[59] Notes Erasmus' Paraphrases, Anti-Calvinism, and the Seventeenth

Notes

Erasmus' Paraphrases, Anti-Calvinism,

and the Seventeenth-Century Debate about

by Gregory D. Dodds

in the last decades of Elizabeth I's reign, the doctrine of predes- tinationBeginning became an increasingly divisive issue within English society. Divines such as Antonio de Corro at Oxford and Peter Baro at Cambridge began a small but potent critique of Calvinist theological hegemony. Their opposition to the doctrine of predestination proved influential and contributed to a more widespread anti-Calvinist movement, later derided as Arminianism, during the first half of the seventeenth century. While there was significant variation among anti-Calvinists throughout the decades prior to the Civil War, in the mid-seventeenth century many of those opposed to Calvinism reprised Erasmus' bi-dimensional approach to the problem of predestination. On the one hand, they suggested that a belief in the freedom of the human will had biblical support. On the other hand, and more importantly, they argued that the entire topic was difficult, mysterious, and therefore an adiaphoron, or a nonessential tenet of faith.' By downplaying the centrality of the issue within a culture that was dominantly predestinarian, anti-Calvinists were, in essence, attempting to create a space for non-predestinarian thought.; Soon, however, the debate shifted from a theological debate to a controversy over history. What was the nature of the sixteenth-century English reformation? What type of church was established by Edward VI and Elizabeth I? It was obvious to most that Calvinism had become orthodoxy for the vast majority of English theologians, but how exclusively Calvinist was England?

'Nieholas Tyacke,Anti-CaLvinists: The Riseof EnglishArminianism, c. 1590-1640(Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1987), 29-86. Peter Lake,Moderate Puritans and theElizabethan Church (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1982), 201-4Z. ZE.g.,Lancelot Andrewes, XCVI sermons by the RightHonorabLe and ReverendFather in God, LancelotAndrewes (London, 1632), 18-19, 420,and 548. 'William Lamont writesthat "by declaring,in effect,predestination as a 'no-go area', Laud and his associatesachieved the sameeffect as if they had floodedthe market in the 1630swith Arminianapologetics." Arguing for silencewas not a religiouslyor politicallyneutral policy. See WilliamLamont, "The Riseof ArminianismReconsidered," Past and Present 107 (1985):230.

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As contentious as these questions were in the seventeenth century, they remain central questions debated by modern scholars.4 Overlooked in this debate is the importance of the English translation of Erasmus' Paraphrases for seventeenth-century anti-Calvinists. In order to support free will theology within the Church of England, anti- Calvinists argued that predestination was not an intrinsic part of that Refor- mation. Those who demanded conformity with Calvinist orthodoxy were thus seeking to change English religion. Calvinists, conversely, argued that anti-Calvinists, or Arminians, were upsetting the established religion of the English church. Therefore, in a sense, the debate was over whether Calvinists or anti-Calvinists were innovators. It was not easy, however, to prove that the establishment of English Protestantism was non-predestinarian, given the well-known positions of Luther, Calvin, and leading English reformers. Throughout the seventeenth century anti-Calvinists, therefore, turned to the English translation of Erasmus' Paraphrases on the New Testament as evidence that free will theology was an acceptable, perhaps even a central, component of English Protestantism. Royal injunctions by both Edward VI and Elizabeth I had required churches to own and display the English Paraphrases. Some Restoration Latitudinarians even claimed that the English Reformation, rather than being influenced by Luther or Calvin, was fundamentally Eras- mian in nature. Erasmus thus represented one of the few good historical arguments against the long-standing dominance of Calvinism within English religious culture. One of the first seventeenth-century writers to challenge Calvinism with Erasmus was Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester.5 Writing to his Calvinist

4Buildingon the workof PatrickCollinson, Nicholas Tyacke argues that there existedin Eliz- abethan and early Stuart Englanda Calvinistconsensus that wasdestabilized by the rise of En- glishArminianism. Subsequent work by PeterLake, Kenneth Fincham, Anthony Milton,among others,has substantiatedthe basicpremises of Tyacke'sposition. See Tyacke,Anti-Calvinists, and his essay"Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-revolution,"in Nicholas Tyacke,Aspects of EnglishProtestantism, c. 1530-1700(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 135-37; and Peter Lake,"Calvinism and the EnglishChurch 1570-1635,"in MargoTodd, ed., Reforma- tion and Revolution:Politics and Religionin EarlyModern England (New York:Routledge, 1995), 179-207.A minorityview initiated by PeterWhite maintainsthat there wasa broadspectrum of allowablebelief in Elizabethanand early Stuart religionand that free will theologywas a part of an Englishvia media.Peter White, Predestination,Policy, and Polemic:Conflict and Consensus in the EnglishChurch from the Reformationto the CivilWar (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1992). 5ThomasBilson, The surveyof Christssufferings for mansredemption and of hisdescent to Hades or Helfor ourdeliverance (London, 1604), 94,132, 233, 483.