an Erasmian approach in the best philological tradition ofliterae humaniores.
The Greek verbmeta-noieinsignifies in thefirst, most literal instance to
perceive or to understand‘afterwards’or even‘too late’, in the sense contrary
topro-noiein, that is to‘foresee’. IndeedPronoiais a word long used by
theologians to designate divine Providence.^12 Metanoiacomesafterordinary
knowing in a manner analogous to metaphysics succeeding or indeed com-
pleting physics. In common Greek usagemetanoiasignifies an‘alteration of
one’s mind or purpose’,a‘change of heart’in the sense of regret or remorse,
‘change of opinion’, or more neutrally‘reflection’. Plato, for example, uses
the term in the sense of regret in his dialogueEuthydemus(279c), as does
Menander in his comedyThe Litigants(Epitrepontes72). In perhaps the most
famous of all classical references, the concept ofmetanoiarefers to a radical
transformation of the mind or consciousness such as Plato depicts in his
famous metaphor of the Cave inRepublic(518d)—the epistemological refer-
ence that effectively informs the moral and religiousconversioof Erasmus’s
Enchiridion. There is a certain power within every rational soul, according to
Socrates, which is capable of such a turning:
‘...just as an eye is not able to turn toward the light from the dark without the
whole body—the soul of each must be turned around fromthat which is coming
into being(ek tou gignomenou) together with the whole soul until it is able to
endure looking atthat which is(eis to on) and the brightest part ofthat which is.
And we affirm that this is the good, don’t we?’
‘Yes.’[Glaucon replies.]
‘There would, therefore, be an art of this turning around (periagoge), con-
cerned with the way in which this power can most easily and efficiently be turned
around, not an art of producing sight in it. Rather, this art takes as given that sight
is there, but not rightly turned nor looking at what it ought to look at, and
accomplishes this object.’
‘So it seems,’he said.^13
For Plato,metanoiais to turn away fromfleeting sensuous appearances—
literally thephainomena—towards the permanent reality, namely to the
‘forms’or‘ideas’. Plato designates the mode of knowing proper to ephemeral
appearances asphantasiaordoxa—mere fancy or opinion—whereas the mode
of cognition proper to the converted and illuminated soul is a‘tethered’
understanding—episteme. The sense of turning about in the Latinconversio
brings with it an additional sense of subversion, alteration, or radical change.^14
(^12) See, e.g., Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite,De divinis nominibus4.33; quoted by Richard
Hooker in‘Grace and Free Will’,inThe Dublin Fragments13, Folger Library Edition of the
Works, 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 113.
(^13) Plato,Republic, Steph. 518d, ed. and trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Harper Collins, 1991),
- My italics.
(^14) See, e.g., Cicero,De divinatione2.2.6:‘moderatio et conversio tempestatum’;Cicero,Oratio
pro L. Flacco, 37, 94:‘conversio et perturbatio rerum’. The following classical citations are derived
Erasmian Humanism and Eucharistic Hermeneutics 99