Non possum litteris tibi satis significare praesentem huius regionis et horum temporum statum; aut ego nihil video, aut aliquid monstri alitur inter multas regiones et ciuitates quasdam precipuas. Ex hoc famulo multa disces quae litteris mandare tutum non est. Hortaris vt scribam in Lutherum; atqui iam id feci, non semel testatus me ab ea factione semper fuisse ac fore alienissimum. Testor me quoscumque potui dehortatum ab ea factione et semper dehortaturum, idque feci et facio sedulo, nec sine fructu. Id est cur potissimum in me fremunt Lutherani. Promiserant enim sibi triumphum si vel siluissem, vt possent abuti apud populum meo nomine. Vix ceperam scribere librum in illum; mox ad odorem eius rei ceperunt plane furere, adeo vt sit mihi relinquenda Germania; quam vtinam numquam vidissem! (Allen ep. 1386, perhaps to Theodoric Hezius, Basel, 16 September 1523)
“I cannot give you an adequate idea in a letter of the present state of affairs in this region and these times we live in. Either I am quite blind, or some monstrous thing is hatching between many regions and certain of the leading cities. The servant who brings this will be able to tell you much that it is not safe to entrust to a letter. You urge me to write against Luther; but this I have already done, having gone on record more than once that I have always been, and always shall be, the most complete stranger to that faction. I assure you that I have dissuaded everyone I could from joining it and shall always do so; I have done this, and continue to do it assiduously and not without results. This is why Luther’s party are furious with me particularly. They had promised themselves a glorious victory if I had simply kept my mouth shut, so that they could use my name as they pleased in their propaganda. I had scarcely started writing a book against him when they got wind of it and began to fly into a perfect fury, such that I have to leave Germany. How I wish I had never set eyes on it!” (Translation CWE)
Erasmus is writing to Italy, defending his orthodoxy and trying to maintain the precarious balance in which he finds himself, squeezed in between Catholicism and emergent Protestantism but time and again confirming his steadfast adherence to the Catholic church. He finds solace in Christ himself, but also in seeing that princes and rulers take advantage from his writings, including kings and emperors, as he boasts in the letter.
Raf Van Rooy 