Platonic Justice, designed by Raphael

Abstract

Death and he who takes Terminus for his emblem-are correlated speakers and express fundamentally the same idea. But in times of distress, when minds grow incensed with bigotry and proffer accusations of arrogance and conceit, it might be wiser to let Death speak alone and for man to be silent. By observing this silence, Erasmus gave up part of his emblem and, with it, part of his old allegiances. He had felt in sympathy with the religious reformers, but was shocked by the violence of Luther's apostasy. He had rejoiced in the revival of classical studies, but felt now forsaken by the Italian humanists. Many of these had abandoned the cause of " bone litere ". They accused him of having laid the eggs which had been hatched by Luther. The most prominent members of the old circle of Aldus had become his avowed enemies. Alberto Pio himself prepared an open attack. Under the impact of this changed situation Erasmus seems to have taken pains to erase from the explanation of his emblem any trace of his indebtedness to his former friends and present enemies. It is curious to observe-and it cannot be an accidentthat in telling the story of Terminus in his " Apology" he omits without exception every one of the sources which Gyraldus had cited and which he used to cite himself: Ovid, Gellius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. He seems intent upon stressing his " independence ". Of classical authors he quotes only the one whom Gyraldus had omitted-Livy. He adds two Christian authors, St. Augustine and St. Ambrose. Of his contemporaries he mentions neither Politianus nor, of course, Gyraldus himself. And the chief inspirer of his emblem, the man who had first seen the stone and identified it as Terminus, has become an anonymous figure : " Italus quidam, antiquarum rerum curiosus."