eat misunderstanding, the result of the fact that his delicate,
aesthetic, hovering spirit understood neither the profoundest depths of
the faith nor the hard necessities of human society. He was neither
mystic nor realist. Luther was both. To Erasmus the great problem of
Church and State and society, seemed simple. Nothing was required but
restoration and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt
sources of Christianity. A number of accretions to the faith, rather
ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared away. All should be reduced
to the nucleus of faith, Christ and the Gospel. Forms, ceremonies,
speculations should make room for the practice of true piety. The Gospel
was easily intelligible to everybody and within everybody's reach. And
the means to reach all this was good learning, _bonae literae_. Had he
not himself, by his editions of the New Testament and of Jerome, and
even earlier by the now famous _Enchiridion_, done most of what had to
be done? 'I hope that what now pleases the upright, will soon please
all.' As early as the beginning of 1517 Erasmus had written to Wolfgang
Fabricius Capito, in the tone of one who has accomplished the great
task. 'Well then, take you the torch from us. The work will henceforth
be a great deal easier and cause far less hatred and envy. _We_ have
lived through the first shock.'

Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May 1517: 'Was anyone born under such
inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure discipline (scholasticism)
does not revolt him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's
diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? But it is
still much greater that he should have effected by the same labour the
emergence of sacred truth itself out of that Cimmerian darkness, even
though divinity is not yet quite free from the dirt of the sophist
school. If that should occur one day, it will be owing to the beginnings
made in our times.' The philologist Budaeus believed even more firmly
than Erasmus that faith was a matter of erudition.

It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone accepted the cleansed
truth at once. How could people continue to oppose themselves to what,
to him, seemed as clear as daylight and so simple? He, who so sincerely
would have liked to live in peace with all the world, found himself
involved in a series of polemics. To let the opposition of opponents
pass unnoticed was forbidden not only by his character, for ever
strivi