1536. He was the son of a Dutchman named Gerard, and, according to the fashion of the age, changed his family name into its respective Latin and Greek equivalents, Desiderius and Erasmus, meaning "desired," or "loved." Entering the priesthood in 1492, he pursued his studies at Paris, and became so renowned a scholar that he was, on visiting England, received with distinction, not only at the universities, but also by the king. For some time Erasmus settled in Italy, brilliant prospects being held out to him at Rome; but his restless temperament impelled him to wander again, and he came again to England, where he associated with the most distinguished scholars, including Dean Colet and Sir Thomas More. Perhaps nothing in the whole range of mediæval literature made a greater sensation immediately on its appearance, in 1521, than the "Colloquia," or "Familiar Colloquies Concerning Men, Manners, and Things," of Erasmus. As its title indicates, it consists of dialogues, and its author intended it to make youths more proficient in Latin, that language being the chief vehicle of intercommunication in the Middle Ages. But Erasmus claims, in his preface, that another purpose of the book is to make better men as well as better Latinists, for he says: "If the ancient teachers of children are commended who allured the young with wafers, I think it ought not to be charged on me that by the like reward I allure youths either to the elegancy of the Latin tongue or to piety." This selection is made from the Latin text.

Concerning Men, Manners and Things

Erasmus issued his first edition of the "Colloquies" in 1521. Successive editions appeared with great rapidity. Its popularity wherever Latin was read was immense, but it was condemned by the Sarbonne, prohibited in France, and devoted to the flames publicly in Spain. The reader of its extraordinary chapters will not fail to comprehend that such a fate was inevitable in the case of such a production in those times. For, as the friend of the reformers who were "turning the world upside down," Erasmus in this treatise penned the most audacious, sardonic, and withering onslaught ever delivered by any writer on ecclesiastical corruption of religion. He never attacks religion itself, but extols and defends it; his aim is to launch a series of terrific innuendoes on ecclesiasticism as it had developed and as he saw it. He satirically, and even virulently, attacks monks and many of their habits, the whole system of cloister-life, the festivals and pilgrimages which formed one of the chief features of religious activity, and the grotesque superstitions which his peculiar genius for eloquent irony so well qualified him to caricature.

This great work, one of the epoch-making books of the world, consists of sixty-two "Colloquies," of very varying length. They treat of the most curiously diverse topics, as may be imagined from such titles of the chapters as "The Youth's Piety," "The Lover and the Maiden," "The Shipwreck," "The Epithalamium of Peter Egidius," "The Alchemist," "The Horse Cheat," "The Cyclops, or the Gospel Carrier," "The Assembly or Parliament of Women," "Concerning Early Rising."

A sample of the style of the "Colloquies" in the more serious sections may be taken from the one entitled "The Religious Banquet."

Nephew: How unwillingly have I seen many Christians die. Some put their trust in things not to be confided in; others breathe out their souls in desperation, either out of a consciousness of their lewd lives, or by reason of scruples that have been injected into their minds, even in their dying hours, by some indiscreet men, die almost in despair.

Chrysoglottus: It is no wonder to find them die so, who have spent their lives in philosophising all their lives about ceremonies.

Nephew: What do you mean by ceremonies?

Chrysoglottus: I will tell you, but with protestation beforehand, over and over, that I do not find fault with the rites and sacraments of the Church, but rather highly approve of them; but I blame a wicked and superstitious sort of people who teach people to put their confidence in these things, omitting those things that make them truly Christians. If you look into Christians in common, do they not live as if the whole sum of religion consisted in ceremonies? With how much pomp are the ancient rites of the Church set forth in baptism? The infant waits without the church door, the exorcism is performed, the catechism is performed, vows are made, Satan is abjured with all his pomps and pleasures; then the child is anointed, signed, seasoned with salt, dipped, a charge given to its sureties to see it well brought up; and the oblation money being paid, they are discharged, and by this time the child passes for a Christian, and in some sense is so. A little time after it is anointed again, and in time learns to confess, receive the sacrament, is accustomed to rest on holy days, to hear divine service, to fast sometimes, to abstain from flesh; and if he observes all these he passes for an absolute Christian. He marries a wife, and then comes on another sacrament; he enters into holy orders, is anointed again and consecrated, his habit is changed, and then to prayers.