PeaceDocs | Bibliography | Renaissance Peacemakers
CHAPTER 9: Renaissance Peacemakers. The Humanists
Introduction
635. Cameron, Euan, ed. Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
A collection of essays by experts who cover the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.
636. Harbison, E. Harris. The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation. New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1956.
A general introduction to the “Christian Humanists” of the Renaissance.
637. Hyma, Albert. The Christian Renaissance. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1965.
Hyma has been often criticized for his insistence on a “Christian Humanism,” as if Renaissance humanism grew out of a secularist, antireligious spirit. Nevertheless, this book well traces the spirit and accomplishments of Renaissance intellectuals, like Erasmus, for whom the revival of ancient learning and elegance went hand in hand with a revival of the most fundamental Christian values. Good background for understanding exactly what the humanist peacemakers prized and why they often so bitterly criticized their contemporaries.
638. Kempis, Thomas à. Of the Imitation of Christ. Abbot Justin McCann, ed. New York: Mentor-Omega, 1962.
Thomas à Kempis is the best known product, after Erasmus, of the movement generally known as the Brethren of the Common Life. His spirituality was the epitome of the Devotio Moderna, a blend of simple ethical Christianity, the imitation of Christ, and a renewed emphasis on returning to the sources of Christian piety and learning. His work was, and remains, a best seller of enormous impact. This book has been translated into over fifty languages worldwide. It is important both for tracing the survival of monastic notions of inner peace into the end of the Middle Ages and for understanding some of the origins of the humanist concepts of peace.
Thomas’ work is divided into books dealing with the control of vices and the education of virtues. Peace is one of these virtues. It is the disposition of the inner person, a stillness and dispassion accompanied by an outer humility. Yet peace also implies an outer toleration and charity. True peace is not contentment, or remaining undisturbed, or mastery, but the life of imitating Christ. This is a handy edition.
639. Lowe, Ben. Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas, 1340-1560. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997
Traces the development of peacemaking ideas among English writers and intellectuals from late medieval ideas of the just war, through the Hundred Years War, the English humanists and into the early Protestant Reformation.
640. New Cambridge Modern History (NCMH). Vol. I, The Renaissance 1493-1520. G.R. Potter, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Newly revised, this is a standard reference work for Renaissance and early-modern European history. Essays on religious, political, social, economic, artistic, and intellectual life by renowned specialists in their fields. Well indexed. The volumes lack bibliographies.
641. New Cambridge Modern History (NCMH). Vol. II, The Reformation 1520-1559. G.R. Elton, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Continues the historical background into the Reformation era.
642. Ozment, Steven. The Age of Reform 1250-1550. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980.
A excellent introduction to the political, spiritual and intellectual trends of the time. Topics include literacy and reading public, political institutions, especially the new monarchies, monastic piety, mysticism, the Franciscan reform, the Devotio Moderna, the Brethren of the Common Life, the humanists, Erasmus and Luther. Ozment seeks to show that the period is not one of sudden break from medieval to Renaissance and Reformation, but really one of continuity of theme and accomplishment: the renewal of Christian life and learning.
643. Post, Regnerus R. The Modern Devotion: Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism. Leiden: Brill, 1968.
A review of the movement of simple, biblical spirituality and ethical life, including its manifestations in the Brethren of the Common Life, Thomas à Kempis, Erasmus and Luther’s Reformation.
Renaissance Thought on War
644. Bense, Walter F. “Paris Theologians on War and Peace, 1521-1529,” Church History 41 (1972): 168-85.
Focuses on the controversy at the University of Paris over the crusade against the Turks and the impetus that it gave to Catholic theologians to derive the modern theory of the just war. The controversy came to a final head with Martin Luther’s publication in 1529 of On War Against the Turks. Luther condemned the expeditions on several grounds: the papal Crusades were simply pretexts to raise money, no military effort could be fruitful without real penitence, and the Gospels condemned war. Luther’s ideas and criticisms had long been in the air. As early as 1523 Josse Clichtove had embraced the just war in reaction to them, claiming that all wars against heretics and those attacking Christendom were just. Nevertheless, just wars must be entered and fought according to very strict criteria. In the meanwhile the church has not done enough for true peace, which includes inner serenity, social justice, and international cooperation. In the end, however, war can be justified, since man has the moral duty of self-defense.
More vitriolic in his attacks was Noel Beda. Generally opposed to the humanists and their new learning and techniques, the Scholastic Beda attacked both Jacques Lefevre’s and Erasmus’ biblical commentaries and urged their public condemnation as “clandestine Lutherans.” Beda condemned the humanists’ emphasis on the New Testament command of love of enemy and stressed the importance of the Old Testament and the Church Fathers instead. He argued that natural law and ancient custom override Christ’s words in the Gospels. Beda’s most effective attacks, however, were not intellectual but his insinuations that the two Catholic reformers were “just like Luther.”
Robert Ceneau, on the other hand, stressed the virtue and glory of the prince or princess who brings peace. Peace among Christians should be the highest ideal. Like Beda, however, he too argued that the Turks were not heirs of Christ’s peace, and therefore should be attacked.
Bense clearly demonstrates the mixture of academic and nationalistic politics that went toward Paris’ condemnation of Erasmus’ Complaint of Peace as Lutheran heresy and shows how the atmosphere of Counter Reformation had already begun to link pacifism with subversion. Henceforth Catholic orthodoxy would tend to equate nonviolence with the clergy, to stress the duty of war against the enemies of that orthodoxy, and to be wary of the enemy within who preached toleration.
644.1 Gunn, Steven, “War, Religion, and the State,” in Cameron [635], 102-33.
The structures of power and violence, as well as the intellectual context of support and criticism.
645. Hale, J.R. “Armies, Navies, and the Art of War,” NCMH 2: 481-509.
A good review of the institutions, technologies, and theories of war in the Renaissance and Reformation periods.
646. —. “Sixteenth-Century Explanations of War and Violence,” Past and Present 51 (1971): 3-26.
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries brought a new emphasis on the warrior ethos and the “philosophy of war.” In place of a religious tradition toward war, “the vein of masochism deeply implanted by the Christian moral code,” Hale sees a brave new world of “the learned soldier, to whom the pen was almost as manageable as the sword.” This tough and trim new outlook coincided with a vast new geographical learning that forced men to “think from the world rather than from the Bible to seek guidelines.”
According to Hale, moral considerations gradually gave ground as an explanation for the causes of war. This was due to the cynicism aroused by crusades, religious wars, and papal political ambitions. During the sixteenth century, the moral outlook was replaced by a psychological causality. The conflict between the virtues and vices were now fought out within the individual, violence itself being a form of psychological anger, or ira.
Hale also analyzes the “naturalist” tradition of war criticism. Here the animal and plant kingdoms were studied for analogies to human behavior. The author makes it clear that these comparisons — of cooperation, nurturing — toleration, are specifically analogical, and that the study of nature in no way implied a theory of biological determinism for Renaissance thinkers. Nature, on the contrary, is good in itself. Violence and evil stem from some unnatural defects in it.
Hale is helpful in pinpointing literary themes. War as a solution to domestic unrest becomes a common theme in the sixteenth century, as does the literature of military service: morale, diet, pay, leave, etc. No other occupation, he asserts, is given such treatment.
647. —. “War and Public Opinion in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” Past and Present 22 (1962): 18-35.
“Public opinion about war did not become complex until the fifteenth century. During the Middle Ages there had been a preoccupation with the etiquette of personal combat…but war itself was taken for granted, and the arguments for and against it hardly discussed.” Throughout the Middle Ages “there had indeed been a thin stream of pacifist argument passing from heresy to heresy.” But only with the fifteenth century and the heretical Hussites, the humanists, and the Protestant Anabaptists did any real pacifist movement emerge.
Hale also analyzes the culture of militarism. With the fifteenth century the military had finally come into its own. The Turkish threat spurred the creation of a new, slim and trim ethos for the fighting class, emphasizing the elimination of luxury and vice; a new warrior literature; and a new “aesthetic” of war, in fact a new “cult of war.” An entirely new “polite conversation” developed on themes of war, a parlor game culture of strategies, justness, evils, and results. The printing press aided in the spread of this “new” militarist culture, and by the late sixteenth century governments were sponsoring history texts that were little more than propaganda pieces recounting history as a string of battles and victories. War propaganda poured forth from pulpits, theaters, and orations. Even the religious language of the Bible took on a new militarist tinge.
648. Solon, Paul D. “Popular Response to Standing Military Forces in Fifteenth-Century France,” Studies in the Renaissance 19 (1972): 78-111.
Not really the “popular” response, if by “popular” we mean the mass of people affected by war and peace, but that of the urban communes toward issues of taxation designed to pay for the new monarchies’ wars. Solon also traces the new intellectual debate over the theory of a standing royal army.
The Humanists as Peacemakers
649. Adams, Robert P. The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives on Humanism, War and Peace 1496-1535. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962.
This is the most important work written to date on peacemaking during the Renaissance. Adams does an excellent job of setting the literary and scholarly careers of the humanists into the historical context of war and peace. He focuses on the “London Reformers” (See 665), who realized that no social reform or progress was possible without peace, and who therefore devoted much of their literary energies to it. These humanists shared the Renaissance’s great faith in human nature and therefore had a natural sympathy with the common folk of Europe and their plight at the hands of Europe’s warlords. Drawing on medieval Christian ethics, a revived early Christian pacifism, and the neo-Stoic ideal of universal brotherhood, they questioned the basis of Europe’s contemporary wars, generally concluding that if the just-war criteria of their religion and philosophy were scrupulously applied, a just war would be rare indeed.
The humanists’ literary efforts were set in a very real, and dangerous, context: the wars of Henry VIII, François I, Maximilian, and Charles V. To speak out against these absolutists was to risk one’s career and, sometimes, one’s freedom and life. Yet beginning with the Oxford lectures of John Colet in 1496 and continuing through the careers of Thomas More, Erasmus, and Juan Luis Vives, they bravely defended the cause of peace and of the common folk of Europe, condemning the savagery, mocking the social pretensions, and appealing to the Christian purpose of Europe’s military nobility. It was Colet who first opened Erasmus’ eyes to the need for this campaign, and Erasmus who made the first, and perhaps best, use of the new printing press to spread these ideas throughout the continent.
The tone, and fortunes, of their output varied with the outlook for war or peace in Europe, ranging from the bright optimism of Erasmus’ Praise of Folly and Thomas More’s Utopia, to the pessimism of Erasmus’ Julius Excluded or of More’s Dialogue of Tribulation. There was also the element of the educator in all the humanists’ works, aimed at the ruling classes in the hope that they might be converted to peace. Such works as Erasmus’ Education of the Christian Prince and Vives’ Education of a Christian Woman and On Education stress the destructive elements of a noble’s education, the tales of violence and unrealistic deeds of bravery. They urged rather the true duty of the prince: the proper governing and protection of their peoples.
Adams stresses that the humanists’ words were not merely literary exercises. The humanists had their enemies; they had often to face the accusation that they were soft on the Turks, opposing the crusade to defend Christendom. But all generally agreed that if a war against them could be waged according to all the criteria of the just war, it should then so be waged. They also observed, however, that if Christians truly lived as Christians and stopped killing one another, both their mutual strength and their example might even convert the Turk without bloodshed.
By the 1520s and the onset of both Reformation and a steady war policy, speaking out against war had become dangerous. Adams shows how the humanists’ letters reveal a new caution. More’s letters become increasingly pessimistic of both chances for peace and the justice of Henry’s rule as the humanist is drawn further and further into the policy-making apparatus. Vives’ letters urging Henry VIII to peace result in his being fired from his Oxford lectureship; his continued outspokenness on behalf of justice ended in his house arrest and final expulsion from England. Erasmus’ continued message of peace ended in his vilification from both sides of the Reformation. More ended on the scaffold in defense of individual conscience and Christian unity.
650. —. “Pre-Renaissance Courtly Propaganda for Peace in English Literature,” Papers of the Michigan Academy 32 (1946-48): 431-46.
John Colet, Thomas More, and Erasmus, the “London Reformers,” actually drew on a literary and social tradition of peacemaking in their works against war. Contemporary Christian reform movements, medieval and classical works on the blessings of peace, and the neo-Stoic ideal of universal peace were their chief sources. Their work stimulated both a courtly and a public acceptance of the idea. While their efforts had little immediate effect, their long-term impact was significant: their ideas set the pattern for all later forms of modern pacifism. Adams sees their pacifism as a dramatic break with medieval models, there having been, he asserts, little or no pacifism in the Middle Ages.
651. Bainton, Roland. Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace. Knoxville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1960.
Bainton has divided up Christian responses to war and peace into several, neat compartments. The early church was pacifist; the medieval, Catholic church clung to the Crusade and slowly evolved the just war. The Protestants, being the true inheritors of the early church, revived pacifism. Thus the humanists, being by and large Catholics, adhered to the theory of the just war. Even such outright pacifists as Erasmus, Colet, Vives, Clichtove, and More used just-war criteria to condemn all real wars. While there is some truth to this, Bainton’s oversimple scheme misses much.
652. Hexter, Jack N. The Vision of Politics on the Eve of the Reformation. New York: Basic Books, 1973.
The Christian humanists “were not philosophical observers analyzing the conditions of the world they lived in but committed men, wishing and hoping to change those conditions.” Despite this, their relationship to Europe’s ruling circle was ambivalent. The dilemma posed by Hythloday in Thomas More’s Utopia typified their plight: should the independent intellectual and reformer ally himself to power in the hopes of bringing about change? Their humanism led them to assume that change was possible, and their role as educators encouraged their entry into the close circle of political advisors. On the other hand, their commitment to Gospel religion and its prophetic element led them to condemn much of contemporary life and politics. Their attacks on the ruling classes for their violence, their injustice, and their exploitation of the poor were not classical in inspiration, but biblical. Like unarmed prophets they sought not to bolster the status quo but to break it down and to change it with the fabric of Scripture.
But what place in the courts of princes was there for prophets? This is the situation that Hexter examines through the writings and careers of the humanists, tracing their intellectual and religious backgrounds, outlining their major ideas for reform, and detailing their criticisms — including those of war and injustice — in contemporary Europe.
653. Herding, Otto, and Robert Stüpperich, eds. Die Humanisten in ihrer politischen und sozialen Umwelt. Boppard-am-Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1976.
A collection of essays on the political and social context of the humanists.
654. Hutton, James. Themes of Peace in Renaissance Poetry. Rita Guerlac, ed. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Surveys peace poetry in the Renaissance, which drew on a firm tradition of classical and Christian art. Only the “encomium,” the pure peace poem, was new to the Renaissance.
Hutton divides his work into several thematic chapters. “Pax Aeterna” discusses the tradition in Greek and Roman poetry, including an excellent etymology of Greek and Latin terms for peace. This tradition extends through the Middle Ages and includes Dante, Petrarch, Jean Gerson, and the Devotio Moderna, as well as Erasmus and Clichtove in the Renaissance.
“Pax Poetica” examines the French literary tradition. The form variously advocates peace, laments its absence, or awaits its near approach. While the Italian humanists also used these topoi, the French really popularized them. “Pax Mundana” explores peace themes in sixteenth-century France, centering around the Italian wars, the Ladies’ Peace, and other specific events and personalities. Later chapters deal with the theme of peace in the animal kingdom and with a renewed knowledge of Greek and Roman works and their use as models as late as Ronsard.
Well annotated, good indexes.
655. Lange, Christian Louis. Histoire de la doctrine pacifique. The Hague: Academy of International Law, 1927.
A survey that includes sections on several Renaissance peacemakers.
656. —. Histoire de l’internationalisme. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): H. Aschenhoug, 1919-1963.
Volume 1 presents discussions and selections from Erasmus, More, Vives, Josse van Clichtove, and Agrippa of Nettesheim. Lange’s emphasis is on internationalism, not strictly nonviolence.
657. Patrides, C.A., and Joseph A. Wittreich, eds. The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985.
A collection of essays, with an excellent bibliography covering apocalyptic literature chronologically from the Bible to the twentieth century. Good index.
Essays by Bernard McGinn and Marjorie Reeves deal with the medieval tradition; the rest focus on Elizabethan themes.
658. Woodward, William H. Studies in Education During the Age of the Renaissance, 1400-1600. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967.
An important introduction to the educational ideals and aims of the humanists. Includes discussions of Agricola, Erasmus, Budé, and Vives.
John Colet
659. Colet, John. John Colet’s Commentary on First Corinthians. Bernard O’Kelly and Catherine A.L. Jarrott, eds. and trans. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1985.
Facing Latin and English texts of this landmark in biblical, and textual, criticism. Colet places Paul and his letter in their historical context. His commentary follows the epistle chapter and verse with careful analysis and very frank parallels to the pomp, vainglory, and corruption of his own time. The imitation of Christ and his folly, patience in tribulation and the life of love, service and wisdom are central themes that helped shaped the program of the English reformers.
Good introduction and notes.
660. Harbison. Christian Scholar. See 636, 56-67.
Good introduction to Colet’s life and ideas.
661. Jayne, Sears R. John Colet and Marsiglio Ficino. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Traces the influence of the Italian Renaissance and its emphasis on human perfectibility, and ethical responsibility, on the English humanist’s ideas of reform.
662. Kaufman, Peter Iver. Augustinian Piety and Catholic Reform: Augustine, Colet, and Erasmus. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1982.
The work of the humanist reformers was based on fundamentally Christian sources, most especially in their emphasis on the ethical life of moral responsibility.
663. Schoeck, R.J. “Colet, John,” NCE 3: 990-91.
A good, general introduction, with some bibliography.
Thomas More
664. Chambers, R.W. Thomas More. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1962.
Despite its Catholic and anti-Henrician biases, this remains a classic introduction to the man and martyr in his historical context. Chambers’ interpretation has been the starting point for much of the historiography on More over the last generation. Chambers sees More as a liberal determined by the standards of his age: devoted to freedom of thought, if not of speech, of toleration of the bodies of heretics if not of their books, as long as they did not attempt to assert their beliefs as the one truth. As chancellor More attacked Wolsey as the prime mover of Henry’s war policy. More died a true, and heroic, martyr to his ideals of a unified Christendom and of freedom of conscience.
665. Derrett, J. Duncan M. “St. Thomas More as a Martyr,” Downside Review 101 (July 1983): 187-93.
A review of Jasper Ridley’s The Statesman and the Fanatic: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More (London: Constable, 1982). Derrett doubts Ridley’s scholarship and criticizes his analysis of More from a twentieth-century point of view. More must be viewed in the context of his age. His convictions were genuinely religious, and he certainly did die the martyr’s death for his witness.
666. Hexter, J.H. More’s Utopia: The Biography of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.
Analyzes the hermeneutic process through which the author’s idea is transformed into the reader’s by the act of publication. This is a landmark study covering the anatomy of Utopia as a published work, various interpretations of its discourse, the “dialogue of counsel,” More’s inner debate on the role of the intellectual in service to the state. The study concludes with a very useful discussion of Cardinal Wolsey’s disastrous policy of war, overtaxation, and social injustice and More’s own catastrophe in playing a part in that policy through his service, just as Hythloday had warned.
667. Logan, George M. The Meaning of More’s Utopia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
More’s book has proven too sophisticated for its readers over the past five centuries. In the twentieth century much criticism has seen it as a “holiday piece,” not to be taken seriously. Despite Utopia’s obvious satire, however, it is essentially an accurate depiction of current European war and social policy.
Utopia differs from Aristotle and Plato’s vision of the state, yet it does present a society unconstrained by “revealed Christian imperatives.” While More does not approve of all the Utopians’ actions, and clearly highlights their conflict with Erasmian ideals, he is creating a “best commonwealth” with all the wisdom available to the rational and secular. Thus Utopia’s wars are not justified in any Christian sense, but from a natural law basis. While Utopia does not offer an image of a reformed Europe, it does debunk the entire chivalric myth. In the end, however, More sets out to show the failings of both Christian humanists and cynical “secularist” views. His work is a unique contribution to Western political thought.
Good notes, bibliography and index.
668. Marius, Richard. Thomas More. A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
A modern portrait, fully in keeping with the 1980s in its demythologization of the saint and martyr and in its attempt to paint the complex, often contradictory, and sometimes dislikeable man. Nevertheless, Marius admits that he ended by liking the man and recognizing that he died a martyr to Christian unity. This biography treats More’s life and career, both political and literary, and only tangentially discusses his pacifism. Nevertheless, it does make some very pointed remarks. More, for example, did fully support the good reputation of English arms abroad, if not all the war aims of Henry VIII. Even More’s Utopians, while they loath war and butchery of any kind, still engage in both, if admittedly at second hand by hiring people to do it for them. Still, the Utopians fight only to avenge wrongs or depredations committed against themselves or their neighbors, and they do not attempt wars of conquest. In short, though Marius does not analyze this, they follow the precepts of the just war.
More tried everything in his power as chancellor to exterminate Protestant heretics, even taking glee when some were burned at the stake. Only Henry VIII’s backing away from a strict orthodox line in favor of accommodation calmed More down. In the end More “seems much less the pacifist than modern scholars have made him.” Brief annotations, adequate bibliography.
669. More, Thomas. A Dialogue Concerning Heresies. Thomas M.C. Lawlor, Germain Marc’hadour, and Richard C. Marius, eds. See 674, 6 (1981).
This is a work that must be considered in any treatment of More’s peacemaking, because here, as a defender of Catholic orthodoxy, he urges the use of force against Lutherans, equating them with Turks and thus the object of the most heated war. Nevertheless, he does warn that where no violence or compulsion is committed, no one has the right to apply either.
670. —. Excerpts in 674, 196-216.
671. —. A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation. Louis L. Martz and Frank Manley, eds. See 675, vol. 12.
This was written in 1534, when More was in the Tower awaiting execution. The work is an extended meditation on the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity in an attempt to alleviate his own fears and to exhort others to nonviolent suffering under persecution. It is a dialogue between an uncle and nephew in Hungary just before the Turkish conquest in 1529. Their discussion focuses on their fears of living under the tyranny of infidels, and it concludes with their determination to follow the example of Christ in defending their faith without violence, even with their lives.
The point of the work was twofold. It was first a call on Catholics to resist evil, whether from Turk or Protestant, in a nonviolent, Christian way. Second, it was an indictment of the tyranny of Henry VIII and More’s declaration of nonviolent resistance to it. Toward the end of the dialogue he declares that “the Turk is but a shadow” of the evil that all Christians must resist: the powers of violent tyranny. His ultimate refusal to violate his conscience in the end posed a far greater threat to Henry’s tyranny than any violent opposition could ever hope to achieve.
672. —. Leland Miles, ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965.
Another, good, edition.
673. —. The Essential Thomas More. James J. Greene and John P. Dolan, eds. New York: Mentor-Omega, 1967.
A handy English, paperback edition of his works by two noted scholars. Their introduction provides a good brief biography and an appreciation of More’s paradoxes and inconsistencies. They note that “men like More are a threat and a scandal to the single-mindedly earnest, to the ‘true believers’.”
674. —. The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of Thomas More. Various editors. 15 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965–1997.
Excellent English editions, by scholars of note, of all of More’s works.
675. —. Utopia. Edward Surtz, S.J. and J.H. Hexter, eds. See 674, vol. 4.
This book has stirred debate over its real meaning and intent since it was first published in 1516. More’s vision took two parts. Book One criticizes contemporary European society through the observations of Hythloday, an explorer returned from the New World. Book Two details his observations on Utopia, the land he has visited. This framework allows More to make some damning criticisms of Christian Europe both directly and by way of contrast, and to suggest paths of reform.
Book One begins with a discussion of whether Hythloday should accept royal service as a state counselor. He refuses with an attack on Europe’s princes for their preoccupation with war at the expense of wise administration. They are dominated by a lust for power that is fed on the false myths of chivalric romance and of ancient conquest. In reality war is the work of thieves, whose profession is indistinguishable from that of soldiers. Kings do not want peacemakers in their councils, in fact the entire structure of government is geared to a state of continuous war and war readiness. Such policies bring ruin to all civilized life as they impoverish people with heavy war taxes. Continuous war or war hysteria ultimately brings moral breakdown at home and a lust for violence until all creative, constructive, and peaceful pursuits are considered effeminate.
Book Two deals with Utopian customs and institutions. This is a description of a society guided solely by human reason, though open to divine grace. It is neither anti- or un-Christian but represents the ideal pre-Christian state capable of greater perfection. The Utopians are trained in the arts of peace. They reject even brutal sports, like the hunt, and even consider butchery a lowly trade. Nevertheless, being the product of natural reason alone, they are trained in defense and do conduct just wars, but only as a last resort. When exposed to the truths of Christianity, they embrace them eagerly.
More’s treatment of domestic violence and the violence of injustice in Book One have become a classic in the Western tradition. Discussion focuses on the suggestion of a certain cleric that the chief way to reduce England’s ever-increasing crime rate is greater punishment: the death penalty, even for theft. Hythloday gives More’s answer: greater punishment is not deterrent; in fact, it even increases the boldness of criminals to commit murder rather than be caught for lesser crimes. The true solution to the crime rate is the alleviation of social injustice: poverty and exploitation, the greedy land grab of large landowners against small farmers who are pushed off the land and into the cities for lives of poverty and crime. Social justice, and less severe punishment, are his prescriptions.
Facing Latin and English texts, excellent introduction, commentary on each passage, excellent index and bibliography.
676. —. See 673, 23-96.
A good, paperback, edition.
677. Surtz, Edward, S.J. The Praise of Wisdom: A Commentary on the Religious and Moral Problems and Background of St. Thomas More’s Utopia. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1957.
An excellent commentary on the work’s meaning and interpretation. Chapter 17, pp. 270-71 are especially useful for issues of war and peace.
Juan Luis Vives
678. Gibert, Rafael. “Lulio y Vives sobre la paz.” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 15 (1961): 125-70, at 148-69.
Vives was a famous humanist and internationalist. His literary works, letters to popes, kings and emperors, and his personal contacts all strove to carry on Erasmus’ work. His themes were constant: the horrors of war, the insignificance of princes’ motives for waging them, the suffering of the innocent, the need for educational reform and for Christian unity. Humanity is by nature peaceful, and this peace has been restored by Christ.
Vives also addressed the Turkish question and concluded that there were worse calamities than living under their yoke: the oppression of Christian princes who use fraud, conquest, and domination in place of Christian virtues of rule and justice. Christians should and can overcome the Turks, but they must do so with the spiritual and material goods of Christianity. These can be used after a general unification and reformation of Christendom. All Christians, of whatever station, must take on their duty to become peacemakers. This is especially true of Christian princes.
679. Tobriner, Marian Leona, S.N.J.M. Vives’ Introduction to Wisdom: A Renaissance Textbook. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
This was Vives’ most influential work, first published in 1540. Given the increasingly polarized state of Europe, its gentle tone is all the more surprising, but this goes far to explain its appeal. The book quickly became a standard textbook in the English school curriculum, and it appeared in 76 editions by the 1570s, including one in Mexico City. The work ranges over a broad field of topics: wisdom, beauty and strength, body and soul, learning, food, sleep, social life, love, religion, and Christ. It offers a compendium of humanist teachings.
Humans are capable of the greatest love and peace, yet the violence of war reduces them to a level below that of beasts. The chapter “On Charity” presents Vives’ prescriptions for peacemaking. Christ has given us his Golden Rule and ordered us to love our enemies and those who persecute us. Christ’s own nonviolence is a compelling example for imitation. No true Christian can hate. Instead, true Christians “who study to bring peace among men, and to preserve tranquility safe and sound, shall be called the children of God.”
Tobriner’s introduction provides excellent background for the life and career of this disciple of Erasmus, including his difficulties with the English crown for his peacemaking activities.
680. Woodward, William H. Studies in Education During the Age of the Renaissance, 1400-1600. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967, 180-210.
Reviews his life, works, and educational and reform ideas, especially in his De trahendis disciplinis of 1531, a complete guide to educational training, staff, school site, curriculum, games, and exercise, all in an effort to produce the best Christians. Fully in the tradition of Erasmus.
Desiderius Erasmus
Several of Erasmus’ works are available in English in early editions free online at the Liberty Fund site.
681. Bainton, Roland H. “Erasmus and the Persecuted.” Scrinium Erasmianum. 2 vols., Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, 2: 197-202.
Not on Erasmus’ views but on his active efforts to intercede for persecuted individuals. A good reminder that the humanist writer lived as he wrote.
682. —. Erasmus of Christendom. New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1969.
A classic review of Erasmus’ life, friends, and works set within their historical context. Bainton makes good use of selections from the humanist’s works and provides good analysis of most of these. He makes us aware throughout that Erasmus was one of the first writers to truly grasp the importance of the printing press. He also allows us to appreciate Erasmus’ life-long devotion to Christian toleration, unity, and consensus. A late chapter deals with his personality, personal appearance, and habits; while the final one treats the growing suspicion and irritability of his final years, his constant trouble from both Protestant and Catholic sides, and emphasizes his claims to belong to all Christendom. Handsomely illustrated from contemporary sources, well annotated, with good bibliography.
683. —. “The Querela Pacis of Erasmus, Classical and Christian Sources,” Archiv für Reformation Geschichte 42 (1951).
The sources for The Complaint of Peace lay in Stoic philosophy and natural history.
684. Bietenholz, Peter G., and Thomas B. Deutscher, eds. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. Rev. ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.
Well illustrated, brief biographies, arranged alphabetically, with good bibliographies. Includes such figures as Colet, Clichtove, and More.
685. Brachin, Pierre. “Vox clamantis in deserto: Réflexions sur le pacifisme d’Erasme,” Colloquia Erasmiana Turonensia. 2 vols. Jean-Claude Margolin, ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972, 1: 247-76.
Three themes dominated all of Erasmus’ life and work: the reform of literature, his “philosophy of Christ,” and peace. On deeper examination these themes turn out to be facets of the same reality: for Erasmus textual work is born out of the need for internal renewal that will overcome the evils of the church and of society. Throughout his works he stressed that no matter how just a war might seem, its crimes and calamities fell principally on the innocent. His works on war and peace reached an immense audience and were printed in dozens of editions throughout Europe.
Yet, for all of Erasmus’ popularity, Brachin’s assessment is negative: while the humanist was deeply sincere in his beliefs, his ideas affected only a very small circle of intellectuals and had little impact on society. His analysis also lacked any understanding of economic causality or of the importance of the foreign policy of states. Instead, he saw the chief cause of war in the failings and passions of princes. His analysis of the conflicts of his day lacked any understanding of the modern state or its institutions. Instead, they sought causes in mental and moral frameworks. In the end Erasmus was so unsuccessful because his anthropology of violence was so naive and fantastic.
Brachin also analyzes Erasmus’ ideas on the crusade against the Turk. Generally he accepted the idea, if such a war could be completely just in its motives and execution. He rejected absolute pacifism, the type associated with Luther (See 644) and used nonviolence only as a tactic, attempting to avoid the extremes of either side of the Reformation debate. Brachin concludes that ultimately Erasmus was stuck in the Middle Ages. The signs of his times escaped him because he could not use modern psychology, sociology, or political economy. Today, on the other hand, we have institutes that can study war scientifically.
686. Broadhead, Meg. “War is Sweet to Those Who Have Not Tried It,” Catholic Worker 45.1 (Jan., 1979), 8.
A modern appreciation of one of Erasmus’ most popular adages against war. See 699.
687. Colloquium Erasmianum. Mons: Centre Universitaire de l’État, 1968.
Includes George Chantraine, “Mysterium et Sacramentum dans le ‘Dulce Bellum’,” on pages 33-45. For Erasmus the sacraments are the visible manifestations of Christ within the church, the mysteria of our relation with the sacred. These sacramental mysteries are at the root of Erasmus’ view of Christ’s peace as well, which is the visible manifestation of the mystery of his nature. Erasmus’ spirituality, as well a his views of peace, were thus fully doctrinal and sacramental, not simply secular and ethical.
688. Chapiro, José. Erasmus and Our Struggle for Peace. Boston: Beacon Press, 1950.
A very personal and modern reappraisal, with a translation of the Querela Pacis as “Peace Protests.”
689. Cytowska, Maria. “Erasme et les Turcs,” Eos 62 (1974): 311-21.
The Turkish question was the one major exception to Erasmus’ pacifism. Educated by the Brethren of the Common Life, who produced a constant stream of anti-Turkish propaganda in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and warned by the strong feelings of anti-Lutheran hostility emerging in Europe, Erasmus thought it best to accede to the call for a crusade lest he be accused of heresy for his pacifism. Despite his approval of such a war, however, Erasmus continued to stress that reason would have greater effect than force of arms and that Christians should destroy their own sins before setting off to destroy those of the Turks.
His attitude to the Turks had three main elements: a moral renaissance of Christians, an attempt to convert the Turks by moral example, prayer and the proclamation of Christian truths, and — only after all else fails — a crusade, but this to be fought with the most just methods. Even if such a war were waged, Christians killed were not to be considered martyrs. These ideas are best expressed in Erasmus’ Ultissima consultatio de bello Turcis inferendo (716, 717), which, according to Cytowska, is an intellectual justification of Hapsburg imperial policy.
690. Erasmus, Desiderius. The Adages of Erasmus. Margaret Mann Philips, trans. and ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
An excellent translation and edition of these short works on moral lessons and proverbs. See 699, 702, 713, and 718.
691. —. Charon. See 715, 113-19.
Published in 1529, this is one of Erasmus’ most powerful, and popular, dialogues. Charon, the ferryman of Hell, encounters Alastor, an avenging spirit. Charon is busy preparing a large new ship for the sudden influx of souls damned to hell as a result of three Christian rulers — Henry VIII, François I, and Charles V — now busy preparing for a world conflagration and mass extermination. The war of words between Lutherans and Catholics will soon come to blows, and Charon will be fully employed. Up above the friars preach the false doctrine of the just war: to the French they say God is on their side, to the English and Germans, that the war is not their’s but God’s. Victory is certain, but — if they should get killed — they’ll fly straight up to heaven. As Alastor leaves, he tells Charon to hurry back over the Styx: there are already 200,000 damned souls waiting to cross to Hell. The colloquy provoked an imperial “white paper” that blamed the work on Charles V’s enemies. Vives was later prohibited from translating it into Spanish.
692. —. The Collected Works of Erasmus. Various eds. Toronto and Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press. 86 vols. 1969-.
693. —. The Colloquies of Erasmus. Craig R. Thompson, ed. and trans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
A standard English edition of these works, which Erasmus started writing in 1497 as Latin exercises for his tutorials. He began to introduce characters and plots only in 1522. They were first collected for publication in 1518 and reached twelve editions by 1533. While Erasmus never really considered these works very important, they had an immense influence both for their pedagogical value and for their religious, social and political criticisms. Despite their eventual placement on the Index of Forbidden Books, they influenced Rabelais, Shakespeare, and even Walter Scott. They remained a standard school text into the nineteenth century. Thompson published a shorter collection in 715.
694. —. The Complaint of Peace. See 700, 174-204.
This appeal to the power of the press and of the new public opinion that it unleashed quickly became a best seller after its publication in 1517. It blends the Sermon on the Mount with newly revived Greek and Roman views of war and peace, especially those of the Stoics. Peace is the law of the universe. It is reflected in the order of the solar system and the laws of physics and biology. His universe is built on love, cooperation, mutual attractions and harmonies that cooperate to guarantee life and peace. Human nature shares this tendency to peace. Yet contemporary Christian society has been corrupted. Modern peace is merely a sham that hides corruption and violence. Monastic peace is simply a flight from the world, an inner calm that only realizes a part of true peace. Christian peace, instead, is the highest of all virtues, and Christianity the religion of peace.
The chief culprits in this decline from Christian virtue are Europe’s rulers who destroy the works of peace: cities and rich farmlands, trade and learning. The just-war excuses of princes are shams. Wars are fought out of “anger, ambition, and stupidity.” The causes of princes have little in common with the concerns of the common folk. Churchmen aid the princes in their destruction. But, Peace asks, “what does the Bible have to do with a shield?...What filth is the tongue of a priest who exhorts war, evil, and murder!”
By contrast, Peace urges positive peacemaking: Christians must refuse to cooperate with the warmongers and reject war propaganda. They must realize that wars destroy more than they are ever fought to gain and raise every private vice into a widespread plague.
695. —. T. Paynell, trans. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974.
This is a reprint of the 1917 edition, which was itself reprinted from “a rare old English version,” probably that of 1802. Still, the text is well printed and presented, and the translation seems to have been modernized. No introduction, notes, or bibliography.
696. —. José Chapiro, trans., as “Peace Protests.” In Erasmus and Our Struggle for Peace. Boston: Beacon Press, 1950.
A handy, contemporary translation.
697. —. Cyclops, or the Gospel Bearer. See 715, 120-29.
First published in 1529, this is a dialogue between Polyphemus, a soldier, and Cannius. Polyphemus claims to be a soldier of Christ: he carries a bible around and settles all disputes with his battle axe. Asked whether he recalls Christ’s command to turn the other cheek, Polyphemus replies “I’ve read that, but it slipped my mind.”
698. —. The Education of a Christian Prince. Lester K. Born, ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
First published in 1516, Erasmus’ Prince is the antithesis of Machiavelli’s, written in 1513. It was an immediate success, going through 18 editions in Erasmus’ life alone and over 40 all together. It’s influence on English education was immense. The work focuses on the connection between Christian leadership, liberty, and peace. Such leadership must always be exercised in full consciousness of the Christian liberty of the princes subjects, which is both spiritual and political. The prince who exercises tyranny reduces his subjects to the level of animal slavery and is no legitimate Christian ruler. Consensus and restraint should be the tools of Christian rule.
But if the prince is to rule as a Christian, what models should he follow? Erasmus’ purpose here is to demythologize militarism, to redirect princely education. First, the prince must reject pagan models: the false dreams of military glory, the bloodthirsty examples of Alexander, Xerxes, Caesar, Arthur, and Lancelot. These were all world robbers, tyrants drunk with ambition. The military class at peace is no better than at war: they live off the work of others, squander wealth on luxuries, produce no useful products.
Erasmus then outlines his education for peace and justice, the duties and responsibilities of the prince. In one chapter alone, Eleven, is waging war considered as a real possibility. Here, however, the humanist details the risks and evils of war and contrasts them to the greater benefits of peace. While canon law, Augustine, and Bernard of Clairvaux may sometimes appear to approve of war, Christ teaches against it. “He rejoices to be called the Prince of Peace; may you do the same.”
699. —. Erasmus Against War. See 690, 308-53.
Included in the 1515 edition of the Adages, it is an expanded version of his Letter to Anthony Bergin (707) written in 1514. Also known as War is Sweet to Those Who Do Not Know It (Dulce Bellum Inexpertis or Bellum Erasmi). This is an open letter to Europe’s leaders, pleading for peace and analyzing the nature of war and individual responsibility for it. Aristotelian philosophy and Roman law have so corrupted Christian revelation that the meaning of true Christianity is lost. Most Christians honestly believe that their religion condones meeting force with force, accumulating wealth and honor, and fulfilling only external obligations.
War is the ultimate corruption of true religion, and military service nothing but banditry and barbarism in disguise. Even the just-war provision of war as a punishment for wrongdoing and the right to defend national sovereignty are shams. In a true court a wrongdoer is convicted by judge and jury before punishment. In war each side prosecutes the other, and the ones punished are chiefly the innocent: the old, women, and children. Even the claim of defense must collapse before the facts: when princes go to war it is the people who suffer. It is they who ultimately give sovereignty, and it is their interests that are harmed in the end.
Even the war against the Turks would be a mistake, for if Christians put away their cross of nonviolence, they themselves become Turks. The best way to conquer the enemies of Christ is to gird the spiritual weapons of the Gospels: the sword of the Word, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith. True Christianity can be regained by the simple imitation of Christ as revealed in the Gospels.
Erasmus then presents several arguments against war: the Stoic, of universal brotherhood; the naturalist, showing the harmony and peace of the universe; the medical, which compares war to an epidemic; the practical and legal, focusing on the injustices of war; and the religious, the truths of Christian revelation. Christianity is truly a religion of peacemaking; true Christian lives must be devoted to this not only in words but also in action.
700. —. The Essential Erasmus. John P. Dolan, ed. New York: Mentor-Omega, 1964.
This is a fine, convenient collection of several of Erasmus’ most enduring works, including the Handbook of the Militant Christian (704), The Praise of Folly (712), and The Complaint of Peace (694), and On Mending the Peace of the Church (710). Dolan’s introduction is also very helpful. He notes at the outset that criticisms leveled against Erasmus for what the 1980s branded “secular humanism” are wrong. The scholar was sincerely motivated by a Christian desire for peace and charity: these were the essential themes of all his works. Dolan briefly reviews his youth and education, his literary career and travels throughout Europe, his troubles during the Reformation, his final refusal of a cardinal’s hat, his death, the later fate of his works at the hands of the Counter Reformation, and their continued modern appeal.
701. —. The Funeral. See 715, 92-112.
First published in 1526, this colloquy is a satire on the “art of dying” literature of the late Middle Ages. A respected general, Balearicus, is on his deathbed. Two witnesses exchange gossip, revealing how the general has grown rich from defense contracts and other “robberies, sacrileges, and extortions.”
702. —. The Grub Pursues the Eagle. See 690, 229-65.
On the true nature of military heroism.
703. —. Guerre et paix dans la pensée d’Erasme. Jean-Claude Margolin, ed. Paris, 1973.
A collection of Erasmus’ works on war and peace translated into French. This remains a useful guide.
704. —. The Handbook of the Militant Christian. See 700, 24-93.
Written in 1501 to convert an arms manufacturer, this is Erasmus’ earliest work condemning the glorification of war. It is a lengthy commentary on St. Paul’s exhortation to Christians to become real soldiers of Christ, armed with the spirit and the true weapons of learning and piety. See also 708.
705. —. The Ignoble Knight. See 693, 424-32.
This appeared in 1529. Harpalus (“grasping,” “greedy”), the braggart soldier, encounters Nestor, the urban swindler. Harpalus seeks Nestor’s advice on how to buy an aristocratic title and life. Nestor replies that his brand of nobility involves the company of high society, expensive clothes, empty conversation, absurd coats of arms, and pedigrees. A noble reputation is greatly helped by syncophantic writers and publishers who prostitute themselves to honor the soldier. Nestor tells Harpalus that the basic principles of knighthood come down to this: robbing travelers and merchants, spreading threats of death and destruction, of total war, intimidating the peaceful into acquiescence. At all costs the soldier must avoid the poets, people like Erasmus: whatever they write is quickly spread around the world to confront the lies of soldiers.
706. —. The Julius Exclusus of Erasmus. Paul Pascal, trans. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1968.
The authorship of this tract has long been the object of great debate, and well it might be, since it is a contemporary attack, in the most savage satire imaginable, of Pope Julius II, the warrior pope who had recently died. Pascal accepts Erasmus’ authorship, fixes its writing to 1513/14 and its publication to 1517.
The title is a play on the pope’s name and means “Julius Excluded from heaven.” In this dialogue Pope Julius arrives at heaven’s door leading an army of Christians freshly slain in the European wars that he has led or instigated. He is met by St. Peter, who refuses him entry. A heated debate ensues in which Julius recounts his military exploits, his magnificent building programs, his wealth and splendid court, his treaties made and broken according to the need of the hour, his bloody wars and warrior triumphs (one of which Erasmus witnessed first-hand in Bologna in 1506).
To Peter’s reply that heaven’s gates open only for the works of mercy, praising Saints Francis and Benedict, Julius counters that his methods have long been used by Catholic popes. He begins to rant about his absolute power within the church, to mock Christian poverty, toil, and nonviolence. By this time Peter has had enough and closes the gates, and the dialogue, abruptly.
707. —. “Letter to Anthony of Bergen.” In Peter Mayer, ed. The Pacifist Conscience. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966, 53-59.
This dates from March 1514 and ranges over the darkening political situation in Europe. The crusade against the Turks is once again in the air. Erasmus expresses his doubts over the possibility of ever waging a just war. If one looks at past wars every one would be disqualified using the strict just-war criteria. The history of the Roman Empire with its endless list of pretexts of legal grievances to justify its conquests is a case in point. No, on final analysis, all the wars of kings are fought on flimsy pretext. “Our wars, for the most part, proceed either from ambition, from anger and malice, and from the mere wantonness of unbridled power, or from some other mental distemper.” The real causes of war are “the private, sinister, and selfish motives of princes.” This is the embryonic form of his Erasmus Against War. See 699.
708. —. “Letter to Paul Volz.” In John C. Olin, ed., Desiderius Erasmus: Christian Humanism and the Reformation. New York: Harper & Row, 1965, 107-33.
This first appeared as the preface to the 1518 edition of the Handbook of the Militant Christian (704). With Pope Leo X’s bull calling for a crusade against the Turks, Erasmus remarks that a crusade against Christian vice is certainly needed, but that such a crusade against Turks was on shaky moral grounds. He notes ironically that even if a few Turks should survive the Christian onslaught, the divisions and hatreds of Christians for one another, and their tyrannies, vices, and lusts would dissuade even those survivors from converting. Erasmus urges, instead, a pamphlet war and propaganda campaign to convert the Turks before any military option. He complains that if anyone should deter men from war, he is marked out as an enemy of Christianity and a heretic. Yet those who urge men on to killing are not seen as enemies of the teaching of Christ and the Apostles.
709. —. Military Affairs. See 693, 11-15.
First published in 1522, this is a dialogue between Hanno, a civilian, and Thrasymachus (Bold Fighter), named after Plato’s “might-makes-right” spokesman in the Republic. To Hanno’s naive questions on the attractiveness of the military life, Thrasymachus answers honestly: rapine, butchery, theft, sacrilege, and moral cowardice. When pressed to explain how he ever entered such a life, the soldier replies that “ a preacher declared from the pulpit that war is just.” After Hanno condemns the profession of “burning houses, looting churches, violating nuns, robbing poor people, murdering harmless ones,” Thrasymachus expressed fears that Hanno might change his conscience from clear to cloudy, a disagreeable prospect.
710. —. On Mending the Peace of the Church. See 700, 327-88.
Dolan calls this “the last will and testament of Erasmus.” Written in 1533 at the height of the Reformation struggle, and only three years before his own death, the work continues to shine with the same themes that had dominated his life: conciliation, compromise, forgiveness of enemies. For many years after his death it remained a program for his humanist followers throughout a divided Europe.
711. —. Paraphrases on Romans and Galatians. Robert D. Sider, ed. John B. Payne, Albert Rabil, Jr. and Warren S. Smith, Jr., trans. See 692, vol. 42, 1985.
A fundamental influence on his views of persecution and the nature of the enemy.
712. —. The Praise of Folly. See 700, 94-173.
This is Erasmus’ best-known work, still a best-seller today as it was when first written in 1509. It is a wide-ranging satire covering the contemporary moral, social and political scene, mocking abuses of every kind and of every social class and profession. “Folly,” the hero and chief speaker, becomes a foil for the “folly of Christ,” the simple life of Gospel imitation.
While a wise man has no place in war, the Fool finds full employment there. Bandits and all sorts of sociopaths are its true leaders. Even the church, built on the blood of the martyrs, now has its full share of warrior popes and bishops, as well as priests only too eager to urge on bloodshed and destruction. True Christians, those who practice Christ’s nonviolence, are a minority and are considered mad fools by the world at large.
713. —. Sileni Alcibiades. See 690, 269-300.
Written in 1515, this is an attack on the just-war theory, a mockery and a pretext created by rulers to rob the people.
714. —. The Soldier and the Carthusian. See 693, 127-33.
First published in 1523. A monk encounters a former acquaintance who has returned home from a life as a mercenary — broken, impoverished, and diseased — his soul “as pure as the Paris sewer.”
715. —. Ten Colloquies. Craig R. Thompson, ed. Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957.
See 693 for introduction.
716. —. Ultissima consultatio de bello Turcis inferendo (A Most Useful Brief On Waging War Against the Turks), in Opera Omnia, ed. J. Clericus, Leyden, 1703-6, 5: 345-68.
Here is one of Erasmus’ most difficult works, written in 1530 during a period in which he was under attack as a “clandestine Lutheran” for his pacifism, following the publication of Luther’s On War Against the Turks. (See 644.) It is an attempt to answer his critics, to refute the Lutheran claim that the Turkish threat was a divine punishment for the sins of Christians, and to spell out clearly his attitudes toward the crusade against the Turks, the only possible just war for him.
Erasmus makes no mistake that he considers the Turks rapacious, tyrannical, impious, and degenerate. He denies that he has ever embraced total pacifism. The charge is “so absurd that one hardly needs to refute it.” A true Christian crusade, led by the Emperor and joined by a united Europe, waged in a Christian way, with as little bloodshed as possible, and with a true intent to convert the Turks, is acceptable. He rejects Luther’s call to “resist not evil,” and reminds his readers that Christians must indeed resist evil, but urges that Christians first reform their own spiritual and material lives. A truly Christian Europe would persuade the Turks to convert willingly, while the lack of reform will insure Christian failure. If Christians think they can lead a Christian life by slitting Turkish throats, they mock Christ and quickly turn into Turks themselves.
While accepting the theory of the just war, then, Erasmus seems to indicate that such a war is impossible in reality. He urges Christians instead to fight the Turk within them all. This important work has yet to be translated into English.
717. —. reprint of 1643 ed., as Consultatio de bello Turcis inferendo. Athens: Karavia, 1974.
718. —. You Have Conquered Sparta, Now Govern It. See 690, 300-308.
The relationship between just rule and prowess in conquest is not always so straightforward. The former is far preferable, and should be enough to occupy any prince.
719. Erasmus Online Database. [Rotterdam] : Erasmus Center for Early Modern Studies.
720. Fernandez, J.A. “Erasmus on the Just War,” Journal of the History of Ideas 34 (1973): 209-26.
Erasmus continued in the mistaken perception that war was a problem of individual morality, not a prerogative of the state. His works thus aimed to awaken individual moral responses. The notion that war can be blamed on individual morality “displays the fundamental poverty of the Christian humanist purview,” which Fernandez calls “disgracefully corrupt.” Nevertheless, Erasmus’ dismissal of almost all wars as unjust, and his question in the Christian Prince “if there really is any war which can be called just” strikes Fernandez as “prevarication and evasiveness,” a stance that Erasmus shares with the entire Christian pacifist tradition from Tertullian on.
In response to Erasmus’ declaration in his War Against the Turks (716, 717) that he might be considered an absolutist pacifist “is too absurd to deserve refutation,” Fernandez declares triumphantly, “so much for Erasmus’ pacifism!” and considers the entire question settled except for one or too fine points. This treatise, he argues, is the most thorough defense of the just war until Vitoria.
Fernandez then asserts that the very acceptance of the state by a Christian “is the doom of pacifism,” since the state is made to wield the sword of magistracy, and this equals the sword of war, which it can wield “even [against] the unanimous consent of all the citizens.” Discussing Fernandez’s analysis of Erasmus’ politics, James Tracy notes “what is ‘flimsy’ is not Erasmus’ conception of the state, but Fernandez’ understanding of Erasmus.” See 737.
721. Friedrich, C.-J. “Guerre et paix d’après Erasme et Kant.” In Colloquium Erasmianum. Mons: Centre Universitaire de l’État, 1968, 1:277-83.
Erasmus was one of the “two most dogmatic pacifists in the intellectual history of Europe.” Friedrich seems to equate moral stands with dogmatisms, and pacifism with an intellectual, not an ethical or activist tradition. Nevertheless, he does excuse the humanist for making war a problem of individual morality, since the modern state, which we know is the real cause of all war, did not exist in his time.
722. Halkin, Léon-E. “Erasme et la politique des rois.” In Otto Herding and Robert Stüpperich, eds. Die Humanisten in ihrer politischen und sozialen Umwelt. Boppard-am-Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1976, 109-18.
Erasmus wrote almost one hundred of his three thousand letters to statesmen: Charles V, Ferdinand of Austria, Francois I, Henry VIII, James V, Sigismund, Jão III and others. They all follow certain rhetorical forms appropriate to their royal audiences and reflect Erasmus’ profession as moralist, not politician. Throughout the letters, however, Erasmus’ historical perspective is clear, as is his moderation, even when expressing his pacifism.
723. Hardin, Richard F. “The Literary Conventions of Erasmus’ Education of a Christian Prince: Advice and Aphorism,” Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 151-63.
There is no real contradiction between Erasmus’ reputation as the “scourge of princes” and his position as a councilor to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Erasmus saw both sin and the possibility of its reform. This willingness to live with human inconsistency gave rise to the “detached wit” that was a hallmark of both himself and Thomas More. Critics’ charges of naiveté, simplicity, and primitiveness concerning politics are unfounded in light of the prevailing political theories of the age.
His Education shares the same themes as his earlier work, such as the Panegyric of 1504, the 1515 Adages, or The Complaint of Peace, but it expresses the interdependence between peace and responsible rule most clearly. The work is based on two medieval genres, the “advice to princes” and the de casibus, the fall of princes. The entire work is actually a collection of aphorisms, a series of separate observations and themes that he constructed to make a portrait of the ideal prince. He used the technique of two-part aphorism, contrasting the ideal political form with its visible sham. Yet Erasmus’ work is neither innocuous cliché nor flattery. He adheres strongly to the democratic tradition of the Flemish city republics and reinforces this with an appeal to the liberty of the Christian: the spiritual freedom that God gave to each person that is inconsistent with unlimited monarchy.
Hardin sees Erasmus’ analysis and prescriptions as fully consistent with his humanist faith in the educability of the individual and of society. He dismisses cynical readings of the humanist and his colleagues as mere self-advertising.
724. Herding, Otto. “Humanistische Friedensideen am Beispiel zweier Friendenklagen.” In Otto Herding and Robert Stüpperich, eds. Die Humanisten in ihrer politischen und sozialen Umwelt. Boppard-am-Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1976, 7-34.
The intellectual tradition that preceded The Complaint of Peace.
725. Hyma, Albert. The Youth of Erasmus. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1968.
Still one of the most sympathetic treatments of Erasmus’ intellectual and moral background. Hyma places Erasmus in the context of late medieval reform: the Devotio Moderna of the Brethren of the Common Life, by whom he was educated, the tradition of Thomas à Kempis.
726. Huizinga, Johan. Erasmus and the Age of Reformation. New York: Harper & Row, 1957.
This biography shares much in common with Bainton’s (682). It traces his life and work in their historical context in a well illustrated and handy edition, this one supplemented by a selection of Erasmus’ letters translated into English. Huizinga’s view of Erasmus as a humanist, reformer, and a man have long been controversial, however. Huizinga first published this book in 1924, when Europe was still reeling from the great passion of World War I, and after Huizinga himself had written that masterpiece portrait of cultural decline, The Autumn of the Middle Ages.
For him Erasmus was ever the alienated intellectual, keeping to his Latin texts and language, ashamed of his native Holland, afraid to commit himself to the world around him, even when this might only involve the use of his mother tongue. Erasmus was naive about the real evils of his Catholic church, lacked any real spirituality, and did not realize the promise of the Reformation. When this came, Erasmus’ true cowardice emerged. Rather than chose one side or the other, he temporized, justifiably heaping the scorn of both sides on his head. Erasmus was the pure creation of the printing press, and most of his late output was simply a journalism of attack and self-defense. Ultimately he was a detached, self-interested, and only half-hearted scholar with little backbone for real commitment. Genuine loyalty and gratefulness were alien to him.
Politically Erasmus was at his most naive, especially when espousing his pacifist views. Here he did not even realize their truly revolutionary content, concentrating on the goodness of human nature and its perfectibility. At the end of his life, when finally forced to make hard choices, Erasmus chose the path of reaction. In the end he was too moderate for the “heroic” sixteenth century, too “smooth” for his times. He was a tragic character, unable to act on his knowledge and convictions.
727. Massaut, Jean-Pierre. “Humanisme et spiritualité chez Erasme.” DSAL 7, fasc. 46-47, 1006-28.
Erasmus’ pacifism not simply moral, Utopian, or sentimental but derives from Christian ethical views and the imitation of Christ. It is founded on trinitarian, Christological and ecclesiological mysteries and revealed through the sacraments. The Mystical Body lies at the center of his notion of peace and unity.
728. McConica, James K., C.S.B. “Erasmus and the Grammar of Consent.” In Scrinium Erasmianum. 2 vols., Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, 2: 96-99.
On Erasmus’ attitude to Luther and the issues of conscience and authority. Erasmus faced the question of addressing religious dissent and formulated a response based on essentially orthodox, doctrinal, Christian norms. His attitude was not secular and ethical toleration, as Eugene Rice and others contend.
At the heart of Erasmus’ notion of the church is the Mystical Body, which unites all Christians in Christ and his peace. Yet the faith of the church resides not in a pope, or council, or hierarchy but in all Christians. Therefore consensus must rule and define dogma. Theological disputes with Luther are not to be solved by the yes or no of authority but by the careful consideration by Christians acting in a spirit of peace and concord.
729. —. “Erasmus and the ‘Julius’: A Humanist Reflects on the Church,” in Charles Trinkaus and Haiko Oberman, eds. The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion. Leiden: Brill, 1974, 444-77.
An excellent analysis of this work from an ecclesiological point of view: the themes of liberty, authority, and tyranny within the church set against McConica’s close reading of the text.
730. Musto, Ronald G. The Catholic Peace Tradition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986; reprint New York: Peace Books, 2002, pp. 122-35.
Narrative and interpretation of Erasmus’ Christian peacemaking.
731. —. “Just Wars and Evil Empires: Erasmus and the Turks,” in John Monfasani and Ronald G. Musto, eds., Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene F. Rice, Jr. New York: Italica Press, 1991, pp. 197–216.
Over the long years of his career and the political fortunes of Europe, Erasmus remained constant to his Christian nonviolence even in the face of obvious Turkish aggression and concentrated instead on the moral and political condition of the Christian West as the truest path to peace.
732. Olin, John C. “The Pacifism of Erasmus,” in Six Essays on Erasmus. New York: Fordham University Press, 1979, 17-31. A revised version of the article in Thought 50, 199 (December 1975): 418-31.
Introduces Erasmus specifically as a Christian humanist, because this his hopes for reform of the present life based on the pure sources of Christian and pre-Christian sources it expressed clearly and consistently through his pacifism and continuing efforts to make peace. Stresses that Erasmus’ pacifism was not merely a sentimental, ethical attitude, but was fundamental to his theological understanding of the nature of God, the world, humanity, and the church. Reviews the pacifist themes of Erasmus’ Bellum Dulce Inexpertis and Complaint of Peace. Useful annotations.
733. Padberg, Rudolf. “Pax Erasmiana. Das politische Engagement und die ‘politische Theologie’ des Erasmus von Rotterdam.” In Scrinium Erasmianum. 2 vols., Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, 2: 301-312.
Reviews the historiography on Erasmus as a peacemaker and his relevance to the post-World War II world. Recent research concludes that Erasmus’ peace ethic was based on his life situation and that his political engagement was a result of his reform desire, which is the result of his Christian beliefs.
734. Payne, John B. “Erasmus, Interpreter of Romans,” Sixteenth-Century Essays and Studies 2 (1971): 1-35.
Examines his Paraphrase of Romans and its theme of persecution.
735. Philips, Margaret Mann. Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance. London: English Universities Press, 1967.
This handy little volume offers a good survey of his life and works around several themes: the revival of ancient literature and learning, the “philosophy of Christ,” Erasmus’ cultural and religious criticisms, his political views, and his role in the Reformation. Brief bibliography, good index.
736. Rummel, Erika. “A Reader’s Guide to Erasmus Controversies.” See 721, 12 (1983): 13-19.
Among these is the campaign against Erasmus as a “clandestine Lutheran” waged by Noel Beda of the University of Paris for his pacifism. See also 645.
737. Scrinium Erasmianum. 2 vols., Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969.
Includes 728 and 733.
738. Tracy, James. The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.
The political milieu was one in which the heads of the new nation-states could mobilize their subjects for war on a level never before imagined. While most humanists did not question the military ambitions of their princely patrons, among those who did, Erasmus and his circle were certainly prominent. Erasmus’ role in this critique has long been acknowledged as central. Yet debate still rages as to whether his outlook was realistic or naive, whether he or Machiavelli really understood the modern state. Tracy argues that Erasmus was quite correct in placing the blame for all the calamitous wars of the sixteenth century squarely on the dynastic and personal ambitions of these new monarchs, even given our post-Hegelian view of deeper social and economic processes. Whatever the judgment of historians on this score, Erasmus certainly did exercise significant influence on the modern debate over human violence. The question that he asked: is violence innate, or is it socialized, is still those being asked by followers of Freud or Lorenz.
Tracy follows Erasmus’ political career. His first attempts to gain patronage displayed a naiveté about the politics and factions in the Netherlands, but by 1503 his Panegyric to Philip, duke of Brabant, revealed the themes that were to remain part of his writings for the rest of his life: that human vice and virtue are taught, that humans are by nature peaceful, that rulers, especially Christian rulers, should use the means of peace, that consensus should govern, that civil and not military glory was the proper province of the prince, that even an unjust peace is preferable to an unjust war.
Tracy reviews Erasmus’ major works, including his Julius Exclusus (706) and Praise of Folly (712), and concludes that he was “if not visionary, radical in his perception of the moral demands made by faith in Christ.” His pleas for peace and condemnations of war were not based solely on literary forms, but from his own experience of war and its effects. His deep religious convictions put the humanist peacemaker at odds with the political situation of his day. Even when appointed councilor to the young Prince Charles, soon to become Holy Roman Emperor, Erasmus used his Education of the Christian Prince to make clear the connection between the continued state of war and the loss of civil liberties at home and the destruction of all human endeavors. Tracy sees this work as essential to understanding Erasmus’ political ideas.
The book also examines how Erasmus’ pacifism dovetailed with the political interests of the peace party in the Netherlands. Even his anti-chivalric themes were more than literary exercises, since they furthered the cause of those in the imperial household opposed to the war party.
On the whole, Tracy concludes, Erasmus was well informed on the politics and personalities of his day and region. His works grew out of this political knowledge as much as from his biblical and humanist impulses to peace. While this understanding, and his political criticisms, may have been wrong at times, on the whole he correctly understood the trends of the time: given the nature of politics in his age his appeal to the moral judgment of the prince was well placed.
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