Can someone please provide a list of reforms that Erasmus wanted to make to the Catholic Church?

Although Erasmus inspired many of Luther's ideas, they disagreed on many subjects, such as whether the Catholic Church should have a moral reform or a reform of beliefs. Did Erasmus disagree with Luther's decision to break away from the Catholic Church? It seems like Erasmus may have thought Luther had gone too far by starting the Protestant Reformation, but I am not completely sure. Sources would be really helpful. EDIT: Sorry, I have been busy lately, so it has taken me awhile to find some time to write this. I am actually not sure where I came up with the idea of Erasmus thinking Luther had gone too far. I probably just assumed it, because Erasmus wanted moral reform of the church, meaning he did not want to change the practices and doctrines of the Catholic Church. I must have assumed that because Erasmus did not think the church needed a reform of beliefs, then he probably would have thought Luther had gone too far by trying to reform the church this way. There is no evidence I have to support this, which is why i put that it "seems" like he thought Luther went too far. This is also the reason why I was thinking Erasmus may have disapproved of the protestant reformation, despite the influence he may have had on it. This goes back to the question, did Erasmus disagree with Luther's break away with the church?

The 1524-1526 debate between Erasmus and Martin Luther on free will (plus related issues) conducted in print has been regarded as "**one of the most famous exchanges in Western intellectual history**". It began with Erasmus's publication of ["The Freedom of the Will"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_libero_arbitrio_diatribe_sive_collatio) in 1524 to which Martin Luther responded a year later with his celebrated book ["On the Bondage of the Will"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Bondage_of_the_Will) , which Erasmus then replied in 1526 with his two-volume rebuttal *Hyperaspistes* that was very seldom mentioned and is said to be long and complex. Martin Luther's 1525 book "On the Bondage of the Will" has had many English translations such as: - [1823 by Henry Cole](https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/pdf/luther_arbitrio.pdf) (alternate format with end notes [here](https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/luther/Bondage%20of%20the%20Will%20-%20Martin%20Luther.pdf)) - [1957 by Philip S. Watson and Benjamin Drewery](https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800603335/Luther-Works-Volume-33-Career-of-the-Reformer-III) with helpful footnotes, [pdf here](https://www.peacebeavercreek.org/uploads/pdf/bondage-of-the-will.pdf) - [1961 by Ernst Winter](https://archive.org/details/discourseonfreew0000eras/page/n15/mode/2up) which also includes Erasmus's "The Freedom of the Will" - [1969 by Gordon Rupp](https://www.amazon.com/Luther-Erasmus-Salvation-Christian-Classics/dp/0664241581) which also includes Erasmus's "The Freedom of the Will" - [2012 by J.I. Packer](http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-bondage-of-the-will/344510) - etc. Summaries of "On the Bondage of the Will" also abound, such as: - [section by section summary by Michael K. Wilson](https://www.academia.edu/43439473/Summary_of_Bondage_of_the_Will_Martin_Luther_) - [19 argument summary](https://www.chapellibrary.org:8443/pdf/books/botw.pdf) - [one page brief outline](https://rscottclark.org/2014/02/a-brief-outline-of-luthers-bondage-of-the-will/) - etc. Several related C.SE answers: - [Mike Lee's answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/48808/10672) to "What level of will-power do humans have according to Luther" - [GratefulDisciple's answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/75175/10672) clarifying the difference between Stoic determinism vs. Christian free will, various ways of balancing free will and divine foreknowledge, contrast between Luther's view and later Lutheran tradition, contrast between Luther's view and Erasmus's view - [GratefulDisciple's answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/82608/10672) on the mystery of free will vs. determinism viewed by the Catholic tradition following Aquinas as contrasted with Calvinist's double predestination and Pelagianism. There are also many background articles of the debate on free will covering both the 1524 and 1525 books such as: - [Luther and Erasmus: The Controversy Concerning the Bondage of the Will](http://www.prca.org/prtj/apr99.html#LutherAndErasmus) by Garrett Eriks published in the *Protestant Reformed Theological Journal* Volume 32, Number 2 (April 1999) - [The Manifesto of the Reformation - Luther vs. Erasmus on Free Will](https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/churchman/123-03_203.pdf) by Lee Gatiss published in [*Churchman* Issue 123.3 (Autumn 2009)](https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/articles_churchman_13.php#vol123) - [The Battle of the Will, Part 2: Luther and Erasmus](https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/battle-will-part-2-luther-erasmus/) essay by Matthew Barrett - etc. **But as the lists above shows, most C.SE answers and essays on this debate ends with Martin Luther's 1525 book and never mention Erasmus's 1526 reply *Hyperaspistes*** (usually translated 'protector' or 'shield bearer'). It is also very hard to find a freely available English translation text online. The most recent edition was by University of Toronto Press, part of the *Collected Works of Erasmus* series in [Volume 76](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442673427) (1999) and [Volume 77](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442673441) (2000) containing a new English translation by [Clarence H. Miller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_H._Miller) titled "A Warrior Shielding a Discussion of Free Will Against the Enslaved Will by Martin Luther". I did find a collection of excerpts from Clarence Miller's translation by Dave Armstrong [here](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2016/03/erasmus-vs-luther-disputes-documented.html) prefaced by an **excellent** collection of [71 extracts of correspondence](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/02/10009.html) between 1517 to 1534 (mostly before 1527) showing in vivid details how Erasmus was reluctantly drawn into initiating his public writing against Luther in 1524. **It reads like the equivalence of 21st century online forum posts**! But unfortunately Dave Armstrong included very little quotes on free will, only [snippets from pages 186 to 190](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/02/erasmus-hyperaspistes-1526-luthers-anti-traditional-elements.html) (thank God for Ctrl-F). **Question**: Where can I find a good summary and/or a free English translation of Erasmus's 1526 rebuttal (*Hyperaspistes*) **on free will** to Martin Luther's 1525 "On the Bondage of the Will"? Since the combined 2 books of *Hyperaspistes* are about 626 page long and since they address other issues as well (perspicuity of Scripture, answer to Luther's personal insults, Luther's extreme dogmatism, Luther's anti-traditional elements, etc.), an acceptable answer should limit itself to substantive rebuttal on matters of free will, ideally in the form of a peer-reviewed journal article or a book that carries the debate on free will from 1524 to 1526. A lesser but still acceptable answer should point to an older unabridged English translation of *Hyperaspistes*, since the 1999 translation is still under copyright.

I've long wondered about this. Wikipedia's article on Erasmus notes: >While he was critical of the abuses within the Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and Melanchthon and continued to recognise the authority of the pope. Erasmus emphasized a middle way, with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, and rejected Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus therefore remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life. Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to Catholic doctrines such as that of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favour of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps. So what "abuses" was he critical of, and what kinds of "reforms" did he want?

Erasmus famously only had 7 manuscripts on hand when he compiled the first edition of his "Novum Instrumentum omne". However presumably as his text underwent several revisions after that, and then became the basis of the versions produced by Stephanus, Beza and the Elzavirs, and ultimately the KJV almost a century later, more scholarship was done and more manuscripts were brought in. Or were they? Is it possible to know how many (and even which) manuscripts were used by the Textus Receptus editors throughout the decades and ultimately served as the basis for the New Testament in the KJV? Or does the KJV NT still primarily just rely on the the 7 manuscripts that Erasmus started with?

The introduction to [*Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation*](https://books.google.com/books?id=IU_8JDjxL34C) mentions that [Luther](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther) called [Erasmus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius_Erasmus) an unbeliever: > [Luther's] letters and the gossip of his Table Talk are littered with scorn of Erasmus as a trifler with truth, a scoffer at religion, an unbeliever. ([page 2](https://books.google.com/books?id=IU_8JDjxL34C&pg=PA2)) Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising, given Luther's penchant for speaking his mind, and Erasmus's humanism. Nonetheless, Erasmus was a committed Roman Catholic and a major biblical scholar. Thus, I'm wondering: did Luther actually explicitly call Erasmus an unbeliever? Where in his writings? And if so, did he do so merely on the basis that he was a Roman Catholic (i.e., he considered any Roman Catholic to be unsaved) or on some other basis?