title: Erasmus

text: The exact year of his birth is controversial, but most agree it was in 1466. The Virtual International Authority File reveals the standard dates favoured by various national authorities. Evidence confirming the year of Erasmus's birth in 1466 can be found in his own words: fifteen out of twenty-three statements he made about his age indicate 1466. Although associated closely with Rotterdam, he lived there for only four years, never to return afterwards. Information on his family and early life comes mainly from vague references in his writings. His parents were not legally married. His father, Gerard, was a Catholic priest and curate in Gouda. His mother was Margaretha Rogerius (Latinized form of Dutch surname Rutgers), the daughter of a doctor from Zevenbergen. She may have been Gerard's housekeeper. Although he was born out of wedlock, Erasmus was cared for by his parents until their early deaths from the Plague in 1483. This solidified his view of his origin as a stain and cast a pall over his youth.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus was given the highest education available to a young man of his day, in a series of monastic or semi-monastic schools. In 1475, at the age of nine, he and his older brother Peter were sent to one of the best Latin schools in the Netherlands, located at Deventer and owned by the chapter clergy of the Lebuïnuskerk (St. Lebuin's Church), though some earlier biographies assert it was a school run by the Brethren of the Common Life. During his stay there the curriculum was renewed by the principal of the school, Alexander Hegius. For the first time ever in Europe, Greek was taught at a lower level than a university and this is where he began learning it. He also gleaned there the importance of a personal relationship with God but eschewed the harsh rules and strict methods of the religious brothers and educators. His education there ended when plague struck the city about 1483, and his mother, who had moved to provide a home for her sons, died from the infection.


title: Erasmus

text: Most likely in 1487, poverty forced Erasmus into the consecrated life as a canon regular of St. Augustine at the canonry of Stein, in South Holland. He took vows there in late 1488 and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood on 25 April 1492. It is said that he never seemed to have actively worked as a priest for a long time, and certain abuses in religious orders were among the chief objects of his later calls to reform the Church from within.


title: Erasmus

text: While at Stein, Erasmus supposedly fell in love with a fellow canon, Servatius Rogerus, and wrote a series of passionate letters in which he called Rogerus "half my soul," writing that "I have wooed you both unhappily and relentlessly." This correspondence contrasts sharply with the generally detached and much more restrained attitude he showed in his later life. Later, while tutoring in Paris, he was suddenly dismissed by the guardian of Thomas Grey. Some have taken this as evidence of an illicit affair. No personal denunciation was made of Erasmus during his lifetime, however, and he took pains in later life to distance these earlier episodes by condemning sodomy in his works, and praising sexual desire in marriage between men and women.


title: Erasmus

text: Soon after his priestly ordination he got his chance to leave the canonry when offered the post of secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, Henry of Bergen, on account of his great skill in Latin and his reputation as a man of letters. To allow him to accept that post, he was given a temporary dispensation from his religious vows on the grounds of poor health and love of humanistic studies, though he remained a priest. Pope Leo X later made the dispensation permanent, a considerable privilege at the time.


title: Erasmus

text: In 1495 with Bishop Henry's consent and a stipend, Erasmus went on to study at the University of Paris in the Collège de Montaigu, a centre of reforming zeal, under the direction of the ascetic Jan Standonck, of whose rigors he complained. The university was then the chief seat of Scholastic learning but already coming under the influence of Renaissance humanism. For instance, Erasmus became an intimate friend of an Italian humanist Publio Fausto Andrelini, poet and "professor of humanity" in Paris.


title: Erasmus

text: In 1499 he was invited to England by William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy, who offered to accompany him on his trip to England. According to Thomas Penn, Erasmus was "ever susceptible to the charms of attractive, well-connected, and rich young men". His time in England was fruitful in the making of lifelong friendships with the leaders of English thought in the days of King Henry VIII: John Colet, Thomas More, John Fisher, Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn. Through the influence of the humanist John Colet, his interests turned towards theology. At the University of Cambridge, he was the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity and turned down the option of spending the rest of his life as a professor there. Erasmus stayed at Queens' College, from 1510 to 1515. His rooms were located in the "I" staircase of Old Court, and he showed a marked disdain for the ale and weather of England. With the aim to learn the Greek language in order to study the Christian origins in depth, he eventually departed England.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus suffered from poor health and complained that Queens' College could not supply him with enough decent wine (wine was the Renaissance medicine for gallstones, from which Erasmus suffered). Until the early 20th century, Queens' College used to have a corkscrew that was purported to be "Erasmus's corkscrew", which was a third of a metre long; as of 1987, the college still had what it calls "Erasmus's chair". Today Queens' College also has an Erasmus Building and an Erasmus Room. His legacy is marked for someone who complained bitterly about the lack of comforts and luxuries to which he was accustomed. As Queens' was an unusually humanist-leaning institution in the 16th century, Queens' College Old Library still houses many first editions of Erasmus's publications, many of which were acquired during that period by bequest or purchase, including Erasmus's New Testament translation, which is signed by friend and Polish religious reformer Jan Łaski. From 1505 to 1508 Erasmus's friend, Chancellor John Fisher, was president of Queens' College. His friendship with Fisher is the reason he chose to stay at Queens' while lecturing in Greek at the university.


title: Erasmus

text: During his first visit to England in 1499, he taught at the University of Oxford. Erasmus was particularly impressed by the Bible teaching of John Colet, who pursued a style more akin to the church fathers than the Scholastics. This prompted him, upon his return from England, to master the Greek language, which would enable him to study theology on a more profound level and to prepare a new edition of Jerome's late-4th century Bible translation. On one occasion he wrote to Colet:


title: Erasmus

text: I cannot tell you, dear Colet, how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature. How I dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me.


title: Erasmus

text: Despite a chronic shortage of money, he succeeded in learning Greek by an intensive, day-and-night study of three years, continuously begging in letters that his friends send him books and money for teachers. Discovery in 1506 of Lorenzo Valla's "New Testament Notes" encouraged Erasmus to continue the study of the New Testament.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus preferred to live the life of an independent scholar and made a conscious effort to avoid any actions or formal ties that might inhibit his freedom of intellect and literary expression. Throughout his life, he was offered positions of honor and profit in academia but declined them all, preferring the uncertain but sufficient rewards of independent literary activity. He did however assist his friend John Colet by authoring Greek textbooks and procuring members of staff for the newly established St Paul's School. From 1506 to 1509, he was in Italy: in 1506 he graduated as Doctor of Divinity from the University of Turin, and he spent part of the time as a proofreader at the publishing house of Aldus Manutius in Venice. According to his letters, he was associated with the Venetian natural philosopher, Giulio Camillo, but apart from this he had a less active association with Italian scholars than might have been expected.


title: Erasmus

text: His residence at Leuven, where he lectured at the University, exposed Erasmus to much criticism from those ascetics, academics and clerics hostile to the principles of literary and religious reform and to the loose norms of the Renaissance adherents to which he was devoting his life. In 1517, he supported the foundation at the university, by his friend Hieronymus van Busleyden, of the Collegium Trilingue for the study of Hebrew, Latin, and Greek – after the model of the College of the Three Languages at the University of Alcalá. However, feeling that the lack of sympathy that prevailed at Leuven at that time was actually a form of mental persecution, he sought refuge in Basel, where under the shelter of Swiss hospitality he could express himself freely. Admirers from all quarters of Europe visited him there and he was surrounded by devoted friends, notably developing a lasting association with the great publisher Johann Froben and later his son Hieronymus Froben who together published over 200 works of his. His initial interest in Froben was aroused by his discovery of the printer's folio edition of the "Adagiorum Chiliades tres" (Adagia) (1513).


title: Erasmus

text: In 1502 in Spain, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros had put together a team of Spanish translators to create a compilation of the Bible in four languages: Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin. Translators from Greek were commissioned from Greece itself and worked closely with Latinists. Besides the compilation of the Bible, there was a new Latin text for the Vulgata. This text, which the Church Father Jerome had translated from Greek in the 4th century, was considered the only binding translation in the Catholic Church and was excluded from a new translation. Cardinal Cisneros's team completed and printed the full New Testament, including the Greek version, in 1514. To do so they developed specific types to print Greek. Cisneros informed Erasmus of the works going on in Spain and may have sent a printed version of the New Testament to him. However, the Spanish team wanted the entire Bible to be released as one single work and withdrew from publication.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus requested a "Publication Privilege" (copyright) for the Novum Instrumentum omne (The Greek New Testament with his Latin translation) to ensure that his work (all publications) would not be copied by other printers. He obtained it from Emperor Maximilian I 1516. In 1516 the Novum Instrumentum omne was also approved by Pope Leo X, to whom he would dedicate his work. Erasmus's Greek New Testament was published first, in 1516. Erasmus was invited by Cisneros to work on Complutensian Polyglot edition in 1517; also he offered him a bishop's office. But the Dutchman remained and never traveled to Spain.


title: Erasmus

text: The Spanish copy was approved for publication by the Pope in 1520; however, it was not released until 1522 due to the team's insistence on reviewing and editing. Only fifteen errors have been found in the entire six volumes and four languages of Cisneros's bible, an extraordinarily low number for the time. The fear of their publishing first, though, affected Erasmus's work, rushing him to printing and causing him to forgo editing. The result was a large number of translation mistakes, transcription errors, and typos, that required further editions to be printed (see "publication").


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus had been working for years on two projects: a collation of Greek texts and a fresh Latin New Testament. In 1512, he began his work on this Latin New Testament. He collected all the Vulgate manuscripts he could find to create a critical edition. Then he polished the language. He declared, "It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin." In the earlier phases of the project, he never mentioned a Greek text:


title: Erasmus

text: My mind is so excited at the thought of emending Jerome's text, with notes, that I seem to myself inspired by some god. I have already almost finished emending him by collating a large number of ancient manuscripts, and this I am doing at enormous personal expense.


title: Erasmus

text: While his intentions for publishing a fresh Latin translation are clear, it is less clear why he included the Greek text. Though some speculate that he intended to produce a critical Greek text or that he wanted to beat the Complutensian Polyglot into print, there is no evidence to support this. He wrote, "There remains the New Testament translated by me, with the Greek facing, and notes on it by me." He further demonstrated the reason for the inclusion of the Greek text when defending his work:


title: Erasmus

text: But one thing the facts cry out, and it can be clear, as they say, even to a blind man, that often through the translator's clumsiness or inattention the Greek has been wrongly rendered; often the true and genuine reading has been corrupted by ignorant scribes, which we see happen every day, or altered by scribes who are half-taught and half-asleep.


title: Erasmus

text: So he included the Greek text to permit qualified readers to verify the quality of his Latin version. But by first calling the final product "Novum Instrumentum omne" ("All of the New Teaching") and later "Novum Testamentum omne" ("All of the New Testament") he also indicated clearly that he considered a text in which the Greek and the Latin versions were consistently comparable to be the essential core of the church's New Testament tradition.


title: Erasmus

text: In a way it is legitimate to say that Erasmus "synchronized" or "unified" the Greek and the Latin traditions of the New Testament by producing an updated translation of both simultaneously. Both being part of canonical tradition, he clearly found it necessary to ensure that both were actually present in the same content. In modern terminology, he made the two traditions "compatible". This is clearly evidenced by the fact that his Greek text is not just the basis for his Latin translation, but also the other way round: there are numerous instances where he edits the Greek text to reflect his Latin version. For instance, since the last six verses of "Revelation" were missing from his Greek manuscript, Erasmus translated the Vulgate's text back into Greek. Erasmus also retranslated the Latin text into Greek wherever he found that the Greek text and the accompanying commentaries were mixed up, or where he simply preferred the Vulgate's reading to the Greek text.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus said it was "rushed into print rather than edited", resulting in a number of transcription errors. After comparing what writings he could find, Erasmus wrote corrections between the lines of the manuscripts he was using (among which was Minuscule 2) and sent them as proofs to Froben. His hurried effort was published by his friend Johann Froben of Basel in 1516 and thence became the first published Greek New Testament, the "Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum". Erasmus used several Greek manuscript sources because he did not have access to a single complete manuscript. Most of the manuscripts were, however, late Greek manuscripts of the Byzantine textual family and Erasmus used the oldest manuscript the least because "he was afraid of its supposedly erratic text." He also ignored much older and better manuscripts that were at his disposal.


title: Erasmus

text: In the second (1519) edition, the more familiar term "Testamentum" was used instead of "Instrumentum". This edition was used by Martin Luther in his German translation of the Bible, written for people who could not understand Latin. Together, the first and second editions sold 3,300 copies. By comparison, only 600 copies of the Complutensian Polyglot were ever printed. The first and second edition texts did not include the passage (1 John 5:7–8) that has become known as the Comma Johanneum. Erasmus had been unable to find those verses in any Greek manuscript, but one was supplied to him during production of the third edition. The Catholic Church decreed that the "Comma Johanneum" was open to dispute (2 June 1927), and it is rarely included in modern scholarly translations.


title: Erasmus

text: The third edition of 1522 was probably used by Tyndale for the first English New Testament (Worms, 1526) and was the basis for the 1550 Robert Stephanus edition used by the translators of the Geneva Bible and King James Version of the English Bible. Erasmus published a fourth edition in 1527 containing parallel columns of Greek, Latin Vulgate and Erasmus's Latin texts. In this edition Erasmus also supplied the Greek text of the last six verses of Revelation (which he had translated from Latin back into Greek in his first edition) from Cardinal Ximenez's "Biblia Complutensis". In 1535 Erasmus published the fifth (and final) edition which dropped the Latin Vulgate column but was otherwise similar to the fourth edition. Later versions of the Greek New Testament by others, but based on Erasmus's Greek New Testament, became known as the "Textus Receptus".


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus dedicated his work to Pope Leo X as a patron of learning and regarded this work as his chief service to the cause of Christianity. Immediately afterwards, he began the publication of his "Paraphrases of the New Testament", a popular presentation of the contents of the several books. These, like all of his writings, were published in Latin but were quickly translated into other languages with his encouragement.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus, in his capacity as humanist editor, advised major printers such as Aldus Manutius on which manuscripts to publish.


title: Erasmus

text: The Protestant Reformation began in the year following the publication of his edition of the Greek New Testament (1516) and tested Erasmus' character. The issues between the Catholic Church and the growing religious movement which would later become known as Protestantism, had become so clear that few could escape the summons to join the debate. Erasmus, at the height of his literary fame, was inevitably called upon to take sides, but partisanship was foreign to his nature and his habits. Despite all his criticism of clerical corruption and abuses within the Catholic Church, which lasted for years and was also directed towards many of the Church's basic doctrines, Erasmus shunned the Reformation movement along with its most radical and reactionary offshoots, and sided with neither party.


title: Erasmus

text: The world had laughed at his satire, "In Praise of Folly", but few had interfered with his activities. He believed that his work so far had commended itself to the best minds and also to the dominant powers in the religious world. Erasmus did not build a large body of supporters with his letters. He chose to write in Greek and Latin, the languages of scholars. His critiques reached an elite but small audience.


title: Erasmus

text: "Free will does not exist", according to Luther in his letter "De Servo Arbitrio" to Erasmus translated into German by Justus Jonas (1526), in that sin makes human beings completely incapable of bringing themselves to God. Noting Luther's criticism of the Catholic Church, Erasmus described him as "a mighty trumpet of gospel truth" while agreeing, "It is clear that many of the reforms for which Luther calls are urgently needed." He had great respect for Luther, and Luther spoke with admiration of Erasmus's superior learning. Luther hoped for his cooperation in a work which seemed only the natural outcome of his own. In their early correspondence, Luther expressed boundless admiration for all Erasmus had done in the cause of a sound and reasonable Christianity and urged him to join the Lutheran party. Erasmus declined to commit himself, arguing that to do so would endanger his position as a leader in the movement for pure scholarship which he regarded as his purpose in life. Only as an independent scholar could he hope to influence the reform of religion. When Erasmus hesitated to support him, the straightforward Luther became angered that Erasmus was avoiding the responsibility due either to cowardice or a lack of purpose. However, any hesitancy on the part of Erasmus may have stemmed, not from lack of courage or conviction, but rather from a concern over the mounting disorder and violence of the reform movement. To Philip Melanchthon in 1524 he wrote:


title: Erasmus

text: I know nothing of your church; at the very least it contains people who will, I fear, overturn the whole system and drive the princes into using force to restrain good men and bad alike. The gospel, the word of God, faith, Christ, and Holy Spirit – these words are always on their lips; look at their lives and they speak quite another language.


title: Erasmus

text: Again, in 1529, he writes "An epistle against those who falsely boast they are Evangelicals" to Vulturius Neocomus (Gerardus Geldenhouwer). Here Erasmus complains of the doctrines and morals of the Reformers:


title: Erasmus

text: You declaim bitterly against the luxury of priests, the ambition of bishops, the tyranny of the Roman Pontiff, and the babbling of the sophists; against our prayers, fasts, and Masses; and you are not content to retrench the abuses that may be in these things, but must needs abolish them entirely. ...Look around on this 'Evangelical' generation, and observe whether amongst them less indulgence is given to luxury, lust, or avarice, than amongst those whom you so detest. Show me any one person who by that Gospel has been reclaimed from drunkenness to sobriety, from fury and passion to meekness, from avarice to liberality, from reviling to well-speaking, from wantonness to modesty. I will show you a great many who have become worse through following it. ...The solemn prayers of the Church are abolished, but now there are very many who never pray at all. ...I have never entered their conventicles, but I have sometimes seen them returning from their sermons, the countenances of all of them displaying rage, and wonderful ferocity, as though they were animated by the evil spirit. ...Who ever beheld in their meetings any one of them shedding tears, smiting his breast, or grieving for his sins? ...Confession to the priest is abolished, but very few now confess to God. ...They have fled from Judaism that they may become Epicureans.


title: Erasmus

text: Apart from these perceived moral failings of the Reformers, Erasmus also dreaded any change in doctrine, citing the long history of the Church as a bulwark against innovation. In book I of his "Hyperaspistes" he puts the matter bluntly to Luther:


title: Erasmus

text: We are dealing with this: Would a stable mind depart from the opinion handed down by so many men famous for holiness and miracles, depart from the decisions of the Church, and commit our souls to the faith of someone like you who has sprung up just now with a few followers, although the leading men of your flock do not agree either with you or among themselves – indeed though you do not even agree with yourself, since in this same "Assertion" you say one thing in the beginning and something else later on, recanting what you said before.


title: Erasmus

text: Continuing his chastisement of Luther – and undoubtedly put off by the notion of there being "no pure interpretation of Scripture anywhere but in Wittenberg" – Erasmus touches upon another important point of the controversy:


title: Erasmus

text: You stipulate that we should not ask for or accept anything but Holy Scripture, but you do it in such a way as to require that we permit you to be its sole interpreter, renouncing all others. Thus the victory will be yours if we allow you to be not the steward but the lord of Holy Scripture.


title: Erasmus

text: Though he sought to remain firmly neutral in doctrinal disputes, each side accused him of siding with the other, perhaps because of his neutrality. It was not for lack of fidelity with either side but a desire for fidelity with them both:


title: Erasmus

text: I detest dissension because it goes both against the teachings of Christ and against a secret inclination of nature. I doubt that either side in the dispute can be suppressed without grave loss.


title: Erasmus

text: In his catechism (entitled "Explanation of the Apostles' Creed") (1533), Erasmus took a stand against Luther's teaching by asserting the unwritten Sacred Tradition as just as valid a source of revelation as the Bible, by enumerating the Deuterocanonical books in the canon of the Bible and by acknowledging seven sacraments. He identified anyone who questioned the perpetual virginity of Mary as blasphemous. However, he supported lay access to the Bible.


title: Erasmus

text: In a letter to Nikolaus von Amsdorf, Luther objected to Erasmus's catechism and called Erasmus a "viper," "liar," and "the very mouth and organ of Satan".


title: Erasmus

text: As regards the Reformation, Erasmus was accused by the monks to have: prepared the way and was responsible for Martin Luther. Erasmus, they said, had laid the egg, and Luther had hatched it. Erasmus wittily dismissed the charge, claiming that Luther had hatched a different bird entirely.


title: Erasmus

text: Twice in the course of the great discussion, he allowed himself to enter the field of doctrinal controversy, a field foreign to both his nature and his previous practices. One of the topics he dealt with was free will, a crucial question. In his "De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio" (1524), he lampoons the Lutheran view on free will. He lays down both sides of the argument impartially. This "Diatribe" did not encourage any definite action; this was its merit to the Erasmians and its fault in the eyes of the Lutherans. In response, Luther wrote his "De servo arbitrio" ("On the Bondage of the Will", 1525), which attacks the "Diatribe" and Erasmus himself, going so far as to claim that Erasmus was not a Christian. Erasmus responded with a lengthy, two-part "Hyperaspistes" (1526–27). In this controversy Erasmus lets it be seen that he would like to claim more for free will than St. Paul and St. Augustine seem to allow according to Luther's interpretation. For Erasmus the essential point is that humans have the freedom of choice. The conclusions Erasmus reached drew upon a large array of notable authorities, including, from the Patristic period, Origen, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, in addition to many leading Scholastic authors, such as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. The content of Erasmus's works also engaged with later thought on the state of the question, including the perspectives of the "via moderna" school and of Lorenzo Valla, whose ideas he rejected.


title: Erasmus

text: As the popular response to Luther gathered momentum, the social disorders, which Erasmus dreaded and Luther disassociated himself from, began to appear, including the German Peasants' War, the Anabaptist disturbances in Germany and in the Low Countries, iconoclasm, and the radicalisation of peasants across Europe. If these were the outcomes of reform, he was thankful that he had kept out of it. Yet he was ever more bitterly accused of having started the whole "tragedy" (as the Catholics dubbed Protestantism).


title: Erasmus

text: When the city of Basel definitely adopted the Reformation in 1529, Erasmus left Basel on the 13 April and departed by ship to the town of Freiburg im Breisgau. His departure was mainly because he feared his loss of impartiality and prominent reformators like Oekolampad urged him to stay.


title: Erasmus

text: Certain works of Erasmus laid a foundation for religious toleration and ecumenism. For example, in "De libero arbitrio", opposing certain views of Martin Luther, Erasmus noted that religious disputants should be temperate in their language, "because in this way the truth, which is often lost amidst too much wrangling may be more surely perceived." Gary Remer writes, "Like Cicero, Erasmus concludes that truth is furthered by a more harmonious relationship between interlocutors." Although Erasmus did not oppose the Catholic counter-Reformation and the punishment of heretics, in individual cases he generally argued for moderation and against the death penalty. He wrote, "It is better to cure a sick man than to kill him."


title: Erasmus

text: A test of the Reformation was the doctrine of the sacraments, and the crux of this question was the observance of the Eucharist. In 1530, Erasmus published a new edition of the orthodox treatise of Algerus against the heretic Berengar of Tours in the eleventh century. He added a dedication, affirming his belief in the reality of the Body of Christ after consecration in the Eucharist, commonly referred to as transubstantiation. The sacramentarians, headed by Œcolampadius of Basel, were, as Erasmus says, quoting him as holding views similar to their own in order to try to claim him for their schismatic and "erroneous" movement.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus wrote both on church subjects and those of general human interest. By the 1530s, the writings of Erasmus accounted for 10 to 20 percent of all book sales in Europe.


title: Erasmus

text: With the collaboration of Publio Fausto Andrelini, he formed a paremiography (collection) of Latin proverbs and adages, commonly titled "Adagia". He is credited with coining the adage, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Erasmus is also generally credited with originating the phrase "Pandora's box", arising through an error in his translation of Hesiod's "Pandora" in which he confused "pithos" (storage jar) with "pyxis" (box).


title: Erasmus

text: His more serious writings begin early with the "Enchiridion militis Christiani," the "Handbook of the Christian Soldier" (1503 – translated into English a few years later by the young William Tyndale). (A more literal translation of "enchiridion –" "dagger" – has been likened to "the spiritual equivalent of the modern Swiss Army knife.") In this short work, Erasmus outlines the views of the normal Christian life, which he was to spend the rest of his days elaborating. The chief evil of the day, he says, is formalism – going through the motions of tradition without understanding their basis in the teachings of Christ. Forms can teach the soul how to worship God, or they may hide or quench the spirit. In his examination of the dangers of formalism, Erasmus discusses monasticism, saint worship, war, the spirit of class and the foibles of "society." The "Enchiridion" is more like a sermon than a satire. With it Erasmus challenged common assumptions, painting the clergy as educators who should share the treasury of their knowledge with the laity. He emphasized personal spiritual disciplines and called for a reformation which he characterized as a collective return to the Fathers and Scripture. Most importantly, he extolled the reading of scripture as vital because of its power to transform and motivate toward love. Much like the Brethren of the Common Life, he wrote that the New Testament is the law of Christ people are called to obey and that Christ is the example they are called to imitate.


title: Erasmus

text: According to Ernest Barker, "Besides his work on the New Testament, Erasmus laboured also, and even more arduously, on the early Fathers. Among the Latin Fathers he edited the works of St Jerome, St Hilary, and St Augustine; among the Greeks he worked on Irenaeus, Origen and Chrysostom."


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus also wrote of the legendary Frisian freedom fighter and rebel Pier Gerlofs Donia (Greate Pier), though more often in criticism than in praise of his exploits. Erasmus saw him as a dim, brutal man who preferred physical strength to wisdom.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus's best-known work is "The Praise of Folly", written in 1509, published in 1511 under the double title "Moriae encomium" (Greek, Latinised) and "Laus stultitiae" (Latin). It is inspired by "De triumpho stultitiae" written by Italian humanist Faustino Perisauli. A satirical attack on superstitions and other traditions of European society in general and the western Church in particular, it was dedicated to Sir Thomas More, whose name the title puns.


title: Erasmus

text: The "Institutio principis Christiani" or "Education of a Christian Prince""" (Basel, 1516) was written as advice to the young king Charles of Spain (later Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor). Erasmus applies the general principles of honor and sincerity to the special functions of the Prince, whom he represents throughout as the servant of the people. "Education" was published in 1516, three years after Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince" was written; a comparison between the two is worth noting. Machiavelli stated that, to maintain control by political force, it is safer for a prince to be feared than loved. Erasmus preferred for the prince to be loved, and strongly suggested a well-rounded education in order to govern justly and benevolently and avoid becoming a source of oppression.


title: Erasmus

text: As a result of his reformatory activities, Erasmus found himself at odds with both of the great parties. His last years were embittered by controversies with men toward whom he was sympathetic. Notable among these was Ulrich von Hutten, a brilliant but erratic genius who had thrown himself into the Lutheran cause and declared that Erasmus, if he had a spark of honesty, would do the same. In his reply in 1523, "Spongia adversus aspergines Hutteni", Erasmus displays his skill in semantics. He accuses Hutten of having misinterpreted his utterances about reform and reiterates his determination never to break with the Church.


title: Erasmus

text: The writings of Erasmus exhibit a continuing concern with language, and in 1525 he devoted an entire treatise to the subject, "Lingua". This and several of his other works are said to have provided a starting point for a philosophy of language, though Erasmus did not produce a completely elaborated system.


title: Erasmus

text: The "Ciceronianus" came out in 1528, attacking the style of Latin that was based exclusively and fanatically on Cicero's writings. Étienne Dolet wrote a riposte titled "Erasmianus" in 1535.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus's last major work, published the year of his death, is the "Ecclesiastes" or "Gospel Preacher" (Basel, 1536), a massive manual for preachers of around a thousand pages. Though somewhat unwieldy because Erasmus was unable to edit it properly in his old age, it is in some ways the culmination of all of Erasmus's literary and theological learning, offering prospective preachers advice on nearly every conceivable aspect of their vocation with extraordinarily abundant reference to classical and biblical sources.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus's "Sileni Alcibiadis" is one of his most direct assessments of the need for Church reform. Johann Froben published it first within a revised edition of the "Adagia" in 1515, then as a stand-alone work in 1517. This essay has been likened to John Colet's "Convocation Sermon", though the styles differ.


title: Erasmus

text: "Sileni" is the plural (Latin) form of "Silenus", a creature often related to the Roman wine god Bacchus and represented in pictorial art as inebriated, merry revellers, variously mounted on donkeys, singing, dancing, playing flutes, etc. Alcibiades was a Greek politician in the 5th century BCE and a general in the Peloponnesian War; he figures here more as a character written into some of Plato's dialogues – a young, debauched playboy whom Socrates tries to convince to seek truth instead of pleasure, wisdom instead of pomp and splendor.


title: Erasmus

text: The term "Sileni –" especially when juxtaposed with the character of Alcibiades – can therefore be understood as an evocation of the notion that something on the inside is more expressive of a person's character than what one sees on the outside. For instance, something or someone ugly on the outside can be beautiful on the inside, which is one of the main points of Plato's dialogues featuring "Alcibiades" and the "Symposion", in which Alcibiades also appears.


title: Erasmus

text: In support of this, Erasmus states, "Anyone who looks closely at the inward nature and essence will find that nobody is further from true wisdom than those people with their grand titles, learned bonnets, splendid sashes and bejeweled rings, who profess to be wisdom's peak." On the other hand, Erasmus lists several Sileni and then questions whether Christ is the most noticeable Silenus of them all. The Apostles were Sileni since they were ridiculed by others. He believes that the things which are the least ostentatious can be the most significant, and that the Church constitutes all Christian people – that despite contemporary references to clergy as the whole of the Church, they are merely its servants. He criticizes those that spend the Church's riches at the people's expense. The true point of the Church is to help people lead Christian lives. Priests are supposed to be pure, yet when they stray, no one condemns them. He criticizes the riches of the popes, believing that it would be better for the Gospel to be most important.


title: Erasmus

text: In 1530, Erasmus, in his fourth edition of the works of Saint Cyprian, introduced a treatise "De duplici martyrio ad Fortunatum", which he attributed to Saint Cyprian and presented as having been found by chance in an old library. This text, close to the works of Erasmus, both in content (hostility to the confusion between virtue and suffering) and in form, and of which no manuscript is known, contains at least one flagrant anachronism: an allusion to the persecution of Diocletian, persecution that took place long after the death of Saint Cyprian. In 1544, the Dominican denounced the work as inauthentic and attributed its authorship to Erasmus or an imitator of Erasmus. In the twentieth century, the hypothesis of a fraud by Erasmus was rejected a priori by most of the great Erasmians, for example Percy Stafford Allen, but it is adopted by academics like Anthony Grafton.


title: Erasmus

text: When his strength began to fail, he decided to accept an invitation by Queen Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, to move from Freiburg to Brabant. However, during preparations for the move in 1536, he suddenly died from an attack of dysentery during a visit to Basel. He had remained loyal to the papal authorities in Rome, but he did not have the opportunity to receive the last rites of the Catholic Church; the reports of his death do not mention whether he asked for a priest or not. According to Jan van Herwaarden, this is consistent with his view that outward signs were not important; what mattered is the believer's direct relationship with God, which he noted "as the [Catholic] church believes". However, Herwaarden observes that "he did not dismiss the rites and sacraments out of hand but asserted a dying person could achieve a state of salvation without the priestly rites, provided their faith and spirit were attuned to God." His last words, as recorded by his friend Beatus Rhenanus, were apparently "Dear God" (). He was buried with great ceremony in the Basel Minster (the former cathedral). As his heir he instated Bonifacius Amerbach.


title: Erasmus

text: The popularity of his books is reflected in the number of editions and translations that have appeared since the sixteenth century. Ten columns of the catalogue of the British Library are taken up with the enumeration of the works and their subsequent reprints. The greatest names of the classical and patristic world are among those translated, edited, or annotated by Erasmus, including Saint Ambrose, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Saint Basil, Saint John Chrysostom, Cicero and Saint Jerome.


title: Erasmus

text: In his native Rotterdam, the Erasmus University Rotterdam and Gymnasium Erasmianum have been named in his honor. Between 1997 and 2009, one of the main metro lines of the city was named "Erasmuslijn". In 2003 a poll showing that most Rotterdammers believed Erasmus to be the designer of the local Erasmus Bridge, instigated the founding of the Foundation Erasmus House (Rotterdam), dedicated to celebrating Erasmus's legacy. Three moments in Erasmus's life are celebrated annually. On 1 April, the city celebrates the publication of his best-known book "The Praise of Folly". On 11 July, the "Night of Erasmus" celebrates the lasting influence of his work. His birthday is celebrated on 28 October.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus's reputation and the interpretations of his work have varied over time. Moderate Catholics recognized him as a leading figure in attempts to reform the Church, while Protestants recognized his initial support for Luther's ideas and the groundwork he laid for the future Reformation, especially in biblical scholarship. By the 1560s, however, there was a marked change in reception.


title: Erasmus

text: According to Franz Anton Knittel, Erasmus in his "Novum Instrumentum omne" did not incorporate the "Comma" from the Codex Montfortianus (concerning the Trinity), because of grammar differences, but used the Complutensian Polyglot. According to him the "Comma" was known to Tertullian.


title: Erasmus

text: Protestant views of Erasmus fluctuated depending on region and period, with continual support in his native Netherlands and in cities of the Upper Rhine area. However, following his death and in the late sixteenth century, many Reformation supporters saw Erasmus's critiques of Luther and lifelong support for the universal Catholic Church as damning, and second-generation Protestants were less vocal in their debts to the great humanist. Nevertheless, his reception is demonstrable among Swiss Protestants in the sixteenth century: he had an indelible influence on the biblical commentaries of, for example, Konrad Pellikan, Heinrich Bullinger, and John Calvin, all of whom used both his annotations on the New Testament and his paraphrases of same in their own New Testament commentaries.


title: Erasmus

text: However, Erasmus designated his own legacy, and his life works were turned over at his death to his friend the Protestant humanist turned remonstrator Sebastian Castellio for the repair of the breach and divide of Christianity in its Catholic, Anabaptist, and Protestant branches.


title: Erasmus

text: By the coming of the Age of Enlightenment, however, Erasmus increasingly again became a more widely respected cultural symbol and was hailed as an important figure by increasingly broad groups. In a letter to a friend, Erasmus once had written: "That you are patriotic will be praised by many and easily forgiven by everyone; but in my opinion it is wiser to treat men and things as though we held this world the common fatherland of all." Thus, the universalist ideals of Erasmus are sometimes claimed to be important for fixing global governance.


title: Erasmus

text: Several schools, faculties and universities in the Netherlands and Belgium are named after him, as is Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn, New York, USA.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus is credited with saying "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes."


title: Erasmus

text: He is also blamed for the mistranslation from Greek of "to call a bowl a bowl" as "to call a spade a spade".


title: Erasmus

text: The European Erasmus Programme of exchange students within the European Union is named after him. The Erasmus Programme scholarships enable students to spend up to a year of their university courses in a university in another European country.


title: Erasmus

text: Erasmus has chosen the Roman god of the borders Terminus as a personal symbol and had a signet ring with a herm he thought included a depiction of Terminus carved into a carnelian. The herm was presented to him in Rome by his student Alexander Stewart and in reality depicted the Greek god Dionysus. The ring was also depicted in a portrait of his by the Flemish painter Quentin Matsys. Likewise, he chose "Concedo Nulli" (Lat. "I concede to no-one") as his personal motto. In the early 1530s, Erasmus was portrayed as Terminus by Hans Holbein the Younger.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan and often self-deprecating comedy.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Ranganathan has made numerous appearances on television comedy panel shows, and in 2016 he co-presented "It's Not Rocket Science" on ITV, alongside Rachel Riley and Ben Miller. He has also been a regular panellist on "", "Play to the Whistle", and "The Museum of Curiosity". He completed his first major tour, Irrational Live, in 2016 in which he performed in large venues such as the Hammersmith Apollo. In 2018, Ranganathan joined "A League of Their Own" as a regular panellist, replacing Jack Whitehall. He has presented comedy programmes "Judge Romesh" and "The Ranganation", as well as starring in the travel programme "The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan". His autobiography is entitled "Straight Outta Crawley". In December 2021, Ranganathan began hosting the revival of "The Weakest Link", replacing Anne Robinson as host.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: In 2020, Ranganathan won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Features for "The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan"; in 2021, he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance for "The Ranganation".


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan was born in Crawley, West Sussex, to Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu parents Ranga and Sivashanthini "Shanthi" Ranganathan. He suffered from an eye infection as a child that left him with right-sided ptosis, which is sometimes referred to as a lazy eye.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Ranganathan studied mathematics at Birkbeck College, University of London. He taught mathematics at Hazelwick School in Crawley, and The Beacon School, Banstead, Surrey, and was a freestyle rapper under the rap name "Ranga", once reaching the finals of the UK freestyle competition. Ranganathan started performing as a comedian whilst working as a teacher.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Ranganathan started presenting "Newsjack" on Radio 4 Extra in March 2014. He appeared on "" in 2014, during which he presented his homemade vegan chocolate brownies.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Ranganathan has been a guest on several episodes of "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown". He also has appeared on "Would I Lie to You?", "Holby City", "Soccer AM", "Russell Howard's Good News", "Sweat the Small Stuff", "The Last Leg", "Virtually Famous", "Have I Got News for You", "QI", and "Mock the Week". He was a contestant on the first series of "Taskmaster" and also appeared in the third episode of "Jon Richardson Grows Up". He also performed at The Royal Variety Performance in 2015. In 2015, he presented a series for BBC Three, "Asian Provocateur", in which he travelled to Sri Lanka to explore his ancestral country.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: In 2018, Ranganathan joined Season 13 of "A League of Their Own" and starred in his own 10-episode docu-comedy called "Just Another Immigrant" that premiered on Showtime June 8.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Ranganathan lives in Crawley with his wife Leesa and their three sons. He and his wife first met when they were both working at Hazelwick School, where she was a drama teacher.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Ranganathan is known by his middle name Romesh. He did not find out until he started school that his first name, as stated on his birth certificate, was Jonathan. During his live show, "Irrational", Ranganathan recalled that his parents explained to him that this was because they were concerned his name would otherwise sound too ‘ethnic’ when applying for jobs as an adult.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: Ranganathan is vegan, having been vegetarian up until 2013. He is a supporter of Arsenal FC. Ranganathan was raised Hindu.


title: Romesh Ranganathan

text: He stated that he got obsessed with getting tattooed and subsequently has tattoos with the names of his sons, Richard Pryor, Nas, the Roots, the Albanian flag and the Transformers’ Autobot logo on his body.


title: Sky Castle

text: Sky Castle (; stylized as SKY Castle) is a 2018–2019 South Korean television series starring Yum Jung-ah, Lee Tae-ran, Yoon Se-ah, Oh Na-ra, and Kim Seo-hyung. It aired on JTBC on Fridays and Saturdays, from November 23, 2018, to February 1, 2019.


title: Sky Castle

text: At the time of airing, "Sky Castle" was the highest rated drama in Korean cable television history. The drama received positive reviews from critics and won multiple awards, including four at the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards.


title: Sky Castle

text: A satirical series that closely looks at the materialistic desires of the upper-class parents in South Korea and how they ruthlessly secure the successes of their families at the cost of destroying others' lives. The drama revolves around the lives of housewives residing in a luxurious residential area called SKY Castle (a reference to the elite universities) in suburban Seoul, where wealthy doctors and professors live. The wives are determined to make their husbands more successful and to raise their children to be top students who will be accepted at the best universities, so they use every possible way to get that.


title: Sky Castle

text: Han Seo-jin (Yum Jung-ah) is married to an ambitious doctor, Kang Joon-sang (Jung Joon-ho). She wants her eldest daughter, Kang Ye-seo (Kim Hye-yoon), to also become a doctor. In order to do that, she hires Kim Joo-young (Kim Seo-hyung), a coordinator with a one hundred percent success rate when it comes to her students' admission to the Seoul National University.


title: Sky Castle

text: No Seung-hye (Yoon Se-ah) is the wife of Cha Min-hyuk (Kim Byung-chul), a perfectionist law professor. She does not like the way her husband teaches their twin sons, Cha Seo-joon (Kim Dong-hee) and Cha Ki-joon (Jo Byeong-kyu). Later it is revealed that their daughter, Cha Se-ri (Park Yoo-na), who has always been Min-hyuk's pride since she attends Harvard University, hides something from them.


title: Sky Castle

text: Jin Jin-hee (Oh Na-ra) is the mother of Woo Soo-han (Lee Eugene). She wants her son to be like her husband, Woo Yang-woo (Jo Jae-yoon), which means becoming a doctor. She befriends Seo-jin to get information and to achieve a perfect career and education for her family.


title: Sky Castle

text: Following the suicide of Lee Myung-joo (Kim Jung-nan), mother of Park Young-jae (Song Geon-hee), who was a former student of Joo-young and recently admitted to the Seoul National University, Lee Soo-im (Lee Tae-ran)'s family moves into SKY Castle. Her husband, Hwang Chi-young (Choi Won-young), works at the same hospital as Joon-sang and Yang-woo and her son, Hwang Woo-joo (Kang Chan-hee), attends the same school as Ye-seo. Her family often clashes with the other residents due to their differences in opinions.


title: Sky Castle

text: The drama series has drawn positive reviews as a dark comedy that casts light on some of the furtive and controversial aspects of Korean society. It has also stimulated explosive responses from viewers due to its relatable storyline over Korea's competitive education system. Culture critic Jung Duk-hyun says the drama has received attention from viewers, because it successfully strikes an uneasy chord while heightening viewers' curiosity over the lengths to which rich elite families obsess over education. He also says


title: Sky Castle

text: "In terms of education, the drama satisfies people's desire to peek into what those closed rich family circles do for their children. But at the same time, viewers feel uneasiness when watching their stories. Those two conflicting emotions, 'wanting to know but feeling uncomfortable' makes for some interesting chemistry in the minds of drama fans and puts it on the must-see drama list." The drama also gained popularity in China, where similar issues over a hyper-competitive education system and the pressure to enter into a prestigious university exist.


title: Sky Castle

text: The drama ignited a controversy for allegedly "inciting" the murder of psychiatrist Lim Se-won, as it aired a scene in which a patient chases after a doctor with a knife in his hand due to a grievance over his operation results.


title: Sky Castle

text: Following the broadcast of episode 14 on January 5, several Korean netizens on online communities came up with their own theories about what would happen in the next episode. One netizen's theory was supported by what appeared to be a photo of the drama's cue sheet, and another theory was formed based on the character description in a recruitment notice for a new role in the drama. When episode 15 aired on January 11, these theories proved to be true, making viewers question if the story was leaked.


title: Sky Castle

text: On January 12, the producers explained that "The story was not leaked. Our viewers came up with many theories. They happened to be correct by chance, which must be why people think they are spoilers."


title: Sky Castle

text: On January 16, controversy rose again after a netizen uploaded photos of parts of the scripts for episode 17 and 18. The fact that the name "Cha Ki-joon" was left on the script drew much attention, and the photos began to spread on online communities. After an investigation into the rumors, the producers confirmed that the scripts for episodes 17 and 18 (to be aired on January 18 and 19) had been leaked.


title: Sky Castle

text: The production team was accused of plagiarizing the song "We All Lie" from American musician Bea Miller's song "To the Grave" featuring Mike Stud. However, JTBC denied the accusations.


title: Sky Castle

text: "Sky Castle" is currently the second-highest-rated Korean drama in cable television history. It was an unexpected commercial hit, rising from 1% viewership ratings to double-digit viewership ratings percentage, as well as topping the Contents Power Index (CPI) rankings as well as the TV popularity ranking in Korea. Besides its popularity in South Korea, the series also gained immense popularity in China.


title: Sky Castle

text: The word SKY is an acronym used to refer to the three most prestigious universities in South Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. The term is widely used in South Korea, both in media broadcast and by the universities themselves.


title: Sky Castle

text: In South Korea, admission to one of the SKY universities is widely considered as determining one's career and social status. Many of the country's most influential politicians, lawyers, physicians, engineers, journalists, professors, and bureaucrats have graduated from one of the SKY universities.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan name Msholozi, and was a former anti-apartheid activist, member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and president of the African National Congress (ANC) between 2007 and 2017.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma was born in the rural region of Nkandla, which is now part of the KwaZulu-Natal province and the centre of Zuma's support base. He joined the ANC at the age of 17 in 1959, and spent ten years in Robben Island Prison as a political prisoner. He went into exile in 1975, and was ultimately appointed head of the ANC's intelligence department. After the ANC was unbanned in 1990, he quickly rose through the party's national leadership and became deputy secretary general in 1991, national chairperson in 1994, and deputy president in 1997. He was the deputy president of South Africa from 1999 to 2005 under President Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela's successor. Mbeki dismissed Zuma on 14 June 2005 after Zuma's financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of making corrupt payments to Zuma in connection with the Arms Deal. Zuma was charged with corruption, and was also acquitted on rape charges in the highly publicised 2006 trial. He managed to retain the support of a left-wing coalition inside the ANC, which allowed him to remove Mbeki as ANC president in December 2007 at the ANC's Polokwane elective conference.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma was elected president of South Africa in the 2009 general election and took office on 9 May. The criminal charges against him were formally withdrawn the same week. As president, he launched the R4-trillion National Infrastructure Plan and signed a controversial nuclear power deal with the Russian government, which was blocked by the Western Cape High Court in 2017. As a former member of the South African Communist Party, he increasingly relied on left-wing populist rhetoric, and in his 2017 State of the Nation address he announced a new policy of "radical economic transformation". Few of the attendant policy initiatives were implemented before the end of his presidency, but they included land expropriation without compensation, free higher education, a series of attempted structural reforms in key sectors involving restrictions on foreign ownership, and more stringent black economic empowerment requirements. In the international arena, Zuma emphasised South-South cooperation and economic diplomacy. The admission of South Africa to the BRICS grouping has been described as a major triumph for Zuma, and he has been praised for his HIV/AIDS policy.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma's presidency was beset by controversy, especially during his second term. In 2014, the Public Protector found that Zuma had improperly benefited from state expenditure on upgrades to his Nkandla homestead, and in 2016, the Constitutional Court ruled that Zuma had failed to uphold the Constitution, leading to calls for his resignation and a failed impeachment attempt in the National Assembly. By early 2016, there were also widespread allegations that were investigated by the Zondo Commission between 2018 and 2021. They claimed the Gupta family had acquired immense corrupt influence over Zuma's administration that amounted to state capture. Several weeks after Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was elected to succeed Zuma as ANC president in December 2017, the ANC National Executive Committee recalled Zuma. After a fifth vote of no confidence in Parliament, he resigned on 14 February 2018 and was replaced by Ramaphosa the next day.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Shortly after his resignation on 16 March 2018, the National Prosecuting Authority announced that Zuma faced prosecution on corruption charges relating to the 1999 Arms Deal. He pleaded not guilty on 26 May 2021, but the trial was not scheduled to take place until early 2023. In July 2021, Zuma was imprisoned in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal, for contempt of court for a separate legal matter. After testifying for less than three days at the Zondo Commission on state capture allegations, he refused to return, violating summons and a Constitutional Court order compelling his testimony. On 29 June 2021, the Constitutional Court sentenced him to fifteen months imprisonment. He was arrested on 7 July and released on medical parole two months later on 5 September. The high court rescinded his parole on 15 December. The parole was declared unlawful by the Supreme Court of Appeal, but it allowed the Department of Correctional Services to consider whether to deduct the time spent under it from his sentence.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma was born in Nkandla, Natal Province (now part of the province of KwaZulu-Natal), and often moved around Natal and the suburbs of Durban as a child. His father, Nobhekisisa, was a policeman who died when Zuma was five, and his mother, Geinamazwi, was a domestic worker. His middle name, Gedleyihlekisa, means "one who smiles while causing you harm" in Zulu. He did not receive formal schooling.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: He has at least three brothers—Michael, Joseph, and Khanya—and at least one sister—Velephi. Michael Zuma was employed by Khumbula Property Services, a construction company, and in 2011 admitted to using his elder brother Jacob's political status to secure a government contract for the company in exchange for a homestead in Nkandla.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma began engaging in anti-apartheid politics at an early age and joined the ANC in 1959. He became an active member of Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1962, two years after the ANC was banned. That year, he was arrested with a group of 45 recruits near Zeerust in western Transvaal, currently part of the North West Province. Zuma was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, which he served on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and other notable ANC leaders also imprisoned during that time. While imprisoned, Zuma was a referee for prisoners association football games, organised by the prisoners own governing body, Makana F.A.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: After his release from prison, Zuma re-established ANC underground structures in Natal. He left South Africa in 1975 and was initially based in Swaziland where he met Thabo Mbeki. In Mozambique, he dealt with the arrival of thousands of exiles seeking military training in the wake of the 1976 Soweto uprising. He became a full member of the ANC National Executive Committee in 1977, and a member of the ANC's Politico-Military Council when it was formed in 1983. He was also Deputy Chief Representative of the ANC in Mozambique, a post he occupied until the signing of the Nkomati Accord between the Mozambican and South African governments in 1984. After the Accord was signed, he was appointed as ANC Chief Representative in Mozambique. In December 1986, the South African government requested that Mozambican authorities expel six senior members of the ANC, including Zuma. He was forced to leave Mozambique in January 1987, so he moved to the ANC headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia where he was appointed Head of the ANC's underground structures, and shortly afterward was named chief of the intelligence department.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma was also a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP). He joined in 1963, served briefly on the party's Politburo, and left in 1990.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: After the ANC was unbanned in February 1990, Zuma returned to South Africa on 21 March to begin the negotiations process. He was one of the first ANC leaders to return to South Africa for negotiations. Later that year, he was elected unopposed as the ANC's Southern Natal Chairperson. Zuma, as a Zulu, became known as a leading peace broker in Natal during the political violence of this period that was concentrated in that province, and arose largely from conflict between nationalist supporters of the then Xhosa-dominated ANC and supporters of the Zulu-nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). He is also credited with having expanded the ANC's Zulu support base in Natal. At the ANC's July 1991 elective conference, Zuma stood for the post of ANC Secretary-General and lost to Cyril Ramaphosa, but was elected Deputy Secretary-General, comfortably beating Alfred Nzo and Popo Molefe in a vote.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In the 1994 general election, South Africa's first democratic election, Zuma stood as the ANC's candidate for the premiership of his newly constituted home province, KwaZulu-Natal. The ANC rose to power in the elections, with Mandela elected president and Mbeki his deputy, but lost KwaZulu-Natal to the IFP. Zuma became a member of the executive council (MEC) for economic affairs and tourism in KwaZulu-Natal. In December 1994, he was elected ANC provincial chairperson for KwaZulu-Natal, and at the ANC's 1994 elective conference he was elected national chairperson, beating Pallo Jordan and Jeff Radebe by a large margin. He held both positions until 1997, having been re-elected provincial chairperson in 1996.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma was elected deputy president of the ANC at the party's 50th National Conference in Mafikeng in December 1997, and was subsequently appointed deputy president of South Africa in June 1999, pursuant to the 1999 general election. Zuma served under newly elected President Mbeki and was the chief mediator in the Burundi peace process, in which he worked with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, who chaired the Great Lakes Regional Initiative, a grouping of regional presidents overseeing the peace process in Burundi.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In late 2002, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced that Zuma was one of several ANC politicians under investigation by the Scorpions for corruption related to the R30-billion Arms Deal, a major defence procurement package which the government had signed months after Zuma's appointment to the deputy presidency. In August 2003, however, National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Bulelani Ngcuka told the media that the NPA had a "prima facie case of corruption" against Zuma but had decided not to prosecute on the basis that the case was unlikely to be won. A highly public spat ensued between Zuma allies and Ngcuka, who was accused by Mac Maharaj of having been an apartheid spy, an accusation later dismissed by the specially appointed Hefer Commission. Zuma laid a misconduct complaint against Ngcuka with the Public Protector, Lawrence Mushwana, who in May 2004 found that Ngcuka's statement to the media had been "unfair and improper".


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Mbeki and Zuma were both re-elected in the 2004 general election, but on 14 June 2005, Mbeki removed Zuma from his post as deputy president following the conviction of Zuma's associate, Schabir Shaik, for making underhanded payments to Zuma in relation to the Arms Deal. Mbeki told a joint sitting of Parliament that "in the interest of the honourable Deputy President, the government, our young democratic system and our country, it would be best to release the honourable Jacob Zuma from his responsibilities". Zuma also resigned as a member of Parliament.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: His successor as deputy president of South Africa was Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Ngcuka's wife. Mlambo-Ngcuka had been minister of minerals and energy since 1999. Her appointment was booed publicly atANC rallies by Zuma supporters, including at a Women's Day event in Utrecht, KwaZulu-Natal.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Soon after Zuma's dismissal, the NPA announced its intention to instate formal corruption charges against him. He was served with a provisional indictment on fraud and corruption charges in November 2005, mirroring the indictment earlier served on Shaik. However, the NPA was unprepared to serve the final indictment and filed an application for postponement. On 20 September 2006, the Pietermaritzburg High Court dismissed the application, and when the NPA indicated that it was not prepared to proceed with the trial, the matter was stricken off.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In December 2005, Zuma was charged with raping a 31-year-old woman, known to the public by the pseudonym Khwezi. The incident allegedly occurred on 2 November 2005 at Zuma's home in Forest Town, Johannesburg. When the trial began on 6 March 2006, Zuma pleaded not guilty, claiming that he and Khwezi had consensual sex. He was acquitted on 8 May 2006 following a highly publicised trial. Zuma's admission was controversial, as he stated that he had not used a condom while having sex with Khwezi, despite knowing she was HIV-positive and having been, as deputy president, the head of the National AIDS Council and Moral Regeneration Campaign. He told the court that he had taken a shower after the act, claiming that doing so reduced the risk of HIV transmission. The popular South African comic strip "Madam & Eve," and well known political cartoonist Zapiro, repeatedly lampooned Zuma for his testimony, and Zuma now always appears under a showerhead in Zapiro cartoons.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Although Zuma had been fired as national deputy president, he retained the ANC deputy presidency, and internal factions began to coalesce around him and Mbeki. Between 2005 and 2007, their rivalry deepened into what Susan Booysen called "a brutal and all-consuming disagreement between two major ANC groupings". Although the corruption and rape allegations were considered politically damaging, Zuma continued to enjoy considerable support from left-wing elements of the ANC, especially the ANC Youth League under Fikile Mbalula, and from the ANC's partners in the Tripartite Alliance, the SACP, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Blade Nzimande of the SACP and Zwelinzima Vavi of COSATU were among Zuma's chief organisers and most vocal supporters (though both recanted their support years later). Vavi and Youth League leader Julius Malema later said that they were prepared to "kill for Zuma". Nzimande and his SACP comrade Gwede Mantashe warned that the corruption trial would endanger public stability if it went ahead, although there were reports that support for Zuma had caused a rift within the SACP. While Zuma's political strength was at least partly based on his relationships within intra-party politics and Mbeki's lack of popularity with the left wing, he also had a large Zulu support base, and one analyst argued that his supporters' loyalty was partially rooted in a traditionalist Zulu loyalty.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma's supporters publicly expressed the view that his dismissal and prosecution were the result of a political conspiracy by Mbeki, who they said had sought to oust Zuma to entrench their dominance in the ANC. Zuma's court appearances on the corruption charges drew large crowds of supporters (on one estimate, up to 10,000 at a time), who, on one occasion, burned T-shirts with Mbeki's picture on them, which the ANC leadership condemned. Zuma became known for singing the apartheid-era struggle song ""Umshini wami"" (English: "Bring Me My Machine Gun") with his supporters during these informal rallies. Likewise, during the rape trial, Zuma supporters gathered outside the courthouse and sometimes clashed with smaller groups of anti-rape protesters. Zuma supporters were seen carrying posters questioning Khwezi's integrity, burning photos of her, and on one occasion throwing stones at a woman that they mistook for her.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: By October 2008, Zuma had been acquitted of rape and was no longer subject to corruption charges. However, this did little to lighten the rivalry between Mbeki and Zuma. A "Mail & Guardian" analysis stated:The political damage [of events of recent months] is incalculable, with the ruling African National Congress now an openly divided and faltering movement. This has had a domino effect on the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which have floundered and fractured in the face of damaging charges against a man they ardently backed as the country's next president. The trial has been fought against the backdrop of a bitter succession war between Mbeki and Zuma. Both have been fatally wounded. Mbeki's support in the ANC has crumbled... But even Zuma's most diehard supporters privately acknowledge that he cannot now be president...


title: Jacob Zuma

text: By early 2006 during the rape trial, Zuma and his supporters complained of a concerted media plot to discredit him and harm his political career. In March, he appointed a legal team, including former Conservative Party politician Jurg Prinsloo and advocate Wycliffe Mothuloe, to fight his "crucifixion by the media". Among his targets was the "Sowetan," whom he told that the media, at the instruction of Ngcuka of the NPA and former Justice Minister Penuell Maduna, was trying to "crucify" him. The newspaper had printed the interview under the headline "I'm like Christ – Zuma". In June and July 2006, Zuma filed a series of defamation lawsuits against various South African media outlets for publishing content that allegedly besmirched his public profile in the form of cartoons, commentary, photos and parody pieces. The defendants included the "Star" (sued for R20 million), "Rapport" (R10 million), Highveld Stereo (R7 million), the "Sunday Times" (R6 million), the "Citizen" (R5 million), the "Sunday Sun" (R5 million), the "Sunday Independent" (R5 million), and the "Sunday World" (R5 million). Zuma said in 2005:For a period of five years my person has been subjected to all types of allegations and innuendo, paraded through the media and other corridors of influence without these allegations tested. I have thereby been denied my constitutional right to reply and defend myself.In December 2008, Zuma sued Zapiro for R7 million over his controversial rape of Lady Justice cartoon, bringing the total value of the defamation lawsuits to at least R70 million, an unprecedented figure in South African law. Many of the suits were withdrawn or settled out of court. "Rapport" settled for R50,000 over a defamatory reader's letter, and the British "Guardian" newspaper also paid Zuma substantial damages over defamatory statements.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: As per party tradition, Zuma was in line to succeed Mbeki as head of the party. However, by April 2007 it was clear that Mbeki intended to run for a third term as ANC president. Even though he was prohibited by the Constitution from standing again for the national presidency, the ANC lacks internal term limits. Zuma gained the support of five of the nine provincial ANC branches when they nominated candidates at their provincial congresses in late 2007. He became the favourite to win the presidency and became the ANC's presidential candidate in the 2009 elections. While the ANC was extremely likely to win regardless of its candidate, there were reports that Zuma's support base and left-wing alliances unnerved international and domestic investors.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: On 18 December 2007, at the ANC's 52nd National Conference in Polokwane, Limpopo, Zuma was elected ANC president, beating Mbeki with 2,329 votes to 1,505.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Just over a week after the Polokwane conference, the NPA reinstated charges against Zuma and served him an indictment to stand trial on 12 fraud charges, two corruption charges, and one charge each of racketeering and money laundering. According to the Constitution, he would have been rendered ineligible for the national presidency had he been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. However, on 12 September 2008, the charges were declared unlawful on a technicality. The presiding judge also expressed a belief that the charges had been the result of a political conspiracy against Zuma.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Although this judgement was later overturned by the appellate court, the Zuma-aligned ANC National Executive, as elected at the Polokwane conference, immediately "recalled" Mbeki, asking him to resign as national president. Mbeki, seeking to avoid a protracted dispute, did so, and was replaced by newly elected ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, who led an interim administration while Zuma campaigned for the 2009 election.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In January 2009, the Supreme Court of Appeal found that the charges against Zuma were not unlawful, contrary to the ruling of the lower court. However, the NPA formally withdrew the charges in the same week that Zuma was inaugurated as national president, citing apparent evidence of prosecutorial misconduct in the so-called spy tapes.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In March 2009, Shaik was controversially released from prison on medical parole, just over two years into his 15-year sentence. Earlier the same week, Zuma had said publicly that as national president he would pardon Shaik on medical grounds, and denied having played any role in Shaik's release. Shaik had applied for a presidential pardon in April 2008 when Mbeki was president, and he continued to lobby for a pardon during Zuma's presidency, saying it was unfair that he had been convicted while neither Zuma nor the implicated arms company had been taken to trial.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: The ANC won the national election on 22 April 2009 by a slightly diminished majority of 65.90%, with Zuma having campaigned under the theme "Continuity and Change". His appointment was formalised by Parliament on 6 May, and he was sworn in as president of South Africa on 9 May 2009.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: As president and therefore a member of cabinet, Zuma was required by the government's ethics code to declare his financial interests within 60 days of taking office. In March 2010, nine months after taking office, South African media reported that he had failed to do so. Opposition parties and the ANC's Tripartite Alliance partner COSATU urged Zuma to disclose his interests, and the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) called for an investigation by the Public Protector. ANC spokesperson Brian Sokutu explained that Zuma constituted a "special case" because of his "large family", which complicated the process. The ANC distanced itself from Sokutu's statement and Zuma filed the disclosure later that week.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: As a former member of the SACP, Zuma has described himself as a socialist and became president with the support of a left-wing coalition. Analysts have claimed that he has bolstered populism in South Africa. From 2017, at the tail-end of his presidency, his rhetoric and policy priorities became more leftist under what is known as the "radical economic transformation" (RET) programme of the ANC of this period. Zuma announced the new focus on RET during his February 2017 State of the Nation address. Later that year, he explained that RET had been adopted as ANC policy and therefore as government policy, and defined it as a "fundamental change in the structures, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership and control of the economy, in favour of all South Africans, especially the poor". The RET policy was controversial, and some critics claimed that it had popular political appeal but lacked substance. Others claimed that it was used to defend "rent-seeking practices" and the influence of the Gupta family on Zuma's administration. Zuma claimed that critics of his politics were agents of "white monopoly capital".


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma was inaugurated in South Africa at the height of the 2008 global financial crisis and amid South Africa's first recession since the end of apartheid. Upon taking office, he established the National Planning Commission under the office of the presidency which was chaired by Minister Trevor Manuel. It was responsible for developing the National Development Plan, which was adopted by Zuma's cabinet in 2012. Other major initiatives included the Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme, which was launched in 2011 amid electricity generation shortfalls at state energy utility Eskom, and a R4-trillion National Infrastructure Plan launched in 2012. Zuma expressed support for expanding South Africa's nuclear power programme, particularly for a nuclear deal with Russian nuclear agency Rosatom which concluded in September 2014 but was ruled unlawful by the Western Cape High Court in 2017.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma's administration pursued a number of structural economic policy reforms, but critics characterised them as "investor-unfriendly", and most were met significant opposition. Reforms included increased regulation of private security companies; increased regulation of oil, gas, and minerals resources; a proposal to increase black economic empowerment ownership requirements in mines; and in 2017, a proposal for the introduction of a national minimum wage. Zuma was attentive to land reform issues throughout his second term, but from 2017 he emphasised his support for land expropriation without compensation. While opening the ANC's 54th National Conference in December 2017, he unilaterally announced that higher education would be free for students in households whose income was less than R350,000 per year, meeting a central demand of the #FeesMustFall student protests.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: South Africa's social grants programme expanded under Zuma, and Zuma was praised for his HIV/AIDS policy which has been credited with increasing life expectancy in South Africa. However, his critics claim that his policies increased South Africa's debt burden with the debt-to-GDP ratio increasing from 28% at the start of his presidency to just over 50% in the week of his resignation. Nedbank, one of South Africa's largest banks, estimates that poor policy decisions, maladministration, and corruption during Zuma's second term alone cost the South African economy R470 billion (US$33.7 billion).


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma's first state visit as president was to Angola, where he sought to improve relations with the government of President José Eduardo dos Santos, who had had a tense relationship with Mbeki. His government's foreign policy emphasised the developmental objectives of African and Global South countries with a focus on economic diplomacy. It was also characterised by a pivot towards the BRIC, especially China. In December 2010, South Africa became a formal member of BRIC, which was then renamed BRICS, and Zuma attended the group's third summit meeting in Sanya, China, in 2011. South Africa's admission followed a concerted campaign for membership and has been described as "a huge diplomatic coup" and "the most important foreign policy achievement of the Zuma administration".During South Africa's tenure on the United Nations Security Council, Zuma's administration was criticised for deviating in its stance on certain foreign regimes, especially in its attitudes towards international intervention in civil conflicts. It voted in favour of Resolution 1970 and Resolution 1973 but condemned their use by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as the basis for military intervention in Libya. It also voted in favour of a 2012 resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, but established friendly relations with the Assad regime after the 2014 Syrian presidential election. The administration also appeared to vacillate in its response to the disputed 2010 presidential election in Côte d'Ivoire.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In Zimbabwe, Mbeki had advocated for non-confrontational "quiet diplomacy" as an alternative to the "megaphone diplomacy" used by Western governments that harshly criticised Robert Mugabe's regime. This approach was controversial, with elements of the ruling alliance calling for a tougher stance against Mugabe and the ruling Zanu-PF. In a 2006 interview with "Der Spiegel", Zuma had supported quiet diplomacy and said of Mugabe:The Europeans often ignore the fact that Mugabe is very popular among Africans... The people love him. So how can we condemn him? Many in Africa believe that there is a racist aspect to European and American criticism of Mugabe. Millions of blacks died in Angola, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda. A few whites lost their lives in Zimbabwe, unfortunately, and already the West is bent out of shape.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: By December 2007, Zuma was more forthcoming in criticising Zimbabwe's leadership, contrasting his own policy to Mbeki's, and observing that it was "tragic that other world leaders who witness repression pretend it is not happening, or is exaggerated". He was critical of the Zimbabwean government's behaviour during the disputed March 2008 elections in Zimbabwe and called the delays "suspicious". In a press conference on 24 June he said, "We cannot agree with ZANU-PF. We cannot agree with them on values. We fought for the right of people to vote, we fought for democracy." At an ANC dinner in July, he rebuked Mugabe for refusing to step down, and in November he said that the South African Development Community (SADC) should "force" Zimbabwean leaders to reach an agreement, if necessary.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In 2010, Zuma called for international sanctions against Mugabe and his allies to be lifted. After a March 2013 meeting with Mugabe in Pretoria, he highlighted the commonalities between his and Mugabe's political parties, telling the press, "We share the same values, we went through the same route... We believe that our positions as former liberation movements need to be consolidated." Despite tensions in later months, as Zuma and SADC attempted to nudge Mugabe towards democratic reforms, the "Business Day" reported that relations between the countries remained "cordial" throughout Zuma's presidency.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: South Africa hosted the 25th Summit of the AU in Johannesburg from 7 to 15 June 2015. It was attended by Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, then a fugitive from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which sought to prosecute him on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. South Africa was a signatory to the Rome Statute, which obliged it to arrest al-Bashir, but instead granted him diplomatic immunity while he attended the summit. While the matter was being adjudicated by a South African High Court, and just after Judge President Dunstan Mlambo ordered al-Bashir's arrest, the state's lawyer told the court that he had left the country. His plane left from Waterkloof Air Force Base, presumably with the government's knowledge and reportedly with Zuma's explicit approval. When it was criticised for this breach, the South African government argued that the ICC was used unfairly against African heads of state while failing to hold Western leaders to the same standards. In 2016, it announced in New York that it was withdrawing from the ICC, and Zuma's administration subsequently tabled legislation to effect the withdrawal.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In a press conference on 5 December 2013, Zuma announced the death of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first democratically elected president. The memorial took place on 10 December 2013 at FNB Stadium near Soweto. When Zuma entered the stadium parts of the crowd booed him loudly. Ramaphosa and Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for discipline, with Ramaphosa telling the crowd in Zulu that the country could address its internal disagreements when foreign dignitaries were not present. Some South African commentators said that the crowd's actions were unexpected, and they were widely linked to the ongoing Nkandla scandal, a draft of the Public Protector's provisional report had been leaked the previous week, or to dissatisfaction with Zuma's administration more generally. Others suggested that the booing reflected frustration with the lack of socioeconomic change under the ANC government since Mandela's presidency, or that it reflected enduring divisions within the ANC;The crowd also chanted Mbeki's name. In a public statement, the ANC chastised those who had booed, saying they had embarrassed the country. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was criticised for having cut away from the booing in its live broadcast of the memorial.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Despite an "Anyone but Zuma" campaign in the run-up to the ANC's 53rd National Conference, Zuma was re-elected ANC president on 18 December 2012, beating Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe by a large margin. Although in 2008 he had said that he would prefer to serve only one term as president, Zuma became the ANC's sole presidential candidate in the 2014 national election. In January 2014, after he was heckled at Mandela's memorial, the "Sunday Tribune" reported that around November 2013, KwaZulu-Natal branches of the ANC had discussed a proposed resolution asking Zuma not to run for a second term as the country's president. However, ANC Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte dismissed rumours of disunity in the ANC saying, "The policy is that the president of the ANC is always the candidate for the election. We don't have another candidate and there will be no other candidate."


title: Jacob Zuma

text: The ANC retained its majority in the national election, and on 21 May 2014, the National Assembly elected Zuma to a second term as president.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma began his second term amid ongoing controversy over what were officially security upgrades made with state funds to his private homestead at Nkandla. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela investigated, and in late November 2013 her draft report was leaked to the "Mail & Guardian." Similar to the final version of the report, titled "Secure in Comfort" and released on 19 March 2014, the draft found that some of the Nkandla upgrades exceeded Zuma's security needs and recommended that Zuma should repay the state. The opposition, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and DA applied for legal recourse to compel Zuma to follow the recommendations in Madonsela's report, and the Constitutional Court found in their favour on 31 March 2016. In "EFF v Speaker; DA v Speaker", the full court agreed that Madonsela's report was binding, meaning Zuma was required to repay the state for some of the Nkandla upgrades and that Zuma had failed to uphold the country's Constitution. In a public address on 1 April, Zuma welcomed the judgment and apologised to the country, though legal academic Pierre de Vos said that the statement seriously misconstrued the judgment.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: The court's finding that Zuma had failed to uphold the Constitution subsequently provided the basis of an impeachment motion in Parliament, which was sponsored by the DA and defeated by a significant margin. However, Zuma faced serious backlash in the aftermath of the Constitutional Court ruling, including criticism from the SACP, civil society, several ANC stalwarts (including Ahmed Kathrada, Ronnie Kasrils, Trevor Manuel, and Cheryl Carolus), and several active factions of the ANC. Before the ruling, Zuma had faced and defeated five motions of no confidence in Parliament, three of which went to a vote. Following the ruling and failed impeachment motion, he faced three more in November 2016, August 2017, and February 2018.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma's close and allegedly corrupt relationship with the Gupta family, known ANC donors, became a major source of discontent both within the ANC and among the South African public. This relationship received widespread public attention in April 2013 when the media reported that the Guptas had landed an Airbus A330 at Waterkloof Air Force Base without formal authorisation, but was welcomed by a police escort. The political influence of the Guptas was one issue that was thought to have motivated a wave of anti-government protests in October 2015, and at Zuma's February 2016 State of the Nation address, the EFF coined the phrase "Zupta", a portmanteau of "Zuma" and "Gupta", when they disrupted the event by repeatedly chanting "Zupta must fall."


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In March 2016, allegations of state capture of the Zuma administration by the Gupta family were revived when two ANC politicians, Mcebisi Jonas and Vytjie Mentor, publicly claimed that the Guptas had offered them cabinet positions. The Guptas denied the allegations, as did Zuma who reminded Parliament that only he had the power to appoint ministers. Shortly thereafter, the former director-general of the Government Communication and Information System, Themba Maseko, told the "Sunday Times" that Zuma had asked him to "help" the Guptas and that the Guptas had subsequently asked him to channel government advertising tenders to their newspaper, the "New Age".


title: Jacob Zuma

text: In mid-March 2016, Madonsela launched an investigation into state capture, resulting in a report entitled "State of Capture" in November 2017. The report found "prima facie" evidence implicating Zuma and other state officials in various improprieties, including improper relationships with the Gupta family. It also recommended that Zuma should appoint a full commission of inquiry into state capture. Zuma applied to have Madonsela's report overturned in the high court, which dismissed his application and ordered him to appoint a commission. In January 2018, just over a month before he resigned, he established the Zondo Commission.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Zuma was criticised for a lack of stability in his cabinet. During his two terms in office, he implemented twelve cabinet reshuffles, and some of his appointments unsettled financial markets., such as when Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene was replacedwith the little-known backbencher Des van Rooyen in the 9 December 2015 reshuffle. The political response was so hostile that van Rooyen was replaced by Pravin Gordhan after four days in office. Later, on 31 March 2017, Gordhan was sacked and replaced by Malusi Gigaba. Gordhan's deputy Jonas, who had alleged corruption by the Guptas a year earlier, was also fired. The reshuffle was criticised by senior ANC leaders including Deputy President Ramaphosa, from the SACP, and from members of the public, who, on 7 April, launched protests against Zuma and his government in several of South Africa's major cities. Another march on the Union Buildings on 12 April, Zuma's birthday, was organised by a coalition of seven opposition parties. It attracted tens of thousands of protesters and the "Mail & Guardian" said that it was "possibly the largest march in post-apartheid history".


title: Jacob Zuma

text: From 2015, Zuma was understood to favour his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him as ANC president and therefore, presumptively, as national president. His critics claimed that he would use his relationship with Dlamini-Zuma to retain control of the ANC and the state, and avoid prosecution on corruption charges. She campaigned on a platform of economic transformation – so that the pro-Dlamini-Zuma faction became known as the RET faction – while her challenger, Ramaphosa, emphasised anti-corruption. On 18 December 2017, at the ANC's 54th National Conference, Ramaphosa narrowly beat Dlamini-Zuma in a vote and succeeded Zuma as ANC president.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: Once Ramaphosa replaced Zuma as ANC president, there was growing pressure for the latter to resign from the national presidency. On 6 February 2018, Zuma's annual State of the Nation Address, scheduled for 8 February, was postponed indefinitely "to create room for establishing a much more conducive political atmosphere". The following week, Ramaphosa and Zuma spent almost five days in talks. On 12 December, when it became clear that the negotiations had failed, the ANC National Executive Committee convened an emergency meeting near Pretoria, and, after nearly ten hours of debate, decided that Zuma should be "recalled" by the party if he did not resign voluntarily. Ramaphosa and another senior official reportedly drove to Zuma's home just after midnight to deliver the ultimatum, but Zuma refused, insisting on a three-month notice period or transition period before leaving office. On 13 December, the National Executive Committee publicly announced its intention to recall Zuma. As a party-political body, it formally lacked the authority to remove sitting presidents, though it could instruct the ANC caucus, which controlled Parliament, to remove Zuma through a motion of no confidence if he did not resign at its request.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: At dawn on 14 February, there was a police raid at the Johannesburg home of the Gupta family, which the Hawks said was related to an investigation into state capture. Baleka Mbete, the Speaker of the National Assembly, announced that the EFF's motion of no confidence in Zuma had been moved forward in the parliamentary schedule, and that it would now be voted on the following day instead of on 22 February. She told journalists that "the recall, most definitely official, is now being implemented by this institution [Parliament]". The ANC announced that it planned to support the opposition's motion, which would ensure its passage. Shortly afterwards, Zuma gave a long live television interview on SABC on 14 February 2018, arguing that he had done nothing wrong and had not been given reasons for his recall. He said that he disagreed with the ANC's decision and was being "victimised". He also said that if he was dismissed, the ANC could be "plunged in a crisis that I’m sure my comrade leaders will regret". According to a later report by "City Press", during this period elements of the South African National Defence Force and State Security Agency were unsuccessfully lobbied to launch a revolt to prevent Zuma's removal.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: On the same day, in a live televised address just before 11 p.m., Zuma announced his immediate resignation. In his speech, he said that he accepted the ANC's decision but had asked its leadership to "articulate my transgressions and the reason for its immediate instruction that I vacate office". He claimed that he had earlier had an agreement with the party that if he resigned it would be after "a period of transition". He said:Make no mistake, no leader should stay beyond the time determined by the people they serve... No life should be lost in my name and also the ANC should never be divided in my name... I have therefore come to the decision to resign as President of the Republic with immediate effect. Even though I disagree with the decision of the leadership of my organisation, I have always been a disciplined member of the ANC. As I leave I will continue to serve the people of South Africa as well as the ANC, the organisation I have served all my life. I will dedicate all of my energy to work towards the attainment of the policies of our organisation, in particular the radical economic transformation agenda.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: The week after his resignation, Zuma attended a farewell cocktail party in his honour, hosted by Ramaphosa at Tuynhuys in Cape Town and attended by other members of cabinet. Although former presidents are invited to all State of the Nation addresses, Zuma did not attend Ramaphosa's addresses in 2018, 2019, or 2020.


title: Jacob Zuma

text: On 16 March 2018, a month after Zuma resigned from the presidency, the NPA announced that he would again face prosecution on the same 16 criminal charges he was indicted on in 2006: 12 charges of fraud, two of corruption, and one each of racketeering and money laundering, all related to the 1999 Arms Deal and to Zuma's relationship with Shaik. The case was enrolled in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. Zuma pleaded not guilty when the trial began on 26 May 2021. As of October 2022, the trial was scheduled to resume in late January 2023.