Robert D. Sider (edited), Erasmus on the New Testament, (University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 2020).
Mark Vessey (edited), Erasmus on Literature: His Ratio or “System” of 1518/1519, (University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 2021).
Erasmus was too good a humanist to live only in the past.
—P.S. Allen
The name of Erasmus will never perish.
—John Colet
Erasmus has published volumes more full of wisdom
than any which Europe has seen for ages.
—Thomas More
I am halfway through the Ratio Verae Theologiae of Erasmus, loving the clarity and balance of his Latin, his taste, his good sense, his evangelical teaching. If there had been no Luther, Erasmus would now be regarded by everyone as one of the great Doctors of the Catholic Church. I like his directness, his simplicity, and his courage. All the qualities of Erasmus, and other qualities besides, were canonized in Thomas More.
Thomas Merton
Erasmus has often not been treated the best in both 16th-century Reformation-Renaissance history, thought, and religion, or the centuries that followed. The Roman Catholic Church put his writings on the Index at Trent and many Protestants have uncritically bowed the knee to Luther’s rather volcanic and reactionary rebuttal to Erasmus’ Freedom of the Will (1524), in the rather feisty The Bondage of the Will (1525). Both Roman Catholics and Protestants, therefore, in the religious and culture wars of the 16th century did not know how to cage this wild bird. Erasmus tended to transcend the tribalism of both the Roman Catholic and variations of Protestant clans and Sanhedrins. And yet it was Erasmus, more than anyone else, in his various translations and annotations of the New Testament, who raised substantive questions about serious mistranslations (and the theological-pastoral implications of them) of Jerome’s Vulgate. The main translations by Erasmus of the New Testament in 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535 did, as the saying goes, lay the egg that Luther hatched. It was in these, increasingly so, translations, commentaries, and annotations that Erasmus distinguished himself as one of the most significant scholars of the first half of the 16th century. The recent publications of Erasmus and the New Testament (2020) and Erasmus on Literature (2021) do need to be read together as companion tomes on Erasmus’ layered and nuanced approach in how to read, interpret and apply the text of the New Testament. In fact, both books walk the extra mile to highlight the all too obvious reality that Erasmus should not have been marginalized in his age and ethos or our context. But, it is to these two books worth the reviewing we now turn.
Erasmus on the New Testament: Selections from the Paraphrases, the Annotations, and the Writings on Biblical Interpretation is a classic primer not to miss. The book is divided into eight informative chapters: 1) Introduction: Erasmus’ New Testament Scholarship: Its Origen and Development, 2) The Philosophy of Christ, 3) The Interpretation of Scripture, 4) Paraphrases on the Gospels and Acts, 5) Paraphrases on the Pauline Epistles, 6) Paraphrases on Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles, 7) The Annotations on the New Testament and 8) Erasmus Reflects on His New Testament Projects.
Sider, to his deft credit, does a compact introduction to each of the sections in Erasmus’ exegetical journey (and those who supported and maligned him). It is most fitting that Sider, after a suggestive overview of the state of things in Erasmian scholarship, highlights the significance of Erasmus’ Paraclesis (or a summons on how to read, interpret and apply the text so as to live the life of Christ). The Paraclesis was, initially, but a preface to Erasmus’ 1516 translation of the New Testament but it was so popular, it became a much read booklet in and of itself that went into many printings. The core and centre of the Paraclesis was, in most ways, a conscious critique of a form of scholastic theology and philosophy that reduced the Christian journey to a sort of intellectual chess game of logical precision of thought. Such an approach lacked any meaningful implication or translation of ideas into the Christ-like life that was embedded in, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Beatitudes, or the layered ethical teachings and lives of the apostles. In short, Erasmus was very much, not just doing translations of the New Testament, he was in the process of rethinking the very nature of Christian education and how the Bible was being ignored and misread at the highest levels of Church and society. It is in this sense, of course, in his committed and conscious return to the Bible (and the deeper ethical vision it embodies), Erasmus anticipated the Protestant turn to the centrality of the Bible, the Paraclesis his apologia of sorts for such a turn. Needless to say, Sider does a compelling job in Chapter 2 in clarifying how “The Philosophy of Christ” can best be understood by a deeper read of the Bible via the guide of Paraclesis. In short, Erasmus was very much in the task of offering an alternate read and hermeneutic that would, in time, challenge both the Roman Catholic Church and significant types of Confessional-Magisterial Protestants but have an appeal for some emerging Anabaptist-Mennonites.
The much fuller hermeneutical vision of Erasmus, though, was developed in Chapter 3 in Erasmus on the New Testament. It is this chapter that is, in many ways, the centrepiece of the book and foundational to understanding Erasmus’ approach to Biblical interpretation and why he collided with many exegetes, church leaders, and theologians (even though many supported his work also) of his time. Erasmus threaded together in his various and ever-growing versions of A System of True Theology (1516, 1519, 1520, 1522, 1523, 1520) a “Method” or series of principles (criteria) that were essential to apply when interpreting the New Testament. Erasmus drew from Augustine’s foundation work, On Christian Doctrine, but developed Augustine’s exegetical thinking deeper and further. When Augustine and Erasmus thought theology they meant Biblical exegesis in a way that honoured and reflected the various literary genres in the Bible. It is significant to note in A System of True Theology that Erasmus does not delink and severe (as has often occurred in much Protestant exegesis)
interpretations of the Bible from the more layered and nuanced exegesis of the Church Fathers (East and West). In fact, Erasmus was one of the leading exegetes of his time in reconnecting Patristic exegesis with the Bible. Origen was, even more than Jerome, Erasmus’ model for exegesis. As Erasmus says, “Chief among these (exegetes) is Origen, who so began to weave this lovely web that no one after him dared to put a hand to it” (p. 69). Or, “Origen, who is so far ahead that no one else can be compared to him” (p.70). The contemporary turn to Origen these days is, in many ways, a turn to the 16th-century vision of Erasmus that has been seriously neglected the last 500 years in the West. Alas, Origen, like Erasmus, has often been caricatured, marginalized, and ignored.
Sider does linger longer in Chapter 7, “The Annotations on the New Testament”, on the way Erasmus, in his translations of the New Testament, engaged many of the hot button and controversial issues of his time, his translations-annotations a means of engaging most of the more troubling ethical, political, ecclesial, monastic, exegetical, educational and theological issues of his ethos. It is important to note that when Erasmus translated and interpreted Romans and Galatians, his read seriously differed with Luther. Erasmus and Luther both agreed on the authority of the Bible but locked horns on how the text was to be interpreted and applied. Luther tended to equate the authority of the text with his interpretation of it---the problem with such an approach was that to differ with the interpretation was to undermine the authority of the text. This deuterocanonical approach to authority was something Erasmus, being a more nuanced exegete (like Jerome but even more so Origen and the Fathers of the Church) took Erasmus in directions many Protestants did not go.
Erasmus on the New Testament is, in many ways, the portal into Mark Vessey’s edited Erasmus on Literature: His Ratio or “System” of 1518/1519. Sider did make reference to Vessey’s book (p. 40) and Chapter 3 in Erasmus on the New Testament is a pointer to Vessey’s larger reflections on Erasmus’ classic text on Biblical interpretation and the layered method of hermeneutics. In fact, Erasmus on Literature is drawn from “the translation and notes by Robert D. Sider”. So, there can be no question that Erasmus on the New Testament and Erasmus on Literature are companion books and need to be read together. The difference between them is the way Vessey focuses on Erasmus’ prime text, the “Ratio” or “System” of interpretation.
Erasmus on Literature is divided, appropriately so, into two main parts:
Part I: Approaches to Erasmus’ Ratio or “System” of 1518-1519 of which five scholarly articles and essays are included that reflects on Erasmus’ literary approach to exegesis. Part II offers up the full text of the Ratio Verae Theologiae or “System” of True Theology. The Ratio or “Method-System” of 1518-1519, in its nuanced way, is worth many a meditative read and, once read and inwardly digested, makes it obvious and clear why Erasmus’ exegetical approach would collide with Luther and many protestants who, in differing ways, followed the approach of Luther in his more dogmatic and systematic approach to Biblical exegesis.
The Ratio of 1518-1519 is divided into six chapters that, like a Russian Doll, fold into one another: 1) Preface: Purpose of the Ratio, 2) Elements of a Method for the Study of Scripture, 3) The Unity in Variety of the Gospel, 4) The Wonderful Circle and Harmony of the Entire Drama of Christ, 5) The Figurative Character of the Language of Sacred Literature and 6) Elements of a Method for the Study of Scripture (concluded). It is significant to note with the turn by many these days to the Patristic approach to exegesis (literal-grammatical, typological, tropological, allegorical, anagogical, ecclesial, mystical, etc) Erasmus’ Ratio is often ignored----to the immense credit of both Vessey’s insightful “Introduction” and his essay “The Ratio in Erasmus’ Life and Work to 1519”, including the concluding “Explanatory Notes” and “Conspectus of Church Fathers Cited in the Ratio, Vessey has done more than yeoman’s duty. If Erasmus on the New Testament is more like the perennial fox that covers a broader terrain in Erasmian translations-paraphrases-annotations in the New Testament, then Vessey’s Erasmus on Literature is like the hedgehog that burrows deep and, in doing so, brings forth much missing and forgotten goods that are missed in on the surface rambles and aerial overviews. But, both Sider and Vessey need to be read together to get a solid fix and feel for the immense contribution Erasmus made (and continues to make if heeded and heard) in how to mine the mother lode of the Bible and Fathers interpretive method of exegesis.
There has been an unfortunate tendency to dismiss Erasmus for various reasons (mostly he was too nimble to dwell peacefully in certain exegetical and theological cages). The notion that Erasmus was merely a Biblical exegete and not a theologian raises the question of who defines what it means to be a theologian. The book I published a few years ago, Erasmus: Wild Bird (2018) pondered how Erasmus drew deeply for the Fathers of the Church (East and West) and, as such, his more moderate and measured approach to both Biblical and Creedal interpretations. Most who enter the Erasmus-Luther fray never venture much further than the freedom of the will-bondage of the will debate but the actual conversation continued after this brief exchange. My chapter in Erasmus: Wild Bird, “Erasmus and Luther: The Final fray” (5)
lights and lands on Erasmus’ more sophisticated response to Luther, Hyperaspistes, and the equally rigourous and detailed response to Luther in 1534, Purgatio Adversus Lutherum. Each of these missives by Erasmus, including his final reflections on the Apostles’ Creed, makes it abundantly clear, Erasmus knew how to do theology at a variety of interpretive levels.
University of Toronto Press (a mecca of sorts of Erasmian publications and collected works) has yet once again, in the publications of Erasmus on the New Testament and Erasmus on Literature: His Ratio or “System” of 1518/1519, demonstrated by Erasmus is perennially relevant, a man for all seasons and a guide through the dense forests we trek through to a series of clearings we ignore to our peril---Allen, Colet, More and Merton knew of what they spoke and knew well and wisely.
Fiat Lux
Ron Dart
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