What do you think?
Rate this book
De correspondentie van Desiderius Erasmus #04
De correspondentie van Desiderius Erasmus 4 Brieven 446 - 593
Deel 4 opent met een brief van Erasmus aan paus Leo x, gevolgd door een soort autobiografische schets aan de pauselijk secretaris. Met beide brieven beoogt Erasmus de fel begeerde dispensaties te krijgen. Deze worden hem uiteindelijk verleend. Hij wordt vrijgesproken van afvalligheid en excommunicatie, bevrijd van zijn kloostergeloften en gerechtigd om meer dan een prebende te aanvaarden en die om te zetten in een jaargeld. Hij is dan ook niet erg bereid om naar Frankrijk te vertrekken, waar Budé hem in naam van de koning heen tracht te lokken. Budé is een groot geleerde, maar hij heeft een ondoorgrondelijke, ingewikkelde stijl. Hij verwijt Erasmus te veel over futiliteiten te schrijven. Erasmus dient hem meesterlijk van repliek, want hij heeft er als raspedagoog een grote hekel aan de dingen nodeloos ingewikkeld te maken. En zo spreekt overal en steeds weer het gezonde verstand.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1516
23 people want to read
About the author
Erasmus
1,406 books452 followersDesiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian.
Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will, The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.
Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation, but while he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and Melanchthon and continued to recognise the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps.
Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant, and was buried in the Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city. A bronze statue of him was erected in his city of birth in 1622, replacing an earlier work in stone.
Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will, The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.
Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation, but while he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and Melanchthon and continued to recognise the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps.
Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant, and was buried in the Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city. A bronze statue of him was erected in his city of birth in 1622, replacing an earlier work in stone.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 23, 2024
It was the year 1516.
The previous year had seen the meteoric rise of an obscure monk from the Low Countries to a position of Continental Superstar.
For it was in that year that Desiderius Erasmus - by publishing the first translation of the Bible, from the Latin of St. Jerome - put this epochal and incendiary version of it into the hands of Everyman.
Epochal, because previously Latin had been the exclusive domain of the clerics -
And incendiary, because the ordinary layman could now interpret the meaning of the Book for himself -
And both reasons helped to fan the Wildfire of the Reformation!
At the beginning even Erasmus couldn't grasp the enormous implications of his act.
He was overjoyed by his book's reception, and joked wryly, "the New Testament has made me friends everywhere!”
But the devil always has other uses for the things that bring us happiness and good fortune.
Perhaps Erasmus underestimated his Old Enemy - as do we all.
But who can judge his sincerity? He saw the Church was badly in need of reform.
Unfortunately, though, he had - in those socially stratified, forcibly parochial days - no clear understanding of the intense revolutionary impatience of the European population towards entrenched tradition.
For the Renaissance was arriving in Central Europe.
REBIRTH.
Just the year before he had visited his close friend Thomas More - author of Utopia - in England, and had been fêted by the court of Henry VIII, the same king who later had More beheaded.
For More was to be one of this Revolutionary Wildfire’s first prime victims as it engulfed medieval Britain.
And Erasmus would vainly spend the rest of his days trying to douse the flames that were spreading from Luther's Wurttemburg outwards to all parts of Europe and even England.
But at the end he realized sadly that he himself was about to be, in his own words, “torn in pieces by both sides, while aiming zealously at what was best for both....”
Erasmus had vainly preached the Middle Way to a howling mob.
And so he died, a broken but nevertheless faith-filled man.
A mild-mannered and politically centrist figure in a radical time of violent extremes - polarities that were destroying the moral majority at the centre of society.
These were the same polarities - of Master and slave - that ushered in a succession of dynasties.
For Slaves will always be there, but wearing different guises.
After the Church, the aristocracy and its subjects, then, in our own age, the Corporation - and us.
Are we REALLY so better off now?
The wildfire that was the Reformation has now subsided into an uneasy grouping of democracies and fewer concentrations of absolute power.
But there is still no end to our quiet unease -
At least until that far-off day when, like Erasmus at his end, we will all finally find lasting Peace.
The previous year had seen the meteoric rise of an obscure monk from the Low Countries to a position of Continental Superstar.
For it was in that year that Desiderius Erasmus - by publishing the first translation of the Bible, from the Latin of St. Jerome - put this epochal and incendiary version of it into the hands of Everyman.
Epochal, because previously Latin had been the exclusive domain of the clerics -
And incendiary, because the ordinary layman could now interpret the meaning of the Book for himself -
And both reasons helped to fan the Wildfire of the Reformation!
At the beginning even Erasmus couldn't grasp the enormous implications of his act.
He was overjoyed by his book's reception, and joked wryly, "the New Testament has made me friends everywhere!”
But the devil always has other uses for the things that bring us happiness and good fortune.
Perhaps Erasmus underestimated his Old Enemy - as do we all.
But who can judge his sincerity? He saw the Church was badly in need of reform.
Unfortunately, though, he had - in those socially stratified, forcibly parochial days - no clear understanding of the intense revolutionary impatience of the European population towards entrenched tradition.
For the Renaissance was arriving in Central Europe.
REBIRTH.
Just the year before he had visited his close friend Thomas More - author of Utopia - in England, and had been fêted by the court of Henry VIII, the same king who later had More beheaded.
For More was to be one of this Revolutionary Wildfire’s first prime victims as it engulfed medieval Britain.
And Erasmus would vainly spend the rest of his days trying to douse the flames that were spreading from Luther's Wurttemburg outwards to all parts of Europe and even England.
But at the end he realized sadly that he himself was about to be, in his own words, “torn in pieces by both sides, while aiming zealously at what was best for both....”
Erasmus had vainly preached the Middle Way to a howling mob.
And so he died, a broken but nevertheless faith-filled man.
A mild-mannered and politically centrist figure in a radical time of violent extremes - polarities that were destroying the moral majority at the centre of society.
These were the same polarities - of Master and slave - that ushered in a succession of dynasties.
For Slaves will always be there, but wearing different guises.
After the Church, the aristocracy and its subjects, then, in our own age, the Corporation - and us.
Are we REALLY so better off now?
The wildfire that was the Reformation has now subsided into an uneasy grouping of democracies and fewer concentrations of absolute power.
But there is still no end to our quiet unease -
At least until that far-off day when, like Erasmus at his end, we will all finally find lasting Peace.
April 6, 2021
Letter 520 (by John Latimer)
Letter 540 (answer by Erasmus)
My opinion is that Latimer explains carefully how he could not pick up Greek in one month to be able to help with the proof-reading.
The answer of Erasmus goes past all the points raised, and mentions new ones. A disappointing reply.
Erasmus writes long letters to Budé. He seems very much at ease with him, or the stuff that he mentions ?
Letter 540 (answer by Erasmus)
My opinion is that Latimer explains carefully how he could not pick up Greek in one month to be able to help with the proof-reading.
The answer of Erasmus goes past all the points raised, and mentions new ones. A disappointing reply.
Erasmus writes long letters to Budé. He seems very much at ease with him, or the stuff that he mentions ?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews