Erasmus

Dutch humanist and theologian who wrote Praise of Folly, edited the Greek New Testament, and corresponded with virtually every major intellectual in Europe — who satirized Church corruption but refused to join Luther, becoming the model of the irenic, cosmopolitan intellectual who belongs to no party.

Created the model of the independent cosmopolitan intellectual — Erasmus belonged to no nation and no faction, addressed his books to all of learned Europe in Latin, and insisted that Church reform required education rather than schism — making him the patron saint of academic liberalism and its limits.