If we examine the passages in the writings of Erasmus bearing upon the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves confronted by two sets of utterances in direct opposition to each other. Those in the one set tend to destroy the chief Scriptural arguments invoked in aid of these dogmata; those in the other, on the contrary, protest with animation against accusations of Arianism, and display the official dogma. The passages coming under the former category are in general to be met with in his Annotations and in his Preface to the Works of St. Hilary.
One of the most remarkable is the note upon the celebrated verse 1 John v. 7. Having justified his omission of this gloss by the testimony of the Fathers and of the oldest manuscripts, Erasmus adds (Opp. v. 1080):
"But some will say that this verse is an effective weapon against the Arians. Very true. But the moment it is proved that the reading did not exist of old, either among the Greeks or among the Latins, this weapon is no longer worth anything....Even admitting it were undisputed, do we think the Arians such blockheads as not to have applied the same interpretation [as in the previous verse] to the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit? . . . Such performances rather compromise than strengthen the faith. Far better is it to employ our pious studies in endeavouring to resemble God, than in indiscreet discussion with a view to ascertain wherein the Son is distinguished from the Father, and wherein the Holy Spirit differs from the other two."
On the other hand, in his Explication of the Apostles' Creed, and in his Apology, addressed to Alfonso Manrico, Archbishop of Seville, against the heretical articles extracted from his works by certain Spanish monks, Erasmus expresses his adhesion to the Trinitarian dogma in these terms:
"All my studies, in innumerable places, clearly proclaim agreement with the definition of the Trinity handed down by the Catholic Church, namely, the equality of the Divine nature in three persons; or better still, the same undivided essence in three persons, distinct in that which is peculiar to each (proprietates), but not in nature."
This contradiction is not merely apparent, but real. It results from the false attitude which Erasmus had assumed towards the Roman Church, opposing the ignorant and fanatical monks in behoof of the rights of philology and criticism, but in the last resort subordinating—we were going to say sacrificing—the results of his inquiry to the authority of the Church. Erasmus resembles an astronomer who should come and tell you, "All my observations lead me to think that there is but one sphere in the sun; but the Church teaches that there are three, so I bow to its decision." He makes this avowal in his letter to Wilibald Pirckheimer, when he says, "The Church has so much authority in my eyes, that I would subscribe to Arianism and to Pelagianism, if these doctrines were approved by the Church."
If Erasmus was not Unitarian, in the proper sense of the term, he at any rate, by his strictly philological exegesis, supplied weapons to the adversaries of the Trinity, particularly to the Anabaptists of the Low Countries. What is more, this most moderate of the initiators of the Reformation, with his strong good sense, and a spirit of tolerance almost unknown in that age, pleaded the cause of these radicals against the magistrates of Zurich, who mercilessly carried out Zwingli's cruel jest upon the Anabaptists: "Qui iterum mergunt, mergantur ipsi" (Dip the twice dippers, and drown them).
"What," cries he, speaking of the people of Zurich, "they maintain that their own friends ought not to be punished with death as heretics, and yet they put to death the Anabaptists, though these are people against whom hardly a reproach can be cast, yea, though many of them have given up a very bad, and taken to a very virtuous life. Mistakes they may commit, but never have they laid siege to towns and churches."
I cannot see any contradiction between these two verses.
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