Colet, remarks J.R. Green, a purer
Christianity awoke throughout Teutonic Europe. Born in 1466, a son of
a distinguished citizen who was twice Lord Mayor, after seven years at
Oxford he travelled with sufficient means to France and Italy, and
whether at home or abroad studied in particular Greek. "The knowledge
of Greek seems to have had one almost exclusive end for him,"[21]
continues Green; "Greek was the key by which he could unlock the
Gospels and the New Testament." Discarding the traditional
mediaevalisms, his faith rested simply on a vivid realisation of the
Person of Christ; and whilst his active and lucid intellect exhibit
him in many lights, everything else was subordinate to his faith.
Returning to England, he lectured gratuitously at Oxford on St. Paul's
Epistles, and formed a friendship with Erasmus. So Erasmus became the
earnest pupil of an earnest master. Taking priests' orders, he was
appointed Dean of St. Paul's and Prebendary of Mora (1505), and
established a reputation as a preacher. In those days, and until
Wolsey as legate gave the preference to Westminster, the two Houses
held their sessions in the Chapter House and Nave of Old St. Paul's,
as the opening ceremony still reminds us. Preaching at the opening in
1512, he startled Convocation by declaring, "All that is in the Church
is either the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of
life." In vain his bishop, Richard Fitz-James, endeavoured to
establish a charge of heresy: the Primate Warham and young Henry
VIII. both admired and supported the Dean; and the Dean continued to
show his preference for the New Testament in the original Greek rather
than for the prevalent nonsense of the mediaeval schoolmen.

[Illustration: DEAN COLET.
_After the portrait in Holland's "Heroologia," 1620._[22]]

Where the consent of his Chapter was necessary, Colet's efforts at
reform were obstructed. The profanation of the sacred building he
could not stop: buying, selling, and promenading in the nave continued
the order of the day. The Chapter would have nothing to do with his
new statutes, but elsewhere he was more successful. The Chancellor's
School was not in accordance with his views; and in spite of Bishop,
Chancellor, and Chapter, out of his own means he built ST. PAUL'S
SCHOOL, towards the east end of the churchyard, and endowed it;
and leaving his colleagues out in the cold, left the management to the
Mercers' Company. His theology was m