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John Colet and Erasmus' Enchiridion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Peter Iver Kaufman
Peter Iver Kaufman
Affiliation:
Assistant professor in Meadville/Lombard Theological School, Chicago, Illinois.
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Extract

In the autumn of 1495 Desiderius Erasmus began his theological studies in Paris and during the next four years sampled the wares of Scotists lecturing at the University. From the Augustinian monastery at Steyn, where Erasmus pursued his own studies in secular literature under the disapproving eye of his abbot, the University of Paris must have seemed like a bank of resplendent lights drawing the Christian scholar into the company of learned and erudite colleagues. Exposure to scholasticism and to those who came to sharpen their skills in scholarly disputation soon convinced Erasmus that the light had been an ignis fatuus and that the university was no place for a free and eclectic spirit. Erasmus was as unhappy as a graduate student who realizes too late that he has enrolled in the wrong department at the wrong school. He bitterly complained that the schoolmen were sectarian, contentious, and confused; and he deplored the sparing and deleterious accommodations at the College de Montaigu, his place of residence. A small cadre of Parisian humanists who shared Erasmus' predilection for secular literature furnished the young scholar with some diversion, but Erasmus required little prompting to hasten from Paris. When William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, asked Erasmus to accompany him across the Channel to England in 1499, the Dutch scholar could not have been more pleased. By late summer he had made the crossing and had visited London, and by October he was dining in Oxford with Richard Charnock, Prior of St. Mary's College.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 296 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1977

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References

1. For an examination of Erasmus' thought and practice during this period, see Rice, Eugene F. Jr, “Erasmus and the Religious Tradition, 1495–1499,” Journal of the History of Ideas 11 (1950): 387–411;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and consult Renaudet, Augustin, Préréforrme et humanisme à Paris pendant les premièrs guerres d'Italie (1494–1517), (Paris, 1916).Google Scholar

2. Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. Allen, P. S., Allen, H. M., and Garrod, H. W., 12 vols. (Oxford, 1906–1958), 1:273,Google Scholar lines 8–12. Also note Allen's remarks on Mountjoy's invitation, 1:207.

3. Erasmus probably intended to pass a short holiday across the Channel, but King Henry VII forbade vessels from carrying unlicensed passengers to the continent after Edmund de la Pole, convicted of high treason, escaped from England. As a result Erasmus was detained on the island and decided to visit Oxford. See Opus epistolarum, 1: 248–249, lines 103–105; Pineau, J. B., Érasme sa pensée religieuse (Paris, 1924), p. 89;Google Scholar and Tracy, James D., Erasmus, The Growth of a Mind, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance, vol. 126 (Geneva, 1972), pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

4. Opus epistolarum, 1: 268, lines 12–13.

5. Ibid., 1: 248, lines 74–101.

6. Hyma, Albert, The Youth of Erasmus (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1930), p. 126;Google Scholar and Hyma, Albert, Renaissance to Reformation (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1951), pp. 209–249;Google Scholar but cf. Post, R. R., “Erasmus en het laat-middeleeuwsche onderwijs,” Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 7 (1936): 172–192.Google Scholar

7. Pusino, Ivan, “Der Einfluss Picos auf Erasmus,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 46 (1928): 93–96;Google Scholar and note Auer's, Alfons rejoinder, Die vollkommene Frömmigkeit des Christen nach dem “Enchiridion militis Christiani” des Erasmus von Rotterdam (Düsseldorf, 1954), pp. 40–42.Google Scholar

8. Pusino, p. 77. Also see Borghi, Lamberto, Umanesimo e concezione religiosa in Erasmo di Rotterdam, Studi di lettere storiae filosophia, vol. 7 (Florence, 1935), pp. 39–40;Google Scholar and Marcel, Raymond, “Les ‘découvertes’ d'Erasme en Angleterre,” Bibliotheque d'humanisme et Renaissance 14 (1952): 120–123.Google Scholar On Colet and Florentine Neoplatonism, see Miles, Leland, John Colet and the Platonic Tradition (La Salle, Illinois, 1961);Google Scholar and Jayne, Sears, John Colet and Marsilio Ficino (Edinburgh, 1963).Google Scholar

9. Seebohm, Frederic, The Oxford Reformers, 3rd ed., (London, 1887).Google Scholar

10. Lupton, Joseph H., A Life of Dean Colet, 2nd ed. (London, 1909).Google Scholar

11. Renaudet, , Préréforme et humanisme, p. 388.Google Scholar Also see Renaudet, 's Érasme et l'Italie, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance, vol. 15 (Geneva, 1954), pp. 30–31.Google Scholar

12. Bauer, Karl, “John Colet und Erasmus von Rotterdam,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, Erganzungsband 5 (1929): 155–187.Google Scholar

13. Brezzi, Paolo, Le Riforme Cattoliche dei secolo XV e XVI (Rome, 1945), p. 39.Google Scholar

14. Harbison, E. Harris, The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation (New York, 1956), pp. 70–78.Google Scholar Also see Marriott, John A. R., The Life of John Colet (London, 1933);Google ScholarChambers, Raymond W., Thomas More (London, 1935), pp. 68–77;Google ScholarDuhamel, P. Albert, “The Oxford Lectures of John Colet: An Essay in Defining the English Renaissance,” Journal of the History of Ideas 14 (1953): 506;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Pineau, , Erasme sa pensée religieuse, pp. 90–91, 97.Google Scholar

15. Erasmus' “Disputatiuncula de taedio, pavore, et tristitia Jesu” reports just such a disagreement with Colet. See Clericus, J., ed., Opera omnia Des. Erasmi Roterodami, 10 vols. (Leiden, 1703–1706), 5: 1256–1294.Google Scholar Professor Rice probes other areas of disagreement and claims that Colet's priorities were never Erasmus' priorities. See Rice, Eugene F. Jr, “John Colet and the Annihilation of the Natural,” Harvard Theological Review 45 (1952): 141–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the “désaccord profond” between Erasmus and Colet on principles of exegesis, see Béné, Charles, Érasme et Saint Augustin, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance, vol. 103 (Geneva, 1969), pp. 109–112, 189–194.Google Scholar

16. Renaudet, , Préréforme et humanisme, pp. 387–388, 700;Google ScholarDibbelt, Hermann, “Erasmus' grieschische Studien,” Gymnasium 57 (1950) 60–61.Google Scholar As a result of Erasmus' first visit to England, he was excited by the prospect of learning Greek. Roland Bainton probably assumed too much by attributing Erasmus' eventual mastery of the language, in part, to Colet's deficiency in Greek. There can be no doubt, however, that English Hellenists, especially Grocyn and Linacre, impressed Erasmus with their knowledge and that Erasmus thereafter persisted in his study of the language and years later brought his study to its culmination in the Novum Instrumentum. In 1516, faced with his friend's accomplishment, Colet confessed his own remorse at not having realized the value of Greek: “Nam nunc me tenet quod non didicerim Graecum sermonen, sine cujus peritia nihil sumus…” Opus epistolarum, 2: 257, lines 13–15. See Bainton, Roland, Erasmus of Christendom (New York, 1969), p. 62;Google ScholarBéné, , Erasme et Saint Augustin, pp. 191–192;Google Scholar and cf. Dannenberg, Friedrich, Das Erbe Platons in England bis zur Bildung Lylys, Neue Forschung: Arbeiten zur Geistesgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Völker, vol. 13 (Berlin, 1932), p. 66.Google Scholar

17. At Steyn in 1488 and again in Paris several years later, Erasmus wrote abstracts of Valla's Elegantiae, and throughout his early correspondence Erasmus defended the Italian philologist against various charges. If Erasmus entertained any suspicions concerning Valla's orthodoxy, he certainly did not record them; and when he discovered that his favorite grammarian had tackled obscurities in sacred texts, he could not have been more enthusiastic. The 1504 “discovery” of Valla's New Testament notes marked a distinct turning point in Erasmus' career: “Erasmus had decided to become a translator and editor of the course of theology itself, using his classical and Christian erudition in its service.” Rabil, Albert Jr, Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist, Trinity University Monograph Series in Religion, vol. 1 (San Antonio, Texas, 1972), p. 61.Google Scholar Also consult Béné, , Erasme et Saint Augustin, pp. 195–197.Google Scholar Erasmus' abstracts of the Elegantiae have recently been edited by Heesakkers, C. L. and Waszink, J. H. and republished in Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami (Amsterdam, 1969—), 1: 4, 191–351.Google Scholar For Erasmus' early appreciation of Valla, see his correspondence with Gerard, Cornelius, especially Opus epistolarum, 1: 107–109, lines 73–110 and 1: 119–120.Google Scholar Jean Hadot, among others, thinks it possible to trace Colet's influence of the “Devotio Moderna” in Erasmus' later exegesis; but we should not be tempted to underestimate the significance of the 1504 “discovery.” Valla's annotations did not merely “confirm” Erasmus' “ambitions to apply the new philological methods” to sacred texts, as Myron Gilmore recently remarked; but, as Rabil and Béné suggested. Valla's work inspired those ambitions and set Erasmus on a new track which eventually led to the completion of his Novum Instrumentum in 1516. See Hadot, Jean, “Le Nouveau Testament d'Erasme,” Colloquium Erasmianum (Mons, 1968), pp. 59–65Google Scholar and Gilmore, Myron P., “Italian Reactions to Erasmian Humanism,” Itinerarium Italicum, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, vol. 14, ed. Oberman, Heiko A. and Brady, Thomas A. Jr (Leiden, 1975), p. 62.Google Scholar

18. Opus epistolarum, 3: 381, lines 52–54. See Professor Duhamel's ill-begotten attempts to find the “grammatical method” in Colet's comparatively uncritical approach to the Vulgate, , “The Oxford Lectures of John Colet,” pp. 494, 504–506.Google Scholar Notwithstanding Duhamel's efforts to find “a Renaissance humanist grammarian” at work in Colet's lectures, the Englishman's few excursions into etymology and Roman history warrant a much more modest appraisal.

19. On Erasmus and the Church Fathers, see Gorce, Denys, “La patristique dans la Réform d'Érasme”, Festgabe Joseph Lortz, ed. Iserloh, Erwin and Manns, Peter, 2 vols. (BadenBaden, 1958), 1:233–276;Google ScholarPeters, Robert, “Erasmus and the Fathers: Their Practical Value”, Church History 36 (1967): 254–261;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAndre, Godin, “De Vitrier á Origène: recherches sur la patristique Érasmienne”, Colloquium Erasmianum, pp. 47–57;Google Scholar and Béné, Érasme et Saint Augustin. Erasmus himself listed the Church Fathers who particularly appealed to Colet (Opus epistolarum, 4:515, lines 270–273), “Dionysius, Origen, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Jerome”. Erasmus went on to mark Augustine as the one Father with whom Colet most disagreed. The fact that Colet cites Augustine with approbation more than any other Church Father, save the pseudo-Dionysius, tempts us to toss overboard Erasmus' list which presumably reflects Erasmus' more than Colet's preferences. On the polemical purposes of Erasmus' list, see Holeczek, Heinz, “Die Haltung des Erasmus zu Luther nach dem Scheitern seiner Vermittlungspolitik 1520/21”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 64 (1973): 85–112.Google Scholar

20. Opus epistolarum, 2:599, lines 15–17.

21. The Enchiridion is seldom seen as an “exposition” of the Pauline epistles, and this may account for the fact that previous attempts to find Colet's influence therein have produced only gratuitous generalizations. Note Seebohm, , The Oxford Reformers, p. 173Google Scholar and Helmuth Exner, Der Einfluss des Erasmus auf die englische Bildungsidee, Forschungen, Neue deutsche, Abteilung englische Philologie, vol. 13 (Berlin, 1939), pp. 104–105.Google Scholar

22. Joseph H. Lupton is responsible for all the published editions and translations of Colet's lectures and occasional treatises. The five volumes originally printed in London between 1867 and 1876 have been republished in four volumes by Gregg International Press (Farnborough, Hampshire, England and Ridgewood, New Jersey: 1965–1966). The following abbreviations have been employed here: De Corpore Christi Mystico—Corp.; Epistolae B. Pauli ad Romanos Expositio—Expositio; Enarratio in Epistolam B. Pauli ad Romanos—En. Rom.; Enarratio in Epistolam Primam S. Pauli ad Corinthios—En. Cor.; De Sacramentis Ecclesiae—Sac.; Opus de Caelesti Dionysii Hierarchia and De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia—De Hierarchia. All translations in the text of this essay are mine, but references to Lupton's translations appear in parentheses following all citations to corresponding passages in the Latin texts.

23. En. Cor., pp. 183, 195–196 (pp. 35–36, 51–52); En. Rom., p. 204 (p. 99).

24. Brown, Consult John, Puritan Preaching in England (New York, 1900), p. 38;Google ScholarHumbert, Auguste, Les origenes de la théologie moderne (Paris, 1911), p. 136;Google ScholarMcKeon, Richard, “Renaissance and Method in Philosophy”, Studies in the History of Ideas, 3 vols. (New York, 1918–1935), 3:43–49, 94–95;Google ScholarParsons, Donald J., “John Colet's Stature as an Exegete”, Anglican Theological Review 40 (1958): 36–42;Google Scholar and Duhamel, , “The Oxford Lectures of John Colet”, pp. 506–510.Google Scholar

25. Augustine, De spiritu et littera, ad Marcellinum 13, 22;Google ScholarEn. Rom., p. 190 (p. 80).

26. En. Rom., pp. 182, 227 (pp. 67, 132); Expositio, p. 269 (pp. 147–148).

27. Expositio, p. 237 (p. 102).

28. Ibid., pp. 231–235 (pp. 93–99).

29. Corp., p. 188 (pp. 35–36); Expositio, pp. 215, 244 (pp. 71,111); and En. Rom., pp. 137–139(pp. 4–7). Also see Porter, H. C., “The Gloomy Dean and the Law: John Colet,1466–1519”, Essays in Modern English Church History in Memory of Normal Sykes, ed. Bennett, G. V. and Walsh, J. D. (New York, 1966), pp. 24–25.Google Scholar

30. Expositio, pp. 215–219 (pp. 71–76); En. Rom., pp. 205–206 (pp. 101–103); En. Cor., pp. 170, 196–199 (pp. 17–18, 52–56). On Colet's concept of justifying faith as “the fides formata cum charitate of the schoolmen, see Hunt, Ernest William, Dean Colet and His Theology (London, 1956), pp. 65–66.Google Scholar For a slightly different perspective, see my doctoral dissertation, “The Soteriological Center of the Thought of John Colet” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1975), pp. 90–133.Google Scholar

31. Sac., p. 75. The only one of Colet's works which circulated during his lifetime, the “reformation” sermon delivered in 1512 before the convocation of the clergy of the southern province, elaborates this complaint. The text has been published as an appendix to Joseph Lupton's biography (Life of Dean Colet, pp. 293–304) and republished in two recent anthologies of Renaissance and Reformation literature: Olin, John C., ed., The Catholic Reformation Savonarola to Ignatius (New York, 1969), pp. 27–39Google Scholar and Spitz, Lewis, ed., The Northern Renaissance (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1972), pp. 110–121.Google Scholar Colet, however, did not hesitate to punctuate his lectures with charges similar to those which he pronounced from the pulpit. See e.g., Exposito, pp. 227–229, 279–281 (pp. 88–90, 162–163); En. Cor., pp. 185–189 (pp. 38–44). Also note Clebsch, William A., “John Colet and Reformation”, Anglican Theological Review 37 (1955): 167–177.Google Scholar

32. De Hierarchia, pp. 254–255 (pp. 135–136).

33. Expositio, p. 227 (p. 87).

34. Sac., pp. 89–91.

35. Ibid., p. 84.

36. Ibid., p. 92.

37. Ibid., pp. 71–72, 79; Expositio, p. 250 (pp. 120–121); En. Rom., pp. 177–178 (p. 61). In 1499 Erasmus probably did not consult with Colet specifically on the sacraments and the De Sacramentis Ecclesiae most likely was written after Erasmus' departure. (See Jayne, , John Colet and Marsilio Fioino, pp. 27–34,Google Scholar for a tentative chronology of Colet's works.) It is difficult to imagine, however, that Colet's interpolation of Romans 2 and the striking notion of “living sacrifices” which Colet set forth as an eminent part of St. Paul's teaching on justification failed to impress Erasmus, who had a long-standing interest in moral philosophy.

38. Exposito, p. 202 (p. 53).

39. Corp., p. 189 (pp. 37–38). Also see En. Rom., pp. 152–153, 167, 176 (pp. 25–27, 46, 58–59); and En. Cor., p. 192 (pp. 47–48). Colet's understanding of church unity was especially dependent upon his confidence that the Holy Spirit dissolves man's natural appetite for private gain and worked, in the human heart and in the church, liberality, patience and charity. Particularly in Colet's lectures on I Corinthians, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is the bedrock of ecclesiology, just as in his lectures on Romans spirituality and the active righteousness which it prompts are the foundations of soteriology. See En. Cor., 221–222, 234–235, 254–255 (pp. 86–88, 104–105, 133–136).

40. See Febvre, Lucien, Au coeur religieux du XVIe siècle (Paris, 1957), pp. 43–44.Google Scholar

41. Sac., p. 65. Hunt, Ernest William (Dean Colet and His Theology, pp. 104, 110–113, 122–126)Google Scholar understated Colet's concern for moral imperatives dramatized in Christ's life and projected Collet's christology as an essential part of the more mystical themes in Colet's theology. This line of argument reiterated the contentions of Kurt Schroeder and Friedrich Dannenberg wherein Colet was alleged to have subordinated Christ, the moral example, as “eine neue sinnbildliche Umkleidung” for Christ, the Platonic master. See Schroeder's, Platonismus in der englischen Renaissance vor und bei Thomas Eliot (Berlin, 1920), pp. 32–35Google Scholar and Dannenberg's, Das Erbe Platons in England, pp. 77–79.Google Scholar Although there exists in Colet's later and more esoteric writings prima facie evidence for such a conclusion, Colet's lectures on the Pauline epistles make no attempt to exchange the intellectual armor of the scholastics for the cloth of the medieval mystics. The christology of the Oxford lectures advances moral propositions rather than hypotheses for scholarly reflection or mystical contemplation.

42. En. Rom., p. 216 (pp. 115–116); En. Cor., p. 218 (pp. 82–83); and De Hierarchia, p. 258 (pp. 141–142).

43. Expositio, p. 279 (p. 161).

44. Ibid., p. 227 (p. 88). Also note En. Rom., p. 211 (pp. 108–109) and En. Cor., pp. 208–209 (pp. 70–71).

45. En. Cor., p. 184 (p. 36).

46. On Christ's incarnation and propitation, see Expositio, pp. 229–230 (pp. 90–92) and En. Cor, p. 171 (p. 18). Also note En. Rom., p. 151 (pp. 23–24) and Corp., p. 190 (p. 40).

47. See especially En. Rom., pp. 135–136 (pp. 1–2).

48. Expositio, p. 203 (p. 55). Also see En. Cor., p. 265 (pp. 149–150).

49. Opus epistolarum, 1: 404, lines 15–18; 4: 523, lines 519–527.

50. Ibid., 1: 258, lines 19–22. The same parcel surfaces in several subsequent letters and it is doubtful that Erasmus ever received those particular copies of St. Paul (Opus epistolarum), 1: 286–287, lines 19–25; 1: 315, lines 56–61; 1: 323, lines 119–122).

51. Opus epistolarum, 1: 404, lines 31–34. When Erasmus later announced that he might again take up his work on the apostle, he wrote in 1511 from Cambridge to Colet in London, “perhaps I shall dare to approach your Paul (Paulum tuum).” The association of St. Paul with John Colet, praeceptor optime, was clearly fixed in Erasmus' mind. Opus epistolarum, 1: 466, lines 16–20.

52. Ibid., 1: 376, lines 10–11. Also see 4:508–509, lines 39–50.

53. Enchiridion militis Christianae, in Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, ausgewählte Werke, ed. Hajo Holborn (Munich, 1933), p. 135.Google Scholar

54. On the circumstances which prompted Erasmus' Enchiridion, see Schottenloher, Otto, “Erasmus, Johann Poppenruyter, und die Entstehung des Enchiridion militis Christianae,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 45 (1954): 109–116.Google Scholar For a listing of numerous sixteenth-century editions, see Bibliotheca Erasmiana, 7 vols. (Ghent, 1893), 1:79–82.Google Scholar On the Enchiridion's influences upon Henrician reforms, see McConica, James Kelsey, English Humanism and Reformation Politics (Oxford, 1965), pp. 148–199.Google Scholar

55. Pineau, (Érasme sa pensèe religieuse, pp. 108–111)Google Scholar claimed that Erasmus followed Colet in relying upon St. Paul but, nonetheless, “reduced” the apostle to the level of other ancient philosophers. But see the Enchiridion, pp. 24–25, 36–37, 101–104 and BÉné, , Érasme et Saint Augustin, pp. 168–175.Google Scholar

56. Enchiridion, pp. 83–85.

57. Ibid., p. 80.

58. Ibid., pp. 34–35, 73–75, 86.

59. Ibid., p. 74; Expositio, p. 227; En. Rom., pp. 209–210; and Sac., p. 43.

60. Enchiridion, pp. 47–48, 52–55. Cf. En. Cor., p. 192 and En. rom., pp. 175–176.

61. Enchiridion, p. 82. Of course, Erasmus' practical spirituality has not gone unnoticed. On his “pädagogische-pastoral-praktisches Ziel”, see Padberg, Rudolf, Personaler Humanismus (Paderborn, 1964), pp. 63–66.Google Scholar On Libertas as the Enchiridion's central theme, see Tracy, , Erasmus, The Growth of a Mind, pp. 97–98.Google Scholar Tracy notes that ceremonial observances are not strictly forbidden, and the Enchiridion (pp. 66–67, 76–77) advises primarily against inordinate reliance upon the “flesh” of the sacraments. There is not room here to discuss interpretations of the Enchiridion which analyze that admonition and Erasmus' “spiritualized” anthropology as instances of Erasmus' Platonic reading of St. Paul's letters, but refer to Auer, , Die vollkommene Frömmigkeit des Christen, pp. 78–84, 94–101Google Scholar and Payne, John B., “Toward the Hermeneutics of Erasmus”, Scrinium Erasmianum, ed. Coppens, J., 2 vols. (Leiden, 1969), 2: 17–25.Google Scholar

62. Enchiridion, p. 88.

63. Ibid., pp. 86–87, 117–118.

64. Ibid., pp. 38, 60, 68, 91, 98–99, 106–107, 117–118, 132–133.

65. Among the most damaging twentieth-century protests, perhaps that of Johannes Lindeboom, an evaluation of the “alles-beheerschend moralisme” which prevented Erasmus from dealing with many important religious issues, was one of the first and more forgiving. Paul Mestwerdt argued that, “at least by way of suggestion,” Erasmus subordinated lex gratia to the lex natura of the Stoa and Helmut Exner claimed that his thorough inspection disclosed no real religious thrust in the Enchiridion. Professor Pineau charged that Erasmus reduced Christianity to a set of moral principles. Lindeboom, Johannes, Erasmus, onderzoek naar zijne theologie en zijn godsdienstig gemoedsbestaan (Leiden, 1909), p. 81;Google ScholarMestwerdt, Paul, Die Anfänge des Erasmus:Humanismus und “Devotio Moderna,” Studien zur Kultur und Geschichte der Reformation, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1917) pp. 273, 306–307, 312:Google ScholarExner, , Der Einfluss des Erasmus auf die englische Bildungsidee, pp. 74–77;Google Scholar and Pineau, , Érasme sa pensée religieuse, pp. 122, 125.Google Scholar

66. Enchiridion, pp. 67–68.

67. Ibid., pp. 54, 63.

68. Ibid., p. 108. Also see Kohls, Ernst-Wilhelm, Die Theologie des Erasmus, 2 vols. (Basel, 1966), 1:98–109, 139–141;Google ScholarAugustijn, C., Erasmus verneiuwer van kerk en theologie (Baarn, 1967), pp. 53–54, 61–62, 121–122.Google Scholar

69. Enchiridion, pp. 24, 28, 132–133. For Erasmus' influence upon Otto Brundfels and Nicodemism consult Ginsburg, Carlo, Il nicodemismo, Biblioteca di cultura storica, vol. 107 (Turin, 1970), pp. 5–6, 27–28.Google Scholar For futher development of observations recorded here, see Payne, John B., Erasmus, His Theology of The Sacraments (Richmond, 1970), especially pp. 71–74Google Scholar on law and gospel and pp. 169–171, 226 on baptism. Payne correctly noted that Erasmus' spiritualism and personalism can be and have been exaggerated and should be qualified by Erasmus' own respect for sacramental observances which are conducive to piety (see pp. 220–222 and note 5, p. 336.)

70. Opus epistolarum, 3: 363, lines 59–60 and reprinted by Holborn, , Enchiridion, p. 4.Google Scholar

71. Miles, Leland, “Protestant Colet and Catholic More: A Study of Contrast in the Use of Platonism,” Anglican Theological Review 33 (1951): 30–42.Google Scholar Further research led Miles to conclusions quite incompatible with this early assessment. SeeMiles', John Colet and the Platonic Tradition, pp. 196–214Google Scholar for his later evaluation of Colet as “a transition figure” who harbors both Catholic and Protestant sympathies.

72. Schirmer, Walter, Der englische Frühhumanismus (Leipzig, 1931). pp. 180–181.Google Scholar Also see Smith, H. Maynard, Prereformation England (London, 1938), p. 451;Google ScholarRebora, Piero, “Aspetti dell'Umanesimo in Inghilterra,” La Rinascita 2 (1939): 383;Google ScholarClebsch, William, “John Colet and Reformation,” p. 175;Google Scholar and Hunt, Ernest William, Dean Colet and His Theology, p. 72.Google Scholar