Erasmus and the Seamless Coat of Jesus

This book records the distress of Erasmus, a man whose Christ was more generous and whose Church should have been more hospitable. His treatise De sarcienda Ecclesiae Concordia (On Restoring the Unity of the Church) begins as a commentary on a psalm extolling the peace and joy of Christian harmony. It moves on, insistently and explicitly, to state Erasmus' lifelong conviction that a polarized Christendom is antithetical to everything Christ stood for. The excerpts from the nineteen letters and the Ecclesiastes all develop aspects of the same theme – a plea for a reasonable faith and a strategy of reform, avoiding the doctrinal rigorism and holy acrimony which were hurling Christians at one another's throats for the glory of God.Erasmus was rewarded for these efforts by being attacked by the Catholic Right as subversive and the Protestant Left as evasive. Then as now, a narrow and emotional dogmatism identified intensity of conviction with Revealed Truth. Both sides were sure that the coat of Jesus had never been intended to cover both Rome and Wittenburg. These translations offer a view of a lesser known Erasmus, the indefatigable scholar and exegete of scripture, and the voluminous writer of letters. Only the most parochial demand for instant relevance will be blind to the fact that after five centuries the great humanist's message is as pertinent as ever.