Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly
(1509)
Late medieval religion was not without its critics, ranging from harmless cranks and troublemakers, to fire
and brimstone preachers of the impending apocalypse, to sophisticated and subtle thinkers gently
prodding the church in the direction of reform. At one extreme we have the illiterate peasant in the
remote village of Montaillu who opined that Mary was certainly not a virgin. And on the other, we have a
figure like Desiderius Erasmus (d. 1536), standing at the pinnacle of culture and learning. In his 1509
book In Praise of Folly, Erasmus launched a scathing attack on the manifold stupidities and blatant
immoralities of the religious establishment. The fact that he remained to the end of his life a loyal son of
the Roman Catholic Church shows that critical thought did not necessarily have to move in the Protestant
direction. The Encomium Moriae ("Praise of Folly") is a half-satirical work, in which the character of
"Folly" praises herself and all her satirized "followers," including credulous lay people, church officials,
and others.
Things to pay particular attention to: the specific criticisms made of medieval religious practices, of
particular institutions and persons in medieval religious life, and also author's emphasis on speaking well
and writing well, which was especially characteristic of the humanist movement.
I.
[T]here is no doubt but that that kind of men are wholly ours [i.e., followers of Folly] who love to hear
or tell feigned miracles and strange lies and are never weary of any tale, though never so long, so it be of
ghosts, spirits, goblins, devils, or the like; which the further they are from truth, the more readily they
are believed and the more do they tickle their itching ears. And these serve not only to pass away time
but bring profit, especially to mass priests and pardoners.
And next to these are they that have gotten a foolish but pleasant persuasion that if they can but see a
wooden or painted [Saint] Polypheme Christopher, they shall not die that day; or do but salute a carved
Barbara, in the usual set form, that he shall return safe from battle; or make his application to Erasmus
on certain days with some small wax candles and proper prayers, that he shall quickly be rich. Nay, they
have gotten a Hercules, another Hippolytus, and a St. George, whose horse most religiously set out with
trappings and bosses there wants little but they worship; however, they endeavor to make him their
friend by some present or other, and to swear by his master's brazen helmet is an oath for a prince.
Or what should I say of them that hug themselves with their counterfeit pardons [i.e., indulgences]; that
have measured purgatory by an hourglass, and can without the least mistake demonstrate its ages,
years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, as it were in a mathematical table? Or what of those
who, having confidence in certain magical charms and short prayers invented by some pious imposter,
either for his soul's health or profit's sake, promise to themselves everything: wealth, honor, pleasure,
plenty, good health, long life, lively old age, and the next place to Christ in the other world, which yet
they desire may not happen too soon, that is to say before the pleasures of this life have left them?
And now suppose some merchant, soldier, or judge, out of so many rapines, parts with some small piece
of money. He straight conceives all that sink of his whole life quite cleansed; so many perjuries, so many
lusts, so many debaucheries, so many contentions, so many murders, so many deceits, so many
breaches of trusts, so many treacheries bought off, as it were by compact; and so bought off that they
may begin upon a new score. But what is more foolish than those, or rather more happy, who daily
reciting those seven verses of the Psalms promise to themselves more than the top of felicity? Which
magical verses some devil or other, a merry one without doubt but more a blab of his tongue than crafty,
is believed to have discovered to St. Bernard, but not without a trick. And these are so foolish that I am
half ashamed of them myself, and yet they are approved, and that not only by the common people but
even the professors of religion.
But meanwhile they themselves are so completely contented and self-satisfied, they even applaud
themselves so enthusiastically, that they spend their days and nights in these most delightful trifles and
have not a moment to spare to read through the gospel or Paul’s epistles even once. At the same time,
while they are talking nonsense in the schools, they think they are supporting the universal church, which
otherwise would collapse, with their syllogistic props in much the same way that Atlas, in the mythology
of the poets, holds up the world on his shoulders. You can imagine how happy a life they lead while they
distort and reshape Holy Scripture however they like (just as if it were a lump of wax), while they
demand that their conclusions (to which some schoolmen have subscribed) should be more revered than
the laws of Solon and more binding than the papal decretals, while—like moral guardians of the whole
world—they demand a recantation of whatever doesn’t square “to a ‘T’” with their explicit and implicit
conclusions, while they deliver their oracular pronouncements: “This proposition is scandalical,” “This one
is not sufficiently reverential,” “This one gives off a whiff of heresy,” “This one does not tinkle true,” so
that not even baptism, not the gospel, not Paul or Peter, not St. Jerome or St. Augustine, in fact not even
Thomas himself Aristotelicissimus, can make someone a Christian unless he has the vote of these
bachelors of divinity, so fine-honed is the edge of their judgment. Who would ever have thought that
someone who said that the two parts of such paired expressions as “matula putes” and ‘‘matula putet” or
“ollae feruere” and “ollam feruere” are equally congruent is no true Christian if these wise men had not
taught us about it? Who would ever have delivered the church from the darkness of such grave errors—
which, in fact, no one would ever have heard of if they had not read them in pronouncements issued with
the great seals of the universities? But aren’t they as happy as can be while they do such things? And
also while they depict every detail of the infernal regions so exactly that you would think they had spent
several years in that commonwealth. And also while they manufacture at their pleasure new heavenly
spheres, finally adding the largest and most beautiful of all just to make sure that the blessed souls
would have plenty of room to take walks, to stage their dinner-parties, or even to play ball. With these
trifles and thousands more like them their heads are so swollen and stuffed that I don’t think Jupiter’s
brain was any more burdened when he called for Vulcan’s axe to give birth to Pallas. Therefore don’t be
surprised when you see them at public disputations with their heads so carefully wrapped up in swaths of
cloth, for otherwise they would clearly explode.
III.
Almost as happy as the theologians are those men who are commonly called “religious” and “monks”—
though both names are quite incorrect, since a good part of them are very far removed from religion and
no one is encountered more frequently everywhere you go. I cannot imagine how anything could be
more wretched than these men, if it were not for the many sorts of assistance I give them. For even
though everyone despises this breed of men so thoroughly that even a chance meeting with one of them
is considered unlucky, still they maintain a splendid opinion of themselves. First of all, they consider it the
very height of piety to have so little to do with literature as not even to be able to read. Moreover, when
they roar out their psalms in church like braying asses (counting their prayers indeed, but understanding
them not at all), then (of all things!) they imagine that the listening saints are soothed and caressed with
manifold delight. Among them are some who make a great thing out of their squalor and beggary, who
stand at the door bawling out their demands for bread—indeed there is no inn or coach or ship where
they do not make a disturbance, depriving other beggars of no small share of their income. And in this
manner these most agreeable fellows, with their filth, ignorance, coarseness, impudence, recreate for us,
as they say, an image of the apostles.
But meanwhile they are happy in their hopes, not without a helping hand from me. Then too, though
these men are cut off from political office, still no one dares to scorn them, especially the mendicants,
because they have complete knowledge of everyone’s secrets from what they call confession. Of course,
they hold that it is wrong to reveal them, except every now and then when they are in their cups and
want to amuse themselves with some funny stories, but then they make their point obliquely and
hypothetically, without mentioning any names. But if anyone stirs up these hornets, they get their full
measure of revenge in their sermons to the people, pointing out their enemy indirectly, so covertly that
no one who understands anything at all can fail to understand who is meant. Nor will they ever make an
end of barking until you throw “a sop to Cerberus.”
In the same way, if cardinals realized that they have succeeded in the place of the apostles and are
required to perform the same functions; then, if they thought that they are not lords but ministers of
spiritual gifts, for every one of which they will soon have to give a most exact account; indeed, if they
even gave a little serious consideration to their apparel and thought to themselves: “What does the
whiteness of this garment mean? Isn’t it the most eminent and flawless innocence of life? What does the
scarlet underneath mean? Isn’t it the most burning love of God? And then what is meant by the scarlet
outside, flowing down in such wide undulations and completely covering the Most Reverend Father’s
mule?—though, for that matter, it would be enough by itself to cover a camel. Isn’t it charity reaching out
far and wide to help everyone, that is, to teach, exhort, console, reproach, advise, settle wars, resist
wicked princes, and freely give not merely riches but even life-blood for Christ’s flock—though why
should any riches at all belong to those who act in the place of the poor apostles?”they considered these
things, I say, they would not strive to get that office and would gladly relinquish it, or at least they would
lead very laborious and anxious lives, such as those ancient apostles lived.
Now, as for the popes, who act in Christ’s place, if they tried to imitate his way of life—namely poverty,
labor, teaching, the cross, contemptus mundi [disregard for this world]—if they thought of the name
“pope” (that is, “father”) or of the title “most holy,” who on earth could be more miserable? Or who
would spend everything he has to buy that office? Or defend it, once it was bought, with sword, poison,
and all manner of violence? How many advantages would these men be deprived of if they were ever
assailed by wisdom? Wisdom, did I say? No, even by a single grain of that salt mentioned by Christ. So
much wealth, honor, power, so many victories, offices, dispensations, taxes, indulgences, so many
horses, mules, retainers, so many pleasures! You see what a warehouse, what a harvest, what a sea of
good things I have gathered together. These would be replaced by vigils, fasts, tears, prayers, sermons,
studies, sighs, and thousands of such wretched labors. Nor should we neglect another point: so many
scribes, copyists, notaries, advocates, ecclesiastical prosecutors, so many secretaries, mule-curriers,
stableboys, official bankers, pimps (I had almost added something more delicate, but I am afraid it might
sound indelicate to some ears), in short, the huge mass of humanity which weighs down—pardon me, I
meant “waits on”—the see of Rome would be turned out to starve. Certainly an inhuman and monstrous
crime! And, what is even more abominable, the very highest princes of the church, the true lights of the
world, would be reduced to a scrip and a staff.
All that is left are the weapons and sweet benedictions mentioned by Paul, and with such things they
are sufficiently liberal: with interdicts, suspensions, formal warnings—denounced and reiterated—solemn
excommunications, pictures of vengeance meted out to heretics, and that horrific lightning bolt which
they employ with a mere nod to send the souls of mortals to the bottomless pit of perdition. That bolt,
however, these most holy fathers in Christ and Christ’s vicars on earth hurl at no one more fiercely than
at those who, at the instigation of the devil, seek to diminish and gnaw away the patrimony of Peter.
Though Peter says in the gospel, “We have left all and followed you,” they interpret his patrimony as
fields, towns, taxes, imposts, dominions. While they fight for such things with burning Christian zeal and
defend them with fire and sword, not without the loss of much Christian blood, they believe this is the
very way to defend apostolically the church, the bride of Christ, manfully putting her enemies to flight, as
they say. As if the church had any more deadly enemies than impious popes, who allow Christ to fade
away in silence, who bind him with mercenary laws, who defile him with forced interpretations, who
murder him with the pestilent wickedness of their lives.
Thus, although the Christian church was founded with blood, confirmed with blood, expanded with
blood, nowadays they settle everything with the sword, just as if Christ had perished completely and
would no longer protect his own in his own way. And although war is so inhuman that it befits beasts,
not men, so insane that even the poets imagine that it is unleashed by the Furies, so noxious that it
spreads moral corruption far and wide, so unjust that it is normally carried on best by robbers, so impious
that it is utterly foreign to Christ, still they neglect everything else and do nothing but wage war. Here
you can see rickety old men demonstrate the hardiness of a youthful spirit, not upset by any expense,
not wearied by any labors, not the least bit disturbed by the thought of reducing all human affairs, laws,
religion, peace, to utter chaos. Nor is there any lack of learned flatterers who call this patent madness by
the names zeal, piety, fortitude, having devised a way to allow someone to unsheathe cold steel and
thrust it into his brother’s guts without any offense against that highest duty of charity which, according
to Christ’s precept, he owes to his fellow Christian. Indeed, I am still not sure whether the popes have set
or followed the example of some German bishops who pay no attention to vestments or benedictions or
any such ceremonies but carry on as secular lords, plain and simple, so much so that they consider it
cowardly and hardly worthy of a bishop to render up their courageous souls to God anywhere but on the
front lines of the battle.
Now the general run of priests, thinking it would be a crime for them to fall behind the holy dedication of
their superiors—good lord! how stoutly they fight for their right to tithes, with sword, spear, stones, with
every imaginable sort of armed force. In this point how sharp-sighted they are in ferreting out of the
writings of the Fathers anything they can use to intimidate the simple people and make them think they
owe even more than a tenth. But at the same time, it never occurs to them how often those writings
explain the duties which priests in turn are supposed to perform for the people. They do not even
consider what their tonsure means: that a priest is supposed to be free from all worldly desires and ought
to meditate on nothing but heavenly matters. But these agreeable fellows say they have fulfilled their
duty perfectly once they have mumbled through their office in some fashion or other—as for me, by
heaven, I would be amazed if any god either heard or understood such prayers, since they themselves
can hardly be said to hear or understand them at the very time their mouths are bawling them out.
But priests have this in common with laymen: they all keep a sharp lookout to harvest their profits, and
in that point no one is ignorant of the laws. But if there is some responsibility, they prudently shift that
onto someone else’s shoulders and pass the buck down the line from one to another. In fact, even lay
princes, just as they parcel out the duties of ruling to deputies, and the deputies pass them on to
subdeputies, so too they leave all the practice of piety, in their modesty, to the common people. The
people foist it off on those whom they call ecclesiastics, for all the world as if they themselves had
nothing to do with the church, as if their baptismal vows had had no effect whatever. Then the priests
who call themselves secular—as if they were united to the world rather than to Christ—pass on the
burden to the canons regular, the canons to the monks, the laxer monks to the stricter ones, both groups
to the mendicant orders, the mendicants to the Carthusians, and with them alone piety lies buried,
hidden away in such a manner that it hardly ever appears. In the same way popes, however diligent in
harvesting money, delegate their excessively apostolic labors to the bishops, the bishops to the pastors,
the pastors to their vicars, the vicars to the mendicant friars, and they too foist off their charge on those
who shear the fleece of the flock.
But it is no part of my present plan to rummage through the lives of popes and priests, lest I should
seem to be composing a satire rather than delivering an encomium, or lest anyone should imagine I am
reproaching good princes when I praise bad ones. Rather, I have touched briefly on these matters to
make it perfectly clear that no mortal can live happily unless he is initiated into my mysteries and has
gained my favor.