The works of the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, often titled In Praise of Madness, Erasmus' seminal pre-Reformation essay examines aspects of the teaching of the Church as well as those aspects of worship that Esmus deems worthy. of the biting satire he uses, Erasmus was relentless in his criticism of pedantry, sophism and demagoguery among clerical and secular figures. Rediscovery of Aristotle and the birth of humanism during the Renaissance. Northern Renaissance humanism came to be called Erasmian. A movement which, unlike its Italian counterpart and predecessor, would place faith and piety at the center of theology and give great importance to ad fontes, to the sources of Christian theology and to biblical and patristic sources (Parrish article) Erasmus, while generally focusing his criticism on the elites of European society, he also talks about the importance of education, particularly that education is the best way to combat the omnipresence of public opinion , who criticizes with particular venom in The Abbot and the Scholar. all in brilliant rhetorical fanfare, Folly's proem is a reworking of a thoroughly medieval topos, the rebirth and nature of nature and man in spring'. (Clarence H MillerThe historian Johan Huizinga, in his work Erasmus and the Age of the Reformation, recognized Erasmus' desire for simplicity: He found society, and particularly religious life, full of practices, ceremonies, of traditions and conceptions, from which the Spirit seemed to have moved away. He does not reject them outright and en bloc: what revolts him is that they are so often executed without understanding and without proper feeling. . But in its middle...... middle of paper... in the middle it became true' One might wonder, however, whether Erasmus was only deep when he was witty. Yet Moria is an entertaining work that most profoundly shaped the mind of the Western world and is today consulted by only a handful of history scholars, its edition of the New Testament in Greek. served as the basis for major vernacular translations. "The bantering tone, attack on theologians, and satire of widely practiced religious observances provoked a reaction of shocked hostility during his lifetime. For the most part, Erasmus is not concerned with the lives and religious observances of the masses. He is particularly critical of the cult of the Virgin Mary to the extent that she is as important, or even more important than Esmus claims some, as Jesus himself (chapter 41)