Erasmus of Rotterdam is commonly regarded as the key public intellectual of the early decades of the 16th century. He has been given the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists".Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christianity. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953, p. 661. He has also been called "the most illustrious rhetorician and educationalist of the Renaissance".

His reputation and the interpretations of his work have varied over time and by community. Many Catholics now recognize him as a sardonic but loyal reformer within the Church with an evangelical and pastoral spirituality that emphasized peace and mercy, while many Protestants approve of his initial support for (and, in part, inspiration of) Luther's initial ideas and the groundwork he laid for the future Reformation, especially in biblical scholarship.

However, at times he has been viciously criticized from all sides, his works suppressed, his expertise corralled, his writings misinterpreted, his thought demonized, and his legacy marginalized. Common characterizations are that, despite his lauded progressiveness, he could or should have gone further, or that, despite his claimed conservatism, he rashly went too far.

Overview

Historian Lewis Spitz identifies four views of Erasmus' character and project:

"a man of weak character whose timidity and weak will kept him from the consequences of his own premises;" "a devotee of reason who followed this natural light through storm and stress to the very end;" "as the forerunner of Luther, the John the Baptist of the evangelical revival;" or "a man with his own positive reform program, in part critical, for the most part constructive."

French biographer Désiré Nisard characterized him as a lens or focal point: "the whole of the Renaissance in Western Europe in the sixteenth century converged towards him." However, according to historian Erika Rummel, "Erasmus' role in the dissemination of ideas is therefore less that of a forerunner of the Reformation than that of a synthesizer of many of the currents of thought that fed into the Reformation."

A reviewer P.S.A. in 1910 wrote "the common estimate of Erasmus[...]is still tinged by the venom vomited forth on him from both sides by combatants whom he would not join."

Erasmianism

Erasmians: Erasmus frequently mentioned that he did not want office nor to be the founder or figurehead of a sect or movement, despite his vigorous branding and self-promotion. Nevertheless, historians do identify de facto "Erasmians" (ranging from the early Jesuits to the early reformers, and each Thomas More, William Tyndale and Henry VIII)—Christian humanists who picked up on some or other aspects of Erasmus' agenda.

Erasmianism: This has been described as a "more intellectual form of spiritualized Christianity" that is "an undercurrent of religious thought between Catholicism and Lutheranism." It had a notable influence in Spain and England. However, a precise definition is not possible; it is not, for example, a set of precise, systematic doctrinal propositions. As with many eponymous movements, back-fitting the ideas of the movement onto the nominal originator may misrepresent them both.

The near election of Reginald Pole as pope in 1546 has been attributed to Erasmianism in the electors.

French historian Jean-Claude Margolin has noted an Erasmian stream in French culture putting "the concrete before the abstract and the ethical before the speculative", though not without noting that it is not clear whether Erasmus influenced the French or vice versa.

Historian W. R. Ward notes that "the direst enemies of theosophy were always Erasmian Catholics and Calvinist Protestants who were trying to get the magic out of Christianity."

Erasmian Reformation: Some historians such as Edward Gibbon and Hugh Trevor-Roper have even claimed an "'Erasmianism after Erasmus,' a secret stream which meandered to and fro across the Catholic/Protestant divide, creating oases of rational thought impartially on either side." For some, this amounted to a third church: or even that "Luther's and Calvin's Reformations were minor affairs" compared to the Reformation of Erasmus and the humanists' which swept away the Middle Ages.

Erasmian liberalism: This has had an enduring run: described by philosopher Edwin Curley that "the spirit of Erasmian liberalism was to emphasize the ethical aspects of Christianity at the expense of the doctrinal, to suspend judgment on many theological issues, and to insist that the faith actually required for salvation was a simple and uncontroversial one."

Erasmus has frequently been described as "proto-liberal" (both, e.g., in the UK "Lloyd George" sense of liberalism as a form of conservatism that wants moderate but real reform to prevent immoderate and destructive revolution, or the ethical sense of socio-economic Socinianism)

Protestant historian Roland Bainton is quoted "no-one did more than Erasmus to break down the theory and practice of the medieval variety of intolerance." Other popular or scholarly writers have suggested that Erasmus' tolerant but idealistic agenda failed, certainly at the political level, evidenced by the wars and persecutions of the Protestant Reformation.

Educationalist Erasmus has been variously called an "educator of educators", a "teacher of teachers" and a "professor of professors", but also a "pastor of pastors."

Erasmus was notable for his textbooks, his sense of learning as play, his emphasis on speech skills and promoting early classical-language acquisition, in the service of his cultural/pastoral/political agenda.

According to scholar Gerald J. Luhrman, "the system of secondary education, as developed in a number of European countries, is inconceivable without the efforts of humanist educationalists, particularly Erasmus. His ideas in the field of language acquisition were systematized and realized to a large extent in the schools founded by the Jesuits..." Historian Brian Cummings wrote "for a hundred years Erasmus commanded the curriculum." In the 1540s, Ursulines founded schools in Rezatto, Brescia, "inspired by Erasmus's pedagogical programme..."

His system of pronouncing ancient Greek was adopted for teaching in the major Western European nations.

In England, he wrote the first curriculum for St Paul's School and his Latin grammar (written with Lily and Colet) "continued to be used, in adapted form, into the Twentieth Century." Erasmus' curriculum, grammar, pronunciation and de Copia were adopted by the other major grammar schools: Eton, Westminster, Winchester, Canterbury, etc. and the universities

Erasmus "tried to realize a practical goal: a modern education as preparation for administrators from the higher estates." Sovereigns ultimately determined wars personally; so the education of princes was vital for future peace: their old curricula encouraged vainglorious militarism and needed to be replaced by ones which encouraged beneficial governing, by promoting knowledge and piety. Teenaged Prince Henry, later Henry VIII, was the first European prince to be given an Erasmian education.

Erasmus was also a key part of the humanist program to get Greek and Hebrew taught at the major Universities, inspired by Cardinal Cisneros' Trilingual College of San Ildefonso/Alcalá (1499/1509) and Bishop John Fisher's establishment of Greek and Hebrew lectures at Cambridge: the Trilingual Colleges at Louvain (1517) and Paris (1530) (where students included Loyola and Calvin) spawned programs in Zurich, Rome, Strasbourg and Oxford (c.1566). He has been described as "an unsuspected superspreader of New Ancient Greek."

Historian and Germanist Fritz Caspari saw education as the core of Erasmus' program:

Writer

The popularity of his books is reflected in the number of editions and translations that have appeared since the sixteenth century. Ten columns of the catalogue of the British Library are taken up with the enumeration of the works and their subsequent reprints. The greatest names of the classical and patristic world are among those translated, edited, or annotated by Erasmus, including Ambrose, Aristotle, Augustine, Basil, John Chrysostom, Cicero and Jerome.

Controversy on antisemitism Erasmus, as with many humanists, prized friendship as an institution that could override prejudice such as xenophobia: "For I am of such a nature that I could love even a Jew, were he a pleasant companion and did not spew out blasphemy against Christ"Letter to John Botzheim, quoted in however Erasmus scholar Shimon Markish suggests that it is probable Erasmus never actually encountered a (practising) Jew.

Markish wrote that the charge of antisemitism could not be sustained in Erasmus' public writings. Erasmus was (theologically) anti-Judaic but not racially antisemitic in the vehement way of the later post-Catholic Martin Luther: it was not a topic or theme of any book. Erasmus made no explicit call for the expulsion of non-converting Jews: though he allowed it as a national policy, he noted that such a policy may be counter-productive.

Challenging this, Erasmus scholar Nathan Ron wrote that Erasmus denigrated Jews by his translation and publication of the complete works of John Chrysostom which included John's notorious sermons Adversus Judaeos (written against efforts in the local synagogue to re-convert Christians) —which go further than deprecating re-judaizing tendencies within Christianity but set the pattern for later Christian antisemitism by portraying Jews as collectively the murderers of Christ— and by several miscellaneous comments by Erasmus. For Ron, "His role was obviously not on the same scale as Martin Luther's. Nonetheless, both in style and content, Erasmus's role in the long history of anti-Jewish and/or anti-Judaism attitudes should not be overlooked or underestimated."

Biographer James Tracy points to the antisemitic edge in Erasmus' uncharacteristically vituperative comments against Johannes Pfefferkorn during the Reuchlin affair: Erasmus felt Pfefferkorn had personally attacked him. Erasmus reacted sharply against any serious accusations made against him: his contention with his former bedmate at Aldus turned foe, Girolamo Aleandro, later a cardinal, escalated to a statement that Aleandro was a Jew dissimulating as a Christian.

Regional In the Netherlands In his native Rotterdam, the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus Bridge, Erasmus MC and Gymnasium Erasmianum have been named in his honor. Between 1997 and 2009, one of the main metro lines of the city was named . The Foundation Erasmus House (Rotterdam), is dedicated to celebrating Erasmus's legacy. Three moments in Erasmus's life are celebrated annually. On 1 April, the city celebrates the publication of his best-known book The Praise of Folly. On 11 July, the Night of Erasmus celebrates the lasting influence of his work. His birthday is celebrated on 28 October.

In Spain

Erasmus became extraordinarily popular and influential in Spain, including in and around the talent pool (often from families) that formed the early Jesuits. There were at least Castilian 120 translations, editions, or adaptations of Erasmus' writings between 1520 and 1552, though some, notably The Praise of Folly, were translations of excepts or paraphrases.

However, Erasmians and their associates faced, at times, extraordinary pushback from the theologians at Salamanca and Vallodolid, for being associated with the and illuminist tendencies, with many (notably Ignatius of Loyola, who had lived in the house of publisher Miguel de Eguía at the time the Spanish edition of the was being published) resorting to exile rather than facing the Inquisition, house arrest, imprisonment or worse. However, at times the heads of the Inquisition were themselves Erasmians.