Desiderius Erasmus

From Philosopedia

Erasmus (28 Oct 1466 (1469?) - 12 July 1536)

(or Desiderius Erasmus or Erasmus von Rotterdam)

Erasmus, whose original name was Gerrit Gerritszoon, the Dutch scholar and Renaissance humanist, revolted against the other-worldliness of medieval Christianity but did not reject its supernaturalism. He often cited Greek and Roman philosophers and authors, leading Constandse to refer to Erasmus as a pagan rather than a Christian.

He spent six years in an Augustinian monastery, becoming private secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, and in 1492 became a priest. Going to Paris, he lived as a teacher, then moved to England in 1498, becoming professor of divinity and of Greek at Cambridge. Here he wrote the satire, Encomium moriae (1509, The Praise of Folly).

After 1514 he lived alernately in Basel and England, then in Louvain (1517-1521).

His masterpiece, Colloquia, appeared in 1519 and was a bold attack on church abuses. Also, he mde the first translation of the Greek New Testament into English (1516) and edited the works of St. Jerome (1519(). In 1521 he lft Louvain, living mainly in Basel, where he continued to be involved in controversy.

Erasmus valued the human conscience and felt that good and evil has existed for all nations and all times. His emphasis was upon making peace among all people, and he rarely used ecclesiastical dogmas as his starting point.

His influence was widespread, and it was said that Pope Paul had once considered making him a cardinal. But in Spain, his followers, called erasmistas, came to be considered heretics or some kind of crypto-Protestants.

Joseph McCabe cites Erasmus as a great freethinker of his time, adding that he was probably the bastard son of a Dutch priest and his niece. Although we may not know the full extent of his skepticism, McCabe wrote,

• he did use his very wide influence to scourge the Roman Church and at times the whole Christian world.

He despised both Rome and Lutheranism, but had “no inclination to die for the truth,” McCabe wrote, adding that Erasmus

• loved comfort (usually at the expense of a friend or patron) and had rather a cynical and Rabelaisian outlook upon life; though this and his discretion about the truth will not surprise any who know the age and the state of the Church. The Catholics burned his fine edition of the Greek New Testament, yet tolerated the grossest license, and the Reformers were sour against the Humanist culture which Erasmus loved. While he did much to ensure the success of the Reformation - he has been described as ‘the man who laid the egg that Luther hatched’ — Luther detested him.

After joining the monastery in 1488, Erasmus is said to have become enamored of Servatius Rogerus, who may have accepted, then spurned, his attentions. The platonic friendship with William Blount, Fourth Lord Mountjoy, was his most enduring friendship.

(For a listing of the classical humanists, see Classical Humanism. Forest Tyler Stevens of Johns Hopkins University has an entire chapter on Erasmus’s alleged homosexuality in Queering the Renaissance (1994), edited by Jonathan Goldberg. He analyzes the “love” letters between Erasmus and young Servatius Rogerus. See entry for Preservèd Smith.)

{CE; CL, ER; EU, Anton L. Constandse; HNS2; JM; JMRH; RE}