their attack on the study of Hebrew had
been the most crass exhibition of retrograde spirit. If Jews were not
allowed to read Jewish books, such as Maimonides, to whom St. Thomas
owes so much, how could Christians be allowed to read pagan classics,
with their highly immoral gods and goddesses?

The golden opportunity of making intolerance ridiculous could not be
neglected. In the summer of 1515 a volume appeared purporting to
contain letters to Ortwin Gratius; and it was followed two years later
by another. With some good satire and some amusing caricature, they
also contained much personal insult and calumny. The wit is not
enough to carry on the joke through 108 letters, carefully composed in
Teutonic dog Latin by the best Latinists north of the Brenner.
Erasmus, who was diverted at first, afterwards turned away with
disgust, and Luther called the authors buffoons. The main writer of
the first volume was Crotus Rubianus, and of the other, Hutten.
Reuchlin himself disapproved. But he shared in the victory, which was
so brilliant that his condemnation by Rome passed without notice, and
it was not till our day that the success of the despised Pfefferkorn
became known to the world. It was the first effective appeal to
opinion against constituted authority, and the most decisive
demonstration of the power of the press. And it gave the Humanists
occasion so to define the issue that all could understand, in spite of
the reserve of Erasmus and of Reuchlin himself.

Erasmus Rogers, the greatest figure in the Renaissance, was born at
Rotterdam and brought up in extreme poverty, and he was a
valetudinarian and an invalid in consequence of early privation. He
lived in France and Belgium, in England and Italy, in Switzerland and
Germany, so that each country contributed to his development, and none
set its stamp upon him. He was eminently an international character;
and was the first European who lived in intimacy with other ages
besides his own, and could appreciate the gradual ripening and
enlargement of ideas. He devoted himself on equal terms to classical
and to Christian antiquity, and drew from both alike the same lessons
of morality and wisdom; for he valued doctrine chiefly for the sake of
a good life and a happy death, and was impatient of subtle dialectics
and speculative disputations. With so much of Renaissance studies as
did not serve the good estate of souls he showed little sympathy, and
was indifferent