The Two Erasmuses (Part 1)

On the five hundredth anniversary of Erasmus’ On Free Will, an examination of his motivations in opposing Martin Luther.

You know you have reached the pinnacle of modern pop culture when you bear a mononym: Cher, Beyoncé, Adele, Madonna. The greatest pop star of the early Reformation has long enjoyed similar treatment. Sometimes he is Desiderius Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, but in most cases, he is simply Erasmus, a name that conjures images of all that was cultured and sophisticated in the sixteenth century. To converse with Erasmus was to speak with the very spirit of the age, a man who seemed to float above the petty quarrels of that fractious hour, never committing himself fully, never willing to be tied down.

And yet, he was a man subject to gravity’s pull, and on one occasion, he was forced to plant himself on terra firma. Under pressure from princes secular and ecclesiastic, Erasmus set pen to paper in defense of free will, taking aim at the center of Martin Luther’s theology. It was a stand as monumental as that of Luther at Worms, for Erasmus was rejecting the principles of the Reformation once and for all.

This is the common story, and it is not wholly wrong. Yet, it bypasses what is most interesting about Erasmus. For in truth, there were always two Erasmuses: one for public consumption, the other hidden from sight. The clash between Erasmus and Luther that resulted in the publication of On Free Will and On Bound Will may have been the main event, but further down the bill we find a clash within Erasmus himself as his dual identities pummeled each other to the point of bleeding. The story of the Reformation is therefore shaped in part by the personality of a man known to all and equally to none.

The Public Erasmus

The basic tale of Erasmus’ life is widely known. He was born in the prosperous Dutch trading port of Rotterdam. At that time, the region was seeing a revival in popular piety typified by Thomas à Kempis’ book The Imitation of Christ. Kempis belonged to the Brethren of the Common Life, a new pietistic movement that was highly influential for Erasmus. He took his vows as a member of the Order of St. Augustine and pursued his education all the way to the hallowed halls of the Collège de Montaigu at the University of Paris, then the most respected source of theological authority outside Rome itself.

A brilliant scholar from his youth, Erasmus excelled in his studies, gaining positions at the universities of Cambridge and Louvain. He was a devoted lover of the Latin language and taught himself to read Greek. His chief skills were as a translator, satirist, and social commentator. When he waded into theology, it was the more practical variety. He did not engage in extensive exegesis of biblical texts or produce any works of systematic theology. Instead, he was best known for his humor, famously displayed in his little book The Praise of Folly, and his instructions for moral living, detailed in his Handbook of a Christian Knight. He also maintained a vast collection of pithy quotes from classical sources known as the Adagia.

Erasmus accomplished all this thanks to a series of dispensations that allowed him to do away with many aspects of monastic life—clothing, hairstyle, prayers, diet—and devote himself entirely to writing. He financed his lifestyle through grants from the great and the good, most prominently the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He won his fame by allying with publishers to harness the power of the printing press. In that relatively new industry, Erasmus excelled like no other—until Martin Luther. At the time of their clash, they were the two best-selling authors in Christendom.

Erasmus counted among his friends many English intellectuals, some of whom would end up suffering the wrath of King Henry VIII’s change of religious mood—Thomas More, William Warham, John Fisher, John Colet, Cuthbert Tunstall. Erasmus also had extensive contacts in the German intelligentsia. Both Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer captured his likeness, copies of which were sent throughout Europe. Among Erasmus’ regular correspondents in the mid-1520s were the intellectual Willibald Pirckheimer and Duke George of Saxony. Indeed, it is Erasmus’ letters that provide the clearest window into his character. He corresponded widely and elevated the standard epistle to an art form. Many of his letters were published, either with or without his consent, both for their gossip value and as examples of how to write good Latin prose.

In the 1520s, Erasmus took up residence in the Swiss city of Basel, then a major center of printing. He formed an alliance with the printer Johann Froben, a reform-minded individual who, like Erasmus, would remain loyal to Rome. This led to some tension, as the city was increasingly filling with more radical figures. Among the reformers with whom Erasmus maintained correspondence were Johannes Oecolampadius, Wolfgang Capito, Caspar Hedio, Huldrych Zwingli, and Philip Melanchthon. All these men revered Erasmus for his contributions to biblical studies. In 1516, Erasmus had released his famed Greek New Testament side-by-side with a new Latin translation. Although imperfect, it was substantially better than Jerome’s old Vulgate translation and served as a central text of the Renaissance humanist movement (not to be confused with the present secular humanist movement).

To every man, Erasmus endeavored to be a friend. He preferred not to take a public position on contentious issues. It simply went against the fabric of his character. He promoted a “mere Christianity” long before C.S. Lewis: one based largely on the ethical teachings of Christ. He would rather have died than join a faction. He pledged to stick with the Roman church until he found a better one.

A friend of kings and popes, Erasmus was popularly called the “ornament of the world” and “the great Rotterdamer.” He became known as the Prince of the Humanists and the leading light of the Northern Renaissance. We can picture him walking with a friend in a beautiful garden—his ideal situation—and musing about the works of Seneca and Cicero. He remains etched in our mind’s eye as Holbein painted him: wearing an ermine-lined coat, his fingers adorned with gold rings, his smile serene, his eyes still bright in middle age.

This is how Erasmus wanted to be known, and perhaps that alone should give us pause. For while all I have said is true, it is not the full story. We have yet to meet the second Erasmus: the private one.

The Private Erasmus

Let us rewind now and consider this other Erasmus. It is true that he was likely born in Rotterdam, but he spent little time there. Erasmus’ real hometown was Gouda. His father, Gerrit, was a local priest who never married his mother, Margaretha. This illegitimate birth meant that Erasmus was, in the eyes of the law, essentially a non-person. Only through begging and pleading did he manage over the years to gain the dignity he was originally denied.

Erasmus had a brother named Pieter, a fact he neglected to mention when he gave the official story of his upbringing. In his Compendium vitae of 1524, Erasmus claimed that his father was the victim of familial entrapment: that Gerrit and Margaretha were planning to wed, got caught up in one instance of passion, and then were savagely parted by relatives. The existence of Pieter, three years Erasmus’ senior, disproves this narrative.

In fact, Erasmus’ childhood must have been exceedingly difficult. As a single mother in an unkind age, Margaretha undoubtedly struggled to care for the boys. Even the poor had a faint hope of one day ascending the rungs of society, but illegitimate persons were condemned to dwell at the bottom. The fact that Erasmus emerged from this most ignominious beginning is perhaps the greatest proof of his genius. Every day of his life, he must have been painfully aware that his earthly father could not acknowledge him—could never declare, “This is my son whom I love.” Birth bound him fast.

When Erasmus was thirteen, a wave of bubonic plague swept through the town, claiming the lives of both his parents. Erasmus and Pieter were entrusted to the care of three male guardians, as was typical at the time. This part of the story is key to Erasmus’ understanding of himself and what he later stated publicly. The guardians wished to push the boys into monastic life and relieve themselves of the responsibility of care. Erasmus claims to have put up a fierce resistance, only succumbing after Pieter did so first. Whether the decision to take religious vows was truly against Erasmus’ will is difficult to determine, for he only makes the claim of coercion later in life, at a time when it was clearly to his advantage.

Erasmus entered the canonry of Steyn as a member of the Order of Saint Augustine. (Ironically, this was the same order which Martin Luther would join.) In later years, Erasmus claimed that monastic life was a misery of asceticism, but his only surviving letters from the period reveal misery of a different kind. His superiors quickly realized Erasmus’ brilliance and asked him to tutor others. One of his pupils was Servatius Rogerus, and the two of them developed a friendship. But what kind of friendship?

• “When you are away, nothing is sweet to me; in your presence I care for nothing else.”
• “…my love for you, my dearest Servatius, has always been and still is so great, that you are dearer to me than these eyes, than this soul, than this self…”
• “…lovers find nothing so distressing as not to be allowed to meet one another, and we very rarely have that in our power…”
• “…the flood which moistened your letter flowed not from sorrow of heart but from unutterable love of you.”
• “Farwell, my hope, and the only solace of my life.”

What should we conclude from this language? For years, scholars struggled to understand how a man known to be dispassionate and cerebral could produce letters displaying “a somewhat feminine side.” Present day historians suffer no such confusion. Diarmaid MacCulloch provides a typical assessment: “he fell in love with Servatius Rogerus.”

There is no way of knowing when, if ever, Erasmus engaged in sexual relations, and sixteenth century persons did not view sexual identity in modern terms. Erasmus entered the canonry of Steyn sick, grieving, and angry. He took solace in his books and the friendship with Servatius. Whether that friendship included sexual attraction is less certain, though the fact that Erasmus never published these letters and Servatius’ replies are missing could be suggestive.

The episode becomes important to the extent that it provides a window into Erasmus’ thinking, for though he was given a dispensation to travel, Erasmus remained a monk of Steyn all his life. In time, Servatius Rogerus rose to become prior of that institution, placing him in authority over Erasmus. A surviving letter from Erasmus to his prior suggests some residual embarrassment: “For if I gave way at one time to the emotions of youth, that has been corrected by age and experience.”

The matter is relevant due to Erasmus’ later defense of free will. In our own time, there is no subject of human choice (or lack thereof) as controversial as sexuality. If Erasmus did experience same-sex attraction, or indeed any unwanted sexual attraction, what might it have led him to conclude? He had made a vow of celibacy. Surely, this must have impressed upon him the degree to which he was bound, if not by nature, then by life circumstances. It is yet another example of how the man so desperate for freedom was forever in chains.

Even Erasmus’ name was a product of self-invention. His Dutch name was Herasmus Gerritszoon, indicating his father’s name. Alternatively, he may have used his mother’s surname Rutgers or even gone by Gerrit Gerritszoon. But Erasmus was not about to associate himself with the most embarrassing aspect of his identity, nor with the town in which he spent his early days. He developed his name in stages as his learning grew. Desiderius seems to have been taken from a correspondent of Saint Jerome and was first used in 1496. Rotterdam was a rich, cosmopolitan port city, and thus a more fitting origin for a member of the elite intelligentsia. It was not until Erasmus learned Greek that he dropped the initial ‘H’ in his Christian name, changing it from Herasmus to Erasmus.

Thus, Herasmus Gerritszoon became Desiderius Erasmus Rotterdamus, a proper identity for a man of letters and prince of the humanists. These two identities—the one into which he was born and the one of his own creation—forever warred within him, an internal contradiction of epic proportions. In Luther’s response to Erasmus, On Bound Will, he used a strange metaphor: “the beast that eats itself.” Luther may have only meant it as an insult against Erasmus’ book, but it is hard to think of a better descriptor for a man whose entire existence was one of strife, such that he seems almost folded in on himself.

When the bishop of Cambrai needed an assistant, Erasmus jumped at the chance to leave Steyn. As his biographer, Johan Huizinga, concludes, “In Holland people knew too much about him. They had seen him in his smallnesses and feebleness. There he had been obliged to obey others—he who, above all things, wanted to be free.”

The Golden Age: 1505-16

Herasmus Gerritszoon now set about the long process of becoming the Erasmus of history. He paid his dues at the Collège de Montaigu, a place he loathed for its enforced asceticism and conservative reliance upon medieval philosophers like Duns Scotus. Despite these annoyances, there was no better place for Erasmus to make connections: students trained at the University of Paris went on to hold high positions throughout Western Christendom. But Erasmus began longing for reform of the Church and universities, a desire which put him squarely at odds with the old guard of Paris.

He eventually gave up on Montaigu and faced the same dilemma as so many young people: how to afford life in a major urban center with a minimal income stream. He became a tutor to Thomas Grey, a young Englishman abroad, but was angrily dismissed by Grey’s guardian for reasons that are somewhat unclear. Modern scholars have speculated about a romantic relationship, but any sense that Erasmus was perverting his charge may have been leveled simply because Erasmus did not behave like a typical monk. Either way, it was another painful and embarrassing experience.

Erasmus pressed on to England, where he abhorred the weather and the food but won treasured friends and patrons, and then to the University of Louvain, where he was to clash with the conservative faculty. By this point, he had taught himself Greek and was a leading light in the movement to revive the study of ancient tongues and original sources. He was also becoming a massively popular author. The Praise of Folly, a little book he wrote while staying with his friend Thomas More, was one of the century’s smash hits. Forever working and networking, Erasmus quickly made his way into the best social circles. Anyone would have thought he was ludicrously happy.

Yet, the private Erasmus was miserable. Becoming a best-selling author had not solved his financial problems, for royalties were slim in those days. A famous quote attributed to him—“When I have a little money I buy books. When I have more, I buy food.”—speaks as much to his constant lack of coin as it does to his bibliophilia. His letters are filled with complaints about sponsors who have not sent money, employees he is struggling to pay, and manuscripts he is desperate to procure. He never seems to feel secure in anything.

On top of this, he was constantly ill, likely suffering from food allergies and beginning his long struggle with “the stone,” a pain of the kidneys unlike any other. This led him into an overwhelming hypochondria. No one was more aware of contagion spread than Erasmus. Always, he laments that his travel plans are frustrated by outbreaks of disease. He constantly remembered his death.

From his letters, we learn that many of his friendships were shallow: he flattered men in person but grumbled about them in correspondence. The theologians of Louvain soon identified Erasmus as a troublemaker, leading him to pack his bags once again. Some called him a “citizen of all Europa,” but the reality was that he was essentially stateless and homeless, forever reliant on the good graces of the rich for his survival. Traveling was not a true freedom for Erasmus.

Nevertheless, the public Erasmus declared his faith in the power of learning to create goodwill between men and solve many of the problems of the age. By the time he published his Greek New Testament in 1516, it seemed as if the world was hearkening to his message. He foresaw the triumph of a simpler Christianity stripped of medieval superstitions, in which obscure doctrinal disputes would give way to Christian harmony. “How clear did the future look in those years!” writes Huizinga. “In this period Erasmus repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of a golden age, which is on the point of dawning. Perennial peace is before the door.”

In 1517, he received a new dispensation from Pope Leo X, forever freeing him from the stigma of his illegitimate birth and the need to return to Steyn (as Servatius Rogerus was demanding) and allowing him to receive benefices legally. The private Erasmus was being put in his place. The public Erasmus was on top of the world.

Then the world came crashing down. It was 1517.

Editor's Note: Click here to read Part 2 of this story!