Alasdair A. MacDonald, Zweder R. W. M. von Martels, Jan R. Veenstra, eds. Christian Humanism: Essays in Honour of Arjo Vanderjagt. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions.
Leiden: Brill, 2009. 492 pp. EUR 99.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-90-04-17631-7.
Reviewed by Patrick Hayden-Roy (Department of History, Nebraska Wesleyan University)
Published on H-German (March, 2010)
Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher
Christian Humanism through the Ages
Christian humanism as a historical phenomenon has
traditionally been studied as a subset of Renaissance humanism, gaining notice as an alternative perspective to
the more conventional notion of humanism as a secular
and secularizing philosophy. The volume under review,
produced in honor of the American/Dutch scholar Arjo
Vanderjagt, broadens this viewpoint, and views Christian humanism as a phenomenon with a meaningful life
from late antiquity into the modern era. As such, this
collection provides an encompassing if somewhat bewilderingly diverse set of studies that opens up a multitude
of possible new subjects, topics, and approaches to the
encounter of antiquity with Christianity. While the preponderance of contributors stem from Dutch institutions,
the collection incorporates contributions by significant
figures from American, British, and German universities.
One cannot help but be impressed by the vitality of intellectual and scholarly activity generated by the institutions of higher learning in the Netherlands. And it is apt
that the land of the Brethren of Common Life, Desiderius
Erasmus, and Baruch Spinoza should provide the stimulus for a volume on this theme.
categories. More effective at bringing some focus to the
work is the editors’ introduction, which provides an admirably succinct and informative framing of the theme,
and discussion of each article’s significance for understanding Christian humanism. As they note, the term
lacks a single definition, and the book is loosely focused
on the conflicts that emerged between Christian and pagan knowledge within humanism. This loose context is
partly a result of the Festschrift format, where scholars
contribute some piece of their current scholarly enterprise, but also reflects the intractable nature of both humanism, with its ill-defined boundaries, and the diffuse
encounter of Christianity with antiquity that framed and
stimulated so much intellectual activity in the centuries
from Augustine to the Enlightenment. The topic of the
volume sprawls across the centuries, and represents one
of the central dynamics of western intellectual life that
has still not exhausted itself today, especially in our public life.
Overall, the articles in the collection make clear the
degree to which the encounter of Christianity with classical pagan antiquity proved a stimulus for the development of the intellectual sophistication of the former.
Since late antiquity, when Christian apologists increasingly found it necessary to explain their faith in terms
that took into account the prevailing standards of rationality and philosophical rigor of the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition, Christian high culture had to respond
to the demands of the classical legacy, either by refuting
The volume presents twenty-eight articles divided
into five broad categories: “Christianity and Humanism,”
“Humanism and Stoicism,” “Humanism and Philosophy,”
“Humanism, Arts, and Sciences,” and “Humanist Writing
and Education.” Though the thematic categories provide
a certain integrative function, the enterprise has something of a grab-bag character, especially in the last two
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what conflicted, or assimilating what could be reconciled.
Both tendencies are reflected in the articles. The articles
open with Ron Witt’s short piece, “Coluccio Salutati in
the Footsteps of the Ancients.” Salutati’s career reflects
the tensions humanists experienced when assimilating
the legacy of the classical world. Witt shows how Salutati moved from a more stereotypically secular humanist
engagement with the struggle to maintain virtue in the
face of cruel fortune, a classic Stoic challenge nowhere
framed in his early works by Christian concerns, to a
“conversion” as a result of the influence of Francesco Petrarca, and the subsequent efforts to reconcile Athens and
Jerusalem. This movement of mind from secular to sacred, from concern with the saeculum to the eternal, and
from a morality aimed at nurturing virtues of value in
this world to ones pleasing to God, describes the tension that animates much of the other thinkers and works
investigated in the later pieces. The two pieces that
follow exemplify this relationship. Volker Honemann’s
piece, “Christlicher Humanismus und Liturgie: Heinrich Bebel, Johannes Casselius und Leonhard Clemens
verfassen Offizien zu den Festen des Heiligen Hieronymus und der Heiligen Anna,” looks at humanist engagement with questions of the liturgy, while Berndt Hamm’s
article, “Rühmende Memoria: Der Zusammenhang von
Verdiesseitigung und Religiosität in der Gedächtnispflege
der Humanisten,” discusses memorials of the sixteenth
century that reflect how secular humanist emphases on
fame or glory were shaped by the Christian emphasis on
using the memory of great deeds to motivate the living to
lead lives of godly virtue. In both cases the intersection
of humanist engagement with letters and secular virtue
is put in service to Christian worship and piety.
sion of the work of Scottish humanist Gaius Volusenus.
The section that follows, “Humanism and Philosophy,” points out the limitations of this interchange, and
the failure of the Christian humanist framework to provide a stable basis for guiding human action. Perhaps
the most interesting contribution to the volume leads off
this section, Marcia Colish’s “The De veritate fidei christianae of Juan Luis Vives.” Vives’s work, Colish argues,
reflected the unique circumstances of Spain at his time,
with its population of conversos and moriscos, to whom
Vives directed his work, and in whom he sought to anchor Christian faith by demonstrating the superiority of
Christianity in nurturing virtue. But in pursuing such an
agenda he focused not on Christian dogma, but on the
demonstrable truth of such an assertion using the tools
of humanist rhetoric and rationality. She also points out
the degree to which his assertions fail to provide a compelling argument for moriscos to believe in a harmonious
fulfillment of their faith in the ideals of Christianity. This
same inadequacy of Christian humanist perspective can
be seen in the next selection, Peter Mack’s “Montaigne
and Christian Humanism.” That Michel de Montaigne
was both a humanist and Christian is undoubted, according to Mack, but for him the two stood apart. Montaigne
takes from the ancients a willingness to allow the world
to be material, but he maintains a commitment to Christian faith grounded in tradition and authority, so that it
lies beyond the questioning of the humanist critic, or the
need to demonstrate its truth through humanist learning.
The penultimate article of the section, Han van Ruler’s
“The Philosophia Christi, Its Echoes and Its Repurcussions
on Virtue and Nobility,” takes the discussion of the Christian humanism of Erasmus into the age of Blaise Pascal
That this synthesis was often fraught with tension and Thomas Hobbes, in both of whose works resonances
is reflected in a number of articles in the section titled of the Christian humanist ethos can be read, but whose
“Humanism and Stoicism.” The Stoic emphasis on virtue philosophical pessimism reflects a movement away from
as its own end caused unease among Christian scholars, the humanist concerns with moral choice and developfor whom virtue always pointed to sources and ends be- ment and towards a more modern perspective, with Pasyond the material world. István P. Bejczy’s “Virtue as cal’s “exclusively religious position” or with Hobbes’s
an End in Itself: The Medieval Unease with a Stoic Idea,” “basically anti-philosophical view;” in both cases it did
makes this point, and shows what a variety of responses not necessarily pay to be virtuous, a shockingly antiit generated, while pointing out that in some sense the humanist thought.
concept of virtue as its own end proved attractive in the
Articles in the fourth section, “Humanism, Arts and
medieval setting, where it could be understood to point
Sciences,” treat often ignored subjects. Though specutoward the contemplation of God, another interesting example of how readily seemingly contradictory principles lative fields of philosophy or the natural sciences were
underlying Christian and pagan precepts could be recon- traditionally often seen as marginal to humanism, these
ciled one to another. Alasdair MacDonald’s “Florentius selections demonstrate the complicated relationship of
Volusenus and Tranquility of Mind: Some Applications Christian thinkers from Augustine, Marsilio Ficino, and
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples to music, astrology, and magic,
of an Ancient Ideal,” reinforces this point in his discusrespectively. John North’s article on Ficino, “Types of In2
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consistency in the Astrology of Ficino and Others,” shows
the confusion of positions that marked humanist regard
for astrology, whose presence in classical pagan literature was common, but whose determinism made problematic its reconciliation with Christian notions of God’s
providence and human free will. Ficino’s attitude was
emblematic of many other thinkers’.
manism represents only one aspect within high culture of
that encounter, but the degree to which that has shaped
a tradition of reflection on the human condition and the
cosmos is noteworthy. On the other hand, the inchoate
quality of the volume reflects the diversity of trajectories
within the intellectual life of medieval and early modern
Europe that this encounter stimulated. And even though
the topic itself can no longer be designated “cutting edge,”
The final section, “Humanist Writing and Education,” it is clear that it continues to elicit academic study of
includes a diverse selection of studies which do not co- great rigor and complication, diversity and significance.
here in a clear fashion, but which treat a much more conventionally “humanist” theme, good letters and their inFinally, in terms of the quality of the selections themstruction. The first two articles, Peter Raedts’s “Dutch selves, there is some unevenness. A number seem to
Humanists and the Medieval Past,” and Rudolf Suntrup’s reflect work in progress, or fragments of some larger
“ ‘Höhere Bildung’ im 17. Jahrhundert. Die Schola Car- projects. At times articles seem to break off midstream,
olina in Osnabrück auf dem Weg vom humanistischen and one wonders whether the exercise of greater editorial
Gymnasium zur Jesuitenuniversität,“ both document the oversight in terms of what to include would have been
humanist interest in history, but also humanists’ will- beneficial. In addition, some topics stretch the boundingness to perpetuate their own form of historical myth- aries of the “Christian humanist” theme, contributing to
making to support present-day concerns, an interesting the somewhat muddy profile of the collection as a whole.
counterpoint to humanist text critical attacks on ecclesi- But even the least of the contributions contains material
ological mythologies.
of interest for the larger scholarly world, and none of it
falls below the standard of a substantial engagement with
The abundance of contributions to the volume makes texts and ideas worthy of study and reflection. Though
it impossible to encompass in a review their entire sub- few readers will find all these articles worth their attenstance. A few general perspectives do emerge from the tion, almost anyone engaged with the topic will find nuvolume as a whole. For one, the sheer fecundity and
merous contributions that throw light on their areas of
diversity of the encounter between the classical pagan
scholarly interest.
world and Christianity becomes apparent. Christian huIf there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:
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Citation: Patrick Hayden-Roy. Review of MacDonald, Alasdair A.; von Martels, Zweder R. W. M.; Veenstra, Jan R.,
eds., Christian Humanism: Essays in Honour of Arjo Vanderjagt. H-German, H-Net Reviews. March, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=29522
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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