ERASMUS: PROPHET OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, OF CONTINUITY AND NOT RUPTURE BY RON DART (and thanks to Jim Forest).

FIRSTLY, WATCH THIS:

Ron Dart's book: https://www.amazon.com/Erasmus-Wild-Bird-Ron-Dart-ebook/dp/B078FNLZDX/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513862620&sr=8-1&keywords=%22Erasmus%3A+Wild+Bird%22

Erasmus was the dominant figure of the early humanist movement. Neither a radical nor an apologist, he remains one of early Renaissance controversial figures.

Synopsis

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of Europe's most famous and influential scholars. A man of great intellect who rose from meager beginnings to become one of Europe's greatest thinkers, he defined the humanist movement in Northern Europe. His translation to Greek of the New Testament brought on a theological revolution, and his views on the Reformation tempered its more radical elements.

Early Life

Erasmus rose from obscure beginnings to become one of the leading intellectual figures of the early Northern Renaissance. Most historians believe that he was born Gerard Gerardson in 1466 (with many noting his probable birthdate as October 27) in Rotterdam, Holland. His father, believed to be Roger Gerard, was a priest, and his mother was named Margaret, the daughter of a physician. He was christened with the name "Erasmus," meaning "beloved."

Erasmus began his education at the age of 4, attending a school in Gouda, a town near Rotterdam. When he was 9 years old, his father sent him to a prestigious Latin grammar school, where his natural academic ability blossomed. After his parents died in 1483 from the plague, Erasmus was put into the care of guardians, who were adamant about him becoming a monk. While he gained a personal relationship with God, he rejected the harsh rules and strict methods of the religious teachers of the time.

A Brief Stint in the Priesthood

In 1492, poverty forced Erasmus into monastery life and he was ordained a Catholic priest, but it seems that he never actively worked as a cleric. There is some evidence, during this time, of a relationship with a fellow male student, but scholars are not in agreement as to its extent. Erasmus's life changed dramatically when he became secretary for Henry de Bergen, bishop of Chambray, who was impressed with his skill in Latin. The bishop enabled Erasmus to travel to Paris, France, to study classical literature and Latin, and it was there that he was introduced to Renaissance humanism.

Life as a Professional Scholar

While in Paris, Erasmus became known as an excellent scholar and lecturer. One of his pupils, William Blunt, Lord Montjoy, established a pension for Erasmus, allowing him to adopt a life of an independent scholar moving from city to city tutoring, lecturing and corresponding with some of the most brilliant thinkers of Europe. In 1499, he traveled to England and met Thomas More and John Colet, both of whom would have a great influence on him. Over the next 10 years, Erasmus divided his time between France, the Netherlands and England, writing some of his best works.

In the early 1500s, Erasmus was persuaded to teach at Cambridge and lecture in theology. It was during this time that he wrote The Praise of Folly, a satirical examination of society in general and the various abuses of the Church. Another influential publication was his translation of the New Testament into Greek in 1516. This was a turning point in theology and the interpretation of scripture, and posed a serious challenge to theological thinking that had dominated universities since the 13th century. In these writings, Erasmus promoted the spread of Classical knowledge to encourage a better morality and greater understanding between people.

Later Life

The Protestant Reformation erupted with the publication of Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses in 1517. For the next 10 years, Erasmus would be embroiled in an intellectual debate over human nature, free will and religion. Though Erasmus supported Protestant ideals, he was against the radicalism of some of its leaders, and, in 1523, he condemned Luther's methods in his work De libero arbitrio.

On July 12, 1536, during preparations for a move to the Netherlands, Erasmus fell ill and died from an attack of dysentery. Though he remained loyal to the Church of Rome, he did not receive last rites, and there is no evidence that he asked for a priest. This seems to reflect his view that what mattered most was a believer's direct relationship with God.

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Then, listen to this:

REFORMATION 500: ERASMUS, THE FILIOQUE CLAUSE, AND THE FATHERS: THE IRENIC QUEST FOR PATRISTIC UNITY by Ron Dart

my source: Orthodoxy in Dialogue

The Wisdom of the Fathers Western and Eastern. 

 The name of Erasmus will never perish.

John Colet

Erasmus has published volumes more full of wisdom than any which Europe has seen for ages.

Thomas More

  It is significant and symbolic that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. There is a sense in which such a date is a portal into what follows in the Christian liturgical year: All Saints and All Souls. Luther, by choosing such a date and seeing himself as a reformer, raised the question of who are the real saints of the historic Church—certainly not the establishment Roman Catholics who had led the Church to Babylon. There is a type of Protestant hubris, though, in thinking that Luther was the real reformer of the Church, and 1517 should be lauded and celebrated. Erasmus and many others had been toiling for reform from within the Church from the late 15th century.  

Erasmus had, decades before Luther, been at the forefront of challenging the misdeeds and misbehaviour within the Western Church.

Colet, More, and Erasmus (Oxford-London Reformers), prophet-like, clarified in poignant depth and detail the immense gap and chasm between the ideals of the Church and its toxic and questionable behaviour at the highest levels. Erasmus was also acutely aware, with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, that many from the Eastern Church were migrating westward. The tragedy of such a situation for the Orthodox cannot be missed, but the positive ripple effect was that many in the West (including Erasmus), increasingly so, had greater access to the Orthodox Fathers, their commentaries, and their language.

The issue of church unity and concord became more and more central to Erasmus in the latter decades of his life. The split between the Orthodox East and Roman Catholic West, and the schism between various types of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, deeply troubled Erasmus. He became in many ways the herald of a sort of classical and patristic church unity vision in the mid to late 1520s-1530s. How did he do this? Let me lightly touch on three essential ways this was done.

First, Erasmus was concerned that, as the Church developed, all sorts of additions were added to the essence of the faith. He was convinced that the Apostles’ Creed summed up, in the most succinct and compact manner, what the universal Church shared in common. There could be a variety of debates about all sorts of layered and nuanced theological and exegetical issues, but the Apostles’ Creed was foundational. This is why, in some ways, Erasmus’ fictional dialogue with Luther in March 1524, “An Examination Concerning Faith,” focused on the Apostles’ Creed. Did Luther truly need to split the Church over his reading of Romans and Galatians, and his questionable opposition between Grace-Law and Divine Sovereignty-Human Freedom? If Luther was willing to split the church over an adiaphoric issue, Erasmus had to part paths with him.

Second, did the historic Church universally agree with the filioque clause in the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Creed? If not, why was it added to the Creed? The Orthodox and Roman Catholics parted paths over such an addition. Erasmus took the position, yet again, that the classical and patristic phase of church history was void of a strict definition of the economy of Father-Son-Spirit. In short, there was a mystery within the dynamic life of the eternal Trinity that could not be reduced to a formula. The addition of the filioque clause was yet another adiaphoric move and manoeuver—this time it was the Roman Catholic Church that had inappropriately added to the esse of the faith. Again, it was Erasmus’ commitment to church unity, grounded in the classical credal and theological era of the Fathers, that opposed the position of the Roman Catholic Church on the need to add the filioque clause to the Creed.

Third, just as Erasmus was, without much doubt, one of the finest linguists in both Latin and Greek in the early decades of the 16th century, and one of the best exegetes and annotators of the New Testament, he was also front and centre in the recovery of the Fathers, Western and Eastern. The more Erasmus worked with the Orthodox Fathers and the Western Fathers, the greater the sense of unity he had for the Church West and East. The commonality the Fathers shared made it clear that post-patristic additions to historic Creeds (that fragmented the church) needed to be questioned—such additions were the very thing that led to greater fragmentation, as did the many Protestant confessions of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Apostles’ Creed, yet once again, became the alpha and the omega of church unity for Erasmus. It is significant that one of Erasmus’ final books, An Explanation of the Apostles’ Creed (1533), delves much deeper into the Creed and ponders its significance from a variety of angles (Collected Works of Erasmus: Volume 70). This was Erasmus, yet again, turning to the esse of the Church rather than being derailed into a commitment to a multiplicity of adiaphora. It was the Apostles’ Creed that, in many ways, was the bene esse that illuminated and clarified the esse of the historic Church East and West.

Both Luther’s additions to the faith and the Roman Catholic filioque were the very things that divided the Church. Erasmus questioned such additions by heeding and hearing the wisdom of the Fathers Western and Eastern.                                        

There has been, in the 20th century, an ecumenical desire and longing to reunite the divided Church. The underlying problem with such an approach is that the deeper unity and concord that many so desire is thwarted by the fact that it is not grounded in a classical vision as embodied in the historic Church. Erasmus, more than most then and now, knew that if real unity was ever to occur, a sustained immersion in the life and thought of the Fathers East and West was foundational. Those who add to the esse of the Fathers inevitably divide the Church.

Those who heed and hear what the historic and classical Church shared in common are in a place and position to reclaim and rebuild, with one mind and soul, the vision and reality of one Church, the true body of Christ in this world. The wisdom of Erasmus, if mined, can still offer us a mother lode. This is why his name will never perish, and his wisdom will never fail.                                 

Ron Dart holds a PhD from McMaster University and teaches as an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy & Religious Studies at University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford BC. In the past he worked with Amnesty International. He has published more than 35 books, of which the most recent, Erasmus: Wild Bird, appeared earlier this month. A member of the Anglican Church, he has an abiding interest in the Eastern and Western Fathers, the layered turn to the Fathers in the 16th century, and the relationship between the Fathers and the modern and postmodern ethos. He has extensive experience collaborating with Orthodox representatives in various ecumenical endeavours.

Then watch this version of Robert Bolt's play

Thomas More, "Man for All Seasons" 

St Thomas More who, together with St John Fisher,
John Colet and Erasmus, showed another way forward.