sourced story
1516Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Erasmus Publishes a Greek New Testament

A humanist scholar tells readers to go back to the original text, not the Church's Latin gloss

On the timeline · around 1516 · Before LutherBefore LutherLuther's RevoltErasmus Publishes a Greek New Testament147014801490150015101520

Quick facts

Dates
c. 1469 to 1536
Key work
Novum Instrumentum (Greek New Testament), 1516
Relationship to Luther
Sympathetic early on, split publicly in 1524 over free will

What happened

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, a Dutch scholar and one of the founders of Renaissance humanism, argued for the principle of ad fontes, returning to original-language sources rather than relying on later commentary. In 1516 he published the Novum Instrumentum, a fresh edition of the New Testament presenting the Greek text alongside his own new Latin translation and critical notes, the first published Greek New Testament to reach the market. His 1509 satire In Praise of Folly had already mocked the theatrical excess and corruption he saw in parts of the institutional Church, though he stopped well short of calling for a break with Rome.

Why it matters

Erasmus's Greek New Testament gave every later reformer, including Luther, a philologically serious alternative to the Church's official Latin Vulgate, and Luther used Erasmus's second edition as the base text for his own German New Testament. Erasmus himself rejected Luther's more radical break, publishing a 1524 essay defending free will against Luther, but the textual method he pioneered kept fueling reform even after he distanced himself from it.

How we know

Erasmus's published editions and his later polemical exchange with Luther survive in multiple printed copies studied by intellectual historians; the World History Encyclopedia's biography documents both the 1516 publication and the 1524 break with Luther.

Sources

See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.

Related timelines

  • The Renaissance → · Erasmus was a founder of Renaissance humanism; his textual methods fed directly into the Reformation
Part of a timelineThe Protestant Reformation30 events · How a Wittenberg monk's protest over indulgences split Western Christianity and set off a century of religious warView all →