Note 50 — Front matter

Erasmus, alas, is hardly to be reckoned among them. The letter, of the year 1500, to Abbot Antonius à Bergis, in which he gives an account of a witch prosecution, and which has been too hastily cited by Soldan (and by so many on his authority) as showing his skepticism, is rather an evidence of his credulity. The “novum et inauditum portentum” at which he pretends to shudder is not the witch-trial, but the alleged crime itself. Nor is there any thing in his “Praise of Folly” that can prove him incredulous on this point. Yet, is Mr. Lecky quite right in thinking that “Erasmus was an equally firm believer in witchcraft” with Luther? Even in his letter to the Abbot he scores the meanness, the duplicity, and the vanity of the Dominican tale-bearer; if he does not share, he certainly does not censure, the hesitation of his friend the Official to believe the astounding things revealed under the torture; and the holy horror which he displays to his clerical patron has a factitious ring. Certainly he was as far from defending as from denying the inquisitorial theory; and the whole tenor of his pen toward monkish superstitions must have strengthened the courage of those who questioned this one also.