Book Description
Gerrit Gerritzoons (1466 or 1469 - 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. He wrote under the pseudonym Desiderius Erasmus and was sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. He was a classical scholar who wrote in a "pure" Latin style. Although he remained a Roman Catholic throughout his lifetime, he was critical of what he considered the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church. Using humanist techniques he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament which exposed inaccuracies and raised questions that would be influential in the Reformation. He also wrote The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, The Colloquies of Erasmus which appeared at intervals from 1500 on and many other works. ... Read more

Book Description
This volume comprises four previously published Erasmian studies and two new works. All are attempts at understanding Erasmus' aims, his influence, and his historical image. Professor Olin's earlier essays have generated enthusiastic responses form the community of Erasmian scholars, and this convenient gathering is bound to be a welcome collection. It also provides the first translation into English of the preface to Erasmus' edition of Hilary. A major statement of his position as a humanist and reformer, it is one of Erasmus' most important contributions. This translation in particular makes this volume a useful complement to Professor Olin's other Erasmian collection listed below. ... Read more

Book Description

Contemporaries of Erasmus contains biographical information about more than 1900 people mentioned in the correspondence and other writings of Erasmus. This paperback edition is a reprint of the three-volume set published between 1985 and 1987. The volumes have been combined into a single volume – without any editorial changes – to provide a manageable and affordable edition of a magisterial work. The remarkable breadth of Erasmus’ contacts throughout his life is reflected in this unique volume. Differing substantially from the national biographical dictionaries that restrict themselves to major figures, Contemporaries of Erasmus combines the famous with the obscure – popes and politicians, artists and poets, knights and theologians – covering every individual mentioned whose death occurred after the year 1450. Well known figures include Martin Luther, King Henry VIII, Machiavelli, Popes Nicholas V and Peter IV, and Emperor Charles V.

Dipping into the pages of this fully illustrated volume will intrigue and delight the casual reader, but the combined volume will also be an indispensible tool for those who have searched in vain for a biographical dictionary of the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Book Description

These volumes are the first in a series containing works by Erasmus 'that concern literature and education': interests which to him were scarcely separable. The aim of Erasmian education was a civilized life, expressed in Christian piety and the fulfil ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An abomination of a book
This is an awful, ghastly book, full of hate and anger. One can certainly understand why the author, a German Jew, would be so quick to see anti-Semitism in Erasmus' works. However, this topic was addressed with far more erudition and intellectual integrity by Shimon Markish, another Jewish scholar, in the book Erasmus and the Jews.

The book is filled with angry rhetoric and verbal excesses. He calls the German people of the time "semi-illiterate". He manages to apply just about every invective he can to his victim: cowardly, brutal, stupid, vicious, hypocritical, hate-filled, shameless, and on and on. It really is an embarrasmment to read.

Avoid this book! Read instead Erasmus and the Jews by Shimon Markish. ... Read more

Book Description
And Of The Ten Commandments Of God's Law. ... Read more

Book Description
Erasmus' Adages--a vast collection of the proverbial wisdom of Greekand Roman antiquity--was published in 1508 and became one of the most influentialworks of the Renaissance. It also marked a turning point in the history of Westernthinking about literary property.At once a singularly successful commercial product ofthe new printing industry and a repository of intellectual wealth, the Adages looks aheadto the development of copyright and back to an ancient philosophical tradition that ideasshould be universally shared in the spirit of friendship.In this elegant and tightly arguedbook, Kathy Eden focuses on both the commitment to friendship and common propertythat Erasmus shares with his favorite philosophers--Pythagoras, Plato, and Christ--andthe early history of private property that gradually transforms European attitudesconcerning the right to copy. In the process she accounts for the peculiar shape ofErasmus' collection of more than 3,000 proverbs and provides insightful readings of suchancient philosophical and religious thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,Iamblichus, Tertullian, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Great historian's perspective of a great thinker
Johan Huizinga writes great history. I do not think many contemporary historians can match his prose. He does an excellent job of providing the reader a unique perspective of certain events, and the people involved with them as they unfold.

In this book, Huizinga writes about Erasmus, a man who is arguably one of the great thinkers of the 16th century. I did not know a lot about Erasmus before I read this book, but now feel like I have a much greater understanding about the man, his ideas, and the era in which he lived.

A word of warning about this book - it helps if you have a pretty good understanding of 16th century European history. If you are a novice, like me, you may struggle through some sections. It is well worth the effort though, in the end.

The best thing about Huizinga's book is that you get more than just the history of Erasmus. The author includes a lot of analysis and his perspective into Erasmus' life, which are fascinating.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is familiar with 16th century European history, and wants to learn more about Erasmus. If you are new to this era of history, or do not know much about Erasmus, I would consider reading a more general history before making your way through this book.

"An Intimate Portrait of the Great Erasmus"
Of all volumes of study which concern the learned scholar Desiderius Erasmus, it must be said, quite simply, that Johan Huizinga's work stands out among the greatest.Huizinga skillfully and colorfully weaves the many aspects of Erasmus' life together into one intimate portrait which places the man respectfully within the setting of his time. In this work, the reader will find that Huizinga always seems to surface the inmost sentiments of Erasmus, even amidst all the triumph, turmoil, and controversy which marked the age he lived in.From Erasmus' early years as an Augustinian canon, to his final days as an accomplished and conscientious scholar, the same underlining genius will be discovered by anyone who comes to grips with this classic work.Huizinga's, Erasmus and the Age of the Reformation, is a work worthy of praise, even eighty years after its first publication.Also, found here are several valuable letters of Erasmus', which display his dutiful correspondence with individuals like St Thomas More and Martin Luther.Any study of Desiderius Erasmus is not complete without Huizinga's timeless masterpiece at hand.

Man in the Middle
Of particular value to the reader is the preface of this work, penned in 1952 by the then Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, G.N. Clark. The brief preface introduces not only the work but the author, Johan Huizinga, perhaps as a halting effort at rehabilitation. Clark reminds the readers that Huizinga had suffered through two world wars and was imprisoned by the Nazis, and died in February, 1945, literally days before his beloved Holland was liberated: an apologia of sorts for a most controversial scholar.

Huizinga had shaken the European and American historical and religious establishments with the publication of his most famous work, "The Waning of the Middle Ages," in 1919. In that work Huizinga introduced a novel gestalt for interpreting the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, upsetting historians of his day who still clung to the traditional strictures of epochs, and Churchmen, notably Catholic, for his candor in debunking ecclesiastical mythology of that era. ["The Waning" was actually placed on the Index of Forbidden Books for a time.] Clark argues that the Erasmus text is a companion piece to "The Waning," a useful point to remember in assessing this biography.

For all the energy generated by their respective forces, neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation was particularly rich in seminal philosophical inquiry. In fact, the sixteenth century was in many respects quite conservative, with its veneration of Classical thought, Aristotelian scientific method, and religious interest in primary sources. Erasmus's lifespan, 1466-1536, was an age of application, where orthopraxis was making a run at orthodoxy. Erasmus has always enjoyed reputation as the consummate "Renaissance Man," literary giant, man of letters, humane reformer, diplomat. In this work he is still the preeminent Renaissance man, but in the Renaissance of Huizinga's making, when being a "Renaissance Man" was a dicier proposition than popularly held. He was after all, a friend of both Thomas More and Henry VIII. Huizinga's Erasmus is brilliant, though not particularly original, and he was often broke, sick, insecure, unemployed, displaced-at the height of his reputation, no less.

The original literary works of Erasmus demonstrate scholarship, mastery of the pen, satire, wit, and synthesis. As Huizinga observed, Erasmus wrote less from piety than from humanistic reasoning. Despite the fact that his "Praise of Folly" is his best remembered original work, Erasmus had little patience for folly, which he would have defined in real life as extremism, violence, or pretension. His satire could be pointed, but he was never mad at the world per se, only those who would deface it needlessly. Theologically, he espoused "low church Catholicism" stripped of both spiritual and practical indulgences. His satire poked fun at Church excess, but this was hardly earthshaking at a time when many intellectuals laughed down their sleeves at ecclesiastical pomp.

His major gift to the Renaissance and subsequent ages, in my view, is his application of philology to the Sacred Scriptures, an effort that would also cause his greatest friction with Catholicism. With the reverence of antiquity so common to his age, Erasmus mastered Latin and Greek to the point where he was able to discover major linguistic flaws in the official Catholic translation of Scripture, St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate edition. Erasmus, an eminently reasonable man, assumed that his Church would tolerate-in fact, welcome-a cleaner, more accurate rendering of the Bible, and he proceeded to edit the Vulgate with available Greek manuscripts. Pascal was yet to be born, so perhaps Erasmus can be excused his shock that the loyal faithful remained devoted to the Vulgate "for reasons of the heart." The Vulgate translation in 1500 enjoyed an almost sacramental reverence; it was the official text for the sacraments and, in fact, for all of the great body of scholastic medieval theology that synthesized orthodox Catholicism and the cosmos.

As every contemporary Scripture scholar is painfully aware, every translation is in fact an interpretation, a point not lost upon the Roman Curia. Given his known temperament, one would have to concede that Erasmus, who routinely fled from confrontation, was rather innocent of the charge that he was undermining things sacred. But worse, Erasmus had opened the door to doubts regarding the credibility of a sacred work which was in its own right a part of antiquity, having been composed around 400 A.D. He had given fuel to Protestant reformers and added Jerome's masterpiece to the growing list of accretions that needed purging. Luther, a scripture scholar himself, recognized the value of Erasmus's work and courted him for years, mostly by mail. The winning of Erasmus's hand by Protestant suitors would have been a major symbolic victory.

But Luther came to discover that even the most rational "Renaissance Men" have reasons of the heart. The reasonable Erasmus was traumatized by the irrationality of division. Perhaps the executions of his friends Thomas More and John Fisher or the general polemic and bloodshed that accompanied religious revolution led him to do the unthinkable for a humanist: make a decision. He threw his lot with Roman Catholicism. The reaction of both sides tells the stakes: Luther excoriated Erasmus in the choicest terms of his rich vocabulary. The Curia forgave Erasmus his translations and offered him a red hat shortly before his death. Both gestures indicate that we may never capture, at this distance, the reasons of the hearts of those who admired Erasmus as a man, a writer, and a symbol. But Huizenga makes a noble effort.

Informative Historical Perspective
In the preface, G. N. Clark tells us of Johan Huizinga that his "great success and reputation came suddenly when he was over forty. Until that time his powers were ripening, not so much slowly as secretly."

Huizinga starts his history of Erasmus with his childhood. He was born in Rotterdam, Holland in 1466. His years in the monastery are covered in the second chapter. We're told he was well read in Jerome. Furthermore he was consumed with the works of St. Augustine. In the summer of 1495 his studies carried him to the University of Paris. It was on this campus that a struggle of ideas was occurring. The story continues as Erasmus goes to England.

Erasmus was a true wandering scholar at times with no home of his own. In describing his travels, his studies, his love of God, his calling, the modern Christian scholar can sense the continuity of the personalities who went ahead to pave the way for our contritutions. ... Read more