The aim of this paper is to present a functional and historical-semantic analysis of the following notions: tradition (traditio), authority (auctoritas), understanding (interpretatio), explanation (sensus), and sensus communis, which appear in the hermeneutics of Erasmus of Rotterdam. In a wider perspective, the study is also an attempt at re-identifying the place of the Dutch scholar’s thought within the history of hermeneutics. Contrary to what has been said to-date in studies (mainly by E.-W. Kohls, R. Stupperich, F. Krüger, and P. Walter), the hermeneutical problem, according to Erasmus, is not restricted only to exegesis or biblical philology, i.e. methods of explaining a text’s meaning. In its basic form, it includes the ontology of hermeneutical experience (disregarded in this context) and the act of understanding, with its initial conditions, course and specific cognitive benefits. Therefore, this paper attempts to answer two fundamental questions. First: how did Erasmus arrive at the universal, historically mediated horizon of the process of understanding?
Second, introducing the epistemological dimension, did Erasmus attribute to tradition – by cognitively appreciating it as an element essential for understanding – the ability to reveal a truth that is different to that which is verifiable by objective exegesis? The 20th century hermeneutics of M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer and R. Bultmann provide helpful terminological frames that go beyond the solely methodical character
of understanding. The fundamental sources include those of Erasmus’ texts that constituted his polemic with Martin Luther, that is De libero arbitrio, and particularly the first part of Hyperaspistes diatribae adversus Lutherum. Thanks to this choice of literature the contention between the two scholars concerning the freedom of will is here discussed from a barely known epistemological point of view.
The next subject discussed is the epistemological character of Erasmus’ hermeneutics. It was supposed to help formulate specific exegetic judgements, while at the same time, it already included historicity (Geschichtlichkeit), which, according to Erasmus, was the imperative feature of understanding perceived as an epistemological-existential act. The next subject discussed is the rhetoric specificity and the cognitive value of the so-called sensus communis, which together with philological skills, constituted the indispensable research equipment of an exegete in Erasmus’ opinion. In the hermeneutical reflection of Erasmus, sensus communis - unlike
Luther’s binding judgement (assertio) - is what makes explanation as a result of understanding only probable, not certain, and reveals how the process of understanding depends on a particular situation. Hermeneutical epistemology of Erasmus provides us, therefore, with practical knowledge that constantly includes changing circumstances and so constitutes the basis for sensus communis. Consequently, in Erasmus’ thought, the Christian tradition has a cognitively privileged function of an authority that aids understanding. Thereupon, Erasmus supplements the previously adopted hermeneutical division into the Holy Scripture and its interpretation with an equally important relation between the exegetical tradition applied and the exegete that relies on it. For according to Erasmus, far from obstructing understanding, tradition actually enables it because understanding always retains its historical character. In this regard, Erasmus substantially differs from Luther. Thus, the presented hierarchy of tradition and exegete not only determines the hermeneutical stance of the Netherlandish scholar, but also methodically substantiates his scepticism of a positive epistemological stance.
The functional and semantic analysis of the notions of tradition and understanding presents Erasmus’ thought as one of the early elements of the history of hermeneutics that is supposed to consider not only rules and canons of “proper” understanding, but also indicate the historical dependence and the actual process of understanding. Having problematized such cognitive relations between tradition and understanding, Erasmus set off on a similar course to that which had been crowned by H.G. Gadamer’s ontological rehabilitation of prejudices (Vor-urteile).
