Erasmus of Rotterdam- an outstanding writer, philosopher and scientist of the Northern Renaissance. He prepared the first Greek edition of the New Testament (with commentaries), initiated critical study of the texts of the Holy Scriptures, and contributed to the return ancient heritage into European culture. Being one of the most authoritative figures in the humanities of his time, he received the nickname "the prince of the humanists."
Erasmus entered the history of literature as the author of wonderful satirical works, in which he ridiculed the enduring human stupidity and ignorance. The most famous of these was " Praise of Stupidity".
We selected seven quotes from it:
| The most base rubbish always leads the crowd into admiration, because the vast majority of people are infected with stupidity. |
| Wisdom makes people timid, and therefore at every step you see wise men living in poverty, in hunger, in filth and in neglect, everywhere meeting only contempt and hatred. Money flows to fools, they hold the helm of state government in their hands and, in general, prosper in every possible way. |
| In human society everything is full of stupidity, everything is done by fools and among fools. |
| The war, so celebrated by all, is waged by parasites, pimps, thieves, murderers, stupid dorks, unpaid debtors and the like scum of society, but by no means enlightened philosophers. |
| Truly, two great obstacles stand in the way of a correct understanding of things: shame, which fills the soul like a fog, and fear, which, in the face of danger, prevents bold decisions. But stupidity with surprising ease drives away both shame and fear. |
| To indulge the weaknesses of your friends, to turn a blind eye to their shortcomings, to admire their vices as if they were virtues - what could be closer to stupidity? |
| This is what distinguishes a sage from a fool, that he is guided by reason, and not by feelings. |
L. Pinsky.
ERASMUS AND HIS "PRAISE OF STUPIDITY"
For the modern reader, the famous Dutch humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536) is actually "the writer of one book" - the immortal "Eulogy of Stupidity." Even his "Home Talks", a favorite reading of many generations, has faded with the passage of time, lost its former sharpness. The ten volumes of the collected works of Erasmus, published at the beginning of the 18th century, are no longer reprinted, and only specialists studying the culture of the Renaissance and the movement of humanism, headed by the author of the Praise of Stupidity, turn to them. Erasmus of Rotterdam is more famous than a famous writer.
But the same "authors of one book" remained for posterity and other great contemporaries of Erasmus: the coryphaeus of English humanism Thomas More and French - Francois Rabelais. Time - the best critic - was not mistaken in its selection. The reason for this kind of literary fate is in the special nature of the thought of the humanists of the Renaissance. They have a vivid sense of the deep interconnection of various aspects of the life process, that integrity of the world view, in which thought cannot be limited to one corner of reality, one side of it, but strives to give a picture of the whole society, growing into a kind of encyclopedia of life. Hence the "universal" genre of "Furious Roland" by Ariosto, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" by Rabelais, "Don Quixote" by Cervantes, "Utopia" by Mora, and also "Eulogy" by Erasmus. We call these works a poem, a novel, or a satire, although each of them is too synthetic in character and forms its own special genre. The form here is often conventional, fantastic or grotesque, it is affected by the desire to express everything, to convey the entire experience of time in the individual refraction of the author. Such a work, at the same time epochal and deeply individual, seems to condense in itself the work of the writer in all its originality and, merging with the name of the creator, obscures all the rest of his heritage for posterity.
But for the contemporaries of Erasmus, each of his works was a great event in the cultural life of Europe. Contemporaries first of all blamed him as a zealous popularizer of ancient thought, a distributor of new "humanitarian" knowledge. His "Adagia" ("Sayings"), a collection of ancient sayings and winged layers, which he published in 1500, was a huge success. According to one humanist, Erasmus "blurred the secret of the mysteries" of the erudite in them and introduced ancient wisdom into the everyday life of wide circles of the "uninitiated." In witty comments to each saying or expression (reminiscent of the later famous "Experiments" by Ch. Montaigne), where Erasmus indicates those cases of life when it is appropriate to use it, the irony and satirical gift of the future author of the "Eulogy" were already evident. Already here, Erasmus, adjoining the Italian humanists of the 15th century, opposes to the exhausted medieval scholasticism the lively and free ancient thought, its inquisitive independent spirit. His "Apophthegmata" ("Short Sayings"), his works on stylistics, poetics, his numerous translations of Greek writers into Latin, the international literary language of the then society, also adjoin here. Erasmus advocated broad secular education - and not only for men, but also for women, he demanded a reform of schooling.
His political thought, brought up on the traditions of ancient freedom, is imbued with disgust for all forms of tyranny, and in this disgust one can easily recognize Erasmus of Rotterdam, a pet of urban culture. Erasmus' "Christian Sovereign" appeared in the same 1516 as T. More's "Utopia", and two years after Machiavelli finished his "Prince". These are the three main monuments of the socio-political thought of the era, but the whole spirit of Erasmus' treatise is directly opposite to the concept of Machiavelli. Erasmus demands from his sovereign that he rule not as an unauthorized master, but as a servant of the people, and count on love, and not on fear, for fear of punishment does not reduce the number of crimes. The will of the monarch is not enough for the law to become law. In the age of endless wars, Erasmus, elevated to the rank of "adviser of the empire" by Charles V (for whom he wrote his "Christian Sovereign"), does not get tired of fighting for peace between the states of Europe. His anti-war "Complaint of the World" was once banned by the Sorbonne, but in our time has appeared in new translations into French and English.
In the 16th-18th centuries, readers especially appreciated the religious and ethical treatise of Erasmus "Guide to the Christian Warrior" (1504). Here, as in a number of other works devoted to questions of morality and faith, Erasmus fights for the "evangelical purity" of primitive Christianity, against the cult of rites, against pagan worship of saints, against the formalism of ritual, against "external Christianity" - everything that formed the basis the power of the Catholic Church. Recognizing essential for Christianity only the "spirit of faith", and not the ceremony of the rite, Erasmus comes into conflict with orthodox theology. The theological works of Erasmus caused the most passionate and fierce disputes and gave opponents many reasons to accuse him of all heresies.
Erasmus considered the main work of his life to be the corrected edition of the Greek text of the New Testament (1516) and its new Latin translation. This meticulous philological work, in which the text scripture freed from errors and arbitrary interpretations that had crept in over the centuries, Erasmus dealt a blow to the authority of the church and the canonical Latin text of the Bible (the so-called Vulgate) adopted by it. Even more significant is the fact that in the comments to their translation and in the so-called "paraphrases" (interpretations) of the books of Holy Scripture, using the scientific methods of historical criticism (the connection of the Bible with Hebrew mores) and direct interpretation (instead of the allegorical or casuistic, characteristic of medieval scholastics) , casting doubt on the authenticity of individual books and expressions and exposing contradictions in the sacred text, Erasmus paving the way for later rationalist criticism of the Bible.
Rejecting the authorities of late medieval scholasticism, he tirelessly published the works of the first church fathers. Edit and publish nine volumes of St. Jerome cost Erasmus, according to his own remark, more labor than the author wrote them. This appeal to the primary sources was a form of progress, as it multiplied doubts in the minds of the indisputability of the dogmas established by the church, regarding which, as it turned out, the church fathers themselves largely disagreed. But in this way Erasmus justified the principle of wide tolerance in matters of faith, which - with the exception of the very few general provisions- should, in his opinion, become a private affair of every believer, a matter of his free conscience and understanding. Calling on his followers to translate the Bible into new languages and leaving every believer the right to understand the Holy Scriptures as the only source of faith, Erasmus opened access to the holy of holies of theology to every Christian, and not just to the high priests of theology.
But this was a dig under the foundations of a single and monolithic church. "Purified" of pagan "external Christianity", substantiated by philological analysis, the new theology objectively cleared the way for deism and led to the rejection of all dogmatics. It is not surprising that in "erasmism", condemned by the church already in the 16th century, Catholic and Protestant theologians found both the Arian heresy (denial of the divinity of Christ) and Pelagianism (doubt in salvation by faith, in the exclusive role of grace). And although Erasmus himself quite sincerely defended his orthodoxy, his conviction of the futility of sophisticated word disputes, his indifference to insoluble contradictions on the question of trinity, transubstantiation, etc., to disputes about salvation by faith or good works, his irony at the address of any final and obligatory judgments - all this sowed skepticism and undermined the foundations of the church and Christianity in general.
The influence of Erasmus on his contemporaries was enormous. He is sometimes compared to the influence of Voltaire in the 18th century. Better than all other humanists, Erasmus appreciated the mighty power of typography, and his work is inextricably linked with such famous typographers of the 16th century as Aldus Manutius, Froben, and Badius. With the help of the printing press - "an almost divine instrument", as Erasmus called it - he published one work after another and led, thanks to living connections with the humanists of all countries (as eleven volumes of his correspondence testify), a kind of "republic of the humanities", just as Voltaire led the enlightenment movement in the 18th century. Tens of thousands of copies of Erasmus' books were his weapons in the fight against a whole army of monks and theologians who tirelessly preached against him and sent his followers to the stake.
With all his activities, especially since 1511, when the "Eulogy of Stupidity" appears, Erasmus contributed to the fact that in his time "the spiritual dictatorship of the church was broken" [Marx and Engels, Works, vol. XIV, M. - L. 1931, p. 476]. In the 16th century, this was primarily reflected in the emergence of the Protestant Church. Therefore, when the Reformation broke out in Germany (1517), its supporters were sure that Erasmus would come out in its defense and strengthen the reform movement with its all-European authority.
For several years, Erasmus evaded a direct answer to this question that worried all his contemporaries. But, finally (1524), he decisively parted ways with Luther, taking a neutral position in religious strife, which he retained until the end of his days. For this, he incurs the accusation of betrayal of the cause of faith and ridicule from both Catholics and Protestants. In the position of Erasmus, subsequently, they saw only indecision and lack of courage. Undoubtedly, the personal qualities of Erasmus, which were imprinted by the conditions of his birth and the circumstances of his life [Erasmus was the illegitimate son of a burgher. The "bastard spot", the position of an almost fugitive monk and wanderings in foreign countries to a certain extent determined his diplomatic caution], played a certain role here. But it is also undoubted that the ideals of Erasmus and Luther - the latter in many respects remained to the end the pet of scholastic theology - were too different even in matters of church reform, and even more so in general questions of morality and understanding of life.
This is already evidenced by the Praise of Stupidity, where the free thought of humanism goes far beyond the limits of the narrow tendency of Protestantism.
From the words of Erasmus himself, we know how he came up with the idea of "Praise of Stupidity."
In the summer of 1509, he left Italy, where he spent three years, and went to England, where he was invited by friends, as it seemed to them that in connection with the accession to the throne of King Henry VIII, wide prospects were opening up for the flourishing of science.
Erasmus was already forty years old. Two editions of his "Proverbs", the treatise "Guide to the Christian Warrior", translations of ancient tragedies brought him European fame, but his financial situation remained precarious (the pensions he received from two patrons were paid extremely irregularly). However, his wanderings in the cities of Flanders, France and England, and especially his years in Italy, broadened his horizons and freed him from the pedantry of armchair learning inherent in early German humanism. He not only studied the manuscripts of rich Italian book depositories, but also saw the pitiful underside of the lush culture of Italy at the beginning of the 16th century. The humanist Erasmus had to change his place of residence every now and then, fleeing the civil strife that tore apart Italy, from the rivalry of cities and tyrants, from the wars of the pope with the French who invaded Italy. In Bologna, for example, he witnessed how the militant Pope Julius II, in military armor, accompanied by cardinals, entered the city after defeating the enemy through a gap in the wall (imitating the Roman Caesars), and this spectacle, so inappropriate to the dignity of the vicar of Christ, caused Erasmus grief and disgust. Subsequently, he recorded this scene unequivocally in his "Praise of Foolishness" at the end of the chapter on the high priests.
Impressions from the motley fair of the "everyday life of mortals", where Erasmus had to act as an observer and "laughing" philosopher Democritus, crowded in his soul on the way to England, alternating with pictures of a close meeting with friends - T. More, Fischer and Colet. Erasmus recalled his first trip to England, twelve years before that, scientific disputes, conversations about ancient writers and jokes that his friend T. More loved so much.
This is how the extraordinary idea of this work arose, where direct life observations are, as it were, passed through the prism of ancient reminiscences. One feels that Mrs. Stupidity, who delivers the auto-eulogy, has already read the Proverbs, which appeared a year earlier in a new expanded edition in the famous printing house of Alda Manutius in Venice.
In the house of More, where Erasmus stayed on his arrival in England, in a few days, almost like an improvisation, this inspired work was written. "Moria," in the words of one Dutch critic, "was born like her wise sister, Minerva-Pallas": she came fully armed from the head of her father.
As in all humanistic thought and in all the art of the Renaissance - that stage in the development of European society, which is marked by the influence of antiquity - two traditions meet and organically merge in "Praise of Stupidity" - and this can be seen already in the very title of the book.
On the one hand, satire is written in the form of a "praise word", which was cultivated by ancient writers. Humanists revived this form and found quite a variety of uses for it. Sometimes they were driven to this by dependence on patrons, and Erasmus himself, not without disgust, as he admits, wrote in 1504 such a panegyric to Philip the Handsome, father of the future Emperor Charles V. At the same time, even in antiquity, the artificiality of these flattering exercises of rhetoric - "the rouged girl," as Lucian called her, - gave rise to the genre of parodic eulogy, a sample of which was left to us, for example, by the same Lucian ("Eulogy to the fly"). The genre of ironic panegyric (like the once famous "Praise of Gout" by the Nuremberg friend Erasmus W. Pirckheimer) outwardly adjoins the "Eulogy of Stupidity".
But far more significant is Lucian's influence on the universally critical spirit of this work. Lucian was the most beloved writer of the humanists, and Erasmus, his admirer, translator and publisher, did not accidentally earn the reputation of the new Lukiai among his contemporaries, which meant for some a witty enemy of prejudice, for others - a dangerous atheist. This fame was fixed for him after the publication of the "Eulogy".
On the other hand, the theme of Stupidity reigning over the world is not an accidental subject of praise, as is usually the case in comic panegyrics. This theme runs through the poetry, art and folk theater of the 15th-16th centuries. The favorite spectacle of the late medieval and renaissance city is the carnival "processions of fools", "carefree children" led by the Prince of Fools, the Fool-Papa and the Foolish Mother, processions of mummers depicting the State, the Church, Science, Justice, the Family. The motto of these games is "The number of fools is innumerable." In French "hundreds" ("tomfoolery"), Dutch farces or German "fastnachtshpils" (Shrovetide games), the goddess Stupidity reigned: the fool and his fellow charlatan represented, in various guises, the whole variety of life situations and conditions. The whole world "broke the fool." The same theme runs through literature. In 1494, the poem "The Ship of Fools" by the German writer Sebastian Brandt was published - a wonderful satire that was a huge success and translated into a number of languages (in the Latin translation of 1505, 4 years before the creation of the "Eulogy of Stupidity" it could be read by Erasmus). This collection of over a hundred types of stupidity, in its encyclopedic form, resembles the work of Erasmus. But Brandt's satire is still a semi-medieval, purely didactic work. Much closer to the "Eulogy" is the tone of the free from moralization cheerful folk book "Till Eilenspiegel" (1500). Her hero, under the guise of a fool who literally does everything he is told, passes through all classes, through all social circles, mocking all strata of modern society. This book already marks the birth of a new world. The imaginary stupidity of Till Eilenspiegel only reveals the Stupidity that reigns over life - the patriarchal narrow-mindedness and backwardness of the estate and guild system. The narrow limits of this life have become cramped for the crafty and cheerful hero of the folk book.
Humanistic thought, seeing off the departing world and evaluating the new one that is being born, in its most living and great creations, often stands close to this "fooling" literature - and not only in the German countries, but throughout Western Europe. In the great novel by Rabelais, wisdom is dressed in buffoonery. On the advice of the jester Triboulet, the pantagruelists go to the oracle of the Divine Bottle for the resolution of all their doubts, for, as Pantagruel says, often "another fool will teach the wise." The wisdom of the tragedy "King Lear" is expressed by the jester, and the hero himself begins to see clearly only when he falls into madness. In Cervantes' novel, the ideals of the old society and the wisdom of humanism are intricately intertwined in the head of a half-mad hidalgo.
Of course, the fact that the mind is forced to act under a jester's cap with bells is partly a tribute to a class-hierarchical society, where critical thought must put on a joke mask in order to "speak the truth to kings with a smile." But this form of wisdom also has deep roots in the concrete historical soil of the transitional epoch.
For the people's consciousness of the period of the greatest progressive upheaval that mankind has experienced before, not only the centuries-old wisdom of the past is losing its authority, turning its "stupid" side, but the emerging bourgeois culture has not yet had time to become familiar and natural. The frank cynicism of non-economic coercion of the era of primitive accumulation (let us recall the “Utopia” by friend Erasmus T. More, which is close in many respects to the “Eulogy of Stupidity”, published five years after the “Eulogy”) [Contemporaries felt the ideological and stylistic connection of “Utopia” with “Eulogy the word Stupidity", and many were even inclined to attribute the authorship of the critical first part of the "Utopia", where the "stupidity" of the new order of things was exposed, to Erasmus. The literary roots of More's humanistic work, as is known, also go back to antiquity, but not to Lucian, but to Plato's dialogues and to the communist ideas of his "State". But with all its content, "Utopia" is connected with modernity - the social contradictions of the agrarian revolution in England. More striking is the similarity of the main idea: here and there a kind of "wisdom inside out" in comparison with the prevailing ideas. The general prosperity and happiness of a rational system in Utopia is achieved not by the prudent accumulation of wealth, but by the abolition of private property - this sounded no less a paradox than Morya's speech. It is known that Erasmus took part in the first editions of the Utopia, which he supplied with a preface], the decomposition of natural ties between people appears to the popular consciousness, as well as to humanists, as the same realm of "unreason". Stupidity reigns over the past and the future. Modern life - their junction - is a real fool's fair. But nature and reason must also, if they want their voice to be heard, put on a fool's mask. This is how the theme of "stupidity reigning over the world" arises. For the Renaissance, it means a healthy distrust of all obsolete foundations and dogmas, a mockery of all pretentious doctrinairism and inertia, as a guarantee of the free development of man and society.
At the center of this "foolish literature," as its most significant work in Lucian form, is the book of Erasmus. Not only in content, but also in the manner of lighting, it conveys the color of its time and its angle of view on life.
The composition of the "Praise of Stupidity" is distinguished by internal harmony, despite some digressions and repetitions that Morya allows himself, laying out in a relaxed improvisation, as befits Stupidity, "what has gone into his head." The book opens with a long introduction where Stupidity introduces the topic of his speech and introduces himself to the audience. This is followed by the first part, proving the "general human", universal power of Stupidity, rooted in the very foundation of life and in human nature. The second part is a description of the various types and forms of Stupidity - its differentiation in society from the lower strata of the people to the highest circles of the nobility. After these main parts, where a picture of life as it is is given, there follows a final part, where the ideal of bliss - life as it should be - also turns out to be the highest form of the madness of the omnipresent Morya [There are no divisions in the original text of the "Eulogy": the accepted the division into chapters does not belong to Erasmus and appears for the first time in the 1765 edition].
For the newest reader, separated from the audience of Erasmus for centuries, the most keen interest is probably the first part of the "Eulogy", captivating with the unfading freshness of paradoxically pointed thought and the richness of subtle shades. Stupidity irrefutably proves its power over all life and all its blessings. All ages and all feelings, all forms of ties between people and all worthy activity owe their existence and their joys to it. It is the basis of all prosperity and happiness. What is it - in jest or seriously? An innocent game of the mind for the entertainment of friends or a pessimistic "refutation of faith in reason"? If this is a joke, then, as Falstaff would say, it has gone too far to be funny. On the other hand, the whole appearance of Erasmus, not only as a writer, but also as a person - sociable, condescending to human weaknesses, a good friend and witty interlocutor, a person to whom nothing human was alien, a lover of good food and a subtle connoisseur of books - the whole appearance this humanist, in many respects, as it were, the prototype of Pantagruel Rabelais [Rabelais corresponded with his older contemporary Erasmus and in a letter to him dated November 30, 1532 - this is the year the Pantagruel was created! - called him his "father", "the source of all creativity of our time"], excludes a bleak view of life as a clutch of stupidities, where the sage can only, following the example of Timon, flee into the desert (ch. XXV).
The author himself (in the preface and in later letters) gives a contradictory and evasive answer to this question, believing, obviously, that sapienti sat- "is enough for the wise" and the reader himself is able to figure it out. But if the cardinals amused themselves with the "Eulogy" as a buffoon's trick, and Pope Leo X noted with pleasure: "I am glad that our Erasmus also sometimes knows how to fool around," then some scholastics considered it necessary to come out "in defense" of reason, arguing that once God created all the sciences, then "Erasmus, attributing this honor to Stupidity, blasphemes." (In response, Erasmus ironically dedicated two apologies to this "defender of reason", a certain Le Courturier.) Even among friends, some advised Erasmus to write a "palinodia" (defense of the opposite thesis) for clarity, something like "In Praise of Reason" or " Praises of Grace"... There was no shortage, of course, of readers like T. More, who appreciated the humor of Erasmus' thought. It is curious that the latest bourgeois criticism in the West faces the same dilemma, but - in accordance with the reactionary tendencies of the interpretation of the culture of humanism and the Renaissance, characteristic of modernist works - "Praise of Stupidity" is increasingly interpreted in the spirit of Christian mysticism and the glorification of irrationalism.
Note, however, that this dilemma has never existed for the open-minded reader, who has always seen in Erasmus' work, under a sly parodic form, a defense of a cheerful freethinking against ignorance for the glory of man and his reason. That is why the "Eulogy of Stupidity" did not need an additional "palynode" such as "Praise to Reason" [It is curious the title of one French translation of the "Word", published in 1715: "Eulogy of Stupidity" - a work that truly represents how a person from -for stupidity lost his appearance, and in a pleasant way shows how to regain common sense and reason "].
The satirical image of the "wise man" runs through the entire first "philosophical" part of the speech, and the features of this antipode of Stupidity shade the main idea of Erasmus. Repulsive and wild appearance, hairy skin, dense beard, appearance of premature old age (ch. XVII). Strict, big-eyed, keen on the vices of friends, cloudy in friendship, unpleasant (Chapter XIX). At the feast, he is sullenly silent and confuses everyone with inappropriate questions. With its very appearance, it spoils all the pleasure of the public. If he intervenes in the conversation, he will scare the interlocutor no worse than a wolf. Geli needs to buy or do something - this is a stupid blockhead, because he does not know the customs. In discord with life, hatred for everything around him is born (ch. XXV). The enemy of all natural feelings, a kind of marble likeness of a man, devoid of all human properties. Not that monster, not that ghost, knowing neither love nor pity, like a cold stone. Supposedly nothing escapes him, he never errs, he carefully weighs everything, he knows everything, he is always pleased with himself; he alone is free, he is everything, but only in his own thoughts. Everything that happens in life, he condemns, seeing madness in everything. He does not grieve for a friend, for he himself is not a friend to anyone. Here he is, this perfect sage! Who does not prefer to him the last fool of the common people (chap. XXX), etc.
This is a complete image of a scholastic, a medieval armchair scientist, disguised - according to the literary tradition of this speech - as an ancient stoic sage. This is a rational pedant, rigorist and ascetic, the principle enemy of human nature. But from the point of view of living life, his bookish dilapidated wisdom is rather absolute stupidity.
All the variety of concrete human interests cannot be reduced to knowledge alone, and even more so to abstract, bookish knowledge divorced from life. Passions, desires, deeds, aspirations, above all the pursuit of happiness, as the basis of life, are more primary than reason, and if reason opposes itself to life, then its formal antipode - stupidity - coincides with every beginning of life. Erasmus Morya is therefore life itself. It is synonymous with true wisdom, which does not separate itself from life, while scholastic "wisdom" is the offspring of genuine stupidity.
Morya's speech in the first part is apparently built on the sophistical substitution of abstract negation for a concrete positive opposite. Passion is not reason, desire is not reason, happiness is not that reason, therefore, all this is something unreasonable, that is, Stupidity (according to the technique "not white, therefore black"). Morya here parodies the sophistry of scholastic argumentation. Stupidity, believing a "stupid chump", "a kind of marble likeness of a man", that he is a true sage, and all human life is nothing but the amusement of Stupidity (Chapter XXVII), falls into the vicious circle of the well-known sophism about a Cretan who claimed that all the inhabitants of Crete are liars. In 100 years, this situation will be repeated in the first scene of Shakespeare's "Macbeth", where the witches cry out: "The beautiful is vile, the vile is beautiful" (the tragic aspect of the same idea of Erasmus about the passions that reign over man). Confidence in pessimistic "wisdom" is undermined here and there by the very rank of these procurators of human life. In order to break out of the vicious circle, one must discard the original thesis, where "wisdom" opposes itself to "irrational" life.
The Moria of the first part is Nature itself, which does not need to prove its case by "crocodiles, sorites, horned syllogisms" and other "dialectical intricacies" (ch. XIX). Not to the categories of logic, but to desire, people owe their birth - the desire to "make children" (ch. XI). desire to be happy people owe love, friendship, peace in the family and society. The militant, gloomy "wisdom" that the eloquent Morya puts to shame is the pseudo-rationalism of medieval scholasticism, where reason, put at the service of faith, pedantically developed the most complex system of regulation and norms of behavior. The ascetic mind of the decrepit Middle Ages, the senile debilitating wisdom of the guardians of life, the venerable doctors of theology, is opposed by Moria - a new principle of Nature, put forward by the humanism of the Renaissance. This principle reflected the surge of vitality in European society at the birth of a new bourgeois era.
The cheerful philosophy of Morya's speech often evokes early Renaissance short stories, the comic situations of which are, as it were, generalized in the maxims of Stupidity. But even closer to Erasmus (especially in its tone) is the novel by Rabelais. And just as in "Gargantua and Pantagruel" "wine" and "knowledge", physical and spiritual, are inseparable, like two sides of the same thing, so in Erasmus, pleasure and wisdom go hand in hand. The praise of Stupidity is the praise of the intelligence of life. The sensual beginning of nature and wisdom do not oppose each other in the integral humanistic thought of the Renaissance. The spontaneous-materialistic sense of life is already overcoming the Christian ascetic dualism of scholasticism. But, far from a complete systematization, it has not yet arrived at that one-sided rational and abstract understanding of life, which rejects free and bright colors, which Marx and Engels speak of, characterizing the materialism of the 17th century in the person of Hobbes as "hostile to man" [Marx and Engels , Works, Second edition, vol. 2, M ... 1955, p. 143].
On the contrary, Morya Erasmus - the substance of life in the first part of the speech - is favorable for happiness, indulgent and "on all mortals equally pours out its blessings." She, like the matter of Bacon, "smiles with her poetic sensual brilliance to the whole person" [Ibid.].
Just as in Bacon's philosophy "feelings are infallible and constitute the source of all knowledge," and true wisdom limits itself to "the application of the rational method to sensory data," so in Erasmus, feelings, the offspring of Morya, are passion and excitement (what Bacon calls the "striving "," vital spirit ") direct, serve as a whip and spurs of valor and impel a person to every good deed (ch. XXX).
Morya, as "the amazing wisdom of nature" (ch. XXII), This is the trust of life in itself, the opposite of the lifeless wisdom of the scholastics, who impose their prescriptions on life. Therefore, no state adopted the laws of Plato, and only natural interests (for example, the thirst for fame) formed public institutions. Stupidity creates the state, maintains power, religion, administration and court (ch. XXVII). Life at its core is not the simplicity of a geometric line, but the play of conflicting strivings. This is a theater where passions act and everyone plays his part, and a quarrelsome sage who demands that a comedy should not be a comedy is a madman who forgets the basic law of the feast: "Either drink or get out" (ch. XXIX). The pathos of Erasmus' thought, which liberates and protects the young shoots of life from the interference of "unsolicited wisdom," reveals the confidence in free development characteristic of Renaissance humanism, akin to the ideal of life in the Thelemic monastery at Rabelais with its motto "Do whatever you want." The idea of Erasmus, connected with the beginning of the era of bourgeois society, is still far from the later (XVII century) idealization of unlimited political power as the governing and regulating center of social life. And Erasmus himself kept away from the "magnificent insignificance of the courts" (as he puts it in one of his letters), and the position of "royal adviser", which Emperor Charles V granted him, was nothing more than an honorable and profitable sinecure. And it is not for nothing that Erasmus from Rotterdam, a burgher by origin, having achieved European fame, rejects the flattering invitations of the monarchs of Europe, preferring an independent life in the "free city" of Basel or in the Dutch cultural center of Louvain. The traditions of independence, which the cities of his native country uphold, are undoubtedly nourished to a certain extent by the views of Erasmus. The philosophy of his Morya is rooted in the historical setting of absolutism that has not yet won.
This philosophy is permeated by a spontaneous dialectic of thought, in which the objective dialectic of the historical upheaval in all spheres of culture makes itself felt. All beginnings are turned upside down and reveal their inside out: “Every thing has two faces ... and these faces are by no means similar to one another. Outside, it’s like death, but look inside - you will see life, and vice versa, death is hidden under life, under beauty - disgrace, under abundance - miserable poverty, under shame - glory, under learning - ignorance, under power - squalor, under nobility - baseness, under fun - sadness, under prosperity - failure, under friendship - enmity, under benefit - harm "(ch. .xxix). The official reputation and the true face, appearance and essence of everything in the world are opposite. Morya of nature actually turns out to be the true mind of life, and the abstract mind of the official "wise men" is recklessness, sheer madness. Morya is wisdom, and official "wisdom" is the worst form of Morya, genuine stupidity. Feelings, which, according to philosophers, deceive us, lead to reason, practice, and not scholastic writings, to knowledge, passion, and not stoic dispassion, to valor. In general, stupidity leads to wisdom (ch. XXX). Already from the title and from the initiation, where "so far in essence" Morya and Thomas More are brought together, Stupidity and humanistic wisdom, the whole paradox of the "Eulogy" is rooted in a dialectical view, according to which all things are contradictory in themselves and "have two faces" . Erasmus' philosophical humor owes all its charm to this living dialectic.
Life does not tolerate any one-sidedness. Therefore, the rational "sage"-doctor, scholastic, scholastic, who longs to adjust everything to paper norms and everywhere sticks around with the same standard, there is no place either at a feast, or in a love conversation, or behind the counter. Fun, enjoyment, the practice of worldly affairs have their own special laws, its criteria are not suitable there. All that remains for him is suicide (ch. XXXI). The one-sidedness of an abstract principle kills all living things, because it cannot be reconciled with the diversity of life.
Therefore, the pathos of the work of Erasmus is directed primarily against the rigorism of external formal prescriptions, against the doctrinairism of the wise men. The entire first part of the speech is built on the contrast of the living tree of life and happiness and the dry tree of abstract knowledge. These irreconcilable omniscient Stoics (read: scholastics, theologians, spiritual "fathers of the people"), these blockheads are ready to adjust everything to the general norms, to take away all joys from a person. But every truth is concrete. Everything has its place and time. This stoic will have to put aside his gloomy importance, submit to sweet madness, if he wants to become a father (ch. XI). Judgment and experience befit maturity, but not childhood. "Who does not find a boy with the mind of a grown man disgusting and a monster?" Carelessness, carelessness, people owe a happy old age (Chapter XIII). Games, jumps and all sorts of "tomfoolery" are the best seasoning for feasts: here they are in their place (ch. XVIII). And oblivion is just as beneficial for life as memory and experience (ch. XI). Condescension, tolerance for other people's shortcomings, and not big-eyed severity, is the basis of friendship, peace in the family and any connection in human society (ch. XIX, XX, X XI).
The practical side of this philosophy is a bright, broad outlook on life that rejects all forms of fanaticism. The ethics of Erasmus adjoins the eudemonistic teachings of antiquity, according to which the natural striving for the good is inherent in human nature itself, while the imposed "wisdom" is full of "disadvantages", joyless, pernicious, unsuitable either for activity or for happiness (ch. XXIV). Self-love (Philavtia) is like the sister of Stupidity, but can someone who hates himself love someone? Self-love has created all the arts. It is the stimulus of all joyful creativity, of all striving for the good (Chapter XXII). In the thought of Erasmus, here, as it were, the positions of La Rochefoucauld are outlined, who found in self-love the basis of all human behavior and all virtues. But Erasmus is far from the pessimistic conclusion of this 17th-century moralist and rather anticipates the materialistic ethics of the 18th century (for example, the teaching of Helvetius on the creative role of passions). Philautia in Erasmus is an instrument of "the amazing wisdom of nature", without self-esteem "not a single great deed can do", for, as Panurge in Rabelais claims, a person is worth as much as he values himself. Together with all humanists, Erasmus shares the belief in the free development of man, but he is especially close to simple common sense. He avoids excessive idealization of man, the fantasy of his overestimation as one-sidedness. Philautia also has "two faces". It is an incentive for development, but it is (where there are not enough gifts of nature) a source of complacency, and "what could be more stupid ... narcissism?"
But this - actually satirical - side of Erasmus' thought develops more in the second part of Morya's speech.
The second part of the "Eulogy" is dedicated to " various types and forms of Stupidity. But it is easy to see that here not only the subject changes imperceptibly, but also the meaning attached to the concept of "stupidity", the nature of laughter and its tendency. The very tone of the panegyric also changes dramatically. Stupidity forgets its role, and instead in order to praise herself and her servants, she begins to resent the servants of Morya, expose and scourge.Humor turns into satire.
The subject of the first part is "universal" states:
different ages of human life, manifold and eternal sources of enjoyment and activity rooted in human nature. Moria here therefore coincided with nature itself and was only conditional Stupidity - stupidity from the point of view of abstract reason. But everything has its measure, and the one-sided development of passions, like dry wisdom, turns into its opposite. Already chapter XXXV, which glorifies the happy state of animals that know no training and obey one nature, is ambiguous. Does this mean that a person should not strive to "push the boundaries of his lot", that he should become like animals? Doesn't this contradict Nature, which endowed him with intellect? Therefore, fools, jesters, fools and feeble-minded, though happy, still will not convince us to follow the bestial folly of their existence (ch. XXXV). "Praise of Stupidity" imperceptibly shifts from a panegyric to nature to a satire on the ignorance, backwardness and rigidity of society.
In the first part of the speech, Morya, as the wisdom of nature, guaranteed a variety of interests and all-round development of life. There she corresponded to the humanistic ideal of the "universal" man. But the insane one-sided Stupidity creates permanent frozen forms and types: a class of well-born raccoons who boast of the nobility of origin (ch. XLII), or merchant-accumulators - a breed of all stupider and more vile (ch. in the war, mediocre actors and singers, orators and poets, grammarians and jurists. Philautia, the sister of Stupidity, now shows her other face. It gives rise to the self-satisfaction of various cities and peoples, the vanity of stupid chauvinism (ch. XLIII). Happiness is deprived of its objective foundation in nature, now it is entirely "depending on our opinion about things ... and rests on deceit or self-deception" (ch. XLV). Like a mania, Stupidity is already subjective, and everyone goes crazy in his own way, finding his happiness in this. The imaginary "stupidity" of nature, Morya was the link of every human society. Now Morya, as a genuine stupidity of prejudice, on the contrary, corrupts society.
The general philosophical humor of the panegyric of Stupidity is therefore replaced by a social critique of contemporary morals and institutions. The theoretical and seemingly joking polemic with the ancient Stoics, proving, not without tricks of sophistical wit, the "disadvantage" of wisdom, gives way to colorful and caustic everyday sketches and poisonous characteristics of the "unprofitable" forms of modern stupidity. Subsequently, many of the satirical motifs of Stupidity's speech will be dramatized in dialogues and a kind of small comedy, combined in "Home Talks" [The dialogues "Shipwreck", "Careless Vow" and "Pilgrimage" ridicule pilgrims and the custom of making vows to saints; "Knight without a horse" - the arrogance of the nobles; "Glorious craft" - condottiere; "Conversation of an abbot and an educated woman" - the obscurantism of the monks; "Funeral" - their extortion and competition of orders, etc.].
The universal satire of Erasmus here spares not a single title in the human race. Stupidity reigns among the people, as well as in court circles, where kings and nobles do not find even half an ounce of common sense (ch. LV). Independence of the positions of Erasmus, folk satire reaches its greatest sharpness in the chapters on philosophers and theologians, monks and monks, bishops, cardinals and high priests (ch. LII-LX), especially in the colorful characteristics of theologians and monks, the main opponents of Erasmus throughout his entire activity . Great courage was needed to show the world the "stinking swamp" of theologians and the vile vices of monastic orders in all their glory! Pope Alexander VI, Erasmus later recalled, once remarked that he would rather offend the most powerful monarch than offend this mendicant brethren who dominated the minds of an ignorant crowd. II the monks could never truly forgive the writer of these pages of "The Praise of Stupidity". The monks were the main instigators of the persecution against Erasmus and his works. They eventually achieved the inclusion of a large part of the literary heritage of Erasmus in the index of books forbidden by the church, and his French translator Berken - despite the patronage of the king! - ended his life at the stake (in 1529). A popular proverb among the Spaniards was: "Whoever says bad things about Erasmus is either a monk or an ass."
Morya's speech in these chapters is in places unrecognizable in tone. Place of Democritus, with a laugh "observing everyday life mortals," is occupied by the already indignant Juvenal, who "turns up the sewer of secret vices" - and this is contrary to the original intention "to parade the ridiculous, not the vile" [See Erasmus' preface]. When Christ, through the mouth of Morya, rejects this new breed of Pharisees, declaring, that it does not recognize their laws, for at the time it promised bliss not for hoods, not for prayers, not for fasting, but only for works of mercy, and therefore the common people, sailors and carters, are more pleasing to him than monks (ch. LIV) - pathos speech already heralds the intensity of the passions of Luther's period.
From the former playfulness of Moria, benevolent to mortals, there is no trace left. The conditional mask of Stupidity falls off the speaker's face, and Erasmus speaks directly in his own name, as "John the Baptist of the Reformation" (in the words of the French skeptic philosopher of the late 17th century P. Bayle). What is new in the anti-monastic satire of Erasmus is not the exposure of gluttony, swindle and hypocrisy of monks - these features have been consistently endowed with them for three centuries by the authors of medieval stories or humanistic short stories (recall, for example, Boccaccio's "Decameron" of the mid-14th century). But there they figured as clever rogues, taking advantage of the stupidity of believers. Human nature, contrary to dignity, makes itself felt in their behavior. Therefore, they are funny in Boccaccio and other novelists, and stories about their tricks feed only healthy skepticism. In Erasmus, the monks are vicious, vile, and have already "brought upon themselves unanimous hatred" (ch. LIV). Behind the satire of Erasmus, one feels a different historical and national soil than that of Boccaccio. The conditions are ripe for radical change and there is a need for a positive program of action. Morya, the protector of nature, in the first part of the speech was in unity with the object of her humor. In the second part, Morya, as reason, is separated from the object of laughter. The contradiction becomes antagonistic and intolerable. One senses the atmosphere of the overdue reformation.
This change of tone and new accents of the second half of the "Eulogy" are thus connected with the peculiarities of the "Northern Renaissance" and with the imminent upheaval of the foundations of the hitherto monolithic Catholic Church. In the German countries, the question of church reform became the knot of all political and cultural life. All the great events of the century were connected with the Reformation here: the peasant war in Germany, the Anabaptist movements, the Dutch revolution. But Luther's movement in Germany assumed an increasingly one-sided character: a purely religious struggle, religious questions on long years obscured the broader tasks of transforming social life and culture. After the suppression of the peasant revolution, the reformation reveals ever greater narrowness and, no less than the Catholic counter-reformation, intolerance for free thought, for reason, which Luther declared "the harlot of the devil." "The sciences died wherever Lutheranism was established," Erasmus notes in 1530.
An old engraving of the 16th century has survived, depicting Luther and Hutten carrying the ark of religious schism, and in front of them Erasmus, dancing the opening procession. It correctly defines the role of Erasmus in the preparation of Luther's case. Popular expression, launched by the Cologne theologians, read:
"Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched." But Erasmus later remarked that he renounced "chickens of a similar breed."
The Praise of Stupidity thus stands at the end of the undifferentiated stage of the Renaissance and on the threshold of the Reformation.
Erasmus' satire ends with a very bold conclusion. After Stupidity has proved its power over humanity and over "all classes and states" of modernity, it invades the holy of holies of the Christian world and identifies itself with the very spirit of the religion of Christ, and not only with the church, as an institution where its power has already been proven earlier: the Christian faith is akin to Stupidity, for the highest reward for people is a kind of madness (ch. LXVI-LXVII), namely, the happiness of ecstatic merging with the deity.
What is the meaning of this climactic "code" of Morya's eulogy? It clearly differs from the previous chapters, where Stupidity uses all the evidence of the ancients and the abyss of quotations from the Holy Scriptures to its advantage, interpreting them at random and at random and sometimes not shying away from the cheapest sophisms. Those chapters clearly parody the scholasticism of "the crafty interpreters of the words of the Holy Scriptures" and they are directly adjacent to the section on theologians and monks. On the contrary, there are almost no quotations in the final chapters, the tone here, apparently, is quite serious and the developed provisions are sustained in the spirit of orthodox piety, we seem to return to the positive tone and the glorification of the "foolishness" of the first part of the speech. But the irony of the "divine Morya" is perhaps more subtle than the satire of Morya-Raeum and the humor of Morya-Nature. No wonder it confuses the latest researchers of Erasmus, who see here a real glorification of mysticism.
Closer to the truth are those unprejudiced readers who saw in these chapters "too free" and even "blasphemous spirit." There is no doubt that the author of the "Eulogy" was not an atheist, as he was accused by the fanatics of both camps of Christianity. Subjectively, he was more of a pious believer. Subsequently, he even expressed regret that he ended his satire with too subtle and ambiguous irony, directed against theologians as crafty interpreters. But, as Heine said about Cervantes' Don Quixote, the pen of a genius is wiser than the genius itself and carries him beyond the limits set by him of his own thought. Erasmus argued that the Eulogy expounded the same doctrine as the earlier edifying Manual of the Christian Soldier. However, the ideological leader of the Counter-Reformation, the founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius Loyola, not without reason complained that reading this manual in his youth weakened his religious zeal and cooled the ardor of his faith. And Luther, on the other hand, had the right, if only on the basis of these concluding chapters, not to trust the piety of Erasmus, whom he called V
"Eulogy" was a huge success among contemporaries. The two editions of 1511 required three editions of 1512—in Strasbourg, Antwerp, and Paris. Within a few years it sold twenty thousand copies - an unheard-of success for that time and for a book written in Latin.
More than any other work on the eve of the Resurrection, the "Eulogy" spread in wide circles contempt for theologians and monks and indignation at the state of the church. But Erasmus did not justify the hopes of Luther's supporters, although he himself, of course, stood for practical reforms that were supposed to revive and strengthen Christianity. His humanistic skepticism in matters of religious dogma, his defense of tolerance and indulgence, his Lucianian irreverence for dealing with sacred objects, left too much room - even from the point of view of Protestant theology - for free exploration and was dangerous to the church both new and old. The opponents of Erasmus called him "modern Proteus" not without reason. Subsequently, Catholic and Protestant theologians tried - each in their own way - to prove the orthodoxy of his ideas, but history has deciphered the ideas of the author of the "Eulogy" in a spirit that takes them beyond the boundaries of any religion.
Posterity cannot reproach Erasmus for not joining any of the contending religious parties. His insight and common sense helped him to unravel the obscurantism of both camps. But instead of rising above both one-sidednesses of religious fanaticism and using his enormous influence on his contemporaries to expose the "papomen" as well as the "papefigs" (like Rabelais, Deperier and other free-thinkers) and to deepen the liberation struggle, Erasmus took a neutral position between the parties, acting in the unfortunate role of conciliator of irreconcilable camps. Thus he evaded a decisive answer to the religious and social questions posed by history. Peace and tranquility seemed to him dearest of all. “I hate clashes,” he wrote around 1522, “and to such an extent that if a fight breaks out, I would rather leave the party of truth than curl.” But the course of history has shown that this peace was no longer possible and the cataclysm was inevitable. The “head of the European republic of scientists” did not have the nature of a fighter and that integrity that marks the type of a Renaissance man, which is embodied in the noble image of his friend T. More, who laid down his head on the scaffold in the struggle for his beliefs (for which Erasmus blamed him!). The overestimation of the peaceful dissemination of knowledge and the hopes that Erasmus placed on reforms from above were his limitations, which proved that he could only lead the movement at a peaceful, preparatory stage. All of his subsequent most significant works (the publication of the "New Testament", "Christian Sovereign", "Home Conversations") fall on the second decade of the 16th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, at the height of the religious and social struggle, his work no longer had its former strength, its influence on the minds noticeably decreases.
The positions of Erasmus in the last period of his life, therefore, turned out to be much lower than the pathos of his immortal satire. Rather, he drew a “convenient” conclusion from his philosophy: a sage, observing the “comedy of life”, should not “be wiser than a mortal”, and it is better to “politely err along with the crowd” than to be a madman and violate it. laws, risking peace, if not life itself (ch. XXIX. He avoided "one-sided" interference, not wanting to take part in the feuds of "fools" fanatics. But the "all-round" wisdom of this observational position is a synonym for its limited one-sidedness, for what can there be a one-sided point of view that excludes action from life, that is, participation in life? Erasmus found himself in the position of the impassive Stoic sage, arrogant in relation to all living interests, ridiculed by himself in the first part of Morya's speech. stories "with a red banner in their hands and with the demand for the community of property on their lips" (Engels) [Marx and Engels, Works, vol. XIV, M.-L. 1931, p. 475] and were during this period the highest expression of social "passions" of the era and those principles of "nature" and "reason", which Erasmus defended with such courage in "Praise of Stupidity", and his friend T. More in "Utopia". It was a real struggle of the masses for "comprehensive development", for the human right to the joys of life, against the norms and prejudices of the medieval kingdom of Stupidity.
However, between the humanists (even such as T.Mor) and the popular movements of the era, ideologically consonant with them, there was practically a whole abyss. Even as direct defenders of popular interests, the humanists rarely connected their fate with the "plebeian-Muntzer" opposition, not trusting the "unenlightened" masses and pinning their hopes on reforms from above, although it was in this opposition that the elemental wisdom of history acted. Therefore, the narrowness of their position manifested itself precisely at the moment of the highest upsurge of the revolutionary wave. Erasmus, for example, censured Luther for his calls to "beat, strangle, stab" the rebellious peasants "like mad dogs." He approved of the attempt of the Basel bourgeoisie to act as an arbiter between princes and peasants. But his peaceful humanism did not go further than this.
Regardless of Erasmus' personal positions, his ideas historically did their job. "Erasmism", as the "Arian" and "Pelagian" heresy, was persecuted in the era of the counter-reformation, but its influence is also found in the skepticism of Montaigne's "Experiments" and in the work of Shakespeare, Ben-Johnson and Cervantes. It is carefully read by French freethinkers of the 17th century up to P. Bayle (who lived the last period of his life in Erasmus' native city of Rotterdam), the author of an article about Erasmus and his follower in a rationalistic approach to theological texts. This Erasmusian tradition leads to the French and English enlighteners of the 18th century, as well as to Lessing, Herder and Pestalozzi. One develops the critical principle of his theology, others develop his pedagogical ideas, his social satire or ethics.
The Enlighteners of the 18th century used the main tool of Erasmus, the printed word, with a new, unprecedented force. Only in the 18th century did the seeds of Erasmism sprout richly, and its doubt directed against dogma and inertia, its defense of "nature" and "reason" flourish in the cheerful free-thinking of the Enlightenment.
"Praise of Stupidity" by Erasmus, "Utopia" by T. More and the novel by Rabelais are the three peaks of the thought of European Renaissance humanism during its heyday.
Modern obscurantism evokes the shadows of the past from the graves. The "semantic trend" and neo-Thomism that are fashionable in our time are trying to revive the dispute between medieval nominalism and realism, which degenerated already in the 16th century into the struggle of the "Scotists" with the "darkness" over which Erasmus mocks. One might think that the reaction intends to establish some "law of conservation of stupidity." Against the backdrop of modernized scholasticism and militant obscurantism of every kind, the satire of Erasmus retains the power of an old, but well-aimed weapon.
"Praise of Stupidity" is a satirical work by Erasmus of Rotterdam, in which the main character - Stupidity itself convincingly proves that without her presence human life would be impossible, and if possible, it would be infinitely boring and meaningless.
“Only my divine presence amuses gods and people,” she declares, confirming this with an example: great rhetoricians can force listeners to “shake off heavy worries from their souls” as much as they like with their long, deliberate speeches, but Stupidity has only to go on stage, as all at once faces shine, jubilant laughter is heard, everyone leans forward.
Stupidity speaks of itself - there is no pretense in me, "I do not try to depict on my forehead what I do not have in my heart", "I am unchanged everywhere, so those who try to appropriate the title of wisdom cannot hide me."
From the story of Madame Stupidity, we also learn about her birth: her parent was Plutos (the god of wealth), she was raised by two lovely nymphs: Mete (intoxication) and Apedia (ill manners). In her retinue - flattery, oblivion, laziness, pleasure, madness, gluttony, revelry and deep sleep, which help her to endow people and gods with "her divine power". Moreover, Stupidity never skimps on "gifts". So "why should I not be called alpha in the alphabet of the gods, since I am the most generous of all?" she asks.
Stupidity is present in all spheres of our life. So, for example, she says, "What husband would agree to put on the bridle of marriage" or "What wife would admit her husband" if not Stupidity? She says about men: they were given reason and mind, that's where their repulsive appearance, beard, hairy skin came from. Women are stupid, but they are distinguished by a thin voice, delicate skin, plump cheeks. With all their appearance, they imitate youth. It is thanks to the gifts of stupidity that they are incomparably happier than men.
But, for example, do you know why people are so drawn to children? Stupidity replies: "Infants are shrouded in an attractive veil of stupidity, which, bewitching parents and educators, gives babies love and care." And in general - "the less the boy is clever by my grace, the more pleasant he is to everyone and everyone", "Haven't you noticed that people, growing up and gaining intelligence and experience, lose their attractiveness, agility, beauty and strength?" she adds.
And Stupidity helped the old people, making them look like children. They say that the old people have survived and mind and are talking nonsense. "All the better!" - Stupidity is recognized.
Comparing wise men and stupid ones, the narrator, of course, prefers the latter: “Look at these skinny gloomy people who indulge in difficult, boring activities? They grew old before they could become young men. And my fools, on the contrary, are smooth, white. skin, do not experience the hardships of life and old age.
No god is complete without the assistance of stupidity. Here, for example, is the drunken Bacchus. Why do you think he is always curly and young? Because he was a reveler and a drunkard, spending his whole life in feasts, dancing, fun, - Stupidity answers.
And here is what she says about friendship: “I will prove to you that it is I who am the stern and prow of the ship, delivering this great blessing. Is it not stupidity that in friendship you have to indulge the weaknesses of your friends, turn a blind eye to their shortcomings, admire them vices?" she argues. As already mentioned, what has been said about friendship is even more applicable to marriage. It is thanks to flattery, carelessness, stupidity that the wife still loves her husband, the husband is kind to his wife, and there is peace and order in the family.
And in general, no great deed is complete without suggestion of stupidity. Take, for example, war. What could be more foolish than to enter into a contest, during which each of the parties necessarily experiences much more inconvenience than gain. But the truth is - how correct these words are.
And what does Stupidity advise a sage to do? To this the answer is given: "I will advise him to flee to the desert and there, in solitude, enjoy his wisdom!" The truly prudent is the one who does not strive to be wiser than a mortal, who condescendingly shares the shortcomings of the crowd and politely errs along with it. That is what it means to play the comedy of life.
Summing up, it is worth saying that "Praise of Stupidity" is a satirical work in which it is proved that everything in a person's life happens due to the actions of Stupidity. The author makes fun of human vices, weaknesses. I liked the work both in terms of style and content.
“Praise of Stupidity” (or “Eulogy of Stupidity”; “Moriae Encomium, sive Stultitiae Laus”) is one of the central works of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469 - 1536) - the Dutch Renaissance humanist. The first publication of this work was carried out in 1511, and in total about 40 lifetime editions were issued. This is the only book by Erasmus, which still finds readers in our time. The Praise of Stupidity owes much of its existence to Erasmus' long journey through Europe. The idea for the book originated with him in 1509, when he crossed the Alps on his way from Italy to England. The book was written in a short time in London, in the home of Thomas More, to whom it was dedicated with a playful hint of similarity, for "moros" means "fool" in Latin. The work is written in the genre of ironic panegyric, which combines two features characteristic of the literary appearance of the Renaissance: an appeal to pathos ancient aesthetics and criticism of contemporary morals and social order in general. To achieve his goal, he uses the artistic image of stupidity common in that era (here it is worth recalling the folk “festivals of fools” and the carnival nature of the Middle Ages). The forerunners of Erasmus' work were Sebastian Brandt's satire "Ship of Fools" (late 15th century), which classifies human stupidity, and folk tale about Til Ulenspiegel, a little fool who has become the object of ridicule of others. Erasmus modified the meaning of these works and personified stupidity, putting a new meaning into this human quality. The book is a monologue of Stupidity; choking with delight, she sings praises to herself, and Holbein's illustrations enliven her speech even more. "Praise of Stupidity" consists of several parts: in the first part, Stupidity is presented and substantiates its inalienable involvement in human nature. The second part describes the various types of Stupidity, and the last part speaks of bliss, which is also in a sense stupidity. Erasmus in a caustic form gives praise to the lady of Stupidity, who reigns supreme in the world, whom all people worship. Here his qualities as a satirical writer are brilliantly demonstrated; he allows himself to mock both illiterate peasants and highbrow theologians. From the whole work, much can be learned about his philosophical sympathies and beliefs.
In the first part, Erasmus, with the words of Stupidity, proves the power of the latter over all life: “But not only did you find in me a hotbed and source of all life: everything that is pleasant in life is also my gift ... Search the whole sky, and let my name will be covered with shame if you find at least one decent and pleasant God who would do without my assistance? Against the background of the description of the contemporary "sage" of Erasmus, the medieval scholastic, who appears to be a hairy old man with a dense beard, prematurely dilapidated, sternly judging everyone and everything, Stupidity looks very attractive. This “bookworm”, a rigorist and ascetic, an opponent of everything alive and living, is the antipode of Stupidity, and in reality it turns out that the real stupidity is rather himself. According to Erasmus, “nature laughs down on all their conjectures, and there is nothing reliable in their science. The best proof of this is their endless disputes with each other. Knowing nothing in reality, they imagine that they have known everything and everything, and meanwhile they are not even able to know themselves, and often due to short-sightedness or absent-mindedness do not notice the pits and stones under their feet. This, however, does not prevent them from declaring that they, they say, contemplate ideas, universals, forms separated from things, the primary continent), essences, singularities, and similar objects. Here Erasmus promotes the idea that the human mind is not the whole person. If reason opposes itself to life (as happens in the case of scholastic theorizing), then it is the destroyer of life and prevents a person from striving for happiness and joy. The sphere of sensuality associated with the whole body of a person is much wider and more complex than the sphere of his mind, concentrated in his head. Because of this, people are forced to "play the comedy of life", playing a variety of roles. The power of sensibility is irresistible, and it is senseless to imagine the possibility of morality completely liberated from it, as supporters of official piety often hypocritically assert this. The "stupidity" of Erasmus opposes medieval rationalism and represents a new principle of life put forward by humanism: a person with his experiences, feelings, passions - this is a topic worthy of consideration. All people have the right to life and all are equal in this right.
Having laid the theoretical foundation for his reasoning, in the second part Erasmus moves on to more specific questions: "various types and forms" of stupidity. Since "most people are stupid, and everyone fools around in their own way," it turns out that "in human society, everything is full of stupidity, everything is done by fools and among fools." Conditional Stupidity begins to resent real stupidity. The author imperceptibly moves from a panegyric of life to a satire on the ignorance and rigidity of society. Erasmus resorts to everyday sketches. It concerns the life of all social strata, leaving neither simple, nor noble, nor educated, nor unlearned people without attention. The whim of Stupidity, whose faces are countless, and perhaps the most striking manifestation of Stupidity is human complacency (filautia). Stupidity guides people of all classes and strata, all nations, because Stupidity is also rich in collective manifestations. The saddest of them is the war. In his works, Erasmus repeatedly emphasized that it can be attractive only to those who have not experienced it. And in Praise of Stupidity, he even wrote that war is usually waged by all sorts of scum of society. Erasmus ridicules national pride and professional vanity: almost all men of the arts and sciences are extremely vain and derive their happiness from their vanity.
In a number of places, satire gives way to denunciation, and the speeches of Stupidity express the innermost thoughts of Erasmus himself; these passages deal with ecclesiastical abuses. absolutions and indulgences, in which the priests "measure the duration of the stay of the souls of all people in purgatory"; veneration of the saints and the Mother of God, “whom the common people honor even more than her Son”; strife among theologians about the Trinity and the Incarnation; doctrine of transubstantiation, scholastic sects; popes, cardinals, and bishops are all the butt of Erasmus' malicious ridicule. Monastic orders are especially viciously attacked: they are a bunch of "crazy idiots" who are far from any piety, "and meanwhile they themselves are quite satisfied with themselves." They act as if religion consisted of nothing but petty pro forma: “How many knots must a monk wear on his shoe, what color should his belt be, what outward signs his clothes should be different, what fabric should be sewn from, how wide the belt should be, ”and so on. It would not be difficult to hear what they would say before the Judgment Seat of Christ. “Then one will expose his belly, swollen with fish of all kinds. Another will throw out a hundred measures of psalms ... Another will boast that for fifty years in a row he touched money only by wrapping his fingers with a double glove beforehand. But Christ interrupts them: “Where does this new breed of Jews come from? I recognize only one law as mine, and I still don’t hear anything about it. ” [“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees... I bequeathed to you only one commandment - to love one another, and I still don’t hear anything about it.”] However, on earth these people inspire fear, because thanks to confession they know a lot secrets and often blurt them out when drunk. Dads are not spared either. The high priests should have imitated their Lord in humility and poverty. “They put their trust in weapons and in those sweet words that the Apostle Paul mentions and which the popes never spared in their mercy, namely, interdicts, the release of subjects from the oath, repeated excommunications, anathemas, pictures depicting devils and, finally, to those formidable lightning bolts, with the help of which the souls of mortals fall into the very depths of Tartarus. The Holy Fathers strike with these lightning bolts those who, taught by the devil, are trying to belittle or plunder the property of St. Peter." Such passages suggest that Erasmus should have welcomed the Reformation, but in reality he took the opposite position.
Having sharply ridiculed their vices, Erasmus proceeds to the final part of his "eulogy" and draws a rather bold conclusion in it. Stupidity, having proved its power over all mankind, identifies itself with true Christianity itself, not with the Church. According to Stupidity, "the reward promised to the righteous is nothing but a kind of insanity." “Among all sorts of fools, the most insane seem to be those who are inspired by Christian piety. They squander their possessions, pay no attention to insults, allow themselves to be deceived, do not know the difference between friends and enemies ... What is this if not insanity? And the culmination of the climax of "stupidity" is heavenly happiness, which, although it belongs to another, heavenly life, but which already here on earth can be tasted, at least for a short moment and only by a few. And now, waking up, they say that they themselves did not know where they were. One thing they know for sure: unconscious, mad, they were happy. Therefore, they mourn that they have again come to their senses, and desire nothing else but to suffer forever in this kind of madness. Stupidity, unconsciousness, madness (as a counterbalance to scholastic rationalism) is true bliss, the real meaning of life.
Throughout the book, Erasmus speaks of two kinds of Stupidity, one praised ironically and the other praised seriously; the kind of Stupidity that is seriously praised is revealed in Christian simplicity. This praise is in full accordance with the disgust that Erasmus has for scholastic philosophy and learned doctors. This praise is the first expression in literature of the view formulated by J.-J. Rousseau in The Vicar of Savoy, the view that true religion comes from the heart and not from the mind and, therefore, any complex theology is unnecessary. In the course of time this view has become more and more widespread, and is now accepted by almost all Protestants. In essence, it is a rejection of Hellenistic intellectualism in favor of the sentimentalism of the North.
In Praise of Stupidity, the humanistic views of Erasmus of Rotterdam were expressed. The sharp criticism of the contemporary social order and the dominant ideology led to cardinal conclusions about the rethinking of life values. Erasmus is regarded as an adherent of the secular path of development of modern Western European society. This work showed that Erasmus left the camp of Catholics, but did not join the camp of the reformers, because he did not consider it necessary to fundamentally reform the Roman Catholic Church in matters of dogma, believing that changes in the church should come from above. Such moderation of the position of Erasmus was due to the fact that the "Praise of Stupidity" in the 1520s - 1530s was losing its original popularity.
Desiderius Erasmus of RotterdamBorn October 28, 1469 in Gouda, a suburb of Rotterdam.
"Praise of Stupidity" is one of the central works of Erasmus of Rotterdam. The first publication of this work was carried out in 1511, and in total about 40 lifetime editions were issued.
The Praise of Stupidity owes much of its existence to Erasmus' long journey through Europe. The author wrote that it was created from nothing to do. The idea for the book originated with him in 1509, when he crossed the Alps on his way from Italy to England. The book was written in a short time in London, in the home of Thomas More, to whom it was dedicated with a playful hint of similarity, for "moros" means "fool" in Latin.
The work is written in an ironic genre. The book is a monologue of Stupidity; choking with delight, she sings her own praises. Erasmus in a caustic form gives praise to the lady of Stupidity, who reigns supreme in the world, whom all people worship.
In the first part, Erasmus, with the words of Stupidity, proves the power of the latter over all life: “But not only did you find in me a hotbed and source of all life: everything that is pleasant in life is also my gift. Search the whole sky, and let my name be covered with shame, if you find at least one decent and pleasant God who would do without my assistance? Against this background, the author describes a dense and boring sage who strictly judges everyone and everything. Stupidity looks very attractive compared to the sage. This "bookworm", the opponent of all living things, is the antipode of Stupidity, and in reality it turns out that the real stupidity is rather himself. It seems to me that the author does not directly compare wisdom and stupidity, praising one and belittling the dignity of the other. After all, the line between stupidity and wisdom is very relative. The age-old question “Who are the judges?” is very relevant here. After all, the attitude towards the same thing can be different. And the absolute truth, most likely, does not exist.
Having laid the theoretical foundation for his reasoning, in the second part Erasmus moves on to more specific questions: "various types and forms" of stupidity. Since "most people are stupid, and everyone fools around in their own way," it turns out that "in human society, everything is full of stupidity, everything is done by fools and among fools." I would add for fools too. Modern society, sometimes it seems created exclusively for fools. Erasmus writes that there is no difference between wise men and fools, or the position of fools is much more advantageous. And whether to be a fool or not, it seems to me the choice of each person. Fools have an easier life. But I don't want to be one.
Erasmus resorts to everyday sketches. It concerns the life of all social strata, leaving neither simple, nor noble, nor educated, nor unlearned people without attention. Stupidity guides people of all classes and strata, all nations, because Stupidity is also rich in collective manifestations. The saddest of them is the war. I fully agree with the author. War is the biggest stupidity in the world. After all, it brings so much grief and suffering. The author writes that the war is usually waged by all sorts of scum of society. After all, all people are born once, and how much more beautiful our planet would be if people would direct all their efforts to good deeds.
Not bypassed and Erasmus' satire of church abuse. Especially went to the monastic orders. Before the court of God, the priests all turn out to be worthless. They try to show off their accomplishments, but Christ interrupts them: “Where does this new breed of Jews come from? I recognize only one law as mine, and I still don’t hear anything about it. ” “I bequeathed to you only one commandment - to love one another, and I still don’t hear anything about it.”
In the final part of his work, the author makes the following conclusion. Stupidity, unconsciousness, madness - this is true bliss, the real meaning of life. "The happiest of all is he who is the craziest of all."
Erasmus himself looked at this work of his as a literary trinket, but he owes his literary celebrity and his place in history to this trinket, in any case, no less than to his multi-volume scientific works.
The European Union marked the importance of "Praise of Stupidity" by issuing commemorative coins in 2009 and 2011, timed to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the book's writing (1509) and its publication (1511).The 500th anniversary of the first edition of the book was celebrated under the auspices of UNESCO.
Erasmus of Rotterdam owns many aphorisms. Here are some that I liked the most:
To have many friends is to have none.
Humans are not born, but raised.
A habit can only be defeated by another habit.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is already king.
« Praisenonsense» ErasmusRotterdamthe firstonce waspublished in 1511, two years after it was written. Within a few months, the work was published seven times.Totalatlifeauthorshe iswasreissuedindifferentplacesnotless40 once. Publishedin1898 yeardirectorateuniversitylibrariesinBelgium,preliminaryand, Consequently, subjectaddendumlistpublicationsessaysErasmusRotterdamhasfor « Praisesnonsense» moretwo hundredpublications ( includingtranslations).
