ore his surprised
congregation. As if I cavilled at Matthew and Luke, and not at those
who, out of ignorance and carelessness, have corrupted them. What do
people wish? That the Church should possess Holy Scripture as correct as
possible, or not?' This reasoning seemed to Erasmus, with his passionate
need of purity, a conclusive refutation. But instinct did not deceive
his adversaries, when it told them that doctrine itself was at stake if
the linguistic judgement of a single individual might decide as to the
correct version of a text. And Erasmus wished to avoid the inferences
which assailed doctrine. He was not aware of the fact that his
conceptions of the Church, the sacraments and the dogmas were no longer
purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated to his
philological insight. He could not be aware of it because, in spite of
all his natural piety and his fervent ethical sentiments, he lacked the
mystic insight which is the foundation of every creed.

It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him unable to understand
the real grounds of the resistance of Catholic orthodoxy. How was it
possible that so many, and among them men of high consideration, refused
to accept what to him seemed so clear and irrefutable! He interpreted
the fact in a highly personal way. He, the man who would so gladly have
lived in peace with all the world, who so yearned for sympathy and
recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty, saw the ranks of haters
and opponents increase about him. He did not understand how they feared
his mocking acrimony, how many wore the scar of a wound that the _Moria_
had made. That real and supposed hatred troubled Erasmus. He sees his
enemies as a sect. It is especially the Dominicans and the Carmelites
who are ill-affected towards the new scientific theology. Just then a
new adversary had arisen at Louvain in the person of his compatriot
Nicholas of Egmond, prior of the Carmelites, henceforth an object of
particular abhorrence to him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus
found his fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the narrower sense
of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, William of Vianen, Ruurd Tapper.
The persecution increases: the venom of slander spreads more and more
every day and becomes more deadly; the greatest untruths are impudently
preached about him; he calls in the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor,
against them. But it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write