Erasmus stated that teachers should be of gentle disposition and have unimpeachable morals. A good education included all the liberal arts. Like the Roman educator Quintilian, Erasmus was against corporal punishment for unruly students. He stressed the student must be treated as an individual. Erasmus attempted throughout the work to reconcile the writers of antiquity with the Christian ethics of his time.
The text was written in part to secure Erasmus a position as Prince Charles' tutor. He was appointed a tutor to Charles' brother, Ferdinand (later H.R.E.Ferdinand I), and became an honorary counselor of H.R.E. Charles V.
Other works
Erasmus wrote the book in 1516, the same year that Thomas More finished his Utopia and three years after Machiavelli had written his advice book for rulers Il Principe.[1] The Principe, however, was not published until 1532, 16 years later.
A comparison with The Prince is worth noting. Machiavelli stated that, to maintain control by political force, it is safer for a prince to be feared than loved. Erasmus preferred for the prince to be loved, and strongly suggested a well-rounded education in order to govern justly and benevolently and avoid becoming a source of oppression.
Christian Prince serves as a guide for the teacher and the prince as well as all court personnel who might have any reason to speak to or with him and espouses Erasmus' rhetorical approach to Christocentric political theories and pedagogical praxes which he refers to as the "philosophia Christi."
The concept of "philosophia Christi," Erasmus' primary topoi in Christian Prince, as defined by Erika Rummel as "a life centered on Christ and characterized by inner faith rather than external rites,"[2] was introduced more than a decade prior to the Christian Prince in a similar work, the Enchiridion Militis Christiani, (1504), the Handbook (or Dagger) of a Christian Soldier. At the conclusion of the preface, Erasmus, on the basis of this "philosophia Christi," admonishes the prince that "among the countless distinctions which under God your merit will win for you, it will be no small part of your reputation that Charles was a prince to whom a man need hesitate to offer the picture of a true and upright Christian prince without flattery, knowing that he would either gladly accept it as an excellent prince already, or wisely imitate it as a young man always in search of self-improvement."[3]
"The cardinal principle of a good prince should be not only to preserve the present prosperity of the state but to pass it on more prosperous than when he received it."[note 1]
—Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince
Rhetoric
Erasmus was a philologist, grammarian, theologian, and rhetorician. He is considered a key contributor to the rhetorical tradition because of his humanist approach to pedagogy, literary criticism, his own works (including letters), and oratory. The Education of a Christian Prince highlights rhetoric designed to furnish the best practices for a young man in a critical religious and political position.
Rhetoric’s foundational structure, at the turn of the sixteenth century, included classical teachings from Isocrates, Aristotle, and Cicero. Some of their respective foci and contributions, of which Erasmus would have been keenly aware, are as follows:
Isocrates – In his well-known treatise, Against the Sophists, Isocrates rebukes sophists for charging exorbitant fees for promises they could not keep and "producing" learners who could speak on any subject at length. He, as an upper echelon sophist, consequently, opened a school that would afford him opportunities to teach "proper" rhetoric and yield model Greek citizens and well-trained leaders. For Isocrates, writing was critical to rhetoric.[5][6]
Aristotle – In the Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the power to observe the persuasiveness of which any particular matter admits."[7][8] Among Aristotelian methods of persuasion were; the topoi (places), common particular topics from which an argument can be constructed;[9] three offices of rhetoric: invention, arrangement and style;[10] the three proofs of rhetoric: ethos, based on the speaker’s or writer’s character, logos based on inductive or deductive reasoning; and pathos which relies on an audience's sensibility to a particular subject);[7] the three genres of rhetoric: forensic, the judicial, concerned with determining truth or falsity of events that took place in the past; the deliberative, or political, concerned with determining whether or not action should or should not be taken in the future, and epideictic, the ceremonial, and concerned with praise and blame, values/ethics/virtue, and skill in the present).[11] Aristotle founded The Lyceum, a peripatetic school.
Cicero – On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore) is a dialogic treatise addressed to Cicero's brother, Quintus, which Cicero refers to as a more mature work than his previously published On Invention (De Inventione).[12] The interlocutors in the dialogue, primarily Crassus and Antonius, posit that the ideal orator has the following qualities: a wealth of knowledge (Crassus);[13] the rhetorical ability to "first win people over, second, to instruct them, and third, to stir their feelings" (Antonius), a point similar to Aristotle's division of ethos, logos, pathos;[14] is a master of invention and style, including correct language, clarity, distinction, and appropriateness, and eloquence;[15] and uses natural ability with willingness to imitate a great teacher for the sake of effectually perfecting the natural ability and not for the cloning of the teacher.[16]
Erasmus uses this knowledge of classical rhetoric in his writing. Erasmus's ethos within The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis christiani), in the Isocratean manner of setting himself apart from potentially incompetent teachers, shows disdain against sophists. In the preface of Christian Prince addressed to Charles the prince, Erasmus states that Isocrates "was a sophist, instructing some petty king or rather tyrant, and both were pagans."[3] Erasmus' use of logos and pathos immediately follow when he completes the eschewing of Isocrates: "I am a theologian addressing a renowned and upright prince, Christians both of us."[17] A recent critic, Peter Gay describes Erasmus as "a true classical spirit in his search for clarity and simplicity, a modern in complexity, an ancestor of the Enlightenment in his critical temper and pacific cosmopolitanism. But, above all, he was a Christian intellectual."[18] And while Cicero was considered the "patron saint of the Renaissance era" – a title that would become fundamentally problematic for a number of Christians because of his pagan beliefs – Erasmus came to be known as the "prince of humanists" esteemed by many of his contemporaries as a "man born to bring back literature."[19][20]
Erasmus' stylistic form of writing was often compared to the standards set forth by Cicero, particularly influenced by his De Inventione; however, Erasmus' primary goal for Christian Prince and all of his works, as he argued, was to be seen as "a Christian rather than a Ciceronian."[21][22] The Christian Prince is an example of Erasmus' rhetorically stylistic mastery that serves as a testament to his ability to imbue the teachings of Christ while embodying Cicero's concept of "imitator". For example, Christ told his disciples a parable of wheat and tares growing in the same field and that it was not their responsibility, but His, to separate the two (Matt. 13:24-43). Erasmus, a consummate rhetorician, managed to quell the concerns of many fellow Christians by "Christianizing" pagan ideologies as part of his role in and contribution to the Renaissancehumanist tradition. For according to Peter Bietenholz, and in concert with Aristotle’s idea of lexis, the pure knowledge of language, "the humanist, first and last, is a rhetorician, a linguist. His professional devotion as well as skill is aligned to verba (words), not to res (things). His real gesta (deeds) are verba, the words, and not res gestae, the actions of historical significance."[23]
Erasmus indeed employs, primarily, deliberative and epideictic forms of rhetoric within Christian Prince, because it has the purpose of a conduct book, also referred to as a courtesy book or hortative and advisory literature. At the time of its publishing, the conduct book was beginning to witness a change in its popularity as a bourgeoning genre though it can be seen in such classics as Plato's Republic and, in Erasmus's own time, with the likes of Machiavelli’s The Prince and Thomas More’s Utopia.
Integration with classical pagan thought
Throughout the Christian Prince, Erasmus deftly invokes the knowledge, wisdom and ultimately, truth, to be gleaned from other great thinkers of antiquity such as Plato, Seneca, and Plutarch who seems to have influenced Erasmus most, who will point the prince to Truth. Its opening sentence begins with Erasmus positing that "wisdom in itself is a wonderful thing ..., and no kind of wisdom is rated more excellent by Aristotle than that which teaches how to be a beneficent prince; for Xenophon ..., rightly considers that there is something beyond human nature, something wholly divine, in absolute rule over free and willing subjects."[24] However, Erasmus never recommends the pagan authors or their works singularly or in isolation because in the next breath, he makes a seamless rhetorical move to remind the prince that of all the requests King Solomon could have made when God told him he would grant whatever he asked, Solomon's prayer was for wisdom to lead God's people.
A similar rhetorical move in reverse can be found in a most noteworthy chapter of the treatise, "The Prince Must Avoid Flatterers." As Erasmus offers the pedagogue a recommended list of readings for the prince as student, he first lists the proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and the Book of Wisdom then next the Gospels.[25] The total number of biblical references here is seven. He then recommends works from pagan authors: three from Plutarch the Apophthegms, Moralia, and Lives; writings from Seneca (no specific titles provided, but he does pluralize the suggestion); from Aristotle, the Politics; from Cicero the Offices and Laws; and from Plato, the Republic, but because the work was lost at the time, he recommends his Laws. The pagan number of works surpasses the number of biblical works. Erasmus justifies his approach of dissoi logoi, arguing from two contrary accounts, by persuading the prince to always apply the following caveat: "This writer whom you are reading is a pagan and you are a Christian reader; although he has many excellent things to say, he nevertheless does not depict the ideal of a Christian quite accurately, and you must take care not to think that whatever you come across at any point is to be imitated straight away, but instead test everything against the standard of Christ."[26]
Although offering an Augustinian-type approach by emphasizing the Christian prince's ability to interpret pagan texts, Erasmus would continue to have strained relations with some Church Fathers regarding his rhetorical methodologies toward Truth. Despite this, the Christian Prince "saw ten editions during Erasmus' lifetime and was translated into a number of vernacular languages, which testifies to a general interest in the work."[27]
Quotes
This section is a candidate for copying over to Wikiquote using the Transwiki process.
"Conduct your own rule as if you were striving to ensure that no successor could be your equal, but all the time prepare your children for their future reign as if to ensure that a better man would indeed succeed you."
"He acquires most who requires nothing, but commands respect."
Notes
↑ Vollerthun and Richardson note that this prosperity was not only material, but "also includes physical health and, most importantly, spiritual well-being."[4]:47
Related Research Articles
Alcidamas, of Elaea, in Aeolis, was a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the 5th-4th century BC.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and theologian, educationalist, satirist, and philosopher. Through his vast number of translations, books, essays, prayers and letters, he is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the Northern Renaissance and one of the major figures of Dutch and Western culture.
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writers use to inform, persuade, and motivate their audiences. Rhetoric also provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations.
A sophist was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught arete, "virtue" or "excellence", predominantly to young statesmen and nobility.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman educator and rhetorician born in Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilian, although the alternate spellings of Quintillian and Quinctilian are occasionally seen, the latter in older texts.
Gorgias was an ancient Greek sophist, pre-Socratic philosopher, and rhetorician who was a native of Leontinoi in Sicily. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. W. K. C. Guthrie writes that "Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant that practiced in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to ask miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies." He has been called "Gorgias the Nihilist", although the degree to which this epithet adequately describes his philosophy is controversial.
Isocrates was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works.
Renaissance humanism is a worldview centered on the nature and importance of humanity that emerged from the study of Classical antiquity.
Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning 'the right or critical moment'. In modern Greek, kairos also means 'weather' or 'time'.
The designation "Renaissance philosophy" is used by historians of philosophy to refer to the thought of the period running in Europe roughly between 1400 and 1600. It therefore overlaps both with late medieval philosophy, which in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was influenced by notable figures such as Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, and Marsilius of Padua, and early modern philosophy, which conventionally starts with René Descartes and his publication of the Discourse on Method in 1637.
Christian humanism regards classical humanist principles such as universal human dignity, individual freedom, and the importance of happiness as essential and principal or even exclusive components of the teachings of Jesus.
Thrasymachus was a sophist of ancient Greece best known as a character in Plato's Republic.
Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BCE. The English title varies: typically it is Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, On Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric.
Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style is a rhetoric textbook written by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, and first published in 1512. It was a best-seller widely used for teaching how to rewrite pre-existing texts, and how to incorporate them in a new composition. Erasmus systematically instructed on how to embellish, amplify, and give variety to speech and writing.
Institutio Oratoria is a twelve-volume textbook on the theory and practice of rhetoric by Roman rhetorician Quintilian. It was published around year 95 AD. The work deals also with the foundational education and development of the orator himself.
"Against the Sophists" is among the few Isocratic speeches that have survived from Ancient Greece. This polemical text was Isocrates' attempt to define his educational doctrine and to separate himself from the multitudes of other teachers of rhetoric. Isocrates was a sophist, an identity which carried the same level of negative connotation as it does now. Many of the sophistic educators were characterized as deceitful because they were more concerned with making a profit from teaching persuasive trickery than of producing quality orators that would promote Athenian democracy. Isocrates was more concerned with the latter of these objectives and sought to separate himself from these less reputable sophistic teachers. After opening his school around 393 or 392 BC, Isocrates wrote "Against the Sophists" to clearly distinguish his teaching methods from the commonly held view of sophistic education.
A Dialogue Concerning Oratorical Partitions is a rhetorical treatise, written by Cicero. According to the method of the Middle Academy, the treatise is sometimes described as a "catechism of rhetoric," for it is presented in the form of questions and answers. Cicero wrote it as a handbook for his young son, Marcus, and structured the text as a dialogue between the two of them.
Dutch philosophy is a broad branch of philosophy that discusses the contributions of Dutch philosophers to the discourse of Western philosophy and Renaissance philosophy. The philosophy, as its own entity, arose in the 16th and 17th centuries through the philosophical studies of Desiderius Erasmus and Baruch Spinoza. The adoption of the humanistic perspective by Erasmus, despite his Christian background, and rational but theocentric perspective expounded by Spinoza, supported each of these philosopher's works. In general, the philosophy revolved around acknowledging the reality of human self-determination and rational thought rather than focusing on traditional ideals of fatalism and virtue raised in Christianity. The roots of philosophical frameworks like the mind-body dualism and monism debate can also be traced to Dutch philosophy, which is attributed to 17th century philosopher René Descartes. Descartes was both a mathematician and philosopher during the Dutch Golden Age, despite being from the Kingdom of France. Modern Dutch philosophers like D.H. Th. Vollenhoven provided critical analyses on the dichotomy between dualism and monism.
The rhetorical school of Gaza was a group of influential scholars based in Gaza in Late Antiquity, many of whom exhibited a teacher-pupil relationship and participated as orators in local public life. Famous chairs of the school included Aeneas, Procopius, and Choricius.
Desiderius Erasmus was the most popular, most printed and arguably most influential author of the early Sixteenth Century, read in all nations in the West and frequently translated. By the 1530s, the writings of Erasmus accounted for 10 to 20 percent of all book sales in Europe. "Undoubtedly he was the most read author of his age."
References
↑ Spielvogel, Jackson J. (2012). Western Civilization, Eighth Edition, Volume B: 1300–1815. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. p.353. ISBN978-1-111-34215-9.
↑ Rummel, Erika (1990). The Erasmus Reader. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p.4.
1 2 Erasmus, Desiderius (1997). The Education of a Christian Prince. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. pp.3–4. ISBN978-0-521-58811-9.
↑ Vollerthun, Ursula; Richardson, James L. (31 August 2017). The Idea of International Society: Erasmus, Vitoria, Gentili and Grotius. doi:10.1017/9781108264945.005.
↑ Isocrates (1992). Isocrates II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. pp.162–177.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
