Erasmus vs. Sorbonne

Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam (c. 1466–1536).
Declarationes Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ad censuras Lutetiae vulgatas sub nomine Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis.
Basel: Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopus, 1532. (BRB0116)

The Catholic theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam continued to modify his Annotationes on the New Testament for many years following their first publication in 1516. In 1526, however, the Annotationes were condemned by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris. Erasmus’s 1532 Declarationes present his counter-arguments to each of the charges against his work. In each section his original proposition is followed by the Faculty’s “Censura” (“condemnation”) and then Erasmus’s “Declaratio” (“reply”). In Proposition 12, shown here, Erasmus defended translations of the Bible into vernacular languages, arguing that people who read the scriptures in their own language will not be drawn automatically to the heresies of Lutheranism.