Erasmus was in his thirties when he made the commitment ʹto devote himself entirely to sacred literatureʹ (Ep 138:52-3). If a date is wanted for his ʹconversionʹ from philologist to biblical scholar, the year 1501 may serve as a point of reference. However, like any change involving the restructuring of priorities, this reorientation, too, was a gradual process taking place over a number of years.

In his youth Erasmus had shown little inclination for biblical studies. His guardians had destined him for the religious life, not from any consideration for the boyʹs likes or dislikes, but from a desire to...

Although Erasmus wrote a substantial part of his notes on the New Testament after his arrival in Basel in 1514, they represented the fruit of almost two decades of reading and continued, through the next four editions, to reflect Erasmusʹ research. This chapter examines Erasmusʹ sources, beginning with the manuscripts to which he referred in his notes and proceeding to the classical, patristic, and medieval authorities he cited in support of his textual criticism, translation, and interpretation.

TheAnnotationsin their final form contained a large number of references to manuscripts consulted.¹ In the first edition the references had been...

TheAnnotationsform a running commentary not only on the biblical text but also on the commentatorʹs or translatorʹs aims and methods. The changes proposed by Erasmus served a threefold purpose. They were aimed at producing a text that was a faithful, intelligible, and idiomatically correct version of the Greek original. This trinity of objectives forms a recurrent theme in Erasmusʹ prolegomena to the New Testament. They are, for example, repeatedly stated in theApologiathat acccompanied the edition of 1516. There Erasmus said that his purpose was to render the text more accurate and lucid, and to improve the...

When Erasmus composed a catalogue of his works in 1523 he noted with some misgivings the large share taken up by religious controversies. The stormy dispute over his translation and annotation of the New Testament broke out almost immediately after its publication – indeed some rumblings preceded it. As soon as Erasmusʹ plan had become known in Louvain, Maarten van Dorp advised him of the objections of the theological faculty. He emphasized that he was writing ʹin the friendliest possible spirit to issue a warning.ʹ¹ Theologians, he said, would not tolerate the idea that the Vulgate contained mistakes or corruptions,...

Unlike the text of a book, an authorʹs annotations are rarely read in their entirety. They are visually subordinated to the text by their position at the bottom of the page or the end of the text, and they remain in the eyes of many readers an adjunct of marginal importance. In the case of ErasmusʹAnnotationsthe visual aspect of the Leiden edition immediately declares their significance, for they often occupy as much or more space on the page than the corresponding text and occasionally displace it altogether. Erasmus himself emphasized the importance of his annotations. When Bade published...