DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
About 1493 Erasmus was ordained and became Latin secretary to the bishop of Cambrai (France). The bishop’s continuing interest allowed Erasmus in 1495 to pursue theological studies at Paris. Erasmus took a lasting dislike to the dogmatic theologians there, with their partisanship, intolerance, and hostility to new ways of thinking. In 1496, after a brief visit to Steyn, Erasmus returned to Paris, reinforced in his resolve to leave the monastic life. He continued his theological studies but majored in the new biblical courses rather than in Scholastic theology. Meanwhile, he helped to support himself (and advanced his career) by tutoring the sons of leading European families. During that time he wrote his Colloquies, a series of imaginary dialogues. They originated as exercises for his students but were edited and supplemented over the years. Erasmus used a gallery of characters to critique the religious life of his day, in particular satirizing the forms of Scholasticism and monkish superstition he regarded as damaging to true piety and devotion. At times, however, the spirituality in his Colloquies is indistinguishable from Stoic morality. In 1499 Erasmus paid his first visit to England. Prominent churchmen he met there included Bishop Warham of London (soon to be archbishop of Canterbury), John Fisher, William Latimer, John Colet, and Thomas More. The last two exercised a profound influence upon Erasmus. In England Erasmus also found a
battle in progress. Obscurantists were attempting to prevent the growth
of Christian knowledge. Under the influence of the Italian Renaissance
many Europeans had been rediscovering the classical learning of the Greeks
and Romans. Erasmus wanted such learning to develop a truly Christian character
instead of causing a return to pagan values. He found support for that
wish in England, especially from people like John Colet, who encouraged
Erasmus in the study of the New Testament.
In 1505 and 1506 Erasmus revisited England, then went to Italy and received his doctorate at Turin (1506). He was in Italy three years without finding there the stimulus for which he had hoped. He did see much that was corrupt about the papacy. In 1508 the publication of Adages, in which he gathered more than three thousand proverbs from classical authors, confirmed his reputation as the foremost scholar in northern Europe. In a wave of optimism that accompanied the accession of Henry VIII to the English throne, Erasmus went back to England in 1509 for five years. He stayed for a time with Thomas More, and that year wrote the Encomium moriae, later translated into English as The Praise of Folly. The book was a biting satire on monastic and ecclesiastical corruption, on the many supposed miracles wrought by images, on the scandal of indulgences, on useless rites, and on the papal hierarchy. That work significantly helped to prepare the way for the Reformation. Erasmus criticized Scholasticism
for its inordinate preoccupation with details and its ignorance of true
religion. He pointed to the early church and to the church fathers as his
ideal of reform rather than to the complex argumentations of later Scholastics.
He wrote, “He is truly a theologian who teaches not with syllogisms and
contorted arguments, but with compassion in his eyes and his whole countenance,
who teaches indeed by the examples of his own life that riches are to be
despised, that the Christian man must not put his faith in the defenses
of this world, but depend entirely upon heaven.” The test of theology,
Erasmus claimed, was whether it was reflected in Christian living.
For a return to first-century Christianity to occur, Erasmus thought, people must know what kind of Christianity that was. So in 1516 appeared the great work of his life: an edition of the Greek New Testament text. Beside it he placed his own elegant Latin version with critical notes, some as insightful as anything that came later from the Reformers. His Latin revealed mistakes in the Vulgate text (the Catholic church’s official Latin Bible), though it was not itself free of errors. Nevertheless his pioneering work constituted a landmark from which successive generations of scholars took their bearings. The book’s prefatory essay itself was a masterly achievement, as Erasmus set down his aims and hopes. “I could wish,” he declared in lines that became famous, “that every woman might read the Gospel and the Epistles of St. Paul. Would that these were translated into each and every language so that they might be read and understood not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks and Saracens . . . Would that the farmer might sing snatches of Scripture at his plough and that the weaver might hum phrases of Scripture to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler might lighten with stories from Scripture the weariness of his journey.” Ironically, the work was dedicated to Pope Leo X (who gladly accepted the honor), and also was hailed with delight by Martin Luther. That was only one year before Luther defied the pope by posting his Ninety-five Theses on the church door in Wittenberg. In 1516 Erasmus became a royal counselor in the Brussels (Belgium) court of the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Between that year and 1518 Erasmus also published a nine-volume edition of the works of Jerome, Erasmus’s favorite church father. Less ambitious editions of other fathers including Irenaeus, Augustine, Chrysostom, and Origen followed in the succeeding eighteen years. From 1517 to 1521, the most critical period for the Reformation in Germany, Erasmus was at Louvain, a famous center of learning in the Low Countries. There he was a key figure among the humanists, maintaining an enormous correspondence. Although both sides of the Reformation solicited his help, Erasmus never met Martin Luther. In 1521 Erasmus settled at Basel, a city he found most satisfying for his work. There, aided by his friend John Froben, he published many books and continued his “back-to-the-fathers” movement. Although friends in high places in a number of countries offered him various posts, Erasmus declined them all in order to maintain his literary freedom. Any limits on Erasmus were to a large extent self-imposed by his temperament. A scholar who could assail long-entrenched evils in the church, Erasmus nonetheless toned down his attack just when papal defenses were beginning to crumble. Despite appeals from both sides, he was reluctant to become embroiled in the controversy between Luther and the papacy. His neutrality worked to the benefit of the Reformation. At last, however, in 1524 Erasmus yielded to pressure and attacked Luther in Diatribe on Free Will, to which Luther replied with Bondage of the Will (1526). Erasmus came back with Hyperaspistes Diatribes. Thus for the last twelve years of his life he was associated with the conservative faction, remaining firmly if sometimes uneasily in the old church. In 1529, after the Reformation under
John Oecolampadius had come to Basel comparatively peacefully, Erasmus
was among the humanists who left the city. He went to Freiburg, a German
city with a young university. Six years later he returned to Basel, although
ill, to supervise the printing of his edition of the works of Origen. Erasmus
died in Basel the next year. No priest was present. “Most holy was his
living,” said one who was with him, “most holy his dying.”
In that age, “bridge-building” was not an acceptable occupation. Many did not share Erasmus’s enthusiasm for pagan literature nor even for the writings of the fathers. The range of his learning was enough to make him suspect; he knew classical antiquity (reading both Latin and Greek), the Bible, early church writings, and the philosophical and theological scholasticism of the Middle Ages. None saw more keenly than Erasmus
the need for reformation, but for him that need was bound up with the need
for education. His edition of the Greek New Testament was evidence of his
concern for scholarship. For Erasmus, the cause of reform required using
the tools of scholarship to learn crucial lessons from the Christian past.
Those lessons included humanity and piety.
In Martin Luther, Erasmus saw some
of the dogmatism that had repelled him in his early days, only now serving
a different cause. Even if scandals had become inevitable, Erasmus was
not the one to precipitate crises. Indulgences were indefensible, yet he
never unconditionally condemned them. He detested compulsion in religion.
Erasmus would have agreed with Archbishop Robert Leighton that persecution
was like “scaling heaven with ladders fetched out of hell.” Erasmus believed
that faith persuades rather than compels. Yet even he agreed that “an extremely
contumacious heretic might be burned.”
Critics have often said that Erasmus
was little more than a “humanist with Christian overtones.” They sometimes
accuse him of neglecting the work of Christ as example and teacher. Yet
Erasmus believed in salvation by grace. His work on the New Testament allowed
the Word of God to speak for itself and so come alive for both simple people
and scholars. A multitude of faults is more than offset by that kind of
testimony.
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