The Ratio Seu Compendium Verae Theologiae (A system or compendium of true theology) is one of Erasmus's most important writings. It is a vast expansion of the (brief) Methodus, one of the preliminary texts of Erasmus's first edition of the New Testament, the Novum Instrumentum (1516). This new text, Ratio, became one of the introductory texts of the edition of the Novum Testamentum of 1519, but foremost it had a life of its own. It is, so to speak, Erasmus's version of Saint Augustine's De doctrina christiana (On Christian teaching). Both texts deal with the interpretation of the Bible. Augustine's work, divided into four books, sets the tasks for Christian preachers and teachers: to discover the truth in the Bible, to teach that truth, and to defend it against attacks. For this discovery, an allegorical reading of the Bible is essential to discover this truth. Erasmus in his Ratio emphasizes that the Bible should be explained based on rhetoric and grammar, not dogmatics or systematic theology. He also advocates an allegorical reading of the Holy Writ. He was inspired to this view by Augustine, but even more by his reading of works of Origen. Erasmus also expresses such a view of literature in his adagium “Sileni Alcibiadis”: the Sileni may be not very attractive but in them is hidden something beautiful. His method of interpreting the Bible is also that of “Homerus ex Homero”: finding a meaningful interpretation of Biblical pericopes from the Bible itself.
Mark Vessey reissued Robert Sider's translation and cut down his notes, both published in volume 41 of the invaluable series Collected Works of Erasmus. A foreword by Anthony Grafton and five essays by the editor Vessey, Brian Cummings, Christopher Ocker, Riemer Faber, and Kathy Eden are added, and introduce the Ratio Verae Theologiae for students of theology and literary theory in general. Vessey discusses the Ratio in the light of Erasmus's life and work; Cummings relates the Ratio to literary theory and the interpretation of sacred literature; Ocker connects the Ratio—rightly!—to Scholasticism, Faber investigates the Ratio and the annotations as theory and practice of biblical interpretation, and last but not least, Eden discusses the use of parables. The essays are a welcome introduction to the Ratio.
Faber in his essay elaborates a remark by Sider in the introductory volume to Erasmus's New Testament (CWE 41:118) that the Ratio “enabled the latter to serve effectively as a preface to the enlarged edition of the New Testament of 1519, particularly with the Annotations in view.” This is fully true, and Faber is right in pointing out the Ratio as the theory and the annotations as the practice of interpretation. However, in his annotations, Erasmus in the first place accounts for the choices he made in his translation, or in the text he had printed. Closer to his theoretical way of interpreting the New Testament are the Paraphrases, where he could really interpret the Biblical texts in exegesis and hermeneutics—that is, in explaining the text in its own, first context and make readers understand the text and apply it to their own lives, even though in the Ratio Erasmus argues that the text must be set into history.
Vessey in his essay sets the Ratio into history and makes clear that tracing Erasmus's sources does not mean giving an interpretation. At the same time, he reveals the Ratio's complexity and richness, as Grafton in his concise and apt foreword writes (xiii). The ultimate aim of the interpreter of the Bible, according to Erasmus, is to find the scopi of the texts, the target points. Erasmus's way of dealing with the Bible can be applied to literature in general. And especially this feature makes this paperback translation of the Ratio and its introductory essays a must-have and a must-read for students of early modern literature, including the Scriptures.
