ST CYPRIAN [with] IRENAEUS

£2,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

Two very good, clean copies of these important theological works (with the first edition of the second), edited by Erasmus (1466-1536), the greatest humanist and philologist of the northern Renaissance. He was the first humanist to truly engage with the works of the Fathers of the Church and early theologians praising only a few years before the Reformation their exhortations for a unified church. In 1514, he arrived in Basel to meet Johann Froben, renowned abroad for his attention to editorial detail, who had accepted to publish his monumental commentary to St Jerome. Erasmus eventually settled in Basel for several years, where he produced his major editions and was paid to work as a learned corrector at the press. The close personal relationship between these two men is perhaps unparalleled in the history of authors and their publishers (Bloch, Erasmus , 109-10). Erasmus rated the writings of Cyprian (200-258AD), bishop of Carthage, as being nearly as important as Jerome s; he published the first edition of his complete works, based on both printed and ms. texts, in 1520. Cyprian s epistles and books were concerned with pastoral activity, touching on subjects like the ordination of priests and the worshipping of idols. Erasmus categorised five works (explaining why in the preface) as falsely ascribed to Cyprian, at a time in which the difficulty of separating genuine from spurious patristic works was acute (Peters, Erasmus , 256); however, De exhortatione martyrii , found a

• Binding: Hardcover

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