Erasmus Laid The Egg That Luther Hatched Analysis

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Desiderius Erasmus, the leader of the Christian humanist movement; and Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant movement; are constantly compared. Erasmus was not powerful enough to spark a revolution alone, so many say Luther planted his seed. However, this is not the case. The two movements were too different to come from the same origin. The phrase “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched” is illegitimate due to their contrasting ideas. The phrase “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched” means that Erasmus’ ideas sparked Luther’s own ideas. Erasmus, one of the first church reformers, wrote works sharing his ideas. According to this phrase, Luther read these works and took them a step further. Luther’s ideas would have to be very similar to Erasmus’, especially when Luther was just starting to reform the church. An example of this would be Luther agreeing with Erasmus’ philosophy of Christ. This would also require Luther to have Erasmus’ …show more content…

Luther started his movement as a monk looking for answers about salvation, unlike Erasmus who started as a Christian humanist. Luther didn’t mean to reform the church at first. Luther first wanted to reform the church by getting rid of indulgences, However, Erasmus’ main target was the clergy and did not mention indulgences often. Additionally, Erasmus’ main belief was the philosophy of Christ, which means that he thought Christianity should guide one through their daily life and not be a system of doctrines. Luther most likely disagreed with this since he supported many doctrines of his time.Furthermore, Erasmus’ strategy was to reform from within the church. After Luther directly went against the pope, it became clear his strategy was to break away from the church. Erasmus was never radical enough to go against the pope himself. Later on, Erasmus said that he disagrees with Luther’s ideas and separated himself from

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