Praise Of Folly

In this section, Folly continues her diatribe against various classes of society, notably theologians and members of the religious and clerical class. For this reason, some scholars believe this section is the most controversial part of the book. More and more, Folly’s voice seems to become one with Erasmus’s voice, so that the reader might think that Erasmus is the one speaking and not the character of Folly. In this section, Erasmus addresses subjects he knew well, as a man of the church himself.

While spending time at a monastery, Erasmus became convinced that the monastic life as practiced in his day fostered a false, self-regarding piety that was far from true religion. Thus, he criticizes the monks’ “ceremonies and petty manmade traditions” (98) and their obsession with the religious merit of external acts of piety in the form of fasts or chanting a certain number of psalms. These behaviors, to Erasmus, leads to pride, yet ironically, a preoccupation with these pious gestures lead the monks to neglect their own cleanliness and bodily health. Erasmus also criticizes the emphasis on uniformity and an overly rule-bound lifestyle that irons out the individuality of the monks. On Page 98, Erasmus depicts a scene in which Christ speaks to these monks at the Final Judgment. Christ’s criticizes the monks’ fussy external religiosity, saying that the monks who “want to appear holier than I am” (99) can go build their own heaven to live in. This indictment of monks in the voice of Christ himself is one of the strongest satirical blows in the book.

Erasmus’s criticism of theologians is specifically aimed at the proponents of scholasticism, the late-medieval system of thought and teaching stemming from the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. It was the predominant mode of theology in Erasmus’ s day, taught in the universities and other houses of learning. Scholastic theologians gave religious doctrine a complex rational analysis based on Aristotelian logic. Later, many critics believed, the system fell into a decline characterized by hair-splitting logic and rigidity of thought. Throughout this section of the book, Erasmus claims that theologians frequently interpret scripture in a distorted way and present themselves as authorities who cannot be questioned. Erasmus parodies spurious theological interpretations in a highly satirical passage on pages 117-118 when Folly claims that scripture says folly is more precious than wisdom; because scriptural passages say folly is to be hidden away, that must mean folly is more precious than wisdom because humans hide away only what is valuable.

By contrasting the doctors of theology with the simple fishermen who were Jesus’s disciples, Erasmus emphasizes his belief that matters of faith call for “reverence rather than explanation” (93). To Erasmus, it is more important that the apostles converted people through the example of their lives rather than through subtle logical argument. In addition to clerics, Erasmus also takes aim at secular rulers and their self-serving behavior. This section would have been particularly controversial at the time of writing because it presents a bold criticism of the misuse of political power.

In both the secular and the clerical critiques, Erasmus evokes the symbolism of color and costume to discredit his targets. He says that the robes kings wear, with its color symbolism, is widely at odds with the moral character of their lives. Likewise, prelates betray the moral values symbolized in the purity of their white vestments and croziers. Erasmus declares that if these leaders were to reflect on the meaning of what they wear, they would see the disconnect between it and their lives. Instead, they are content to be empty figureheads, with only the appearance of virtue.

By placing the section on “princes of the church” right after the section on secular princes, Erasmus implies that churchmen have allowed themselves to be infected by a worldly spirit. His discussion also moves hierarchically up the ranks of society, to the highest ranking individual: the pope. In this critique, Erasmus includes a thinly veiled allusion to the “warrior pope” Julius II who scandalously went to war and betrayed the teachings of the gospel.