Erasmus and Luther

Both were brought up as austere Augustinians, but here is the 53-year-old canon, the ascetic intellectual Bible scholar guided by reason, and there is the 36-year-old monk, the sanguine quick-tempered preacher guided by the Holy Spirit. Erasmus was a biblical biographer, while Luther was a Bible exegete.

The contrast could not have been greater, and for years, the two gentlemen were raking each other on theological questions.

Erasmus called for constant intellectual questioning of the Bible - being a work of man - by laypeople and clergy alike. He hoped that unbiased discussions about the Bible as a historically shaped text would lead to sensible reforms of theological teachings and religious practices if new generations of Church officials who had learned to read the Bible and, in fact, all religious literature - including Jerome and Augustine - in a modern way, set the tone.

Luther, on the other hand, used the Latin version of Erasmus's Novum Instrumentum, looked the people in the mouth, and translated the text into German in a lord of the manor's manner. Filled with the Holy Spirit, hiding on the Wartburg, he threw the inkwell at the devil against the wall and created a masterpiece of the German language. Plagued by the same translation difficulties as Erasmus, he invented many new German words, such as Landpfleger (governor).

In his book On History, Religion and Philosophy in Germany, Heinrich Heine explains Martin Luther and the Reformation to the inhabitants of his host country, France, "As with the Reformation, people in France have somewhat wrong ideas about its hero Luther. The apparent cause of this misconception lies in the fact that the reformer is not only the greatest but also the most German man in our history; that in his character, all the virtues and faults of the Germans are united most magnificently; that he also personally represents the wonderful Germany ... Neither the delicacy of Erasmus nor the mildness of Melanchthon would have brought us as far as the sometimes divine brutality of Brother Martin.

In 1949, Thomas Mann - by then an American citizen - published an essay titled Die drei Gewaltigen (The Three Mighty Ones) in which - four years after the end of World War II - he blasts Germaness.

Referring in his article to Martin Luther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Otto von Bismarck Mann wrote the most apt characterization of the reformer, whereby he shamelessly made use of Heine's text.

©NYT

Here is the part about Luther copied from the full article titled strangely "Goethe: 'Faust and Mephistopheles'" that appeared in the NYT in 1949 on June 26. The translation retains Mann's typical long sentences:

Martin Luther, the Reformer, was a product of the sixteenth century; the man who shattered the religious unity of Europe, a rock of a man, a man of destiny, a harsh, vehement but profoundly spiritual eruption of the German character. He was an individual both uncouth and delicate, sensual and sensitive, impulsive and impelled, revolutionary and reactionary, imbued with peasant energy: a theologian and a monk, but an impossible monk - "for a man cannot, by nature desire, dispense with a woman." Perpetually wrestling with the devil, holding a superstitious belief in demons and changelings, he reverted from the Renaissance to the Middle Ages.

Though theologically sober, he enjoyed life, as he proved by his love of wine, women, and song, by his proclamation of "evangelical liberty." Pugnacious, cantankerous, a mighty hater whole-heartedly prepared to shed blood, he declared that the pestilence of the earth, the cardinals, the popes, and the canker of the Roman Sodom, must be assailed by force of arms, that mankind must wash its hands in blood. A militant advocate of the individual, he defended man's immediate access to God and his spiritual subjectivity against the objectivity of clerical dominance. At the same time, he educated his followers to submit to divinely ordained authority and urged that the rebellious peasants be beaten, throttled, run through with the sword.

Totally lacking in sympathy for the humanism of his day, even German humanism, he grew all the more deeply absorbed in German mysticism. Stubbornly orthodox, he seceded from the Church only to found a rival church with a rival dogma, with new hieratic scholasticism and new charges of heresy. Not only anti-Roman but anti-European, furiously nationalistic, and anti-Semitic, Luther was also deeply musical, a gift that helped him mold the German language. Thousands of copies of his translation of the Bible, a literally feat of the highest order, were circulated among the people by means of the newly invented printing press.

As much as a product of his ear for music as of his ear for the devout cadences of mysticism, this translation created the German written language and gave literally unity to a religiously and politically dismembered land. What happened after and because of Luther, what Erasmus predicted - horrible bloodshed in religious conflicts, Eves of St. Bartholomew (war for thirty years,) Germany depopulated and culturally retarded - twice as much as this bull-necked barbarian of God would willingly have shouldered. "Here I take my stand I cannot do otherwise."

My German readers may like to read the ultimate verdict on Die göttliche Brutalität des Bruder Martin here.


Erasmus had read an anthology of reprints of four ultra-short, pointed sermons by the Saxon professor of theology on indulgences, repentance, the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and ex-communication. The volume also contained the 95 theses with Luther's justification.

Erasmus was anything but fascinated by Luther's dogmatic statements. Conversely, Luther was not at all impressed by Erasmus' empirical research reports, which he considered irrelevant as a dogmatist. Luther's doctrine is alien to Erasmus.

Luther's annotations in his copy of the Novum Instrumentum.
He accuses Erasmus, "Du bist nicht fromm (you are not pious)."

In his letters to friends, Luther is remarkably hostile from the outset, "What bothers me about Erasmus, this highly educated man, is that in his interpretation of the letters of the Apostle Paul, he understands justification as performing good works following religious law or from an inner sense of justice, as ceremonial, as formal rituals ... As for original sin, he does recognize it, but he does not want to admit that the apostle is talking about it in the Epistle to the Romans. Let him read Augustine!"

In March 1517, Luther wrote to a theological friend in Erfurt, "I am reading Erasmus, and my enthusiasm for him is waning daily. I fear that he does not emphasize Christ enough and God's grace. A person is not immediately a wise Christian if he is a Greek and Hebrew scholar."

In another letter, written after the publication of his sensational 95 theses, Luther argues, "There is so much in Erasmus that, in my opinion, is alien to the knowledge of Christ ... One thing is certain: you cannot penetrate the Holy Scripture with either zeal or reason ... Give up all hope. Trust in God alone and in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Believe me, I have experienced these things. And then, when humble despair has taken hold of you, read the Bible from beginning to end."

When Luther was threatened with being condemned as a heretic in 1519, he smeared honey around Erasmus's mouth, the supposed friend of Pope Leo X, "Greetings. So often do I talk with you and you with me, Erasmus, our pride, our hope – and yet we do not know each other... And so, my Erasmus, dear man: recognize, if it seems reasonable to you, also [me as] a brother in Christ... But remember that you cannot always read learned letters. Sometimes, you too must be weak with the weak."

In May of the same year, Erasmus replies to this letter from Leuven, "Warm greetings, dearest brother in Christ. I have no words for the tragedies your books are causing here. There are people here who cannot be dissuaded from the completely unfounded suspicion that your texts are written with the help of my works and that I am the standard bearer of your, as they call it, party."

Having hoped to get support from Erasmus in his struggle with the Church, Luther feels betrayed and is seething with rage. What began as an intellectual pen friendship turned into personal contempt.

Luther ranted, "Whoever crushes Erasmus is killing a bug, and even dead, it stinks more than it does alive," and "Erasmus is a devil incarnate."

Erasmus was utterly amazed at Luther's outrageously coarse invectives against him when he came across a letter from the reformer in early 1523. In it, he is dismissed as a penman who knows everything about eloquence but has no idea about the truth, a foolish thinker who boasts of his scholarship but is devoid of any spirit. Erasmus is a man without faith. He deserves to be ignored.

Disappointed and worried, Erasmus wrote to none other than Luther's sovereign, Duke Frederic of Saxony, "Luther, there is no denying it, started out with the very best of intentions. If only he had conducted such an important matter with a moderate voice and language and not spoiled his good work with unbearable evil!"

Erasmus clings to his humanist ideals and, in 1524, published his work De libero arbitrio Diatribe sive collatio*

*On Free Will, Discourses and Comparisons

No topic is more difficult to penetrate in terms of faith than the question of free will because it concerns intangible things like fate and chaos, divine predestination, and personal responsibility.

The grace of God alone is not enough for the salvation of souls. God gives the directive, i.e., his grace, and grace is the power by which a rational person can turn to or away from that which leads to the soul's eternal salvation. As St. Augustine said, "God knows everything, but he does not interfere." After all, predestination is the cruelest thing there is.

Therefore, people can trust that goodwill is God's grace and that they can always count on God's incomprehensible mercy.

God is never happy or angry. Only in the human words of the Bible is God wrathful or gracious, hard-hearted or gentle, full of resentment or mildness. Evangelists and apostles could not grasp the divine plan other than in earthly human words and then proclaim it to others.

Luther is not above these human words as a teacher when he claims that the implacable God rewards the good that he does in people with his love and punishes the evil that he – or was it Satan – does in people with his wrath.

Luther imagines that the Holy Ghost has inspired his infallible divine insight. In reality, his understanding of the text is blind to literary conventions. However, teacher Luther is unwilling to read the Bible more sophisticatedly to form a more humble opinion.

©Wikipedia

Luther did not reply to Erasmus but in December 1525 with his essay De servo arbitrio*.

*On the Enslaved Will

For the reformer, reason is nothing less than the enemy of faith, "Denn sie ist vom teuffel besessen von anfang der welt her, da sie ym paradies wolle Gott werden und greyff nach der ehre, die hie Gott Christo alleyne zueygnet, … darauff veharrt sie noch ymer, und ficht widder diese wort (For it [the reason] has been possessed by the devil from the beginning of the world, since in paradise it wanted to become God and seized upon the honor that God attributes to Christ alone, ... reason still persists in this and fights against these words.)"

Luther justified his delayed response to Erasmus's writing by saying that weariness, displeasure, and contempt, i.e., my judgment of your writing, have inhibited the urge to respond.

Erasmus could put anything into beautiful words; Luther wrote, "But these beautiful words are dead words, without spirit. With such precious adornment of eloquence, only filth is presented in terms of content, as if one were to serve excrement in golden or silver bowls. By God's grace, truth is granted only to the man who is a second Paul," as Luther knew himself to be.

Ultimately, human inadequacy prevails, and therefore, free will is nothing. Although we reluctantly recognize by virtue of natural human understanding that we are not created by our own will, by necessity, we do not do anything at all by our own free will. But as God has foreknown and operates according to his infallible and unchangeable decision and power, it is clear that free will is nothing ... even if obscured by the reputation of all the learned men who taught differently for so many centuries.

Even though Erasmus noticeably takes a position against Luther here, he does not want to be seen as anti-Protestant: he refuses Catholic appeals to distance himself more clearly from Luther.

The Cologne nest of inquisitors generated the glorious slogan that Erasmus had laid the egg that Luther had hatched – "Whereby the latter would undoubtedly have been sitting on a cuckoo's egg," Erasmus countered angrily in one of his letters. But the dark realization is dawning on him that he has become the involuntary architect of the schism.

Back in Basel, he wrote to Pirkheimer, "I am a heretic for two parties. I am condemned as an Arian by the anti-Lutherans because I want to let Christ be a human being. I am condemned as a Pelagian by the pro-Lutherans because I have faith in the free will of man ... Should I not count myself lucky about the harsh judgments of the world's theologizers?"

This ends my tetralogy about Erasmus.
*