The Story of Mankind [96]
lived in a monastery.
He had travelled a great deal and knew whereof he wrote,
When he began his career as a public pamphleteer (he would
have been called an editorial writer in our day) the world was
greatly amused at an anonymous series of letters which had
just appeared under the title of ``Letters of Obscure Men.''
In these letters, the general stupidity and arrogance of the
monks of the late Middle Ages was exposed in a strange
German-Latin doggerel which reminds one of our modern
limericks. Erasmus himself was a very learned and serious
scholar, who knew both Latin and Greek and gave us the first
reliable version of the New Testament, which he translated
into Latin together with a corrected edition of the original
Greek text. But he believed with Sallust, the Roman poet,
that nothing prevents us from ``stating the truth with a smile
upon our lips.''
In the year 1500, while visiting Sir Thomas More in Eng-
land, he took a few weeks off and wrote a funny little book,
called the ``Praise of Folly,'' in which he attacked the monks
and their credulous followers with that most dangerous of all
weapons, humor. The booklet was the best seller of the sixteenth
century. It was translated into almost every language
and it made people pay attention to those other books of
Erasmus in which he advocated reform of the many abuses of
the church and appealed to his fellow humanists to help him
in his task of bringing about a great rebirth of the Christian
faith.
But nothing came of these excellent plans. Erasmus was
too reasonable and too tolerant to please most of the enemies
of the church. They were waiting for a leader of a more
robust nature.
He came, and his name was Martin Luther.
Luther was a North-German peasant with a first-class
brain and possessed of great personal courage. He was a
university man, a master of arts of the University of Erfurt;
afterwards he joined a Dominican monastery. Then he became
a college professor at the theological school of Wittenberg
and began to explain the scriptures to the indifferent ploughboys
of his Saxon home. He had a lot of spare time and this he used
to study the original texts of the Old and New Testaments.
Soon he began to see the great difference which existed between
the words of Christ and those that were preached by the Popes and the Bishops.
In the year 1511, he visited Rome on official business.
Alexander VI, of the family of Borgia, who had enriched himself
for the benefit of his son and daughter, was dead. But his
successor, Julius II, a man of irreproachable personal character,
was spending most of his time fighting and building and
did not impress this serious minded German theologian with
his piety. Luther returned to Wittenberg a much disappointed
man. But worse was to follow.
The gigantic church of St. Peter which Pope Julius had
wished upon his innocent successors, although only half begun,
was already in need of repair. Alexander VI had spent every
penny of the Papal treasury. Leo X, who succeeded Julius
in the year 1513, was on the verge of bankruptcy. He reverted
to an old method of raising ready cash. He began to sell
``indulgences.'' An indulgence was a piece of parchment which
in return for a certain sum of money, promised a sinner a decrease
of the time which he would have to spend in purgatory.
It was a perfectly correct thing according to the creed of the
late Middle Ages. Since the church had the power to forgive
the sins of those who truly repented before they died, the
church also had the right to shorten, through its intercession
with the Saints, the time during which the soul must be punfied
in the shadowy realms of Purgatory.
It was unfortunate that these Indulgences must be sold for
money. But they offered an easy form of revenue and besides,
those who were too poor to pay, received theirs for nothing.
Now it happened in the
He had travelled a great deal and knew whereof he wrote,
When he began his career as a public pamphleteer (he would
have been called an editorial writer in our day) the world was
greatly amused at an anonymous series of letters which had
just appeared under the title of ``Letters of Obscure Men.''
In these letters, the general stupidity and arrogance of the
monks of the late Middle Ages was exposed in a strange
German-Latin doggerel which reminds one of our modern
limericks. Erasmus himself was a very learned and serious
scholar, who knew both Latin and Greek and gave us the first
reliable version of the New Testament, which he translated
into Latin together with a corrected edition of the original
Greek text. But he believed with Sallust, the Roman poet,
that nothing prevents us from ``stating the truth with a smile
upon our lips.''
In the year 1500, while visiting Sir Thomas More in Eng-
land, he took a few weeks off and wrote a funny little book,
called the ``Praise of Folly,'' in which he attacked the monks
and their credulous followers with that most dangerous of all
weapons, humor. The booklet was the best seller of the sixteenth
century. It was translated into almost every language
and it made people pay attention to those other books of
Erasmus in which he advocated reform of the many abuses of
the church and appealed to his fellow humanists to help him
in his task of bringing about a great rebirth of the Christian
faith.
But nothing came of these excellent plans. Erasmus was
too reasonable and too tolerant to please most of the enemies
of the church. They were waiting for a leader of a more
robust nature.
He came, and his name was Martin Luther.
Luther was a North-German peasant with a first-class
brain and possessed of great personal courage. He was a
university man, a master of arts of the University of Erfurt;
afterwards he joined a Dominican monastery. Then he became
a college professor at the theological school of Wittenberg
and began to explain the scriptures to the indifferent ploughboys
of his Saxon home. He had a lot of spare time and this he used
to study the original texts of the Old and New Testaments.
Soon he began to see the great difference which existed between
the words of Christ and those that were preached by the Popes and the Bishops.
In the year 1511, he visited Rome on official business.
Alexander VI, of the family of Borgia, who had enriched himself
for the benefit of his son and daughter, was dead. But his
successor, Julius II, a man of irreproachable personal character,
was spending most of his time fighting and building and
did not impress this serious minded German theologian with
his piety. Luther returned to Wittenberg a much disappointed
man. But worse was to follow.
The gigantic church of St. Peter which Pope Julius had
wished upon his innocent successors, although only half begun,
was already in need of repair. Alexander VI had spent every
penny of the Papal treasury. Leo X, who succeeded Julius
in the year 1513, was on the verge of bankruptcy. He reverted
to an old method of raising ready cash. He began to sell
``indulgences.'' An indulgence was a piece of parchment which
in return for a certain sum of money, promised a sinner a decrease
of the time which he would have to spend in purgatory.
It was a perfectly correct thing according to the creed of the
late Middle Ages. Since the church had the power to forgive
the sins of those who truly repented before they died, the
church also had the right to shorten, through its intercession
with the Saints, the time during which the soul must be punfied
in the shadowy realms of Purgatory.
It was unfortunate that these Indulgences must be sold for
money. But they offered an easy form of revenue and besides,
those who were too poor to pay, received theirs for nothing.
Now it happened in the