shall see God face to face.' 'What is free of error?'
'There are in sacred literature certain sanctuaries into which God has
not willed that we should penetrate further.'

The Catholic Church had on the point of free will reserved to itself
some slight proviso, left a little elbow-room to the consciousness of
human liberty _under_ grace. Erasmus conceived that liberty in a
considerably broader spirit. Luther absolutely denied it. The opinion of
contemporaries was at first too much dominated by their participation in
the great struggle as such: they applauded Erasmus, because he struck
boldly at Luther, or the other way about, according to their sympathies.
Not only Vives applauded Erasmus, but also more orthodox Catholics such
as Sadolet. The German humanists, unwilling, for the most part, to break
with the ancient Church, were moved by Erasmus's attack to turn their
backs still more upon Luther: Mutianus, Zasius, and Pirckheimer. Even
Melanchthon inclined to Erasmus's standpoint. Others, like Capito, once
a zealous supporter, now washed their hands of him. Soon Calvin with the
iron cogency of his argument was completely to take Luther's side.

It is worth while to quote the opinion of a contemporary Catholic
scholar about the relations of Erasmus and Luther. 'Erasmus,' says F. X.
Kiefl,[19] 'with his concept of free, unspoiled human nature was
intrinsically much more foreign to the Church than Luther. He only
combated it, however, with haughty scepticism: for which reason Luther
with subtle psychology upbraided him for liking to speak of the
shortcomings and the misery of the Church of Christ in such a way that
his readers could not help laughing, instead of bringing his charges,
with deep sighs, as beseemed before God.'

The _Hyperaspistes_, a voluminous treatise in which Erasmus again
addressed Luther, was nothing but an epilogue, which need not be
discussed here at length.

Erasmus had thus, at last, openly taken sides. For, apart from the
dogmatical point at issue itself, the most important part about _De
libero arbitrio_ was that in it he had expressly turned against the
individual religious conceptions and had spoken in favour of the
authority and tradition of the Church. He always regarded himself as a
Catholic. 'Neither death nor life shall draw me from the communion of
the Catholic Church,' he writes in 1522, and in the _Hyperaspistes_ in
1526: 'I have never been an apostate from the Catholic Church. I kno