Against War

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was born in either 1466 or 1469. He was a Dutch humanist and theologian. Early in life he studied at the Brethren of the Common Life, which practised a form of Christianity that was different to that of the Church. It was different because it did not feel that the ornament, ceremony or hireachy common in catholicism were important. The main focus was placed on education and the study of religious literature. It is said that the values he learnt at the Brethren shaped his later beliefs. Erasmus starts his writing with the quote “dulce bellum inexpertis – war is sweet to those who have not tried it”. He cites this phrase from Vegetius to explain that going to war seems not to be big “thing”, for those who hasn’t experienced war, but those who have been to war know that “thing war; there is nothing more wicked, more disastrous, more widely destructive…in a word unworthy of man”.