The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 2357 to 2471, August 1530 to March 1531 by Desiderius Erasmus (review)

Victorian historian J. A. Froude wrote, “The best description of the state of Europe in the age immediately preceding the Reformation will be found in the correspondence of Erasmus,” a vast correspondence that Erasmus conducted with kings, queens, popes, bishops, scholars, bankers, patrons, pests, and men the stature of Martin Luther and Sir Thomas More.

Volume 17 of the Collected Works of Erasmus (hereafter CWE) is an English translation of the first half of volume IX of Percy Allen’s Opus Epistolarum, a twelve-volume set of letters to and from Desiderius Erasmus. Allen devoted most of his life to the discovery, editing, and publication of Erasmus’ far-flung correspondence, a project completed by H. W. Garrod, and Helen Mary Allen, Percy Allen’s widow. Among their achievements were the establishing with relative certainty of the dates of the letters, and arranging them in chronological order. Their sequence numbers, 1 through 3141, have been used ever since to refer to specific letters. More than a translation, CWE 17 corrects, updates, and expands their work.

Letters 2357 to 2471 are roughly coincident with the Diet of Augsburg, a counsel of luminaries summoned by Emperor Charles V in 1530 to halt the Reformation and reconcile the Reformers and the Church. It failed, dissolving in acrimony. When the Reformers’ creed was rejected by the papal representatives, the Reformers took the opportunity to depart. As the Reformation spread many churchmen, including former friends, blamed Erasmus for it. Erasmus compared himself to St. Cassian, who was “stabbed to death with writing instruments by his students” (343). CWE 17 has scarcely a hint of Erasmus’ famous cheerfulness.

Urged to attend the Diet, Erasmus stayed home. Letters from several friends informed him of the proceedings (78–79, 85–86), confirming his prediction that the schism would not heal. Meanwhile his own health was in peril. Then in his sixties, Erasmus was reputed to have died or to have been burned at the stake (41, 113, 70). While churchmen quarreled in Augsburg about which sacraments were genuinely apostolic and which were invented by the Church, whether Purgatory exists or not, and what obedience was due to the Pope, Erasmus suffered “with a most persistent illness for almost four full months. Intestinal spasms were followed by an abscess, and after I was almost killed by physicians, a surgeon submitted me to even a crueler torture. But thanks to Christ I am recovering little by little and returning to my studies” (50; see also 51, 142, 173–74, and 249). In his absence the Augsburg disputants cited his works on monks, on whether priests could marry, on the invocation of saints, the veneration of relics, and the adoration of images (255–256). Arguments quickly led to book burning, torture, and executions (268–69). Weary, frail, and distraught, Erasmus resumed work.

In the months encompassed in CWE 17, Erasmus completed his five-volume edition of Chrysostomi opera in Latin translation (August 1530), his commentary Ennaratio psalmi XXXIII (March 1531), and his large collection of Apophthegmata (March 1531). These would have done credit to any other scholar, but Erasmus was displeased. He thought “Summer was sterile for me” (358) and lamented, “I cannot bring forth anything. Everything I write is an abortion” (173). To deepen his discouragement further, already by 1530 Erasmus’ writings were forbidden and confiscated; booksellers were fined for offering them (33).

What is striking in CWE 17 is Erasmus’ heightened concerns about his reputation and safety, and his unhappy recognition of his shrinking ability and sharply diminished public favor. He was receiving threatening letters “seasoned with profuse poison” (252). CWE 17 often mentions missing letters—no letters by Erasmus survive from between 16 April and 20 May 1530, and from June 6 to 24—but still contains much that is typical of Erasmus’ correspondence: news, importunities...