The Ambiguities of Erasmus’s Religious Peace: A Reading of De amabili ecclesiae concordia (1533)

The article aims at clarifying how the theme of peace and concord could not be completely neutral but was freighted with theological perspectives and precise ideological options. It focuses on Erasmus' De amabili Ecclesiae Concordia and its radical anti-Lutheran polemic, which was denouncing Luther as the schismatic Korah, disobedient to the charismatic authority of Moses (symbol of the pope). The last part of the essay shows how in the Catholic reception of Erasmus, concordism could be a polemical device for fighting divisions in the Church and delegitimizing the other and their “heretical” options, following Erasmus’s anti-Lutheran attitude.