The Vicar of Christ and His Inverted Double: The Iulius exclusus and Erasmus’ Theological Philology in 1518

A critical meditation on the crisis of apostolic succession, the anonymous dialogue Iulius exclusus, widely attributed to Erasmus of Rotterdam, stages a sharp confrontation between Saint Peter and the recently deceased Pope Julius II. Central to this essay’s analysis is the mirrored tension between Peter, embodying the evangelical archetype of spiritual leadership, and his corrupt copy. The article argues that two Erasmus’ writings from 1518 – the letter to Paul Volz and the Ratio verae theologiae – express a vision of philology as a spiritual practice, serving as a means of ethical discernment, historical diagnosis, and rhetorical strategy with pastoral purposes. Also, it aims to show the continuity between the archetypal image of the Pope embodied by Peter in the Iulius and the one outlined by these writings from 1518. Therefore, even if the Iulius remains an exceptional case within his oeuvre on many levels, the dialogue can be read in continuity with Erasmus’ public exhortation for the spiritual recon- version of the Church to the evangelical doctrine philologically restored. The essay thus shows that, in Erasmus, philology effects a critical reconfiguration of tradition, no longer grounded in institutional continuity, but subjected to scrutiny in relation to an evangelical model that is itself philologically (re-)configured.