How Did Erasmus Influence The Church

Desiderius Erasmus, believed to be the illegitimate son of a Priest named Gerard, was born around 1466 in the Netherlands. He is also believed to have been born with a different name, and his birthday is unknown because he was born out of wedlock. Despite this, his father made sure he had a good education school, sending him to a prestigious latin school when he was 9 years old. However, when Erasmus’s parents died, he was sent to live with guardians who strongly believed that he should become a Monk. During this time, Erasmus gained a personal relationship with God but was opposed to the strict rules and teachings of the school. Poverty eventually forced Erasmus into a monastery in 1492 where he was ordained a Catholic priest. He then became

In his dramatic dialogue, Praise of Folly, Erasmus personifies ‘folly’ as a woman. Folly presents her own controversial opinions on social, political, and religious issues at the time. She criticizes, not only many political figures and intellectual professions; but also monks, the church, theologians, and the clergymen. Erasmus’s works stood out during this time because they challenged the traditional ideas that were being taught in schools all over Europe at the time. He was also about to publish a new greek translation of the new testament. In the last few years of the reign of Henry VIII and through the reign of Edward VI, the Church of England was very much in support of Erasmus’s new translations of the new testament. The first edition was finally published in 1516 and it challenged the world of theological thinking and interpretation of bible passages. Around the same time, Erasmus also published a copy in traditional latin with his own annotations and corrections. In this version, he used his greek translation to answer questions around passages that were unclear in the latin version. Erasmus focused more on answering theological questions, rather than the meaning behind the passages. Many of his interpretations and ideas aligned with those of humanist, mostly the want to return to a much simpler christianity. Erasmus's

This began to change after Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses in 1517. Despite their sometimes similar views, Erasmus and Luther fought viciously against each other. Erasmus believed Luther’s views were extreme, but did not consider him a heretic and fought against his excommunication. Luther believed Erasmus to be an incompetent theologian and did believe he was capable of understanding such complex concepts. They fought indirectly for several years until 1524 when Erasmus published De Libero Arbitrio (On Freedom of Will). In this piece of Literature, he condemned Luther and his methods for reform in the catholic church. However, he did not want to completely denounce Luther and his ideals. Therefore, he called the book a diatribè, a greek word that means discussion. One year later, Luther published his response De Servo Arbitrio (On The Enslaved Will). This work brutally criticized and angered Erasmus, calling him a hypocrite and atheist. They wrote about and to each other a few more times in the form of books and letters. Despite their difference of opinion and extremely dislike of each other, they argued their points much in the same way. Both did not use real philosophical debate through reasoning in their writings because they shared the idea that it was harmful when used to argue for and against religious belief. Instead, they argued using a method of humanistic theology that Erasmus