Erasmus of Rotterdam is commonly regarded as the key public intellectual of the early decades of the 16th century. He has been given the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists".[1] He has also been called "the most illustrious rhetorician and educationalist of the Renaissance".[2]
His reputation and the interpretations of his work have varied over time and by community. Many Catholics now recognize him as a sardonic but loyal reformer within to the Church with an evangelical and pastoral spirituality that emphasized peace and mercy, while many Protestants approve of his initial support for (and, in part, inspiration of) Luther's initial ideas and the groundwork he laid for the future Reformation, especially in biblical scholarship.
However, at times he has been viciously criticized from all sides, his works suppressed, his expertise corralled, his writings misinterpreted, his thought demonized, and his legacy marginalized.
Historian Lewis Spitz identifies four views of Erasmus' character and project:
French biographer Désiré Nisard characterized him as a lens or focal point: "the whole of the Renaissance in Western Europe in the sixteenth century converged towards him."[2] However,according to historian Erika Rummel, "Erasmus' role in the dissemination of ideas is therefore less that of a forerunner of the Reformation than that of a synthesizer of many of the currents of thought that fed into the Reformation."[4]
Erasmians: Erasmus frequently mentioned that he did not want office[5] nor to be the founder or figurehead of a sect or movement, despite his vigorous branding and self-promotion.[6] Nevertheless, historians do identify de facto "Erasmians" (ranging from the early Jesuits[7] to the early reformers,[8] and both Thomas More and William Tyndale)—Christian humanists who picked up on some or other aspects of Erasmus' agenda.
Erasmianism: This has been described as a "more intellectual form of spiritualized Christianity"[9] that is "an undercurrent of religious thought between Catholicism and Lutheranism."[10] It had a notable influence in Spain.[11] The near election of Reginald Pole as pope in 1546 has been attributed to Erasmianism in the electors.[12] However, a precise definition is not possible; it is not, for example, a set of systematic doctrinal propositions.
French historian Jean-Claude Margolin has noted an Erasmian stream in French culture putting "the concrete before the abstract and the ethical before the speculative", though not without noting that it is not clear whether Erasmus influenced the French or vice versa.
Historian W. R. Ward notes that "the direst enemies of theosophy were always Erasmian Catholics and Calvinist Protestants who were trying to get the magic out of Christianity."[13]
Erasmian Reformation: Some historians such as Edward Gibbon and Hugh Trevor-Roper have even claimed an "'Erasmianism after Erasmus,' a secret stream which meandered to and fro across the Catholic/Protestant divide, creating oases of rational thought impartially on either side." For some, this amounted to a third church: or even that "Luther's and Calvin's Reformations were minor affairs" compared to the Reformation of Erasmus and the humanists' which swept away the Middle Ages.
Erasmian liberalism: This has had an enduring run: described by philosopher Edwin Curley[14] that "the spirit of Erasmian liberalism was to emphasize the ethical aspects of Christianity at the expense of the doctrinal, to suspend judgment on many theological issues, and to insist that the faith actually required for salvation was a simple and uncontroversial one."[15]
Erasmus has frequently been described as "proto-liberal"[16] (both, e.g., in the UK "Lloyd George" sense of liberalism as a form of conservatism that wants moderate but real reform to prevent immoderate and destructive revolution, or the ethical sense of socio-economic Socinianism[17])
Protestant historian Roland Bainton is quoted "no-one did more than Erasmus to break down the theory and practice of the medieval variety of intolerance."[15] Other popular or scholarly writers have suggested that Erasmus' tolerant but idealistic agenda failed,[18] [19] certainly at the political level, evidenced by the wars and persecutions of the Protestant Reformation.
Erasmus was also notable for exposing several important historical documents 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)[20] the Donation of Constantine.
Erasmus has been variously called an "educator of educators", a "teacher of teachers" and a "professor of professors", but also a "pastor of pastors."[21]
Erasmus was notable for his textbooks, his sense of learning as play, his emphasis on speech skills and promoting early classical-language acquisition).
According to scholar Gerald J. Luhrman, "the system of secondary education, as developed in a number of European countries, is inconceivable without the efforts of humanist educationalists, particularly Erasmus. His ideas in the field of language acquisition were systematized and realized to a large extent in the schools founded by the Jesuits..."[22] Historian Brian Cummings wrote "for a hundred years Erasmus commanded the curriculum."[23] In the 1540s, Ursulines founded schools in Rezatto, Brescia, "inspired by Erasmus's pedagogical programme..."
His system of pronouncing ancient Greek was adopted for teaching in the major Western European nations.
In England, he wrote the first curriculum for St Paul's School and his Latin grammar (written with Lily and Colet) "continued to be used, in adapted form, into the Twentieth Century."[24] Erasmus' curriculum, grammar, pronunciation and de Copia were adopted by the other major grammar schools: Eton, Westminster, Winchester, Canterbury, etc. and the universities[25]
Erasmus "tried to realize a practical goal: a modern education as preparation for administrators from the higher estates."[26]
Erasmus was a key part of the humanist program to get Greek and Hebrew taught at the major Universities, inspired by Cardinal Cisneros' Trilingual College of San Ildefonso/Alcalá (1499/1509) and Bishop John Fisher's establishment of Greek and Hebrew lectures at Cambridge: the Trilingual Colleges at Louvain (1517) and Paris (1530) (where students included Loyola and Calvin)[27] spawned programs in Zurich, Rome, Strasbourg and Oxford (c.1566).[28] He has been described as "an unsuspected superspreader of New Ancient Greek."
Historian and Germanist Fritz Caspari saw education as the core of Erasmus' program:
The popularity of his books is reflected in the number of editions and translations that have appeared since the sixteenth century. Ten columns of the catalogue of the British Library are taken up with the enumeration of the works and their subsequent reprints. The greatest names of the classical and patristic world are among those translated, edited, or annotated by Erasmus, including Ambrose, Aristotle, Augustine,[29] Basil, John Chrysostom, Cicero and Jerome.[30]
In his native Rotterdam, the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus Bridge, Erasmus MC and Gymnasium Erasmianum have been named in his honor. Between 1997 and 2009, one of the main metro lines of the city was named Dutch; Flemish: Erasmuslijn. The Foundation Erasmus House (Rotterdam),[31] is dedicated to celebrating Erasmus's legacy. Three moments in Erasmus's life are celebrated annually. On 1 April, the city celebrates the publication of his best-known book The Praise of Folly. On 11 July, the Night of Erasmus celebrates the lasting influence of his work. His birthday is celebrated on 28 October.[32]
Erasmus became extraordinarily popular and influential in Spain, including in and around the talent pool (often from Spanish; Castilian: converso families) that formed the early Jesuits. There were at least 120 translations, editions, or adaptations of Erasmus' writings between 1520 and 1552,[33] though not The Praise of Folly.
However, Erasmians and their associates faced, at times, extraordinary pushback from the theologians at Salamanca and Vallodolid, for being associated with the Spanish; Castilian: alumbrado and illuminist tendencies, with many (notably Ignatius of Loyola, who had lived in the house of publisher Miguel de Eguía at the time the Spanish edition of the Latin: Enchiridion was being published)[34] resorting to exile rather than facing the Inquisition, house arrest, imprisonment or worse. However, at times the heads of the Inquisition were themselves Erasmians. Erasmus faced a notable semi-secret trial in Vallodolid in 1527, attended by numerous bishops, abbots and theologians. Its records still exist. It disbanded without condemning Erasmus as a heretic, as most of his contentious beliefs were regarded as respectable or useful by at least some important bishops, and the fanciful interpretations of the accusers did not stand up to scrutiny.[35]
From the 1530s, historians note the start of a widespread disenchantment with Eradmus' approach: however his ideas and works were still circulating enough that even fifty years later Miguel Cervantes' "Erasmianism" may not have come from him having read any Erasmus directly.[36]
According to historian Howard Louthan "Few regions embraced Erasmus as enthusiastically as Poland, and nowhere else did he have such a concentration of allies positioned at the highest levels of society including the king himself."
Erasmus influenced Catholic and Protestant humanists alike.
Historian Lucy Wooding argues (in Christopher Haigh's paraphrases) that "England nearly had a Catholic Reformation along Erasmian lines –but it was cut short by (Queen) Mary's death and finally torpedoed by the Council of Trent."[37] The initial Henrican closure of smaller monasteries followed the Erasmian agenda, which was also shared by Catholic humanists such as Reginald Pole; however the later violent closures and iconoclasm were far from Erasmus' program.
After reading Erasmus' 1516 New Testament, Thomas Bilney "felt a marvellous comfort and quietness," and won over his Cambridge friends, future notable bishops, Matthew Parker and Hugh Latimer to reformist biblicism.[38]
Both Lutheran Tyndale and his Catholic theological opponent Thomas More are considered Erasmians,[39] and all three supported popular knowledge of scripture in the vernacular. One of William Tyndale's earliest works was his translation of Erasmus' Enchiridion (1522,1533).[40] Following their deaths in 1536, Tyndale's English New Testament and anti-Catholic Preface was often printed (sometimes omitting Tyndale's name) in diglot editions paired with Erasmus' Latin translation and either his Paraclecis or his Preface to the Paraphrase of St Matthew.[41]
In the reign of Edward VI, English translations of Erasmus' Paraphrases of the four Gospels[42] were legally required to be chained for public access in every church. Furthermore, all priests below a certain scholastic level were required to have their own copy of the complete Paraphrases of the New Testament. This injunction was to an extent frustrated by delays in printing, but it is estimated that as many as 20,000 to 30,000 copies may have been printed between 1548 and 1553.
Erasmus' grammar, Adages, Copia, and other books continued as the core Latin educational material in England for the following centuries. His works and editions (in translation) are regularly connected with William Shakespeare, to Shakespeare's education, inspirations and sources (such as the shipwreck scene in The Tempest.)[43] [44] [45] The poet-rhetorician martyr Edmund Campion was educated at St Paul's School using Erasmus' textbooks and Latin curriculum.[25] Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, mentioned he first read of the shipwreck of Aristippus in the English translation of Erasmus' Apophthegmata.[46] Scholars have noted Erasmus' influence on Jonathan Swift, particular that The Praise of Folly seems to have been the literary inspiration for A Tale of a Tub.[47]
Historian of literature Cathy Schrank has written that Erasmus' reputation and status changed over the course of the English "Long Reformation" from "being presented as a proto-Reformer, to problematically orthodox, to irenic martyr."For some Restoration Anglicans, both those promoting enforced anti-extremism and latitudinarians, and into the Age of Enlightenment, Erasmus' moderation represented "an alternative to the belligerent Protestantism that characterized English political and social discourse".[48] It has been claimed that William of Orange's Toleration Act (1688) owed to Erasmus' inspiration.
By 1711, English Catholic poet and satirist Alexander Pope pictured Erasmus, following in a sequence of greats from Aristotle, Horace, Homer, Quintillian to Longinusas, ending a millennium of ignorance and superstition:
For Enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon, Erasmus was "the father of rational theology."[49] An 1876 Edition of The Praise of Folly said of him "Erasmus was the most facetious man, and the greatest critic of his age. [...] Perhaps no man has obliged the public with a greater number of useful volumes than our author."[50]
By 1929, G.K. Chesterton could write "I doubt if any thinking person, of any belief or unbelief, does not wish in his heart that the end of mediaevalism had meant the triumph of the Humanists like Erasmus and More, rather than of the rabid Puritans like Calvin and Knox."[51]
Scholars have shifted from treating Erasmus primarily as a constitutional outsider to seeing him as a well-connected insider.[52] Similarly, characterizations of his doctrinal beliefs in more recent times tend to demonstrate orthodox (and patristic) and mainstream (late medieval) provenance.
Erasmus, from his time (1493–1495) as Latin secretary to Henricus de Berghes, Bishop of Cambrai, would have been well aware of the diocese' manadatory statutes Sacris ordinibus (1307) in-force on priests, which included literacy, age, residence and financial requirements, including taking an examination; themes Erasmus continued to promote. These were re-enforced by Henricus, especially in 1495 (i.e., in text Erasmus may have drafted) regarding the duties of benefice holders to look after their parishioners on pain of excommunication.[53]
Several of Erasmus' "distinctive" ideas were entirely mainstream for the time, from the Fifth Council of the Lateran (which Erasmus had been invited to attend as John Fisher's theologian):[54] the need for peace between Catholic princes before a war pushing back the Turks could be attempted (Session 9); the need for formal qualifications of preachers (Session 11) who should "foster everywhere peace and mutual love" rather than false miracles and apocalyptic predictions; the danger of unbalanced philosophical study and questions that promote doubt without attempting resolution (Session 8); the spurious independence of friars from local bishops, and the dereliction of duty by absentee bishops and cardinals.
The Council of Trent further addressed many of the controversies Erasmus had been involved with: including free will, accumulated errors in the Vulgate, and priestly training, and followed his call for a renewed positive focus on the Creed. Erasmus' major ethical complaint that a certain kind of scholasticism was "Latin: curiositas" (useless, vain speculation) and artificially divisive was endorsed in the 4 December 1563 Decree Concerning Purgatory which recommended the avoidance of speculations and non-essential questions. For music and chant, Trent reduced the number of sequences during the Mass to only four for certain special days: the large numbers and lengths of sequences, especially as found in German and French masses, and the need for verbal clarity were issues Erasmus had raised.[55]
Many commentors, such as Catholic scholar Thomas Cummings, see parallels between Erasmus' vision of Church reform and the vision of Church reform that succeeded at the Second Vatican Council. Theologian J. Coppens noted the "Erasmian themes" of Lumen Gentium (e.g. para 12), such as the sensus fidei fidelium and the dignity of all the baptized. Another scholar writes "in our days, especially after Vatican II, Erasmus is more and more regarded as an important defender of the Christian religion."[56] John O'Malley has commented on a certain closeness between Erasmus and Latin: [[Dei Verbum]].[57]
Many of Erasmus' themes are now less controversial after being revisited by Popes: for example,
Notably, since the 1950s, the Roman Catholic Easter Vigil mass has included a Renewal of Baptismal Promises,[66] an innovation[67] first proposed[68] by Erasmus in his Paraphrases.[69]
Several of the Catholic religious reforms or changes had parallels in Erasmus' ideas. For example, the rise of non-mendicant societies such as the Jesuits, and changes to the rules relating to formal vows.
Erasmus was continually protected by popes,[70] bishops, inquisitors-general, and Catholic kings[71] during his lifetime. He was a bishops' man: in constant contact, correspondence, patronage and direction with dozens at any time, and their Latin secretaries: for example, his book On Free Will was squeezed out of him by bishops, and strategized, discussed, vetted (his local bishop got him to remove some polemic material from it, for example[72]) and promoted by them.
The following generation of saints and scholars included many influenced by Erasmian humanism or spirituality, notably Ignatius of Loyola,[73] [74] [75] Teresa of Ávila,[76] John of Ávila,[77] [78] and Angela Merici.
In 1517, writing to Thomas More, when working with Cuthbert Tunstall on the second edition of the New Tesament, Erusmus noted that he had been offered a bishopric,[79] the first offer of several, all rejected. Several sources comment that Erasmus had been offered a cardinalship at the end of his life as well.
However, Erasmus attracted enemies in contemporary theologians in Paris, Louvain, Valladolid, Salamanca and Rome, notably Sepúlveda, Stúñica, Edward Lee, Noël Beda (who Erasmus had known in France in the 1490s, but who opposed Greek and Hebrew),[80] as well as Alberto Pío, Prince of Carpi, who read his work with dedicated suspicion. These were theologians, usually from the mendicant orders that were Erasmus' particular target (such as Dominicans, Carmelites and Franciscans), who held a positive "linear view of history" for theology [81] that privileged recent late-medieval theology[82] and rejected the Latin: [[ad fontes]] methodology. Erasmus believed the vehemence of the attacks on Luther was a strategem to blacken humanism (and himself) by association, part of the centuries-long power struggle at the universities between scholastic "theologians" and humanist "poets".[82]
A particularly powerful opponent of Erasmus was Italian humanist Jerome Aleander, Erasmus' former close friend and bedmate in Venice at the Aldine Press and future cardinal. They fell out over Aleander's violent speech against Luther at the Diet of Worms, and with Aleander's identification of Erasmus as "the great cornerstone of the Lutheran heresy."[83]