In 1520, the reading public witnessed the eruption of a simmering conflict between Erasmus, the foremost advocate of the new biblical humanism, and Edward Lee, a younger scholar at the University of Louvain and spokesman for the traditionalists in matters of biblical interpretation and church discipline. When Erasmus (perhaps unconsciously) subsumed criticisms Lee had sent to him of his 1516 Annotations on the New Testament into the second edition (1519) without properly crediting their source, Lee resorted to publication of his collection of criticisms.

Erasmus responded immediately...

This fifth of seven volumes on the Adages continues from where the Collected Works of Erasmus volume 34 left off and includes 900 more adages from III iv 1 to IV ii 100. The aim of the Adages volumes in the CWE is to provide a fully annotated, accurate, and readable English version of the more than 4000 adages gathered, and commented on by Erasmus, sometimes in a few lines and sometimes in full-scale essays.

Following in the tradition of meticulous scholarship for which the Collected Works of Erasmus is widely known, the notes to this volume identify the classical sources and illustrate...

Erasmus' humanistic approach to theology and biblical exegesis presented a shocking challenge to the theologians at the University of Paris, which had been dominated by scholastic theology for centuries. He engaged in a decade-long controversy over his theological, exegetical, and ethical positions with the Theological Faculty, and especially with their director, No?l B?da.
This volume--which translates this crucial quarrel from Latin for the first time--details the formal, wide-ranging attack on Erasmus' theories printed by the faculty in 1531, along with his two replies. Erasmus...

Consisting of Erasmus' commentary on psalms 38, 83, and 14, this is the third and final volume of the Expositions of the Psalms in the Collected Works of Erasmus. Dating from the last years of Erasmus' life, they represent his mature thoughts on the great crisis facing western Christendom.

During the early 1530s, Erasmus explored disputed issues in the Church and attempted to reconcile the warring parties of the Reformation. His characteristic emphasis on the inner experience of faith, rather than outer conformity to a doctrinal checklist, allowed him to be receptive to the...

The predominant theme of the letters of 1528 is Erasmus' controversies with a variety of critics and opponents. The publication in March of the dialogue Ciceronianus, for example, provoked a huge uproar in France because it included an ironic jest that was considered insulting to the great French humanist Guillaume Bud?. More serious were the continuing efforts of conservative Catholics in France (No?l B?da), Italy (Alberto Pio), and Spain (members of the religious orders) to prove not only that Erasmus was a secret Lutheran but also that humanist scholarship was the source of the...

Spanning the period of 1523 to 1534, the compositions in Volume 78 of the Collected Works of Erasmus detail Erasmus' theological disagreements with the Swiss and Upper German 'evangelicals' and the German Lutherans, including Luther himself. While volumes 76 and 77 of the series focus on the controversy with Luther over the "freedom of the will," the wider lens of this volume also captures the conflicts between Erasmus and contemporaries such as Hutten, Eppendorf, Oecolampadius, Capito, and Bucer.

These writings reveal the dialogue between Erasmus and those evangelicals who...

This volume contains the surviving correspondence of Erasmus for the first seven months of 1529. For nearly eight years he had lived happily and productively in Basel. In the winter of 1528-9, however, the Swiss version of the Lutheran Reformation triumphed in the city, destroying the liberal-reformist atmosphere Erasmus had found so congenial. Unwilling to live in a place where Catholic doctrine and practice were officially proscribed, Erasmus resettled in the quiet, reliably Catholic university town of Freiburg im Breisgau,

Despite the turmoil of moving, Erasmus managed to...

Assembled for the young Prince William of Cleves, Erasmus Apophthegmata consists of thousands of sayings and anecdotes collected from Greek and Latin literature for the moral education of the future ruler. Betty I. Knott and Elaine Fantham s two-volume annotated translation of the aphorisms and Erasmus commentary on them makes this once popular literary and educational text accessible to modern audiences. The introduction discusses the origins of the Apophthegmata, the contents of the collection, and Erasmus sources.

Volumes 37 and 38 of the Collected Works of...

The letters in this volume reflect Erasmus' anxiety about the endemic warfare in Western Europe, the advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe, and the increasing threat of armed conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Germany. Unable and unwilling to attend the Diet of Augsburg (June-November 1530), summoned by Emperor Charles V in the attempt to mediate a religious settlement, Erasmus corresponded with those in attendance, urging them (in vain) to preserve peace at all costs.

The letters also shed light on Erasmus' controversies with Catholic critics (Luis de Carvajal and...

Among Erasmus of Rotterdam's many influential treatises on theology during the early Reformation, Exomologesis (1524; revised 1530) and Ecclesiastes (1535) stand out as two of his most significant.

Exomologesis, or The Manner of Confessing, in which Erasmus articulated his views on the true manner of Christian confession, was sufficiently controversial that he published an expanded version with concessions and clarifications six years later. Ecclesiastes, or The Method of Preaching, was an extensive exposition on how to employ...