Erasmus Publishes the Greek New Testament

In 1516 the press of Johann Froben at Basel issued a large volume with the title Novum Instrumentum omne, the whole New Testament, which the title page says was carefully revised and corrected by Erasmus of Rotterdam (Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum (1516) title page). The last leaf dates the printing to February 1516 (Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum (1516) colophon). On 7 March Erasmus told a correspondent that the New Testament was published (Erasmus, Letters to Urbanus Regius, 7 March 1516 (Nichols no. 380, vol. 2, p. 247)).

The book prints the Greek text and a Latin version side by side in two columns (Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum (1516) second pagination, p. 183 (1 John 5)). The title page says that the text has been corrected against the Greek, against many manuscripts in both languages and against the quotations of the fathers, among them Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Jerome, Cyprian, Ambrose, Hilary and Augustine of Hippo, and that notes tell the reader what has been changed and why. It asks the reader who meets a change to weigh whether it is for the better before taking offence (Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum (1516) title page).

Erasmus dedicated the work to Pope Leo X. He writes that he has put it out under the pope’s name so that its usefulness may spread more widely (Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum (1516) dedication to Leo X, last page). That August he wrote to Leo again and stated his aim: not to tear up “the old and commonly accepted edition” but to emend it where it was corrupt and make it clear where it was obscure, on the evidence of the earliest manuscripts and of fathers approved by the church. He added that he was ready to correct any error of his own (Erasmus, Letters to Leo X, 9 August 1516 (Nichols no. 434, vol. 2, p. 316, where the translation prints 8 August)).

Before the text stands an exhortation to the reader, the Paraclesis. Erasmus says there that he disagrees with those who would not have Scripture translated into all tongues and read by lay men and women. He wishes that all women would read the Gospel and Paul’s letters, and, in the English version of 1529, “I would to God, the plowman would sing a text of the scripture at his plowbeam, and that the weaver at his loom, with this would drive away the tediousness of time” (Erasmus, Paraclesis English version of 1529).

Erasmus admitted that the work had been hurried. In June 1516 he wrote to a friend in England that it had come out “fairly accurate, considering the limited time” and that he would soon be at work on another edition (Erasmus, Letters to William Latimer, 5 June 1516 (Nichols no. 404, vol. 2, p. 275)).

The book set two things before its readers together: a New Testament corrected from Greek manuscripts (Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum (1516) title page) and the wish that everyone should read it in their own language (Erasmus, Paraclesis English version of 1529). Philip Melanchthon later wrote that the students at Wittenberg were at this time directed to the writings of Erasmus for Latin and Greek, and that Martin Luther took up Greek and Hebrew (Melanchthon, Life of Luther part 1). The German and English New Testaments of the next ten years are told under Luther Translates the Bible into German and Tyndale’s English New Testament.