Erasmus, the tidy-minded scholar and wit, had already sniggered at the Church's folly, but Luther's laughter had a prophetic ferocity about it. He had been shocked into realising that the Holy Father in Rome was in fact an agent of Antichrist. How could the Pope be anything else, demanded Luther, when he ordered silence on a loyal son of the Church who had rediscovered the most important truth about the human condition?This was the truth found in Scripture, especially in the urgent words of Paul of Tarsus to the Romans and Galatians: we humans are so trapped in sin - tangled up in ourselves - that nothing we do merits God's love. A loving judge, God wills to choose some of us out of this doomed, undeserving rabble, to receive his gift of saving grace: then we may enter his presence for ever as his children, saved by faith in the crucified Jesus Christ. In Reformation jargon, that is justification by faith through grace: it is the heart of Reformation Protestantism.
It was a hand-grenade lobbed into the medieval Western Church, levelling all the corridors past death into heaven so artfully constructed by medieval Catholic theologians. Their modern Catholic successors mostly agree that Luther was true to tradition in this matter, and Rome no longer officially classes him as a heretic. Small consolation for Pope Leo X and his immediate successors, who failed to shut Luther up, and struggled with the collapse of united Western Christendom.
-- from the thread The man who dared to laugh at the Pope ["Out of the Storm: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther"]
At least we may credit Erasmus for his sense of humor, something that was in slightly rare supply among the various antagonists. His attitude was basically eirenic in a belligerent era.
He was truly distressed at the nastiness that developed on both sides. Yes, he was a friend of Luther and Zwingli, Colet, and IIRC Melanchthon. But he was saddened both by the attacks on his friends, and the tone of their counterattacks. He tried to stay at arms' length, only to be turned on for his efforts.
He had been shocked into realising that the Holy Father in Rome was in fact an agent of Antichrist. How could the Pope be anything else, demanded Luther, when he ordered silence on a loyal son of the Church who had rediscovered the most important truth about the human condition?
If 'he' refers here to Erasmus, this claim about his 'realization' is tendentious. Not so, however, if the author meant Luther.