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The first English-language popular biography of widely influential northern Renaissance scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam in twenty years.Erasmus of Rotterdam came from an obscure background but, through remarkable perseverance, skill, and independent vision, became a powerful and controversial intellectual figure in Europe in the early sixteenth century. He was known for his vigorous opposition to war, intolerance, and hypocrisy, and at the same time for irony and subtlety that could confuse his friends as well as his opponents. His ideas about language, society, scholarship, and religion influenced the rise of the Reformation and had a huge impact on the humanities, and that influence continues today. This book shows how an independent textual scholar was able, by the power of the printing press and his wits, to attain both fame and notoriety. Drawing on the immense wealth of recent scholarship devoted to Erasmus, Erasmus of Rotterdam is the first English-language popular biography of this crucial thinker in twenty years.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction: Fame and the Humanist Scholar -- 1: Preparation, 1466-1500 -- 2: Publication, 1500-1516 -- 3: Affirmation, 1516-36 -- 4: The Spirit of a Scholar -- Chronology -- References -- Select Bibliography -- Acknowledgements -- Photo Acknowledgements -- Index.

"Erasmus of Rotterdam is not typically associated with the discipline of philosophy. Yet, he would himself employ the category of philosophia Christi in the sense of authentic Christianity which had not been contaminated by the abstractness and pedanticism of paganized mediaeval scholasticism. Does this reveal a contrarian attitude to philosophy in general or rather a special understanding of what a "true' philosophy as a way of life should be? This study attempts to answer this question by assembling and closely studying from Erasmus' extensive oeuvre his scant and occasional remarks on the concept of philosophy"--

The humanist took part in a debate in which he opted for moderation, since he did not intend to "add fuel to the flames". However, what happened was exactly the opposite: he stirred up animosity by placing himself between two opposite poles, namely, orthodoxy in one corner, and Luther and Lutherans in the other corner. Peculiar situation! Erasmus was, at the same time, in favor and against orthodoxy and the dissidents.