Opera

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1476-1536) – Chrysostom, Saint John.Opera D. Ioannis Chrysostomi Archbishop of Constantinople, as many as could so far be translated into Latin by means of Greek originals...Basel, Hieronymus Frobenius, and Nikolaus Episcopius, 1547.

5 volumes bound in 4 folio in-folio volumes: I/ (12) ff., 854 cols., 1366 cols.; II/ 1114 cols., (1) p., (1) f.; III/ 1878 cols.; IV/ 1382 cols., (118) ff.Pigskin over wooden boards, spine with five raised bands with manuscript titles and volume numbers, title labels with later handwritten inscriptions, beveled boards with significant blind-stamped decorations, manuscript vellum labels with titles on the upper boards, handwritten titles on the fore-edges, slight dampstaining and spots in the lower margins of a few leaves.Contemporary binding, circa 1547.

380 x 260 mm.

Exceptional complete copy of the famous collective Latin edition of the works of Saint John Chrysostom, partly translated from Greek into Latin by Erasmus, with the text in two columns, historiated initials engraved on wood, printer’s marks on the title pages and on the last leaves of the five volumes.

Saint John Chrysostom, Father of the Church and Bishop of Constantinople, born around 347 in Antioch, died at Comana on September 14, 407, came from a wealthy family; his father was attached, as an officer, to the prefecture of the praetorium of the East. His mother gave him a very careful education and, although a Christian herself, entrusted him to the pagan sophist Libanius, who ran in Antioch the most famous school in Asia. John distinguished himself there from the very beginning by his gift of speech, which later earned him the name Chrysostom, meaning golden-mouthed.

“The writings of Chrysostom are very interesting, not only from a literary and ecclesiastical point of view, but also from a historical perspective. He gives very detailed and precious information about the customs and ways of the time, about the extravagant luxury of that society. Among his main works are: his Exhortation to Theodore, addressed to a friend who, after embracing the solitary life, had returned to the world; his treatises on the morals of women and on virginity, where he attacks deaconesses and adopted sisters, and praises virginity, deterring young girls from marriage and widows from second marriages; the homilies relating to the affairs of Antioch; those he delivered in Constantinople, notably the one in favor of Eutropius; his homilies on Genesis and on the Old Testament; his commentaries on the Psalms, on the prophets and on the New Testament, as well as on various other subjects.

Here is the judgment made by M. Villemain on Chrysostom as an orator and as a writer:

“No man better understood this ministry of the word ushered in by the Gospel. He is, par excellence, the Greek who became Christian. An austere reformer, beneath his melodious and lively words, one always senses the imagination which, in Greece, had inspired so many charming fables. The eloquence of Chrysostom certainly has, for modern readers, a kind of Asiatic diffusion. The great images borrowed from nature recur frequently. His style is more brilliant than varied; it is the splendor of that dazzling and ever-steady light that shines over the countryside of Syria. However, in reading his works, one cannot believe oneself so close to the barbarity of the Middle Ages. One asks: will society be reborn under a new faith and rise to a period superior to antiquity, without resembling it? The genius of a great man has created this illusion for you. You look again, and you see the empire, dismantled on all sides, crumbling.”

This precious edition, partially translated by Erasmus, was printed in Basel by Froben, the publisher of the general edition of the Works of Erasmus.

Erasmus’s stay in Basel suited both his spirit and his habits. Basel is a mixed city, where Catholicism and the Reformation lived more or less in peace.

Erasmus, so to speak, opened up classical scholarship to northern Europe, the Netherlands, England and Germany. This was not only by propagating ancient languages and promoting the study of Greek and Roman masterpieces, but above all by refining taste, an exquisite Latinity, an appreciation for the literary and artistic beauties of the authors, the brilliance of a sparkling and easy wit, the prestige bestowed on studies reputed as abstract and difficult to approach, and especially by making widespread ideas and customs that were previously buried in little-known books.

Precious copy with immense margins preserved in its beautiful decorated period bindings.