None of the works included among Erasmus' 'Literary and Educational Writings' in the Collected Works of Erasmus captures his most adventurous thinking about how texts signify in – and thereby make or remake – worlds of thought, feeling, and action. The one that comes closest to doing so, the Ratio verae theologiae ('A System of True Theology'), was first published separately in 1518 and 1519, then appeared in the preliminaries to the New Testament in Erasmus' (revised) 1519 edition.
This handy Ratio or compendious 'System' gave advice on how to interpret complex texts and develop persuasive arguments based upon them. Its lessons were applied to the canonical Scriptures as source, and to everyday Christian theology as target discourse. They unfold in response to the special difficulties and incitements of the biblical text in Latin and Greek, within a framework provided by classical grammar and rhetoric, adjusted to the examples of the Church Fathers as exemplary interpreters of the Bible. At every turn, the Ratio reveals the instincts and intuitions of an exceptional theorist and practitioner of the cognitive, social, and political arts of written language. This student edition, the first of its kind in any language, is based on the translation and notes by Robert D. Sider in the Collected Works of Erasmus Volume 41. It is designed to make it easier to estimate the long-term value of this particular work and of Erasmus' works more generally, and to allow for a multidisciplinary understanding of the lives of human beings as symbol-using creatures in worlds constructed partly by texts.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Anthony Grafton
Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Abbreviations and Works Frequently Cited
Abbreviations of Biblical Books Used in Explanatory Notes
Editor's Introduction
Chronology of Erasmus' Life and Works
Approaches to Erasmus' Ratio or 'System' of 1518–1519
The Ratio in Erasmus' Life and Work to 1519
Mark Vessey
Erasmus, Sacred Literature, and Literary Theory
Brian Cummings
Biblical Poetics in Scholasticism and the Ratio
Christopher Ocker
The Ratio and Annotations of Erasmus as Theory and Practice of Biblical Interpretation
Riemer Faber
The Parable of Sincere and Sophistical Discourse in the Ratio
Kathy Eden
Scheme of Contents of the Ratio verae theologiae
Note on the Text
The Ratio verae theologiae
Preface: Purpose of the Ratio
Elements of a Method for the Study of Scripture
The Unity in Variety of the Gospel
'The Wonderful Circle and Harmony of the Entire Drama of Christ'
The Figurative Character of the Language of Sacred Literature
Elements of a Method for the Study of Scripture (Concluded)
Explanatory Notes
Conspectus of Church Fathers Cited in the Ratio
Bibliography
Concordance of Editions of the Ratio
Index
About the Author :
Mark Vessey is Principal of Green College and Professor of English Literature at the University of British Columbia.
Robert D. Sider is General Editor of the New Testament Scholarship for the Collected Works of Erasmus.
Anthony Grafton is Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University.
Review :
"Fans of Praise of Folly and the Colloquies ought to open Erasmus on Literature to see what and how Erasmus wanted them to read. Scholars of theology will scrutinize the edition carefully, as Erasmus's contemporaries did. Seminaries in need of a book that teaches exegesis more thoroughly than Augustine now have one, ready for immediate use."
- Willis Goth Regier, University of Illinois (Renaissance and Reformation)
