Erasmi Opera Omnia, VI.5: Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (pars Prima). (Reviews).

P. F. Hovingh, ed., Erasmi Opera Omnia, VI.5: Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (pars Prima)

Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier, 2000. viii + 653 pp. $238. ISBN: 0-44-50281-5.

This first volume of Erasmus' annotations on the New Testament (first to be published but also first in the series of volumes on the annotations) is comprised of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The introduction and notes are in English, and though the editor is Dutch I found only three minor errors in the English of his introduction. Erasmus published five editions of his New Testament, each accompanied by his annotations. In his introduction the editor traces the development of New Testament scholarship excluding Erasmus during his lifetime, followed by the work of Erasmus from the time of his discovery of Valla's annotations on the New Testament in 1504 until he began publishing his own annotations in 1516. He mentions briefly the manuscripts of the New Testament used by Erasmus (leaving a full discussion of these to the editors of Erasmus' Greek and Latin texts (ASD VI.1-4, not yet published). But to the reactions, both positive and negative, to this first publication ever of a Greek New Te stament and annotations he devotes about half his introduction, summarizing succinctly the extensive work of Bludau, Rummel, Bentley, and others, and focusing primarily on the controversies. The editor's own more original contribution is to have attempted to "ascertain whether passages added later were reactions to criticism, and if so, from whom" (12); the results of this effort are to be found in the notes throughout. The major commentators on whom Erasmus relied are also briefly discussed, and they are clearly visible as well from the index where they are referenced for each appearance (acknowledged or unacknowledged) in the text. The introduction concludes with a listing of grammatical peculiarities of Erasmus' text, including misprints in the original published editions and their corrections, as well as spellings and forms of verb and noun endings adopted.

There are two especially useful features of this edition to which I would call attention. One is the biographical register at the end of the book, identifying the many persons -- living and dead -- with whom Erasmus interacted in producing his New Testament and annotations. They are brief, but useful and less cumbersome than turning to the Contemporaries of Erasmus and other reference works. The second, and more important, is the method of marking the text so as to identify what belonged to each of the five editions published during Erasmus' lifetime. The editor's method is both simple and effective. He marks with A, B, C, D, E the various editions (1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535, respectively) in the text, so that one can, for example, read from A until there is an interruption, then find the next A and so read the first edition continuously without taking one's eyes off the text (and similarly with all the other editions). This method is much less confusing than the one employed by the editors of the only vol ume of annotations yet to appear in the CWE (vol. 56 on Romans), where the reader must look constantly from text to note in order to determine what belonged to which edition. Having worked on the latter, I find our solution less satisfactory than the one used here and would much prefer to see this one employed in future volumes of the annotations in the CWE.

All the checking I can do reveals a well-crafted edition, current on scholarship, and worthy of the series in which it appears.