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Erasmus and Praise of Folly
Erasmus, the brilliant scholar, writer and religious activist
who profoundly influenced the Reformation, founded no school or sect and
never left the Catholic Church. For these reasons this “moderate” figure
has been somewhat ignored. Erasmus, however, as an “evangelical humanist”
who tenaciously attacked the abuses of the Church, played a huge role in
sparking the schisms of religious reform. The scholars of the late medieval
period had turned their backs on the rational gospel of Aquinas and were
teaching the primacy of religious observances and rites. The torture of
“heretics” in order to bring them back to the Church fold was considered
absolutely normal. It seemed clear to Erasmus, who perceived the divine
even in the ancient Greeks and Romans, that the Church sacraments must
always be secondary to following the simple gospel of Christ. With this
emphasis on living a good Christian life, he broke as well with Luther’s
dogma of absolute justification by faith. We have only to follow in Jesus’
footsteps, he taught, and the early Anabaptists could not have agreed more.
Erasmus was born in Holland around 1469, the illegitimate son
of a future priest and of a physician’s daughter. He was enrolled in the
well-known school at Deventer where he developed his life-long passion
for ancient texts in the service of religion. The school was also a centre
of the Brethren of the Common Life and of the “modern devotion” movement,
which taught ethical and scriptural piety and largely ignored the sacraments.
Erasmus entered a monastery but as a vital and abrasive scholar he never
felt at home there. In 1499 he visited England and became close friends
with Thomas More, who later wrote the famous Utopia and was beheaded by
Henry VIII. Erasmus’ years in England were likely the happiest of his life:
his Praise of Folly, written in the early sixteenth century, was dedicated
to More. Later, depressed by religious corruption, and especially by the
warlike pope Julius II, Erasmus turned down the offer of an appointment
in the Church. Frequently he lived in poverty. He welcomed the reforming
influence of the new pope Leo X, but by now the schisms of the Reformation
were unstoppable, and Erasmus died in 1536, deeply saddened by the bitter
conflicts within Christianity which he had, in a sense, helped engender.
Praise of Folly is a masterpiece of wit and style, by no means
flawless, but so daring that one wonders how Erasmus escaped the heretic’s
pyre. The speaker is the goddess Folly who claims she is the most worshipped
of all deities: though “Folly is in poor repute even amongst the greatest
fools, still, I am the only one ... whose divine powers can gladden the
hearts of gods and men” (63). Praise of Folly can be roughly divided into
three sections. The first is relatively light-hearted and bantering, “my
bit of nonsense” (57) as Erasmus calls it. Yet the attack is already on:
“...you can find a good many people whose religious sense is so distorted
that they find the most serious blasphemies against Christ more bearable
than the slightest joke on pope or prince...” (60).
There is much here with which Anabaptist/Mennonites would have
agreed. Erasmus assails the cult of Mary and the saints, and the buying
of salvation through the magic of indulgences: “And what am I to say about
those who enjoy deluding themselves with imaginary pardons for their sins?”
(127) He introduces Plutus, god of wealth and self-indulgence, as the father
of Folly. He echoes the Anabaptist/Mennonite idealization of humility when
he says that humankind, unlike God’s animal creation, are unwilling to
live within their natural limitations. He writes that Jupiter “has bestowed
far more passion than reason” (87) to humankind, and that anger and lust
control human beings like empires. Certainly the ascetic inclinations of
Anabaptist/Mennonites are in correspondence here. Yet Erasmus’ differences
with the radical reformation are clear: as a humanist scholar, he contends
that humanist reason should be a moderating influence. Erasmus, unlike
the often vociferous early Anabaptists, was always a mediator at heart.
In the second section of Praise of Folly, Erasmus’ compatibility
with Anabaptist/Mennonite doctrine is even more evident. The bantering
tone disappears. Erasmus speaks in his own voice, and the critique is scathing.
For theologians, he writes, “it is a lesser crime to butcher a thousand
men than for a poor man to cobble his shoe ... on the Lord’s day” (155).
These same theologians “are so happy in their self-satisfaction ... that
they haven’t even a spare moment in which to read even once through the
gospel...” (161). As for monks, Erasmus says, “the whole tribe is ... universally
loathed” (164). Cardinals and supreme pontiffs “spend all [their] resources
on the purchase of their position, which once bought has to be protected
by the sword, by poison, by violence of every kind” (179). The climax of
this second section is a savage attack on war that recalls Menno Simons’
later writings. “[S]ince the Christian Church was founded on blood, strengthened
by blood and increased in blood, [the supreme pontiffs] continue to manage
its affairs by the sword as if Christ has perished and can no longer protect
his own people in his own way.... And there’s no lack of learned sycophants
to put the name of zeal, piety and valour to this manifest insanity...”
(181). If churchmen were serious about the gospel, Erasmus cries, they
would “renounce their ambitions for the office” and “take the place of
the apostles who were poor men” (178). In this section Erasmus has a prophetic
voice that Anabaptist/Mennonites would certainly have found welcome; indeed
the more educated among them would certainly have been familiar with Praise
of Folly.
The third section of the book takes a sharp turn in its definition
of “folly.” “God’s foolishness is wiser than men” (196). Divine folly is
the simple way of the gospel: Christ did not wish humankind “to be redeemed
in any other way save by the folly of the cross and through his simple,
ignorant apostles.... He taught them to shun wisdom, and made his appeal
through the example of children, lilies, mustard-seed and humble sparrows,
all foolish, senseless things” (199). The beautiful writing here surely
recalls the Anabaptist/Mennonite ideals of simplicity and Gelassenheit
(peace, calmness, possessing without possessing).
Erasmus later wrote in a letter, that “I’ve no enemy whom I wouldn’t
prefer to make my friend, if I could” (215). This was likely an aspiration
which he never quite achieved, as his disposition was too contentious for
tranquil coexistence with his contemporaries. Anabaptist/Mennonites also
talked much about love of enemy, but practice did not always reflect reality.
Erasmus adopted a conciliatory position and the murderous struggles of
the Reformation broke his heart. In the end, despite his loathing for hierarchical
corruption, he never left the Catholic Church. The Anabaptist/Mennonites
deeply felt that a rupture with the medieval church was necessary, even
obligatory, and many paid for their beliefs with their lives. In later
years, however, many Mennonites would thoroughly assimilate into the economic
and political structures of mainstream society, while the more traditional
among them, such as Old Order or Amish, would maintain that a rupture was
still necessary. Erasmus attempted a middle way of maintaining one’s spiritual
integrity within the dominant structure, in this case the Catholic Church.
If he was not altogether successful in this attempt, he consistently acted
with integrity and in good faith. To be sure Erasmus was a man of his time,
prejudiced against women, Jews, and the “common man” (he was writing for
an educated class). But just as he inspired Anabaptist/Mennonites of the
sixteenth century, he can speak to us today in language that sometimes
sounds positively contemporary: “Fools ... are rolling in money and are
put in charge of affairs of state; they flourish, in short, in every way”
(184).
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“...Folly creates societies and maintains empires, officialdom, religion,
law courts and councils – in fact the whole of human life is nothing but
a sport of folly” (102).