Editing Erasmus (section)

====Irony====
Erasmus often wrote in a highly ironical idiom,<ref name=martinirony/> especially in his letters,<ref group=note name=slippery>His mode of expression made him "slippery like a snake", according to Luther,{{cite journal |last1=Visser |first1=Arnoud |title=Irreverent Reading: Martin Luther as Annotator of Erasmus |journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal |date=2017 |volume=48 |issue=1|pages=87–109 |doi=10.1086/SCJ4801005 |hdl=1874/348917 |s2cid=31540853 |hdl-access=free }})</ref> which makes them prone to different interpretations when taken literally rather than ironically.

* Ulrich von Hutten claimed that Erasmus was secretly a Lutheran; Erasmus chided him saying that von Hutten had not detected the irony in his public letters enough.<ref name=tracey_sponge/>{{rp|27}} 
* Antagonistic scholar J. W. Williams denies that Erasmus' letter to Ammonius, "let your own interests be your standard in all things", was in apparent jest, as claimed by those more sympathetic to Erasmus.<ref name=williams>{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=W. J. |title=Erasmus the Man |journal=Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review |date=1927 |volume=16 |issue=64 |pages=595–604 |jstor=30094064 |issn=0039-3495}}</ref>  
* Erasmus' aphoristic quote on the persecution of Reuchlin, "If it is Christian to hate Jews, we are all abundantly Christians here", is taken literally by Theodor Dunkelgrün<ref name=dunkel>{{cite journal |last1=Dunkelgrün |first1=Theodor |title=The Christian Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe |journal=The Cambridge History of Judaism |date=16 November 2017 |pages=316–348 |doi=10.1017/9781139017169.014|isbn=978-1-139-01716-9 }}</ref>{{rp|320}} and Harry S. May<ref name=may>{{cite journal |last1=May |first1=Harry S. |last2=ה' |first2=מאי<!--JSTOR landing page only gives this name in Hebrew script-->|script-title=he:ארסמוס והיהודים – מחקר פסיכו-היסטורי |title=Erasmus and the Jews – a Psychohistoric Reëvaluation |script-journal=he:דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעי היהדות |journal=Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies |date=1973 |volume=1–2<!--JSTOR landing page gives both--> |pages=85–93 |jstor=23529114 |issn=0333-9068}}</ref> as being approving of such hatred; the alternative view would be that it was sardonic and challenging.

He frequently wrote about controversial subjects using the [[dialogue]] to avoid direct statements clearly attributable to himself.{{refn|group=note|"[...] of all Renaissance writers, Erasmus is the one who prefers the dialogue, with its avoidance of dogmatism, it balance and swing of debate, its insistence of friendship and communication."<ref name=cwe23/>{{rp|7}}  }} For Martin Luther, he was an eel,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wolfe |first1=Gregory |title=Erasmus is an Eel: Renaissance Humanist Hero |url=https://comment.org/erasmus-is-an-eel-renaissance-humanist-hero/ |website=Comment Magazine |language=en-CA |date=1 March 2012}}</ref> slippery, evasive and impossible to capture.