CHAPTER XI.

THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ COMPLETED.--WHAT IT REALLY WAS (1516).

[Sidenote: Main object of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’]

[Sidenote: Not the Greek text.]

The New Testament of Erasmus ought not to be regarded by any means as a mere reproduction of the Greek text, or criticised even _chiefly_ as such. The labour which falls to the lot of a pioneer in such a work, the multiplied chances of error in the collation by a single hand, and that of a novice in the art of deciphering difficult manuscripts, the want of experience on the part of the printers in the use of Greek type, the inadequate pecuniary means at the disposal of Erasmus, and the haste with which it was prepared, considering the nature of the work,--all tended to make his version of the Greek text exceedingly imperfect, viewed in the light of modern criticism. He may even have been careless, and here and there uncandid and capricious in his choice of readings,--all this, of which I am incapable of forming a conclusive judgment, I am willing to grant by-the-bye. The merit of the New Testament of Erasmus does not mainly rest upon the accuracy of his Greek text,[518] although this had cost him a great deal of labour, and was a necessary part of his plan.

I suppose the object of an author may be most fairly gathered from his own express declarations, and that the prefaces of Erasmus to his first edition--the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ as he called it--are the best evidence that can possibly be quoted of the purpose of Erasmus in its publication. To these, therefore, I must beg the reader’s attention.

[Sidenote: Main object to be learned from its prefaces.]

Now a careful examination of these prefaces cannot fail to establish the identity of the purpose of Erasmus in publishing the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ with that which had induced Colet, nearly twenty years before, to commence his lectures at Oxford.

During those twenty years the divergence between the two great rival schools of thought had become wider and wider.

[Sidenote: The Italian school.]

The intellectual tendencies of the philosophic school in Italy had become more and more decidedly sceptical. The meteor lights of Savonarola, Pico, and Ficino had blazed across the sky and vanished. The star of semi-pagan philosophy was in the ascendant, and shed its cold light upon the intellect of Italy.

Leo X. was indeed a great improvement upon Alexander VI. and Julius II.--of this there could be no doubt. Instead of the gross sensuality of the former and the warlike passions of the latter, what Ranke has well designated ‘_a sort of intellectual sensualism_,’ now reigned in the Papal court. Erasmus had indeed entertained bright hopes of Leo X. He had declared himself in favour of a peaceful policy; he was, too, an enemy to the blind bigotry of the Schoolmen. Nor does he seem to have been openly irreligious. His choice of Sadolet as one of his secretaries was not like the act of a man who himself would scoff at the Christian faith; though, on the other hand, this enlightened Christian was unequally yoked in the office with the philosophical and worldly Bembo. Under former Popes the fear of Erasmus had been ‘_lest Rome should degenerate into Babylon_.’ He hoped now that, under Leo X., ‘the tempest of war being hushed, both letters and religion might be seen flourishing at Rome.’[519]

[Sidenote: Its sceptical tendencies.]

At the same time he was not blind to the sceptical tendencies of the Italian schools. Thus whilst in a letter written not long after this period, expressing his faith in the ‘revival of letters,’ and his belief that the ‘authority of the Scriptures will not in the long run be lessened by their being read and understood correctly instead of incorrectly’--whilst thus, in fact, taking a hopeful view of the future--we yet find him confessing to a fear, ‘lest, under the pretext of the revival of ancient literature, Paganism should again endeavour to rear its head.’[520] The atmosphere of the Papal Court was indeed far more semi-pagan than Christian. With the revival of classical literature it was natural that there should be a revival of classical taste. And just as the mediæval church of St. Peter was demolished to make room for a classical temple, so it was the fashion in high society at Rome to profess belief in the philosophy of Pliny and Aristotle and to scoff at the Christian faith.[521]

The extent to which anti-Christian and sceptical tendencies were carried in the direction of speculative philosophy was shown by the publication in this very year, 1516, by _Pomponatius_, whom Ranke speaks of as ‘the most distinguished philosopher of the day,’[522] of a work in which he denied the immortality of the soul.[523] This philosopher was, in the words of Hallam, ‘the most renowned professor of the school of Padua, which for more than a century was the focus of atheism in Italy.’[524]

[Sidenote: The Italian school Machiavellian in its politics.]

That the same anti-Christian and sceptical tendencies were equally prevalent in the sphere of practical morality and politics as in that of speculative philosophy, was also painfully obvious. That popes themselves had discarded Christianity as the standard of their own morality both in social and political action, had for generations been trumpeted forth to the world by their own sensual lives, and their faithless and immoral political conduct. When in the ‘Praise of Folly’ Erasmus had satirised the policy of popes, he had put a sting to his description of their unchristian conduct by adding that they acted ‘_as though Christ were dead_.’[525] The greatest political philosopher of the age had already written his great work ‘_The Prince_,’ in which he had _codified_, so to speak, the maxims of the dominant anti-Christian school of politics, and framed a system of political philosophy based upon keen and godless self-interest, and defying, if not in terms denying, both the obligation and policy of the golden rule--a system which may be best described, in a word, by reference to the name of its author, as _Machiavellian_.[526]

[Sidenote: The dogmatic school, equally anti-Christian in its practice,]

On the other hand, opposed to the new ‘learning,’ and its anti-Christian tendencies, was the dogmatic system of the Schoolmen, defended with blind bigotry by monks and divines of the old school. These had done nothing during the past twenty years to reconcile their system with the intellectual tendencies of their age. They were still straining every nerve to keep Christianity and reviving science hopelessly apart. Their own rigidly defined scholastic creed, with all its unverified hypotheses, rested as securely as ever, in their view, on the absolute inspiration of the Vulgate version of the Bible: witness the letter of Dorpius. No new light had disturbed the entire satisfaction with which they regarded their system, or the assurance with which they denounced Greek and Hebrew as ‘heretical tongues,’ derided all attempts at free inquiry, and scornfully pointed to the sceptical tendencies of the Italian school as the result to which the ‘new learning’ must inevitably lead.

[Sidenote: and in its politics.]

And yet the practical results of this proudly orthodox philosophy were as notoriously anti-Christian, both as regards social and political morality, as was the Machiavellian philosophy, at which these professed Christians pointed with the finger of scorn. Again and again had Erasmus occasion bitterly to satirise the gross sensuality in which as a class they grovelled. Again and again had he to condemn their _political_ influence, and the part they played in prompting the warlike and treacherous policy of princes whose courts they infested.[527]

And passages have already been quoted from the ‘Praise of Folly’ in which Erasmus pointed out how completely they had lost sight of the one rule of Christian morals--the golden rule of Christ--how they had substituted a new notion of virtue for the Christian one, and how the very meaning of the word ‘_sin_’ had undergone a corresponding change in their theological vocabulary.

[Sidenote: Neither party had practical faith in Christianity.]

Such were the two opposing parties, which, in this age of intellectual re-awakening and progress, were struggling in hopeless antagonism; both of them for the sake of ecclesiastical emoluments still professing allegiance to the Church, and keeping as firm a foothold as possible within her pale, but both of them practically betraying at the same time their real want of faith in Christianity by tacitly setting it aside as a thing which would not work as the rule of social and political life.

Erasmus, in writing the preface to his ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ had his eye on both these dominant parties. He, like Colet, believed both of them to be leading men astray. He believed, with Colet, that there _was_ a Christianity which rested on facts and not upon speculation, and which therefore had nothing to do with the dogmatic theology of the Schoolmen on the one hand, and nothing to fear from free inquiry on the other. To ‘call men as with the sound of a trumpet’ to this, was the object of the earnest ‘Paraclesis’ which he prefixed to his Testament.

He first appealed to the free-thinking philosophic school:--

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The ‘Paraclesis.’]

[Sidenote: All men should read the Gospels, &c., in their vulgar tongue.]

‘In times like these, when men are pursuing with such zest all branches of knowledge, how is it that the philosophy of Christ should alone be derided by some, neglected by many, treated by the few who do devote themselves to it with coldness, not to say insincerity? Whilst in all other branches of learning the human mind is straining its genius to master all subtleties, and toiling to overcome all difficulties, why is it that this one philosophy alone is not pursued with equal earnestness, at least by those who profess to be Christians? Platonists, Pythagoreans, and the disciples of all other philosophers, are well instructed and ready to fight for their sect. Why do not Christians with yet more abundant zeal espouse the cause of _their_ Master and Prince? Shall Christ be put in comparison with Zeno and Aristotle--his doctrines with their insignificant precepts? Whatever other philosophers may have been, he alone is a teacher from heaven; he alone was able to teach certain and eternal wisdom; he alone taught things pertaining to our salvation, because he alone is its author; he alone absolutely practised what he preached, and is able to make good what he promised.... The philosophy of Christ, moreover, is to be learned from its few books with far less labour than the Aristotelian philosophy is to be extracted from its multitude of ponderous and conflicting commentaries. Nor is anxious preparatory learning needful to the Christian. Its viaticum is simple, and at hand to all. Only bring a pious and open heart, imbued above all things with a pure and simple faith. Only be teachable, and you have already made much way in this philosophy. It supplies a spirit for a teacher, imparted to none more readily than to the simple-minded. Other philosophies, by the very difficulty of their precepts, are removed out of the range of most minds. No age, no sex, no condition of life is excluded from this. The sun itself is not more common and open to all than the teaching of Christ. For I utterly dissent from those who are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures should be read by the unlearned translated into their vulgar tongue, as though Christ had taught such subtleties that they can scarcely be understood even by a few theologians, or as though the strength of the Christian religion consisted in men’s ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it may be safer to conceal, but Christ wished his mysteries to be published as openly as possible. I wish that even the weakest woman should read the Gospel--should read the epistles of Paul. And I wish these were translated into all languages, so that they might be read and understood, not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks and Saracens. To make them understood is surely the first step. It may be that they might be ridiculed by many, but some would take them to heart. I long that the husbandman should sing portions of 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 their stories the tedium of his journey.’

Then turning more directly to the Schoolmen, Erasmus continued:--

[Sidenote: The Gospels give a living image of the mind of Christ.]

Why is a greater portion of our lives given to the study of the Schoolmen than of the Gospels? The rules of St. Francis and St. Benedict may be considered sacred by their respective followers; but just as St. Paul wrote that the law of Moses was not glorious in comparison with the glory of the Gospel, so Erasmus said he wished that these might not be considered as sacred in comparison with the Gospels and letters of the Apostles. What are Albertus, Alexander, Thomas, Ægidius, Ricardus, Occam, in comparison with Christ, of whom it was said by the Father in heaven, ‘This is my beloved Son’? (Oh, how sure and, as they say, ‘irrefragable’ his authority!) What, in comparison with Peter, who received the command to feed the sheep; or Paul, in whom, as a chosen vessel, Christ seemed to be reborn; or John, who wrote in his epistles what he learned as he leaned on his bosom? ‘If the footprints of Christ be anywhere shown to us, we kneel down and adore. Why do we not rather venerate the living and breathing picture of Him in these books? If the vesture of Christ be exhibited, where will we not go to kiss it? Yet were his whole wardrobe exhibited nothing could represent Christ more vividly and truly than these evangelical writings. Statues of wood and stone we decorate with gold and gems for the love of Christ. They only profess to give us the form of his body; these books present us with a living image of his most holy mind.[528] Were we to have seen Him with our own eyes, we should not have had so intimate a knowledge as they give of Christ, speaking, healing, dying, rising again, as it were, in our own actual presence.’

Such was the earnest ‘Paraclesis’[529] with which Erasmus introduced his Greek and Latin version of the books of the New Testament.

[Sidenote: Method of study.]

To this he added a few pages to explain what he considered the right ‘method’ to be adopted by the Scripture student.[530]

First, as to the spirit in which he should work:--

‘Let him approach the New Testament, not with an unholy curiosity, but with _reverence_; bearing in mind that his first and only aim and object should be that he may catch and be changed into the spirit of what he there learns. It is the food of the soul; and to be of use, must not rest only in the memory or lodge in the stomach, but must permeate the very depths of the heart and mind.’

Then, as to what special acquirements are most useful in the prosecution of these studies:--

‘A fair knowledge of the three languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, of course, are the first things. Nor let the student turn away in despair at the difficulty of this. If you have a teacher and the will to learn, these three languages can be learned almost with less labour than every day is spent over the miserable babble of one mongrel language under ignorant teachers. It would be well, too, were the student tolerably versed in other branches of learning--dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, astrology, and especially in knowledge of the natural objects--animals, trees, precious stones--of the countries mentioned in the Scriptures; for if we are familiar with the country, we can in thought follow the history and picture it to our minds, so that we seem not only to read it, but to see it; and if we do this, we shall not easily forget it. Besides, if we know from study of history not only the position of those nations to whom these things happened, or to whom the Apostles wrote, but also their origin, manners, institutions, religion, and character, it is wonderful how much light and, if I may so speak, _life_ is thrown into the reading of what before seemed dry and lifeless. Other branches of learning--classical, rhetorical, or philosophical--may all be turned to account; and especially should the student learn to quote Scripture, not second-hand, but from the fountain-head, and take care not to distort its meaning as some do, interpreting the “Church” as the clergy, the laity as the “world,” and the like. To get at the real meaning, it is not enough to take four or five isolated words; you must look where they came from, what was said, by whom it was said, to whom it was said, at what time, on what occasion, in what words, what preceded, what followed. And if you refer to commentaries, choose out the best, such as Origen (who is far above all others), Basil, &c., Jerome, Ambrose, &c.; and even these read with discrimination and judgment, for they were men ignorant of some things, and mistaken in others.

‘As to the Schoolmen, I had rather be a pious divine with Jerome than invincible with Scotus. Was ever a heretic converted by their subtleties? Let those who like follow the disputations of the schools; but let him who desires to be instructed rather in piety than in the art of disputation, first and above all apply himself to the fountain-head--to those writings which flowed immediately from the fountain-head. The divine is “invincible” enough who never yields to vice or gives way to evil passions, even though he may be beaten in argument. That doctor is abundantly “great” who purely preaches Christ.’

[Sidenote: The ‘Annotations.’]

[Sidenote: Theory of verbal inspiration rejected.]

I have quoted these passages very much at length, that there may be no doubt whatever how fully Erasmus had in these prefaces adopted and made himself the spokesman of Colet’s views. An examination of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ itself, and of the ‘Annotations’ which formed the second part of the volume, reveals an equally close resemblance between the _critical method of exposition_ used by Colet and that here adopted by Erasmus. There was the same rejection of the theory of verbal inspiration which was noticed in Colet as the result of an honest attempt to look at the facts of the case exactly as they were, instead of attempting to explain them away by reference to preconceived theories.

Thus the discrepancy between St. Stephen’s speech and the narrative in Genesis, with regard to a portion of the history of the Patriarch Abraham, was freely pointed out, without any attempt at reconcilement.[531] St. Jerome’s suggestion was quoted, that Mark, in the second chapter of his Gospel, had, by a lapse of memory, written ‘Abiathar’ in mistake for ‘Ahimelech,’[532] and that Matthew, in the twenty-seventh chapter, instead of quoting from Jeremiah, as stated in the text, was really quoting from the Prophet Zachariah.[533]

The fact that in a great number of cases the quotations from the Old Testament are by no means exact, either as compared with the Hebrew or Septuagint text, was freely alluded to, and the suggestion as freely thrown out that the Apostles habitually quoted from memory, without giving the exact words of the original.[534]

All these were little indications that Erasmus had closely followed in the steps of Colet in rejecting the theory of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures; and they bear abundant evidence to prove that he did so, as Colet had done, not because he wished to undermine men’s reverence for the Bible, but that they might learn to love and to value its pages infinitely more than they had done before--not because he wished to explain away its facts, but that men might discover how truly real and actual and heart-stirring were its histories--not to undermine the authority of its moral teaching, but to add just so much to it as the authority of the Apostle who had written, or of the Saviour who had spoken, its Divine truths, exceeds the authority of the Fathers who had established the canon, or of the Schoolmen who had buried the Bible altogether under the rubbish of the thousand and one propositions which they professed to have extracted from it.

Let it never be forgotten that the Church party which had staked their faith upon the plenary inspiration of the Bible was the Church party who had succeeded in putting it into the background. They were the party whom Tyndale accused of ‘knowing no more Scripture than they found in their Duns.’ They were the party who throughout the sixteenth century resisted every attempt to give the Bible to the people and to make it the people’s book. And they were perfectly logical in doing so. Their whole system was based upon the absolute inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and even to a great extent of the Vulgate version. If the Vulgate version was not verbally inspired, it was impossible to apply to it the theory of ‘manifold senses.’ And if a text could not be interpreted according to that theory, if it could not properly be strained into meanings which it was never intended by the writer to convey, the scholastic theology became a castle of cards. Its defenders adopted, and in perfect good faith applied to the Vulgate, the words quoted from Augustine: ‘If any error should be admitted to have crept into the Holy Scriptures, what authority would be left to them?’ If Colet and Erasmus should undermine men’s faith in the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures, it would result, in their view, as a logical necessity, in the destruction of the Christian religion. For the Christian religion, in their view, consisted in blind devotion to the Church, and in gulping whole the dogmatic creed which had been settled by her ‘invincible’ and ‘irrefragable’ doctors.

[Sidenote: The Christian religion loyalty to Christ.]

But this was not the faith of Colet and Erasmus. With them the Christian religion consisted not in gulping a creed upon any authority whatever, but in loving and loyal devotion to the _person_ of Christ. They sought in the books which they found bound up into a Bible not so much an infallible standard of doctrinal truth as an authentic record of _his_ life and teaching. Where should they go for a knowledge of Christ, if not to the writings of those who were nearest in their relations to Him? They valued these writings because they sought and found in them a ‘living and breathing picture of Him;’ because ‘nothing could represent Christ more vividly and truly’ than they did; because ‘they present a living image of his most holy mind,’ so that ‘even had we seen Him with our own eyes we should not have had so intimate a knowledge as they give of Christ speaking, healing, dying, rising again as it were in our own actual presence.’ It was because these books brought them, as it were, so close to Christ and the facts of his actual life, that they wished to get as close to _them_ as they could do. They would not be content with knowing something of them secondhand from the best Church authorities. The best of the Fathers were ‘men ignorant of some things, and mistaken in others.’ They would go to the books themselves, and read them in their original languages, and, if possible, in the earliest copies, so that no mistakes of copyists or blunders of translators might blind their eyes to the facts as they were. They would study the geography and the natural history of Palestine that they might the more correctly and vividly realise in their mind’s eye the events as they happened. And they would do all this, not that they might make themselves ‘irrefragable’ doctors--rivals of Scotus and Aquinas--but that they might catch the Spirit of Him whom they were striving to know for themselves, and that they might place the same knowledge within reach of all--Turks and Saracens, learned and unlearned, rich and poor--by the translation of these books into the vulgar tongue of each.

The ‘Novum Instrumentum’ of Erasmus was at once the result and the embodiment of these views.

[Sidenote: Works of St. Jerome.]

Hence it is easy to see the significance of the concurrent publication of the works of St. Jerome. St. Jerome belonged to that school of theology and criticism which now, after the lapse of a thousand years, Colet and Erasmus were reviving in Western Europe. St. Jerome was the father who in his day strove to give to the people the Bible in their vulgar tongue. St. Jerome was the father against whom St. Augustine so earnestly strove to vindicate the verbal inspiration of the Bible. It was the words of St. Augustine used against St. Jerome that, now after the lapse of ten centuries, Martin Dorpius had quoted against Erasmus. We have seen in an earlier chapter how Colet clung to St. Jerome’s opinion, against that of nearly all other authorities, in the discussion which led to his first avowal to Erasmus of his views on the inspiration of the Scriptures. Finally, the Annotations to the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ teem with citations from St. Jerome.

The concurrent publication of the works of this father was therefore a practical vindication of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ from the charge of presumption and novelty. It proved that Colet and Erasmus were teaching no new doctrines--that their work was correctly defined by Colet himself to be ‘to restore that old and true theology which had been so long obscured by the subtleties of the Schoolmen.’

Under this patristic shield, dedicated by permission to Pope Leo, and its copyright secured for four years by the decree of the Emperor Maximilian, the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ went forth into the world.