The Christian Peace of Erasmus

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to show that Erasmus’s concept of peace should be understood as a form of irenicism rather than pacifism. I argue that Erasmus’s basic claims on war and peace do not qualify him as a pacifist, first of all because his concept of peace is non-universal: it is exclusively Christian since it does not include Muslims and Jews unless they have converted to Christianity. Secondly, Erasmus’s willingness to fight the Turks and his call for a Christian war against them suggests that he was not a pacifist. Since the peace Erasmus preached for was exclusively Christian, it cannot be identified as pacifism in its accepted universal sense, but rather as a commitment to the peace of Christendom, and therefore his concept of peace should more precisely be described as irenic. By shedding new light on Erasmus’s notion of war and peace, this essay suggests that his alleged religious tolerance should be considered anew.

Notes

1. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the international conference on “Religion and Peace: Peace in Monotheistic Traditions,” Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel, 30 May–1 June 2011.

John C. Olin, Six Essays on Erasmus (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), 19.

2. Philip C. Dust, Three Renaissance Pacifists: Essays in the Theories of Erasmus, More, and Vives (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), 16.

3. On Erasmus as a Christian pacifist, see Abraham Friesen, Erasmus, the Anabaptists, and the Great Commission (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 32. On Erasmus as pacifist, see Ronald G. Musto, “Just Wars and Evil Empires: Erasmus and the Turks,” in Renaissance Society and Culture, ed. J. Monfasani and R. G. Musto (New York: Italica Press, 1991), 198 n. 3; For Christian pacifism in general, see Jenny Teichman, Pacifism and the Just War: A Philosophical Examination (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 7, and Andrew Fiala, Practical Pacifism (New York: Algora Publishing, 2004), 49, 60–62.

4. See José A. Fernandez, “Erasmus on the Just War,” Journal of the History of Ideas 34 (1973): 209–26, where he suggests that Erasmus advocated a special variation of the bellum justum doctrine, one that is very close to pacifism. He identifies Erasmus’s position as “just war pacifism.”

5. Howard Louthan, The Quest for Compromise: Peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 9–10; Terrence J. Martin, Living Words: Studies in Dialogues about religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 278; Erika Rummel, Erasmus (New York: Continuum, 2006), xiv, 91; Martin van Gelderen, “Universal Monarchy, the Rights of War and Peace and the Balance of Power: Europe’s Quest for Civil Order,” in Reflections on Europe: Defining a Political Order in Time and Space, ed. H. A. Persson and Bo Strath (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007), 58, 62.

6. Louthan, The Quest for Compromise, 9.

7. I am indebted to Professor Erika Rummel for her helpful critical remarks on my essay and for her “Secular Advice in Sacred Writings,” presented at a conference at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 2008, and published in the current issue as “Secular Advice in Erasmus’s Sacred Writings.” For her discussion of Erasmus’s concept of bellum justum see also Erika Rummel, Erasmus’ Annotations on the New Testament: From Philologist to Theologian (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 163–67.

8. CWE 66, 61; LB 5.25A.

9. CWE 66, 84; LB 5.39B.

10. CWE 27, 278; LB 4.603F; ASD 4.1.208. Thomas More similarly yearned for a Christian peace. According to William Roper, his son-in-law, More said he was willing to be put into a sack and thrown into the River Thames, if only he could live to see the realization of three things: eternal peace among Christian kings, the disappearance of heresy, and a good ending to the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. See A Thomas More Source Book, ed. G. B. Wegemer and S. W. Smith (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 28–29 (a selection from William Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas More, Knight).

11. CWE 4.1.1; LB 2.963E.

12. Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 30; Peter Bietenholz, Encounter with a Radical Erasmus: Erasmus’ Work as a Source of Radical Thought in Early Modern Europe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 77.

13. CWE 27.282; LB 4.608C; ASD 4.1.213–14.

14. CWE 27.282; LB 4.608C; ASD 4.1.214.

15. CWE 27.283; LB 4.607E; ASD 4.1.214–15.

16. Ep 1400.90–93, 112–16; See also Fernández, “Erasmus on the Just War,” 223–24.

17. Erika Rummel, “An Unpublished Erasmian Apologia in the Royal Library of Copenhagen,” Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 70 (1990): 210–29, and “Manifesta mendacia: Erasmus’ Reply to Taxander,” Renaissance Quarterly 43 (1990): 731–43; CWE 71.113–31, 165–71 (Controversies).

18. Rummel, “An Unpublished Erasmian Apologia,” 214. Also, Heerwarden, Between Saint James and Erasmus, 523.

19. CWE 64, 239; LB 5.356D; ASD 5.3.59.

20. On Stunica (Diego Lopez de Zuniga) and his rivalry with Erasmus, see Erika Rummel, Erasmus’ Annotations, 209 n. 9; COE 2.348–49; Alejandro Coroleu, “Anti Erasmianism in Spain,” in Biblical Humanism in the Age of Erasmus, ed. Erika Rummel (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 77–79.

21. See Beda’s accusations and Erasmus’ replies in LB 9.489A–496C; On Beda and his theological activity, see Rummel, Erasmus’ Annotations, 209 n. 11; COE 1.116–18; James K. Farge, Biographical Register of Paris Doctors of Theology, 1500–1536, Subsidia Mediaevalia 10 (Toronto, 1980), and “Noel Beda and the Defense of the Tradition,” in Biblical Humanism and Scholasticism in the Age of Erasmus, 143–66.

22. LB 9.493C (Divinationes ad Notata per Beddam).

23. CWE 27, 314; LB 4.638B; ASD 4.2.

24. CWE, 27, 316; LB 4.639B–C; ASD 4.2.92.

25. CWE 27, 314; LB 4.637F; ASD 4.2.90.

26. CWE 27, 314; LB 637F; ASD 4.2.90.

27. CWE 27, 319; LB 4.640E; ASD 4.2.96.

28. LB 9.370B.

29. See the theologians’ accusations and Erasmus’ refutations, one by one (Declarationes ad Censuras Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis), in LB 9.820A–928D.

30. LB 9.841.

31. CWE 27.306; LB 4.633D; ASD 4.2.80.

32. Ep 549.11–13.

33. Mario Turchetti, “Religious Concord and Political Tolerance in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century France,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 22 (1991): 15–25, and “Une question mal posée: Erasme et la tolérance. L’idée de Sygkatàbasis,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 53 (1991): 379–95.

34. Sebastien Castellion, Conseil a la France desolee. Nouvelle edition avec preface et notes explicatives par Marius F. Valkhoff (Geneva: Droze, 1967), 53: “Il reste maintenant le septiesme poinct, qui est d’appointer, et laisser le deux religions libres”; Turchetti, “Une question mal posée”: 385, and “Religious Concord,” 20; Roland H. Bainton, Concerning Heretics: Whether They Are to Be Persecuted and How They Are to Be Treated. A Collection of the Opinions of Learned Men Both Ancient and Modern. An Anonymous Work Attributed to Sebastian Castellio (New York: Octagon Books, 1965), 262–63; Hans R. Guggisberg, Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563: Humanist and Defender of Religious Toleration in a Confessional Age, trans. Bruce Gordon (Aldeshot, UK: Ashgate, 2003), 194.

35. Michael Heath, “Introductory Note,” in CWE 64.208.

36. CWE 64.233–34; LB 5.354A; ASD 5.3.52.

37. Harold S. Bender, “The Pacifism of the Sixteenth Century Anabaptists,” Church History 24 (1955): 119–31. While Bender emphasizes the ideological and theological difference between the Anabaptists and Erasmus, Abraham Friesen draws attention to their similarity and to Erasmus’s influence on them in Erasmus, the Anabaptists, and the Great Commission (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 22–23, 115–30.

38. Peter Brock, Pacifism in Europe to 1914 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), 61, 177; Friesen, Erasmus, the Anabaptists, and the Great Commission, 22–23, 115–30.

39. CWE 65, 213; LB 5.505.

40. Michael Heath, in CWE 64.257 n. 234.

41. Ep 1433.10–12 (March 1524).

42. CWE 64.257–58; LB 5.364A–B; ASD 5.3.75–76.

43. CWE 64.258; LB 5.364C; ASD 5.3.76.

44. For example in “Utilissima consultatio de bello Turcico referendo”: CWE 64.265; LB 5.367B; ASD 5.3.81.

45. CWE 64.236; LB 5.354E–F; ASD 5.3.56.

46. CWE 27.287; LB 4.610D; ASD 4.1.218.

47. LB 9.370D.

48. “Entirely in keeping with the ideology of the crusades, he summons the Christian world to conquer Islam by converting as many Muslims as possible.” Jan Van Heerwarden, Between Saint James and Erasmus: Studies in Late Medieval Religious Life (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 523.

49. CWE 66.10; Ep 858.78–80.

50. CWE 66.10; Ep 858.80–86.

51. Ep 796.17–20; see also, James D. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), 113–15. In his “Enchiridion militis Christiani” Erasmus expressed his hope that the European war against the Turks would benefit all and not just the few who initiated it.

52. CWE 64.263–64 and n. 262.

53. CWE 64.254; LB 5.362C; ASD 5.3.72.

54. CWE 64.246; LB 5.358F–359A; ASD 5.3.64.

55. Ibid.

56. CWE 64.246; LB 5.359B–C; ASD 5.3.64.

57. CWE 64.237; LB 5.355B; ASD 5.3.58.

58. CWE 64.246–48; LB 5.359F; ASD 5.3.65–66.

59. CWE 64.254; LB 5.362D; ASD 5.3.72.

60. CWE 64.254; LB 5.362E; ASD 5.3.72.

61. CWE 64.254; LB 5.362F; ASD 5.3.72.

62. CWE 27.255; LB 4.590C; ASD 4.1.184.

63. CWE 27.276–77; LB 4.604A–C; ASD 4.1.207–8.

64. CWE 27.311; LB 4.636D; ASD 4.2.86.

65. For Pio’s disputations with Erasmus, see Rummel, Erasmus’ Annotations, 210 n. 16; COE 3.87–88; Nelson H. Minnich, CWE 84 (Controversies), Introduction, xv–clii; Chris L. Heesakers, “Argumentatio a persona in Erasmus’ Second Apology against Alberto Pio,” in Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Man and the Scholar, ed. Jan Sperna Weiland and M. Frijhoff, conference proceedings, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 9–11 November 1986, 79–87.

66. CWE 84.348; LB 9.1193B.

67. LB 6.242D; ASD 6.5.498.

68. Douglas P. Lackey, “Pacifism,” in Contemporary Moral Problems, ed. James E. White, 9th ed. (New York: Thomson Wadsworth, 2009), 406: “If pacifism is to be moral theory, it must be prescribed for all, or prescribed for none.” Andrew Fiala, Practical Pacifism (New York: Algora Publishing, 2004), 8: “For pacifism to be broadly effective, it must be articulated and defended from a humanistic and moral standpoint that transcends religious sectarianism... it must be defended and adopted by way of some form of overlapping consensus: different individuals must come to see, from within their diverse world views, that a practical commitment to peace is reasonable.”

69. www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html: “We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God... No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between men... if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men, so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.” On its significance regarding the other and otherness, see Alberto Melloni, “Nostra Aetate, 1965–2005,” in Nostra aetate: origins, promulgation, impact on Jewish-Catholic relations, proceedings of the international conference, Jerusalem, Israel, 30 October–1 November 2005, ed. Neville Lamdan and Alberto Melloni (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2007), 15–16, and “Nostra Aetate e la scoperta del sacramento dell’ alterita,” in Chiesa ed Ebraismo oggi, ed. Norbert J. Hoffman, Joseph Sievers, and Maurizio Motolese (Rome: Pontifica Università Gregoriana, 2005), 153–79.