Violence and Erasmus

Yet if speech is linked to godliness, why do so many churchmen advocate the use of force, its opposite, to bring men to God? Erasmus acknowledges the contradiction inherent in the use of violence to achieve religious ends. Christ, Erasmus states, never resorted to violence: “Christ, as he preached to all, coaxed no one to himself with flatteries or human promises, nor did he compel anyone with force, although he was omnipotent.” (Ausgewählte Werke, 254, lines 7–9).—Humanism and the Rhetoric of Toleration, page 48