erely to spit at it as often as he passed it. Erasmus
jestingly compares his fate to that of Saint Cassianus, who was stabbed
to death by his pupils with pencils. Had he not been pierced to the
quick for many years by the pens and tongues of countless people and did
he not live in that torment without death bringing the end? The keen
sensitiveness to opposition was seated very deeply with Erasmus. And he
could never forbear irritating others into opposing him.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] _Luther's religioese Psyche_, Hochland XV, 1917, p. 21.

CHAPTER XIX

AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS

1528-9

Erasmus turns against the excesses of humanism: its paganism and
pedantic classicism--_Ciceronianus_: 1528--It brings him new
enemies--The Reformation carried through at Basle--He emigrates
to Freiburg: 1529--His view concerning the results of the
Reformation

Nothing is more characteristic of the independence which Erasmus
reserved for himself regarding all movements of his time than the fact
that he also joined issue in the camp of the humanists. In 1528 there
were published by Froben (the chief of the firm of Johannes Froben had
just died) two dialogues in one volume from Erasmus's hand: one about
the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek, and one entitled
_Ciceronianus_ or _On the Best Diction_, i.e. in writing and speaking
Latin. Both were proofs that Erasmus had lost nothing of his liveliness
and wit. The former treatise was purely philological, and as such has
had great influence; the other was satirical as well. It had a long
history.

Erasmus had always regarded classical studies as the panacea of
civilization, provided they were made serviceable to pure Christianity.
His sincere ethical feeling made him recoil from the obscenity of a
Poggio and the immorality of the early Italian humanists. At the same
time his delicate and natural taste told him that a pedantic and servile
imitation of antique models could never produce the desired result.
Erasmus knew Latin too well to be strictly classical; his Latin was
alive and required freedom. In his early works we find taunts about the
over-precise Latin purists: one had declared a newly found fragment of
Cicero to be thoroughly barbaric; 'among all sorts of authors none are
so insufferable to me as those apes of Cicero'.

In spite of the great expectations he cherished of classical studies for
pure Christianity, he saw one danger: 'that u