CHRISTIAN HUMANISM and the CAREER OF ERASMUS

DESIDERIUS ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM (1466-1536)

Education: l) Brethren of the Common Life, schools in Netherlands
            "Devotio moderna" = practical piety for laymen imitating Apostles
            founder: Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) author Imitation of Christ (1427)

   2) College de Montaigu, Paris: studied scholastic theology, ordained 1492
           Scholar of Latin and Greek: 1516 Greek New Testament
                             major contribution to the Reformation

            Educator: Colloquies 15l8-23 - texts for Latin classes in schools

            Christian reformer: The Praise of Folly (Encomium Moriae) 1511
               genre: panegyric = rhetorical format; Folly as orator;
                            extended learned joke, as Folly praises herself
               -- critique of externals & religious ceremonialism as superstitious;
                        against saints cults, relics, pilgrimages, fasting; non-essentials
              -- anti-scholastic: folly calls scholastic theologians her followers

             Moral philosophy, practical "philosophia Christi" philosophy of Christ                                                  Enchiridion (Handbook of the Christian Soldier)

            Pacifist writings: The Complaintof Peace Against War;
                        Julius Exclusus: Pope Julius II (l503-13) excluded from heaven
                                                because of military role asd "warrior Pope"