Post by Lady Mage on May 5, 2007 9:57:23 GMT -5
Think early 1500s as the time frame. This is a summary of a Luther and Erasmus lecture I listened to by Professor Phillip Cary. To buy the lecture series, click here. Some libraries also have the Great Courses if you are interested.
Deiderius Erasmus lived from 1469 until 1536, and was a crucial part of the northern renaissance. He was a most important voice for church reform in the early 16th century, even before Luther appeared on the scene. He was a member of the humanist project whose goal was to recover the original way of speaking Latin, and all the other ancient languages. The humanists generally found out how tradition was wrong: for instance, a document called the Donation of Constantine claimed to be a document written by the 4th century Constantine giving the pope control over the western roman empire. The Humanists traced the Latin back and discovered it was written in 8th century Latin and was a fake!
The Northern Renaissance was much more pious than the Southern Renaissance, and Erasmus was very critical of papal abuses because of this. He wrote a satire of Pope Julius II titled Julius Excluded From Heaven, in 1514. In the satire, Pope Julius goes up to Peter (who was supposedly the first pope), and seeing what a grubby little fisherman is standing at the gate, Julius starts bragging about how much better a pope he was and how he brought the papacy up from bankruptcy and made it great. Julius did not get into heaven.
Erasmus was also a critic of what he called “superstitious medieval practices”. (For instance, the reverence of the saints and their relics, pilgrimages, etc.) He advocated the inward piety of love for eternal things, which is very much in the Augustinian paradigm. He loved the bible and studied it much, seeing as he was a scholar.
In the end, Erasmus did not join the Reformation. While he satirized individual popes, he never saw the papacy itself as something evil as Luther did. He attacked the person of the pope, which was a very catholic thing to do. In fact, some Catholic churches went so far as to portray popes being dragged off to hell in their last judgment scenes. Luther attacked the papacy as evil, but had nothing bad to say about Pope Leo, and even wrote him a letter telling him not to take offense; Luther is only trying to warn him how corrupt the institution is and means no disrespect by it.
When it came down to it however, the big difference between Erasmus and Luther was that their piety was focused in different ways. For Erasmus, he had a piety that was centered on reading the scripture, and self-transformation. Luther’s piety was hearing the gospel and letting God do the transforming.
Luther and Erasmus
Deiderius Erasmus lived from 1469 until 1536, and was a crucial part of the northern renaissance. He was a most important voice for church reform in the early 16th century, even before Luther appeared on the scene. He was a member of the humanist project whose goal was to recover the original way of speaking Latin, and all the other ancient languages. The humanists generally found out how tradition was wrong: for instance, a document called the Donation of Constantine claimed to be a document written by the 4th century Constantine giving the pope control over the western roman empire. The Humanists traced the Latin back and discovered it was written in 8th century Latin and was a fake!
The Northern Renaissance was much more pious than the Southern Renaissance, and Erasmus was very critical of papal abuses because of this. He wrote a satire of Pope Julius II titled Julius Excluded From Heaven, in 1514. In the satire, Pope Julius goes up to Peter (who was supposedly the first pope), and seeing what a grubby little fisherman is standing at the gate, Julius starts bragging about how much better a pope he was and how he brought the papacy up from bankruptcy and made it great. Julius did not get into heaven.
Erasmus was also a critic of what he called “superstitious medieval practices”. (For instance, the reverence of the saints and their relics, pilgrimages, etc.) He advocated the inward piety of love for eternal things, which is very much in the Augustinian paradigm. He loved the bible and studied it much, seeing as he was a scholar.
In the end, Erasmus did not join the Reformation. While he satirized individual popes, he never saw the papacy itself as something evil as Luther did. He attacked the person of the pope, which was a very catholic thing to do. In fact, some Catholic churches went so far as to portray popes being dragged off to hell in their last judgment scenes. Luther attacked the papacy as evil, but had nothing bad to say about Pope Leo, and even wrote him a letter telling him not to take offense; Luther is only trying to warn him how corrupt the institution is and means no disrespect by it.
When it came down to it however, the big difference between Erasmus and Luther was that their piety was focused in different ways. For Erasmus, he had a piety that was centered on reading the scripture, and self-transformation. Luther’s piety was hearing the gospel and letting God do the transforming.
