Cornelius Gerard writes to Erasmus expressing deep gratitude for his friendship and intellectual engagement, particularly appreciating Erasmus's encouragement to correspond frequently and study together. He discusses Erasmus's recommendation to study Lorenzo Valla, humorously noting the controversy surrounding Valla while acknowledging the value of his works. The letter reflects their scholarly bond and shared enthusiasm for classical learning and theological figures like Jerome and Augustine.
CORNELIUS GOUDA TO ERASMUS, A MAN MOST LEARNED IN EVERY RESPECT, GREETINGS. The overflowing abundance of your affection, dearest Erasmus, while revealing itself in every part, has powerfully bound me to you with an immortal kindness. For what I long since requested from you and shall never cease to demand with all my prayers, you have assented to out of your singular goodwill and innate sweetness—not to say spontaneous readiness—but you have even added a crowning touch to our entreaties. For you write (nor do I believe you have written idly) that nothing has given you greater joy than that we should engage in shared studies and redeem our absence from one another with frequent letters. All these things, my Erasmus, cause me to love you exceedingly, and I shall not fail to speak with you more often through letters, and indeed justly so. For as it is the mark of an insolent man, according to Cicero, to answer poorly, so too is it the mark of a proud man to be unwilling to return any reply. Therefore, it is pleasing and delightful to me that my duty is required by you, and that I, unskilled and barefoot, am not scorned by you, who are most capable and truly excel. O noble genius, most pleasing in the amplitude of your love! O most sincere affection and most delightful spirit! For it was not enough for you to have heaped these same praises in words, unless you also strove to persuade me of the matter itself more clearly and effectively through the study of the ancients. Thus you set before me as an example two most perfect leaders of the Church in both knowledge and life—I speak of Jerome and Augustine—who, though they could not be together as much as they wished, were so joined by a union of spirits and shared studies that each was fully aware of the other’s mind and goodwill. Moreover, to the summit of your affection is added this: that you have wished not only to rouse me by the example of the saints to write, but also to furnish a master for me to imitate for elegance of style. Therefore, your earnest entreaty that I read Lorenzo Valla has both amused me and borne fruit. I know not what has become of your eyes (for now we jest in play) that you have set him before me to imitate, against whom very many men of no contemptible learning are known to have undertaken sworn battles, as they say, with joined hands. Has it escaped you what conflagrations Poggio, a man quite skilled in eloquence, has hurled against him? Or will it seem useful to you to have entrusted your friend to one whose studies he will be unable to follow without incurring envy? The persistent barking of many surrounds him, declaring that he ought not to be read—one who knows not, as they say, except to quibble over letters and pen-strokes. Poggio inveighs against Lorenzo with this tetrastich: *Now after the departed Valla sought the shades, Pluto does not dare to speak Latin. Jupiter would have deemed him worthy of honor among the celestials, But he himself fears him as a censor of his own tongue.* See, therefore, whether you have rightly entrusted me to him, whom the whole world pursues as a notorious and biting man. But we have jested about these matters for now. Furthermore, how much fruit I have gathered from his books at your admonition, you shall most easily perceive by your own judgment (if I do not seem arrogant) and even from this swiftly running pen of mine. Finally, how very pleasing it was to me that you point out your teachers to me, I cannot easily say. For by this you reveal a most sincere affection without any envy, and (a thing of the very few) you rejoice to make me a sharer with you in the store of your secrets. Farewell.