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What role did Erasmus play in the Reformation?

Jim Brown

What role did Erasmus play in the Reformation?

Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic church all his life, staying committed to reforming the church and its clerics’ abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination.

What did Erasmus teach?

In the early 1500s, Erasmus was persuaded to teach at Cambridge and lecture in theology. It was during this time that he wrote The Praise of Folly, a satirical examination of society in general and the various abuses of the Church.

Who did Erasmus influence?

Erasmus
Academic advisors Paulus Bombasius and Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (epistolary correspondents)
Influences Epicureanism Cicero Socrates Plato Aristotle Augustine of Hippo Thomas Aquinas Jerome Dante Giovanni Pico della Mirandola John Colet Alexander Hegius Jan Standonck
Academic work

Was Desiderius Erasmus Protestant?

The onset of the Protestant Reformation took Erasmus in a new direction. Although he remained a Catholic he was in sympathy with some of the Protestants’ reforming instincts. Erasmus died in Basel in Switzerland on 12 July 1536.

How did the Reformation affect European society?

The Reformation affected European society by establishing two conflicting religious orders that dominated the countries of Europe, by starting many religious wars, and by prompting a wave of self-reform in the Catholic church.

How did Erasmus impact the world?

Using the philological methods pioneered by Italian humanists, Erasmus helped lay the groundwork for the historical-critical study of the past, especially in his studies of the Greek New Testament and the Church Fathers.

What was one of Erasmus greatest achievements?

Erasmus lived life of a classical independent scholar. Using his humanist touch, he penned several editions of the New Testament in Latin and Greek, which in turn led to the Protestant Reformation and Catholic-Counter Reformation.

Who started the Protestant church?

Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German monk, theologian, university professor, priest, father of Protestantism, and church reformer whose ideas started the Protestant Reformation.


What role did Erasmus play in the Reformation?

Jim Brown

What role did Erasmus play in the Reformation?

Erasmus began publishing his books widely beginning in 1500, about 50 years after the first printed books appeared in Germany. He helped create an audience for Luther’s writings by popularizing Christian topics, such as how to be a good Christian and how to interpret the Bible.

What is the contribution of Erasmus?

He was one of the greatest scholars of the renaissance time. Erasmus contributed to the Renaissance by revising ancient works and translating them into Greek and Latin such as the Bible. Erasmus also contributed to the Reformation by calling for reform in the Church through his various satirical works.

Who was Erasmus and what did he contribute to the renaissance?

Desiderius Erasmus was one of the leading activists and thinkers of the European Renaissance. His main activity was to write letters to the leading statesmen, humanists, printers, and theologians of the first three and a half decades of the sixteenth century.

What is Erasmus most known for in terms of his contribution to the renaissance?

Erasmus was a Dutch Renaissance Humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian known as the “Prince of the Humanists” for his influential scholarship and writings.

How did the Reformation affect European society?

The Reformation affected European society by establishing two conflicting religious orders that dominated the countries of Europe, by starting many religious wars, and by prompting a wave of self-reform in the Catholic church.

How did Erasmus impact the world?

Using the philological methods pioneered by Italian humanists, Erasmus helped lay the groundwork for the historical-critical study of the past, especially in his studies of the Greek New Testament and the Church Fathers.

What did Erasmus do to become a classical humanist?

Erasmus is a classical humanist: Someone who studies language, literature, history, and moral philosophy. To these humanists education is crucially important. Their ideas are founded on the books of the ancient Romans and they see Latin as the language of civilization. For classical humanists man takes center stage.

What was the high point of erasmus’career?

Erasmus edited many ancient writers and the high point of his career (to himself anyway) was his edition of the New Testament in 1516. Both Valla and Erasmus assigned an important role to historical-philological research in order to purify the text of the Bible.

Who was the only Humanist of his time?

Desiderius Erasmus was the only humanist whose international fame in his own time compared to Petrarch’s.

How did Desiderius Erasmus contribute to the Christian religion?

Like Valla, who had attacked biblical textual criticism with a vengeance and proved the so-called Donation of Constantine to be a forgery, Erasmus contributed importantly to Christian philology. Also like Valla, he philosophically espoused a kind of Christian hedonism, justifying earthly pleasure from a religious perspective.