1 of 2

"Would that the farmer might sing snatches of Scripture at his plough and that the weaver might hum phrases of Scripture to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler might lighten with stories from Scripture the weariness of his journey."

"When I get a little money I buy books," wrote Erasmus of Rotterdam, who took the name Desiderius in his adult life. "If any is left … I buy food and clothes."

This illegitimate son of a Dutch priest lived in search of knowledge, in pursuit of piety, in love with books, and oppressed by the fear of poverty. Along the way, his writings and scholarship started a theological earthquake that didn't stop until western European Christendom was split.

Born in Rotterdam, orphaned by the plague, Erasmus was sent from the chapter school of St. Lebuin's—which taught classical learning and the humanities—to a school conducted by the monastic Brethren of the Common Life. He absorbed an emphasis on a personal relationship with God but hated the severe rules of monastic life and the intolerant theologians. They intended to teach humility, he later recalled, by breaking the pupils' spirits.

But he was poor, and both he and his brother had to enter monasteries; Erasmus decided to join the Augustinians. He wanted to travel, gain some academic elbow room, and leave behind the "barbarians" who discouraged him from classical studies. And as soon as he was ordained a priest in 1492, he did, becoming secretary to the bishop of Cambrai, who sent him to Paris to study theology.

He hated it there too. The dorms stank of urine, the food was execrable, the studies mechanical, and the discipline brutal. But he was able to begin a career in writing and traveling that took him to most of the countries of Europe. Though he often complained of poor health, he was driven by a desire to seek out the best theologians of his day. On a trip to England in 1499, he complained of bad beer, barbarism, and inhospitable weather, but he also met Thomas More, who became a friend for life.

On the same trip he heard John Colet teach from the Scriptures, not the layers of commentaries he had studied in Paris. Colet, who would later become the dean of St. Paul's, encouraged the Dutch scholar to become a "primitive theologian" who studied Scripture like the church Fathers, not like the argumentative scholastics.

Thereafter Erasmus devoted himself to the Greek language, in which the New Testament was written. "I cannot tell you, dear Colet, how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature," he soon wrote to his new friend. "How I dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me."

The result was his most significant work: an edition of the New Testament in original Greek, published in 1516. Accompanying it were study notes as well as his own Latin translation—correcting some 600 errors in Jerome's Vulgate.

In the preface, Erasmus said he undertook the project so everyone could finally read the Bible: "Would that these were translated into each and every language … Would that the farmer might sing snatches of Scripture at his plough and that the weaver might hum phrases of Scripture to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler might lighten with stories from Scripture the weariness of his journey."

next page... |  1 of 2

share this page

FREE E-Newsletter Sign up for the ChristianHistory.net e-mail newsletter. Discover more about your Christian heritage with this weekly e-newsletter that features key people, topics, and events from the history of Christianity.      RSS Feed   RSS Help