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Peter G. Bietenholz, Encounters with a Radical Erasmus. Erasmus’ Work as a Source of Radical Thought in Early Modern Europe. University of Toronto Press, Toronto , pp. ISBN . CDN; .
In this book Peter Bietenholz examines early modern authors with radical reli- gious or political ideas who had read Erasmus, seeking to determine if Eras- mus helped to foster their views and if Erasmus intended to foster such radical notions. Bietenholz carefully circumscribes the terms of his investigation: by ‘early modern’ he means the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; by ‘radical’ he includes ideas that depart from traditional thought and belief as well as the consciousness of roots and striving to be true to them. He argues that while Erasmus himself was no radical, his writings and views often were—sharp in their criticism and going to the roots of Christian belief and practice in the Greek New Testament. Erasmus provided inspiration and arguments to a host of early modern thinkers and their efforts to subvert traditional political and religious assumptions. Bietenholz considers a wide selection of European writers, including German, Italian, French, English, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, and Transylvanian authors. Yet in one respect the book is more narrow than one might have expected. Bietenholz has little interest in pursuing links between Erasmus and the Anabaptists and Spiritualists of the Radical Reformation, claiming these “have been studied more thoroughly by other scholars than might have been done in these pages” (p. ). Scholars have pointed to Erasmus’s pervasive influence among sixteenth-century Spiritualists and Sacramentarians such as Andreas Karlstadt, Sebastian Franck, Caspar Schwenckfeld, Valentin Craut- wald, and even Paracelsus. But apart from Franck, these figures are not dis- cussed in the book’s pages. Bietenholz examines early modern readers of Erasmus on five main issues: the correct translation and understanding of the teachings of the Greek N.T.; war and peace and proper governance of church and state; freedom of con- science and religious toleration; aspects of Epicurean philosophy; and Eras- mus’s ideas on lying and truth-telling. On the first issue, the author considers Sebastian Franck who drew liberally upon Erasmus’s Annotations on the N.T. in support of antiauthoritarian posi- tions on the papacy, veneration of saints, and private confession to a priest. “What Franck passed on to posterity […] was primarily the rational, critical, even subversive side of Erasmus, and it was heard loud and clear” (p. ). Simi- larly, anti-Trinitarians such as Michael Servetus, Lelio Sozzini, and his nephew Fausto Sozzini drew upon Erasmus’s N.T. Annotations and Paraphrases to claim
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/187124111X609603 Book Reviews / CHRC .– () – that the concept of the Trinity was nowhere to be found in the N.T. (pp. f.). On the issue of war and peace, Bietenholz considers Franck and his writing Peace’s War Manual. Franck relied extensively on two works by Erasmus, Dulce bellum inexpertis (War seems pleasant from the sidelines) and the Querela Pacis (Complaint of Peace), where Erasmus advised princes to remember that “war is never worthwhile, no matter how just the cause” (p. ). On the issue of toleration, the most famous early modern work was a small anonymous Latin treatise entitled Concerning Heretics, whether they should be Persecuted (). Published in the wake of the burning of Michael Servetus in Geneva in , it was edited by Sebastian Castellio and consisted of writings by various authors, past and present, in support of toleration. Castellio included three selections from Erasmus on the subject, written in and . Erasmus saw toleration as essential to Christian peace and co-existence in Europe. Coercion only produced hypocrisy and feigned orthodoxy (p. ). In chapter , Bietenholz observes that Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly marked a significant change in his outlook—a new appreciation for the Epicurean tradition. The influence of Erasmus and his Epicureanism among seventeenth- century French thinkers is taken up in chapter . Michel de Montaigne shared Erasmus’s regard for Epicurus and Lucretius. “For Montaigne, as for Mistress Folly, Epicurean impulses do not lead to confinement in a system of philosophy but to a liberating way of life—a way of life in tune with nature” (pp. f.). The article on Erasmus in Pierre Bayle’s Dictionary () has been credited with making the Dutch humanist “the church father of the Enlightenment” (p. ). Jean Le Clerc’s edition of Erasmus’s collected works (–) promoted access to his writings, encouraged radical interpretations of Erasmus, and presented him as the trailblazer of the Enlightenment. The final aspect of Erasmus’s radical influence is his advocacy of “holy decep- tion” and techniques of ambiguity. Erasmus found models of dissimulation in Christ and Paul the apostle. In his speech to the Athenians in Acts , Paul exemplified pious manipulation of the truth as circumstance required, seek- ing to be “all things to all men” in order to win them to Christ (pp. f.). Erasmus’s views on the matter of concealing the truth were a comfort to crypto-Protestants in Italy and their practice of Nicodemism—participation in Catholic rites while holding to radical beliefs (p. ). The last two chapters examine “echoes of Erasmus” in seventeenth-century England and in early modern literary classics. Erasmus was a valued mentor to English figures such as John Locke, Isaac Newton, and John Milton. Erasmus’s influence on Milton was “all-inclusive,” evident in “their mutual commitment to toleration and pacifism, their loathing of superstition, in the preference for