Roman Catholic Biblical Scholarship in the Age of Confessions

This chapter considers the confessional and institutional factors that shaped the development of biblical criticism in seventeenth-century Rome. It concentrates on the German convert and noted scholar of Greek manuscripts, Lucas Holstenius, and his efforts to encourage the study of the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. These efforts were variously helped and hindered by Holstenius’s patrons and the Roman ecclesiastical authorities, depending on the extent to which they suited their religio-political ambitions. The same ambitions also had a bearing on the genres, publication formats and other modes of dissemination which Roman scholars used for their research, driving them to adopt habits of anonymity, discretion and dissimulation which were out of keeping with the practices of other participants in the contemporary republic of letters, and which differentiated them from later generations of Catholic scholars who advanced their intellectual agenda more openly and aggressively.

Introduction

What effect did the structural process of religious confessionalisation have on the production, publication, and dissemination of works of erudition, and on shaping those aspects of European intellectual activity that have come to be known as the ‘humanities’? This introductory overview offers a comparative assessment of that question, focussing separately on each confessional space: Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran, and the individual regions within each. It stresses the importance of confessional investment in erudite practices for stimulating their growth and development. At the same time, it emphasises the importance of trans-confessional emulation as an agent of intellectual change. It is suggested that early modern erudition and the conditions in which it developed should be conceptualised on their own terms, rather than as a triumphant precursor of the ‘modern’ humanities or a pale remnant of the golden age of a pre-confessional Renaissance humanism.

The Limits of Erudition

This chapter uses the case study of the volume on the English mission in Daniello Bartoli’s unfinished, multi-volume Istoria della Comagnia di Giesu (1653–73) to examine whether or not a specifically Jesuit ‘way of proceeding’ can also be discerned in the Society’s history writing. It is argued that in order to understand the rhyme of Bartoli’s reason one needs to integrate his history writing with both his prior experience as a star preacher for the Society and as experienced teacher of rhetoric as well as with his wider interests in natural philosophy. By doing so, it is possible to understand better Bartoli’s intensely visual language as well as his command of such a ‘huge multiplicity of styles and almost distinct languages’ which so impressed Giacomo Leopardi (for whom Bartoli was ‘the Dante of baroque prose’) but which can make the Jesuit such a challenging read today. In the final analysis, notwithstanding his use of archival and manuscript evidence, Bartoli subordinated historical scholarship to rhetorical priorities in his mission both to celebrate his order’s achievement as well as to defend it from attack from within.

Scaliger’s Chronology

Nineteenth-century accounts of Joseph Scaliger’s chronology treated it as a triumph of true over spurious learning. Often, this was equated with a larger triumph of Protestant over Catholic scholarship. A closer look at the nature and reception of Scaliger’s chronology suggests that it formed part of a much more complicated story. Scaliger’s own confessional allegiance, and those of his readers and critics, sometimes shaped their response to sources and issues, but often did not do so. Catholic as well as Protestant scholars provided material for his work, mastered it and subjected it to substantive criticism The mixed reception of his work reflected its technical innovations, and its technical flaws.

Juan Luis Vives and the Organisation of Patristic Knowledge

The edition of Augustine’s City of God by the Spanish-born humanist Juan Luis Vives (first published in 1522) is one of most successful pieces of patristic scholarship of the sixteenth century. Produced just before the explosive escalation of the Reformation, it remained the key version of the text for over a hundred years. This article analyses the presentation of patristic knowledge in Vives’ commentary to explore how the confessional conflicts affected patristic scholarship. It argues that Vives’ work survived the confessional pressures relatively unscathed because it made Augustine’s work manageable and accessible across confessional parties. In doing so it seeks to highlight the importance of confessional silence in the Republic of Letters as a strategy to confront the pressures of confessionalisation.

Language of Paradise

This chapter discusses the discovery of Arabic poetry in Western Europe in the context of Protestant Arabic studies of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The piece centres on the work of the Dutch Orientalist Albert Schultens (1686–1750). His interest in Arabic poetry was driven by the idea that it preserves some of the characteristics of the primeval language and that it can help us understand the original meaning of the Hebrew texts of the Bible. The essay argues that in spite of its shortcomings, Schultens’ work is a significant moment in the history of oriental studies. It stimulated an entire generation of young scholars in Protestant Northern Europe; and his comparative study of Semitic languages, his concepts of the primeval language and its transmission as well as his great interest in the poetry of the East still resonate in early Romantic approaches to oriental poetry.

Confessional History and the Authority of Erudition

In his History of the variations of the Protestant Churches, his major work of confessional controversy, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) made a genuine effort to use various primary sources. In the case of England, however, he chose to rely on a single authority, Gilbert Burnet’s (1643-1715) History of the Reformation of the Church of England, which was available to him in a recent French translation. This reflected Bossuet’s tactical determination to employ only authors whom his Protestant adversaries could not object to, but also his paradoxical affinities with Burnet, whose very political reading of the English Reformation fitted well with his own interpretation. Burnet, however, had included in his History a rich collection of records, which Bossuet studied and occasionally used to challenge Burnet’s main text. Although Bossuet’s interests remained those of a polemical divine, he spoke the language of historical erudition to assert his trustworthiness.

Becoming Heterodox in 17th-Century Cambridge

This chapter charts Isaac Newton’s path to heterodoxy by contextualising a crucial, but previously unknown, piece of evidence: the ‘Determination’ upon Newton’s 1677 Cambridge theology disputation conducted by the Regius Professor of Divinity, Joseph Beaumont. This Determination provides the earliest secure evidence of Newton’s engagement with theology. The Determination (printed and translated as an Appendix) is important in itself, but its witness allows us to go further and to propose that the university context proved crucial for shaping the way in which Newton conducted his theological reading. The essay begins by charting the transformations in Cambridge theological pedagogy in the half century before Beaumont and during the period of his dominance after the Restoration. It emphasises in particular the rise of an obsession with ante-Nicene Christian antiquity at the University, partly in response to inter- and intra-confessional dispute. The second half of the essay shows that much of Newton’s early theological writing can be read as a response to these developments, and to the world of orthodox theology that existed around him.

Was an Eastern Scholar Necessarily a Cultural Broker in Early Modern Europe?

The article examines the Evoplia fidei catholicae romanae historico-dogmatica (The Historical-dogmatic Armour of the Roman Catholic Faith), a book which was published in Rome in 1694 by a Maronite, Faustus Naironus (b. 1628, d. 1708–1712). This Eastern Christian wrote several books in his own name, and spent his entire career in Rome, but failed to enjoy much of a reputation as a scholar during his own lifetime. Published by the Congregation of Propaganda press, the Evoplia was a controversial anti-Protestant book, where Naironus presented the Syrian Christians’ contribution to the Catholic cause: according to him, Eastern Christians, regardless of their Church, adhered to the Roman Catholic Church’s position on the seven sacraments and the main dogmas. I chart the gestation of the book, and explore the reasons – some confessional, some scholarly – why this work elicited little response, both among Protestant and French Catholic scholars.

Matthew Parker and the Practice of Church History

The Elizabethan archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker is best known for his efforts to collect medieval manuscripts, which had changed hands or been repurposed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and to construct from these sources a new history of the church in England. This essay looks at the complete process by which Parker and his circle collected, used, and printed books for their historical project. It argues that Parker’s work was not as pointedly confessional as it has typically been seen, in part because of the shifting sands of early modern religious discourse and in part because of how Parker engaged with the medieval sources he encountered. He learned from what he read—perhaps especially from late medieval historians. His practices in constructing church history reveal the extent to which he viewed himself in a continuous historiographical tradition, even as he sought to reform an ecclesiastical one.