Editing Erasmus (section)

===Pacifism===
Peace, peaceableness, and peacemaking, in all spheres from the domestic to the religious to the political, were central distinctives of Erasmus' writing on Christian living and his mystical theology:<ref>{{cite web |last1=Dart |first1=Ron |title=Erasmus: Then and Now |url=https://www.clarion-journal.com/clarion_journal_of_spirit/2006/09/erasmus_then_an.html |website=Clarion: Journal for Religion, Peace and Justice |access-date=28 November 2023 |archive-date=30 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231130233709/https://www.clarion-journal.com/clarion_journal_of_spirit/2006/09/erasmus_then_an.html |url-status=live }}</ref> "the sum and summary of our religion is peace and unanimity"<ref group=note>{{lang|la|Summa nostrae religionis pax est et unanimitas}}. Erasmus continued: "This can hardly remain the case unless we define as few matters as possible and leave each individual's judgement free on many questions." {{cite book |last1=Erasmus |title=Letter to Carondelet: The Preface to His Edition of St. Hilary |date=1523}} Note that the use of {{lang|la|summa}} is perhaps also a backhanded reference to the [[scholasticism|scholastic]] {{lang|la|[[summa]]}}, which he upbraided for their moral and spiritual uselessness.{{cite journal |last1=Surtz |first1=Edward L. |title='Oxford Reformers' and Scholasticism |journal=Studies in Philology |date=1950 |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=547–556 |jstor=4172947}}</ref> At the [[Nativity of Jesus]] "the angels sang not the glories of war, nor a song of triumph, but a hymn of peace":<ref>{{cite web |last1=Erasmus |title=The Complaint of Peace, p57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v-IvAAAAYAAJ&q=the+angels+sung+not+the+glories+of+war,+nor+a+song+of+triumph,+but+a+hymn+of+peace |website=Google Books |year=1813 |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-date=15 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230715072639/https://books.google.com/books?id=v-IvAAAAYAAJ&q=the+angels+sung+not+the+glories+of+war,+nor+a+song+of+triumph,+but+a+hymn+of+peace |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{Blockquote|He (Christ) conquered by gentleness; He conquered by kindness; he conquered by truth itself. [...] Long ago, he was called God of Powers, the 'Lord of Hosts/Armies'; for us he is called 'God of Peace'.
 |source=''Method of True Theology'', 4 <ref group=note>"{{langx|la|Vicit mansuetudine, vicit beneficentia}}". R. Sider translates {{lang|la|vicit}} as "he prevailed": {{cite journal |last1=Sider |first1=Robert D. |title=A System or Method of Arriving by a Short Cut at True Theology by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam |journal=The New Testament Scholarship of Erasmus |date=31 December 2019 |pages=479–713 |doi=10.3138/9781487510206-020|isbn=978-1-4875-1020-6 |s2cid=198585078 }}</ref>{{rp|570}} }}

Erasmus was not an absolute [[pacifist]] but promoted political [[pacificism]] and religious [[Irenicism]].<ref name=ronpeace>{{cite journal |last1=Ron |first1=Nathan |title=The Christian Peace of Erasmus |journal=The European Legacy |date=2014 |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=27–42 |doi=10.1080/10848770.2013.859793 |s2cid=143485311 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10848770.2013.859793 |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230619155827/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10848770.2013.859793 |url-status=live }}</ref> Notable writings on irenicism include {{lang|la|De Concordia}}, ''On the War with the Turks'', ''The Education of a Christian Prince'', ''On Restoring the Concord of the Church'', and ''The Complaint of Peace''. Erasmus' ecclesiology of peacemaking held that the church authorities{{refn|group=note|Bruce Mansfield summarizes historian Georg Gebhart's view: "While recognizing the teaching authority, but not the primacy, of Councils, Erasmus adopted a moderate papalism, papal authority itself being essentially pastoral."<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|132}} }} had a divine mandate to settle religious disputes,{{refn|group=note|This was not a naive or far-fetched role: historian Timothy Martin notes that in France around year 1000 "The influence of the Church, which was led by local bishops, who were often members of the region's nobility, became pivotal in restraining the rampant fighting between knights and the pillaging of Church lands and the peasantry. Several examples show that it was the bishop, backed by abbots and sacred relics, preaching a warning of eternal damnation for violators, that most often compelled the local warlords and knights into submission."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Timothy |chapter=Miter and Sword: Fighting Norman Bishops and Clergy |title=Culminating Projects in History |date=1 June 2018 |url=https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/hist_etds/16}}</ref> }} in an as non-excluding way as possible,{{refn|group=note|name=baker-peace}} including by the preferably-minimal [[development of doctrine]].

In the latter, Lady Peace insists on peace as the crux of Christian life and for understanding Christ:

{{Blockquote|"I give you my peace, I leave you my peace" (John 14:27). You hear what he leaves his people? Not horses, bodyguards, empire or riches – none of these. What then? He gives peace, leaves peace – peace with friends, peace with enemies.|source= The Complaint of Peace<ref name="The Complaint of Peace">{{cite book |last1=Erasmus |title=The Complaint of Peace |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complaint_of_Peace |via=Wikisource |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-date=7 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230507080915/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complaint_of_Peace |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

A historian has called him "The 16th Century's Pioneer of Peace Education and a Culture of Peace".{{refn|group=note|If any single individual in the modern world can be credited with "the invention of peace", the honour belongs to Erasmus rather than Kant whose essay on perpetual peace was published nearly three centuries later.{{opinion<!--If this is a quotation, format and attribute it as such-->|date=May 2025}}<ref name="researchgate.net"/>}}

Erasmus' emphasis on peacemaking reflects a typical pre-occupation of [[Pre-Tridentine Mass#Vernacular and laity in the medieval and Reformation eras|medieval lay spirituality]] as historian John Bossy (as summarized by Eamon Duffy) puts it: "medieval Christianity had been fundamentally concerned with the creation and maintenance of peace in a violent world. 'Christianity' in medieval Europe denoted neither an ideology nor an institution, but a community of believers whose religious ideal—constantly aspired to if seldom attained—was peace and mutual love."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Duffy |first1=Eamon |title=The End of Christendom |url=https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/11/the-end-of-christendom |website=First Things |access-date=27 November 2023 |language=en |date=1 November 2016}}</ref> 

====War====
{{See also|Erasmus#The Complaint of Peace (1517)}}
Historians have written that "references to conflict run like a red thread through the writings of Erasmus".<ref name=vollerthun/>{{rp|34}} Erasmus had experienced war as a child and was particularly concerned about wars between Christian kings, who should be brothers and not start wars; a theme in his book ''[[The Education of a Christian Prince]]''. His ''Adages'' included "War is sweet to those who have never tasted it" ({{lang|la|Dulce bellum inexpertis}} from [[:wikiquote:Pindar|Pindar]]'s Greek).{{refn|group=note|"The argument of ''Bellum'' is governed by three favorite themes that recur in other works of Erasmus. First, war is naturally wrong [...] Second, Christianity forbids war [...] Third, 'just cause' in war will be claimed by both sides and will be next to impossible to determine fairly: hence, the traditional criteria of the just war are nonfunctional."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cahill |first1=Lisa Sowle |title=Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Pacifism, Just War, and Peacebuilding |date=2019 |publisher=1517 Media |jstor=j.ctv9b2ww5.11 |isbn=978-1-5064-3165-9 }}</ref> }}

He promoted and was present at the [[Field of Cloth of Gold]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/the-field-of-cloth-of-gold/|title=The Field of Cloth of Gold |publisher=Hampton Court Palace |access-date=2 December 2023}}</ref> and his wide-ranging [[List of Erasmus's correspondents|correspondence]] frequently related to issues of peacemaking.{{refn|group=note|"Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More and John Colet [...] between them in the first three decades of the sixteenth century, ushered in not only humanism – an ethically sanctioned guide for practical, humanitarian ways of living in society – but also the formation of a group that might be called a 'peace movement'."<ref>{{cite book |last1=White |first1=R. S. |title=Pacifism and English Literature |date=2008 |doi=10.1057/9780230583641|isbn=978-1-349-36295-0 }}</ref>}} He saw a key role of the Church in peacemaking by arbitration<ref>{{cite web |last1=Xheraj |first1=Blerina |title=Erasmus, Jus Canonicum and Arbitration |url=https://commercialarbitrationineurope.wordpress.com/2020/12/04/erasmus-jus-canonicum-and-arbitration/ |website=The Social and Psychological Underpinnings of Commercial Arbitration in Europe |date=4 December 2020 |publisher=University of Leicester |access-date=19 June 2023 |archive-date=19 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230619155827/https://commercialarbitrationineurope.wordpress.com/2020/12/04/erasmus-jus-canonicum-and-arbitration/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and mediation,<ref name=vollerthun/>{{rp|50}} and the office of the Pope was necessary to rein in tyrannical princes and bishops.<ref name=gasquet/>{{rp|195}}

He questioned the practical usefulness and abuses{{refn|group=note|"I do not deny that I wrote some harsh things in order&nbsp;to deter the Christians from the madness of war, because I saw that these wars,which we witnessed for too many years, are the source of the biggest part of evils which damage Christendom. Therefore, it was necessary to come forward not only against these deeds, which are clearly criminal, but also against other actions, which are almost impossible to do without committing many crimes." Apology against Albert Pío<ref name=ronpeace/>{{rp|11}}}} of [[just war theory]], further limiting it to feasible defensive actions with popular support and that "war should never be undertaken unless, as a last resort, it cannot be avoided".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dallmayr |first1=Fred R. |title=A War Against the Turks? Erasmus on War and Peace |journal=Asian Journal of Social Science |date=2006 |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=67–85 |doi=10.1163/156853106776150225 |jstor=23654400}}</ref> Defeat should be endured rather than fighting to the end. In his {{lang|la|Adages}} he discusses (common translation) "[[:wikiquote:Desiderius Erasmus|A disadvantageous peace is better than a just war]]", which owes to [[Just war theory#Renaissance and Christian Humanists|Cicero and John Colet]]'s "Better an unjust peace than the justest war." Expansionism could not be justified.{{refn|group=note|"Erasmus and Vives ruled out conquests and annexation of territories."<ref name=ron1/>}} Taxes to pay for war should cause the least possible hardship on the poor.<ref name=ron2>{{cite book |last1=Ron |first1=Nathan |title=Erasmus: intellectual of the 16th century |date=2021 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-3-030-79859-8}}</ref>{{rp|20}} He hated sedition as, often, a cause of oppression.

Erasmus was highly critical of the warlike way of important European princes of his era, including some princes of the church.<ref group=note>Erasmus was not out of step with opinion within the church: Archbishop [[Bernardo Zanne|Bernard II Zinni]] of [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Split-Makarska|Split]] speaking at the [[Fifth Council of the Lateran]] (1512) denounced princes as the most guilty of ambition, luxury and a desire for domination. Bernard proposed that reformation must primarily involve ending war and schism. {{cite journal |last1=Minnich |first1=Nelson H. |title=Concepts of Reform Proposed at the Fifth Lateran Council |journal=Archivum Historiae Pontificiae |date=1969 |volume=7 |pages=163–251 |jstor=23563707 |issn=0066-6785}}</ref> He described these princes as corrupt and greedy. Erasmus believed that these princes "collude in a game, of which the outcome is to exhaust and oppress the commonwealth".<ref name=tracy_low/>{{rp|s1.7.4}} He spoke more freely about this matter in letters sent to his friends like [[Thomas More]], [[Beatus Rhenanus]] and [[Adrianus Barlandus]]: a particular target of his criticisms was the Emperor [[Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian I]], whom Erasmus blamed for allegedly preventing the Netherlands from signing a peace treaty with [[Guelders]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tracy |first1=James D. |title=Holland Under Habsburg Rule, 1506–1566: The Formation of a Body Politic |date=23 October 2018 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-30403-1 |pages=68–70 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x7nADwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 |access-date=4 August 2023 |language=en}}</ref> and other schemes to cause wars in order to extract money from his subjects.{{refn|group=note|James D. Tracy notes that mistrust of the Habsburg government in the general population (partially due to the fact Maximilian and his grandson [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]] were absentee rulers, the secret nature of diplomacy and other circumstances) was widespread, but it is notable that intellectuals like Erasmus and Barlandus also accepted the allegations.<ref name=tracy_low>{{cite book |last1=Tracy |first1=James D. |title=Erasmus of the Low Countries |date=1 January 1996 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-08745-3  |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HvbNbNMP_vcC&pg=PA94 |access-date=4 August 2023 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|94,95}} }}

One of his approaches was to send and publish congratulatory and lionizing letters to princes who, though in a position of strength, negotiated peace with neighbours, such as King [[Sigismund I the Old]] of Poland in 1527.<ref name=herwaarden/>{{rp|75}}

Erasmus "constantly and consistently" opposed the mooted idea of a Christian "universal monarch" with an over-extended empire who could supposedly defeat the Ottoman forces: such universalism did not "hold any promise of generating less conflict than the existing political plurality"; instead, advocating concord between princes, both temporal and spiritual.<ref name=vollerthun/>{{rp|44,45}} The spiritual princes, by their arbitration and mediation do not "threaten political plurality, but acts as its defender."<ref name=vollerthun/>{{rp|50}}

====Intra-Christian religious toleration<span class="anchor" id="Religious toleration"></span>====
He referred to his irenical disposition in the Preface to ''[[De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio|On Free Will]]'' as a "secret inclination of nature" that would make him even prefer the views of the [[Sceptics]] over intolerant assertions, though he sharply distinguished {{lang|la|[[Adiaphora#Christianity|adiaphora]]}} from what was uncontentiously explicit in the [[Bible|New Testament]] or absolutely mandated by [[Magisterium|Church teaching]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yoder |first1=Klaus C. |title=Adiaphora and the Apocalypse: Protestant Moral Rhetoric of Ritual at the End of History (1990–2003) |date=17 May 2016 |page=2 |url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:27194246 |language=en}}</ref> Concord demanded unity and assent: Erasmus was anti-sectarian<ref group=note>"I have made my support of the church sufficiently clear [...] The only thing in which I take pride is that I have never committed myself to any sect." Erasmus, Letter to Georgius Agricola (1534)</ref> as well as non-sectarian.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kieffer |first1=Amanda |title=Ad Fontes: Desiderius Erasmus' Call for a Return to the Sources of a Unified and Simple Christian Faith |journal=The Kabod |date=2006 |volume=3 |issue=1 |url=https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/kabod/vol3/iss1/10/https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/kabod/vol3/iss1/10/ |access-date=16 December 2023}}</ref> To follow the law of love, our intellects must be humble and friendly when making any assertions: he called contention "earthly, beastly, demonic"<ref name="meyer1"/>{{rp|739}} and a good-enough reason to reject a teacher or their followers. In Melanchthon's view, Erasmus taught charity, not faith.<ref name="kurasawa" />{{rp|10}} The centrality of Christian concord to Erasmus' theology contrasted with the insistence of [[Martin Luther]] and, for example, later English [[Puritans]], that (Protestant) truth naturally would create discord and opposition.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dodds |first1=Gregory D. |title=Exploiting Erasmus: The Erasmian Legacy and Religious Change in Early Modern England |date=2009 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |doi=10.3138/9781442688056 |jstor=10.3138/9781442688056 |isbn=978-0-8020-9900-6 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442688056}}</ref>{{rp|219}}

[[File:Quentin_Massys-_Erasmus_of_Rotterdam.JPG|thumb|left|Portrait of Erasmus, after Quinten Massijs (1517)]]
Certain works of Erasmus laid a foundation for religious toleration of private opinions and [[ecumenism]]. For example, in {{lang|la|De libero arbitrio}}, opposing particular views of Martin Luther, Erasmus noted that religious disputants should be temperate in their language "because in this way the truth, which is often lost amidst too much wrangling may be more surely perceived". Gary Remer writes, "Like [[Cicero]], Erasmus concludes that truth is furthered by a more harmonious relationship between interlocutors."<ref>Remer, Gary, ''Humanism and the Rhetoric of Toleration'' (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press 1996), p. 95 {{ISBN|0-271-02811-4}}</ref>

In a letter to Cardinal [[Lorenzo Campeggio]], Erasmus lobbied diplomatically for toleration: "If the sects could be tolerated under certain conditions (as the Bohemians pretend), it would, I admit, be a grievous misfortune, but one more endurable than war."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Emerton |first1=Ephraim |title=Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam |date=1899 |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47517 |language=English}}</ref>{{rp|447}} But the same dedication to avoiding conflict and bloodshed should be shown by those tempted to join (anti-popist) sects:

{{blockquote|Perhaps evil rulers should sometimes be tolerated. We owe some respect to the memory of those whose places we think of them as occupying. Their titles have some claim on us. We should not seek to put matters right if there is a real possibility that the cure may prove worse than the disease.|source=Erasmus, ''The Sileni of Alcibiades'' (1517)}}

====Heresy and sedition====
Erasmus had been privately involved in early attempts to protect Luther and his sympathisers from charges of [[heresy]].{{refn|name=telemachus|group=note|Erasmus was criticized for initially being unwilling to take sides publicly, or to see some aspects of truth or pride in both sides, on many issues. He preferred to participate in controversies he generated himself, rather than the controversies of others. He invoked a story from [[Cassiodorus]], where the monk [[Saint Telemachus]] entered the arena of the Roman stadium to separate fighting gladiators, but was stoned by the crowd.<ref name=baker2006>{{cite journal |last1=Baker-Smith |first1=Dominic |title=Affectivity and Irenicism |journal=Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook |date=2006 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=29–42 |doi=10.1163/187492706X00051}}</ref>}} Erasmus wrote {{lang|la|[[Colloquies#Inquisitio de fide (Inquisition of faith)|Inquisitio de fide]]}} to say that the Lutherans (of 1523) were not formally heretics: he pushed back against the willingness of some theologians to cry heresy fast in order to enforce their views in universities and at inquisitions.

For Erasmus, punishable heresy had to involve fractiously, dangerously, and publicly agitating against essential doctrines relating to Christ (i.e., blasphemy), with malice, depravity, obstinacy.{{refn |group=note|Historian Johannes Trapman notes "But who are in fact heretics? According to Erasmus not somebody who doubts a minor doctrinal point or even errs in some article. [...] For the protection of the commonwealth [...] heretics who are not only blasphemous but also seditious deserve the death penalty."<ref name=trapman/>{{rp|23}} Erasmus commended that the punishment of the early church for heresy was excommunication.}} As with St [[Theodore the Studite]],<ref>{{cite web |script-title=el:Αποστολική Διακονία της Εκκλησίας της Ελλάδος |url=https://apostoliki-diakonia.gr/en_main/catehism/theologia_zoi/themata.asp?cat=patr&main=EH_texts&file=11.htm |website=Apostolic Ministry of the Church of Greece}}</ref> Erasmus was against the death penalty merely for private or peaceable heresy or for dissent on non-essentials: "It is better to cure a sick man than to kill him."<ref name=froude_life>Froude, James Anthony,
[https://archive.org/details/lifeandletterse02frougoog/page/n372 <!-- pg=359 quote=erasmus heretics kill. --> ''Life and letters of Erasmus: lectures delivered at Oxford 1893–4''] (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1894), p. 359</ref> The Church, he said, has the duty to protect believers and convert or heal heretics; he invoked Jesus' [[parable of the wheat and tares]].<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|200}}

Erasmus' [[pacificism]] included a particular dislike for sedition, which caused warfare:

{{Blockquote|text=It was the duty of the leaders of this (reforming) movement, if Christ was their goal, to refrain not only from vice, but even from every appearance of evil; and to offer not the slightest stumbling block to the Gospel, studiously avoiding even practices which, although allowed, are yet not expedient. Above all they should have guarded against all sedition.|source=Letter to Martin Bucer<ref name=huiz>{{cite book |last1=Huizinga |first1=Johan |last2=Flower |first2=Barbara |title=Erasmus and the Age of Reformation |date=1952 |publisher=HarperCollins |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22900/22900-h/22900-h.htm |access-date=15 July 2023}}</ref>}}

Erasmus allowed the death penalty against violent seditionists to prevent bloodshed and war: he allowed that the state has the right to execute those who are a necessary danger to public order—whether heretic or orthodox—but noted (e.g., to [[Natalis Beda]]) that [[Augustine]] had been against the execution of even violent [[Donatist]]s: Johannes Trapman states that Erasmus' endorsement of suppression of the Anabaptists springs from their refusal to heed magistrates and the criminal violence of the [[Münster rebellion]], not because of their heretical views on baptism.<ref name=trapman>{{cite journal |last1=Trapman |first1=Johannes |title=Erasmus and Heresy |journal=Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance |date=2013 |volume=75 |issue=1 |page=12 |jstor=24329313}}</ref> Despite these concessions to state power, Erasmus suggested that religious persecution could still be challenged as inexpedient (ineffective).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Remer |first1=Gary |title=Rhetoric and the Erasmian Defense of Religious Toleration |journal=History of Political Thought |date=1989 |volume=10 |issue=3 |page=385}}</ref>

====Outsiders====
Most of his political writing focused on peace within [[Christendom]] with almost a sole focus on Europe. In 1516, Erasmus wrote, "It is the part of a Christian prince to regard no one as an outsider unless he is a nonbeliever, and even on them he should inflict no harm", which entails not attacking outsiders, not taking their riches, not subjecting them to political rule, no forced conversions, and keeping promises made to them.<ref name=vollerthun/>{{rp|50,51}}

In common with his times,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Howell |first1=Rob |title=Islam as a Heresy: Christendom's Ideological View of Islam |journal=Fairmount Folio: Journal of History |date=2003 |volume=5 |url=https://journals.wichita.edu/index.php/ff/article/view/73 |language=en}}</ref> Erasmus regarded the Jewish and Islamic religions as Christian heresies (and therefore competitors to orthodox Christianity) rather than separate religions, using the inclusive term ''half-Christian'' for the latter.{{refn|group=note|"...&nbsp;in large part half-Christian and perhaps nearer to true Christianity than most of our own folk." ''Letter to Paul Volz''<ref name=martin2024/>{{rp|32}}}}

However, there is a wide range of scholarly opinion on the extent and nature of [[antisemitic]] and [[Islamophobia|anti-Muslim]] prejudice in his writings: historian Nathan Ron has found his writing to be harsh and racial in its implications, with contempt and hostility to Islam.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ron |first1=Nathan |title=Erasmus' attitude to towards Islam in the light of Nicholas of Cusa's De pace fidei and Cribiatio alkorani |journal=Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval |date=2019 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=113–136 |doi=10.21071/refime.v26i1.11846 |s2cid=200062225 |url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/7366141.pdf |access-date=15 July 2023 |archive-date=15 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230715072502/https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/7366141.pdf |url-status=live }} Reviewed: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/abs/erasmus-and-the-other-on-turks-jews-and-indigenous-peoples-nathan-ron-london-palgrave-macmillan-2019-xiv-196-pp-4164/A9692438D8CABC869D3344F1DFBA6C88 ''Renaissance Quarterly''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230729073149/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/abs/erasmus-and-the-other-on-turks-jews-and-indigenous-peoples-nathan-ron-london-palgrave-macmillan-2019-xiv-196-pp-4164/A9692438D8CABC869D3344F1DFBA6C88 |date=29 July 2023 }}</ref>

=====Turks=====
In his last decade, he involved himself in the [[On War Against the Turk|public policy debate]] on war with the [[Ottoman Empire]], which was then invading [[Ottoman wars in Europe#1526–1566: Conquest of the Kingdom of Hungary|Western Europe]], notably in his book ''On the war against the Turks'' (1530), as the "reckless and extravagant"<ref>{{cite web |last1=Withnell |first1=Stephen |title=A terrible pope but a patron of genius |url=https://catholicherald.co.uk/a-terrible-pope-but-a-patron-of-genius/ |website=Catholic Herald |date=25 April 2019 |access-date=27 April 2024 |archive-date=27 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240427055122/https://catholicherald.co.uk/a-terrible-pope-but-a-patron-of-genius/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Pope Leo X had in previous decades promoted going on the offensive with a new crusade.<ref group=note>"...&nbsp;the goal of {{lang|la|De bello Turcico}} was to warn Christians and the Church of moral deterioration and to exhort them to change their ways.&nbsp;... Erasmus' objection to crusades was by no means an overall opposition to fighting the Turks. Rather, Erasmus harshly condemned embezzlement and corrupt fundraising, and the Church's involvement in such nefarious activities, and regarded them as inseparable from waging a crusade." {{cite journal |last1=Ron |first1=Nathan |title=The Non-Cosmopolitan Erasmus: An Examination of his Turkophobic/Islamophobic Rhetoric |journal=Akademik Tarih ve Düşünce Dergisi (Academic Journal of History and Idea) |date=1 January 2020 |url=https://www.academia.edu/67458204}} pp. 97,98</ref> Erasmus reworked Luther's rhetoric that the invading Turks represent God's judgment of decadent Christendom, but without Luther's fatalism: Erasmus not only accused Western leaders of kingdom-threatening hypocrisy, he reworked a remedy already decreed by the [[Fifth Council of the Lateran]]: anti-expansionist moral reforms by Europe's disunited leaders as a necessary unitive political step before any aggressive warfare against the Ottoman threat, reforms which might themselves, if sincere, prevent both the internecine and foreign warfare.<ref name=herwaarden>{{cite journal |last1=van Herwaarden |first1=Jan |title=Erasmus and the Non-Christian World |journal=Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook |date=2012 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=69–83 |doi=10.1163/18749275-00000006}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|The idea that European peace and order was a precondition for successful crusades has a longer history: Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 called for the re-enacting of the [[Peace and Truce of God#Peace of God and Truce of God and chivalry and crusades|Truce of God]] for domestic peace.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bainton |first=Roland H. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/963644630 |title=Christian attitudes towards war and peace: a historical survey and critical re-evaluation |publisher=Abingdon Press |year=1979 |orig-year=1st ed. 1960 |isbn=0-687-07027-9 |location=New York |oclc=963644630}}</ref>{{rp|111–112}} }}

=====Jews=====
{{See also|Legacy and evaluations of Erasmus#Controversy on antisemitism}}
[[File:LuisVives.jpg|thumb|Juan Luis Vives]]

Erasmus perceived and championed strong [[#Classical|Hellenistic]] rather than exclusively Hebraic influences on the [[Hellenistic Judaism#Cultural legacy|intellectual milieux]] of Jesus, Paul, and the early church: "If only the Christian church did not attach so much importance to the Old Testament!"{{refn|group=note|name=OT|"If only the Christian church did not attach so much importance to the Old Testament! It is a thing of shadows, given us for a time." ''Ep 798'' p. 305.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rummel |first1=Erika |title=Review of Opera Omnia. vo. V-2. Opera Omnia vol. V-3. Opera Omnia. II-4. |journal=Renaissance Quarterly |date=1989 |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=304–308 |doi=10.2307/2861633 |jstor=2861633 |s2cid=164160751  |issn=0034-4338}}</ref> For Erasmus, "the relative importance we should ascribe to the different books of the Bible" accorded to how much "they bring us more or less directly to knowledge of (Christ)", which gave priority to the New Testament and the Gospels in particular.<ref name=bouyer1/> "To Erasmus, Judaism was obsolete. To Reuchlin, something of Judaism remained of continuing value to Christianity."<ref name=dunkel/>}} Perhaps the only Jewish book he published was his loose translation of the first century Hellenistic-Judaic ''On the Sovereignty of Reason'', better known as [[4 Maccabees]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=842 / To Helias Marcaeus – 863 / From Jakob Spiegel |journal=The Correspondence of Erasmus |date=31 December 1982 |pages=2–105 |doi=10.3138/9781442681026-004|isbn=978-1-4426-8102-6 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781442681026-004/html}}</ref> 

Erasmus' pervasive anti-ceremonialism treated the early Church debates on circumcision, food, and special days as manifestations of cultural chauvinism by the initial Jewish Christians in Antioch.{{refn|group=note|"The Jews" (i.e. the earliest Jewish Christians in Antioch) "because of a certain human tendency, desire(d) to force their own rites upon everyone, clearly in order under this pretext to enhance their own importance. For each one wishes that the things which he himself has taught should appear as outstanding." Erasmus, ''Paraphrase of Romans and Galatians''<ref name=chester/>{{rp|321}} }}

While many humanists, from [[Pico della Mirandola]] to [[Johannes Reuchlin]], were intrigued by Jewish mysticism, Erasmus came to dislike it: "I see them as a nation full of most tedious fabrications, who spread a kind of fog over everything, Talmud, Cabbala, Tetragrammaton, Gates of Light, words, words, words. I would rather have Christ mixed up with Scotus<!--which? Duns Scotus?--> than with that rubbish of theirs."<ref name=letters594>{{cite book |last1=Erasmus |first1=Desiderius |title=The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 594–841 (1517–1518) |date=31 December 1979 |doi=10.3138/9781442681019|isbn=978-1-4426-8101-9 }}</ref>{{rp|347}}

In his ''Paraphrase on Romans'', Erasmus voiced, as Paul, the "secret" that in the end times, "all of the Israelites will be restored to salvation" and accept Christ as their Messiah, "although now part of them have fallen away from it".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cohen |first1=Jeremy |title=3. The Latin West: From Augustine to Luther and Calvin |journal=The Salvation of Israel |date=15 August 2022 |pages=50–70 |doi=10.1515/9781501764769-005}}</ref>

Several scholars have identified [[Legacy and evaluations of Erasmus#Controversy on antisemitism|cases]] where Erasmus' comments appear to go beyond theological [[anti-Judaism]] into slurs or approving to an extent certain [[anti-semitic]] policies, though there is some controversy.

=====Slaves=====
On the subject of slavery, Erasmus characteristically treated it in passing under the topic of tyranny: Christians were not allowed to be tyrants, which slave-owning required, but especially not to be the masters of other Christians.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kute |first1=David |title=Erasmus and the Ideal Ruler |url=https://davidkute.com/2019/12/26/396/ |date=26 December 2019}}</ref> Erasmus had various other piecemeal arguments against slavery: for example, that it was not legitimate to enslave people taken in an unjust war; but it was not a subject that occupied him. However, his belief that "nature created all men free" (and slavery was imposed) was a rejection of Aristotle's category of natural slaves.<ref name=ron1>{{cite book |last1=Ron |first1=Nathan |chapter=Erasmus' and las Casas' Conception of Barbarian Peoples |title=Erasmus and the "Other" |date=2019 |pages=77–96 |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-24929-8_6|isbn=978-3-030-24928-1 }}</ref>

====Politics====
Erasmus promoted the idea that a prince rules with the consent of his people, notably in his book ''[[The Education of a Christian Prince]]'' (and, through More, in the book [[Utopia (book)|''Utopia'']], which proposed a "republic completely lacking sovereignty"<ref name=mayer>{{cite journal |last1=Mayer |first1=T. F. |title=Tournai and Tyranny: Imperial Kingship and Critical Humanism |journal=The Historical Journal |date=1991 |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=257–277 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00014138 |jstor=2639498 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2639498 |issn=0018-246X}}</ref>). He may have been influenced by the [[Brabant]]ine custom of an incoming ruler being officially told of his duties and welcomed:<ref name=maarten/> the [[Joyous Entry of 1356|Joyous Entry]] was a kind of contract. A monarchy should not be absolute: it should be "checked and diluted with a mixture of aristocracy and democracy to prevent it ever breaking out into tyranny".<ref name="seop2009" /> The same considerations applied to church princes.

Erasmus contrasts the Christian Prince with the Tyrant, who has no love from the people, will be surrounded by flatterers, and can expect no loyalty or peace. Unspoken in Erasmus' views may have been the idea that the people can remove a tyrant; however, espousing this explicitly could expose people to capital charges of sedition or treason. Erasmus typically limited his political discussion to what could be couched as personal faith and morality by or between Christians, his business as a ''magister'' of theology.