On the Reception of Erasmus’s Latin Version of the New Testament in Sixteenth-Century Spain

1. Scholarly controversies

The publication of the Greek and Latin New Testament of Erasmus and the extraordinary success of it in Erasmus’s lifetime inevitably had an impact on Spanish scholars of the Holy Writ. Copies of Erasmus’s Novum Instrumentum reached Spain at a time when a group of biblical scholars at the University of Alcalá were busily preparing the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, thus called from Complutum, the Latin name of Alcalá de Henares. Inaugurated in 1498 by Cardinal Archbishop Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, the University of Alcalá applied the programme of humanism to its curriculum and to the study of Scripture, even if conservative positions within it ultimately prevailed. As early as 1508 Cisneros himself initiated a great project of biblical scholarship which resulted in the printing between 1514 and 1517 (even though they were not actually published until 1522) of the six volumes of the renowned Polyglot Bible. The foundation of the university had, moreover, its roots in Cisneros’s desire for religious reform (see Hall 1968). The institution became a centre for ecclesiastical education and among its professors and students were the first enthusiastic supporters of Erasmus in Spain. The University of Alcalá also equipped a group of scholars with the necessary tools with which they could apply philological methods to sacred texts. ² Although aware of the problematic manuscript tradition of the Scriptures, these men were entrenched in their defence of the Vulgate. In the course of the 1520s the challenging methodology employed by Erasmus in his first edition of the New Testament led to increasingly violent attacks by conservative scholars on Erasmus’s biblical studies. One such critic was Jacobus Lopis Stunica, who was born around 1470 and to whom in the following paragraphs I shall refer as Diego López de Zúñiga. A competent scholar in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew with some knowledge of Aramaic and Arabic too, López de Zúñiga was eager to defend the Latin Vulgate and to prove Erasmus’s errors. López de Zúñiga’s disdain for the Dutch humanist predated, however, the publication of the Novum Instrumentum. As early as 1511 he had taken offence at Erasmus’s irreverent remarks in the Encomium moriae (Praise of Folly).

A first draft of López de Zúñiga’s notes was completed and shown to Cisneros, who advised the author to send a copy of the text to Erasmus privately and forbade its publication as long as the Cardinal lived. After Cisneros’s death in 1517, López de Zúñiga was finally free to issue his attack on Erasmus. He did so through the press of Arnao Guillén de Brocar, printer of the Complutensian Polyglot, in an edition which was published probably before July 1520 under the title Annotationes contra Erasmum Roterodamum in defensionem tralationis Novi Testamenti. A month later López de Zúñiga travelled to Rome already carrying with him several printed copies of his annotations against Erasmus. Shortly after his arrival in Rome in February of the following year, López de Zúñiga secured a teaching position in Greek at the University of La Sapienza. While in Italy, López de Zúñiga fostered relations with powerful men by seeking the protection of both the papal curia and the imperial court. Despite his influential contacts in Italian circles, throughout these years López de Zúñiga met with little sympathy for his campaign against Erasmus. Silence was imposed on him by Popes Leo X, Adrian VI, and Clement VII, and in 1522 a resolution was passed by the papal curia prohibiting the sale of his books in Rome. This was chiefly because of the violence of López de Zúñiga’s attacks against the Dutch humanist and because of the narrow chauvinism exhibited by the Spaniard in his texts. As an example, discussion of Erasmus’s note to Rom 15.24 concerning the spelling of the Greek word for Spain (Σπανία) led López de Zúñiga to respond to what he perceived as strong criticism of Spain’s cultural belatedness on the part of Erasmus with a robust defence of his country’s contribution to human learning.

National pride was not, however, the main motive which led López de Zúñiga to embark on his campaign against Erasmus. As he declared in the opening paragraphs of his Annotationes, not only was Erasmus’s new version of the Gospels unnecessary on philological grounds but (and this was more worrisome) it undermined Christian orthodoxy. He therefore felt that both Erasmus’s decision to publish a new translation of the whole New Testament and his unjust condemnation of the Vulgate demanded a firm response. After accusing Erasmus of undue ambition, López de Zúñiga proceeded to comment on a large selection of passages from Erasmus’s version and annotations. Rather fastidiously he pointed out Erasmus’s misprints and lapses in translation, and ridiculed his excessive attention to style. Not all queries by López de Zúñiga were, however, ill-founded. With hindsight we can see that he was sound in questioning some of Erasmus’s criteria, since we now know that Erasmus’s Latin version was based on Greek manuscripts that represented an inferior stage of transmission (de Jonge 1983, 19–20). López de Zúñiga was also right—as Erasmus would uniquely concede (de Jonge 1983, 156, l. 867)—on some minor points such as in locating the Neapolis of Acts 16.11 in Thracia and not in Caria. Yet López de Zúñiga’s strong rebuke of Erasmus’s New Testament scholarship was in the end stirred by his desire to defend the foundations of theology and of the church. Although he did not formally label his adversary a heretic (a charge he would, however, make explicit in later works), he claimed that Erasmus’s Annotations “contained the seed of impiety” (fol. e1r).

Erasmus did not wait long to react to López de Zúñiga’s Annotationes and in October 1521 the Leuven printer Dirk Martens issued a copy of the Apologia respondens ad ea quae Iacobus Lopis Stunica taxaverat in prima duntaxat Novi Testamenti aeditione (see de Jonge 1983, 14). In his apology Erasmus replied to the 221 queries posed by his opponent, mostly in a condescending and sarcastic manner. From the outset he belittled López de Zúñiga’s contributions, often by pointing to instances within other controversies in which he had already justified his philological criteria. Despite his ironic tone and apparent indifference Erasmus must have taken López de Zúñiga’s comments as a serious threat to his reputation. In one of his annotations on Matthew (Matt 26.31) he protested his orthodoxy and insisted that he held Jerome’s enterprise in the highest esteem:

I follow the authority of no other writer more scrupulously than that of Jerome. And I give him so much credit that even some in their writings have given me trouble for being more favourable to him than what is just. . . . And immediately López de Zúñiga sings the praises of Jerome, having borrowed certain words from the eulogy in which I celebrate his praises not only in one place but with far more zeal and abundance than López de Zúñiga does here. (De Jonge 1983, 108, ll. 974–79)

Just as Erasmus was supported by other scholars, López de Zúñiga also found some assistance for his cause. This came chiefly from the side of his fellow-countrymen, most notably from the famous grammarian and humanist Antonio de Nebrija (1444–1522), from Sancho Carranza de Miranda, who died in 1531, and from one of Carranza’s students, the Hellenist and theologian Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (ca. 1490–1573). López de Zúñiga’s first supporter was Nebrija, who seconded his interpretation of Mark 5.41 in a brief tract entitled In Reuclinum Phorcensem et Erasmum Roterdanum quod de “talita” in Evangelio Marci et de “tabita” in Luca non bene senserunt. ³ In this treatise, composed shortly before his death, Nebrija refuted readings by Erasmus and Johann Reuchlin concerning the words talitha and tabitha in Mark (5.41) and Luke (9.54) respectively. Nebrija had dealt with the passage in Mark in his Tertia quinquagena (“The Third Fifty,” being the third redaction of fifty annotations on biblical words needing critical comment) published in 1516. Here and in his brief tract against Erasmus and Reuchlin he interpreted talitha in Mark as “girl” and tabitha in Luke as “young child,” and demonstrated Erasmus’s error in reading tabitha in Mark as “girl” instead of talitha. Yet, despite his objections to the Novum Instrumentum, Nebrija recognized the importance and the merits of Erasmus’s undertaking. Likewise, Erasmus gave credit to Nebrija’s Tertia quinquagena (de Jonge 1983, 114, l. 98).

Another Spanish scholar who supported López de Zúñiga’s criticism of Erasmus was Sancho Carranza de Miranda. ⁴ After studying both in Spain and in Paris, Carranza visited Rome during the pontificate of Alexander VI. Upon his return to Spain he taught arts and theology at the University of Alcalá. From 1520 to 1522 Carranza was again in Rome on a mission for the Spanish church. In Rome Carranza published the Opusculum in quasdam Erasmi Roterodami annotationes, which he dedicated to Juan de Vergara, a friend of Erasmus, in the hope that Vergara would intervene on his behalf before the Dutch humanist. Accordingly, Vergara wrote to Erasmus (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 1277) explaining the scholarly intention of the Opusculum and pointing to the moderate language displayed by Carranza in his work. Indeed, the polite and respectful tone of Carranza’s writing is obvious from the initial paragraphs of the Opusculum. In reality, however, Carranza’s critique would be much harsher than what Vergara claimed. Since Erasmus’s doctorate in theology had been conferred “per saltum” (without the usual intermediate steps), the Spaniard was suspicious of his opponent’s lack of formal academic training. He also condemned Erasmus’s unnecessary emphasis on style and use of improper terminology. The core of Carranza’s tract is a defence of three accusations included in López de Zúñiga’s Annotationes, which—according to Carranza—Erasmus had failed to address in a satisfactory manner in his reply to López de Zúñiga. The passages under discussion—concerning 1 John 1.1, Acts 4.27, and Eph 5.32—were all the more relevant because Erasmus’s insufficient reply had done nothing to dispel doubts as to his orthodoxy on three specific points: whether Christ’s divinity is clearly conveyed in the Scriptures; whether the epithet “servant” is applicable to Christ; and whether the sacramental nature of matrimony is stated in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Particularly serious—in Carranza’s eyes—was the last issue, for Erasmus’s translation of the Greek mysterion by “mysterium” rather than the conventional “sacramentum” was in the end responsible for Luther’s denial of the sacrament of matrimony. Although he did not accuse Erasmus of heresy but proclaimed him “catholicus et orthodoxus” (fol. l8v), Carranza lamented that Erasmus’s exegesis of Eph 5.32 had equipped “the most unfortunate heretic of our time” to refuse to see matrimony as a sacrament, and therefore urged Erasmus to state more clearly than he had done in his first apology against López de Zúñiga his position on this matter.

Erasmus did so promptly by writing his own reply, the Apologia de tribus locis quos ut recte taxatos a Stunica defenderat Sanctius Carranza theologus, in June 1522. Erasmus’s reply was published alongside his Epistola de esu carnium (Basle: Froben, 1522) and the edition also included Carranza’s original booklet as well as Erasmus’s own Apologia adversus libellum Stunicae cui titulum fecit Blasphemiae et impietates Erasmi, together with his Apologia ad Prodromon Stunicae. ⁵ Sceptical about the Spaniard’s protestations of goodwill and derisive of his critic’s methodology, Erasmus set out to answer Carranza’s queries, accusing him of having deliberately misunderstood his arguments. By proposing, for example, the word “son” for the Greek term pais in Acts 4.27, he had not questioned the divine nature of Christ and favoured Arianism, as insinuated by Carranza, but had simply discussed terminology. Similarly, he had not denied the sacramental nature of matrimony but pointed to the ambivalence of the Greek word mysterion. All the cases adduced by Carranza, Erasmus concluded, could be solved solely on philological grounds, and did not constitute any challenge to dogmatic points. From his side Carranza did not continue the controversy. Relations between the two men improved and Carranza went as far as to intervene in favour of Erasmus at the Council of Valladolid of 1527, noting that Erasmus’s meaning was orthodox, “although this mode of expression is not used by modern theologians” (see Rummel 1988, 2:91).

Support for López de Zúñiga’s cause also came after his own death. The circumstances surrounding López de Zúñiga’s last days on a visit to Naples in the first half of 1531 are described by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda—the third Spanish scholar with whom Erasmus exchanged polemical texts concerning the exegesis of certain passages of Holy Scripture—in his Antapologia pro Alberto Pio. ⁶ As a close friend of López de Zúñiga and secretary to Cardinal Quiñones, the Alcalá-trained Sepúlveda was also well aware of López de Zúñiga’s plans regarding his unpublished papers. ⁷ In a letter to Erasmus (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 2637) of April 1, 1532, Sepúlveda tells of López de Zúñiga’s wish to bequeath his long-announced annotations on Erasmus’s scholia on the epistles of Jerome, and on Erasmus’s fourth edition of the New Testament (1527), to Quiñones with precise instructions that they were to be conveyed to Erasmus. According to Sepúlveda, upon receiving the material, Quiñones forwarded it to him and he in turn passed it to Íñigo de Mendoza y Zúñiga, the bishop of Burgos. López de Zúñiga’s annotations eventually reached Erasmus some time before February 17, 1534, as acknowledged by the latter in a letter to Sepúlveda (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 2905).

As well as dealing with the transmission to Erasmus of the notes of López de Zúñiga, between 1533 and 1536 Sepúlveda exchanged several letters with Erasmus on philological points regarding the Scriptures. Rather professional in tone, the correspondence between both men also shows the high esteem in which the Spaniard held Erasmus’s scholarship. The main point of friction between both scholars concerned a Greek manuscript of the Bible, the famous Codex Vaticanus B (Vat. Lat. 1209). In a letter of October 23, 1533 (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 2873) Sepúlveda defended the authenticity of the manuscript against the criticisms of Erasmus. In the latter part of the letter the Spaniard pointed to Erasmus’s error in interpreting and translating a passage from Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Gal 4.25) with regard to the meaning of the verb συστοιχεῖ (applied to Mount Sinai), which Erasmus had translated as “confinis est” (is adjacent to). Invoking the testimony of the Suda, the historical encyclopaedia compiled at the end of the tenth century, Sepúlveda proposed the rendering “qui [Sina mons] eiusdem rationis eiusdemque proportionis est” (that is similar to it [Mount Sinai] and of the same dimensions), which—despite Erasmus’s protestations in his reply of February 17, 1534 (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 2905)—is the interpretation commonly accepted. The matter was brought up again by Sepúlveda in a letter to Erasmus of May 23, 1534 (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 2938). Here he defended further the authenticity of Vat. Lat. 1209, returned to the issue of how best to translate the verb συστοιχεῖ, and drew Erasmus’s attention to his errors in locating several geographical terms in the New Testament. Erasmus’s reply came in a letter of July 3, 1534 (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 2951). In his text Erasmus announced the forthcoming publication of his edition of the New Testament (Basle: Froben, 1535) which would incorporate some of Sepúlveda’s proposals concerning geography. He remained, however, firm with regard to the authenticity of Vat. Lat. 1209. Erasmus and Sepúlveda’s epistolary exchange came to an end on February 13, 1536 (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 3095) when Sepúlveda wrote to Erasmus expressing his surprise at the latter’s reluctance to modify his translation of the disputed verb συστοιχεῖ. Despite the courteous tone employed by both men, the correspondence between Sepúlveda and Erasmus shows the suspicion with which they regarded each other. Whereas Erasmus resented Sepúlveda’s philological objections and his support of Alberto Pio, the Spaniard could not forget the disdain with which Erasmus had referred to him in the Ciceronianus (Maestre Maestre 2002).

2. Erasmus and Spanish monasticism: the Valladolid Conference of 1527

Before providing—in the aforementioned Latin letter to Alfonso de Valdés—the account of his visit to the monastery of Sant Jeroni de la Murtra, Vicenç Navarra described the eagerness and insistence with which local members of the Franciscans and Dominicans demanded copies of Erasmus’s polemical writings, his “controversies and apologies.” ⁸ Erasmus’s latest dispute had been with the Spanish monastic orders, a dispute that gave rise to his Apologia ad monachos Hispanos. ⁹ Published in Basle in the autumn of 1527, the text was Erasmus’s response to the attacks he had undergone at the Conference of Valladolid held earlier that year.

In the early months of 1527, Pope Clement VII instructed the Inquisitor General, Alonso Manrique, to undertake a formal investigation of Erasmus’s writings. Representatives from the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Benedictines were required by Manrique to report “on whether there was something wrong or dangerous in Erasmus’s works” (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 1814). Alongside scholars from the universities of Salamanca, Alcalá, and Valladolid, they were subsequently summoned to a conference in Valladolid which was to determine the orthodoxy of Erasmus’s views. Preparations for the conference were already underway in late April 1527, as reported by Juan Vergara in a long letter to Erasmus (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 1814). With great solemnity the assembled theologians finally opened on June 23. Until August 13, when the plague forced Manrique to adjourn the meetings, the assembly convened three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The number of theologians present at the conference oscillated between twenty-seven and thirty. Opinion about Erasmus’s orthodoxy among them was divided almost equally, and delegates tended to vote according to their religious or academic affiliation. ¹⁰ On the whole, Dominicans and Franciscans pronounced themselves against Erasmus, while the other orders displayed benevolence towards him. Opinions within the conference ranged from those dictated by outright condemnation of Erasmus’s thought or by concern about the terminology he employed, to those which reflected praise for his scholarship and writings. All in all, at least fourteen votes openly favourable to Erasmus were recorded by Alfonso de Valdés (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 1839).

In the end the only four items under discussion included the Trinity, the divine nature of Christ, the divine nature of the Holy Ghost, and the power of the inquisition. A brief examination of the proceedings regarding the first two propositions will give us an insight into the arguments and methods employed by the delegates. The first article, entitled Contra sacrosanctam Trinitatem, invited delegates to comment on Erasmus’s assertions on the Trinity. On this particular point, the theologians accused Erasmus of relying on corrupt manuscripts and of attempting to undermine the authority of Jerome. They also saw in him a supporter of Arianism. Such serious charges stemmed from Erasmus’s omission of the so-called “Johannine Comma” in the first of the Epistles of St. John (1 John 5.7), a verse which runs, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” Although the passage occurred in Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible, it was not extant in most Greek manuscripts. Invoking the testimony of Codex Vaticanus B, in which the verse was also missing, Erasmus—as the court chaplain Fray Gil López pointed out—had rightly excluded it from his first edition of the New Testament. ¹¹ Conversely, in their defence of what they thought to be Jerome’s version, scholars in the anti-Erasmian camp resorted to the authority of the canon and therefore deemed as corrupt all those manuscripts on which Erasmus’s exclusion of the Johannine testimony was based. As an example, in his report the Portuguese Diogo de Gouvea, a graduate of Paris, boldly drew on the testimonies employed by the editors of the Complutensian Polyglot, who had gone so far as to add the Latin passage in translation to the Greek text. At Valladolid the controversy concerning the Johannine Comma went, however, well beyond the confines of textual criticism. Enraged by Erasmus’s attitude towards Jerome, de Gouvea also felt entitled to comment cynically on Erasmus’s morals during his time in Paris.

The second proposition (Contra divinitatem, dignitatem et gloriam) referred to those passages in which Erasmus—so the friars claimed—had cast doubt on the divinity of Christ. The delegates were not overtly troubled by Erasmus’s daring innovations in terminology, even if these included key terms such as “hypocrisis” (in the annotation at Rom 8.3 on “sub specie carnis peccato obnoxiae” [in the likeness of flesh subject to sin] ¹² ) or “sermo” (a change from “verbum” at 1 John 1.1). Their main concern lay, instead, with Christ’s appellatio, an issue which united defenders and critics of Erasmus alike. Both sides criticized what they perceived as deliberate ambiguity on Erasmus’s part, when he spoke of Christ “being called” God. This was clearly an assertion bordering on Arianism. Once again, in accusing Erasmus of heresy, the delegates were resorting to their usual tactics of paraphrasing rather than quoting, and of corrupting the meaning of some of Erasmus’s statements (see Bataillon 1966, 256–57).

Only two weeks after articles three and four had been discussed, Alonso Manrique resolved to adjourn the meetings at Valladolid without a formal conclusion. The battle continued, however, and the two camps involved used the short truce ensuing the dispute to strengthen their cases. Erasmus himself also moved swiftly and decided to refute the contents of the Valladolid Articles point by point. A draft of Erasmus’s planned defence, under the title Gustus responsionis ad articulos a monachis notatos, was sent to Manrique in early September 1527 (Allen et al. 1906–1958, Ep. 1877). In spite of the advice from the Inquisitor General, he proceeded with his Apologia ad monachos Hispanos, which came out in Basle only a few weeks later.

In his response to the Spanish friars, Erasmus’s first concern was to invalidate the mode in which his critics’ arguments had been presented. Defending his orthodoxy, he declared that his opponents had not observed correct procedure. Thus, to the accusation of indulgence and tolerance towards heresy, Erasmus replied by arguing that his words had been taken out of context and that his censors had paraphrased his statements. He claimed never to have said that capital punishment should not be inflicted on heretics. Rather, he had only advocated preventive measures towards heresy in order to cure it before heretics had to be put to death if no other remedies were effective. ¹³ As for the contents of the charges, Erasmus complained that his points had been deliberately misunderstood. He argued, for example, that his censors were mistaken in their belief that he had questioned articles of faith. As pointed out by Erasmus, articles of faith were based on clear scriptural evidence, established creed, and the decisions of universal synods (Le Clerc 1703–1706, 9:1091C). In many cases he also defended himself by reminding his critics that his opinions concerned issues which were still awaiting the final verdict of the church. Similarly, he frequently noted that the views conveyed in his writings were supported by the authority of Jerome or Augustine, “the fountainhead and parent of all scholastic theology on which those who raise this fuss particularly pride themselves” (Le Clerc 1703–1706, 9:1058D–E; see Rummel 1988, 2:94–95).

Though Erasmus dismissed the contents of the Valladolid Articles as “drivel and slander” (Le Clerc 1703–1706, 9:1082E) and accused the Spanish monks of stupidity, malice, and ignorance, he clearly did not take the matter lightly. Indeed, Erasmus’s thorough reply to the pronouncements of his critics throws some doubts on the trustworthiness of his words regarding the substance of the articles. First and foremost, he saw in the invective at the hands of the religious orders a renewal of the old controversy with López de Zúñiga, whom he even accused of having inspired the friars. Although the inquisitorial investigation of 1527 focused on monasticism, biblical scholarship was in the end not absent from the proceedings, as passages from the Annotationes and the Paraphrases of the New Testament, in which Erasmus commented on and justified his emendation of the Greek text and his Latin translation, were presented by Erasmus’s critics as proof of his unorthodox views on church and doctrine.

Conclusion

Though the positions defended by Spanish critics of Erasmus’s thought and works ultimately prevailed, Erasmus’s writings on Holy Scripture continued to exert considerable influence on Renaissance Spanish culture. Despite censorship and outright condemnation—Erasmus’s writings were put en bloc on the Index librorum prohibitorum of Paul IV (1559)—throughout the sixteenth century Erasmus’s Novum Instrumentum forced Spanish biblical scholars to tread a careful path between their orthodox views (or the demands imposed on them by the ecclesiastical authorities) and the high praise that Erasmus’s edition of the New Testament after all merited in scholarly circles. The Valencian historian Pere Antoni Beuter (1490/1495–1554), professor of Scripture at the local university, constitutes a good case in point. In 1547 Beuter published a tract entitled Annotationes decem ad Sacram Scripturam, aimed at his own students. When discussing the authenticity of a sample of biblical passages—among which is the Johannine Comma in John’s first epistle—Beuter shows his acquaintance with Erasmus’s edition of the New Testament. He recognizes the value of Erasmus’s emendations and conjectures, but does not—cannot—fully endorse them. Beuter’s ambivalent attitude towards Erasmus is at its most obvious when—after advocating the collation of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts in those cases where the Latin text appears to be corrupt—he takes precautions and adds carefully, “as long as pure manuscripts may be found which are not suspect of having been forged by heretics or perfidious Jews” (fol. 167r; see Asensio 1952, 46–47). In a Spain which was gradually leaning towards the Counter-Reformation, praise of Erasmus’s scholarly endeavours proved far too dangerous. ¹⁴