Fatal Discord Quotes

“Christianity, Erasmus noted, is most truly taught not by trained theologians but by those who show by their very lives that riches should be disdained, that a wrong should not be avenged, that good should be wished for those deserving ill, and that death should be desired by the devout, “since it is nothing other than a passage to immortality.” Anyone who, inspired by Christ, preaches to, inculcates, and exhorts men with such teachings “is indeed truly a theologian, even if he should be a common laborer or weaver.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“Yet its humdrum quality was precisely what made it distinctive. Whereas “utopian” came to suggest the unattainable and “Machiavellian” the amoral, “Erasmian” would come to mean practical, commonsense reform.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“Meanwhile, there arrived on the scene someone who did understand those masses: Luther. Just as the Germanic hordes of old had descended on the world of classical Rome, so did this “fanatical man of action, backed by the irresistible force of a mass movement,” sally forth “to swamp and destroy” the dream of a united Europe. Zweig called Luther “a swaggering, brimming, almost bursting piece of living matter, the embodiment of the momentum and fierceness of a whole nation assembled in one exuberant personality.” Summoning the world to arms, this “werewolf raging with uncouth and unjustifiable scorn” split Christian Europe in two. Though Erasmus tried with his pen to defend European unity and the “world-citizenship of humanity,” he proved unequal to the task.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“Far more damaging to Calvin’s reputation was the case of Michael Servetus. An accomplished physician, skilled cartographer, and eclectic theologian from Spain, Servetus held maverick (and sometimes unbalanced) views on many points of Christian doctrine. In 1531, he published Seven Books on the Errors of the Trinity, enraging both Catholics and Protestants, Calvin among them. At one point, Servetus took up residence in Vienne, a suburb of Lyon about ninety miles from Geneva, where, under an assumed name, he began turning out heterodox books while also practicing medicine. His magnum opus, The Restitution of Christianity—a rebuttal of Calvin’s Institutes—rejected predestination, denied original sin, called infant baptism diabolical, and further deprecated the Trinity. Servetus imprudently sent Calvin a copy. Calvin sent back a copy of his Institutes. Servetus filled its margins with insulting comments, then returned it. A bitter exchange of letters followed, in which Servetus announced that the Archangel Michael was girding himself for Armageddon and that he, Servetus, would serve as his armor-bearer. Calvin sent Servetus’s letters to a contact in Vienne, who passed them on to Catholic inquisitors in Lyon. Servetus was promptly arrested and sent to prison, but after a few days he escaped by jumping over a prison wall. After spending three months wandering around France, he decided to seek refuge in Naples. En route, he inexplicably stopped in Geneva. Arriving on a Saturday, he attended Calvin’s lecture the next day. Though disguised, Servetus was recognized by some refugees from Lyon and immediately arrested. Calvin instructed one of his disciples to file capital charges against him with the magistrates for his various blasphemies. After a lengthy trial and multiple examinations, Servetus was condemned for writing against the Trinity and infant baptism and sentenced to death. He asked to be beheaded rather than burned, but the council refused, and on October 27, 1553, Servetus, with a copy of the Restitution tied to his arm, was sent to the stake. Shrieking in agony, he took half an hour to die. Calvin approved. “God makes clear that the false prophet is to be stoned without mercy,” he explained in Defense of the Orthodox Trinity Against the Errors of Michael Servetus. “We are to crush beneath our heel all affections of nature when his honor is involved. The father should not spare the child, nor the brother his brother, nor the husband his own wife or the friend who is dearer to him than life.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“As the crowd looked breathlessly on, Karlstadt read the Mass in an abbreviated form, leaving out the passages about sacrifice to which Luther had so objected. At the consecration, Karlstadt—omitting the elevation of the host—passed from Latin into German. For the first time in their lives, those present heard in their own language the words “This is the cup of my blood of the new and eternal testament, spirit and secret of the faith, shed for you to the remission of sins.” Each congregant was then invited to commune in both kinds. A hush descended as Christians high and low proceeded to the altar. Instead of receiving the host on the tongue, as was the custom, each was handed a wafer to place on his or her tongue; each was also given the chalice from which to drink. One communicant, on being handed a wafer, trembled so violently that he dropped it. Karlstadt told him to pick it up, but the man was so terrified at the sight of the Lord’s body lying desecrated on the floor that he refused to touch it.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“There were confessional letters that freed the penitent from having to confess to a local priest. There were dispensations that allowed the substitution of other good works for vows that had been made in haste and were difficult to keep. There were the ever-popular “butter letters,” which permitted the consumption of eggs, milk, and cheese during fast days. There were even indulgences that sanctioned the possession of illegally acquired goods”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“Perking up, Luther observes that Paul, in distinguishing between these two categories, also distinguishes between the works associated with them. By works of the law, Paul means those acts that the law compels through the fear of punishment or the promise of reward. By works of faith, Paul means those acts done in a spirit of liberty and love of God. The works of the law cannot contribute anything toward making a person righteous; on the contrary, they are a hindrance because they keep one from seeing oneself as unrighteous.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“The deities described in Erasmus’s and Luther’s dueling tracts could hardly be more dissimilar. Erasmus’s God is an even-tempered rationalist who sagely judges men and women by how they behave in the world. Luther’s God is an inscrutable being who acts according to his own unfathomable logic, apart from human understanding and expectation. Erasmus’s God requires the existence of free will to ensure that his rule is just; Luther’s God has to reject free will to make sure his power is unbounded. Whereas Erasmus wanted to protect the freedom of man to choose, Luther wanted to safeguard the freedom of God to act.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

“Erasmus wrote, “nothing so occupies a girl’s whole heart as the love of reading.”
― Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind