It is the time of the Reformation. For years, the philologist, theologian and humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam has been working on a Greek-Latin edition of the New Testament. In 1516, before Luther posted his theses, Erasmus published the edition, which Luther used for his German translation.
Erasmus of Rotterdam enjoys a high reputation in the scholarly world, Luther also admired him and wanted to have such a learned man as Erasmus on his side and they also shared certain criticisms, such as the papacy, their skepticism of scholastic theology, the doctrine of the sacraments, the cult of ceremonies and relics. Both are against the sale of indulgences, because "you just can not buy heaven." It is said that Erasmus laid the eggs that Luther hatched.
But Erasmus tries to remain relatively neutral, he is of the opinion that Luther's "storming and pushing" is counterproductive and that one can only improve the world with patience and restraint, he takes Jesus as an example. Erasmus does not see himself as a people's tribune, but as a representative and defender of science and repeatedly emphasizes that he would have placed himself in the service of science. Through his attitude, he wants to help the bonae litterae to bloom again. He criticizes the general contempt for schools and education and calls for more meaningful studies. But Erasmus of Rotterdam is not alien to life and also knows that most things cannot be changed so quickly because they are so stuck. Real change takes time and consistency, it needs good arguments that are well thought out and not brusquely fed by a feeling. A healthier approach to science is needed, because this tragedy arose from the fear of science and the stupidity of the monks. Because what you don't understand, you want to suppress and destroy, so that the Church "can undisturbed rule with their barbarism".
This Erasmus-Attitude can also be found in his famous work "In Praise of Folly". This satirical writing began when Rotterdam wrote a letter of dedication in 1498 to More, who was twenty years old at that time. The Latin title "Stultitiae Laus" or "Moriae Encomium" is a play on words, because the Greek word moría means "folly".
The writing style is compared to Lucian, a supreme irony alien to any didactics, averse to any moralization. It is said that Erasmus wanted to distract himself from the power struggles in the church with this writing and to motivate himself by dealing with a humorous topic. Half seriously, half jokingly, a philosophy of life is praised and Horace's saying "dulce est decipere in loco" is used as the principle of the world view.
It is not surprising, that this work is one of the most important of the Renaissance era and supported the Protestant Reformation to a large extent.
This edition is a facsimile of the Leipzig edition from 1781 and was published in 1918. Numerous engravings by Holbein adorn the book and depict the eulogy of the goddess of foolishness.
"If no one wants to introduce me," says the goddess of folly, almost snippy, "then I have to eulogize myself!"
And the goddess tells about her origin. About her father Pluto “who mixed all things holy and unholy together.” And her mother Methe, the fairest and liveliest of the nymphs. Her milk nurse is said to be the daughter of Bacchus and the carefree Apedia, who herself is descended from Pan. She even explains why the goddess of foolishness had to be a woman by saying that women would find all their pleasure in foolishness. The pair of opposites wisdom and foolishness runs through the entire text, sometimes to represent the "real wisdom" in foolishness and sometimes to represent the "most foolish foolishness" in wisdom.
“For if by chance some woman wishes to be thought of as wise, she does nothing but show herself twice a fool.”
Without her is no life and no love, because basically everything is based on the fact that man is foolish and that foolishness is something all too human. Folly favors love, which is itself more or less the result of projections and desires. And from whom else could one get the beginning of one's life and love than from the Goddess of Folly herself? This also explains the phenomenon why more intelligent people or people who consider themselves wiser than others, have fewer children: Because nature arranges it in such a way that these dry souls, who break their eyes with the night lamp, are also less fertile.
"Jupiter has mingled in a pound of passion scarcely an ounce of reason."
For whoever renounces passion, who is constantly at war with physical things, not only enjoys life more, he almost disappears from it. The goddess of foolishness explains this to us with the Latin word “de vita”, which means “away from life” as well as “avoid”. So every renunciation is not only hostile to life, one departs alive from life, since one fights stiffly against what could bring one refreshment. That is why the philosophers, especially the Stoics, are described as arch-fools, they are "more foolish than fools", in truth their wisdom is only folly and they disfigure themselves with the "paint of virtue". The deity of folly demands:
"Away with wisdom if you want to enjoy life!"
And points out that the heart of the wise is with sadness, and with their wisdom they only make themselves hated and suspect.
“But who are they that for no other reason but that they were weary of life have hastened their own fate? Were they not the next neighbors to wisdom? among whom, to say nothing of Diogenes, Xenocrates, Cato, Cassius, Brutus, that wise man Chiron, being offered immortality, chose rather to die than be troubled with the same thing always.”
But she was also the begetter of wisdom and faith, for out of her tottering and ridiculous play the philosophers emerged "in whose place are now those who were used to be called monks."
The clergy are scathingly criticized by the goddess, and the vaunted "Christian bliss" is portrayed as a kind of delusion. There are even "no fools more stupid than those in whom the flames of Christian piety burn brightly." The symbol of the lamb was not chosen in vain, the animal was not famous even in Aristotle's time. The tree of knowledge should be interpreted as proof that knowledge works like poison in our spirit and that the consumption of the forbidden fruit was not forbidden for nothing. The goddess of foolishness emphasizes that God's foolishness is better than human wisdom, and numerous passages from the Bible are interwoven to make it even clearer that man really does not and will not possess wisdom.
It is amazing how directly and critically Erasmus expresses his criticism here, his attitude is also clear in the Pope's criticism:
"As if there were more pernicious enemies of the church than ungodly popes, who by their silence let Christ be destroyed, bind him by selfish laws, profane him by forced interpretation, kill by a poisoned life. The Christian Church is begotten, strengthened and expanded by blood. Now, as if there were no Christ to protect his own in his own way, his cause is being pursued through the Shear. There is something so inhuman about war that it should be left to the wild beasts.”
With the most diverse human appearances in this world, the goddess shows how we often think we are wise and actually are fools. How we actually unlearn life, laughter and dally, both sources of youth and freshness, and become shy and unable to act. Foolishness favors friendships, it inspires writers and poets, money and fortune fly to fools and the owl of Minerva would prefer the fool one more. Without folly there is no art, no heroes and love can never mature.
"The wise man stays like the sun, the fool changes like the moon."
Through the moon we understand human nature, through the sun we understand God. So we shouldn't deceive ourselves and think we're clever, but enjoy life through silliness and not lose ourselves in high spheres that ultimately make us unhappy and sad because we, as human beings, are too limited to fully understand them .
Fools have a special privilege "to speak things that do not annoy one out of their mouths." Why is the fool the king's closest adviser? Why does his clothing resemble that of the king, down to the scepter and jester cap?
“A remarkable thing happens in the experience of my fools: from them not only true things, but even sharp reproaches, will be listened to; so that a statement which, if it came from a wise man's mouth, might be a capital offense, coming from a fool gives rise to incredible delight. Veracity, you know, has a certain authentic power of giving pleasure, if nothing offensive goes with it; but this the gods have granted only to fools.”
Likewise, people should not complain of their lot, the Scythian, who wishes to be a citizen of the blessed Land of Cockaigne, would have to come to terms with their meager existence. Children shouldn't grow up too fast "that's suspicious and unpopular". It is far more important to laugh "from which everything draws life" than learn "that Pythagorean Quaternio." The old folks are transformed by the Goddess of Folly, who leads the old to the spring of Lethe so that they can drink the drink of oblivion. The high age is compared to childhood, except that "second childhood is preferable to first childhood". The older a person is, the closer he is to childhood. Unwise dalliance brings amusement and foolish babble, relieves the mind of grief, makes us human, as Dostojevky wonderfully summarizes:
„Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human.”
The archetype of the folly (and trickster) is also playing a big part in Jungian therapy for healing. As long as we lock ourselves from this juvenile spirit of joy, we can not touch our "Fisherking's wound" and get more depressive and unhappy. In Medieval and Rennaissance times, particularly in European courts, the concept of a fool was to serve the King as a truth-teller. The fact that the fool stood outside society, was certainly of great importance, as it allowed him to express concerns or offer advices without restrictive convention and politeness. During my researches, (inquiries into folly since may, has become a work for life), I've found a very interesting statement of Foucault in his work "Madness and Society", where he describes, that in the epoch of rationalism, craziness or madness (which can be considered as a characteristic of the fool) is not a illness, but a social construct, which was invented by psychiatry, to exclude or control deviant or undesirable people. Foucault claims that in the Age of Reason madness lost its original meaning as an expression of existence or resistance and was instead treated as an object of science and power. In the near future I will present further literary examples on the subject of foolishness. Among them I'm planning "The Idiot" by Dostoyevsky (Focus: why is the idiot "more human" than the others?) , "Don Quixote" (Focus: Living in a dream or dying of reality? Why I think that this book is one of the saddest + the danger of literature by feeding inadequate ideas, which lead to hunger for life and longing for phantastic adventures) and the legend of "Parsifal" (Main Topic: The fool represents the restoration of spiritual and physical harmony and the renewal of the kingdom, the symbol behind the wound of the Fisherking). Also, an extensive Jung contribution will explain the psychological meaning behind the archetype and I try to extract more examples from religion that illustrate the connection between madness and holiness. I want to end with a joke by Nasreddin Hoca (~ 13th century), who is the oldest and most famous satirist of Turkey. His stories often has a subtle humour and a pedagogic nature, turning unbelievable explanations ad absurdum.
„At dinner time, Nasreddin finds no meat on the table. He asks his wife, "What happened to the meat?" His wife replies, "The cat ate it." Nasreddin breezes into the kitchen, puts the cat on the scales, and discovers the cat to be weighing three pounds. Nasreddin quizzically questions the result, "If the meat I brought home weighed three pounds, then, where is the cat? And, if this happens to be the cat, then what happened to the meat?"
