Erasmus In Praise Of Folly Analysis

Erasmus’s thesis, In Praise of Folly, can be defined as the excoriating of the Catholic church and its superior officials, the reasoning to why he presents this is that he presumes the church is becoming to consumed and corrupted with their religious ceremonies and superficial acts of Catholicism rather than promoting the simplistic ways of the Lord. In this exert he states, “Most of them place their greatest stress for salvation on a strict conformity to their foppish ceremonies, and a belief of their legendary traditions”. In relation to this statement he says, “They think to satisfy that Master they pretend to serve, our Lord and Savior, with their great state and magnificence, with the ceremonies of instalments, with the titles of reverence
and holiness, and with exercising their episcopal function only in blessing and cursing”. His writings also expounded the fact that monks are not fulfilling what they are out to do. His thoughts involve saying, “another sort of brainsick fools, who style themselves monks and of religious order, though they assume both titles very unjustly: for as to the last, they have very little religion in them; and as to the former, the etymology of the world monk implies solitariness, or being alone; whereas they are so think abroad that we cannot pass any street or ally without meeting them.” Erasmus of Rotterdam’s thesis overall conveyed that conformity is not the way in which the Holy one aspired for humanity to seek out life.