Editing Erasmus (section)

=== Philosophy ===
[[File:Hans Holbein d.J. und Werkstatt - Erasmus von Rotterdam.jpg|thumbnail|Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger and workshop]]
Erasmus has a problematic standing in the history of philosophy: whether he should be called a philosopher at all,<ref group="note">For Craig R. Thompson, Erasmus cannot be called philosopher in the technical sense, since he disdained formal logic and metaphysics and cared only for moral philosophy. Similarly, John Monfasani reminds us that Erasmus never claimed to be a philosopher, was not trained as a philosopher, and wrote no explicit works of philosophy, although he repeatedly engaged in controversies that crossed the boundary from philosophy to theology. His relation to philosophy bears further scrutiny. {{Cite web |last=MacPhail |first=Eric |title=Desiderius Erasmus (1468?—1536) |url=https://iep.utm.edu/erasmus/#H2 |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=28 July 2023 |archive-date=17 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100817120759/https://iep.utm.edu/erasmus/#H2 |url-status=live }}</ref> (as, indeed, some question whether he should be considered a theologian either<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|205}}).  Erasmus deemed himself to be a rhetorician (rhetoric being the art of argumentation to find what was most probably true on questions where logic could not provide certainty)<ref group=note>"Humanists regarded it (rhetoric) as a practical way to investigate questions on which dialectical argumentation based on logic had proved unable to produce certitude. Rhetoric was the procedure to be used in pursuit of conclusions that could not be proved beyond doubt but were the most probable choice among the alternatives explored." {{cite web |last1=Nauert |first1=Charles |title=Desiderius Erasmus |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archIves/spr2010/entries/erasmus/#RheSke |website=plato.stanford.edu |language=en}}</ref> or grammarian rather than a philosopher.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Traninger |first1=Anita |title=Erasmus and the Philosophers |journal=A Companion to Erasmus |date=25 January 2023 |pages=45–67 |doi=10.1163/9789004539686_005|isbn=978-90-04-53968-6 }}</ref>{{rp|66}} He was particularly influenced by satirist and rhetorician [[Lucian]].<ref group=note>"According to Erasmus, Lucian's laughter is the most appropriate instrument to guide pupils towards moral seriousness because it is the denial of every peremptory and dogmatic point of view and, therefore, the image of a joyful {{lang|la|pietas}} ("true religion ought to be the most cheerful thing in the world"; {{lang|la|De recta pronuntiatione}}, CWE 26, 385). By teaching the relativity of communicative situations and the variability of temperaments, the laughter resulting from the art of rhetoric comes to resemble the most sincere content of Christian morality, based on tolerance and loving persuasion." {{cite journal |last1=Bacchi |first1=Elisa |title=Hercules, Silenus and the Fly: Lucian's Rhetorical Paradoxes in Erasmus' Ethics |journal=Philosophical Readings Online Journal of Philosophy |date=2019 |volume=CI |issue=2 |url=https://www.academia.edu/38549692 |access-date=20 October 2023 |archive-date=1 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231101204154/https://www.academia.edu/38549692 |url-status=live }}</ref> Erasmus' writings shifted "an intellectual culture from logical disputation about things to quarrels about texts, contexts, and words".<ref name=ocker>{{cite journal |last1=Ocker |first1=Christopher |title=Review: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 73: Controversies: Apologia de 'In Principio Erat Sermo', Apologia de Loco 'Omnes quidem', De Esu Carnium, De Delectu Ciborum Scholia, Responsio ad Collationes, edited by Drysdall, Denis L. |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=2017 |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=229–231 |doi=10.1163/18749275-03702007}}</ref>

====Classical====
Erasmus syncretistically took phrases, ideas and motifs from many classical philosophers to furnish discussions of Christian themes:{{refn|group=note|According to historian Jamie Gianoutsos, Erasmus was not cherry-picking, in the way of St Augustine's 'spoiling the Egyptians', i.e., acquiring what is valuable from the pagan heritage for the benefit of Christianity. "Erasmus, in contrast, had expressed reserve and even cautious criticism for Augustine's views while betraying great enthusiasm for St Jerome and his metaphor of the freeman who marries the captive slave to obtain her freedom. Christianity [...] had wed itself to the classical heritage to enhance and liberate it (i.e., that heritage) from its pagan ethos".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gianoutsos |first1=Jamie A. |title=Sapientia and Stultitia in John Colet's Commentary on First Corinthians |journal=Reformation & Renaissance Review |date=4 May 2019 |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=109–125 |doi=10.1080/14622459.2019.1612979|s2cid=182939353 }}</ref>}} academics have identified aspects of his thought as variously [[Platonist]] (duality),<ref group=note>{{cite book |quote=Erasmus does not engage with Plato as a philosopher, at least not in any rigorous sense, but rather as a rhetorician of spiritual experience, the instigator of a metaphorical system which coheres effectively with Pauline Christianity.|first= Dominic |last=Baker-Smith|title=Platonism and the English Imagination |chapter= Uses of Plato by Erasmus and More  |date=1994 |pages=86–99 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511553806.010  |isbn=978-0-521-40308-5 |quote-page=92}}</ref> [[Cynicism (philosophy)|Cynical]] ([[asceticism]]),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Laursen |first1=J. C. |title=Erasmus and Christian Cynicism as Cultural Context for Toleration |journal=Theological Foundations of Modern Constitutional Theory|publisher= Nantes Institute for Advanced Study |date=2016 |url=https://www.iea-nantes.fr/rtefiles/File/Ateliers/2016%20Hong/erasmus-and-christian-cynicism-j-c-laursen.pdf |access-date=8 August 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=dogs>{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Hugh |title=Dogs' Tales: Representations of Ancient Cynicism in French Renaissance Texts |journal=Faux Titre Online| volume= 279|date=1 January 2006 |doi=10.1163/9789401202985_006|s2cid=243905013 }}</ref> [[Stoicism|Stoic]] ([[adiaphora]]),<ref name=dealy>{{cite book |last1=Dealy |first1=Ross |title=The Stoic Origins of Erasmus' Philosophy of Christ |date=2017 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |jstor=10.3138/j.ctt1kgqwzz |isbn=978-1-4875-0061-0}}</ref> [[Epicurean]] ([[ataraxia]],<ref group=note>"Despite a lack of formal philosophical training and an antipathy to medieval [[scholasticism]], Erasmus possessed not only a certain familiarity with [[Thomas Aquinas]], but also close knowledge of [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]]. Erasmus' interest in some Platonic motifs is well known. But the most consistent philosophical theme in Erasmus' writings from his earliest to his latest was that of the [[Epicurean]] goal of peace of mind, ''[[ataraxia]]''. Erasmus, in fact, combined Christianity with a nuanced Epicurean morality. This Epicureanism, when combined in turn with a commitment to the {{lang|la|[[Sensus fidelium#Use by the magisterium|consensus Ecclesiae]]}} as well as with an allergy to dogmatic formulations and an appreciation of the [[Greek Fathers]], ultimately rendered Erasmus alien to [[Martin Luther|Luther]] and [[Protestantism]] though they agreed on much." Abstract of {{cite journal |last1=Monfasani |first1=John |title=Twenty-fifth Annual Margaret Mann Phillips Lecture: Erasmus and the Philosophers |journal=Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook |date=2012 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=47–68 |doi=10.1163/18749275-00000005}}</ref>  pleasure as virtue),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Leushuis |first1=Reinier |title=The Paradox of Christian Epicureanism in Dialogue: Erasmus' Colloquy The Epicurean |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=2015 |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=113–136 |doi=10.1163/18749275-03502003}}</ref> realist/non-voluntarist,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2010/12/a-much-neglected-basic-choice-in-theology/|title=A Much Neglected Basic Choice in Theology|first=Roger E.|last=Olson|date=26 December 2010|access-date=2 December 2023|archive-date=19 January 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240119154826/https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2010/12/a-much-neglected-basic-choice-in-theology/|url-status=live}}</ref>
and [[Isocrates|Isocratic]] (rhetoric, political education, syncretism).<ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Innerd |first1=W. L. |title=The contribution of Isocrates to Western educational thought |date=1969 |publisher=Durham University |url=http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9599/ |type=Masters |access-date=21 December 2023 |archive-date=13 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413053157/http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9599/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|19}} However, his Christianized version of [[Epicureanism]] is regarded as his own.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Linkels |first1=Nicole |title=Philosophy and Religion in service of the Philosophia Christi |journal=Erasmus Student Journal of Philosophy |date=2013 |issue=5 |page=48 |url=https://www.eur.nl/sites/corporate/files/ESJP.5.2013.04.Linkels.pdf |access-date=19 July 2023}}</ref>

Erasmus was sympathetic to a kind of epistemological ([[Ciceronian]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Thorsrud |first1=Harald |title=Cicero: Academic Skepticism |url=https://iep.utm.edu/cicero-academic-skepticism/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=21 April 2024 |archive-date=13 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240313225043/https://iep.utm.edu/cicero-academic-skepticism/ |url-status=live }}</ref> not [[Cartesian doubt|Cartesian]])<ref name=boyle/>{{rp|50}} [[Pyrrhonism|Scepticism]]:{{refn|group=note|Historian Fritz Caspari quipped that [[Machiavelli]] "appears as a sceptic whose premise is the badness of man", while Erasmus is a sceptic whose general premise is "man is or can be made good".<ref name=caspari>{{cite journal |last1=Caspari |first1=Fritz |title=Erasmus on the Social Functions of Christian Humanism |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=1947 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=78–106 |doi=10.2307/2707442 |jstor=2707442  |issn=0022-5037}}</ref> }}

{{Blockquote|A Sceptic is not someone who doesn't care to know what is true or false&nbsp;... but rather someone who does not make a final decision easily or fight to the death for his own opinion, but rather accepts as probable what someone else accepts as certain&nbsp;... I explicitly exclude from Scepticism whatever is set forth in Sacred Scripture or whatever has been handed down to us by the authority of the Church. |source= Erasmus<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rummel |first1=Erika |last2=MacPhail |first2=Eric |title=Desiderius Erasmus |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/erasmus/#Meth |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2021 |access-date=25 August 2023 |archive-date=11 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211081603/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/erasmus/#Meth |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Historian Kirk Essary has noted that from his earliest to last works Erasmus "regularly denounced the Stoics as specifically unchristian in their hardline position and advocacy of {{lang|la|apatheia}}": warm affection and an appropriately fiery heart being inalienable parts of human sincerity;<ref name=fiery>{{cite journal |last1=Essary |first1=Kirk |title=Fiery Heart and Fiery Tongue: Emotion in Erasmus' Ecclesiastes |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=2016 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=5–34 |doi=10.1163/18749275-03601014}}</ref>{{rp|17}} however, historian Ross Dealy sees Erasmus' decrial of other non-gentle "perverse affections" as having Stoical roots.<ref name=dealy/>

Erasmus wrote in terms of a tri-partite nature of man, with the soul the seat of free will:

{{Blockquote|The body is purely material; the spirit is purely divine; the soul&nbsp;... is tossed back and forwards between the two according to whether it resists or gives way to the temptations of the flesh. The spirit makes us gods; the body makes us beasts; the soul makes us men.|Erasmus<ref name=laytam/>
}}

According to theologian [[George van Kooten]], Erasmus was the first modern scholar "to note the similarities between Plato's ''Symposium'' and John's Gospel", first in the ''Enchiridion'' then in the ''Adagia'', pre-dating other scholarly interest by 400 years.<ref name="vanKooten">{{cite web |last1=van Kooten |first1=George |title=Three Symposia |url=https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/inaugural-lecture-george-van-kooten-three-symposia.pdf |website=Faculty of Divinity |publisher=University of Cambridge |access-date=5 August 2023 |archive-date=11 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230811151428/https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/inaugural-lecture-george-van-kooten-three-symposia.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref>{{cite book |contributor-first=Harold W. |contributor-last=Attridge |contribution=Plato, Plutarch, and John: Three Symposia about Love |last1=Townsend |first1=Philippa |last2=Denzey Lewis |first2=Nicola |last3=Jenott |first3=Lance |last4=Iricinschi |first4=Eduard |title=Beyond the Gnostic Gospels: Studies Building on the Work of Elaine Pagels |series=Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity |volume=82 |date=2013 |publisher=Mohr Siebec |location=Tübingen}}</ref>

====Anti-scholasticism====
[[File:Thomas van Aquino inspireert zich op de geschriften van andere theologen Titelpagina voor D. Augvstini et SS. Patrvm de Libero Arbitrio Interpres Thomifticus Contra Ianfenitas (titel op object), RP-P-OB-7416.jpg |thumb|Thomas Aquinas inspiring himself on Free Will from the writings of previous theologians such as Augustine (1652)]]

{{blockquote|text=Erasmus did not have a metaphysical bone in his frail body, and had no real feeling for the philosophical concerns of scholastic theology. |source=Lewis W. Spitz<ref name=spitz>{{cite journal |last1=Spitz |first1=Lewis W. |title=Desiderius Erasmus |journal=Reformers in Profile: [essays] |date=1967 |url=https://archive.org/details/reformers-in-profile/page/n67/mode/2up}}</ref>{{rp|70}} }}

He usually eschewed metaphysical, epistemological and logical philosophy as found in [[Peripatetic school|Aristotle]]:<ref group=note>In the ''Adagia'', Erasmus quotes Aristotle 304 times, "making extensive use of the moral, philosophical, political, and rhetorical writings as well as those on natural philosophy, while completely shunning the logical works that formed the basis for scholastic philosophy". {{cite book |last1=Mann Phillips |first1=Margaret |title=The 'Adages' of Erasmus. A Study with Translations |date=1964 |publisher=Cambridge University Press}} Cited by {{cite book |last1=Traninger |first1=Anita |chapter=Erasmus and the Philosophers |title=A Companion to Erasmus |date=25 January 2023 |pages=45–67 |doi=10.1163/9789004539686_005|isbn=978-90-04-53968-6 }}</ref> in particular the curriculum and systematic methods of the post-Aquinas Schoolmen ([[Scholastics]]){{refn|group=note|"However learned the works of those men may be, however 'subtle' and, if it please them, however 'seraphic', it must still be admitted that the Gospels and Epistles are the supreme authority." Erasmus, ''Paraclesis'', cited by Sider<ref name=sider>{{cite journal |last1=Sider |first1=Robert |editor-first1=Robert D. |editor-last1=Sider |title=Erasmus on the New Testament |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=2 April 2020 |doi=10.3138/9781487533250  |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-1-4875-3325-0 |s2cid=241298542 |language=en}}</ref>}} and what he regarded as their frigid, counter-productive [[Aristoteleanism]]:{{refn|group=note|Erasmus followed the tradition of proto-humanist [[Petrarch]], summarized as: "Aristotle was spiritually deficient, because although he could define virtue, his words lacked the power to motivate men to lead virtuous lives. It was not possible to know God adequately in this life, but it was possible to love him, which made virtue far more important than knowledge."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hitchcock |first1=James |title=The Age of Reformations by James Hitchcock |journal=Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity |url=http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=30-05-036-f |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|39}} }} "What has Aristotle to do with Christ?"<ref>{{cite book |title=The Erasmus Reader |chapter=Letter to Dorp |date=1990 |pages=169–194 |chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1287x95.12 |publisher=University of Toronto Press|jstor=10.3138/j.ctt1287x95.12 |isbn=978-0-8020-6806-4 }}</ref>{{refn|group=note|A narrowing of [[Tertullian#Other beliefs|Tertullian]]'s "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"}}

{{blockquote |They can deal with any text of scripture as with a nose of wax, and knead it into what shape best suits their interest.|source= ''[[The Praise of Folly]]''<ref>{{cite book |last1=Foote |first1=George |title=Flowers of Freethought |date=1894 |url=https://web.seducoahuila.gob.mx/biblioweb/upload/FLOWERS_OF_FREETHOUGHT.pdf}}</ref>{{rp|75}}}}

Erasmus held that academics must avoid philosophical factionalism as an offense against Christian concord, in order to "make the whole world Christian".<ref>{{cite book |title=Collected works of Erasmus: an introduction with Erasmus' prefaces and ancillary writings |date=2019 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto, Buffalo (New Jersey), London |isbn=978-0-8020-9222-9}}</ref>{{rp|851}} Indeed, Erasmus thought that Scholastic philosophy actually distracted participants from their proper focus on immediate morality,<ref group=note>Rice puts it "Philosophy is felt to be a veil of pretense over an unethical reality&nbsp;... pious disquisitions cannot excuse immorality." {{cite journal |last1=Rice |first1=Eugene F. |title=Erasmus and the Religious Tradition, 1495–1499 |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=1950 |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=387–411 |doi=10.2307/2707589 |jstor=2707589  |issn=0022-5037}}</ref><ref group=note>"For I am ready to swear that Epimenides came to life again in Scotus." ''Erasmus to Thomas Grey'' Nichols, ep. 59; Allen, ep 64</ref> unless used moderately,{{refn|group=note|"Like [[Jean Gerson]] before him, he recommended that (scholastic method) be practiced with greater moderation and that it be complemented by the new philological and patristic knowledge that was becoming available."<ref name=origenscheck>{{cite book |last1=Scheck |first1=Thomas P. |title=Erasmus's Life of Origen |chapter=Erasmus's Program for Theological Renewal |date=2016 |pages=1–42 |chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19rmcgd.7 |publisher=Catholic University of America Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctt19rmcgd.7 |jstor=j.ctt19rmcgd.7 |isbn=978-0-8132-2801-3 }}</ref>{{rp|26}} }} and by "excluding the Platonists from their commentaries, they strangle the beauty of revelation."<ref group=note>"I find that in comparison with the Fathers of the Church our present-day theologians are a pathetic group. Most of them lack the elegance, the charm of language, and the style of the Fathers. Content with Aristotle, they treat the mysteries of revelation in the tangled fashion of the logician. Excluding the Platonists from their commentaries, they strangle the beauty of revelation." ''Enchiridion'', Erasmus, cited by {{cite journal |last1=Markos |first1=Louis A. |title=The Enchiridion of Erasmus |journal=Theology Today |date=April 2007 |volume=64 |issue=1 |doi=10.1177/004057360706400109|s2cid=171469828 |page=86}}</ref> "They are windbags blown up with Aristotle, sausages stuffed with a mass of theoretical definitions, conclusions, and propositions."<ref>Erasmus, ''The Sileni of Alcibiades'' (1517)</ref>

Nevertheless, church historian {{ill|Ernst Wilhelm Kohls|de|lt=Ernst Kohls}} has commented on a certain closeness of Erasmus' thought to [[Thomas Aquinas]]', despite Erasmus' skepticism about runaway Aristotelianism<ref name=cwe23/>{{rp|9}} and his methodological dislike of collections of disconnected sentences for quotation. Ultimately, Erasmus personally owned Aquinas' {{lang|la|[[Summa theologiae]]}}, the {{lang|la|[[Catena aurea]]}} and his commentary on Paul's epistles.<ref name=books>{{cite book |last1=Gulik |first1=Egbertus van |last2=Grayson |first2=J. C. |last3=McConica |first3=James |last4=Trapman |first4=J. |title=Erasmus and his books |date=2018 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto; Buffalo; London |isbn=978-0-8020-3876-0}}</ref>

===={{lang|la|Philosophia Christi}}====
{{rquote|right|Everything in the pagan world that was valiantly done, brilliantly said, ingeniously thought, diligently transmitted, had been prepared by Christ for his society.|source=Erasmus, ''Antibarbari''<ref name=cwe23 />{{rp|9}} }}

(Not to be confused with his Italian contemporary Chrysostom Javelli's {{lang|la|Philosophia Christiana}}.)

Erasmus approached [[Ancient philosophy#Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy|classical philosophers]] theologically and rhetorically: their value was in how they pre-saged, explained or amplified the unique teachings of Christ (particularly the Sermon on the Mount<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|117}}): the {{lang|la|philosophia Christi}}.<ref group=note>"Why don't we all reflect: this must be a marvelous and new philosophy since, in order to reveal it to mortals, he who was God became man". {{cite book |last1=Erasmus |title=Paraclesis |date=1516 |url=https://www.cite-osucc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Erasmus.Paraclesis.1516.pdf |access-date=11 August 2023 |archive-date=11 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230811143733/https://www.cite-osucc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Erasmus.Paraclesis.1516.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>{{refn|group=note|A Lutheran view: "{{lang|la|Philosophia christiana}} as taught by Erasmus has never been factual reality; wherever it was {{lang|la|philosophia}}, it was not {{lang|la|christiana}}; wherever it was {{lang|la|christiana}}, it was not {{lang|la|philosophia}}." [[Karl Barth]]<ref name=ewolf>{{cite journal |last1=Wolf |first1=Erik |title=Religion and Right in the Philosophia Christriana of Erasmus from Rotterdam |journal=UC Law Journal |date=1 January 1978 |volume=29 |issue=6 |page=1535 |url=https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol29/iss6/11/ |issn=0017-8322}}</ref>{{rp|1559}} }}  

{{blockquote|A great part of the teaching of Christ is to be found in some of the philosophers, particularly Socrates, Diogenes and Epictetus. But Christ taught it much more fully, and exemplified it better&nbsp;...|source=Erasmus, ''Paraclesis'' }}

In fact, he said, Christ was "the very father of philosophy" ({{lang|la|Anti-Barbieri}}).<ref group=note>Similar to [[John Wycliffe]]'s statement "the greatest philosopher is none other than Christ."{{cite book |last1=Lahey |first1=Stephen Edmund |title=John Wyclif |date=1 May 2009 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183313.003.0005}}</ref>

In works such as his ''Enchiridion'', ''The Education of a Christian Prince'' and the ''Colloquies'', Erasmus developed his idea of the {{lang|la|philosophia Christi}}, a life lived according to the teachings of Jesus taken as a spiritual-ethical-social-political-legal<ref name=ewolf/> philosophy:{{refn|group=note|Philosopher Étienne Gilson has noted "Confronted with the same failure of philosophy to rise above the order of formal logic, [[John of Salisbury]] between 1150 and 1180, [[Nicolas of Autrecourt]] and [[Petrach]] in 1360, Erasmus of Rotterdam around 1490, spontaneously conceived a similar method to save Christian faith", i.e. a sceptical-about-scholasticism {{lang|la|ad-fontes}} religious moralism promoting peace and charity.<ref name=gilson>{{cite book |last1=Gilson |first1=Etienne |title=The Unity of Philosophical Experience |year=1999 |orig-year=1st pub. Charles Scribner's Sons 1937 |publisher=Ignatius Press |isbn=978-0-89870-748-9 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|102–107}} }}

{{Blockquote|text=Christ the heavenly teacher has founded a new people on earth,&nbsp;... Having eyes without guile, these folk know no spite or envy; having freely castrated themselves, and aiming at a life of angels while in the flesh, they know no unchaste lust; they know not divorce, since there is no evil they will not endure or turn to the good; they have not the use of oaths, since they neither distrust nor deceive anyone; they know not the hunger for money, since their treasure is in heaven, nor do they itch for empty glory, since they refer all things to the glory of Christ.…these are the new teachings of our founder, such as no school of philosophy has ever brought forth.|source=Erasmus, ''Method of True Theology''}}

In philosopher Étienne Gilson's summary: "the quite precise goal he pursues is to reject Greek philosophy outside of Christianity, into which the Middle Ages introduced Greek philosophy with the risk of corrupting this Christian Wisdom."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gilson |first1=Étienne |title=Medieval Essays |date=1990 |url=https://archive.org/details/medieval-essays-by-etienne-gilson/page/n17/}}</ref>

Useful "philosophy" needed to be limited to (or re-defined as) the practical and moral: 
{{blockquote|You must realize that 'philosopher' does not mean someone who is clever at dialectics or science but someone who rejects illusory appearance and undauntedly seeks out and follows what is true and good. Being a philosopher is in practice the same as being a Christian; only the terminology is different.|source= Erasmus, ''Anti-Barbieri''}}