‘The name of Erasmus will never perish’.
This comment in a 1516 letter by John Colet, one of Erasmus’ (c.1466−1536) scholarly friends, says much about the way that Erasmus was viewed by many in his day: he was, without doubt, the most famous scholar of his time. The illegitimate son of a priest, Erasmus was born at Gouda in the Netherlands between 1465 and 1469. His early education was with the Brethren of the Common Life, a semi-monastic movement of lay people founded in the Netherlands by Gerard Groote. Erasmus studied in this communal context for eleven years or so and it was here that he began his study of Greek that would lead to his fame later in life.
Faithful heretic
In 1492, he was ordained a priest in the Roman Church. It is vital to note that although he would be eventually condemned by Rome as a heretic, he strove to remain a faithful member of this church body. As he mentioned in a letter to Alberto Pio III, the Italian Prince of Carpi, written on October 10, 1525: the ‘Lutherans alternately courted me and menaced me. For all this, I did not move a finger’s breadth from the teaching of the Roman Church’.
Erasmus was deeply concerned about the rampant immorality and corruption in the church in western Europe. A good window on his view of the needed church reforms can be found in The Handbook of the Christian Soldier (1501). For Erasmus, true Christianity consists not of doctrinal rectitude, but of the inward love of God and neighbour. This is Erasmus’ master thought: the Christian life is primarily one of imitation. As he wrote in this work: ‘You venerate saints; you are glad to touch their relics. But you condemn what good they have left, namely the example of a pure life. No worship of Mary is more gracious than if you imitate Mary’s humility’.
Publishing the Greek NT
Erasmus did not realize that Roman Church needed more drastic medicine, though. Her doctrinal foundations needed a major overhaul. In that regard, Erasmus’ greatest work, his publication of the Greek New Testament in March 1516, would play a significant role.
The first printing press had appeared in the mid-1450s, but it took fifty years or so for a European publishing house to commit to the publication of the Greek New Testament. One reason for this was the fact that the production of metal Greek letters was both difficult and expensive. The principal reason, though, had to do with the prestige enjoyed by the Latin Bible of the Middle Ages. Since it was regarded as an inspired text, what need was there for a copy of the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament?
The first plans for the publishing of the Greek New Testament were developed by Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cizners, the primate of Spain. He envisioned an edition that combined Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. It was printed at Complutum (now Alcalá), Spain—hence the name by which it has become known to historians, the Complutensian Polyglot. The New Testament of this edition was actually printed by 1514, though it was not published till 1522. The first published Greek New Testament was that of Erasmus.
Laid and hatched
In August 1514, Johann Froben, a Swiss publisher in Basle, approached Erasmus about the possibility of his supervising an edition of the Greek New Testament. Undoubtedly Froben had heard of the forthcoming Spanish Bible, and being the smart businessman he was, he sensed that the market was ready for an edition of the Greek New Testament and that there was a tremendous opportunity to make money on such a publication. Erasmus was not able to begin serious work on this edition until the summer of 1515.
At the heart of his edition were two twelfth-century manuscripts from a monastic library in Basle. In all, he used five manuscripts (today, we have more than six thousand manuscripts). The weakness of his manuscript resources (his copy of Revelation, for example, lacked the final six verses of the book and Erasmus had to back-translate from his Latin Bible into Greek to acquire the Greek of these verses!). Printing began in September or October, 1515, and was completed in March, 1516. The weakness of his manuscript base and the haste with which the text was produced (hastiness was a weakness of Erasmus and he hated proofreading his own work) all but ensured that the 1516 publication would have numerous typos. It would eventually be superseded as New Testament scholarship developed, though this would not actually take place until the 19th century. Later editions of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament (in 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535) exercised enormous influence. Martin Luther used the second edition for his definitive German translation and William Tyndale’s fabulous English translation was based on the third edition of 1522.
Erasmus had longed to see the medieval church reformed. In the providence of God his Greek New Testament would be critical in the reformation needed. No wonder some Franciscan monks in Cologne twitted, ‘Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it’!
