Editing Erasmus (section)

====Theological writings====

Several scholars have suggested Erasmus wrote as an evangelist not an academic theologian.{{refn|group=note|Historian William McCuaig wrote "I will however defend the view that for the historian evangelism is the category to which Erasmus should rightly be assigned."<ref name=mccuaig /> Historian Hilmar Pabel wrote "an essential aspect of Erasmus' life's work [was]&nbsp;... his participation in the responsibility of the bishops and all pastors to win souls for Christ."<ref name="pabel1995" />{{rp|54}}}} Even "theology was to be metamorphic speech, converting persons to Christ".<ref name=boyle/>{{rp|49}} Erasmus did not conceive of Christianity as fundamentally an intellectual system:

{{blockquote|Yet these ancient fathers were they who confuted both the Jews and Heathens [...]; they confuted them (I say), yet by their lives and miracles, rather than by words and syllogisms; and the persons they thus proselyted were downright honest, well meaning people, such as understood plain sense better than any artificial pomp of reasoning [...]|Erasmus, ''The Praise of Folly''<ref>{{cite book |title=In Praise of Folly |author=Erasmus |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30201/30201-h/30201-h.htm |via=Project Gutenberg}}</ref> }}

Historian William McCuaig commented "I have never read a work by him on any subject that was not at bottom a piece of evangelical literature."<ref name=mccuaig>{{cite journal |last1=Mccuaig |first1=William |title=(Review) The Collected Works of Erasmus, vol 44 |journal=The Medieval Review |date=1994 |volume=44 |issue=9 |url=https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1994/1994.09.05/ |access-date=25 April 2024 |archive-date=25 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240425030244/https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1994/1994.09.05/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{blockquote|We may distinguish four different lines of work, parallel with each other, and complementary. First, the establishing and critical elucidation of the ''biblical texts''; alongside it, the editions of the great ''patristic commentators''; then, the ''exegetical works'' properly so called, in which these two fundamental researches yield their fruit; and finally, the ''methodological works'', which in their first state constitute a sort of preface to the various other studies, but which—in return—were nourished and enlarged by them as they went along.|source=Louis Bouyer<ref name=bouyer1/>{{rp|498}} }}

Apart from these programmatic works, Erasmus also produce a number of prayers, sermons, essays, masses and poems for specific benefactors and occasions, often on topics where Erasmus and his benefactor agreed. His thought was particularly influenced by [[Origen]].{{refn|group=note|"Without denying the presence of theological mistakes in Origen's corpus, Erasmus felt that an irenic attitude toward Origen was more helpful to the Church than one of censorious criticism. Erasmus believed that Origen had seen further into the mind of St Paul than Augustine had done."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Scheck |first1=Thomas P. |editor-first1=Ronald E. |editor-first2=Karen Jo |editor-last1=Heine |editor-last2=Torjesen |title=The Influence of Origen on Erasmus |journal=The Oxford Handbook of Origen |date=17 February 2022 |pages=483–504 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199684038.013.28|isbn=978-0-19-968403-8 }}</ref> }}

He often set himself the challenge of formulating positive, moderate, non-superstitious versions of contemporary Catholic practices that might be more acceptable both to scandalized Catholics and Protestants of good will: the better attitudes to the sacraments, saints, Mary, indulgences, statues, scriptural ignorance and fanciful Biblical interpretation, prayer, dietary fasts, external ceremonialism, authority, vows, docility, submission to Rome, etc.  For example, in his ''Paean in Honour of the Virgin Mary'' (1503) Erasmus elaborated his theme that the Incarnation had been hinted far and wide, which could impact the theology of the fate of the remote unbaptized and grace, and the place of classical philosophy:<ref name=franceschini>{{cite journal |last1=Franceschini |first1=Chiara |title=Erasmus and Faustus of Riez's De gratia |journal=Rivista di Storia del Cristianesimo |date=1 January 2014 |volume=XI |issue=2 |pages=367–390 |url=https://www.academia.edu/35244712 |access-date=23 March 2024}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|
You are assuredly the Woman of renown: both heaven and earth and the succession of all the ages uniquely join to celebrate your praise in a musical concord. [...]

During the centuries of the previous age the oracles of the gentiles spoke of you in obscure riddles. Egyptian prophecies, Apollo's tripod, the Sibylline books, gave hints of you. The mouths of learned poets predicted your coming in oracles they did not understand. [...]

Both the Old and the New Testament, like two cherubim with wings joined and unanimous voices, repeatedly sing your praise. [...]

Thus indeed have writers religiously vied to proclaim you, on the one hand inspired prophets, on the other eloquent Doctors of the church,  both filled with the same spirit, as the former foretold your coming in joyful oracles before your birth and the latter heaped prayerful praise on you when you appeared. |source=Erasmus, ''Paean in Honour of the Virgin Mary'' (1503)<ref name=franceschini/>
}}