Erasmus, DESIDERIUS, was born at Rotterdam, probably in the year 1467, the date given on the pedestal of his statue in his native town. A reference in his own works, however, as also his epitaph at Basel, assigns the date 1466. He was the son of one Gerhard, and Margaret, the daughter of a physician. As of illegitimate birth, he had no surname; and the name by which he is known, Desiderius Erasmus, is but the rendering in Latin and Greek of Gerhard ('the beloved'). Erasmus first attended school at Gouda, but while still a mere child he was sent to Utrecht, to fill a place in the choir of the cathedral of that city. He was next removed to a famous school of that time—that of the 'Brothers of the Common Life,' at Deventer, where, by his own account, he was exercised mainly in composing, repeating, and learning the silliest Latin verses. The study of Greek had as yet made but slight progress out of Italy; but Erasmus was fortunate in receiving some little instruction in that language from Alexander Hegius, the head of Deventer school, and a scholar of considerable reputation. An outbreak of the plague, of which his mother died, led to his quitting this school and retiring to Gouda, the residence of his father. Gerhard dying soon after, Erasmus and his only brother were left to the care of three trustees, who grossly neglected their charge. One of the three was bent on the brothers' entering a monastery, and with this in view, instead of sending them to a university, for which they were now ripe, placed them at another school of the Brothers of the Common Life at Bois-le-Duc. Again the plague drove Erasmus to Gouda, where his guardians tried every means to persuade him and his brother to become monks. As a compromise, Erasmus agreed to enter the Augustinian college of Sion, near Delft, on the condition that it should be left to him to leave the college if he saw fit. Here, accordingly, for the next six years he lived the life of a monk, though in his case the discipline was somewhat relaxed in the hope of his being induced eventually to adopt the monastic life. It was undoubtedly this personal experience of the ways of living and thinking of the monks that made Erasmus their relentless and lifelong enemy.
Deliverance at length came to him from the Bishop of Cambrai, who engaged him as his private secretary, and undertook to provide him with means to prosecute his studies. A few months later, and after having taken priest's orders, Erasmus went to Paris, supplied, though not over-liberally, with funds by the bishop. The Collège Montaigu, where he pursued his studies, was notorious among all the colleges of Paris for the severity of its discipline, the scantiness and wretchedness of its fare, and the general squalor of its domestic arrangements. The new studies of the Renaissance had as yet made but little way in Paris; but Montaigu above every other college was still fast in the bonds of scholasticism. To Erasmus, therefore, whose constitution was delicate to fragility, and who from the very outset seems to have been awake to the intellectual revolution that had come upon Europe, all his surroundings in
Paris at this time were in the highest degree distasteful. To the end of his life he never forgot his experiences at Montaigne; and not the least important of his subsequent achievements was the service he did in helping to discredit the frivolous dialectic which he had there seen in its most absurd form.
With the exception of a visit to the Bishop of Cambrai on account of his health, Erasmus resided mainly in Paris till 1498, gaining a livelihood by instructing private pupils. Of these pupils, Lord Mountjoy deserves special mention, as he always remained one of Erasmus's best friends and most generous patrons. It was on the invitation of Mountjoy that Erasmus, probably in 1498, paid his first visit to England. This visit is one of the most important epochs in the life of Erasmus. Oxford was the chief place of his residence, and there he not only had in Linaere a better teacher of Greek than he could have found in Paris, but in his intercourse with Colet, a man of nobler stamp than himself, he received an impetus, which if it did not actually give a new bent to his studies, at least lifted his life to a higher plane of endeavour. Through the influence of Colet, his contempt for the schoolmen was intensified, and his thoughts set on the consecration of his studies to a more rational conception of religious truth. During this visit, also, began his famous friendship with Sir Thomas More, through whom on the present occasion he was introduced to Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), then only a boy of nine.
In 1500 Erasmus was again in France, and for the next six years he made his abode mainly in Paris, with occasional visits of longer or shorter duration to Orleans, and in the Low Countries. To these years belong his Adagia (afterwards published in greatly enlarged form in 1515), a collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, with running commentaries, and his Enchiridion Militis Christiani (The Christian Soldier's Dagger). A second short visit to England in 1506 cemented still more closely his friendship with More, and gained him a valuable friend in Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England. During the same year he carried out a journey to Italy, which for long had been his passionate desire. At Turin he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity; at Bologna he witnessed the military triumph of the bellicose Pope Julius II.—a spectacle which Erasmus always spoke of as a disgrace to Christian Europe; and at Venice he made the acquaintance of the famous printer Aldus Manutius. During his sojourn in Italy he acted for some time as tutor to Alexander, Archbishop of St Andrews, natural son of James IV. of Scotland, who afterwards fell with his father at Flodden. His visit closed with a short stay in Rome, where he was received in a manner that proves the great reputation he had already won in letters. Altogether, as was to be expected from the different temper and aims of the two men, Erasmus carried away from Italy a far more friendly impression than Luther after his memorable visit about the same date. The accession of Henry VIII., of whom great things were expected as a patron of learning, and the special invitation of Lord Mountjoy, induced Erasmus once more to make his home in England. On his journey from Italy to that country he conceived the plan of his Encomium Moriae (Praise of Folly), which on his arrival he threw upon paper in the course of a week. In this satire, written in the full maturity of his powers, we have Erasmus in his happiest and most distinctive vein, as the man of letters and the general critic of men and things. While its general tone is that of playful banter, it is yet inspired by the most serious purpose, as specially appears in its biting sarcasm at the expense of kings and churchmen. Seven editions of this work were issued within a few months.
During this his third and longest visit to England, Erasmus resided chiefly in Cambridge, where he acted as Margaret professor of Divinity, and professor of Greek. After 1514 Erasmus's changes of abode for the next few years are so frequent that it becomes puzzling to follow him. In 1514 he was in Basel, back in England the same year, again in Basel in 1515, and once more in England—the last of his visits to that country. From 1517 to 1521 he lived at Louvain, taking a keen interest in the progress of the new studies at the famous university of that place. Meanwhile, his literary labours were unceasing. In 1519 appeared the first edition (afterwards greatly enlarged) of his Colloquia, the most famous of all his works, and usually regarded as his masterpiece. It consists of a series of familiar dialogues on the everyday topics of the time—social, religious, and political; and the audacity and incisiveness with which it handles the abuses of the church in large measure prepared men's minds for the work of Luther. In 1516 his edition of the New Testament, virtually the first of the Greek text, was published at Basel; and in 1519 his edition of St Jerome in nine folio volumes. In both of these works the dominant aim of Erasmus was to introduce a more rational conception of Christian doctrine, and to emancipate men's minds from the frivolous and pedantic methods of the scholastic theologians. By such labours, as by his Adagia and Encomium Moriae, Erasmus had shown the need for a general reform in the church. When the Lutheran revolution came, therefore, Erasmus found himself in the most embarrassing position. The upholders of the old order fell upon him as the author of all the new troubles, and the followers of Luther, on the other hand, bitterly assailed him for what they deemed his cowardice and inconsistency in refusing to follow up his opinions to their legitimate conclusions.
From the date of Luther's final breach with Rome, the life of Erasmus was one long controversy, which seriously marred the honour and happiness of his declining years. In 1521 he left Louvain, where the champions of the old faith had made his stay unendurable, and took up his abode at Basel. In this city, with the exception of a sojourn in Friburg from 1529 to 1535, Erasmus spent the rest of his life. To Basel he had always been attracted as the home of the great printer Froben, as well as by the excellence of its climate, and he now found it the quietest spot in the general din of religious strife. To the very last his labours were incessant and almost incredible. In addition to the toil of editing a long succession of classical and patristic writers, he was engaged in controversies which would have incapacitated most men for peaceful study. The most important of these controversies were those with Ulrich von Hutten, with Luther, and with the Sorbonne. In accordance with his fiery character, Hutten judged Erasmus with the greatest severity for not taking his place by the side of Luther. With the great Reformer himself, Erasmus, after long hesitation, crossed swords in his De Libero Arbitrio (1523), in which he assailed one of the fundamental positions of the Lutheran theology—that all human action is determined by divine necessity. Attacked by men like Hutten on the one side, he was as fiercely assailed on the other by the Sorbonne, the great surviving stronghold of obscurantism alike in theology and secular studies. By his Ciceronianus, a satire on the pedantic imitation of Cicero, Erasmus raised against himself a new set of adversaries—those humanists, namely, who set style above matter. Yet in spite of all these contro- versies, Erasmus during his last years enjoyed fame and consideration beyond that of any man of letters before or since. Letters and presents came to him from all the crowned heads of Europe; and churchmen in the highest position deemed it an honour to be among his correspondents.
Erasmus's health had never been robust even in youth, and from a comparatively early age he had been afflicted with the stone. As he advanced in life, his sufferings grew upon him, and it was only by the most careful ordering of diet, and by his overpowering instinct for study, that he accomplished the work he did. From 1534, a disease resembling gout in its symptoms subjected him at times to excruciating pain. On 12th July 1536, after nearly a month's attack of dysentery, he died, retaining to the last his gay and genial humour.
Erasmus stands as the supreme type of cultivated common sense applied to human affairs. In his latter years he fell upon a time when other qualities were needed in the best interests of humanity; but such as he was, few men have done more to advance truth, and to prepare men's minds for its acceptance. No man of letters has ever attained to anything approaching the influence wielded by Erasmus during his own century. Yet Erasmus was no creative genius, and he produced no single work which has a place in the first rank of the world's masterpieces. He owed his position to the wonderful range of his activity, to his astonishing productiveness, to the breadth and sanity of his views, and to the delightful qualities of wit, humour, and unfailing vivacity which distinguish all his work. He has himself indicated his services to Europe with exactness and precision. He rescued theology from the pedantries of the schoolmen, and referred it to its original sources; he did more than any other single person to advance the cause of the new studies of the Revival of Learning; he exposed the abuses of the church, and he protested in the interests of the people against the thoughtless tyranny of their rulers. His attitude towards the Lutheran revolution has exposed him to the obloquy of Protestants and Catholics alike. By both he has been accused of cowardice and insincerity, because he insisted in maintaining his neutral position. But this is merely to say that Erasmus had the defects of his qualities. Constitutionally, he was averse to all extremes, as he distinctly showed in his antagonism to the excesses of humanism in its neo-pagan developments, not less than to what he considered the excesses of the German Reformation. If he had not the energy to head a revolution, he had at least in eminent degree the courage of the scholar, as the long catalogue of his works, produced in chronic weakness of health, amply proves. As to his personal qualities, it should be sufficient to say that he enjoyed the friendship and esteem of men of so different, yet each in his own way of so high a type, as Bishop Fisher, Colet, and More. His personal appearance corresponded to his mental and moral qualities. He was slightly under the middle height, but of graceful figure; his features were delicate and mobile; and he spoke in tones low but beautifully clear and distinct.
An edition of his works was published at Basel in 9 vols. in 1540; the standard edition is that of Le Clerc (Lyons, 10 vols. 1703-6). See Lives of Erasmus by Knight (1726), Jortin (1748), Burigny (1752), Durand de Laur (1874), Drummond (1873), Feugère (Paris, 1874), and Froude (1894); also Nisard, La Renaissance (1855); Milman, Essays (1870); Amiel, Un Libre Penseur (1889); and Professor Emerton's Erasmus (1899).