Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' was a scholarly name meaning "from Rotterdam", though the Latin genitive would be . 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536) was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic theologian who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance.Gleason, John B. "The Birth Dates of John Colet and Erasmus of Rotterdam: Fresh Documentary Evidence", Renaissance Quarterly, The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of America, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring, 1979), pp. 73–76
www.jstor.org
/ref> As a Catholic priest, he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he was given the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote '' On Free Will,'' ''In Praise of Folly'', '' Handbook of a Christian Knight'', On Civility in Children, '' Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style'' and many other works.

Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation. He remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the doctrine of synergism, which some Reformers ( Calvinists) rejected in favor of the doctrine of monergism. His middle-road () approach disappointed, and even angered, scholars in both camps.

Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant and was buried in Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city."He tried to remain in the fold of the old omanChurch, after having damaged it seriously, and renounced the rotestantReformation, and to a certain extent even Humanism, after having furthered both with all his strength." Johan Huizinga, ''Erasmus and the Age of Reformation'' (tr. F. Hopman and Barbara Flower; New York: Harper and Row, 1924), p. 190.

Early life

Desiderius Erasmus is reported to have been born in Rotterdam on 28 October in the late 1460s, probably 1466. He was named after Saint Erasmus of Formiae, whom Erasmus's father Gerard personally favored. A 17th-century legend has it that Erasmus was first named Geert Geerts (also Gerhard Gerhards or Gerrit Gerritsz), but this is unfounded. A well-known wooden picture indicates: ''Goudæ conceptus, Roterodami natus'' (Latin for ''Conceived in Gouda, born in Rotterdam)''. According to an article by historian Renier Snooy (1478–1537), Erasmus was born in Gouda.

The exact year of his birth is controversial, but most agree it was in 1466. The Virtual International Authority File reveals the standard dates favoured by various national authorities. Evidence confirming the year of Erasmus's birth in 1466 can be found in his own words: fifteen out of twenty-three statements he made about his age indicate 1466. Although associated closely with Rotterdam, he lived there for only four years, never to return afterwards. Information on his family and early life comes mainly from vague references in his writings. His parents were not legally married. His father, Gerard, was a Catholic priest and curate in Gouda.Cornelius Augustijn, ''Erasmus: His life, work and influence'', University of Toronto, 1991 His mother was Margaretha Rogerius (Latinized form of Dutch surname Rutgers), the daughter of a doctor from Zevenbergen. She may have been Gerard's housekeeper. Although he was born out of wedlock, Erasmus was cared for by his parents until their early deaths from the Plague in 1483. This solidified his view of his origin as a stain and cast a pall over his youth.

Erasmus was given the highest education available to a young man of his day, in a series of monastic or semi-monastic schools. In 1475, at the age of nine, he and his older brother Peter were sent to one of the best Latin schools in the Netherlands, located at Deventer and owned by the chapter clergy of the Lebuïnuskerk (St. Lebuin's Church), though some earlier biographies assert it was a school run by the Brethren of the Common Life. During his stay there the curriculum was renewed by the principal of the school, Alexander Hegius. For the first time ever in Europe, Greek was taught at a lower level than a university and this is where he began learning it. He also gleaned there the importance of a personal relationship with God but eschewed the harsh rules and strict methods of the religious brothers and educators. His education there ended when plague struck the city about 1483, and his mother, who had moved to provide a home for her sons, died from the infection.

Ordination and monastic experience

Most likely in 1487, poverty forced Erasmus into the consecrated life as a canon regular of St. Augustine at the canonry of Stein, in South Holland. He took vows there in late 1488 and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood on 25 April 1492. Galli, Mark, and Olsen, Ted. ''131 Christians Everyone Should Know''. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2000, p. 343. It is said that he never seemed to have actively worked as a priest for a long time, and certain abuses in religious orders were among the chief objects of his later calls to reform the Church from within.

While at Stein, Erasmus supposedly fell in love with a fellow canon, Servatius Rogerus, and wrote a series of passionate letters in which he called Rogerus "half my soul," writing that "I have wooed you both unhappily and relentlessly." This correspondence contrasts sharply with the generally detached and much more restrained attitude he showed in his later life. Later, while tutoring in Paris, he was suddenly dismissed by the guardian of Thomas Grey. Some have taken this as evidence of an illicit affair. No personal denunciation was made of Erasmus during his lifetime, however, and he took pains in later life to distance these earlier episodes by condemning sodomy in his works, and praising sexual desire in marriage between men and women.

Soon after his priestly ordination he got his chance to leave the canonry when offered the post of secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, Henry of Bergen, on account of his great skill in Latin and his reputation as a man of letters. To allow him to accept that post, he was given a temporary dispensation from his religious vows on the grounds of poor health and love of humanistic studies, though he remained a priest. Pope Leo X later made the dispensation permanent, a considerable privilege at the time.

Education and scholarship

In 1495 with Bishop Henry's consent and a stipend, Erasmus went on to study at the University of Paris in the Collège de Montaigu, a centre of reforming zeal, under the direction of the ascetic Jan Standonck, of whose rigors he complained. The university was then the chief seat of Scholastic learning but already coming under the influence of Renaissance humanism. For instance, Erasmus became an intimate friend of an Italian humanist Publio Fausto Andrelini, poet and "professor of humanity" in Paris.

In 1499 he was invited to England by William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy, who offered to accompany him on his trip to England. According to Thomas Penn, Erasmus was "ever susceptible to the charms of attractive, well-connected, and rich young men". His time in England was fruitful in the making of lifelong friendships with the leaders of English thought in the days of King