Az értelmiség utópiája: Erasmus és a keresztény humanizmus

Absztrakt

The short essaistic paper tries to reassume the main reasons of the ambiguous memory of the great humanist's reform-programme. Erasmus in his numerous writings mocked contemporary politics, the corruption, hedonism and selfishness both of ecclesiastical and secular rulers and exhorted the radical reform of the whole christian society, but in the meantime he might be completely aware of the irrealistic and utopian possibility of such a universal and spiritual turnaround. The reason, why he remained consequent in this wish (which in fact was not a coherent programme) is rooted in the very nature his being as christian humanist: the "universal intellectual" who criticized so sharply the society was both a role but a most serious justification of his personal and intellectual existence; furthermore, Erasmus of course was also aware of the nothing less ambiguous ciceronian requirements of the politically active but the same time withdrawn and creative humanist intellectual.