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...

When Erasmus published the Adages, his monumental collection of proverbs, he wrote in the Introduction that 'a knowledge of proverbs contributes to a number of things, but to four especially: philosophy, persuasiveness, grace and charm in speaking, and the understanding of the best authors.' This volume contains another 600 of the more than 4000 adages that Erasmus gathered and commented on, sometimes in a few lines and sometimes in full-scale essays. The notes identify the classical sources and indicate how Erasmus' reading and thinking developed over the quarter-century spanned by the...

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...

'A judicious and discerning selection of large extracts from the Collected Works of Erasmus ... thoughtfully designed to include major statements of Erasmus on civility in individual morals, humanistic study and education, the Christian life, reform of the church, and the peaceful constraint of political force. It is to my mind the most comprehensive and penetrating anthology of Erasmus' writing, forcefully revealing his central values.' - Charles Trinkaus, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Michigan

'Rummel's collection makes available...

Erasmus was fascinated by proverbs and prepared a collection of more than 4,000 of them, accompanying each with his comments, sometimes in a few lines and sometimes in full-scale essays. His massive compendium, characterized by his wit, his elegance, his bursts of satire alternating with serious views, was among the most learned and widely circulated of Renaissance books. This selection emphasizes Erasmus' skill in explaining the proverbs, shows how he made his book, and demonstrates the way in which many of the proverbs moved into the English language. The text is illustrated with images...

In his writings Erasmus was more interested in arguing than in settling a case. However the equivocation we find in his writings is more than a literary game or a technical expedient. It is the corollary of his scepticism. One can hardly expect unequivocal statements on complex issues such as the role of women in society from a man who holds that human affairs take so many shapes that definite answers cannot be provided for them all.' But as Erika Rummel demonstrates, the difficulties of interpreting Erasmus' texts do not invalidate their use as sources of social history; they only prevent...