uity of all that is. If Erasmus
so often hovers over the borderline between earnestness and mockery, if
he hardly ever gives an incisive conclusion, it is not only due to
cautiousness, and fear to commit himself. Everywhere he sees the
shadings, the blending of the meaning of words. The terms of things are
no longer to him, as to the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals mounted
in gold, or as stars in the firmament. 'I like assertions so little that
I would easily take sides with the sceptics whereever it is allowed by
the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the decrees of the
Church.' 'What is exempt from error?' All subtle contentions of
theological speculation arise from a dangerous curiosity and lead to
impious audacity. What have all the great controversies about the
Trinity and the Virgin Mary profited? 'We have defined so much that
without danger to our salvation might have remained unknown or
undecided.... The essentials of our religion are peace and unanimity.
These can hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few points as
possible and leave many questions to individual judgement. Numerous
problems are now postponed till the oecumenical Council. It would be
much better to put off such questions till the time when the glass shall
be removed and the darkness cleared away, and we shall see God face to
face.'

'There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed
that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate there, we grope in ever
deeper darkness the farther we proceed, so that we recognize, in this
manner, too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdom and the imbecility
of human understanding.'

CHAPTER XIV

ERASMUS'S CHARACTER

Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness--
Delicacy--Dislike of contention, need of concord and
friendship--Aversion to disturbance of any kind--Too much
concerned about other men's opinions--Need of self-
justification--Himself never in the wrong--Correlation
between inclinations and convictions--Ideal image of
himself--Dissatisfaction with himself--Self-centredness--A
solitary at heart--Fastidiousness--Suspiciousness--Morbid
mistrust--Unhappiness--Restlessness--Unsolved contradictions of
his being--Horror of lies--Reserve and insinuation

Erasmus's powerful mind met with a great response in the heart of his
contemporaries and had a lasting influence on the march of civilization.
But one