As a master of rhetoric, capable of simultaneously entertaining and instructing, Erasmus again and again advanced most persuasively his views on the clergy and warfare. We must not allow his skill or own prejudices to mislead us. We must avoid the trap of making too much of Erasmus, of inferring that his is the Renaissance attitude toward the clergy and arms, just as it would be wrong to conclude that the Canterbury Tales faithfully mirrors the state of the English clergy at the dawn of the fifteenth century, or that Thomas Aquinas presents the medieval position on the armed cleric. In Aquinas' age, as in Erasmus', there were many different opinions on most subjects, and this one was no exception. Throughout the ages, for every condemnation of clerical armsbearing, one can usually find an encomium, and not necessarily one penned by a sycophant. In fact, a great many of them come from other clerics. What follows is not meant to be a representative or balanced selection, but simply an indication that many people, including clerics, disagreed with Erasmus.

The division of opinion appeared quite early. Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus (†466) recounted with approval the story of Bishop James of Nisibis (c.325–c.350), who was ‘at once bishop, guardian, and commander in chief’ of this city on the Persian frontier which King Sapor had been besieging for seventy days. When Bishop James was implored to curse the Persians, ‘he discharged no other curse than to ask that mosquitoes and gnats might be sent forth upon them, so that by means of these tiny animals they might learn the might of the Protector of the Romans.’