Desiderius erasmus pictures

All Ultimate Vital Uncut Foundation. All Archive greater than 20 years old. Desiderius erasmus Stock Photos and Images 1, See desiderius erasmus stock video clips. Desiderius erasmus Stock Photos and Images. Desiderius Erasmus. Color halftone reproduction of the portrait by Holbein. Portrait of the Dutch theologian. After a miniature by Hans Holbein.

Dutch Renaissance humanist and Catholic Christian theologian. He was venerated by Catholics as Saint Thomas More. Erasmus Desiderius of Rotterdam was a Dutch Renaissance humanist. He lived from to Erasmus was also a Catholic priest, a social critic, a teacher, and a theologian. He wrote many works, and one of the best known is Praise of Folly.

Dutch Renaissance humanist and a Catholic Christian theologian. Dutch Renaissance humanist. Dutch humanist and scholar. Erasmus in conversation with his friends Thomas More , John Colet c , and Ammonius possibly Thomas Linacre c at Oxford, c Color engraving, English, 17th ce. Berlin, Germany. Over Berlin, Germany, on October 29, Bronze coin depicting Desiderius Erasmus.

Liebig collectors card, Dutch humanist and theologian. Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus , known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus, a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. Painting by Hans Holbein the Younger c. The portrait depicts the humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam as a half-length figure against a blue background, facing left.

Erasmus wears the typical clothes of a scholar: a black gown with a high collar and a fur lining, visible on the lapels and the sleeves, and a black hat. TTha panel is from the same tree as planks used for the linked panels; therefore the youngest annual ring is from ; the earliest felling date is ; followuing a two year seasoning period the panel could have been used from Removal of date '' not authentic , next to the sitter's shoulder in conservation treatment after Please contact us, if you have noticed a mistake.

DE EN. Erasmus was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a spontaneous, copious and natural Latin style. Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious reformations. He developed a biblical humanistic theology in which he advocated the religious and civil necessity both of peaceable concord and of pastoral tolerance on matters of indifference.

He remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the church from within. He promoted what he understood as the traditional doctrine of synergism , which some prominent reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin rejected in favor of the doctrine of monergism. His influential middle-road approach disappointed, and even angered, partisans in both camps.

Erasmus's almost 70 years may be divided into quarters. Desiderius Erasmus is reported to have been born in Rotterdam on 27 or 28 October "the vigil of Simon and Jude" [ 6 ] in the late s. He was named [ note 4 ] after Erasmus of Formiae , whom Erasmus' father Gerard Gerardus Helye [ 7 ] personally favored.

Desiderius erasmus pictures

The year of Erasmus' birth is unclear: in later life he calculated his age as if born in , but frequently his remembered age at major events actually implies Furthermore, many details of his early life must be gleaned from a fictionalized third-person account he wrote in published in in a letter to a fictitious Papal secretary, Lambertus Grunnius "Mr.

His parents could not be legally married: his father, Gerard, was a Catholic priest [ 15 ] who may have spent up to six years in the s or 60s in Italy as a scribe and scholar. She may have been Gerard's housekeeper. His only sibling Peter might have been born in , and some writers suggest Margaret was a widow and Peter was the half-brother of Erasmus; Erasmus on the other hand called him his brother.

Erasmus' own story, in the possibly forged Compendium vitae Erasmi was along the lines that his parents were engaged, with the formal marriage blocked by his relatives presumably a young widow or unmarried mother with a child was not an advantageous match ; his father went to Italy to study Latin and Greek, and the relatives misled Gerard that Margaretha had died, on which news grieving Gerard romantically took Holy Orders, only to find on his return that Margaretha was alive; many scholars dispute this account.

In his father became the vice-curate of the small town of Woerden where young Erasmus may have attended the local vernacular school to learn to read and write and in was promoted to vice-curate of Gouda. Erasmus was given the highest education available to a young man of his day, in a series of monastic or semi-monastic schools. In , at the age of 6 or 9 , his family moved to Gouda and he started at the school of Pieter Winckel, [ 7 ] who later became his guardian and, perhaps, squandered Erasmus and Peter's inheritance.

Historians who date his birth in have Erasmus in Utrecht at the choir school at this period. Lebuin's Church. Towards the end of his stay there the curriculum was renewed by the new principal of the school, Alexander Hegius , a correspondent of pioneering rhetorician Rudolphus Agricola. For the first time in Europe north of the Alps, Greek was taught at a lower level than a university [ 21 ] and this is where he began learning it.

Following the death of his parents, as well as 20 fellow students at his school, [ 11 ] he moved back to his patria Rotterdam? In , around the age 14 or 17 , he and his brother went to a cheaper [ 25 ] grammar school or seminary at 's-Hertogenbosch run by the Brethren of the Common Life : [ 26 ] [ note 5 ] Erasmus' Epistle to Grunnius satirizes them as the "Collationary Brethren" [ 14 ] who select and sort boys for monkhood.

He was exposed there to the Devotio moderna movement and the Brethren's famous book The Imitation of Christ but resented the harsh rules and strict methods of the religious brothers and educators. Eventually Erasmus moved to the same abbey as a postulant in or before , [ 7 ] around the age of 16 or Augustine [ note 8 ] there in late at age 19 or Aiden Gasquet later wrote: "One thing, however, would seem to be quite clear; he could never have had any vocation for the religious life.

His whole subsequent history shows this unmistakably. Certain abuses in religious orders were among the chief objects of his later calls to reform the Western Church from within, particularly coerced or tricked recruitment of immature boys the fictionalized account in the Letter to Grunnius calls them "victims of Dominic and Francis and Benedict" : Erasmus felt he had belonged to this class, joining "voluntarily but not freely" and so considered himself, if not morally bound by his vows, certainly legally, socially and honour- bound to keep them, yet to look for his true vocation.

While at Stein, or year-old Erasmus fell in unrequited love, forming what he called a "passionate attachment" Latin : fervidos amores , with a fellow canon, Servatius Rogerus, [ note 9 ] and wrote a series of love letters [ note 10 ] [ 38 ] in which he called Rogerus "half my soul", [ note 11 ] writing that "it was not for the sake of reward or out of a desire for any favour that I have wooed you both unhappily and relentlessly.

What is it then? Why, that you love him who loves you. His works notably praise moderate sexual desire in marriage between men and women. In , his prior arranged for him to leave the Stein house [ 43 ] and take up the post of Latin Secretary to the ambitious Bishop of Cambrai , Henry of Bergen, on account of his great skill in Latin and his reputation as a man of letters.

He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood either on 25 April , [ 27 ] or 25 April , at age 25 or From , he avoided returning to the canonry at Stein even insisting the diet and hours would kill him, [ note 18 ] though he did stay with other Augustinian communities and at monasteries of other orders in his travels. Rogerus, who became prior at Stein in , and Erasmus corresponded over the years, with Rogerus demanding Erasmus return after his studies were complete.

Nevertheless, the library of the canonry [ note 19 ] ended up with by far the largest collection of Erasmus' publications in the Gouda region. In , Pope Julius II granted a dispensation [ 48 ] from the vow of poverty to the extent of allowing Erasmus to hold certain benefices, and from the control and habit of his order , though he remained a priest and, formally, an Augustinian canon regular [ note 20 ] the rest his life.

He enjoyed horseback riding. There is no record of him graduating. Erasmus stayed in England at least three times. In he was invited to England by William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy , who offered to accompany him on his trip to England. During his first visit to England in , he studied or taught at the University of Oxford. There is no record of him gaining any degree.

Erasmus was particularly impressed by the Bible teaching of John Colet , who pursued a style more akin to the church fathers than the Scholastics. Through the influence of the humanist John Colet, his interests turned towards theology. This prompted him, upon his return from England to Paris, to intensively study the Greek language, which would enable him to study theology on a more profound level.

Erasmus also became fast friends with Thomas More , a young law student considering becoming a monk, whose thought e. Erasmus left London with a full purse from his generous friends, to allow him to complete his studies. However, he had been provided with bad legal advice by his friends: the English Customs officials confiscated all the gold and silver, leaving him with nothing except a night fever that lasted several months.

In , Erasmus went to Brabant, ultimately to the university at Louvain. In he was hired by the leaders of the Brabantian "Provincial States" to deliver one of his few public speeches, a very long formal panegyric for the Philip "the Fair" , Duke of Burgundy and later King of Castille: the first half being the conventional extravagant praise, but the second half being a strong treatment of the miseries of war, the need for neutrality and conciliation with the neighbours France and England , [ 68 ] and the excellence of peaceful rulers: that real courage in a leader was not to wage war but to put a bridle on greed, etc.

Erasmus then returned to Paris in For Erasmus' second visit, he spent over a year staying at recently married Thomas More 's house, now a lawyer and Member of Parliament, honing his translation skills. Erasmus preferred to live the life of an independent scholar and made a conscious effort to avoid any actions or formal ties that might inhibit his individual freedom.

In he was able to accompany and tutor the sons of the personal physician of the English King through Italy to Bologna. His discovery en route of Lorenzo Valla 's New Testament Notes was a major event in his career and prompted Erasmus to study the New Testament using philology. Erasmus stayed tutoring in Bologna for a year; [ note 26 ] in the winter, Erasmus was present when Pope Julius II entered victorious into the conquered Bologna which he had besieged before.

Aldus wrote that Erasmus could do twice as much work in a given time as any other man he had ever met. In , according to his letters, he studied advanced Greek in Padua with the Venetian natural philosopher, Giulio Camillo. In , Erasmus arrived at More's bustling house, was confined to bed to recover from his recurrent illness, and wrote The Praise of Folly , which was to be a best-seller.

More was at that time the undersheriff of the City of London. After his glorious reception in Italy, Erasmus had returned broke and jobless, [ note 28 ] with strained relations with former friends and benefactors on the continent, and he regretted leaving Italy, despite being horrified by papal warfare. There is a gap in his usually voluminous correspondence: his so-called "two lost years", perhaps due to self-censorship of dangerous or disgruntled opinions; [ note 14 ] he shared lodgings with his friend Andrea Ammonio Latin secretary to Mountjoy, and the next year, to Henry VIII provided at the London Austin Friars ' compound, skipping out after a disagreement with the friars over rent that caused bad blood.

He assisted his friend John Colet by authoring Greek textbooks and securing members of staff for the newly established St Paul's School [ 83 ] and was in contact when Colet gave his notorious Convocation sermon which called for a reformation of ecclesiastical affairs. In , the University of Cambridge 's chancellor, John Fisher , arranged for Erasmus to be or to study to prepare to be the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity , though whether he actually was accepted for it or took it up is contested by historians.

Erasmus mainly stayed at Queens' College while lecturing at the university, [ 87 ] between and Erasmus suffered from poor health and was especially concerned with heating, clean air, ventilation, draughts, fresh food and unspoiled wine: he complained about the draughtiness of English buildings. By this time More was a judge on the poorman's equity court Master of Requests and a Privy Counsellor.

His residence at Leuven, where he lectured at the University , exposed Erasmus to much criticism from those ascetics, academics and clerics hostile to the principles of literary and religious reform to which he was devoting his life. Erasmus may have made several other short visits to England or English territory while living in Brabant. In , his great friend Ammonio died in England of the Sweating Sickness.

In , Erasmus was diagnosed with the plague ; despite the danger, he was taken in and cared for in the home of his Flemish friend and publisher Dirk Martens in Antwerp for a month and recovered. His friends and former students and old correspondents were the incoming political elite, and he had risen with them. He stayed in various locations including Anderlecht near Brussels in the summer of From , Erasmus regularly traveled to Basel to coordinate the printing of his books with Froben.

He developed a lasting association with the great Basel publisher Johann Froben and later his son Hieronymus Froben Eramus' godson who together published over works with Erasmus, [ ] working with expert scholar-correctors who went on to illustrious careers. His initial interest in Froben's operation was aroused by his discovery of the printer's folio edition of the Adagiorum Chiliades tres Adagia The printing of many his books was supervised by his Alsatian friend, the Greek scholar Beatus Rhenanus.

In he settled in Basel. In collaboration with Froben and his team, the scope and ambition of Erasmus' Annotations , Erasmus' long-researched project of philological notes of the New Testament along the lines of Valla's Adnotations , had grown to also include a lightly revised Latin Vulgate, then the Greek text, then several edifying essays on methodology, then a highly revised Vulgate—all bundled as his Novum testamentum omne and pirated individually throughout Europe— then finally his amplified Paraphrases.

In , Erasmus' compatriot, former teacher c. He tried to entice Erasmus to Rome. His reforms of the Roman Curia which he hoped would meet the objections of many Lutherans were stymied party because the Holy See was broke , though re-worked at the Council of Trent, and he died in As the popular and nationalist responses to Luther gathered momentum, the social disorders, which Erasmus dreaded and Luther disassociated himself from, began to appear, including the German Peasants' War — , the Anabaptist insurrections in Germany and in the Low Countries, iconoclasm, and the radicalisation of peasants across Europe.

If these were the outcomes of reform, Erasmus was thankful that he had kept out of it. Yet he was ever more bitterly accused of having started the whole "tragedy" as Erasmus dubbed the matter. In , he provided financial support to the impoverished and disgraced former Latin Secretary of Antwerp Cornelius Grapheus , on his release from the newly introduced Inquisition.

In , his French translator and friend Louis de Berquin was burnt in Paris, following his condemnation as an anti-Rome heretic by the Sorbonne theologians. Erasmus, in company with other Basel Catholic priests including Bishop Augustinus Marius , left Basel on the 13 April [ note 41 ] and departed by ship to the Catholic university town of Freiburg im Breisgau to be under the protection of his former student, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.

There was some hope of a return to moderation. In Spring early Erasmus was bedridden for three months with an intensely painful infection, likely carbunculosis , that, unusually for him, left him too ill to work. Despite increasing frailty [ note 43 ] Erasmus continued to work productively, notably on a new magnum opus , his manual on preaching Ecclesiastes , and his small book on preparing for death.

There are no extant letters between More and Erasmus from the start of More's period as Chancellor until his resignation — , almost to the day. Erasmus wrote several important non-political works under the surprising patronage of Thomas Bolyn : his Ennaratio triplex in Psalmum XXII or Triple Commentary on Psalm 23 ; his catechism to counter Luther Explanatio Symboli or A Playne and Godly Exposition or Declaration of the Commune Crede which sold out in three hours at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and Praeparatio ad mortem or Preparation for Death which would be one of Erasmus' most popular and most hijacked works.

In the s, life became more dangerous for Spanish Erasmians when Erasmus' protector, the Inquisitor General Alonso Manrique de Lara fell out of favour with the royal court and lost power within his own organization to friar-theologians. In Erasmus' friend, converso Juan de Vergara Cisneros ' Latin secretary who had worked on the Complutensian Polyglot and published Stunica 's criticism of Erasmus was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition and had to be ransomed from them by the humanist Archbishop of Toledo Alonso III Fonseca , also a correspondent of Erasmus', who had previously rescued Ignatius of Loyola from them.

There was a generational change in the Catholic hierarchy. In his beloved long-time mentor English Primate Warham died of old age, [ note 46 ] as did reforming cardinal Giles of Viterbo and Swiss bishop Hugo von Hohenlandenberg. As more friends died in , his friend Pieter Gillis ; in , William Blount ; in early , Catherine of Aragon ; and as Luther and some Lutherans and some powerful Catholic theologians renewed their personal attacks on Erasmus, his letters are increasingly focused on concerns on the status of friendships and safety as he considered moving from bland Freiburg despite his health.

After Erasmus' time, numerous of Erasmus' translators later met similar fates at the hands of Anglican, Catholic and Reformed sectarians and autocrats: including Margaret Pole , William Tyndale , Michael Servetus. Erasmus' friend and collaborator Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall eventually died in prison under Elizabeth I for refusing the Oath of Supremacy.

Erasmus' correspondent Bishop Stephen Gardiner , who he had known as a teenaged student in Paris and Cambridge, [ ] was later imprisoned in the Tower of London for five years under Edward VI for impeding Protestantism. When his strength began to fail, he finally decided to accept an invitation by Queen Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands sister of his former student Archduke Ferdinand I and Emperor Charles V , to move from Freiburg to Brabant.

On July 12, , he died at an attack of dysentery. He had remained loyal to Roman Catholicism, [ ] but biographers have disagreed whether to treat him as an insider or an outsider. He was buried with great ceremony in the Basel Minster the former cathedral. The Protestant city authorities remarkably allowed his funeral to be an ecumenical Catholic requiem Mass.

Biographers, such as Johan Huizinga , frequently draw connections between many of Erasmus' convictions and his early biography: esteem for the married state and appropriate marriages, support for priestly marriage, concern for improving marriage prospects for women, opposition to inconsiderate rules notably, institutional dietary rules , a desire to make education engaging for the participants, interest in classical languages, horror of poverty and spiritual hopelessness, distaste for friars begging when they could study or work, unwillingness to be under the direct control of authorities, laicism, the need for those in authority to act in the best interest of their charges, a prizing of mercy and peace, an anger over unnecessary war, especially between avaricious princes, an awareness of mortality, etc.

Erasmus had a distinctive manner of thinking, a Catholic historian suggests: one that is capacious in its perception, agile in its judgments, and unsettling in its irony with "a deep and abiding commitment to human flourishing". Erasmus has been called a seminal rather than a consistent or systematic thinker, [ ] notably averse to over-extending from the specific to the general; who nevertheless should be taken very seriously as a pastoral [ note 55 ] and rhetorical theologian, with a philological and historical approach—rather than a metaphysical approach—to interpreting Scripture [ ] [ note 56 ] and interested in the literal and tropological senses.

A theologian has written of "Erasmus' preparedness completely to satisfy no-one but himself. Erasmus often wrote in a highly ironical idiom, [ ] especially in his letters, [ note 59 ] which makes them prone to different interpretations when taken literally rather than ironically. He frequently wrote about controversial subjects using the dialogue to avoid direct statements clearly attributable to himself.

Erasmus' literary theory of "copiousness" endorses a large stockpile of rich adages , analogies , tropes and symbolic figures, which leads to compressed communication of complex ideas between those educated in the stockpile but some of which, to modern sensibilities, may promote as well as play off stereotypes. Terence J. Martin identifies an "Erasmian pattern" that the supposed by the reader otherness of Turks, Lapplanders, Indians, Amerindians, [ note 63 ] Jews, and even women and heretics "provides a foil against which the failures of Christian culture can be exposed and criticized.

Peace, peaceableness, and peacemaking, in all spheres from the domestic to the religious to the political, were central distinctives of Erasmus' writing on Christian living and his mystical theology: [ ] "the sum and summary of our religion is peace and unanimity" [ note 65 ] At the Nativity of Jesus "the angels sang not the glories of war, nor a song of triumph, but a hymn of peace.

He Christ conquered by gentleness; He conquered by kindness; he conquered by truth itself. Erasmus was not an absolute pacifist but promoted political pacificism and religious Irenicism. Erasmus' ecclesiology of peacemaking held that the church authorities had a divine mandate to settle religious disputes, [ note 67 ] in an as non-excluding way as possible, including by the preferably-minimal development of doctrine.

In the latter, Lady Peace insists on peace as the crux of Christian life and for understanding Christ:. I give you my peace, I leave you my peace" John You hear what he leaves his people? Not horses, bodyguards, empire or riches — none of these. What then? He gives peace, leaves peace — peace with friends, peace with enemies. Erasmus' emphasis on peacemaking reflects a typical pre-occupation of medieval lay spirituality as historian John Bossy as summarized by Eamon Duffy puts it: "medieval Christianity had been fundamentally concerned with the creation and maintenance of peace in a violent world.

Historians have written that "references to conflict run like a red thread through the writings of Erasmus. His Adages included "War is sweet to those who have never tasted it" Dulce bellum inexpertis from Pindar 's Greek. He promoted and was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold , [ ] and his wide-ranging correspondence frequently related to issues of peacemaking.

He questioned the practical usefulness and abuses [ note 71 ] of Just War theory , further limiting it to feasible defensive actions with popular support and that "war should never be undertaken unless, as a last resort, it cannot be avoided. In his Adages he discusses common translation " A disadvantageous peace is better than a just war ", which owes to Cicero and John Colet 's " Better an unjust peace than the justest war.

Erasmus was highly critical of the warlike way of important European princes of his era, including some princes of the church. Erasmus believed that these princes "collude in a game, of which the outcome is to exhaust and oppress the commonwealth". One of his approaches was to send and publish congratulatory and lionizing letters to princes who, though in a position of strength, negotiated peace with neighbours, such as King Sigismund I the Old of Poland in Erasmus "constantly and consistently" opposed the mooted idea of a Christian "universal monarch" with an over-extended empire who could supposedly defeat the Ottoman forces: such universalism did not "hold any promise of generating less conflict than the existing political plurality;" instead, advocating concord between princes, both temporal and spiritual.

He referred to his irenical disposition in the Preface to On Free Will as a secret inclination of nature that would make him even prefer the views of the Sceptics over intolerant assertions, though he sharply distinguished adiaphora from what was uncontentiously explicit in the New Testament or absolutely mandated by Church teaching. In Melanchthon's view, Erasmus taught charity, not faith.

Certain works of Erasmus laid a foundation for religious toleration of private opinions and ecumenism. For example, in De libero arbitrio , opposing particular views of Martin Luther, Erasmus noted that religious disputants should be temperate in their language "because in this way the truth, which is often lost amidst too much wrangling may be more surely perceived.

In a letter to Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio , Erasmus lobbied diplomatically for toleration: "If the sects could be tolerated under certain conditions as the Bohemians pretend , it would, I admit, be a grievous misfortune, but one more endurable than war. We owe some respect to the memory of those whose places we think of them as occupying.

Their titles have some claim on us. We should not seek to put matters right if there is a real possibility that the cure may prove worse than the disease. Erasmus had been involved in early attempts to protect Luther and his sympathisers from charges of heresy. Erasmus wrote Inquisitio de fide to say that the Lutherans of were not formally heretics: he pushed back against the willingness of some theologians to cry heresy fast in order to enforce their views in universities and at inquisitions.

For Erasmus, punishable heresy had to involve fractiously, dangerously, and publicly agitating against essential doctrines relating to Christ i. Erasmus' pacificism included a particular dislike for sedition, which caused warfare:. It was the duty of the leaders of this reforming movement, if Christ was their goal, to refrain not only from vice, but even from every appearance of evil; and to offer not the slightest stumbling block to the Gospel, studiously avoiding even practices which, although allowed, are yet not expedient.

Above all they should have guarded against all sedition. Erasmus allowed the death penalty against violent seditionists to prevent bloodshed and war: he allowed that the state has the right to execute those who are a necessary danger to public order—whether heretic or orthodox—but noted e. Most of his political writing focused on peace within Christendom with almost a sole focus on Europe.

In , Erasmus wrote, "It is the part of a Christian prince to regard no one as an outsider unless he is a nonbeliever, and even on them he should inflict no harm", which entails not attacking outsiders, not taking their riches, not subjecting them to political rule, no forced conversions, and keeping promises made to them. In common with his times, [ ] Erasmus regarded the Jewish and Islamic religions as Christian heresies and therefore competitors to orthodox Christianity rather than separate religions, using the inclusive term half-Christian for the latter.

However, there is a wide range of scholarly opinion on the extent and nature of antisemitic and anti-Moslem prejudice in his writings: historian Nathan Ron has found his writing to be harsh and racial in its implications, with contempt and hostility to Islam. In his last decade, he involved himself in the public policy debate on war with the Ottoman Empire , which was then invading Western Europe , notably in his book On the war against the Turks , as the "reckless and extravagant" [ ] Pope Leo X had in previous decades promoted going on the offensive with a new crusade.

Erasmus perceived and championed strong Hellenistic rather than exclusively Hebraic influences on the intellectual milieux of Jesus, Paul, and the early church: "If only the Christian church did not attach so much importance to the Old Testament! Erasmus' pervasive anti-ceremonialism treated the early Church debates on circumcision, food, and special days as manifestations of cultural chauvinism by the initial Jewish Christians in Antioch.

While many humanists, from Pico della Mirandola to Johannes Reuchlin , were intrigued by Jewish mysticism, Erasmus came to dislike it: "I see them as a nation full of most tedious fabrications, who spread a kind of fog over everything, Talmud, Cabbala, Tetragrammaton, Gates of Light, words, words, words. I would rather have Christ mixed up with Scotus than with that rubbish of theirs.

In his Paraphrase on Romans , Erasmus voiced, as Paul, the "secret" that in the end times, "all of the Israelites will be restored to salvation" and accept Christ as their Messiah, "although now part of them have fallen away from it. Several scholars have identified cases where Erasmus' comments appear to go beyond theological anti-Judaism into slurs or approving to an extent certain anti-semitic policies, though there is some controversy.

On the subject of slavery, Erasmus characteristically treated it in passing under the topic of tyranny: Christians were not allowed to be tyrants, which slave-owning required, but especially not to be the masters of other Christians. However, his belief that "nature created all men free" and slavery was imposed was a rejection of Aristotle's category of natural slaves.

Erasmus promoted the idea that a prince rules with the consent of his people, notably in his book The Education of a Christian Prince and, through More, in the book Utopia. He may have been influenced by the Brabantine custom of an incoming ruler being officially told of his duties and welcomed: [ 51 ] the Joyous Entry was a kind of contract.

A monarchy should not be absolute: it should be "checked and diluted with a mixture of aristocracy and democracy to prevent it ever breaking out into tyranny. Erasmus contrasts the Christian Prince with the Tyrant, who has no love from the people, will be surrounded by flatterers, and can expect no loyalty or peace. Unspoken in Erasmus' views may have been the idea that the people can remove a tyrant; however, espousing this explicitly could expose people to capital charges of sedition or treason.

Erasmus typically limited his political discussion to what could be couched as personal faith and morality by or between Christians, his business as a magister of theology. Erasmus expressed much of his reform program in terms of the proper attitude towards the sacraments and their ramifications: [ ] notably for the underappreciated sacraments of Baptism and Marriage see On the Institution of Christian Marriage considered as vocations more than events; [ note 81 ] and for the mysterious Eucharist, pragmatic Confession, the dangerous Last Rites writing On the Preparation for Death , [ note 82 ] and the pastoral Holy Orders see Ecclesiastes.

A test of the Reformation was the doctrine of the sacraments, and the crux of this question was the observance of the Eucharist. When the Mass was finally banned in Basel in , Erasmus immediately abandoned the city, as did the other expelled Catholic clergy. In , Erasmus published a new edition of the orthodox treatise of Algerus against the heretic Berengar of Tours in the eleventh century.

He added a dedication, affirming his belief in the reality of the Body of Christ after consecration in the Eucharist, commonly referred to as transubstantiation. However, Erasmus found the scholastic formulation of transubstantiation to stretch language past its breaking point. By and large, the miraculous real change that interested Erasmus, the author, more than that of the bread is the transformation in the humble partaker.

The Protestant Reformation began in the year following the publication of his pathbreaking edition of the New Testament in Latin and Greek The issues between the reforming and reactionary tendencies of the church , from which Protestantism later emerged, had become so clear that many intellectuals and churchmen could not escape the summons to join the debate.

According to historian C. Scott Dixon, Erasmus not only criticized church failings but questioned many of his Church's basic teachings; [ note 84 ] however, according to biographer Erika Rummel, "Erasmus was aiming at the correction of abuses rather than at doctrinal innovation or institutional change. In theologian Louis Bouyer's interpretation, [ ] Erasmus' agenda was "to reform the Church from within by a renewal of biblical theology, based on philological study of the New Testament text, and supported by a knowledge of patristics, itself renewed by the same methods.

The final object of it all was to nourish[ At the height of his literary fame, Erasmus was called upon to take one side, but public partisanship was foreign to his beliefs, nature, and habits. Despite all his criticism of clerical corruption and abuses within the Western Church , [ note 87 ] especially at first he sided unambiguously with neither Luther nor the anti-Lutherans publicly though in private he lobbied assiduously against extremism from both parties , but eventually shunned the breakaway Protestant Reformation movements along with their most radical offshoots.

The world had laughed at his satire, The Praise of Folly , but few had interfered with his activities. He believed that his work had commended itself to the religious world's best minds and dominant powers. Erasmus chose to write in Latin and Greek , the languages of scholars. He did not build a large body of supporters in the unlettered; his critiques reached a small but elite audience.

Erasmus was also notable for exposing several important historical documents of theological and political importance as forgeries or misattributions: including pseudo- Dionysius the Areopagite , the Gravi de pugna attributed to St Augustine , the Ad Herennium attributed to Cicero, and by reprinting Lorenzo Valla 's work [ ] the Donation of Constantine.

Many of his works contain diatribes against supposed monastic corruption and careerism, particularly against the mendicant friars Franciscans and Dominicans. These orders also typically ran the university's Scholastic theology programs, from whose ranks came his most dangerous enemies. The more some attacked him, the more offensive he became about what he saw as their political influence and materialistic opportunism.

Alastor, an evil spirit: "They are a certain Sort of Animals in black and white Vestments, Ash-colour'd Coats, and various other Dresses, that are always hovering about the Courts of Princes, and [to each side] are continually instilling into their Ears the Love of War, and exhorting the Nobility and common People to it, haranguing them in their Sermons, that it is a just, holy and religious War.

Alastor: "Because they get more by those that die, than those that live. And in the last Place, they had rather live in a Camp, than in their Cells. War breeds a great many Bishops, who were not thought good for any Thing in a Time of Peace. He was scandalized by superstitions, such as that if you were buried in a Franciscan habit, you would go direct to heaven.

He advocated various reforms, including a ban on taking orders until the 30th year, the closure of corrupt and smaller monasteries, respect for bishops, requiring work, not begging reflecting the practice of his own order of Augustinian Canons , the downplaying of monastic hours, fasts and ceremonies, and a less mendacious approach to gullible pilgrims and tenants.

However, he was not in favour of speedy closures of monasteries, nor of closing larger reformed monasteries with important libraries: in his account of his pilgrimage to Walsingham, he noted that the funds extracted from pilgrims typically supported houses for the poor and elderly. Furthermore, "what is said over a glass of wine, ought not to be remembered and written down as a serious statement of belief," such as his proposal to marry all monks to all nuns or to send them all away to fight the Turks and colonize new islands.

He believed the only vow necessary for Christians should be the vow of Baptism, and others such as the vows of the evangelical counsels , while admirable in intent and content, were now mainly counter-productive. However, Erasmus frequently commended the evangelical counsels for all believers, and with more than lip service: for example, the first adage of his reputation-establishing Adagia was Between friends all is common , where he tied common ownership such as practiced by his order's style of poverty with the teachings of classical philosophers and Christ.

His main Catholic opposition was from scholars in the mendicant orders. He purported that " Saint Francis came lately to me in a dream and thanked me for chastising them. A 20th-century Benedictine scholar wrote of him as "all sail and no rudder". Erasmus did also have significant support and contact with reform-minded friars, including Franciscans such as Jean Vitrier and Cardinal Cisneros , and Dominicans such as Cardinal Cajetan the former master of the Order of Preachers.

The early reformers built their theology on Erasmus' philological analyses of specific verses in the New Testament: repentance over penance the basis of the first thesis of the Luther's 95 Theses , justification by imputation, grace as favour or clemency, faith as hoping trust, [ ] human transformation over reformation, congregation over church, mystery over sacrament, etc.

In Erasmus' view, they went too far, downplayed Sacred Tradition such as Patristic interpretations, and irresponsibly fomented bloodshed. Erasmus was one of many scandalized by the sale of indulgences to fund Pope Leo X's projects. His view, given in a letter to John Colet , was less theological than political: "The Roman curia has abandoned any sense of shame.

What could be more shameless than these constant indulgences? And now they put up war against the Turks as a pretext, when their aim really is to drive the Spaniards from Naples. Erasmus and Luther impacted each other greatly. Each had misgivings about each other from the beginning Erasmus on Luther's rash and antagonistic character, Luther on Erasmus' focus on morality rather than grace but strategically agreed not to be negative about the other in public.

Noting Luther's criticisms of corruption in the Church, Erasmus described Luther to Pope Leo X as "a mighty trumpet of gospel truth" while agreeing, "It is clear that many of the reforms for which Luther calls" e. In the words of one historian, "at this earlier period he was more concerned with the fate of Luther than his theology. In , Erasmus wrote that "Luther ought to be answered and not crushed.

Luther hoped for his cooperation in a work which seemed only the natural outcome of Erasmus' own, [ note 91 ] and spoke with admiration of Erasmus's superior learning. In their early correspondence, Luther expressed boundless admiration for all Erasmus had done in the cause of a sound and reasonable Christianity and urged him to join the Lutheran party.

Erasmus declined to commit himself, arguing his usual "small target" excuse, that to do so would endanger the cause of bonae litterae [ note 92 ] [ ] which he regarded as one of his purposes in life. Only as an independent scholar could he hope to influence the reform of religion. When Erasmus declined to support him, the "straightforward" Luther became angered that Erasmus was avoiding the responsibility due either to cowardice or a lack of purpose.

However, any hesitancy on the part of Erasmus may have stemmed, not from lack of courage or conviction, but rather from a concern over the mounting disorder and violence of the reform movement. To Philip Melanchthon in he wrote:. I know nothing of your church; at the very least it contains people who will, I fear, overturn the whole system and drive the princes into using force to restrain good men and bad alike.

The gospel, the word of God, faith, Christ, and Holy Spirit — these words are always on their lips; look at their lives and they speak quite another language. Catholic theologian George Chantraine notes that, where Luther quotes Luke "He that is not with me is against me", Erasmus takes Mark "For he that is not against us, is on our part.

Though he sought to remain accommodative in doctrinal disputes, each side accused him of siding with the other, perhaps because of his perceived influence and what they regarded as his dissembling neutrality, [ note 93 ] which he regarded as peacemaking accommodation :. I detest dissension because it goes both against the teachings of Christ and against a secret inclination of nature.

I doubt that either side in the dispute can be suppressed without grave loss. He eventually chose a campaign that involved an irenical 'dialogue' " The Inquisition of Faith ", a positive, evangelical model sermon " On the Measureless Mercy of God ", and a gently critical 'diatribe' " On Free Will. The publication of his brief book On Free Will initiated what has been called "The greatest debate of that era" [ ] which still has ramifications today.

Luther responded with On the Bondage of the Will De servo arbitrio Erasmus replied to this in his lengthy two volume Hyperaspistes and other works, which Luther ignored. Apart from the perceived moral failings among followers of the Reformers—an important sign for Erasmus—he also dreaded any change in doctrine, citing the long history of the Church as a bulwark against innovation.

He put the matter bluntly to Luther:. We are dealing with this: Would a stable mind depart from the opinion handed down by so many men famous for holiness and miracles, depart from the decisions of the Church, and commit our souls to the faith of someone like you who has sprung up just now with a few followers, although the leading men of your flock do not agree either with you or among themselves — indeed though you do not even agree with yourself, since in this same Assertion [ ] you say one thing in the beginning and something else later on, recanting what you said before.

Continuing his chastisement of Luther — and undoubtedly put off by the notion of there being "no pure interpretation of Scripture anywhere but in Wittenberg" [ ] — Erasmus touches upon another important point of the controversy:. You stipulate that we should not ask for or accept anything but Holy Scripture, but you do it in such a way as to require that we permit you to be its sole interpreter, renouncing all others.

Thus the victory will be yours if we allow you to be not the steward but the lord of Holy Scripture. In , Erasmus wrote " An epistle against those who falsely boast they are Evangelicals " to Gerardus Geldenhouwer former Bishop of Utrecht, also schooled at Deventer. You declaim bitterly against the luxury of priests, the ambition of bishops, the tyranny of the Roman Pontiff, and the babbling of the sophists; against our prayers, fasts, and Masses; and you are not content to retrench the abuses that may be in these things, but must needs abolish them entirely.

Here Erasmus complains of the doctrines and morals of the Reformers, applying the same critique he had made about public Scholastic disputations:. Look around on this 'Evangelical' generation, [ ] and observe whether amongst them less indulgence is given to luxury, lust, or avarice, than amongst those whom you so detest. Show me any one person who by that Gospel has been reclaimed from drunkenness to sobriety, from fury and passion to meekness, from avarice to liberality, from reviling to well-speaking, from wantonness to modesty.

I will show you a great many who have become worse through following it. According to historian Christopher Ocker, the early reformers "needed tools that let their theological distinctions pose as commonplaces in a textual theology;[ Erasmus wrote books against aspects of the teaching, impacts or threats of several other Reformers: [ ]. However, Erasmus maintained friendly relations with other Protestants, notably the irenic Melanchthon and Albrecht Duerer.

A common accusation, supposedly started by antagonistic monk-theologians, [ note 94 ] made Erasmus responsible for Martin Luther and the Reformation: "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it. Erasmus has a problematic standing in the history of philosophy: whether he should be called a philosopher at all, [ note 96 ] as, indeed, some question whether he should be considered a theologian either.

A Sceptic is not someone who doesn't care to know what is true or false…but rather someone who does not make a final decision easily or fight to the death for his own opinion, but rather accepts as probable what someone else accepts as certain…I explicitly exclude from Scepticism whatever is set forth in Sacred Scripture or whatever has been handed down to us by the authority of the Church.

The body is purely material; the spirit is purely divine; the soul…is tossed back and forwards between the two according to whether it resists or gives way to the temptations of the flesh. The spirit makes us gods; the body makes us beasts; the soul makes us men. According to theologian George van Kooten , Erasmus was the first modern scholar "to note the similarities between Plato's Symposium and John's Gospel", first in the Enchiridion then in the Adagia , pre-dating other scholarly interest by years.

Erasmus did not have a metaphysical bone in his frail body, and had no real feeling for the philosophical concerns of scholastic theology. He usually eschewed metaphysical, epistemological and logical philosophy as found in Aristotle : [ note ] in particular the curriculum and systematic methods of the post-Aquinas Schoolmen Scholastics [ note ] and what he regarded as their frigid, counter-productive Aristoteleanism : [ note ] "What has Aristotle to do with Christ?