COLET, JOHN. - English theologian, humanist, and educator, b. in 1467 (?), d. in 1519. The desire to escape from the Middle Ages led him, before he was thirty, to journey to the Continent, during which he came into contact with Erasmo da Rotterdam, Guglielmo Budé, and, in Florence, Savonarola. This resulted in firmer religious convictions and broader cultural horizons, of which he gave proof, immediately after his ordination to the priesthood in 1496, in a series of public lectures on the Pauline Epistles, delivered at Oxford according to exegetical criteria informed by the new directions in New Testament studies.
He subsequently became dean of the London Cathedral and founder of St. Paul's School, in which he adopted educational methods admired, for their originality, by Erasmo himself. Convinced of the necessity of reform, he nevertheless shrank from the idea of a break with the Church of Rome, to which he always remained faithful; a charge of heresy brought against him by certain ill-disposed persons was not entertained by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who knew C.'s perfectly orthodox intentions. His writings were first published collectively in London by J. H. Lupton (1867–76). His historical importance lies above all in having initiated, together with John Fisher, Thomas More, and other scholars, the humanist movement in England.