o much to promote the freer circulation and
profounder study of the Greek original of the New Testament, and had
even ventured, under the patronage of Pope Leo X., to bring out a Latin
version of the New Testament more true to the original than the Vulgate
version, that those who knew only Latin might understand more fully the
meaning of the original--in his old age, when irritated by the course of
events, and by his controversies with Luther, consented to recommend
this scurrilous pamphleteer to his friends in Scotland. His own letter
is not now extant, or, if extant, is not at present accessible; but the
answer sent to him by the Scottish king has been preserved, like his
letter to Cochlaeus, among the MSS. in the British Museum. It is
sufficient to prove the fact that Erasmus did intervene, and commend to
his Scottish friends a writer who represents Luther's translation of the
New Testament, which more than any other book has made Germany what it
is, as the "pabulum mortis, fomes peccati, velamen malitiae, praetextus
falsae libertatis, inobedientiae praesidium, disciplinae corruptio,
morum depravatio, concordiae dissipatio ... vitiorum scaturigo ...
rebellionis incendium ... charitatis peremptio ... veritatis
perduellio."

[Sidenote: At Cambridge and London.]

In 1535 Alesius, having received encouragement from the agents of the
English king then negotiating an alliance with the Protestant princes of
Germany, came over to England with a letter of recommendation from
Melanchthon.[308] He was favourably received by Archbishop Cranmer, by
Crumwell the Vicar-General, and by the king himself, who appointed him
king's scholar, and instructed Crumwell, as Chancellor of the University
of Cambridge, to give him a place as a reader in divinity there. He
accordingly went into residence in Queen's College, the same college
which shortly before had been the home of Erasmus while lecturing in the
university on Greek, and towards the end of the year he began a course
of lectures on the Hebrew Psalter. He is supposed to have been the first
who delivered lectures in Cambridge on the Hebrew Scriptures, but he was
not suffered to do it long in peace. It could not be concealed that he
was a favourer of the new opinions and a friend of Melanchthon, and that
he had, in fact, been recommended by him to the king and the chancellor
of the university. By the time he had entered on the exposition of Psalm
viii. he was challenged by one of the