On the Christian Widow

Written for a young queen widowed by the war against the Turks, a guide to widowhood that was also a reply to Luther.

Latin, the original language

Original title: Vidua christiana
First published: 1529(aged 63)
Original language: Latin

Overview

Martin Luther got there first. In 1526, after Louis II of Hungary drowned fleeing the battlefield of Mohács, where the Ottoman army destroyed his own, Luther dedicated a small book of four comforting psalms to his widow, Mary of Hungary, a sister of the Emperor Charles V. Johann Henckel, her court preacher and a humanist in correspondence with Erasmus, wanted her to have a Catholic consolation as well, and persuaded Erasmus to write one. Erasmus's dedication begins with war: of all the calamities that surround human life, he tells Mary, none is worse, since earthquakes, floods and plagues can make people miserable but only war, which men bring on one another, makes them wicked. He then reminds her of what she had lost: a husband young and generous, heir to a long line of kings and to two rich kingdoms. The treatise that follows is a guide for any Christian widow, high-born or not. It holds up the widows of the Bible and of the early Church, Judith above all, and Anna, Naomi, Monica, Paula and Marcella. Yet Erasmus declines to urge Mary, still in her early twenties, to vow lifelong widowhood: Paul himself advised young widows to marry again, and lifelong continence is a special gift of God, not a duty. Along the way the treatise discusses virginity and marriage and the education of women. Froben printed it in Basel in 1529. Mary never remarried, and two years later her brother appointed her governor of the Netherlands, an office she held for nearly a quarter of a century.

Key concepts

What makes widowhood a Christian vocation in Erasmus's view?

Widowhood becomes a vocation when the loss of a husband is turned into a life given to God: prayer, charity, modesty and the care of children and household. Erasmus treats it as a state with its own honour and shows it in practice through the widows of the Bible and the early Church rather than through rules alone.

Why is lifelong continence a gift rather than a duty here?

Because, Erasmus argues, staying unmarried for life is a special grace that God gives to some and not to others. That is why Paul, fearing the dangers of youth, wanted young widows to marry and run households. Erasmus therefore praises the widow who stays single without condemning the one who remarries, and declines to press a young queen into a vow she might not keep.

Why should a widow study Scripture, according to Erasmus?

Because Christ condensed the heavenly philosophy so plainly that no age, sex or level of intelligence is shut out from it. Understanding it needs no laborious logic and no years of schooling. A widow with time for reading can therefore come to know the faith as well as any scholar, and Erasmus treats her study as part of her devotion, not a distraction from it.

Who are the model widows in On the Christian Widow?

They are women from the Bible and the early Church, each showing one side of the life. Judith, who saved her people, won two triumphs, victory for her country and chastity for herself. Anna, the aged prophetess in the Temple, was dim-eyed with age but keen in spirit. Monica won her son Augustine back to Christ with her tears. Naomi, Paula and Marcella complete the company.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Widowhood as a Calling

Is a widow only someone who has lost a husband, or can widowhood be a way of life with its own dignity? Writing for a queen in her early twenties, Erasmus answers with the widows of Scripture and the early Church.

The book opens on war, the one calamity that men inflict on one another and that makes them wicked as well as wretched. It allows grief: forbidding a wife to weep at her husband's burial would be inhuman. Then it gives widowhood models, Judith with her double triumph of victory and chastity, the aged prophetess Anna, Naomi, Monica winning back Augustine with her tears. Yet Erasmus will not press a young widow to vow herself for life, since Paul advised young widows to marry and lifelong continence is God's particular gift.

widowhood
grief
chastity
continence
charity
piety
women
prayer
education
faith

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 162
distinct concepts: 263
by passages held, corpus-wide: #392

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “marriage” and “widowhood”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 90 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
marriage	widowhood	12
charity	widowhood	10
chastity	widowhood	10
charity	faith	6
charity	education	3
grief	marriage	3
charity	virtue	2
education	faith	2
education	widowhood	2
faith	widowhood	2
grief	virtue	2
grief	widowhood	2
charity	grief	1
charity	marriage	1
chastity	grief	1
chastity	marriage	1
virtue	widowhood	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1500 Adages (Adagia)
The work that first made Erasmus famous and the one he revised for longest, from 1500 until the year he died; Erasmus Against War began as one of its entries.
LA
1503 The Manual of the Christian Knight (Enchiridion militis Christiani)
The earnest twin of In Praise of Folly: when critics attacked the satire, Erasmus answered that it treats the same subject as this manual, only in a playful spirit.
EN
1504 Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria (Panegyricus ad Philippum Austriae ducem)
Erasmus's advice to a ruler, delivered as a speech of welcome; The Complaint of Peace and the essay on war later make its case for peace without the obligatory flattery.
LA
1511 In Praise of Folly (Moriae encomium)
A mock oration in Folly's own voice and Erasmus's most famous book; The Tongue of 1525 has been read as an attempt at a companion piece.
LAEN
1511 On the Method of Study (De ratione studii)
Part of the same English years' work as De copia, with which it was later printed; Erasmus's later The Education of Children moves the same programme back to infancy.
LA
1515 Erasmus Against War (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
The fullest essay on war in the Adages and the core of Erasmus's writings for peace; The Complaint of Peace restates its case two years later in Peace's own voice.
EN
1516 The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis christiani)
Erasmus's one full treatise on government, in the old genre of advice books for rulers; The Complaint of Peace followed a year later.
LA
1517 The Complaint of Peace (Querela pacis)
A declamation in the voice of Peace, the device of In Praise of Folly turned to a serious purpose, and the most direct of Erasmus's several writings against war.
LAEN
1518 Familiar Colloquies (Colloquia familiaria)
The book that carried Erasmus's views on fasting, pilgrimage and monks to far more readers than his devotional treatises ever reached.
LAEN
1518 In Praise of Marriage (De laude matrimonii)
A schoolroom piece that turned into a controversy: the first of three works on marriage, followed by The Institution of Christian Matrimony in 1526 and On the Christian Widow in 1529.
LA
1520 The Antibarbarians (Antibarbari)
The first statement of the cause Erasmus served all his life, classical learning as the ally of Christian faith, written before any of the books that made his name.
LA
1521 On Disdaining the World (De contemptu mundi)
The counterweight to everything Erasmus later wrote about monks, from The Manual of the Christian Knight to the Familiar Colloquies, and probably the earliest of his surviving prose works.
LA
1524 On Praying to God (Modus orandi Deum)
Pastoral rather than polemical, though written in the same year as On Free Will, his challenge to Luther; the first of the late handbooks on Christian practice that end with An Explanation of the Apostles' Creed.
LA
1525 The Tongue (Lingua)
Erasmus's fullest treatment of a theme that runs through all his writing, speech as the mirror of the soul, written in Basel in the middle of the polemics of the 1520s.
LA
1526 The Institution of Christian Matrimony (Christiani matrimonii institutio)
Commissioned through the English court and dedicated to its queen, it is Erasmus's main statement on the law and practice of marriage, where In Praise of Marriage had been a single persuasive letter.
LA
1528 The Ciceronian (Dialogus cui titulus Ciceronianus)
Satire aimed at fellow humanists rather than at theologians, unusual in Erasmus's later years; it first appeared in one volume with his dialogue on the pronunciation of Latin and Greek.
LA
1529 On the Christian Widow (Vidua christiana) you are here LA
1529 The Education of Children (De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis)
Dedicated to a prince's heir, like The Education of a Christian Prince, but concerned with every child's first years rather than with government; the most personal of Erasmus's books on schooling.
LAEN
1533 An Explanation of the Apostles' Creed (Explanatio symboli)
Erasmus's catechism, written for lay readers rather than theologians three years before his death.
LA

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