¹ Apart from the edition in English of Erasmus's works, an edition in French is also in progress as well as a new edition of the Opera Omnia (Amsterdam 1969–71).

² M. M. Phillips (ed.), The Antibarbari in Craig R. Thompson (ed.), Collected Works of Erasmus, Literary and Educational Writings (hereafter cited as Toronto Erasmus), 1. 16–122.

³ Thompson, ‘Introduction’ in Toronto Erasmus, 1. pp. xix-lxix at pp. xv, xxvi-viii; Mann Phillips, ‘Introductory Note’ in ibid. pp. 2–15 at pp. 8–15. According to Mrs Mann Phillips, the Antibarbari was originally devised as an attack on the enemies of humanism generally, the ignorant and the stupid. It was then revised, as Erasmus came to identify his enemies more precisely, ‘as a pamphlet against the theologians of Louvain’.

⁴ E.g., Toronto Erasmus, 1. pp. 56 (1. 5), 62 (1. 33), 75 (1. 26), 120 (1. 23).

⁵ For the Latin text, see Kumaniecki, Kazimierz (ed.), Antibarbarorum Liber, Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, Amsterdam 1969, i, 71Google Scholar (11. 1–6). For Kumaniecki's English rendering of the Latin, see ibid., p. 16. Having outlined a tripartite scheme Batt is considerate enough to adhere to it and to indicate the transition from one section to the next by instituting a pause at the appropriate points in his discourse, viz. Toronto Erasmus, 1. pp. 84 (11. 25–35), 101 (11. 15–38)-102 (11. 1–12).

⁶ Ibid., p. 45 (11. 15–20). For support for the rendering of the text provided here see in addition to n. 5, Tracey, James D., ‘The 1489 and 1494 versions of Erasmus’ Antibarbarorum Liber’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, xx (1971), 85Google Scholar.

⁷ Thus, in the Toronto translation Batt is made to announce a discussion of scriptural authorities at the point of the discourse in which, in fact, the text treats of the writings of the magistenum, including scripture of course, but also Gratian's Decretum and the writings of the Fathers, Toronto Erasmus, 1. 84 (11. 31–2). The confusion here arises from a failure to observe the distinction between sacrae literae, the literary deposit of the magistenum, and divina scriptura, the customary term for the Bible, e.g. compare Toronto Erasmus, 1. pp. 84 (11. 31–2) and 85 (1. 2) with Kumaniecki (ed.), Antibarbarorum liber, 105 (11. 20, 26).

⁸ Toronto Erasmus, 1. pp. 42–5.

⁹ Ibid., pp. 42 (11. 29–31), 44–5 (11. 1–5). For Batt's exclusion of this category see ibid., p. 45 (11. 6–9).

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 42 (11. 28–9), 43 (11. 23–33).

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 45 (11. 6–9), 121 (11. 13–37)-122 (11. 1–14). Batt's remarks in this connection in the dialogue have to be read in conjunction with Erasmus's reference to three further projected volumes in the dedicatory epistle which prefaces the work, ibid., pp. 16–17. On the history of these projected volumes, see Mann Phillips, ibid., 5, pp. 3–5. It is true that the scholastics are not allowed to go scot-free in the present text - originally envisaged as Book I. However, the references are easily explained. Most of them occur in the introductory section of the text, and that was intended to serve as an introduction to the work as a whole, of which, had it got beyond Book I, the scholastics would have been a major preoccupation. Apart from that, Erasmus availed of the opportunity in the course of Book I to take a number of swipes at the scholastics en passant, provoked especially by the flak he had endured from them since the publication of his New Testament in 1516. The important point is that these occur by way of rhetorical asides, incidental to the thrust of the argument.

¹² Two features of the dialogue indicate this very clearly. One is the account of the historical development of the tradition which is provided in the introductory section of the dialogue, Toronto Erasmus, 1. pp. 28–36. The second is the elaborate and sophisticated argument which Erasmus considers necessary in order to refute the position, see below, pp. 600–1.

¹³ For a full discussion see my ‘The Christian humanism of Erasmus’, JTS, xxxiii (1982), 411–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Brian McGregor (ed.), De ratione studii, in Toronto Erasmus, 2. pp. 665–91.

¹⁶ Wallace K. Ferguson, ‘The works of Erasmus’ in Toronto Erasmus, 1. p. xii.

¹⁷ Thompson, ‘Introduction’ in Toronto Erasmus, 1. pp. xliii-xlvi.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. xx-xxi.

¹⁹ Toronto Erasmus, i. pp. 28–37.

²⁰ The fourth-century Latinist, Diomedes and the humanist Niccolò Perotti, as well as two teachers who had been prominent in the revival of Greek in fifteenth-century Italy, Gaza and Lascaris.

²¹ R. A. B. Mynors (ed.), Parabolae sive similia, in Toronto Erasmus, i. pp. 135–277.

²² Ibid., p. 149.

²³ Thompson, ‘Introduction', in Toronto Erasmus, i. p. lii.

²⁴ E.g. Toronto Erasmus, i. pp. 223 (1. 26), 224 (1. 5), 225 (1. 9), 226 (1. 16), 240 (1. 1).

²⁵ E.g. ibid., pp. 224 (1. 38), 241 (1. 7), 249 (1. 38), 250 (1. 35), 252 (1. 6).

²⁶ Ibid., pp. xxii–xxiii, liii.

²⁷ One interesting illustration of the continuity is a parabola which shows that Solzhen-itsen's famous aphorism about literature constituting an alternative government was anticipated in the sixteenth century by Erasmus, Toronto Erasmus, 1. p. 233 (1. 12).

²⁸ The classic exposition of this theme is, of course, Lovejoy, A. O., The Great Chain of Being, Cambridge, Mass. 1936Google Scholar. Tillyard, Cf. E. M. W., The Elizabethan World Picture, London 1943Google Scholar. For a recent discussion in the context of political morality, see Eccleshall, Robert, Order and Reason in Politics, Oxford 1978, 1–46Google Scholar.

²⁹ Betty I. Knott (ed.), De copia, in Toronto Erasmus, 2. pp. 295–659.

³⁰ One such figure whose verbosity was a constant irritation to those who had to read his dispatches, including Queen Elizabeth herself, was the Elizabethan humanist, Sir Thomas Smith, significantly a great admirer of Erasmus. See Dewar, Mary, A Tudor Intellectual in Office, London 1969, 16–18Google Scholar, 91, 100, 141.

³¹ Toronto Erasmus, 2. pp. 599–600.

³² Ibid., p. 634.

³³ Ibid., pp. 354–64.

³⁴ Ibid., pp. 309–10.

³⁵ Ibid., pp. 315–6.

³⁶ Thompson, ‘Introduction’, Toronto Erasmus, 1. p. xxxiv. On the Renaissance concept of eloquence, see Seigel, Jarrold E., Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism, Princeton, N.J. 1968, 173–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Professor Thompson tells us that Erasmus’ cannot be called a philosopher in a technical sense [because] the only sort of philosophy he cared for was moral philosophy’, ‘Introduction’, in Toronto Erasmus, i. p. xxiii. In that case Socrates cannot be called a philosopher either, for in expressing the view that moral philosophy was the only kind that mattered Erasmus was repeating his cherished Socrates: Guthrie, W. K. C., History of Creek Philosophy, Cambridge 1969, iiiGoogle Scholar. 417–25.

³⁸ The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St Thomas More, Executive editor, Sylvester, Richard S., Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1963Google Scholar-.

³⁹ See Olin's two essays, ‘Erasmus and reform’ and ‘Erasmus and St Ignatius Loyola’, Six Essays, 1–15, 75–92.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 17–31.

⁴¹ For Erasmus's rejection of the Augustinian-Thomistic tradition of distributive justice, see his adages ‘Dulce bellum inexpertis’ and ‘A mortuo tributum exigere’, Phillips, M. Mann, (ed. and trans.), Erasmus on his Times, Cambridge 1967, 44–7Google Scholar, 100–40.

⁴² For a discussion of Erasmus's view of sacramental grace see my ‘More on Utopia’, Historical Journal, xxiv (1981), 9–12Google Scholar.

⁴³ Olin, Six Essays, 1–15 at 4.

⁴⁴ Above, pp. 600–1.

⁴⁵ Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age, 110–14.