A great Christian classic, Erasmus' Enchiridion is described by translator Raymond Himelick as "his first full, and in some ways best, formulation of the message intended for all Christendom, the same message he was to repeat often in more playful and ironic guise in the Praise of Folly and numerous Colloquies." Enormously popular when it first appeared in the sixteenth century, the Enchiridion reflects the spirit animating "the great figure of the Northern Renaissance," the humanist on the threshold of the modern age.

Although his age was no less turbulent and threatened than our...