“Prince of the Humanists,” Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1469-1536), the greatest star of the northern Renaissance, had difficult origins: illegitimate son of a priest, he lost his parents to the plague. An orphan’s lack of options compelled him to join the Augustinians, and he was ordained a priest in 1492.

Eventually dispensed from the requirements of monastic life, Erasmus maintained his liberty as an independent scholar and traveled throughout Europe. Saint Thomas More was among his lifelong friends. He campaigned vigorously against Church corruption, though he never broke with the Catholic Church. His program of Christian humanism still beckons as a way forward. He sought to renew European society through education in Greek and classical Latin and appreciation of the literature written in those languages, as well as recourse to patristic theology. He privileged rhetoric over dialectic and ethics over logic. His De ratione studii would determine the contours of European classical education for centuries. The goal was docta pietas: a learned piety. Erasmus prepared the first scholarly treatment of the New Testament, revising Saint Jerome’s Vulgate and presenting the first Greek edition to appear in print. This was a bombshell: it would be essential for Luther’s insights. The Greek would the basis of the Textus Receptus, which stands behind the King James Version. “The Sileni of Alcibiades” is an essay from his massive collection of Adages from classical sources.