Abstract
Erasmus’ Turkophobic rhetoric is discussed here. genus Turcarum was conceptualized by Erasmus as a loathsome race characterized by a repulsive set of corrupt mental defects, the sum of which was corruption and immorality. The term Immanitas Turcarum expressed the inhumanity which was ascribed to Turkish essence. Erasmus’ Turkophobic rhetoric negates any moderation or toleration toward Islam or the Turks, which certain historians have attributed to Erasmus.
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Notes
- 1.
It was published in March 1530, shortly after the Turks raised their siege on Vienna. See Michael. J. Heath, Introduction to “A Most Useful Discussion Concerning Proposals for War Against the Turks, Including an Exposition of Psalm 28” (Utilissima consultatio de bello Turcis inferendo, et obiter enarratus psalmus 28), in CWE 64 (Expositions of the Psalms), 202–209. For the Latin text: ASD V-3, 32–82 (ed. A. G. Weiler).
- 2.
Erika Rummel, “Secular Advice in Sacred Writings,” The European Legacy 19 (2014): 16–26. Martin, “The Prospects for Holy War,” 199, argues that the treatise “[…] is a mock consultation […] a parody of the standard rhetorical conventions used in orations against the Turks.” This should be rejected, not just on the basis of Rummel’s convincing research (ignored by Martin), but also due to the theological context of the treatise. Its full title is: Consultatio de bello Turcis inferendo, et obiter enarratus psalmus 28. It begins by citing Psalm 28, and presents an exegetical prologue in which other psalms are also cited. How can this be considered as mockery or parody?
- 3.
Rummel, “Secular Advice in Sacred Writings,” 25.
- 4.
CWE 64, 258–259; ASD V-3, 76: “Quid autem dicam de politia? Quae legume aequitas apud illos? Quidquid tyranno placuit, lex est. Quae Senatus auctoritas? Quae Philosophia locum illic habet? Quae Theologorum scholae? Quae sacrae conciones? Quae Religionis sinceritas? Sectam habent ex Judaismo, Christianismo, Paganismo et Arianorum haeresis commixtam. Agnoscunt Christum ut unum quempiam ex Prophetis […] Quid, quod pestilentem ac scelerosum hominem Machumetem Christo, in cujus nomine flectitur omne genu coelestium, terrestrium, et infernorum, praeferunt?” See also Ron, “The Christian Peace of Erasmus,” 32, 34–38.
- 5.
CWE 64, 231; ASD V-3, 50: “Regnant irato Deo, pugnant adversum nos sine Deo, illi Mahometem habent propugnatorem, nos Christum.”
- 6.
Cusanus’ “A Scrutiny of the Koran” (Cribratio Alkorani, 1461) was basically an attempt to confirm Gospel truths through a critical reading and to undermine the Qur’an’s teachings by means of logical arguments. See Jasper Hopkins, “Nicholas of Cusa’s De Pace Fidei And Cribratio Alkorani,” in Jasper Hopkins (trans.), Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2 vols. (Minneapolis, MN: Arthur J. Banning Press, 2001), 24 (Introduction); Hopkins, “The Role of Pia Interpretatio in Nicholas of Cusa’s Hermeneutical Approach to the Qur’an,” in Gregorio Piaia (ed.), Concordia Discors: Studi su Niccolò Cusano e l’Umanesimo europeo offerta a Giovanni Santinello (Padua: Antenore, 1993), 251–273.
- 7.
Comment. II, I, 5 (p. 211): “[…] Mahumetem […] qui fuit Arabs gentili errore et Iudaica imbutus perfidia audivitque Christianos, qui Nestoriana et Ariana labe infecti errant.” See Andrea Moudarres, “Crusade and Conversion: Islam as Schism in Pius II and Nicholas of Cusa,” Modern Language Notes 128 (2013): 43.
- 8.
Falkner, “Preserved Spaces,” 61.
- 9.
Vom Kriege widder die Tuercken, WA 30, II, 122. 26–28: “Also ists ein glaube, zusamen geflickt aus der Juden, Christen und Heiden glauben.” See Adam S. Francisco, “Luther’s Knowledge of and Attitude Towards Islam,” in Mona Siddiqui (ed.), The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations (London: Routledge, 2013), 137–138; Silke R. Falkner, “Preserved Spaces: Boundary Negotiations in Early-Modern Turcica,” in James Hodkinson and Jeff Morrison (eds.), Encounters with Islam in German Literature and Culture (New York: Camden House, 2009), 61.
- 10.
Daniel J. Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam: The “Heresy of the Ishmaelites” (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 51–98; Albert Davids and Pim Valkenberg, “John of Damascus: The Heresy of the Ishmaelites,” in Mona Siddiqui (ed.), The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations (London: Routledge, 2013), 18–32; Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: The University Press, 1960; 2nd edition, Oxford: Oneworld, 1993), 209–213; John Victor Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 135–137; Scott H. Hendrix, Recultivating the Vineyard: The Reformation Agendas of Christianization (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knoks Press, 2004), 168.
- 11.
Erika Rummel (ed.), The Erasmus Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 315; Michael. J. Heath, Introduction to “A Most Useful Discussion Concerning Proposals for War Against the Turks Including an Exposition of Psalm 28” (Ultissima consultatio de Bello Turcis inferendo, et obiter enarratus psalmus 28), in CWE 64 (Expositions of the Psalms), 205.
- 12.
On the moral meaning of the war against the Turks: A. G. Weiller, “The Turkish Argument and Christian Piety in Desiderius Erasmus’ ‘Consultatio de Bello Turcis inferendo’ (1530),” in Weiland J. Sperna and W. T. M. Frijhoff (eds.), Erasmus of Rotterdam the Man and the Scholar (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 30–39.
- 13.
CWE 64, 246; ASD V-3, 64. For Erasmus’ anti-Crusade attitude as allegedly indicating moderation, see Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists, and the West (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 175; Robert Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turk 1453–1517 (New York: Robert Schwoebel, 1967), 225. As argued further on, despite his objection to the institution of Crusade, Erasmus’ attitude toward Islam was not necessarily moderate. On this issue, see Ron, “The Christian Peace of Erasmus,” 27–42.
- 14.
Cited from Bisaha, Creating East and West, 76 n. 231. A somewhat less gruesome description can be found in Piccolomini’s letter of July 1453 to Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa: Margaret Meserve, “From Samarkand to Scythia: Reinventions of Asia in Renaissance Geography and Political Thought,” in Zweder von Martels and Arjo J. Vanderjagt (eds.), Pius II—‘El Pìu Expeditivo Pontifice’: Selected Studies on Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (1405–1464) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), 26.
- 15.
Hankins, “Renaissance Crusaders,” 122.
- 16.
On Semichristiani, see notes 4–6, Chapter 13 and the following discussion.
- 17.
CWE 66, 94; ASD V-8: “Adultere est, sacrilegus est, Turca est: exsecretur adulterum, non hominem, sacrilegum adspernetur, non hominem: Turcam occidat, non hominem.”
- 18.
CWE 64, 242; ASD V-3, 62: “Si nobis succedere cupimus, ut Turcas a nostris cervicibus depellamus, prius teterrimum Turcarum genus ex animis nostris exigamus, avaritiam, ambitionem, dominandi libidinem, nostri fiducia, impietatem luxum, voluptatum amorem, fraudulentiam, iram, odium, invidiam.”
- 19.
The meaning of religious toleration is pointed out in n. 5, Chapter 1.
- 20.
Chapter 4 deals with Piccolomini’s Turkophobic influence and the above mentioned expressions.
- 21.
Chapter 5 deals with these issues.
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Ron, N. (2019). Turkish Essence. In: Erasmus and the “Other”. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24929-8_2
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