Editing Erasmus (section)

====Inverbation====
For Erasmus, further to accommodating humans in his Incarnation, Christ accommodated humans by a kind of ''inverbation'':{{refn|group=note|"The gospel text for Erasmus, and many others, possessed 'the capacity to transform our inner self by the presence of God as incarnated in the text' (or 'inverbation')".{{check quotation|date=May 2025}} {{cite journal |last1=Leushuis |first1=Reinier |title=Emotion and Imitation: The Jesus Figure in Erasmus's Gospel Paraphrases |journal=Reformation |date=3 July 2017 |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=82–101 |doi=10.1080/13574175.2017.1387967|s2cid=171463846 }}{{rp|93}} }} we now knowing the resurrection, Christ is revealed by the Gospels in a way that we can know him better by reading him{{refn|group=note|Not a novel idea: see [[Duns Scotus]]' "For as there is no place in which it is more proper to seek Thee than in Thy words, so is there no place where Thou art more clearly discovered than in Thy words. For therein Thou abidest, and thither Thou leadest all who seek and love Thee."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ward |first1=Timothy |title=Word and Supplement |chapter=The Development and Decline of the Sufficiency of Scripture |date=15 August 2002 |pages=20–74 |publisher=Oxford Academic |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244386.003.0002 |isbn=978-0-19-924438-6 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/7022/chapter/151358845 |language=en}}</ref> {{rp|ch2}} }} than those who actually heard him speak;{{refn|group=note|Mansfield<ref name=mansfield/>{{rp|166}} summarizes Robert Kleinhan that "In contrast to contemporary theologies which centred on grace (Luther) or church and sacraments (the Council of Trent), Erasmus' theology 'stressed the acquisition of peace through the virtue obtainable by union with Christ through meditation upon the documents of the early church's witness to him.{{'"}} }} this will or may transform us.{{refn|group=note|For Erica Rummel "In content, Erasmian theology is characterized by a twin emphasis on inner piety and on the word as mediator between God and the believer."<ref name=rummel1/> }}

Since the Gospels become in effect like sacraments,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=David |title=The Communion of the Book |date=20 January 2024 |publisher=McGill-Queens University Press |isbn=978-0-2280-1469-0 |url=https://www.academia.edu/49003670}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|Margaret O'Rourke Boyle sees it as "The text was real presence."<ref name=boyle/>{{rp|49}} However, this may go too far: "The Christian Faith does not recognize either inlibration or inverbation".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Koch |first1=Kurt |title=Bible Engagement in the Catholic Church Tradition. Conference on the occasion of the annual retreat of the Board of Management of the American Bible Society in Rome |url=http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/it/cardinal-koch/2018/conferenze/2018-10-30-bible-engagement-in-the-catholic-church-tradition-.html |publisher=Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity |access-date=3 March 2024 |archive-date=3 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240303043053/http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/it/cardinal-koch/2018/conferenze/2018-10-30-bible-engagement-in-the-catholic-church-tradition-.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}} for Erasmus reading them becomes a form of prayer<ref name=sider2020 group=note/> which is spoiled by taking single sentences in isolation and using them as syllogisms.{{refn|group=note|"Erasmus insists in the ''Ratio'' that in the process of interpreting a passage from Scripture it is essential to consider not only what was said but also by whom and to whom it was said, with which words, at what time, on what occasion, and what preceded and followed it."<ref name=pabel1995/>{{rp|65}} In this regard, monk Thomas Merton commented that Erasmus saw the scriptures as books of prophecy not philosophy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Connell |first1=Patrick F. |title=If Not for Luther? Thomas Merton and Erasmus |journal=Merton Annual |date=January 2020 |volume=33 |pages=125–146}}</ref>{{rp|137}}}} Instead, learning to understand the context, genres and literary expression in the New Testament becomes a spiritual more than academic exercise.<ref name=hoffmann/> Erasmus' has been called rhetorical theology ({{lang|la|theologia rhetorica}}).<ref name=rummel1/>{{rp|32}}{{refn|group=note|This was a fine-grained extension of the medieval theory of {{lang|la|modus procedendi}}, associated with [[Alexander of Hales]] and [[Bonaventure]], that each biblical book requires a different mode of proceeding as history, law, lyric, etc.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kraebel|first1=Andrew|title=Interpretive Theories and Traditions |journal=Biblical Commentary and Translation in Later Medieval England: Experiments in Interpretation |date=2020 |pages=21–53 |doi=10.1017/9781108761437.002|isbn=978-1-108-76143-7 }}</ref>  }}