Erasmus: In Praise of Folly
Use the document I gave you today in class.
Remember to answer the usual 5 questions on your syllabus.
Also, What is Erasmus criticizing? How do his ideas influence Martin Luther? What is his perspective?
While we haven't explicitly talked much about Luther yet in class, remember our brief discussion of him in the context of Christian humanism.
Due: MIDNIGHT, Thursday, August 31
Remember to answer the usual 5 questions on your syllabus.
Also, What is Erasmus criticizing? How do his ideas influence Martin Luther? What is his perspective?
While we haven't explicitly talked much about Luther yet in class, remember our brief discussion of him in the context of Christian humanism.
Due: MIDNIGHT, Thursday, August 31
posted by RJS at
7:07 AM
9 Comments:
Erasmus is heavily criticizing the Church and its clergy. He says the clergy are obsessed with petty rituals and details in showing just how pious they are that they miss the focus of religion entirely. He calls the popes corrupt and secular, that they have become so far removed from the pious and simple life they are supposed to lead they actually 'make their Saviour's wounds bleed anew.' Erasmus is writing this as someone who has watched the Church stumble and murmur uncertainly while most of the world is chaotic. While he may be a devout Christian, he openly criticizes the Church for abandoning spiritual matters and becoming so secular. This piece carries the overall message that the Church and clergy have failed at their jobs. That they have abused their powers and have forgotten that their role is to guide the lay religiously.They have become removed from spiritual matters by frivolous rituals and concern for money. This document, like many others written at that time period, expresses a sense of disappointment in an organization that was so important to so many people.
By
laura, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:36:00 PM
Erasmus' eloquent attacks are well-deserved by the MEDIEVAL Catholic church. To all of my fellow students who are Protestant, please keep in mind that the Catholic church has changed a good bit since 1509. Whether or not you agree with the church today is your business, but do not accept Erasmus' critiques as universally true.
Okay. Now that I've defended my belief a bit, I can give Erasmus his due. He criticizes the lay worship of statues and saints (which spawns from honoring the saints), hypocrytic monks who make their situation well-known with with alms-begging and a huge concern about petty details- attire, for example. He attacks the emphasis on worldly acts of piety (abstinance from food, drink, or money) which, while very good in themselves, lose much when they are accompanied by an increase in spiritual vices of pride and arrogance.
May I point out, however, that Erasmus does not seem to desire a split in the church? He asks his audience to consider what would happen if the popes would imitate Christ's exemplary life, if "they did practice their surname most holy." He doesn't a monk to start a new church, he wants the pope to be brought to the "poor equipage of a scrip and staff."
Erasmus was described as a widley respected intellectual and humanist. He wrote this as a reformer- as a man who has an intellectual difficulty not with the church but with the church leaders as they are. Erasmus writes this as a very serious yet often ironically humorous essay for a friend and fellow intellectual- Thomas More. Whether Erasmus intended it to be widely distributed I do not know, but its implications are obvious.
Martin Luther could have easily drawn from Erasmus' critique on the church's policy on saints that the church is idolistic, that the very idea of a priest or monk is ridiculous. Historians say that Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched. Say perhaps that Erasmus gave Luther the ammunition for his mortar cannon.
I believe I can now understand better how Protestant reformers (and 1900's Baptist preachers) gained much of their ammunition against Catholic practices. I'll say again- the medieval church was very flawed. But the reformation included changes inside the Catholic church. The Reformation has been cited as the reason we are not all Catholic. How true.
I note many biblical references in this passage- returning to the original source. Erasmus links the monks who loudly proclaim their suffering to those whom Jesus says, "They have earned their reward." He attacks the common people for accepting doctrines- after all, Jesus said to be "wise as serpents and gentle as doves."
To later reformers I might add, not vice versa.
By
ThomasBatson, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 7:22:00 PM
Erasmus sees the MIDEIVAL (that was for Thomas) Catholic church as catering to the superstitions of the laity rather than to their faith and spiritual needs. Basically he sees it as one big gaudy show where the words of Christ have been mangled, cut and pasted into a theatre act, complete with excessive symbolism that doesn't pertain to anything found in the New Testament, a text he is extensively familiar with as he translated it into Greek. His background as a monk and scholar defines his perspective on religion, and to sum it up, he views most of the religious authorities and orders as posers due to their superficiality and lack of real spirituality. His ideals influence Martin Luther's on the basis of religious reform and criticism of the church, and the clearly humanistic foundations of belief. Martin Luther basically put the reforms described by Erasmus into action, and the documents written by both of them are obvious leaders in the field of religious reform, due largely in part to humanist enlightenment.
By
Victoria, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 8:31:00 PM
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By
TeganLove, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 8:48:00 PM
Desidirius is criticizing (or with Tegan's British spelling, critisizing, which I now want to use) the general state of religion and those who are considered religious people associated with the Catholic church. He writes about not just the clergy but also some lower ranking church members, pointing out how little of Christ's actual teaching they seem to follow, instead following a strange new set of guidelines that appears nowhere in the Bible. The paper says that the story was originally written for Sir Thomas More, so perhaps it was not even meant to be read by any real audience. This is of course much more of a reserved style than Martin Luther had, but Luther likely got many ideas from Erasmus. This document is yet again very opinion based, yet this time not directly instructional but indirectly demonstrational, not absolutely telling the reader what to do but just presenting a situation with a very heavy bias in an attempt to coerce the reader. Erasmus was obviously not at all content with the church, but lacked the actual impetus to really actively do something about it, which was where Martin Luther came in to the picture, or as the paper puts it, Luther hatched the egg Erasmus laid.
By
Unknown, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:20:00 PM
Erasmus critiques the Church and its clergy. He feels the clergy have too many rituals and are not living up to their proclaimed religious ideas. His thoughts set the stage for Martin Luther and the Reformation. Erasmus does not believe what the Church has been telling him and Martin Luther shares these beliefs. Luther questions the Church and its teachings. Erasmus has every right to criticize the Church because he was a monk and knows the clergy have taken full advantage of thier power. He believes the clergy have become too secular and have not kept focus on religon. He also heavily criticizes the popes of Rome. Erasmus sees that the popes think of themselves as high and mighty, which they are very powerful indeed, but they have abused their postions and upset many people in doing so. The main idea of this piece is to show how the Church and the clergy have lost their focus on religious values and become more interested in secular ideas. In Praise of Folly was a set up to more humanist acts and much more questioning.
By
taylor, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:23:00 PM
Erasmus deeply and whole-heartedly critisizes the church and the generally respected figures of the clergy. Everything written is extreamly one-sided, opinionated and bluntly factual. If, back then, someone were to come across this bit oif light reading, it would most likely fulfill its purpose of getting the reader debating the morality and factuality of the church. The reading doesn't so much remind me of something else I've read as more of Erasmus's ideas and diction reminding me of a friend I knew in middle school. At the risk sounding nostalgic, this friend was extreamly intellegent, may not have agreed with some of Erasmus's thoughts but he has that same flair.
Erasmus spent most of his timeduring this document, and I say this instead of any less apropriate word, bashing the church, specifially the monks and the popes, although his ideas are thought provoking, relavent to the time period, and honest. Of course Martin Luther would agree with Erasmus for they both shared the idea that faith was more important that any deed you could do during your lifetime. Erasmus critisizes monks, monk society and how tedious and religiously irrelavent the guidelines which they were to live by were. Martin Luther was a monk, had the expierence, and must have come to the same thinking as Erasmus either by reading or talking to him, or by his own decision.
By
TeganLove, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:26:00 PM
oh and my B about the spelling. Honestly, I thought that was the American spelling. As long as it gets the point across, tho.
By
TeganLove, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:29:00 PM
This writing portrays Erasmus' deep dissatisfaction with the direction the church has taken, having been raised into monkhood I'm sure that he knows and has strong opinions on how the church should function. He wrote this piece to deliver his message on how he disagrees with the actions of lay people, monks, and the pope himself. Erasmus writes these scathing comments on how monks practice at their convinience and to their best advantage. From reading this I have learned that even monks were upset, or enraged apparently, about what was going on and were noticing the hypocracy in one another. It was also the well educated, as it usually is, who disagreed with the church. Luther was influenced by Erasmus because Erasmus was obivously more concerned with the faith than the actions, as was Martin Luther. Erasmus says that the monks "imagine they bear a seet consort with the heavenly choir, when they tone out their daily tally of psalms, which they rehearse only by rote, without permitting their understanding or affections to go along with their voice." Meanign that the monks are pretty much only religious out of habit and not true belief. Erasmus didn't like this and thought it would be much better if one was a true believer, without practice. Much as Martin Luther thought the behavior was less important than holding strong faith.
By
manxomefoe, at Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:48:00 PM
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