“Your letter was delivered to me late and had it come on time it would not have moved me.... The whole world knows your nature, according to which you have guided your pen against no one more bitterly and, what is more detestable, more maliciously than against me.... The same admirable ferocity which you formerly used against Cochlaeus and against Fisher, who provoked you to it by reviling, you now use against my book in spite of its courtesy. How do your scurrilous charges that I am an atheist, an Epicurean, and a skeptic help the argument?... It terribly pains me, as it must all good men, that your arrogant, insolent, rebellious nature has set the world in arms.... You treat the Evangelic cause so as to confound together all things sacred and profane as if it were your chief aim to prevent the tempest from ever becoming calm, while it is my greatest desire that it should die down.... I should wish you a better disposition were you not so marvelously satisfied with the one you have. Wish me any curse you will except your temper, unless the Lord change it for you.” Much has been made of the following “damning” admission: “Would that some ‘deus ex machina’ might make a happy ending for this drama so inauspiciously begun by Luther! He himself gives his enemies the dart by which they transfix him, and acts as if he did not wish to be saved, though frequently warned by me and by his friends to tone down the sharpness of his style.... I cannot sufficiently wonder at the spirit in which he has written. Certainly he has loaded the cultivators of literature with heavy odium. Many of his teachings and admonitions were splendid, but would that he had not vitiated these good things by mixing intolerable evils! If he had written all things piously, yet I should not have courage to risk my life for the truth. All men have not strength for martyrdom. I fear least, if any tumult should arise, I should imitate Peter (in denying the Lord).” It is doubtful if Erasmus meant this confession of weakness to be taken literally. Cowards are not often so honest with themselves, nor do they make such candid revelations of their fears, but rather affect a show of bravery so long as it is possible to disguise their weakness of character. Had Erasmus been less strong, he would have yielded to pressure, joined the reformers and sought refuge among them. Instead, he stood against the crowd, knowing well that although he might decline to join the ranks of Luther, there was no refuge for him amongst the churchmen whom he had been attacking for many years. He did not betray his own cause, the Renaissance, but remained true to it in opposition to bigotry and ignorance on both sides of the controversy. In support of the revival of learning he was courageous enough. Surrounded as he was by madness, he conceived it to be the task of the wise man to keep his balance and work for peace and sanity.