Reaction to Revival: Robert Ridley’s Critique of Erasmus

Christian historians have found it hard to approve those who resist revival and resurgence in the Church and particularly in the period of the Reformation. It is often assumed too readily that sympathy with Renaissance biblical and patristic scholarship (resurgence par excellence)should have led honest scholars to Protestantism. Yet it did not always do so. Erasmus outstandingly did not fit this pattern but nor did many others, even among those who benefited from his scholarship and shared some of his concerns. Modern scholars have too often regarded such dissenting voices as at best conservative and at worst benighted or dishonest. Contemporaries were equally (or more) scathing about one another. It is very difficult therefore to give proper value to those who shared some but not all the tendencies which Erasmus epitomized yet were deeply critical of some of the conclusions to which these could lead.