Rhetoric and Theology: The Hermeneutic of Erasmus.

In his own day Erasmus was accused of being only a grammarian and rhetorician, not a theologian, and some modern scholars have shared that same sentiment. Recent scholarship has been more amenable to the view that Erasmus was in some sense a theologian even if not a systematic one. Hoffmann differs sharply with the former interpretation and even thinks that the more revised opinion of Erasmus as an unsystematic theologian does not do him justice. Erasmus was, to be sure, a rhetorician, but one whose rhetoric was in service of his theology and whose "rhetorical theology" thus reveals a systematic hermeneutic.

Hoffmann argues that Erasmus's theory of rhetoric in general and his hermeneutic of Scripture in particular is founded on a basic Platonic dualism of word and reality, letter and spirit. In this theory res takes precedence over verba, substance over form, inventio over dispositio in rhetoric, and spirit over letter in Scripture. This dualism is overcome by language as the mediating link. Language used by human beings makes possible agreement and, as used by God, achieves reconciliation. On the other hand, language can be used by the devil to bring about alienation and chaos. On this point the author refers to the relatively neglected material in Ecclesiastes IV in which, he maintains, Erasmus set forth a systematic ordering of theological loci within a dualistic framework which placed God, Christ and the Spirit against the devil.

In the interpretation of Scripture, allegory and tropology (the moral sense) mediate between the letter and the spirit. Here as elsewhere in his rhetoric and hermeneutic Erasmus favors the middle way (mediocritas) between two extremes. Of these two senses, Christologically-based allegory is the more important. The central role of allegory in Erasmus' exegesis is parallel to the crucial significance of the theme of accommodation in his theology. The divine accommodation in the incarnation bridged the gap between the invisible world above and the fleshly world below. An accommodation of God to human beings is necessary because of the principle of similarity. Only like things can be joined (similia similibus). The response of human beings to God's accommodation is the path of imitation and assimilation and the movement from the visible to the invisible. Hoffmann's is the most substantial analysis of this chief principle of Erasmus' theology even if he does not explicate the precise patristic sources of it.

The author insists, however, that in spite of Erasmus' preference for the spirit he did not intend to disparage the letter. The literal sense is the foundation upon which allegory is built. This point of departure explains the importance for him of the textual-critical restoration of Scripture's purity, a task which he took up not just as a humanist interested in grammar, but also as a theologian concerned with the medium of divine revelation. Hoffmann states that Erasmus took his clue from the orthodox Fathers and sought to steer a middle course between over-allegorizing and under-allegorizing, but he does not note that Erasmus frequently criticizes even his favorite Fathers, Origen, Jerome and Ambrose, for straying too far from the letter in their fanciful exegeses. An important Erasmian hermeneutical principle is missing here, one which is especially to be discovered in the Annotations on the New Testament, namely, simplicity. "In divine literature the simplest and least forced interpretations are more satisfactory" (Collected Works of Erasmus 56:6; cf. Ibid. 33, 227, 314.). Although his study is solidly based on a careful reading of the two most important hermeneutical treatises, the Ratio verae Theologiae and the Ecclesiastae, as well as the Paraphrases on the New Testament and the Commentaries on the Psalms, the Annotations are not sufficiently taken into account. The Annotations show that Erasmus's bent for allegorical exegesis is balanced by his humanist delight in the minutiae of philological criticism, some of which have important theological implications, for example, those concerning Romans 5:12 and 9:15.

These are, however, minor quibblings which should not detract from the assessment of this work as a subtle and rich treatment of the many intrinsic connections between Erasmus's rhetoric and his theology, most of which cannot be described in this brief review. Rhetoric and Theology is without question a major contribution to Erasmus research on the subject.

JOHN B. PAYNE Lancaster Theological Seminary