He remained outside the group
of radical reformers, to the end devoted to his favorite authors,
simply a lover of good Latin.
Perhaps the chief reason why Erasmus opposed Protestantism was because
he imagined that the theological tempest which Luther aroused all over
Catholic Europe would destroy fair-minded scholarship--the very essence
of humanism. Be that as it may, the leading humanists of Europe--More
in England, Helgesen in Denmark, and Erasmus himself--remained
Catholic. And while many of the sixteenth-century humanists of Italy
grew skeptical regarding all religion, their country, as we have seen,
did not become Protestant but adhered to the Roman Church.
[Sidenote: Decline of Humanism]
Gradually, as the sixteenth century advanced, many persons who in an
earlier generation would have applied their minds to the study of Latin
or Greek, now devoted themselves to theological discussion or moral
exposition. The religious differences between Catholics and
Protestants, to say nothing of the refinements of dispute between
Calvinists and Lutherans or Presbyterians and Congregationalists,
absorbed much of the mental energy of the time and seriously distracted
the humanists.
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