Week 6 Blog Post

Erasmus and the Age of Reformation Ch. 16-18

This week I read mostly about how Erasmus felt about the reformation and quite a bit about Luther as well. Erasmus did not exactly agree with Luther's points, he was actually quite against what Luther believed in, insulting him to a certain point. This felt strange because Erasmus did actually have quite a bit of the same views, so I would have expected them to have found some common ground. Had it not been for the way Luther spoke perhaps, maybe they could have been on better terms. The reformation brought quite a bit of obstacles as well that impeded on how Erasmus might have wanted to travel and study abroad. He was basically confined to certain towns at points because he feared for his life if he chose to travel, at the possibility of being attacked by members of the church or even people who were against the church. The way Erasmus felt towards the reformation as a whole just surprised me, because he always seemed like the person who would enjoy change, and the kind of person who would like to be able to write what he wanted without fearing for his life.

I personally found it strange how much Erasmus actually had to defend himself against the ties people would artificially form between him and Luther. He had no clear connections other than a strong dislike towards him, so when people began to lob insults and ridicule him for possibly having a connection to Luther, it makes perfect sense why he never actually wanted to work alongside him. If he had, it could have been extremely detrimental to everything that he had built up through his work. I personally felt quite bad for this man, it must have been terrible for him to have to deal with constant false public statements, not to mention the fact that people believed it all. This rings true even in modern day, the moment somebody hears something negative about a person, they immediately believe it. It was quite impressive how he managed to deflect all of the negativity even though they was barely a positive for him within the criticism.