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Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus is considered one of the greatest minds in history; he was a humanist scholar, a theologian, a writer, a teacher, and, as he put it, "a citizen of the world." His reputation during his lifetime reached the loftiest heights and sunk to unexpected lows during the Lutheran crisis. His published texts and numerous letters figure among the most seminal works of Western culture. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, Erasmus was "the most famous and...

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Desiderius Erasmus Essays

The Praise of Folly

The Silenus box is a "case carved like an ugly Silenus" that can be "opened to reveal beautiful, precious objects" (Erasmus 43, footnote). This box appears in Erasmus' The Praise of Folly as a metaphor for the central claim in the novel, which is...

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The Freedom of the Will

Dutch humanist and scholar Erasmus defines free will as “a power of the human will by which man may be able to direct himself towards or turn away from what leads to eternal salvation” (Erasmus 6). Many literary works of the Renaissance debate the...