Erasmus, Cranmer and English Reformers

 

We know of Erasmus and Luther when Luther leveled explosive, fiery, articulate and Augustinian ordinance-on-target-on-Erasmus in Luther’s "The Bondage of the Will" (1525). Luther outlined total depravity, election, predestination and God's sovereignty. In time, Cranmer would share Luther’s views (unlike Laud, certain Caroline divines, and the Wesleys).

Erasmus's central academic activities were at Cambridge, Paris, Leuven, and Basel. He drifted around some and never quite belonged anywhere. 

In 1499, while in England, Erasmus was impressed by the Bible teaching of John Colet. Colet pursued an expository style more akin to the church fathers than the parse-and-divide method of the Scholastics. This prompted him to master Greek and enabled him to prepare a new edition of Jerome's Bible translation.

On one occasion he wrote Colet:

"I cannot tell you, dear Colet, how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature. How I dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me". (Galli, Mark, and Olsen, Ted. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2000, p. 343.)

Erasmus would later return to visit Queen’s College, Cambridge in 1506. The point of time intersects with Thomas Cranmer over at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Queens' College is amongst the oldest and largest colleges at Cambridge. It was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou (the Queen of Henry VI). By contrast, Jesus College was founded in 1497.

He stayed at Queens' College, Cambridge. Erasmus was there from 1505-1515. He was the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity. (Other notables in later history would include John Whitgift and Thomas Cartwright.) As the Divinity lecturer, he was to speak daily. (Pollard, Albert. Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1906, 15-16.)

Erasmus had the option to spend the rest of his life as an English professor, but he moved elsewhere. 

While in England during Henry VIII’s days, he established friendships with Thomas More, John Fisher, Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn.

What influence did Erasmus exert on English thought? On Queens’ and Jesus’s Colleges? On Cranmer? On English Reformers? Or, the White Horse Inn scholars?

A few major differences between Erasmus and Cranmer: total depravity, unconditional election, predestination and God's sovereignty. Cranmer, in time, would follow Luther's path as over against Erasmus's semi-Pelagian, Roman, Eastern, or American liberal and evangelical views. Cranmer was an Augustinian.