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Desiderius Erasmus. The Praise of Folly. Selections.
Desiderius Erasmus. The Praise of Folly (1511 CE). On Popular Piety. On Scholastics. On the Papacy.
On Popular Piety.
Now what shall I say about those who find great comfort in soothing self-delusions about fictitious pardons [indulgences] for their sins, measuring out the times in purgatory down to the droplets of a waterclock, parcelling out centuries, years, months, days, hours as if they were using mathematical tables? Or what about those who rely on certain little magical tokens and prayers thought up by some pious imposter for his own amusement or profit? They promise themselves anything and everything, perpetual health, a long life, flourishing old age, and finally a seat next to Christ among the saints, though this last they don't want for quite a while yet -- that is, when the pleasures of this life, to which they cling with all their might, have finally slipped through their fingers, then it will be soon enough to enter into the joys of the saints.
Imagine here, if you please, some merchant or soldier or judge who thinks that if he throws into the collection basket one coin from all his plunder, the whole cesspool of his sinful life will be immediately wiped out. He thinks all his acts of perjury, lust, drunkenness, quarreling, murder, deception, dishonesty, and betrayal are paid off like a mortgage, and paid off in such a way that he can start off once more on a whole new round of sinful pleasures....
And then too, isn't it pretty much the same sort of nonsense when particular regions lay claim to a certain saint, when they parcel out particular functions to particular saints, and assign to particular saints certain modes of worship: one offers relief from a toothache, another helps women in labor, another restores stolen goods; one shines as a ray of hope in a shipwreck, another takes care of the flocks -- and so on with the others, for it would take far too long to list all of them. Some saints have a variety of powers, especially the virgin mother of God, to whom the ordinary run of men attribute more almost than to her son....
What a huge flock of people light candles to the virgin mother of God -- even at noon, when there is no need! But how few of them strive to imitate her chastity, her modesty, her love for the things of heaven! For, in the last analysis, that is true worship, the kind which is by far the most pleasing to the saints in heaven....
On Scholastics.
As for the theologians, perhaps it would be better to pass over in silence, "not stirring up the hornets' nest" and "not laying a finger on the stinkweed", since this race of men is incredibly arrogant and touchy.... They are so blessed by their self love as to be fully persuaded that they themselves dwell in the third heaven, looking down from high above on all other mortals as if they were earth-creeping vermin almost worthy of their pity....
Moreover, they explicate sacred mysteries just as arbitrarily as they please, explaining by what method the world was established and arranged, by what channels original sin is transmitted to Adam's posterity, by what means, by what proportion, in how short a period of time Christ was fully formed in the virgin's womb.... There are others which they think worthy of great and "illuminated" [in the faith by the Holy Spirit] theologians, as they say. If they ever encounter these, they really perk up. Whether there is any instant in the generation of the divine persons? Whether there is more than one filial relationship in Christ? Whether the following proposition is possible: God the Father hates the Son. Whether God could have taken on the nature of a woman, of the devil, of an ass, of a cucumber, of a piece of flint? And then how the cucumber would have preached, performed miracles, and been nailed to the cross?....
And then these most subtle subtleties are rendered even more subtle by the various "ways" or types of scholastic theology, so that you could work your way out of a labyrinth sooner than out of the intricacies of the Realists, Nominalists, Thomists, Albertists, Occamists, Scotists -- and I still haven't mentioned all the sects, but only the main ones.
On the Papacy.
Now, as for the popes, who act in Christ's place, if they tried to imitate his way of life -- namely poverty, labor, teaching, the cross, contemptus mundi [contempt of worldly things] -- if they thought of the name "pope" (that is, father) or of the title "most holy", who on earth could be more miserable? Or who would spend everything that he has to buy that office? Or defend it, once it was bought, with sword, poison, and all manner of violence? How many advantages would these men be deprived of if they were ever assailed by wisdom?.... So much wealth, honor, power, so many victories, offices, dispensations, taxes, indulgences, so many horses, mules, retainers, so many pleasures!.... These would be replaced by vigils, fasts, tears, prayers, sermons, studies, sighs, and thousands of such wretched labors.
Nor should we neglect another point: so many scribes, copyists, notaries, advocates, ecclesiastical prosecutors, so many secretaries, mule-curriers, stableboys, official bankers, pimps... in short, the huge mass of humanity which weighs down -- pardon me, I meant "waits on" -- the see of Rome would be turned out to starve. Certainly an inhuman and monstrous crime! And, what is even more abominable, the very highest princes of the church, the true lights of the world, would be reduced to a scrip and a staff.
But as it is now, they leave whatever work there is to Peter and Paul, who have plenty of free time. But the splendor and the pleasures, those they take for themselves.
