Erasmus; His Life, Works and Influence.

Augustijn's biography, which originally appeared in German (1986) and subsequently in an English translation (1991), has now become available in paperback. Erasmus is the intellectual gateway to northern humanism, and Augustijn's book provides an excellent introduction to his life and career for non-specialists.

The first chapter supplies the historical background that allows the general reader to appreciate the significance of Erasmus's ideas. After sketching the humanist's early life and education, Augustijn traces Erasmus's career, illustrating his essential concerns and achievements: the studia humanitatus, to which he contributed anthologies and textbooks; the philosophia Christi, which he expounded through such diverse media as the homiletic Handbook of the Christian Soldier and the satirical Praise of Folly; pacifism, which found its most profound expression in the Complaint of Peace and pervades the protreptic Education of a Christian Prince; and biblical humanism, which applied philological methods to patristic and scriptural texts, culminating in Erasmus's bilingual, annotated edition of the New Testament.

The central theme of Augustijn's book, however, is Erasmus's engagement with the Reformation. Two chapters ("The Luther Question" and "The Dispute on the Freedom of the Will") are devoted to clarifying Erasmus's relationship with Luther; a third ("Between Scylla and Charybdis") describes his maneuvering between the fronts and the attacks he sustained from both the Protestant and the Catholic camps. One of Erasmus's most widely disseminated and certainly most notorious works, the Colloquies, is discussed in a separate chapter but in the same context. Its liberal discussion of social and religious issues made the book anathema to both parties, a target for the Sorbonne as well as for Luther, who castigated it for its "godless view."

Augustijn's biography focuses on Erasmus the reformer more than Erasmus the man of letters. Indeed, the author identifies the biblical humanists as "the particular group to which Erasmus belonged" and the integration of the humanist method into theology as his "essential contribution to the culture of his time" (6). Another of Augustijn's stated concerns is to present his own findings in a historiographical context. Accordingly, he surveys modern approaches in the introduction and discusses the perceptions of Erasmus's contemporaries in the concluding chapter. Augustijn has achieved the goal he set for himself, to "avoid both colourlessness and idiosyncracy" (ix). His biography offers a well-balanced and nuanced treatment of a difficult subject. Its careful, non-partisan analysis is based on a thorough examination of original texts and contributes significantly to our understanding of Erasmus's complex personality.

ERIKA RUMMEL Wilfrid Laurier University