§ 71. ERASMUS. 419
The numerous letters of Erasmus and to Erasmus throw much light upon contemporaneous literary and ecclesiastical history, and make us best acquainted with his personality. He corresponded with kings and princes, popes and cardinals, as well as with scholars in all parts of Europe. He tells us that he wrote sometimes forty letters in a day.}
III. Theological works. The edition of the Greek Testament, with a new Latin version and brief annotations, and the independent paraphrases, are the most important contributions of Erasmus to exegesis, and have appeared in very many editions. The paraphrastic form of commenting, which briefly explains the difficulties, and links text and notes in continuous composition, so as to make the writer his own interpreter,? was a great benefit to the incipient scholarship of his day, and facilitated a more general spread of the New Testament, which he eloquently defended. He did not penetrate into the deeper meaning of the Scriptures, but he made the surface more intelligible by the moonlight of philology and refined culture. His Paraphrases cover the whole New Testament, except the Apocalypse, and fill the seventh volume of Le Clerk’s edition of his works. A translation was published in two volumes folio, in blackletter, at London, 1551, and appointed, by public authority, to be placed in all the parish churches of England.
His “ Method of True Theology” (Ratio vere Theologie) 8
1 The Epistole in Froben’s ed. of 1540, Tom. III. fol. (1213 pp.), with his preface, dated Freiburg, 1529; in Le Clerk’s ed., Tom. III. Pars I. and IT. There is also a fine edition of the collected epistles of Erasmus, Melanchthon, Thomas More, and Lud. Vives, London, 1642, 2 vols. fol. 2146 and 116 pages, with a good portrait of Erasmus (a copy in the Union Seminary). Recent additions have been made by Horawitz (Erasmiana, 1883 sqq.). Jortin and Drummond give many extracts from the epistles.
2 Erasmus well defines it in the dedicatory preface ad Card. Grimanum, before the Pauline Epistles: ‘‘ hiantia committere, abrupta mollire, confusa digerere, evoluta evolvere, nodosa explicare, obscuris lucem addere, hebraismum romana civitate donare ... et ita temperare παράφρασιν ne fiat παραφρόνησις, h. 6. sic aliter dicere ut non dicas alia.”’
8 Opera, vol. V. 57 sqq.
420 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
was prefixed to his first edition of the Greek Testament, and afterwards expanded and separately published, and dedicated to Cardinal-Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz (1519), in a preface full of complaints over the evil times of violent controversy, which, in his judgment, destroyed charity and the peaceful cultivation of learning and practical piety. He maintains that the first requisite for the study of the Scriptures is a knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Nor are poetry and good letters to be neglected. Christ clothes his teaching in poetic parables; and Paul quotes from the poets, but not from Aristotle.
The Enchiridion Militis Christiani,’ first published at Louvain, 1501 (or 1503),? and translated into several languages, is a treatise on practical piety in its conflict with the Devil and unruly passions. The author borrows his weapons from. the Scriptures, the fathers, and the Greek and Roman philosophers, and shows that the end of all human effort is Christ, and that the way to Christ is faith abounding in good works. In a later edition he added a defense, with a sharp attack on the scholastic theology contrasted with the plain, practical teaching of Christ and the apostles. ‘The book was condemned by the Sorbonne as heretical.
In the tract on the Confessional (1524), he enumerates the advantages and the perils of that institution which may be perverted into a means of propagating vice by suggesting it to young and inexperienced penitents. He leaves, on the whole, the impression that the confessional does more harm than good.
In the book on the Tongue (1525), he eloquently describes,
1 Usually translated ‘‘ The Manual of a Christian Soldier ;’’ but ἐγχειρίδιον means also a dagger, and he himself explains it, “ Enchiridion, hoc est, pugiunculum.” Op. V. 1-65. The first English translation (1533) is believed to be by William Tyndale, the translator of the New Testament. Another, with notes, which I have before me, is by Philip Wyatt Crowther, Esq., London, 1816, under the title ‘‘ The Christian’s Manual,”’ etc.
2 On the disputed date see Drummond, I. 122.