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ERASMUS, DESIDERIUS (1466–1536)
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See also:ERASMUS, See also:DESIDERIUS (1466–1536) , Dutch See also:scholar and theologian, was See also:born on the See also:night of the 27/28th of See also:October, probably in 1466; but his statements about his See also:age are conflicting, and in view of his own uncertainty (Ep. x. 29: 466) and the weakness of his memory for See also:dates, the See also:year of his See also:birth cannot be definitely fixed. His See also:father's name seems to have been Rogerius Gerardus. He himself was christened Herasmus; but in 1503, when becoming See also:familiar with See also:Greek, he assimilated the name to a fancied Greek See also:original, which he had a few years before Latinized into Desyderius. A contemporary authority states that he was born at See also:Gouda, his father's native See also:town;
but he adopted the See also:style Rotlerdammensis or Roterodamus, in accordance with a See also:story to which he himself gave See also:credence. His first schooling was at Gouda under See also:Peter Winckel, who was afterwards See also:vice-pastor of the See also: Peter went to See also:Sion, near See also:Delft; Erasmus after prolonged reluctance became an Augustinian See also:canon in St See also:Gregory's at See also:Steyn, a See also:house of the same See also:Chapter near Gouda. There he found little See also:religion and less refinement; but no serious difficulty seems to have been made about his See also:reading the See also:classics and the Fathers with his See also:friends to his See also:heart's content. The monastery once entered, there was no See also:drawing back; and Erasmus passed through the various stages which culminated in his ordination as See also:priest on the 25th of See also:April 1492.
But his ardent spirit could not See also:long be content with monastic life. He brought his attainments somehow to the See also:notice of See also: After a year or two he left Montaigu and eked out his See also:money from the bishop by taking pupils. One of these, a See also:young Englishman, William See also:Blount, 4th See also:Baron See also:Mountjoy (d. 1534), persuaded him to visit See also:England in the See also:spring of 1499.
Being without a See also:benefice, he had no settled income to look to, and apart from the See also:precarious profits of teaching and See also:writing books, could only wait on the generosity of patrons to See also:supply him with the leisure he craved. The faithful Batt had sought a pension for him from his own patroness, See also:Anne of Borsselen, the See also:Lady of See also:Veere, who resided at the See also:castle of Tournehem near See also:Calais, and whose son Batt was now teaching. But as nothing promised at once, Erasmus accepted Mountjoy's offer, and thus a tie was formed which led Mountjoy then or a few years later to See also: The next few years were spent still in preparation, supported by pupils' fees and the dedications of books; the Collectanea adagiorum in See also:June 1500 to Mountjoy, and some devotional and moral compositions to Batt's patroness and her son. When the See also:plague drove him from Paris, he went to See also: The volume of 1500 had been jejune, written when he knew nothing of Greek; 800 adages put together with scanty elucidations. In 1508 he had conceived a See also:work on lines more to the See also:taste of the learned See also:world, full of See also:apt and recondite learning, and now and again relieved by telling comments or lively anecdotes. Three thousand and more collected justified a new title—Chiliades adagiorum; and the author's reputation was now established. So secure in public favour did the See also:book in time become, that the See also:council of See also:Trent, unable to suppress it and not daring to overlook it, ordered the preparation of a castrated edition.
To See also:print the Adagia he had gone to See also:Venice, where he lived with See also:Andrea Torresano of Asola (Asulanus) and did the work of two men, writing and correcting See also:proof at the same time. When it was finished, with an ample re-See also:dedication to Mountjoy, a new pupil' presented himself, Alexander See also: He had been disappointed in Italy, to find that he had not much to learn from its famed scholarship; but he had made many friends in Aldus's circle—Marcus See also:Musurus, John See also:Lascaris,
Baptista Egnatius, Paul Bombasius, Scipio Carteromachus; and his reception had been flattering, especially in Rome, where cardinals had delighted to See also:honour him. But to remain in Rome was to sell himself. He might have the leisure which was so indispensable, but at See also:price of the freedom to read, think, write what he liked. He decided, therefore, to go, though with regrets; which returned upon him sometimes in after years, when the See also:English hopes had not See also:borne See also:fruit.
In the autumn he reached London, and in See also: His English patrons were liberal. Fisher sent him in August 1511 to teach in Cambridge; Warham gave him a benefice, Aldington in See also:Kent, worth £33,6s.8d. a year, and in violation of his own rule commuted it for a pension of zo charged on the living; and the dedications of his books were fruitful. In Cambridge he completed his work on the New Testament, the Letters of Jerome, and See also:Seneca; and then in 1514, when there seemed no prospect of ampler preferment, he determined to See also:transfer himself to See also:Basel and give the results of his labours to the world. The origin of Erasmus's connexion with Johann See also:Froben is not clear. In 1511 he was preparing to reprint his Adagia with Jodocus Badius, who in the following year was to have also Seneca and Jerome. But in 1513 Froben, who had just reprinted the Aldine Adagia, acquired through a bookseller-See also:agent Erasmus' amended copy which had been destined for Badius. That the agent was acting entirely on his own responsibility may be doubted; for within a few months Erasmus had decided to betake himself to Basel, bearing with him Seneca and Jerome, the latter to be incorporated in the See also:great edition which Johannes Amerbach and Froben had had in See also:hand since 1510. In See also:Germany he was widely welcomed. The See also:Strassburg See also:Literary Society feted him, and Johannes Sapidus, headmaster of the Latin school at See also:Schlettstadt, rode with him into Basel. Froben received him with open arms, and the presses were soon busy with his books. Through the See also:winter of 1514–1515 Erasmus worked with the strength of ten; and after a brief visit to England in the spring, the New Testament was set up. Around him was a circle of students, some young, some already distinguished—the three sons of Froben's partner, Johannes Amerbach, who was now dead, See also:Beatus See also:Rhenanus, Wilhelm Nesen, See also:Ludwig Ber, Heinrich Glareanus, Nikolaus Gerbell, Johannes Oecolampadius—who looked to him as their See also:head and were proud to do him service. Though from this time forward Basel became the centre of occupation and See also:interest for Erasmus, yet for the next few years he was mainly in the See also:Netherlands. On the completion of the New Testament in 1516 he returned to his friends in England; but his See also:appointment, then See also:recent, as councillor to the young king See also: The excessive delicacy of his constitution, not pampered appetite, exacted some unusual indulgences. He could not See also:bear the stoves of Germany, and required an open fireplace in the See also:room in which he worked. He was afflicted with the See also: Adrian VI. offered him a deanery, but the offer seems to have been of a possible and not an actual deanery. Offers, flattering but equally vague, were made from See also:France, on the See also:part of the bishop of See also:Bayeux, and even of See also:Francis I. " Invitor amplissimis conditionibus; offeruntur dignitates et episcopatus; See also:plane rex essem, si juvenis essem " (Ep. xix. 106; 735). Erasmus declined all, and in See also:November 1521 settled permanently at Basel, in the capacity of general editor and literary adviser of Froben's press. As a subject of the See also:emperor, and attached to his court by a pension, it would have been convenient to him to have fixed his See also:residence in Louvain. But the bigotry of the Flemish See also:clergy, and the monkish See also:atmosphere of the university of Louvain, overrun with See also:Dominicans and See also:Franciscans, See also:united for once in their enmity to the new classical learning, inclined Erasmus to seek a more congenial See also:home in Basel. To Froben his arrival was the See also:advent of the very man whom he had long wanted. Froben's enterprise, united with Erasmus's editorial skill, raised the press of Basel, for a time, to be the most important in Europe. The death of Froben in 1527, the final separation of Basel from the See also:Empire, the See also:wreck of learning in the religious disputes, and the cheap See also:paper and scamped work of the See also:Frankfort presses, gradually withdrew the See also:trade from Basel. But during the years of Erasmus's co-operation the Froben press took the See also:lead of all the presses in Europe, both in the See also:standard value of the See also:works published and in style of typographical See also:execution. Like some other publishers who preferred reputation to returns in money, Froben died poor, and his impressions never reached the splendour afterwards attained by those of the Estiennes, or of See also:Plantin. The See also:series of the Fathers alone contains Jerome (1516), See also:Cyprian (1520), Pseudo-See also:Arnobius (1522), See also:Hilarius (1523), See also:Irenaeus (Latin, 1526), See also:Ambrose (1527), See also:Augustine (1528), See also:Chrysostom
(Latin, 1530), See also:Basil (Greek, 1532, the first Greek author printed in Germany), and See also:Origen (Latin, 1536). In these See also:editions, partly texts, partly See also:translations, it is impossible to determine the respective shares of Erasmus and his many helpers. The prefaces and dedications are all written by him, and some of them, as that to the Hilarius, are of importance for the See also:history as well of the times as of Erasmus himself. Of his most important edition, that of the Greek See also:text of the New Testament, something will be said farther on.
In this " See also: He selected See also:Freiburg in the See also:Breisgau, as a See also:city which was still in the dominion of the emperor, and was free from religious dissension. Thither he removed in April 1529. He was received with public marks of respect by the authorities, who granted him the use of an unfinished residence which had been begun to be built for the See also:late emperor See also:Maximilian. Erasmus proposed only to remain at Freiburg for a few months, but found the See also:place so suited to his habits that he bought a house of his own, and remained there six years. A See also:desire for See also:change of air—he fancied Freiburg was damp—rumours of a new See also:war with France, and the See also:necessity of seeing his See also:Ecclesiastes through the press, took him back to Basel in 1535. He lived now a very retired life, and saw only a small circle of intimate friends. A last See also:attempt was made by the papal court to enlist him in some public way against the See also:Reformation. On the See also:election of Paul III. in 1534, he had, as usual, sent the new pope a congratulatory See also:letter. After his arrival in Basel, he received a complimentary See also:answer, together with the nomination to the deanery of Deventer, the income of which was reckoned at 600 ducats. This nomination was accompanied with an intimation that more was in See also:store for him, and that steps would be taken to provide for him the income, viz., 3000 ducats, which was necessary to qualify for the See also:cardinal's See also:hat. But Erasmus was even less disposed now than he had been before to See also:barter his reputation for honours. His health had been for some years gradually declining, and disease in the shape of See also:gout gaining upon him. In the winter of 1535–1536 he was confined entirely to his chamber, many days to his See also:bed. Though thus afflicted he never ceased his literary activity, dictating his See also:tract On the Purity of the Church, and revising the sheets of a See also:translation of Origen which was passing through the Froben press. His last letter is dated the 28th of June 1536, and subscribed " Eras. Rot. aegra manu." " I have never been so ill in my life before as I am now,—for many days unable even to read." See also:Dysentery setting in carried him off on the 12th of See also:July 1536, in his 70th year. By his will, made on the 12th of See also:February 1536, he left what he had to leave, with the exception of some legacies, to Bonifazius Amerbach, partly for himself, partly in See also:trust for the benefit of the aged and the infirm, or to be spent in portioning young girls, and in educating young men of promise. He left none of the usual legacies for masses or other clerical purposes, and was not attended by any priest or See also:confessor in his last moments. Erasmus's features are familiar to all, from See also:Holbein's many portraits or their copies. Beatus Rhenanus, " summus Erasmi observator," as he is called. by de See also:Thou, describes his person thus: " In stature not tall, but not noticeably See also:short; in figure well built and graceful; of an extremely delicate constitution, sensitive to the slightest changes of See also:climate, See also:food or drink. After See also:middle life he suffered from the stone, not to mention the See also:common plague of studious men, an irritable mucous membrane. His complexion was See also:fair; See also:light See also:blue eyes, and yellowish See also:hair. Though his See also:voice was weak, his enunciation was distinct; the expression of his See also:face cheerful; his manner and conversation polished, affable, even charming." His highly See also:nervous organization made his feelings acute, and his See also:brain incessantly active. Through his ready sympathy with all forms of life and See also:character, his See also:attention was always alive. The active See also:movement of his spirit spent itself, not in following put its own trains of thought, but in outward observation. No man was ever less introspective, and though he talks much of himself, his egotism is the genial egotism which takes the world into its confidence, not the selfish egotism which feels no interest but in its own woes. He says of himself, and justly, " that he was incapable of dissimulation " (Ep. See also:xxvi. 19; 1152). There is nothing behind, no pose, no scenic effect. It may be said of his letters that in them " tota patet vita senis." His nature was flexible without being faultily weak. He has many moods and each See also:mood imprints itself in turn on his words. Hence, on a superficial view, Erasmus is set down as the most inconsistent of men. Further acquaintance makes us feel a unity of character underlying this susceptibility to the impressions of the moment. His seeming inconsistencies are reconciled to See also:apprehension, not by a See also:formula of the See also:intellect, but by the many-sidedness of a highly impressible nature. In the words of J. See also:Nisard, Erasmus was one of those " dont la gloire a ete de beaucoup comprendre et d'affirmer peu."
This equal openness to every vibration of his environment is the See also: The reproaches of party assailed him in his lifetime, and have continued to be heaped upon his memory. He was loudly accused by the Catholics of See also:collusion with the enemies of the faith. His powerful friends, the pope, See also:Wolsey, Henry VIII., the emperor, called upon him to declare against Luther. Theological historians from that time forward have perpetuated the See also:indictment that Erasmus sided with neither party in the struggle for religious truth. The most moderate See also:form of the censure presents him in the odious light of a See also:trimmer; the vulgar and venomous assailant is sure that Erasmus was a See also:Protestant at heart, but withheld the avowal that he might 'not forfeit the worldly advantages he enjoyed as a Catholic. When by study of his writings we come to know Erasmus intimately, there is revealed to us one of those natures to which partisanship is an impossibility. It was not timidity or weakness which kept Erasmus neutral, but,the reasonableness of his nature. It was not only that his intellect revolted against the narrowness of party, his whole being repudiated its clamorous and vulgar excesses. As he loathed fish, so he loathed clerical fanaticism. Himself a Catholic priest—" the See also:glory of the priesthood and the shame "—the See also:tone of the orthodox clergy was distasteful to him; the ignorant hostility to classical learning which reigned in their colleges and convents disgusted him. In common with all the learned men of his age, he wished to see the See also:power of the clergy broken, as that of an obscurantist See also:army arrayed against light. He had employed all his resources of wit and satire against the priests and monks, and the superstitions in which they traded, long before Luther's name was heard of. The See also:motto which was already current in his lifetime, " that Erasmus laid the See also:egg and Luther hatched it," is so far true, and no more. Erasmus would have suppressed the monasteries, put an end to the domination of the clergy, and swept away scandalous and profitable abuses, but' to attack the church or re-See also:mould received theology was far from his thoughts. And when out of Luther's revolt there arose a new fanaticism—that of evangelism, Erasmus recoiled from the violence of the new preachers. " Is it for this," he writes to See also:Melanchthon (Ep. xix. 113; 703), " that we have shaken off bishops and popes, that we may come under the yoke of such madmen as See also:Otto and See also:Farel ?" Passages have been collected, and it is an easy task, from the writings of Erasmus to prove that he shared the doctrines of the Reformers. Passages equally strong might be culled to show that he repudiated them. The truth is that theological questions in themselves had no attraction for him. And when a theological position was emphasized by party passion it became odious to him. In the words of See also:Drummond: " Erasmus was in his own age the apostle of common sense and of rational religion. He did not care for See also:dogma, and accordingly the dogmas of Rome, which had the consent of the See also:Christian world, were in his eyes preferable to the dogmas of Protestantism. . . . From the beginning to the end of his career he remained true to the purpose of his life, which was to fight the See also:battle of See also:sound learning and See also:plain common sense against the See also:powers of See also:ignorance and superstition, and amid all the See also:convulsions of that period he never once lost his mental See also:balance." Erasmus is accused of indifference. But he was far from indifferent to the progress of the revolution. He was keenly alive to its pernicious influence on the cherished interest of his life, the cause of learning. " I abhor the evangelics, because it is through them that literature is everywhere declin lg, and upon the point of perishing." He had been born with tl hopes of the Renaissance, with its anticipation of a new Augi ,tan age, and had seen this fair promise blighted by the irruption of a new See also:horde of theological polemics, worse than the old scholastics, inasmuch as they were revolutionary instead of conservative. Erasmus never flouted at religion nor even at theology as such, but only at See also:blind and intemperate theologians. In the mind of Erasmus there was no metaphysical inclination; he was a man of letters, with a general tendency to rational views on every subject which came under his See also:pen. His was not the mind to originate, like See also:Calvin, a new See also:scheme of Christian thought. He is at his weakest in defending free will against Luther, and indeed he can hardly be said to enter on the metaphysical question. He treats the dispute entirely from the outside. It is impossible in reading Erasmus not to be reminded of the rationalist of the 18th See also:century. Erasmus has been called the " See also:Voltaire of the Renaissance." But there is a vast difference in the relations in which they respectively stood to the church and to See also:Christianity. Voltaire, though he did not originate, yet adopted a moral and religious scheme which he sought to substitute for the church tradition. He waged war, not only against the clergy, but against the church and its sovereigns. Erasmus See also:drew the.See also:line at the first of these. He was not an anticipation of the 18th century; he was the man of his age, as Voltaire of his; though Erasmus id not intend it, he undoubtedly shook the ecclesiastical edifice in all its parts; and, as Melchior See also:Adam says of him, " pontifici Romano plus nocuit jocando quam Lutherus stomachando." But if Erasmus was unlike the 18th century rationalist in that he did not declare war against the church, but remained a Catholic and mourned the disruption, he was yet a true rationalist in principle. The principle that See also:reason is the one only See also:guide of life, the supreme arbiter of all questions, politics and religion included, has its earliest and most See also:complete exemplar in Erasmus. He does not dogmatically denounce the rights of reason, but he practically exercises them. Along with the See also:charm of style, the great attraction of the writings of Erasmus is this unconscious freedom by which they are pervaded. It must excite our surprise that one who used his pen so freely should have escaped the pains and penalties which invariably overtook See also:minor offenders in the same See also:kind. For it was not only against the clergy and the monks that he kept up a ceaseless stream of satiric raillery; he treated nobles, princes and kings with equal freedom. No 18th century republican has used stronger See also:language than has this pensioner of Charles V. " Thepeople build cities, princes pull them down; the See also:industry of the citizens creates See also:wealth for rapacious lords to See also:plunder; plebeian magistrates pass See also:good See also:laws for kings to violate; the people love See also:peace, and their rulers stir up war." Such outbursts are frequent in the Adagia. These freedoms are part cause of Erasmus's popularity. He was here in sympathy with the See also:secret sore of his age, and gave utterance to what all felt but none dared to whisper but he. It marks the difference between 1513 and 1669 that, in a reprint of the Julius Exclusus published in 166g at Oxford, it was thought necessary to leave out a See also:sentence in which the writer of that See also:dialogue, supposed by the editor to be Erasmus, asserts the right of states to deprive and punish See also:bad kings. It is difficult to say to what we are to ascribe his See also:immunity from painful consequences. We have to remember that he was removed from the See also:scene early in the reaction, before force was fully organized for the suppression of the revolution. And his popular works, the Adagia, and the Colloquia (1524), had established themselves as standard books in the more easy going age, when power, secure in its unchallenged strength, could afford to laugh with the laughers at itself. At the date of his death the Catholic revival, with its fell antipathy to See also:art and letters, was only in its See also:infancy; and when times became dangerous, Erasmus cautiously declined to venture out of the See also:protection of the Empire, refusing repeated invitations to Italy and to France. " I had thought of going to See also:Besancon," he said, " ne non essem in ditione Caesaris " (Ep. See also:xxx. 74; 1299). In Italy a See also:Bembo and a See also:Sadoleto wrote a purer Latin than Erasmus, but contented themselves with See also:pretty phrases, and were careful to touch no living chord of feeling. In France it was necessary for a See also:Rabelais to hide his free-thinking under a disguise of revolting and unintelligible See also:jargon. It was only in the Empire that such See also:liberty of speech as Erasmus used was practicable, and in the Empire Erasmus passed for a moderate man. Upon the strength of an established character for moderation he enjoyed an exceptional See also:licence for the utterance of unwelcome truths; and in spite of his flings at the See also:rich and powerful, he remained through life a privileged person with them. But though the men of the keys and the See also:sword let him go his way unmolested, it was otherwise with his brethren of the pen. A man who is always launching opinions must expect to be retorted on. And when these judgments were winged by See also:epigram, and weighted by the name of Erasmus, who stood at the head of letters, a widespread exasperation was the consequence. Disraeli has not noticed Erasmus in his Quarrels of Authors, perhaps because Erasmus's quarrels would require a .volume to themselves. " So thin-skinned that a See also:fly would draw See also:blood," as the prince of See also:Carpi expressed it, he could not himself restrain his pen from See also:sarcasm. He forgot that though it is safe to lash the dunces, he could not with equal impunity sneer at those who, though they might not have the ear of the public as he had, could yet contradict and call names. And when literary See also:jealousy was complicated with theological See also:differences, as in the See also:case of the free-thinkers, or with French vanity, as in that of Budaeus, the cause of the enemy was espoused by a party and a nation. The See also:quarrel with Budaeus was strictly a See also:national one. See also:Cosmopolitan as Erasmus was, to the French literati he was still the Teuton. See also:Etienne See also:Dolet calls him " enemy of See also:Cicero, and jealous detractor of the French name." The only contemporary name which could approach to a rivalry with his was that of Budaeus (See also:Bude), who was exactly contemporary, having been born in the same year as Erasmus. Rivals in fame, they were unlike in accomplishment, each having the quality which the other wanted. Budaeus, though a Frenchman, knew Greek well; Erasmus, though a Dutchman, very imperfectly. But the Frenchman Budaeus wrote an execrable Latin style, unreadable then as now, while the Teuton Erasmus charmed the reading world with a style which, though far from good Latin, is the most delightful which the Renaissance has left us. The style of Erasmus is, considered as Latin, incorrect, some-times even barbarous, and far removed from any classical See also:model. But it has qualities far above purity. The best See also:Italian Latin is but an See also:echo and an See also:imitation; like the painted See also:glass which we put in our churches, it is an See also:anachronism. Bembo, Sadoleto and the See also:rest write purely in a dead language. Erasmus's Latin was a living and spoken See also:tongue. Though Erasmus had passed nearly all his life in England, France and Germany, his conversation was Latin; and the language in which he talked about common things he wrote. Hence the spontaneity and naturalness of his page, its flavour of life and not of books. He writes from himself, and not out of Cicero. Hence, too, he spoiled nothing by anxious revision in terror lest some phrase not of the See also:golden age should See also:escape from his pen. He confesses apologetically to See also:Christopher Longolius (Ep. iii. 63; 402) that it was his See also:habit to extemporize all he wrote, and that this habit was incorrigible; " effundo verius quam scribo omnia." He complains that much reading of the works of St Jerome had spoiled his Latin; but, as See also:Scaliger says (Scalig° " Erasmus's language is better than St Jerome's." The same critic, however, thought Erasmus would have done better " if he had kept more closely to the classical See also:models." In the See also:annals of classical learning Erasmus may be regarded as constituting an intermediate See also:stage between the humanists of the Latin Renaissance and the learned men of the age of Greek scholarship, between Angelo Poliziano and See also:Joseph Scaliger. Erasmus, though justly styled by See also:Muretus (Varr. Lectt. 7, 15) " eruditus sane vir, ac multae lectionis," was not a " learned " man in the special sense of the word—not an " erudit." He was more than this; he was the " man of letters "—the first who had appeared in Europe since the fall of the See also:Roman empire. His acquirements were vast, and they were all brought to bear upon the life of his day. He did not make a study apart of antiquity for its own See also:sake, but used it as an See also:instrument of culture. He did not See also:worship, imitate and reproduce the classics, like the Latin humanists who preceded him; he did not master them and reduce them to a special See also:science, as did the French Hellenists who succeeded him. He edited many authors, it is true, but he had neither the means of forming a text, nor did he attempt to do so. In editing a father, or a classic, he had in view the See also:practical utility of the general reader, not the accuracy required by the gild of scholars. " His Jerome," says J. Scaliger, " is full of sad blunders" (Scalig° 2°). Even See also:Julien See also:Garnier could discover that Erasmus " falls in his haste into grievous See also:error in his Latin version of St Basil, though his Latinity is See also:superior to that of the other translators " (Pref. in Opp. St. Bas., 1721). It must be remembered that the commercial interests of Froben's press led to the introduction of Erasmus's name on many a title page when he had little to do with the book, e.g. the Latin See also:Josephus of 1524 to which Erasmus only contributed one translation of 14 pages; or the See also:Aristotle of 1531, of which See also:Simon See also:Grynaeus was the real editor. Where Erasmus excelled was in prefaces—not philological introductions to each author, but spirited appeals to the interest of the general reader, showing how an See also:ancient book might be made to See also:minister to See also:modern spiritual demands. Of Erasmus's works the Greek Testament is the most memorable. It has no title to be considered as a work of learning or scholarship, yet its influence upon See also:opinion was profound and durable. It contributed more to the liberation of the human mind from the thraldom of the clergy than all the uproar and rage of Luther's many See also:pamphlets. As an edition of the Greek Testament it has no See also:critical value. But it was the first, and it revealed the fact that the See also:Vulgate, the Bible of the church, was not only a second-hand document, but in places an erroneous document. A See also:shock was thus given to the See also:credit of the clergy in the See also:province of literature, equal to that which was given in the province of science by the astronomical discoveries of the 17th century. Even if Erasmus had had at his disposal the See also:MSS. subsidia for forming a text, he had not the critical skill required to use them. He had at hand a few late Basel MSS., one of which he sent straight to press, correcting them in places by collations of others which had been sent to him by Colet in England. In four reprints, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535, Erasmus gradually weeded out many of the typographical errors of his first edition, but the text remained essentially such as he had first printed it. The Greek text indeed was only a part of his scheme. An importantfeature of the volume was the new Latin version, the original being placed alongside as a See also:guarantee of the translator's good faith. This translation, with the justificatory notes which accompanied it, though not itself a work of critical scholarship, became the starting-point of modern exegetical science. Erasmus did nothing to solve the problem, but to him belongs the honour of having first propounded it. Besides translating and editing the New Testament, Erasmus paraphrased the whole, except the See also:Apocalypse, between 1517 and 1524. The paraphrases were received with great See also:applause, even by those who had little appreciation for Erasmus. In England a translation of them made in 1548 was ordered to be placed in all See also:parish churches beside the Bible. His correspondence is perhaps the part of his works which has the most permanent value; it comprises about 3000 letters, which form an important source for the history of that period. For the same purpose his Colloquia may be consulted. They are a series of dialogues, written first for pupils in the early Paris days as formulae of polite address, but afterwards See also:expanded into lively conversations, in which many of the topics of the day are discussed. Later in the century they were read in See also:schools, and some of See also:Shakespeare's lines are See also:direct reminiscences of Erasmus. His complete works have been printed twice; by the Froben See also:firm under the direction of his literary executors (9 vols., Basel, 1540) ; and by Leclerc at See also:Leiden (r1 vols., 1703–1706). For his life the See also:chief contemporary See also:sources are a Compendium vitae written by himself in 1524, and a See also:sketch prefixed by Beatus Rhenanus to the Basel edition of 1540. Of his writings he gives an See also:account in his Catalogus lucubrationum, composed first in January 1523 and enlarged in September 152., ; and also in a letter to See also:Hector See also:Boece of See also:Aberdeen, written in 153;. An elaborate bibliography, entitled Bibliotheca Erasmiana, was undertaken by the officials of the See also:Ghent University Library; it is divided into three sections, for Erasmus's writings, the books he edited, and the literature about him. Listes sommaires were issued in 1893 ; and since 1897 the completed volumes have been appearing at intervals. There is an excellent sketch of Erasmus's life down to 1519 in F. Seebohm's Oxford Reformers (3rd ed., 1887); and of the many See also:biographies those by S. See also:Knight (1726), J. See also:Jortin (2 vols., 1758–1760) and R. B. Drummond (2 vols., 1873) may be mentioned. There are also two volumes (1901–1904) of translations by F. M. See also:Nichols from Erasmus's letters down to 1517, with an ample commentary which amounts almost to a See also:biography; and an edition of the letters, in Latin, was begun by the Oxford University Press in 1906 (vol. ii., 1910). (M. P.; P. S. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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