The five pieces contained in this volume are among the twenty that the editors of CWE have selected for inclusion in the series of spiritual and pastoral works,spiritualia and pastoralia. The basis for this category is Erasmus’ famous enclosure with his letter to Hector Boece of 15 March 1530, in which he listed his writings and divided them into nineordines.¹ The fifthordocontained the works pertaining topietas, the starting-point for our designation. For further discussion of the issues raised by the category, I refer the reader to the pertinent pages of my general introduction to this...

De taedio lesuoriginated in a discussion at Oxford between Erasmus and John Colet in October 1499. Erasmus had been due to return to the Continent after a brief stay with his pupil and patron, William Blount, Baron Mountjoy, but, following the treason of the Earl of Suffolk, a royal proclamation was issued on 20 August forbidding anyone to leave England. Erasmus made his way to Oxford, preferring, he wrote to Colet, ‘to spend a month or two in the company of men like yourself rather than of those decorated men at court.’¹ He was lodged, naturally enough, at St...

TheConcio de immensa Dei misericordia¹ was first published by Froben at Basel in September 1524, together with an enlarged version of theVirginis et martyris comparatio. It had apparently been commissioned by Christoph von Utenheim, bishop of Basel, who had recently founded a chapel dedicated to the Mercies of God. Although described as a sermon, the work is far too long to have been actually delivered at the consecration of the chapel. On 20 June 1524 Erasmus had sent a draft for comment to Bishop Christoph, who replied three weeks later, approving of the work but urging Erasmus to...

Erasmus’Modus orandi Deum(literally, ‘The Method of Praying to God,’ but translated here as ‘On Praying to God’)¹ was first published in Basel by the Froben press in October 1524. It was dedicated to the Polish diplomat Hieronim Łaski, who first met Erasmus in 1520 in Brussels and Cologne and whose meeting with him in Basel in May 1524 may have provided the impetus for this essay on prayer if, as Erasmus writes in the final paragraph, it actually was undertaken for Łaski’s sake. On that occasion Łaski, accompanied by his two younger brothers Jan and Stanisław, visited Erasmus...

The genre, special character, and reception of Erasmus’ ‘Explanation of the Apostles’ Creed’ are discussed in the general introduction to this volume (xx–xxvi), and theological points are elucidated in the notes to this translation. It would perhaps be useful to add a few observations about Erasmus’ language and style.

Even within the fairly narrow limits that Erasmus has set for his subject here – a popular but systematic exposition of Christian belief – the master’s supple Latin sounds a variety of tones. Erasmus strikes the strangest of these tones when he is fulfilling the demands of his chosen genre,...

On 19 June 1533 Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, and father of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry viii, wrote to Erasmus, asking him to write, as quickly as possible, a short work on the subject of preparing for death (libellus…de praeparatione ad moriendum).¹ The dedicatory letter of the work, addressed to Boleyn, is dated 1 December of the same year, and the work itself appeared in print in early 1534 from the Froben press in Basel, entitledLiber…de praeparatione ad mortem, ‘A Book about Preparing for Death,’ with a subtitleLiber quomodo se...