Editing Erasmus (section)

=====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.