Erasmus on Literature: His Ratio or 'System' of 1518/1519

by Mark Vessey (Editor), Anthony Grafton (Foreword by)

Overview

None of the works included among Erasmus’ ‘Literary and Educational Writings’ in the Collected Works of Erasmus captures his most adventurous thinking about how texts signify in – and thereby make or remake – worlds of thought, feeling, and action. The one that comes closest to doing so, the Ratio verae theologiae (‘A System of True Theology’), was first published separately in 1518 and 1519, then appeared in the preliminaries to the New Testament in Erasmus’ (revised) 1519 edition.

This handy Ratio or compendious ‘System’ gave advice on how to interpret complex texts and develop persuasive arguments based upon them. Its lessons were applied to the canonical Scriptures as source, and to everyday Christian theology as target discourse. They unfold in response to the special difficulties and incitements of the biblical text in Latin and Greek, within a framework provided by classical grammar and rhetoric, adjusted to the examples of the Church Fathers as exemplary interpreters of the Bible. At every turn, the Ratio reveals the instincts and intuitions of an exceptional theorist and practitioner of the cognitive, social, and political arts of written language. This student edition, the first of its kind in any language, is based on the translation and notes by Robert D. Sider in the Collected Works of Erasmus Volume 41. It is designed to make it easier to estimate the long-term value of this particular work and of Erasmus’ works more generally, and to allow for a multidisciplinary understanding of the lives of human beings as symbol-using creatures in worlds constructed partly by texts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487515836
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	04/07/2021
Series:	Erasmus Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	378
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Mark Vessey is Principal of Green College and Professor of English Literature at the University of British Columbia.

Robert D. Sider is General Editor of the New Testament Scholarship for the Collected Works of Erasmus.

Anthony Grafton is Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Anthony Grafton

Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Abbreviations and Works Frequently Cited
Abbreviations of Biblical Books Used in Explanatory Notes

Editor’s Introduction
Chronology of Erasmus’ Life and Works
Approaches to Erasmus’ Ratio or ‘System’ of 1518–1519

The Ratio in Erasmus’ Life and Work to 1519
Mark Vessey

Erasmus, Sacred Literature, and Literary Theory
Brian Cummings

Biblical Poetics in Scholasticism and the Ratio
Christopher Ocker

The Ratio and Annotations of Erasmus as Theory and Practice of Biblical Interpretation
Riemer Faber

The Parable of Sincere and Sophistical Discourse in the Ratio
Kathy Eden

Scheme of Contents of the Ratio verae theologiae
Note on the Text

The Ratio verae theologiae
Preface: Purpose of the Ratio
Elements of a Method for the Study of Scripture
The Unity in Variety of the Gospel
‘The Wonderful Circle and Harmony of the Entire Drama of Christ’
The Figurative Character of the Language of Sacred Literature
Elements of a Method for the Study of Scripture (Concluded)

Explanatory Notes
Conspectus of Church Fathers Cited in the Ratio
Bibliography
Concordance of Editions of the Ratio
Index

What People are Saying About This

Peter Mack

"This book provides compelling insights into Erasmus's views on interpreting the Bible and reading more generally. It will be helpful to students of renaissance literature and literary theory."

Henk Jan de Jonge

“In the Ratio Erasmus carefully sets out his ideas on how literature can be read, interpreted, and appropriated in the best, most adequate, most responsible and most enriching way. These ideas have influenced hermeneutics from the sixteenth century to the present day. It was a brilliant idea to make this classic readily accessible in English to modern readers. Sider's translation is lucid and reliable, the accompanying notes immensely informative, and the introductory essays, written by leading experts on Erasmus, extremely illuminating. This new edition is a sine qua non for understanding Erasmus and a beacon for anyone engaged in the interpretation of texts.”

Ann Blair

"Erasmus' Ratio of 1519, designed as a novice's guide to interpreting the New Testament, serves here as a powerful entry into the life, leading ideas, and historical context of Europe's most famous humanist. The splendid accompanying essays offer a rich complement to the translation and annotations of the text, explaining the principles of literary analysis which informed his theology."

Nigel Smith

"It is hard to overestimate the significance of Erasmus' insights into how literature is produced and interpreted. Here at last as a stand-alone text is a fine English translation of the Ratio verae theologiae, an introduction to reading the New Testament and the work that most directly distilled Erasmus' view of how we understand literature. Specialists and students alike will be delighted, inspired, and enabled by this powerful, extremely substantial, and richly adorned edition."

Jan Bloemendal

"Vessey presents one of Erasmus' key texts on biblical scholarship in a fresh way by giving Sider's lucid, well-structured and annotated translation, preceded by five excellent, informative essays by recognized specialists. It is well done and a pleasure to read it, as is Grafton's insightful foreword. I learned a lot from this book that shows us a humanist theologian and Christian at work."

Editorial Reviews

"Fans of Praise of Folly and the Colloquies ought to open Erasmus on Literature to see what and how Erasmus wanted them to read. Scholars of theology will scrutinize the edition carefully, as Erasmus’s contemporaries did. Seminaries in need of a book that teaches exegesis more thoroughly than Augustine now have one, ready for immediate use."

—Willis Goth Regier, University of Illinois, Renaissance and Reformation

"This book provides compelling insights into Erasmus' views on interpreting the Bible and reading more generally. It will be helpful to students of Renaissance literature and literary theory."—Peter Mack, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of Warwick
"In the Ratio Erasmus carefully sets out his ideas on how literature can be read, interpreted, and appropriated in the best, most adequate, most responsible and most enriching way. These ideas have influenced hermeneutics from the sixteenth century to the present day. It was a brilliant idea to make this classic readily accessible in English to modern readers. Sider’s translation is lucid and reliable, the accompanying notes immensely informative, and the introductory essays, written by leading experts on Erasmus, extremely illuminating. This new edition is a sine qua non for understanding Erasmus and a beacon for anyone engaged in the interpretation of texts."—Henk Jan de Jonge, Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, Leiden University

"It is hard to overestimate the significance of Erasmus' insights into how literature is produced and interpreted. Here at last as a stand-alone text is a fine English translation of the Ratio verae theologiae, an introduction to reading the New Testament and the work that most directly distilled Erasmus' view of how we understand literature. Specialists and students alike will be delighted, inspired, and enabled by this powerful, extremely substantial, and richly adorned edition."

—Nigel Smith, William and Annie S. Paton Foundation Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature, Princeton University
"Vessey presents one of Erasmus' key texts on biblical scholarship in a fresh way by giving Sider's lucid, well-structured and annotated translation, preceded by five excellent, informative essays by recognized specialists. It is well done and a pleasure to read it, as is Grafton's insightful foreword. I learned a lot from this book that shows us a humanist theologian and Christian at work."—Jan Bloemendal, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

"Erasmus’ Ratio of 1519, designed as a novice’s guide to interpreting the New Testament, serves here as a powerful entry into the life, leading ideas, and historical context of Europe’s most famous humanist. The splendid accompanying essays offer a rich complement to the translation and annotations of the text, explaining the principles of literary analysis which informed his theology."

—Ann Blair, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, Harvard University

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