Philip Edgumbe Hughes
T hough ranked with Erasmus as one of the leading scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Jacques Lefevre d'Étaples has not received the scholarly attention due to a man of his intellectual stature and spiritual influence.

In this first substantial study in English of the life and work of Lefevre, Philip Edgcumbe Hughes has drawn on the original works and letters of Lefevre and his contemporaries to offer a thorough examination of Lefevre's important role in the ecclesiastical renewal movement in France and his influence on the thought of the Reformers.

Hughes traces the transition from Lefevre's early career in philosophical and speculative studies to his single-minded concentration on scriptural exegesis and the translation of the Bible into French. He presents in great detail the progression of Lefevre's thought, which blazed the trail that led from the Renaissance to the Reformation.

He shows how Lefevre's theological and biblical writings anticipated the main emphases of the Reformers, though Lefevre himself never left the Church of Rome.

Written for the general reader, the book nevertheles is scholarly and thorough in its approach, and it oliers a intriguing portrait of a long-neglected scholar who holds an important place in the history of Christian thought.

PHILIP EDGCUMBE HUGHES is Visiting Professor

Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and Profes sor Emeritus, Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry, Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He is the author of A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Eerdmans, 1977)