‘It would be preferable to devote our energies to resolving our differences rather than to providing seed-ground for new disagreements through biased inquiries.’ Erasmus made this appeal for dialogue with his colleagues, both humanists and theologians, in the last lines of hisAppendixwritten to answer the criticisms of Josse Clichtove. It has a rather paradoxical ring, if one considers the 1444 quarto pages of the ninth volume of hisOpera omnia(Froben 1540)¹ containing the texts that Erasmus wrote to deal with his various critics – and in which, whatever he says, he took a certain amount of pleasure.²...

The controversy between Erasmus and the Parisian humanist Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, which culminated in the publication of theApologia ad lacobum Fabrum Stapulensem, had its origin in a critical comment by Erasmus on Lefèvre’s interpretation of St Paul’s reference to Psalm 8:6 in the Epistle to the Hebrews 2:7. At issue was whether the meaning should be ‘You have made him a little lower than God,’ as Lefèvre contended, or ‘You have made him a little lower than the angels,’ as Erasmus maintained. Lefèvre first declared his view in his annotation on Psalm 8:6 in hisQuincuplex psalteriumof 1509,...

TheAppendix on the Writings of josse Clichtovewas appended to theSupputatio calumniarum Natalis Bedae, published in August 1526, together with another appendix in answer to Pierre Cousturier’sAntapologia, apology to an apology. They are prefaced by a letter to the faculty of the University of Paris (Allen Ep 1664) dated 6 February 1526. It is evident that theAppendixwas meant only as a temporary reply to the accusations made by Clichtove in hisPropugnaculum ecclesiae adversus Lutheranos, and it is rather subdued in tone.¹

In 1531, after a long sustained barrage, the University of Paris unleashed its...

I have finally read through Josse Clichtove’s attack in the second book of hisPropugnaculum¹ against myDeclamation in Praise of Marriage. But his earnest attempt to do battle with a fictitious theme, using the testimony of the Scriptures and the Fathers and decrees of the church, almost provoked me to laughter. It was as if I had before my eyes a veteran soldier in full battle array exerting all his strength to fight with shadows, regaling his audience with an amusing spectacle of shadow-boxing. Nevertheless I admired his spirit, inflamed, as it appears, with an extraordinary love of chastity.²...

In 1532 Johann Dietenberger published an attack on the doctrines of the reformers entitledPhimostomus scripturariorum, ‘A Bridle for the Scripturalists.’¹ To this he appended a ‘special treatise’ on the subject of divorce.² He had been working on this for some time, ever since he had discussed the subject with Valentin von Tetleben, the archbishop of Mainz. Tetleben had shown some sympathy for the view of Erasmus that the laws governing divorce might be relaxed, given certain circumstances.³ Erasmus had argued this point in a lengthy excursus on 1 Corinthians 7:39: ‘The wife is bound by the law as long...