LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

at the service of religion. His purpose was ‘to give souls the taste for and understanding of Scripture’. He saw philosophy and learning not as ends in themselves but as assisting the triumph of a purer, more enlightened faith. In an edition of Aristotelian works (August 1506) he set out a complete educational programme, but one that was very different from that contained in Erasmus’s recently published Enchiridion. Lefèvre and Erasmus stood for different Christian ideals. Both wanted their students to write pure and correct Latin, but their attitude to ancient writers differed. Whereas Erasmus believed that their wisdom could lead to a reception of Christian revelation, Lefèvre regarded them simply as models of style. Whereas Erasmus found in Plato the most suitable introduction to the Gospel, Lefèvre regarded Aristotle as the superior teacher. Both men wanted to return to the Bible as interpreted by the church fathers, not by the schoolmen. But Erasmus was no mystic; he turned to Scripture for practical counsel. He ceased to believe in the virtues of monasticism, while Lefèvre wished that his health would allow him to enter a Benedictine or Carthusian monastery and neglected none of the traditional religious observances which Erasmus dismissed as useless.

      In July 1509, Lefèvre published his edition of the Psalter. Like Erasmus, he insisted on the need for doctrine to be based on accurate editions of Scripture, but he was not content with a purely literal interpretation, believing that a reading of Scripture had to be prepared by meditation and prayer; also by a close familiarity with the writings of the prophets and apostles. In December 1512 his edition of St Paul’s Epistles was published. This set out to explain the apostle’s ideas simply, rejecting the scholastic notion that every passage in Scripture requires a quadruple interpretation. In Lefèvre’s opinion, Scripture has a literal and a spiritual meaning. Before this can be grasped, it is essential to enter the mind of St Paul, an exercise calling for divine inspiration. Lefèvre read St Paul as a mystic committed to the inner life rather than as a dogmatic theologian or logician. He did not deduce the idea of predestination from his work. His aim was to reconcile grace and free will; not to abolish the autonomy of the human will.

      Lefèvre’s study of St Paul did not lead him to the same conclusions as those drawn by Erasmus or Luther. He remained loyal to Roman observances. Good works, he says, cannot save by themselves, but they are not useless: they attract, hold and enlarge grace. Nor does faith ensure salvation: it opens the way to God who alone justifies and absolves. Good works make us better men, faith converts us, justification illuminates us. At the same time, his interpretation of dogma was at times extraordinarily free. He denied the magical properties of the sacraments, seeing them rather as signs of spiritual grace, and viewed the mass not as a sacrifice but as a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Yet he timidly accepted the new doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and was surprisingly conservative regarding church reform. He did not suggest the abolition of clerical celibacy or the introduction of prayers in the vernacular.

       Guillaume Budé

      In 1497, Lefèvre’s circle of friends and disciples at the collège du cardinal Lemoine was joined by Guillaume Budé. He belonged to a family of the well-to-do Parisian bourgeoisie, which over three generations had risen to the highest offices in the royal chancery. About 1483 he had been sent to study civil law at Orléans. On returning to the capital he seemed only interested in hunting and other pleasures, but in 1491 he became disgusted with his way of life. Resuming his studies, he began to learn Greek. He also got to know Andrelini, who in 1496 dedicated a work to him. Even after becoming a royal secretary in 1497, Budé continued to read classical and patristic texts. He translated some works of Plutarch, dedicating one to Pope Julius II.

      In November 1508, Budé published his Annotations on the Pandects which laid down the principle that Roman law can only be understood through the study of Roman history, literature and classical philology. It was also a scathing attack on scholastic jurisprudence as represented by the work of Accursius and Bartolus. Using both philology and history, Budé undermined their assumption that the Corpus Iuris was an authoritative system of law adaptable to the needs of all time. The effect of this onslaught on current legal thinking was comparable to that on theology of Valla’s exposure of the ‘Donation of Constantine’ (a document fabricated in the 8th–9th century to strengthen the power of the Holy See). Yet Budé was more interested in restoring the text of Justinian’s Digest as literature than in using it for legal education and practice. His polemic against contemporary jurisprudence was the first of many similar legal works of the sixteenth century, the best known being Rabelais’s caricature of legal terminology and practice. Almost the entire legal profession was attacked by Budé. He accused its members of using the law not to establish equity or justice but simply to sell and prostitute their words. Deploring the lack of public spirit among his compatriots and the loss of ancient virtues, he expressed the hope that a revival of letters would reawaken their consciences. A theme which assumed importance in Budé’s later work – his absolutist theory of the state – was already present in his Annotations. While refuting Accursius, he showed the invalidity of equating the parlement with the Roman senate.

      The Annotations was France’s first great work of philology and its impact, notably on Alciati’s teaching of law at the University of Bourges, was considerable. Budé followed Valla in his use of a philological-historical method and in his opposition to the Bartolists, but he went further by reviving the Aristotelian concept of equity. This was to have a lasting effect on legal practice in France and elsewhere. Budé’s scholarship, though profound, was long-winded and undisciplined. His De Asse (1515), a treatise on ancient coinage, is full of absurdly patriotic digressions in which he seeks to elevate Paris above Athens as a centre of ancient learning.

      Like Lefèvre d’Etaples, Budé repudiated the vocabulary and methodology of the schoolmen and wanted Christianity to rest solely on the correct study of Scripture. But he did not share Lefèvre’s mysticism. He despised devotions that were purely formal or smacked of superstition. He equated Christianity with obedience to Christ’s commands and the imitation of His life on earth. As a scholar Budé was well aware of errors in the Latin Vulgate and favoured a return to the original Greek text of the New Testament. His objective was to revivify religion by uniting the Christian faith and humanism. His admiration for the classics did not persuade him that compromise was possible between Hellenism and Christianity. Given the choice, he preferred the latter and in his last work, De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum, he even denied the value of ancient philosophy.

       The Reuchlin affair

      In 1514 the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris was drawn into a conflict which had been raging for three years between the German humanist Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522) and the German Dominicans. Reuchlin had promoted the Talmud, the Cabala and other Jewish studies as essential to a true understanding of biblical revelation; he also believed that the Bible and all its traditional glosses and interpretations should be re-examined in the light of recent exegetical advances and of the new expertise in Greek and Hebrew. His programme, however, if implemented, was likely to disrupt the traditional curriculum of theological faculties. He was accordingly censured by a special inquisition at Mainz in October 1513, and by another in Cologne four months later. The bishop of Speyer, however, acting for the pope, cleared Reuchlin of all charges and ordered an end to the inquisition, whereupon the Cologne theologians decided to consult their colleagues in Louvain and Paris.

      The Parisian doctors received the message from Cologne at the end of April 1514 and promptly set up a committee comprising representatives of the scholastic tradition and friends of humanism to examine extracts from Reuchlin’s Augenspiegel. Numerous meetings followed in the course of which the Cologne theologians sent another book by Reuchlin for examination. There was also an intervention by Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, who asked the faculty to drop its proceedings. On 2 August, however, the faculty decided against Reuchlin. His writings were described as ‘strongly suspect of heresy, most of them smacking of heresy and some actually heretical’. The faculty asked for the suppression of the Augenspiegel and the author’s unconditional retraction. What happened next is not clear. The faculty received a letter from the papal Curia in April 1515, which probably expressed surprise at the decision passed in August, and it ceased

Скачать книгу