Why Erasmus?
“And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it” (John 1:5)
“Desiderius Erasmus was a humanist from Holland. A priest and devoted Catholic, he was one of the most outspoken figures in the call for reform. In 1509, Erasmus published a book called The Praise of Folly (Folly means ‘foolishness.’) The book was a sharply worded satire of society, including abuses by clergy and Church leaders, that argued for a return to a simple Christian goodness. Erasmus wanted to reform the Church from within and angrily denied that he was Protestant who wanted to break away from the Catholic Church. However, perhaps more than any other individual, he helped to prepare Europe for the Reformation. His attacks on corruption in the Church contributed to many people’s desire to leave Catholicism For this reason, it has frequently been said that ‘Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it.’ ”1
History Alive!: The Medieval World and Beyond (Teachers’ Curriculum Institute, 2017), 405. A Protestant is described here as “a Christian who separated from the Roman Catholic Church during the reformation; today, any member of a Christian church founded on the principles of the Reformation.”