In Praise of Folly, 1509, Erasmus

I wrote this blog as a paper for my Reformation and Enlightenment class at Capital University, where I am getting a minor degree in religion.

Erasmus: In Praise of Folly
Jesse Harmon

RELIG 321

January 17, 2011

In Praise of Folly (1509)

            I’ve decided that I should write this paper while reading the Desiderius Erasmus document called In Praise of Folly.  This document was originally written in 1509.  Erasmus was a strong critic of the traditions and beliefs of organized religion. 

            The first thing that I notice Erasmus saying is that the leaders of the church are, “…so blessed by their self-love as to be fully persuaded that they themselves dwell in the third heaven…” This obviously shows that he thinks the leaders of the church at that time are ‘holier than thou.’  He goes on to say that the leaders were, “…looking down from high above on all other mortals as if they were earth-creeping vermin almost worthy of their pity.”  I’m sure that those statements offended a lot of clergy back then, which I assume he’s talking about. 

            Erasmus says that the church is worshiping the idols of Jesus, instead of Jesus himself.  He states that they’re worshiping a “charcoal sketch drawn on a wall,” instead of Jesus himself.  I think this still happens today.  I even fall victim to this.  My church, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, has a lot of stained glass windows depicting the story of Jesus.  There are many brass and gold crosses around the chancel that I get caught up worshiping those idols instead of the Lord himself.  The church I used to attend, Mt. Olive United Methodist Church -- from what I remember -- didn’t have stained glass windows or very many crosses.  I guess that church probably felt the same as Erasmus.  People tend to worship the object, instead of the meaning behind the object. 

            Erasmus goes into detail about the very reason the Reformation happened.  Church officials were distorting and contorting the word of God by making it seem to fit their agenda.  When asked about this, the skeptics were immediately called heretics.  He also goes on bashing how people with degrees are the only ones who were able to read Scripture and interpret it however they wanted.  Martin Luther translated the Bible into German so that all can read it.  I agree. I believe all people should be able to have access to the very thing they’re bound to and taught from.  Don’t get me wrong though, we need people with degrees to help us sort out any questions we have, but we also need regular people, without theology degrees, to keep the degree holders in check.

            Again, Erasmus is talking about how church officials seem to take tradition to the extreme.  He talks about various aspects of a monk’s wardrobe: how many knots are in each shoe, the cut of the hood, how long the hair is, the amount of sleep one should get.

            He goes again into holding traditions over scriptures.  “The majority of them rely so much on their ceremonies and petty human traditions that they think one heaven is hardly a fitting reward for such merits, never quite realizing that Christ will scorn such things and will require the fulfillment of his own precept, namely charity.”  I’m very ‘old-school’ when it comes to churches.  I used to not believe in stadium mega-churches, chairs, electric guitars, secular sounding songs with no theological basis, and television screens.  I prefer theologically based hymns, pews, pipe organs, and sermons about scripture.  Although I still think liturgies are a very import part of worship, (since they’re scripturally based), I’ve come to realize that many contemporary worship services are just as important as traditional services, (although I do not like them myself).  Tradition should not be held if people are just going to go through the motions.  For example, my church, a few years ago, quit using the liturgy from the old green hymnal, The Lutheran Book of Worship.  We instead started using an outside liturgy, which angered many people.  I heard complaints about how the songs were not the same and how they had to learn new tunes all over again.  It was obvious to me that these people had fallen into a motion that they just did week after week after week, and not giving any thought as to what the liturgy is actually saying.  

“I myself once heard an eminent fool – I beg your pardon, I mean scholar – who was going to explain the Holy Trinity in a sermon before a large audience.  To show that his learning was far above the ordinary and to meet the expectations of the theologians among the hearers, he invented a completely new approach – namely, to start with the letters, syllables, and the whole word, then to take up the agreement of the noun and verb, adjective and substantive, to the amazement of many listeners, some of whom muttered to themselves that question in Horace “What is he driving at with all this damned nonsense?”

            This jumped out at me right away.   I knew as soon as I read the sarcasm that this would be great reading.  He continues to say that the way the explanation was set up was to give a clearer picture of the Holy Trinity than something a mathematician could come up with by drawing a picture in the sand. 

            From what I can tell, Erasmus was tired of corruption.   He seemed to predate Martin Luther, but had a lot of the same issues with church officials.  He was risking his life writing this document, so he had a lot of courage.  I think he has a lot of good points.  However, only Martin Luther was nuts enough to actually take action against the church and post his thoughts and eventually break away from the church and start a new one.