was the lord mayor of London and a rich dealer in fabrics. Thus John, born in 1466, had all the opportunities which wealth and position could assure him.
He began his education at St. Anthony’s, which rated as one of London’s famous schools of that period. When he was seventeen he entered Oxford, where he remained until he attained the M.A. degree in 1494. Following this he spent two years in Italy for further study.
Although it is not definitely known whether he became acquainted personally with Savonarola or ever heard this fiery, flaming preacher, it seems probable that he did, for by some biographers he has been termed Savonarola’s spiritual disciple. A comparison of the principles of the two men reveals that they were identical. Both wished to reform the church without a revolution, without breaking with the church, yet all the while both preached the Scriptures with clarity and devotion as they waged unrelenting warfare against the worldliness of monks and priests.
His two years in Italy made him an excellent Greek scholar and gave him a deep insight into the writings of the New Testament. In 1496 he was back in Oxford, where he began the series of lectures based on Paul’s letter to the Romans. His singular approach to this subject brought him hearers, not only from the ranks of the students, but also from among the Oxford abbots and lecturers in the various faculties. Instead of using the method of exposition followed by the schoolmen when explaining Biblical texts, namely that of drawing out a “thread nine days long from an antitheme of half an inch,” Colet considered each epistle as a real letter from a living man addressed to his fellow men.
In his presentation he showed deep earnestness and an anxious endeavor to make the epistles alive to his hearers. This type of lecturing was
something distinctly new, and needless to say did not bring him into favor with the schoolmen, for his views were too far advanced for them. But his procedure elevated him in the minds of the students and made him dearly beloved by the common people, while leaving him without preferment by the officials of Oxford university.
When Erasmus came to England in 1498, Colet took him to his bosom as a friend and companion. He perhaps loved Erasmus as he never loved
anyone else, or anyone else ever loved Erasmus. For parts of two years the two men talked and argued, Colet, all the while hoping to win Erasmus to complete conversion in order to make of him a colaborer in the cause of England’s reformation. But this Colet, did not succeed in doing;
nonetheless Erasmus received his greatest impetus toward Christianity from Colet. In much of this comradeship, Sir Thomas More, a young lawyer and author of Utopia, was a trusted and sympathetic partner.
After having the doctor’s degree conferred upon him in 1505, Colet was installed as clean of St. Paul’s Cathedral by order of Henry VII. Here he expounded and preached in much the same manner as he had at Oxford, never taking an isolated text and preaching upon it, but carrying forward a series of sermons upon some book of the Bible, preferably the epistles.
Here Sir Thomas More came to hear him and received much comfort and spiritual enlightenment.
Shortly after his appointment to this highly influential position, Colet, began to propound his ideas of reform, in which purpose he was
repeatedly opposed by the clergymen who functioned as counselors to the bishop of London, Colet’s immediate superior. Colet found little to
commend in church tradition, he rejected the teachings of scholastic divines, he cast aside the writings of such men as Thomas Aquinas, and went back to the words and life of Christ.
Fearlessness, frankness, and freedom characterized all his preaching. He ably promoted the ideals of Christian education, personal religion, and piety marked by simplicity. Wherever worldliness and corruption raised its head, even among the order of which he was a member, he exposed it without fear or favor. W. Hudson Shaw stated in The Oxford Reformers,
“No such preaching as Colet’s, it may be safely asserted, had been heard in England for a hundred years.”
But in spite of his influential position as dean of St. Paul’s he exhibited no sign of vanity. It is said of him that during a period of nearly universal debauchery he lived a life of blameless purity. In his expenditures on himself he was very frugal. For years he abstained from supper, yet he set an acceptable table which was neither expensive nor excessive. He had many guests of whom it was said that they always left better than they came. This doubtless referred to Colet’s ability to enliven the meal by
challenging conversation in which he deftly drew out many of the more reticent.
In 1510 Colet founded his famous St. Paul’s School and thereby instituted educational as well as ecclesiastical reforms. He started a revolution in secondary middle-class education which has beneficially influenced education in England down to the present time. More than one hundred fifty boys in his school each year studied Christian authors who wrote chastely in Latin and Greek. Colet remarked,
“My intent is by this school specially to increase knowledge, and worshiping of God and our Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and manners in the children.” — Samuel Knight, Life of Colet, page 364.
To secure the best, most capable teachers for his school, Colet went to great lengths, even providing proper remuneration for their services, a well-nigh unheard of procedure in those days. As evidence of his estimation of Christian teachers, he asserted that he considered “the education of youth the most honorable of all callings, and that there could be no labor more pleasing to God than the Christian training of boys.”
New textbooks also needed to be written, for the old ones contained too much contaminating material, and in this project his friend Erasmus lent a helping hand.
Before his death, Colet made explicit provision that the control and management of the school not fall into the hands of the church. It is said that he expended approximately $200,000 of his private fortune on this institution.
At this time Lollardism, which had perhaps never been completely stamped out since Wycliffe’s day, was again in the ascendency, possibly because of Colet’s preaching; at least the Lollards came in droves to hear him preach. As their numbers grew, martyr fires became common
occurrences, until in 1512 the archbishop of Canterbury summoned a convocation of clergymen to meet in St. Paul’s Cathedral, primarily for the purpose of eradicating heresy. Colet was invited by the archbishop to present the opening address.
Colet’s initial remarks are worthy of quoting since they show the
fearlessness of the man and his intense desire for a basic reform, especially in the lives of the clergy. He said,
“You are come together today, fathers and right wise men, to hold a council. I wish that, mindful of your name and profession, ye would consider the reformation of ecclesiastical affairs; for never was it more necessary, and never did the state of the church more need your endeavors. For the church, the spouse of Christ, which He wished to he without spot or wrinkle, is become foul and deformed.” — Shaw, The Oxford Beformers, pages 21,22.
Throughout the sermon he inveighed against the pride of life, the
covetousness, the lust of the flesh, and the numerous worldly occupations which beset the clergy.
This address had not the slighest effect in bringing about the reform he desired; on the contrary, it earned him the enmity of some of the most influential churchmen and made him a marked man. The bishop of London preferred charges of heresy against him, but these were promptly and angrily rejected by the archbishop of Canterbury. For a short time only was Colet denied the privilege of preaching in St. Paul’s, and this because he had translated the Pater Noster into English.
But his life was spared from the burning pyre or the axman, and he once more preached with all boldness and straightforwardness from his pulpit in St. Paul’s.
At this time Henry VIII was relentlessly waging war on the Continent.
Colet took up verbal cudgels against the king’s foreign policy, for it blasted his vision of an approaching age of spiritual rejuvenation. Colet’s enemies thought that surely now they would have their chance to get their quarry. But when summoned to the royal court, Colet by discretion and moderation satisfied the mind of the king that there could be a just war lawful to Christians. He gained the king’s favor to the extent that no one could touch Colet from thenceforward, although the bishop of London did not cease to harass him until the day of his death, which came in 1519.
Colet is listed among the great of earth because of his far-reaching influence upon the lives of others. His power over a large number of people was
nowhere more apparent than during his deanship of St. Paul’s, when the pulpit of the cathedral literally became the focal point for men of every class of life — the merchant, the courtier, the beggar, the highest of earth, and the humblest classes. It was Colet who influenced More and Erasmus, the other two of the Oxford Reformers. More owed his convictions to Colet; and Erasmus, who received from Colet whatever spiritual tone his studies acquired, called Colet, “My best-beloved teacher.”
Colet was the originator of the Oxford Reformers, the leader of the English Renaissance, the founder of St. Paul’s School, and the father of rational Christianity. His high moral character and his never-flagging interest in promoting a higher level of Christian practice and thought in the church gives him the exalted status accorded him.
Colet died before the Reformation under the direction of Luther burst upon Europe in all its political, economic, and religious fury. Luther had not yet broken with the pope. It seems that Colet sympathized with Luther’s views and his attack on indulgences. He had read Luther’s pamphlet, which had reached England. Conjecture as to what position he would have taken on Luther’s Reformation had he lived must remain in the realm of pure speculation, although some assert he would have remained with the church.
Upon hearing of Colet’s death, his colleague, Sir Thomas More, said:
“For generations we have not had amongst us any one man more learned or holy?” And Erasmus, Colet’s close friend, remarked tearfully: “What a man has England and what a friend have I lost!”
— Frederic Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, page 16.