ABSTRACT
Thomas Masaryk’s monk lived in passive obscurity through one of the greatest historical epochs, a twig floating downstream and over gigantic falls. Two other monks, Erasmus and Luther, living four centuries before their Russian counterpart, entered history’s main stream, not only making it resound but also giving it some direction. Both monks were Augustinians, schooled in the Schoolmen and raised on monastic, strict adherence to dogma and ritual. Both broke out of the old channels. Erasmus and Luther were the most prominent in a movement of religious reform that became a social and then a political revolution that fractured medieval hierarchy. Erasmus and Luther were reasserting the ability of men to look at themselves, to be their own earthly authority, and to bear some responsibility for their own destiny—on earth and beyond. If Erasmus hated the Schoolmen, it was not for their fundamental doctrines so much as for their methods and their “barbarism.” With Luther it was otherwise.
