Philosophy and Religion in service of the Philosophia Christi

Desiderius Erasmus proposed a philosophia Christi, in which – at least to the Renaissance humanist – both religion and philosophy dictate the Christian way of living. The very term implies that philosophy and religion share a common ground. It fails, however, to acknowledge the unyielding conflict that arises from the differences between these two fields as conceived by Erasmus. The philosophia Christi is in fact intrinsically biased by its overruling dogmatic assumption of truth as dictated by Scripture. By default, it seems to be incompatible with the unbiased disposition that lies at the heart of philosophy itself. In this paper, I aim to show that this incompatibility becomes apparent through the fundamental difference between Erasmus’ use of Christian and his use of philosophical sources from antiquity. I will compare the occurrences of Augustine and Epicurus in Erasmus’ study of proper Christian conduct, and address the question of the extent to which he abides by their opinions in order to form his own. From this, it will become clear that while ancient philosophy was invaluable to Erasmus, pagan material was always to be considered conditional to religious doctrine. To spin his idea of the philosophia Christi, Erasmus would have to put one teaching above the other, and the standard of his era left him little choice in deciding which one.