Collected Works of Erasmus - Böcker

The Peasant's War in Germany and his own ill-health combined to keep Erasmus confined to the city of Basel during 1525, but he was still able to maintain an active correspondence spanning all of Europe. In the preceding year, he had published De libero artbitrio/Freedom of the Will, his first open attack on the teachings of Martin Luther. Despite this public defence of Catholic doctrine, Erasmus was continually forced in his correspondence to reply to open or veiled attacks by Catholic critics.Erasmus directly addressed one of his critics, No+l BTda, of the Paris theological faculty, in the spring of 1525. BTda was preparing analyses of Erasmus' publications that would eventually form the basis for a formal condemnation. Erasmus' correspondence with BTda, intended to head off such a condemnation, continued past 1525 and became increasingly hostile in tone. That same year, Erasmus also followed up reports that an influential Italian humanist, Alberta Pio, Prince of Carpi, was circulating at the papal curia a manuscript accusing Erasmus of being the major source of Luther's errors. Again, he directly addressed his opponent in order to prove his orthodoxy and to urge (in vain) that no such attack be published. In both cases, however, despite his break with Luther and his public and private opposition to the Protestant leader Oecolampadius in Basel, he was unsuccessful in turning aside the hostility of his Catholic critics.Volume 11 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Erasmus yearned to make the Bible an effective instrument in the reform of society, church, and everyday life. He therefore composed paraphrases in which the words of Holy Scripture provided the core of a text, vastly expanded to embrace the reforming `philosophy of Christ.' The Paraphrases were successful beyond all expectations, and were quickly translated into French, German, English, and other languages.This is the fourth volume of Paraphrases to be published in the New Testament Scholarship Series in the CWE. The volume includes the Paraphrases on the Pastoral Epistles and the Catholic, or General, Epistles, as well as the Paraphrase on Hebrews. These books, in the biblical text, address the central issues of the Christian life within the context of family, church, and community. The Paraphrases sharpen the accent of the biblical message, speaking in an idiom appropriate to the sixteenth century but also surprisingly relevant to our own age: they condemn, for example, every form of tyrannizing in the home and self-aggrandisement in the church; perhaps above all, the Paraphrases expose the social injustice (inevitable, Erasmus would have us believe) of those who have acquired great personal wealth.Erasmus also reformulates, and sometimes develops, some of the great theological themes already defined in earlier volumes of this series. Is sin congenital, or do we sin simply in `imitation' of Adam? How do the Hebrew Scriptures attest to the presence of divine grace in the world before the birth of Christ? What is faith if not a vision of eternal realities so sure that we can clearly recognize the things of this passing world as the shadows they are?These Paraphrases address the modern reader with the relevance of the moral issues they define and the perennial importance of the theological questions they raise. Erasmus clarified and interpreted biblical text with immense rhetorical skill.Volume 44 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Erasmus yearned to make the Bible an effective instrument in the reform of society, church, and everyday life. He therefore composed Paraphrases in which the words of Holy Scripture provided the core of a text, vastly expanded to embrace the reforming `philosophy of Christ.' The Paraphrases were successful beyond all expectations, and were quickly translated into French, English, and other languages. The Paraphrase on Acts is the fifth volume of Paraphrases to be published in the New Testament Scholarship series in the Collected Works of Erasmus.The highly dramatic narrative of Acts offered Erasmus as paraphrast a treasury of golden opportunities. Its personae are kings, governors, high priests, communities of grace, and the ubiquitous and volatile mob. Here are the models to be emulated and to be avoided in both a reformed Europe and a reformed church. In the Paraphrase on Acts the splendour of popes is measured against the simplicity of St Peter, the pride of European kings warned against by the downfall of Herod .The Paraphrase on Acts commands attention also by its manifest efforts to rationalize biblical history. Erasmus persistently shows that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is nevertheless complemented by very human motivations. Moreover, the impressionistic framework of time and space in the biblical account is replaced in the Paraphrase on Acts by a careful definition of events by date and location - offering fascinating insights into the science of geography in Erasmus' day.The reader will recognize many of Erasmus' favourite theological themes, for example the sharp antithesis between faith and ceremonial works. But it is perhaps Erasmus' portrait of the Holy Spirit that will leave the deepest impression - a portrait in which images of fire turn imperceptibly but decisively into ontological realities and moral imperatives.Volume 50 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The correspondence of Erasmus has never been completely translated into English, although it has long been acknowledged to be one of the most illuminating sources for the history of northern humanism and the first two decades of the Protestant Reformation. In his letters, to and from scholars and religions leaders, printers and patrons, princes and prelates in every country of western Europe, the interests and issues of that critical era found free expression. They are connected by the thread of Erasmus' personal experience, his joys and sorrows, triumphs and tribulations, and his uninhibited conversation with his friends.Erasmus himself regarded his letters as a form of literature, and they were valued in his time, as they are now, as much for their style as for their content. In The Study of Good Letters (Clarendon 1963), H.W. Garrod wrote: 'As a document of the history of the times the Letters have primary importance. Yet they ar to be valued, ultimately, not as they enable us to place Erasmus in history, but as they help us to disengage him from it, to redeem him out of history into literature, placing him where, in truth, he longed to be. Not the Folly nor the Colloquies but the Letters, are his best piece of literature. What he did in scholarship, whether biblical, patristic, or classical has been superseded - though not the fine temper of it. That fine free temper shines also in the Letters, being indeed one of the elements of literature… In the immortality of their readableness Erasmus lives securely, immune from the discredits of circumstances.'The volume of the correspondence is enormous, and its cumulative effect fully justifies the claims that have been made for its importance. Erasmus was from his youth on an indefatigable correspondent, although he was careless about preserving his own letters or those written to him until he became famous and found printers eager to publish them. As a consequence, 85 per cent of the surviving letters were written after he reached the age of forty-five. Even when he had no thought of publication, however, he strove ceaselessly to make his letters models of elegant classical latinity, while adjusting the style of each letter to fit its purpose, content, and recipient. Even the earliest letters of volume 1 bear evidence of this concern. This volume includes a number of youthful rhetorical attempts, letters describing his early vicissitudes as he struggled to maintain himself as a scholar, letters to friends and letters about enemies, letters to patrons and prospective patrons, and the beginnings of the more serious intellectual correspondence of his later years in an exchange of letters with John Colet on the subject of Christ's agony.Volume 1 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The correspondence of Erasmus has never been completely translated into English, although it has long been acknowledged to be one of the most illuminating sources for the history of northern humanism and the first two decades of the Protestant Reformation. In his letters to and from scholars and religious leaders, printers and patrons, princes and prelates in every country of western Europe, the interests and issues of that critical era found free expression. They are connected by the thread of Erasmus' personal experience, his joys and sorrows, triumphs and tribulations, and his uninhibited conversation with his friends.Volume 2 contains what has survived of Erasmus' correspondence from the beginning of 1501 to the summer of 1514. This was a period of crucial importance in the career, of Erasmus, during which he emerged from the relative obscurity of his early years to achieve a dominant position as the acknowledged prince of Christian humanism. During this time he acquired his hard-won mastery of Greek, adumbrated the basic concepts of his religious thought in the Enchiridion, established his scholarly reputation with the magnificent Aldine edition of the Adagia, wrote The Praise of Folly, edited the correspondence of St Jerome, and laid the foundations for his great edition of the Greek New Testament. Although most of the letters from this period are familiar letters to friends or formal dedications to prospective patrons, there are occasional glimpses into the intense intellectual activity that filled these years. It is unfortunate that the letters which have survived do not form a continuous record of the period: the years from 1502 to 1-504 are but sparsely represented, the all- important visit to Italy in 1506-9 scarcely at all, and the first two years after the return to England completely blank. We can be grateful, however, that from 1511 on we have a substantial number of letters, including the charming series of familiar letters from Erasmus to Colet, Ammonio, and his other friends in England, written from Cambridge or London. From them emerges a portrait of Erasmus the man, newly self-confident and relaxed, sharp- tongued in criticism but a warm friend, and intensely curious about the world of affairs in England and on the continent as well as the private concerns of members of his own circle.Erasmus himself regarded his letters as a form of literature, and they were valued in his time, as they are now, as much for their style as for their content. In The Study of Good Letters (Clarendon 1963) H.VV. Garrod wrote: 'As a document of the history of the times the Letters have primary importance. Yet they are to be valued, ultimately, not as they enable us to place Erasmus in history but as they help us to disengage him from it, to redeem him out of history into literature, placing him where, in truth, he longed to be. Not the Folly, nor the Colloquies, but the Letters, are his best piece of literature. What he did in scholarship, whether biblical, patristic, or classical, has been superseded - though not the fine free temper of it. That fine free temper shines also in the Letters, being indeed one of the elements of literature . . . In the immortality of their readableness Erasmus lives securely, immune from the discredits of circumstances.'Volume 2 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series

Volume 3 contains Erasmus' surviving correspondence from August 1514 to August 1516, including one letter by Erasmus never before published in a collection of his correspondence. There are one hundred and fifty–one letters from this period, more than survive from the whole of the first forty years of his life. They range in character from hasty personal notes to extended formal treatises, and they appear with remarkable regularity. This closely woven and uniform fabric of evidence coincides with the moment in Erasmus' career that marks his departure from England and his reception on the international stage of European intellectual life. As a result we have the sense of meeting the mature Erasmus poised and confident about his future and career.When Eramus left England for Basel, he entered into an association with the printer whose household was to be the nearest thing to a spiritual home that he would ever know. And from the firm of Froben in the next two years were to appear those great works which were largely the fruit of Erasmus' labours in England – the revised Adagiorum chiliades, the edition of the letters of St Jerome, the new edition and the translation of the New Testament, and the Institutio principis christiani Together they confirmed his place at the summit of European leanring, as his new home in the Upper Rhine symbolized Erasmus' central position in the religious controversy about to divide Europe.In the words of P.S. Allen, "Eramsmus had now reached his highest point. He had equipped himself thoroughly for the work he desired to do. He was the acknowledged leader of a large band of scholars, who looked to him for guidance and were ready to second his efforts; and with the resources of Froben's press at his disposal, nothing seemed beyond his powers and his hopes."Volume 3 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series

Erasmus' Adagia has been called 'one of the world's biggest bedside books,' and certainly the more than 4000 proverbs and maxims gathered and commented on by Erasmus, sometimes in a few lines and sometimes in full-scale essays, have great appeal for both scholar and educated layman. The aim of the Adages was to recapture, in this handy portmanteau form, the outlook and way of life of the classical world through its customs, legends, and social institutions, and to put within reach of a modern public the accumulated wisdom of the past. Each adage is traced in the works of as many authors as Erasmus had to hand; always an authority is given (usually several) and often a close reference providing chapter and verse.The commentaries in the Adages give a forthright and often eloquent expression of Erasmus' opinions on the world of his day, dovetailing with his satirical works on the one hand and his popular evangelical writings on the other. Many, if not most, of the proverbs cited by Erasmus are still in our common stock of speech today.The Collected Works of Erasmus is providing the first complete translation of Erasmus' Adagia. This volume contains the initial 300 adages with notes that identify the classical sources and indicate how Erasmus' reading and thinking developed over the quarter-century spanned by the eight revisions of the original work.Volume 31 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

At the beginning of this volume, Erasmus leaves Louvain to live in Basel. Weary from the many controversies reflected in the letters of the previous volumes, he is also anxious to see the annotations to his third edition of the New Testament through Johann Froben’s press. Above all he fears that pressure from the imperial court in the Netherlands will force him to take a public stand against Luther.Erasmus completes a large number of works in the span of this volume, including the Paraphrases on Matthew and John, two new expanded editions of the Colloquies, an edition of De conscribendis epistolis, two apologiae against his Spanish detractors, and editions of Arnobius Junior and Hilary of Poitiers. But the predominant theme of the volume remains ‘the sorry business of Luther.’The harder Erasmus persists in trying to adhere to a reasonable course between Catholic and reforming zealots, the more he finds himself ‘a heretic to both sides.’  His Catholic critics appear the more dangerous. Among them are the papal nuncio Girolamo Aleandro, who is bent on discrediting him at both the imperial and papal courts as a supporter of Luther; the Spaniard Diego López Zúñiga, who compiles a catalogue of Blasphemies and Impieties of Erasmus of Rotterdam; and the Carmelite Nicholaas Baechem, who denounces Erasmus both in public sermons and at private ‘drinking-parties.’Erasmus’ refusal to counsel severity against the Lutherans is motivated chiefly by concern for peace and the common good of Christendom, and not by any tender regard for Luther and the other reformers. Still, many of the letters in this volume testify to his growing aversion to the reformers, and we see him moving perceptibly in the direction of his eventual public breach with them.A special feature of this volume is the first fully annotated translation of Erasmus’ Catalogues Iucubrationum (Ep 1341 A), an extremely important document for the study of Erasmus’ life and works and of the controversies they aroused.Volume 9 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The tranquil world reflected in Erasmus’ early letters from Louvain gradually disintegrated in the years covered by Volume 7. In the letters of Volume 8, which spans the period of Erasmus’ last fifteen months in the Netherlands and his move to Basel during 1520 and 1521, his situation worsens.On the political front, the golden age of peace for which he had hoped is further destroyed by the war-mongering of Francis I, Henry VIII, Leo X and Charles V. In spiritual matters, Erasmus continues to be pressed harder to take a firm position for or against Luther. He persists in his earlier view, that Luther was right in his spirit but wrong in his language, and chooses not  to make a public judgment against him, saying only that he will plant his feet firmly ‘on the same side, whatever it may be, as the peace of the Gospel.’ For the next seven and a half years, Erasmus is to live in Basel, a city as yet undecided which side it will take in the religious conflict, while he works ahead on his editions of the Christian Fathers and attempts to cope with the conflicts in the world around him.An exchange of letters between Juan de Vergara and Diego López Zúñiga which bears on the controversy then raging between Erasmus and Zúñiga is included as an appendix to this volume.Volume 8 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Volumes 71-84 of the CWE contain Erasmus' controversies with a large number of critics on a host of issues, most of the main ones theological. Erasmus' Latin translation of the New Testament, a revised version of the Vulgate bible with copious annotations, which was published by Froben in 1516, initiated the arguments, attacks, and vilifications that plagued him for the last twenty years of his life.This volume, the first of the Controversies volumes to be published, centres on Erasmus' disputes with the conservative Catholic critics at the University of Louvain. Some of the principal controversies featured in this volume concern Erasmus' interpretation of Scripture and his editorial decisions about biblical annotations, his views on key matters such as marriage, celibacy, and the dissolute lives of the monks, and later on, his position vis-+-vis Luther. Professor Sowards, whose introductory essay on Erasmus and education in CWE 25 has become an indispensable guide on that subject, provides in this volume another important essay that sets the scene for the translations that follow.Volume 71 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

In 1520, the reading public witnessed the eruption of a simmering conflict between Erasmus, the foremost advocate of the new biblical humanism, and Edward Lee, a younger scholar at the University of Louvain and spokesman for the traditionalists in matters of biblical interpretation and church discipline. When Erasmus (perhaps unconsciously) subsumed criticisms Lee had sent to him of his 1516 Annotations on the New Testament into the second edition (1519) without properly crediting their source, Lee resorted to publication of his collection of criticisms. Erasmus responded immediately with the Apologia which is neither arrogant nor biting nor angry nor aggressive, and which responds to the two invectives of Edward Lee, describing his version of the history of the dispute with Lee, and less than two months later produced Responses to Lee's criticisms. This new volume in the Collected Works of Erasmus series contains the first-ever English translations of the Apology and the Responses. These two pieces display Erasmus the humanist in the thick of academic turmoil, deploying all the rhetorical weapons at his command. The volume is an entertaining and informative look into Erasmus as a scholar and as a man.Volume 72 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Volumes 71-84 of the Collected Works of Erasmus contain Erasmus' arguments with his numerous critics - English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, both Catholic and Protestant, - on a range of theological, educational, literary, classical, social, and philological topics. Volume 83 includes four treatises: Apology against Jacques Lef¦vre d'Etaples; An Appendix on the Writings of Josse Clichtove; Refutation of the Accusations of Josse Clichtove against the Suasoria of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam in Praise of Marriage; and The Reply of Erasmus to the Disputation of a Certain Phimostomus on Divorce. In these essays Erasmus discusses popular concerns such as the relations between the sexes, celibacy, marriage, divorce, and how to live a good life. Modern readers will be surprised to discover how close the problems that preoccupied Erasmus are to our own concerns today.Professor Bedouelle's introduction provides an indispensable guide to the major points of controversy between Erasmus and Lef¦vre, Clichtove, and Dietenberger.Volume 83 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The ten pieces in this volume are among the twenty selected for inclusion in volumes 66-70 of the Collected Works of Erasmus, the series of spiritualia and pastoralia. Like many of the other works in the series, they represent an Erasmus that, despite the recent growth of interest in him, has remained largely unfamiliar-the Erasmus of the works 'pertaining to the pietas.'Volume 69 is special in that it contains seven examples of a genre important to Erasmus, the genre of prayer. The prayers here include an effusive and lyrical early triad, a 'paraphrase' entitled The Lord's Prayer, the highly formalized Liturgy of Loreto, the heartfelt Prayer for Peace in the Church, and a collection of short prayers published the year before Erasmus' death. The volume is special also in that it contains many pieces about women, prompted by women, or addressed to women. Among these are A Comparision of the Virgin and the Martyr, Letter of Comfort in Adversity, and the Marian prayers, all of which directly or indirectly treat the subjects of virginity and marriage.The longest piece, The Institution of Christian Matrimony, is a work of towering importance in the history of writing on marriage. In the words of the translator, Erasmus has written a treatise 'profoundly serious and deeply researched ... a detailed and painstaking examination of the institution from every conceivable angle.'Professor O'Malley's introduction provides background and context for each of the selections, and emphasizes Erasmus' subtle but influential refashioning of the genres in which he wrote.Volume 69 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

This new volume of the CWE presents three of Erasmus' polemic works against Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi. A leading diplomat of the period, patron of artists and humanists, and conservative Catholic, Pio continually angered Erasmus by criticizing him for his denunciations of church practices and officials, and by accusing him of supporting Luther and holding dangerous opinions. The texts are lucid, passionate, and even vitriolic at times.The introduction by Nelson H. Minnich provides a biography of Pio, an overview of the controversy and related texts, and a bibliographical conspectus of source-texts. The translation is by Daniel J. Sheerin. The annotation by Minnich and Sheerin is wide-ranging and informative, answering questions posed by the text and placing the reader firmly in the sixteenth-century context of the dispute.This is the first English translation of the Alberto Pio controversies. In the CWE series it follows on volumes 71-83, which contain Erasmus' controversies with other critics on theological, political, social, philological, and educational matters.Volume 84 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Erasmus' controversies with French, Italian, Spanish, and German critics on theological, social, philological, educational, and other matters are contained in volumes 71-84 of the Collected Works. CWE 76 includes two of his most important disputes with Luther, A Discussion of Free Will and the first part of the Hyperaspistes (usually translated as 'protector' or 'shield-bearer'). Erasmus writes in response to Luther's The Enslaved Will and rebukes Luther for what he considers his high-handed arrogance and his insulting charge that Erasmus is an atheist. In CWE 76, Hyperaspistes 1 deals with a number of general considerations in approaching the question of free will. In CWE 77, Hyperaspistes 2 examines in detail the biblical passages put forth in defence of free will in A Discussion of Free Will and Luther's refutation of that defence in The Enslaved Will. In these two volumes of bitter dispute with Luther, Erasmus shows once again that he is a humanist in his theology and a theologian in this humanism.Volume 77 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The letters in Volume 12 cover Erasmus' correspondence for all of 1526 and roughly the first quarter of 1527. This was a difficult period for Erasmus for various reasons, including two bouts of illness serious enough to cause him to draw up his first will in January 1527, and the fact that the Reformers were gaining more and more influence over religious policy in Basel, where he resided. Tension caused by Erasmus' open opposition to this trend was multiplied by the continuing decline in his relations with Oecolampadius, Pellicanus, and Zwingli, all of them former friends or even collaborators in his scholarly editions. These many distractions slowed but did not stop his continuing biblical, patristic, and classical scholarship.Fearing that the Lutherans might gain complete control of public discourse on the disputed issue of free will, Erasmus rushed to complete his rebuttal to Luther's De servo arbitrio in March 1526. He also felt deeply aggrieved by the attacks launched against him by conservative Catholics at a time when he was actively engaged in opposing the spread of heresy in Germany and Switzerland. His most redoubtable antagonist was Nodl BTda of the University of Paris, who pressed ahead with his plans for a condemnation of Erasmus by the faculty, which he achieved in December 1527. Erasmus' critics at Louvain were more discreet than BTda; their published works obliquely criticized his publications but did not attack him by name. The letters of 1526-1527 also reflect Erasmus' growing fame in Spain, where not only the Latinate intellectuals but also readers of the new Spanish translations of his spiritual writings and satirical works were attracted to his ideas of spiritual renewal.CWE 12 also contains translations of his earliest will and selections from correspondence among his Spanish admirers during the years 1522-1527. An important and extremely useful appendix, 'Money, Wages, and Real Incomes in the Age of Erasmus,' by John H. Munro, analyzes the purchasing power of money in the period 1500-1540.Volume 12 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The year that began in August 1515 was the annus mirabilis of Erasmus' career, the year, notably of the epistles of St Jerome and the first edition of his New Testament. In the months following, covered in this volume of the CWE, from August 1516 to June 1517, the active exchange of letters that began with volume 3 continued, giving a vivid impression of the impact of Erasmus' great achievement upon his contemporaries. In his own words, "The New Testament has made me friends everywhere."To Erasmus, the most important event of these months was intensely private, the dispensation granted by Leo X allowing him to escape permanently from the restraints of his religious community, to earn his living with the freedom of a secular priest. In elucidating the complex circumstances surrounding this crucial development in Erasmus' career, Dr McConica advances a new view of the obscure circumstances surrounding Erasmus' illegitimacy. We are also given Erasmus' thinly veiled account of his boyhood in the "Letter to Grunnius," and, in an Appendix, the closely related account in the Compendium vitae, a vital if controversial document for our knowledge of his early life.In the background are the life and enterprise of the Low Countries. Pursuit of personal promotion, the politics of the Burgundian Court, and the emergence of the young Prince Charles–soon to be Charles V–in the European scene, provide further tuition for the great humanist in the use and abuse of princely power. In this volume Erasmus moves between the Burgundian court at Brussels and the domestic quiet of Pieter Gillis' household at Antwerp, where he was prearing further work for the Froben press at Basel. He is drawn to Louvain but avoids it, fearing a scrutiny of his works by the hostile theologians of the University. The England of Tunstall and More is always at hand, and the letters of volume 4 incidentally provide the most important chronicle for the publication of More's Utopia, over which Erasmus kept a watchful eye.This volume records important developments in Erasmus' many–faceted philosophy, especially in politics and education. There is the sharpest condemnation of princely power beneath the veil of rhetorical courtesy, with classical statements of Erasmus' programme for men of education and Christan principle, the rulers upon whom he rested his hope for the reform of Christiandom. Educated Europe now waited upon Erasmus' words, and, as a French humanist writes, "Words never fail him; and such words!"Volume 4 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series

This volume covers the first ten months of Erasmus' residence at Louvain. He lived during this time in the College of the Lily, his position presitgious and secure. he was a member of the theological faculty, yet free of regular academic duties and entitled to receive a regular income more than adequate to his modest needs. His predominant task in the course of these months was the re–editing of the New Testament, which he considered his magnum opus: through his work on the New Testament the use he made of his time and talent would be judged by God and man alike. There are frequent references in the letters to the long and arduous hours devoted to the annotation of these volumes. As a release from the drudgery of annotation he tried his hand at paraphrases of the gospels, gave Ratio verae theologiae its final form, and allowed himself a little time in the company of classical authors who refreshed his mind and refurbished his style.As never before, Erasmus' name counted now among the educated and powerful of the age, and he was overwhelmed with invitations from every corner of Europe. He was developing influential friends across Europe, and in Germany especially he gained enthusiastic admirers who expected him to join in the defence of Johann Reuchlin and made certain that he became promptly acquainted with the Ninety-five Theses of Luther whose name Erasmus at first still had trouble remembering.This volume is of particular interest because more than half the letters derive from the Deventer Letter–book, into which Erasmus had his amaneunses copy incoming and outgoing letters, among them many which were truly private rather than composed with a mind to subsequent publication. As a result we become intimately acquainted with the daily life of Erasmus and his friends, with the domestic pleasures and annoyances, private worries and hopes that made up and continue to make up the substance of human existance.Volume 5 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

A painful time in Erasmus' life is reflected in this volume of letters. As the two volumes immediately previous to this one indicated, Erasmus' first two years in Louvain were agreeable, productive, and carefree. But the spirit of congenial scholarship in which he lived at this time was gradually giving way to bitter conflict and controversy: Louvain was merely a microcosm of Erasmus' entire world, which was undergoing great strain. The exuberant expectancy of a Golden Age of civilized Christianity was yielding to the bleak prospect of helplessly watching the progress of what Erasmus termed the 'Lutherana tragoedia,' a play that he felt would end in catastrophe.The reader of this volume encounters a troubled Erasmus, who fights back constantly and unhappily against innuendo and open attacks, especially against the accusation that he is in connivance with Luther. His literary production and scholarly research suffer considerably as a result of his preoccupation and the general turmoil. Erasmus' conflicts with two younger theologians in particular. Jacobus Latomus and Edward Lee, loom large in this volume, and his over-reaction to Lee's criticisms shows him to be his own worst enemy.The volume features several memorable letters by Thomas More that testify to his integrity and clear-sightedness, his capacity for sober self-assessment and restraint combined with charity. It also contains one of Erasmus' most famous letters, Ep 999, which paints a subtle and sparkling pen portrait of More, the man and the Christian.Volume 7 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The period from April 1523 to December 1524 finds Erasmus still in Basel and still preoccupied above all with ‘the sorry business of Luther.‘ He knows that the efforts of his conservative Catholic detractors to prove that he had ‘laid the egg that Luther hatched‘ can be overcome only if he takes an unambiguous public stand against Luther, and friendly princes and prelates constantly urge him to do so. But he dreads the controversy that an attack on Luther will arouse and fears that the overthrow of Luther will entail the defeat of all wholesome reform.This reluctance to ‘enter the arena‘ against Luther is in large measure overcome by the attacks upon Erasmus by reforming zealots who interpret his reserved attitude towards Luther as secret collusion with the pope, motivated by cowardice and avarice. Starting in the spring of 1523, a ‘conspiracy‘ of Lutheran ‘lunatics,‘ many of them former friends, publishes a series of ‘wild and libellous‘ pamphlets' against Erasmus, of which Ulrich von Hutten's Expostulatio (answered by Erasmus' Spongia) is the first and most important.In the letters 1523-4, Erasmus' mounting anger at the authors of these attacks goes hand in hand with his slowly formed decision to publish a book against Luther on free will. When De libero arbitrio is published in September 1524, Eramsus describes it less as an attack on Luther, about whom his feelings are still ambivalent, than as a settling of accounts with Luther's ‘subversive, crazy, noisy‘ supporters.The reaction of Erasmus' Catholic patrons to the De libero arbitrio is gratifying, and the initial response from Wittenberg is muted. Word reaches Eramus that Luther will doubtless reply in a moderate tone. Not until the publication of the De libero arbitrio in December 1525 will Erasmus learn what a scourge Luther's ‘modernation‘ can be.Volume 10 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Erasmus produced his five editions of the New Testament in Greek and Latin and his Paraphrases on the Gospels and Epistles almost contemporaneously with the tumultuous events that accompanied the beginnings of the Reformation in Europe. At the same time, his scholarship was a signal illustration of the Christian Humanism of northern Europe. His remarkable scholarship is translated and annotated in the Collected Works of Erasmus, volumes 42-60, published by the University of Toronto Press. This volume, CWE 41, seeks to set in perspective in a major introductory essay the full range of that scholarship. It traces the origin of Erasmus' work and its development over the course of the last two decades of his life, placing the work on the New Testament in the context of his life and the political and religious events of his age, revealing the endeavour as a process, and thus giving the reader illuminating points of reference for the many cryptic allusions in his annotations and paraphrases. The book includes an annotated translation of three of Erasmus' major writings on Scripture and its interpretation -- the Paraclesis, the Ratio verae theologiae ('System of True Theology'), and the Apologia (defense of his work). It includes as well some of his further attempts to clarify his endeavour -- relevant letters and a vitriolic response to his 'crabby critics' (Contra morosos). The volume offers a unique insight into the production of Erasmus' scholarship in book form, illustrating abundantly the special features that made his editions of the New Testament and his Paraphrases both esthetically pleasing and effectively marketable products.

As part of his effort to make the Bible an effective instrument of reform in society, church, and everyday life, Erasmus composed the Paraphrases. In these series of texts, the Holy Scripture provides the core of a work that is vastly expanded to embrace the reforming "philosophy of Christ" in all of its forms. This volume contains two sets of Paraphrases, one on the Corinthian letters (circa. 1519), and the other on the group of letters from the Ephesians to the Thessalonians (circa. 1520).The first set presents an epistolary narrative which not only enlivens the events described but revisits them from a sixteenth-century perspective. Together, they form a sharpened portrait of the primitive Corinthian church and an intriguing critique of the church as it was in Erasmus's time. The second set, Ephesians to Thessalonians, offers an interpretation of Pauline theology with humanistic overtones that are distinctively Erasmian. In these Paraphrases, we see the craft of the philologist at work in the articulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the humanist depicting Christ with an unmistakably human sensibility, and the artist discussing familiar theological virtues of faith and love in a new way.Apart from providing the first complete English translations of these Paraphrases since 1549, this volume gives excellent insight into the fundamentals of Erasmian theology and includes annotations which highlight the historical and linguistic implications of Erasmus's original texts.Volume 43 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Spanning the period of 1523 to 1534, the compositions in Volume 78 of the Collected Works of Erasmus detail Erasmus' theological disagreements with the Swiss and Upper German 'evangelicals' and the German Lutherans, including Luther himself. While volumes 76 and 77 of the series focus on the controversy with Luther over the "freedom of the will," the wider lens of this volume also captures the conflicts between Erasmus and contemporaries such as Hutten, Eppendorf, Oecolampadius, Capito, and Bucer.These writings reveal the dialogue between Erasmus and those evangelicals who had appropriated and adapted his views on the Eucharist and set forth his defense of the toleration of heretics and a point-by-point rebuttal of Luther's ultimate accusations, which had rejected Erasmus as a Christian. Throughout, the original words of Erasmus are presented in contemporary English translation by eminent scholars of sixteenth-century studies, who also discuss the historical and theological contexts of the controversies.Volume 78 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Among Erasmus of Rotterdam’s many influential treatises on theology during the early Reformation, Exomologesis (1524; revised 1530) and Ecclesiastes (1535) stand out as two of his most significant.Exomologesis, or The Manner of Confessing, in which Erasmus articulated his views on the true manner of Christian confession, was sufficiently controversial that he published an expanded version with concessions and clarifications six years later. Ecclesiastes, or The Method of Preaching, was an extensive exposition on how to employ scripture, the writings of Church Fathers, and classic rhetoric to reinvigorate the practice of preaching. This innovative work ushered in a new genre of homiletic treatises that supplanted medieval preaching manuals and paved the way for what has been called "the age of eloquence."The Collected Works of Erasmus presents these two important works, complete with extensive introductions and annotations, in an elegant and precise two-volume modern translation for the first time.Volumes 67 and 68 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series – Two-volume set.

Consisting of Erasmus' commentary on psalms 38, 83, and 14, this is the third and final volume of the Expositions of the Psalms in the Collected Works of Erasmus. Dating from the last years of Erasmus' life, they represent his mature thoughts on the great crisis facing western Christendom.During the early 1530s, Erasmus explored disputed issues in the Church and attempted to reconcile the warring parties of the Reformation. His characteristic emphasis on the inner experience of faith, rather than outer conformity to a doctrinal checklist, allowed him to be receptive to the insights of reform while refusing to compromise on the essentials of received tradition. By stressing the subjective experience at the heart of religious practice, he sought to reduce the tension of institutional conflict. The exposition of Psalm 38 is here translated into English for the first time, and that of Psalm 14 for the first time since 1537; together with Psalm 83, the three expositions in this collection offer the student of Erasmus an important access to his legacy.Volume 65 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

When a Parisian publisher in 1523 intended to reprint one of Erasmus’s popular paraphrases on the New Testament, he was forced to submit the work to the members of the theological faculty of the University of Paris. The influential syndic of the faculty, Noël Béda, took charge of the censorship and detected numerous unorthodox elements, particularly Lutheran tendencies.Béda was so shocked by what he had read that he extended his research to all the other paraphrases of Erasmus on the New Testament that he could get his hands on. In the following years, Erasmus attempted to prevent Béda from publishing his findings and to steer clear from a condemnation of his books by the Parisian theologians. He failed in both respects, despite the five polemical writings presented here in volumes 80 and 81 for the first time in translation , in which he attempted to refute Béda's objections.The mutual insurmountable incomprehension between the two scholars – exemplary of the contrast between scholastic and humanist approaches to the Bible in the early sixteenth century – is the common thread in this fierce and at times unsavoury quarrel.

Erasmus' Adagia has been called 'one of the world's biggest bedside books,' and certainly the more than 4000 proverbs and maxims gathered and commented on by Erasmus, sometimes in a few lines and sometimes in full-scale essays, have great appeal for both scholar and educated layman. The aim of the Adages was to recapture, in this handy portmanteau form, the outlook and way of life of the classical world through its customs, legends, and social institutions, and to put within reach of a modern public the accumulated wisdom of the past. Each adage is traced in the works of as many authors as Erasmus had to hand; always an authority is given (usually several) and often a close reference providing chapter and verse.The commentaries in the Adages give a forthright and often eloquent expression of Erasmus' opinions on the world of his day, dovetailing with his satirical works on the one hand and his popular evangelical writings on the other. Many, if not most, of the proverbs cited by Erasmus are still in our common stock of speech today.The Collected Works of Erasmus is providing the first complete translation of Erasmus' Adagia. This volume contains the initial 300 adages with notes that identify the classical sources and indicate how Erasmus' reading and thinking developed over the quarter-century spanned by the eight revisions of the original work.Volume 31 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

The predominant theme of the letters of 1528 is Erasmus' controversies with a variety of critics and opponents. The publication in March of the dialogue Ciceronianus, for example, provoked a huge uproar in France because it included an ironic jest that was considered insulting to the great French humanist Guillaume Budé. More serious were the continuing efforts of conservative Catholics in France (Noël Béda), Italy (Alberto Pio), and Spain (members of the religious orders) to prove not only that Erasmus was a secret Lutheran but also that humanist scholarship was the source of the Lutheran heresy. In response to these charges Erasmus wrote letters and books in which he vigorously defended his orthodoxy and assiduously cultivated the support of his many admirers among the princes and prelates of Europe.The letters also record Erasmus' growing anxiety over the progress of the Reformation in Basel, which would cause him to leave the city in 1529; his diligent attention to his financial affairs, which had improved in recent years thanks to the assistance of the Antwerp banker, Erasmus Schets; and his progress on the great editions of Augustine and Seneca that would be published in 1529.Volume 14 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Erasmus' humanistic approach to theology and biblical exegesis presented a shocking challenge to the theologians at the University of Paris, which had been dominated by scholastic theology for centuries. He engaged in a decade-long controversy over his theological, exegetical, and ethical positions with the Theological Faculty, and especially with their director, Noël Béda.This volume—which translates this crucial quarrel from Latin for the first time—details the formal, wide-ranging attack on Erasmus' theories printed by the faculty in 1531, along with his two replies. Erasmus published his first rebuttal in the spring of 1532, and that fall issued a second edition with substantial revisions and lengthy additions to his original text. With an extensive introduction and detailed commentary by Clarence H. Miller and James K. Farge, this volume highlights the differences between the humanist and scholastic views of genuine theology more fully and extensively than most of Erasmus' other polemical works.Volume 82 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.