MYTHS ABOUT THE KING JAMES BIBLE:

A popular evangelical leader and one time head of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, James Boice, writes of those who still persist in supporting the ancient and God-honored Textus Receptus. He seems to think one of the main problems with those who hold such old fashioned views today is their ignorance of the supposed fact that Erasmus was a humanist. Let us hear this, though, in his own words:

"However, in doing that [defending the Textus Receptus], they overlook the fact that Erasmus, who produced the Greek text on which the King James Bible is based, was actually a humanist" (Letter to Tom Hale, September 13, 1985).

It's amazing how often this charge is repeated by those who desire to belittle the text which literally covered the inhabited earth during the last 450 years. Stewart Custer, professor at the well-known fundamentalist university, Bob Jones, in The Truth About the King James Version Controversy, offers the same view of Erasmus:

"The Textus Receptus began with an edition of the Greek New Testament put together by a Roman Catholic humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, in A.D. 1516" (page 10).

As is usually the case, this view of Erasmus is given without proof. It would appear that these matters in regard to Erasmus are settled historical facts, but in reality there is evidence that Erasmus was more than merely a "Roman Catholic humanist."

As in most historical matters, there are areas of uncertainty; the evidence is imperfect and really insufficient; the time factor which divides us from the man is vast--450 years; the records which do exist can be interpreted from more than one angle, and are typically slated according to the bias of the historian or reviewer.

Also, I want to make it clear that by no means am I ready to assign any degree of perfection to Erasmus, either spiritual or intellectual. I am not trying to excuse the man's problems. There were serious imperfections in the man by fundamental Christian standards--his refusal to practice biblical separation from the error he so clearly saw; his overly zealous affection for pagan scholarship; his refusal (like that of all the Protestants) to discard in toto all of Rome's errors, including the very concept of sacramentalism, papacy, and the priesthood, etc.

Having said this, though, the evidence reveals that to label Erasmus merely as a Roman Catholic humanist and a careless, blundering textual editor is not the true picture.

I have made the effort to look into Erasmus's life and theology to acquaint myself sufficiently, I believe, for the task at hand. With considerable difficulty (since these studies were first written in South Asia without the benefit of proper theological library) I obtained two biographies of Erasmus's life--Erasmus of Christendom by Roland H. Bainton, and more importantly, the out-of-print classic Life and Letters of Erasmus by J.A. Froude, 1894. I have also used many other church historians and resources, and in light of the records available, I don't understand why evangelical men persist in casting Erasmus in such a totally negative spiritual light. These often are the same New-evangelicals who see nothing wrong with yoking together with modernists and Romanists today. One obvious motive for their attitude toward Erasmus would be an attempt to disparage his editorial work in reference to the Textus Receptus.

The studies I have made into the life and beliefs of Erasmus have been edifying and challenging. Without doubt, he held the treasure of his faith in Christ in a clay vessel, but the record holds evidence that the man lived and died with Christ, that he was born of the Spirit.

GOD CAN USE LESS THAN PERFECT MEN

The finality of such a judgment, obviously, is beyond the ability of any man to make, and it is not necessary to believe that Erasmus was a saved or spiritual man to believe that God used him as a chosen vessel in the matter of preserving the Word of God. Balaam, Samson, and Solomon were greatly used of God in spite of the fact that one of them was not even a part of the people of God, and the other two were disobedient. Two of these men were used in the process of the giving of inspired Scripture to the world. They were channels of divine revelation.

We could use the example here of another man who was used of God and even called the servant of God, but who was not described in Scripture as a saved man--Cyrus. See Isaiah 44:28--45:4. Cyrus was God's chosen instrument for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and in spite of the fact that he was a heathen king, God said of him in this passage, "He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure ... Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden ... I will go before thee ... I will give thee ..." Note that Isaiah 45:4 makes it plain that Cyrus was not saved, for God said he would do all of this through Cyrus "though thou hast not known me."

I am saying that even if it were true that Erasmus was not a saved man, and even if there are many things about Erasmus which were not right before God, this does not exempt him from having been a channel for divine preservation of Holy Scripture. I personally believe, though, that the record shows Erasmus was not a Cyrus or a Balaam.

Erasmus was within the Catholic Church, at least much of his life. But this does not mean Erasmus was blinded by Catholic heresies, certainly not to the extent that opponents of the Received Text would have us believe. And it is absolutely clear that Erasmus was not a humanist as it is defined in our day. A humanist by modern terms is one who has placed man in God's position and contends that man is the master of his own destiny. Today's humanists are atheistic evolutionists, and Erasmus absolutely does not fit into this category. If men such as those quoted above do not mean to say that Erasmus is a humanist after the modern definition, why don't they say so plainly? Certainly they know what most people think of today when they read that someone is a humanist.

The following facts will help balance the picture and I pray they will receive a wide hearing:

ERASMUS'S EARLY YEARS PROVIDED A BIBLE FOUNDATION

"In his youth, Erasmus was brought up among the Brethren of the Common Life who held the Bible in great reverence and awe ... Erasmus through life always had a similar reverence and respect for God's Word." We should note that Lion's History is biased against the Textus Receptus, yet even this volume admits that Erasmus was brought up among Bible-believing Christians and carried a reverence toward the Word of God throughout his life.

We should add that such a reverence for the Scriptures was certainly not the common experience among Roman Catholics in those dark days just before and after the breaking out of the Reformation. Nor is it today, either, by the way! Erasmus's belief and spirit were closer to Scripture than to Rome.

Consider Erasmus's testimony toward the Bible in his own words:

"I would have the weakest woman read the Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul ... I would have those words translated into all languages, so that not only Scots and Irishmen, but Turks and Saracens might read them. I long for the plowboy to sing them to himself as he follows the plow, the weaver to hum them to the tune of his shuttle, the traveler to beguile with them the dullness of his journey. ... Other studies we may regret having undertaken, but happy is the man upon whom death comes when he is engaged in these. These sacred words give you the very image of Christ speaking, healing, dying, rising again, and make Him so present, that were He before your very eyes you would not more truly see Him."

These, my friend, are not the convictions of the typical dupe of Rome in the sixteenth century. Note that the phrase about making the plowboy to sing the Scriptures originated with Erasmus--though it was popularized by William Tyndale.

ERASMUS SPOKE OUT PLAINLY AGAINST ROMAN ERRORS

"Europe was rocked from end to end by his books which exposed the ignorance of the monks, the superstitions of the priesthood, the bigotry and the childish and coarse religion of the day. ... The Pope offered to make him a cardinal. This he steadfastly refused, as he would not compromise his conscience."

This matter of Erasmus being offered high positions in the Roman church and refusing for conscience' sake is confirmed by every source I have consulted. It is not possible to know for certain his motive in each instance, but it is a historical fact that Erasmus repeatedly refused positions which would have made him wealthy and given great worldly prestige. The record indicates that his primary motive in most instances was the driving desire to be free to study, to write, to translate the Scriptures. He often spoke of this as his compulsion in life.

"Erasmus was of no mind to relinquish his liberty to travel wherever books, scholars, and printers were to be found."

"The consummate scholar Erasmus was the star of his age, who, though he might have lived opulently in France, Germany, or Italy, had chosen to finish his days among his English friends."

"`I hear,' he wrote, `that the Christian King will make me a bishop in Sicily. I am glad he thinks of me, but I would not give up my freedom to study for the most splendid of bishoprics.'"

It is a historical fact that Erasmus was strong and public in his condemnation of Catholic heresies, and "these attacks were made at a time when they might well have cost him his life. They did, in fact, result in the Roman Catholic church branding him as an `impious heretic' and the Pope forbade Catholics to read his works."

ERASMUS DEMONSTRATED HIS REJECTION OF ROMANISM BY HIS REJECTION OF THE LATIN VULGATE

Erasmus's own edition of the Latin New Testament was so opposed to the official Catholic Vulgate that "many thought Erasmus's Latin translation a presumptuous attack on the venerated Vulgate. Erasmus had also provided some annotations justifying his translation, and these annotations included sharp barbs aimed at the corrupt Catholic clergy."

Historian Andrew Miller reminds us of the dangerous climate which existed in that day for anyone who would oppose the Roman Vulgate:

"Under the gracious, guiding hand of Him who sees the end from the beginning, Erasmus bent all his great mental powers, and all his laborious studies, to the preparation of a critical edition of the Greek Testament. This work appeared at Basel in 1516, one year before the Reformation, accompanied by a Latin translation, in which he corrected the errors of the Vulgate. This was daring work in those days. There was a great outcry from many quarters against this dangerous novelty. "His New Testament was attacked," says Robertson, `why should the language of the schismatic Greeks interfere with the sacred and traditional Latin? How could any improvement be made on the Vulgate translation?' To question the fidelity of the Vulgate, was a crime of the greatest magnitude in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church"

Again, we observe that this is not the work of the typical priest of Rome!

ERASMUS'S BIBLE COMMENTARY DEALT A SHARP BLOW TO ROME'S PERVERSIONS

It is crucial to understand the times in which Erasmus labored. His writings and the publication of his New Testament paved the way for the Reformation. Erasmus lit the fuse for the Reformation explosion. This is no mean feat. Though I am a Baptist and do not trace my heritage through the Protestant Reformation, I do praise God for the multitudes which have been saved because of the Reformation. I believe God used the Reformation to break the back of Rome's temporal power to prepare the way for the great missionary era of the last 400 years. I praise God for the political and social blessings I enjoy today because of the Reformation.

We are sorry that Erasmus did not more wholeheartedly join the Reformation and make an unequivocal departure from the Catholic church. Apparently he felt that the necessary changes could be made from within the existing traditional church structures. He was wrong in this, for sure, BUT HE DID SEE THE ERRORS AND THE PROBLEMS. He did see the wickedness. AND HE DID SPEAK OUT PLAINLY AND UNHESITATINGLY AGAINST THESE THINGS. It was Erasmus's boldness to identify Rome's vileness that led others, such as Luther, to take a stand.

Nothing more plainly evidences this than his commentary. At this point we will quote from Froude's Life and Letters of Erasmus:

"Erasmus had undertaken to give the book to the whole world to read for itself--the original Greek of the Epistles and Gospel, with a new Latin translation--to wake up the intelligence, to show that the words had a real sense, and were not mere sounds like the dronings of a barrel-organ.

"It was finished at last, text and translation printed, and the living facts of Christianity, the persons of Christ and the Apostles, their history, their lives, their teachings were revealed to an astonished world. For the first time the laity were able to see, side by side, the Christianity which converted the world, and the Christianity of the Church with a Borgia pope, cardinal princes, ecclesiastical courts, and a mythology of lies. The effect was to be a spiritual earthquake.

"Each gospel, each epistle had its preface; while notes were attached to special passages to point their force upon the established usages. ...

"I shall read you some of these notes, and ask you to attend to them. Erasmus opens with a complaint of the neglect of Scripture, of a priesthood who thought more of offertory plates than of parchments, and more of gold than of books; of the degradation of spiritual life, and of the vain observances and scandalous practices of the orders specially called religious. ...

"Matthew 19:12 (on those who make themselves eunuchs)--`Men are threatened or tempted into vows of celibacy. They can have license to go with harlots, but they must not marry wives. They may keep concubines and remain priests. If they take wives they are thrown to the flames. Parents who design their children for a celibate priesthood should emasculate them in their infancy, instead of forcing them, reluctant or ignorant, into a furnace of licentiousness.'

"Matthew 23 (on the Scribes and Pharisees)--`...what shall we say of those who destroy the Gospel itself, make laws at their will, tyrannize over the laity, and measure right and wrong with rules constructed by themselves? ... prelates of evil, who bring disgrace and discredit on their worthier brethren?'

"Matthew 23:27 (on whited sepulchres)--`What would Jerome say could he see the Virgin's milk exhibited for money ... the miraculous oil; the portions of the true cross, enough if they were collected to freight a large ship? Here we have the hood of St. Francis, there Our Lady's petticoat, or St. Anne's comb, or St. Thomas of Canterbury's shoes ... and all through the avarice of priests and the hypocrisy of monks playing on the credulity of the people. Even bishops play their parts in these fantastic shows, and approve and dwell on them in their rescripts.'

"Matthew 24:23 (on Lo, here is Christ or there)--`I saw with my own eyes Pope Julius II, at Bologna, and afterwards at Rome, marching at the head of a triumphal procession as if he were Pompey or Csar. St. Peter subdued the world with faith, not with arms or soldiers or military engines.' ...

"1 Corinthians 14:19 (on unknown tongues)--`They chant nowadays in our churches in what is an unknown tongue and nothing else, while you will not hear a sermon once in six months telling people to amend their lives. ... A set of creatures who ought to be lamenting their sins fancy they can please God by gurgling in their throats.'

"1 Timothy 1:6 (on vain disputations)--`Theologians are never tired of discussing the modes of sin, whether it be a privation in the soul or a spot on the soul. Why is it not enough simply to hate sin? ... Hundreds of such questions are debated by distinguished theologians, and the objects of them are better unknown than known. It is all vanity. ... Over speculations like these theologians professing to teach Christianity have been squandering their lives.'

"1 Timothy 3:2 (on the husband of one wife)--`Other qualifications are laid down by St. Paul as required for a bishop's office, a long list of them. But not one at present is held essential, except this one of abstinence from marriage. Homicide, parricide, incest, piracy, sodomy, sacrilege, these can be got over, but marriage is fatal. There are priests now in vast numbers, enormous herds of them, seculars and regulars, and it is notorious that very few of them are chaste. The great proportion fall into lust and incest, and open profligacy. It would surely be better if those who cannot contain should be allowed lawful wives of their own, and so escape this foul and miserable pollution.'

"Such are extracts from the reflections upon the doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church which were launched upon the world in the notes to the New Testament by Erasmus, some on the first publication, some added as edition followed edition. They were not thrown out as satires, or in controversial tracts of pamphlets. They were deliberate accusations attached to the sacred text, where the religion which was taught by Christ and the Apostles and the degenerate superstition which had taken its place could be contrasted side by side. Nothing was spared; ritual and ceremony, dogmatic theology, philosophy, and personal character were tried by what all were compelled verbally to acknowledge to be the standard whose awful countenance was now practically revealed for the first time for many centuries. Bishops, seculars, monks were dragged out to judgment, and hung as on a public gibbet, in the light of the pages of the most sacred of all books, published with the leave and approbation of the [Pope] himself.

"Never was volume more passionately devoured. A hundred thousand copies were soon sold in France alone. The fire spread, as it spread behind Samson's foxes in the Philistines' corn. The clergy's skins were tender from long impunity. They shrieked from pulpit and platform, and made Europe ring with their clamour. ...

"The words of the Bible have been so long familiar to us that we can hardly realize what the effect must have been when the Gospel was brought out fresh and visible before the astonished eyes of mankind"

I don't know of any humanists today who have written anything like the words of Erasmus, because humanists today don't believe the Bible. Erasmus was definitely not a humanist in the modern definition of the term, and it is wrong for proponents of modern versions to identify him as such. It is also clear that Erasmus was not your ordinary Roman Catholic, to say the least.

ERASMUS'S PROTESTANT SPIRIT IS SEEN IN ROME'S REACTION TO HIS WORK

We have already noted that Erasmus was branded as a heretic because of the publication of his Greek New Testament, his correction of the Catholic Latin Vulgate, and his translation of the Bible into Latin. The Pope forbad the people to read his works. The storm which swept around the man who produced the first printed Greek New Testament was terrific.

"Traditional Catholicism uttered a cry from the depths of its noisome pools (to use Erasmus's figure). Franciscans and Dominicans, priests and bishops, not daring to attack the educated and well-born, went among the ignorant populace, and endeavoured by their tales and clamours to stir up susceptible women and credulous men. `Here are horrible heresies,' they exclaimed, `here are frightful antichrists! If this book be tolerated it will be the death of the papacy!' `We must drive this man from the university,' said one. `We must turn him out of the church,' added another. `The public places re-echoed with their howlings,' said Erasmus. The firebrands tossed by their furious hands were raising fires in every quarter; and the flames kindled in a few obscure convents threatened to spread over the whole country. ...

"The priests saw the danger, and by a skillful maneuver, instead of finding fault with the Greek Testament, attacked the translation and the translator. `He has corrected the Vulgate,' they said, `and puts himself in the place of Saint Jerome. He sets aside a work authorized by the consent of ages and inspired by the Holy Ghost. What audacity!' and then, turning over the pages, they pointed out the most odious passages: `Look here! This book calls upon men to repent, instead of requiring them, as the Vulgate does, to do penance!' (Matt. 9:17). The priests thundered against him from their pulpits: `This man has committed the unpardonable sin,' they asserted, `for he maintains that there is nothing in common between the Holy Ghost and the monks--that they are logs rather than men!' ... `He's a heretic, an heresiarch, a forger! He's a goose. ... He's a very antichrist!'"

Edward Lee, a staunch Papist, organized a league of Englishmen to oppose Erasmus. D'Aubigne writes of the wide influence of this league: "In every place of public resort, at fairs and markets, at the dinner-table and in the council-chamber, in shops, and taverns, and houses of ill-fame, in churches and in the universities, in cottages and in palaces the league blattered against Erasmus and the Greek Testament. Carmelites, Dominicans, and Sophists, invoked heaven and conjured hell."

Historian Andrew Miller adds this testimony regarding the hatred expressed by traditional Romanists toward Erasmus: "This was daring work in those days. There was a great outcry from many quarters against this dangerous novelty. ... To question the fidelity of the Vulgate was a crime of the greatest magnitude in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church."

ERASMUS REVEALED HIS LOVE FOR TRUTH IN HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD THE BIBLE

Historian J.H. Merle D'Aubigne tells us what Erasmus had in mind with his edition of the Greek New Testament:

"When Erasmus published this work, at the dawn, so to say, of modern times, he did not see all its scope. Had he foreseen it, he would perhaps have recoiled in alarm. He saw indeed that there was a great work to be done, but he believed that all good men would unite to do it with common accord. `A spiritual temple must be raised in desolated Christendom,' said he. `The mighty of this world will contribute towards it their marble, their ivory, and their gold; I who am poor and humble offer the foundation stone,' and he laid down before the world his edition of the Greek Testament.

"Then glancing disdainfully at the traditions of men, he said: "It is not from human reservoirs, fetid with stagnant waters, that we should draw the doctrine of salvation; but from the pure and abundant streams that flow from the heart of God."

"And when some of his suspicious friends spoke to him of the difficulties of the times, he replied: `If the ship of the church is to be saved from being swallowed up by the tempest, there is only one anchor that can save it: it is the heavenly word, which, issuing from the bosom of the Father, lives, speaks, and works still in the gospel.'

"These noble sentiments served as an introduction to those blessed pages which were to reform England."

These, my friends, are not the sentiments of a mere "Roman Catholic humanist."

THE TERM "HUMANIST" HAS CHANGED MEANINGS SINCE THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The term "humanist" meant something entirely different in the sixteenth century than it means today. In December 1984 I wrote to Andrew Brown, at that time the Editorial Secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society, and asked about the charge of Erasmus being a humanist. Brown's reply was most enlightening:

"Erasmus was a thoroughgoing `Christian humanist' from his youth to his death. The use of the word `humanist' in the Renaissance and Reformation period does not in any way share the atheistic connotations which that word now has in popular usage. A `humanist' in that period was simply someone who was interested in classical literature, culture and education, as a means of attaining a higher standard of civilised life. Stephanus, Calvin and Beza were all humanists in this sense, and it is these `humanist' ideals which have largely shaped Western culture in the succeeding centuries, blended with the teachings of the Christian Gospel.

"Erasmus was both a Catholic and a Reformer at the same time. He criticised many of the worst abuses and corruptions of the Catholic church, but he thought that the church should be reformed from within and that it was wrong to separate from it. He was praised and criticised by Protestants and Catholics alike. Some of his writings are highly spiritual, even if there are occasional traces of unsound doctrine. His Enchiridon (Manual of a Christian Soldier) was so edifying that it was translated into English by William Tyndale, the translator of the first printed English New Testament. I am sending separately an extract from one of his last works, the `Treatise on Preparation for Death,' which I think will satisfy you concerning his spiritual outlook. A good biography of Erasmus is R. Bainton's Erasmus of Christendom."

ERASMUS'S DOCTRINAL ORTHODOXY IS SEEN IN HIS WRITINGS

Erasmus's own writings illustrate his doctrinal soundness and repulsion at Roman heresies. This was evidenced in his commentary to the Bible, but I want to quote from some of his other writings. We will begin with a quote from the last part of the work mentioned by Brown, Erasmus's Manual of the Christian Soldier. It is obvious from this that Erasmus did not follow Roman thought, but was sound at least regarding the major teachings of the Gospel. And it is certain that Erasmus was no humanist in any modern sense. As to the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God, Erasmus was orthodox.

Bainton informs us that Manual was "a resolute call to action in the Christian warfare" (p. 66). "As with Kempis and the Brethren [with whom Erasmus spent his early years], the stress is laid upon the exemplification of the gentler virtues: humility, meekness, self-effacement, tenderness, compassion, yielding rather than asserting one's due, forgiveness, love of enemies, overcoming evil with good. ... The color of monastic habits, the wearing of girdles and sandals are all inconsequential ... The sacraments, we learn, are without value apart from the spirit."

Let us hear it in Erasmus's own words. Following are quotes from "Treatise on Preparation for Death":

"Would you please Peter and Paul? Then emulate the faith of the one and the charity of the other. Thereby you will do better than if you make ten pilgrimages to Rome ... You honor a statue of Christ in wood or stone and adorned with colors. You would do better to honor the image of his mind which through the Holy Spirit is expressed in the gospels. Are you excited over the seamless robe and the napkin of Christ and yet doze over the oracles of his law? Far better that you should believe than that you should treasure at home a piece of the wood of the cross. Otherwise you are no better than Judas, who with his lips touched the divine mouth. The physical presence of Christ is useless for salvation ... In a word, let all your possessions, all your concern, all your care be directed toward the imitation of Christ, who was not born for himself, lived not to himself, died not to himself, but for our sakes ...

"We are assured of victory over death, victory over the flesh, victory over the world and Satan. Christ promises us remission of sins, fruits in this life a hundredfold, and thereafter life eternal. And for what reason? For the sake of our merit? No indeed, but through the grace of faith which is in Christ Jesus. We are the more secure because he is first our doctor. He first overcame the lapse of Adam, nailed our sins to the cross, sealed our redemption with his blood, which has been confirmed by the testimonies of the prophets, apostles, martyrs, and virgins and by the universal Church of the saints. He added the seal of the Spirit lest we should waver in our confidence ... What could we little worms do of ourselves? Christ is our justification. Christ is our victory. Christ is our hope and security. "Unto us a child is born." Unto US, born for us, given for us. He it is who teaches us, cures our diseases, casts out demons, for us suffers hunger and thirst, is afflicted, endures the agonies of death, sweats blood, for us is conquered, wounded, dead and resurrected, and sits at the right hand of God the Father ...

"As we approach death the sacraments are not to be despised, but of greater importance is faith and charity without which all else is vain. I believe there are many not absolved by the priest, not having taken the Eucharist, not having been anointed, not having received Christian burial who rest in peace, while many who have had all the rites of the Church and have been buried next to the altar have gone to hell. There is no point in putting on a cowl. Better to resolve to live a better life if you get well. I know a noble woman who gave a large sum to a priest to have masses said for her soul at Rome. Her money might better have been spent to obligate the priest never to go to Rome. ...

"Christ said, "Come unto me all ye that labour." Take refuge then in his cave in the rocks. Flee to his wounds and you will be safe. The way to enter paradise is the way of the penitent thief. Say simply, `Thy will be done. The world to me is crucified and I to the world.'"

To the end of his life Erasmus fought with his pen against the excesses of Rome. From one of his earlier writings we have this typical sampling:

"Obedience is so taught as to hide that there is any obedience due to God. Kings are to obey the Pope. Priests are to obey their bishops. Monks are to obey their abbots. Oaths are exacted, that want of submission may be punished as perjury. It may happen, it often does happen, that an abbot is a fool or a drunkard. He issues an order to the brotherhood in the name of holy obedience. And what will such order be? An order to observe chastity? An order to be sober? An order to tell no lies? Not one of these things. It will be that a brother is not to learn Greek; he is not to seek to instruct himself. He may be a sot. He may go with prostitutes. He may be full of hatred and malice. He may never look inside the Scriptures. No matter. He has not broken any oath. He is an excellent member of the community. While if he disobeys such a command as this from an insolent superior there is stake or dungeon for him instantly."

Of the work of Erasmus, the biographer Froude says:

"A few words will not be out of place about the work which Erasmus was himself busy over, and of which the Adagia [from which the paragraph above was quoted] had been but a preliminary specimen. If we are to believe the account of his intellectual history which he began in his later writings, the Christian religion [speaking of the Christian faith of the New Testament] appeared to him to have been superseded by a system which differed only in name from the paganism of the old world. The saints had taken the place of the gods. Their biographies were full of lies and as childish and absurd as the old theogonies. The Gospels were out of sight. Instead of praying to Christ, the faithful were taught to pray to miracle- working images and relics. The Virgin, multiplied into a thousand personalities--our Lady of Loretto, our Lady of Saragossa, our Lady of Walsingham, and as many more as there were shrines devoted to her--was at once Queen of Heaven and a local goddess. Pious pilgrimages and indulgences had taken the place of moral duty. The service of God was the repeating of masses by priests, who sold them for so much a dozen. In the exuberance of their power the clergy seemed to exult in showing contempt of God and man by the licentiousness of their lives and the insolence of their dominion. They ruled with their self-made laws over soul and body.

"Their pope might be an Alexander VI; their cardinals were princes, with revenues piled up out of accumulated benefices; their bishops were magnificent nobles; and one and all, from his Holiness at Rome to the lowest acolyte, were amenable to no justice save that of their own courts. This extraordinary system rested on the belief in the supernatural powers which they pretended to have received in the laying on of hands. As successors of the Apostles they held the keys of heaven and hell; their excommunications were registered by the Almighty; their absolutions could open the gates of Paradise. The spiritual food provided in school or parish church was some preposterous legend or childish superstition, varied with the unintelligible speculations of scholastic theology.

"An army of friars, released from residence by dispensation, were spread over Europe, taking the churches out of the hands of the secular priests, teaching what they pleased, and watching through the confessional the secret thoughts of man and woman. These friars thrust themselves into private families, working on the weakness of wife or daughter, dreaded and detested by husbands and fathers; and Erasmus, as well as the loudest of the Protestant reformers, declared that they abused the women's confidence for the vilest purposes. Complaint was useless. Resistance was heresy, and a charge of heresy, unless a friendly hand interposed, meant submission or death. Unhappy men, unconscious of offence, were visited by a bolt out of the blue in the shape of a summons before a Church court, where their accusers were their judges."

Upon Erasmus's first visit to Italy he witnessed a papal procession. Quoting History of the Popes by Ludwig Pastor and Lugduni Batavorum, the Leiden edition of the works of Erasmus, edited by Leclerc, 1703, Bainton gives this interesting description of the scene and Erasmus's response:

"Erasmus and his party, hearing that the city was actually in the possession of the pope, continued their journey and arrived in time to witness the papal triumph. The procession was led by horsemen and then infantry in glistening armour, followed by the papal standard bearers and the pope's ten white palfreys with golden bridles, then the foreign envoys, next forty of the clergy with lighted candles, the cardinals preceding the pope in a palaquin and clad in purple cape shot through with threads of gold and on his head a mitre sparkling with pearls and jewels. Patriarchs followed, archbishops and bishops, ecclesiastics, generals of the monastic orders, and at the end the papal guard. Erasmus viewed the spectacle magno cum gemitu, "with a mighty groan."

"`Was Pope Julius the successor of Jesus Christ,' he asked, `or of Julius Caesar?'

"A `mighty groan' is an apt description of Erasmus's reaction to Rome's vile errors throughout his life!"

So much more, of course, could be given from Erasmus's writings to illustrate the man's Bible faith and love for Christ, but we think one more quote will suffice to prove our thesis. The following was composed by Erasmus for the boys at a school established by his Bible-believing friend John Colet. Note Erasmus's love for Christ and his pure faith in the true Christ of the Bible--truly God, truly man, only Savior. And note, as well, that there is no hint here of that false Catholic mysticism which attempts to pass itself off as devotion to Christ. Give an ear to Erasmus's exhortation to these sixteenth century boys:

"Who in all history is like to Jesus, ineffably, inconceivably God of God, born before all times, eternal and fully equal to his eternal and loftiest parent? Does not his human birth easily overshadow that of all kings? By the will of the Father and the breath of the Spirit he was born of a Virgin, a man in time and still God, unsullied by our corruption. Who is richer than he who gives all things and is not diminished? Who more illustrious as the splendor of the glory of the Father, enlightening every man that comes into the world? Who more powerful than he to whom the Father has given power in heaven and on earth? Who more mighty by whose nod the universe was established? at whose nod the sea is calm, species changed, diseases flee, armed men fall on their faces, devils are expelled, rocks rended, the dead raised, sinners repent, and all things are made new? Who is more august whom angels adore and before whom devils tremble? Who more invincible than he who has conquered death and cast down Satan from heaven? Who more triumphant than he who has harrowed hell and brought souls to heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father? Who is more wise than he who founded and governs the universe in harmony? Whose authority is greater than his of whom the Father said, "This is my beloved Son. Hear ye him"? Who is more to be feared than he who can cast body and soul into hell? Who more fair than he whom to behold is perfect joy? Who is more ancient than he who has no beginning and will have no end? But perhaps boys may better think of him as a boy, lying in swaddling clothes in a manger, while angels sang, shepherds adored, the animals knew him, the star stood over where he lay, Herod trembled, Simeon embraced, Anna prophesied. O humble simplicity! O sublime humility! How can thoughts conceive or words suffice to express his greatness? Better to adore than to seek to explain.

"What then shall we do, if John the Baptist said he was unworthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes? Strive, my dear boys, to sit at the feet of Jesus the teacher."

In these writings we see the heart and soul of a Protestant, not a true Roman Catholic; of a Bible-believing Christian, not a humanist. Those familiar with the writings and beliefs of the Protestant leaders such as Luther and Calvin will understand that all of these men continued to be somewhat intermingled in their thinking with Catholic theology in many areas. This is why the denominations they established were more akin in many ways to the one at Rome than to the one of the first century in Jerusalem. Luther (and Lutheranism after him), for example, retained infant baptism, believed in a real presence in the `Eucharist' (though not exactly in the Roman sense), established formal ties between church and state, retained much of the ritualism of Romanism, maintained the Catholic concept of "clergy" and "laity," and followed a type of church polity closer to Rome's than to the simple New Testament pattern of the pure independence of the local assembly.

It is also true that many of the Protestant leaders did not, in the beginning, desire to depart from Catholicism, but only to purify it from within. Thus there were many in those days who, like Erasmus, were within the Catholic church and could very definitely be called Catholic, but were at the same time Protestant--protesters against Rome's errors--in belief and heart. We must remember that was the very beginning of the sixteenth century, the mere dawn of the Reformation.

I am saying that the historical facts and the writings of Erasmus reveal that he was a Bible believer and a reformer even though he long remained within the confines of Catholicism. At the very worse, he had rejected the chief errors of Romanism. In fact, as we shall see later in this study, Westcott and Hort, leaders in the revision work of the late 1800s in England, were much closer in their affection toward Rome and sacramentalism than was Erasmus of Rotterdam!

One illustration, for now, will suffice to demonstrate this. While Erasmus fought against Roman sacredotalism (pertaining to the priesthood, especially as relates to the concept of a priesthood possessing special divine authority and power) and sacramentalism, Westcott and Hort loved these things and desired to bring the Church of England closer to Rome: "Hort writes to Westcott, October 17, 1865, [only five years before they started the English Revised Version]: `I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-worship and Jesus-worship have very much in common in their causes and their results.' And again, in correspondence with Westcott, Hort said: `But this last error can hardly be expelled till Protestants unlearn the crazy horror of the idea of priesthood.' Hort writes to Dr. Lightfoot, October 26, 1867: `But you know I am a staunch sacerdotalist.'"

Some protest against the use of the above correspondence to demonstrate Westcott and Hort's beliefs. It is true that some of the letters within these volumes were written when the men were young, during their formative years. But the ones I have quoted were written in the last half of the nineteenth century, when the men were matured in their thinking. In fact, as already noted, these letters were written just a few years before they began working on the translation of the English Revised Version. The first resolution of intent to produce the ERV was published in early 1870 by the Southern Convocation of the Church of England. Westcott was born in 1825 and Hort in 1828; therefore, both men were about forty years of age when they wrote the letters I have quoted.

ERASMUS DIED AMONG PROTESTANT FRIENDS, POSSIBLY OUTSIDE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

We read that "in 1535, he [Erasmus] again returned to Basel and died there the following year IN THE MIDST OF HIS PROTESTANT FRIENDS, without relations of any sort, so far as known, with the Roman Catholic Church."

It must also be mentioned that Erasmus, almost to the end, desired to see Rome and England (after the Anglican church broke from Catholicism) reconciled, and was willing to offer his services toward that goal. This is a sad commentary, but is a fact, and is but the fruit of his lifelong refusal to understand or practice biblical separation. It can be said, though, to his credit, that a year before his death Erasmus turned down a strong offer to become a Roman cardinal. "In another letter he says on the same subject: `Some of my friends at Rome wish to provide the income required for the red hat, and promote me whether I will or no. They mean it seriously. The Pope, six of the cardinals, and the Portuguese Ambassador are moving for me. I have written to say that I will not by provided for by benefice or pension.'"

THE GREEK EDITORS WHO REVISED ERASMUS'S TEXT WERE UNQUESTIONABLY PROTESTANT, BIBLE-BELIEVING MEN

It is important to note that the men who followed Erasmus in the work of producing editions of the Greek New Testament and from whose editions most of the translations of the Protestant Reformation were made, were strong Bible-believing men. It must be kept in the mind that it was through the work of these men, of whom there can be no doubt that they were separated, persecuted Protestants, that the Textus Receptus was perfected. It is upon their Greek texts, and not directly upon that of Erasmus that the KJV was based.

Theodore Beza, for example, "was one of the leading advisors to the Huguenots [separatist New Testament Christians] in France. He participated in their conferences and defended the purity of the Reformed faith. He produced new versions of the Greek and Latin New Testament, a source for the Geneva and King James Bibles ... Under his leadership Geneva became the centre of Reformed Protestantism."

It could be mentioned here that the Geneva Bible contained notes which were unhesitatingly anti-Catholic.

Of Robert Stephanus, whose third edition of the Greek New Testament is commonly regarded as the Textus Receptus in Britain, we read: "In 1523 he published a Latin New Testament, and two times he published the Hebrew Bible entire. But the most important were his four editions of the Greek New Testament in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551 respectively. These activities aroused the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church, so much so that in 1550 he was compelled to leave Paris and settle in Geneva, where he became a Protestant, embracing the Reformed faith."

It can be said, and rightly so, that the men who produced the Greek texts and Bible translations of the sixteenth century were imperfect men. It CANNOT be said that they were men of weak faith in the Scriptures or men who were apostate in their beliefs, as CAN be said of those who have produced the vast majority of Greek texts of modern times and most of the translations from these corrupted texts.

My friends, let us not accept this evangelical myth which surrounds Erasmus and other sixteenth and seventeenth century Protestant editors and translators. As we have seen, there is more to the picture than is commonly presented in the writings of those who for some strange reason feel called to downgrade the text and versions in which the Word of God was preserved for centuries and to slander anyone who persists in reverencing and defending that Text.

In conclusion we must urge upon our reader the conviction that it is not Erasmus or any other man who is the focus of our faith. We do not believe the Received Text is the pure Word of God because of any perfection we find in Tyndale, or Erasmus, or Beza, or Stephanus, or King James I, or the Authorized Version translators, or David Otis Fuller, or any other man or group of men. Far from it! Our faith is in Almighty God who gave a perfect Bible and Who has promised to keep it.

In this regard we quote from Edward F. Hills, a Harvard educated scholar who defended the Received Text and the King James Version in spite of the derision this brought from the intellectual crowd. The one great thing that made Hills different from most liberally educated scholars is this: he believed the Bible. He believed God's testimony regarding the inspiration and preservation of Holy Scripture. Praise be to God for such a scholar in this age of unbelief!

"In the editing of his Greek New Testament text, especially, Erasmus was guided by the common faith in the current text. And back of this common faith was the controlling providence of God. ...

"The God who brought the New Testament text safely through the ancient and medieval manuscript period did not fumble when it came time to transfer this text to the modern printed page. This is the conviction which guides the believing Bible student. ..."

To that we say Amen and amen!