Page 238 - Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible Christianity. Based on the King James Bible

ERASMUS

1 Timothy 3:2 (on the husband of one wife)—‘Other When Erasmus published this work, at the dawn, so to
qualifications are laid down by St. Paul as required for say, of modern times, he did not see all its scope. Had
a bishop’s office, a long list of them. But not one at he foreseen it, he would perhaps have recoiled in
present is held essential, except this one of abstinence alarm. He saw indeed that there was a great work to
from marriage. Homicide, parricide, incest, piracy, be done, but he believed that all good men would
sodomy, sacrilege, these can be got over, but marriage unite to do it with common accord. ‘A spiritual temple
is fatal. There are priests now in vast numbers, must be raised in desolated Christendom,’ said he. ‘The
enormous herds of them, seculars and regulars, and it mighty of this world will contribute towards it their
is notorious that very few of them are chaste. The great marble, their ivory, and their gold; I who am poor and
proportion fall into lust and incest, and open humble offer the foundation stone,’ and he laid down
profligacy. It would surely be better if those who before the world his edition of the Greek Testament.
cannot contain should be allowed lawful wives of their Then glancing disdainfully at the traditions of men, he
own, and so escape this foul and miserable pollution.’ said: ‘It is not from human reservoirs, fetid with
Such are extracts from the reflections upon the stagnant waters, that we should draw the doctrine of
doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church which salvation; but from the pure and abundant streams
were launched upon the world in the notes to the N.T. that flow from the heart of God.’
by Erasmus, some on the first publication, some added And when some of his suspicious friends spoke to him
as edition followed edition. They were not thrown out of the difficulties of the times, he replied: ‘If the ship of
as satires, or in controversial tracts or pamphlets. They the church is to be saved from being swallowed up by
were deliberate accusations attached to the sacred text, the tempest, there is only one anchor that can save it:
where the religion which was taught by Christ and the it is the heavenly word, which, issuing from the bosom
Apostles and the degenerate superstition which had of the Father, lives, speaks, and works still in the
taken its place could be contrasted side by side. gospel.’
Nothing was spared; ritual and ceremony, dogmatic These noble sentiments served as an introduction to
theology, philosophy, and personal character were tried those blessed pages which were to reform England
by what all were compelled verbally to acknowledge to (D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation, Vol. V, pp.
be the standard whose awful countenance was now 153-156).
practically revealed for the first time for many
centuries. Bishops, seculars, monks were dragged out These, my friends, are not the sentiments of a mere
to judgment, and hung as on a public gibbet, in the “Roman Catholic humanist.”
light of the pages of the most sacred of all books, The Greek Editors Who Revised Erasmus’s Text Were
published with the leave and approbation of the Protestant, Bible-Believing Men
[pope] himself. It is important to note that the men who followed
Never was volume more passionately devoured. A Erasmus in the work of producing editions of the Greek
hundred thousand copies were soon sold in France N.T. and from whose editions most of the translations of
alone. The fire spread, as it spread behind Samson’s the Protestant Reformation were made, were strong,
foxes in the Philistines’ corn. The clergy’s skins were
tender from long impunity. They shrieked from pulpit Bible-believing men. It must be kept in the mind that it
and platform, and made Europe ring with their was through the work of these men, of whom there can
clamour.... be no doubt that they were separated, persecuted
The words of the Bible have been so long familiar to us Protestants, that the Textus Receptus was perfected. It is
that we can hardly realize what the effect must have upon their Greek texts, and not directly upon that of
been when the Gospel was brought out fresh and Erasmus, that the KJV was based.
visible before the astonished eyes of mankind (J.A. Theodore Beza, for example, “was one of the leading
Froude, Life and Letters of Erasmus, pp. 119-127). advisors to the Huguenots [separatist N.T. Christians] in
I don’t know of any humanists today who have France. He participated in their conferences and
written anything like the words of Erasmus, because defended the purity of the Reformed faith. He produced
humanists today don’t believe the Bible. Erasmus was new versions of the Greek and Latin N.T., a source for
definitely not a humanist in the modern definition of the the Geneva and King James Bibles … Under his
term, and it is wrong for proponents of modern versions leadership Geneva became the centre of Reformed
to identify him as such without clarification. It is also Protestantism” (Lion’s History of Christianity, p. 382).
clear that Erasmus was not your ordinary Roman It could be mentioned here that the Geneva Bible
Catholic; he might not have been a Protestant, but he contained notes which were unhesitatingly anti-
certainly was a protester! Catholic.
Erasmus’ Attitude toward the Bible Of Robert Stephanus, whose third edition of the
Historian J.H. Merle D’Aubigne tells us what Erasmus Greek N.T. is commonly regarded as the Textus Receptus
had in mind with his edition of the Greek N.T.: in Britain, we read: “In 1523 he published a Latin N.T.,

238 Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity