Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome's Letters in the Renaissance

Book excerpt: The first monograph in English on Erasmus of Rotterdam as an editor of St. Jerome, this book belongs to the growing scholarship on the reception of the Church Fathers in early modern Europe. Erasmus, like other Renaissance humanists, particularly admired Jerome (d. 419 or 420), and he expressed his admiration most conspicuously in his edition of Jerome’s letters. Proclaiming his editorial Herculean labours, Erasmus energetically promoted himself and his publication. Erasmus’ self-promotion cannot be reduced to a secular appropriation of Jerome, however. A detailed examination of a variety of editorial interventions demonstrates Erasmus’ religious purpose, his debt to previous editorial traditions as well as his editorial novelty, and his influence on subsequent sixteenth-century editions of Jerome.