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Collected Works of Erasmus

Paraphrase on John, Volume 46

by (author) Desiderius Erasmus

edited by Robert D. Sider

translated by Jane E. Phillips

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
May 1991
Category
Renaissance, Religious, Reference
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802058591
    Publish Date
    May 1991
    List Price
    $139.00

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Description

Erasmus yearned to make the Bible an effective instrument in the reform of society, church, and the life of individuals in the turbulent world the sixteenth century. He therefore composed paraphrases in which the words of Holy Scripture provided the core of a text vastly expanded to embrace the reforming 'philosophy of Christ.' The Paraphrases were successful beyond expectation and were quickly translated from Latin into French, German, English, and other languages. This volume is the third Paraphrase to be published in the New Testament Scholarship series in the CWE.

 

In it Erasmus explores questions that have always been central to Christian self-understanding. Why is the cross folly to the wise of this world? In the Paraphrase on John, Erasmus hints broadly that the cause of human blindness lies in the arrogance of intellectual pretensions, the love of vain-glory, the lust for possessions, the fear of losing the supports that secure a comfortable way of life.

 

Perhaps nothing will please the reader more the portraits of the chief characters in John's Gospels. We enjoy the simplicity of the lowly woman at the well, we understand the complexity of the distinguished Nicodemus. Above all, we are captured by the portrait of Christ himself. Upon the stage Erasmus has here designed, Christ appears first in the humility of a lowly artisan from a despised country; only to the discerning does his glory flash forth from his mortality, a mortality vividly etched in the scene on the cross. But in the last pages of the Paraphrase on John, Erasmus sets before us in sharp dramatic contrast the resurrected Christ glorious with a radiant holiness.

 

Like Augustine in the City of God, Erasmus attempts to define the relationship between the two worlds in which the Christian lives - the heavenly and the spiritual, and the earthly and physical.

 

Volume 46 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

About the authors

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), a Dutch humanist, Catholic priest, and scholar, was one of the most influential Renaissance figures. A professor of divinity and Greek, Erasmus wrote, taught, and travelled, meeting with Europe’s foremost scholars. A prolific author, Erasmus wrote on both ecclesiastic and general human interest subjects.

Desiderius Erasmus' profile page

Robert D. Sider is the Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of Classical Languages at Dickinson College and an adjunct professor in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan.

Robert D. Sider's profile page

Jane E. Phillips is a retired professor of classics at the University of Kentucky and the translator of the Paraphrase on John and Paraphrase on Luke 11–24 in the Collected Works of Erasmus.

Jane E. Phillips' profile page

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