Desiderius Erasmus
(c.1466/9 - 1536)
|
|
SynopsisERASMUS, Desiderius, the most brillant representative of humanistic culture at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the head of a movement in the interest of a reformation of ecclesiastical abuses which prepared the way for the Protestant Reformation. His life divides itself naturally into three periods; the first, lasting till 1507, was the period of gradual emancipation from the fetters of his age; the second lasted till 1519, and marked his greatest reputation and most efficient reformatory activity; the last is the period of conflict, isolation, and final abandonment of the Reformation movement. Erasmus was b. in Rotterdam, and d. in Basel 1567. The date of birth is variously put in 1466, 1467, and 1469. Oct. 28, 1465, is probably the right one, and is favored by the statement of Rhenanus, that Erasmus died in his seventieth year, as by his own statement (Ep. 207, Feb. 26, 1516), "I have entered my fifty-first year." He seems to have been born out of wedlock. His father, Gerhard Roger, according to some accounts, was a priest at the time; but according to others he did not enter a convent till after the event. Erasmus was sent to the famous school of Hegius at Deventer, attended and the two thousand scholars, His parents died in his thirteenth year, and, being cheated by a guardian out of his inheritance, he entered the convent school of Herzogenbusch, and subsequently took vows in the convent of Emaus, at Steyn. At a later period (1514) he calls this step the direst misfortune of his life. In 1491 he went into the service of the Bishop of Cambray, who sent him to Paris to conclude his studies. While attending the College of Montaigu he contracted a disease, which forced him to seek relief in Holland. Returning to Paris, he acted as tutor to several English youths, one of whom, Lord Mountjoy, induced him to visit England in 1498. Erasmus resided for a while at Oxford, and formed a close friendship with More and Colet. In the face of Henry VII.’s offer of a house, and a pension amounting to a thousand pounds in present money, he returned to the Continent. In 1500 his Adagia (a collection of proverbs and witty sayings derived fromn ancient writers) appeared, and in 1502 the Enchiridion Militis Christiani, which, he says, was "designed to counteract the error of those who place piety in ceremonies and external observances, but neglect its very essence" (Ep. 102). In 1505 he edited Valla’s Annotations to the New Testament with a preface, which calls for a return to the Greek text, and its grammatical exposition as the fundamental conditions of a right understanding of the Scriptures. In 1506 he visited Italy, taken the degree of doctor of divinity at Turin, and receiving from the highest dignitaries marks of distinction. In 1509 he returned to England, forming on the way the plan of his Encomium Moriae ("The Praise of Folly"), which subsequently appeared with a dedication to More in 1511. Here the second period of his career begins. Erasmus was now in the zenith of his fame, a fame which has never been surpassed in the annals of men of letters. He remained in England about five years, a part of the time lecturing at Cambridge. Returning to Brabant, he was elected by the archduke one of his counsellors, and subsequently to a similar position by Charles V. From 1515 to 1521 he resided in Brussels, Antwerp, and Louvain (Ep. 354). A papal brief gave him a much desired relief from the duties and dress of his monastic vow. From 1514 all his writings were published by Froben at Basel. This necessitated frequent journeymgs to Switzerland through Germany. These journeys were triumphant processions; scholars, councils, and bishops doing him homage. his correspondence at this period was enormous, and included princes, the highest prelates, and the Pope himself. In Germany a party grew up called the "Erasmians," which regarded him as a leader of a new movement in the church as well as in the department of letters. Among the writings of this period are a school-book, de Duplici Copia Verborum ac Reruni, 1512, and the Colloquia Familiaria, 1518, 1522. much enlarged in 1526. The latter is the most read of all Erasmus’ writings. It contains the keenest sarcasm, and wittiest sallies against conventual life, fasting, pilgrimages, and the worship of saints, he edited numerous editions and translations of classic authors and the fathers, the most valuable of which is that of Jerome. The most important of all Erasmus’ works appeared in 1516. It had a decided influence upon the Reformation. It was an edition of the Greek Testament under the title of Novum. Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Roterodamo recognitum et emendatum, etc. Besides the text, it contained a Latin translation, which departs quite largely from the Vulgate; and annotations justifying these departures, explaining different passages, and condemning frequently, by comparison with apostolic teaching, the excesses and ignorance of the monks. The work was prefaced with a dedication to Leo X. to stamp it with the sanction of the Church. An Introduction, composed of three parts, exhorts to the study of Scripture. The text was faulty, and inferior to that of the Complutensian Polyglot, which, although completed two years previously, did not appear till 1520. The printer’s errors were corrected in subsequent editions, but the editorial faults remained. This text had a very large circulation. Within a few decades, thirty unauthorized reprints were made. Erasmus himself sent out four more editions. Luther’s translation was based upon the second edition (1519); and in the third (1522) the editor restored to the text 1 John v. 7, "ne cui foret ansa calumniandi."... In 1517 he began to publish the Paraphrases of the Epistles and Gospels, which also exerted an extensive influence upon the Reformation. In these writings Erasmus is in many points the precursor of the Reformation. his satire against the ecclesiastical abuses and corruption of the day is keen and bold. He also made the Scriptures the standard of doctrine and life in the Church. They had disabused his own mind of prejudices in favor of the specific holiness of cloistral and celibate life. With the Reformers he thus far agreed. He differed in particulars equally important. They found the essence of Christianity in the reconciliation of the sinner to God and his sense of the forgiveness of sin. Erasmus regarded Christ from another standpoint, as the exemplar of all virtue, and the restorer of moral order to the world. The Reformers were Augustinian in their theology, he Pelagian. Erasmus treated with somewhat of indifference the doctrinal part of Christianity, and at times estimated the morality of Greece and Rome so high as to obliterate the line between it and that of Christianity (Enchir., ii., etc.). There were certain defects of character, and certain qualities of disposition, which explain the failure of Erasmus to understand and advocate the Reformation. his opposition to the state of the Church had proceeded froni esthetic feeling, rather than from moral indignation, he lacked the enthusiasm of a moral cause. He says he would rather sacrifice a part of the truth than destroy peace (Ep. 643, Dec. 25, 1522). After long vacillation, in which the fear of man comes out only too conspicuously, be cut loose from the Reformation. The third period of Erasmus’ life is marked by a complete rupture with the Reformers. The most prominent of these attributed their emancipation from the dominion of the Church to his writings. He was popularly classed with them. But Luther saw deeper, and wrote to Lange (Letters 22, 29), "I fear that Erasmus does not sufficiently exalt Christ and the divine grace." But down to his letter of March 28, 1519, to Erasmus, he had the highest esteem for him, calling hint "our pride and hope." In his reply (Ep. 325), Erasmus, while applauding Luther’s attitude towards the friars, counsels him to be moderate and careful. After preserving, as long as it was possible, an attitude of neutrality, he gradually drew off from the German reformer, and studiously avoided his writings, lest he should be called upon to give an opinion upon them. [Mr. Froude keenly discriminates between these two men in his essay; "In Luther, belief in God was the, first priiiciple of life: in Erasmus it was an inference which might be taken away, and yet leave the world a very tolerable and habitable place," etc.] In spite of this, his enemies (Ep. 562) said Luther had sucked poison at his breast, or that he "laid the egg which Luther hatched out." Erasmus was, however, still opposed to persecution, and did not conceal his disgust at the papal bull of excommunication. But in a letter to Leo X., dated Sept. 13, 1520, he hastens to clear himself of all connection with the excommunicated reformer, and to declare that only his incapacity, and fear of stirring up strife, keep him from answering Luther (Ep. 529). Neither death nor life would induce him to leave the communion of the Church (Ep. 621, 645). In 1521, no longer feeling himself safe in the Netherlands, Erasmus went to Basel to reside permanently. The open breach with Luther was now to occur. In September, 1524, he wrote, in answer to the reformer. his Diatribe de Libero Arbitrio. The work shows him to be unequal to the problem, and inferior to Luther, who replied in the De Servo Arbitrio. Erasmus wrote, in 1526, a feeble retort, - Hyperaspistes. Luther henceforth regarded Erasmus as a "sceptic and epicurean, an enemy of all true religion." In 1523 Erasmus broke off correspondence with Zwingli, and henceforth he regarded the Reformation as a calamity and a crime (Ep. 906). In contrast to his former utterances, he now ridiculed the marriage of the clergy, and proclaimed for the authority of the Church to punish heretics with death. The Reformation extended to Basel; and he removed to Freiburg, in Breisgau, where he heard with satisfaction the news of Zwingli’s and OEcolampadius’ death (Ep. 1206). In the last decade of his life the most of his editions of the fathers appeared, - Hilary (1521), Irenæus (1526), Ambrose (1527), Augustine (1528), Epiphanius (1529), Chrysostom (1530), Origen (1531). His Modus Confitendi (1525) vindicated the confessional, and his Ecclesiastes (1535) is in many respects a valuable homiletic commentary. While bowing submissively to the Church, he still continued to ridicule ecclesiastical abuses. The Sorbonne, in 1527, condemned thirty-two articles extracted from his works, after having previously forbidden the circulation of the Colloquies in France. But the Pope’s friendship suffered no abatement. Paul III. offered to make him cardinal, but he declined on account of age. Erasmus returned to Basel in 1535, where he died of an attack of his old trouble, the stone, combined with dysentery. He died without the priest, but invoking the mercy of Christ. His body lies interred in the cathedral of Basel. A lifelike portrait by Hans Holbein hangs in the museum of the same city. Rud Stähelin "Erasmus," Philip Schaff, ed., A Religious Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology, 3rd edn, Vol. 2. Toronto, New York & London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1894. pp.753-755.
Bibliographies
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
|
Erasmus, The Education of a
Christian Prince with the Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria, Lisa
Jardine, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pbk. ISBN:
0521588111. pp.181.
Erasmus, On Copia of Words
and Ideas, Donal King, translator. Marquette University Press, 1963. Pbk.
ISBN: 0874622123.
Erasmus, "The Praise of Folly" and Other
Writings, Robert M. Adams, ed. W.W. Norton, 1990. Pbk. ISBN: 0393957497.
pp.352.
Erasmus, Praise of Folly, new edn.
Betty Radice, translator. Harmondworth: Penguin Books, 1993. Pbk. ISBN:
0140446087. pp.188.
Percy S. Allen, The Age of Erasmus.
Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1997. Pbk. ISBN: 1579100848. pp.303.
A.G. Dickens & Whitney R.D. Jones, Erasmus the
Reformer, new edn. Methuen Publishing Ltd., 2000. Pbk. ISBN: 0413753301.
pp.382.
Ephraim Emerton, Desiderius
Erasmus of Rotterdam. University Press of the Pacific, 2002. Pbk. ISBN:
1410200868. pp.572.
Lisa Jardine, Erasmus, Man
of Letters. Princeton University Press, 1995. Pbk. ISBN: 069100157X.
pp.296.
Gordon Rupp & Philip
Watson, eds., Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, new edn.
Westminster John Knox Press, 1978. Pbk. ISBN: 0664241581
William Harrison Woodward,
Desiderius Erasmus. Concerning the the Aim and Method of Education.
University Press of the Pacific, 2002. Pbk. ISBN: 1410200388. pp.264.
Related Subjects
Peter Abelard | Aelfric | Alcuin | Anselm | Augustine of Canterbury | Thomas Becket | Bede | Benedict | Bernard of Clairvaux | Boniface | Thomas Bradwardine | Bruno | Catherine of Siena | Charlemagne | Charles Martel | Clare | Clovis | Columba | Dominic | Duns Scotus | Dunstan | Meister Eckhart | Desiderius Erasmus | Francis of Assisi | Gottschalk | Gregory I | Gregory of Rimini | Gregory of Tours | Hildegard of Bingen | Hugh of St. Victor | John Huss | Ignatius Loyola | Innocent III | Isidore | Jerome of Prague | Joachim of Fiore | John of Wesel | Julian of Norwich | Marjory Kempe | Ramon Llull | Nicholas of Cusa | Nicholas of Lyre | Patrick | Pepin | Peter Damian | Peter Lombard | Peter the Venerable | Photius | Richard Rolle | Scholastica | Thomas Aquinas | Wilfred | William of Ockham | William of St-Thierry | John WycliffeABOUT | SITE MAP | SUPPORT | INTRODUCTIONS | COUNCILS | CRUSADES | DOCTRINE & PRACTICE | EXPANSION | HERESIES | OTHER FAITHS | PAPACY | PEOPLE | RELIGIOUS ORDERS | BOOKS | STUDY AIDS | GUESTBOOK | CONTACT |
|
