The Counsels of Erasmus

Extract

In April of the year 1518 a young Augustinian friar was summoned by the order of Pope Leo X to attend the Chapter of his Province at Heidelberg. Four years previously. Martin Luther had reached his radical conclusions on justification and by 1517 they were beginning to cause a stir in the University of Wittenberg, where, in his capacity as professor in the faculty of theology, Luther had been lecturing on the Epistle to the Romans. In May 1517 he had become so confident as to write to the prior at Erfurt: ‘The lectures on scholastic theology are deserted and no one can be sure of an audience who does not teach our theology’.

Then, on the eve of All Saints that same year, Luther announced his 95 theses on indulgences – these, together with the earlier and more fundamental theses on faith and works, were the occasion of his summons to Heidelberg where Luther himself presided over the disputation and won the support of most of his brethren.

These Germanic vibrations reached the Netherlands and in particular a man – perhaps the most learned in Europe – who stood at the pivot of affairs, supported by the Pope and sought after by kings and bishops – Erasmus of Rotterdam. In the summer of 1518 Erasmus wrote to the Rector at Erfurt where Luther had studied:

‘Luther has said many things excellently well. I could wish, however, that he would be less rude in his manner. He would have stronger support behind him, and might do real good ... I can give no opinion about his positive doctrines ...’