top of page

Here I Stood: Venice/Basel (Printing Press)

davidl5012

One prime factor that made the Protestant Reformation possible was the invention of the printing press utilizing moveable type. Johann Gutenberg of Germany developed the first successful printing press; thereafter, printers procured presses and worked with authors in the editing process to produce books.



Prominent among these printers were Aldus Manutius whose press was located near the Rialto Bridge in Venice and Johann Froben in Basel, Switzerland. Erasmus, the prince of humanists, worked with both men; first, with Aldus Manutius, whose editions were known as “Aldine” and would rank as among the most valuable ands costly today, and then with Froben in Basel where he spent his last years. Erasmus printed his first successful book, the Adagia, with the Aldine press and gained instant recognition. Thereafter, he became the most sought-after and the most famous and well known author of his time.



He published his 1516 Greek text of the New Testament working with Froben in Basel.

The 1611 King James Bible was based on his third edition of the Greek text, and Luther’s German Bible also was a translation of that text. Erasmus is buried in Basel, and when I visited the city and saw the place of his internment, these thoughts of the magnitude of his contributions came to mind. I also had him in mind at times that I have walked along the canal near the Rialto Bridge in Venice.


Erasmus was a humanist. He remained aloof from the controversies dividing Christendom in his day. Catholics wanted him to align himself fully with the pope, and Protestants begged him to endorse Luther and make a full break with Rome. His response was that he was a heretic to both camps.



Yet his humanist mind-set had a tremendous effect on the development of the Reformation. Not only did he produce an excellent text that was used for Protestant Bibles, he moderated the fiery rhetoric of Luther and facilitated a more reasonable and scholarly approach to theology. His influence was extremely strong on Bucer, Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchthon and others. It would be accurate to say that all the early Reformers, certainly the magisterial Reformers, began as Erasmians, save Luther. That demeanor came to characterize the Reformed church – demeanor but not theology, for Erasmus resisted to the end, even though he wrote in his Diatribe on Free Will that everything starts and finishes by grace!



3 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comentários


bottom of page