Leaders: Myth and Reality

by General Stanley McChrystal

Fortuitously, one of the university’s founding faculty members, who had departed in 1505, had left behind his printing press, and skillful use of this new technology was already building reputations. The humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus had used it to become one of Europe’s first intellectual celebrities. Between 1514 and 1517, Erasmus was the most published man in Europe, as copies of his Greek New Testament, as well as editions of Seneca and St. Jerome, flooded the market, creating Erasmian disciples all throughout Europe. Print soon became a powerful tool for Luther as well, and by 1518 he had overtaken Erasmus to become the biggest-selling author in Europe. In fact, as the historian Mark Edwards has calculated, between 1518 and 1525, publications by Luther in German exceeded those of the seventeen other most prolific authors put together. This was the outset of a publishing career that would see him translate the Bible into German, a contribution that influences the language to this day. Clearly, from 1517 to 1518, something had changed.