The major portion of theEnchiridion, after the foundational ideas associated
with spiritual warfare have been laid out, is devoted to twenty-two rules that
help the reader understand‘true Christianity’. Erasmus calls them the‘wrestling
holds’of spiritual warfare.^72 In thefifth rule, which further elaborates on the
necessity of‘despising visible things in comparison to those that are invisible’,^73
Erasmus nevertheless indicates the necessity of tangible expressions of love as
evidence of a successful spiritual battle and subsequent transformed life:
But if you walked in the spirit, not in theflesh, where are the fruits of the Spirit?
Where is charity, where is that joy of the mind? Where is peace toward all men?
Where is patience, long-suffering, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness,
modesty, self-control, chastity? Where is the image of Christ in your morals?^74The spiritual warrior will have attained success, Erasmus continues, not
through rote religious practices, but when he fulfils the second great com-
mandment, as he writes:‘the practice of the spiritual life does not consist in
ceremonies but in love of one’s neighbour’.^75
Thephilosophia Christidoes notfind expression in meaningless empty
ceremonies, but through a faith that looks beyond external trappings to the
authentic worship of God. This is a consistent theme for Erasmus. InThe
Education of a Christian Prince, he writes:‘Who is a true Christian? Not just
someone who is baptized or confirmed or who goes to mass: rather it is
someone who has embraced Christ in the depths of his heart and who
expresses this by acting in a Christian spirit.’^76 Erasmus warns equally bluntly
of the converse in theEnchiridion:‘You were baptized, but do not think that
ipso factoyou became a Christian.’^77
For this reason Erasmus sought to discourage common and popular late
medieval devotional practices, including the veneration of images and saints,
along with other rites and rituals, while not rejecting them completely. Simi-
larly, Erasmus rejected many aspects of the medieval cult of the saints, mostly
because the worship of the saints distracted people from what he considered
the true worship of God.^78 The Christian warrior thus avoids activities or
rituals that detract from the authentic (i.e. spiritual) worship of God, but
actively seeks those which reflect the image of Christ, such as undertaking
acts of charity that do not exalt the self but genuinely and selflessly minister to
the physical and spiritual needs of others.
(^72) Erasmus,Enchiridion54.
(^73) Erasmus,Enchiridion67. (^74) Erasmus,Enchiridion75.
(^75) Erasmus,Enchiridion81.
(^76) Erasmus,Insitutio principis christiani,CWE, vol. 27, 216.
(^77) Erasmus,Enchiridion71.
(^78) Carlos M. N. Eire,War Against the Idols(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986),
- Erasmus similarly objected to actions that might seem to be associated with spiritual warfare,
such as exorcism, if the genuine spiritual intention was distorted or missed altogether. Erasmus,
Exorcism, or The SpecterinThe Colloquies, 230–7.
132 Darren M. Provost