"Nor did I come hither to teach poetry or rhetoric, which have ceased to be agreeable to me since they ceased to be necessary. I refuse the one, because it does not accord with my plans, the other because it is beyond my powers. You blame me wrongly in the one case, my dear Colet, because I have never had before me the profession of so-called secular literature, and you urge me in vain to the other, because I know that I am unequal to it. Besides, if I were never so fit, I could not do it, for I must soon go back to my deserted Paris." We seem to find here a suggestion that Colet had laid before him two propositions,--one that he might become a teacher of the classic literature in which he was already a master; the other that he should join with himself in setting the meaning of Scripture free from the absurd trammels which the scholastic methods of interpretation had laid upon it. Either of these tasks, with a reasonable prospect of support and the delightful intercourse of academic life, would, one must suppose, have been a supreme attraction for Erasmus. The only possible explanation of his refusal is his dread of putting his neck into any yoke whatever, no matter how easy it might be. A possible suggestion of this motive is found in the somewhat enigmatic sentence that "poetry and rhetoric had ceased to interest him since they had ceased to be necessary." This may have meant that literature in itself was important to him only as a means of livelihood, and since he was, at least temporarily, provided for, he did not care to teach it at Oxford. Literature was henceforth to be a means to the higher end of redeeming theology, the _regina disciplinarum_, the "queen of sciences," from her present degradation. But for this latter work he was not as yet prepared. If we ask why he did not choose to continue his preparation under the very favourable conditions at Oxford, we may perhaps find a partial answer in his deep-seated dislike of the work of teaching. He could talk beautifully about it, but it seems pretty clear that he always hated it. So Oxford lost a professor, but the world gained a man. CHAPTER IV PARIS--THE "ADAGIA"--THE "ENCHIRIDION MILITIS CHRISTIANI"--PANEGYRIC ON PHILIP OF BURGUNDY 1500-1506