CHAP. I. history of Gaguinus was no exception to the rule. A.D. 1496. Whilst he was at Paris, a letter was shown to him which the historian had received from a scholar and acquaintance of rising celebrity in Paris, in which the new history was reviewed and praised. From the perusal of this letter, Colet formed a high estimate of the learning, and wide range of knowledge of its accomplished writer. But scholars were plentiful in Paris, and he was not personally introduced to this one in particular. He was not then, like Gaguinus, one of the lions of Paris, though he was destined to become one of the lions of History. Colet after reading his letter did not forget his name. Nor was it a name likely to be soon forgotten by posterity. 1 Eras. Epist. App. ccccxxxvii. 2 Eras. Epist. xi. CHAPTER II. I. COLET'S LECTURES ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS (1496-7 ?). To appreciate the full significance of Colet's lectures, CHAP. II. it is needful to bear in mind what was the current A.D. 1496. opinion of the scholastic divines of the period concern- The state ing the Scriptures, and what the practical mode of ture study exposition pursued by them at the Universities. The scholastic divines, holding to a traditional belief in the plenary and verbal inspiration of the whole Bible, and remorselessly pursuing this belief to its logical results, had fallen into a method of exposition almost exclusively text irian. The Bible, both in theory and in practice, had almost ceased to be a record of real events, and the lives and teaching of living men. It had become an arsenal of texts; and these texts were regarded as detached invincible weapons to be legitimately seized and wielded in theological warfare, for any purpose to which their words might be made to apply, without reference to their original meaning or context. of Scrip at Oxford, as verbally Thus, to take a practical example, when St. Jerome's The Bible opinion was quoted incidentally that possibly St. Mark, regarded in the second chapter of his Gospel, might by a slip of inspired. memory have written Abiathar' in mistake for 'Abi- exposition 'melech,' a learned divine, a contemporary of Colet's at Method of textarian. 6 CHAP. II. Oxford, nettled by the very supposition, declared posiA.D. 1496. tively that that could not be, unless the Holy Spirit ' himself could be mistaken;' and the only authority he thought it needful to cite in proof of the statement, was a text in Ezekiel: 'Whithersoever the Spirit went, thither ' likewise the wheels were lifted up to follow Him.'1 It was in vain that the reply was suggested that it is not 'for us to define in what manner the Spirit might use His instrument.' The divine triumphantly replied, The Spirit himself in Ezekiel has defined it. The 'wheels were not lifted up, except to follow the Spirit." This Oxford divine did not display any peculiar bigotry or blindness. He did but follow in the wellworn ruts of his scholastic predecessors. It had been solemnly laid down by Aquinas in the Summa,' that 1 ' inasmuch as God was the Author of the Holy Scrip ́tures, and all things are at one time present to His mind, therefore, under their single text, they express 'several meanings.' Their literal sense,' he continues, ' is manifold; their spiritual sense threefold-viz. alle'gorical, moral, anagogical.' And we have the evidence of another well-known Oxford student, also a contem Theory of manifold senses. 3 he was sent to St. Mary Magd. College (the college where Colet is supposed to have taken his degree of M.A.) in 1499.-Knight's Erasmus, p. 286. 2 Quod dicis (non est nostrum definire, quomodo spiritus ille suum 'temperârit organum) verum quidem est, sed spiritus ipse in Ezechiele nisi sequentes spiritum.'-Annotationes Edvardi Leei, p. 26. tiones Novi Testamenti Desiderii'definivit: Rotæ non elevabantur 3 9 Aquinas, Summa, pt. 1, quest. i. article x. porary with Colet at the University, that this was then CHAP. II. the prevalent view. Speaking of the dominant school AD. 1496. of divines, he remarks: They divide the Scripture into 'four senses, the literal, tropological, allegorical, and 6 6 sense neg ' anagogical-the literal sense has become nothing at ' all. . . . . . Twenty doctors expound one text twenty 6 ways, and with an antitheme of half an inch some of them draw a thread of nine days long.. They Literal 'not only say that the literal sense profiteth nothing, lected. but also that it is hurtful and noisesome and killeth the soul. And this they prove by a text of Paul, 2 Cor. iii., "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth • “life.” Lo! say they, the literal sense killeth, the spiritual sense giveth life." And the same student, in recollection of his intercourse at the Universities with divines of the traditional school in these early days, bears witness that' they were wont to look on no more Scripture than they found in their Duns; while at another time he complains that some of them will prove a point of the Faith as well out of a fable of 'Ovid or any other poet, as out of St. John's Gospel 'or Paul's Epistles.' Thus had the scholastic belief in the verbal inspiration of the sacred text led men blind- The Bible fold into a condition of mind in which they practically book. ignored the Scriptures altogether.* 1 Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man, chap. On the Four 'Senses of the Scriptures.' 2 2 Preface to the Five Books of ' up from a child in the University Moses. 3 Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man, chap. On the Four 'Senses of Scripture.' That Tyndale was at Oxford during Colet's stay there (i. e. before 1506), see the of Oxford,' and there is no reason to suppose that he removed to Cambridge before 1509. See Tyndale's Doctrinal Treatises, xiv. xv. and authorities there cited. 4 Sir Thomas More in a letter to a dead CHAP. II. Colet's lectures. Such was the state of things at Oxford when Colet A.D. 1496. commenced his lectures. The very boldness of the lecturer and the novelty of the subject were enough to draw an audience at once. Doctors and abbots, men of ali ranks and titles, flocked with the students into the lecture hall, led by curiosity doubtless at first, or it may be, like the Pharisees of old, bent upon finding somewhat whereof they might accuse the man whom they wished to silence. But since they came again and again, as the term went by, bringing their note-books with them, it soon became clear that they continued to come with some better purpose.1 Colet's style of Colet already, at thirty, possessed the rare gift of speaking. saying what he had to say in a few telling words, throwing into them an earnestness which made every one feel that they came from his heart. You say what you mean, and mean what you say. Your words have 'birth in your heart, not on your lips. They follow your thoughts, instead of your thoughts being shaped 6 6 by them. You have the happy art of expressing with ease what others can hardly express with the greatest labour.' Such was the first impression made by Colet's eloquence upon one of the greatest scholars of the day, |