|[ Previous Lecture / Essay ]|[ Early Modern Christianity Index ]|[ Next Lecture / Essay]|
A scholar or student of the Humanities began to be called a "Humanist" during this culminating phase of the Renaissance. Modern scholars have adopted the very misleading practice of distinguishing between what they term "Christian humanists" and those they label "secular humanists". In point of fact all humanists in this period were considered Christians. Some of them did focus on Christian texts and Christian applications of their skills while others focused on texts and applications that were not so plainly "Christian".
The term "Humanism" was first invented by nineteenth century scholars who used it as a synonym for humanitarianism or as a label for the educational theory that retains the study of the classics in the school curriculum. Swiss Historian, Jacob Burckhardt, employed the term in his pioneering essay, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy) 1860, to refer to the "mediators between their own age and a venerated antiquity". It was also Burckhardt's ninteenth century French contemporary, historian Jules Michelet, who first used the term "Renaissance" as a label for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and declared its major characteristic to be "the discovery of man and of the world."
These scholars of the humanities, called Humanists, were of course not the only export from Italy in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. We can mention in passing that highly developed artistic skills acquired during the previous centuries through study and imitation of classical (pagan) models were now increasingly applied to contemporary and frequently Christian uses of many sorts. The Italian masters of this period produced many masterpieces in Christian art and inspired many non-Italian artists to emulate them. In sculpture there was Verrocchio (1435-1488), and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). In architecture, the outstanding artists were Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) and Donato Bramante (1444-1514). Botticelli (1440-1510), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) were renowned for painting.
Up
It is in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that the rest of Europe begins to be swept up in the cultural revolution that had overtaken Italy. Large numbers of European scholars came to Italy to study the humanities and then return to England, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, etc., to spread the ideas and skills of humanities scholarship still farther.
Up
The pioneer application of movable type printing presses in the publication of humanities literature, both pagan and Christian, Latin and Greek emerged suddenly after 1450. This was made possible by a number of factors. The invention of movable type certainly ranks first. That innovation, however, might not have produced many results but for the development of the Humanities scholarship and perspective. Special mention also must be made of the large number of Greek-speaking refugee scholars from Constantinople that migrated west both before and after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. A number of these gained employment as editors and publishers of Greek texts. Most stopped in Italy, but Greek publishers are also found in France, Germany and Spain by 1500.
By 1500 there were presses operating in thirteen European countries having produced somewhere between six and nine million documents and books in the half century since the Gutenberg Bible was first printed. The great majority of authors whose works were published in this period had long been known in manuscript editions.
Up
This was the age of the great Renaissance libraries founded by wealthy patrons at various places in Italy. The Laurentian Library at Florence founded by Lorenzo de' Medici used the collection of Niccolo Niccoli as a starter. Other libraries were established at the Vatican (by Pope Nicholas V.), at Urbino (by Frederigo of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.), and at Pavia (by the Visconti dynasty). All these were first and foremost manuscript collections, but printed editions were collected also.
Up
The continuing recovery of the classical Plato resulted from the continued patronage of the "Platonic Academy" in Florence by Lorenzo de' Medici. Understanding Platonism--apart from its typical Augustinian dress--was a major development in this period. Marsiglio Ficino translated the Platonic Dialogues and other Platonic writings, and then concluded that Plotinus and Proclus (fourth century AD Neoplatonists) offered the best interpretation of Plato's thought for application to religious questions.
Up
Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was a wealthy man with a pioneering vision whose mediocre Latin skills and short life precluded much accomplishment, but whose ideas are more in tune with the attitudes and accomplishments of many European scholars two centuries after his death. Nevertheless, some interpreters of the Renaissance point to his Oration on the Dignity of Man as characteristic of the alleged philosophy of the fifteenth century Humanists.
His central idea was really not new, but the adaptation of the medieval concept of the Summa to the Humanities. The confidence that man could know and harmonize all fields of knowledge had suffered a serious setback from Nominalism in the fourteenth century. He was one of the few humanities scholars that actually studied the systems of the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. The Medieval Scholars had recognized that Arabic and Greek sources could supply much knowledge not available in Latin. Now Pico and his contemporaries understood that the Greek language also opened the doors to vast knowledge not available in Latin. Pico not only studied Arabic and Greek but also Hebrew in order to be able to study the Old Testament and other Hebrew literature.
Up
As mentioned earlier scholars of the humanities rediscovered in this period what the ancient writers had meant by "liberal arts"; namely, the liberating effect on the mind and imagination of the study of great literature and philosophy. To this they added training in proper behavior at court--i.e. courteous behavior, involving both what we would call political science or civics as well as the social graces. The skills and sentiments of the Humanist's curriculum finally filtered down to everyday life in the courts of higher society in the cities of Italy in this period. Baldassare Castiglione wrote his book, The Courtier, in 1513-1518 (It was not published till 1528), in which he described the ideal gentleman of the court of the Duke of Urbino. He was to have a good "liberal" education, be capable of communicating effectively and gracefully in speech and in writing, both in prose and poetry. Among other things he should be able to carry on a good argument, sprinkle his conversation with quotations and references from classical authors, compete in athletic sports and either sing or play one or more musical instruments.
Up
Machiavelli turned his literary powers in Discourses on Livy and in his more famous brief essay, The Prince, to the analysis and description of political institutions as they functioned in the real world. The Prince looks candidly at the ugly means men use to gain power in the political world. Intended as a satirical criticism of the viciousness of men, it became a handbook for tyrants.
Up
Cellini is sometimes pointed to as the example, par excellence, of a Renaissance man. His character owes little or nothing directly to the Humanists of his day, but as an Italian he reflects the secularism and individualism that had increasingly permeated Italian society. His egocentric arrogance and pride led him to write and publish his own autobiography detailing his achievements. He presented himself not only as the world's most talented silver smith, he praised himself for his consummate skill at trickery, his ingenious thievery, his premeditated indecency, crudeness and debauchery, and even of his successful murder of his arch business rival.
Up
A better example of a Renaissance man would be Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) whose versatility was second to none. He was at once a renowned painter, an accomplished sculptor, a successful architect, a brilliant mathematician, a philosopher, an anatomist, a botanist, a geologist, and an engineer who drew designs of airplanes and helicopters and built working air conditioners for his friends.
Up
Raised in the Netherlands and schooled beginning at the Brethren School at Deventer, he also studied at Louvain and Paris. Then he spent ten years in Italy mastering Greek and gaining a reputation as a humanities scholar. He finally settled down at Heidelberg for a brief but brilliant career as a teacher of rhetoric. The new learning which such humanities scholars brought from Italy to Germany quickly caught on in several of the German universities. Scholasticism wasn't as predominant in the German areas as it was in France and England, hence, such scholarship rose very quickly to command considerable respect from the nobility.
Up
He began his schooling in the Brethren school at Schlettstadt in Alsace. He was a product of Heidelberg. He established a Latin school at Strasbourg which gained a wide reputation, advocating a thorough classical training for all. He was among the first to turn his considerable linguistic skills toward the study of the Bible gaining a sense of the vast cultural difference between the cultures reflected in the Biblical texts and the culture in which he lived. He became an advocate of church reform in line with the notions of the Devotio Moderna. He was also a defender of the German heritage against the denegrations emanating from Italy and France. He strengthened the national pride by pointing out the achievements of Germans recorded in the classical sources (Tacitus, Caesar, Strabo). He appreciated the heritage preserved in the German language as well and was eloquent to defend it. His views circulated widely in the form of printed pamphlets.
Up
He studied at several German universities and was recognized as a very talented and patriotic poet. In 1487 he was recognized at Nuernberg as Poet Laureate by the Emperor. Then he ventured into Poland (University of Cracow) where he studied mathematics and astronomy and to Italy where he acquired his aggressive advocacy of the new humanities learning. He taught for a time at the University of Ingoldstadt before settling at Vienna. There he became the ringleader for a circle of humanities scholars called the Danubian Sodality. His Germania Illustrata was a historical description of Germany intended to inspire national loyalty among his countrymen.
Up
Reuchlin also began his education at the Brethren School in Schlettstadt. Then he studied scholastic theology at Paris. He became fascinated by the study of law while at Paris and later furthered his study of law at Freiburg, Basel and Orleans. In 1475 he published a Latin Dictionary. It became a best seller and went through 25 editions during his life time. Meanwhile he had been studying Greek. We find him next attached to the court of the Duke of Württemberg as an educator, statesman and diplomat. During his visits in Italy his exceptional competence in Greek was quickly recognized. While at Florence he became acquainted with and was influenced by Marsiglio Ficino's students like Pico della Mirandola, among the most knowledgeable Greek Scholars in Italy. From them he learned Neoplatonism, and Pico inspired him to begin studying Hebrew in 1490. In 1506 he published De rudementius hebraicis, a Hebrew grammar and lexicon. Reuchlin was the most accomplished Hebrew scholar of his generation. In 1513 he retired from his responsibilities in Württemberg amidst a storm of controversy.
Because of the popular consternation about the Jewish role in the crucifixion, animosity toward the Jews was such that many theologians considered anything Jewish, including the Hebrew language, to be heresy. There was also the friction arising from the fact that several humanities scholars who were mere laymen had ventured to question some of the 'theologically correct' interpretations of the scriptures on the basis of their language expertise. Some anonymous bigots wrote a very irrational and inflammatory treatise inciting actions against the Jews. In order to make it the more impressive they attached the name of a baptized, illiterate, Jewish butcher from Cologne, Johannes Pfefferkorn, as the author. It appears that some Dominicans at Cologne actually composed the diatribe. Poor gullible and excitable Pfefferkorn was, in 1509, thrust before the Emperor Maximilian and coached to request that all Jewish books be confiscated and burned. Maximilian first complied with the request, but when the Archbishop of Mainz protested Maximilian sought advice from the faculties of several universities as well as from Reuchlin. He also consulted with Jakob Hochstraten, prior of the Dominican House in Cologne and inquisitor general for the dioceses of Mainz, Trier and Cologne.
Reuchlin weighed in with the cautionary note that only part of the Hebrew texts deserved to be destroyed--those that were clearly blasphemous such as The Generations of Jesus. Others were books of science and philosophy which were non-theological. Even the Talmud and the Cabala, the Biblical manuscripts, prayer books and hymns in Hebrew were all of value historically and culturally. Moreover, speaking as a lawyer, personal property should not be confiscated and burned without being examined and condemned according to proper legal procedures. This courageous stand infuriated the conservative theologians. Reuchlin did indulge himself by participating in a bit of mud slinging, circulating in print some of his more exuberant points. His pamphlet Augenspiegel while scarcely holding a candle to flaming pamphlets circulated by the conservatives, became the basis of heresy charges lodged against him by Hochstraten. Reuchlin appealed to Pope Leo X who commissioned a panel of twenty-two ecclesiastical judges to examine the issue at Speyer in 1514. The panel cleared Reuchlin of heresy and made Hochstraten pay the costs. Hochstraten was not without recourse. He persuaded an important representative of the papal curia, Sylvester Prierias, to convince Pope Leo X to reconsider the case. Prierias was successful and Leo X annulled the action of the Speyer commission in 1520, declared some of Reuchlin's views dangerous, condemned him to silence and compelled Reuchlin to pay the costs--which he seems never to have done.
Reuchlin had already in 1514 published the letters he had received in support of his position from others entitled Clarorum viviorum epistolae: Letters of Famous Men. While Reuchlin could not now publish a rejoinder, his erstwhile scholar-supporters were not condemned to silence! But first....
Up
Also known as Mutianus Rufus, this canon of the church at Gotha was the instigator or a band of scholars in central Germany. These humanities scholars represented the radical group who at every opportunity sought to challenge the tyrannies of scholasticism of the sort that prevailed in the Diocese of Cologne. Muth, however, was not totally preoccupied with provoking the close-minded scholastic theologians and baiting intransigent members of the hierarchy, he had other aspirations. Platonic mysticism appealed to Muth as a set of ideas and understandings much superior to traditional Christianity. While he and his circle, the Mutianus Ordo, considered traditional Christianity appropriate for the uneducated masses, they sought to enlist their fellow scholars in a higher calling. It is only fair to note that Muth eventually repented of his radical revolutionary ideas and spent the rest of his days studying the Bible and the church fathers.
Scholarly detective work has produced persuasive evidence that the two volumes of spurious "letters" which suddenly appeared in 1515 and 1517 were the work of members of the Mutianus Ordo. In 1515 a collection of 41 "letters" appeared under the title, Epistolae obscurorum vivorum: Letters of Obscure Men. The most likely author, or at least editor, of this first series of letters was John Crotus Rubeanus from the University at Erfurt. The alleged authors of these letters were churchmen writing to seek advice from their master at the University of Cologne, Ortwin Gratius--a real person. Their Latin style was puerile at best and most of the time laughably uncouth, with misspelled words, misused grammar, and ludicrous word substitutions. The tenure of many of the letters was to seriously seek advice about ridiculously inconsequential matters. In the process they identified themselves as the enemies of Reuchlin and the supporters of Hochstraten. Some letters revealed the authors engaged in scandalously immoral activities sanctimoniously seeking advice on how to have their cake and eat it too. The fictitious authors signed off with laughable names such as Baldpate, Goose-preacher, and Manure-spreader. Scholars all over Germany could scarcely control their mirth when word spread that Hochstraten and his supporters considered the letters authentic. The satire was so vicious that Reuchlin and others were embarrassed. Pope Leo X issued a solemn bull forbidding churchmen to read the Letters. It only served to increase its popularity.
The second series of 62 letters appeared in 1516-1517. There is greater certainty that these were edited, if not composed, by Ulrich von Hutton.
Up
Von Hutton was the product of a noble Franconian family possessing the status as "Free Imperial Knights". He began his studies at Cologne, transferred to Erfurt and finally took his bachelors at Frankfort on the Oder. Like so many others in his generation he had contacted "the Italian's disease" (syphlis) which was for the first time spreading across Europe. Next he went to study law at Bologna in Italy, but spent a great deal of time serving in the Emperor's armies. He returned to Erfurt in 1514 but consumed much of his time and energy in a feud with the Duke of Württemberg over the death of his cousin. He employed a caustic pen against the Duke and all the other territorial princes in defense of the declining status of the Free Imperial Knights. Next he is found once again in Italy for several months studying Greek. Throughout his scholarly career thus far von Hutton had championed German unification under the Emperor. In 1517 Emperor Maximilian crowned him poet laureate. He spent the next several years as counselor for Archbishop Albert of Mainz. Having come upon the work of Lorenzo Valla entitled The Donation of Constantine, while in Italy, he published an edition of that little known work in 1519. He now perceived that the church and the Papacy were major impediments preventing that unification of Germany, so in 1520 he wrote two bitter satires. The Roman Trinity lists all the German grievances with Rome in threes. The Observers is patterned after the classical satires of Lucian, two observers are flying over Germany. They agree that the Papacy is ultimately responsible for most of the abuses and corruption they observe. When the Knight's war broke out von Hutton enlisted in their ranks. He survived the battles but was forced to spend his last months sick and alone in Switzerland.
Up
Budé, the Librarian for King Francis I, was trained in Latin and Greek in Italy. He was very antagonistic to scholasticism. He encouraged King Frances I to found the Royal College in 1530, which later became the College de France.
Up
Faber Stapulensis (his Latin name) was a bright young man who prepared for service in the clergy by attending the University of Paris. Yet he was anticipating a scholarly career studying Aristotle and Plato.
In 1492 he traveled to Italy visiting Padua, Venice and Rome before coming to Florence. At Florence he became quite impressed by Pico delta Mirandola, the charismatic young Florentine at the Neo-Platonic Academy. Pico and his colleagues were ultimately attempting to show that the teachings of Plato were in harmony with those of Jesus. Pico was among the first Italian scholars to approach the theology of the New Testament by means of a simple literary approach. It was a radical new way of getting at the heart of the matter.
Lefèvre showed an extraordinary appreciation for Aristotle, evidently wanting to argue the teachings of Aristotle were not so negative to Christianity as most Humanists of that day believed. The contemporary assessment was based more on the commentaries than on the text itself. Pico did give to Lefévre a translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics made by Cardinal Bessarion, which he took back to Paris. Lefèvre d'Étaples taught in the college Lemoine; his subjects were mathematics, music and philosophy. He wrote a number of works dealing with the reconstruction of Aristotle's original, literal text and disengaging it from what translators and commentators had traditionally taken it to read.
He got introduced to mysticsm by studying the Natural Philosophy of Raymond Lull, an Irish Dominican missionary to southwestern Europe who was one of those linguistically accomplished scholars of the early fourteenth century. Lull knew the contemporary Arabic, Greek, and French as well as the common Latin. Lull's work pointed him to the Mystical Theology, written by the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a late fifth century Syrian Christian neoplatonist. Some scholars speculate the Lefèvre d'Étaples may have experienced something of a conversion about this time for his attention turned suddenly from Aristotle to the Bible!
He first applied his skills to the Psalms. In 1509 he published his Psalterium quintuplex. This was a critical commentary comparing 5 different Latin renderings of the Psalms in an attempt to arrive at the literal text. This approach ignored the many commentaries that had been written on the Psalms and often studied in place of the text itself over the centuries. Once satisfied that he understood what the author had actually said, he interpreted it both historically and spiritually--that is mystically. In 1512 he applied this same literary discipline in a commentary on the epistles of Paul.
Commenting on I Corinthians 8, Lefèvre d'Étaples wrote: "It is almost profane to speak of the merit of works, especially toward God.... The opinion that we can be justified by works is an error for which the Jews are especially condemned.... Our only hope is in God's grace" (Perserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation, p. 53.). Luther used both these works in his early teaching career at Wittenberg. Smith thought that Luther's concept of "sola fidé" was probably inspired by Lefèvre d'Étaples.
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples continued his work with a similar interpretative commentary on the Gospels in 1522. Then from 1523 to 1525 he produced and published a French translation of the Vulgate text of New Testament and the Psalms. More on his career below.
Up
Guillaume Briçonnet was a disciple of Lefévre d'Étaples who became bishop of Meaux in 1516. Briçonnet gathered a group of young scholars at Meaux and employed Lefévre d'Étaples as vicar general over the diocese for the purpose of training these young scholars in the scriptures. Gerard Roussell (d. 1450) and Guillaume Farel (1489-1565) were the two most prominent products of the school at Meaux. Neither Lefévre d'Étaples nor Briçonnet ever renounced Catholicism, but both were considered heretics. Lefévre d'Étaples's great reputation, however, earned him a position as royal librarian and tutor for Francis I's children. His latter years were spent under the protection of Francis' sister, Margaret of Navarre.
Up
The pioneers among English Humanists included William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. Both Grocyn and Linacre were products of Oxford who went on to study in Italy. At Florence Linacre studied with Politziane and the Greek Chalcondeles. Linacre studied for a brief time at the Vatican library and was at Padua long enough to receive a medical education. Back in England Linacre founded the College of Physicians in London in 1578. Another asset of the Humanists movement in England was the printing press established by William Caxton at Westminster in 1477.
Up
John Colet was also a product of Oxford where he attended Grocyn and Linacre's lectures. Like them he studied in Italy briefly where he was impressed especially by Pico della Mirandola and other scholars of the Neo-Platonic Academy at Florence. As a cleric and a student he found the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite fascinating. He also expressed a preference for the earlier Origin over Augustine. Colet's father was Lord Mayor of London, a man of considerable means. After his passing Colet used the family fortune to reestablish a free school for boys at St. Paul's Cathedral in London where he served as Dean (head of the canonical chapter) beginning in 1505. Prior to this appointment he had lectured on St. Paul's epistles at Oxford. As Dean he was now the primary preacher at the Cathedral. His sermons drew even the scholars from Oxford. His approach was to explain whole books of the Bible in a single sermon, treating them as coherent works with a theme and purpose, not as a random collection of disconnected proof-texts. In 1512 John Colet addressed a synod of Bishops called to extirpate heresy, making the observation that before religious uniformity is attempted there needs to be correction and reform on the part of both clergy and laymen.
Up
Thomas More was a close friend of John Colet and a fellow student of Grocyn and Linacre. In 1516 he published in Latin a treatise he entitled Utopia. It was a description of an ideal nonexistent country--a idealistic satire on existing life and society in England. In his "No place" all people were politically, economically and socially equals. Elected representatives were sent to and assembly, but they were subject to recall by the local magistrates and rejection by the king. Laws were administered in equity and justice. The towns and cities didn't stink. Education was open and free to all. There was no military establishment, just a corps of diplomats. People worked only 6 hours per day and spent the rest of their time in intellectual pursuits. Religious diversity was encouraged, but all worshipped together peacefully in a common service. Thomas More's later career will be dealt with elsewhere.
Up
This prince of European Humanists was probably born in Rotterdam but he was inconsistent in reporting the date of his birth. His father was a cleric from Gouda who took orders as a priest about 1467 or 8. Scholars have speculated that Erasmus and his father conspired to report his birth date as 1466, before his father was ordained, in order to make it easier to get a papal dispensation legitimizing his birth.
After his earliest schooling at Gouda, his mother secured him a place in the School of the Bethren of the Common Life at Deventer where he studied for approximately 9 years. His mastery of Latin was certainly based on this earlier schooling. While at Deventer he was very impressed by a visit of Rudolph Agricola.
His continued study took him to the Seminary of the Bethren of the Common Life at Hertogenbosch where he spent two years. Becoming a cleric at Steyn, near Gouda, he continued to study. He was fascinated by Jerome, the fourth century translator of Bible into Latin. He was also influenced at this time by Lorenzo Valla's De elegant latinae and resolved to adopt Latin as his basic language for thinking. He was employed for a time as secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai. In 1492 he was ordained as a priest at Utrecht, but he left there in 1495 to go to Paris to study for his bachelors in scholastic theology. He resided at College Montaigu and worked to support himself. He took up with some English students, tutoring the son of James II of Scotland who later became Bishop of Saint Andrews in Edinburgh. He also tutored William Blount who later became the tutor for young Prince Henry Tudor (VIII). He completed his theological studies in 1498, but very little of scholasticism had rubbed off on him.
He visited England as a guest of Lord Mountjoy (i.e., William Blount) in 1499. While staying with Mountjoy in Greenwich he met Thomas More and young Prince Henry (VIII). Later after having gotten acquainted with John Colet at Oxford he was invited by Colet to make England his home and lecture at Oxford. His response was that he needed to study Greek first.
A bout with illness prevented his immediate return to study. While he was recuperating he read Latin classics and prepared a collection of 800 proverbs drawn from those classical authors, complete with his own brief commentary. This collection was published as the Adages in 1500. Subsequent editions were enlarged until finally it contained more than 4000 proverbs. In 1501 he published a printed edition of Cicero's De officiis, and went to Italy to begin his study of Greek. He spent three years in Italy, but it may not have been continuous. He seems to have taken a degree at Turin, but he also studied for short periods at Bologna, Padua, and Rome, and spent about nine months in Venice, probably in 1506. His translations of classical authors Euripides and Lucian were published by the Aldine Press in Venice in 1506. The Aldine Press was founded by a Greek émigré, Aldo Manuzio, about 1493. He manufactured his own ink and cast his own small font to produce more inexpensive but high quality books. This foremost Italian press published 27 first editions of Greek and Latin Classics between 1493 and 1515. The visits to other Italian sites may have been later since Erasmus traveled about Europe most of his life. Between 1509 and 1514 he lived in England and part of the time lectured on the Greek language at Cambridge. He spent some time at Louvain, eight years as Basel, six years at Freiburg (in the Breisgau) and was back in Basel a year before his death.
In 1503 he published his Enchridion Militis Chistiani, Handbook of the Christian Soldier (or perhaps, the militant Christian) which suggests that the True service of Christ is internal, not external, purity of heart and love, not praying to saints, fasting and indulgences. In 1505 he published Lorenzo Valla's notes on the New Testament. At John Colet's request he made a complete translation of the New Testament from Greek into Latin in 1505. Then while he was teaching at Cambridge probably in 1510-1513 he made another translation from a standardized text which he produced by judiciously comparing four manuscripts found in England. Meanwhile in 1511 Erasmus wrote The Praise of Folly, during the time he stayed with Thomas More awaiting a shipment of books he had purchased in Italy. This latter work was a very light and sweet spirited satire on the silliness of human presumptuousness identified as the serious worship of the goddess of Folly. Every class of person takes a turn as the target of this catalogue of human foibles. Praise of Folly eventually went through 27 editions.
In 1514 he departed England for Basel where the printer Johannes Froben employed him to publish the first edition of the Novem Instrumentum in March, 1516. This remarkable publication included a "standardized" Greek text of the New Testament based on only four Greek manuscripts, three found in Basel (Minuscules 1, 2, 2ap) and one borrowed from Reuchlin (jr), together with Erasmus notes from his work on the manuscripts in England. This printed edition also included Erasmus' most recent translation in Latin. It went through a total of four editions (1519, 1522, 1527, 1535). Meanwhile other Greek texts were published: The Complutensian Polyglot of 1521, the first edition of Robert Estienne of Paris (The Stephanus text) appeared in 1546 utilizing manuscripts from the vicinity of Paris (revised editions in 1549, 1550, 1551). The Stephanus edition represented basically Erasmus' edition revised from the Complutensian and from 15 manuscripts then at Paris. Stephanus' 1550 edition became the "Received Text" or textus receptus which was reprinted with only slight alterations until the late 19th century.
Also in 1516 he published the first edition of Familiar Colloquies, Conversations among friends, a textbook to polish conversational Latin. In its multiple later editions he enlarged and enriched it with many finely crafted short stories in the most eloquent and inoffensive Latin of the sixteenth century. Many of these stories with a subtle and gentle profundity conveyed a sharp message of ridicule similar to the points he had made earlier in Praise of Folly. These stories argued unobtrusively for his own view of true Christianity, a vital inner spirit rather than a shallow and habitual external show. This type of Christianity he liked to call the "Philosophy of Christ". When the Sorbonne condemned his Familiar Colloquies in 1525 the work sold over 24,000 copies in the next few months.
In 1516 he wrote The Education of the Christian Prince and dedicated it to young King Charles I of The Netherlands and Spain. Charles rewarded him by appointing him to Louvain in Brabant (in the Netherlands) in 1517. While there he wrote the satirical poem Julius Exclucis about Pope Julius being excluded from Heaven by Saint Peter on the grounds that he had blood on his hands from leading his troops into battle personally. In 1521 he left Louvain and returned to Basel where he set about editing and publishing first printed editions of thirty volumes of the writings of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers. In 1529 he moved to the University at Freiburg in order to escape being included in the uproar in Basel over the Swiss reformers. After 6 years at Freiburg he returned to Basel in the summer of 1536 and died the following June.
Although Erasmus had never repudiated or even condemned the Catholic Church in so many words, the Council of Trent, convened nine years after his death, branded him a heretic, and some of his works were included in the Index. In his view all the needful external reforms would occur provided there was an internal transformation. It was not the institution that needed reform; it was the attitudes and behaviors of those in the institution that needed attention. The following note from his Novum Instrumentum commenting on Matthew 11:30 illustrates his approach (from Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation, 1920, page 58-59.).
Truly the yoke of Christ would be sweet and the burden light, if petty human institutions added nothing to what he himself imposed. He commanded us nothing save love one for another, and there is nothing so bitter that charity does not soften and sweeten it. Everything according to nature is easily borne, and nothing accords better with nature of man than the philosophy of Christ, of which almost the sole end is to give back to fallen nature its innocence and integrity .... How pure, how simple is the faith that Christ delivered to us! How close it is to the creed transmitted to us by the apostles or apostolic men. The church divided and tormented by discussions and by heresy, added to it many things, of which some can be omitted without prejudice to the faith.... There are many opinions from which impiety may be begotten, as for example, all those philosophic doctrines on the reason of the nature and distinction of the persons of the Godhead.... The sacraments themselves were instituted for the salvation of men, but we abuse them for lucre, for vain glory or for the oppression of the humble.... What rules, what superstitions we have about vestments!
How many are judged as to their Christianity by such trifles, which are indifferent in themselves, which change with the fashion and of which Christ never spoke!... How many fasts are instituted! And we are not merely invited to fast, but obliged to, on pain of damnation.... What shall we say about vows... about the authority of the pope, the abuse of absolutions, dispensations, remissions of penalty, law-suits, in which there is much that a truly good man cannot see without a groan? The priests themselves prefer to study Aristotle than to ply their ministry. The gospel is hardly mentioned from the pulpit. Sermons are monopolized by the commissioners of indulgences; often the doctrine of Christ is put aside and suppressed for their profit.... Would that men were content to let Christ rule by the laws of the gospel and that they would no longer seek to strengthen their obscurant tyranny by human decrees!
Return to the Lecture/Essay Table of Contents for Part III
ht34633e09.html
Most recently edited 23 February 2009