Erasmus among the Dialecticians: Copia and Its Discontents

Erasmus’ sceptical attitude towards the discipline of dialectic in his early writings is well known. In this article, I revisit Erasmus’ relationship with the arts of reasoning, tracing a trajectory from The Praise of Folly and De Copia to his final work, Ecclesiastes . Erasmus’ treatise on preaching, I suggest, develops a new approach to copious speech and writing by combining the resources of rhetoric and dialectic, in dialogue with the textbooks on the arts of discourse that had appeared in the 25 years since the composition of The Praise of Folly

that strikes us is her complete confidence: Whatever is generally said of me by mortal men, and I'm quite well aware that Folly is in poor repute even amongst the greatest fools, still, I am the one-and indeed, the only one-whose divine powers can gladden the hearts of gods and men.Proof enough of this is in the fact that as soon as I stepped forward to address this crowded assembly, every face immediately brightened up with a new, unwonted gaiety and all your frowns were smoothed away.You laughed and applauded with such delightfully As the opening of an encomium, this is decidedly odd: even the most unorthodox theorists of epideictic rhetoric do not recommend starting a speech with the proof or confirmation of argument.Folly, we realise from the start, will be doing things her way.She is irreducibly herself, she goes on to tell us, no matter what the circumstances: 'I am myself wherever I am' .2Who or what that is, however, will turn out to be a rather tricky question.At the most basic level, as Pierre Mesnard has pointed out, we can't even be sure what Folly is wearing: the cap and bells of Holbein's marginal illustrations are suggestive, but they don't do justice to the deliberate slipperiness of Folly's self-description.3She claims that she will 'make it perfectly clear who I am from the look on my face' , for instance, but since we have no idea what she looks like, this is not especially helpful.Folly keeps promising us something more fully present and embodied than the tools of language and rhetoric can offer, and she proclaims the immediate, almost physical, impact of her personality: 'as soon as I stepped forward' , she says, 'every face … brightened up' .These insistent references to her unmediated presence are channelled through visual cues-she keeps inviting us to look at her-but any attempts to connect in this way are rebuffed by the lack of information about her physical appearance.At some level, of course, this is Folly having a laugh at our expense; that, at least, we know about her.But there is also something more serious in Erasmus' odd juxtaposition of a representational vacuum with a delighted audience response.To state the painfully obvious, any experience of Folly we may derive from the text will be generated by the materials of language, rather than by a painter's brushstroke.The terms of Folly's argument, then-her claims that we know who she is and that her appearance will gladden our hearts-raise profound questions about how the medium of the written word participates in the production of both knowledge and affect.
Erasmus Studies 43 (2023) 5-27 Previous work on Erasmus' representational strategies-and, more specifically, on the question of how language can make ideas and concepts present and emotionally palpable-has focussed on the resources of rhetoric; the title of Terence Cave's 1976 article on Erasmus and the 'rhetoric of presence' gives a pretty good flavour of this approach.4I want, by contrast, to look at the representational resources of another discipline in the trivium, the one that Erasmus finds most complex and troubling-dialectic.5More particularly, I want to investigate how dialectic operates as an instrument of cognition in the crucial arena of religious instruction, where the ability to generate faith and devotion through embodied words and truths is all-important.And in describing Erasmus' relationship with dialectic, at various stages of his career, I will focus on one particular linguistic instrument that helps make things present, as we will see, to the intellect and the emotions alike: the definition.
This may seem like a counterintuitive move.Definition, after all, is a strategy that Folly decisively rejects at the very beginning of her oration: 'what purpose' , she asks, 'would it serve for a definition to produce a sketch which would be a mere shadow of myself when I am here before you, for you to look at with your own eyes' .6Why converse with the shadows in Plato's cave, she asks, when you can have the real thing?(Except we can't, of course, and so it comes as no surprise when the next words she speaks come precisely in the form of a definition: 'For I am as you see me, the true bestower of good things.'7)As Folly's argument develops, she will associate the concept of definition not simply with dialectic, but with the crumbling theoretical edifices of scholastic theology.St Paul, for example, may be a living monument to the Christian faith but, Folly notes sarcastically, his definition of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews is 'quite unscholastic'; and, she continues, 'though he provides the finest example of charity, in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, he neither divides nor 4 Terence Cave, 'Enargeia: Erasmus and the Rhetoric of Presence in the Sixteenth Century' , L'Esprit Créateur, 16 (1976), 5-19.5 There is a significant body of scholarly literature on Erasmus' relationship with the early modern trivium.defines it according to the rules of dialectic' .8These absurd rules, and the workings of definition in particular, will eventually cause Folly to drop her mask of ironic detachment and lose her cool, at least temporarily: 'Others too think it a damnable form of sacrilege and the worst sort of impiety for anyone to speak of matters so holy, which call for reverence rather than explanation, with a profane tongue, or to argue with the pagan subtlety of the heathen, presume to offer definitions, and pollute the majesty of divine theology with words and sentiments which are so trivial and even squalid.'9Definitions are associated, in many of Erasmus' writings, with the scholastic exercise of disputation, which taught students to internalise a series of highly technical moves in order to master the requirements of academic examination.For Erasmus, these disputations represented a singularly ineffective approach to thinking and speaking well because they had no application outside the university; they were, however, an excellent delivery system for human pride and vanity.The Paraclesis (1516) conveys the same idea more economically: 'The philosophy of Christ lies more in the inclinations and intentions of the heart than in syllogisms.It is a way of life rather than a form of argument.… It is transformation rather than argumentation.'12If the story of Erasmus' views on dialectic so far sounds familiar, this is because it has been told with far more erudition and elegance by other scholars -most notably by Erika Rummel, in her analysis of the educational and exegetical writings of the 1510s.13But things begin to look rather different when we fast-forward to Erasmus' final work: the Ecclesiastes of 1535, his most expansive and detailed treatise on theological education.In the summary of the preacher's training that concludes the fourth and final book of Ecclesiastes, we now find Erasmus insisting that '[s]cholastic disputes contribute considerably' to homiletic excellence.14And even more surprisingly, most of book 2 is devoted to dialectical strategies of argument, among which definition features prominently.Unless we want to attribute this shift of perspective to senility or the inexorable logic of mortality-Erasmus was convinced that completing the work would kill him and he died less than a year after its publicationsomething significant must have happened to occasion such a dramatic change in tone and attitude.
It is true that a great many of Erasmus' writings give us a clear indication of dialectic's shortcomings, offering both a critique of its theory and an overview of the damage it has caused in the realm of religious doctrine and practice.On closer inspection, however, it quickly becomes clear that Erasmus-like many other outspoken humanist critics of dialectic-is not ready to dispense with the resources of formal reasoning entirely.In the Apologia ad monachos hispanos (1528), for instance, Erasmus defended himself against charges of Arianism by using the signature move of any self-respecting dialectician: the syllogism.In The Praise of Folly, Erasmus had mocked theologians who operate in the erroneous belief that 'three syllogisms arm them enough to go straight to This kind of heft means that Erasmus had space to explain things, sometimes several times over, and while it is wise to be wary of retrospective rationalisations, it is still worth noting that some passages in Ecclesiastes serve as a useful gloss on Erasmus' earlier treatment of the arts of discourse.And with a subject like dialectic, where the early works present a tension between negative programmatic statements and actual discursive practice, Erasmus' career reflections in Ecclesiastes are particularly illuminating.Take the example discussed above, for instance, on Trinitarian consubstantiality.In book 2 of Ecclesiastes, as part of a lengthy discussion of theological methodology, Erasmus provides a rationale for the process of logical deduction employed in Adversus Monachos and extends the scope of formal reasoning into the arenas of exegesis and preaching: 'Reasoning [from syllogisms]' , he says, 'clearly comes into play when there is no Scripture that clearly defines the matter in question, and the divine will is inferred instead by reasoning from the comparison of several scriptural passages.'22This is an explicit endorsement of the arts of argument: in the case of Scripture passages that do not pronounce with certainty on a point of doctrine or religious practice, dialectic furnishes the analytical processes that allow us to infer God's will and reason out divine intent.Ecclesiastes also justifies the use of dialectical method on the basis of biblical precedent.'The Lord argues from consequents' , Erasmus insists, and 'Paul reasons from incompat- Erasmus Studies 43 (2023) 5-27 ibles' , for example.23By reclaiming Scripture as the true source of dialectical reasoning, Erasmus aims to strip away at least some of the scholastic accretions acquired by the discipline during the previous millennium.That is the theory, at least, although in practice the exercise of dialectic requires constant vigilance to prevent a descent into Medieval sophistry.The temptations of 'fallacious subtleties' ('captiosas argutias') are everywhere, waiting to breed doubt and undermine religious conviction.24This attempt to return ad fontes proves no less problematic than many others.Before we turn to the role of the definition in Erasmus' homiletic theory, it is helpful to survey the main outlines of his programme of dialectical study.He begins by prescribing the appropriate reading in the subject, noting that '[a]ll the books that Aristotle wrote on logic are helpful' , but particularly endorses the Topics and Rhetoric.25In addition to these works of ancient philosophy, Erasmus also recommends a more recent text, the De Inventione Dialectica by Rudolph Agricola-'a man' , Erasmus says, 'who deserves an undying glory' .26In Ecclesiastes, Erasmus prescribes training in the use of the dialectical topics or loci, which he says will help with the interpretation of Scripture and the composition of sermons; he also advises on how to structure and assemble propositions and covers the four main forms of argument: syllogism, enthymeme, induction, and example.Throughout his analysis of dialectical method, Erasmus stresses its connections with the other two disciplines in the trivium, rhetoric and grammar.He observes, for instance, that dialectic is 'an art so akin to rhetoric that it is almost the same' ('ars sic rhetoricae cognata vt pene sit eadem').27Dialectic precedes rhetoric, Erasmus says, 'for there must be judgement before there is expression, knowledge before speech, just as in nature a spring comes before a river, and in the arts sketching comes before painting.'28However, it is grammar that forms 'the basis of all the disciplines' ('disciplinarum omnium fundamentum'), defined in good humanist fashion not merely as 'the inflection of nouns and verbs' ('inflexionem nominum ac verborum') but, more broadly, as 'the ways of speaking correctly and properly' ('rationes emendate proprieque loquendi').29 Rushing towards dialectic before grammatical knowledge has been consolidated will merely create quarrelsome sophists, since (as Erasmus insists) 'dialectic is blind without grammar' .30By asserting the close connections between rhetoric and dialectic, Erasmus follows the two most significant proponents of humanist dialectic, Agricola and Philip Melanchthon.31Melanchthon proved especially useful for Erasmus' purposes in Ecclesiastes, since he was the principal early sixteenth-century theorist to mobilise the arts of discourse for religious exegesis, preaching, and controversy.His 1531 treatise Elementa Rhetorices was based on the foundational assumption that 'the kinship between dialectic and rhetoric is so close that it is difficult to tell them apart.'32There are other moments in Ecclesiastes where Erasmus' argument closely echoes the language of the Elementa.In book 3 of Ecclesiastes, for instance, Erasmus explains that the same linguistic techniques can be used in different parts of a speech and for different purpose, noting, for instance, that 'nothing prevents amplification or embellishment from being taken from the same loci from which the proof is taken' .33Melanchthon had stated, four years earlier, that 'the loci can be used not only for proof but also for amplification' .34This example is significant because it is one of the relatively rare moments when Erasmus deviates from his principal source, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria.In book 8, chapters 4 and 5 of his handbook, Quintilian keeps the resources of proof and amplification emphatically separate; the fact that Erasmus foregrounds the overlap between the two categories strongly suggests a debt to Melanchthon.Erasmus insists that '[t]he ability to reason existed before the invention of dialectic';35 nevertheless, '[t]he sensible study of dialectic aids natural ability' , so 'being trained in dialectic from childhood will be of no small help' .36However, it is crucial to adapt its uses to the contexts of speaking and writing.While in the context of academic discussion, it would be perfectly appropriate to discuss the technical dimensions of 'syllogisms or enthymemes' , or 'modal and mixed propositions' , 'it would be ineffective to introduce the same concepts before a judge or before a congregation, though at the same time the preacher is employing all of them while concealing his art and clarifying the complexity of his thoughts in such a way that the congregation feels that his words are spoken truly rather than cleverly and the obscure becomes clear, the complex simple, the difficult easy.'37As the last part of this quotation makes clear, the main purpose of dialectic is teaching, and this didactic focus makes the discipline a powerful aid in the preacher's mission.38As Erasmus remarks in book 2 of Ecclesiastes, while the preacher is occupied with 'teaching, with persuading, with exhorting, consoling, advising, and admonishing,'39 teaching 'is common to all cases'; it is therefore always already implicated in the work of persua- sion.40For Erasmus, 'the word "teaching" has two meanings, for someone who proves by arguments-which is an orator's chief power-is teaching, and so is someone who imparts a complete knowledge of an art or anything at all' .41In this discussion of teaching, we also encounter the crucial role of definition for the first time.Erasmus says that definition 'holds first place, together with its relatives, description, etymology and glossing' in the process of teaching.42Like Melanchthon's, Erasmus' approach to the concept of religious teaching is capacious and inclusive: addressing the understanding requires the work of emotional conviction as well as the resources of reasoning.Before we proceed any further, it is important to describe the different ways in which Erasmus uses the term 'definition' in Ecclesiastes.There are four distinct meanings, although these are often combined in practice.The first relates to the ancient rhetorical concept of status.This is the main issue in any speech, 'the point' , Quintilian says, 'which the orator sees as the most important for him to make and on which the judge sees that he must fix all his attention.… [O]n this … the cause will stand or fall.'43One of these status is the status definitionis, when the main issue in a speech or sermon concerns the nature of a thing or idea: if we ask what grace is, for instance, or what characterises repentance.44Secondly, Erasmus considers definition through his discussion of Aristotle's predicables and predicaments-that is, of the logical categories that allow us to define objects according to certain criteria.It is through the predicables and predicaments, Erasmus says, that 'whatever pertains to the nature and quality of each thing is made evident.'45Thirdly, definition can be used for amplification when it is combined with other linguistic strategies such as metaphor (Erasmus gives the phrase 'Adolescence is the bloom of life' as an example).46Lastly and most importantly, however, definition receives top billing in Erasmus' extensive discussion of the dialectical loci or places of argument, which ettenhuber Erasmus Studies 43 (2023) 5-27 are used both for the analysis of Scripture and to generate material for sermons.These are different from the rhetorical places of argument, which derive material from common themes: a sermon in praise of someone could refer, for instance, to their achievements and virtues (attending church regularly, for example, or performing works of charity).The dialectical places, by contrast, address the deeper structures of discourse: how concepts can be classified, and what attributes and properties are connected with them.47Whenever we have to analyse a text or compose a speech, we can run through the list of places for inspiration on how to read or what to say.
In Ecclesiastes, Erasmus commends Agricola's treatment of the dialectical places in the De Inventione Dialectica, but deems his presentation slightly too complicated for the purpose of training a preacher.48To meet the specific needs of his intended audience, Erasmus compiles a list of loci that includes material from Agricola, but also incorporates some of the Aristotelian places as mediated by Cicero and Themistius (see Illustration 1, below).
In Erasmus' list of loci, definition occupies first place, and even a brief look at the list illustrates how the places of dialectic can serve as an aid to composition.Let's say I have been tasked with writing an oration on the importance of humility and I am unsure where to start.In this case I could draw, for instance, on the place of 'Etymologia' and begin by noting that 'humility' is related to the Latin word humus, or 'ground' .Then I could move on to 'Definition' and say that a humble person keeps their feet on the ground.Then, using the place of 'Contraria' , I could argue that a proud person is someone who sits on a high horse.As an 'Exemplum' , I might provide the anecdote of a friend who decided to participate in the Kentucky Derby after taking his first two riding lessons.And I might conclude by noting the 'Effecta' of this unfortunate undertaking: a leg shattered in three places that prevented my friend from walking for months.
To return to the definition.The classic Aristotelian method of defining proceeds per genus et differentiam, that is, by analysing classes of things and their distinguishing characteristics.In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle argues that 'a word is defined by locating the thing to which it refers in a class of things … sharing some common features, and then by indicating those features which distin- guish that thing from others in that class' .49In the famous Aristotelian example, 'man is a rational animal' , 'animal' is the 'class of things'-or the genus-and 'rational' is the differentia or distinguishing characteristic, since rationality is the attribute that distinguishes man from every other kind of animal.'Man' is the species.In this example, the differentia describes a fundamental quality of man and according to Aristotle, a definition only works if it includes such essential or necessary qualities.50Erasmus is happy to work with the assumption that 'a true definition consists of a genus and a difference constituting a species' , but he deliberately dilutes Aristotle's idea that definitions capture the essence of an object with certainty.51Erasmus' account of definition is, in fact, much closer to Agricola's in De Inventione Dialectica, although as with his use of Melanchthon's observations on proof and amplification, his debt to Agricola remains unacknowledged.Erasmus begins by noting that while 'there is no doubt that each thing has an internal form through which it is what it is and not something else' , because 'this generally lacks its own name, we misapply those that come nearest to the nature of the difference; for it is not difficult to find the genus of each thing.'52Revisiting Aristotle's definition of man and finding it deficient, he continues: 'When a true difference fails us, then we have resort to what is closest to it, say to some accidental quality that is present in man alone and absent in no man in so far as he is a man.But if this too fails us, we use the accumulation of many circumstances to accomplish what it was not possible to do with few but effective words.'53We can't always pin down the key characteristics of an object or idea, Erasmus says, and in these cases we need to resort to alternative methods of definition.
Erasmus' argument clearly recalls Agricola's assertion, in book 1 chapter 5 of De Inventione Dialectica, that 'many writers believe that it is impossible to discern the proper and true differentia in relation to anything; all we can do is to regard as true the differentia that comes closest to the nature of the thing.… Through a kind of circumlocution or, as it were, by walking around the thing, we produce something that can take the place of the differentia; often this involves accumulating many different attributes, all of which have a wider circumference than the object of our definition, but when you put them together they align with each other and create something approximating the essential property of the thing.'54Both Erasmus and Agricola will go on to characterise this roundabout form of definition as a kind of descriptio-the term for a rhetorical description that uses circumstantial detail to sketch a subject or person in outline.This is the point, however, at which Erasmus parts company with Agricola, and with more strictly technical discussions of the definition.Having raised the possibility of an overlap between definition and description, Agricola immediately reinstates the distinction between the two terms: 'description, after all, which is often used by poets and sometimes by orators, is rather prolix, and its task is not to show us what a thing is but, as it were, to put it before our eyes so that we can examine what its qualities are' .55Agricola uses the slightly derogatory Latin term verbosius to describe this prolixity; Erasmus, by contrast, embraces the prospect of such verbosity with gusto.That Agricola's distinction between 'what a thing is' and 'what its qualities are' was on Erasmus' mind is apparent from his very first comment on definition, which declares that the preacher is not interested 'in the question "what is it" ' , but considers things 'from the point of view of quality' .56And he is perfectly clear why this should be so: a good definition 'will lay its whole appearance before the eyes in a sort of portrait in order to impel the spectator either towards love, if an image of virtue is being described, or towards hate, if a vice is being depicted' .57Erasmus has taken Agricola's point and deliberately turned it on its head: he wants to set ideas before the audience's eyes and positively demands their emotional and cognitive engagement.This is not an admission of defeat but a deliberate choice: Erasmus regards this softer version of definition, which joins dialectical technique with rhetorical skill, as a more effective instrument of Christian teaching.This means, amongst other things, that he has absolutely no appetite for policing the boundary between definition and description.
Erasmus, then, conceives of definition not as a single, pithy moment of absolute semantic and conceptual clarification.Rather, definition operates in combination with a group of cognate loci that can be combined in different configurations.58  Let the definition be: 'A hypocrite is someone who feigns holiness.'The description is when the Lord paints them with his own colours: 'They spread out their phylacteries,' 'they pray in the corners of the squares' profusely and, by this sham 'they devour the houses of widows, they disfigure their faces,' they give alms announced by a trumpet, then they wash not only their bodies but also their plates, chairs, and vessels.60This is nothing if not 'rather prolix' , but of course Erasmus' linguistic expansiveness has a point.The Scripture quotations amplify the base definition in highly evocative detail, creating in the minds of his readers an ever-widening chasm between pious appearance and immoral reality.By the end of the passage, the evils of hypocrisy have indeed been laid before the eyes 'in a sort of portrait' and impelled the reader 'towards hate' of this vice, as knowledge meets emotion in the act of persuasion.But this requires a modification of dialectical techniques of definition as Agricola had described them-a broadening out towards a more holistic understanding of how the loci of dialectic and rhetoric cooperate and reinforce each other in the service of homiletic teaching.Erasmus therefore explicitly advises the preacher 'to accommodate these loci to a broader use than do the dialecticians, whose examples are generally quite pedantic.For it is no great matter if we convince someone that what is not an animal is not a man; but he [the preacher] will use the opportunity of this locus [of definition] to remove from the designation "man" all those who are driven by base desires into every kind of crime instead of being governed by right reason.He will say that they are more brutish than the dumb beasts themselves.'61Erasmus' definitions, then, are not simply tests of truth value: they are miniature dramas of moral deliberation that draw on the processes of formal reasoning and the powerful tools of enargeia to strengthen the spiritual judgement of the audience.This, as we have seen, involves the integrated application of dialectic and rhetoric.While Erasmus keeps reminding his readers 'how much material for speaking definition provides,'62 he also pushes against a narrow conception of its operations.'The dialectician adduces but one idea' , he insists, 'but the preacher will find numerous ideas around each locus' , in a seamless integration of intellectual and affective elements.63A skilled preacher, in other words, recalibrates the cognitive instruments of dialectic to make them suitable for the twin task of teaching and persuasion.
What does all of this mean for Erasmus' theory of linguistic representation and communication?In some ways, I think, it is no exaggeration to say that Ecclesiastes codifies a new approach to copia.This new approach to the 'abundant resources of speaking' serves the needs of theology-a discipline in which the integration of res and verba is a far more pressing undertaking than it had been in the grammar school setting of his earlier writings.Ecclesiastes, I suggest, attempts to consolidate the connection between words and things by combining the elements of dialectic and rhetoric.As Ann Moss has noted, in the original De Copia of 1512 and in the 1511 De Ratione Studii, the dialectical loci play only a minor role.In De Ratione Studii, Erasmus confines himself to the perfunctory remark that 'if someone should decide that dialectic be added to the above [course of study], I shall not gainsay him much, provided that he learn his dialectic from Aristotle and not from that prolix breed, the sophists.'64The Ecclesiastes of 1535, then, demonstrates a different understanding of how the arts of discourse cooperate and, to some extent, reformulates the relationship between res and verba.The definition-rooted in dialectic and enhanced by the strategies of rhetorical description-secures doctrinal truth with precision, but also presents an expressively emotive picture of the word made flesh.Both elements are equally necessary for effective religious teaching, as Melanchthon had made abundantly clear in the Elementa Rhetorices four years earlier.69To illustrate this shift in method, I want to return to the definition of hypocrisy I quoted earlier.In his condemnation of the hypocrites, Erasmus says, Christ 'paints' with rhetorical 'colours': abstract definitions are enriched with metaphors, examples, and descriptive detail, adding vividness and particularity to make his ideas present to the audience.This is ultimately an act of accommodation: as God walks among us in embodied form, his words meet the capacities of fallen human understanding-he paints a world that we can recognise.But conveying the humanity of Christ in the language of lived historical experience is only one half of the preacher's task.The other affirms Christ's transcendent divinity; it returns us from rhetoric to dialectic in order to bring, in Erasmus' words, 'the contemplation of individual things' back into dialogue with the timeless truths of immortal reason and providence.In this endeavour, the definition plays a crucial part once more: The genus and the whole will remind him to exhort in such a way that we lift our minds from these well-grounded and individual things that are exposed to the senses, to those things that are always the same way and are perceived by reason, not by sense, all the way up to that immense source and author of everything in whom are the eternal exemplars of all things.This procedure will expand the narrowness of our mind, which is contracted and cast down by the contemplation of individual things.It is quite sublime to contemplate this entire world as though it were a single city over which God presides as monarch, that the whole church is a single body or single family, which does not know how to perish.70The logical category of genus necessarily involves reflections on the abstract and transcendental, on 'the source and author of everything' and the eternal idea of which human beings are merely timebound instantiations.We need the dialectical language of definition, of genus and species, to remind us of what lies beyond the senses: an eternal providence whose will can be inferred with the instruments of human reason, at least insofar as it supplies the guiding principles of a virtuous Christian life: And the preacher will not consider it enough to say that "being capable of reason" is the difference of a man, or that "capable of laughing" is a property of a man, and someone who is incapable of reason or who is not able to laugh is therefore not a man; rather he will look higher and say that true men are those who are governed, through faith in Christ Jesus, by the spirit of God rather than by reason, that it is proper for a man to recognize his creator and to be capable of being taught evangelical teaching.71 Erasmus urges caution when it comes to the strength of the analytical faculties; as he notes in Ecclesiastes, despite our best efforts to generate reliable definitions, the 'true difference' often eludes us.But his scepticism definitely does not rise to the levels of a thinker like Montaigne, who famously re-examined the nature of definitions 50 years or so after Erasmus' death, in his essay 'Of Experience': a giant dictionary where one word hands over to another as in some neverending hermeneutic relay race, but a map of faith which, for all the difficulties of the journey, allows his audience to keep the telos or goal of their efforts firmly in view.
In his instructions to preachers, Erasmus tells us that 'there is a relation' between speech and mental thought, 'between the terms for things and the things themselves' .75The doctrines of Christianity are not just verba, but the anchoring res in which a doubting mind can find stability; the dialectical loci, and above all the definition, articulate this desire for a cognitive and spiritual scaffolding that can support the believer.Here again we hear echoes of Melanchthon, who warned that the loci of argument should not be deployed casually or arbitrarily: 'they are derived from the deep structures of nature, they are the sets and patterns to which all things correspond.'76Erasmus is less willing to commit himself than Melanchthon to a precise definition of how 'the terms for things' might relate to 'the things themselves' , but it is undeniable that the discussion about res and verba has moved on significantly since the original publication of De Copia.77Unsurprisingly, Erasmus' new method is wholly dependent on the Bible's central matter or res: any effort of definitional clarity relies, ultimately, on the dual nature of Christ, the embodied Word that participates in our world but, in doing so, also enables us to extend our being to eternity.Christ is both God and man, and this dual nature makes him available for definition in a way that God the Father is not: complete ontological simplicity and pure essence of being do not lend themselves to the application of a procedure based on identifying the relationships between parts and wholes.Christ, on the other hand, is the ideal object and example of Erasmus' definitional method.He mediates the eternal truths of divinity, much as the dialectical definition does in Erasmus' pastoral theology; but he also communicates in the 'well-grounded' idiom of human apprehension, stirring the audience's devotion-like an effective preacher should-with the affective resources of rhetoric.In the conjunction of dialectical outline and rhetorical colour, a compelling portrait of Christ is brought to life, one which teaches and moves in equal measure and integrates understanding and emotion.There is more than a faint echo here of Erasmus' most famous borrowing from Augustine in Ecclesiastes, his observation that 'nothing is loved except in so far as it is known and … nothing is known unless it is in some degree loved' .78Despite all these efforts, Erasmus insists, the true differentia of Christ remains inaccessible to fallen humanity, not least, as St Paul teaches at Corinthians 13:12, because we continue to see 'through a glass, darkly' .But while the essence of divinity may be elusive in a metaphysical sense, a preacher equipped with the full resources of dialectic and rhetoric can still endeavour to take the audience, in Erasmus' words, 'to what is closest to it' , and inspire the devo- tional commitment that will help them realise the moral dimensions of imitatio Christi.And to a man nearing the end of life, that probably seemed like no small thing.
Downloaded from Brill.com09/15/2023 12:09:40PM via free access Erasmus Studies 43 (2023) 5-27 happy smiles[;] … it only takes the mere sight of me to give you all a different look.1 Ecclesiastes occupies a full 333 Folio columns in the Leclerc edition of Erasmus' Opera Omnia and two whole volumes in the asd.
'ita frigidum fuerit eadem apud iudicem aut populum inculcare, quum tamen interim his omnibus vtatur ecclesiastes, sed occultans artem et ratiocinationum argutias sic explanans vt multitudo sentiat vere dici potius quam ingeniose vtque obscura fiant dilucida, inuoluta explanatiora, molesta facilia.'  38This clearly recalls the work of Agricola and Melanchthon.In the opening chapter of his treatise on dialectic, Agricola had maintained that 'Every speech on any given subject, and indeed every common utterance we use to share our thoughts, seems to have this as its aim and as its primary and essential objective: to teach something to the listener' ('Oratio quaecunque de re quaque instituitur, omnisque adeo sermo, quo cogitata mentis nostri proferimus, id agere, hocque primum et proprium habere videtur officium, ut doceat aliquid eum, qui audit' [De Inventione Dialectica, p. 1]).Melanchthon's 1528 encomium on dialectic, meanwhile, argues that dialectic offers 'the way of correctly acquiring knowledge and clearly teaching so that without this instrument no art can be thoroughly known or perceived' ('viam et recte discendi et perspicue docendi, nulla sine hoc instrumento ars penitus cognosci aut percipi potest' [Corpus Reformatorum 11:160-161]).39 cwe 68:500; asd v-4:272, ll.536-537: 'Attamen ecclesiastes potissimum versatur in docendo, in suadendo, in exhortando, consolando, consulendo et admonendo.'Downloaded from Brill.com09/15/2023 12:09:40PM via free access Erasmus Studies 43 (2023) 5-27 He summarises this group of persuasive strategies as follows: '[O]ne knows the rationale of the name [of a thing] through etymology, glossing, description, and definition: what it properly signifies in a given case, and it differs from kindred terms, and what genus it belongs to, and what form it has by which it is narrowed down from a genus to a particular species, and what property it has.'59To these primary definitional resources are added metaphor, simile, and comparison.This rich repertoire of techniques create a vivid, embodied image of an object's properties, which steers the audience's cognitive and affective responses and ultimately aims to guide them towards virtuous action.Erasmus gives an example through a tissue of quotations from the Gospels of Matthew and Mark: 58 '[A]bundant resources of speaking are provided by definition together with its related loci.' cwe 68:696; asd v-4:446, ll.958-959: 'non parcam dicendi copiam suggerat definitio cum locis affinibus.'Downloaded from Brill.com09/15/2023 12:09:40PM via free access Erasmus Studies 43 (2023) 5-27 how But he would do quite a bit of gainsaying in De Copia which, as Moss explains, reserves any consideration of dialectical method until the end of book 2 and then confines discussion to a very brief list of 'general inferential procedures.'65Noexamples are given in this, the least copious, section of Erasmus' work.It is not until the 1534 edition of De Copia, as Moss also observes, that Erasmus includes one paragraph of instruction, at least, on how to use the dialectical places of argument: 'Anyone training with a view to acquiring eloquence will have to look at all the possible topics in turn, go knocking from door to door so to speak, to see if anything can be induced to emerge; but with practice the right ones will come to suggest themselves naturally, without this process being necessary.'66Itis no accident, I think, that this dialectically enhanced edition of De Copia appeared around the same time that Erasmus was completing his mammoth treatise on preaching.By 1534, the world of liberal arts education looked very different from the disciplinary landscape Erasmus had encountered at the beginning of the century.The biggest change was a growing familiarity among Erasmus' readers with the manuals of Melanchthon and Agricola, who had radically reconfigured the understanding of dialectic and its relationship with rhetoric and grammar.Unlike in 1511 or 1512, by the 1530s, dialectic could no longer be ignored.67This is clear not only from Erasmus' own writings, but from the works of his interpreters and commentators.In 1539, for instance, Johannes Weltkirchius' gloss on De Copia significantly expanded Erasmus' discussion of the dialectical loci with surveys of their treatment in Aristotle, Agricola, and Caesarius, adding both substance and detail to Erasmus' Should at last bring the respondent to his Calepine or wittes end.One word is changed for another word, and often more unknowen.…Wee propose one question, and wee have a whole huddle of them made unto us againe.As no event or forme doth wholly resemble another, so doth it not altogether differ one from another.72 Montaigne conceives of definition as a world of infinite regress: as in a dictionary, each attempt to tie down the meaning of an individual word simply refers us to another, proliferating confusion as the sequence of interpretation unfolds.But it is also worth noting that Montaigne presents us with a less than perfect definition here, as of course he knew.'A stone is a body' is a definition by genus alone; it omits the differentia.It is the differentia, however, that begins to narrow down the options-'a stone is an inanimate body' , for instance-and therefore gives us a richer and more nuanced perception of the thing we are seeking to define.Without it, definition produces merely a 'huddle' or confused conglomeration of meanings, where objects appear in vague generic outline, looking neither wholly similar nor altogether different from each other.Erasmus, I have been suggesting, adopts a different perspective.He is realistic about definition's limitations: 'you could scarcely find any definition so carefully fortified' , he notes, 'that it is not open to contradiction in some respect if it should meet a disagreeable and somewhat captious interpreter' .73Nevertheless, he insists that definition is 'especially necessary to theologians' .74This is because for Erasmus the Bible-the prime object of his attention in Ecclesiastes-is not simply Our contestation is verball.I demaund what Nature, voluptuousnesse, circle and substitution is?The question is of words, and with words it is answered.A stone is a body: but he that should insist and urge; And what is a body?A substance: And what a substance?And so goe-on: esse hominem qui rationis sit expers aut qui non sit risibilis; sed altius spectans, dicet eos demum esse homines qui pro ratione gubernantur spiritu Dei, per fidem erga Christum Iesum; homini proprium esse conditorem suum agnoscere et euangelicae philosophiae docilem esse.' Downloaded from Brill.com09/15/2023 12:09:40PM via free access Erasmus Studies 43 (2023) 5-27