Erasmus' Ecclesiastes Emotion in

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534
brill.com/eras
Fiery Heart and Fiery Tongue

Emotion in Erasmus Ecclesiastes
Kirk Essary*
The University of Western Australia
kirk.essary@uwa.edu.au
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of the emotions in the Ecclesiastes as
they come to bear on Erasmus understanding of teaching and learning in the context of
the Christian sermon and the relationship between the preacher and the congregation.
The emotions do not only feature in Erasmus attempts to adjudicate the manner in
which it is incumbent upon the preacher to move the congregation, but a specifically
Christian sort of affectivity governs the way in which Erasmus imagines the preacher
to be learned, and thus also to teach. As a result of its breadth and depth in covering
an array of topics relevant to cultivating learned piety in the context of Christian
preaching, the Ecclesiastes represents the most detailed treatment Erasmus offered
of the importance of emotion in numerous areas of Christian thought and life. And
without close attention to the affective aspects of Erasmus ideal method of teaching
and preaching, one simply cannot provide an adequate account of the humanists
theological program of learned piety.
Keywords
Erasmus Ecclesiastes emotion affectivity preaching rhetoric Thomas

Nashe
* I am grateful to Reinier Leushuis and Jennifer Clement as well as the anonymous reviewers
of this journal for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I must also thank the
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions for a generous
fellowship, which made this research possible.
koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/18749275-03601014

6 essary
In 1535, just a year before he died, Erasmus of Rotterdam published his mon-
umental and long-awaited treatise on preaching method, which he had begun
work on over a decade earlier. The Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi has
been described by John OMalley as the great watershed in the history of
sacred rhetoric as well as a major monument in the long history and con-
tinuing influence of the classical tradition in western culture.1 In the context
of Erasmus own life and work, the Ecclesiastes is also the culmination of his
endeavours to set forth a new, or at least renewed, approach to learned piety in
the Christian tradition in the dual context of preaching and the Renaissance
revival of ancient texts, both Christian and pagan.2 If it is a watershed, this
is due to its breadth and ambition in laying out every conceivable aspect of
preaching methodwhich seemingly had a substantial influence on sacred
rhetorics well into the seventeenth centuryand also of largely eschewing
the medieval ars praedicandi as a model.3 Its status as a monument to the
reception of the classical tradition is evident in its most complicated conceit,
viz. that the rhetorical rules and example of the Greco-Roman orators, which
Erasmus painstakingly and near-exhaustively delineates, should be employed
(with some qualification) in the service of Christian preaching.4 Until quite
recently the work was not, to quote Manfred Hoffmann, readily analysable
due to its enormity (it is Erasmus longest work) and unwieldy nature.5 Fortu-
nately, the appearance of Jacques Chomarats critical edition for asd in 1994
and a complete English translation with fresh annotations in 2015 have greatly
facilitated the task of analysis. Given the increasing scholarly interest in the
1 John OMalley, Erasmus and the History of Sacred Rhetoric: The Ecclesiastes of 1535, ersy 5
(1985) 129.
2 As James Weiss puts it, in a work on the Christian preacher, Erasmus talks about everything
(Ecclesiastes and Erasmus: the Mirror and the Image, arc 65 (1974)). For a brief overview
of the contents of the work, see Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et Rhtorique chez Erasme
(Geneva: Droz, 1980) 10611071. For a longer overview, see Frederick McGinness thorough
introduction to the work in cwe 67:78237.
3 But cf. Francois Kilcoyne and Margaret Jennings, Rethinking Continuity: Erasmus Ecclesi-
astes and the Artes Praedicandi, Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Rforme xxi,
4 (1997) 524.
4 For general studies of Erasmus and rhetoric, besides Chomarat, see Marjorie ORourke Boyle,
Rhetoric and Reform: Erasmus Civil Dispute with Luther (Harvard University Press, 1983);
Peter Mack, Twenty-fourth Annual Margaret Mann Phillips Lecture: Erasmus Contribution
to Rhetoric and Rhetoric in Erasmus Writing, ersy 32 (2012) 2745; idem, The History of
Renaissance Rhetoric 13801620 (Oxford, 2011); and Manfred Hoffmann, Rhetoric and Theology:
The Hermeneutic of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 1994).
5 Rhetoric and Theology, 38.

fiery heart and fiery tongue 7
history of preaching in the early modern period, the Ecclesiastes is a work that
deserves more critical attention than it has received to date.
The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of the emotions in the
Ecclesiastes as they come to bear on Erasmus understanding of teaching and
learning in the context of the Christian sermon and in the relationship between
the preacher and the congregation. The emotions do not only feature in Eras-
mus attempts to adjudicate the manner in which it is incumbent upon the
preacher to move the congregation, but a specifically Christian sort of affectiv-
ity governs the way in which Erasmus imagines the preacher to be learned, and
thus also to teach. John OMalley has previously suggested that, in the Ecclesi-
astes, Erasmus muted the warm affectivity and interiority that we find in so
many of his other writings by placing the sermon in the category of genus
suasorium or deliberativum.6 Perhaps this suggestion results from OMalleys
explicitly acknowledged presupposition that form determines content, or per-
haps the Ecclesiastes, given its size and multifaceted nature, tends to submerge
the warm affectivity of shorter writings like the Paraclesis. Nevertheless, what
we find in the Ecclesiastes is in fact a considerable amount of warmeven
fieryaffectivity at the very center of Erasmus conception of how preaching
ought to function.7 As Frederick McGinnis writes in the Introduction to cwe 67,
Stirring (movere) the emotions is the preachers craft, which is what so many
of Ecclesiastes instructions intend to refine.8 As the preacher has, to Erasmus
mind, the most important and difficult job of all, understanding fully how the
preacher forms the nexus of Christian affective learning is a good beginning
point for understanding the role affectivity plays in the broader contours of his
thought.9
Language of a fiery heart, of an ardent spirit, of an inflamed tongue, of moved
minds pervades Erasmus last great work; and we find here some of Erasmus
most extensive comments on the propriety of Christian emotions and affec-
tivity. By examining the role of affectivity in Erasmus understanding of the pri-
mary role of the Christian preacher (which is to teach), we begin to get a handle
6 OMalley, Erasmus and the History of Sacred Rhetoric, 25.

7 It is important to note that Erasmus treatment of the emotions in the Ecclesiastes is not
exhausted by any conception of what genre the sermon ought best fit into, nor does Erasmus
himself seem to think that the genus suasorium in any way precludes the preachers engage-
ment with the emotions of his congregation.
8 cwe 67:162.
9 This paper is part of a larger project which aims at understanding the role of emotion and
affectivity in diverse areas of Erasmus thought as it can be discerned from an examination of
multiple works with different aims.

8 essary
on the way emotion, in the broadest sense, functions in Erasmus thought.10 The
growth of the history of emotions as a distinct sub-discipline continues apace,
and understanding how such an influential early modern figure conceived of
the emotions, both prescriptively and descriptively, is an important chapter in
this moment of intellectual and religious history. And yet not a lot has been
written about Erasmus and the emotions as a distinctive topic, although the
importance of affectivity in his religious thought has long been recognized.11
One of Erasmus most routine criticisms of university theologians, for example,
consists in denouncing the frigidity of scholastic dialectic and its consequent
impropriety for theological discourse, a denunciation rooted in his apprecia-
tion of a more affective form of piety, and part and parcel of a general tendency
of Renaissance humanists to elevate the passions to a more prominent role
in theological anthropology.12 Rhetorical theology is inherently more affective
than dialectical theology insofar as it aims to move as well as to teach or, more
strongly, that it insists upon a movement of the heart in order for teaching to
truly take place.13
10 This is briefly touched on by James Weiss, Ecclesiastes and Erasmus: The Mirror and the
Image, 9798. See also cwe 68:504.
11 It has been especially appreciated by Debora Shuger and Manfred Hoffmann, both with
reference to the Ecclesiastes. See Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric: The Christian Grand Style in the
English Renaissance (Princeton University Press, 1988), 60f., and Hoffmann, Rhetoric and
Theology, 201204. See also Peter Macks brief comment about emotions in the Ecclesiastes
in Erasmus Contribution to Rhetoric and Rhetoric in Erasmus Writings, ersy 32 (2012)
4041.
12 See Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric, 60 f. Also, idem, The Philosophical Foundations of Sacred
Rhetoric, in Religion and Emotion (ed. John Corrigan; Oxford University Press, 2004).
13 The close connection between theological discourse (including preaching) and a certain
brand of affective piety is a fundamental aspect of what Erasmus called the philosophia
Christiana, similar to what Charles Trinkaus first designated as theologia rhetorica, which
he found useful for describing some of Erasmus Italian humanist predecessors. See Trin-
kaus, In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought, 2
vols. (University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 126128, and 306307, e.g. We are no doubt
better served, at this point, in speaking instead of rhetorical theologies, as it is evident
that humanist approaches to theology as a fundamentally rhetorical enterprise are not
in every way uniform. That said, the way in which John OMalley connects the Italian
court preachers of the late fifteenth- and early sixteenth centuries to a mode of rhetorical
theology in preaching could just as easily describe Erasmus approach in the Ecclesiastes:
The preachers learning and all his proficiency in the art of oratory were to be directed
to the single goal of aiding his listeners in their efforts to master the most important
art of allthe art of good and blessed living (Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome:
Rhetoric, Doctrine, and Reform in the Sacred Orators of the Papal Court (Duke University

A thoroughly affective approach to preaching can be seen in the Ecclesiastes

in Erasmus repeated references to (and conflation of) the fiery heart and the
learned tongue as requisite organs of pietas and persuasio. The Ecclesiastes
brings together many fundamental aspects of Erasmus lifelong investment in
defending and defining a deliberately affective sort of learned piety, which
rests on the assumptions that true learning cannot be accomplished without
impassioned investment, that the preacher must be moved in order to move,
and that there exists a necessary interplay between docere and movere. In
what follows I will examine two key aspects of Erasmus approach to the
emotions in the Ecclesiastes: in the first part, I will consider the importance
of the fiery heart and related concepts in Erasmus understanding of the
preachers disposition; and in the second part I will consider the manner in
which Erasmus thought the emotions should (or should not) be stirred in the
congregation. This two-fold approach allows us to see how a broadly construed
heart-centered affectivity relates to an explicit discussion of the emotions,
thereby providing a well-rounded account of these issues in the Ecclesiastes.
A Heart Trained in a Philosophy Like No Other
Book One of the Ecclesiastes concerns itself almost wholly with the moral
uprightness of the preacher. To Erasmus way of thinking, any flaws of char-
acter threaten to undermine the preachers authority. For our purposes, one of
the most interesting aspects of the first book is the prominence of discourse
surrounding the heart and the tongue in Erasmus prescriptions regarding the
preachers moral disposition and related ability to teach and pastor a flock.
While Erasmus lists many things as necessary for preparation for the office of
preachere.g., knowledge of the Bible, varied reading of the Fathers, sound
judgment, prudence, a method of teaching along with fluency of speechthe
preacher must, he says, take care first and with the greatest effort to render
Press, 1979) 124). An important difference lies in the fact that these court preachers sought
explicitly to employ the epideictic mode (genus demonstrativum) in preaching, while
Erasmus situates the sermon in the genus suasorium genre. Nevertheless, in terms of the
relationship between teaching and moving the audience in these two forms, they did
not differ terribly. See further OMalley, Praise and Blame, esp. 4344 where he charts
the difference between medieval scholastic thematic sermons and Renaissance preaching
precisely in terms of the latters interest in moving the audience. OMalley briefly discusses
how Erasmus approach departs from preaching at the papal court at 7374.

10 essary
his heart the purest possible source of speech.14 The heart as an organ of piety,
prevalent as it is in the Bible, enjoys a place of prominence in the long history
of Christian discourse.15 Despite its near-ubiquity, however, much more can be
done to shed light on the nuances of its role in theological discourse in partic-
ular epochs. Indeed, its familiarity may very well give way to glossing over it
as a sort of tenuous or banal metaphor for a vague and mysterious piety. Dis-
course about the heart is, in fact, often revealing of certain tendencies related
to the way in which, for example, religious knowledge or modes of teaching are
bound up with affectivity, and thus considering it more closely in a work like
the Ecclesiastes where it is prominent sheds more light on such relationships
in Erasmus thought.
Sixteenth-century Christian humanists are often, on principle, predisposed
to elevating biblical language over philosophical and classical rhetorical lan-
guage as normative, which all but guarantees a more widespread usage of the
language of the heart.16 In this way they fall onto a trajectory of theological dis-
course which ran from antiquity through the Middle Ages that Eric Jager refers
to as a pectoral psychology, prominent especially in Augustine.17 The Ecclesi-
astes represents Erasmus most fully developed use of language of the heart as
normative for theological ethics and anthropology. And while Chomarats note
that cor na pas un sens diffrent de mens is generally true, Erasmus repeated
choice of heart terms reflects an important biblical-humanist tendency that
14 cwe 67:260.
15 For some recent studies, see Eric Jager, The Book of the Heart (Chicago, 2000) and, idem,
The Book of the Heart: Reading and Writing the Medieval Subject, Speculum 71:1 (1996)
126; Heather Webb, The Medieval Heart (Yale University Press, 2010); F. Sharifian, et al,
Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of heart and other internal body organs
across languages and cultures (De Gruyter, 2008); Jacques Le Goff, Head or Heart? The
Political Use of Body Metaphors in the Middle Ages, in Fragments for a History of the
Human Body, ed. Feher et al. (New York, 1989) 1227; for a recent theological attempt to
overcome the divide between reason and emotion by examining Augustines and Pascals
conceptions of faith and the heart, which contains some descriptive aspects of Augustine
and Pascal on the heart, see James Peters, The Logic of the Heart: Augustine, Pascal, and the
Rationality of Faith (Baker, 2009).
16 An obvious example of this interest is found in Erasmus Ciceronianus, but criticisms of
abstruse scholastic dialectic and overly embellished rhetoric run throughout his corpus.
In the context of Christian preaching, see, for example, the annotation on 1Cor. 1:17,
where Erasmus contrasts the sermo de cruce simplex et incompositus with the sermo
philosophorum et rhetorum fucatus (asd vi-8:50).
17 Jager, The Book of the Heart, Speculum 71:1 (1996) 2.

would be obscured were we to gloss all instances as references to the mind.18

To speak of the heart rather than the mind is itself representative of a certain
theological and rhetorical tendency.
In extensively invoking heart language, Erasmus is participating in Pauline
and Augustinian tradition which, in the words of Eric Jager, evokes the heart
mainly in its biblical sense as the center of moral and intellectual life, including
conscience, understanding, the affections, volition, and memory.19 The Latin
cor is the standard term for heart, but Erasmus readily uses synonyms such as
pectus and anima, often with little clear semantic distinction. On the one hand,
this is part and parcel with a rhetorical theology that employs a literary and
poetic range of terms at the (deliberate) expense of terminological precision:
the goal is not to carve out a precise philosophico-theological anthropology,
but to induce the reader to piety. On the other hand, heart language is in itself
more flexible than technical anthropological terms: it has moral, anthropologi-
cal, and even noetic valences that make it a convenient and malleable vessel for
thinkers like Erasmus wishing to forego as much as possible scholastic vocab-
ulary and reinvigorate Christian discourse with biblical language. This usage
clears the way for a more prominent role of the heart in conceptualizations of
man as homo religiosus without losing sight of the importance of learning for
Christian piety.20
While at first glance, Erasmus use of the heart in book one seems reducible
to moral uprightnesshe argues, e.g., for the need of a clean heart, a new
heart, an upright heart, a sincere heartits import for Erasmus broader
conception of affectivity is demonstrated in his excursus on the necessity
for the fiery Spirit who bestows a fiery heart and fiery tongue upon the
preacher.21 The language of fire and warmth employed in contradistinction
to frigidness (both implicitly and explicitly) pervades Erasmus discussions of
proper Christian teaching method. What was colder, Erasmus asks, than the
tongues of the Apostles before they had drawn completely into their heart
that heavenly craftsman of new hearts?22 The contrast between frigidus and
igneus governs not only Erasmus conception of ideal speech, but also of the
ideal orientation toward learning. In other words it extends beyond the ethical
18 See asd v-4:45.

19 Eric Jager, The Book of the Heart, 29.
20 See, e.g., in the Ecclesiastes, cwe 68:698.
21 cwe 67:261; asd v-4:46 Ille largitur cor igneum, ille linguas igneas.
22 cwe 67:261; asd v-4:46 Quid frigidius Apostolorum linguis, priusquam hausissent toto
pectore coelestem illum novorum cordium opificem?

12 essary
prescriptions and inspired speech of the preacher into the realm of religious
knowing for all Christians. Rendering a heart pure is necessary, according to
Erasmus, not only for teaching and inflaming the minds of the audience but
also for acquiring knowledge of the heavenly philosophy that you are going to
hand on to others.23 The importance of the heart in teaching and learning is
here evident.
Moreover, the distinction between frigidus and igneus can occasionally be
mapped on to a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. To know is one
thing, to be wise another, Erasmus writes.24 Even the demons have scientia,
but the conditions for sapientia are that one be moved and transformed by what
one has learned.25 Transformation, as Chomarat notes, is the forme extrme of
rhetorics movere; it is the end of sacred rhetoric.26 This is a crucial distinction
that has implications for how Erasmus construes the importance of affectivity
in the Christian life. Bare intellectual assent lacks virtue without transforma-
tion. And wisdom is not accomplished through humana philosophia (that is,
through ordinary processes of knowledge acquisition) but it must be sought
with assiduis et ardentibus precibuscontinual and impassioned prayerand
not sought frigide.27 Those who seek wisdom coldly, Erasmus says, are double-
hearted, which actually means that they have no heart at all.28 Finally, and cru-
cially, Erasmus is also able to refer to the heart as the organ of knowing, which
rounds out his scheme of impassioned religious knowing: corde sapimus, spir-
itu loquimurwe know (or are wise) through the heart, and we speak through
the spirit.29 This is not only a pithy and poetic doublet, but it illustrates a funda-
mental convergence of important aspects of the ideal preacher: of the heart and
the tongue, of wisdom and piety, of knowing and speaking. Erasmus rightly-
oriented preacher has achieved a balance of all these things, which culminates
in an affective sort of wisdom, located in the heart, that ultimately results in
a successful teaching and moving of the congregation. In this brief overview
23 cwe 67:260.
24 Aliud est enim scire, aliud sapere (asd v-4:52).
25 cwe 67:268. There are parallels in the Ratio: Hic primus et unicus tibi sit scopus, hoc
votum, hoc unum age, ut muteris, ut rapiaris, ut affleris, ut transformeris in ea quae discis.
Animi cibus est, ita demum utilis, non si in memoria ceu stomacho subsidat, sed si in ipsos
affectus, et in ipsa mentis viscera traiciatur (Holborn 180).
26 asd v-4:43 n. 172.
27 Elsewhere Erasmus also argues that God wants prayers neither infrequent nor frigid (nec
raris nec frigidis); see asd v-4:108.
28 cwe 67:257.
29 asd v-4:108.

(which could be greatly expanded out of the pages of the Ecclesiastes alone),
we see the broad range and importance of the function of the heart for Eras-
mus account of the ideal orientation of the preacher. But the heart is not the
only organ in need of cultivation.
In addition to a fiery and wise heart, Erasmus writes that the preacher has
been uniquely given a learned tongue by God, which ought to be cultivated.
Given the seemingly endless and meticulous treatment of figures of speech
and the rules of rhetoric that follow book one of the Ecclesiastes, one might
understand this to be an invocation to imitate the paradigmatic Roman orator
in attempting to convert the congregation. But the phrase learned tongue
itself is not Erasmus, nor is it taken from Quintilian, but from the book of Isaiah:
The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold
by word him that is weary.30 Moses had a learned tongue and without it,
Erasmus argues, none of the Hebrews would have reached the land of milk and
honey. Erasmus makes an immediate qualification, advocating not a tongue
trained in philosophers syllogisms or adorned with the embellishments of
the rhetorician but learned in the speech of the Lord.31 Here we find the
language of Erasmus Paul in his criticisms of the Greeks in the Paraphrase of
First Corinthians.32
In 1525 Erasmus published a treatise on the tongue, the Lingua, which
considered primarily that organs destructive powerthe treatise was written
in the midst of his involvement in bitter disputes both with Luther and the
Sorbonnebut it finishes with an extended metaphor on the healing power
of the tongue when used appropriately and in a Christian manner.33 He picks
up the metaphor in the Ecclesiastes as well: The one with a learned tongue
plays the role of the physician of the soul, providing the antidote to spiritual
lassitude, heading off oncoming disease, sustaining the weak in faith, and so
on.34 The tongue is the preachers weapon in the same way that the sword is
the soldiers, but it must be noted that it is much more difficult, according to
30 Is. 50:4 quoted in Lingua, cwe 29:411.

31 cwe 67:295.
32 cwe 43:44, 48, and the Paraphrase on 2 Timothy 2:1116 (cwe 44:46). Also, see Kirk Essary,
Milk for Babes: Erasmus and Calvin on the Problem of Christian Eloquence, in Reforma-
tion and Renaissance Review (16:3), 246265.
33 cwe 29:402412.
34 cwe 67:296. For an excellent recent study of the positive and negative valences of the
tongue in Erasmus, specifically in the context of his reception and use of Homer, see Jessica
Wolfe, Homer and the Question of Strife from Erasmus to Hobbes (University of Toronto
Press, 2015), chapter one.

14 essary
Erasmus, to move the minds of men through speech than to compel their bodies
through physical force. In fact, Erasmus writes, bodies can only be compelled
while minds are bent or turned.35
Erasmus goes back and forth in ascribing ultimate importance now to the
tongue and now to the heart. A voluble tongue, a melodious quill, strong lungs,
faithful memory, knowledge of Scripture are only wine blended with hemlock
if sincerity of heart is absent, for this mixture makes the poison more potent,
he writes.36 Here a sincere heart holds everything else together. But elsewhere,
of all the virtues the preacher must possesspurity of heart, chastity of body,
sanctity of character, wisdom, etc., eloquence worthy of the divine mysteries
holds primacy of place.37 Ultimately, the distinction between the heart and
the tongue is to some extent artificial, and in some instances the terms refer
to the same thing. Late in book one, for example, Erasmus gives definition
to Pauls phrase didaktikos einai (being suited to teach) from 2 Tim 2:24: This
undertaking requires a lofty soul and a heart trained in a philosophy like no
other; this clearly is what the prophet calls a learned tongue.38 The learned
tongue is a heart trained in the Christian philosophy. To cite Jager on Augustine
again, Erasmus is preceded by the Bishop of Hippo in treat[ing] the heart as
not just the psychological but the distinctly verbal center of the self.39 And
yet it would seem misleading to suggest that they become mere metaphors:
the heart and the tongue are in many ways more important than the heart
and the tongue. Erasmus also offers a lengthy meditation on the intimate link
between a mans speech and his otherwise interior moral qualities, and here
he adds mind into the mix, but again not in a way strictly delineated from
the heart and the tongue. A mans speech is the truthful image of his mind,
reflected in his words as in a mirror; for thoughts proceed from the heart.40
Speech is to such an extent the imago mentis for Erasmus, and the heart likewise
the fons orationis, that he writes, if it differs from the heart from which it
proceeds, it does not deserve even the name of speech, no more indeed than a
mask deserves to be called a face.41
35 cwe 67:380; and asd v-4:172.

36 cwe 67:284.
37 cwe 67:302.
38 cwe 67:339. Cf. asd v-4:126 also for the heart being instructed with salvific teaching
(instruit pectus suum salutifera doctrina).
39 The Book of the Heart, 6.
40 cwe 67:255; asd v-4:38. This is reminiscent of Augustine De Trinitate xv.18.
41 cwe 67:257. For fons orationis, see asd v-4:42.

In the Ecclesiastes the heart, the tongue, and the mind must all function
harmoniously for instruction in the Christian philosophy. The organs fail at a
certain point to have distinct referents, but the upshot is nevertheless clear:
The most important thing for persuasion, Erasmus writes, is to love what you
are urging; the heart itself supplies ardour of speech to the lover, and it brings
the greatest force to effective teaching if you display within yourself whatever
you are teaching to others teaching is weak and ineffective unless it proceeds
from a burning spirit.42 Erasmus finds corresponding testimony for this pre-
scription, complete with affective language, in the Gospels as well. Glossing
John 5:35where John the Baptist is described as a burning and shining lamp
for his abilities as a preacherErasmus notes that burning precedes shining,
and suggests that burning refers to the mind, while the shining light refers to
learning. Lux doctrinae must emanate from ardor mentis.43 Erasmus is attempt-
ing to drive home, repeatedly, the necessity of an affective and impassioned
approach to what he often refers to as the heavenly philosophy. His efforts con-
stitute a tacit anthropological reorientation constitutive of an elevation of the
positive affective aspects of the individual (specifically of the heart) over and
against a cold and sterile cerebral approach to Christian teaching. And while
this is by no means new in the Ecclesiastesit appears in an inchoate form in
the Ratio and the Paraclesisit is fleshed out more fully in the later work.44
At a general level, then, cultivating a warmly affective disposition is of crucial
importance for Erasmus conception of the ideal Christian teacher. As Shuger
has pointed out, the novelty of Erasmus approach in the early modern period
lies in reconnecting a rhetorical style to moving and teaching in the context of
the sermon: she writes that the integration of theology, psychology, and lan-
guage constitutes Erasmus contribution to the subsequent history of sacred
rhetoric.45
Erasmus goal is two-fold with respect to what the preachers ardent disposi-
tion accomplishes in the congregation: first, so that they grow warm towards
all things that belong to piety (e.g., to love concord and hate schism), and, sec-
ond, so that they love to learn:
42 cwe 67:299.
43 asd v-4:84.
44 In the Ratio, to take one relevant example, Erasmus writes that the theological profession
deals more in the affections than in clever arguments (Et quoniam professio Theologica
magis constat affectibus quam argutiis; Holborn 187).
45 Sacred Rhetoric, 64.

16 essary
Finally, what Augustine said in imitation of Plato is true, that nothing is

loved except in so far as it is known and that nothing is known unless it
is in some degree loved. Thus the instructors love makes the pupil open
to teaching, and our admiration for a discipline makes us learn it more
willingly and more quickly. Someone will be more ready to learn theology
if he is convinced that the Holy Spirit is the author of the divine books and
if he is convinced that theology alone renders a man truly learned, wise,
and even blessed. Cicero in the Hortensius fires his readers towards love
of philosophy by praising it before he teaches it, and those who teach a
discipline first inflame the audience, showing through amplification the
greatness of its worth.46
What I have been calling Erasmus affective approach to Christian learning does
not only consist in metaphoric appeals to hearts and tongues, and exhorta-
tions to embrace a fiery spirit. An ardent zeal must attend and motivate the
preachers duty to learn and teach, but it is also true that learning itself creates
a fruitful space for God to operate through the hearts of the preacher and his
congregants. The Holy Spirit, Erasmus writes, works more fully if it finds a
heart readied by the liberal disciplines.47
The requisite zeal for learning on the part of the preacher is occasionally
matched by the congregation, thus creating a space for what has recently, if
in a slightly later context, been referred to as emotional intersubjectivity:48
in the same way that it is the preachers duty to instil passion for learning
among his flock, the preacher will be stimulated to become more vigilant
in his study of Holy Writ, more ardent in his teaching, more frank in his
admonition, if his audience listens cheerfully to his teaching, patiently to
his criticism, and if they retain what he has taught.49 There is a complicated
interplay of affective learning in the emotional community (to borrow a term
from Barbara Rosenwein) of Erasmus church.50 In a more particular context,
passion is provided to the preacher by reading: If the speaker, Erasmus writes,
when he is about to speak, feels rather listless, he should read a passage
46 cwe 68:723.
47 cwe 68:471.
48 Christopher Tilmouth, Passion and Intersubjectivity in Early Modern Literature, in Pas-
sions and Subjectivity in Early Modern Culture, ed. Cummings and Sierhuis (Ashgate, 2014)
1332.
49 cwe 67:441.
50 Barbara Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Cornell University
Press, 2006).

of Scripture especially suitable for setting the mind on fire, dwell upon it
until he feels his mind warming, and climb up into the pulpit before that
warmth cools.51 There is also a way in which the gospel itselfalways the
implied subject matter of the preacheris inherently affective, or given over
to affectivity. Erasmus argues that for the preacher it is both easier and more
necessary to rouse the emotions than for the lawyer in a courtroom. This is
because of the nature of the subject at hand: many things of which he must
speak are, first of all, of undoubted truth and are more sure than what we
have perceived with the eyes and all the senses; then they are so great that
in comparison to them everything that either happens in human affairs or
has been devised by eloquent men to stir the emotions is received coldly and
seems trifling.52 And even though everything the preacher teaches is so ardent
that the simple narration, even without amplifying, wrings tears from the
hardest persons, Erasmus insists that the ultimate aim of stirring the passions
of the congregation is not to make them weep temporarily, but to instil in
them a zeal for emulation of Christ and the saints.53 The preacher inflames
the minds of the audience while their engagement induces him to study; the
passion required to preach is acquired by studying Holy Writ; divine wisdom
must come from without, but the liberal arts are grist for the Holy Spirits
mill.
This also gets at a tension in Erasmus thought between a strong advocacy
for the norms of classical learning and the ultimate difficulty of understand-
ing those norms as conducive to Christian piety. The Ecclesiastes is simulta-
neously a manual for Christian preachers that insists on the uniqueness of
Christian eloquence empowered by the Holy Spirit, and a work that explicitly
advocates many of the principles of classical rhetoric as useful for the Chris-
tian preacherit is equally indebted, in different ways, to Augustines De doct-
rina Christiana and to Quintilians Institutio Oratoria.54 And for all the classical
pagan literary examples adduced in the work, Erasmus is keen to point out that
the Bible itself embraces the best of good rhetorical principles that come to be
51 cwe 68:810.
52 cwe 68:795 (modified).
53 cwe 68:798.
54 On the connection to Augustine, see Marc Fumaroli, LAge de lloquence (Geneva: Droz,
1980) esp. 70 and 106 ff.; Charles Bn, Erasme et Saint Augustin (Geneva: Droz, 1969) 400ff.;
and Kathy Eden, Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition (Yale University Press, 1997)
4178. Debora Shuger rightly points out that the Ecclesiastes attempts to work out the
specifics of Christian eloquence in far more detail than Augustine had (Sacred Rhetoric,
63).

18 essary
codified inbut not invented inRoman handbooks of rhetoric.55 And inso-

far as the biblical writers (or speakers) do so in perfect accommodation to the
subject at hand, they set forth the best example of eloquence appropriate to
the preacher. In other words, to Erasmus mind, learning Christian eloquence
is not to patch pagan rhetoric rules onto the fabric of Christian doctrine, but to
recognize the a priori cohesiveness of the best aspects of what appear to be two
traditions. Thus, having charted the ways in which affectivity is central to the
program of the preacher, we will now turn to the question of how the emotions
of the congregation can best be stirred, which is a more complicated matter.
Stirring the Emotions of the Congregation
While it should be clear that Erasmus advocates an affective sort of Christian

learnedness that revolves around the heart, this doesnt entail an unequiv-
ocal appreciation of the emotions in general. Erasmus was well aware that
Christian preachers could and did use a variety of techniques for stirring the
emotions of the congregation, but his own prescriptions are fairly neatly cir-
cumscribed. While a fiery heart is a necessary condition of effective teach-
ing, Erasmus repeatedly criticizes the use of perverse affectations on the part
of the preacher: for these not only fail in orienting the congregation towards
true piety, but they belie the insincerity of the preacher himself. Moreover,
stirring the emotions without the ultimate aim of teaching or instilling long-
lasting virtue is purposeless and even harmful. What specific emotions, then,
are appropriately induced by the preacher, and what is the best method of
doing so?56 A brief note is in order first on the language and definition of the
emotions in the Ecclesiastes.
55 See cwe 68:829.

56 A comprehensive account of Erasmus description of the emotions over his entire corpus
would be a monumental undertaking, given the proliferation of references to the emotions
and affectivity there, but it would no doubt pay dividends. There is no simple way to
characterize a general Erasmian sentiment regarding the emotions, at least not to this
authors mind, nor does there seem to be a linear development of his thinking on the
topic over the course of his life. Even in just comparing two early works, the De Taedio and
the Enchiridion one finds a strident and nuanced defense of Christs fear in Gethsemane
as legitimate in the one, and an almost canned Platonist explanation of the relationship
between reason and the passions in the other. But from the De Taedio through the Moria
and to the Ecclesiastes, Erasmus regularly denounced the Stoics as specifically unchristian
for their hardline position and advocacy of apatheia.

In Book 3, Erasmus expands his account of the emotions from the end of the
De Copia (largely taken from Quintilians Institutio Oratoria57), explaining that
there are two kinds of emotions (affectuum), one gentler and more like those
of comedy, the other more powerful and tragic (although he reserves the right
to posit a kind of emotion in between as well).58 Erasmus writes that the Greeks
called the former and the latter ; the Latins, meanwhile, call the former
mores but, Erasmus says, there is no proper corresponding Latin term for pathe,
although he notes that some writers usenot quite adequatelyaffectus,
perturbationes, motus animorum, cupiditates, and morbos.59 It is worth pointing
out that Erasmus does not list passiones here, especially given Thomas Dixons
seemingly influential claim that the heart of Christian affective psychology
from Augustine until the Enlightenment rests in a distinction between the
virtuous religious affectus and the unruly and sinful passiones animae, and that
until the 18th century this distinction was maintained with general regularity.60
Erasmus most typically uses affectus to describe the full gamut of emotions,
both sinful and not, and he will occasionally use passiones naturales to describe
the neutral affections (albeit not, to my knowledge, in the Ecclesiastes).61 Even
what the cwe translators render as the the sort of violent passion that tortures
us and deprives us of judgment and peace of mind is vehementem affectum in
Latin.62
This semantic ambiguity, in terms of judging whether an affectus is virtuous
or not, is consistent with period dictionaries: In an influential Latin dictionary
by Ambrogio Calepino, edited by Conrad Gesner and published in Basel in 1544
(the first edition of Calepinos lexicon appeared in 1502, and was succeeded
by several editions), the entry for the noun affectus reads si rectae sunt, vir-
57 Erasmus indebtedness to Quintilian, which is substantial, is thoroughly documented both

by Chomarat in the asd edition and by the editors of the new cwe translation. Here cf.
Inst. Orat. vi.2.8, 17; vi.3.93. A briefer citation of the same distinction comes in Erasmus
Ratio (Holborn 187), with the additional comment that Aristotle treats these things better
(diligentius) than anyone.
58 cwe 68:792.
59 asd v-5, 68. See also cwe 68:518519 on ethos.
60 From Passions to Emotions (Cambridge University Press, 2003) 61.
61 For passiones naturales as neutral affections, see De Taedio Iesu (at asd v-7, 224 and 237).
In addition to Dixons book, for a recent treatment of the distinction between these terms
in Spinoza and others (including Augustine and Erasmus contemporary Vives), see Russ
Leo, Affective Physics: Affectus in Spinozas Ethica, in Passions and Subjectivity in Early
Modern Culture (ed. Cummings and Sierhuis [Ashgate, 2013], 3349).
62 cwe 68:794; asd v-5:70. See also asd v-4:244 for noxius affectus.

20 essary
tutes vocantur; si a recta ratione aversae sunt, vitia fiunt et perturbationes.63 The
Latin affectus has a broader semantic range than the English emotion and is
likewise employed by Erasmus to describe all sorts of dispositions.64 Indeed, it
covers most of what falls under both ethe and pathe as well in Erasmus usage,
although when it comes to the subject of moving the emotions of the congre-
gation, Erasmus is typically interested in what would fall more appropriately
into his category of pathe. The principal kinds of pathe in the Ecclesiastes are
pity, indignation, love, and hate, while ethe more properly covers general ethi-
cal dispositions.65
In general, for Erasmus, some emotions are always to be encouraged by
the preacher. Christian affection, pity, compassion, and love are universally
condoned, while emotions like anger, are to be stirred not so much against
persons as against the vices themselves and against Satan.66 When it comes
63 This entry also posits the Greek pathos as a synonym, and notes that those wishing
to remain closer to Greek expression use passiones (quidam vero de Graeco expressius
passiones vocant). A thesaurus also edited by Calepino and based on an edition by Robert
Estienne from the same period cites Augustines De Civ. Dei definition of affectus as
what the Greeks call pathos; its synonym affectio is defined as animi motus, sive passio
with examples of amor, odium, iracundia, timor, laetitia, spes given (see Ambrosii Calepini
Dictionarium, quarto et postremo ex R. Stephani latinae linguae thesauro auctum [imprint
Geneva 1553]). Erasmus points to a distinction between affectio and affectus at Ann. Rom.
1:31 (cwe 56:65) but doesnt abide by it.
64 Drunkenness, for example, counts for Erasmus as an emotion (cwe 68:641), although
we would hardly consider this an emotion in English usage (following the Greek terms
introduced by Erasmus, this would no doubt count as an ethos rather than a pathos). In
Robert Estiennes Dictionariolum puerorum tribus linguis latina anglica et gallica (Lon-
don 1552), the entry for affectus (n.) reads: affection, disposition, motion, passion or
accident of body or mynde. One example where the cwe translators of the Ecclesiastes
seem to render affectus as emotion inappropriately comes in Erasmus description of
stigmata, which he contrasts with the phenomenon of a person vomiting at the sight of
anothers vomit; both, however, are described as a natural emotion (affectus naturae).
But probably very few English speakers would describe either stigmata or vomit as emo-
tions.
65 Examples, in Erasmus estimation, include greater severity of uncles towards their neph-
ews, or politeness in Italians and bellicosity in Germans (cwe 68:792793). In the words
of Chomarat on Erasmus definition of ethe: non pas psychologique, mais morale (asd v-
5:69). The distinction resembles in some ways one made earlier in the work by Erasmus
between natura animi and commotio (asd v-4:372): the former describes a temperament,
like fearfulness, while the latter describes an emotion, like fear. Again, though, these are
not technical terms in Erasmus.
66 cwe 68:802.

to the manner of moving the congregation, Erasmus foremost concern is that

this not be done artificially or without the ultimate aim of teaching.67 Again,
the most effective way for a preacher to move an audience is to be moved
himself; and since the biblical story is inherently moving according to Erasmus,
adhering to the biblical text in sermons does some of the affective work for
the preacher. It is more useful for a preacher than for advocates to rouse the
audiences emotions and rather easier as well, because many things of which he
must speak are, first of all, of undoubted truth and are more sure than what we
have perceived with the eyes and all the senses; then they are so great that in
comparison to them everything that either happens in human affairs or has
been devised by eloquent men to stir the emotions falls flat ( frigeant) and
seems a mere trifle.68
Erasmus lays out a more explicit approach to movere through the tools
of rhetoric, although not exactly systematically: certain rhetorical forms, like
metaphor, narratio, and exempla are especially conducive to teaching the affec-
tions. Metaphor holds primacy among all the powers of language, he writes.
Nothing persuades more effectively, nothing lays something more clearly be-
fore the eyes, nothing stirs emotions more powerfully.69 Exempla, moreover,
have great power both for persuading and for inflaming minds with the emu-
lation of virtue.70 Accommodation to circumstantia is crucial: emotions (both
ethe and pathe), Erasmus writes, are generally drawn from all the circum-
stances both of fact and of person.71 This requires the preacher to diagnose his
audience as a physician would, for every malady is different and each person
requires bespoke treatment: applying the same sort of language to everyone
when consoling or rebuking is nothing more than, as they say, putting the same
shoe on each foot or applying the same cure to every body.72 After discussing
several rhetorical devices, Erasmus provides a rather extended example of how
a sermon on the healing of the paralytic (Matt. 9 and Luke 5) might be given
with various genera dicendi through proper use of accommodatio, gesturing
occasionally to which aspects have the most emotional force. He writes, if the
story is told appropriately, the language will contain much delight and clarity,
67 For a very clear and concise overview of Erasmus on moving the emotions in the Ecclesi-
astes, see Manfred Hoffmann, Rhetoric and Theology, 201204.
68 cwe 68:794795.
69 cwe 68:871.
70 cwe 68:871.
71 cwe 68:794.
72 cwe 68:629.

22 essary
and not a little emotion as well.73 The use of hypotyposis is especially impor-
tant for moving the congregation, and Erasmus elsewhere describes the way in
which vivid description induces the affections: There will be an opportunity
here for hypotyposis, to lay before the eyes that pitiable spectacle of the para-
lytic lying on his cot. For the unhappy man could only lie there, no longer a man
but a corpse half alive, sallow, filthy, covered with mould and decay and stink-
ing almost in his very blankets.74 The treatment of allegory, Erasmus writes,
will allow even greater emotions if you declare that a paralysis of the mind is
far and away more pitiable than paralysis of the body.75 Erasmus had earlier
digressed similarly on the centrality of compassion and pity76 as emotions in
need of elicitation by the preacher:
Certainly the preacher will often have to try the effect of the emotion
of compassion when he exhorts his hearers to help the needy, or to
encourage or console those afflicted with disease or human injustice
or some other disaster But this emotion has a broader application
than the common man thinks. When we see a man sallow with disease,
full of sores, needy, shrieking in pain, we are distressed by the mere
perception of his physical condition; but far more wretched than he is
the one who has a mind leprous with heretical errors, devoid of all virtues,
dead from lust, greed, envy, hatred, and other fatal diseases, ulcerous with
disgrace, tormented by the pricks of conscience Therefore the preacher
will display his [forcefulness] to make those who are so pitiably
pitiable pity themselves, so that they flee for refuge to the mercy of the
Lord, like fugitives from a cruel master.77
It is for Erasmus most virtuous for the preacher to learn to apply the appropri-
ate rhetorical tools to biblical narratives to stir the emotions in the congrega-
tion.
Equally often, however, Erasmus approaches the subject negatively by dis-
cussing improper forms of stirring the passions. He rejects basically any form
73 cwe 68:881 (modified). See also cwe 68:889 where Erasmus concludes that he has shown
from rhetorical theory (ex arte) how narration is useful for eliciting emotion.
74 cwe 68:885.
75 cwe 68:889.
76 For some of Erasmus more elaborate comments on pity, and also about the function of
emotion in forensic oratory, see his interesting and understudied commentary on Ovids
Nux (cwe 29:129169).
77 cwe 68:799800.

of material prop, along with most forms of bodily and facial gesturing, which he
counts as insincere methods of rabble rousing. It is not good for the preacher
to stir the emotions in just any way, Erasmus writes: he must do it not with
gross facial distortion, not with buffoonish physical gestures, but rather with
words.78 Perverse affectation, or in the Greek which Erasmus retains, -
, neither leads to true teaching of the mob nor does it fool the intelli-
gent.79 The over-use of props and gestures disturbs Erasmus, and his comments
acknowledge that such measures are in fact very effective in rousing the pas-
sions of a lay audience, while also demonstrating that affective piety in the
early sixteenth century could take on various forms. A series of anecdotes pro-
vide fodder for Erasmus treatment of the subject. As an instance of the manip-
ulation of emotional space, Erasmus recalls Savonarola, who would grow so
hot sometimes against the crimes of his congregation that he would suddenly
dash off the pulpit and go home, with his sermon unfinished and the congrega-
tion left in suspense.80 A more apt example is the figure of Roberto Caracciolo,
which Erasmus calls more shameless: Caracciolo, in an attempt to stir bel-
licose fervor against the Turks among his congregation, at the most fervent
point of his sermon cast off his Franciscan habit in order to reveal a long mil-
itary cloak and a gigantic sword, and proceeded to preach for half an hour
decked out in military garb. Erasmus compares Caracciolos use of clothes as
a way of drawing pathos to Marc Antonys funeral oration for Caesar: Antony
held up Caesars cloak, which was punctured by many wounds and stained
with much blood, and such an uproar arose that the conspirators who were
present had to flee to escape being torn to pieces.81
Another preacher, in the midst of a sermon on Satans wiles, called forth
a man disguised as the devil, with fiery eyes, hooked nose, boars tusks, an
eye on his chest, curving nails, a frightening hook, bellowing loudlymany
were terrified, Erasmus writes, but soon their fear turned to mockery. It is not
appropriate, he says, for a preacher to use such methods to stir a crowds
emotions, because such a move often becomes ridiculous.82 He continues:
People marvel at novelty and are moved more easily by outward appearance
than by examples of true piety or by sound teaching Some unduly exploit
this flaw in human nature, more for their own glory than for the salvation of
78 cwe 68:811.
79 cwe 68:747.
80 cwe 68:811812.
81 cwe 68:813.
82 cwe 68:813.

24 essary
many, for whatever displays a foreign and affected novelty should be suspect,
especially since no example of this sort was offered us by Christ and the
apostles.83 Erasmus disapproves lazy methods of stirring the emotions.
More egregious examples are on offer. Once, Erasmus tells us, a preacher
plucked the feather from the hat of a courtier tore it to pieces, and scattered
it into the crowd while giving a terrifying denunciation of pride.84 Uncon-
scionable, especially, is the preacher who, in order to make a point about
human pride, smuggles two skulls under his robe taken from the cemetery, then
produces them when the sermon reaches the emotional climax and smash-
es them together with such a great crack that the teeth are shaken out and
scatter among the congregation.85 These physical and strikingly visual meth-
ods of emotional arousal are, Erasmus admits, highly effective in their aim,
but they are also disingenuous distractions. Following Caroline Walker Bynum
and others, Susan Karant-Nunn has noted a connection between physicality
and fervor in late medieval and early modern devotion and has suggested
that sacred objects were the meditative points that facilitated the recollec-
tion of the devout and elicited their affective response.86 What we learn from
Erasmus, however, is that this was not always viewed favorably, and also that
non-sacred material objects were equally effective for inducing emotional fer-
vor in a religious context.
Erasmus does not always view the close link between visual phenomena
and the passions negatively, however. His tacit acknowledgment that visual
imagery is highly effective in moving emotions is made explicit in his advice
for preachers to rouse emotions in themselves before they teach (similarly to
what we have seen in his employment of hypotyposis and narratio above). One
can do this, first, he says,
through mental pictures or impressions by which the preacher represents

to himself, after careful thought, images of the subjects about which
he proposes to speak. What we behold with our eyes moves us more
powerfully than what we only hear; for who would not be disturbed
more keenly, should he see a foe with burning eyes and drawn sword
advance with a terrible roar and plunge his sword into the breast of a
83 cwe 68:813.
84 cwe 68:814.
85 cwe 68:766.
86 Susan Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early
Modern Germany (Oxford University Press, 2010) 64.

cringing suppliant, and saw the wounded man collapse and breathe out
his soul with a great groan, than if he only heard that a man was cruelly
slain?87
This notion, that the sense of sight is most conducive for stirring the emotions,
is translated to the situation where the preacher is able to contemplate a scene
in order to arouse his own emotions for the sake of moving the audience. Eras-
mus here even endorses stirring a temporary mental ardor in the mind of the
preacher.88 However, when the visual imagery is actually brought out on stage,
put into physical, bodily form, the method is condemned, and precisely for the
reason that it results in a temporary stirring of the congregants emotions. This
seeming inconsistency can perhaps be resolved by appealing to what Erasmus
considers the ultimate aim of the preacher, which is to teach: docere, within the
three-fold aim of the preacher-rhetorician, holds primary place over movere
and delectare. The preacher is more effective in teaching when he is himself
moved, and thus summoning temporary ardor is permissible for carrying out
the true aim of preaching; while for the congregant, to be temporarily moved is
rather a distraction than an effective pedagogical moment. Erasmus explicitly
distinguishes between the preacher who teaches permanent and virtuous emo-
tional dispositions and an actor or lawyer whose aim is to move the audience
sharply but temporarily. Short-lived emotions are repeatedly eschewed in the
Ecclesiastes in favor of long-burning ardor.89 He denounces affectus temporar-
ios qui mox refrigescunttemporary emotions which cool quicklyin favor of
permanent and virtuous emotional dispositions like pity, anger at sin, hatred
of schism, and love of God. Temporary bursts of strong emotion are not only
less virtuous, but by inducing them the preacher runs the risk of hardening
the minds of the audience, for just as the body is hardened by constant blows
so the mind may be hardened from excessively frequent and bitter displays
of emotionalism.90 The actor seeks applause and the lawyer a positive legal
outcome via the first sort, but the preacher must leave in the minds of his lis-
teners barbs that hold fast and scatter upon them, as it were, good seed on good
ground, so that it exercises its power gradually until it bursts forth into the fruit
of piety.91
87 cwe 68:807.
88 Moreover, the best of preachers is able to keep his emotions in potestate and to control
immodicos animi motus.
89 See cwe 68:806.
90 cwe 68:811.
91 cwe 68:806.

26 essary
Erasmus offers clear-cut guidelines for the preacher to maintain decorum in

using his body as well. Outward expression simultaneously signifies an inner
emotional state, and it guides the emotions of the audience as well. The hearts
emotions are not infrequently evident in a persons outer appearance, Erasmus
writes, just as hidden ailments of the blood and intestines betray themselves
in the bodys external state.92 The same preacher who tore up the courtiers
hat feather had a particular penchant for disorienting a congregation through
use of his body: he covered his head entirely with his hood; he only preached
outside; he slept in the dirt, and because of his meagre diet looked more like a
corpse than a living man; he spoke only through a translator and terrified the
multitude with shouts and strange gestures, sometimes putting his neck in a
noose and imitating a choking man with his bulging eyes.93 Presumably, Eras-
mus imagined that this disoriented and alienated a congregation spiritually,
even if they flocked to see his sermons for their entertainment value. Erasmus
compares the priest who walks through the congregation to the pulpit with
his hood covering his face to a skittish horse who requires blinders, and he
denounces the priests who prostrate themselves on the pulpit in such a way
that they produce a loud crack from the impact of their knees. Each part of
the face receives special consideration, both of a descriptive and prescriptive
manner, for, as Erasmus puts it, the mind is so clearly expressed [in the face]
that it frequently serves in place of speech. Raising the head signifies confi-
dence, lowering it bashfulness or hesitation; frequent moving of it is unseemly
on the part of the serious man, while whirling the hair is downright fanati-
cal.94 A smooth brow indicates cheerfulness, a furrowed one sadness; raised
eyebrows, meanwhile, show arrogance (the Latin superciliosus and the English
supercilious derive from supercilium, eyebrow); lowered eyebrows show mod-
esty, and uneven eyebrows apparently indicate severity joined with gentle-
ness. There is no emotionlove, hate, joy, grief, annoyance, concern, fear,
hope, innocence, deceit, suspicionthat is not expressed in the eyes.95 The
nose, the cheeks, the lips, the arms, the teeth are all indicative of something;
but the hands, Erasmus says, are the most eloquent. In these descriptions we
find that for Erasmus there is an indissoluble link between the emotions and
the way in which the preacher presents the sermon physically, and further that
the preacher must conduct himself modestly with these things in mind.
92 cwe 68:466467.
93 cwe 68:814.
94 cwe 68:757.
95 But one must beware, for eyes can also be droopy, lethargic, bewildered, lusty, shifty, and
almost swimming as though some pleasure were welling up (cwe 68:758759).

The preachers words, too, must be couched in an appropriate emotional

disposition. The voice that produces emotion in the audiences minds is that
which comes from a mind that is itself deeply moved, especially when assisted
by appropriate expression and gesture.96 The notion that the preacher or
orator must emote in order to move the audience is common in rhetorical
handbooks from antiquity on, and Erasmus repeats the injunction often.97 A
fiery mind makes a fiery tongue, he writes, nor can fire do anything except
burn if you approach too near.98 Also, there is nothing more powerful for
rousing good emotions than having a fount of pious emotions in ones heart.99
Feigning emotional commitment, however, is an impermissible ruse and not
a valid way of teaching. Erasmus provides a litany of examples of both good
and bad preachers in this context. Origen of Alexandria virtuously stirs only
the emotions that the subject itself stirs, while Jean Gerson, on the contrary,
frequenter affectat affectus.100
Erasmus rejects affectation because knowledge and oratorical skill, which
includes appropriate emotional disposition, must be habituated: The worry
about applying the rules blunts creativity and chills the ardour of speech.101
This does not mean that the rules are not important, but that the preacher
must employ them in the same way that a good musician plays music: with-
out thinking of the individual notes or the theory. They must be in habitum
quasi in naturam, or else they may come off as cold and calculating.102 Habitus
converges here with affectus. The criteria for deciding which rules to habituate
are ever-shifting, and in place of scholastic formalism with its modal gram-
mar and of the apes who insisted that good Latin must be founded solely
upon Ciceronian usage, Erasmus set forth an ideal Christian eloquence that
he considered Pauline and which is governed by the principle of accommoda-
tion.103 Consider how Paul, he writes, adapts himself to every circumstance,
96 cwe 68:746.
97 See Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 6.2.26; also the Introduction to the Ecclesiastes in cwe
67, esp. 161.
98 cwe 68:804.
99 cwe 68:807.
100 asd v-4:268.
101 cwe 68:736.
102 asd v-4:250.
103 The clearest digression on accommodation comes at cwe 67:279281. On accommodation
in the Ecclesiastes, see Chomarat, Grammaire et Rhtorique, 11071118. For specific exam-
ples of how Paul (the chameleon) accommodates himself to various audiences, see adage
94 Polypi mentem obtine (asd ii-1:201) and also the Ratio (Holborn 223).

28 essary
not always pondering what is allowed but what is expedient, how he at times
abases himself, then how he exalts his sublimity in Christ.104 Repeatedly in
the Ecclesiastes Erasmus argues for the value of the preacher accommodating
himself to his audience in various ways: intellectually, the preacher must nei-
ther aim too high nor too low with respect to the capacity of his congregation,
lest he lose the less learned or bore the rest. Rhetorically and linguistically, the
preacher must employ language that is understandable to a lay audience,105 in
the same way that Paul spoke plainly to the Corinthians; but the language must
also be appropriate to the subject matter.106 In terms of the emotions, Eras-
mus repeatedly suggests that one cannot move an audience unless one feels in
oneself the emotions one is trying to tease out, but also the preacher must iden-
tify the emotions most appropriate to the situation at hand in another form of
decorum. Pauls own discourse is modeled on Divine wisdom, which speaks to
us in baby-talk and like a loving mother accommodates its words to our state
of infancy.107 The Old Testament, too, tempers its speech to the emotions of
an unlearned people.108 And a diverse population demands that the preacher
exercise prudentia in order that he likewise aptly accommodate his speech to
the audience.109 The classical rhetorical principle of accommodation takes on
significant theological and affective import with great versatility in Erasmus
understanding of sacred rhetoric.
The relationship between teaching and moving is fluid in the Ecclesiastes. At
times Erasmus writes explicitly that delighting and moving are not even possi-
ble if the hearer does not already know and believe what is being urged.110 At
other times, however, he writes that for the unlearned and ignorant multitude,
it is sometimes more important to inflame than teach and drag than lead
for some laypeople are not much different from livestock so far as the capacity
to be taught is concerned.111 In correcting and instructing these, moving the
emotions is of paramount importance. Yet moving and delighting are never
ends in themselvesErasmus is typically careful to retain erudiendos and corri-
gendos (educating and correcting) as the final concern. This reinforces Debora
104 cwe 67:279.

105 cwe 68:486.
106 See, e.g., cwe 68:879.
107 cwe 66:35. Paul conquers the Mediterranean with babbling eloquence (eloquenti balbu-
tie) in Erasmus dedicatory letter to the Paraphrases of First and Second Corinthians.
108 cwe 67:280.
109 asd v-4:66; cwe 67:280.
110 cwe 68:504.
111 cwe 68:791792.

Shugers claim that movere in the Renaissance is not tantamount to subrational

obfuscation; rather it must always bear the ultimate end of instruction, and it
is in this way that rhetorical theology is not reducible to sophistry or grounded
in skepticism.112 It is also true, however, that the duty of the preacher is occa-
sionally to rebuke, exhort, and reproach, which can only be done effectively
through the emotions. Erasmus follows that famous Peripatetic (cwe 68:791)
in describing the emotions as useful and even necessary for teaching virtue,
and he recognized Pauls aptitude in this regard.113 It is in his recognition of this
aspect of preaching as fundamental that we find the force of Erasmus location
of the sermon under the category of genus suasorium.
Conclusion
There is still much work to be done in terms of situating Erasmus understand-

ing of the role of emotions in preaching in the longer history of this relationship.
To the question whether the Ecclesiastes marks a shift or continues long trends
in the history of preaching and the emotions, the answer would need to attend
to the various ways in which the emotions come into play. At the moment,
a few general comments may suffice. We have tentatively distinguished Eras-
mus affective piety from the medieval, more material-oriented forms treated
by Caroline Bynum and, for the 16th century, by Susan Karant-Nunn.114 Eras-
mus thought that overly effusive preaching and the use of affectations to stir
the passions of the congregation were deleterious in that they did not instil
long-lasting and virtuous emotion, but elicited temporary emotions which cool
quickly. From the perspective of preaching manuals, no one has improved upon
Deborah Shugers still very valuable 1989 Sacred Rhetoric, where she situates
the Ecclesiastes in a longer history of sacred rhetorics with a keen eye for the
importance of the role of emotion in these works. While Erasmus vision dif-
fered considerably from the medieval model, Shuger points out that Guilbert
of Nogent had already written in the 12th century, Let a prayer always pre-
cede a sermon, so that the soul may burn fervently with divine love; then let
112 John OMalley describes the concerns of the Italian papal court preachers similarly: The
preachers meant to teach as well as to move and to please. They meant to move and to
please by means of their teaching (Praise and Blame 124).
113 cwe 68:817.
114 Note that this is not necessarily a shift, for there was earlier resistance to what Erasmus
would consider improper forms of entertainment: see H. Leith Spencer, English Preaching
in the Late Middle Ages (Clarendon Press Oxford, 1993) 49 and 78ff.

30 essary
it proclaim what it has learned from God so as to inflame the hearts of all hear-
ers with the same interior fire which consumes it.115 The crucial difference
between the medieval approach and the much later English vernacular rhetor-
ical handbooks on the one hand (those which set forth what Shuger calls the
passionate plain style), and the Ecclesiastes, is that the former approach delib-
erately eschews the trappings of classical eloquence and argues for passionate
movement arising from the inherent forcefulness of the divine word and the
preachers ardor, while the latter situates passionate preaching in the longer
history of ancient rhetoric and employs rhetorical forms in order to move the
emotions.116 While the means may differ vastly, however, the end remains quite
similar.
With respect to the Italian humanist preachers of the papal court of the late
fifteenth- and early sixteenth centuries, so closely studied by John OMalley,
it is not clear how far Erasmus differs from them in regard to moving the
emotions: while Erasmus departed from their approach in situating the sermon
in the suasory rather than the epideictic genre, both Erasmus and the Italians
saw teaching and moving as integral aspects of successful preaching. That
said, the tactics which some Italian preachers deployed in order to stir up the
congregation clearly troubled Erasmus (although no doubt he chose to invoke
the most egregious examples for the sake of his argument). Moving north,
it would seem that Johannes Reuchlin, in his De Arte Praedicandi, confined
moving the congregation to a specific part of the sermon, viz. the conclusio.117
Erasmus does not set aside a particular moment of the sermon as more or
less appropriate for stirring the passions, although he does recognize that the
115 Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric, 52. For a still useful overview of classical rhetoric as it is used in the
medieval ars praedicandi, see Harry Caplan, Classical Rhetoric and the Medieval Theory
of Preaching, Classical Philology 28:2 (1933) 7396. See more recently the essays in part
one of The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon (Oxford University Press, 2011).
116 Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric, 53. It may be mentioned that Shuger seems to situate the Ecclesi-
astes more in line with the grand style than the plain style in its advocacy of remodeling
classical rhetorical norms in service of preaching. While this may be generally true, Eras-
mus himself calls for multiple genera dicendi (styles) relative to a number of factors, not
least the subject matter itself. This is an important aspect of his general appreciation of
the importance of accommodatio: The character of the language will be pleasant if it is
drawn from something pleasant, grand if from something lofty, harsh if from something
frightening, moderate if from something moderate, humble if from something humble
(cwe 68:879). It is the duty of the preacher, once he has learned the different styles, to
accommodate [them] to his own use (ad usum accommodare) (asd v-5:164).
117 See G.R. Evans, The Ars Praedicandi of Johannes Reuchlin (14551522), Rhetorica 3:2
(1985) 99104.

conclusion is a sort of peroration comprised especially of emotions, which are

more easily roused when the hearer has already been convinced and is inclined
on his own either towards pity or towards indignation or towards penitence or
towards any other emotional state.118
On a different note, many early modern Protestant preachers would have
found Erasmus views congenial. John Calvin, one of the most renowned
preachers of his day, despite our heritage of imagining him (in Andrew Pet-
tegrees words) as an emotionally desiccated model of forbidding austerity,
understood the importance of a balanced approach to moving the emotions in
preaching.119 In a sermon on 1Timothy, for example, he describes the exhorta-
tory task of the preacher as one of profitable instruction, and the church as a
place not for farce and laughter, but where Gods word moves and touches the
congregation.120
Andreas Hyperius De formandis sacris concionibus (1553) may be indebted
to the Ecclesiastes. Hyperius denounces the deceitful tricks of orators, and he
sets the emotions at the top of the preacher's duties. He does not confine them
to a single place but suggests that the preacher has greater liberty than the
orator in deciding when it is most appropriate to stir them. Like Erasmus, he
argues that the preacher should conjure ardent emotions in himself in order
to inflame the congregation, which can be done in various ways, including
by vividly imagining something moving or by reading scripture. He draws a
distinction between the gentler and more vehement affections, warning the
preacher not to stir up the violent emotions too often or for too long. Among
the emotions, he privileges those pertaining to salvation, especially sorrow for
sin, hatred of sin, love of virtue, fear of God, and finally love and compassion
for our neighbors.
118 cwe 68:721.

119 Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge, 2005), 25. For a com-
parison of Erasmus with Melanchthon on the emotions in preaching, see Shuger, Sacred
Rhetoric, 6268.
120 Sermon ii on 1Timothy: Pourtant apprenons que Dieu ne veut point quil y ait des tem-
ples pour gaudir et pour rire, comme si on iouoit ici des farces: mais il faut quil y ait une
maiest en sa parole, de laquelle nous soyons esmeus et touchez: et puis quil y ait instruc-
tion profitable salut. Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, vol. 53 (Brunswick,
1895) 24. See also Thomas Parker, Calvins Preaching (Edinburgh: t&t Clark, 1992) 114f.
for several instances of Calvins insistence that mere instruction from the pulpit is not
sufficient. We know that Calvin read Erasmus works on the New Testament closely, and
there is no reason to think that he had not at least perused the pages of the Ecclesi-
astes.

32 essary
There has been a recent surge of scholarship on early modern preaching in

England, even if much of it has focused on the political import of sermons, and
less on the theological and emotional aspects.121 Some Elizabethan preachers
were not far off from Erasmus attempts to navigate between the Scylla of
frigidity and the Charybdis of affectation. Thomas Nashe, whose dramatic
Christes Teares over Jerusalem of 1593 is full of affective language, knows that
it is not sufficient to stir the emotions. In a prayer to God-as-Muse, he writes,
Lende my wordes the forcible wings of the Lightnings, that they may peirce
vnawares into the marrow and reynes of my Readers file away the superfluous
affectation of my prophane puft vp phrase, that I may be thy pure simple
Orator.122 Criticizing other preachers of the period, Nashe complains, They
sweat, they blunder, they bounce & plunge in the Pulpit, but all is voyce and no
substance: they deafe mens eares, but not edifie.123 The English Jesuit Thomas
Wright, in his The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1601), although it is not
a manual for preachers, seems to approve of the sort of enthusiastic Italian
preaching which Erasmus repeatedly decries:
The christian Orator (I meane the godly Preacher) perfitely vnderstanding

the natures & proprieties of mens passions, questionalesse may effectu-
ate strange matters in the minds of his auditors. I remember a Preacher
in Italy, who had such power over his auditors affections, that when
it pleased him he coulde cause them shed aboundaunce of teares, yea
and with the teares dropping downe their cheekes, presently turne their
sorrow into laughter; and the reason was, because he himselfe being
extreamely passionate, knowing moreover, the arte of moouing the affec-
tions of those auditors; and besides that, the most parte were women that
heard him, whose passions are most vehement and mutable.124
In the Ecclesiastes, Erasmus writes contrariwise, The aim of the preacher

should not be to make us bewail in the common fashion either Christs death
or the cruel agonies of the saints who are already triumphing victoriously in
121 See, for example, Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Pauls Cross Sermons, 15581642 (Oxford
University Press, 2011) and her article Scripture, Style, and Persuasion in The Journal of
Ecclesiastical History 53:4 (2002) 686706, which does deal with the emotions.
122 Quoted in Christopher Hill, Thomas Nashes Imitation of Christ,Prose Studies 28:2 (2006)
211221.
123 Hill, Thomas Nashes Imitation of Christ, Prose Studies 28:2 (2006) 218.
124 Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1601), 56.

heaven, but to make admiration for them sweep us into zeal for emulation.125
Furthermore, unlike Erasmus who distinguishes between the way in which
preachers are permitted to stir the emotions in comparison with lawyers and
actors, Wright seems to consider their charges to be similar in this regard:
The same commoditie may be gathered by all other Orators, as Embassadors,
Lawyers, Magistrates, Captains and whosoever would perswade a multitude,
because, if once they can stirre a passion, or affection in their hearers then
they have almost halfe perswaded them, for that the forces of strong passions
marvellously allure & draw the wit and will to judge and consent unto that they
are mooued.126 Certainly William Fenner took a less conservative approach
than Erasmus in his Treatise of the Affections of 1642. As Arnold Hunt describes
his ideal manner of preaching (which was, according to Hunt, not the norm at
the time), the preachers aim should not be to moderate the affections, but to
stir them up through the uninhibited use of voice, gesture, and emotion, and
then quoting Fenner: O that wee would sigh, and sob, and grone in our pulpits,
O that we could even wet our cushions with tears, and yearn over your soules
as we preach.127 Erasmus approach clearly has more affinities with Nashes
above, who attempted to balance learning with an ability to move an audience
rhetorically: Get you some witte in your great heades, my hotte-spurd Divines
learn to vtter your learning, and speake mouinglie.128
The overall portrait of the relationship between preaching and the passions
will only be clarified by further scholarship on early modern sermons and
preaching manuals. What I hope to have made clear here is that affectivity
in general, and the emotions in particular, feature prominently in Erasmus
Ecclesiastes. Future studies will reveal further nuances in Erasmus conception
of the emotions, how that conception is influenced by classical and biblical
authors, and in what ways it changes over the course of his career or in differ-
ent literary and theological contextsbut it is undeniable that the emotions
constitute an important aspect of Erasmus literary and theological imagina-
tion. As a result of its breadth and depth in cultivating learned piety in the
context of Christian preaching, the Ecclesiastes represents the most detailed
treatment Erasmus offered of the importance of emotion in numerous areas
of Christian thought and life. Without close attention to the affective aspects
of Erasmus ideal method of teaching and preaching, one simply cannot grasp
125 cwe 68:798.

126 Wright, The Passions, 6.
127 See Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and Their Audiences, 15901640
(Cambridge University Press, 2010), 86.
128 Hill, Thomas Nashes Imitation of Christ, Prose Studies 28:2 (2006) 219.

34 essary
the humanists theological program of learned piety. The emotions determine

the relationship between preacher and congregant, for to teach effectively the
preacher must be moved and must move the hearts and minds of the audience,
embodying and inculcating an ardent disposition toward erudition and pietas.

Erasmus' Ecclesiastes Emotion in

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Erasmus' Ecclesiastes Emotion in

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Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Fiery Heart and Fiery Tongue

Erasmus Ecclesiastes emotion affectivity preaching rhetoric Thomas

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/18749275-03601014

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

6 OMalley, Erasmus and the History of Sacred Rhetoric, 25.

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

A thoroughly affective approach to preaching can be seen in the Ecclesiastes

A Heart Trained in a Philosophy Like No Other

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Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

would be obscured were we to gloss all instances as references to the mind.18

18 See asd v-4:45.

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Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

30 Is. 50:4 quoted in Lingua, cwe 29:411.

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

35 cwe 67:380; and asd v-4:172.

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Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Finally, what Augustine said in imitation of Plato is true, that nothing is

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

codified inbut not invented inRoman handbooks of rhetoric.55 And inso-

Stirring the Emotions of the Congregation

While it should be clear that Erasmus advocates an affective sort of Christian

55 See cwe 68:829.

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

57 Erasmus indebtedness to Quintilian, which is substantial, is thoroughly documented both

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

to the manner of moving the congregation, Erasmus foremost concern is that

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

through mental pictures or impressions by which the preacher represents

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus offers clear-cut guidelines for the preacher to maintain decorum in

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

The preachers words, too, must be couched in an appropriate emotional

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

104 cwe 67:279.

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Shugers claim that movere in the Renaissance is not tantamount to subrational

There is still much work to be done in terms of situating Erasmus understand-

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

conclusion is a sort of peroration comprised especially of emotions, which are

118 cwe 68:721.

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

There has been a recent surge of scholarship on early modern preaching in

The christian Orator (I meane the godly Preacher) perfitely vnderstanding

In the Ecclesiastes, Erasmus writes contrariwise, The aim of the preacher

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

125 cwe 68:798.

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

the humanists theological program of learned piety. The emotions determine

Erasmus Studies 36 (2016) 534

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