XrcTim wrote:

Erasmus of the Renaissance

He also blasted people for praying to the Saints instead of God, because he recognized that salvation came only through Christ.

Martin Luther claimed that Erasmus was "a scoffer, a disguised atheist, and enemy of all religion" (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, p. 434). Roland Bainton noted that "Luther's answer to Erasmus was to impute to him a spirit of skepticism, levity, and impiety" (Here I Stand, p. 197). In an introduction to a translation of some of the writings of Erasmus and Luther, Marlow and Drewery note that Luther regarded Erasmus as "a trifler with truth, a scoffer of religion, an unbeliever" (Rupp, Luther and Erasmus, p. 2). In response to Erasmus, Luther wrote: "you declare that these things are not necessary; whereas, unless they are necessary and known with certainty, then neither God, nor Christ, nor gospel, nor faith, nor anything is left, not even of Judaism, much less of Christianity" (Ibid., p. 114). Stephen Nichols affirmed that Luther observed that "Erasmus 'knows nothing' of the gospel" (Martin Luther, p. 106). McClintock asserted that "Luther saw the weakness and spiritual poverty of Erasmus" (Cyclopaedia, III, p. 279). Fisher pointed out that Luther "thought Erasmus was defending the principles which lay at the basis of the whole system of salvation by merit" (History, p. 303).

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation in its article on humanism noted that the emphasis of Erasmus "on the exemplary, moral, and pedagogical roles of Christ could be developed into a rejection of the atonement or of the divinity of Christ" (II, p. 268). McGrath stated that Erasmus "developed an essentially moral theology of justification" and that his view makes "justification dependent upon man's imitatio Christi" (Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, p. 58). Arthur McGiffert observed that in Erasmus' book on Free Will, "he maintained the traditional Catholic belief that salvation is the product of divine grace and human effort" (History, II, pp. 392-393). Eriks observed that "Luther rightly points out that Erasmus says man merits salvation" (Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, April, 1999, p. 46). He added: "A serious implication of the view of Erasmus is that he denies salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone" (p. 47). Arthur Pennington maintained that "we learn also from this treatise [Enchiridion] that he [Erasmus] held the meritoriousness of good works" (Life, p. 61). In 1533 in his On Mending the Peace of the Church, Erasmus wrote: "Let us agree that we are justified by faith, i.e., the hearts of the faithful are thereby purified, provided we admit that the works of charity are necessary for salvation" (Essential Erasmus, p. 379). Thus, Erasmus seemed to defend the Roman Catholic view of the doctrine of justification. Halkin maintained that for Erasmus, the [Roman Catholic] Church was "the regulator of faith" (Erasmus, p. 159). He also noted that "for Erasmus, baptism was essential" (p. 253).

Charles Hodge pointed out that according to the Roman Catholic view "we are not justified by works done before regeneration, but we are justified for gracious works, i.e., for works which spring from the principle of divine life infused into the heart" (Justification by Faith Alone, p. 69). Gerstner noted that in response to the question of how a sinner is justified that Roman Catholicism said: "By our works which flow from faith in Christ" (Theology in Dialogue, p. 471). William Perkins (1558-1602) commented: "The papist saying that a man is justified by faith understandeth a general or a catholic faith, whereby a man believeth the articles of religion to be true" (Work of William Perkins, p. 535). Robert Dabney observed that according to the doctrine of Rome "justification is rather to be conceived as a process, than an absolute and complete act" (Lectures in Systematic Theology, p. 621). Cameron pointed out that Catholicism "insisted that souls were saved by the bit-by-bit process of sacramental purification" (European Reformation, p. 334). The Westminster Dictionary of Church History noted that "Erasmus interpreted the history of salvation as an educational process conducted by divine wisdom, in which man is led from flesh to spirit, from imperfection to perfection, from sinner to saint" (p. 305). Henry Sheldon wrote: "In place of justification by faith, as taught by the Reformer [Luther], he [Erasmus] preferred to insist that the way to salvation lies in the strenuous imitation of the graces of Christ" (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, pp. 32-33). Arthur Pennington maintained that Erasmus "understood by faith in Christ, as we have already seen, the imitation of His example" (Life, pp. 307-308). He added that "we gather from various passages that he [Erasmus] considers that to be a Christian is not to be justified by faith in Christ, but to exhibit in the whole course of our life and conversation a transcript, however faint, of those graces and virtues which dignified and adorned the all perfect character of our Divine Master" (p. 308).

Some other quotations will clearly reveal more of the problems with the views of Erasmus. In his Colloquies, Erasmus wrote: "I find in the writings of the ancient heathen and in the poets so much that is pure, holy and divine, that I must believe that their hearts were divinely moved" (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, p. 414). Samuel Stumpf pointed out that Erasmus "saw a close similarity between Plato's philosophy and the teachings of Christ" (Philosophy: History, p. 216). Erasmus suggested that Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are all precursors of Christ (Erasmus & Luther, p. 33). In one biography, the author noted the following about Erasmus: "Plato, he soon discovered, was a theologian, Socrates a saint, Cicero inspired, and Seneca not far from Paul" (Smith, Erasmus, p. 53). A historian wrote: "He applied to Plato, Cicero, and Seneca the phrase 'divinely inspired'; he would not admit that such men were excluded from salvation; and he could 'scarce forbear' praying to 'Saint Socrates'" (Durant, The Reformation, p. 289). Stefan Zweig observed: "So far as Erasmus was concerned, there existed neither a moral nor an unbridgeable antagonism between Jesus and Socrates" (Erasmus of Rotterdam, pp. 7-. McGrath stated: "For the humanist, it was therefore imperative to turn (or return) to the sources of antiquity, whether they were pagan or Christian, in order to learn from them" (Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, p. 127).

In the article about Erasmus in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is noted that Erasmus' "philosophy of Christ" was "a nondoctrinal religion, a religion without a theology" (p. 43). In the book The Age of the Reformation, the author stated that Erasmus "wished to reduce Christianity to a moral, humanitarian, undogmatic philosophy of life" (p. 58). Albert Hyma described Erasmus as a "forerunner of modern liberal Christianity" (Dolan, Essential Erasmus, p. 10). Abraham Friesen referred several times to "Erasmus's Neoplatonism" (Erasmus, pp. 2, 32, 36, 37, 129) and noted: "Erasmus's Neoplatonic paradigmallowed him to regard the visible as similar in kind to the ideal, no matter to what extent it had been corrupted" (p. 36). "In his admiration for Origen, Erasmus was influenced by the Greek Father's Neo-platonism, and his program of interior piety was further indebted to the Neo-platonism that he encountered among such humanists as Pico della Mirandola and John Vitrier" (Great Thinkers of the Western World, p. 130).

"The imitation of Christ that the Enchiridion [a book written by Erasmus] advocated was the imitation of Christ's ethic" (Desiderius Erasmus, p. 66). In this book, Erasmus claimed that "a sensible reading of the pagan poets and philosophers is a good preparation for the Christian life" (Essential Erasmus, p. 36). David Daniell observed that though Erasmus "used in the Enchiridion the name 'Christ' a very great deal, Christ is a rather pale figure in the book" and that the Enchiridion "is a masterpiece of humanist piety" (William Tyndale, p. 68). W. R. Estep commented: "There are those who see in the Enchiridion as much of Plato as of Christ" (The Reformation). Erasmus noted that "dogma certainly does not seem to me at all necessary for piety" (Rabil, Erasmus and the N. T., p. 108).