The Renaissance followed the calamitous fourteenth century, a period characterized by cultural exhaustion resulting from a long “chain of catastrophes.”1 Slowly emerging from the devastating effects of the Hundred Years War, the Muslim invasions, the Great Schism, and the Black Death that “killed an estimated one third of the population living between India and Iceland,”2 the West was ferried into the mid-fifteenth century by an undercurrent of anxious desire for leisure and the good life. Mobilized by this new ambition, some of the finest minds of the period spontaneously flung themselves into the work of studying humane letters and resurrecting a long-forgotten, or at least long-neglected, classical Roman society.
While for some the Renaissance merely evolved into a restoration of fine writing, it was initially conceived as a new golden age of art and letters arising from an aversion—contempt in many cases—for the high medieval Scholasticism that preceded it. The umanista, (i.e., humanists), as the Italian poet Lodovicio Ariosto (1474-1533) coined the term, were “students of human affairs or human nature.” The humanists’ primary attention was focused on studying humane letters (as opposed to sacred letters) in their original languages. Eventually, however, the humanists came to develop an entire pedagogical philosophy for cultivating what they believed was the best expression of human cultivation for public life. From this distinct pedagogical development, we inherit the term, “humanities.”
The 19th-century German educator, Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, coined the expression “Christian humanist” to describe the humanists of the Renaissance whose pedagogy he was attempting to emulate for his own educational purposes. Yet, the concept, the substance of Christian humanism, has existed since the Incarnation (arguably before, at least in inchoate forms) and only reached a particular zenith in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Given the Pagan-Christian divide that developed in numerous locales during the Renaissance, it’s important to note that not all humanists were as interested in Christianity as the expression, unchecked, would lead one to believe. For example, there were prominent figures who notably exploited the spirit of the age to advance their own interests in reviving the Paganism of Roman Antiquity. But that is point to be explored at another time.
The spirit of the Renaissance is, ironically, a result of the very Thomistic Scholasticism so many of them held their nose at. Prior to the Aristotelean Renaissance of the thirteenth century, the pursuit of human enterprise was viewed in strict Augustinian terms. That is, all worthy human pursuits were carried out in service of immediate religious ends. Philosophy and the liberal arts, for example, were considered worthy only as a means of preparing to study theology, but seldom for their own sake. The same was true for Pagan literature, etc. But Thomistic Scholasticism essentially changed that perception.
St. Thomas Aquinas recovered the idea that the world is made up of real, ordered substances that were created and sustained by God. In abstract, this opened the door for regular human activity (e.g., politics and culture) to be seen as having its own legitimate sphere of activity. In other words, the normal aspects of human life had legitimate purposes that were not just tools for religion. Human activity functioned in harmony with God’s sovereign plan as a genuine secondary cause; although all was oriented toward Him as its final end, human life could apparently operate with a kind of independence that justified human flourishing in its own right.
What the thinkers of the thirteenth century conceived of theoretically, the thinkers of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries attempted practically, intentionally, and enthusiastically. Louis Bouyer explains,
It is precisely here that we discover, not on an intellectual level but within the frame of daily life, the true character of the Renaissance. It brought in a new taste for human things and for the natural world to which man belongs, it gave rise to an effective, even irresistable (sic), if subconscious, desire to exploit its riches for their own benefit…Philosophy is now used for what it can contribute to knowledge; writing is engaged in for the pleasure of writing; painting and sculpture are pursued, and quite simply life is lived, because the artist loves his art and enjoys living…The men of the Renaissance, the most Christian among them as well, frankly recognized their right to devote themselves as Christians, in a Christian manner, to all those activities which they could exercise simply as men.3
That is not to say western man before the Renaissance didn’t feel the same as Renaissance ment, but “they would never have voluntarily acknowledged it to be so. They would rather make excuses for themselves. Desirous of justifying their activities, they were always careful to claim for them an immediate, almost exclusively religious purpose.”4
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304 - 1374) has notably been referred to as the father of Renaissance humanism. A true Christian who was not content to merely superimpose his Christianity on his writing, Petrarch was also one of the first modern men of letters to write for the pure joy of exercising his gift. And, if we grant that Petrarch is indeed the father of Christian humanism, we would do well to acknowledge that Desiderius Erasmus, the sixteenth-century Dutch Christian humanist, was recognized in his own day as being the “prince of the humanists.” And, he’s continued to hold the title up to this very day.
Writing in April of 1517, the spring before Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg, a French humanist and priest with an educational background in the law, Germain de Brie Paris, wrote to Erasmus:
In my time I too have seen in Italy with my own eyes several famous men of high literary reputation, in whom was learning of no common kind and keen judgment and rare eloquence; but this I must say, with no desire to offend and asking pardon of the Italians, whose staunch supporter I was long ago and whom I always respect greatly in the field of learning: Erasmus it is alone who wins the palm against all men on both sides of the Alps, Erasmus alone eclipses every other light by the splendour of his learning and his style, and pecks out the crow’s eyes, as the saying has it.5
Erasmus was more than just a notable scholar in his day. He was arguably the most famous, notable, and prolific scholar of the Renaissance, both on the continent and in England. Although Erasmus and Luther later had a bitter falling out, and Erasmus ultimately remained in the Roman Catholic Church, it is widely acknowledged that his works contributed significantly to the Reformation; so much so, in 1559, Pope Paul IV placed Erasmus’s Collected Works (Opera omnia) on the first official Index Librorum Prohibitorum (the Roman Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books).
In his lifetime, Erasmus published more than 150 works. His most significant contribution was the Novum Instrumentum in 1516, a Greek New Testament accompanied by his own Latin translation, complete with notes and annotations. That work would become the basis for Luther’s German New Testament in 1522, Tyndale’s English New Testament in 1526, and the seedbed for what was to become the Textus Receptus underlying The Geneva Bible (1560), the Bishop’s Bible (1568), and King James’ Authorized English Version (1611).
Despite his tremendous output and meaningful contribution to Christian life and education, Erasmus is still most well-known for a lesser important satirical work that he wrote for his English friend, Thomas More. Encomium Moriae (In Praise of Folly) is a play on More’s last name and a jest at both More’s humorous character and his equally satirical work, Utopia.
In subsequent posts, I’ll unpack some of the compelling features of In Praise of Folly, and insights to his life and broader contributions to humane letters, so be sure to subscribe if you’d like to get these delivered directly to your inbox.
For the month of October, the Tsundoku Reading Society is reading In Praise of Folly, together. It’s a bit longer than the short stories we’ve been reading but still short enough to breeze through in a month’s time. If you’d prefer not to purchase the book, you can download a free PDF right here.
If you’re interested in joining us for the Tsundoku Reading Society, just become a paid subscriber. I’ll email you a Zoom link the day of our meeting. October’s Tsundoku Reading Society meeting is Monday, October 27th at 4:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm ET.
October Giveaway
When you become a paid subscriber, you’ll get access to the growing resource page, all the archived content, and free books when I publish them. Plus, once you join our merry band of bards, bishops, and bibliophiles, students, scholars, and philosophers, and poets, preachers, and pirates, you’ll also be entered into a drawing for a chance at October’s Giveaway—Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Spirit of a Scholar by William Barker. It’s a beautifully bound and illustrated biography of our famed Christian Humanist. I’ll draw a random name and announce the winner at the end of the month.
Francis X Murphy and Louis Bouyer, Erasmus and His Times (Great Britain: The Newman Press, 1959), 14-15.
1. Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), xiii.
Bouyer, Erasmus and His Times, 18-19.
Bouyer, Erasmus and His Times, 18-19.
Germain de Brei in Ep. 569, lines 79-80. Desiderius Erasmus and James K. McConica, The Correspondence of Erasmus Letters 446 TO 593 (1516 TO 1517), trans. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson, vol. 4, of The Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 318.