Erasmus

Erasmus was the illegitimate son of a priest, raised in monastic schools and pressed into monastic vows that he spent his life trying to escape. He studied theology in Paris, hated its scholastic disputation and turned instead to classical Latin and Greek. In England he befriended Thomas More and John Colet; in Italy he took his doctorate; afterwards he wandered Europe living on patrons and publishers, the first European writer to make a living by his pen.

In 1516 he published an edited Greek New Testament with a fresh Latin translation, exposing many errors in the received Vulgate; Luther's German Bible was based on it. His Adages collected thousands of classical proverbs with commentary, and the Colloquies and The Praise of Folly attacked with witty satire the ignorance of monks, the emptiness of theologians and the wars of popes. He believed that education and a return to the sources could reform the Church without schism.

When the Reformation broke out, both sides demanded that he declare himself. He criticised Luther's violence yet refused to serve Rome, and in 1524 published On Free Will, arguing that the human will still plays a part under grace; Luther replied savagely with On the Bondage of the Will. He spent his last years at Basel and Freiburg, regarded by Protestants as a coward and placed on the Catholic Index, yet the most widely read writer of his age.