Week 5 Blog Post

Erasmus and the Age of Reformation Ch. 13-15

This week, the book took an interesting approach on Erasmus, which was nice because it normally just spoke of his travels. The chapters I read focused mainly on how he felt about the current state of religion, the world, and just people in general. He mentioned that he felt that people just blew religion out of proportion, when they should have just kept it simple. He believed that the way of Christ was to believe faithfully, but modestly. This actually rung out to how people probably should be when it comes to religion, because if they actually want their God to save them, then living to the best of their ability would be the reliable way. Who knows though, people generally jump to conclusions whenever somebody claims they can solve their immediate problem. It genuinely struck as a sort of rebellious undertone though, because this was aimed directly at the Church. The idea that the sort of worship that the establishment taught was overdone, or just simply out of proportion could easily have thrown the entirety of the Church into chaos.

Within the next chapter, the book spoke of his personal character which was strangely different than I had anticipated. Due to his childhood, he seemed to be an outgoing person with a drive to get what he wanted when he wanted it. In complete contrast, he was actually a serene soul, one who would not go out of his own right to hurt another person or even attempt to impede on their desires. He was also susceptible to the winter's might, and that seemed contradictory because of his home life, where he did not have all that much in terms of comfort or general homeliness. It seemed as though he would be used to the elements and be able to handle whatever may come at him. Another strange trait that he had was his consistent need for justification. This seemed out of character because of his career as a theologian, where he would simply put out new interpretations of the scripture, and that could offend nearly anybody who read those sorts of documents. Overall, his character just seemed different than what the book made him seem to be, and that was kind of dissatisfying.