The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 2635 to 2802, Volume 19 (Collected Works of Erasmus)

This volume includes Erasmus’ correspondence for the months April 1532 to April 1533, a period in which he feared a religious civil war in Germany. In his desire to move somewhere far enough from Germany to be safe and yet not so far that an old man could not undertake the journey, Erasmus eventually decided to accept the invitation from Mary of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, to return to his native Brabant. In March 1533, the terms of Erasmus’ return were settled and in July they were formally approved by the emperor. But by this time Erasmus’ fragile health had already declined to the point that he could not undertake the journey, and he would never recover sufficiently to do so. The works published in the months covered by this volume include the eighth, much-enlarged edition of the Adagia, and the Explanatio symboli, the catechism that delighted Erasmus’ followers but gave Martin Luther much ammunition for a brutal attack on him in his Epistola de Erasmo Roterodamo of 1534.

Clarence H. Miller is an American Professor Emeritus of English at Saint Louis University.