ars, he could devote himself more fully than ever before
to the great task he had set himself: the opening up of the pure sources
of Christianity, the exposition of the truth of the Gospel in all the
simple comprehensibility in which he saw it. In a broad stream flowed
the editions of the Fathers, of classic authors, the new editions of the
New Testament, of the _Adagia_, of his own Letters, together with
Paraphrases of the New Testament, Commentaries on Psalms, and a number
of new theological, moral and philological treatises. In 1522 he was ill
for months on end; yet in that year Arnobius and the third edition of
the New Testament succeeded Cyprian, whom he had already annotated at
Louvain and edited in 1520, closely followed by Hilary in 1523 and next
by a new edition of Jerome in 1524. Later appeared Irenaeus, 1526;
Ambrose, 1527; Augustine, 1528-9, and a Latin translation of Chrysostom
in 1530. The rapid succession of these comprehensive works proves that
the work was done as Erasmus always worked: hastily, with an
extraordinary power of concentration and a surprising command of his
mnemonic faculty, but without severe criticism and the painful accuracy
that modern philology requires in such editions.

Neither the polemical Erasmus nor the witty humorist had been lost in
the erudite divine and the disillusioned reformer. The paper-warrior we
would further gladly have dispensed with, but not the humorist, for many
treasures of literature. But the two are linked inseparably as the
_Colloquies_ prove.

What was said about the _Moria_ may be repeated here: if in the
literature of the world only the _Colloquies_ and the _Moria_ have
remained alive, that choice of history is right. Not in the sense that
in literature only Erasmus's pleasantest, lightest and most readable
works were preserved, whereas the ponderous theological erudition was
silently relegated to the shelves of libraries. It was indeed Erasmus's
best work that was kept alive in the _Moria_ and the _Colloquies_. With
these his sparkling wit has charmed the world. If only we had space here
to assign to the Erasmus of the _Colloquies_ his just and lofty place in
that brilliant constellation of sixteenth-century followers of
Democritus: Rabelais, Ariosto, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Ben Jonson!

When Erasmus gave the _Colloquies_ their definite form at Basle, they
had already had a long and curious genesis. At first they had been no
more than _Familiarium coll