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Bede in the Renaissance: The Case

o f More and Erasmus*

by Istvn Bejczy

It is generally agreed that Renaissance humanists did not look back to the IMiddle Ages with much affection. The Middle Ages were rather a period which they tried to overcome. Most humanists objected to medieval intellec- tual life because of its lack of literary refinement, its quarrelsome character, and its neglect of the sources of Christendom. It is to the humanists that we owe not only the concept of the Middle Ages, but also the characterization of the medieval period as the Dark Ages. 1

The term "Dark Ages" is still in use today even among professional histo- rians as a name for the early medieval periodz-a period which is dark in the sense that we know relatively little about it. For the humanists, however, the darkest centuries of the Middle Ages were not the earlier but the later ones, especially from the twelfth century onward, when universities were founded in Europe and when Scholasticism became the standard of intellectual dis- course. The earlier part of the Middle Ages had had a less disastrous effect on intellectual life, so the humanists assumed, and a small number of early me- dieval authors were even considered worth serious study.

St. Bede the Venerable (673/4-735) was one of the happy few. Bede's works, which were widely diffused during the Middle Ages in England as well as on the Continent, remained influential in sixteenth-century Europe. Al-

though the relative esteem for Bede by such different men as Flavio Biondo and Philipp Melanchthon has been noticed, 3 there is no study on the reception of Bede in the Renaissance. In this article I want to make a first beginning by

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investigating the appraisal of Bede by Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus. I hope to be able to show that both humanists looked quite favorably upon Bede, but that the differences between the attitudes of both men are perhaps even more interesting.4 4

Bede, whom Dante placed in Paradise (Paradiso 9.131), found a wide au- dience during the Middle Ages. From every century until the sixteenth, a con- siderable number of Bede manuscripts has survived, with a clear peak in the twelfth century. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, nowadays by far Bede's best-known work, was copied almost exclusively by British scribes. Bede's biblical commentaries, on the other hand, are mainly extant in French and German manuscripts. 5 these commentaries were also excerpted on a large scale in the two most important medieval compilations of biblical scholarship, the Glossa ordinaria of the twelfth century, and the Catena aurea composed by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. It is therefore safe to state that Bede as an exegete had a universal reputation, whereas his fame as a historian was limited to his own country.6 6

Neither More nor Erasmus had a particular interest in the early history of Britain, so it should not surprise us that in the works of neither of them do we find any explicit reference to Bede's Ecclesiastical History. With More and Erasmus, Bede appears almost exclusively as a biblical scholar. 7 In the case of More, with whom we will start our investigation, explicit mentions of Bede

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are few.8 Moreover, More does not even appear to have been directly familiar with Bede's works. His quotations can all be traced to the Glossa ordinaria or the Catena aurea, if their source can be traced at all. For on the two occasions when More cites Bede in full in his works, the reference is spurious. The first example is from The Answer to a Poisoned Book (1533). More appeals to Bede as an arbiter in his conflict on the Eucharist with an anonymous English Zwinglian (whom scholars now presume to be George Joye9). Bede is intro- duced as "a better than we both" and as "ye holy cunnyng doctour saint Bede, whose wordes I trust euery wyse man wyll byleue a lyttel better than eyther maister Maskers or my. Thereupon More cites a passage from Bede in English translation, in order to slay his opponent and to prove his own right Un- fortunately for More, the passage cited can be found in the Catena aurea, but not in Bede's genuine writings. The same thing happens in A Treatise upon the Passion, written one year later (1534). Again Bede is quoted by More with regard to the Eucharist, this time in Latin as well as in English, from a work called De misteriis. Bede, however, did not write a work called De misteriis. In reality the passage in question stems from Pope Innocent 111. 11

Both spurious Bede quotations prove, however, that More in his later years looked upon Bede as a champion of orthodoxy, whose statements had enough authority to settle disputes on essential tenets of the Christian faith. More's other mentions of Bede confirm this view. Bede is invariably referred to as a man of distinguished learning and as a saint, whose opinions command the utmost respects. 12 To a certain extent, More's deferential treatment of Bede

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may have been elicited by the Reformation. In order to condemn Protestant- ism as a dangerous new phenomenon, Catholics like More affirmed that they were continuing an uninterrupted religious tradition that had started in the first days of Christendom. To More, Bede was an indispensable link in this tra- dition. In The Supplication of Souls ( 1529) More included Bede among the Greek and Latin saints who, through all centuries, had stressed the need to pray for the souls in Purgatory; consequently, the English Lutherans who ques- tioned Purgatory's existence stood alone.'3 Likewise, in The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer (1532/3) More named "saynt Bede" as one of the saints "of euery age synnys the apostles days / which were all lefte by god for seed in the knowen catholyke chyrch" who upheld the orthodox faith and whose works spoke against Martin Luther and William Tyndale. 14 Finally, in The Answer to a Poisoned Book More argued that his views were sustained by a tradition of 1500 years, consisting not only of common believers but also of Greek and Latin saints, of whom Bede was one. 15

The rise of Protestantism, however, cannot be the only reason for More's veneration of Bede. The first time More mentioned Bede in his writings was in 1515, in his letter to the University of Oxford. "All the ancient doctors of the Latin church," More stated, "Jerome, Augustine, Bede, and many others besides, made a strenuous effort to learn the Greek language." 16 Without hes- itation Bede is mentioned in one breath with the greatest authorities of the patristic age, as England's own church father so to speak, although More did not explicitly claim Bede as a national hero. After the spread of the Refor- mation, More referred all the more eagerly to Bede as a church father, espe- cially in The Answer to a Poisoned Book. In it, More affirmed four times that his views were sustained by the fathers, among whom he mentioned Bede in every instance, while other Latin authors of the Middle Ages are absent from his list. 17 Referring to these authors, More argued that if "suche good godly

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men, & such holy doctours & sayntes were papystes," then the name of papist was nothing to be ashamed of. 18 Bede's authority as England's church father, then, offered More a welcome additional argument in his polemics with En- glish Protestants, but we should bear in mind that More already recognized Bede's patristic authority before the world had heard of Luther. In fact, More was continuing a tradition from the Middle Ages: Bede's liturgical commem- oration in medieval England suggests that from the early days he was regarded as a father by his countrymen. 19

Also outside England Bede's authority was occasionally invoked in Refor- mation controversies, by Catholics and Protestants alike. Whereas arguments from the Scholastic tradition were of little account with the Reformers, both parties tried to fortify their positions by claiming that the church fathers, with whom they sometimes ranked Bede, stood on their sidle. 20 A good illustration is offered by the Leipzig disputation which set Johannes Eck against Luther and Karlstadt (1519). As Eck indicated, he deliberately refrained from quoting against Luther authors who had lived during the last three hundred years, as he knew that his opponent held these authors in contempt. Instead, Eck ap- pealed to the authority of the fathers, with Bede appearing as his most recent examples. 2 In his reply Luther expressly recognized Bede's patristic authority, but maintained that the English monk actually supported his own case.22

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Karlstadt likewise acknowledged Bede as a church father, including him as the only author now considered medieval among the patristic authors to whose authority he was willing to submit. z3

If we turn to the reception of Bede by Erasmus, we can see some parallels with More but also some important differences. Erasmus was more reluctant to accept Bede as a first-rate author. Bede only gradually gained Erasmus' re- spect, without ever becoming a favorite. Nevertheless, Erasmus used his works in a most extensive way, especially in the 1520s, although by no means un- critically.

As in the case of More, Erasmus' references to Bede are few in his early writ- ings. Some telling examples can be found in Antibarbari. In this work Erasmus did not rank Bede with the church fathers, but gave qualified praise to him as a representative of the centuries that followed the patristic period, when learning was relegated to the monks, who initially managed their business not too badly. In the manuscript version of Antibarbari, dating from 1500/01, Er- asmus described Bede's style as "even-toned and dull"; only in the 1520 edition he added: "but learned, considering his century. "24 Moreover, he called Bede in 1500 as well as in 1520 "upright in his life and no mean teacher; and he was so far from despising the disciplines of the schools that he was willing to write about rules of grammar and prosody. "25 Bede's merits, then, were only relative, and prior to 1516 Erasmus did not take much interest in his work.26

The year 1516, however, brought the first editions of Erasmus' New Tes- tament and of the Jerome edition which he had prepared with the Amerbach brothers. For both editorial projects Bede had served as a source to Erasmus. With regard to the Jerome edition Erasmus even stated that he listed Bede among the truly learned, and that his writings had helped him to solve some problems of interpretation. 27 This is not to say that Erasmus considered Bede

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the equal of Jerome or of other church fathers. Although in later writings Er- asmus incidentally put Bede on a par with authors from the patristic age, 28 there can be little doubt that the English monk, in Erasmus' eyes, remained first of all an early medieval author with relative merits and relative defects, a man "not completely unlearned, 1129 "not to be despised,"3 "who lacked nei- ther learning nor industry by the standards of his time. "31 What Erasmus really thought of Bede and of some other authors comparable to him, he clearly ex- pressed in his 1533 edition of what he thought to be the Psalm commentaries of Haymo of Halberstadt (in reality composed by an anonymous author of the twelfth century32). There had been an age, Erasmus stated, when learned monks made efforts to produce summaries of ancient knowledge. The writings of the fathers, which were often too subtle for the learned and too tedious for the people, were condensed by those monks in brief tracts that were easy to understand. The best examples of such monks had been Bede, Haymo, Anselm of Canterbury, and Claudius of Turin, all living between the end of the sev- enth and the beginning of the twelfth centuries. The work of these monks had been useful to the church, especially if one took into account in what un- cultivated times and regions they had been living. The brevity and clarity of their work contrasted favorably with the Scholastic subtleties of the religious of Erasmus' own day.33

From this view, sustained in some other writings as well, 34 it is clear that Erasmus did not share the high opinion of Bede voiced by Thomas More. Bede was to Erasmus an author of the early Middle Ages, who had fewer merits than the fathers before him, but fewer defects than the Scholastics after him. In

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addition, Erasmus denied that Bede or other early medieval authors had made any original contributions to scholarship. They had merely summarized what the fathers had already expressed. 35 In the case of Bede, this judgment is cer- tainly unjustified, also in the field of biblical studies: as Erasmus knew, Bede's commentaries on the Catholic Epistles had no counterpart in the writings of the patristic age.

Erasmus' qualified esteem for Bede did not prevent him from a respectful use of his work, a use that became particularly extensive in the 1520s. Again, the Reformation offers at least a partial explanation. Not that Erasmus, like More, appealed to Bede principally in order to put the Protestants to silence. With Erasmus we do not find more than a handful of Bede quotations against Luther;36 the authority of those he considered genuine patristic writers defi- nitely carried more weight with him. However, we can find about two dozen

quotations from Bede in Erasmus' defenses against his Catholic accusers, side by side, in most cases, with arguments taken from Scholastic authorities like Thomas Aquinas. 37 It was thus not so much as a doctor of the church that Bede was employed by Erasmus in his controversies, but as a representative of post- patristic leaming, whom Erasmus could conveniently cite to show that he kept pace with the medieval traditions of the church.

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But Erasmus did not only use Bede for polemical ends. He also took a schol-

arly interest in Bede's biblical commentaries on behalf of his own New Tes- tament edition. In the first and second editions, of 1516 and 1519, Erasmus' use of Bede was still modest, but this changed in the later editions of 1522, 1527, and 1535, when Bede became one of the most frequently cited authors. 38 Bede's influence was particularly strong in the annotations on the Catholic

Epistles, doubtless because Bede's commentaries were the earliest ones that Erasmus could consult. From the 1522 edition on, Erasmus went so far in his

preface as to include Bede as the only non-patristic figure among the "fully and universally approved" authors against whose work he had checked his emen- dations.39 Meanwhile Erasmus did not always agree with Bede in his annota- tions, but often enough took a different stand, indicating where Bede had gone astray. Moreover, he occasionally belittled Bede's scholarly merits, pointing, among other things, to his obscure expressions4 or to his deficient (though not absent) knowledge of Greek.41 On the other hand, he saved him from the sarcasm with which he treated such late medieval exegetes as Nicholas of Lyra and Hugh of St. Cher.

Erasmus' increasing use of Bede in his New Testament was to a lesser extent the result of his conflicts with Catholic critics. Some passages from polemical works in which Bede was mentioned were inserted by Erasmus in his anno- tations to later editions of the New Testament.42 Some other mentions of Bede in the annotations to the New Testament could be seen as anticipations

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of future criticism by Catholic assailants.43 But this would only hold true for the instances in which Erasmus agreed with Bede. In the majority of cases we should not suppose that Erasmus quoted Bede for strategic reasons, but because Bede's commentary was interesting enough for him to mention, even if he could not always agree with it.44

Why, then, do we observe such a significant increase in Erasmus' use of Bede during the 1520s? I think that we can adduce two causes. First, a very practical one. In 1521, Bede's commentaries to the New Testament were published in a handsome edition by the Paris printers Josse Bade and Jean Petit.45 Before then, Erasmus knew Bede only from the Glossa ordinaria, the Catena aurea and one or two manuscripts. 46 From 1521 on, all works of Bede relevant to Erasmus' biblical scholarship stood directly at his disposal (although many Bede quo- tations added for the first time in the 1522 edition of the New Testament were still drawn from the Glossa ordinaria). Erasmus, then, knew Bede's works in- comparably better than More did; if Erasmus took a more critical stand to Bede, his judgment was much better founded.

A second cause seems to be that during the 1520s Erasmus came to recon- sider his indebtedness to medieval scholarship in general. His choice against Protestantism implied a choice in favor of the Catholic tradition, including the Middle Agues. 47 As a result, Erasmus' treatment of medieval authors became more intensive and more circumspect, especially in later editions of his New

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Testament. His growing concern with Bede's biblical commentaries fits in this development. As for Erasmus' becoming more circumspect, we may point to the fact that in the New Testament editions from 1522 on he introduced a standard explanation for certain failures of Bede and of other medieval exe- getes, supposing that not the exegetes themselves but their copiers were re- sponsible for the failures in question.48

In conclusion we can say that More's and Erasmus' appreciation of Bede diverge on many points, despite some apparent similarities. For More, Bede stood beyond criticism as a champion of orthodoxy and as England's own church father. More's veneration of Bede as a patristic authority seems to con- tinue an English tradition. Before but especially after the Reformation More occasionally referred to Bede as an arbiter (with or without other church fa- thers) in polemical writings against English opponents. As the principal light of British ecclesiastical history, Bede offered a particularly welcome counter- poise to the Lutheran challenge. Nevertheless, More barely knew Bede's work. He mostly, if not always, quoted him at second hand; some crucial citations are even spurious. It seems safe to state that he made a more felicitous use of Bede's reputation than of his scholarship.

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For Erasmus, by contrast, Bede was an early medieval author of modest mer- its. As learning had been past its prime in Bede's age, his work had to be used with caution, although it was not entirely without value, especially if com- pared to the products of Scholasticism. Bede was one of the most deserving early medieval scholars who strove to save patristic learning from oblivion, al- though he was certainly no church father himself. Erasmus' reserved esteem for Bede might well be typical of humanism on the Continent. However, Er- asmus gradually became one of the most diligent students of Bede during the Renaissance, especially in the 1520s. In comparison to More, his use of Bede was much more apposite from a scholarly point of view, but much more critical as well. He knew Bede's work not only from secondary sources but also directly, from manuscripts and (after 1521) from his printed Bible commentaries. He displayed a keen scholarly interest in Bede's writings, notably on behalf of his biblical studies. In a polemical context he used Bede against Catholic rather

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than Protestant adversaries, not as a patristic authority but as a representative of the medieval tradition. It seems evident that Erasmus was a better student and a fairer judge of Bede than More-except perhaps if one measures by standards of heavenly justice: for More, Bede was as much a saint as a scholar; for Erasmus, only the scholar existed.49

Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Appendix

Listed are explicit Bede quotations in Erasmus' Annotationes in Novum Tes- tamentum, indexed according to Erasmus' Annotations on the New Testament, ed. Anne Reeve and M. A. Screech, 3 vols. (London: Duckworth, Leiden: Brill, 1986-1993) ( = R). The year numbers refer to the edition (1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, or 1535) when the reference to Bede was first inserted.

Matthew R 25 on 5:3 Beati pauperes spiritu 1527

z

Mark R 113 on 1:2 In Esaia propheta 1535 R 133 on 8:31 Post tres dies 1519 R 135 on 8:38 Qui enim me confessus 1535 R 142 on 14:3 Nardi spicati 1527 R 148 on 16:14 Qui viderant eum resurrexisse 1535

Luke R 150 on 1:2 Qui ab initio ipsi viderunt 1522 R 153 on 1:9 Sorte exiit 1527 R 158 on 1:49 Et sanctum nomen eius 1527 R 168 on 2:38 Redemptionem Israel 1527 R 170 on 3:1 Procurante Pontio 1535 5

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R 171 on 3:13 Quam quod constitutum est vobis faciatis 1527 R 177 on 6:1 In sabbato secundoprimo 1527 R 179 on 6:23 Secundum haec enim faciebant prophetis patres eorum 1527 R 187 on 10:1 Et alios septuaginta duos 1527 R 191 on 11:41 Quod superest 1535 R 200 on 16:21 Et nemo illi dabat 1535 R 201 on 16:22 Et sepultus est in inferno 1527 R 208 on 21:38 Et omnis populus manicabat 1527 R 209 on 22:31 Ait autem dominus Simoni 1527 R 209 on 22:36 Sed nunc qui habet sacculum 1527

John R 219 on 1:1 Erat verbum 1522

Acts R 273 on 1 :2 Praecipiens apostolis per spiritum sanctum 1527 R 276-7 on 1:20 Fiat commemoratio 1527 R 277 on 1:23 Qui cognominatus est Iustus 1527 R 276 on 1:14 Cum fratribus eius 1527 R 280 on 2:11 Iudaei quoque 1527 R 282 on 2:24 Solutis doloribus 1527 R 291 on 7:6 Annis quadringentis 1527 R 302 on 13:6 Barieu 1522 R 304 on 14:6 Et universam in circuitu regionem 1522 R 306 on 15:24 Quibus non mandavimus 1527 R 309 on 17:6 Et quosdam fratres 1522 R 311 on 17:26 Fecitque ex uno omne hominum genus 1527 R 313 on 17:34 In quibus est Dionysius 1527 R 314 on 18:27 Contulit multum his qui crediderunt 1527 R 322 on 22:28 Multa summa 1522 R 323 on 23:3 Percutiat te deus, paries 1522 R 325 on 24:6-7 Quem et apprehensum ... ad te venire 1522 R 326 on 24:14 Secundum sectam quam dicunt haeresim 1522 R 328 on 25:23 Cum multa ambitione 1522 R 328 on 26:2 Aestimo me beatum 1527 R 330 on 27:7 Gnidum 1519 R 332 on 27:30 Commisissent scapham 1535 R 332 on 27:40 Levantes artemonem 1522 R 333 on 28:11 Cui erat insigne castrorum 1522

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Romans R 413 on 12:11 Domino servientes 1522

I Corinthians R 442 on 2:7 In mysterio quae abscondita 1519 R 487 on 10:6 In figura facta sunt nostri 1519 R 492 on 11:42 Quod pro vobis tradetur 1527 R 521 on 16:8 Usque ad pentecosten 1522

II Timothy R 687 on 2:15 Recte tractantem 1522

James R 738 on 1:18 Voluntarie enim etc. 1522 R 740 on 2:13 Superexaltat autem misericordia iu. 1522 R 740 on 3:3 Si autem frenos 1522 R 741 on 3:5 Et magna exultat 1522 R 741 on 3:5 Ecce quantus ignis 1522 . R 741 on 3:15 Desursum descendens 1527 R 741 on 3:15 Animalis diabolica 1522 R 742 on 3:17 Bonis consentiens 1527 R 742 on 4:2 Occiditis et zelatis 1527 R 742 on 4:4 Inimica est deo 1527 R 742 on 4:5 Ad invidiam spiritus concupiscit 1522 R 743 on 5:6 Non restitit 1522 R 744 on 5:13 Orat aequo animo et psallat 1522 R 744 on 5:16 Peccata vestra 1522 R 744 on 5:20 Et operit 1522

1 Peter R 745 on 1:1 Advenis dispersionis ponti etc. 1522 R 745 on 1 :2 Secundum praescientiam 1522 R 745 on 1:7 In revelatione Iesu Christi 1522 R 746 on 1:12 In quem desiderant 1522 R 747 on 1:17 Et si patrem vocatis 1522 R 747 on 2:2 Rationabiles sine dolo lac 1522 R 748 on 2:5 Domus spirituales 1522 R 748 on 2:7 Vobis igitur credentibus honor 1522 R 749 on 2:8 In quo 1522

J

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R 750 on 2:18 Sed etiam discolis 1522 R 750 on 2:25 Et episcopum animarum 1522 . R 751 on 3:8 In fide autem 1522 R 752 on 3:18 Mortificatus quidem came 1522 R 752 on 3:19 In carcere erant spiritu 1522 R 754 on 4:12 Nolite peregrinari 1522 R 754 on 4:15 Nemo autem vestrum pati 1522 R 754 on 4:18 Et si iustus quidem vix salvabitur 1522 R 756 on 5:13 In Babylone collecta 1522 R 757 on 5:14 Gratia vobis omnibus 1522

II Peter R 757 on 1:2 Et pax impleatur 1522 R 757 on 1:3 Quomodo omnia etc. 1522 R 758 on 1:3 Propria gloria et virtute 1527 R 758 on 1:5 In fide vestra virtutem 1527 R 758 on 1:7 Amorem fraternitatis 1522 R 758 on 1:12 Propter quod incipiam 1522 R 759 on 1:16 Non enim indoctas fabulas 1522 R 760 on 2:3 Non cessat 1522 R 760 on 2:4 Si enim deus angelis peccantibus non pepercit 1522 R 760 on 2:4 Sed rudentibus 1522 R 760 on 2:8 Aspectu enim et auditu 1527 R 761 on 2:13 Diei delicias 1522 R 762 on 3:1 In quibus 1527 R 763 on 3:5 Coeli erant prius 1527 .

I John R 764 on 1:4 Ut gaudeatis 1527 . R 768 on 4:13 Quoniam ipse prior 1522 R 768-9 on 5:7-8 Tres sunt qui testimonium dant in coelo 1522 R 771 on 5:16 Petat et dabitur ei vita peccanti non ad mortem 1527 R 771-2 on 5:16 Non pro illo 1527 .