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In a letter to the Leipzig Professor, Caspar Borner, he stated that Erasmus understood less about these matters than the schools of the Sophists (the Schoolmen). “I have no fear of being vanquished so long as I do not alter my opinion.”[730] “Truth is stronger than eloquence, the spirit mightier than talent, faith greater than learning”; with his habitual confidence he says that were he only to stammer forth the truth he would still be sure of vanquishing the eloquence even of far-famed Erasmus. He did not wish to vex the scholar, but should he dare to attack he would be made to see “that Christ fears neither the gates of hell nor the powers of the air”; he (Luther) well knew the thoughts of Satan (“quandoquidem et Satanæ cogitationes noverimus”).[731] Hence he seems to have regarded the doctrine of the absence of free-will as a sort of revelation, which the devil must necessarily oppose.

Erasmus got to hear of this letter. With the expressions it contained, viz.: spirit, truth, faith, triumph of Christ, he was familiar, for they were Luther’s watchwords; the innovators, following Luther’s example, made use of them, in season and out of season, though they were not able to conceal their real nature, least of all from the sharp eyes of Erasmus. “All,” Erasmus wrote in 1524 to Theodore Hezius, “have these five words always on their lips: evangel, God’s Word, faith, Christ and Spirit, and yet I see many behave so that I cannot doubt them to be possessed by the devil.”[732]

After long delay and anxious consideration, Erasmus finally decided to comply with the requests made of him and to publish a polemical work against Luther on the subject of free-will, for his own vindication and for the enlightenment of many whose eyes were turned upon him. In 1523 he set to work and forwarded a rough draft to Henry VIII of England.

He has frequently been said to have declared, in his witty way, that he had only yielded against his will to strong persuasion and that the work had been wrung from him; that, writing of free-will, he had lost his own free-will, and was, therefore, not to be taken seriously. This legend rests upon a false interpretation of a passage, the text of Erasmus containing nothing of the sort.[733]

In order if possible to delay or parry the attack, Luther, about the middle of 1524, wrote a strange letter addressed to the scholar.[734] He there complains openly of the criticisms Erasmus had directed against him latterly and of his ostensibly insulting remarks, and informs him that he, the Wittenberg Professor, has nothing whatever to fear, “even though an Erasmus should fall on him tooth and nail;” at the same time he begs him, with a most flattering eulogy of his gifts and standing, to consider well whether it would not be better to leave his (Luther’s) doctrines alone (“intacta dimittere”), and to busy himself with his own Humanist affairs. “I desire that the Lord may bestow on you a spirit worthy of your name. Should the Lord, however, still delay this gift, I would beg you meanwhile, if you can do nothing else, at least to remain a mere spectator of our tragedy; do not write against me or increase the number and strength of my opponents; particularly do not attack me through the press, and I for my part shall also refrain from attacking you.” The writer was all too well aware how heavily the words of Erasmus would weigh down the scale against him in public opinion.

Erasmus, however, was not to be moved from his decision; indeed, he felt still further provoked to write by an allusion of Luther’s in the above letter to the kindness he had hitherto displayed towards godless and hypocritical foes; should Erasmus dare to come forward against him publicly Luther vows he will alter this tone.[735] In the latter event Luther, in another passage of the letter, had declared regretfully, in perfect accordance with his theory of grace and the absence of free-will, that “Erasmus had not yet received from the Lord the gift of strength and an inward mind,” which would have enabled him to ally himself freely and trustfully with him (Luther) in his struggle with the monsters who were attacking him; even from Erasmus one could not expect what was beyond his power and lay outside his way. “On the contrary, we have accepted with patience and respect your weakness and the limitation of God’s gift in you.”

We may perhaps be permitted to remark here concerning the absence of the Divine action on the will, that Luther on other occasions did not allow himself to be swayed by “patience and respect,” as in the case of Erasmus, least of all when dealing with the Pope and his supporters. On the contrary, he reproves them severely for their “terrible blindness” and says, that the wrath of God had led to the setting up of an empire of error and lying, in spite of the Church having been so often warned by Christ and the Apostles against the Pope, i.e. Antichrist. The only explanation was in 2 Thessalonians ii. 10: “Therefore God sent upon them the operation of error, to believe lying”; “this operation was so great (‘illa energia tam potens fuit’) that they were blind even to the worst errors”; thus it was that they had set up their horrid Papacy. Out upon you, he cries to those, who, on the Lutheran hypothesis, were unable to do otherwise, “the overwhelming effect of your delusion defies all opposition” (“illa efficacia erroris potentissime restitit”). “But I have attacked the Pope in his very marrow and teaching, not merely his abuses.” “Had I not brought about his downfall by means of the Word, the devil himself would have vomited him forth.”[736]

The work of Erasmus, “De libero arbitrio diatribe,” which appeared in that same year, 1524, at Basle, was a severe blow to Luther.[737]

The ground chosen by Erasmus in his long-expected reply to all the questions raised by the Reformers, viz. the matter of free-will, was singularly apt; he launched forth at once into one of the most important subjects, one, too, which was readily understood by the people. His task was the exposure of the religion of the enslaved will.

Though the author was not thoroughly conversant with the learning of the Schoolmen, which might perhaps have enabled him to place the relationship between grace and free-will in an even clearer light, and though in the work he is rather reserved, yet his refinement of judgment and his eloquence more than compensate for his defects; these at least insured him great applause in an age so favourable to Humanism. Even the theologians were, on the whole, satisfied with the scriptural proofs adduced by so learned a man, whose linguistic knowledge and exegetical skill gave all the more weight to his work. Many cultured laymen breathed more freely, as though relieved of a heavy burden, when the authoritative voice of the great scholar was at last raised against Luther and in defence of free-will, that basic truth of sane human reason and pillar of all religious belief.

Ulrich Zasius, the Freiburg-im-Breisgau lawyer, who had hitherto been hesitating, wrote in enthusiastic praise of the work to Boniface Amerbach.[738] Duke George of Saxony expressed his thanks to the author in a letter, with the honest and not altogether unwarranted remark: “Had you come to your present decision three years ago, and withstood Luther’s shameful heresies in writing instead of merely opposing him secretly, as though you were not willing to do him much harm, the flames would not have extended so far and we should not now find ourselves in the distressing present state of things.”[739] The moderation with which the champion of free-will wrote, was commended even by Melanchthon in a letter to Erasmus (“perplacuit tua moderatio”).[740] With this, other critics, Martin Lipsius for instance, agreed.[741]

Luther was forced unwillingly to admit the kindness displayed by Erasmus, but the fact that the keen intellect of his opponent should have singled out for animadversion the most vital point of his teaching, as he termed it, was very bitter to him. The question dealt with, he said, certainly constituted the central point of the quarrel; it is absolutely essential that we should know what and how much we are capable of in our relations to God, otherwise we remain ignorant of God’s work, nay, of God Himself, and are unable to honour, to thank, or to serve Him.[742] Luther accordingly admitted, concerning Erasmus’s work—and this he was in his own way anxious to see regarded as it deserved—that the author, unlike his previous opponents, “had seized upon the real question at issue, the ‘summa causæ’ ”; he had not scolded him on the Papacy, indulgences and similar subjects, but had hit upon the cardinal point, and held the knife at his (Luther’s) throat. God had not, however, yet bestowed upon Erasmus the grace which would have fitted him to deal with the controversy. “God has not so willed nor given it; perhaps He may bestow it later and make this opponent capable of defending my doctrine more efficaciously than I can myself, seeing he is so far beyond me in all other things [especially in worldly learning].” These words, so remarkable from the psychological standpoint, are to be found in Luther’s reply.[743]

In his “Diatribe” Erasmus dwelt with emphasis and success on the fact that, according to Luther, not merely every good, but also every evil must be referred to God; this was in contradiction with the nature of God and was excluded by His holiness. According to Luther, God inflicted eternal damnation on sinners, whereas they, in so far as they were not free agents, could not be held responsible for their sins; what Luther had advanced demanded that God should act contrary to His eternal Goodness and Mercy; it would also follow that earthly laws and penalties were superfluous, because without free-will no one could be responsible; finally, the doctrine involved the overthrow of the whole moral order.

The scriptural passages bearing on the question, more particularly those appealed to by Luther in his “Assertio,” are examined with philological exactitude and with sobriety.

“Erasmus, in defending free-will,” writes A. Taube, a Protestant theologian, “fights for responsibility, duty, guilt and repentance, ideas which are essential to Christian piety. He vindicates the capacity of the natural man for salvation, without which the identity between the old and the new man cannot be maintained, and without which the new life imparted by God’s grace ceases to be a result of moral effort and becomes rather the last term of a magical process. He combats the fatalism which is incompatible with Christian piety and which Luther contrived to avoid only by his want of logic: he vindicates the moral character of the Christian religion, to which, from the standpoint of Luther’s theology, it was impossible to do justice.”[744]

The work of Erasmus reached Wittenberg in September, 1524. Luther treated it with contempt and ostentatiously repudiated it. He wrote to Spalatin, on November 1, that it disgusted him; he had been able to read only two pages of it; it was tedious to him to reply to so unlearned a book by so learned a man.[745] All the same, he did write a lengthy and detailed answer; that he delayed doing so until late in the following year is to be accounted for by the Peasant-War with its terrors, which entirely engrossed his attention; it was also the year of his marriage. In estimating the value of the reply, upon which he then set to work with great energy, we must bear in mind the state of the author and the inward and outward experiences through which he had just gone. The impression made on his mind by the events of those days has left its stamp in the even more than usually extreme utterances contained in his reply to Erasmus. When once he had begun the work he carried it to its end with a rush; he himself admits that it was composed in excessive haste. We also know to whose influence his final decision to take the work in hand was due, viz. to Catherine Bora. “It was only at her request” that he undertook the work, when she pointed out to him, “that his foes might see in his obstinate silence an admission of defeat.”[746]