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Archive for Reformation HistoryAn international journal

concerned with the history of the Reformation and its significance in world affairs,published under the auspices of the Verein für Reformationsgeschichte and

the Society for Reformation Research

Board of Editors

Jodi Bilinkoff, Greensboro/North Carolina – Gérald Chaix, Nantes – David Cressy,Columbus/Ohio – Michael Driedger, St. Catharines/Ontario – Mark Greengrass,Sheffield – Brad S. Gregory, Notre Dame/Indiana – Scott Hendrix, Princeton/NewJersey –Mack P. Holt, Fairfax/Virginia – Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Tucson/Arizona –Thomas Kaufmann,Göttingen –Ernst Koch, Leipzig –Ute Lotz-Heumann, Tucson/Arizona – Janusz Małłek, Toruń – Silvana Seidel Menchi, Pisa – Bernd Moeller,Göttingen – Carla Rahn Phillips, Minneapolis/Minnesota –Heinz Scheible, Heidel-berg – Heinz Schilling, Berlin – Anne Jacobson Schutte, Charlottesville/Virginia –Christoph Strohm, Heidelberg – James D. Tracy, Minneapolis/Minnesota – Randall

C. Zachman, Notre Dame/Indiana

North American Managing Editors

Brad S. Gregory – Randall C. Zachman

European Managing Editor

Ute Lotz-Heumann

Vol. 104 · 2013

Gütersloher Verlagshaus

Archiv für ReformationsgeschichteInternationale Zeitschrift

zur Erforschung der Reformation und ihrer Weltwirkungen,herausgegeben im Auftrag des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte und

der Society for Reformation Research

Herausgeber

Jodi Bilinkoff, Greensboro/North Carolina – Gérald Chaix, Nantes – David Cressy,Columbus/Ohio – Michael Driedger, St. Catharines/Ontario – Mark Greengrass,Sheffield – Brad S. Gregory, Notre Dame/Indiana – Scott Hendrix, Princeton/NewJersey –Mack P. Holt, Fairfax/Virginia – Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Tucson/Arizona –Thomas Kaufmann,Göttingen –Ernst Koch, Leipzig –Ute Lotz-Heumann, Tucson/Arizona – Janusz Małłek, Toruń – Silvana Seidel Menchi, Pisa – Bernd Moeller,Göttingen – Carla Rahn Phillips, Minneapolis/Minnesota –Heinz Scheible, Heidel-berg – Heinz Schilling, Berlin – Anne Jacobson Schutte, Charlottesville/Virginia –Christoph Strohm, Heidelberg – James D. Tracy, Minneapolis/Minnesota – Randall

C. Zachman, Notre Dame/Indiana

Europäische Redaktion

Ute Lotz-Heumann

Nordamerikanische Redaktion

Brad S. Gregory – Randall C. Zachman

Vol. 104 · 2013


Mitarbeiter der Redaktion – Editorial AssistantDr. des. Christian Jaser

Humboldt-Universität BerlinInstitut für Geschichtswissenschaften

Das Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte erscheint jährlich in einem normalerweise 320 Seiten um-fassenden Aufsatzband und einem ca. 192 Seiten umfassenden Literaturbericht (Beiheft).Manuskripte aus Europa werden per E-Mail erbeten an Prof. Dr. Ute Lotz-Heumann, [email protected] (Postadresse: Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies, Universityof Arizona, Douglass 307, PO Box 210028, Tucson, AZ 85721-0028, USA). Manuskripte ausNordamerika werden per E-Mail erbeten an Prof. Dr. Randall C. Zachman, [email protected](Postadresse: 130 Malloy Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA). Eswerden nur Original-Beiträge aufgenommen. Es wird empfohlen, rechtzeitig vor Abschluss desManuskripts bei der jeweiligen Redaktion Merkblätter zur formalen Gestaltung der Beiträgeanzufordern. Besprechungsexemplare aus Europa und Nordamerika werden erbeten an Prof.Dr. Markus Wriedt, Institut für Europäische Geschichte, Abteilung für Abendländische Reli-gionsgeschichte, Alte Universitätsstraße 19, D-55116 Mainz.

The Archive for Reformation History appears annually in one volume consisting usually of320 pages containing the essays and a supplement volume consisting of 192 pages containingthe literature review.Manuscripts and communications concerning editorial matters originating in North Americashould be sent by e-mail to Professor Randall C. Zachman, [email protected]. His postaladdress is 130 Malloy Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. Manu-scripts and communications originating in Europe should be sent by e-mail to Professor UteLotz-Heumann, [email protected] (postal address: Division for Late Medieval and Re-formation Studies, University of Arizona, Douglass 307, PO Box 210028, Tucson, AZ 85721-0028, USA). Only original manuscripts are accepted. Authors’ guides for the preparation ofmanuscripts are available from either the North American or the European managing editors.Books, journal articles, and offprints for review originating in North America or Europe shouldbe sent to Professor Markus Wriedt, Institut für Europäische Geschichte, Abteilung für Abend-ländische Religionsgeschichte, Alte Universitätsstraße 19, 55116 Mainz, Germany.

ISBN 978-3-579-08464-0ISSN 0003-9381

Copyright © 2013 by Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh,in der Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH, München

Die Zeitschrift und alle in ihr enthaltenen einzelnen Beiträge und Abbildungen sind urheber-rechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzesist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfäl-tigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in

elektronischen Systemen.Satz: SatzWeise, Föhren

Druck und Einband: Hubert & Co., GöttingenPrinted in Germany

www.gtvh.de

Inhalt

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Christopher Boyd Brown, Erasmus against Augustine and Wittenberg: The Eccle-siastes and the De doctrina christiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Friedemann Stengel, Reformation, Renaissance und Hermetismus: Kontexte undSchnittstellen der frühen reformatorischen Bewegung . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Charlotte Methuen, “And your daughters shall prophesy!” Luther, Reforming Wo-men and the Construction of Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Margaret Arnold, “To Sweeten the Bitter Dance”: The Virgin Martyrs in the Luther-an Reformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Christopher W. Close, Estate Solidarity and Empire: Charles V’s Failed Attempt toRevive the Swabian League . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Ulrike Ludwig, Erinnerungsstrategien in Zeiten des Wandels: Zur Bedeutung derReformation als Generationserfahrung im Spiegel sächsischer Leichenpredigtenfür adlige Beamte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Bridget Heal, „Zum Andenken und zur Ehre Gottes“: Kunst und Frömmigkeit imfrühneuzeitlichen Luthertum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Federico Zuliani, I libertini di Giovanni Calvino: Ricezione e utilizzo polemico di untermine neotestamentario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

A. Katie Harris, “A known holy body, with an inscription and a name”: BishopSancho Dávila y Toledo and the Creation of St. Vitalis . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Chris R. Langley, “Diligence in his ministrie”: Languages of Clerical Sufficiency inMid-Seventeenth-Century Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Celeste McNamara, Conceptualizing the Priest: Lay and Episcopal Expectations ofClerical Reform in Late Seventeenth-Century Padua . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Editorial

Mit dem vorliegenden Jahrgang des Archivs für Reformationsgeschichte wird ein inden letzten Jahren sowohl auf europäischer als auch auf nordamerikanischer Seite er-folgter Redaktionswechsel endgültig abgeschlossen. Wir möchten deshalb die Gele-genheit ergreifen, unseren Vorgängern, Heinz Schilling als europäischem Herausgebersowie Susan C. Karant-Nunn und Anne Jacobson Schutte als nordamerikanischenHerausgeberinnen, für ihre herausragenden Verdienste um die Zeitschrift herzlich zudanken. Wir verstehen ihre langjährige erfolgreiche Tätigkeit als Ansporn und He-rausforderung, die Arbeit am ARG in ihrem Sinne und mit den gleichen hohen An-sprüchen an die wissenschaftliche Qualität der Beiträge fortzusetzen.

InKürze wird das Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte auch auf anderer Ebene in eineneue Phase seiner Geschichte eintreten: Die Leser des ARG werden mit Beginn desJahres 2014 die Möglichkeit erhalten, auch in elektronischer Form auf die Zeitschriftzuzugreifen. Das Gütersloher Verlagshaus wird mit dem Verlag de Gruyter zusammen-arbeiten und das Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte sowie den Literaturbericht unterwww.degruyter.com sowohl Einzelbeziehern als auch Bibliotheken online zugänglichmachen. Wir erwarten, dass auch die zurückliegenden Jahrgänge des ARG sukzessiveim de Gruyter Journal Archive verfügbar werden. Den Verlagsverantwortlichen, ins-besondere Diedrich Steen, danken wir sehr für ihr Engagement in dieser Sache.

Das Reformationsjubiläum im Jahr 2017 wirft bereits vielfältig seine Schatten vo-raus und macht damit deutlich, dass das Interesse der historischen und kirchenhis-torischen Forschung am Reformationsgeschehen sowohl in Europa als auch in Nord-amerika und in anderen Teilen der Welt ungebrochen ist. Als Herausgeber des Archivsfür Reformationsgeschichte möchten wir sowohl Untersuchungen zu den religiösen,spirituellen und geistesgeschichtlichen Ursprüngen der Reformbewegungen des 16.Jahrhunderts als auch Forschungen, die die protestantischen und katholischen Refor-mationen in einen größeren politischen, sozialen und kulturellen Kontext stellen,Raum bieten. Zugleich sieht das ARG es als seine Aufgabe, die „Weltwirkungen“ die-ser Prozesse, sowohl jenseits des 16. Jahrhunderts als auch jenseits Europas – nichtzuletzt auf dem amerikanischen Kontinent und in Asien – immer im Blick zu behal-ten. Dieses integrative Verständnis von Reformationsgeschichte, das sowohl den Pro-testantismus als auch den Katholizismus, sowohl kirchen- als auch allgemeinhistori-sche Forschungen einschließt, wird unsere Tätigkeit als Herausgeber leiten.

Ute Lotz-Heumann Brad S. Gregory – Randall C. ZachmanEuropäische Herausgeberin Nordamerikanische Herausgeber

Editorial

After a change in both the European as well as the North American editorship ofthe Archive for Reformation History in recent years, we would like to take thisopportunity to thank our predecessors for the excellent work they did as editorsof this journal: Heinz Schilling as European Managing Editor, and Susan C.Karant-Nunn and Anne Jacobson Schutte as North American Managing Editors.We are very much in their debt, and can only hope to maintain the high standardsthey set for the journal during their tenure as editors.

In addition to the change in editorship, there are further changes underway:The Archive for Reformation History will soon enter into a new phase of its pub-lishing history. We are delighted to announce that the Archive will be available inan online electronic form starting in early 2014. We are very excited about theways in which this will increase both the visibility and accessibility of the journal,and are confident that this will be of great benefit both to our contributors and toour readers. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, our publisher, has made arrangements withde Gruyter to handle the electronic version of the ARH, and we expect that oldervolumes of the journal will gradually be made accessible on the de Gruyter Jour-nal Archive website. We are grateful to all who have helped to make this impor-tant development possible, especially Diedrich Steen of Gütersloher Verlagshaus.

With the approach of the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation in2017, we are seeing yet again the abiding interest that the Reformation era gen-erates, both in Europe and North America, and more widely across the globe. Aseditors of the Archive for Reformation History, we are convinced that work on thereligious, spiritual, and intellectual aspects of the sixteenth-century reform move-ments as well as research into the wider political, social and cultural contexts ofthe Protestant and Catholic Reformations lie at the center of our understandingof this world-changing era. We are delighted to see the excellent scholarship thatexpands and deepens our understanding of these issues, even as the reach of theseinvestigations passes well beyond the sixteenth century and beyond Europe to theAmericas and Asia. We are also very encouraged by the fact that this scholarshipencompasses history and church history as well as scholarship on Protestantismand Catholicism. We look forward to bringing you some of the best of this scho-larship in the Archive for Reformation History, including the articles in this volume.

Brad S. Gregory – Randall C. Zachman Ute Lotz-HeumannNorth American Managing Editors European Managing Editor

Erasmus against Augustine and Wittenberg:The Ecclesiastes and the De doctrina christiana*

By Christopher Boyd Brown

John O’Malley describes Erasmus’ 1535 Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi as“a major monument – perhaps the major monument – in the history of sacredrhetoric,” whose “only rival is the De doctrina christiana of Augustine.”1 But the“rivalry” between Erasmus’ and Augustine’s works on Christian preaching is notmere literary emulation within a shared genre. Rather, Erasmus self-consciouslyopposes Augustine’s effort to displace rhetoric from its classical civic and moralfoundations before applying it in Christian teaching. Erasmus insists insteadupon the heroic ethical figure of the classical orator as the model for the Christianpreacher. The Ecclesiastes, published the year before Erasmus’ death, exemplifieshis mature coolness toward Augustine, animated in particular by his dismissal of aLutheran theology of preaching which drew on precisely those elements in Au-

* My thanks to Timothy Wengert and Robert Kolb for reading and commenting on draftsof this essay, and to James Hankins, who guided the earliest stages of this research. – Abbrevia-tions: Allen: Percy S. Allen et al. (eds.), Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, 12 vols.,Oxford 1906–1958; ARG: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte; ASD: Erasmus, Opera Omnia,Amsterdam 1969-; CCSL: Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, Turnhout 1953-; CR: Melanch-thon, Opera quae supersunt omnia, Corpus Reformatorum vols. 1–28, 1834–1860; CWE: Col-lected Works of Erasmus, Toronto 1974-; DDC: Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, in JosephMartin (ed.): CCSL 32:1–167; D. W. Robertson, (tr.): On Christian Doctrine, Indianapolis1958 (English translations are based on Robertson, modified by the author); Ecclesiastes: Eras-mus, Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi (1535), in Jacques Chomarat (ed.): ASD V/4 and V/5 (since the Ecclesiastes has not yet appeared in the CWE, English translations are the author’sown); Emerton: Ephraim Emerton, (ed.): Humanism and Tyranny: Studies in the Italian Trecen-to, Gloucester, MA 1964; ERSY: Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook; LB: Erasmus, Operaomnia, Louvain 1703–1706; LQ: Lutheran Quarterly, new series; LW: Luther’s Works: AmericanEdition, 59 vols., St. Louis, Philadelphia/Minneapolis 1957-; Novati: Francesco Novati (ed.):Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 4 vols. in 5, Rome 1891–1911; SM: Otto Clemen et al. (eds.):Supplementa Melanchthoniana: Werke Philipp Melanchthons, die im Corpus reformatorum vermisstwerden, 5 vols., Lepizig 1910–1929, repr. Frankfurt 1968; WA: D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kri-tische Gesamtausgabe, 61 vols., Weimar 1883-; WA Br: D. Martin Luthers Werke: Briefwechsel,18 vols., Weimar 1906-; WA TR: D. Martin Luthers Werke: Tischreden, 6 vols., Weimar 1912–1921.

1. John O’Malley, “Erasmus and the History of Sacred Rhetoric: The Ecclesiastes of 1535,”in: ERSY 5 (1985), p. 29.

gustine which Erasmus, using all the allusive techniques of humanist argument,rejected in his own homiletical handbook.

Erasmus was notorious already among his contemporaries for his preferencefor Jerome over Augustine.2 Nonetheless, Charles Béné was able to argue thatfrom Erasmus’ reading of the De doctrina christiana in the last years of the fif-teenth century until the end of his life, Augustine remained the “master of Eras-mus’ thought,” the seminal influence upon his Christian humanism,3 of whichthe Ecclesiastes was the mature fruit.4 Debora Shuger similarly described the Eccle-siastes as a work fundamentally “based on Augustinian theory but worked out infar more detail than in the De doctrina christiana.”5

Jacques Chomarat questioned Béné’s appraisal, arguing that Augustine servedErasmus rather as a convenient authority amid conflict with theological oppo-nents than as a primary source of Erasmus’ own conceptions – a conclusion re-flected in Chomarat’s annotations for his edition of the Ecclesiastes.6 Viviane Mel-linghoff-Bourgerie argues that the “complexity” of Erasmus’ relation to Augustineand his works ultimately exposes an “insuperable abyss” between the two.7

Hilmar Pabel has sought to qualify this negative judgment by pointing to Eras-mus’ frequent appeal to Augustine’s exegesis. Erika Rummel quantifies an eight-

10 Brown

2. Luther to Spalatin, 19 October 1516, in: WA Br 1:70, no. 71 (LW 48:23–25) and Eck toErasmus, 2 February 1518, in: Allen 3:211, no. 769 (CWE 5:291–2). Cf. Paul Oskar Kristeller,“Augustine and the Early Renaissance,” in: id., Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters, Rome1956, p. 367; Arnoud Visser, Reading Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of IntellectualAuthority in Europe, 1500–1620, Oxford 2011, pp. 34–36.

3. Charles Béné, Érasme et Saint Augustin ou influence de Saint Augustin sur l’humanismed’Érasme, Geneva 1969, p. 424. On Béné, see Bruce Mansfield, Erasmus in the Twentieth Cen-tury: Interpretations c. 1920–2000, Toronto 2003, pp. 86–88.

4. See James Michael Weiss, “Ecclesiastes and Erasmus: The Mirror and the Image,” in: ARG65 (1974), pp. 83–107; Robert G. Kleinhans, “Ecclesiastes sive de Ratione Concionandi,” in Ri-chard L. DeMolen (ed.): Essays on the Works of Erasmus, New Haven 1978, pp. 253–266;O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), pp. 1–29; Greg Kneidel, “Ars Praedicandi: Theories and Practice,”in Peter McCullough et al. (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, Oxford2011, p. 12; Peter Mack, A History of Renaissance Rhetoric, 1380–1620, Oxford 2011, pp. 98–102.

5. Debora K. Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric: The Christian Grand Style in the English Renaissance,Princeton 1988, p. 63.

6. Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme, 2 vols., Paris 1981, especially1:167–79. See Mansfield (n. 3), pp. 165–173. Chomarat’s notes in ASD 5/4 and 5/5 often citeCicero while neglecting a closer parallel in Augustine. See below, notes 71, 80, 126, 129, 132.

7. Viviane Mellinghoff-Bourgerie, “Érasme éditeur et interprète de Saint Augustin,” in Do-minique de Courcelles (ed.): Augustinus in der Neuzeit, Turnhout 1998, pp. 53–81, esp. pp. 56,74.

fold expansion in citations of Augustine in Erasmus’ Annotations on the NewTestament between 1516 and 1535.8 Yet such numerical assessments fail to dojustice to the allusive richness of Renaissance argument.9 As Timothy Wengert’sstudy of the exegetical dispute between Erasmus and the Lutheran Philip Mel-anchthon shows, the sharpest humanist polemic was often carried on throughtacit recasting of an opponent’s arguments in parallel treatments of the same sub-ject and pointed refusal to acknowledge an opponent by name.10

Erasmus was not, of course, ignorant of Augustine – his own edition of Augus-tine’s works appeared in 1527–28. Allusions to the De doctrina, as Béné shows,are woven throughout the fabric of the Ecclesiastes.11 Erasmus was aware that hewas treading over much of the same ground that Augustine had covered in de-scribing the formation and work of the Christian preacher. In the 1529 preface tohis edition of Augustine, Erasmus had praised Augustine for his “resplendent elo-quence” and incomparable “ability to teach.”12

Yet the limits of this encomium are shown by the Ecclesiastes’ refusal to followthe theological or rhetorical path to Christian eloquence that Augustine had laidout. Even where Erasmus is not explicitly critical of Augustine, his borrowingsfrom the De doctrina demonstrate a fundamental reworking or even reversal ofthe Augustinian program along Ciceronian lines. Erasmus assigns the Scripturesa subsidiary place in Christian preaching, gives primary emphasis to the moralvirtues of the preacher, and systematically assimilates Christian preaching notonly to the tropes but to the ethic of Ciceronian civil rhetoric. Though Erasmushad earlier written differently on some of these matters, his verdicts of 1535 mustnot be too quickly assimilated to his earlier works.13 The Ecclesiastes has been

Erasmus against Augustine and Wittenberg 11

8. Hilmar M. Pabel, “Twenty-second Annual Margaret Mann Phillips Lecture: The Author-ity of Augustine in Erasmus’ Biblical Exegesis,” in: ERSY 29 (2009), pp. 61–87; Erika Rummel,Erasmus’ Annotations on the New Testament: From Philologist to Theologian, Toronto 1986, p. 59.On Erasmus’ silence or dismissal of Augustine’s exegesis on such distinctive points as grace, thelaw, or original sin, see John B. Payne, “Erasmus: Interpreter of Romans,” in: Sixteenth CenturyEssays and Studies 2 (1971), pp. 16–23.

9. E. g., Chomarat, Grammaire (n. 6), 1:171. Cf. Mellinghoff-Bourgerie (n. 7), pp. 58, 60–61.

10. Timothy Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness: Philip Melanchthon’s Exege-tical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam, New York 1998.

11. See the tabulation in Béné (n. 3), pp. 443–446, affirmed by Jan den Boeft, “Erasmusand the Church Fathers,” in Irena Dorota Backus (ed.): The Reception of the Church Fathers in theWest: From the Carolingians to the Maurists, Leiden 1997, 2:539 f.

12. Dedicatory letter to Alfonso Fonseca, Allen 8:147, 150, no. 2157.13. E. g., Béné (n. 3) insists on the “Augustinian” continuity of Erasmus’ thought from the

Antibarbari onward; Manfred Hoffmann, Rhetoric and Theology: The Hermeneutic of Erasmus,

decisively shaped by Erasmus’mature criticism of the Wittenberg Reformation asrepresented by Luther and Melanchthon and its own appropriation of Augus-tine,14 and must, therefore, be understood in light of its differences, express andimplicit, not only from Augustine and from the Lutherans but also, in some cases,from earlier works by Erasmus himself.

I. THE DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANAAND CLASSICAL RHETORIC

Both Erasmus and Augustine were inheritors of the classical rhetorical tradition,whose authors did not merely catalogue rhetorical techniques but described theeducation, character, and role of the orator as the ideal statesman, combining inhis virtues eloquence and wisdom, Cato’s vir bonus dicendi peritus.15 The WesternMiddle Ages had treasured one side of this tradition, especially such prescriptiveworks as Cicero’s De inventione and Topica, and the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetoricaad Herennium. The fifteenth-century rediscovery of complete texts of Cicero’s Deoratore and Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria marked an epiphany in the knowledgeof the full ancient tradition and a watershed in the development of Renaissancehumanism.16

Augustine himself, educated in the later fourth century, had been conversantwith the broader Ciceronian corpus.17 At its outset, the De doctrina invites com-parison with Cicero’s Orator in undertaking a “great and difficult task.”18 Just asCicero had endeavored to describe the ideal orator,19 so Augustine at the conclu-

12 Brown

Toronto 1994, pp. 55–60, harmonizes the Ratio verae theologiae and the Ecclesiastes; Robert W.Scribner, “The Social Thought of Erasmus,” in: Journal of Religious History 6 (1970–71), pp. 3–26, is based solely on the earlier works.

14. On Erasmus’ simultaneous use and critique of Augustine’s DDC in the Antibarbari(ASD 1/1:35–138; CWE 23:19–122), see Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Christening Pagan Mys-teries: Erasmus in Pursuit of Wisdom, Toronto 1981, pp. 6–7. Cf. Mellinghoff-Bourgerie (n. 7),pp. 53–81.

15. Quintilian, Institutio, preface and 12.1; cf. 3.14.55; cf. H. I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et lafin de la culture antique, 4th ed., Paris 1958, p. 4.

16. James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, Berkeley 1974, pp. 357–363.17. Harald Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics, Göteborg 1967, pp. 553–569;

Maurice Testard, Saint Augustin et Cicéron, Paris 1958, 1:8–9, 189–192, 217, 2:27–29.18. “Magnum opus et arduum”: DDC 1.1.1 (CCSL 32:6); Cicero, Orator 10.33; see Ha-

gendahl (n. 17), p. 558. The CCSL edition reads onus for opus with the minority of mss. of theDDC; cf. De civitate Dei, 1.pref (CCSL 47:1).

19. Cicero, Orator 2.7; De oratore 1.6.20; cf. Quintilian, Institutio 12.1.1.

sion of his work can define his purpose as that of describing the ideal preacher:“the kind of man he ought to be who seeks to labor in sound doctrine, not onlyfor himself, but also for others.”20 Most of the specific rhetorical precepts thatAugustine presents are derived from Cicero. And like Cicero, Augustine seemsto insist on the union of eloquence with wisdom.

Yet the wisdom upon which Christian eloquence is founded, in Augustine’saccount, is not the virtue or prudence of the orator but the sound interpretationof the Scriptures.21 The simplest classical enumeration of the parts of rhetoric haddivided it into invention and elocution. Augustine recasts this distinction as onebetween the modus inveniendi – the proper exegesis of Scripture – and the modusproferendi – or Christian rhetoric.22 Exegesis replaces the classical systems ofrhetorical invention for the Christian preacher.23

The De doctrina christiana undertakes a transformation of classical oratoricalculture, not only by removing rhetoric from its civil context, but by “secularizing”it, stripping it of bombast and moral pretension alike.24 Eloquence, for Augustine,is neither inseparably united with virtue nor an inherently immoral seduction,but a neutral faculty, in medio posita.25 The Christian preacher for Augustine isnot the heroic man of virtue proposed by Cicero and Quintilian, but a man whoholds the teaching office as a servant of his fellows, not on the basis of his ownvirtue, but as a faithful interpreter of the authoritative Scriptural text.26 ThoughAugustine prefers that a Christian preacher should be a good man, whose life andteaching are in accord, nonetheless Augustine frankly admits that a wicked man


20. DDC 4.31.64 (CCSL 32:167).21. DDC 4.5.7–8 (CCSL 32:120–121); Hagendahl (n. 17), pp. 726–729.22. DDC 1.1.1, repeated at 4.1.1 (CCSL 32:6, 116); cf. Cicero, De oratore 2.27.120.23. David W. Tracy, “Charity, Obscurity, Clarity: Augustine’s Search for a True Rhetoric,” in

Richard Leo Enos et al. (eds.): The Rhetoric of St. Augustine of Hippo:De doctrina Christiana andthe Search for a Distinctly Christian Rhetoric, Waco, TX 2008, p. 275; Karla Pollmann, DoctrinaChristiana. Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Be-rücksichtigung von Augustinus, De doctrina Christiana, Fribourg 1996.

24. R. A. Markus, Christianity and the Secular, Notre Dame 2006, pp. 37–39; id., “Pagan-ism, Christianity, and the Latin Classics,” in: id., From Augustine to Gregory the Great, London1983, no. V. Cf. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, 2nd ed., Berkeley 2000,pp. 261–264; George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition fromAncient to Modern Times, Chapel Hill 1980, p. 159; Thérèse Sullivan, De doctrina Christianaliber quartus: A Commentary with a Revised Text, Introduction, and Translation, Washington, D.C. 1930, p. 4.

25. DDC 4.2.3 (CCSL 32:117).26. For literature on the DDC, see Duane W. H. Arnold, Pamela Bright (eds.): De doctrina

Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture, Notre Dame 1995; Enos et al. (eds.): The Rhetoric of St.Augustine (n. 23).

may nonetheless be an effective and salutary preacher if only he teaches in accordwith the Scriptures: “He who speaks wisely and eloquently, but lives wickedly,may benefit many students, although he is unprofitable to his own soul … theybenefit many by preaching what they do not practice.”27 In the context of thelong classical defense of rhetoric on the basis of the virtue of the orator, it is ashocking reversal. This aspect of Augustine’s work has seemed dangerous, “threat-en[ing] to sever efficacy from ethics altogether.”28 For Augustine, engaged againstthe Donatists as well as against the sophistic tradition, that was, nonetheless, pre-cisely the point.29

II. THE DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA ANDRENAISSANCE RHETORIC

Erasmus was not, of course, the first humanist to read either Cicero or Augustine.Cicero provided the humanists from Petrarch on with the model both for elo-quent imitation and for humane education: the cycle of disciplines at the core ofthe studia humanitatis are those recommended by Cicero in the De oratore.30 Au-gustine’s influence upon the humanists was more subtle. Although John Monfa-sani has denied the significant influence of the De doctrina on Renaissance rheto-ric, excepting only Augustine’s recasting of the Ciceronian officia oratoris toemphasize the munus docendi,31 Augustine had served as a model for generationsof humanists.

Though humanists like Petrarch were aware of Augustine’s criticism of ancientrhetorical culture in the Confessions,32 Augustine served them chiefly as a model of

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27. DDC 4.27.59–60 (CCSL 32:163–164): “Nam qui sapienter et eloquenter dicit, vivitautem nequiter, erudit quidem multos discendi studiosos, quamvis animae suae sit inutilis …multis itaque prosunt dicendo quae non faciunt.” Cf. 4.29.62 (CCSL 32:165–7).

28. Kneidel (n. 4), p. 7.29. On the relationship of the DDC to Augustine’s controversy with the Donatists, see Fre-

derick H. Russell, “Persuading the Donatists: Augustine’s Coercion by Words,” in William E.Klingshirn, Mark Vessey (eds.): The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thoughtand Culture in Honor of R. A. Marcus, Ann Arbor 1999, p. 125.

30. Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, New York 1979, p. 22.31. John Monfasani, “The De doctrina christiana and Renaissance Rhetoric,” in Edward D.

English (ed.): Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina Christiana of Augustine in the Middle Ages,Notre Dame 1995, pp. 172–188. Cf. Mack (n. 4), p. 28. Kristeller, “Augustine” (n. 2), p. 370,cites the DDC only once, in connection with Ficino’s notion of Platonic love.

32. Augustine, Confessions 4.2.2, 9.2.2, 1.17–19, 6.6 (CCSL 27:40 f, 133 f, 15 ff, 79 f ); cf.Petrarch, Secretum, in Opera, Basel 1554; repr. Ridgewood, NJ 1965, 1:383–384. See Carol

classical eloquence devoted to Christian ends and as a theorist justifying that ap-plication.33 In Petrarch’s De sua ipsius et multorum ignorantia, he praises the powerof eloquence in Ciceronian terms while calling on Augustine to defend its Chris-tian use.34 Cicero’s eloquence, he argues, is not harmful but exceedingly helpful tothe Christian. Augustine himself is an example of one who from Cicero “filled hispockets and his lap with the gold and silver of the Egyptians”35 – an allegory alsosupplied by Augustine (Exodus 3:21–22, 11:2–3; 12:35–36).36

In the next generation of humanists, Coluccio Salutati invoked Augustine andthe De doctrina not only to defend the (allegorical) reading of the classical poetsby Christians but as a model for the Christian’s use of culture in general.37 Salutatiquotes Augustine’s definition of eloquence as a neutral faculty and extends itsapplication to other kinds of verbal art.38 Augustine himself he invokes in termswhich identify him with Cicero: “Read AugustineOn Christian Doctrine where heseems to touch the heights of eloquence, and certainly you will find the Cicero-nian tradition renewed in the style of that great man.”39

Of all Erasmus’ predecessors, Lorenzo Valla most fully anticipated the range ofhis interests, applying humanist philological techniques to the New Testamentand writing on such religious questions as the freedom of the will and the sacra-ments.40 Fundamental to Valla’s humanism was the conviction that Christianitycould best be reconciled with the classical tradition on the basis of ancient rheto-rical culture.


Everhart Quillen, Rereading the Renaissance: Petrarch, Augustine, and the Language of Humanism,Ann Arbor 1998, p. 182 ff, and Jerrold Seigel, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism,Princeton 1968, pp. 31–62.

33. Cf. Albert Rabil, Jr., “Petrarch, Augustine, and Classical Christian Tradition,” in: id.(ed.): Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, Philadelphia 1988, 1:111.

34. On Cicero, see Seigel (n. 32), pp. 31–62; on the DDC, ibid., p. 45.35. Petrarch, De sua ipsius et multorum ignorantia, in Opera 2:1162. Translated in Cassirer et

al. (eds.): The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, Chicago 1948, pp. 114–115.36. DDC 2.40.60–1 (CCSL 32:75–76); cf. Origen, Letter to Gregory, in Henri Crouzel (ed.):

Grégoire le Thaumaturge: Remerciment à Origène suivi de la lettre d’Origène à Grégoire, Paris1969, pp. 188–191.

37. Salutati, Ep. 4.15, in Novati 1:301, 305 f; Ep. 14.24, in Novati 4/1:224, 228–229; tr.Emerton, pp. 292, 297–298, 359, 375. See Marrou (n. 15), p 413; cf. Monfasani, “De doctrina”(n. 31), p. 175, and p. 183, n. 33.

38. Salutati, Ep. 14.23, in Novati 4/1:204; tr. Emerton, pp. 340–341; DDC 4.2.3 (CCSL32:117).

39. Salutati, Ep. 4.15, in Novati 1:301; tr. Emerton, p. 292.40. Cf. Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Hu-

manist Thought, Chicago 1970, 1:103–170 and 2: 674–682; G. R. Evans, “Lorenzo Valla andthe Theologians,” in: Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 38 (1987), pp. 436–441.

Valla’sDe voluptate, with its surprising endorsement of Epicureanism over Stoi-cism as the philosophy closest to Christianity, may perhaps best be understood asa defense of the compatibility of Christianity and oratory.41 The discussion ofutilitas and voluptas there draws upon Augustine’s discussion of things to be usedor enjoyed in the first book of the De doctrina,42 and Valla portrays Christianrhetoric as the essential means of directing men to right use and enjoyment. TheChristian speaker, like Cicero’s (or Augustine’s) orator, must know how to teach,delight and move if he is to win his audience from worldly delights.43 This Chris-tian eloquence is sister to civil eloquence, but sweeter.44

Valla presents a more straightforward argument in the preface to the fourthbook of his Elegantiae linguae Latinae.45 Here, he refutes those who appeal toJerome to argue that Christians should shun secular eloquence. In a few para-graphs, Valla touches on many of Augustine’s arguments for the Christian use ofrhetoric. Rhetoric, grammar, and the languages are neutral in themselves, of greatuse when applied in the service of Christian truth.46 Valla reproaches Christiantheologians who dismiss eloquence: their obligation as defenders of truth is toogreat. The fathers of the church were eloquent, as was Paul himself.47 On all thesepoints, Valla takes the De doctrina as his guide in exhorting Christian use of clas-sical rhetoric.48

The De doctrina figured prominently also in other corners of late medieval andRenaissance discourse about Christian rhetoric and preaching. The medieval arspraedicandi tradition, which Erasmus both criticized and drew upon, also ap-pealed to the De doctrina.49 Within Erasmus’ lifetime, the Franciscan poet laure-ate Thomas Murner had published his 1509 De Augustiniana Hieronymianaque

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41. Seigel (n. 32), pp. 153–154.42. Trinkaus (n. 40), 1:114–115 ff.43. Valla, De voluptate 3.27.2, in Maristella Lorch (ed.): De vero falsoque bono, Bari 1970,

p. 137. Cf. DDC 4.13.29 (CCSL 32:136–7); 4.12.27 (CCSL 32:135); Cicero, Orator 21.69.Valla uses Cicero’s probare rather than Augustine’s docere.

44. Valla, De voluptate 3.27.3–4, ed. Lorch (n. 43), p. 137; cf. Seigel (n. 32), p. 159.45. Valla, Opera Omnia, ed. Eugenio Garin, Torino 1962, 2:117–120. Cf. Seigel (n. 32),

p. 154.46. Cf. DDC 4.2.3 (CCSL 32:117), above, n. 25.47. Valla, Opera (n. 45), 2:120; cf. DDC 4.6.10–7.21, 4.18.36, 20.39–21.50 (CCSL

32:122–131,142–143, 144–157).48. Contra Monfasani, “De doctrina” (n. 31), p. 175.49. Francis P. Kilcoyne, Margaret Jennings, “Rethinking ‘Continuity’ : Erasmus’ Ecclesiastes

and the Artes Praedicandi,” in: Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 21 (1997),pp. 5–24.

Reformatione Poetarum,50 drawing so extensively on the De doctrina that about athird of the book is simply a concatenation of Augustinian extracts selected toprove Murner’s thesis that only Christian rhetoric is truly eloquent – thoughMur-ner’s idiosyncratic work has prompted its most recent interpreter to conclude,finally, that it is a satire of both humanist and scholastic positions in contempor-ary debate.51 In comparison with the preceeding tradition, then, it is Erasmus’coolness toward the De doctrina and its author that requires explanation.

III. ERASMUS, THE ECCLESIASTES, ANDTHE DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA

Erasmus was certainly aware of Valla’s Augustinian defense of Christian use ofclassical rhetoric, having issued his own abridgement of Valla’s Elegantiae.52

Among Erasmus’ favored metaphors for his use of classical culture in the Enchir-idion – and a leitmotiv of Béné’s interpretation – is that of “adorning the temple ofGod” with pagan riches.53 Béné points to the De doctrina, where Augustine refersto the Israelites taking spoils from Egypt.54 But Augustine makes no mention oftheir eventual use in the temple – and Erasmus seems in the Ecclesiastes deliber-ately to avoid Augustine’s allegorization of the Egyptian spoils.55 Rather, Erasmus’image of adorning the temple is anticipated in Valla’s prefaces to the Elegantiae,where the Christian orator is exhorted, “Let us adorn the house of God.”56 Butbeyond and against the earlier humanist tradition in its embrace of Augustine’s“secularization” of the liberal arts, Erasmus insists from the beginning that all ofthe liberal disciplines “concern Christ.”57


50. Strassburg: Martin Flach, 1509.51. Irena Backus, “Augustine and Jerome in Thomas Murner’sDe Augustiniana Hieronymia-

naque Reformatione Poetarum (Strasbourg, 1509),” in Leif Grane et al. (eds.): Auctoritas PatrumII. Neue Beiträge zur Rezeption der Kirchenväter im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, Mainz 1998,pp. 13–25.

52. Epitome, ASD 1/4:207–332. On the debate over Erasmus’ use of Valla in his own Anno-tationes, see Mansfield (n. 3), p. 147.

53. Enchiridion 8.4 (LB 5:25; CWE 66:62); Cf. Enchridion 2 (LB 5:7; CWE 66:33).54. See above, n. 36; Béné (n. 3), pp. 138–139; DDC 2.40.60–1 (CCSL 32:75–76); Béné

(n. 3), p. 14, and index under “orner le temple du Seigneur.”55. Erasmus mentions an unspecified mystical sense of the Exodus passage in Ecclesiastes 2,

ASD 5/4:297, but in Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:110, otherwise parallel to DDC 2.40.60–1, Eras-mus does not refer to the Exodus. Béné (n. 3), p. 383, understands the passages simply as paral-lels.

56. Valla, Elegantiae IV pref., p. 120: “Nos ornemus domum Dei”; cf. above, n. 36.57. Boyle, Christening (n. 14), p. 20; Erasmus, Antibarbari, ASD 1/1:110 (CWE 23:90).

As early as 1519, Erasmus had been urged to turn the principles of the Enchir-idion to the problem of Christian preaching. The task occupied Erasmus inter-mittently for sixteen years, and the 1535 Ecclesiastes was arguably the culminationof his life’s work, the last book he saw published.58 Erasmus gives the expansiveplan of the work in his preface: “We have divided the substance of the argumentinto four books. In the first, we show the dignity of the preacher’s office and withwhat virtues he must be endowed. In the second and third we accommodate theteaching of the rhetoricians, logicians, and theologians to the use of preaching.The fourth as a sort of catalogue admonishes the preacher what themes he shouldseek from what places in Scripture.”59

Already the contrast with the De doctrina christiana is apparent. Augustine’swork, despite its allusions to Cicero’s treatises on the orator, had been organizedaround a division between the proper exegesis of Scripture and its communicationby means of Christian rhetoric.60 Erasmus, on the other hand, gives first place tothe role and character of the preacher. In the very titles of the works, Augustinedirects attention to Christian teaching; Erasmus’ to the Christian preacher,61 par-allelling in a Christian context Cicero’s Orator, De oratore, and De optimo genereoratorum.

When Erasmus does explicitly acknowledge Augustine as his predecessor, inthe second and third books of the Ecclesiastes, it is in guarded, often critical anddismissive terms. Near the beginning of the second book, Erasmus writes, “Let usgather certain of the precepts of the rhetoricians which seem appropriate to thepreaching office, which St. Augustine partially attempted [ex parte tentavit] in hiswork De doctrina christiana. Even if there were nothing left out of that book,nevertheless the requirements of a very different time demand that certain rulesshould be conveyed in more detail and, as it were, with a coarser Minerva.”62

Erasmus portrays Augustine’s discussion of ecclesiastical rhetoric as incompleteand ill-suited to the present. He therefore intends to treat the subject more fully, ifwith less artistic subtlety63 – a qualification which sounds a sarcastic note coming

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58. For a detailed outline of the Ecclesiastes, see Hoffmann (n. 13), pp. 39–55. On its historyof composition, see Weiss (n. 4), pp. 84–86; Kleinhans (n. 4), pp. 256–257; Chomarat, Gram-maire (n. 6), 2:1054–1056; Ecclesiastes 1, prefatory letter to Christoph von Stadion, ASD 5/4:29–30.

59. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:30.60. See above, p. 12–13.61. Gerald A. Press, “The Subject and Structure of Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana,” in:

Augustinian Studies 11 (1980), pp. 101–107.62. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:268.63. See Erasmus, Adages 1.1.37, ASD 2/1:152 ff (CWE 30:85–86).

on the heels of Erasmus’ criticism of Augustine’s style.64 More significant for Eras-mus’ reserve toward Augustine here than any quibbles about his Latinity wasErasmus’ own anti-Augustinian project to recover the Ciceronian ideal of theorator with all its moral and social connections and to apply it to the Christianpreacher.

Even on many of the minor points of connection between the Ecclesiastes andthe De doctrina catalogued by Béné, there is significant alteration or disagree-ment.65 Like Augustine, and often following him, Erasmus recommends a curri-culum of studies useful to the ecclesiastical orator, presents a system of rhetoricadapted to his needs, and describes his office. Cicero had undertaken a parallelproject in describing the ideal civil orator in the De oratore. Erasmus works fromboth models, reaccommodating Augustine to the Ciceronian pattern, not as aninadvertent “limitation” but as a central part of his program.66

The curriculum that Erasmus proposes in books two and three of the Eccle-siastes is the antique paideia of rhetoric and literature. Erasmus would have thefuture preacher study some dialectic and a smattering of other disciplines: astron-omy, geometry, natural history, law – included within grammar, the foundation ofrhetorical training.67 For Erasmus, knowledge of nature serves not only to eluci-date the obscure places in Scripture (as for Augustine) but also as a source of thepreacher’s own creative eloquence.68 Grammar also includes history and poetry,and above all knowledge of the three languages: Latin, Greek, and Hebrew,though Erasmus’ expectations for the preacher exceed Augustine’s own linguisticprogram.69

When the grammarian has laid the foundations of the student’s knowledge, hemust progress to the study of eloquence. Erasmus describes four means of acquir-ing eloquence: natura, ars, imitatio, usus.70 Like Cicero and Augustine, he is cri-


64. Erasmus calls Augustine felix et argutus in his preaching but criticizes him for beinginsufficiently serious, for his frequent digressions, and for his fondness for rhyming prose, attrib-uted to “the character of his race”: Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:268. See also Visser, Reading Augustine(n. 2), pp. 36–38.

65. Béné (n. 3), pp. 387–424, 444–446.66. Contra O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), e. g., pp. 19, 26, 28.67. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:256. Cf. DDC 2.39.58 (CCSL 32:72); cf. DDC 2.26.40–

2.40.60 (CCSL 32:61–74). On grammar: Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:252, ASD 5/4:258. Cf. Mar-rou (n. 15), pp. 3–26.

68. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:256; cf. DDC 2.16.24 (CCSL 32:48–9).69. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:248–258; cf. DDC 2.11.16 (CCSL 32:42).70. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:260. Elsewhere, Erasmus identifies only natura, praecepta, exerci-

tatio (p. 250) or natura, institutio, usus (p. 66). See Quintilian, Institutio 3.5.1 (not cited byChomarat); cf. Cicero, De inventione 1.4.5.

tical of extravagant claims for the effectiveness of mere precept and emphasizesthe importance of natural ability. Quoting Augustine anonymously, Erasmusnotes that rhetoric “is learned either quickly or never,” depending on natural en-dowment.71 Rhetorical precepts can, however be helpful to the ecclesiastical ora-tor,72 and – in contrast to Augustine – a great deal of the Ecclesiastes, in the secondand third books, is in fact devoted to presenting just such techniques.

Erasmus makes lesser claims for imitation than does Augustine.73 He wouldhave the future preacher listen to eloquent men, noting what is worthy of imita-tion. Demosthenes and Cicero are supreme models of language.74 Basil is firstamong ecclesiastical authors, followed by Chrysostom. Among the Latins, Eras-mus criticizes the obscurity of Ambrose and reproaches the Africanisms of Tertul-lian and Augustine in comparison with the Latinity of Jerome, who was unfortu-nately never engaged in preaching. Erasmus ends his catalogue with anexhortation “to seek an example from the best [writers].”75 Unlike Augustineand Valla, however, Erasmus’ list of models of eloquence excludes the Scrip-tures.76

Erasmus’ extensive discussion is thus much more closely bound to the tradi-tion of prescriptive rhetoric than is Augustine’s. Following closely the order of theAd Herennium, Erasmus begins by distinguishing the three genera of public speak-ing: forensic (forense), deliberative (suasorium), and epideictic or demonstrative(encomiasticum).77 Christian preaching belongs to the latter two genres, but espe-cially to the genus suasorium,78 whose special goal is to urge persuasively to good

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71. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:260; DDC 4.3.4 (CCSL 32:118). Augustine attributes the opi-nion to the “princes of Roman eloquence,” but the underlying passage from Cicero (cited exclu-sively in ASD 5/4:67) is De oratore 3.36.146, which speaks of the orator’s acquaintance withphilosophy, not with rhetoric. Cf. Cicero, De oratore 3.31.123. On ingenium, cf. DDC 4.3.4(CCSL 32:118); Cicero, De oratore 1.25.113.

72. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:250.73. DDC 4.3.4–5 (CCSL 32:117–119).74. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:264.75. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:268; cf. Cicero, De oratore 2.22.90.76. Erasmus does quote examples from the Bible in his catalogue of rhetorical figures in

Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:48 ff. Cf. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:280. See below, p. 21. Erasmus’ coolnesstoward imitation speaks against interpreting his understanding of the imitatio Christi in light ofrhetorical imitation: e. g., Hoffmann (n. 13), p. 139; Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Erasmus on Lan-guage and Method in Theology, Toronto 1977, p. 101.

77. On the tensions between Erasmus’ embrace of the classical genera here and his ownpractice and recommendations elsewhere, see John W. O’Malley, “Grammar and Rhetoric inthe Pietas of Erasmus,” in: Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1998), p. 91.

78. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:270–274. See the discussion of the genera in John O’Malley,“Erasmus” (n. 1), p. 22 ff.

morals. Whether or not such a concern exhausts Erasmus’ own full understandingof the philosophia Christi, it is central in his treatment of homiletics in the Eccle-siastes.79

Erasmus then discusses the three duties of the orator, taken from Cicero byway of Augustine (shown in the use of docere rather than probare): “Let the onespeaking see to it that he teaches, that he delights, that he bends [his hearers].”80

Teaching is fundamental and prerequisite to delight or persuasion,81 though Eras-mus’discussion of delight is chiefly a warning against the use of scurrilous jokes bymonastic preachers.82 Though he derives the notion of the three offices fromAugustine, Erasmus does not link them with the three styles, which he discussesonly briefly and rather critically later in the third book.83

Erasmus then distinguishes the parts of oratory, using the fuller five-part divi-sion instead of Augustine’s twofold structure.84 Like Augustine, Erasmus devotesmost space to inventio, but rather than Augustine’s exposition of a system ofScriptural exegesis, Erasmus abridges the system found in the Ciceronian Rhetor-ica, discussing the application of status to preaching and listing commonplaces forargument; in the third book, he suggests means of amplification and figures forornament, closely following the Ad Herennium.85

At the end of the third book of the Ecclesiastes, Erasmus turns finally to theinterpretation of the Scriptures, in the course of enumerating rhetorical tropes tobe used by the preacher. So far as it goes, Erasmus’ application of rhetoric toBiblical interpretation owes much to Augustine’s treatment in book three of theDe doctrina, as Erasmus himself acknowledges.86 His principle for identifyingplaces in Scripture which demand an allegorical understanding is similar to Au-gustine’s: “A trope is not to be sought, if the proper language has a pious andsound meaning, concordant with other places in Scripture.”87 He turns last to


79. See O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), pp. 24–26.80. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:274. Cf. DDC 4.12.27 (CCSL 32:135); Cicero, Orator 21.69.

On the use of docere as a mark of Augustine’s influence on Renaissance rhetorics, see Monfasani,“De doctrina” (n. 31), pp. 177–178. ASD 5/4:275 cites only Cicero here, though noting thealteration in vocabulary.

81. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:274. On the importance of the munus docendi, see Weiss (n. 4),pp. 97–99.

82. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:276–278.83. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:162–164; contrast DDC 4.17.34 (CCSL 32:141).84. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:279; Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:7. On Augustine, see above, pp. 12–

13.85. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4 p. 280 ff.86. DDC 3.29.40–41 (CCSL 32:100–102); cf. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:218, 260.87. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:182. Cf. DDC 3.10.14 (CCSL 32:86).

the Regulae of Tyconius discussed by Augustine and presents them in summaryform,88 though the similarities between certain of these and the Lutheran systemof Biblical interpretation seems to have tempered Erasmus’ enthusiasm, as hiscomments on the rule “On the Promises and the Law” suggest.89 Erasmus em-phasizes the spiritual sense of Scripture as moral interpretation that deliberatelyfocuses its attention on Christian life rather than on dogmatic speculation.90

The third book ends with a return to the person of the preacher in a discussionof the discretion and judgment which Erasmus, following Quintilian, requires ofthe orator.91 The preacher must apply these virtues in order to accommodate hismode of speech to his audience in substance as well as style – as “some,” clearlythe Lutherans, fail to do.92 The fourth book is a tabulation of possible themes(tituli) for preaching: an index materiarum, as Erasmus calls it – a tacit alternativeto Melanchthon’s loci.93

Much as Erasmus’ discussion owes to the De doctrina christiana, it divergesfrom it – and in part from Erasmus’ own earlier treatment of the subject – onthe very points that are central to Augustine’s description of Christian preach-ing.94 In the 1518 Ratio verae theologiae, Erasmus had defined the role of Scripturefor the theologian much more prominently. There, Erasmus began by emphasiz-ing the necessity for purity of heart in approaching the Scriptures, combined withthe use of humane erudition; the task of Scriptural interpretation was centralbecause Scripture provides the model for Christian life and piety: “Since thewhole doctrine of Christ intends for our life to be pious and holy, it is proper toderive the example for our actions from the divine books.”95

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88. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:282–286.89. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:282.90. E. g., the Ratio verae theologiae, LB 5:75–138. Cf. O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), p. 24;

Chomarat, Grammaire (n. 6), 2:1128; John S. Chamberlin, Increase and Multiply: Arts-of-Dis-course Procedure in the Preaching of Donne, Chapel Hill 1976, p. 74.

91. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:288–308, citing Quintilian, Institutio 3.3.5–6 (which has onlyiudicium).

92. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:306–308. See Weiss (n. 4), p. 95. Cf. Erasmus, De libero arbitrio,LB 9:1217–18, CWE 76:11–14.

93. Cf. O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), p. 24. See also Heinz Scheible, “Melanchthon zwischenLuther und Erasmus,” in August Buck (ed.): Renaissance – Reformation. Gegensätze und Gemein-samkeiten, Wiesbaden 1984, pp. 166–169; Wengert, Human Freedom (n. 10), pp. 59–60, andid., Philip Melanchthon’s “Annotationes in Johannem” in Relation to Its Predecessors and Contempor-aries, Geneva 1987, pp. 121–123.

94. Hoffmann (n. 13), e. g., pp. 61–63, 135, tends to interpret the Ecclesiastes as an expan-sion of the Ratio rather than attending to divergences between the two, though see p. 59.

95. Erasmus, Ratio, LB 5:105; Hoffmann (n. 13), p. 35.

Although in the first book of the Ecclesiastes Erasmus alludes to the preacher’srole as expositor of Holy Scripture and dispenser of the Word,96 in his treatmentof preaching itself in books two and three, Erasmus puts Scripture forward neitheras the chief source of the preacher’s material, offering a system of invention in-stead, nor as a model for the preacher’s eloquence, instead recommending theclassical orators and church fathers.97 The union between eloquence and wisdomthat Augustine founds upon the study of the Scriptures – as eloquent as they arewise – is thus severed.98

Erasmus warns the preacher not to reproduce the obscurity of allegorical pas-sages of Scripture in his preaching, appealing to Augustine.99 But for Augustine,the acknowledgement that Scripture contained obscure passages to exercise thereader was a caveat within his broader commendation of Scriptural eloquence asa model for the preacher. Erasmus’ hesitation to recommend the Scriptures is onlyperipherally concerned with their deviations from a Ciceronian standard.100

Rather, for Erasmus, as he asserted with increasing emphasis over the years follow-ing his dispute with Luther, Scripture has become a book that is not merely occa-sionally but fundamentally unclear and therefore an inappropriate model for imi-tation.101

For Erasmus, wisdom and eloquence are united not on the sacred page but inthe character of the orator. The same qualities of character which make the Chris-tian preacher a good man are the foundation of his eloquence: “That pure andperfect habit of mind will supply of itself a skill with words worthy of sacredthings, and an appropriate delivery, and fitting gestures, even to one who doesnot try to assume them.”102 Such a spontaneous link between wisdom and elo-quence Augustine attributes only to the Scriptures themselves.103

The disagreement between Augustine and Erasmus on Christian preaching


96. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:36.97. See above, nn. 74, 85.98. Cf. DDC 4.6.9 (CCSL 32:122). See O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), p. 22: “there is an

unresolved ambiguity in Erasmus … on this basic issue of the relationship between rhetoricand the text-relatedness of preaching, and … he does not address the issue in a satisfactory wayin the Ecclesiastes or elsewhere”; also Chamberlin, Increase and Multiply (n. 90), pp. 72–75.

99. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:260; DDC 4.8.22 (CCSL 32:131–132).100. Hoffmann (n. 13), pp. 132–133.101. Luther, De servo arbitrio, WA 18:606–609, LW 33:24–28; Erasmus, De libero arbitrio,

LB 9:1216; CWE 76:8–9; and Hyperaspistes 1.64–71, LB 10:1299–1308; CWE 76:214–235,cited in ASD 5/5:261. Erasmus’ continuing work on clarifying parapharases and annotations forthe New Testament does not at all contradict his rejection of Scriptural clarity.

102. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:247.103. DDC 4.6.10 (CCSL 32:122–123); cf. Horace, Ars Poetica 311.

thus goes much deeper than divergence on specific points of rhetorical precept.The details that Erasmus does draw from Augustine are placed in a radically newcontext as Erasmus assimilates the Christian preacher to the Ciceronian orator.The first book of the Ecclesiastes begins by making explicit the parallel betweenthe office of the preacher and that of the secular orator. In terms deceptively re-miniscent of the De civitate Dei, Erasmus distinguishes a duplex politia, “external”and “ecclesiastical,” each of which has its peculiar ecclesiastes, or public speaker.104

Unlike Augustine’s two cities, however, Erasmus’ distinction is merely institu-tional, for both are subsumed in the respublica Christiana.105 Civil and ecclesias-tical orators are not merely students of the same art of eloquence but look to thesame end, namely, the peace of the respublica, and hold the same office.106

To be sure, the Christian preacher, “the herald of the divine will before thepeople and steward of heavenly philosophy,” has an office as much more dignifiedthan that of the civil orator as Christ is greater than all earthly kings.107 But theclose parallel between the two justifies not only Erasmus’ embrace of the classicalsystem of rhetoric but above all Erasmus’ assimilation of the office, virtues, androle of the Christian preacher to those of the classical orator. Augustine hadsought to shift attention from the person of the orator to the source of his author-ity – the Scriptures correctly interpreted. Erasmus returns decisively to Cicero’semphasis on the speaker and his character. Thus, though the Ecclesiastes describesErasmus’ hermeneutical approach, it is, as the title suggests, focused primarily onthe formation of the interpreter (the ecclesiastes or concionator) and only seconda-rily on articulating a method of interpretation or of homiletics (ratio concionandi).

The object of the first book of the Ecclesiastes is to praise the office of theChristian preacher: “the dignity, the purity, the bravery, the usefulness, the rewardof the faithful preacher.”108 There is no greater charismatic gift than that ofpreaching, he writes, no office in all the hierarchy of the church superior in dig-nity.109 The preacher is compared in his vital role to the light, the rain, the dew.His office is superior to that of the king, who only restrains the wicked, whereas

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104. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:35–36.105. Scribner (n. 13), pp. 16–23. On the De civitate Dei, see R. A. Markus, Saeculum: His-

tory and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, Cambridge 1970, revised ed. 1988.106. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:36. Cf. O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), p. 26, where the association

is taken as evidence of Erasmus’ failure to “fully liberate … himself from the political model”;Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Rhetoric and Reform: Erasmus’ Civil Dispute with Luther, Cambridge,MA 1983, pp. 114–115.

107. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:36.108. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:246.109. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:36.

the preacher by his exhortation actually makes them virtuous.110 The dignity ofhis office should neither make the Christian orator proud nor cause him to des-pair.111

Erasmus praises the office in order to emphasize that the men who occupy itmust be of the highest character and ability. Erasmus would have a combinationof knowledge with intellectual and moral virtues, but the first and essential requi-site of the Christian preacher is a pure heart – an insistence central to Erasmus’conception of Christian preaching:112 “Whoever therefore is equipping himselffor such an excellent office as this, must be learned in many things: he must havea recondite understanding of the sacred books, an uncommon wisdom, a pureand brave spirit, instruction and practice in speaking and a ready fluency of ton-gue, with which to speak before the multitude. … Yet in my opinion, he shouldattend to nothing as more important or with greater care than that he shouldrender his heart, the source of his speaking, as pure as is possible.”113

Erasmus follows Cicero in using the common vocabulary of rhetoric and ofethics to assimilate the practice of eloquence to moral virtue – especially pruden-tia.114 Erasmus’ dicendi prudentia comprehends the fullest range of rhetorical con-siderations – “what should be said… when to speak, before what audience, how,with what words, in what order, with what figures of speech, with what facialexpressions, with what gestures”115 – but also such ethical ones as “judgmentand discretion.”116 For Erasmus’ Christian orator, dicendi prudentia is a gift ofthe Holy Spirit, completing the natural endowment, and identified with “a pureheart” or “integrity of mind.”117 Without this, all the other skills of the preacherare pernicious118 – recalling Cicero’s warning against imparting eloquence tothose who lack the virtues.119

Erasmus thus radically internalizes the source of the speaker’s authority. In-stead of Augustine’s emphasis on the content of preaching, based on a soundunderstanding of the Bible, Erasmus places the preacher’s knowledge of the Scrip-


110. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:168–169.111. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:220.112. Cf. O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), p. 14. See also Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:54, 68.113. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:44.114. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:66. Cf. Cicero, De oratore 3.14.55.115. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:67.116. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:270; cf. Hoffmann (n. 13), pp. 191–200; Weiss (n. 4), p. 97.

On Erasmus’ parallel discussion in the Antibarbari, see Scribner (n. 13), p. 10.117. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:68.118. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:68.119. Cicero, De oratore 3.14.55.

tures alongside various internal qualities, giving first place to purity of heart.120

For Augustine, to be sure, the character of the preacher had served to commendhis message to his audience;121 for Erasmus, it is necessary not only to set a moralexample but because without purity of heart, the Christian orator cannot hope tounderstand the Scriptures.122 “Divine wisdom does not enter a mind stained withvices, nor deign to dwell in a body subject to sin.”123 Erasmus goes still further toinsist that the effectiveness of preaching depends on the indwelling of the HolySpirit in the heart of the preacher: “Nor can the tongue of the preacher be effica-cious, unless the spirit of Christ, dwelling in his heart, moves the plectrum of themouth and adds a secret power to the words as they flow forth.”124 Augustinewould have smelled the perilous subjectivity of Donatism.125

It is true that Erasmus elsewhere concedes that a vicious preacher who preachesthe truth will do no harm to especially virtuous (aequiores) hearers. But this is not,as Chomarat characterizes it, Erasmus’ extension of the scholastic ex opere operatounderstanding of the sacraments to preaching; rather, Erasmus insists that theeffect of truth spoken by a wicked man is dependant on the unusually righteouscharacter of the hearers (in the terms of the sacramental discussion, an opus oper-antis).126 Erasmus is far from Augustine’s assertion that even a wicked man whoteaches what the Scriptures teach may be effective and beneficial to his hearersbecause of the truth that he preaches.127

Béné argues, nonetheless, that Erasmus owes his emphasis on the moral quali-ties of the preacher to Augustine.128 From the first book of the De doctrina, hecites Augustine writing that “the mind should be cleansed so that it is able to seethat light and to cling to it once it is seen.”129 Again, Béné invokes Augustine asthe source of Erasmus’ argument for the primary and indispensable importance of

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120. Erasmus’ identification of purity of heart as the scopus of the Christian preacher (Eccle-siastes 1, ASD 5/4:68) is an adaptation of John Cassian, Conferences 1.4.3, CSEL 13:10, thoughCassian (Conferences 1.20.5, CSEL 13:31) sees preaching as a distraction. Cf. Boyle, Erasmus onLanguage (n. 76), p. 75, where the quotation is associated instead with the Deventer school.

121. DDC 4.27.59–60 (CCSL 32:163–164).122. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:44. See Hoffmann (n. 13), pp. 89–91; Weiss (n. 4), p. 102.123. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:44. Cf. Wisdom 1:4, a reference not noted by Chomarat.124. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:42.125. See above, n. 29.126. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:184, likely has Augustine DDC 4.27.59 (CCSL 32:163–164)

in mind (both citing Phil. 1:17–18 and Matt. 23:2); the parallel with Augustine is not noted byChomarat, ASD 5/5:185, or by Béné (n. 3).

127. DDC 4.27.59–60 (CCSL 32:163–164); cf. 4.29.62 (CCSL 32:165–167).128. Béné (n. 3), pp. 381–382.129. DDC 1.10.10 (CCSL 32:12). Chomarat, Grammaire (n. 6), 1:170, rejects dependence

the virtue of the preacher.130 But in the first book of the De doctrina, Augustine isnot speaking of the Christian preacher in particular, but of the matter [res] whichis the subject of all Christian preaching. The mind of the Christian must bepurged not so that the exegete or preacher can understand the Bible, but so thatevery Christian can be admitted at last to the enjoyment of the beatific vision.Erasmus echoes Augustine’s warning against waiting for direct illumination fromthe Spirit instead of attending to the Scriptures, but immediately admonishes thewould-be reader of Scripture to purify his heart so that he may cooperate with theworking of God.131 When Augustine does refer to the piety required of the Chris-tian exegete, he means submission to the authority of the Scriptures, which then,as he studies them, reveal precisely how far he comes short of the love of God andneighbor which the Scriptures prescribe.132 It is to this stage that theDe doctrina isdevoted, preceeding rather than presupposing the purgation of the Christian’smind and heart.133 Erasmus’ transposition of Augustine’s description of the sub-stance of Christian preaching to refer to the necessary qualities of the Christianorator himself reflects the identification that Erasmus makes between the Chris-tian speaker and his matter.

Erasmus presses this point most strongly in the person of Jesus Christ himselfwhom he puts forward as the supreme model of the Christian preacher, summusille ecclesiastes,134 not merely because of his preaching during his earthly ministry,but because he is himself the Speech of God the Father. Erasmus had controver-sially translated the Greek logos in the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel as sermorather than as Jerome’s verbum.135 In the Ecclesiastes, Erasmus refers to Christ as


upon Augustine here, but the parallel between Augustine’s purgandus est animus and Erasmus’ utcor purgatissimum reddat strongly supports the connection (Béné (n. 3), p. 443).

130. Béné (n. 3), pp. 388–390; cf. Ecclesiastes 2, ASD 5/4:247 ff.131. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:107–108; cf. DDC, 1.pref.4–7 (CCSL 32:2–5). Weiss (n. 4),

pp. 90–93, points out the parallels between Erasmus’ discussion of God-given and humanlycultivated qualities of the orator in the Ecclesiastes and his discussion of grace in the Diatribeagainst Luther.

132. DDC 2.7.9–10 (CCSL 32:36–37). Erasmus does adapt portions of this passage inEcclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:288, which is not correctly noted by either Béné (n. 3, p. 445) or Cho-marat (ASD 5/5:289). Chomarat conflates Augustine’s insistence that the Scriptures teach char-ity (DDC 1.36.40 and 1.50.44; CCSL 32:29, 31–32) with Erasmus’ insistence that the Scrip-tures be loved.

133. DDC 2.7.10–12 (CCSL 32: 37–39); cf. the similar transposition in Ecclesiastes 1, ASD5/4:46.

134. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:36.135. Erasmus, Annotationes in Iohannem, ASD 6/6:29–34. Cf. John F. D’Amico, “Human-

ism and Pre-Reformation Theology,” in Rabil (ed.): Renaissance Humanism (n. 33), 3:372;Boyle, Erasmus on Language (n. 76), pp. 3–57, esp. p. 33.

“Verbum sive Sermo Dei.”136 Erasmus could appeal to a long patristic tradition;Augustine himself had compared the Incarnation to the act of speaking.137 ButErasmus goes a step further. Augustine had located the divine image in humanratio; Cicero (at least in his rhetorical works) claimed eloquentia or oratio as thefaculty which distinguished humanity.138 Erasmus combines the two, as nous andlogos.139 Ciceronian eloquence is thus set, in a Christian context, as the basis ofman’s resemblance to God,140 an anthropology that leaves no place for Augustine’sevaluation of eloquence as a faculty merely neutral.141

As with the Father and the logos, so, for Erasmus, the image of the humanspeaker’s mind is his speech, “a faculty than which man has nothing more marve-lous or more powerful.”142 The character of the preacher determines the contentand value of his speaking: “As is the heart of a man, so is his speech.”143 The goodor evil use of rhetoric is dependent upon the character of the orator: “nothing ismore healthful than speech which procedes from a healthy and pious mind …

nothing more harmful than the talk breathed forth by a heart corrupted and in-fected by ungodly thoughts, base desires, and vice.”144 Erasmus christianizes theclassical ideal of the vir bonus dicendi peritus.145

Erasmus’ theological analysis of the spiritual virtues of the Christian preacherand his adoption of the “political and moralistic” models of the Roman oratoricaltradition do not, therefore, merely coexist, but are intimately related.146 For Au-gustine, what ultimately matters is not the sapientia of the preacher considered asan internal quality, but that the preacher speak sapienter, a matter of reliance onthe external words of the Scriptures.147 Though Erasmus, too, offers instruction

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136. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:37.137. DDC 1.13.12 (CCSL 32:13).138. DDC 1.22.20 (CCSL 32:16); Cicero, De inventione 1.4.5; cf. Cicero, De oratore

1.8.32–3.139. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:40.140. See Boyle, Erasmus on Language, (n. 76), pp. 39–42.141. According to Béné’s tables (n. 3, p. 433 ff ), Erasmus never refers to the relevant passage

(DDC 4.2.3, CCSL 32:117).142. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:40; cf. Boyle, Christening (n. 14), p. 7.143. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:42. Erasmus shifts the Biblical language (Matt. 12:34; Luke

6:45) from the heart’s possession of a treasure to the quality of the heart itself.144. Ecclesiastes 1, ASD 5/4:42; cf. Isocrates, Antidosis 255; Boyle, Erasmus on Language

(n. 76), p. 40.145. Cf. Hoffmann (n. 13), p. 91, citing Erasmus’ quotation of Cato’s maxim in Apologia

contra Latomi dialogum, LB 9:90; CWE 71:55; see above, n. 15.146. Contra O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), p. 19.147. DDC 4.5.7–8 (CCSL 32:120–121).

for the preacher in Biblical interpretation, for him the Christian orator was fun-damentally the man of pure heart from which pure speech would flow. The Ci-ceronian orator, with his union of virtue and eloquence, is baptized as the Chris-tian preacher.148

IV. AUGUSTINE, THE ECCLESIASTES ANDTHE WITTENBERG REFORMATION

The mostly silent but omnipresent rivalry between Erasmus and Augustine in theEcclesiastes parallels the rivalry between Erasmus and the Wittenberg reformerscarried out on the same pages. Not only Erasmus’ admonition for prudence inteaching about the abrogation of the law and about justification by faith wasdirected against Lutheran teaching.149 Selective silence could be the strongest po-lemic.150

Erasmus’ joint conflict with Augustine and with Wittenberg in the Ecclesiasteswas not due simply to Augustine’s general prominence in the Wittenberg Refor-mation.151 To be sure, Luther could identify his theology with Augustine’s,though he was elsewhere aware of divergences.152 Melanchthon ascribed toLuther a comprehensive knowledge of Augustine’s works and hailed Augustineas one who in substance agreed with theWittenberg theology, to which Augustinehimself had shown the way.153


148. Cf. Boyle’s interpretation of Erasmus’ Christian humanism in Christening (n. 14).149. Ecclesiastes 3, ASD 5/5:306–307.150. See Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History

of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe, New Haven, London 1980, p. 293. On the Ecclesiastes’silence about justification as “the central issue of Christianity,” see Kleinhans (n. 4), p. 261. Cf.Wengert, Human Freedom (n. 10).

151. See Heiko A. Oberman, “Headwaters of the Reformation: Initia Lutheri – Initia Refor-mationis,” in id.: The Dawn of the Reformation, Edinburgh 1986, pp. 65–83; Bernhard Lohse,“Zum Wittenberger Augustinismus: Augustins Schrift De spiritu et littera in der Auslegung beiStaupitz, Luther und Karlstadt,” in Kenneth Hagen (ed.): Augustine, the Harvest, and Theology(1300–1650): Essays Dedicated to Heiko Augustinus Oberman in Honor of His Sixtieth Birthday,Leiden 1990, pp. 89–109; Hans-Ulrich Delius, Augustin als Quelle Luthers: Eine Materialsamm-lung, Berlin 1984; on Melanchthon, see Timothy J. Wengert, “Philip Melanchthon and Augus-tine of Hippo,” in: LQ 22 (2009), pp. 249–267.

152. Luther to Johannes Lang, 18 May 1517, WA Br 1:98 f, no. 41 (LW 48:41–42); cf.Preface to the Latin Writings, WA 54:186 (LW 34:337).

153. Melanchthon, preface to the second volume of the Wittenberg edition of Luther’sworks (1546), CR 6:159; id., Declamatio de vita Augustini (1539), CR 11:454; cf. CR 6:167.

The De doctrina itself was an acknowledged but, at least on the face of it,relatively minor presence in Wittenberg. Luther’s early (ca. 1509) marginal noteson the De doctrina are not especially copious, though they attend particularly toAugustine’s appreciation of rhetoric.154 Luther’s explicit references to the De doc-trina elsewhere appeal chiefly to Augustine’s exegetical rules or his distinctionsbetween things and signs, use and enjoyment.155 In a 1537 academic address,however, Luther returns to Augustine’s defense of Christian rhetoric precisely inthe context of distinguishing the power of the Word from natural human wis-dom.156 There is some evidence that the Wittenberg reformers may have envi-sioned their own edition of the De doctrina, though none was ever in fact pro-duced.157 Perhaps most significant to the Wittenberg Reformation, however, isAugustine’s influence on Luther’s response to the “Enthusiasts,” who rejectedthe merely external Word in favor of the direct operation of the Spirit, by way ofAugustine’s insistence in the De doctrina that God, who could have done every-thing through angels, has nonetheless willed to give his word to human beingsthrough other human beings.158

Melanchthon’s use of the De doctrina was usually tacit.159 Nonetheless, it ex-ercised a determinative influence on his articulation of Lutheran homiletics alonglines distinct from those of Erasmus.160 Prominent among Melanchthon’s bor-

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154. WA 9:11–12.155. See the list of citations, WA 56:39. On signs and things, see Last Words of David

(1543), WA 54:63 (LW 15:308); on allegory, see Lectures on Galatians (1519), WA 2:551(LW 27:311 f.); Lectures on Genesis (1542), WA 43:662 (LW 5:88); on study of languages, TheAdoration of the Sacrament (1523), WA 11:455 f (LW 36:304); To the Councilmen of Germany(1524), WA 15:40 (LW 45:362–363); A Sermon on Keeping Children in School (1530), WA 30/2:547 (LW 46:232)

156. Oratio Lutheri composita in promotione Petri Palladii, WA 39/1:261–2, summarizingDDC 4.2.3 (CCSL 32:117).

157. The Wittenberg copy of Erasmus’ Opera Omnia Augustini, described by Peter Way, “A‘Lutheran’ Copy of Erasmus’ Edition of St. Augustine,” in: LQ 14 (2000), pp. 373–408, isespecially heavily annotated in vol. 9, containing the De doctrina as well as the De spiritu etlittera. Luther’s preface to the first intended volume, an edition of Augustine’sDe spiritu et littera,is edited in WA Br 12:387–388, no. 4306 (LW 60:35–44), and envisions more to come: “unumet alterum libellum S. Augustini edere.”

158. DDC 1.pref.6 (CCSL 32:4); DDC 4.16.33 (CCSL 32:141). For suggestive parallels,see, e. g., Luther, Lectures on Zechariah, WA 23:513 (LW 20:171); sermon of April 12, 1523,WA 11:95 (LW 69:335); Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, WA 47:228 (LW 22:527). Cf. n. 171.

159. Melanchthon, e. g., does not refer explicitly to the DDC in his 1539 oration on Augus-tine (CR 11:446–55), though the emphases on Augustine as a student of the liberal arts andpreacher of Christian doctrine reflect that work.

160. Melanchthon’s homiletical works are edited by P. Drews and F. Cohrs in SM 5/2. Mon-

rowings from Augustine was his development of the genus didacticum from Au-gustine’s definition of the teaching office of the orator.161 But Augustine’s influ-ence on Melanchthon went much further. Melanchthon had begun, in his DeRhetorica of 1519, with an Erasmian attempt to assimilate preaching to classicalcivil rhetoric around the common goal of moral reform.162 He adopted, and con-tinued to use, Erasmus’ classicizing nomenclature for the sermon and the preach-er (concio/concionator).163 But over the course of the 1520s, Melanchthon di-verged from Erasmus in separating the discussion of homiletics from civilrhetoric in a way parallel to Augustine’s approach in theDe doctrina. The preacherand the orator make use of many (though not all) of the same rhetorical techni-ques, but their duties and roles are fundamentally distinct.164 That distinction ismanifest particularly in Melanchthon’s increasing distancing of preaching fromthe classical genera, with the addition of the genus didacticum as only a first step.Finally, like Augustine, Melanchthon sets aside the division into genera as inap-propriate for preaching, instead conflating the genera of sermons with the officiaor munera of the preacher.

In his 1529 De officiis concionatoris, Melanchthon identified the two officia ofthe preacher as teaching and exhortation and then discussed the genera of sermonsin light of these duties. He not only rejects the forensic and demonstrative generaas inappropriate for preaching but in particular criticizes the overreliance of pre-Reformation preachers on the deliberative genus paraeneticum, dealing with mor-als rather than faith.165 Though Melanchthon does not entirely reject the delib-


fasani’s verdict (“De doctrina” [n. 31], p. 176), that Melancthon’s homiletics never “mentionAugustine, let alone show signs of his direct influence,” must be rejected. Uwe Schnell, Diehomiletische Theorie Philipp Melanchthons, Berlin 1968, identifies the chief features of Melanch-thon’s homiletics but relates them only generally to the DDC, e. g., p. 77. O’Malley, “Erasmus”(n. 1), pp. 223–224, 227–228, compares Melanchthon’s homiletics and the Ecclesiastes.

161. Monfasani, “De doctrina” (n. 31), p. 180. Melanchthon was influenced here by Ru-dolph Agricola’s discussion of the Augustinian officia oratoris in the De inventione dialectica: seeibid., pp. 178–79. The genus didacticum appears in Melanchthon’s general treatments of rhetoricas well: Elementa Rhetorices, CR 13:421.

162. Melanchthon, De rhetorica (1519); see Schnell (n. 160), pp. 60–63.163. O’Malley, “Erasmus” (n. 1), pp. 15–16.164. Schnell (n. 160), pp. 74–75.165. Melanchthon, De officiis concionatoris (1529), SM 5/2:6–7. Cf. Augustine’s criticism of

epideictic in DDC 4.25.55 (CCSL 32:160–161). On its cultivation by Italian preachers, seeJohn W. O’Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome: Rhetoric and Reform in the SacredOrators of the Papal Court, c. 1450–1521, Durham, N. C. 1979. Melanchthon elsewhere ac-knowledges the genus iudiciale as appropriate for theological disputes, e. g., in Paul’s Epistle tothe Romans: see Timothy J. Wengert, “Melanchthon’s Interpretation of the Pauline Epistles,” inR. Ward Holder (ed.): A Companion to Paul in the Reformation, Leiden 2009, pp. 149–155, and

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