rious when
he said that, in his heart, he abhorred and had never desired them; but
his caustic mind often got the better of his heart, and having once
begun to quarrel he undoubtedly enjoyed giving his mockery the rein and
wielding his facile dialectic pen. For understanding his personality it
is unnecessary here to deal at large with all those fights on paper.
Only the most important ones need be mentioned.

Since 1516 a pot had been boiling for Erasmus in Spain. A theologian of
the University at Alcala, Diego Lopez Zuniga, or, in Latin, Stunica, had
been preparing Annotations to the edition of the New Testament: 'a
second Lee', said Erasmus. At first Cardinal Ximenes had prohibited the
publication, but in 1520, after his death, the storm broke. For some
years Stunica kept persecuting Erasmus with his criticism, to the
latter's great vexation; at last there followed a _rapprochement_,
probably as Erasmus became more conservative, and a kindly attitude on
the part of Stunica.

No less long and violent was the quarrel with the syndic of the
Sorbonne, Noel Bedier or Beda, which began in 1522. The Sorbonne was
prevailed upon to condemn several of Erasmus's dicta as heretical in
1526. The effort of Beda to implicate Erasmus in the trial of Louis de
Berquin, who had translated the condemned writings and who was
eventually burned at the stake for faith's sake in 1529, made the matter
still more disagreeable for Erasmus.

It is clear enough that both at Paris and at Louvain in the circles of
the theological faculties the chief cause of exasperation was in the
_Colloquia_. Egmondanus and Vincent Dirks did not forgive Erasmus for
having acridly censured their station and their personalities.

More courteous than the aforementioned polemics was the fight with a
high-born Italian, Alberto Pio, prince of Carpi; acrid and bitter was
one with a group of Spanish monks, who brought the Inquisition to bear
upon him. In Spain 'Erasmistas' was the name of those who inclined to
more liberal conceptions of the creed.

In this way the matter accumulated for the volume of Erasmus's works
which contains, according to his own arrangement, all his _Apologiae_:
not 'excuses', but 'vindications'. 'Miserable man that I am; they just
fill a volume,' exclaimed Erasmus.

Two of his polemics merit a somewhat closer examination: that with
Ulrich von Hutten and that with Luther.

[Illustration: XXI. MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK]

[Illustration: XXII