This is a close reading of Erasmus and Calvin bringing significant results. Essary studies the two scholars on Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 1:20, rendered as “Has God not made foolish the wisdom of this world?” The “foolishness of God” turns out to be a highly important insight leading to the denouncing of worldly wisdom as folly, and recognizing the misplaced appropriation of human reason in doing the work of theology—which these two humanist scholars brought to the fore. The cross of Christ, insists Paul, is a stumbling block and an offense to the philosophers of this world who try to understand it only with the tools of worldly reason. This stark contrast led “prominent sixteenth-century interpreters to suggest that an alternative religious epistemology, as well as a new method of teaching, is necessary for Christian wisdom to be fully realized” (xiii). The foolishness of God, outlined by Paul in 1 Corinthians as well as Colossians 2, came to serve as “a foundational feature of biblical-humanist theology in the sixteenth century as well as a lens through which to interpret competing philosophies, theological approaches, and other biblical texts” (162).

It was Erasmus who first set forth this understanding and throughout the book Essary compares Erasmus and Calvin on this topic and approach. He shows that Calvin was constantly engaged with Erasmus’s exegetical labors on the New Testament. Through study of Calvin’s commentaries Essary finds that Erasmus was “an underappreciated influence on his thought” (163). Erasmus exercised a “cross-cultural influence” on sixteenth-century exegesis and “Erasmian Christian humanism loomed large over biblical scholars for several decades” after Calvin’s death (163).

To explain this, Essary initially compares Erasmus’s and Calvin’s dedicatory letters for their exegetical studies of 1 Corinthians. Chapters 2–4 analyze the exegesis of Paul’s writings on folly in the first half of the sixteenth century. Closest attention is given to Erasmus and Calvin but also helpfully included are the exegetical findings of Heinrich Bullinger and Konrad Pellikan, both of whom obviously used Erasmus’s comments. Chapters 5–6 look at the concept of Christian philosophy. This moves beyond the 1 Corinthians passage to show how Paul’s discourse on folly was important in the Christian philosophies constructed by biblical humanists in this period. Chapter 6 connects the importance of the reception of Paul’s perspective on folly to affectivity, as expressed by Erasmus and Calvin. Essary notes that affectivity is increasingly recognized as important by historians of this period. He demonstrates its significance by comparing Erasmus’s and Calvin’s writings on Jesus’s emotions in the Gospels, expressed in their theological works, commentaries, and a sermon. Diminishing emphases on reason as a primary authority in biblical-theological anthropology and epistemology meant a fuller appreciation of the role emotions play in piety and in theological understanding came to the fore. A special example of this is the comparison of Erasmus and Calvin on the fear and sorrow experienced by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

References to Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly and Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion throughout this book show how exegetical findings relate to broader literary and theological discussions (and vice-versa). These also help situate Erasmus and Calvin in the broader contexts of sixteenth-century biblical humanism. A splendid feature of this book is its one hundred pages of notes, providing original source texts for the English translations in the volume.

Erasmus and Calvin saw Paul as attacking human reason and human eloquence. Paul wanted the Corinthians to replace these in their hearts and minds with the wisdom of God and the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is not recognized by natural reason as significant, but human reason cannot comprehend and convey divine matters. For Erasmus, through Christ has come “true and saving wisdom, so that you have no need of philosophy” (24). True wisdom is located in the folly of Christ’s self-emptying. Christian philosophy imparts Christ so “the Christian experiences Christ not in seeking to understand God syllogistically, but through the preaching and hearing of the Word” (55). This led to the humanist shift from dialectic to rhetoric.