In Belgium, in 1504, Erasmus came across a manuscript of Lorenzo Valla's Annotationes on the New Testament, in which Valla criticized the Vulgate (Latin) version of the Bible and set forth a critical method for arriving at a correct text of scripture. Erasmus was tremendously impressed and published an edition of Valla's work in 1505, after which he returned to England and copied the Greek New Testament from the manuscripts available to him there. He then went to Italy as a tutor to the sons of Henry VIII's doctor and took his doctorate of divinity at Turin in 1506. He lived in various Italian cities for the next three years and began publishing the famous edition of his Adagia, a collection of 3,000 proverbs from classical writers, at Venice in 1508. As a result of this work, he was soon recognized as the foremost scholar of northern Europe. In 1509 he returned to England and stayed with Thomas More. There, he wrote the Moriae Encomium (In praise of folly), a witty satire on worldly learning and activities and a presentation of simple, pious, nontheological Christianity. While in England he lectured at Cambridge on Greek and on St.
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