The ten pieces in this volume are among the twenty selected for inclusion in volumes 66-70 of the Collected Works of Erasmus, the series of spiritualia and pastoralia. Like many of the other works in the series, they represent an Erasmus that, despite the recent growth of interest in him, has remained largely unfamiliar-the Erasmus of the works 'pertaining to the pietas.'

Volume 69 is special in that it contains seven examples of a genre important to Erasmus, the genre of prayer. The prayers here include an effusive and lyrical early triad, a 'paraphrase' entitled The Lord's Prayer,...

This new volume of the CWE presents three of Erasmus' polemic works against Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi. A leading diplomat of the period, patron of artists and humanists, and conservative Catholic, Pio continually angered Erasmus by criticizing him for his denunciations of church practices and officials, and by accusing him of supporting Luther and holding dangerous opinions. The texts are lucid, passionate, and even vitriolic at times.

The introduction by Nelson H. Minnich provides a biography of Pio, an overview of the controversy and related texts, and a bibliographical...

Erasmus' controversies with French, Italian, Spanish, and German critics on theological, social, philological, educational, and other matters are contained in volumes 71-84 of the Collected Works. CWE 76 includes two of his most important disputes with Luther, A Discussion of Free Will and the first part of the Hyperaspistes (usually translated as 'protector' or 'shield-bearer'). Erasmus writes in response to Luther's The Enslaved Will and rebukes Luther for what he considers his high-handed arrogance and his insulting charge that Erasmus is an atheist. In CWE 76, Hyperaspistes 1 deals...

The year that began in August 1515 was the annus mirabilis of Erasmus' career, the year, notably of the epistles of St Jerome and the first edition of his New Testament. In the months following, covered in this volume of the CWE, from August 1516 to June 1517, the active exchange of letters that began with volume 3 continued, giving a vivid impression of the impact of Erasmus' great achievement upon his contemporaries. In his own words, "The New Testament has made me friends everywhere."

To Erasmus, the most important event of these months was intensely private, the...

This volume covers the first ten months of Erasmus' residence at Louvain. He lived during this time in the College of the Lily, his position presitgious and secure. he was a member of the theological faculty, yet free of regular academic duties and entitled to receive a regular income more than adequate to his modest needs. His predominant task in the course of these months was the re-editing of the New Testament, which he considered his magnum opus: through his work on the New Testament the use he made of his time and talent would be judged by God and man alike. There are frequent...

Erasmus was above all an educator, and his writings as a teacher and theorist give him a claim to be regarded as the greatest figure in the history of education since antiquity. By the decade of the i32os, he had become the leading spokesman for the cause of humanistic education in Europe.

The five translations in Collected Works of Erasmus 23 and 26 reflect Erasmus' main ideas about education: concern for the most desirable and effective curriculum; the need to read and appreciate the best writings of the finest classical authors; the importance of well-trained, well-paid,...

A painful time in Erasmus' life is reflected in this volume of letters. As the two volumes immediately previous to this one indicated, Erasmus' first two years in Louvain were agreeable, productive, and carefree. But the spirit of congenial scholarship in which he lived at this time was gradually giving way to bitter conflict and controversy: Louvain was merely a microcosm of Erasmus' entire world, which was undergoing great strain. The exuberant expectancy of a Golden Age of civilized Christianity was yielding to the bleak prospect of helplessly watching the progress of what Erasmus...

Erasmus' Familiar Colloquies grew from a small collection of phrases, sentences, and snatches of dialogue written in Paris about 1497 to help his private pupils improve their command of Latin. Twenty years later the material was published by Johann Froben (Basel 1518). It was an immediate success and was reprinted thirty times in the next four years. For the edition of March 1522 Erasmus began to add fully developed dialogues, and a book designed to improve boys' use of Latin (and their deportment) soon became a work of literature for adults, although it retained traces of its...

Erasmus yearned to make the Bible an effective instrument in the reform of society, church, and the life of individuals in the turbulent world the sixteenth century. He therefore composed paraphrases in which the words of Holy Scripture provided the core of a text vastly expanded to embrace the reforming 'philosophy of Christ.' The Paraphrases were successful beyond expectation and were quickly translated from Latin into French, German, English, and other languages. This volume is the third Paraphrase to be published in the New Testament Scholarship series in the CWE.

In it Erasmus...

The period from April 1523 to December 1524 finds Erasmus still in Basel and still preoccupied above all with 'the sorry business of Luther.' He knows that the efforts of his conservative Catholic detractors to prove that he had 'laid the egg that Luther hatched' can be overcome only if he takes an unambiguous public stand against Luther, and friendly princes and prelates constantly urge him to do so. But he dreads the controversy that an attack on Luther will arouse and fears that the overthrow of Luther will entail the defeat of all wholesome reform.

This reluctance to 'enter the...