Erasmus took pains in the second edition to correct an immense number of little errors which had crept into the first. But in those points in which it was the expression of the views of the Oxford Reformers, he altered nothing, unless it were to express them more clearly and strongly, or to defend what he had said in the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’
Thus the passage condemned by Luther, in which the resort by theologians to the doctrine of ‘original sin’ was compared to the invention of epicycles by mediæval astronomers, was retained in all essential particulars without modification.[705]
So, too, the passages censured by Eck as inimical to the Augustinian theory of the inspiration of the Scriptures, were not only retained, but amplified, while opportunity was taken to strengthen the arguments in favour of the freer view of inspiration held by the Oxford Reformers.[706]
Again; the main drift and spirit of the body of the work remained unchanged. Its title, however, was altered from ‘Novum Instrumentum’ to ‘Novum Testamentum.’
In speaking of the ‘Novum Instrumentum’ it was observed, that perhaps the most remarkable portion of the work was the prefatory matter, especially the ‘Paraclesis.’
‘Paraclesis.’
This ‘Paraclesis’ remained the same in the second edition as in the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ including the passages quoted in a former chapter, urging the translation of the New Testament into every language, so that it might become the common property of the ploughman and the mechanic, and even of Turks and Saracens, and ending also with the passage in which Erasmus had so forcibly summed up the value of the Gospels and Epistles, by pointing out how ‘living and breathing a picture’ they presented of Christ ‘speaking, healing, dying, and rising again, bringing his life so vividly before the eye, that we almost seem to have seen it ourselves.’
‘Ratio Veræ Theologiæ.’
Next to the ‘Paraclesis,’ in the first edition, had followed a few paragraphs treating of the ‘method of theological study.’ This in the second edition was so greatly enlarged as to become an important feature of the work. It was also printed separately, and passed through several editions under the title, ‘Ratio Veræ Theologiæ.’
Erasmus in this treatise pointed out, as he had done before, the great advantages of the study of the New Testament in its original language, and urged that all branches of knowledge, natural philosophy, geography, history, classics, mythology, should be brought to bear upon it, again assigning the reason which he had before given,—‘that we may follow the story, and seem not only to read it but to see it; for it is wonderful how much light—how much life, so to speak—is thrown by this method into what before seemed dry and lifeless.’