SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY for some years annotating the Latin New Testament, and then decided to produce a Latin version of his own to amend corruptions which had crept into the accepted text (‘the Vulgate’) and, where necessary, to improve on Jerome himself In 1516 he published his new Latin version along with his annotations, and almost as an appendix, he added a Greek text of the New Testament—the Wrst one ever to be printed In his Latin version, in striving for Wdelity to the Greek original, he did not hesitate to alter even the most beloved and solemn texts The Wrst words of the fourth Gospel, In principio erat verbum, became In principio erat sermo: what was in the beginning was not ‘the Word’ but ‘the Saying’ Erasmus’ Latin version was not generally adopted, though passages of it can still be read in the chapel windows of King’s College Cambridge However, the Greek text he published was the foundation for the great vernacular testaments of the sixteenth century, beginning with the monumental German version published in 1522 by Martin Luther Luther was an Augustinian monk, as Erasmus had been until released by papal dispensation from his monastic commitments Like Erasmus, Luther had made a close study of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans This had made him question fundamentally the ethos of Renaissance Catholicism The year after the publication of Erasmus’ New Testament Luther issued, in the University of Wittenberg, a public denunciation of abuses of papal authority, in particular of a scandalously promoted oVer of an indulgence (remission of punishment due to sin) in return for contributions to the building of the great new church of St Peter’s in Rome Erasmus and More shared Luther’s concern about the corruption of many of the higher clergy: they had both denounced it in print, Erasmus pungently in a satire on Pope Julius II, More with ironic circumspection in Utopia But both were alienated when Luther went on to denounce large parts of the Catholic sacramental system and to teach that the one thing needful for salvation is faith, or trust in the merits of Christ In 1520 Pope Leo X condemned forty-one articles taken from Luther’s teaching, and followed this up with an excommunication after Luther had burnt the Bull of Condemnation King Henry VIII, with some help from More, published an Assertion of the Seven Sacraments, which earned him the papal title ‘Defender of the Faith’ Erasmus strove in vain to dampen down the controversy He tried to persuade Luther to moderate his language, and to submit his opinions for