for the erudite, who are few; we shall bark to stir up the people. After
1520 he writes again and again: 'I am stoned every day'.

But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not without reason, at
the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no longer be blind to the fact that
the great struggle did not concern him alone. On all sides the battle
was being fought. What is it, that great commotion about matters of
spirit and of faith?

The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it is a great and wilful
conspiracy on the part of the conservatives to suffocate good learning
and make the old ignorance triumph. This idea recurs innumerable times
in his letters after the middle of 1518. 'I know quite certainly', he
writes on 21 March 1519 to one of his German friends, 'that the
barbarians on all sides have conspired to leave no stone unturned till
they have suppressed _bonae literae_.' 'Here we are still fighting with
the protectors of the old ignorance'; cannot Wolsey persuade the Pope to
stop it here? All that appertains to ancient and cultured literature is
called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they
indicate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, that is to
say all that they have not learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole
tragedy--under these terms he usually refers to the great theological
struggle--originates in the hatred of _bonae literae_. 'This is the
source and hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic
study and the _bonae literae_.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom it
is impossible to conquer, though their cause is a bad one. And meanwhile
envy harasses the _bonae literae_, which are attacked at his (Luther's)
instigation by these gadflies. They are already nearly insufferable,
when things do not go well with them; but who can stand them when they
triumph? Either I am blind, or they aim at something else than Luther.
They are preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.'

This was written by Erasmus to a member of the University of Leipzig in
December 1520. This one-sided and academic conception of the great
events, a conception which arose in the study of a recluse bending over
his books, did more than anything else to prevent Erasmus from
understanding the true nature and purport of the Reformation.

CHAPTER XVI

FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION

Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther--
Archbishop Albert of Maye