had Himself traced the development.  Luther moved him sometimes to sarcasm.  Toleration and comprehension were the watchwords of Erasmus.  “Reduce the dogmas necessary to be believed,” he said, “to the smallest possible number; you can do it without danger to the realities of Christianity.  On other points, either discourage inquiry, or leave every one to believe what he pleases-then we shall have no more quarrels, and religion will again take hold of life.”  The subject was not a new one to Froude.  He had lectured on Erasmus and Luther at Newcastle five-and-twenty years before.  The contrast between the two reformers is perennially interesting.  Goethe, a supreme critic, thought that reform of the Church should have been left to Erasmus, and that Luther was a misfortune.

But then Goethe, though he understood religious enthusiasm, did not see the need for it, and would have tolerated such a Pope as Leo X., who had excellent taste in literature, rather than see issues submitted to the people which should be left for the learned to decide.

The weak point of Froude’s Erasmus is the inaccuracy of its verbal scholarship.  “Sir,” said Dr. Johnson of a loose scholar, “he makes out the Latin from the meaning, not the meaning from the Latin.”  This biting sarcasm would be inapplicable to Froude, who knew the dead languages, as they are called, well enough to read them with ease and enjoyment.  But he took in the general sense of a passage so quickly that he did not always, even in translating, stop to consider the precise significance of every word.  Literal conformity with the original text is of course not possible or desirable in a paraphrase.  What Froude did not sufficiently consider was the difference between the translation and the translator himself, who cannot paraphrase properly unless he renders literally in his own mind.  Froude gave abundant proof of his good faith by quoting in notes some of the very passages which are incorrectly rendered above.  A great deal has been made by a Catholic critic of the fact that the book which checked Ignatius Loyola’s “devotional emotions” was not Erasmus’s Greek Testament, but his Enchiridion Militis Christiani, Christian Soldier’s Manual.  This mistake was unduly favourable to the saint.  Froude did not mean to imply that it was the actual words of Scripture which had this effect upon Ignatius.  He was referring to the great scholar’s own notes, which are polemical, and not intended to please monks.  The founder of the Jesuits would have doubtless regarded them as most detestable blasphemy.  The Enchiridion, on the other hand, is a purely devotional book, though written for a man of the world.