Medieval Christian writers distorted the teachings of Islam and caricatured its believers in a variety of ways. This book provides a comprehensive study of Christian polemical responses to Islam in the Middle Ages.

The letters in this volume cover Erasmus' correspondence from March to December 1527. These 129 letters centre primarily on Erasmus' continuing struggle with his Catholic critics, especially those in Spain and France, and on Erasmus' growing criticism of the Protestant reform movement. The letters show Erasmus' attempts to justify his position and to win favour with rulers, other prestigious men, and powerful institutions, all influential in both secular and religious spheres. Although the Inquisition in Spain investigated his orthodoxy and did not bring charges against him, the Paris Faculty of Theology formally condemned 112 propositions drawn from Erasmus' works in December 1527. The letters in this volume, written by and to Erasmus in this critical time, represent a unique view of a Europe torn by war and breaking apart into religious confessionalism and regionally organized churches. Throughout all this controversy, Erasmus repeatedly protested that the sole aim of his life's work was to promote the study of humanities for the profit of both knowledge and religion. Volume 13 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Erasmus yearned to make the Bible an effective instrument in the reform of society, church, and the life of individuals in the turbulent world the sixteenth century. He therefore composed paraphrases in which the words of Holy Scripture provided the core of a text vastly expanded to embrace the reforming 'philosophy of Christ.' The Paraphrases were successful beyond expectation and were quickly translated from Latin into French, German, English, and other languages. This volume is the third Paraphrase to be published in the New Testament Scholarship series in the CWE. In it Erasmus explores questions that have always been central to Christian self-understanding. Why is the cross folly to the wise of this world? In the Paraphrase on John, Erasmus hints broadly that the cause of human blindness lies in the arrogance of intellectual pretensions, the love of vain-glory, the lust for possessions, the fear of losing the supports that secure a comfortable way of life. Perhaps nothing will please the reader more the portraits of the chief characters in John's Gospels. We enjoy the simplicity of the lowly woman at the well, we understand the complexity of the distinguished Nicodemus. Above all, we are captured by the portrait of Christ himself. Upon the stage Erasmus has here designed, Christ appears first in the humility of a lowly artisan from a despised country; only to the discerning does his glory flash forth from his mortality, a mortality vividly etched in the scene on the cross. But in the last pages of the Paraphrase on John, Erasmus sets before us in sharp dramatic contrast the resurrected Christ glorious with a radiant holiness. Like Augustine in the City of God, Erasmus attempts to define the relationship between the two worlds in which the Christian lives - the heavenly and the spiritual, and the earthly and physical. Volume 46 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

Despite having enemies in the powerful Spanish religious orders, and being warned of the controversies that would arise, Erasmus published the fourth edition of his New Testament in 1527, resulting in a major crisis for Erasmianism in Spain. This period is marked by a bitter dispute between Erasmus and the conservative elements in Spain, involving behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, where it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. Following this tension, a confrontation culminated in the Valladolid conference where enemies of Erasmus were obliged to come forward and where, following these events, Erasmus himself was forced to respond publicly to the charges brought against him. The three texts in the present volume were written by Erasmus in response to his antagonists, and include An Apologia of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam Against Several Articles Presented by Certain Monks in Spain, The Answer of Desiderius Erasmus to the Pamphlet of a Certain Fever-ridden Individual, and Letter to Certain Highly Impudent Jackdaws.