The crisis generated by the competing hermeneutics of Christianity that divided Europe in the sixteenth century is an ideal place to look for experiences of resilience. If resilience is defined, as it is in the general call for the EASR 2021, as “the ability to counteract or absorb a process of transformation”, “characterized by a capacity to endure changes without having to adapt permanently” and “an awareness of how to cope with a crisis”, the theological and literary current labeled “Erasmianism” is a perfect example of adaptation and reinvention in the face of a crisis. Predicated on the theological-rhetorical strategy of “accommodation”, Erasmus’ theology presents a God who adapts himself to the degrees of understanding of the believers, and therefore an exegesis, which, like Erasmus himself, graduates possible levels of Church reform in progressive and inclusive ways. In this theological framework, resilience is deeply linked to accommodatio. This term is understood both as the adaptation of the Spirit, which “accommodates itself to our weakness” and leads the believers “gradually and through distinct stages to such a lofty philosophy”, and as the adaptation of the Christian, who is invited to imitate Paul’s ability to adapt himself and his voice to fellow Christians and their circumstances.
Within this theoretical framework, our workshop will focus on the “feminine” declension of these theological models and concrete experiences of reaction to the crisis of Europe’s political and religious structures. Given Erasmus’ predilection for speaking through female voices, his (moderately) progressive attitude toward women’s role in society, and the influence of his writings on important female voices of the Renaissance, the workshop will examine how Erasmian theology constructed the “feminine” and female voices as specific actors of resilience. Resilience can be validated in this context as the strategy of self-reflection and action of women in a male-dominated structure, and by extension as a form of personal and social liberation. We will analyze Erasmian female resilience in an interdisciplinary approach that combines historical, philological, literary, philosophical, and theological analysis.
In the last decades, great scientific attention has been given to women’s presence and representation in Erasmus’ writing, given his mostly liberal attitude regarding topics such as marriage and female education. Moreover, the female representation of some of the most important figures of Erasmus’ writings (Madame Folly in the Encomium Moriae, Peace in the Querela Pacis) is an important clue on a specific construction of the “feminine” as a theological device in Erasmus. My paper intends to cross-reference these data with the Origenian inheritance of the theme in Erasmus. Godin’s masterful work on Origen’s presence in Erasmus focuses on the “individualistic” intake on the theme by Erasmus, whilst he underestimates the ecclesiological aspect of it (Godin 1982, 94). My paper will examine Erasmus’ theology and ecclesiology through the feminine imagery of the bride. The erotic imagery has always been a favourite in theologies marked by the progressive ascent of the soul and the Church, as Origen’s and Gregory of Nissa’s works on the Song of Songs testify. Erasmus’ rarefied and intellectual version of this theme is still an open research field which my paper will start to cover.
It is not by chance that one of the most radical and enigmatic speeches in Erasmus' production - the Encomium Moriae - was pronounced by a female character: Folly. This paper aims at interrogating the ironic logic of Erasmus’ text not simply as the result of a carnivalesque spirit of suspension and derision of traditional orders, or as a literary imitation of the ancient satire, but as the expression of a profoundly original mode of discourse, very serious from a religious point of view, that wants to be completely alternative to that of the “male” theological-philosophical logos, which it mocks. This mode relies on a profoundly anti-classical device: the Pauline and apocalyptic logic of catastrophic inversion of the world's values (“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” 1Cor 1,20), reinterpreted through Origen as the revelation of the immense, humanly “foolish” divine mercy, which choses the “things that are not” and therefore forgives everyone. Folly’s discourse thus proves to be amphibolic and completely paradoxical, since it both condemns and forgives - ironically and smoothly - the foolishness of human sin. This way, the paper will highlight 1) on the one hand, the radically corrosive and secularising potential of Erasmus' scepticism, that relativizes and harshly deconstructs the dogmatic and metaphysical naivety of the totality of human beliefs and attitudes, conceived as sin and therefore foolishness; 2) on the other hand, at the same time, the profoundly irenic, “apocatastic” logic of ironic exaltation of the world's foolishness as entirely redeemed by the maternal, universal embrace of God’s forgiveness.
Indebted to classical literature and in particular to some of the greatest dialogue writers such as Lucian of Samosata, Plato and Cicero, Erasmus proposes in his Colloquia (1518-1533) a collection of customary conversations on different themes; theological discussions are mixed with pedagogical teachings, grammar notions, philosophical argumentations and contemporary problems, all in a colloquial, and often ironic, dimension and in an accessible Latin.
In the Colloquia, very important results are female education and the social role that women play as educators of their children, as well as being responsible for their Christian piety. A key point is the use of female intelligence, rhetorical skills and propensity for philosophical reasoning. The women portrayed in the work and their male counterparts are treated as equals, and engage in philosophical dialogues with each other. This intervention will therefore analyze the female figures of Erasmus’ Colloquia in their relationship with philosophy, which focuses on female intelligence, defining women as autonomous subjects who are free to think individually. Indeed, the autonomous use of intelligence is closely related to the debate on free will (a crucial point of theological dissertations of the early sixteenth century, especially in the dispute with Martin Luther) and represents a decisive point of Erasmus' thought. Women are also champions of accomodatio and close to the dictates of the philosophia Christi. In this regard, this contribution will analyze the specific role that the author attributes to them in work and consequently in society.
As the leading voice among early modern Christian humanists expressing progressive views towards women’s role in society and encouraging their participation in the debates surrounding religious and social reform, Erasmus is recognized for staging authentic female voices and characters in literary works such as the Colloquies and the Praise of Folly. Often presented in dialogical settings, Erasmus’ female interlocutors actively question the transformations in their gender’s social and religious predicaments between orthodoxy and reform. However, in doing so, they ultimately also embody the strategy of accommodatio whereby a moderate Erasmian “philosophy of Christ” finds its way to the Christian reader’s spheres of thought and action.
My paper will focus on Erasmus’ staging of the female voice in his paraphrases of the gospels. Between 1517 and 1524, in the wake of his landmark publication of the New Testament (a Greek edition and new Latin translation, accompanied by extensive annotations), Erasmus embarked on a related project of retelling the New Testament in his popular Paraphrases, written in Latin but of which the vernacular translations would mediate Scripture to a pan-European readership. In addition to an exegetical goal of explaining Scripture to a wider audience, these texts also feature a rhetorical and literary goal, aiming to perform by imitation a gradual acquisition of faith in the individual reader’s mind and, by extension, in the sphere of thought and action of the listeners in the congregations where Erasmus’ paraphrases were often used as homiletic material. In this process, Erasmus instrumentalizes emotion well beyond the typical oratorical rousing of the audience’s emotions for the sake of persuasion (movere). Embedding the numerous dialogical exchanges between Jesus, his disciples, and other gospel characters in a range of affective and sensorial layers, Erasmus’ paraphrastic text grants a key role to the emotions in the transmission of faith and gospel wisdom. In several exchanges, biblical female voices are uniquely developed in this sensorial and affective context to guarantee accommodatio. My paper will focus on three episodes in the gospel of John (the speaking of the Samaritan woman at the well [Chapter 4], the exchanges with Mary and Martha at the raising of Lazarus [Chapter 11], and Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Jesus [Chapter 20]), in which female resilience is rendered in a context of conflicting emotions (shame, grief, despair, and hope) triggered in reaction to both gospel events and Jesus’ own speaking and emotional state. My paper will argue that female resilience in this emotional landscape serves to reinforce an interlocutorial exchange whose sensorial and affective dimensions guarantee a gradual imitation of and transformation towards faith and gospel wisdom by the reader or listener in their homiletic community.