From Humanism to the Reformation, as shaped by Erasmus and Luther

Review of Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind by Michael Massing

Why, I always wondered, were the Renaissance and the Reformation so rigidly separated in history courses and books? Not only were they near-contemporaneous movements, but their ideas – questioning the 1000-year assurances and traditions of the medieval ages –  seemed eminently compatible, twin harbingers of the modern age. This book, a kind of double biography of Erasmus and Luther, attacks this very question. You get the theological and intellectual debates, vivid historical context, and the conflicts both huge and small, all at once. The result is a masterpiece of popular history that is a riveting, even suspenseful, read.

The story begins with Erasmus' scholarly attempts to produce the most accurate version of the Bible. In contrast to the logical circumambulations of the Scholastics, his method was to compare the various texts and bring grammatical analysis to bear. This would eliminate the errors and additions of scribes through the ages, bringing the original text – and the "true words of God" – back to Christianity in a way that should revitalize worship and reflection. To the shock and disgust of conservatives, he began to find such fundamental errors that they would necessitate basic revisions of many theological tenets. For example, the Septuagint's translation into Greek of the Hebrew for "young woman" (from Isa 7:14) as "virgin" may have erroneously transmitted not just the nature of Christ's conception but also impacted the entire development of Christian notions of sexuality and abstinence. This was revolutionary stuff.

Luther, like many others, was an avid reader of Erasmus, whose writing ranged from the satire In Praise of Folly to the most serious theological treatises. Erasmus was the premier intellectual and writer of his day, a friend of princes and popes, moderately critical of Catholicism and wickedly sarcastic. Standing for tolerance, civil discussion, cosmopolitanism, and inclusion, he wrote in Latin for the elite. He was content to work patiently within the traditional structures, all the time pushing for critical and rational thought. Chief among his beliefs was the importance of human will, according to which man could improve his standing with God by good works.

In contrast, Luther was a Saxon monk – parochial, inflexible, dogmatic, angry. Called to a religious life to the extreme displeasure of his ambitious, middle class father, he spent nearly a decade in a state of high anxiety about sin (Anfechtungen), a standard that he thought everyone should aspire to. This prolonged crisis led him to question the practices of the church, in particular its corruption. He promulgated his 95 theses in 1517, thinking that he would do everyone good by telling the truth. Little did he know that, in attacking the way that Pope Leo X and the Church raised their funds (via indulgences and the like), he would alienate a lot of people. Instead of backing down in the face of officials demands that he recant, it made him a firebrand.

At least in the beginning, Luther's approach called for radical changes. From his critique of corruption, he challenged the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church and then, ratcheting up his reassessments, he questioned the sacraments and rituals themselves (all of which, he noticed, enhanced the power of the church notables). Rather than accept the positions as transmitted by the Pope, he argued that Christians should rely on their own reading of the Bible, which he translated into vernacular German; the sacred text was the word of God, he reasoned, hence with sufficient authority. To back up his claims, Luther produced a prodigious number of books, soon surpassing Erasmus as the most widely read author in Europe. He forced everyone to take sides. Most importantly, he disagreed strongly with Erasmus on theology: everything was predestined, he wrote, including those who would fall and those who ascend to heaven; there was no free will; faith was what mattered most.

Accused of heresy, Luther's life was in danger. Fortunately, he was able to take refuge with Northern German Princes, in particular Frederick the Wise. In addition, the printing press made all the difference: his views could not be suppressed, as were those of his predecessor, Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake for similar ideas 100 years before.

A major turning point came when Luther's ideas appeared to encourage the peasants and serfs to rebel against their overlords; apparently, taking Luther’s advice, they had their own ideas about their conditions. This developed into a catastrophic conflagration, claiming tens of thousands of lives and ruining entire regions. Luther, revealing his conservatism and fear of chaos, sided with the princes (his long-time protectors) and advocated for them to kill the peasants, snuffing out an early revolutionary movement of class, which would continue to reappear throughout modern European history. After this, much of the German populace was disillusioned with him, opening a space for Calvin's version of reformation.

Erasmus witnessed all this with a mix of fear and despair. Though he sought to encourage Luther in the beginning, then tried to moderate his positions, in the end they became bitter enemies. During this time, many of Erasmus' acolytes and followers became Protestants. The open, tolerant cosmopolitanism of Erasmus gave way to the fanatical dogmatism of proliferating Protestant sects, according to which Christian felt justified in killing Christian for theological reasons. A way forward was closed and by the time of Erasmus' death in 1536, Europe was set on a course of religious wars that would last more than a century. As Massing points out, the Christological squabbling that was contained in 5^th century was re-opened: many new sects were dogmatically fundamentalist and only able to flourish in America.

The wonderful thing about Massing's book is that he shows the full breadth of this crucible, both from the legacies of the past and where they led in the future. There are a number of deliciously dense thumbnail sketches of past Church fathers, e.g. Jerome and Augustine, but it is the birth of modernism and the many related offshoots that are most interesting. The Anabaptists, for example, were repressed in Europe but able to emigrate to the United States, where they became the Mennonites and Amish. Erasmus' ideas of critical scholarship were taken up by Spinoza and later the philosophes, who set forth a secular perspective of the universe without an intervening God; Kant developed his notions of human will.

If I do think that the black/white opposition of Luther/Erasmus might simplify a bit too much, at 1,000 pages this book is an amply full meal. I was also puzzled that Massing continually asserts that Erasmus is almost unknown; perhaps I am an outlier who studied Erasmus as an undergraduate and was perfectly aware of him.