“Further, does any one appear a candidate for any ecclesiastical dignity, why an ass or a plough jobber shall sooner gain it than a wise man.”... “All their preaching is mere stage-playing, and their delivery the very transports of ridicule and drollery. Good Lord! how mimical are these gestures? What heights and falls in their voice? What toning, what bawling, what singing, what squeaking, what grimaces, making of mouths, and apes’ faces, and distorting of their countenance; and this art of oratory as a choice mystery, they convey down by tradition to one another. The manner of it I may adventure thus farther to enlarge upon. First, in a kind of mockery they implore the divine assistance, which they borrowed from the solemn custom of the poets.... “Now as to the popes of Rome, who pretend themselves Christ’s vicars, if they would but imitate his exemplary life, in the being employed in an unintermitted course of preaching; in the being attended with poverty, nakedness, hunger, and a contempt of this world; if they did but consider the import of the word pope, which signifies a father; or if they did but practice their surname of most holy, what order or degrees of men would be in a worse condition? There would be then no such vigorous making of parties, and buying of votes, in the conclave upon a vacancy of that see: and those who by bribery, or other indirect courses, should get themselves elected, would never secure their sitting firm in the chair by pistol, poison, force of violence. How much of their pleasure would be abated if they were but endowed with one dram of wisdom? Wisdom, did I say? Nay, with one grain of that salt which our Saviour bid them not lose the savour of. All their riches, all their honour, their jurisdictions, their Peter’s patrimony, their offices, their dispensations, their licences, their indulgences, their long train and attendants, (see in how short a compass I have abbreviated all their marketing of religion;) in a word, all their perquisities would be forfeited and lost.”... Finally, after quoting many passages in praise of Folly and of foolish actions and foolish persons which occur in his precious classic literature, Erasmus does a surprising thing. At the time this book was written those who later were to become the Reformers were already disposed to appeal to the Bible as an infallible authority equal to, if not above, that of the Church. That Erasmus placed the Holy Scriptures in the same category as other ancient literature is indicated by his free and easy treatment of it. He humorously quotes many passages to prove that the Bible actually enjoins men to practice folly and eschew wisdom. Were not our first parents expelled from Eden in punishment for the sin of eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge? He does not even spare the New Testament.