afterwards (and that was not slight), he was advanced by the king to the bishopric of St. Asaph. Nor was it otherwise with Katharine. All her devotional predilections ran in favour of the friars. When she expected a prince, she had recourse to their prayers and their intercessions. The friars of Greenwich, Oxford, and Cambridge received, from her pious hopes and fears, many a charitable dole and many a pound of wax. At all events, like most of her sex, we may be quite certain that she sympathised more with Standish than with Erasmus, and believed, like half the good women in England, that this new method of interpreting Scripture was little better than covert infidelity.

These were the men who were now to signalise their opposition against Erasmus. Shortly after the appearance of the second edition of the New Testament, Standish was appointed to preach at Paul's Cross before the lord mayor and corporation of London. After prefacing his sermon with some general observations on charity, he suddenly broke away from the main topic, and launched forth, to the astonishment of his audience, in bitter denunciations against Erasmus. He declared that the total extinction of Christianity was at hand, unless these newfangled versions of the Scriptures were suppressed. It was intolerable that Erasmus should venture to corrupt the Gospel of St. John, and transform the old reading, "In principio erat Verbum," to which the Church had adhered for so many centuries, into the new style of, "In principio erat Sermo." Then turning to the lord mayor and corporation, he told them that St. Augustine had given very good reasons for the use of the old word Verbum. "But," added he, "that pretentious and shallow Grecian could not comprehend the arguments of the holy father. And, oh!" he exclaimed, "that I should have lived to witness these times,-I, a doctor of so many years standing; I, who have all my life read In principio erat Verbum,' to be sent to school and compelled to read In principio erat Sermo.'" With that he wept, to the astonishment of the men, and the edification of the women.

It was his fortune that day to dine at the palace; and after the meal was over, Standish was introduced to the royal circle. A large assembly of bishops, nobles, and scholars surrounded Henry and Katharine. Bustling through the crowd, Standish fell on his knees, and, raising his hands to heaven, broke forth into loud praises of the king's royal progenitors, who had always religiously defended the Catholic church against heresy and schism. Most perilous times, he exclaimed, were at hand: Erasmus was daily publishing some new book; and, unless a firm resistance were made to such innovations, Christianity

was at an end. Then, turning up his eyes to heaven, he begged Christ to assist his forlorn spouse, though all else forsook her. One of the circle, probably More or Mountjoy, watching his opportunity, slipped down on his knee before the king, and, mimicking the theatrical tones and attitudes of Standish, besought him, as he had inspired their majesties with so much fear and anxiety for the safeguard of Christendom, to be good enough to tell them what were the perilous heresies and schisms to which he alluded in the writings of Erasmus. Then, stretching out his hand, Standish began to reckon them on the tips of his fingers. "First," says he, "Erasmus denies the resurrection; next, he annihilates the sacrament of marriage; thirdly, he derogates from the eucharist." These assertions occasioned great sensation. His opponent requested him to produce the passages on which these accusations rested. Standish began with his thumb: "First," said he, "that Erasmus denies the resurrection I prove thus: Paul, in his epistle to the Colossians" (he mistook Colossians for Corinthians) "says: Omnes quidem resurgemus, sed non omnes immutabimur; but Erasmus, out of his Greek, reads it thus: Omnes quidem non dormiemus, sed omnes immutabimur. It is clear, therefore, that he denies the resurrection." The other explained, that Erasmus had professed to adhere strictly to the Greek text; and as the word 'resurrection' had been retained by him in so many other places, it was absurd to say that in this change, which he had adopted on good authority, he had denied the resurrection. "Ah, yes," said Standish, "you mean the authority of St. Jerome; but Jerome took this from the Hebrew." Hereupon, another friend of Erasmus, advancing through the circle, dropped on his knee before the king, and, after reverence done, addressed himself to Standish: "I cry your mercy, reverend father: will you repeat what you said just now, as I was not paying much attention." Standish repeated his remark. Then his opponent, to draw attention to its absurdity, rejoined: "That is no trivial argument which his reverence has advanced; but I should like to reply to it, if his majesty will permit me." Queen Katharine twitching the king called his attention to the speaker: "I don't see," says the objector, with assumed gravity, "what answer can be made to his reverence's argument. I don't suppose he imagines that the epistles of St. Paul were written in Hebrew, when every schoolboy knows they were written in Greek. What purpose could St. Jerome possibly have in correcting them from the Hebrew, when no Hebrew copies of them ever existed?" Henry saw the bishop's discomfiture; and, with kingly grace, changed the conversation.

But the opposition of Standish, though vexatious enough,

was confined to England. A more bitter and formidable enemy sprung up in Edward Lee, chaplain and almoner to Henry VIII. He had written, or more probably had put together, the floating objections of the times against the first edition of the New Testament, and circulated the book in manuscript among his own friends and those of Erasmus. On the return of the latter from Basle, before the notes to the second edition had appeared, he had requested Lee to allow him the sight of his criticisms; if not, he begged Lee to publish them at once, that he might make the necessary corrections in his forthcoming edition. Lee resolutely refused. He was bent on securing a reputation by an attack on the most remarkable author of the age; and his book would have been worthless had Erasmus anticipated his objections. The matter might have ended there, with little credit to Lee's generosity. But Erasmus could not forbear expressing his irritation. He spoke of Lee in terms of great contempt, to more than one of his numerous correspondents: "the earth had never produced any thing more arrogant, venomous, or foolish" (xii. 32). He stigmatised him as a conceited young man and a sciolist. With still greater indiscretion, finding all other means ineffectual, he wrote a letter to Lee, in which he had the bad taste to threaten him with the vengeance of his friends in Germany, "who had not yet," as he added, "dropped all their native ferocity." Lee waited for no further provocation. He immediately brought out his book, and prefaced it with the following calm and sarcastic letter. "Edovardus Leeus Desiderio Erasmo salutem. En! nunc demum habes, Desideri Erasme, nostrarum annotationum librum, quem tantopere efflagitasti,-opus, spero, cum primis tibi gratum et jucundum, si non quod nostrum sit, tamen quod tuo nomini nuncupatum, et te annum jam totum hortante emissum; vel forte, eo potius nomine, quod inde orbi nostra prodetur ignorantia, quam tu nullis non modis studes propagari; ut omnes cognoscant me talem esse, qualem tu fingis.'

It was evident that the author of such a letter could not be the puny and contemptible adversary Erasmus had represented. Nor was he. Roger Ascham has done justice to the learning of Lee. More and Fisher were inclined to think he had been unfairly treated, and, after the provocation he had received, he could hardly be expected to remain silent.

Lee took exception to the hasty and perfunctory manner in which Erasmus had introduced emendations into the New Testament. He accused Erasmus of rejecting readings, confirmed by long patristic usage, on the slender authority of a Greek manuscript, as to the age of which and its general accuracy grave doubts existed. He taxed him with citing passages from

the Greek copies which were not to be found in them, and omitting such as were. In some instances his Latin version did not correspond with the Greek; in others the true meaning had been misquoted or misrepresented. The rest of Lee's objections related rather to matters of doctrine and opinion: Erasmus had spoken contemptuously of previous commentators; he had condemned the Church for admitting the Epistle to the Hebrews into the canon; he had asserted that the Gospel of St. Mark was nothing more than a compendium of St. Matthew's. But it was his gravest and most substantial charge that, in the Apocalypse, Erasmus, to supply the defects of his Greek Mss., had ventured on the extraordinary license of turning certain verses into Greek which he had found only in the Latin copies. Objectionable as such an act undoubtedly was, and subversive of all sound criticism and literary honesty, Erasmus had not intended to impose upon his readers. He had acknowledged the fact in his notes. It was indeed much to be wished that Erasmus had candidly admitted these accusations, instead of attempting to recriminate. They were true in the main; they could not be denied. Had he fallen back upon that line of defence which he had taken up at first; had he admitted that in so laborious a work, too rapidly completed and surrounded by numerous obstacles, it was scarcely possible to avoid omissions and errors, he would have diminished nothing of his fair fame. He chose to stand upon the defensive; to hurl back invectives at the head of Lee; and thus he gave an importance to these charges they did not intrinsically deserve. His best friends looked sad; to his enemies he had exposed an advantage of which they were not slow to avail themselves; whilst to the Gallios of this world, who regarded with supreme indifference the real question at issue, it afforded a fund of delight, to see the great Biblical scholar tormented by petty and malicious assailants. Stunica and Caranza, the successors to Lee and Standish in this inglorious warfare, were as amusing as Pasquin to infidel bishops and classic cardinals at Rome, if not for their wit, yet for their unceasing virulence.

But we must draw these observations to a close. Of the editions of the New Testament which appeared in the lifetime of Erasmus, the fourth, published in 1527, is the most complete, as he had the advantage of the critical aids afforded by the Complutensian. In the third edition, which appeared in 1522, he reinserted, from an English Ms., the verse of the Three Witnesses. But, except for the interest which must always attach to first experiments, the Greek Testament of Erasmus has little value for the Biblical scholar of the present day. Much beyond his contemporaries in his conception of the duties of an

editor, and of the philological requirements for establishing and explaining the text of an ancient author, he fell far below the modern standard. He understood quite as well as later scholars do, that the text of the New Testament must be determined by the ancient Greek copies, supported by the earliest Latin versions and the Greek fathers. He was in some respects even less fettered than modern critics are by prejudices in favour of an authorised text or established translation. He had no leaning to the Vulgate. He was not inclined to attribute to it the praise it unquestionably deserves. The necessity of a careful description of the age and condition of the Mss. and authorities employed by him in forming his text,—an indispensable part of an editor's duty,-he almost entirely overlooked. Consequently, beyond his own critical judgment and sagacity, his text rests on no satisfactory or determinable authority. He would have done more had he done less,—had he been content with a careful edition, resting on one or two good Mss. Therefore, unlike the early editions of the Greek classics, the New Testament of Erasmus is absolutely worthless for all critical purposes. Yet, strange to say, until within a very late period, it remained substantially the only form in which the original was known to the world. It was not in the execution, but in the conception of his work that he deserves our praise. He had not health, patience, or inclination for the tedious and laborious process of collating Mss. He was much more at his ease in compiling notes and bringing his vast and multifarious reading to bear on the elucidation of the history and antiquities of the New Testament. So far as vast learning can be of service, in this respect, no commentator can be compared to Erasmus. With the whole region of Latin literature he was familiar, and scarcely less at home with the most eminent of the Greek and Latin fathers. At a time when the Greek scholars in England, might be counted on the fingers, his notes to the Greek Testament abound in quotations from Homer, the Greek tragedians, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Athenæus, Lucian, and others.

Whatever judgment we may now be inclined to pass on his work, it must be allowed the praise of being the first attempt to introduce a more diligent study of the New Testament. Luther used his labours, and proclaimed his contempt for them, in his noble commentary on the Galatians. Erasmus, he complained, stuck too much to the letter: "humana prævalent in eo plus quam divina."* Yet, in spite of this dictum, are we not entitled to say, after three centuries' experience, that the surest sign of a barren and unreal theology is not over-attention to the critical

* Luth. Epist. 29.

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