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Collected Work of Erasmus #44
Paraphrases On The Epistles To Timothy, Titus, And Philemon, The Epistles Of Peter And Jude, The Epistle Of James, The Epistle Of John, The Epistle To The Hebrews - Volume 44
Erasmus yearned to make the Bible an effective instrument in the reform of society, church, and everyday life. 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 all expectations, and were quickly translated into French, German, English, and other languages.
This is the fourth volume of Paraphrases to be published in the New Testament Scholarship Series in the CWE. The volume includes the Paraphrases on the Pastoral Epistles and the Catholic, or General, Epistles, as well as the Paraphrase on Hebrews. These books, in the biblical text, address the central issues of the Christian life within the context of family, church, and community. The Paraphrases sharpen the accent of the biblical message, speaking in an idiom appropriate to the sixteenth century but also surprisingly relevant to our own age: they condemn, for example, every form of tyrannizing in the home and self-aggrandisement in the church; perhaps above all, the Paraphrases expose the social injustice (inevitable, Erasmus would have us believe) of those who have acquired great personal wealth.
Erasmus also reformulates, and sometimes develops, some of the great theological themes already defined in earlier volumes of this series. Is sin congenital, or do we sin simply in imitation' of Adam? How do the Hebrew Scriptures attest to the presence of divine grace in the world before the birth of Christ? What is faith if not a vision of eternal realities so sure that we can clearly recognize the things of this passing world as the shadows they are?
These Paraphrases address the modern reader with the relevance of the moral issues they define and the perennial importance of the theological questions they raise. Erasmus clarified and interpreted biblical text with immense rhetorical skill.
Volume 44 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.
This is the fourth volume of Paraphrases to be published in the New Testament Scholarship Series in the CWE. The volume includes the Paraphrases on the Pastoral Epistles and the Catholic, or General, Epistles, as well as the Paraphrase on Hebrews. These books, in the biblical text, address the central issues of the Christian life within the context of family, church, and community. The Paraphrases sharpen the accent of the biblical message, speaking in an idiom appropriate to the sixteenth century but also surprisingly relevant to our own age: they condemn, for example, every form of tyrannizing in the home and self-aggrandisement in the church; perhaps above all, the Paraphrases expose the social injustice (inevitable, Erasmus would have us believe) of those who have acquired great personal wealth.
Erasmus also reformulates, and sometimes develops, some of the great theological themes already defined in earlier volumes of this series. Is sin congenital, or do we sin simply in imitation' of Adam? How do the Hebrew Scriptures attest to the presence of divine grace in the world before the birth of Christ? What is faith if not a vision of eternal realities so sure that we can clearly recognize the things of this passing world as the shadows they are?
These Paraphrases address the modern reader with the relevance of the moral issues they define and the perennial importance of the theological questions they raise. Erasmus clarified and interpreted biblical text with immense rhetorical skill.
Volume 44 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.
413 pages, Hardcover
First published January 5, 1994
About the author
Erasmus
1,422 books460 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.
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September 20, 2017
Another volume of the biblical paraphrases by sixteenth-century humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam. Not as good as his treatment of the Gospel of John, in terms of expansion; in many cases, one could almost wonder if one is just reading a translation of the (already quite rich) biblical text!
But here's a good and valuable example of what Erasmus is offering here: "It is not enough for Christians to speak the truth and in words worthy of Christ, but to speak it in such a way that the very manner of your speech reveals that you are not pursuing your own interests but the glory of Christ and that you have in view the salvation of those to whom you are speaking" (98; cf. 1 Peter 3:16).
But here's a good and valuable example of what Erasmus is offering here: "It is not enough for Christians to speak the truth and in words worthy of Christ, but to speak it in such a way that the very manner of your speech reveals that you are not pursuing your own interests but the glory of Christ and that you have in view the salvation of those to whom you are speaking" (98; cf. 1 Peter 3:16).
Displaying 1 of 1 review