Editing Erasmus (section)

====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>