Editing Erasmus (section)

===Religious reform===
{{Catholic philosophy}}

====Personal reform====
Erasmus expressed much of his reform program in terms of the proper attitude towards the [[sacraments]] and their ramifications:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Payne |first1=John B. |title=Erasmus: His Theology of the Sacraments |date=1970 |publisher=Knox |language=en}}</ref> notably for the underappreciated sacraments of Baptism and Marriage (see ''[[#On the Institution of Christian Marriage (1526)|On the Institution of Christian Marriage]]'') considered as vocations more than events;{{refn|group=note|
In marriage, Erasmus' two significant innovations, according to historian Nathan Ron, were that "matrimony can and should be a joyous bond, and that this goal can be achieved by a relationship between spouses based on mutuality, conversation, and persuasion."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ron |first1=Nathan |chapter=Erasmus on the Education and Nature of Women |title=Erasmus: intellectual of the 16th century |date=2021 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Cham |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-79860-4_4 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |isbn=978-3-030-79859-8 |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-79860-4 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-79860-4_4 |pages=37–47 |access-date=1 January 2024 |archive-date=1 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240101133933/https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-79860-4 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|4:43}} }} and for the mysterious Eucharist, pragmatic Confession, the dangerous [[Last Rites]] (writing ''On the Preparation for Death''),<ref group=note>According to historian Thomas Tentler, few Christians from his century gave as much emphasis as Erasmus to a pious attitude to death: the terrors of death are "closely connected to guilt from sin and fear of punishment" the antidote to which is first "trust in Christ and His ability to forgive sins", avoiding (Lutheran) boastful pride, then a loving, undespairing life lived with appropriate penitence. The priests' focus in the Last Rites should be comfort and hope. {{cite journal |last1=Tentler |first1=Thomas N. |title=Forgiveness and Consolation in the Religious Thought of Erasmus |journal=Studies in the Renaissance |date=1965 |volume=12 |pages=110–133 |doi=10.2307/2857071 |jstor=2857071  |issn=0081-8658}}</ref> and the pastoral Holy Orders (see ''[[#The Preacher (1536)|Ecclesiastes]]'').<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tylenda |first1=Joseph N. |title=Book Review: Erasmus: His Theology of the Sacraments |journal=Theological Studies |date=December 1971 |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=694–696 |doi=10.1177/004056397103200415|s2cid=170334683 }}</ref> Historians have noted that Erasmus commended the benefits of immersive, docile scripture-reading in sacramental terms.{{refn|group=note| name=sider2020|"It is because Christ is in the pages of the bible that we meet him as a living person. As we read these pages we absorb his presence, we become one with him." Robert Sider<ref name=sider2020>{{cite journal |last1=Sider |first1=Robert |editor-first1=Robert D. |editor-last1=Sider |title=Erasmus on the New Testament |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=31 December 2020 |doi=10.3138/9781487533250|isbn=978-1-4875-3325-0 |s2cid=241298542 }}</ref>}}

=====Sacraments=====
[[File:Johannes Oecolampadius by Asper.jpg|thumb|''Johannes Œcolampadius'' by Asper (1550)]]
A test of the Reformation was the doctrine of the sacraments, and the crux of this question was the observance of the [[Eucharist]]. Erasmus was concerned that the [[sacramentarian]]s, headed by [[Johannes Oecolampadius|Œcolampadius]] of Basel, were claiming Erasmus held views similar to their own in order to try to claim him for their schismatic and "erroneous" movement. When the Mass was finally banned in Basel in 1529, Erasmus immediately abandoned the city, as did the other expelled Catholic clergy.

In 1530, Erasmus published a [[list of editiones principes in Latin|new edition]] of the orthodox treatise of [[Algerus]] against the heretic [[Berengar of Tours]] in the eleventh century. He added a dedication, affirming his belief in the reality of the Body of Christ after consecration in the Eucharist, commonly referred to as [[transubstantiation]]. However, Erasmus found the scholastic formulation of transubstantiation to stretch language past its breaking point.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Praise-of-Folly-by-Erasmus|title = Praise of Folly &#124; work by Erasmus |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>

By and large, the miraculous real change that interested Erasmus, the author, more than that of the bread is the transformation in the humble partaker.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=David |title=Sacramental Reading: Foxe's Book of Actes and Milton's Fifth Gospel |journal=The Communion of the Book |date=15 November 2022 |pages=157–228 |doi=10.1515/9780228015857-009|isbn=978-0-2280-1585-7 }}</ref>{{rp|211}} Erasmus wrote several notable pastoral books and pamphlets on sacraments, always looking through rather than at the rituals or forms:{{refn|group=note|On confession "he differed from Luther and Wycliffe as much as he differed from mainstream conservative theology in deferring any question of how the sacrament worked in favour of its creating a moral development in the penitent."<ref name=marquis/>{{rp|54}} }} 

*on marriage and wise matches, 
*preparation for confession and the need for pastoral encouragement by priests (whose primary duty was to shepherd, not just to consecrate/absolve),<ref name=marquis/>{{rp|73}}  
*preparation for death and the need to assuage fear, 
*training and helping the preaching duties of priests under bishops, 
*baptism and the need for that faithful to own the baptismal vows made for them.

====Catholic reform====

=====Institutional reforms=====
[[File:Albrecht Dürer - Portrait of Erasmus - WGA07088.jpg|thumb|Albrecht Dürer, ''Portrait of Erasmus'', sketch: black chalk on paper, 1520]]
The [[Protestant Reformation]] began in the year following the publication of his [[Textus receptus|pathbreaking]] edition of the [[Novum Instrumentum omne|New Testament]] in Latin and Greek (1516). The issues between the reforming and reactionary tendencies of the [[Catholic Church|church]], from which [[Protestantism]] later emerged, had become so clear that many intellectuals and churchmen could not escape the summons to join the debate.

According to historian C. Scott Dixon, Erasmus not only criticized church failings but questioned many of his Church's basic teachings;<ref group=note name="Dixon 2012">"Erasmus had been [[criticism of the Catholic Church|criticizing the Catholic church]] for years before the [[Protestant Reformers|reformers]] emerged, and not just pointing up its failings but questioning many of its basic teachings. He was the author of a series of publications, including a [[Novum Instrumentum omne|Greek edition of the New Testament]] (1516), which laid the foundations for a model of Christianity that called for a pared-down, internalized style of religiosity focused on Scripture rather than the elaborate, and incessant, outward rituals of the [[Christianity in the Middle Ages|medieval church]]. Erasmus was not a forerunner in the sense that he conceived or defended ideas that later made up the substance of the Reformation thought. [...] It is enough that some of his ideas merged with the later Reformation message." {{cite book |last=Dixon |first=C. Scott |year=2012 |title=Contesting the Reformation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i6kf0Tv_i1AC&pg=PA60 |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]] |page=60 |isbn=978-1-4051-1323-6 }}</ref> however, according to biographer Erika Rummel, "Erasmus was aiming at the correction of abuses rather than at doctrinal innovation or institutional change."{{refn |group=note|"Unlike Luther, he accepted papal primacy and the teaching authority of the church and did not discount human tradition. The reforms proposed by Erasmus were in the social rather than the doctrinal realm. His principal aim was to foster piety and to deepen spirituality."
<ref name=rummel1>{{cite journal |last1=Rummel |first1=Erika |title=The theology of Erasmus |journal=The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology |series=Cambridge Companions to Religion |date=2004 |pages=28–38 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-reformation-theology/theology-of-erasmus/A1916A5FFA073EEC8D42C60E03F028E3 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/CCOL0521772249.005 |isbn=978-0-521-77224-2 |access-date=10 November 2023 |archive-date=10 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231110071325/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-reformation-theology/theology-of-erasmus/A1916A5FFA073EEC8D42C60E03F028E3 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|37}} }}

In theologian Louis Bouyer's interpretation,<ref name=bouyer1/> Erasmus' agenda was "to reform the Church from within by a renewal of biblical theology, based on philological study of the New Testament text, and supported by a knowledge of patristics, itself renewed by the same methods. The final object of it all was to nourish [...] chiefly moral and spiritual reform".<ref group=note>"Rigorously scientific biblical study must sustain an effort to renew the interior life, and the interior life must itself be at once the agent and the beneficiary of a renewal of the whole of Christian society." This went beyond the  {{lang|la|devotio moderna}}, which "was a spirituality of teachers"m</ref>

At the height of his literary fame, Erasmus was called upon to take one side, but public partisanship was foreign to his beliefs, nature, and habits. Despite all his [[Criticism of the Catholic Church|criticism of clerical corruption and abuses within the Western Church]],{{refn|group=note|Writer Gregory Wolfe notes however "For Erasmus, the narrative of decline is a form of despair, a failure to believe that the tradition can and will generate new life."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wolfe |first1=Gregory |title=The Erasmus Option |journal=Image Journal |issue=94 |url=https://imagejournal.org/article/erasmusoption/ |access-date=19 January 2024 |archive-date=19 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240119230956/https://imagejournal.org/article/erasmusoption/ |url-status=live }}</ref>}} especially at first he sided unambiguously with neither Luther nor the anti-Lutherans publicly (though in private he lobbied assiduously against extremism from both parties), but eventually shunned the breakaway Protestant Reformation movements along with their most [[Radical Reformation|radical offshoots]].<ref name="Hoffmann 1989"/>

{{Blockquote|I have constantly declared, in countless letters, booklets, and personal
statements, that I do not want to be involved with either party.|source=Erasmus, ''Spongia'' (1523)}}

The world had laughed at his satire, ''[[The Praise of Folly]]'', but few had interfered with his activities. He believed that his work had commended itself to the religious world's best minds and dominant powers. Erasmus chose to write in Latin (and Greek), the languages of scholars. He did not build a large body of supporters among the unlettered; his critiques reached a small but elite audience.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wallace|first=Peter G.|title=European History in Perspective: The Long European Reformation|year=2004|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=New York|isbn=978-0-333-64451-5|page=70}}</ref>

Erasmus was also notable for exposing several important historical documents of theological and political importance as forgeries or misattributions: including pseudo-[[Dionysius the Areopagite]], the {{lang|la|[[Gravi de pugna]]}} attributed to [[St Augustine]], the {{lang|la|[[Ad Herennium]]}} attributed to Cicero, and (by reprinting [[Lorenzo Valla]]'s work)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levine |first1=Joseph M. |title=Reginald Pecock and Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine |journal=Studies in the Renaissance |date=1973 |volume=20 |pages=118–143 |doi=10.2307/2857015 |jstor=2857015  |issn=0081-8658}}</ref> the [[Donation of Constantine]].

=====Anti-fraternalism=====
Reacting from his own experiences, Erasmus came to believe that monastic life and institutions no longer served the positive spiritual or social purpose they once may have:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Post |first1=Regnerus Richardus |title=The Modern Devotion: Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism |date=1968 |publisher=Brill Archive |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|669}} in the ''Enchiridion'' he controversially put it "Monkishness is not piety."{{refn|group=note|{{lang|la|monachatus non est pietas}}, "Being a monk is not piety", but he adds "but a way of life that may be useful or not useful according to each man's physical make-up and disposition".<ref name=rummel1/>{{rp|36}} }} At this time, it was better to live as "a monk in the world" than in the monastery.{{refn|group=note|DeMolen claims: "It is important to recall that Erasmus remained a member of the Austin Canons all his life. His lifestyle harmonized with the spirit of the Austin Canons even though he lived outside their monastic walls."<ref name=demolen1/> Erasmus represents the anti-[[Observantism|Observantist]] wing of the canons regular who believed that the charism of their orders required them to be more externally focussed (on pastoral, missionary, scholarly, charitable and sacramental works) and correspondingly de-focussed on monastic severity and ceremonialism. 
}}

Many of his works contain diatribes against supposed monastic corruption and careerism, particularly against the mendicant friars (Franciscans and Dominicans). These orders also typically ran the university's Scholastic theology programs, from whose ranks came his most dangerous enemies. The more some attacked him, the more offensive he became about what he saw as their political influence and materialistic opportunism.

{{rquote|right|Alastor, an evil spirit: "They are a certain Sort of Animals in black and white Vestments, Ash-colour'd Coats, and various other Dresses, that are always hovering about the Courts of Princes, and [to each side] are continually instilling into their Ears the Love of War, and exhorting the Nobility and common People to it, haranguing them in their Sermons, that it is a just, holy and religious War. [...]"
Charon: "[...] What do they get out of it?"
Alastor: "Because they get more by those that die, than those that live. There are last Wills and Testaments, Funeral Obsequies, Bulls, and a great many other Articles of no despicable Profit. And in the last Place, they had rather live in a Camp, than in their Cells. War breeds a great many Bishops, who were not thought good for any Thing in a Time of Peace." |source=Erasmus, "Charon", ''Colloquies''}}

He was scandalized by superstitions (such as that if a person were buried in a Franciscan habit, they would go directly to heaven),{{refn|group=note|See the colloquy {{lang|la|Exequiae Seriphicae}}<ref name=bietenholz/>}} crime,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lusset |first1=Elizabeth |title='Non monachus, sed demoniacus': Crime in Medieval Religious Communities in Western Europe, 12th–15th Centuries |journal=The Monasric Research Bulletin |date=2012 |issue=18 |url=https://www.york.ac.uk/media/borthwick/documents/publications/The%20Monastic%20Research%20Bulletin,%20Issue%2018%20(2012).pdf |access-date=13 December 2023 |archive-date=13 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231213153028/https://www.york.ac.uk/media/borthwick/documents/publications/The%20Monastic%20Research%20Bulletin%2C%20Issue%2018%20%282012%29.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and child novices. He advocated various reforms, including a ban on taking orders until the 30th year; the closure of corrupt and smaller monasteries; respect for bishops; requiring work, not begging (reflecting the practice of his own order of [[Augustinian Canons]]); the downplaying of monastic hours, fasts and ceremonies; and a less mendacious approach to gullible pilgrims and tenants.

However, he was not in favour of speedy closures of monasteries, nor of closing larger reformed monasteries with important libraries: in his account of his pilgrimage to Walsingham, he noted that the funds extracted from pilgrims typically supported houses for the poor and elderly.<ref name=pilgrimage>''A Religious Pilgrimage'', {{cite web |last1=Seery |first1=Stephenia |title=The Colloquies of Erasmus |url=https://it.cgu.edu/earlymodernjournal/vol1-no1/seery.html |publisher=Claremont Graduate University}}</ref>

These ideas widely influenced his generation of humanists, both Catholic and Protestant,<ref name=knowles>{{cite journal |last1=Knowles |first1=Dom David |title=Ch XI – Erasmus |journal=The Religious Orders in England |date=27 September 1979 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511560668.012}}</ref>{{rp|152}} and the lurid hyperbolic attacks in his half-satire ''The Praise of Folly'' were later treated by Protestants as objective reports of near-universal corruption. Furthermore, "what is said over a glass of wine, ought not to be remembered and written down as a serious statement of belief", such as his proposal to marry all monks to all nuns or to send them all away to fight the Turks and colonize new islands.<ref name=gasquet/>

He believed the only vow necessary for Christians should be the vow of baptism, and others such as the vows of the [[evangelical counsels]], while admirable in intent and content, were now mainly counter-productive.

However, Erasmus frequently commended the [[evangelical counsels]] for all believers, and with more than lip service: for example, the first adage of his reputation-establishing {{lang|la|Adagia}} was "Between friends all is common", where he tied common ownership (such as practiced by his order's style of poverty) with the teachings of classical philosophers and Christ.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Willinsky |first1=John |title=Make Haste Slowly: Aldus and Erasmus, Printers and Scholars |url=https://aldine.lib.sfu.ca/willinsky-make-haste-slowly |website=Aldus |publisher=Simon Fraser University}}</ref>

His main Catholic opposition was from scholars in the mendicant orders. He purported that "[[Francis of Assisi|Saint Francis]] came lately to me in a dream and thanked me for chastising them."<ref>Letter to Charles Utenhove (1523)</ref> After his lifetime, scholars of mendicant orders have sometimes disputed Erasmus as hyperbolic and ill-informed. A 20th-century [[Benedictine]] scholar wrote of him as "all sail and no rudder".<ref name=seaver/>{{rp|357}}

Erasmus did also have significant support and contact with reform-minded friars, including [[Franciscans]] such as Jean Vitrier and [[Cardinal Cisneros]], and Dominicans such as [[Cardinal Cajetan]], the former master of the [[Order of Preachers]].

====Protestant reform====
The early reformers built their theology on Erasmus' philological analyses of specific verses in the New Testament: repentance over penance (the basis of the first thesis of the Luther's [[95 Theses]]), justification by imputation, grace as favour or clemency, faith as hoping trust,<ref name=green>{{cite journal |last1=Green |first1=Lowell C. |title=The Influence of Erasmus upon Melanchthon, Luther and the Formula of Concord in the Doctrine of Justification |journal=Church History |date=1974 |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=183–200 
|jstor=3163951 |s2cid=170458328 |doi=10.2307/3163951 |issn=0009-6407}}</ref> human transformation over reformation, congregation over church, mystery over sacrament, etc. In Erasmus' view, they went too far, downplayed Sacred Tradition such as Patristic interpretations, and irresponsibly fomented bloodshed.

Erasmus was one of many scandalized by the sale of indulgences to fund Pope Leo X's projects. His view, given in a 1518 letter to [[John Colet]], was less theological than political: "The Roman curia has abandoned any sense of shame. What could be more shameless than these constant indulgences? And now they put up war against the Turks as a pretext, when their aim really is to drive the Spaniards from Naples."<ref name=letters594/>

=====Increasing disagreement with Luther=====
[[File:Cranach, Portraits of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Portraits of [[Martin Luther]] (left) and [[Philip Melanchthon]] by [[Lucas Cranach the Elder]]]]
Erasmus and Luther impacted each other greatly. Each had misgivings about each other from the beginning (Erasmus on Luther's rash and antagonistic character, Luther on Erasmus' focus on morality rather than grace) but strategically agreed not to be negative about the other in public.

Noting Luther's criticisms of corruption in the Church, Erasmus  described Luther to Pope Leo X as "a mighty trumpet of gospel truth" while agreeing, "It is clear that many of the reforms for which Luther calls" (e.g., on the sale of indulgences) "are urgently needed."<ref name="Galli, Mark 2000, p. 344">Galli, Mark, and Olsen, Ted. ''131 Christians Everyone Should Know''. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2000, p. 344.</ref> However, behind the scenes Erasmus forbade his publisher Froben from handling the works of Luther<ref name=serikoff>{{cite journal |last1=Serikoff |first1=Nicolaj|title=The Concept of Scholar-Publisher in Renaissance: Johannes Froben |journal=Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences |date=2004 |volume=90 |issue=1 |pages=53–69 |jstor=24530877 |issn=0043-0439}}</ref>{{rp|64}} and tried to keep the reform movement focused on institutional rather than theological issues, yet he also privately wrote to authorities to prevent Luther's persecution. In the words of one historian, "at this earlier period he was more concerned with the fate of Luther than his theology."<ref name=kleinhans>{{cite journal |last1=Kleinhans |first1=Robert G. |title=Luther and Erasmus, Another Perspective |journal=Church History |date=1970 |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=459–469 |doi=10.2307/3162926 |jstor=3162926 |s2cid=162208956  |issn=0009-6407}}</ref>

In 1520, Erasmus wrote that "Luther ought to be answered and not crushed."<ref>Letter to Louis Marlianus, 25 March 1520</ref> However, the publication of Luther's ''[[On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church]]'' (October 1520),<ref>{{cite web |title=Erasmus – Dutch Humanist, Protestant Challenge |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erasmus-Dutch-humanist/The-Protestant-challenge |website=Encyclopelædia Britannica |language=en |access-date=21 June 2023 |archive-date=21 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230621053941/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erasmus-Dutch-humanist/The-Protestant-challenge |url-status=live }}</ref> which largely repudiated Church teaching on sacraments,<ref name=marquis>{{cite thesis |last1=Marquis |first1=Todd A. |title=From penance to repentance: themes of forgiveness in the early English reformation |date=February 2016 |publisher=University of Warwick |url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/82158 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|82}} and his subsequent bellicosity drained Erasmus' and many humanists' sympathy, even more as Christians became partisans and the partisans took to violence.

Luther hoped for his cooperation in a work which seemed only the natural outcome of Erasmus' own,<ref group=note>"In the first years of the Reformation many thought that Luther was only carrying out the program of Erasmus, and this was the opinion of those strict Catholics who from the outset of the great conflict included Erasmus in their attacks on Luther." [[wikisource:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Desiderius Erasmus|''Catholic Encyclopedia'']]</ref> and spoke with admiration of Erasmus's superior learning. In their early correspondence, Luther expressed boundless admiration for all Erasmus had done in the cause of a sound and reasonable Christianity and urged him to join the Lutheran party. Erasmus declined to commit himself, arguing his usual "small target" excuse, that to do so would endanger the cause of {{lang|la|[[Humanitas#Classical origins of term|bonae litterae]]}}{{refn|group=note|An expression Erasmus coined. ''[[:wikt:bonus#Latin|Bonae]]'' connotes more than just good, but also moral, honest and brave literature. Such ''sound learning'' encompassed both sacred literature ({{langx|la|sacrae litterae}}), namely patristic writings and sacred scriptures ({{langx|la|sacrae scripturae}}), and profane literature ({{langx|la|prophanae litterae}}) by classical pagan authors.<ref name=vankooten2024>{{cite journal |last1=van Kooten |first1=George |last2=Payne |first2=Matthew |last3=Rex |first3=Richard |last4=Bloemendal |first4=Jan |title=Erasmus' Cambridge Years (1511–1514): The Execution of Erasmus' Christian Humanist Programme, His Epitaph for Lady Margaret's Tomb in Westminster Abbey (1512), and His Failed Attempt to Obtain the Lady Margaret's Professorship in the Face of Scholastic Opposition |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=6 March 2024 |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=33–102 |doi=10.1163/18749275-04401002|doi-access=free }}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cummings |first1=Brian |title=Erasmus and the Invention of Literature |journal=Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook |date=1 January 2013 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=22–54 |doi=10.1163/18749275-13330103}}</ref>  which he regarded as one of his purposes in life. Only as an independent scholar could he hope to influence the reform of religion. When Erasmus declined to support him, the "straightforward" Luther became angered that Erasmus was avoiding the responsibility due either to cowardice or a lack of purpose.

However, any hesitancy on the part of Erasmus may have stemmed not from lack of courage or conviction, but rather from a concern over the mounting disorder and violence of the reform movement. To [[Philip Melanchthon]] in 1524 he wrote:

{{quote|I know nothing of your church; at the very least it contains people who will, I fear, overturn the whole system and drive the princes into using force to restrain good men and bad alike. The gospel, the word of God, faith, Christ, and Holy Spirit – these words are always on their lips; look at their lives and they speak quite another language.<ref>{{cite book| chapter=Letter of 6 September 1524| title= Collected Works of Erasmus| year= 1992 | publisher=University of Toronto Press| volume=10| isbn= 0-8020-5976-7 |page= 380 | chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=bYVEgXbiunkC&pg=PA380}}</ref>}}

Catholic theologian George Chantraine notes that, where Luther quotes Luke 11:21 "He that is not with me is against me", Erasmus takes Mark 9:40 "For he that is not against us, is on our part."<ref name=kinney>{{cite journal |last1=Kinney |first1=Daniel |title=Georges Chantraine, S. J., Erasme et Luther: Libre et serf arbitre, etude Historique et Theologique. Paris: Éditions Lethielleux / Presses Universitaires de Namur, 1981. XLV + 503 pp. in-8°. 270 Fr |type=book review |journal=Moreana |date=February 1983 |volume=20 |issue=77 |pages=85–88 |doi=10.3366/more.1983.20.1.22}}</ref>{{rp|86}}

Though he sought to remain accommodative in doctrinal disputes, each side accused him of siding with the other, perhaps because of his perceived influence and what they regarded as his dissembling neutrality,<ref group=note>Future cardinal [[Aleander]], his former friend and roommate at the [[Aldine Press]], wrote "The poison of Erasmus has a much more dangerous effect than that of Luther". [[wikisource:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Desiderius Erasmus|''Catholic Encyclopedia'']]</ref> which he regarded as peacemaking [[Accommodation (religion)#Christian accommodation|accommodation]]:

{{Blockquote|text=I detest dissension because it goes both against the teachings of Christ and against a secret inclination of nature. I doubt that either side in the dispute can be suppressed without grave loss.
|source=''On Free Will''<ref name="Galli, Mark 2000, p. 344"/>}}

=====Dispute on free will=====
{{Main|De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio}}
{{Further | Works of Erasmus#On Free Will (1524)}}
By 1523, and first suggested in a letter from Henry VIII, Erasmus had been convinced that Luther's ideas on necessity/free will were a subject of core disagreement deserving a public airing, and strategized with friends and correspondents<ref>{{cite web |last1=Emerton |first1=Ephraim |title=Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47517/47517-h/47517-h.htm#FNanchor_152 |website=Project Guttenberg |access-date=30 April 2023 |archive-date=30 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230430060431/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47517/47517-h/47517-h.htm#FNanchor_152 |url-status=live }}</ref> on how to respond with proper moderation<ref>{{cite book |last1=Alfsvåg |first1=Knut |title=The Identity of Theology (Dissertation) |date=October 1995 |pages=6, 7 |url=https://www.alfsvag.com/onewebmedia/IdentityofTheology.pdf}}</ref> without making the situation worse for all, especially for the humanist reform agenda. He eventually chose a [[De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio#Background|campaign]] that involved an irenical 'dialogue' ''The Inquisition of Faith'',  a positive, evangelical model sermon ''On the Measureless Mercy of God'', and a gently critical 'diatribe' ''On Free Will''.

The publication of his brief book ''On Free Will'' initiated what has been called "The greatest debate of that era",<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Costello |first1=Gabriel J. |title=Erasmus, Luther and the Free Will Debate: Influencing the Philosophy of Management 500 Years on-whether we realise it or not! |journal=Conference: Philosophy of Management Conference University of Greenwich |date=2018 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325127081 |access-date=24 October 2023}}</ref> which still has ramifications today.<ref name=massing>Massing, 2022 ([https://www.harpercollins.com/products/fatal-discord-michael-massing?variant=39387603533858  publisher's abstract])</ref> They bypassed discussion on reforms which they both agreed on in general, and instead dealt with authority and biblical justifications of [[synergism]] versus [[monergism]] in relation to salvation.

Luther responded with [[w:On the Bondage of the Will|''On the Bondage of the Will'']] ({{lang|la|De servo arbitrio}}) (1525).

Erasmus replied to this in his lengthy two-volume ''Hyperaspistes'' and other works, which Luther ignored. Apart from the perceived moral failings among followers of the Reformers—an important sign for Erasmus—he also dreaded any change in doctrine, citing the long history of the Church as a bulwark against innovation. He put the matter bluntly to Luther:

{{Blockquote|text=We are dealing with this: Would a stable mind depart from the opinion handed down by so many men famous for holiness and miracles, depart from the decisions of the Church, and commit our souls to the faith of someone like you who has sprung up just now with a few followers, although the leading men of your flock do not agree either with you or among themselves – indeed though you do not even agree with yourself, since in this same ''Assertion''<ref>A reference to Luther's {{lang|la|Assertio omnium articulorum per bullam Leonis X. novissimam damnatorum}} (''Assertion of all the Articles condemned by the Bull of Leo X'', 1520), [[Weimar edition of Martin Luther's works|WA]] VII.</ref> you say one thing in the beginning and something else later on, recanting what you said before.|source=''Hyperaspistes'' I<ref>''Collected Works of Erasmus, Controversies: De Libero Arbitrio / Hyperaspistes I'', Peter Macardle, Clarence H. Miller, trans., Charles Trinkhaus, ed., University of Toronto Press, 1999, {{ISBN|978-0-8020-4317-7}} Vol. 76, p. 203</ref>}}

Continuing his chastisement of Luther – and undoubtedly put off by the notion of there being "no pure interpretation of Scripture anywhere but in Wittenberg"<ref>{{cite book|author=István Pieter Bejczy|title=Erasmus and the Middle Ages: The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MxLV1yVyT7sC&pg=PA172|year=2001|publisher=Brill|isbn=90-04-12218-4|page=172}}</ref> – Erasmus touches upon another important point of the controversy:

{{Blockquote|text=You stipulate that we should not ask for or accept anything but Holy Scripture, but you do it in such a way as to require that we permit you to be its sole interpreter, renouncing all others. Thus the victory will be yours if we allow you to be not the steward but the lord of Holy Scripture.|source=''Hyperaspistes'', Book I<ref>''Hyperaspistes'', Book I, ''Collected Works of Erasmus'', Vol. 76, pp. 204–05.</ref>}}

===== "False evangelicals" =====
In 1529, Erasmus wrote "An epistle against those who falsely boast they are Evangelicals" to [[Gerard Geldenhouwer|Gerardus Geldenhouwer]] (former Bishop of Utrecht, also schooled at Deventer).

{{Blockquote| text=You declaim bitterly against the luxury of priests, the ambition of bishops, the tyranny of the Roman Pontiff, and the babbling of the sophists; against our prayers, fasts, and Masses; and you are not content to retrench the abuses that may be in these things, but must needs abolish them entirely.<ref name=preserved>''The Reformers on the Reformation (foreign),'' London, Burns & Oates, 1881, [https://archive.org/stream/a636947900londuoft#page/12/mode/2up/search/vulturius+neocomus pp. 13–14]. See also ''Erasmus'', Preserved Smith, 1923, Harper & Brothers, [https://books.google.com/books?id=l0obJ9XfPMUC&pg=PA391 pp. 391–92].</ref>}}

Here Erasmus complains of the doctrines and morals of the Reformers, applying the same critique he had made about public Scholastic disputations:

{{Blockquote|
Look around on this 'Evangelical' generation,<ref>{{lang|la|Circumspice populum istum Euangelicum...}} Latin text in Erasmus, [https://books.google.com/books?id=WIhDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PT174 ''Opera Omnia''] (1706), vol. 10, 1578BC.</ref> and observe whether amongst them less indulgence is given to luxury, lust, or avarice, than amongst those whom you so detest. Show me any one person who by that Gospel has been reclaimed from drunkenness to sobriety, from fury and passion to meekness, from avarice to liberality, from reviling to well-speaking, from wantonness to modesty. I will show you a great many who have become worse through following it. [...] The solemn prayers of the Church are abolished, but now there are very many who never pray at all. [...]

I have never entered their conventicles, but I have sometimes seen them returning from their sermons, the countenances of all of them displaying rage, and wonderful ferocity, as though they were animated by the evil spirit. [...]

Who ever beheld in their meetings any one of them shedding tears, smiting his breast, or grieving for his sins? [...] Confession to the priest is abolished, but very few now confess to God. [...] They have fled from Judaism that they may become Epicureans.
|source=''Epistola contra quosdam qui se falso iactant evangelicos.''<ref>{{cite book |editor=Manfred Hoffmann| title=Controversies | publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=  2010 | isbn=978-1-4426-6007-6 | doi=10.3138/9781442660076 | page=}}</ref>}}

===== Other=====
According to historian Christopher Ocker, the early reformers "needed tools that let their theological distinctions pose as commonplaces in a textual theology; [...] Erasmus provided the tools", but this tendentious distinction-making, reminiscent of the recent excesses of Scholasticism to Erasmus' eyes, "was precisely what Erasmus disliked about Luther" and "Protestant polemicists".<ref name=ocker2022/>

Erasmus wrote books against aspects of the teaching, impacts or threats of several other Reformers:<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Regier |first1=Willis |title=Review of Erasmus, Controversies: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 78, trans. Peter Matheson, Peter McCardle, Garth Tissol, and James Tracy. |journal=Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature |date=1 January 2011 |volume=9 |issue=2 |url=https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/vol9/iss2/5 |access-date=6 August 2023 |issn=1523-5734 |archive-date=6 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806082322/https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/vol9/iss2/5/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

* [[Ulrich von Hutten]]: {{lang|la|[[#A Sponge to wipe away the Spray of Hutten (1523)|Spongia adversus aspergines Hutteni]]}} (1523)
* [[Martin Bucer]]: ''Responsio ad fratres Inferioris Germaniae ad epistolam apologeticam incerto autoreproditam'' (1530)
* {{ill|Heinrich Eppendorf|de}}: ''Admonitio adversus mendacium et obstrectationem'' (1530)

However, Erasmus maintained friendly relations with other Protestants, notably the irenic [[Melanchthon]] and [[Albrecht Dürer]].

A common accusation, supposedly started by antagonistic monk-theologians,{{refn|group=note|Namely Egmondanus, the Louvain Carmelite Nicolaas Baechem.<ref name=ocker2022/>}} made Erasmus responsible for Martin Luther and the Reformation: "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it." Erasmus wittily dismissed the charge, claiming that Luther had "hatched a different bird entirely".<ref name=renolds>Reynolds, Terrence M. (1977). [http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/reynoldserasmusresponsibleluther.pdf "Was Erasmus Responsible for Luther? A Study of the Relationship of the Two Reformers and Their Clash Over the Question of the Will"]. ''Concordia Theological Journal''. p. 2. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326031149/http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/reynoldserasmusresponsibleluther.pdf |date=26 March 2023 }}. Reynolds references Arthur Robert Pennington (1875), [https://archive.org/details/lifeandcharacte00penngoog/page/n242 ''The Life and Character of Erasmus''], p. 219.</ref> Erasmus-reader [[Peter Canisius]] commented: "Certainly there was no lack of eggs for Luther to hatch."<ref name=canisius>{{cite book |first=Himer M.|last= Pabel|chapter= Praise and Blame: Peter Canisius's ambivalent assessment of Erasmus |editor-last1=Enenkel |editor-first1=Karl Alfred Engelbert |title=The reception of Erasmus in the early modern period |date=2013 |page=139 |doi=10.1163/9789004255630_007 | isbn=978-90-04-25563-0}}</ref><ref group=note>Another commentator: "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther broke." {{cite web |last1=Midmore |first1=Brian |title=The differences between Erasmus and Luther in their approach to reform |url=http://www.passionforgrace.org.uk/Erasluther.html |access-date=3 December 2023 |date=7 February 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070207041537/http://www.passionforgrace.org.uk/Erasluther.html |archive-date=7 February 2007 }}</ref>