Le lacrime di Erasmo

Erasmus of Rotterdam effectively uses the metaphor of the diseased human body to show, in his major anti-war writings, the devastating consequences of violent con- flict on the symbolic body of humanity and Christianity. War is the most dramatic among the consequences of the moral infection that affects peoples and nations. To hope for a cure, the disease must be treated with the Philosophia Christi and the practice of humanae litterae. By regaining their original bona natura, Christians will be able to display a moral superior- ity that will enable them to convert even the most pernicious infidels.