PREFACE OF DESIDERIUS ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM

TO THE THIRD EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

IN THE YEAR 1524

Decorative woodcut initial Q depicting a seated figure, possibly a scholar or biblical character, within an ornate frame.WHAT our Lord and teacher Jesus Christ says in the Gospel of Matthew is something I believe every mortal should consider addressed to themselves: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Matthew 11:28. This verse is the cornerstone of Erasmus’s argument for universal access to the Bible. The Savior of all repels no kind of human being from himself; he invites everyone to this place of refreshment, for there is no one in this world who does not suffer from some trouble. He does not distinguish between man and woman, child and elder, slave and free, private citizen and King, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, priest and layman, or monk and non-monk. Whoever you are, whatever your condition, if you seek refreshment, come to me. Ambition is a massive burden; it is a heavy yoke to serve one's lusts. One person is twisted by envy; another is tortured by anger and a desire for revenge. This one loves miserably; that one hates even more miserably. Harsh poverty weighs upon this man; another is burdened by disease or old age. A tyrant oppresses one, while others are weighed down by human regulations. Indeed, what evils does this life not hold? Yet to all of them, the best of all beings, Christ, says: Come to me.

Until now, people have gone to the Philosophers; they have gone to Moses; they have gone to the Pharisees and the Rabbis; they have gone here and there. Now, "come to me," and what those others did not provide, I will provide: I will refresh you. Everyone seeks leisure and peace. And who would not immediately love such accessible goodness from the most merciful Lord, who calls everyone to himself of his own accord? Who would not instantly conceive a certain confidence in their heart upon realizing that he who makes the promise is all-powerful? Whatever evil you suffer, whatever burden weighs you down, I will refresh you. He promises an extraordinary thing, and there is no mention of a price—only "come." Why should we be reluctant to go to him who, for our sake, came to us? Someone might say: "How shall we go to him? We crawl upon the earth, while he sits sublime in the Heavens."

Therefore, we must set our course there if we wish to approach Christ. For one does not go to him with feet, but with affections—or rather, with the feet of the soul, not the body. If these earthly things, which hold us back from heavenly blessings, begin to seem worthless to you, then you have already begun to approach Christ. You do not need to measure out the seas or travel to unknown regions. The Word of God is ready and present, in your mouth and in your heart. A reference to Romans 10:8. There is no reason for these voices to move you: "Look, here is Christ in the field!" or "Look, here he is in the city!" For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you. If you wish to approach Christ, see that you approach your own self. Nothing is more internal to you than your own soul; withdraw entirely into it. When you are called away to things of the body, you depart from yourself, and thus you depart from Christ. When these "goods"—which even secular philosophers call "external"—stun you, you move even further from yourself. Nevertheless, no one is granted the ability to come to Christ unless the Father has drawn him—or rather, unless Christ himself has drawn him. Let us therefore cry out with the Bride: Draw me after you. Song of Solomon 1:4. Let us cry out with Peter: Command me to come to you. Matthew 14:28. Long ago, even the Pharisees and Herodians approached Christ, but they left worse than they had arrived. No one comes to Christ successfully unless they approach with sincere faith, thirsting and hungering for justice. Provided we come as we ought, there is no danger that we come in vain.

He is present to his people, and he is present more effectively now than when he was physically present among the Judeans. He left us the purest veins of his table in the Evangelical and Apostolic writings. Erasmus uses the metaphor of "veins" (venas) of a mine or a spring to describe the scriptures as the source of spiritual life. You may approach these as often as you like. You may even carry them around with you. We have the fountains of the Savior: what can we draw from there but salvation? Why, having neglected these, do we prefer to drink from the broken cisterns of others, filled with rubbish and ruins, where there is more mud than water? Alluding to Jeremiah 2:13. Erasmus is critiquing the "muddy" and complicated medieval commentaries that overshadowed the simple text of the Bible. I will say nothing for now about those whose "veins" are infected with poison. Nor is there any reason to stall by saying: "It is for the Theologians to touch those fountains and then serve what they have drawn to others." Certainly, we should take greedily from them when the opportunity arises. To such men the saying of Solomon truly applies: The mouth of the righteous is a vein of life. Proverbs 10:11. But since such men are wonderfully few, and most seek their own interests and not those of Jesus Christ, it is safest to go to the fountains themselves.

They do not require a thorny Sophist, or a stubborn Logician, or a crafty Philosopher; they require a mind that is sublime in Christ but humble within itself—that is, a mind that attributes nothing to itself but expects everything from Christ. For such a person, it will be enough to come instructed with these basics: that the doctrine of Christ alone is the rule for piety, and the life of Christ alone is the example for living rightly. Whatever the divine goodness has bestowed upon us, it has bestowed freely through him, so that we may not claim any praise or glory for ourselves. Through various afflictions and through the cross, God raised him to the glory of immortality, so that we, through innocence of life, might meanwhile contemplate a kind of immortality here. We do this through charity, doing good (as much as is in us) to all—even the wicked; through patience, cheerfully enduring whatever is inflicted for Christ's sake in the hope of a future reward; and by tempering our actions on all sides so that we might even entice the wicked to a love of the Gospel life. Let there be nothing in us that anyone could probably slander; let whatever we do and whatever we say refer back to the glory of Christ. In such a life, ambition can do nothing, nor anger, nor envy, nor greed, nor the other plagues of human life. The terror of death will have no power over one who is convinced that for the pious, nothing truly perishes—so much so that even the loss of life itself is turned into the immortal gain of life.

It is possible to draw this Philosophy original: "Philosophiam"; Erasmus famously termed his approach the Philosophia Christi (the Philosophy of Christ), which prioritized inner transformation over outward ritual. from these fountains; by this name, we are called Christians. If everyone rejoices to be called a Christian, then no one should be ignorant of the teachings of their Prince. No one dares to profess themselves an Augustinian without having read the rule of Augustine; no one a Benedictine while ignorant of Benedict’s rule; no one a Franciscan without having seen the rule of Francis. And yet you consider yourself a Christian while you never care to know the rule of Christ? Francis cries out: "He who is not clothed in such a color, or is not girded with a rope, is not my disciple," and everyone religiously does what the man commands. Christ cries out: He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me, Matthew 10:38. yet no one considers it a religious duty to take up the cross, and still no one thinks of themselves as any less of a Christian.

If any Franciscan were to dress in black or walk about without his belt, he would be seized by a great fear that some demon might suddenly snatch him away to hell, because he dared to do something that is neither good nor bad in itself, and is only a sin because a man forbade it. Christ—who is as much greater than Francis as can be, if any comparison is even possible—commanded you not to resist evil, to repay bad deeds with good ones, and to retaliate against curses with blessings. And do you not tremble? Do you not shudder? Do you not fear that the earth might swallow you up when you burden a benefit with bad deeds, or when you tear apart a deserving person with a virulent and lying tongue? This is the common rule for all Christians. By this rule everyone will be examined, whatever their status, in that judgment of God—where they will be judged not by their choice of fish or meat, nor by the color of their clothes, but by true things. You curse a man as an Apostate if a Minorite A "Friar Minor," another name for a Franciscan. wears a color that turns a little too much toward black, and yet are you not an apostate when you are forgetful of the entire Gospel doctrine, forgetful of everything you vowed in baptism? When you serve Mammon entirely, serve the pleasures of the world, serve ambition, and instead of for Christ (to whom you once dedicated yourself and whose words you swore to follow), you live according to the lust of the Adversary whom you once abjured and detested? If there is such great religious devotion toward human regulations, why is there such a lazy neglect of that one thing which alone ought to be our religion? This is no new complaint. Long ago, God complained through the Prophet Jeremiah that the sons of Jonadab The Rechabites (descendants of Jonadab) were praised in Jeremiah 35 for strictly following their father's command to abstain from wine, contrasting with Israel's failure to follow God's commands. constantly obeyed the command of their father by abstaining from wine, which he had forbidden them, while the Israelite people meanwhile neglected the commands of God. Christ complained of this very thing in the Gospel, crying out against those who transgre-