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The Pharisee Against the Hellenist: Edward Lee Versus Erasmus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Robert Coogan
Robert Coogan*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
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Extract

The Moriae Encomium and the Novum Instrumentum of Erasmus provoked remarkable storms. Even now the bitter sarcasm at the center of the Encomium shocks many as does the boldness of In principio erat Sermo, his alternative to the Vulgate's words that had a millennial sanction in theological discourse and in liturgy—In principio erat Verbum. Turbulence also radiates from the uniquely significant Romans 5:12 where he rendered eph hô by quatenus (in as much as), replacing in quo (in whom) of the Vulgate. Because of his translation and his annotations of the texts of Romans 5:12 and 14, Catholics and non-Catholics accused him of Pelagianism soon after the publication of the first edition of the Novum Instrumentum (1516).

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1986 , pp. 476 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1986

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References

1 The following abbreviations are used in this article. ASD = Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami recognita et adnotatione critica instructa notisque illustrata, under the auspices of the Dutch Royal Society (Amsterdam, 1969-). ARG = Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte. (Leipzig and Gutersloh, 1903-). CWE = James McConica, et al., eds., The Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto, 1974-). EE = P. S. Allen, et al., eds., Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterdami (12 vols.; Oxford, 1906-58). LB = J. Leclerq, ed., Opera omnia Des. Erasmi Roterdami (10 vols.; Lugdunum Batavorum, 1703- 1706). LW = J. Pelikan, H. Lehmann, et al., eds., Luther's Works (55 vols.; Philadelphia, 1955). NTA = Annotationes in Novum Testamentum. The editions of the Novum Testamentum and of the Annotationes published at Basel by Froben in 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535 are used in this study. In the body of the text, the date will identify the edition. NTA will precede the date of the edition of the Annotationes.

For the most complete study of the conflict with Lee, see Bludau, August, Die beiden ersten Erasmus—Ausgaben des Neuen Testaments und ihre Gegner, in Biblische Studien, Bd. 7, Heft 5 (Freiburg-im-Br., 1902), 86–125 Google Scholar. This text will be cited as Bludau. See also EE, 1037, Introduction and Erasmi opuscula, ed. W. K. Ferguson (The Hague, 1933), Apologia qua respondet duabus invectivis Edvardi Lei, Introduction. These three studies are primarily historical and do not examine Lee's charge of Pelagianism. For studies on Erasmus’ exegesis of Romans, see André Godin, “Fonction d’ Origène dans la practique exégètique d'Érasme: les Annotations sur 1’épitre aux Romains,” in Histoire de l'exégèse au XVIe siècle, pp. 17-44 and Payne, John B., “Erasmus: Interpreter of Romans,” Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 2 (1971), 1–35 Google Scholar. Catherine Jarrot provides an examination of Erasmus’ methodology in “Erasmus’ Biblical Humanism,” Studies in the Renaissance, 17(1970), 119-52. For a study of the controversies between Erasmus and Stunica, Titelmans, and, to a lesser degree, Lee, see Bentley, Jerry H., Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a brief description of positions on Pelagianism at the beginning of the sixteenth century, see “Erasmus, Scholastics, Humanists and Reformers” by Levi, A. H. T. in Praise of Folly and Letter to Martin Dorp, Cambridge Classics (Middlesex, 1971), pp. 16–32 Google Scholar. In “The Lutheran Riposte,” Philip S. Watson sees Erasmus as a spokesman for Semi-Pelagianism; see p. 25 of The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XVII, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation—Erasmus: De Libero Arbitrio, translated and edited by E. Gordon Rupp in collaboration with A. N. Marlow, Luther : De Servo Arbitrio, translated and edited by Philip S. Watson in collaboration with B. Drewery. This text will be cited as Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation. But Marj orie O'Rourke Boyle in “Erasmus and the ‘Modern’ Question: Was He Semi-Pelagian?” ARG, 75 (1984), 59-77, places Erasmus’ response to Luther in a rhetorical context showing Erasmus’ diatribe to be an example of the new Skepticism. She has Erasmus closer to Augustine and more distant from Pelagianism than this paper does. From a rhetorical viewpoint, she would probably agree that the diatribe suits the Hellenist while the assertio of Luther and the collatio of Titelmans suit Pharisees. One should read her Rhetoric and Reform : Erasmus’ Civil Dispute with Luther (Cambridge, 1983) and Manfred Hoffman's review of it in Erasmus of Rotterdam Society : Yearbook Four, (1984), 154-62. Also relevant to this paper is her brilliant discourse on Erasmus’ thought on the Incarnation in Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto, 1977).

2 LW, 48:24-5.

3 EE, 501. In Note 14 to this letter, Allen observes that twenty-two of Burkhard's lines are almost word for word from Luther.

4 Annotationes Edouardi Lei in Annotationes noui testamenti Desiderii Erasmi Roterdami: quibuspremittitur index: quo Me uidetur errores Erasmi uelut in suam quenquam classem disposuisse (n.p., n.d.), fol. 27r. This text will be cited as Annotationes in Annotationes. See EE, 1037, for information on publication in Paris, 1520.

5 Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus; Cesammelt und herausgegeben von A. Horowitz und K. Hartfelder (rept. of Leipzig, 1886; Reinheim, 1966), pp. 280-81. By the time of this letter, Luther had already composed his three great Reformation documents: An Appeal to the Nobility of the German Nation, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and The Liberty of a Christian Man.

6 EE, 1225 and 1259.

7 LW, 33: 107, 129, and especially, 268. For a discussion of this debate in terms of freedom, salvation, and grace and a view of Erasmus as a mediator between extremes of Augustianism and Pelagianism, see Ozment, Steven, The Age of Reform 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (New Haven, 1980), pp. 292–302 Google Scholar. This text will be cited as Ozment.

8 For Erasmus’ response to Titelmans, see Desiderii Erasmi Responsio ad Collationes cvjvsdam Jvvenis Gerontodidascali in LB, IX, 967-1016. He devotes nine folio columns to In quo omnes peccaverunt (984-93). Erasmus’ arguments there are substantially the same as those met throughout this paper. Erasmus refers to the important role Lee and his mentors had in initiating this dispute and to the irony that the Lutherans have moved so far from the Pelagian view that they now accuse the scholastic theologians of Pelagianism (985C). Apparently, Erasmus sees himself somewhere between both camps.

9 See Bludau, p. 91. Lee felt that it would be inappropriate to discuss a reconciliation when both met at a breakfast and at a religious ceremony.

10 EE, 843. See EE, 337, for Lee's criticisms of Erasmus in 1518.

11 See Bludau, pp. 92-94.

12 Ibid., p. 89.

13 See Smith, Preserved, A Key to the Colloquies of Erasmus (Cambridge, 1927), pp. 5–6 Google Scholar.

14 For the involvement of the English, see Allen's introduction to EE, 1037.

15 In EE 906:448, Erasmus describes Lee as Paitidus, macilentus—terms used to describe Phthonides in Apologia contra Latomi dialogum. See also Lee's letter to Erasmus in EE, 1061:211 and 304.

16 The anonymous Hochstratus ouans begins with Lee barking. The other works were In Edouardum Leeum quorundam e sodalitate literaria Erphurdien, Erasmici nominis studiosorum Epigrammata; Recriminatiojoan. Gertophii, adulescentis Germani, adversusjuriosissimum sycophantam Edouardum Leum Anglum, qui ausus est primus Erasmum candidissimum luto aspergere; and three collections of letters—Epistolae aliquot eruditorum; Appendix Epistolarum quibus eruditi viri detestantur Edouardi Lei virulentiam, and Epistolae eruditorum virorum.

17 Ferguson, Wallace K., Erasmi opuscula (The Hague, 1933), p. 233 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the persecution of Erasmians in Spain, see Bataillon, Mercel, Érasme et l'Espagne (Paris, 1937), pp. 467–532 Google Scholar.

18 See EE, 1518. In this letter Erasmus compares Lee with Stunica and claims that neither should be his censor because both lack knowledge and good faith. Erasmus sees a vain desire for glory as their motive in this dispute. In EE, IV, App. XV, No. 2, Stunica, writing to Vergara, states bluntly that he wants to be the first to drive a lance into this bull and that he seeks gloria. He wants to force a retraction from Erasmus in regard to the NTA 1519. See Bludau, p. 97, for Thomas More's view that reputation was a motive for Lee.

19 See Desiderii Erasmi Declarationes ad Censuras Lutetiae vulgatas sub nomine Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis in LB, IX, 903-904. For Louvain's attacks on the New Testament, see Van Calster, G., “La Censure Louvaniste de Nouveau Testament et la Rédaction de l'Index Érasmien Expurgatoire de 1571,” in J. Coppens, ed., Scrinium Erasmianum (2 vols.; Leiden, 1969-70), II, 379–436 Google Scholar.

20 Erasmus’ chief opponents at Louvain were Latomus, Egomondanus, Titelmans, and for a time Dorp; at the Sorbonne—Beda, Clichtove, and Sutor; at Salamanca—Carranza de Miranda, Caravajal, and de Castro; at Rome—Stunica, Eugubinus, Aleandro, Ambrosius Catharinus, and Pio.

21 See Herde, Peter, “Humanism in Italy,” in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip P. Wiener et al. (5 vols.; New York, 1973), II, 520 Google Scholar.

22 EE, 164.

23 Although Lee's Annotationes were not published until 1520, they had been in circulation before the letter to Volz was written. See LB, IX, 144-45, for Erasmus response to Lee's Annotatio XIX where he complains of Lee's accusation of Marcionitism.

24 Desiderius Roterdamus, Erasmus, Ausgewählte Werke (Munich, 1933)Google Scholar. The Enchiridion will be cited in this edition in the body of the paper.

23 Erasmus complained to Lipps over Lee's objection to this passage. See EE, 843:628-36.

26 One may generalize and say that both the Catholics and the Lutherans had rejected Erasmus by the time of his death. Ozment claims he survived among the Anabaptists and Spiritualists. See Ozment, p. 315. In England, which managed to steer a middle course between Lutheranism and Catholicism, Erasmian humanism flourished throughout the century.

27 Paraphrase on the New Testament (London, 1540), fol. xiir.

28 Novvm instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. recognitum et emendatum (Basel, 1516), p. 432. For the hermeneutics of Erasmus, see Payne, John B., “Toward the Hermeneutics of Erasmus,” in Scrinium Erasmianium, II, 13–49 Google Scholar and his “Erasmus: Interpreter of Romans.“

29 See Evans, Robert F., Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (London, 1968)Google Scholar, for an informative review of issues addressed by Pelagians.

30 ASD, IV:3:150-51 and accompanying note. For a relevant discussion on dialectical methods, see McKeon, Richard, “Renaissance and Method in Philosophy,” Studies in the History of Ideas, 3 (1935), 37–114 Google Scholar. See also More's “Letter to Dorp,” St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, ed. and tr. by Elizabeth Rogers (New Haven, 1961), pp. 6-64.

31 LB, VI, 3v.

32 See EE, 1334. The translation is by Haworth, Marcus A., S. J., in Erasmus and His Age, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (New York, 1970), pp. 168-69Google Scholar.

33 Novvm instrumentum (1516), p. 432.

34 Annotationes in Annotationes, fol. 27r-v.

35 Erasmus had written in 1516 ”… quid senserit Paulus, et num consentaneum sit ilium statim mysterium hoc gentibus aperire uoluisse, quod hodie quoque magis creditur, quae intelligitur, nimirum communi sensu reclamante.” Lee wrote ”… Et quid est in fide catholica: quae non abhorreat a sensu communi. Etiansi non diceret Esaias: Nisi credideritis non intelligetis.”

36 “Et vide Erasme an hoc equum sit: vt tu solus sapias contra tot patrum grauissima testimonia. Per Christi charitatem obescro: atque obtestor te Erasme : vt nolis inferre in ecclesiam sanctam: hoc nouum genus tractandi sacras lieras [sic] cum calumna [sic] veterum.“

37 See LB, IX; 214C-F.

38 Novvm instrumentum (Basel, 1527), p. 347. For the fifth and final edition of 1535, the text in LB will be used and will be cited in the body of the paper. Augustine's De peccatorum mentis et remissione (I, xi) conceives of sin in two ways, personal and inherited. But the passage concludes condemning the Pelagian notion that creatures, unspoiled by propagation from Adam, sin in imitation of him. In his edition of St. Jerome (Basel, 1516), Erasmus, who states that the work was not by Jerome, was the first to print the commentary of Pelagius on Paul which is also found with Jerome in Migne's Patrology. See Souter, Alex, Pelagius’ Expositions of Thirteen Epistles of St. Paul: Texts and Studies in Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, IX, No. 1 (1922), p. 6 Google Scholar. This text will be cited as Souter.

39 Education of a Christian Prince, ed. and tr. by Lester K. Born (New York, 1936), p. 201 and p. 153.

40 See McSorley, Harry J., “Erasmus versus Luther—Compounding the Reformation Tragedy,” in Catholic Scholars Dialogue with Luther (Chicago, 1970), p. 112 Google Scholar. Mc-Sorley's article and his important study, Luther: Right or Wrong? An Ecumenical-Theological Study of Luther's Major Work, “The Bondage of the Will,” (New York, 1969), provide evidence of Erasmus’ Pelagianism in his dispute with Luther.

41 Ibid., pp. 113-14.

42 See n. 57 below.

43 Novvm instrumentum (Basel, 1522), pp. 303-304. Erasmus may have read Bulgarium as Vulgarium and in 1522 replaced Vulgarius with Theophylactus who was an archbishop of Bulgaria. See “The Christian Humanist and the Bible: The Methodology at Work in the Annotations and Paraphrase of Romans,” Chap, iv in Rabil, Albert, Jr., Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist (San Antonio, 1972), pp. 115-39Google Scholar, n. 5.

44 One wonders why Erasmus waited until 1527 to mention his discovery of pseudo-Jerome's commentary which he had included in the edition of Jerome in 1516.

45 Divinationes ad notata Bedae, LB, IX, 496.

46 Supputatio calumniarum Natalis Bedae, IX, 666-67.

47 Apologia adversus monachus quosdam hispanos, LB, IX, 1083-84. I have been unable to locate the passage in Job.

48 Titelmans, Frans, Collationes quinque super Epistolam ad Romanos beati Pauli apostoli, quibus loca eius Epistolae difficiliora, ea potissimum quae ex Graecis aliquid habere videntur difficultatis diligentissime tractantur atque explicantur (Antwerp, 1529)Google Scholar, sig. A4v-A5r. This text will be cited as Collationes quinque.

49 Ibid., sig. CIr-v.

50 Ibid., M. 115r.

51 Ibid., fol. 116v , 125v, 126r, and 128r.

52 Ibid., fol. 124r. The passage “num … reclamante” is identical with that quoted in n. 35 above.

53 Ibid., fol. 124v.

54 Ibid., fol. 126r-127v.

55 Ibid., fol. 133r-134v.

56 See De peccatorum mentis et remissione I, 27, for Augustine on infants and the Eucharist and II, 34, for Christ's immunity from sin.

57 See LB, X: 1524B-L, where in Hyperaspistes Erasmus ridicules Augustine's notion of prevenient grace, the type of grace that effectively removes human agency from the process of justification. See also Trinkaus, Charles, “Erasmus, Augustine, and the Nominalists,” ARG, 67 (1976), 5–32 Google Scholar. For a discussion of Erasmus’ thought on grace in light of his debate with Luther, see Gordon Rupp, E., “The Erasmian Enigma,” Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, 17:1–121 Google Scholar, and Gerrish, B. A., “ De Libero Arbitrio (1524): Erasmus on Piety, Theology, and the Lutheran Dogma,” in Essays on the Works of Erasmus, ed. by Richard L. DeMolen (London, 1978), pp. 187–209 Google Scholar.

58 See CWE, 42, XXXV-XXXVII, for illustration of Erasmus’ practice of using many different words for sin and other theologically significant terms.

59 Souter, 45:11-23.

60 Titelmans claims that Erasmus quotes Theophylactus out of context and that he holds a more orthodox position on original sin than does Origen. See Collationes quinque, fols. 119v-121r.

61 The Colloquies of Erasmus, ed. and tr. Craig R. Thompson (Chicago, 1965), p. 68.

62 See Payne, John B., Erasmus: His Theology of the Sacraments (Richmond, Va., 1970), p. 178 Google Scholar. Payne likewise sees ambiguity in Erasmus’ concept of rebaptism; see pp. 175-76. Roland Bainton did not find convincing Erasmus’ disclaimer (LB, IX, 445 and 558) on rebaptizing. See Bainton, Roland, “The Paraphrases of Erasmus,” ARG, 57(1966), 74 Google Scholar.

63 CWE, 42:34-35.

64 Li Collationes quinque, fol. 129v, Titelmans refers to the decrees of an African Council requiring infant baptism.

65 LB, IX, 989C.

66 Concilium Tridentium: Diariorum, Actorum, Epistoiarum, Tractatuum nova collectio. Editit Societasgoerresiana. (13 vols.; Freiburg, 1901-38), V, 212. This text will be cited as Concilium Tridentium.

67 Ibid.

68 Schroder, Henry J., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (Rockford, 111., 1978), pp. 21–23 Google Scholar.

69 Jedin, Hubert, transl. Ernest Graf, A History of the Council of Trent (2 vols.; St. Louis, 1957-61), II, 153 Google Scholar. See II, 388, for Trent's rejection of Erasmus’ thought on infant baptism. See also Concilium Tridentium, V, 212, n. 6.

70 Jedin, Hubert, transl. by F. C. Eckhoff, Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Cardinal Seripando (London, 1947), pp. 324-25Google Scholar. Seripando and the General of the Servites argued that concupiscence was original sin, a position said to be similar to that of Luther (p. 322). The bishop of Syracuse and the Benedictine Abbots shared Seripando's view on the relationship between faith and baptism (p. 319).

71 Aquinas founded his discussion of original sin on Romans 5, especially 5:12. See Sumtn. Theol., I — II, q. 81, a.i, 3, and 5. For a study of the relationship among the views of Biel, Luther, and Aquinas on original sin, see Lawrence F. Murphy, S. J., “Gabriel Biel as Transmitter of Aquinas to Luther, Renaissance and Reformation,” N. S-.7 (1983), 26-41. See also p. 37 for recent attempts to reconcile Catholic and Lutheran differences on original sin.

72 See Robinson, Henry W., The Christian Doctrine of Man (3rd ed.; Edinburgh, 1923), p. 211 Google Scholar.

73 See The Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds. Raymond E. Brown, S. S., Joseph Fitzmeyer, S. J., and Raymond E. Murphy, O. Carm. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968), p. 307. See also Danker, F. W., “Romans V. 12. Sin Under Law,” New Testament Studies, 14(1968), 424-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lyonnet, S., S. J., “Le Sens de ‘eph ho’ on Rom 5:12 et l’ Exégèse des Pères Grecs,” Biblica, 36 (1955), 436-56Google Scholar.

74 Williams, George Huntston, in The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia, 1962)Google Scholar, sees Erasmus as a patron of the Evangelicals and Radicals, pp. 8-16. See also Davis, Kenneth R., “Erasmus as a Progenitor of Anabaptist Theology and Piety,” The Mennonite Quarterly Review, 47 (1973), 163-78Google Scholar.