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Erasmus’ Prescription for Henry VIII: Logotherapy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle
Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle*
Affiliation:
Toronto, Canada
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Extract

An encounter at Eltham palace between a wandering scholar and a prince prompted an engaging gift of verse from the visitor. ‘For the present I have dedicated these small gifts to you as toys for your boyish age, intending to bring richer offerings when virtuous manhood, increasing with your years, shall furnish me with richer themes for my verse.’ So wrote Erasmus of Rotterdam, anticipating that eight-year-old Henry would illuminate good literature with his distinction, protect it with his royal authority, and encourage it with his generosity. A quarter of a century later Erasmus was to reminisce about this visit with the royal child: how Thomas More had embarrassed and angered him by offering a composition to the prince while he lagged empty-handed; how the boy had passed him a note during dinner, challenging something from his pen; how he had promised to send a token and had hastened back to Lord Mountjoy's estate to compose one hundred fifty lines of verse in three harried days.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Summer 1978 , pp. 161 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1978

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References

1 To Henry, Prince, Erasmi epistolae, ed. P. S. Allen et al, 12 vols. (Oxford, 1906-53), I, 239–241 Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as EE. Mynors, R. A. B. and Thomson, D. F. S., trans., The Correspondence of Erasmus (Toronto, 1974-), I, 195–197 Google Scholar. The critical edition of die poem Prosopopoeia Britannie maioris… is in Poems of Desiderius Erasmus, ed. Cornelius Reedijk (Leiden, 1956), pp. 248-253.

2 To Johann von Botzheim (Catalogus omnium Erasmi Lucubrationum), EE, 1, 6, ll. 9-27.

3 Paraphrasis in evangelium Lucae in Opera omnia, 11 vols. (Leiden, 1703-06), VII, 297A-488F, with the dedication 271-280. Hereafter cited as LB. The edition of the prefatory letter To Henry VIII which will be cited in this article is EE, v, 313-322.

4 The letters of dedication are: To Charles V, EE, v, 5-7, dated January 13, 1522; To Ferdinand, EE, v, 164-172, dated January 5, 1523; To Francis I, EE, v, 352-361, dated December 1,1523. In his letter To Henry VIII Erasmus mentions the prior dedications, EE, v, 313, 322, ll. 6, 21-25, 412-422.

5 Here I am influenced by contemporary German hermeneutics, especially as practiced in biblical exegesis. See, e.g., my “The Covenant Lawsuit of the Prophet Amos: Illi-IVxui,’ Vetus Testamentum, XXXXI (1971), 338-362.

6 ‘The Amerbach correspondence shows that Erasmus had already begun upon the Paraphrase by 23 April (Basle MSS. G. ll. 13. 136, 29. 119) and that on 22 June the printing was in progress (G. ll. 13. 145).’ Allen in EE, v, 312 in the introductory note to no. 1381.

7 Readers interested in further details may consult a reference such as Crowson, P. S., Tudor Foreign Policy (London, 1973), pp. 84–88 Google Scholar.

8 EH, V, 307, n. 3.

9 LB, x, 1631B-1672F.

10 Allen remarks that ‘this preface appears to have been written in haste,’ for it shows evidence of errors in the first edition which had to be corrected subsequently. EE, v, 312 in the introductory note to no. 1381.

11 Erasmus’ principal pacifist writings are Querela pads, LB, IV, 625A-642D, and ‘Dulce bellum inexpertis,’ Adagia, IV, i, i, in LB, II, 951B-970E.

12 EE, v, 318, ll. 250-251. The human body was a current metaphor for the state. See Kantorowicz, Ernst H., The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theory (Princeton, 1957), pp. 193–232 Google Scholar; Gierke, Otto, Political Theories of the Middle Ages, trans. Frederic W. Maitland (Cambridge, 1927), pp. 22–30 Google Scholar.

13 Lingua, ed. Schalk, F., in Opera omnia (Amsterdam, 1974), IV-I, 253, ll. 523–524 Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as ASD. Cf. LB, IV, 667B.

14 Querela pads, LB, IV 627B.

15 This is argued with documentation in chapter two, ‘Oratio,’ of my book Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto, 1977).

16 Entralgo, Pedro Laín, The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity, ed. and trans. L. J. Rather and John M. Sharp (New Haven, 1970)Google Scholar.

17 ‘Animo aegrotanti medicus est oratio,’ Adagia, III, i, xcixC in LB, II, 744D-745C.

18 See Erasmus’ annotation of the doctrine of ‘ Annotationes in epistola Pauli ad Ephesios, 1:10, LB, VI, 833C-D.

19 EE, v, 315-316, 11. 119-127. See ‘Deorum manus,’ Adagia, 1, iii, vi, in LB, II, 113D-114A.

20 Erasmus* substitution of ‘conversation’ (sermo) for ‘word’ (yerbum) at John 1:1 in his second translation of the New Testament (1519) incited public controversy in England when Henry Standish preached against it in the churchyard of St. Paul's, London. The translation was contested that same evening in the presence of the king and queen, with Thomas More deftly defending Erasmus’ philological judgment. Erasmus composed a forceful Apologia de ‘In principio erat sermo,’ exposing the schemes of his foes and shaming their ignorance of Christian tradition and good grammar. He also applied to Wolsey for protection, perhaps spurred by rumors that his enemies had enlisted the support of the Lord Mayor of London. For complete documentation of this controversy see ‘Sermo,’ the first chapter of my Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto, 1977). See also my ‘Sermo: Reopening the Conversation on Translating Jn 1:1,’ Vigiliae Christianae 31 (1978), 161-168.

A curiosity of this dedicatory preface to the Paraphrasis in evangelium Lucae is that Erasmus reverts to Jerome's Vulgate in citing the New Testament (Allen, EE, v, 312 in bis introductory note to no. 1381), with the exception of retaining sermo in identifying Christ as the therapeutic never conceding before Henry that semantic issue which had ‘raised the populace to a stoning mood.’

21 This judgment occurs throughout Erasmus’ complaints about scholasticism and provides an impetus for his pedagogical works on theological method such as the Ratio verae theologiae (1518).

22 Erasmus also refutes suspicions that he had written the Assertio septem sacramentorum in a letter dated February 1, 1523, To Mark Lauwerijns, EE, v, 223-224, ll. 835-875.

23 See the salutation to the letter which includes the title ‘catholicae fidei defensori,’ BE, v, 313.

24 Sir MacNalty, Arthur S., Henry VIII: A Difficult Patient (London, 1952), especially pp. 42-43, 51, 55, 63-64, 159 Google Scholar.

25 Erasmus, trans., Exhortatio ad bonas arteis praesertim medicinam, by Galen, ed. Jan Hendrik Waszink, ASD, 1-1, 637-657; LB, 1, 1049A-1058C.

26 LB, 1, 537A-544B.

27 Annotated entries on Erasmus and medicine are in Margolin, Jean-Claude, Quatorze années de bibliographie Érasmienne (Paris, 1969)Google Scholar and Douze années de bibliographie Érasmienne (Paris, 1963). See also Huizinga, J., Erasmus of Rotterdam, trans. F. Hopman (London, 1952), pp. 117–119 Google Scholar.

28 Erasmus argues that it is like the resin of the morning-glory plant which is a cathartic agent and like the twining of its vines. The former purges vice and the latter binds the human branch securely to Christ the vine in a bond of charity. EE, v, 317-318, ll. 195-223.

29 To Henry VIII, EE, 1, 530, ll. 44-47. Mynors, R. A. B. and Thomson, D. F. S., trans., The Correspondence of Erasmus (Toronto, 1974-), II, 252 Google Scholar. Erasmus is referring to Plutarch's advice in De discrimine adulatoris et amici, a translation of which he dedicates to Henry with this letter.

30 See n. 12.

31 See chapters two, three, four, ‘Oratio,’ ‘Ratio,’ ‘Confabulatio’ of my Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto, 1977).

32 To Henry VIII, EE, v (no. 1385). Allen remarks that although this letter was composed to accompany the presentation volume, the apology with which letter no. 1430 begins suggests that delivery of the book was delayed. EE, v, 313 in his introductory note to no. 1381.