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Posts: 3154
Apr 26 09 4:29 PM
XrcTim wrote: he was warned not to pursue the text issue since Rome's position was and is the Latin Vulgate which I believe that Erasmus rejected.
Eugene Rice maintained that "Erasmus grew up in an environment of devotion to St. Jerome" (Saint Jerome, p. 116). This admiration is clearly evident in Erasmus's book on the Life of Saint Jerome. Jerome, translator of the Vulgate, was the favorite church father of Erasmus (Who's Who in Christian History, p. 235). McGrath affirmed that Jerome was "Erasmus' favourite patristic writer" (Reformation Thought, p. 57). Sowards wrote: "It seems clear, that from beginning to end, Erasmus's personal favorite among the Christian fathers was St. Jerome" (Desiderius Erasmus, p. 139). B. Hall commented: "For Erasmus, Jerome was the ideal of the true theologian" (Dorey, Erasmus, p. 84). Rice cited Erasmus as writing Pope Leo X that Jerome is "chief among the theologians of the Latin world" (Saint Jerome, p. 118). William Woodward noted that "Jerome represented for Erasmus all that was most learned, sober, eloquent in Christian theology" (Desiderius Erasmus, p. 22). Rummel wrote: "In the Annotations Erasmus made comprehensive use of Jerome's writings, citing them for background information, to support emendations, to discuss suitable translations for individual words, and to put them into the proper theological context" (Erasmus' Annotations, p. 54). Rice pointed out that when some other writers championed Augustine over Jerome that "Erasmus continued to champion Jerome" (Saint Jerome, p. 137).
In his defense of his revision of the Latin New Testament, Erasmus wrote: "As I do not uproot the old version, but by publishing a revision of it make it easier for us not only to possess it in a purer form but to understand it better" (Worth, Bible Translations, p. 63). Rice noted that Erasmus agreed with Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples and Paul of Middleburg that the Latin Bible in common use in their day had readings that Jerome said he had corrected (Saint Jerome, p. 178). Richard Rolt pointed out that Erasmus wrote Pope Leo X that his design was not "to contradict the vulgar Latin, but to correct the faults that had crept into it" (Lives, p. 39). Boyle confirmed that Erasmus "disclaims any intention to rival the publicly read version of the text" (Erasmus on Language, p. 12). M. A. Screech observed that "Erasmus' starting-point was the Vulgate, and his goal was a scholarly revision of it" (Reeve, Annotations, p. xii). David Daniell noted: "Erasmus's chief aim was to correct the Vulgate; to make a new Latin text from the Greek that would avoid, and correct, the Vulgate's many mistakes" (William Tyndale, p. 60).
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