Desiderius Erasmus Versus Martin Luther

[aron]

Originally Posted by MacDuff

A couple questions.

Was this the Erasumus that compiled the Greek New Testament that eventually became the Received text in Protestantism?

Yes. Erasmus was noted for his translation of "church fathers" like Jerome, Augustine, and Origen. And also for his Greek New Testament, which immediately challenged the Vulgate and became the basis for English and other translations (Tyndale, etc).

My understanding is that the "textus receptus" was one of Erasmus' more hasty works. But it is subtantially correct, and it was a quite a shock to the "Vulgate only" crowd.

http://www.kjvonly.org/doug/kutilek_erasmus.htm

If this is the same Erasmus, I've seen references to him being a humanist. And I see no evidence of such in what you have quoted.

I think Erasmus is the patron saint of the humanists because he was at the forefront of scholarly forces overturning of centuries of superstition and tradition. He was widely credited for bringing ancient learning back into contemporary discourse. His insistence on using the brain God gave him to examine the evidence before him, and to make his own conclusions, made him an inspiration to many, including those "humanists" who put the human reason at the center. Erasmus clearly did not. His clear and unswerving aim of scholarship was that both "the philosophy of Christ", as he put it, and also the person of Christ as God's Son and our Savior, would be at the forefront of the human experience.

What is the source of this work of Erasmus and are there other works of his that are available in translation?

MacDuff

The book is in the public domain. I copied mine from a site called "The online site of Liberty"

http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php...temid=99999999

Erasmus' most enduring work was "The Praise of Folly", a 'paradoxical encomium' in which something clearly not worthy of respect, in this case human folly, is extolled highly. What was dangerous about the book was that in it he skewered the Catholic Church with all of its ridiculous behaviors. The monks, priests, bishops and popes were mocked.

He was also credited with "Pope Julius Excluded From Heaven", a widely disseminated satire in which the recently deceased Pope tries to get Peter to recognize and admit him within heavens' courts. Peter naturally refuses. It is quite funny, and nearly cost Erasmus his life.

An excerpt: PETER: Immortal God, what a sewer I smell here! Who are you?
JULIUS: So you know what sort of a prince you’re insulting, listen a bit …The Venetians, previously not conquered by anyone, I crushed in battle…I drove the French, who were then the terror of the whole world, completely out of Italy…when I died I left five million ducats…
PETER: Madman! All I hear about is a leader not of the church but of this world, more wicked than the pagans…
JULIUS: You would say otherwise if you had witnessed even one of my triumphs…the horses, the parades of armed soldiers…the lavishness of the displays, the triumphs, the booty…myself carried aloft like some divine thing…So you won’t open?
PETER: To any, sooner than to such a pestilence; you yourself are a great builder: build yourself a new paradise.

I grew up in fundamentalist Protestantism. Luther was adored, and Erasmus ignored. But as I tried to make the point in ZNP's "Was Witness Lee a False Prophet?" thread, history is not as "black and white" as we wish it were. We shouldn't fall into the same traps that caught Lee. How many voices had to be silenced for him to present his "History of the Church and the Local Churches"? Let's not do the same. Let everyone speak.

I was hoping to contrast Erasmus with Luther, not to show that one was "better" than another, but to demonstrate that history may not be as simplistic as we may have hoped. Only Jesus wears a white hat. We all have varying shades of gray, and our attempts at darkening others' only succeeds in besmirching our own. May we all see grace and mercy triumph over judgment.