Editing Erasmus (section)

====Mystical theology====
Another important concept to Erasmus was "the Folly of the Cross"<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|119}} (which ''[[The Praise of Folly]]'' explored):<ref group=note>As with many of his individual works, reading ''The Praise of Folly'' in isolation from his other works may give an idea of Erasmus' priorities different to that given by broader reading, even though he sometimes claimed to be re-presenting essentially the same thoughts in different genres.</ref> the view that Truth belongs to the exuberant, perhaps ecstatic,<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|140}} world of what is foolish, strange, unexpected<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chaudhury |first1=Sarbani |title=Radical Carnivalisation of Religion in Erasmus's ''The Praise Of Folly'' |journal=English Literature |date=2014 |doi=10.14277/2420-823X/3p |url=https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/media/pdf/article/english-literature/2014/1/art-10.14277-2420-823X-3p_jCA5Wl3.pdf |access-date=20 December 2023 |archive-date=30 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230123918/https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/media/pdf/article/english-literature/2014/1/art-10.14277-2420-823X-3p_jCA5Wl3.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and even [[#Sileni Alcibiadis (1515)|superficially repellent]] to us, rather than to the frigid worlds which intricate scholastic [[Dialectic#Medieval philosophy|dialectical]] and [[syllogistic]] philosophical argument all too often generated;{{refn|group=note|This was a long-recognized tendency: indeed [[Aquinas]] wrote in the Preface to his [[Summa Theologiae]] that "students in this science have not seldom been hampered by what they have found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments"<ref>{{cite web |last1=Aquinas |first1=Thomas |title=Summa Theologiae, Prologue & Ia Q. 2. |url=https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-prologue-and-q2 |website=Aquinas 101 |publisher=Thomistic Institute |access-date=23 April 2024 |archive-date=23 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240423034852/https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-prologue-and-q2 |url-status=live }}</ref> }} this produced in Erasmus a profound disinterest in hyper-rationality,{{refn|group=note|"Erasmus saw the scholastic exercise, in its high intellectualism, as fundamentally wrong-headed."<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|148}} }} and an emphasis on verbal, rhetorical, mystical, pastoral and personal/political moral concerns instead.