Home » » Peace Movements » War Is Sweet to Those Who Do Not Know It

War Is Sweet to Those Who Do Not Know It

© Kelly Scheufler

Desiderius Erasmus' childhood was filled with hardship. He was born the illegitimate son of a priest and a widow. Both his parents were infected with the Bubonic Plague, a disease that disfigures and kills in under four days. After the death of his parents, his guardians sent him away from his remaining family to a monastery. Many people would have succumbed to this adversity, their spirits broken. Not Erasmus. He became one of the most famous writers, scholars, and pacifists of the 15th century. Like many other great thinkers, Erasmus craved knowledge and searched for solutions to the problems of the world. He wasn't the leader of any particular peace movement, nor did he author any peace treaty between two warring nations. He was, however, a man way ahead of his time. He believed that war was not only evil, but expensive and wasteful. He used his pen to proclaim ideals of tolerance and human rights, radical ideas in the 15th century.

The world Erasmus lived in was filled with violence, and corruption. Everyone had armies; kings, popes, bishops, and princes. In lieu of payment, the soldiers were encouraged to plunder the villages they conquered, taking whatever they could. In addition to these "legitimate" armies, bands of soldiers, called highway robbers, roamed around looting and killing. Civil wars were common. Churchmen and kings were crooked, changing laws to fit their desires. Erasmus refused to accept this immoral, violent status quo. He said, "war, what other thing is it than a common manslaughter of many men together."

In his book "Against War," Erasmus described the soft form of the human body. Humans don't have armor, claws, horns, tusks, poison or other weapons like animals. Man is supposed to be superior to animals, he wrote, yet even animals don't engage in mass violence with unnatural weapons.

How did Erasmus become this insightful scholar and writer? He was exposed to classical literature at a very early age. This exposure fostered a thirst for knowledge, a thirst so strong that it often took priority over bare necessities. "I have turned my entire attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes." His great accomplishments include publishing a new translation of The New Testament and compiling a book of expressions he found by scouring classical literature. In this book, "A Thousand Adages," Erasmus brought to life sayings like spoonfeeding and eyes in the back.

The copyright of the article War Is Sweet to Those Who Do Not Know It in Peace Movements is owned by . Permission to republish War Is Sweet to Those Who Do Not Know It in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.