| This paper argues that early modern practices of commonplacing and compiling ancient wisdom (and by extension, the phenomenon Ann Blair terms early modern information obsession, or "info lust") had uniquely theological, and therefore political, dimensions. This paper attempts to re-center text compilation as practiced in Western Europe within the context of early modern religious reforms through readings of the Adages of Erasmus. Through an analysis of the organization and content of the Adages alongside readings from Erasmus' De libero arbitrio and Luther's De Servo Arbitrio, this paper examines how the Adages allowed Erasmus to cultivate his eventual counter-Lutheran theology of reading and scriptural perspicuity, and how the structure of Adages itself encourages certain pastoral (as opposed to personal) approaches to reading and canon. Ultimately, the Adages serves as platform for Erasmus' theology of silenic scripture, or scriptural mystery, as a possible antidote to interpretive pluralism---or as defined in the Adages, interpretive "war"---a consequence of what Erasmus identified as Luther's theology of the assertive reader. |
