¹ The standard biography remains Lupton, J. H., A Life of John Colet (London, 1887)Google Scholar. Marriott’s, J. A. R.The Life of John Colet (London, 1933)Google Scholar says nothing new pleasantly. Several important details will be found in Ferguson, Wallace K., “An Unpublished Letter of John Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s,” American Historical Review, XXXIX (1934), 696–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The best recent general treatment of Colet’s ideas is that of Smith, H. Maynard, Pre-Reformation England (London, 1938), 452–463Google Scholar.

² Enarratio in Primam Epistolam S. Pauli ad Corinthios, J. H. Lupton, ed. and tr. (London, 1874), 247. Noted henceforth as Cor. My translations are based on those of Lupton. Page references are to the Latin text.

³ He was, of course, influenced by humanism, as he was influenced by Florentine Neo-Platonism; but the influence was superficial, confined to stylistic precepts which he rarely followed himself. See the Statutes of St. Paul’s School, Lupton, Life of Colet, Appendix A, 272 and 279–80 and his diatribe against the poets and philosophers (Cor., 238–9). Hyma, A., “The Continental Origins of English Humanism,” Huntington Library Quarterly, IV (1940–1941), 16Google Scholar, following a common practice, calls Colet “the true Christian humanist” because he “could say with Jesus Christ: ‘I of myself can do nothing. The Father within me does all the works.’” The term “Christian humanism,” as here, is based on the erroneous assumption that Christian piety is the essential distinction between Northern and Italian humanism. Its continued use only obscures a real issue: granted his piety, was Colet a humanist?

⁴ The essential discrepancies — on the influence of Augustine, on monasticism, “primitive religion,” the classics, predestination — have been outlined by A. Hyma, “Erasmus and the Oxford Reformers (1493–1503),” Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, N.S. XXV (1932), 97–102. The key to the question of Colet’s influence on Erasmus (Hyma, op. cit., 69 ff. and Bauer, Karl, “John Colet und Erasmus von Rotterdam,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, Ergänzungsband V (1929), 156–8Google Scholar review the literature) lies here; for if one accepts Erasmus’ 1521 image of Colet as a true picture of the man he met at Oxford in the Fall of 1499, a discovery of Colet’s ideas in the Enchiridion can cause no surprise, and a significant influence is established. If, on the contrary, Colet was not that man, and he was not, one proves only that the basic ideas of the Enchiridion are very similar to those Erasmus still held and attributed to Colet in 1521. Significant transformations in Erasmus’ thought were determined, in fact, not by the Colet of the Lectures on Romans, but by the “liberal” theologian and humanist created by Erasmus and embellished by Seebohm. We meet the ironic situation of a man profoundly influenced by a biographical portrait he himself has sketched.

⁵ Typical is Sidney Dark's essay on Colet in Five Deans (London, 1928): “He had read the Fathers and had already adopted the anti-Augustinian attitude that characterized all his teachng” (p. 26); or, speaking of Colet's “humanizing of religion”: “In his lectures and letters he is all the time concerned to accent its [Scripture's] ethical intention” (p. 30). Erasmus’ influence is patent. In the same line is Kurt Schroeder, Platonismus in der Englischen Renaissance vor und bei Thomas Eliot, Palaestra, LXXXIII (Berlin, 1920), who refers (p. 16) to Sir Thomas More, “der im Gegensatz zu dem liberalen Colet ein strenger Katholik war….” The most significant criticism of this traditional view is Hyma's important “Erasmus and the Oxford Reformers.”

⁶ Cicero, De Off., II, ii, 5. “Sapientia autem est, ut a veteribus philosophis definitum est, rerum divinarum et humanarum causarumque, quibus eae res continentur, scientia….”

⁷ In Boet. de Trin., qu. 2, art. 2, ad. 1. “Sapientia non dividitur contra scientiam, sicut oppositum contra oppositum, sed quia se habet ex additione ad scientiam.” Quoted by Chenu, M.-D., La Théologie comme science au XIIIe siècle, 2nd. ed. (Paris, 1943), 107Google Scholar.

⁸ Cor., 202. Cf. Ioannes Coletus Super Opera Dionysii. Two Treatises on the Hierarchies of Dionysius, J. H. Lupton, ed. and tr. (London, 1869), 242 where the wise man is called a divinarum rerum contemplator. Noted henceforth as Hierarchies.

⁹ Cor., 171; 203; 238.

¹⁰ Hierarchies, 240. “Illuminatio in fide est revelatis, quae est sapientia nostra.”

¹¹ Enarratio in Epistolam S. Pauli ad Romanos, J. H. Lupton, ed. and tr. (London, 1873), 163. Noted henceforth as Rom.

¹² Cor., 166; Rom., 192. Cf. Rom., 182.

¹³ Quattuor libri amorum, Felicitas Pindter, ed. (Leipzig, 1934), IV, 4, 11. 21–22; Hans Rupprich, Der Briefwechsel des Konrad Celtis (Munich, 1934), ep. 179, 1. 137.

¹⁴ Oratio in gymnasio in Ingelstadio publice recitata, Rupprich, Hans, ed. (Leipzig, 1932), 12Google Scholar. Tusc. Disp., V, iii, 8.

¹⁵ Celtis to Prince Magnus von Anhalt, Rupprich, ep. 5, 1. 43.

¹⁶ Annemarie and Hajo Holborn, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus Ausgewahlte Werke (Munich, 1933), 38, II. 13–17Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Ibid., 39, II. 12–13. The interpretation is dear from the context. J. B. Pineau's thesis that Erasmus wrote the Enchiridion to dissuade a youth from entering a monastery seems to me incontestable: Erasme, sa pensée religieuse (Paris, 1924), 106.

¹⁸ Erasmus to Paul Volzius, Allen, III, ep. 858, I. 97. “… qui [Christus] a nobis praeter puram simplicemque vitam nihil exigit.”

¹⁹ Tusc. Disp., V, iv, 10–11. J. E. King, tr.

²⁰ Allen, I, ep. 152. The danger here to the sacraments was perfectly apparent to the carefully orthodox. Thus the Spanish translation of 1528 significantly qualifies the statement that those who lead evil lives are Christians only in name (Hoiborn, 39, II. 8–9): “Estos tales no tienen otra cosa de christianos sino el nombre y la crisma….” El Enquiridion O Manual del Caballero Cristiano, Damaso Alonso, ed. (Madrid, 1932), 153.

²¹ Compare Colet's definition: “Christiani sunt homines, qui gracia Dei vocantur mirifice, ut sanctificentur, sanctique delectabiles sint filii Dei pulchri in Christo Jesu pulchrificante….” Epistolae B. Pauli ad Romanos Expositio Literalis, Opuscula quaedam theologica, J. H. Lupton, ed. and tr. (London, 1876), 203. Noted henceforth as Expositio Lit.

²² Cor., 258. Colet is paraphrasing Pico della Mirandola, Heptaplus, Edizione Nazionale, Garin, E., ed. (Florence, 1942), I, 204–206Google Scholar.

²³ In Principium Genesios, Opuscula quaedam theologica, 174–75. Cf. McKeough, J., The Meaning of the rationes seminales in St. Augustine (Washington, 1926)Google Scholar and Pico della Mirandola, op. cit., I, 208 and 298.

²⁴ An immediate corrolary, and Colet draws it, is that omnis naturae cognitio may be found in Scripture. Hierarchies, 222 (see below, note 39). Cf. Hierarchies, 196 where demons are described as “acuta acie naturalia contemplantes, longo experimento et usu callidi….”

²⁵ Expositio Lit., 263.

²⁶ Ibid., 260.

²⁷ De Compositione sancti corporis Christi mystici, quae est ecclesia, Opuscula quaedam theologica, 186.

²⁸ Ibid., 187.

²⁹ De civ. Dei, XIX, 13. I. Quoted by Gilson, Etienne, Introduction à l’étude de Saint Augustin, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1949), 228, note 2Google Scholar.

³⁰ Hierarchies, 183. The quotations form part of an excursus on free will independent of the Pseudo-Dionysius.

³¹ Cor., 223.

³² Rom., 163. Cf. De Compositione, 186.

³³ Rom., 142. “Verum magnificae potestati dulcis et suavis graciae, quae molliter mirabiliterque, et vi quadam latenti ac mirifica agit, nihil potest resistere.” The resistibility of grace is clearly stated, however, in Cor., 75; Rom., 36; Hierarchies, 183.

³⁴ Seebohm, Frederic, The Oxford Reformers, 3rd. ed. (London, 1887), 36 ffGoogle Scholar. compares Colet's views to those of Savonarola. He denies that Colet's position on free will can be described as Augustinian. But cf. Hyma, “Erasmus and the Oxford Reformers,” 102, who notes the similarity to Luther's 1515–1516 Wittenberg lectures.

³⁵ Rom., 163.

³⁶ Smith, Pre-Reformation England, 452.

³⁷ Cor., 166.

³⁸ Wolfson, H. A., Philo. Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Harvard University Press, 1948), I, 156Google Scholar.

³⁹ Hierarchies, 222. “Si quidem in illis [Scriptures] omnis sapientia et bonitas continetur, omnis naturae cognitio, omnis metaphisicae speculatio, omnis bonorum morum institutio, omnium praeteritorum Dei recordatio, omnium futurorum expectacio, omnis denique veri et boni fides et amor: ut praeterea quod recitetur auscultandum et inculcetur in auribus hominum nihil sit reliquum.” This is a para-phrase of De Eccl. Hierarch., III, iii, 4, except for the phrase “omnis naturae cognitio, omnis metaphisicae speculatio,” which was added by Colet himself.

⁴⁰ Cor., 238.

⁴¹ Cor., 171.

⁴² Allen, IV, ep. 1211, 11. 438–441.

⁴³ It is in this context of the mystical tradition after Gerson; of the widespread Fifteenth Century reaction against the excesses of Terminist logic and the modus legendi cum quaestionibus (G. Ritter, Studien zur Spätscholastik, II. Sitzb. d. Heidelberg. Akad. d. Wiss., VII (Heidelberg, 1922), 34 and 103); and of the common Neo-Platonist penchant for the esoteric (Pico della Mirandola, op. cit., I, 156) that Colet's ideas on Biblical exegesis must be seen. What Seebohm (Oxford Reformers, 52) called the doctrine of “accomodation” is in fact a mystical theory of Scriptural interpretation whose chief immediate source was Pseudo-Dionysius, De Coeles. Hierarch., I, iii; II, i and iii; De Ecdes. Hierarch., I, iv-v. (Cf. Schroeder, Platonismus, 23). It involves no particular attachment to the literal sense. In the commentary on Genesis, for example, it is explicitly directed against the literal sense (see also Hierarchies, 235). Nor does it make Colet a “liberal” who stands for “the application of historical and scientific methods to the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures” (Marriott, Life of Colet, 6). It remains true, nevertheless, that Colet's Pauline commentaries show a more developed historical sense than do those of many of his contemporaries — Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples’, for example.

⁴⁴ De utilitate credendi, XI, 25. Quoted by Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure, Illtyd Trethowan and F. J. Sheed, trs. (New York, 1940), 91.

⁴⁵ Rom., 163–66; Cor., 168; 180.

⁴⁶ Cor., 246.

⁴⁷ Expositio Lit., 263. “Humana ratio inimica et adversaria est graciae: legem suam constituentes legi Dei non sunt subjecti.”

⁴⁸ Expositio Lit., 213.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 210–12; 203. The scriptural text is Romans, 1, 20. “Invisibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur: sempiterna quoque eius virtus, et divinitas….”

⁵⁰ Rom., 163.

⁵¹ Cor., 176–77.

⁵² Expositio Lit., 201; 210.

⁵³ Epistole et Orationes, Thuasne, Louis, ed. (Paris, 1904), II, 37Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Allen, IV, ep. 1211, II. 363–4.

⁵⁵ Oratio, 95.

⁵⁶ Dedicatory epistle to Germain de Ganay, Introductio in metaphysicorum libros Aristotelis. J. Higman (Paris, 1493)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Cor., 231. In Rom., 155–57 Colet supports this by an extended quotation on the superiority of love to knowledge of God from Ficino's Theologia Platonica, Opera Omnia (Basel, 1576), I, 324. Lupton, Rom., 29, note 1. Cf. Hierarchies, 204; 219.

⁵⁸ Rom., 164.

⁵⁹ Cor., 256.

⁶⁰ Cor., 239.

⁶¹ Expositio Lit., 201. “… invisibiliaque et intelligibilia manifestavit [Deus] per creaturam sensibilem….” See above, note 49.

⁶² Hierarchies, 203.

⁶³ Cor., 181.

⁶⁴ Cor., 203. Cf. the excellent page on Colet's Christology in Schroeder, Platonismus, 34 where he remarks that “Jesus ist gekommen, die Menschen zur Anschauung der überirdischen Welt zu führen!”

⁶⁵ Hierarchies, 222. See above, note 39.

⁶⁶ Hierarchies, 238–9. “Sed Cabala anagogicum sensum persequitur… sursum nos trahens et ducens a terrenis ad celestia, a sensibilibus ad intelligibilia, a temporalibus ad eterna, ab infimis ad suprema, ab humanis ad divina, a corporalibus ad spiritualia.” Like the passage on free will (see above, note 30) this forms part of an excursus independent of the Pseudo-Dionysius. The source is Pico della Mirandola, Oratio de hominis dignitate, Edizione Nationale, I, 156–8. Cf. Hierarchies, 203.

⁶⁷ Cor., 181.

⁶⁸ Expositio Lit., 230–31.

⁶⁹ Rom., 192.

⁷⁰ Rom., 178.

⁷¹ Colet's immediate source was Pico della Mirandola, Heptaplus, I, 204. Lupton, Cor., 138, note 2. Colet's interpretation includes a belief in the hylomorphic composition of spiritual substances. In Principium Genesios, 169.

⁷² Rom., 154. Cf. Cor., 238.

⁷³ Rom., 167. “Intellectus autem spiritus est fides Deo; voluntas vero ejusdem est charitas et amor Dei.”

⁷⁴ Cor., 171.

⁷⁵ Rom., 165. Cf. Hierarchies, 240.

⁷⁶ Rom., 208; 167.

⁷⁷ Rom., 189. “Communis sensus et phantasma haec omnia facit, et supra phantasma racio modo excellentiori; racio inquam spiritalis.” For the spiritual man “custodiat justicias legis spiritalis, circumcidatque se a mundo et carne, a phantasmate et ratione, extiteritque Deo simplici et nuda fide….” Expositio Lit., 222.

⁷⁸ Rom., 192. Cf. Hierarchies, 193.

⁷⁹ Opera omnia (Verona, 1738), III, 121, col. 2; 125, col. 1.