Note 715 — Chapter XIV · (continued 2)

To quote here only one instance, Luther says (1544) in the “Tischreden” of Mathesius, edited by Kroker, p. 343, that he desired that the “Annotationes in Novum Testamentum” by Erasmus (a much-esteemed and really epoch-making work) should not be further disseminated, “because it contains Epicureanism and other poison.” Erasmus had destroyed many “in body, soul, and spirit,” and had been an “originator of the ‘Sakramentirer’”; he had injured the gospel as much as he had furthered the interests of learning. “He was a terrible man, and Zwingli was led astray by him. Egranus [Johann Wildenauer of Eger, who forsook the Wittenberg teaching] he had also perverted, and he now believes just about as much as Erasmus; his end was “sine crux et sine lux.” The latter remark concerning Erasmus’s death calls for explanation. Erasmus arrived in August, 1535, in a weak state of health at Basle, a city already despoiled of every vestige of Catholic worship—in order to supervise the printing of his “Origenes” by the celebrated Basle printers. His illness had been increasing since March, 1536, and in the night of the 11th to 12th July of that year he died unexpectedly and without having received the sacraments. A fortnight before this, on June 28, in a letter to a friend, Johann Goclen, he had expressed his regret that he was lying ill in a city dominated by the reformers. On account of the difference in religion he would rather be summoned out of this life elsewhere. “Ep.,” 1299. “Opp.,” 3, col. 1522.