‘[E]very defect of the mind may have a special receipt.’ --
This concluded Francis Bacon’s optimistic presentation ‘of Studies’. This conclusion is more encouraging than St. Augustine’s centuries-old damnation (later taken up by Martin Luther) that we are all by nature helplessly sinful. Erasmus, however, like Francis Bacon, is more hopeful about humanity in general. Erasmus and Bacon might have agreed that human nature is improvable; indeed, that man has some power to improve himself. However, Augustine’s theology was too deeply a part of Christian tradition to have no influence on Erasmus’s own thought: While Erasmus himself had been accused of the Pelagian Heresy (by none other than Martin Luther), there were notable differences between the two. Erasmus did not contend after Pelagius that we were sinful by imitation. On the contrary, Erasmus posits after Augustine that ‘the nature of man inclines towards evil.’ However, this is only a tendency in man and can be restrained. Unlike Luther, who maintained that man qua man is sinful, and that nothing could uplift man but divine justification sola fide and God’s Grace, Erasmus maintained that it is possible for man to improve his own estate. By practicing right moral behaviour with right ethics that may be arrived at through appropriate teaching (or study or experience), it is possible to live the good life, as it were. Moreover, Erasmus also maintained that no human was by nature ‘so blessed’ that he could not be ‘corrupted by perverse training’. Pedagogy becomes the functional word in the human condition. Without good training, man will do evil. Regardless of man’s inherent nature, whether he tends to less evil or more evil, he can be taught to do good. Indeed, because of the tendency to evil, it is important that the regular man is taught goodness well.
The prince (king-to-be), however, is exceptional and exemplary. The king is envisioned as the solitary source of temporal power, and descriptions such as fountainhead, paterfamilias and ship-captain are afforded him. The king is responsible for the large mass of his subjects who tend to imitate him. While the actions of the ordinary man affect only his immediate environs, the actions of the prince resound throughout his kingdom. Consequently, while the ordinary man should be taught how to do good, it is critical that the prince, more than anybody else, is trained well in right thought and action. Being the ‘public fountain’ from which everybody drinks, it will be the ruin of many if the prince’s mind is seeded with perverted ideas. Moreover, as the prince does not have the scope to learn by experience or by experiment, whatever wisdom and ability for goodness he is to acquire, he is to acquire through the pedagogical training overseen by a good teacher.
This training programme can not be instituted for a prince who is elected, or who has seized power through force (with whom Machiavelli is concerned). Only the prince who is born to office is eligible for this training; this is truly pedagogy – guidance of the young. The training is unsurprisingly congruent with the humanist programme. It is essentially a guided reading programme with special emphasis on the Classics. The acutores to be studied include Aristotle, Isocrates, Cicero, Seneca and so on. These readings, additionally reinforced by Christian teachings will guarantee morality and wisdom. This is important because the king, who is pure power, can not truly be a king without wisdom and morals:
‘Power without goodness is unmitigated tyranny, and without wisdom it is destruction, not government’.
Erasmus argues after Plato for the institution of a philosopher-king, one who will moreover possess the Aristotelian virtues of justice, wisdom, courage and moderation. Now, Erasmus gives the philosopher-king argument a Christian twist. The true philosopher is one who undauntedly seeks out and follows what is true and good. Christ is true and good. God is true and good. The philosopher, in practice, seeks out Christ. In practice, being a philosopher is the same as being a Christian, ‘only the terminology is different’. Such a Christian king will do what is right and good for his people.
Further, it is remembered that the king and his subjects are all God’s people. Indeed, it is the duty of the king to safeguard the people of God. There is another ‘natural’ duty proposed here: correct kingship. All Christians are servants of God, including the king. Moreover, all men were created free. Classically: ‘man is a godlike animal, free twice over: by nature and by law.’ To enslave free men, then, and to rule by force is unnatural, and wrong: it is unchristian.
Thus, we are presented with two seemingly opposite natures. On the one hand, all people tend to evil. On the other hand, it is unnatural for the king to do evil and become tyrannical. The king is likened to the heart & mind of the living body of the state, and Erasmus proposes how unnatural it is for harmful vices to spread from the mind to the body, and similarly, from the prince to his people. How is this contradiction to be resolved?
This contradiction points to an inherent problem with the conceptualisation of kingship within Christianity. Writes Erasmus: ‘“kingdom”, “majesty”…are pagan terms, not Christian; the “imperial authority” of Christians is nothing other than administration, benefaction and guardianship.’ Yet, there is a space for kingship. Erasmus remembers Jesus’s words: ‘Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, unto God what is God’s.’ But it is a contested site, and in mediaeval Europe entire wars are fought between the papacy and the empire. Interestingly, Erasmus does not mention the Church at all.
Additionally, this contradiction also points to the paradoxical condition of post-lapsarian man. Post-lapsarian man’s fallenness makes him susceptible to wickedness, but as Christian, he must withhold himself from wicked actions and not allow himself to be led into temptation. It is a test of faith.
In Erasmus’s encapsulation: ‘a Christian prince…should be as different from even the noble pagan princes as a Christian is from a pagan.’ Moreover, ‘it is up to a true Christian to keep well away from all depravity, and it is the province of a prince to surpass all in blameless character and wisdom.’ In true humanist fashion, this can best be done by (guided) studies. The bulwark against man’s natural tendency to evil is education. It becomes a Christian responsibility to be educated in order to avoid evil and to do good. The prince, being doubly exceptional, first as a prince and then as a Christian (or the other way around), is to be taught doubly well. His education is the closest we can come to attempting the establishment on Earth of the city of God.
Given the centrality of pedagogy in such an endeavour, if the prince or the people fail, it is the teacher’s fault.
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