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Against War
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66 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1907
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About the author
Erasmus
1,407 books452 followersDesiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian.
Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will, The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.
Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation, but while he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and Melanchthon and continued to recognise the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps.
Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant, and was buried in the Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city. A bronze statue of him was erected in his city of birth in 1622, replacing an earlier work in stone.
Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will, The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.
Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation, but while he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and Melanchthon and continued to recognise the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps.
Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant, and was buried in the Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city. A bronze statue of him was erected in his city of birth in 1622, replacing an earlier work in stone.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 22, 2025
War looks sweet only to those who have never tasted it. Erasmus turns this proverb, "Dulce bellum inexpertis," into a full-scale indictment of human folly, moral blindness, and theological hypocrisy. It is a sermon delivered by a man who has been forced to sit through too many parades of victory and too many pious speeches about "honor."
Nature, he says, gave horns to bulls, claws to lions, tusks to boars, and to man she gave nothing but soft skin and a voice fit for persuasion. A creature designed to embrace has somehow turned his arms into weapons. The human body, Erasmus observes, is an argument for peace written in flesh, though most men insist on reading it as a manual for mutual destruction.
From there he paints the scene of battle as a grotesque carnival: trumpets blare, blood fountains, brothers stab brothers, and the world’s most "reasonable" creature behaves worse than the beasts. Lions do not wage war on lions, he notes. Wolves, however nasty, rarely form committees to declare war on other wolves. Only man does this, and only man congratulates himself for it.
Having mocked the philosophers who dignify war with "natural law" and the theologians who excuse it with divine creeds, Erasmus shifts his fire to the princes. They are, he says, the least fit to wage war and the most eager to start it. They hire scholars to justify their murders and clerics to bless their banners. Lawyers and priests, instead of quenching the flames, act as cheerleaders at the bonfire. He accuses them of inflating petty quarrels into "holy" crusades so that kings may look virtuous while behaving like highwaymen.
Then he compares the calm garden of peace with the wasteland of war. In peace, the plow hums, the orchard blooms, the scholar studies, and the young marry. In war, the plowshare rusts, the orchard burns, the scholar starves, and the young rot in armor. Erasmus treats this not as poetry but as bookkeeping: peace yields profit, war yields deficit. His wit grows acid when he points out that even in victory, everyone loses.
He traces the origins of war to habit, greed, and pride. First men hunted beasts, then each other, and soon enough they found that killing could be turned into a profession. What began as self-defense became sport, then business, then theology. War, he suggests, was invented by fools and perfected by bureaucrats.
The heart of the work comes when he turns from satire to moral outrage. He calls it monstrous that Christians, whose founder forbade even anger, should spill each other's blood in Christ's name. He writes with incredulity that priests carry the cross into battle, transforming the symbol of mercy into an emblem of organized cruelty.
And yet he never entirely despairs. Erasmus imagines a world where princes rule with reason instead of vanity, where theologians bless peace instead of conquest, where man remembers that he was made to speak before he was made to strike. His closing plea for moderation and mercy, addressed to Pope Leo X, reads like the last hopeful sigh of humanism before the cannons of Europe answered it.
Against War begins with a proverb, rises to a thunderous argument, and ends with an exhausted prayer. It is one of the most intelligent tantrums ever written. Erasmus despises war on every possible level: physical, moral, theological, economic, and aesthetic. His loathing is absolute and somehow elegant.
War is not a tragic necessity but a collective lapse of reason. It degrades every institution that touches it. The philosopher becomes a flatterer, the priest becomes a propagandist, and the prince becomes a murderer in velvet. Peace, by contrast, is not passive or weak; it is the natural state of a creature made for language and learning.
It is an eloquent reminder that civilization's greatest invention may also be its favorite suicide note. The fact that his arguments remain relevant is not a compliment to Erasmus's foresight; it is an indictment of everyone who came after him.
Nature, he says, gave horns to bulls, claws to lions, tusks to boars, and to man she gave nothing but soft skin and a voice fit for persuasion. A creature designed to embrace has somehow turned his arms into weapons. The human body, Erasmus observes, is an argument for peace written in flesh, though most men insist on reading it as a manual for mutual destruction.
From there he paints the scene of battle as a grotesque carnival: trumpets blare, blood fountains, brothers stab brothers, and the world’s most "reasonable" creature behaves worse than the beasts. Lions do not wage war on lions, he notes. Wolves, however nasty, rarely form committees to declare war on other wolves. Only man does this, and only man congratulates himself for it.
Having mocked the philosophers who dignify war with "natural law" and the theologians who excuse it with divine creeds, Erasmus shifts his fire to the princes. They are, he says, the least fit to wage war and the most eager to start it. They hire scholars to justify their murders and clerics to bless their banners. Lawyers and priests, instead of quenching the flames, act as cheerleaders at the bonfire. He accuses them of inflating petty quarrels into "holy" crusades so that kings may look virtuous while behaving like highwaymen.
Then he compares the calm garden of peace with the wasteland of war. In peace, the plow hums, the orchard blooms, the scholar studies, and the young marry. In war, the plowshare rusts, the orchard burns, the scholar starves, and the young rot in armor. Erasmus treats this not as poetry but as bookkeeping: peace yields profit, war yields deficit. His wit grows acid when he points out that even in victory, everyone loses.
He traces the origins of war to habit, greed, and pride. First men hunted beasts, then each other, and soon enough they found that killing could be turned into a profession. What began as self-defense became sport, then business, then theology. War, he suggests, was invented by fools and perfected by bureaucrats.
The heart of the work comes when he turns from satire to moral outrage. He calls it monstrous that Christians, whose founder forbade even anger, should spill each other's blood in Christ's name. He writes with incredulity that priests carry the cross into battle, transforming the symbol of mercy into an emblem of organized cruelty.
And yet he never entirely despairs. Erasmus imagines a world where princes rule with reason instead of vanity, where theologians bless peace instead of conquest, where man remembers that he was made to speak before he was made to strike. His closing plea for moderation and mercy, addressed to Pope Leo X, reads like the last hopeful sigh of humanism before the cannons of Europe answered it.
Against War begins with a proverb, rises to a thunderous argument, and ends with an exhausted prayer. It is one of the most intelligent tantrums ever written. Erasmus despises war on every possible level: physical, moral, theological, economic, and aesthetic. His loathing is absolute and somehow elegant.
War is not a tragic necessity but a collective lapse of reason. It degrades every institution that touches it. The philosopher becomes a flatterer, the priest becomes a propagandist, and the prince becomes a murderer in velvet. Peace, by contrast, is not passive or weak; it is the natural state of a creature made for language and learning.
It is an eloquent reminder that civilization's greatest invention may also be its favorite suicide note. The fact that his arguments remain relevant is not a compliment to Erasmus's foresight; it is an indictment of everyone who came after him.
August 26, 2022
"(but, O good Lord, what may we say happeneth well and luckily in war?)"
December 29, 2022
Erasmus might be the closest I ever come to time travelling. 507 years ago seems an inconceivable amount of time, such that the events of that era may as well have occurred on another planet populated by a people whos thoughts were completely removed from our anything we know here in the present. Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth but I've never felt it more obviously than in Erasmus' musings.
Against War quite simply should be enshrined into school curriculums the world over. It is such a simple premise, written so eloquently and thoroughly that it seems it should turn even the most hor headed individuals towards passivism. He presents a remarkably modern conundrum of two friends, one in debt to the other who, after a time, decides to sue his friend for not paying him back. The efforts that this involves are maliciously laid before the audiance to show that to do this would be to confirm your losses and add to them while lining the pockets of lawyers off the back of your discontent. Would it bot be better to take the money saved and split it with your friend, keeping what he owes you as recompense, thus keeping a friend and saving you both the hasstle. In this sense an unjust peace will always reep more rewards than a 'just war' .
I think we could all take a little something from that anecdote in a world so driven by money and the unscrupulous means people will go to to get hold of it. I for one certainly won't be forgetting this book in a hurry. Man was made in a form befitting of love, not of war.
Against War quite simply should be enshrined into school curriculums the world over. It is such a simple premise, written so eloquently and thoroughly that it seems it should turn even the most hor headed individuals towards passivism. He presents a remarkably modern conundrum of two friends, one in debt to the other who, after a time, decides to sue his friend for not paying him back. The efforts that this involves are maliciously laid before the audiance to show that to do this would be to confirm your losses and add to them while lining the pockets of lawyers off the back of your discontent. Would it bot be better to take the money saved and split it with your friend, keeping what he owes you as recompense, thus keeping a friend and saving you both the hasstle. In this sense an unjust peace will always reep more rewards than a 'just war' .
I think we could all take a little something from that anecdote in a world so driven by money and the unscrupulous means people will go to to get hold of it. I for one certainly won't be forgetting this book in a hurry. Man was made in a form befitting of love, not of war.
November 23, 2020
Famed thinker Erasmus lays out the case against war. It is very easy to say one is against war, however Erasmus states the plights of nations and peoples like no other.
While he doesn't offer a viable solution, he does enumerate the cons of war expertly.
While he doesn't offer a viable solution, he does enumerate the cons of war expertly.
January 3, 2023
A compelling and stinging rebuke of the ridiculous and self destructive nature of waging war.
April 7, 2016
Loved it! Considering this book is 500 years old, it is still so pertinent. The archaisms are delightful and the arguments strong - strong enough to remain pertinent.
Reading through, I couldn't help but pick up on the seeds of proto-Reformation and humanism. I recommend this book for its unique look into the time period (they had muskets in in the 1500s?!) as much as a varied theological critique of warfare.
Reading through, I couldn't help but pick up on the seeds of proto-Reformation and humanism. I recommend this book for its unique look into the time period (they had muskets in in the 1500s?!) as much as a varied theological critique of warfare.
Want to read
March 10, 2014Kesinlikle okunacaklardan
May 29, 2014
Kitap türkler üzerine yazılmış gibii :) kesinlikle okunması gerekiyor sadece savaş değil deliliğe övgü deki gibi bir çok toplum kesimi eleştirilmiştir.
May 8, 2016
Zaman kaybi :-/
Read
March 30, 2019He had me until the final pages with all the praising of the noble Medici family.
April 25, 2020
Başlarda çok güzeldi, sonrasında din için yapılan savaşlar hakkında konuyu çok uzatması sıkıcı oldu.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews