Do you want to stay informed about this journal? Click the buttons to subscribe to our alerts.
In 1516 Erasmus published his new Latin translation of the New Testament. After that he started to write his paraphrases of all books, except Apocalypse. This introduction gives a state of the art. It will be first discussed when and where Erasmus wrote his paraphrases, which were composed between May 1517 and January 1524 when he was also reworking his Novum Instrumentum/ Novum Testamentum. The next issue treated is what kind of work they are, being a kind of commentary, but also an aid for preachers to bring the New Testament to their audience. This is related to the aim Erasmus had with his ‘New Testament project’: to advance the philosophia Christi and Christian piety, and his intended or implied readership, theologians. He used several sources to bring his interpretations of the biblical stories in line with the exegetical tradition.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Bruce Mansfield, Erasmus in the Twentieth Century: Interpretations c. 1920–2000 (Toronto-Buffalo-London: University of Toronto Press, 2003) 109.
Mansfield, Erasmus in the Twentieth Century 136; André Godin, Érasme, lecteur d’ Origène (Geneva: Droz, 1982) 45–48. Particularly Marjory O’Rourke Boyle, Rhetoric and Reform: Erasmus’ Civil Dispute with Luther (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), and Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981) 2 vols., make the case for rhetoric.
Christine Christ-von Wedel, Erasmus of Rotterdam: Advocate of a New Christianity (Toronto-Buffalo-London: University of Toronto Press, 2013) [= Erasmus von Rotterdam: Anwalt eines neuzeitlichen Christentums (Münster: Lit, 2003)].
Henk Jan de Jonge, ‘Novum Testamentum a nobis versum: The Essence of Erasmus’ Edition of the New Testament’, Journal of Theological Studies, N.S. 35 (1984) 394–413; see also Mansfield, Erasmus in the Twentieth Century 144.
Andrew J. Brown, ‘The Date of Erasmus’ Latin Translation of the New Testament’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 8 (1984) 351–380.
Roland H. Bainton, ‘The Paraphrases of Erasmus’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 57 (1966) 67–76; Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme 587.
Friedhelm Krüger, Humanistische Evangelienauslegung: Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam als Ausleger der Evangelien in seinen Paraphrasen (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1986) (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, 68).
Hilmar M. Pabel, ‘Erasmus of Rotterdam and Judaism: A Re-examination in the Light of New Evidence’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 87 (1996) 9–37; Christ-von Wedel, Erasmus von Rotterdam: Anwalt eines neuzeitlichen Christentums / Erasmus of Rotterdam: Advocate of a New Christianity; Albert Rabil, Jr., Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist (San Antonio: Trinity University, 1972), used the Paraphrases, albeit not systematically, but see 128–140. Walter in his Theologie aus dem Geist der Rhetorik also refers to the Paraphrases only occasionally.
Albert Rabil, Jr, ‘Erasmus’ Paraphrase of the Gospel of John’, in Church History 48 (1979) 142–155 (142). See Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique, 588: ‘Les Paraphrases des Epîtres de Paul sont nées spontanément de l’ initiative personelle d’ Érasme.’
Ep. 1171, ll. 1–6, to Matthäus Schiner, 17 December 1520.
Ep. 1255, ll. 23–29; cf. Ep. 1248 (Erasmus to Schiner, 14 December 1521), ll. 12–15.
Albert Rabil, Jr., ‘Erasmus’ Paraphrases of the New Testament’, in Essays on the Works of Erasmus, ed. Richard L. DeMolen (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 1978) 145–161 (147).
Ep. 1274, ll. 41–43 CWE; Allen ll. 38–39: ‘Est … paraphrasis non translatio, sed liberius quoddam commentarii perpetui genus, non commutatis personis’; see Chomarat, Grammaire et rhetorique 587, n. 1, who also points at Ep. 1342, l. 929: ‘Paraphrasis … commentarii genus.’ On the interpretation of ‘non commutatis personis’, see below. See also Sem Dresden, ‘ “Paraphrase” et “commentaire” d’ après Érasme et Alberto Pio’, in Società, politica e cultura a Carpi ai tempi di Alberto III Pio: Atti del convegno internazionale (Carpi, 19–21 maggio 1978) (Padova: Antenore, 1981) (Medioevo e umanesimo, 46) 207–224 (213), who already pointed at the Erasmian expressions ‘Paraphrasis nihil aliud est quam commentarii genus’ (LBIX:1114 F and 1116 F, ASDIX-6:192, l. 1000 and 206, ll. 105–106); ‘Nolim tamen ut quisquam huic Paraphrasi plus tribuat quam tributurus erat commentario, si commentarium scripsissim, quanquam et paraphrasis commentarii genus est’ (Ep. 1333, ll. 395–397) and ‘et paraphrasis commentarii genus est’ (Ep. 255, ll. 39–40); Dresden also mentions Epp. 755, ll. 6–7 and 1342, l. 929. See also van Poll-van de Lisdonk, ‘Die Annotationes in Novum Testamentum’ 179–182.
Ep. 1274, ll. 34–36; see also Dresden, ‘ “Paraphrase” et “commentaire” ’ 215, who also points at the Ecclesiastes, LBV:803 E and 818 F, and Cottier, ‘Erasmus’s Paraphrases: A “New Kind of Commentary”?’ 31.
Cottier, ‘Erasmus’ Paraphrases : A “New Kind of Commentary”?’ 31; Judith Rice Henderson, ‘Editor’s Addendum: Translating an Erasmian Definition of Paraphrase’, in The Unfolding of Words 46–54; see also Heesakkers’ annotation in ASDIX-6:193, n. l. 1000.
Henderson, ‘Editor’s Addendum’ 47; Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique 587; the translation is from Jacques Chomarat, ‘Grammar and Rhetoric in the Paraphrases of the Gospels by Erasmus’, ERSY 1 (1981) 30–68 (30).
Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique 587–710; idem, ‘Grammar and Rhetoric’.
John Bateman, ‘From Soul to Soul: Persuasion in Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the New Testament’, Erasmus in English, 15 (1987–1988) 7–27.
See also Bateman, ‘General Introduction’ 12; in n. 75 he gives a survey of the sources Erasmus mentions in his prefaces to the Paraphrases: Ambrose (and Ambrosiaster), Theophylact, Bede and Nicholas of Lyre. In the ‘Praefatio in Annotationes’ Erasmus lists the authorities he used for the annotations (see Bateman, l.c.): Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary of Poitiers and Augustine, as well as Basil, Theophylact and Bede. For the importance Erasmus attaches to tradition in interpreting and allegorizing the Scriptures, see, for instance, Laurel Carrington, ‘The Boundaries Between Text and Reader: Erasmus’s Approach to Reading Scriptures’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 88 (1997) 5–22 (5–6) (I owe this reference to Jean-François Cottier).
See the list given by Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme 476–479.
See also Mark Vessey, ‘Introduction’, Holy Scripture Speaks, ed. Pabel and Vessey, 3–25 (3) who called the Paraphrases ‘a series of evangelical orations’ and ‘[v]irtual scripts for preaching’.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 615 | 98 | 9 |
Full Text Views | 267 | 15 | 5 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 110 | 42 | 12 |
In 1516 Erasmus published his new Latin translation of the New Testament. After that he started to write his paraphrases of all books, except Apocalypse. This introduction gives a state of the art. It will be first discussed when and where Erasmus wrote his paraphrases, which were composed between May 1517 and January 1524 when he was also reworking his Novum Instrumentum/ Novum Testamentum. The next issue treated is what kind of work they are, being a kind of commentary, but also an aid for preachers to bring the New Testament to their audience. This is related to the aim Erasmus had with his ‘New Testament project’: to advance the philosophia Christi and Christian piety, and his intended or implied readership, theologians. He used several sources to bring his interpretations of the biblical stories in line with the exegetical tradition.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 615 | 98 | 9 |
Full Text Views | 267 | 15 | 5 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 110 | 42 | 12 |