Erasmus

 

Desiderius Erasmus was a 16th century philosopher who championed tolerance, and especially religious tolerance.

He had seen the severe maltreatment and deaths of common people at the hands of bishops and other religious leaders.

He lived in abject poverty after his parents had died from the bubonic plague and entered a monastery where he spent much of his time studying in the library.

He spent time translating  texts so that more people could access them.

In his text “Colloquies”, he called out the greed of the clergy and affirmed “if the Gospel were truly preached, the Christian people would be spared many wars.”

He helped make the Bible accessible so people could study about religion on their own.

I am afraid this is something I too often take for granted.

We have personal access to holy scriptures! 

Holy scriptures, that as Erasmus shared, can help us to be trained in the philosophy of Christ.

And we have personal access to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Alma 32:23 states, “And now, behold, I say unto you, and I would that ye should remember, that God is merciful unto all who believe on his name; therefore he desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word.  And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also. Now this is not all; little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned.”

But to believe on His word we must study and learn it.

Erasmus didn’t agree with the others of his time and had frequent disagreements with Martin Luther for example, but his work and ideas pushed for better access to study for all.  

And for that I  grateful.