Theological Origins of Modernity

notes to pages 144–148 327
35. Philip Watain, Let God be God! An Interpretation of the Th eology of Martin Luther
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1947), 34–35; McSorley, Luther: Right or Wrong, 218,
222, 224–26. McSorley sees the fi rst evidence of a break with the Biel school in
Luther’s marginalia of 1515 to Biel’s Collectorium. In the same year, he denounced
the Facientibus principle.
36. Lectures on Romans, 1515–16, WA 56:382.21–383.19; LW 25:373.
37. Erasmus, Collected Works, 76:305.
38. Ibid., 76:306.
39. Ibid., Collected Works, 76:306 Th e German version is more circumspect. Luther
concludes: “I wish that little word ‘free will’ had never been invented. It is not
found in Scripture and should more aptly be called ‘self-will.’” WA 7:448.25/449.24.
B. A. Gerrish, “De Libero Arbitrio (1524): Erasmus on Piety, Th eology, and Lutheran
Dogma,” in Essays on the Works of Erasmus (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1978), 187.
40. McSorley, Luther: Right or Wrong, 255.
41. Ibid., 254.
42. Ibid., 259.
43. Erasmus, Collected Works, 76:307.
44. Cicero deals with these topics in several works, including On Fate, Stoic Paradoxes,
and On the Nature of the Gods. Neither Erasmus nor Luther knew anything
about Pyrrhonian skepticism.
45. Boyle has made the most comprehensive argument for viewing the debate between
Luther and Erasmus against the background of this ancient debate in her
Rhetoric and Reform, and the argument that follows is indebted to her work. Th at
said, I push the argument further than she is willing to go and use the ancient
sources to read not merely the rhetorical structures in the works but the argument
carried on between the lines of the text.
46. Manfred Hoff mann, “Erasmus im Streit mit Luther,” in Humanismus und Reformation:
Martin Luther und Erasmus von Rotterdam in den Konfl ikten ihres Zeit,
ed. Otto Hermann Pesch (Munich: Schnell und Steiner, 1985), 107.
47. Boyle has argued that the Diatribe was an attempt to disrupt the entire judicial
process against Luther, by ushering it out of the civil and ecclesiastical courts and
into the senate of learned men. Rhetoric and Reform, 33–36.
48. Boyle claims that the real goal of the Diatribe is to instruct Luther and that the
question of free will is only a red herring (ibid., 5). However, there is no reason
the Diatribe could not both seek to instruct Luther and be a real consideration of
free will. Boyle asserts that Erasmus was convinced free will was not that important
an issue (29). Considering the fact that he sets the debate with Luther against
the background of the important ancient debate on this question, this contention
seems implausible.
49. While he thought Luther oft en acted too vehemently, Erasmus expressly states
that he does not believe Luther’s doctrine is heretical. Adversus calumniosisssimam
epistolam Martini Lutheri (1534), in Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera
Omnia, ed. Jean LeClerc, 10 vols. (Leiden, 1703–6), 10:1537D.