Last update: April 19, 2023
Piotr Alexandrowicz, The Poznań Society for the Advancement of Arts and Sciences: Law and Theology According to Johann Paul Windeck
Johann Paul Windeck (d. 1620) was a German Catholic professor of theology and rector of the University of Freiburg. He wrote several polemical theological works against Calvinists and Lutherans. While it comes as no surprise that a theologian from the early modern period was interested in law and legal doctrine, Windeck’s approach and objectives were much different than those typical of the second scholasticism. For this reason his work De theologia iureconsultorum libri duo seems particularly interesting as it shows a different perspective on the law and theology nexus. In the first part of his work, he demonstrated how the dogmas of Catholic faith were advocated in Roman law. He described forty-four issues (loci) and each of them was divided into three arguments: civil law, canon law and theology. In the second part he focused on the defence of ecclesiastical jurisdiction against the claims of Protestants and his arguments were based on customs, civil statutes and canons. The latter part may be included in the genre of differentiae iuris civilis et canonici in which both Catholic and Protestant authors described the discrepancies between the two laws. The objectives of this paper will be to characterise the sources, methods and outcomes of Windeck’s theological approach to law and to juxtapose his work with contemporary doctrines and other examples of Catholic differentiae.
Sivert Angel, University of Oslo: Why did Frederik IV Establish the Mission to His Colony in India in 1705? On the Dynamics of the Kingdom of God and the Danish Empire Around the Turn of the Eighteenth Century
Panel: Internationalizing Lutheranism: Case Studies from the Dutch Republic and the Danish Lands
The Royal Danish Halle mission to Tranquebar is considered by many to be the first Lutheran mission to other parts of the world. The background for its establishment has long been a bit of a puzzle. J. Oskar Andersen seemed to have solved it with his suggestion, in 1906, that King Frederik IV established it because of a personal crisis and as an act of penance. Historians later rejected this theory, as it did not comply with King Frederik’s style of rule. However, they have not been able to show how the establishment of the mission would support his broader political interests, and have thus shed little light on motifs behind the establishment of the mission. In this paper, I revisit the sources surrounding the establishment of the mission, drawing on theories of Denmark as a “weak empire”, and on accounts of a “pietist empire” (Gleixner) operating among Northern European nobility. Thereby I aim to bridge the two seemingly contradictory historical explanations, namely that the establishment of the mission was religiously motivated, but also served the king’s political interests in a broader sense.
Theo Basoski, Theological University Kampen | Utrecht: Divine Justification and Political Discipline. Special Days of Prayer during the Seventeenth century in the City of Groningen
The Dutch Republic was a union of different provinces with their own governments. Matters of foreign affairs and defense were issues of the States General, but in every province the (application of) rules could be different. At the end of the sixteenth century a new balance between government and church was set: the Reformed Church became a public church. In the public church the government had authority to write out special days of prayer without the permission of the authorities of the church. During the seventeenth century the government directly turned to the ministers and instructed them on the reasons for a special day of prayer. Ministers were used to giving a religious justification for government policy. This short paper is a case study of special days of prayer in the city of Groningen. In Groningen every year a special church service was held on the day the new officers were elected for the States of Groningen, this day was called the Groninger Landdag. This paper discusses two sermons of Groningen ministers held on a Groninger Landdag. Johannes Martinus delivered a sermon in 1650 and Thomas Alberthoma in 1666. I will discuss how these sermons show the ministers, operating as civil servants following the government, still having the freedom to be critical towards the authorities, because the regents needed divine justification for their position.
Andreas Beck, Evangelische Theologische Universiteit, Leuven: Gisbertus Voetius on Usury and Lending Money to the Poor
Shortly after the Gymnasium Illustre of Utrecht was elevated to full university status in March 1636, its leading theology professor Gisbertus Voetius presided over two disputations De usuris. I will analyze these disputations and show how Voetius, contrary to the traditional view, did not consider monetary interest to be fundamentally illegitimate. Yet he considered interest to be admissible only under strict, especially socio-ethical conditions. Later, Voetius added an appendix, De trapezitis, in which he rejected the practice of “table holders or “Lombards” who charged excessive usury from the weaker members of society. In it, he advocated Montes Pietatis as a more merciful alternative, in ways similar to what Leonardus Lessius had already done in the Southern Netherlands.
Jan Andrea Bernhard, Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, Universität Zürich: Gelingen oder Scheitern des sozialen Engagements der Schweizer Reformation (Zürich, Chur, Genf)
Die Überwindung von Reich und Arm war ein grosses Anliegen der Reformation. Dabei wird die Situation exemplarischerweise in den Schweizer Städten Zürich, Chur und Genf angeschaut: In Zürich konnte dank Aufhebung des Klosters Oetenbach 1525 der sogenannte Mushafen eingerichtet werden, wo Bedürftige nach dem Morgenläuten eine warme Mahlzeit erhielten, finanziert durch die Stadt. Während in Chur das Kloster St. Nicolai 1539 als Bildungsintitution eingerichtet wurde, war das Almosengeben an Arme, Wittwen und Waisen ein organischer Dienst der Gläubigen. Auch in Genf wurden mit Geldern der öffentlichen Hand soziale Institutionen eingerichtet, z.B. das Hôpital général, um Armen, Kranken und weiteren zu helfen. Calvins theologische Begründung war dabei der soziale Aufstieg in der Gesellschaft. Die im zweiten Teil des Vortrags untersuchte Frage ist, inwiefern dieses soziale Engagement den Unterschied zwischen Reich und Arm tatsächlich verringern konnte, oder ob die Armenfürsorge langfristig ein gescheitertes Projekt war.
Federico Bonansea, University of Turin: Images of African Slaves in Seventeenth-Century Latin America: Jesuit Perspectives
Panel: People of Americas: Birth, Representations, and Images in the Modern Catholic World (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Centuries)
Introduction Text Panel
Who are the Americans and what is “black”? This panel offers an overview on the perception of the inhabitants of the Americas and the development of Catholic interpretations to explain the social hierarchy of the New World in the period from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It explores three case studies. First, La Peregrinación de Bartolomé Lorenzo by José de Acosta is the edifying and curious story of a European pilgrim in the West Indies among Indians, slaves, and Europeans seeking their fortune, but also a denunciation of European behaviour that undermines the colonial model. Second, the Society of Jesus, engaged in the pastoral care of slaves in the Americas, developed an interpretative model of slavery through works by Alonso de Sandoval, Antonio Vieira and Giorgio Benci, and thus a precise image of African slaves. Finally, the role of Christian thought and biblical images of slavery were taken up and readapted within the debate on race theory in the nineteenth century United States.
Abstract
The phenomenon of slavery greatly influenced the society and economy of the Latin-American colonies during the Early Modern Age. The long-running dispute regarding the legality of indigenous slavery, which developed within the Iberian world during the sixteenth century, ended gradually in the seventeenth century with the emergence of a new type of slave labour, namely the enslavement of people from Africa. The employment of African slaves was key in colonial exploitation. The Catholic Church, in accordance with its universal vocation, assumed the pastoral care of African slaves in the New World through the work of missionaries, including Jesuits, who also took care of slaves’ health. The question was how to frame and understand people from Africa, slaves and pagans, in a broader conceptual framework that justified their position within the colonial society, viz. a typically ancient regime society which had been exported to the New World. The Society of Jesus notably contributed to respond to this need by producing seminal theological treatises. Jesuits such as Alonso de Sandoval, Antonio Vieira and Giorgio Benci, among others, dedicated part of their work to the phenomenon of slavery. This paper aims thus to shed light on the images of African slaves as they were sketched by Jesuit authors in the seventeenth century. It considers especially the duality between the soul and the body, which was a crucial component in defining human nature in the Early Modern Age.
Gerard Bosker, Theological University Apeldoorn: Willem Teellinck (1579–1629) About Death and Dying
Willem Teellinck (1579–1629) was a preacher in the southwestern part of the Netherlands. He is considered a leader of the so-called Nadere Reformatie, a pietistic movement in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Teellinck wrote many pietistic writings, translated and introduced several writings of the Puritans from England and edited writings from the Modern Devotion movement. In my PhD research, I am researching the views of six Dutch pastors from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on death and dying. Willem Teellinck is one of these six pastors. In my paper I will present his views on dying and dealing with death.
Gianmarco Braghi, University of Palermo | FSCIRE: One Office, Multiple Meanings: Ambiguities, Polemics, and Debates over the Episcopacy in Sixteenth-Century Reformed Circles
In the wake of the Reformation, and especially with the spread of Calvinism, the nature, legitimacy, role, and munus of the episcopacy immediately became a matter of discussion. Bringing such ideas into the wider debate served multiple purposes in different contexts and contingencies. On the one hand, Catholic polemical tools against Calvinists that drew from the polysemic concept of the episcopacy ranged from the recourse to apostolic succession – invariably a powerful argument in the discussions over the legitimacy of the pastorate in the galaxy of the Reformed churches – to the use of “bishop” and “pope” as a slur against the Genevan, and Geneva-inspired, church government spearheaded by the moderators of the Venerable Company of Pastors: a position that internal opponents were quick to pick up when they denounced what they perceived as the ‘tyranny’ of the pastoral leadership upon the body of the Reformed congregations. On the other hand, friendly observers also sometimes showed deference towards Calvin and Theodore Beza by calling them “bishops” of Geneva: as much as this could have been an embarrassment to the recipients of such a title – especially as the city council of the Republic of Geneva had decided to expunge any occurrence of the word “bishop” from the Ecclesiastical Ordinances it promulgated in 1541 – this shows that several ambiguities continued to linger when it came to defining the idea of bishop in the context of the nascent Reformed church, as well as the expectations around the use of this terminology. Coupled with the less-than-nuanced classic historiographical argument that the Reformed camp frowned upon the idea of a three-order church, such debates, polemics, and semantic richness deserve more scholarly attention. This paper intends to be a contribution to this still under-researched topic.
Theo Brok, Vrije Universiteit | Doopsgezind Seminarium, Amsterdam: Anabaptist Networks in the Low Countries: The Antwerp Case from 1530 to the 1550s
A status quaestionis in the historiography of Anabaptism is that in the 1530s these new ways of thinking mainly permeated the southern Netherlands from the duchy of Jülich/Gulick, Maastricht, and along the axis Hasselt, Antwerp, Ghent to Bruges. From here, Anabaptism spread across the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Duchy of Brabant, and the County of Flanders. In addition, and perhaps above all, contacts were also made via Amsterdam. The further interpretation, however, proceeded along different lines, depending on whether the origin was aimed at the northern Netherlands (Mennonitism) or at the southern Netherlands and German borders (Melchiorism). Research into the origins and spread of local Anabaptist activity through bishops’ networks and itineraries has recently gained momentum, despite the fact that research depends on the scarce resources of those pioneers at work once in the throes of justice. However, these forensic investigations yield a handful of additional prosopographic data that previously received little attention. Based on this evidence, the paper analyzes the predominant Antwerp infrastructure of Anabaptist networks with the Lower Rhine, the Liégeois, and Dordrecht, Leiden and Amsterdam in Holland in the 1530s to 1550s. It will share strategies to investigate Anabaptist networks in those years and conclude that the Anabaptist intrusion into the southern provinces was not “necessarily” from the north, as is the historiographic convention.
Benedikt Brunner, IEG Main | Max-Weber-Kolleg Erfurt: “Der verkehrte und doch widerbekehrte Thomas”. Philosemitism and Jewish Conversions in Nuremberg around 1700
The imperial city of Nuremberg had a highly ambivalent relationship with Judaism in the early modern period. On the one hand, the Jewish community was brutally expelled from the city at the end of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, the university in Altdorf, which belonged to Nuremberg, became a centre of philosemitism and scholarship on Judaism. The paper examines this ambiguity using the example of a Jewish conversion and baptism from the end of the seventeenth century. The focus is on a baptismal sermon by the leading Nuremberg clergyman Daniel Wülfer, which reveals insights into the normative regime of the city’s society.
Michela Catto, University of Turin: From West to South. The Vocation of a Hero in Wealthy America: The Pilgrimage of Bartolomé Lorenzo by José de Acosta
Panel: People of Americas: Birth, Representations, and Images in the Modern Catholic World (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Centuries)
An edifying story with chivalrous adventurous traits, the Peregrinación de Bartolomé Lorenzo was composed by the Jesuit missionary José de Acosta. Addressed to General Claudio Acquaviva in 1586, it circulated in manuscript form until the 1666 edition when it was included in Alonso de Andrade’s Varones ilustres en santidad, letras y zelo. The work recounts the imagined journey through Spanish colonial America of an everyman, fortune hunter and social improvement. After many vicissitudes and adventures, Lorenzo’s “pilgrimage” is destined to end up with his entry into the Society of Jesus. Within the framework of a journey of conversion and vocation, Acosta’s work offers a description of the American world, a synthesis of the Jesuit position regarding African slaves, a portrait of the moral qualities of the human beings inhabiting the South of the World, and, finally, a denunciation of those Europeans whose ambition threatened the colonial order.
Martin Christ, Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt: The Early Modern Revocation Sermon: Creation and Development of a Lutheran Genre
Panel: Conversions in Early Modern Germany
This paper considers the early modern Lutheran revocation sermon as an important aspect of conversion studies and Lutheranism more broadly. It argues that these sermons, like funeral sermons, were confessionally coded and linked to Lutheranism. The paper aims to show that the sermons are valuable both individually, including for auto-biographical information on the converts, as well as collectively, as a set of sermons that can be compared with each other and other types of sources. By tracing the creation, development and decline of the genre as a whole, it is possible to shed new light on broader patterns of development of Lutheranism in early modern Germany and understand different conceptions of what it meant to be a convert.
Matteo Colombo, Université de Genève: Erasmus’ Encouragement Concerning Pauline Exegesis
Panel: Sixteenth Century Exegesis of Paul
This paper will focus on an unconventional letter Desiderius Erasmus wrote to Jonas Jodocus Justus on 13 June 1521, a few weeks after Luther’s condemnation in Worms (Ep. 1211). Erasmus offers in this text a case in point for the historical revival of Paul, intertwining the apostle’s example with the biographies of Jean Vitrier and John Colet, two humanists whose memory he intends to preserve. Through allegories and synchronic thinking, Erasmus invites an ‘enacting’ reception of Paul as the better path to reform the Church without provoking scandal. Starting an implicit debate with Luther, Erasmus thus creates a literary speculum of the Christian society of his time, presenting two heroes of Humanism. At the same time, Jonas Justus, the rector of the University of Erfurt, joined Luther’s circle between 1520 and 1521 and started to collaborate with Melanchthon. Hence, indirectly, the letter is also a statement addressing the Wittenberg circle in general, countering Luther’s accusations against the behavior of the clergy. For the humanist, the profiles of Vitrier and Colet provide for the harmony of the universal Church. Their parallel lives propose thus two models to reform the clergy, mostly emphasized by their imitatio Pauli. This paper aims to shed light on the content of the letter and to focus on the historical perspective given on Paul as an attempt to readapt the apostolic experience in the age of the Reformation. The lens of history proves to be a means for Erasmus to directly reach the forms and contents of Christian doctrine. Continuously referring to the apostle, Erasmus’ letter gives an ethical actualization of Paul’s history.
Fabrizio D’Avenia, Università degli Studi di Palermo: Bishops on the Move between Spain and Sicily: The Case of Prelates of Converso Origin
Panel: Episcopate and Episcopacy in the Long Sixteenth Century
As is increasingly underlined in historiography, the Italian dominions of the Spanish monarchy – i.e. the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, and the duchy of Milan – constituted a space for ample mobility for the bishops appointed in the dioceses subject to the real patronato. Such prelates emerge as agents of dissemination of knowledge, skills, and products (both material and immaterial) in the fields of politics, culture, jurisprudence, theology, and the arts. A particular kind of déplacements of these “élites catholiques” (Gruzinski, 2004) were forced, and involved distinguished Spanish prelates of converso origin appointed bishops in Sicily as the so-called estatutos de limpieza de sangre barred them from holding Spanish episcopal seats. Their converso condition may have influenced their pastoral reformist attitudes as well as ‘radicalised’ their way of implementing the Tridentine model. If so, this could be interpreted as proof of their loyalty to the Catholic faith, in whose name their ancestors had been persecuted. This paper presents the case of Juan Orozco y Covarrubias, bishop of Agrigento (1594–1606) and Guadix (1606-1610). In the famous emblems authored by himself and his brother Sebastián de Covarrubias – who was personally involved in the conversion of the moriscos of the Valencian kingdom (1596–1600) – an original model of bishop is fleshed out: a bishop capable of exercising continuous vigilance upon his flock through correction and conversion methods inspired to “sweetness” and moderate punishments.
Sharon van Dijk: University of Birmingham: A Correspondence in Print? The 1536 Edition of the Letters of Zwingli and Oecolampadius
The aim of the posthumous 1536 edition of the letters of Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) and Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531) was to create a united front between Lutherans, Zwinglians and Upper Rhenish reformers. It was meant to present the Swiss reformers as orthodox, legitimate spokesmen for evangelicals as a whole, and as such as worthy collaborators for the Lutherans. Extant scholarship on the volume focuses on the political context of its publication, demonstrating why it did not achieve this. Yet much more work remains to be done, as there is a lack of clarity surrounding the volume. Reading the secondary literature, one would be forgiven for thinking D.D. Ioannis Oecolampadii et Huldrichii Zvinglii Epistolarum Libri Quator contains the full correspondence of the reformers. In fact, of the 182 extant letters exchanged between Zwingli and Oecolampadius, only eight are included. The rest of the edition is taken up by paratexts, letters of the reformers to other people and theological treatises. In this paper, I will outline the contents of the volume with a focus on its paratexts, as these clearly reveal its political agenda; I will then explore how the volume relates to the full correspondence of Zwingli and Oecolampadius and how it may have shaped our reception of the Swiss reformers.
Aneke Dornbusch, Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät, Universität Bonn: The Connections of the Dissident Ludwig Hätzer: A Historical Social Network Analysis
The life of the “religious dissident” Ludwig Hätzer (1500–1529) still poses a riddle to reformation historians. Starting out as a writer for Zwingli, Hätzer was later evicted from Zurich because of connections to the Anabaptists; he then became friends with the spiritualist Hans Denck and was executed in 1529 in Constance, accused of bigamy. While first being firmly integrated into the reformatory network between Zurich, Basel and Augsburg, he later lived a life of constant escapes and hiding. Scholars are still uncertain about which role he played in the early years of the reformation in Zurich – he was appointed as the chronicler in the second Zurich disputation after all –, why he later ended up as a translator of Johannes Oecolampadius and why exactly Augsburg persuaded the city of Constance to arrest and convict him. But it is clear that the narrative used in older works on Hätzer – that he was stubborn, passionate and playing false – is no longer tenable. This paper aims to find new insights into the life and journey of Hätzer by using the method of social network analysis. All relevant documents about Hätzerʼs interactions, letters, court documents, pamphlets etc. will be considered. Through suitable data management and presentation software the network of Ludwig Hätzer will be visualized and conclusions will be drawn as to questions like patterns of density in his network or the centrality of certain actors. A main focus will be the search for “weak ties”, as their strength in personal networks has been described in the classic paper of Mark Granovetter. Another question will be how the same network could first promote and then later demote Hätzer. The paper will also outline some general insights into how the network of the early reformation in Southern Germany and Switzerland worked. As a ‘field test’ of social network analysis, it will also draw attention to the potentials and problems of this method.
Paweł Dziwiński, Jagiellonian University, Cracow: Protestant Perspective on the Prohibition of Usury – the Contribution of Differentiae
The late medieval method to differentiate ius canonicum from ius civile would seem to be exceptionally useful for Protestant jurists, as it allowed them to simultaneously punctuate the flaws attributed to Roman canon law as well as to validate its reformation. Some works labelled as differentiae iuris civilis et canonici influenced the perception of medieval canon law amongst Protestant jurisprudence (e.g. Johann Oldendorp, Konrad Rittershausen, Johann Emerich Rosbach). The methods employed in differentiae served various purposes: to establish general rules serving as a paradigm for further analyses (e.g. Konrad Ritterhausen, Werner Johann Uffelmann); to mix legal reasoning with strong historical narrative (e.g. Johann Friedrich Böckelmann, Johann Ernst von Flörcke); to facilitate the comprehension of their work (e.g. Justus Christoph Willerding). This paper has two objectives. Firstly, to review the attitude of Protestant differentiae to the medieval canon law prohibition of usury. How did the Protestant writers refer to the penalization of interests established in years following Gratian’s Decretum? Were they aware that medieval canonists gradually stiffened their attitudes from the Council of Nicaea (325) up to the Third Council of Lateran (1179)? Did they refer to the contemporary developments of the doctrine of usury within second scholasticism? Secondly, to evaluate the actual views on loans as well as on finance market in general within Protestant differentiae in order to challenge Max Weber’s notion of the exceptional compliancy between Protestantism and capitalism.
Ana Luiza Ferreira Gomes Silva, KU Leuven: The “Gemmae” of the Church: the Propriety of Clerics in a Lecture by Petrus Peckius (1529–1589)
On 27 October 1573, professor Petrus Peckius, “ordinarius” of canon law at the Old University of Leuven, taught about a very relevant matter for the late sixteenth century: the life and propriety of clerics. If perhaps this was an old theme present in canon law since the earliest councils, it gained new relevance in light of the renewal of the canons on De vita et honestate clericorum by the Council of Trent (Sess. 22, c.1, de reformatione). This study then analyzes how Peckius approached this theme within the walls of the Old University of Leuven, in this delicate moment for Catholicism in Europe and the Low Countries. This particular lecture survived, among others, on related subjects, as annotated by a student (KBR, ms. 22153). While it focused on a specific passage, the title De vita et honestate clericorum from the Liber Sextus (VI.3.1), the manuscript notes provided a somewhat broader insight into this theme and how Peckius chose to teach it to the new generation of canonists, many of them clerics themselves. As a whole, we examine Peckius’ content: his comments on the excerpt of the Decretals, the improper conduct which he listed (e.g., acting in plays, dancing, hunting, etc.), as well as the procedural and doctrinal considerations made by him in light of the Council of Trent. Under this umbrella, we consider canon law’s notion of an ideal behavior of clerics and the central role Peckius himself attributed to the image of the clerics as the jewels (“gemmae”) of the Church.
Olivia Garro, Coventry University (Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities): A New Perspective on the Roman Inquisition’s Treatment of Witchcraft: the Complex Relationship between the Compendium Maleficarum, Natural Philosophy, and Early Modern Science
While the Roman Inquisition has traditionally been perceived as the most ruthless among her Northern European counterparts, new studies enquired into the statistics of the trials, uncovering the actual amount of accusations and astonishingly low percentage of convictions: despite the obscure fame, the Catholic Offices have been substantially milder than their transalpine equivalents. This paper explores the notorious but still understudied inquisitorial treatise Compendium Maleficarum (friar Francesco Maria Guazzo, Milan, 1608), bringing new perspectives on the different treatment of witchcraft on the Italian peninsula. Based on his own experience as an exorcist and inquisitor, and drawing on natural sciences and theological scholarship, Guazzo systematized most early modern demonological knowledge. However, despite the unwavering belief in the reality of the demonic threat, Guazzo surprisingly presents the witches as deluded victims of the Devil, rather than conscious allies and intentional perpetrators of evil. Examining the text and its first-hand accounts of the trials, a possible explanation emerges, linked to Counter-Reformation doctrine. A cosmology based on the sharp Catholic separation of the natural and supernatural worlds implies an adherence to the Renaissance conceptions of natural magic and thaumaturgy yet to be explored – and needs to be contextualized and compared with the contemporary natural philosopher Gianbattista della Porta and the physician Giovanni Battista Codronchi, to understand the complicated intersection in the treatments of body and soul in Renaissance Italy.
Antonio Gerace, Fscire | KU Leuven: The Council of Trent and the Creed
The paper analyses how the Tridentine Council fathers used the Symbol of the Apostles, the Quicumque vult and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed while discussing various dogmatic issues, an underexamined topic in current scholarship. Actually, the Council fathers tried to make a profitable use of the above-mentioned professions of faith to demonstrate the liability of Roman Church’s believing and traditions. The Apostles’ Creed was considered to be the basis of Catholic Orthodoxy, offering all the dogmas which were developed in the other formulas because of the arrival of heretical deviations. Moreover, the reference to the communion of saints shall prove both the existence of Purgatory and the consequent necessity of indulgences. The Athanasian formula was used to substantiate the importance of good works in the economy of salvation. The real value of the expression ‘Catholic Church’, has also been questioned, whether it shall have ‘just’ a confessional value or if it must be rendered ‘universal’. Together with other example, this paper will therefore offer an in-depth analyses about the instrumental use of the formulas of faith in Trent.
Giulia Gioel, LUMSA University: “I have neither gold nor silver”: Rethinking and Looking at Today’s Economy in the Light of the Franciscan Poverty of the Fifteenth Century
“Ēzer kenegdô” is the first word used in biblical and western humanism to describe the first encounter between two human beings, which we could translate as “eye to eye”. The Bible speaks of the first reciprocity through the metaphor of the eyes to relate relationships, perhaps because nothing says more about our social nature than the eyes. Through the eyes, we can recognise the person in front of us; they allow us to understand who he is and what he can do to regain his dignity. Just as Francis of Assisi taught us to embrace the lepers and the poor. The Franciscans, before being theologians, were attentive observers of reality. The development of poverty-related concepts of ownership, use, and possession was one of their major contributions to economic growth. This resulted in the awareness that goods should not be accumulated but circulated. The conception of money also changed: no longer a precious object, a treasure to collect, but simply a tool to help the poveri meno poveri (less poor). To combat and eradicate usury from the private banks of the Jews, the Monti di Pietà arose, a non-profit financial institution. When St. Francis chose the evangelical ideal of poverty, the authenticity of which finds meaning and expression in the minority, realising the charism of fraternity towards men and creation, he lived in a world in some ways similar to ours, where the imbalance between rich and poor was immeasurable. This study aims to analyse what led to the loss of the founding values of the economy through the revolutionary visions of St. Francis. Starting from nulla possedere (nothing to possess), the impact and importance of fifteenth-century Franciscan thought on today’s economy will be analysed through the analysis of the first type of banks, the Monti di Pietà and poverty.
Gregory Haake, University of Notre Dame: Debt and Marriage: Rabelais’s Economy of Grace in the Tiers Livre (1546)
“All the world is crying, Thrift! Thrift! But some talk of thrift who have no idea what it is” (Tiers Livre, Ch. 2). So cries the trickster Panurge to his companion Pantagruel in François Rabelais’s third book recounting the adventures of the titular giant, first published in 1546. These protestations initiate Panurge’s famous “praise of debt”, a discourse whose label is at best ironic and at worst deceitful. But that’s part of the fun. Rabelais often entertains and distracts – almost always to excess – as he brings his biting satire to bear on the hottest topics of his day, whether it be mammon or marriage. Equally frequent is a serious discussion behind the comic mask. Underneath Panurge’s ironic praise of debt and Pantagruel’s admonitions against it, as well as their exchanges on Panurge’s search for a wife, Rabelais lays out a serious theological discussion. In this paper, I will argue that Rabelais’s satire of the world of finance and matrimony posits many sacramental and soteriological principles that have implications for the economy of grace.
Stefan Halikowski-Smith, Swansea University: Using Lexicographical Collection and Vector Positioning to Gauge Early Modern Christian Missionary Opinions of the Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC)
My contribution to this conference will ask what impressions Catholic missionaries had of the VOC, an institution at the forefront of early modern merchant capitalism and the greatest multinational employer of its day. A number travelled out to the Indies with them, or were sometimes forcibly repatriated by their agency. J-Baptiste Maldonado, S.J. had to be deported after writing provocative pamphlets during a short stay in Batavia describing the VOC as “damnable heretics (…) worse than the gentiles; I would rather spend a year among the heathen than two days amongst people of this nation”. He likened them to the Inimici crucis Christi, quoted in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, 3:18. But others like Guy Tachard S.J. conveyed envy at the disciplined organisation, and respect for the literacy frequently attained by even the humblest of shipmates, efficacy of the company laws, and the fairness governing VOC administration. Other Jesuits like Carlo Scribani were also impressed by Dutch commercial enterprise “to the four corners of the world” as expressed in his Politico-christianus (Antwerp: Nutius, 1624). A statistical and fully inventorised compilation of different positions on the VOC held by at least fifty men-of-the-cloth drawn from O’Neill & Dominguez, Diccionario histórico (2001), Sommervogel, Bibliothèque (1898) and Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum 1916–74 will be presented at the conference, from which it is hoped a richer analytical picture can develop.
Walker Haskins, University of Amsterdam, and David Mendoza, Westminster Theological Seminary: Constitutionalism and the Image of God: The Political Theology Underlying Goślicki’s The Accomplished Senator
Wawrzyniec Goślicki (1530–1607), Polish statesman, philosopher, and bishop, once exerted great influence. Read by Shakespeare and Bellarmine, a prominent royal minister, and instrumental developer of the Warsaw Confederation, he may also have influenced Algernon Sidney, Thomas Jefferson, and the 1791 Polish Constitution. Yet Goślicki is nearly absent from the literature. Bałuk-Ulewiczowa (2009) is the only significant monograph, and Bałuk-Ulewiczowa and Reeves (2020) the only work to seriously consider his role in Polish intellectual history. The few briefer treatments are either outdated or hagiographic. Employing a historical theology approach, we reflect on Goślicki’s historical role by (1) considering how his theology relates to his political career and his influential constitutionalist arguments in The Accomplished Senator; and (2) situating him in recent scholarship on the “reformation before confessionalization” and Polish-Lithuanian “Golden Liberty”. We argue Goślicki’s “proto-libertarian constitutionalism” is based on a late-Scholastic theory of human dignity and natural rights derived from the Imago Dei and that this is critical to understand both his liberal political career and his philosophical oeuvre. This makes him an important antecedent of the Catholic Liberal tradition.
Freerk Heule, Leiden University Library: With Levinas and Huang Shen: ‘How to read the Chinese Face’
Levinas, the philosopher (1906–1995), had put a focus on the subject of “the face of the other”. He advanced the idea that the holy face of Jesus could reveal the glory of God. Levinas expressed that the grief on this face brings feelings of guilt and responsiveness to human beings. Being a westerner, looking in the face of the other, understanding seems easy, but how about beholding the face of a Chinese person? I’ll explain it with artistic renderings. Early contacts from Europe along “Silk Roads” brought life size figures to China which formed the inspiration for the artistically well performed faces of the warriors of the “Terracotta Army”. Across the route from India Buddhist monks arrived and realized colorful mural paintings with human figures in the Dun Huang caves. Huang Shen, the painter who lived during the Qing Dynasty (eighteenth century), was an art innovator. The prevailing style was the “Yuan and Ming canon” in standardized, cartoonesque portraits. He, however, found his figures in the street with a range of emotions, hilarious or ridiculous sometimes, despite poverty and handicaps. Everyday life is suggested to appear more glamourous with flowers, strange hats, or a joke. Between a war-hero and playing children one senses pride and innocence from the faces. The gray-haired musician enjoys the public. The worries of the world are gone in a happy scene of Tao Yuanming’s “Peach Blossom Spring”, or one with Buddhist or Taoist characteristics. My hypothesis is that Huang Shen created a new type of human being. One sees reality, combined with self-awareness, with the Chinese philosophy of “face reading” (miànxiàng), similar to the Aristotelian science of physiognomics. Huang Shen found his inspiration in the streets where people showed their face “as is”. After the door to China went ajar, foreign merchants in the harbours with their cultural baggage, and Jesuit painters in Beijing such as Guiseppe Castiglione and Denis Attiret learned Huang Shen new meaningful techniques. The “awareness of the face of the other” in judging (miànzi), is important today and losing one’s face (méi miànzi) in Chinese culture is an apert embarrassment. Will Levinas’ ideas and Huang Shen’s art attribute to a better understanding and acceptance of the Chinese other? After ten years of attending Church meetings of the Rotterdam Chinese Christian community and ten criss-cross travels to Mainland China, I would say yes.
Freerk Heule, Leiden University Library, Jesuit Chinese Porcelain
The subject “Jesuit Chinese porcelain wares” is found in Fine Art studies and Auction catalogues, and related objects in museums and private collections worldwide. The link to the Jesuits and the person of Martin Luther is a further intriguing step into research in this field, despite its gray element of colonialism. In the fifteenth century, Portuguese companies sailed to Asia, and porcelain was taken home. The Jesuits as well as elite civilians soon ordered objects with the “HIS” Christogram in underglaze blue-and-white or red porcelain as ecclesiastical utensils, luxury items, or promotional tools to express Salvation. They spread wherever the missionaries went, but also in a profane network. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company (aka as VOC) took over this economically promising activity, which got the name “Chine the commande”. After the Dutch Republic turned to Protestantism, a new range of prints were released: the engravings of Jan Luyken in the new Dutch Lutheran Bible (A. Visscher ed. of 1648) were sent through Canton to China’s porcelain centers such as Jingdezhen. They were copied in an overglaze decoration called “encre de chine” or “grisaille” with fine black lines and golden accents by skilled Chinese craftsmen. Many wares with biblical elements such as the Birth, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ were shipped. Soon also the image of Martin Luther was represented on the wares after the frontispiece of that Bible (by the engraver F. Brun). This import went via private persons, not the VOC-administration, however, the purchasers are hidden in the haze of history. Later, more examples of painters’ work can be recognized, such as from Pronk, Rubens, or the French Jesuit d’Entrecolles. In the Dutch trade, Portuguese terms were used for an extended period e.g., kraakporselein after “caracas” for ship, during the Wan-li reign (1573–1620). Today, after the Dutch porcelain expert Jörg, the name ‘Jesuit porcelain’ is a central term for wares with (Roman Catholic and Protestant) Christian as well as European mythical images in the Chinese “grisaille” style.
Sabine Hiebsch, Theological University Kampen|Utrecht: German Lutheran Influences on the Development of Dutch Lutheranism: a Spatial Perspective.
Panel: Internationalizing Lutheranism: Case Studies from the Dutch Republic and the Danish Lands
Contrary to Lutheranism in the German Lands of the Empire and in the Nordic Countries, Dutch Lutheranism was a tolerated minority religious tradition. It had to function under a non-Lutheran authority and amidst other religious minorities. In the hermeneutical model I developed to analyse Dutch Lutheranism, international influence is one of the core characteristics. In this paper I will focus on the German Lutheran influences that were pivotal for the development of Dutch Lutheranism and look at them from a spatial perspective. I will analyze two case studies of this German Lutheran influence: 1. The fundraising travels of the Amsterdam Lutheran congregation to collect money for their church buildings. In visiting the wealthy Lutheran congregations along economic trade routes such as the Hanseatic cities, the Amsterdam Lutherans did not just succeed in finding money for their church buildings. It also enabled them to enlarge their public space as a tolerated minority. 2. Until 1816 future Dutch Lutheran ministers went to German Lutheran universities for their academic training, because as a religious minority the Dutch Lutherans were not allowed to have their own university in the Republic. The German Lutheran academic training functioned as a trademark for authority and authenticity within Dutch Lutheranism. In my analysis I will show how the dynamic relations between German and Dutch Lutheranism can be viewed as the sharing of a confessional space, even though they were not equal players.
Bo Holm, LUMEN | Aarhus University: Social Imaginaries of Kingship in the Nordic Household State – Danish and Swedish Variations
The monarchies of Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland were the only monarchies that became Lutheran, and the only Lutheran realms placed outside of the Holy Roman Empire. This paper presents how Lutheranism affected the “social imaginary” of kingship and state organisation in the Nordic Countries, and finds that the way reformation was introduced in the two realms respectively had impact on the way a common Seneca inspired and biblically argued understanding of the ideal benevolent ruler with responsibility of both the eternal and temporal well-being of their subjects impacted the imaginaries of kingship and of the organisation of society. Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland was in a confessional cultural perspective marked by the lack of streitkultur – compared to Germany. Building on results from a Swedish-Danish joint project the paper shows how a religious view on the king’s responsibility formed both the king’s and his subject’s view. Olaus Petris, as an agent of the reformation, is compared with Johannes Bugenhagen, and Johannes Bugenhagen’s Kirkeordinans is compared both with the work of Georg Norman and with the Swedish Kyrkoordningen from 1571. In both realms a strong anti-macchiavelian view on rulership is clearly seen, however Johannes Bugenhagen’s introduction of a “mature” reformation in 1537 in Denmark seems to have contributed to a more stable and centralized development, whereas the reformation history in Sweden is much more complex, also due to the very early introduction of new reformation ideas. Nevertheless, a central aspect of confessional culture in the Nordic Countries was a special imaginary of authority building on mutual obligations. Organisationally, the two countries however went in two directions. In Denmark the three estates of Church, household, and government melted into each other, whereas in Sweden the estates kept a much more independent role, thereby limiting state power.
Arthur Huiban, University of Geneva: Melanchthon on Original Sin: imputatio injustitiae?
Panel: Reformation Theology and its Medieval Past
Introduction Text Panel
The panel presents some of the recent results of the research done within the framework of the project “A Disregarded Past: Medieval Scholasticism and Reformed Thought”, sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation and hosted at the Institute of Reformation History, Geneva.
Abstract
The doctrine of imputation has given rise to much debate in Lutheran studies. The issue can be reduced to this alternative: Is justification a mere imputation by which God saves the sinner by attributing to him the external righteousness of Christ without materially transforming his sinful nature, or does justification itself include an anthropological change in the justified, a regeneration that frees him from sin? In the studies of the last century, many scholars such as Karl Holl claimed that the doctrine of imputation was an innovation of Philip Melanchthon, and that Martin Luther himself always defended an Augustinian conception of justification, understood in terms of regeneration or the justification of the believer. By studying various editions of Melanchthon’s Loci communes, I wish to shift this issue to the doctrine of original sin. Indeed, the paradigm of imputation concerns the nature of sin as much as that of justification. Is original sin a simple imputation of injustice by which God charges humanity with Adam’s fault, with no transformation of the nature of post-lapsarian humanity, or is original sin an anthropological corruption that fundamentally alters human nature and the order of its faculties? As in the case of justification, this alternative involves the way in which one represents God’s action towards the human being: either as an essentially juridical (or forensic) action, which lies entirely in the will of God, or, on the contrary, as an essentially biological action, which modifies humanity in a material way. By studying the Scotist and Occamist doctrines on this point, I intend to show that Melanchthon adopts in 1521’s Loci communes a conception of original sin close to that defended by Scotus in the Ordinatio: original sin is a simple imputation of injustice. I will try to evaluate the extent and the limits of this Scotist influence and also show how this influence was entirely abandoned in the later edition of the Loci communes.
Eva Janssens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel – Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte: The Church Upside Down as Depicted in a Protestant Illustrated Broadsheet by Robert De Baudous and Paulus De Kempenaer
In Reformation propaganda the usage of satire became an indispensable weapon with which to ridicule the Roman Catholic Church. Not only did it contribute to shaping Protestant ideology, it also affected the religion’s imagery. This is evidenced by an intriguing, largely neglected illustrated broadsheet of 1605 by the Brussels-born engraver, Robert de Baudous (c.1574/75–1659). Accompanied by a long-lost poem by the Dutch Protestant theologian and emblematist Paulus De Kempenaer (c. 1554–1618?), the print displays an excessive caricature of controversial Catholic abuses. Its large dimensions of 41,5 × 144,5 cm are rarely equaled in Netherlandish imagery. The object of this paper is to examine how this particular broadsheet orchestrates satire on an iconographic and textual level. In so doing, the image will be linked with a repertoire of recurring ideas and motifs supporting anti-Catholic polemic in prints, pamphlets and literature. A prominent concept which will be explored is the subject of the world turned upside down. As a beloved theme in the popular culture of early modern Europe, it will shed light upon the manner in which this remarkable illustrated broadsheet was understood by its contemporaries.
Byunghoon Kang, Theologische Universiteit Kampen: Guy de Brès’ Use of the Epistle of Hebrews
I will focus on Guy de Brès’s (ca.1522-1567) interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Epistle was used as key proof in arguing about priests and the sacrifice of the Roman-Catholic Church. We can find his use of Hebrews in his three works. First, when he dealt with the sacrifice of the Mass in his chapter on the Lord’s Supper in his first work, Le Baston de la for chrestienne. Second, he mentioned several points on that topic in the Belgic Confession. Third, when interrogated by François Richardot (1507-1574, the bishop of Arras) in prison, De Brès answered and argued the invalidity of the Mass on the basis of Hebrews. The disputes between them and his polemical treatise were published posthumously in the Procedures Tenues by Jean Crespin (ca.1520–1572). I will analyze De Brès’s interpretation and use of the Epistle of Hebrews through his writings. The structure will be as follows:
Sukhwan Kang, Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte and Genji Yasuhira (Kyoto University): “The New Geneva” in France and “The Popish Impudence” in the Netherlands: A Comparative Study on Religious Coexistence in Seventeenth-Century Nîmes and Utrecht
A number of case studies have reminded us of the complexities of religious coexistence in early modern Europe: each local community attempted to control large-scale religious violence, but at the same time it continuously discriminated against religious minorities, who were seen as potential threats to political and religious unity. Our paper compares two local cases of coexistence between Catholics and Protestants in Nîmes, a majority-Protestant town of southern France, with Utrecht, where one third of the population was composed of Catholics, in the Netherlands in the second half of the seventeenth century. First, unlike their co-religionists – an intimidated minority surrounded by an overwhelming Catholic majority – in the kingdom, Nîmois Huguenots constituted the town’s majority population and exerted considerable political influence in the town government. Some radical Protestants of “the New Geneva” staged armed protests to terrify Catholics. Second, compared to their co-religionists on Dutch soil, Utrecht’s Catholics demonstrated remarkable resilience in appropriating the urban space for their sake. Despite anti-Catholic legislation by the city magistrates, the local Catholics transformed several urban districts into their strongholds where they showed, to Reformed eyes, “Popish impudence.” The stories of coexistence in Nîmes and Utrecht help us revise the conventional narratives – assive recipients of tolerant policies or vulnerable victims of persecutions – that have described these two religious minority groups in France and the Netherlands. This paper also emphasizes that the issue of who would take sacred spaces in the post-Reformation community, coupled with the public/private distinction on the worship spaces of religious minorities, became a centerpiece of confessional negotiation. This paper will provide a new comparative insight with respect to confessional cohabitation in the seventeenth century into the comparative history of the two countries.
Richard Kirwan, University of Limerick: Social Danger and the Perils of Conversion in Early Modern Germany
Panel: Conversions in Early Modern Germany
Religious conversion brought with it no shortage of challenges for individuals in confessionally fragmented societies in the early modern period. Not only did conversion involve a difficult process of religious and intellectual change it also presented significant political, economic and social challenges. Although the Peace of Augsburg afforded legal protection via the ius emigrandi that ultimately facilitated conversion between Christian confessions, it also ensured that the decision to convert was not without serious consequence. By locating the authority to define and insist on religious conformity in the territorial state, the Peace instituted structures of intolerance that ensured that putative converts were not only faced with a choice of conscience but also a decision to accept the host of unpalatable social and economic outcomes that resulted from enforced exile. This paper seeks to examine the perils experienced by converts as they sought to find refuge and define a new existence in a confessionally compatible territory. It will introduce several cases which highlight the nature of the social challenges experienced by converts making their way in host societies. These difficulties ranged from social ostracisation resulting from mistrust, often stoked by rumour, to the more serious problem of physical violence which in one of the cases considered resulted in the convert’s death.
Jonas Kjøller-Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen: Genre, Form, and Meditation in the Sermons of Jesper Rasmussen Brochmand
In early modern theories of preaching among Lutheran theologians, the influence of Melanchthon was significant in shaping the form of the sermon according to didactic function. This perspective eventually fused with the loci-method whereby the liturgical year became a vessel for which points of doctrine to preach on different Sundays and feast days. Entering the seventeenth century we find a renewed interest in the role of emotions in preaching theory and the role of the meditation in the context of the sermon, particularly in Paul Tarnow’s De Sacrosancto Ministerio (1625). Scholarship on Jesper Rasmussen Brochmand (1585–1652) often focuses on the didactic function of the sermons in his postil Sabbati Sanctificatio (1635–38) and considers it as a way of presenting the content of faith developed in Systema Universæ Theologiæ (1633) in a manner accessible for the laity in the vernacular. However, comparisons to a contemporary, Johann Gerhard (1582–1637), reveal that there are significant differences in the style and structure of their sermons. Some of these differences can be explained through different settings, where Gerhard produces a tool for preachers, whereas Brochmand writes his postil for religious instruction in the household with personal reform as the main intention. I argue that drawing upon the preaching manual of Paul Tarnow can help us see how Brochmand evokes sensory imagery, stimulates the imagination, and employes the text-meditation in order to produce change in the reader through the act of reading as a praxis of piety.
Jakub Koryl, Jagiellonian University: Which one of the Aristotle(s) did not Reek at all? Martin Luther at Heidelberg and Humanist Aristotelianism
With the instructive study Der junge Luther und Aristoteles (2001) by Theodor Dieter it has become clear that Luther’s approach to Aristotle was far more nuanced than one might believe given some of his statements about “the storyteller” or “the putrid philosopher”, which were usually exploited rather than examined. However, in this revised joint image of Luther and Aristotle, a small amount of space was given to the way Luther used Latin translations. Hence, little is known exactly which of Aristotle’s variants he found the most enjoyable or distasteful, and which of them Luther actually used and could have considered his partner in philosophical deliberations. Therefore, the paper aims to discuss Luther as a reformer of Aristotelian studies, humanist scholar, and translator of Aristotle. In 1518, he pushed through his proposal for the arts faculty at the University of Wittenberg, providing that new translations were to be used in lectures on Aristotle. At the same time, the protocol of his Heidelberg Disputation, especially its second, lesser-known part providing reasons for the philosophical theses, prove in clear terms that Luther gave preference to humanist renderings, in particular those made by Johannes Argyropoulos, and most of all was interested in “depicting Aristotle with his own colors”, that is, in cleansing him of scholastic and humanist contaminations. While pursuing this goal, Luther made a considered choice of translations or, if necessary, translated Aristotle into Latin himself. His own translations are of particular concern here, as they entailed consequences unknown to Latin Aristotelianism, and gave the translator himself a reputation as a high-class philologist and philosopher of great speculative ability. Luther’s standpoint leads us to believe that there was not just one “Aristotle” in the post-antique era, but many, according to translations that each time provided these “Aristotles” with citizenship in the Latin-speaking world.
Lidia Lanza, Centre Philosophy University of Lisbon: Responsibility Towards the Poor: Molina and Lessius on Almsgiving
The question of almsgiving and assistance to the poor became an important intellectual issue in sixteenth-century Spain, as the works by Juan Luis Vives and Domingo de Soto attest. The question was also addressed in university lectures, more specifically when theologians commented on Summa Theologiae, IIa–IIae, q. 32. While scholars have already analysed Vives’ and Soto’s works as well as the lectures carried out at Salamanca on this topic, there is no study of the lectures produced in other universities. The aim of this paper is thus to examine the unedited lectures of two major Jesuits, namely Luis de Molina (Évora, 1574–1575) and Leonard Lessius (Leuven, 1592–1593), and to assess how much they offer a distinctive approach on this matter.
Urs Leu, Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, Universität Zürich: Die Reformation als Katalysator für die Entstehung empirischer Medizin und Pharmazie in Zürich
Zum heutigen Wohlfahrtsstaat westlicher Prägung gehört ein gut ausgebautes Gesundheitswesen, das vom Staat betreut und finanziert wird. Ein Modell, das in Zürich, wie auch in vielen anderen protestantischen Orten, in der Reformation wurzelt. In reformierten Gebieten war der Wechsel zum neuen Glauben Anlass für die Neuorganisation der sozialen Fürsorge und des Spitalwesens, die bis ins Spätmittelalter im Wesentlichen zum Aufgabenbereich der Kirche oder geistlicher Gemeinschaften gehört hatten. Verschiedene reformierte Bürgerschaften übernahmen die Spitäler (Winterthur 1523, Lausanne 1528, Bern 1531, Zürich 1531, Genf 1535, Neuenburg 1539 usw.) und die sozialen Fürsorgeeinrichtungen, wie zum Beispiel der sogenannte ‘Mushafen’ in Zürich beweist, wobei sie in hohem Masse von der Säkularisation der Kirchengüter profitierten. Aber nicht nur institutionell wirkte sich die Reformation in der Limmatstadt auf das Gesundheitswesen aus, sondern auch im Bereich der medizinischen und pharmazeutischen Forschung. Es war vor allem das Verdienst des Stadtarztes Conrad Gessner (1516–1565), neue empirische Ansätze und Methoden eingeführt zu haben. Als Kind der Renaissance studierte er fleissig die naturwissenschaftlichen Arbeiten von Aristoteles, Galen und Plinius. Von diesen Gelehrten und verschiedenen Zeitgenossen übernahm er die Gewohnheit, selber in die Natur hinauszugehen, sie zu beobachten und abzuzeichnen. Von Zwingli wiederum lernte er, die Natur als zweites Buch der Offenbarung Gottes (neben der Bibel) zu betrachten und nicht nur die Bibel genau zu lesen, sondern auch die Natur als Werk Gottes sorgfältig zu studieren, zu beschreiben und Experimente anzustellen. Dementsprechend probierte er beispielsweise Wirkstoffe und Destillate an sich selber aus, bevor er sie seinen Patienten verabreichte. Er erkannte auch, dass der Aderlass an geschwächten Patienten fatale Folgen haben konnte und lehnte als reformierter Protestant okkulte und astrologische Ansätze in der Medizin ab. Der weit verbreiteten Quacksalberei begegnete er mit einem pharmazeutischen Handbuch, in dem er nur bewährte Arzneimittel empfahl und zeigte, wie sie herzustellen waren. Überhaupt entmythologisierte er aufgrund seiner nüchternen Denkweise verschiedene Bereiche der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, was nicht zuletzt wiederum dem Gesundheitswesen zugute kam.
Przemysław A. Lewicki, Makowski Academy of Reformed Theology: ‘Anti-Socinus’: Trinitarian Polemics of Jan Makowski (1588–1644) and Mikołaj Arnold (1618–1680), Polish Reformed Theologians at Frisian Franeker
The Racovian Catechism, the doctrinal statement of Polish Antitrinitarians – or Socinians – was described by Paul C. H. Lim as the “most emblematic [document] of the antitrinitarian movement in early modern Europe”. Polish antitrinitarian theology of this period was doctrinally proficient and polemically effective. Socinians (also called, tellingly, the ‘Polish Brethren’) proved to be, so to speak, a major branding issue for the Reformed movement, which was as a whole, by association, accused by Roman Catholics (and some other Protestants, notably Lutherans) of breaking with traditional Nicene, trinitarian orthodoxy. On the other hand Socinian theology itself proved to be a major doctrinal challenge for the Reformed and Protestants in general, seemingly taking the Protestant slogan of sola Scriptura to its logical, full conclusion by eliminating non-Scriptural ideas such as the Trinity from its vocabulary. It should come as no surprise then, that one of the most elaborate and refined defences of orthodox Christian trinitarian, Nicene theology came not only from the Reformed, but specifically from Polish Reformed theologians. Jan Makowski (1588–1644) and Mikołaj Arnold (1618–1680), both very influential thinkers working at Frisian academy of Franeker, produced one of the most elaborate anti-Socinian treatises of the early modern period. These documents are now rarely studied, which is a major detriment of our understanding of early modern Protestant theology and polemics. Makowski’s and Arnold’s works show how early modern Reformed Orthodox understood biblical hermeneutics, how they saw the role of Church tradition and philosophy in Scriptural exegesis and how they imagined what theology as a discipline is and should be. In my paper I aim to show these fundamental points of divergence between what early modern Reformed Protestants understood to be healthy, orthodox and catholic exegesis and what he saw as the unhistorical, innovative and ‘naked’ ‘biblicism’ of the Socinians.
Benjamin Manig, University of Zurich: To Be Born Again. Shifts in the Concept of ‘Rebirth’ in Biblical Exegesis in the Sixteenth Century in Commentaries on Romans
Panel: Sixteenth Century Exegesis of Paul
The paper contributes to the reception history of biblical exegesis in the sixteenth century and therefore combines historical and exegetical approaches. In the tradition of Christian theology, the metaphor “rebirth” describes the human condition after conversion. Although “rebirth” is often used as a descriptive term, it is also a metaphor in the biblical texts, although it is not prevalent: Depending on the scope of the term’s definition, the metaphor is only found in the Johannine writings (John 1:13; 3:1-12; 1 John 3:9), Titus 3:5, and 1 Peter 1:3, 23. The sixteenth century with its reformation movements fueled biblical exegesis and, in the process, new understandings of basic theological concepts. The short paper discusses the use of the term “rebirth” in the commentaries on Romans by Calvin and Melanchthon. Calvin states in his Institutio that rebirth is constituted by faith and not by the sacrament of baptism alone. This reorientation will be traced through the exegetical writings. Reformation interpreters speak of regeneration in their interpretation of Rom 12:1–2, where Paul presents ‘christian’ ethics. Paul himself does not use the term in this passage. The paper presents how Calvin and Melanchthon apply the metaphor of rebirth to this scriptural text.
The short paper thus provides insight into the exegetical application of a basic theological concept of the Reformation: rebirth is obtained by faith.
Tomasz Mantyk, KU Leuven: “Pluris siquidem interpretanti esse sententiarum fructus debent quam verborum folia” – Theology and Philology in Biblical Translation According to F. Titelmans on the Example of the Book of Job
Although Franciscus Titelmans (1502–1537) wrote numerous biblical commentaries, he is mostly known for his polemic against Erasmus of Rotterdam regarding the Translation of the Vulgate. He adamantly defended the old translation, however acknowledging some usefulness of humanist philological methods. This short paper intends to explore how Titelmans understood such a marriage of conservative theology with humanist philology in practice. It shall analyse several passages form Titelmans’s commentary on the book of Job, one of his most mature works, to show his openness to the use of original languages but at the same time his unshifting theological conservatism, which always gave precedence to the Vulgate. It shall present Titelmans as a contradictory figure, striving to adopt elements of humanist learning but never at the expense of traditional theology.
Yelena Matusevich, University of Alaska Fairbanks: Henry Hammond (1605–1660) and Jean Gerson (1363–1429): an Unknown Seventeenth Century English Connection
Chaplain to the royal commissioners under Charles I, royalist, famous churchman, a pioneer Anglican theologian, spiritual writer, bishop of Salisbury, and afterwards of London, Henry Hammond (1605–1660) left an enormous legacy in Christian thought, moral theology, and jurisprudence. Hammond also left us dozens of books, which, as far as I know, have never been scanned for medieval references. In the middle of the seventeenth century no one could imagine him dependent on pre-reformational Christian thought. Yet, my initial and very preliminary investigation makes clear that some of Hammond’s important ideas explicitly and openly originate from and rely on a number of fundamentally principal works by the late medieval theologian and churchman Jean Gerson (136–1429). Quotes from Gerson are found, at first glance, in Hammond’s A practicall catechism, A paraphrase and annotations upon all the books of the New Testament briefly explaining all the difficult places thereof, Of the infallibility of the Church of Rome submitted to the censure of all sober Christians: together with the discourse itself of infallibility prefixt to it, and A paraphrase & annotations upon the Psalms. This paper aims at presenting my initial research on the place of Gerson in Henry Hammond.
Alessandro Maurini, University of Turin: Biblical Interpretation and Racial Discourse in Nineteenth-Century United States
Panel: People of Americas: Birth, Representations, and Images in the Modern Catholic World (Nineteenth-Nineteenth centuries)
Introduction Text Panel
Who are the Americans and what is “black”? This panel offers an overview on the perception of the inhabitants of the Americas and the development of Catholic interpretations to explain the social hierarchy of the New World, in the period from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It explores three case studies. First, La Peregrinación de Bartolomé Lorenzo by José de Acosta is the edifying and curious story of a European pilgrim in West Indies, among Indians, slaves, and Europeans seeking their fortune, but also a denunciation of the European behaviours that undermine the colonial model. Second, the Society of Jesus, engaged in the pastoral care of slaves in the Americas, developed an interpretative model of slavery through works by Alonso de Sandoval, Antonio Vieira and Giorgio Benci, and thus a precise image of African slaves. Finally, the role of Christian thought and biblical images of slavery were taken up and readapted within the debate on race theory in the nineteenth century United States.
Abstract
In the first half of the nineteenth century, growing criticism towards the institution of slavery in the United States coincided with a strong development of racial theories. Although the economic, political, and biological discourses played a leading role in this development, a religious dimension of racial discrimination was still alive at that time. Indeed, from the topic of the “city seated on the mountain” (Matthew 5:14–16) adopted by the Puritans to legitimize their rule in North America, up to Noah’s curse on Ham and Canaan (Genesis 9:18–27), around which a theological justification of slavery had centered for centuries, biblical interpretation continued to be fundamental in American social and political culture. From a historical perspective, this topic becomes even more interesting as the scriptural foundation of racism was challenged on the one hand by the religious change that followed increasing Catholic immigration from Europe, and, on the other, by the general acceptance of monogenetic theories about the origins of humankind, opposed to the polygenetic ones that had provided a theoretical basis to the institutionalization of racism.
Wim Moehn, Protestant Theological University, Amsterdam: Guy de Brès as Faithful Reader of Pierre Viret’s Books
In 1555, Guy de Brès published his anthology of quotations from the church fathers under the title Baston de la foy chrestienne. His intention with this book was to equip Reformed believers to be able to refute their Inquisition interrogators and to strengthen them in the belief that they were the true successors of the apostles and church fathers. Three more editions followed in 1558 and 1559, testifying to his ongoing study. To qualify himself in theology and increase his knowledge of Latin, he made a study trip to Lausanne and Geneva. In Lausanne, he undoubtedly met Pierre Viret. Correspondence has not survived, but recent research has revealed that de Brès was perfectly aware of Viret’s French-language publications and made grateful use of them. In my presentation, I aim to answer how de Brès incorporated insights from Viret into his own theology.
Szilvia Musasizi: National Identity and the Idea of Homeland in Hungary in the Early Modern Era
Hungary’s situation in the sixteen-seventeenth centuries was a unique phenomenon in history. In the early sixteenth century, the internal crisis of the country and repeated failures in foreign policy collided and caused the division of the Kingdom of Hungary. As a result of that, the Kingdom of Hungary was divided into three parts and remained divided till the end of the seventeenth century. Due to the Ottoman invasion led by Suleiman I, the southern and central territories of the Kingdom of Hungary fell into the hands of the Ottomans and became part of the Ottoman Empire, and for nearly two centuries, the border between the Islamic and Christian worlds ran along here. Furthermore, in the sixteen-seventeenth centuries the borderline grew and the Ottoman Empire’s territory grew, increasingly separating the two Hungarian and Christian parts of the country. There were numerous attempts to push back the Ottoman forces, join the three parts together and reunite the Kingdom of Hungary, which resulted in the devastation of war instead of the hoped-for victory. The people of the era found comfort in the ideology of the Protestant interpretation of history and attributed apocalyptic significance to the military and political events. The apocalypse became the conception of time and the war-torn territories became the location of the apocalyptic struggle. In my paper I am looking for the answers to the following questions. What did homeland mean for the Hungarians when the country did not exist geographically? What did borderland mean, when the border was not around the country, but ran across it? How did the people of the era interpret the Turkish wars and what is the significance of this interpretation? How did Hungary’s special geopolitical situation influence the national sense of vocation and national identity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The primary sources of my work are Hungarian prayer books, letters and literary works from the sixteen-seventeenth centuries.
Gui Nabais Freitas, Trinity College, University of Cambridge: Sacramental Poetry and Seventeenth-Century English Anti-Calvinism: Peter Heylyn’s Poetry Notebook
Scholars have, for some time now, appreciated that seventeenth-century English anti-Calvinists thought of language sacramentally. In particular, academics like Peter McCullough, Sophie Read and Noam Reisner have revealed the extent to which Lancelot Andrewes’s sermons were shaped by a Eucharistic worldview where the believer “incarnates that word and participates bodily in its efficaciousness” (McCullough 2005, xxxvi). This paper pivots from Andrewes to his protégé and admirer Peter Heylyn, and from the sermon to poetry. Most famous for Cyprianus Anglicus (a biography of William Laud) and the geographical treatise Cosmographie, Heylyn was also a keen and surprisingly experimental poet. While occasional poems of his were published, the vast majority of his output has remained unpublished and now only survives in a private notebook which has been thus far virtually neglected. Heylyn’s verse, written between 1618–33 (his formative years), ranges across a wide variety of genres including elegiac, satirical, travel, and dream poetry and covers significant topics such as politics, religion, friendship, and literature. This paper argues that, like the early modern sermon, poetry for a cleric like Heylyn serves as another means by which to embody the Christian life while implicitly testifying to a stridently anti-Calvinist understanding of sacraments and the economy of grace. This is not achieved exclusively in devotional verse but, on the contrary, most often occurs within secular poetry; sacramental poetics, for Heylyn, must necessarily transfigure the saeculum. Relating Heylyn’s vast scholarly interests to his poetry also offer insights into a variety of generative questions within the period: how does early modern poetry relate to Renaissance geography and theology; what are the shared theological stakes between these divergent discourses? And how does each discipline shape a common confessional agenda – or reveal contradictions within it?
Steff Nellis, Ghent University: Picart, Bernard, and the Economization of Spiritual Life in the Early Eighteenth Century
In The Spirit of French Capitalism (2021), Charly Coleman provides a telling addition to Max Weber’s thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) by framing a particular chronotope in the emergence of Capitalism: the ‘economization of spiritual life’ at the dawn of the French Enlightenment. By means of the concept of ‘economic theology’ Coleman denotes the economic dimensions of theology, thereby hinting at the existence of a vast spiritual economy: the convergence of spiritual and material wealth in early modern French Catholicism. To formulate his argument, Coleman provides his readers with an illustrative case study: the Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1723–1737). Published in Amsterdam by the exiled Huguenot Jean Frederic Bernard and lavishly illustrated by one of the most famous engravers of that time, Bernard Picart, this book series provided a revolutionary insight into all the world’s religions by comparing ceremonies, customs, and rituals on an equal footing. On the one hand, it did provide its readers with a general critique of ceremonial splendor, especially within the Catholic Church. On the other hand, however, the books also illustrate the other side of the ‘economization of spiritual life’: an increasing focus of the Dutch free publishing market on producing marketized knowledge. While religion might have turned into commodities because of the fetishist reliance on devotional practices and items, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries knowledge turned into a fetish of economic interest too. Hence, the Dutch knowledge society provides a scholarly example of an affective economy in which the Cérémonies provide insights into both Coleman’s Catholic spiritual economy as well as Weber’s Protestant political economy.
Bonnie Noble, University of North Carolina at Charlotte: My Melancholy (Church) Father
In 1521, seven years before his death, Albrecht Dürer painted an image of Saint Jerome, currently in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon. This surprisingly under- researched painting unites themes of Melancholia, ocular misperception, subjectivity, skepticism, and a disrupted reciprocity between representational appearance and truth that characterize much Northern Renaissance art of the sixteenth century. The painting also shows how profoundly pictures of saints were drained of the holiness and comfort that characterized the era before the Lutheran Reformation. Like Albrecht Dürer’s engraving, Melencolia I of 1514, the Lisbon Jerome rests his face in one hand in a posture that embodies introspection. He points to the skull with the index finger of his left hand and locks eyes with the viewer, linking his world to the beholder’s. His books and pen are neglected and inert. The space is ambiguous, tight and uncertain, and draws the viewer out of the holy narrative rather than more deeply into it. Is the Christ on the left a tiny object or a larger object farther away? The green panel behind the saint is truncated and indeterminate, just like the structure behind the winged figure in Melencolia I. The space mirrors the saint’s melancholic disorientation. In Dürer’s other representations of Jerome, the saint exemplifies the virtues of piety and hard work. For instance, Jerome studies peacefully in the 1514 Master Engraving, or practices penance, as in the 1496 engraving of the saint in the wilderness. By contrast, in the Lisbon painting, Dürer depicts an idle, despairing man preoccupied with mortality, as his eyes plead with the viewer and his hand points wearily to the skull. As Erwin Panofsky noted long ago, the disciplined, pious scholar has evolved into a melancholic. This presentation will demonstrate the transformation of piety into melancholy as exemplified by the scholar saint Jerome.
Marta Quatrale, Freie Universität Berlin: Reception and Re-use of Evangelical Sources in Sixteenth Century Italy: The Case Study of Michelangelo Buonarroti
This paper aims at sketching some preliminary results of my current postdoc research project. In the attempt to put my (until now relatively unexplored) approach to the test, before devoting time to a broader research project, I am engaging with a marginal case study regarding the controversial topic of the support (mainly in the form of Nicodemism, of course) of some Evangelical tendencies in Italy: the one of Michelangelo Buonarroti. The borderline character of this case study is provided by the heterogeneity of Michelangelo’s background, as well as by the heterogeneity of the medial support we have to rely on. The idea behind my attempt is not, as has been the case in research on the topic so far, sketching some likely not properly (or, on the contrary, very much) Catholic elements in his artistic output, but rather investigating it, together with his (limited) literary output and his private correspondence, to get one possible access among others to the sources of the so-called Ecclesia viterbiensis as birthplace of one of the most well-known Italian Evangelical treatises, the Beneficio di Cristo. The final aim would be sketching some (ideally objective and philologically provable) guidelines to dispel any doubts concerning the (in the eyes of some researches still controversial) reception of unmistakably Evangelical sources in the production of the period.
Austra Reinis, Missouri State University: Love, Childbirth, Adultery, War, and Religion: Letters from Women of the von Münsterberg House in Silesia to Margarethe of Anhalt (1473–1530) in Dessau
The letters that Princess Margarethe of Anhalt (1473–1530), born of the ducal house of Münsterberg in Silesia (Poland), received from her female relatives evidence the agency that the von Münsterberg women exercised in maintaining contacts between dynastic houses. The women skillfully employed traditional epistolary formulae to construct closeness and intimacy across geographic distance. Besides conveying affection and reporting family events, the letters show various members of the von Münsterberg family responding to significant events of their time, such as Martin Luther’s Reformation movement and the war with the Turks.
Pieter Rouwendal, Theological University of Apeldoorn: “Incapable of Doing Any Good”. Background, Content and Reception of the Heidelberg Catechism, Question & Answer 8
The phrase from the Heidelberg Catechism, question 8, that man is “incapable of doing any good”, is one of the least popular from this book. Rutger Bregman heartily distances himself from it in his Humankind (De meeste mensen deugen, 2019). There is also criticism from (pastoral) psychology, because with some people, psychological damage can be traced to this confession. But what exactly did the drafters and first users mean by this phrase? And why did they formulate it so categorically? According to them, are we really incapable of loving our children, or of passing a test flawlessly? In my contribution, I examine the background of HC q. 8 in medieval and protestant debates on human nature and original sin. Then I look for clues to its intent in the catechism itself. Finally, I look at the explanation of this question in some sermons and explanations of the catechism that are close in time (sixteenth century) and place (the Palatinate) to its origins. With this knowledge, it becomes clear what the drafters meant, why they chose precisely this wording, and how the first users understood it.
Ana Roda Sánchez, KU Leuven: A Political or Pastoral Enterprise? The Implementation of Church Reform in Castile by the Archbishops of Toledo Alfonso Carrillo de Acuña and Pedro González de Mendoza (1446–1495)
My paper will examine the implementation of Church reform in Castile at the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. I shall explore this issue from the vantage point of an important urban centre, Toledo, which was also the Primate Diocese of Spain. I shall particularly focus on two Archbishops of Toledo, Alfonso Carrillo de Acuña (r. 1446–1482) and Pedro González de Mendoza (r. 1482–1495). They were immediate predecessors of Cardinal Cisneros, the famous reform-minded prelate who ruled the Toledan Archdiocese between 1495 and 1517. Whereas Cisneros’s reform has been greatly studied, Carrillo’s and Mendoza’s remain underexplored. My paper will demonstrate, however, that the Cisnerian reform can only be understood in relation to the work of Cisneros’s predecessors in Toledo. Carrillo gathered an intellectual circle which strived for spiritual, political and cultural renewal (1458–1474). He also established a studium in Alcalá de Henares to improve the education of the clergy (1473). This studium later developed into the University of Alcalá, founded by Cisneros in 1499. Lastly, Carrillo resumed the celebration of diocesan synods in Toledo after a century of standstill. Mendoza promoted and participated in two reformative Councils at country level, and founded the Colleges of San Antonio de Portaceli in Sigüenza (1476) and Santa Cruz in Valladolid (1479). The College in Sigüenza, which was exclusively for priests, has been considered the precursor of Tridentine seminars in Spain. One of the main differences between Carrillo’s and Mendoza’s approach to Church reform is that Carrillo refused any secular interference in ecclesiastical affairs, whereas Mendoza was willing to negotiate a higher control of the Church by the Monarchy. In the end, Mendoza’s approach prevailed over Carrillo’s and laid the foundation for Church reform and the relationship between ecclesiastical and secular authorities in Spain up to the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and beyond.
Tadeusz Rubik, University of Warsaw, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”: The New Testament of the Polish Jesuits and the Roman’s Vulgate (1590–1599)
In 1584 the Polish Jesuits decided to translate the Bible into Polish. The task was carried out in 1589–1591 by Jakub Wujek, and the printing of the New Testament begun in 1591 in Kraków. Soon after a copy of the Sixtine Vulgate arrived in the city, the printing was halted, and the New Testament was to be revised according to the Roman Vulgate and the papal bull Aeternus ille. Shortly after, however, the Sixtine Vulgate was withdrawn, and Jakub Wujek together with Justus Rabb (Wujek’s revisor) published the Polish New Testament in early 1593. The work was both a translation, and a piece of textual criticism – a correction of the Vulgate based on the Greek original, with a vast textual paratext derived mostly from the Louvain Vulgate of 1574. Such an edition could not be reprinted after the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate appeared in late 1592, “petrifying” the Latin text. Wujek and Rabb therefore managed to publish they work at the last possible moment. The subsequent editions of the Jesuit New Testament (a popular version of 1594 with no paratext, New Testament in the revised Bible of 1599) were of a different character. In my presentation I would like to discuss how the Roman’s Vulgate influenced translation of the New Testament and the Polish Jesuits’ textual-critical activity.
Bernward Schmidt, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt: Cochlaeus as a Stroke of Luck? Social Predispositions of Catholic Controversial Theology (1517–1539)
Does the theological centrality we attribute to an author today depend on his historical social status? This admittedly somewhat provocative question nevertheless has a serious core for the historical study of the Reformation. For it gives the social dimension precedence over the theological-historical one and asserts that theology is not least dependent on its social environment. Especially for Luther’s opponents, this has hardly been systematically researched so far. Yet the quantitative-mathematical methods of social network analysis together with the possibilities of digital data processing and visualisation offer an important tool for this purpose, enabling us to reconstruct and analyse social constellations. In order to answer the question posed at the outset, we will focus on individual controversial theologians who were active in Albertine Saxony under Duke George the Bearded (1500-1539). Sources and statistics will be used to show the social interrelationships of the working process of controversial theology, from finding and discussing arguments, to writing and printing, to the dissemination of writings. Friendship, kinship and patronage did not remain without effect on the opposition to the Reformation – as did the lack of contacts. It is therefore relevant to examine what contribution social network analysis can make to a closer understanding of Catholic controversial theology.
Noemi Schürmann, University of Zurich: Is the Body More than a Prison? – Calvin’s Image of the Body in Comparison
Panel: Sixteenth Century Exegesis of Paul
“If to be freed from the body is to be released into perfect freedom, what else is the body but a prison?” This frequently quoted statement of Calvin’s Institutes from 1559 must be assessed in the context of the sixteenth century understanding of the body, against the backdrop of a revival of Platonic thought: The interest of a wide variety of disciplines in the early modern body became apparent in the “body boom” in research. As a historian and religious studies scholar, I am doing my PhD in the project the “16th Century Exegesis of Paul” at the University of Zurich, where I am dealing with some of the Latin commentaries of the Reformers. In the course of this, the use of bodily metaphors and comparisons with bodily processes can be identified, for example in Jean Calvin’s preface to his Institutio of 1536: “The more, therefore, one of them is concerned for his belly, the more vehemently he champions his own faith. Finally, all striving is without exception and exclusively directed to the preservation of their dominion and the fullness of their belly.” How were the body and bodily processes thought of? Do the reformers differ in this? This Panel Discussion will use text and image to take a comparative look at the Reformers’ corporeality. As part of the dissertation project the “16th Century Exegesis of Paul” the speaker will take a specific bodily-historical look at her sources.
Zachary Seals, University of Geneva: The Two Powers and the Extent of the Atonement in Reformed Orthodoxy
Panel: Reformation Theology and its Medieval Past
Medieval historians have long recognized the distinction between God’s absolute (potentia absoluta) and ordained power (potentia ordinata) as a staple of medieval theology and often indicative of one’s broader philosophical commitments albeit originally formulated in a theological context. While recent decades have witnessed a resurgence of scholarly interest in the degrees of positive continuity which can be found between Reformed theology in the seventeenth and even sixteenth century and the medieval period, limited investigation has been devoted to how this central medieval distinction was deployed in Reformed systems. Even more importantly, consideration of the distinction in Reformed theology by historians is often restricted to theology proper or the nature and necessity of the atonement with little regard for how the concept can inform the question of the extent of the atonement. This paper seeks to fill this lacuna by considering two influential Reformed theologians in the seventeenth century: John Davenant and John Owen. While considerable attention has been given to the distinctly Thomist influence amongst Reformed theologians in general and these two thinkers in particular, this paper seeks to qualify these legitimate assessments with the following conclusions: 1. Davenant and Owen both understand the two powers distinction in a way that differs from Aquinas and reflect the shift of the concept in late medieval theology likely stemming from John Duns Scotus 2. Davenant utilizes the distinction to formulate an understanding of the extent of the atonement which is consistent with his other theological positions whereas Owen’s failure to carefully apply the distinction generates an inconsistency in his position on the extent of the atonement.
Mattias Sommer Bostrup, Aarhus University: Flexible Lutheranism, Stable Religion? Using Nordstrand as Political Leverage in Danish-controlled Lands in the Early Eighteenth Century
Panel: Internationalizing Lutheranism: Case Studies from the Dutch Republic and the Danish Lands
In 1653 Dutch immigrants obtained a concession to inhabit the island of Nordstrand just off the west coast of Schleswig. The territorial prince, the duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, granted them extensive privileges such as tax exemption, right to tithes collection, right of patronage, and freedom of religion. While the duke and the native islanders were Lutherans, the immigrants – the island’s numeral minority – were Catholics connected to the powerful Holland Mission in Utrecht. The prince favored Nordstrand’s Catholics: Frequent complaints about the Catholics to the synod and court filed by the island’s Lutheran pastors were rarely, if ever, upheld. When the Danish kings secured the Gottorf lands including Nordstrand in the early eighteenth century, they pursued their predecessors’ policies. This paper argues that the kings, who in these years pursued overseas missions, employed the shared space of multiconfessional Nordstrand as a leverage in downplaying confessional Lutheranism by arguing in favor of a broad concept of religion that could contain multiple branches of Christianity – while continuously employing Lutheranism as an argument in domestic policy, e.g., at the celebration of the bicentenaries of the Reformation and the Augsburg Confession, in 1717 and 1730. By bringing in the global context, the paper argues against the dominant scholarly idea of a monolithic Lutheranism in the Danish lands, and it suggests that the Danish imperial ambitions transformed the face of Lutheranism into a flexible and negotiable concept.
Carl Springer, University of Tennessee Chattanooga: “Greed is not good.” Martin Luther and Profit Economics
The emergence in early modern Europe of economic systems oriented towards profit has often been associated with the names of Protestant reformers, but it would be a mistake to include Martin Luther in their number in this regard without qualification. It is true that he emphasized the sanctity of secular vocations, thus making it possible for individuals to shape their own destinies, financial and otherwise, free from constraints to a far greater extent than heretofore. Luther himself was a businessman’s son. Thanks to the groundbreaking work of Andrew Pettegree, we know that Luther was keenly aware of how the printing industry in his native Wittenberg operated. At the same time, he preached often and consistently throughout the course of his life against the evils of “usury,” under which heading he included all sorts of financial practices governed solely by the principle of profit as opposed to consideration for the needs of one’s neighbors. In this short paper, I will explore the tensions in Luther’s thought between his concern for the individual Christian’s freedom and his vehement critique of “Sir Greed,” who “can dress up to look like a pious man if that seems to be what the occasion requires, while he is actually a double scoundrel and a liar” (Luther’s Works 21: 183).
Zsombor Tóth, Centre for Reformation Studies, Budapest: “Car vous êtes sauvés par la grâce”: Pierre Du Bosc’s (1623‒1692) Hungarian Readership in the Context of Long Reformation (a Case Study)
The Huguenot Pierre Du Bosc, allegedly the greatest French orator of his time, delivered a sermon in 1661 that reiterated the main arguments of the Calvinist doctrine of grace relying on Ephesians 2:8. (For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God). Although he carefully avoided challenging the Catholic standpoint on this matter, some of the Jesuits felt offended and stirred up scandal. Despite this unfortunate incident, the sermon, without any major amendment of the text, was eventually published in 1662. The aftermath of the publication, culminating with the year of 1685, coincided with a sad chapter in French Huguenots history, as the author himself was forced into exile to Rotterdam in 1685. This ordeal had certainly influenced tragically Du Bosc’s life, yet his sermons were translated and published in consecutive editions well into the eighteenth century. György Lázár Dési, a Hungarian student of theology attending the University at Frankfurt an der Oder, had found the text during the 1730s and produced a Hungarian translation that survived in one single copy dated around 1754. My paper intends to reconstruct the process by which the French printed text had been transformed into a Hungarian manuscript with the declared aim to assess the translation as a cultural transfer as well. This case study is all the more important as it appears that there is a consistent corpus of unpublished Hungarian manuscript translations of French Huguenot texts, suggesting that after 1680 there had been a permanent concern among Hungarian reformed intellectuals to collect, translate, and disseminate influential texts of Huguenot devotion amongst Hungarian readers.
Timothy Twining, KU Leuven: Richard Simon and Vernacular Biblical Translation in Early Modern France
The Oratorian biblical scholar Richard Simon (1638–1712) has long been well known for his series of historical and critical studies of the Bible, beginning, in 1678, with his Histoire critique du Vieux Testament, and followed, a decade later, by an equivalent series of volumes addressed to the ‘critical history’ of the New Testament. While these works, however, and especially Simon’s account of the Old Testament, have received considerable study, one side of Simon’s scholarship has not yet received extensive attention: his work on biblical translation. This subject was nonetheless one of Simon’s abiding concerns. His views on the correct way to translate the Bible formed a central part of his critical histories of the Old and New Testament, played a key role in his polemical confrontation with the Jansenist Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694), and saw him involved in a cross-confessional translation scheme with a group of French and Genevan Protestants. In 1702, meanwhile, Simon published his own translation of the New Testament into French. This paper will begin to fill this lacuna in our knowledge of Simon’s life and work. It will do so by examining a previously unpublished and unstudied manuscript, Simon’s complete translation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, into French, in order to elucidate its place in Simon’s scholarly career and its broader significance for late seventeenth-century biblical criticism and early modern vernacular translation of the Bible.
Jarrik Van Der Biest, KU Leuven: Cardinal Virtues in the Classroom: Michael Baius and the Reception of Classical Virtue Ethics in the Sixteenth-Century Debate on Human Nature
Can humans do good without God’s grace? And are such acts meritorious towards the economy of salvation? These questions became hotly debated within sixteenth-century Catholicism, as they were fundamental to assess human agency in relation to God’s salvatory project. As such, theology students from Leuven’s university were confronted with them during the lectures taught by their professors. This presentation explores the teachings of Michael Baius on the subject as recorded by student notes taken during his tenure as Royal Professor for the Sentences between 1559 and 1562. An analysis of Baius’ lecture hall commentary on Book III, distinction 33 of the Sentences, which deals with the cardinal virtues, unveils his negative assessment of the virtues of the pagans. During his teaching, the Leuven professor attacked the virtues of the Stoics and Peripatetics and their emphasis on reason as nothing more than sins when outside the order of grace. Baius’ lectures stand in contrast to Thomas Aquinas’ positive reception of Aristotelian virtues, as developed in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics. Indeed, Aquinas’ synthesis of classical virtue ethics with Christian theology led to the development of a twofold beatitude for humankind: a natural one and a supernatural one. By focusing on Baius’ treatment of the cardinal virtues, this presentation aims to shed a different light on his rejection of this twofold order. I will argue that Baius’ Augustinianism opened a strand within Catholic theology that differed from more positive, Thomist anthropologies developed by the School of Salamanca and the Jesuits. As a result, this presentation aims to unveil not only the consequences of his pessimist anthropology for the economy of salvation, but also its epistemological impact on theology as a scholastic discipline.
Wout Vandermeulen, KU Leuven | UCLouvain: Privileges and the ius commune: Practically Oriented Morality?
The concept of a legal privilege for economic activities was well-known during the Middle Ages. Many cities, guilds, monasteries, … enjoyed them. However, their nature changed with the opening up of new trading routes and the discovery of new resources and industries during the Early Modern Period. From an often local concession given by a nobleman to a (group of) citizen(s), it transformed into an instrument of national economic policy and began dominating important parts of the national and international economic life. My presentation focuses on the treatment of these new instruments by both lawyers, and moral theologians belonging to the so-called “School of Salamanca” from different regions in Europe from ca. 1500 to 1650. They most often categorized these privileges as a type of “monopoly”, which was in principle prohibited. However, I will try to show how this theoretical aversion (based on the Codex-title on monopolies, C. 4.59.2), was often hollowed out by exceptions, re-interpretations and policy considerations. Overall, both lawyers and theologians seem to have been convinced that the privileges generally benefited society due to the new goods and products they brought to their respective homelands, and thus showed a broad tolerance of them. I will then frame and explain this based on the model of mercantilism, the spirit of which was very different from later economic thought. I will also touch upon the subject of especially theologians being misinterpreted on these issues by certain present-day economic historians.
Marcin Wislocki, University of Wroclaw: I Will be Crucified. Remarks on the Passion Devotion in Emblem Books by Lutheran Pastors
The emblem and edifying books prepared by Lutheran clergymen, such as Daniel Cramer, Heinrich Müller, Johann Michael Dilherr, Johannes Lassenius or the much less known Joachim Quirsfeld, contain a number of word-image compositions focused on the Passion of Christ. Beyond any doubt these emblems reflect changes within the theological and devotional attitudes toward that theme throughout the seventeenth century. This paper will examine main ideas that were involved in emblematic compositions related to the Passion in a wide variety of contexts. Furthermore, possible inspirational sources as well as the functions and significance of those compositions will be considered. Besides that, the emphasis will be put on patterns and strategies that the authors undertook in order to engage the audience and to encourage believers towards a true inward change: these include directness of appeals, subjectivity and emotionalism, as well as pictorial character of verbal elements. The increasing role of these emblematic compositions for congregational edification will be demonstrated, among others, with the help of how they were applied in elements of décor and furnishing in Lutheran ecclesiastical spaces. Significantly, some of the picturae had been commented upon by inscriptions containing excerpts from songs of those days, and thus a kind of a multimedia quality in its full meaning emerged.
Ueli Zahnd, Institute of Reformation History, University of Geneva, Switzerland: Bullinger’s View and Use of Medieval Theology
Panel: Reformation Theology and its Medieval Past
Introduction Text Panel
The panel presents some recent results of the research done in the framework of the project “A Disregarded Past: Medieval Scholasticism and Reformed Thought”, sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation and hosted at the Institute of Reformation History, Geneva.
Abstract
In the early Reformation, Heinrich Bullinger was among the first to criticize the established church from a historical point of view, publishing in 1528–29 two treatises on the origin of its errors regarding the Lord’s supper, the mass and the veneration of images. While these treatises promote Bullinger’s view of the development of medieval theology as a history of continuous decay, they also reveal how well the later Antistes of the Zurich church was acquainted with the theology he refuted. Having studied at the traditional university of Cologne, Bullinger would keep in his private library several volumes of medieval authors, and references to Medieval theologians, both explicit and implicit, would continue to populate his works throughout his subsequent career. As a case study, this paper proposes to analyze Bullinger’s view and use of Medieval theology as present in his Sermonum decades quinque, published for the first time between 1548 and 1550. In this systematic overview of Christian doctrine, Bullinger explicitly refers to several medieval theologians such as Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, or Duns Scotus, but there are numerous places where his wording reveals that he used Medieval theologians much more often than he explicitly stated. Was it only to refute it that he referred to Medieval theology, or was there also some sort of positive reception? And if so, what role did this positive reception play in the formulation of Bullinger’s theology?
Sam Zwemer, Protestantse Theologische Universiteit Amsterdam: A Missing Link. The Extension of the Liturgical Form for the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper in one Edition of the Dutch Psalter of Dathenus in 1568
In 1566 Petrus Dathenus translated parts of the Kirchenordnung 1563 of the Palatinate into Dutch. These liturgical forms became, together with his translation of the Genevan Psalter, an important Dutch Psalter, of which many editions appeared. One edition of this Psalter of 1568, with on the title page: “corrected by Dathenus himself”, contains an extension in the liturgical form for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This extension relates to the words of distribution of the bread and wine and the instruction regarding the thanksgiving (after the celebration). Dathenus adds an introduction to the celebration and he interprets the distribution of the signs in his added words of distribution. In his ‘new’ thanksgiving-instruction, Dathenus indicates attention for the communion with Christ, the eschatological perspective and a focus on a life of gratitude and sanctification. The extension ends with an introduction to prayer, after which the form continues with the existing text of 1566. The topics mentioned above were absent or only briefly covered in the original form of 1566. The way in which this extension came about, fits the pattern in which the original German text originated in Heidelberg. Other liturgical forms were used there, such as that of Calvin, Micron and the Lutheran forms of Württemberg and the Palatinate (Kirchenordnung 1556). For this extension Dathenus used the text of Micron (Christelijcke Ordinancien 1554). He uses the format of Microns text, but he bends the content to a more Melanchtonian / Calvinistic interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. The discovery of this extension gives a new perspective on decisions from the Dutch synods in the second half of the sixteenth century when it comes to the liturgical form for the Lord’s Supper. The appearance of the edition of Gaspar Van der Heyden in 1580 shows that this 1568-edition was known by an influential minister who used this extension for his own editing of the form.
