Desiderius Erasmus was one of the scholarly glories of the Renaissance (and of the Catholic Church). He was also a champion of peace. Here is a startling excerpt from The Complaint of Peace (1521). In that great work (and note, the Dolan translation is far superior to the one I link), Eramus praises peace as the central Christian virtue and--among much else--condemns the celebration of the Mass in a military camp, and the distribution of Communion to soldiers going into battle, as sacrilegious. Here he is on the combatant reciting the Lord's Prayer:
“Our Father,” says he; O hardened wretch! can you call him father, when you are just going to cut your brother’s throat? “Hallowed be thy name:” how can the name of God be more impiously unhallowed, than by mutual bloody murder among you, his sons? “Thy kingdom come:” do you pray for the coming of his kingdom, while you are endeavouring to establish an earthly despotism, by spilling the blood of God’s sons and subjects? “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven:” his will in heaven, is for peace, but you are now meditating war. Dare you to say to your Father in heaven “Give us this day our daily bread;” when you are going, the next minute perhaps, to burn up your brother’s wheat-fields; and had rather lose the benefit of them yourself, than suffer him to enjoy them unmolested? With what face can you say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” when, so far from forgiving your own brother, you are going, with all the haste you can, to murder him in cold blood, for an alleged trespass that, after all, is but imaginary. Do you presume to deprecate the danger of temptation, who, not without great danger to yourself, are doing all you can to force your brother into danger? Do you deserve to be delivered from evil, that is, from the evil being, to whose impulse you submit yourself, and by whose spirit you are now guided, in contriving the greatest possible evil to your brother?
