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Retelling the History of the Early Church: Erasmus's Paraphrase on Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Hilmar M. Pabel
Hilmar M. Pabel
Affiliation:
associate professor of history atSimon Fraser University.
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Extract

Scholars have paid relatively little attention to Erasmus's concept of history. This is understandable since Erasmus is not usually considered a historian and is certainly not ranked with humanist historians such as Leonardo Bruni and Francesco Guicciardini. Nevertheless, Erasmus's contribution to Renaissance historical scholarship is considerable.As an editor of texts he constantly busied himself with establishing the most accurate readings and separating genuine from spurious works. His patristic editions as well as his five editions of the New Testament are monuments not only to a highly refined literary analysis but also to a sophisticated historical erudition.

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Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 63 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2000

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References

I gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of István Bejczy, Jane Phillips, and the anonymous readers of this article. Page references in parentheses are to CWE 50. Abbreviations: ASD = Opera otnnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1969–); Allen = Opus epistolarum Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P. S. Allen et al., 12 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1906–58); CWE = Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–); LB = Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opera omnia, ed. Jean LeClerc, 10 vols. (Leiden, 1703–6).

1. The foundational studies are Gilmore, Myron P., “Fides et Eruditio: Erasmus and the Study of History,” in Humanists and Jurists: Six Studies in the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, Bellknap, 1963), 87–114;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBietenholz, Peter G., History and Biography in the Work of Erasmus of Rotterdam (Geneva: Droz, 1966).Google ScholarSee also Ijsewijn, J. and Matheeussen, C., “Érasme et l'historiographie,” in Mag. Verbeke, G. and Ijsewijn, J., eds., The Late Middle Ages and the Damn of Humanism outside Italy (Louvain: Louvain Univeristy Press, 1972), 31–43;Google ScholarChomarat, Jacques, “More, Érasme et les historiens latins,” Moreana 86 (1985): 89–99;Google Scholaridem, “La Philosophic de l'histoire d'Érasme d'après ses reflexions sur l'histoire romaine,” in Clare M. Murphy, Henri Gibaud, and Mario A. di Cesare, eds., Miscellanea Moreana: Essays for Germain Marc'hadour (Bloomington, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1989), 159–67; Hirstein, J. S., “Érasme, l'Histoire Auguste et l'histoire,” in Actes du colloque international Erasme (Tours, 1986), ed. Chomarat, Jacques, Godin, André, and Margolin, Jean-Claude (Geneva: Droz, 1990), 71–95;Google ScholarBejczy, István, “Overcoming the Middle Ages: Historical Reasoning in Erasmus' Antibarbarian Writings,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 16 (1996): 34–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. For translations of the prefatory matter in the edition of Jerome as well as of Erasmus's annotations on six of Jerome's letters, see CWE 61. For the most recent scholarship on Erasmus's publication of Jerome, see Jardine, Lisa, Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 55–82, 164–70;Google ScholarVessey, Mark, “Erasmus' Jerome: The Publishing of a Christian Author,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 14 (1994): 62–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Rice, Eugene F. Jr., Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 120, 124, 130.Google Scholar

4. Bentley, Jerry H., Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 217.Google ScholarFor the most comprehensive study of the Annotations see Rummel, Erika, Erasmus's Annotations on the New Testament (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Gilmore, , “Fides et Eruditio,” 97–98.Google Scholar

6. Bietenholz, , History and Biography, 89.Google Scholar

7. LB 6:433B.Google Scholar

8. Kümmel, Werner Georg, Introduction to the New Testament, rev. ed., trans. Lee, Howard Clark (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975), 156.Google Scholar

9. Williams, R. R., “Church History in Acts: Is it Reliable?” in Historicity and Chronology in the New Testament (London: S.P.C.K., 1965), 153.Google ScholarFor some recent studies on the historicity of Acts, see Hemer, Colin J., The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, ed. Gempf, Conrad H. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1989);Google Scholarand the essays in History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts, ed. Witherington, Ben III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. LB 6:433E. Bietenholz repeats Erasmus's belief: “Only Acts, as part of the Scriptural canon, presents the integral truth of history endorsed by the Holy Spirit and thus superior to human critique.” History and Biography, 39–40.Google Scholar

11. Cited in Cochrane, Eric, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Cochrane, Historians and Historiography, 474.Google Scholar

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14. Augustijn, Cornells, Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence, trans. Grayson, J. C. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 27–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Allen 1:150, ep. 45, lines 45–16; Collard, Franck, Un Historien au travail à la fin du XVe siécle: Robert Gaguin (Geneva: Droz, 1996), 86–87.Google Scholar

16. Gilmore, , “Fides et Eruditio,” 91. CWE 1:89, line 52 translates fides et eruditio as “honesty and scholarship.”Google Scholar

17. CWE 28:393.Google Scholar

18. CWE 61:24. The Latin text reads: “In quibus nihil agnoscas, nee eruditionis, nee eloquentiae, nee prudentiae, nee diligentiae; super haec omnia nihil minus quam id quod in primis exigitur in historiographo, nempe fidem.” See Erasmi opuscula: A Supplement to the “Opera omnia,” ed. Ferguson, Wallace K. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1933), 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Struever, Nancy, The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 64.Google Scholar

20. CWE 50:65; LB 7:703F.Google Scholar

21. CWE 50:76; LB 7:711F.Google Scholar

22. Of course, Erasmus's most controversial use of sermo instead of the traditional verbum occurred in his translation of John 1:1. For details see Jarrot, C. A. L., “Erasmus' In principio erat sermo: A Controversial Translation,” Studies in Philology 61 (1964): 35–40;Google ScholarBoyle, Marjorie O'Rourke, Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 3–31;Google ScholarRummel, Erika, Erasmus and His Catholic Critics (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1989), 1:124–25.Google Scholar

23. For other instances in which Erasmus follows the Vulgate, see the references in the general index of CWE 50 under the heading “Erasmus, original works, Paraphrase on Acts, 2, biblical texts followed: Vulgate” (376).Google Scholar

24. Chomarat, Jacques, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme (Paris: Société d'Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1981), 1:629.Google Scholar

25. CWE 24:673.Google Scholar

26. Cochrane, , Historians and Historiography, 40, 45, 47, 492.Google Scholar

27. Hale, John, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance (New York: Harper and Row, 1993), 16.Google Scholar

28. For the text of the Peregrinatio, see LB 7: 653–60. Specific references are to LB 7: 655–56 (Dionysius the Areopagite), 657–58 (Salmone, Sammonium), 659–60 (concluding observations). For Erasmus's reference to Eusebius, see the latter's Ecclesiastical History (3, 4, 10), vol. 1, trans. Lake, Kirsopp, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1926), 196–97.Google Scholar

29. Dibelius, Martin, “The First Christian Historian,” in idem, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, ed. Heinrich Greeven (London: S.C.M. Press, 1956), 130, 131–32, 134.Google Scholar

30. Cochrane, , Historians and Historiography, 5, 468; Bietenholz, History and Biography, 29, 41; Bejczy, “Overcoming the Middle Ages,” 42, 48.Google Scholar

31. Allen 11:13, ep. 2951, line 19.Google Scholar

32. Bietenholz, , History and Biography, 38.Google Scholar

33. Cochrane, , Historians and Historiography, 476.Google Scholar

34. Panofsky, Erwin, “Renaissance and Renascences,” Kenyon Review 6 (1944): 225. In a revision of this essay, Panofsky expressed himself slightly differently without changing the substance of his thought: “In the Italian Renaissance the classical past began to be looked upon from a fixed distance, quite comparable to the ‘distance between the eye and the object’ in that most characteristic invention of this very Renaissance, focused perspective. As in focused perspective, this distance prohibited direct contact—owing to the interposition of an ideal ‘projection plane’—but permitted a total and rationalized view.”Google ScholarSee Panofsky, , “Renaissance and Renascences,” in Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 108.Google Scholar

35. Struever, , Language of History, 67; cf. 67 n. 72, 93.Google Scholar

36. Gilmore, , “Fides et Eruditio,” 99–101.Google Scholar

37. Bejczy, , “Overcoming the Middle Ages,” 47–53.Google Scholar

38. CWE 1:90, ep. 45, lines 113–14; Allen 1:151, ep. 95, line 95: “Tanta est narrationis viuacitas, vt res geri, non narrari videatur.”Google Scholar

39. Cochrane, , Historians and Historiography, 454.Google Scholar

40. Vessey, Mark, “‘Lingua Christi Praedicatrix’: The Tongue and the Book in Erasmus' Paraphrases on the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 17 (1997): 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Hoffmann, Manfred, Rhetoric and Theology: The Hermeneutic of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 103.Google Scholar

42. Krüger, Friedhelm, Humanistische Evangelienauslegung: Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam als Ausleger der Evangelien in seinen Paraphrasen (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1986), 82, 131.Google Scholar

43. Krüger, , Humanistische Evangelienauslegung, 72–79, esp. 76.Google Scholar

44. Hilmar M. Pabel, “The Peaceful People of Christ: The Irenic Ecclesiology of Erasmus of Rotterdam,” in idem, ed., Erasmus' Vision of the Church (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1995), 57–93.

45. Pabel, , “Peaceful People,” 70–71.Google Scholar

46. Phillips, Jane E., “The Gospel, the Clergy, and Laity in Erasmus' Paraphrase on the Gospel of John,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 10 (1990): 99–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. In the Paraphrases on 1 and 2 Timothy and on Titus, Erasmus develops at length the theme of the ideal bishop. See CWE 44: 12–13, 18–22, 25–28, 32–34, 36–37, 43, 46, 51–52, 58–59, 62, 64–66.Google Scholar

48. Chomarat, , Grammaire et rhétorique, 1:639.Google Scholar

49. For the Julius exclusus see CWE 27:168–97.Google Scholar

50. Haenchen, Ernst, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, trans. Bernard Noble and Gerald Shinn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 103.Google Scholar

51. Chomarat, , Grammaire et rhétorique, 1:631.Google Scholar

52. CWE 24:577–89, esp. 577, 578, 584 (first quotation), 585 (second quotation).Google Scholar

53. Meyer, Eduard, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1921–1923), 3:92, 139;Google ScholarBruce, F. F., The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary, 2d ed. (London: Tyndale, 1952), 21.Google ScholarFor more recent studies sympathetic to Bruce's position, see Hemer, The Book of Acts, 415–27;Google ScholarBauckham, Richard, “James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13–21),” in Witherington, History, Literature, and Society, 154–84;Google Scholar Ben Witherington III, “Editing the Good News: Some Synoptic Lessons for the Study of Acts,” in idem, History, Literature, and Society, 324–47.

54. Dibelius, Martin, “The Speeches in Acts and Ancient Historiography,” in Dibelius, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, 138–85;Google ScholarPlümacher, Eckhard, “Die Missionsreden der Apostelgeschichte in ihren Beziehungen zur hellenistischen Literatur,” in Plümacher, Lukas als hellenistischer Schriftsteller: Studien zur Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1972), 32–79.Google Scholar

55. At Acts 17:23 Paul, in his speech on the Areopagus, refers to an inscription on an altar “to an unknown god.” Although altars may have been dedicated to unknown gods, both Erasmus and modern scholars discount the existence of an inscription to a single unknown god. The difference is that, in agreement with Jerome, the former in the Annotations attributes the mention of the inscription to “a certain pious cunning” on the part of Paul (LB 6:501E); while the latter, such as Hans Conzelmann, argue that the inscription “is a purely literary motif” used by Luke “to suit his purposes.” See Conzelmann, , A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, trans. Limburg, James, Kraabel, A. Thomas, and Juel, Donald H., ed. Epp, Eldon Jay with Matthews, Christopher R. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 140.Google Scholar Cf. Dibelius, “Paul on the Areopagus,” in idem, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, 39–40.

56. CWE 24:649–50.Google Scholar

57. ASD 5–5:146.Google Scholar

58. CWE 24:586.Google Scholar

59. Thucydides, , History of the Peloponnesian War, vol. 1, rev. ed., trans. Smith, Charles Foster, Loeb Classical Library (1928), 39.Google Scholar

60. Instead of referring to the goddess as the Ephesian Artemis, Erasmus adheres to the Vulgate and to Roman mythology in calling her Diana. He believed, however, that Diana and Artemis were not identical (298–99 n. 29).Google Scholar

61. Dibelius, , “Paul on the Areopagus,” 57, emphasis in the original.Google Scholar

62. Dibelius, , “Paul on the Areopagus,” 58–63; Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 528–29; Conzelmann, A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 146–47.Google ScholarFor an opposing view see Gärtner, Bertin, The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation, trans. King, Carolyn Hannay (Uppsala: Gleerup, 1955).Google Scholar

63. LB 5:99C–99E.Google Scholar

64. LB 5:87A–88C, cited at 88B.Google Scholar

65. Weisinger, Herbert, “Ideas of History during the Renaissance,” in Kristeller, Paul Oskar and Wiener, Phillip P., eds., Renaissance Essays from the Journal of the History of Ideas (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 91, 93.Google Scholar

66. Bietenholz, , History and Biography, 43; Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique, 1:613.Google Scholar