No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
A Benedictine Scholar and Greek Patristic Thought in pre- Tridentine Italy: a Monastic Commentary of 1538 on Chrysostom
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
There are several questions yet to be answered in the period of Italian religious history leading up to the Council of Trent. One particularly intriguing question is the part played by the Benedictine Congregation of Santa Giustina of Padua, generally known as the Cassinese Congregation. Historians have often observed some of these monks flitting like shadows around the fires of controversy, but what they were actually doing has remained obscure. They had connections with Contarini, Pole, Sadoleto and other spirituali; they gave hospitality to Pier Paolo Vergerio, bishop of Capodistria, before he fled into the Protestant camp; amongst them were many humanist educated biblical scholars, some of whom publicly expounded St Paul; the Congregation's chief spokesman at the Council of Trent was shouted down for what were taken to be his Lutheran sentiments; another monk was the prime author of the tract Il Beneficio di Cristo, later revised by Marcantonio Flaminio and published in 1543 with lengthy extracts from the 1539 edition of Calvin's Institutes woven into its text. It is not surprising that several historians, in common with a number of contemporary observers, have suggested that some of these Benedictines were strongly influenced by Reformation thought.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985
References
1 The history of the debate is given by Ruth Prelowski, ‘The Beneficio di Crislo, translated with an introduction’, Italian Reformation Studies in Honor of Laelius Socinus, ed. J. A. Tedeschi, Florence 1965, 23–94. Also Rosa, M., ‘II Beneficio di Christo: interpretazioni a confronto’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, xl (1978), 609–20Google Scholar. The context is lucidly described by Logan, O. M. T., ‘Grace and justification: some Italian views of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries’, this Journal, XX (1969), 67–78Google Scholar; also Fenlon, Dermot, Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy, Cambridge 1972Google Scholar. The case for Protestant influence is presented principally by McNair, P., Peter Martyr in Italy, an anatomy of apostasy, Oxford 1967Google Scholar; Bozza, T., Introduzione al Beneficio di Cristo, (privately printed), Rome 1963Google Scholar; Nuovi Studi sulla Riforma in Italia. II Beneficio di Cristo (Uomini e Dottrine, 22, 1976); and by P. Simoncelli, ‘Nuove ipotesi e studi sul Beneficio di Cristo’, Critica Storica, new series, ii, iii, iv (1975), 144–212. The argument for humanist-Pelagian influence is most clearly put by C. Ginzburg and A. Prosperi, ‘Le due redazioni del “Beneficio di Cristo’“, Eresia e Riforma neW Italia del Cinquecento (Biblioteca del Corpus Reformatorum Italicorum, Miscellanea 1, 1974), 137–204. The various arguments are considered at length in my ‘The Benedictine monks of the Congregation of Santa Giustina, Padua, c. 1480-c. 1568’ (unpublished Oxford University D.Phil, thesis, 1982).
2 M. Armellini, Bibliotheca Benedictino-Casirunsis, sive Scriptorum Casinensis Congregationis, alias S. Justinae Patavinae etc., 2 parts, Assisi 1731–2, ii. 78. Faralli, Caxla, ‘Per una biografia di Luciano degli Ottoni’, Bollcttino delta Societd di Studi Valdesi, cxxxiv (1973), 34–51Google Scholar.
3 Sadoleto, J., Opera quae extant, omnia ad Eloquentiam, Philosophiam ac Theologiam pertinentia (2nd edn), Verona 1737–1738, ii. 130Google Scholar.
4 Faralli, op. cit., 40, 46–7. Armellini, Bibliotheca, ii. 78. Within the order his friends included Gregorio Cortese (professed 1507), Giambattista Folengo (1507), Denys Faucher (1508), Teofilo Folengo (1509), Benedetto Fontanini da Mantova (1511) and Isidoro Chiari (1517). His friendships covered a wide spectrum of temperament and teaching, from the cautious, conservative Cortese to Benedetto da Mantova and the rebellious Folengo brothers. In monastic politics he was friendly with Ignazio Squarcialupi, the autocratic president who sought to make the presidency a life appointment, and also with Don Ignazio’s opponents: E. Menegazzo ‘Contributo alia biografia del Folengo’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, ii (1959), 392–8.
5 J. Calvin, De Attema Dei Predestinatione etc., Geneva 1552, printed in Opera Calvini, vm (Corpus Reformatorum, 36, 1870), col. 255ff.
6 Sixtus Senensis, O.P. Bibliolheca Sancta, Lyons 1575, annotation 232, ‘ineptus hie et miserabilis homuncio... Lucianus Monachus’.
7 Simon, R. (Mr de Sainjore), Bibliothèque Critique ou Recueil de Diverses Pièces Critiques, Amsterdam 1708, i. 351–61Google Scholar.
8 Giberti was a humanist scholar and bishop of Verona. He set up the Nicolini brothers, Venetian printers, in his episcopal palace and furnished them with Greek type. In June 1529 they produced Chrysostom, in 1531 a volume of John Damascene and in 1532 the patristic anthology of Ecumenio and Areta.
9 Desiderius Erasmus: Prefaces to the Fathers, the New Testament, on Study, facsimiles, ed. R. Peters (Scolar Press, 1970), 93, ‘omnes cogit servire pietati Christianae’, ‘tanta charitatis suavitate condulcat’; 95, ‘... de dogmatibus Evangelicae philosophiae... ‘. Erasmus was no more specific in his foreword to the 1530 collected works of Chrysostom: ‘vitae integritas, divinarum literarum amor, iudicii rectitudo, veritatis libera professio... ‘, 153–4. See Desidcrii Erasmi Roterodami Opera Omnia, Leyden 1703–1706, iii. 1331–46Google Scholar, 1432, 1862; v. 69, 434, 484, 785, 844, 856, 912; vi. 236, 346, 361, 672, 994–5; viii. 2–6; ix. 260. For some evidence of Chrysostom’s doctrinal influence upon Erasmus see Gorce, D., ‘La Patristique dans la réforme d’Erasme’, Festgabe Joseph Lortz, 1, Reformation, Schicksal und Auftrag, Baden-Baden 1958, 233–76Google Scholar. M. W. Anderson has argued that the biblical theology of Erasmus was based upon Chrysostom; see his’ Biblical Humanism and Catholic Reform: 1444–1563’ (unpublished Aberdeen University Ph.D. thesis, 1964), 145–9,462–9. However, Anderson’s examples are drawn from the later Erasmus, mainly the 1540 edition of the Annotations, and in any case are not sufficient to justify his argument that the theology of Erasmus has an Antiochene base: Anderson remarks that ‘the function of the Patristic argument in the erasmian theology remains to be explained’. For Erasmus’s appreciation of Chrysostom’s commonplace wisdom, see McConica, J. K. ‘Erasmus and the grammar of consent’, Scrinium Erasmianum, Leiden 1969, ii. 77–99Google Scholar. Also A. Prosperi, Tra Evangelismo e Conlroriforma: G. M. Giberti (1495–1543) (Uomini e Dottrine, XVL, 1969), 217–20. Prosperi firmly denies that Chrysostom exerted substantial influence upon Italian spirituali. The more recent work of Calcagno, Domenico, Il peccato originate in Erasmo da Rotterdam, Brescia 1975Google Scholar, was not available to me. For Sadoleto, see Douglas, R. M., Jacopo Sadoleto (1477–1547): humanist and reformer, Cambridge, Mass. 1959, 82ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Even when forced to defend himself, Sadoleto made little use of Chrysostom. Douglas, 82, quotes Gothein’s scathing comment on the paucity of dogmatic material in Sadoleto’s commentary. Giberti’s remark was made in a letter of 1532,’...acquistare ogni hora beneficio nuovo’: Prosperi, Tra Evangelismo, 220.
10 Preface, ‘...elegi autem ex omnibus Joannem Chrysostomum... quod is praecipue sermonem habet nitidum, planum, dulcem, fluentem atque copiosum, et sensus Paulinos, idest Christianissimos... hausisse, ac effudisse mihi videtur’.
11 Knowles, D., The Christian Centuries, 11, The Middle Ages, London 1969, 135–7, 239–42, 448Google Scholar; Oberman, H. A., Forerunners of the Reformation. The shape of late medieval thought, London 1967Google Scholar. There is a discussion of late medieval Italian soteriology, of scholastics and humanists, including their theology of the Fall, scalae perfections, and restoration, in the first chapter of my Italian Benedictine Scholars and the Reformation, to be published by O.U.P. in 1985.
12 Divi loannis Chrysostomi in Aposloli Pauli Epistolam ad Romanos Commenlaria; Luciano mantuano divi Benedicti monacho interprete, el in eos, qui eundem Chrysostomum divinam extenuasse graliam arbitriique libertatem supra modum extulisse suspicantur, el accusant, defensore, Brescia 1538, ‘in aedibus Ludovici Britanici’. Three copies are known to have survived. Two are in Rome: Biblioteca Vaticana (R.G. SS. Padri II 38) from which material has been drawn for this chapter; Biblioteca Casanatensc (B.V. 46); one in Paris, Bibliotheque Mazarine (fil. 1070).
13 For example, sermon 4, a vivid homily on purity and concupiscence (πáθη) and the reform of manners, has no interpretes at all. His chosen themes were predestination, grace, faith, free will and works, see preface, ‘... mutuo tollere videbantur: ita nunc adeo concinnata, et cohaerentia, sunt facta’.
14 8v. ‘... si totum gratiae ascribatur libertatem humanam asservit; nee tamen quicquam gratiae dcrogavit...’
15 Preface, n.p. The work was dedicated to Giambattista Speciano, ‘generali justitiae capitaneo in statu Mediolani, imperialique senatori ac consiliario benemerito’. In the preface Ottoni acknowledged Giberti’s assistance with various textual problems.
16 22r. ‘...ex omnibus neminem condemnare, nisi ex eorum magna et propria culpa: non ex solo primi parentis errato’. Also 19r. This is a fundamental distinction between Western and Eastern orthodox theology. See Meyendorff, J., Byzantine Theology: historical trends and doctrinal themes, New York 1974, 143–6Google Scholar.
17 42r. ‘Chrysostomus peccatum originis, in nobis, non culpam, ut nostri doctores, sed poenam assent esse, tanquam absurdum existimans, si ex unius peccato, alii peccatores efficiantur.’
18 77v.
19 4gr.
20 42v.
21 40r–v.
22 25v.
23 42r.
24 49v.
25 42v. ‘Paulus ait, lex autem sub intravit, ut abundaret delictum et Chrysostomus subiicit: introeunte lege, morbus accrevit.’
26 In my ‘The Benedictine monks of the Congregation of Santa Giustina, Padua, there is an analysis of the writings of Chiari in ch. 5 (Adhortatio ad Concordiam, Ad Cives Brixianos), ch. 7 (his 1542 New Testament), and also of the Benejicio de Cristo, in ch. 8. The Antiochene influence is clear in these as in many other Cassinese writings.
27 40v.
28 40r-v, 42r.
29 42v.
30 36r. Ottoni’s translation of Chrysostom’s text runs: ‘...et non ait (jc.Paul) credens, sed ccrto persuasus. Talis est fides’. At Trent, in 1546, he used the expression ‘...lumen supernaturale, id est fidei, est dilucidius quam naturale’. Concilium Tridentinum: Diariorum Actorum Epistolarum, Traclatuum Nova Collectio, ed. Gorres-Gesellschaft, Freiburg 1901, v, 677. He went on ‘...nam ill! non potest subesse falsum’. Gregory the Great had used this imagery of St Benedict.
31 29r. (Printed 27r. in error.)
32 38r.
33 30r.
34 53r, 29r (27r).
35 5gr. In the Beneficio, ch. 6, unworthy Christians are described as living ‘in criminal and servile fear of the Law’.
36 43v.
37 70v. (59v.)-71r. There is a marginal reference to 1 Cor. xiii and an attack upon scholastic teaching that ‘charitas incipit a seipsa, sibi providet primum’.
38 70v.
39 62r.
40 21v.
41 58v.
42 72r. Also 72v and 73v for Chrysostom’s remark that ‘nos generamus per verba Dei... generatio non naturae sed divinae promissionis est’. There is a marginal note in a later sixteenth-century hand, ‘regeneratio’. Also 52v.
43 40v–41v, 91v, 21v, 36r, 61v, 65r, 74.r, 77v.
44 101v.
45 73r. Benedetto da Mantova has a parallel description of the’ vero cristiano, inamorato di Cristo’, who loves and cares for his neighbour.
46 34v.
47 58v.
48 10v, 12r. The insult was posthumously returned by Sixtus Senensis; above n. 6.
49 11v.
50 40v. (margin)
51 2v.
52 40v.
53 40r–40v.
54 74v–75v. Ottoni attacked Augustine, Lombard, Aquinas, Scotus and Luther. The latter, he said, ‘funditus tollit hominis libertatem’. See 3v, 20r.
55 2v. Ottoni was prepared to use the term predestination in the sense of a calling to a particular task or to salvation, or in the sense of God’s foreknowledge of man’s ultimate destiny. The term is discussed also on 74v’75v, with a renewed attack on nostri doctores.
56 3r. ‘Chrysostomus, inquam, solus mihi Pauli sensum aperuit, nodos explicavit, verba docuit et explanavit.’
57 Jedin, H., History of the Council of Trent, London 1957, ii. 118Google Scholar. Jedin makes a passing reference to Christian humanist links with the Benedictine tradition, in respect of biblical studies. The point is developed by Carla Faralli in ‘Una polemica all’epoca del Concilio di Trento: il Teologo e Giurista Domingo de Soto censura un’opera del Benedettino Luciano degli Ottoni’, Stvdi Senesi, lxxxvii (3rd ser., xxiv, 1975), 400–19. Also Ginzburg and Prosperi, ‘Le due redazioni del Beneficio di Cristo’, 137–204. These two authors consider that Ottoni did not take sin seriously because he valued human free will and ‘il tema dell’impecabilità’. They attribute his supposed near-Pelagianism to his being ‘intriso di neoplatonismo’ for which reason’ reprende il temo umanistico della “dignitas hominis” ‘, 164, 168.
58 In 1539 the monastery of Santa Giustina Padua purchased the newly published fifth tome of the works of Chrysostom, Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi Episcopi Constantinopolitani homiliae xxx ad Populum Antiochenum potissimum habitat Bernardo Brixiano inlerprete, Basle 1539. This volume is still in the library of the monastery.
59 Fenlon, D., ‘Encore une question: Lucien Febvre, the Reformation and the School of Annalts’, Historical Studies, ix (1974), 76Google Scholar.