Praise Of Folly Essay Research Paper The

Praise Of Folly Essay, Research Paper

The Praise of Folly takes on a very

diverse form of life during sixteenth century Europe. In

1509 the author, Desiderius Erasmus, turned his literary

talents to the ridicule and denunciation of monastic vice,

immorality, and wickedness. He was considered the

"Prince of Humanists" [1] because he was one of the most

important men in Europe during the period of the

Reformation, The historical and cultural references in his

book proves that the Praise of Folly could not have been

written during any other time period except sixteenth

century Europe. Erasmus is one of the most fascinating and

inscrutable characters in history. There is no doubt that he

was a genius, He was also a bon vivant, but his tastes ran

toward good conversation and good food rather than

conspicuous consumption. He whined endlessly about his

troubles, and he begged shamelessly for ever more money

from his patrons. But he was one of the "most far-sighted

individuals to walk this planet," [2]. Before any others, he

saw how the corruption and misdeeds of the church would

lead to danger, and when Martin Luther hijacked Erasmus.

reform efforts and turned them into outright revolt, Erasmus

saw that this split in Christendom would lead to

catastrophe; a catastrophe that was realized a century later.

Erasmus, even from childhood, had a craving to read,

study, learn and know. He spent his life as a scholar and

writer. He was a man of quick wit and a keen mind. He

had struck a raw nerve by writing the Praise of Folly. But it

must be noted that while Erasmus found the wickedness of

the priests revulsive, he did not disapprove of Roman

Catholic doctrine. He praised himself to be a citizen of the

world, not attached 2 to a particular country but finding

himself at home in European countries where culture and

humanism were flourishing. The two societies he claimed to

belong to were both the republic of letters and the Christian

church. In Roman Catholic doctrine, he wished only for a

reformation of priestly morals and conduct, not of Roman

theology, and he disapproved of the doctrinal revolution

initiated by Luther. It is said that Erasmus laid the egg that

Luther hatched, meaning that Erasmus was the one who

inspired the Protestant Reformation. The particular state of

mind which produced the "modern world" was a

manifestation of the same mind as underlay the Protestant

Revolution. The Protestant "calling" was a treatment of

worldly avocations as God-created and fulfillable in a spirit

of worship. This concept enabled the Protestant to see in

his ordinary daily work an activity pleasing to God and

therefore be pursued as actively and profitably as possible.

On the other hand, medieval and Roman Catholic

Christianity were held to have condemned the world, with

consequent hostility to economic activity and especially to

that essential capitalist ingredient, the taking of interest on

usury. Protestantism were therefore asserted to have been

the necessary precondition of the growth of modern

industrial capitalism. The basic belief of Protestantism

promoted the spirit of the entrepreneur, and for that reason

capitalism is found flourishing in reformed countries, while

the Reformation is found spreading among the commercial

and industrial middle classes. The desire for spiritual

nourishment was great in many parts of Europe, and

movements of thought which gave intellectual content to

what in so many ways was an initial search for God have

their own dignity. Neither of these, however, comes first in

explaining why the Reformation took root her and vanished

heresies led to a permanent division within the church that

had looked to Rome. This particular place 3 is occupied

and the play of secular ambitions. The Reformation

maintained itself wherever the lay power favored it; it could

not survive where the authorities decided to suppress it.

For this was the age of uniformity, an age which held at all

times and everywhere that one political unit could not

comprehend within itself two forms of belief or worship.

Much of the work of the Praise of Folly is satire at the

expense of rhetoricians, grammarians and theologians, but

towards the close, Erasmus tackles monks and prelates

also, not excluding the Popes. But it concludes in an

unexpected way; a witty moving praise of a form of

religious ecstasy with the folly of God in saving the world

through crucifixion associated with the folly and madness of

the pious. Erasmus regarded scholasticism as the greatest

perversion of the religious spirit; according to him this

degeneration dated from the primitive Christological

controv

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