A man
who rose above his times
The most striking thing about Erasmus
is his transcendence beyond from the cultural norms of his times. Judged from
other cultural frames of reference, Erasmus falls short of many of the greatest
of history. There were those who were braver, brighter, more charitable, more
honorable, less materialistic, and so on -- but such traits must be judged
against the cultural background in which the individual was raised. Can we
deride Isaac Newton's genius because he was deeply religious? If I were to chop
off somebody's hand with a sword, I'd be branded a nut case, but Saint Peter
did that when they came to get Christ, and we don't call him a nut case. Thomas
Jefferson owned slaves -- does that make him a monster?
Even today, our moral
standards leave much to be desired. How many of us steal office supplies from
our place of work? How many of us tell "white" lies to smooth the
rough edges of interpersonal interaction? How many of us are absolutely honest
on our tax returns? Suppose that you met an individual who rejected these
common immoralities -- someone who told the truth even when inconvenient, who
paid all his taxes honestly, who behaved at all times as if the world was
watching him -- what would you think of such a person? Impossibly virtuous?
This, to me, is the greatest kind of hero: the person who takes his moral cues,
not from what everybody else is doing, but from his own conscience. We have
precious few such people, and they are our heroes, the ones who lead us
forward.
Erasmus was such a person.
His values were far ahead of his times, even though some of his actions fall
short of our expectations of heroic behavior. In future essays in this series,
I shall present specifics.