While we are quarreling over the booty the victory will slip through our fingers.
It is the old story of private interests destroying the commonwealth." Erasmus first expressed the opinion, often maintained since, that Europe was experiencing a gradual revival both of Christian piety and of sound learning, when Luther's boisterous attack plunged the world into a tumult in which both were lost sight of.

On March 30, 1527, he wrote to Maldonato: I brought it about that sound learning, which among the Italians and especially among the Romans savored of nothing but pure paganism, began nobly to celebrate Christ, in whom we ought to boast as the sole author of both wisdom and happiness if we are true Christians.

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I always avoided the character of a dogmatist, except in certain _obiter dicta_ which seemed to me conducive to correct studies and against the preposterous judgments of men.
In the same letter he tells how hard he had fought the obscurantists, and adds: "While we were waging a fairly equal battle against these monsters, behold {107} Luther suddenly arose and threw the apple of Discord into the world." In short, Erasmus left the Reformers not because they were too liberal, but because they were too conservative, and because he disapproved of violent methods.