DESIDERIUS ERASMUS: Born: 1466, Rotterdam , the Netherlands Died: 1536, Basel , Switzerland Major Works: "Adages" (1500), "Enchiridion" (1504), "Praise of Folly" (1509), "The Education of a Christian Prince" (1516), "Novum Instrumentum" (1506) Major Ideas: ~Perfectability is intrinsic in human beings. ~Intrinsic perfectability implies the power of self-determination and moral achievement. ~The exemplar of moral achievement is Jesus Christ, whose life of humility, patience, and love is open for all Christians to imitate. ~Interior piety, scriptural exegesis, and study of classical and patristic writigs are necessary in the imitation of Christ. ~Imitating the life of Jesus Christ is a philosophy, the "philosophia Christi," which ought to inspire secular and religious leaders to govern with compassion for the well-being of all Christian people./ Desiderius Erasmus was a man for his times in his humanistic interest in ancient writers and concern for revitalizing Christianity in the spirit of devotio moderna. Ultimately, however, he proved to be outside of his time; his call for moderation and compassion was drowned out by the raucous cries of reformers and rebels eho regarded the middle path as cowardly./ Erasmus dedicated his life to cultivating the mind for a rational program of action and the heart for generosity and tolerance. His abiding compassion was nurtured early in his studies; from 1478 to 1483. Erasmus attended the school at Deventer that Gerard Groote had founded, establishing there the devotio moderna that encouraged inner piety, a personal relationship with God, and reliance on the Bible for moral and spiritual guidance. Groote had also founded the Brethren of the Common Life, a lay congregation that was committed to education and living out the ideals of devotio moderna. The years that Erasmus spent at Deventer, which is kown as the seedbed of Dutch humanism, obviously left their mark; throughout his life Erasmus remained true to the ideal of a simple, interiorized Christianity in the face of reliegious practices that fomented superstition, bigotry, and fanaticism, and a church that gave high marks to blind adherence to doctrine and empty exterior piety. These early years also introduced Erasmus to Latin, whetting his appetite for the study of classical literature that he would pursue in the monsastery of the Augustinian Canons at Steyn, where he entered in 1487./ The life of the monk did not attract Erasmus, but for a young man who could not afford to go to a university, the monastery had its advantages. Erasmus was not to remain enclosed, however: the year following his ordination in 1492, he left the monastery to accept the post of secretary to the Bishop of Cambray, Henry of Bergen./ With his departure from monastic life, Erasmus embarked on the career of a Peripatetic humanist in search of a patron, which took him to the most celebrated universities of Europe and England. Change of patronage was not necessarily Erasmus´s preferred course, and he often bemoaned the financial uncertainties that forced him to seek yet another protector. Frail of constitution and emotionally vulnerable, Erasmus´s life was one of hardship./ Yet in one respect he did not waver; his commitment to evangelical humanism was his polestar. His comprehensive knowledge of the classics as well as familiarity with classical languages, which enabled him to develop as a stylist in Latin such as to rival the eminent writers among the ancients, always served the larger goal of encouraging growth in the moral life and interiorized Christianity./ The spirit of evangelical humanism informs all of Ersmus´s writings, beginning with the popular "Adages", the number of some 800 proverbs in the first edition eventually being increased to more than 5,000. Drawn fro mGreek and Latin texts, and to a lesser extent from the Bible, the proverbs collected by Erasmus probe the human condition, providing a basis on which to build the edifice of self-knowledge that is necessary for the Christian in search of moral exellence./ Erasmus´s humanism extended to the study of the church fathers as well as to the ancients. In the "Enchiridion", the Greek word for a poniard and a manual, Erasmus adds the authority of Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Origen to that of classical orators, poets, and philosophers in order to fashion a program for a Christian life centered on the example of Jesus Christ. In a letter to the humanist John Colet, Erasmus explained that he had written the "Enchiridion" to persuade followers of external ceremonies and ovservances to true inner piety; he regarded his work as an act of piety. Not only does Erasmus advocate interiorized Christianity on the individual level but he expands his evangelical message to include nations, whose foremost concern ought to be social harmony and peace among themselves. In his admiration for Origen, Erasmus was influenced by the Greek Father´s Neoplatonism, and his program of interior piety was further indebted to the Neoplatonism that he encountered among such humanistas as Pico della Mirandola and John Vitrier./ Praise of Folly: The note of Neoplatonism rings true in the evangelical humanism of Erasmus´s most famous work, "Praise of Folly". Although Erasmus himself did not regard the work as his masterpiece, its popularity in his time and the fact that in the large corpus of Erasmian writings it is the only text that has survived with its appeal intact secures for it first place. The hallmarks of Erasmus the humanist are instantly recognizable: mastery of the ancients, scriptural exegesis, criticism of contemporay religious practices, call to the inner life. There is the additional attraction of the satirical mode, probably inspired by the second-century Greek wit Lucian, by which Erasmus mediates the themes of Christian piety./ "Praise of Folly" is no exercise in satire. The text is a complex interfacing of at least four voices, rather like a Bach fugue, each identifiable in turn and deftly played one against the other. / The text is a complex interfacing of at least four voices, rather like a Bach fugue, each identifiable in turn and deftly played one against the other. Were the explicit mockery of the first voice (Folly´s as she introduces herself as humanity´s principal benefactor along with such attendants as Self-Love and Flattery) to remain in the same key, Erasmus would have exhausted his parody in vrief time and fallen short of the spiritual heights he exhorts Christians to attain. The light-hearted tone gives way suddenly when, less than midway through the text, Eramus shows not the fun of folly in the illusions that allow society to function but its cruelty, as old men and women, shorn of their illusions, are depicted in grotesque, aging bodies, pursuing the pleasures of the young. These voices play in counterpoint until gaity and cruelty are stilled by Erasmus´s serious pronouncements against the abuses and pretensions of those in positions of authority, both secular and religious. No one is safe from Erasmus´s attack: theologian and monk, cardinal, pontiff, king and courtier -none escapes criticsm. The theologians he contrasts with the apostles, who made no such stupid distinctions as between infused and acquired charity or actual and sanctifying grace but who taught charity and grace through the example of their lives. Theologians waste their time in the schools with such nonsense, although "they believe that just as in the poets Atlas holds up the sky on his shoulders, they support the entire Church on the props of their syllogisms and without them it would collapse." / If Christ is the positive example for pious Christians, the monks are the negative ones, for their concern is not to be like Christ but only to be unlike each other. Nor do bishops, cardinals, and pontiffs offer better models for the Christian who would turn inward to cultivate the virtues of humility and charity. Bishops play the overseer only with respect to their revenues; cardinals put ambition for wealth and prestige above inner riches; and pontiffs glory in war rather than the cross./ The picture that Erasmus paints of the Church is dreary at best. He does nothing to soften the blows of his frontal attack on the corruption of religion, nor does he hide behind the skirts of Folly. Indeed, the figure of Folly serves his criticism well. As a parody of herself, Folly entices the reader with bantering humor to scrutinize himself and society, setting up the reader, as it were, for the harshness of Erasmus´s voice when he summons Christian leaders to an accounting of their ways./ Were "Praise of Folly" to en on this note of harsh criticism, Erasmus´s program of Christian humanism would be incomplete. Satire is the material with which he constructs his edifice of Christian humanism, but the spirit that lights and warms the building is revealed only in the concluding pages as Erasmus evokes for our moral and spiritual edification the person of the good fool./ In the little people -children, women, simpletons, fishermen- Erasmus seeks his good fool, the one who embraces the cross and who, like Jesus Christ, submits to its folly. For who in their right mind -the mind in accord with the values of worldly wealth, power, and prestige -would chhose poverty, suffering, and self-sacrifice? Yet, Erasmus reminds his audience, if men and women are to embrace Christianity, they must do so with heart rather than mind, becoming foolish in the eyes of the world. Like Jesus who suffered the ignominy of crucifixion, Christians are to clasp the cross, imitating their Lord in patience, humility, and compassion. Prizes for the Christian do not come in the form of money or high office, but there is in this lifetime a supreme reward, which is a kind of madness./ In describing divine madness in the last chapter of "Praise of Folly", Erasmus rises the vision of the Christian life far above the dirt and stench of the fools of hypocrisy and self-love. In a neoplatonic flight of the spirit, he shows the soul absorbed in the supreme Mind, delighting in the ineffable goodness of God, and savoring a foretaste of the eternal reward. The souls who taste spiritual delights experience a kind of madness. Fools for Christ they taste divine folly. In an ingenious play on the meaning of folly. Erasmus thus strips the worldly of their illusions, exposing them for the bad fools they are and pleads eloquently for the life of the good fool, the person who embraces the folly of the cross./ The scholarly apparatus that supports the message of Christian piety in "Praise of Folly" is clearly visible in subsequent works, notably in Erasmus´s Greek version of the New Testament and the edition of Saint Jerome´s letters. Erasmus shared the concern of contemporary humanists that ordinary Christians have access to the New Testament so as to avoid the superstition that corrupted the ignorant masses. Applying modern exegetical techniques, Erasmus produced a text in Greek that pointed up the errors in the Latin Vulgate, which had been the official text of Scripture since the fourth century./ The effect of the Greek text was to call into question the authority of the Church as mediator of the relationship of God and human beings, Erasmus envisioned a literate Christian populace who would derive immediate guidance from Scripture, thus taking upon themselves responsibility for their moral perfectability and, to a great extent, salvation of their souls./ A similar intent informs his work on Saint Jerome, whom the Brethren of the Common Life revered as their patron. As Erasmus sought to reform Christian life through study of ancient literature and Scripture, so he saw in Jerome a precursor in his dedication to learning and interior piety./ By 1516, when both the Novum Testamentum and Jerome´s letters were published, Erasmus was at the height of his popularity. The most acclaimed humanist of the day, he was honored by monarch and pope; Charles V, whose education was based on Erasmian principles, was eager to claim the celebrated humanist, but to no avail. Invited to the newly established but already brilliant university at Alcalá de Henares, Erasmus confided to his friend, Thomas More, that Spain held no attraction for him. The invitation was, however, a pledge of distinction for Erasmus, and had the ensuing years been as beneficent as the emperor who proferred the invitation, Erasmus´s later years would have been less painful./ Events were not to grace Erasmus with the peace for which he longed. Added to the continuing uncertainties about money was the threat of schism in the Christian world. Even though he continued to compose masterly commentaries on the Christian life, inspired by the classics and Scripture, his spirit was unsettled and his mind distracted by the religious controversies that erupted around him. Against his will, he was drawn into the arena, answering Luther´s position on grace and free will with a disquisition on free will in 1524. Relying on the combined authority of Scripture, tradition, and reason, Erasmus defended his stance on free will, reaffirming his belief in moral autonomy for the individual as well as his fidelity to the Catholic church./ Erasmus could neither find a place for himself in the Europe of his day nor make one, for he was both within his age and outside of it. True to the humanistic impulse of the sixteenth century, Erasmus believed in the power of rational persuasion, but his very commitment to reason rendered him powerless against the forces of intolerance, fear, and dissension that ultimately ruled the day. Although his plea for moderation and enlightened piety was stilled by voices competing for power at the expense of charity, to those who value rational discourse refined in the crucible of learning and compassion, Erasmus was then and remains today an exemplary human being./ NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI: Born: 1469, Florence , Italy Died: 1527, Florence , Italy Major Works: "The Prince" (1513), "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius" (1513-17), "Art of War" (1521), "The HIstory of Florence" (1525) Major Ideas: ~Wisdom in the ways of the world can be achieved by careful observation of how people act and a study of history.
~Human nature is such that individuals will seek gratification of their lusting for power, pleasures, and profit. ~The essential feature of all society is struggle and intense competitiveness. ~ The wise prince ought to do whatever is expedient to achieve and maintain power. ~Consideration of the dictates of traditional morality and religion are not relevant unless they aid in the enhancement of the goods of a well-ordered society. ~Human excellence is measured in terms of virtu, the capacity of intellect and will to act with dynamic vitality. ~The most vital states are those republics where their citizens enjoy the maximum freedom to be masters of their own destiny. / Niccolo Machiavelli was educated in the tradition of Greek and Roman writers, in accord with the prevailing custom of the Renaissance. Machiavelli´s father, a lawyer in Florence , saw to it that his son received the best possible grounding in the humanities. This excellent education bore fruit, for at the age of twenty-nine, Machiavelli entered the service of the Florentine Republic , where as a secretary to the Chancellor he was responsible for the foreign and diplomatic relations of the Republic. He served the government for fourteen years on numerous difficult and delicate diplomatic missions throughout France , Germany , and Italy./ Machiavelli had opportunities to observe firsthand some of the leading powers of the day, King Louis XII of France (1462-1515), Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503), Cesare Borgia (1476-1507), Pope Julius II (1443-1513), and Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor (1459-1519). He watched and noted carefully the political intrigues of his time. He would later write with admiration about the cunning designs of Cesare Borgia, the conqueror of Romagna, an area south of Ravena on the Adriatic Sea . Machiavelli was greatly impressed with Cesare, thinking him superhuman in courage and grand designs, one who would control everything and was capable of governing with extreme secrecy, in essence, the very ideal of Machiavelli´s later, most famous work, "The Prince". For this young diplomat, Cesare Borgia was the embodiment of one who ruled with power and glory while laying the foundation for future power./ As a keen observer of political events, Machiavelli realized that they who keep power were those able to accomodate their actions and personalities to the shifting circumstances of their situation. For him, the srewdest rulers were those who acted when the moment required action and withdrew when withdrawal was mandated. Thus even his hero, Cesare Borgia, made the fatal mistake of backing Julius II for the papacy, failing to realize the well-concealed hatred of the new pope toward him -in essence, failing to keep his judgments frimly rooted in reality. One needs, as Machiaveli put it in the eighteenth chapter of his "Prince", "to turn and turn about as the winds and the variations of fortune dictate." / Machiavelli´s own fortunes also fell before Julius, who ordered his armies of the Holy League to suppress the Florentine Republic and thus restored the power of the Medici. This they accomplished in 1512, leaving Machiavelli, who sought to defend the city with a citizen army, in disgrace and without employment. He returned to his country home and began a long period of reflection, which resulted in the works on political philosophy that have made his name immortal./ Machiavelli´s two most important works, "The Prince" and "The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius", both deal with the rise and decline of states and the measures by which a leader can insure the states´ continued existence. This issue is approached from different angles in the two works. "The Prince", Machiavelli´s most well-known work, focuses on the activity of the individual ruler, while "The Discourses" considers the constitutive elements that accounted for the success of the ancient Roman Empire . His approach in these works, which was carried on in his later "Art of War" and "The History of Florence", was not to start from an assumption about the nature of a perfectly good society but, rather, to focus on how societies actually work. His method was experiential and pragmatic. Thus, in the preface to "The Prince", a work written in an attempt to gain employment with the new masters of Florence, the Medici, he writes that he bases his thoughts on his own "lengthy experience" over "many years" and with "many troubles and perils" as well as his "continual reading" of ancient history./ Machiavelli´s works thus inaugurate a new development in the West´s reflection on the key issues of political philosophy. He thought that no longer should such discussions depend on the doctrine of theology or moral philosphy. Here is modern political science looking to what has happened and seeing in the interplay of natural forces reasons for events. Personal experience and a careful reading of history were for him indispensable tools for knowing the things of this world./ With the writings of Machiavelli, politics establishes itself as an autonomous field of study, namely, the art of creating, perfecting, and enhancing the power of the state. Thus, the true prince seeks to establish a goverment that will bring honor to himself and benefit the whole body of his subjects./ Corruption as the Key to Power: Machiavelli´s observations of the behavior of the rich and the powerful led him to the view that humanity is corrupt. Men and women will when given the chance, always turn toward evil and self-gratification. His writings were especially preoccupied with what one might call the pathology of states. He was interested in the reasons for the decline and fall of states. He gives careful attention to the tragedies of life because for him the wise student of history has much to learn from what has failed to work./ Machiavelli always insisted on the uniformity of humanity. This theme that human beings are always the same in their nature was reiterated hundreds of times in his works. Standard was th formula "all men are born, live and die in the same way, and therefore resemble each other." All are animated by the same passions, the same desires, and the same impulses./ The corruption of human nature was not a new idea, for many theologians and philosophers had made the same point when discussing the effects of Original Sin. Machiavelli, however, rarely thought in abstract theological terms. For him, the claim that humanity is ruthless, blindly abandoning itself to a lust for pleasures, power, and profit was a plain, observable fact. In "The Discourses" he cautions anyone who wishes to found a state and to give it laws to begin with the basic presupposition that everyone is evil and will show their vicious nature. Even if this evil disposition remains concealed for a time, the wise prince must never be deceived into thinking that his subjects will not, at the earliest opportunity, seek their own self-interest./ For Machiavelly this acquisitiveness was normal, a natural fact. He, unlike innumerable medieval writers, accepted this as the human lot. On this point we find little of the preacher in him. He often notes throughout his "History of Florence" the many times Florentine rulers, like those throughout the history of Rome, were so enamored with their lives of wealth and comfort that they failed in the defense of their own city and thus hastened theor own destruction. So Machiavelli´s famous cynical remark that a man would more readily forgive the murder of his father than the confiscation of his patrimony. Thus the prudent ruler may fill, but ought not to plunder./ The natural feature of all societies is struggle and intense competitiveness. Men, he writes, always commit the error of not knowing when to limit their hopes. For him, our passions are endless, our desires bottomless. So we read in the fifteenth chapter of "The Prince": "My intention being to write something of use to those who understand, it appears to me more proper to go to the real truth of the matter than to its imagination; ... for how we live is so var removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation. A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good." / Previous to Machiavelli, there was a long discussion beginning with Plato (c. 429-347 B.C.) and carried throughout the middle Ages that affirmed that the ruler ought to embody noble ideals and values. This tradition focused on the virtues of justice and mercy as essential for good goverment. Machiavelli turns away from this tradition and considers in "The Prince" what is necessary to be successful in a corrupt world. It is the situation at the moment that determines which actions are necessary. For Machiavelli, the goal is success, not the virtue or vice of the act. He does not advocate that the successful prince should always violate the rights of others but, rather, calculate what course of action will enhance the strength and vitality of the state./ "The Prince" is, in essence, a technical book about how to grasp and hold power, rather than one focused on the issues of morality or immorality. Machiavelli saw it as quite enough to offer his advice on what worked and what did not work in advancing a politcal career. Like a skilled physician, askilled politician must be able to make an accurate diagnosis and then proceed with a proper course of treatment. Thus Machiavelli´s works aim at offering an analysis of the ills of a state and the best possible corrective that should be prescribed. he does not let traditional questions of moratlity deter the ruler from proper action./ Just as, in the hands of a skilled physician , poison may save the life of a patient, so force in the hands of a skilled ruler may eventuate in the health of a whole community. Or, to use another image, for Machiavelli political activity is like a game of chess with its rules, its proven gambits, and its successful strategies. The master player knows how to exploit the weaknesses nd blunders of his opponents to maximum advantage. The goal is finding the best move, the move that wins. The qualities needed to win may be judged as vices by others, but, as Machiavelli puts it in "The Prince", they are "the vices by which you are able to rule." The crimex committed in order to preserve one´s country are "glorious crimes." Thus, in the fifth chapter of his "History of Florence" we read, "No good man will ever reproach another who endeavors to defend his country whatever be his mode of doing so." / It is much safer that the prince be feared than loved. Machiavelli sdvises princes not to be troubled if they are called cruel, for to be is often necessary, especially if one is a commander of an army. Although in the "Discourses" he notes that "a multitude is more easily governed by humanity and gentleness than by haughtiness and cruelty," the point is that a wise ruler does whatever is necessary. What is unnecessary is for the prince actually to have good qualities; all that is necessary is for the prince to appear to have them in order to win the confidence of the people. We find in the seventeenth chapter of "The Prince" Machiavelli´s use of the example of Pope Alexander VI, who did nothing else but deceive men, always finding victims, by successfully disguising his intentions. He, like his son Cesare Borgia, was as wise as a fox and as terrifying as a lion. All this is clearly summarized in the following passage from the second chapter of "The Discourses": Government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you; and this is done by depriving them of all means of injuring you, or by bestowing such benefits upon them that it would not be reasonable for them to desire any change of fortune./ Religion and the State: According to "The Discourses", religion, in terms of its rituals and ceremonies, was "the instrument necessary above all others for the maintenance of a civilized state." The religion of ancient Rome , Machiavelli thought, helped to maintain the strength of the army, ginding ti by loyalty to an oath. Aslo, all Roman legislators had recourse to the gods when they inttroduced laws to the people. For Machiavelli, a source of strength for a country lay in its uncorrupted ceremonies and its veneration of the gods because they instilled bravery and upheld the common good./ This vitality was lost when Christianity began to preach an ethic of humility and docility. In his "Discourses" Macjhiavelli notes that Christ did not redeem huanity but through Christianity hastened its decline. Christianity glorified the meek, leaving the world to the domination of the arrogant and the wicked. Machiavelli preferred a Roman ethic, which elevated self-preservation, to a Christian one of sacrifice. The necessities of war to maintain and enhance security makes Christian pacifism treasonable and dangerous. If the world were different, if the Church had retained the purity of its ideals, then men would certainly be far happier than they are at present. He writes in "The Discourses": "And whoever examines the principles on which that religion is founded, and sees how widely different from those principles its present practice and application are, will judge that her ruin or chastisement is at hand." / This contemporary of Lugher condemns the Roman Church not out of a religious zeal but rather from the perspective of a thoroughgoing secularism. In Machiavelli´s writings the sacred side of the human soul disappears and only its secular elements (instinct, desire, appetite, emotions, and power) remain. Here is animality guided by intelligence. Religion has value not because it elevates and enobles humanity but because it can serve as a vehicle of state; religion is useful if it inspires loyalty rather than salvation. We see here the challenge of a revived paganism to an aging Christianity./ Virtu: The Italian word virtu means "virtue," and was a very important term for Machiavelli. It represented a most basic quality for a successful leader. Early in "The Discourses" he declares that the fortunes of a city depend on the virtu of its founder. The term sometimes refers to the traditional moral and intellectual virtues emphasized in the writers of antiquity. Often, however, it becomes a key term for Machiavelli expressing the capacity for effective action, a vitality. Therefore we find the use of hte term not so much in the medieval sensse of a set of virtues but, rather, in the Roman sense of activity -activity that brings honor and glory to the one who acts. With this in mind, Machiavelli often describes as virtuosi those military leaders like Hannibal (247 -c. 182 B.C.) who exhibit prowess in war./ The men (vir) who exhibited virtu were alone able to bend fortune to their side. Machiavelli believed that only half of our lives is under oour own control. The other half is under the sway of forces and factors beyond us. This is why history teaches that exactly the same acts at different times yield different results. For the Secretary of Florence, the success of every act depended on the relationship between it and its times. It was good fortune if such a harmonious relationship existed, bad fortune if it did not. As Virgil (70-19 B.C.) put it in his tenth book of "The Aeneid", "Fortune befriends the bold." Machiavelli was sure that princes become great only when they overcome difficulties and obstacles. Here the Renaissance rediscovers the classical idea of fortune as a woman who looks kindly on men who exhibit the manly virtues of self-reliance and self-affirmation even in the worst of times./ Self-determination: The absolutistic and despotic features of Machiavelli´s "Prince" have overshadowed another important dimension of his thought, the value of freedom as an essential element of a good state. Falsely read as a writer who advocated only the absolute will of one dictator at the expense of hte free wills of his subjects, Machiavelli is often not credited for his attention to the value of self-determination as a general feature of a healthy state. Indeed, it was his lifelong dream that Italy would unite as one state to overcome her many foreign opressors. Interestingly, one source of Machiavellís hostility toward the Church of Rome stemmed from his belief that she stood in the way of complete Italian unity because of her intense preocupation with control over the papal states. It was his view that the Church was too weak to control the whole of the peninsula, but too strong to permit anyone else from unifying all of Italy./ Unity can be achieved only if people awake to their heritage of republican liberty. This, Machiavelli thought, was the secret of Greek and Roman glory. For Greece and Rome grew only when they were able to sustain themselves in liberty. These ancient states and the old Florentine Republic had as their aim the good of the whole. In strong states, all men freely seek the common good./ The belief in the importance of freedom lies behind Machiavelli´s advocacy that the people themselves defend their own territories. The entire population ought to be filled with that intense fervor, that virtu, to affirm their own rights. In "The Art of War", Machiavelli, reflecting on why in 1494 the French had so easily triumphed oveer the Italians, concludes that it was due in large part to the dependence of the Italians on unreliable mercenary soldiers rather than, as ought to be the case, an army of patriots led courageously by their own prince./ The key to power in the state is unity in diversity. In a healthy state all members would, in their diversity, be oriented toward the same noble ends. Here Cicer (106-43 B.C.) becomes Machiavelli´s guide, for both saw in nature a model of diversity that acts as a vast interrelated system. It is in this vein that the Secretary of Florence looked with admiration on the Roman Republic and its practice of keeping a delicate balance between the opposing forces of rich and poor. This is why the Romans gave the nobles control od the Senate while assigining the Tribunate to the plebes. In this way, each faction could prevent the other from pushint to total dominance its own interests. Good laws emerge from that delicate equilibrium between competing groups who seek to affirm their own selfish aims while being kept in check by another equally powerful force. Here human societies cna learn from the witness of nature./ Machiavelli´s sincere enthusiasm for Roman self-governance led him to consider the value of law and custom as a guarantor of free action. He looked upon his present age with its divisions, disorder, and corruption as helpless before foreign invaders and noted, as did Cicero , that nature instills in humanity the hunger for independence. Cities grow and acquire greatness, he writes, onli if "the peoplpe are in control of them." This explains why citiyes under monarchical governments seldom go forward as do those that live in freedom. Therefore, the whole citizen body must keep the quality of virtu, while the prince most of all seeks to overcome all threats to the self-preservation and self-determination of a state. The great lawgivers of the past knew, as did Lycurgus, the traditional founder of Sparte, that good laws ensure civil greatness. We read in "The Discourses, "Just as hunger and poverty make men industrious, it is the laws that make them good." / Machiavellianism: Machiavelli was laid to rest in the Church of Santa Croce . Over his remains there stands a stately monument bearing the words "Tanto nomini nullum par elogium" (No eulogy would do justice to so great a name). His name was so great that it quickly became an adjective and the focus of controversy. Before the end of the sixteenth century, "Machiavellian" came to mean a preference for expediency over morality, a practice of duplicity, cunning, and intrigue in statecraft. The Church did not take kindly to Machiavelli´s separation of morality from politics, nor to his critical remarks about the institutions of religion. They placed his works on the Index in 1559. "The Prince, nevertheless, was widely read, and it overshadowed his comments in "The Discourses" about the value of human freedom and the common good. It became popular to identify the name for the devil, "Old Nick," as an abbreviation for Machiavelli´s frist name. In a famous scene from Christopher Marlow´s work "The Jew of Malta", penned about 1589. Machiavelli enters in the prologue with the line, "I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but ignorance." Shakespeare (1564-1616) would later enhance the dramatic use of the Machiavellian image with hs portraits of Iago in "Othello" and of Richard III./ In an age that saw the rise of absolute monarchs, many thought that their grab for power was nothing but an action foretold by Machiavelli. The most famous literary condemnation of machiavelli was offered by Frederick the Great (1712-86) in his work "Anti-Machiavel" (1740), where he writes: "I venture now to take up the defense of humanity against this monster who wants to destroy it, with reason and justice I dare to oppose Sophisty and crime; and I put forth these reflections on "The Prince" of Machiavelli, chapter by chapter, so that the antidote may be found immediately following the poison." Considering the later career of Frederick , many would note that by appearing to repudiate Machiavelli he was behaving in true Machiavellian fashion./ Today the term "Machiavellian" has entered the common lexicon of words that seem capable of a very wide range of diverse meanings. For some, the term is used to describe clever political maneuverings in every conceivable social context, while for others it implies a system of ethics where the ends justify the means. It is a label that seeks to characterize familiar uses of power, whether in the office politics of the modern corporation or in the ruthless tactics of dictators./ This great name to which "No eulogy would od justice" marked an important moment in the creation of the secular world view. In Machiavelli we see a definite break with the concerns of a Saint Augustine preoccupied with the City of God . Machiavelli´s entire attention is given to the City of Man (literally: Machiavelli was certainly no feminist). One of the first to develop what we now call modern political science, with its focus on the utility and maintenance of power, Machiavelli, the keen observer of contemporary events, looked to the interplay of natural causes and effects rather than to transcendent religious influences. This is why his portrait of Cesare Borgia in "The Prince" is the forerunner of the "modern man" who frees himself from the conventional morality by the power of his own intellecta and will -in essence, by the force of his own virtu./ NICHOLAS COPERNICUS: Born: 1473, Torun , Poland Died: 1543, Frauenberg , East Prussia (now in Poland ) Major Works: "Commentariolus" (1540), "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" (1543) Major Ideas: ~Motion is relative. ~The earth is not at the center of the universe. ~The sun, the plantes, and the stars do not revolve around the earth; rather, the earth is one of the planets, and it revolves around the sun, as do the other planets. ~The apparent "loops" that the planets make in their motions across the heavens are not real motions; they are mere appearances, caused by our position on the earth and the earth´s motion around the sun relative to the other planets. ~The appearance of the heavens´ rotation about the earth is due to the fact that we are on the earth´s surface and the earth is rotating about its axis once every twenty-four hours. ~It is imprudent for a government to allow two different currencies to circulate at the same time; if bad money circulates along with the good, the good money will soon disappear and only the bad will be left. / Nicolas Copernicus (in Polish, Nicolaus Koppernigk) was born in Torun , a town in a part of Prussia that was then a part of the kingdom of Poland . Though it has changed hands from time to time, Torun is once again a part of Poland ./ Copernicus´s father died when Nicolaus was ten years old. Fortunately, the boy´s uncle, a prosperous clergyman, assumed responsibility for his general well-being and for his education. As bishop of Varmia, the uncle was also responsible for Copernicus´s acceptance as one of the canons in his cathedral, thus assuring Nicolaus of an adequate income for the rest of his life. Young Copernicus studied at the university of Cracow , then enrolled at the University of Bologna to study law. After a vist to Rome , he decided, with his chapter´s consent, to study medicine at the University of Padua . After studying there for two years -not enough to earn his medical degree- he went to the University of Ferrara , where he earned his doctorate in canon law. Evidently he chose not to take the doctorates in law or medicine that he could have earned at Bologna or Padua because he did not have enough money for the elaborate ceremonies conncected with the awarding of diplomats at those universities. Like many clergymen of his day and ours, he was inclined to be somewhat skeptical about the Church´s doctines and rules. There is considerable evidence that he was inclined to fudge a bit on his vows of chastity. A certain woman who had woked as his hosekeeper married a man who turned out to be impotent. Soon afterward, she and the woman who was her new employer happened to be passing through Copernicus´s town after attending a fair. The young canon was hospitable enough to invite the women to stay the night with him, causing his bishop to raise serious questions about the propriety of his behavior. Well into his sixties, Copernicus was frequently chastised for his liaisons with various women, including one Anna Schilling, who was called his "mistress" in a letter written to the bishop. The bishop, for his part, was so distressed that he ordered certain "prostitutes," many of them housekeepers who served the local clergy, expelled from his diocese. Even after Copernicus´s death, the bishop was unrelenting and refused to allow Anna Schilling to return to her home, because she could spread the "contagion" of her "disease" among other clergymen in the region./ The Copernican Theory: Anyone who lies on the ground on a summer´s night, watching the heavens, cannot help but be struck by the sensation that the heavens are rotating around the earth. The stars appear to move swiftly enough that their motions are rather easily perceptible. Those that remain above the horizon describe circles around the Pole Star (the North Star), while others rise in the east and set in the west. We say that the sun and the moon rise in the east and set in the west. for that is the most natural way to describe their apparent movements. These movements are quite regular, and unless fairly long-term observations are made and careful records maintained, it is natural to assume that they are perfectly circular. The so-called fixed stars maintain certain positions relative to one another with no perceptible changes whatever. The pattern of fixed stars remains the same, night after night, generation after generation./ The planets, however, are obviously different. It takes no more than a few nights to notice that the planets shift their positions against the patttern of fixed stars that dominates the heavens. Mercury and Venus oscillate against the background of strs so rapidly that their motions are readily observable. The other planet´s motions are less rapid, but are nevertheless unmistakable./ Nothing could be more natural than to assume that the heavenly bodies are moving and that the earth is stationary. Everyone knows what it feels like to be in motion. No one has that sensation when lying in a hammock watching the sun or the stars. Indeed, it is quite unnatural to suppose that the earth is rotating on its axis. We all know what it is like to whirl about or to be on the edge of a spinning wheel like a merry-go-round. Ordinarily, we have no such sensation. Nor do we see things flying off into space, as we might expect them to do if the earth were rotating./ The most respected thinkers of antiquity believed that the earth was at the center of the universe with the heavenly bodies revolving around it. In the Bible, Joshua is reported to have stopped the sun in its tracks, with some help from God, so that he could complete a furious battle with Israel´s enemies. Aristotle and most of the important Greek philosophers believed that the earth was composed of a heavy substance that tended to move toward the center of the universe, while the bodies were composed of lighter substances whose natural motions were either upward or circular./ the Greek astronomers, puzled by the strange phenomena, sought rational explanations for them. Aristotle concluded, for example, that the earth must be round because its shadow on the moon during lunar eclipses was round. He also inferred that the moon is closer to the earth than Mars because Mars disappeared, from time to time, behind the darkened lunar sphere. Some of the Greek astronomers found that they could explain the seasons and changes in the lengths of days and nights by assuming that the sun´s orbit around the earth is an eccentric circle. They assumed that the earth is at the center of the universe, but not at the center of the circle that describes the sun´s orbit. Consequently, at various times of the year, the sun´s distance from the earth is greater than at other times. Hence, the days are longer or shorter, colder or warmer./ The strange motions of the planets, however caused the greatest difficulty. The planets appear to move against the background of the stars. For a number of months, a given planet (for example, Jupiter) appears to be moving in an easterly direction. It then slows down and gradually shifts to a westerly motion, which it maintains for some time. The process is then reversed, with the planet slowing down once again and appearing to shift back to its easterly path. These motions are in loops rather than straight lines. Ancient and medieval astronomers devoted considerable effort to the search for an explanation of this phenomenon. Because the loops described by the planets are so complex, the explanations required considerable mathematical sophistication and had to be based upon a multitude of observations collected over long periods of time./ In the second century, Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaus) developed an explantion for the motions of the heavenly bodies that formed the foundation for virtually all astronomical work through the next thirteen centuries. The gist of Ptolemy´s theory is that the earth is at the very center of the universe with a crystalline sphere containing the stars circling around it once every day. The sun, the moon, and the planets revolve around the earth as well, each in its own orbit. In order to explain the variations that were observed in their motions, the Ptolemaic theory (which was plished and refined over many centuries) concluded that the orbits were somewhat off-center (eccentric). Since this did not fully explain the observed motions, the theory further postulated the existence of smaller spheres, called epicycles, on the large spheres that carried the planets around the earth. A planet (for example, Mars) was thought to be attached to a transparent sphere or wheel, an epicycle, which was in turn attached to the outer rim of the principal sphere or wheel that revolved around the earth from west to east. This epicycle was carried around the rim of the larger sphere in a great circle. At the same time, it had its own motion. Thus, while Mars circled around its epicycle, the epicycle and Mars were borne eastward together on the larger sphere. An observer on the earth, near the center of the system, would see Mars moving in an easterly directin while it was on the far side of the epicycle. But as it corssed the outer rim of the larger sphere it would appear to an earthbound observer to slow down and reverse course, even though it was continuing to travel eastward along with its epicycle. Not until it crossed the larger sphere´s outer rim once more would Mars appear to resume its eastward motion. As the centuries passed and astronomical observations became more reliable and more detailed, refinements in the Ptolemaic theory led to extraordinary complications, with epicycles on the epicycles, each of them necessary to account for all of the phenomena that had been recorded. Scientific theories serve many purposes. One of them, accounting for observed phenomena and gathering them under a single theoretical framework, was admirably fulfilled by the Ptolemaic system. Another, enabling scientists to make accurate predicitions of future events, was also fulfilled by the Ptolemaic system; for using hte charts and tables developed by astronomers utilizing the Ptolemaic approach, it was possible to predict the motions of the heavenly bodies with considerable accuracy./ Scientific theories are often expected to fill still another need: to add to the sense of comfort, security, and familiarity that people have in relation to the universe as a whole, to God, and to one another -or at least not to detract from it. The Ptolemaic theory admirably fulfilled all of these functions. / The new perspectives tht some scientists adopted as a result of Copernicus´s theory flew in the face of what had been long accepted as common sense and as verified scientific and philosophical truth. As has happened so often in history such revolutionary ideas are not readily accepted by those who have a vested interest in the intellectual status quo. It is not surprising, therefore, that church leaders, both Catholic and Protestan, soon become extremely hostile toward Copernicanism. Some of Coperncus´s followers, like Galileo, were warned by the Inquisition that their views were heretical and they were tried and punished for publishing them. Some, loke Giordano Bruno, were even less fortunate and were burned at the stake for their temerity. Copernicus had upset the entire world-view of Christian authority. The earth, and the human beings on it, were no longer the center of the universe. The human being was now depicted as a relatively insignificant creature on a speck of dust floating around a relatively minor star in a vast, potentially infinite universe. Those who could extrapolate to the future implications of this heretical theory could see that it would lead to the conclusion that the earth and its inhabitants were formed by impersonal physical forces rather than by an act of divine creation, and that this was tantamount to an assault on the divine throne itself./ Copernicanism thus became the central focus of a colossal between the forces of intellectual and scientific progress on the one hand, and those of conservative religious and philosophical dogmas on the other. It set thestage for what came to be called the Copernican Revolution -one of the most momentous intellectual and cultural revolutions in history./ But its creator, blithely unaware of the convulsions his still-unpubhlished work would bring about, carried on with his duties as canon and served his king by developing a program for the minting of coins that would discourage counterfeiting and the debasement of official currencies. He wrote several essays on money and coinage and was appointed delegate to various royal commisions on coinage./ His essays were the first to proclaim what later became known as Gresham´s law, that bad money drives out good. To this day, this principle is recognized as an important one, and no doubt Copernicus´s bishop and his colleagues in Varmia thought his work on the problems of Polish and Prussian currency of far greater importance than his star-gazing. But he will forever be remembered as the man who shook the universe and banished the earth and all its creatures from its center, relegating them forever to a far less exalted place in the scheme of things. / THOMAS MORE: Born: 1478, London , England Died: 1535, Tower Hill, London , England Major Works: "Utopia" (1516), "HIistory of Richard III" (between 1514 and 1518), "Dialogue Concerning Heresies" (1529), "Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation" (1534-35) Major Ideas: ~A program of education grounded on ethics, the study of Green and Latin, and the imitation of ancient pagan and Christian writers is the soundest plan for spiritual renewal and reform of the church and society. ~Nature teaches that the best society is one whose aim is the temporal well-being or happiness of all its citizens, an aim achieved through the elimination of private property. ~The essential life and the fullness of power of any society resides in its members and no legitimate authority exists apart from the common consent of its members. ~The surest comfort in this life comes from the knowedge that the Catholic Church´s authority, sacraments, and practices are assured by God´s promise and his continuing presence through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. ~The greatest pleasure in this world is the meditation on the four last things -on how sin, death, and judgment en in the happiness of eternal life./ Robert Bolt´s "A Man of All Seasons" created for twentieth-century audiences a Thomas More more modern than sixteenth century -the very image of a contemporary man with a commanding range of interests, a zest for living, and a heroic integrity in the face of an age riddled with paradoxes and contradictions. Of course, it is true More´s age was one of arresting contrast and wrenching change. He was born during the reign of King Richard III, whom he later memorialized in the "History of Richard III", a work regarded as significant for the development of modern history and biography. Some scholars also see in More´s use of perspective, the dramatic monologue, and other novelistic techinques in his biography the anticipation of the novel and modern fiction./ The years following Henry Plantagenet´s defeat of Richard at Bosworth Field ended a period of violent civil war in England´s history and initiated a period of political stability, peace, and economic prosperity. The reign of Henry VII was also the harbinger of England´s great literary renaissance, in which More was to play so central a role. During these years, More began his career in the law, was married to Jane Colt, began his family, and launched his career in goverment. Of significance for More and the English Renaissance that commenced with the coronation of Henry´s son, Henry VIII (1509), More gave evidence of his inclinaton to be a player in the international literary movement known as humanism. Following a characteristic humanist program, More steadily gained proficiency in both Latin and Greek; he translated several pieces from Lucian, the second-century Greek satirist, and he prepared an English translation of the "Life of John Picus" - the Italian humanist Pico della Mirandola. In these early endeavors, More collaborated with and was encouraged in his writing by the most famous humanist and scholar of the time, Desiderius Erasmus, who visited England twice during these years./ The prospect of a golden age was bright when Henry Tudor succeded his father to England´s throne. So too did the prospect of More´s political fortunes increase with the new king. More had opportunity to demonstrate his legal and diplomatic ability, and Henry resolved to make use of More´s talent in royal service on a diplomatic mission to Flanders . The next decade and a half would see More drawn deeper into the king´s service and royal politics. In rapid succession, he became under-treasurer, speaker of the House of Commons, high steward of Oxford University and the of Cambridge , and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Then, with the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, More became Henry´s lord chancellor. Yet, in spite of the demands of public office on his time and energy, the years between 1509 and 1520 were exceptionally important ones for More´s contribution to literature and the general cause of international humanism. It was during these years that he wrote the "History of Richard III", and it was this period that saw More emerge as a humanist of international stature. He also found himself cast in the part of the defencer off Erasmus´s Greek New Testament and "Praise of Folly" against Erasmus´s conservative critics. Of all his literary achievements during this humanist phase of his career, the greatest and most famous in his own day and in ours was the "Utopia"./ It is with a certain irony that just when the world seemd for More most certain and promising, just when his literary star was rising and his political future seemed brightest, an obscure German Bible professor published ninety-five Latin theses questioning the Church´s doctrine of indlugences. In March of 1518, Erasmus sent More a copy of Luther´s theses, but there is no reason to think that More took them seriously. Like the rest of Europe , he seemed unaware of the sea change that was in the making. Yet, in less than two years, Luther´s books were in general circulation in England, Lutheran ideas had spread to Oxford, and England´s first of Protestant thinkers began assembling at the White Horse Inn at Cambridge . The spark that ignited England´s controversy with Protestantism, however, was the publication in 1520 of Luther´s "Babylonian Captivity of the Church". Henry VIII rallied to the Church´s cause with the "Defense of the Seven Sacraments". More may have been its author; certainly, he had a hand in its preparation. But it was not until the publication of the "Response to Luther" (1523) that he was personally committed to the Church´s cause./ Against Luther, More argued that the Church is visible, institutional reality on earth, that its teachings and practices are confirmed by the continued inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that its sacraments were instituted by Christ. And, since Christ did not write a book but established a church, More held that sacred tradition takes precedence over sacred Scripture. The "Responsio" reveals More´s conservative turn of mind; his abusive language and ad hominum attack on Luther disclose a surprising degree of raw anger beneath his almost stoical public image. Yet, even in the genre of polemical writing, More produced the "Dialogue Concerning Heresies", a book that is notable for its vigorous dialogue, its lively character portraits, good humor, and the "merry tale" for which More was famous./ Retirement, the charge of treason, and imprisonment defined the last chapter in More´s life and in a sense brought his story full circle. It is a reasonable inference that More had given thought to a religious vocation when still a young man. Not only only had he gone to study at Oxford , where one might expecto to go in preparation for an ecclesiastical career, but while preparing for and practicing law, he had lived in the Carthusian monastery adjoining Lincoln´s Inn and shared the discipline and common life of its monks. And, while he pursued his legal studies, he continued a program of reading in Scripture and the Greek and Latin Christian and ancient pagan writers. Even after he had decided for a secular career, the monastic impulse stayed with him, though camouflaged beneath his public persona much as the hair shirt he wore nearest his skin hidden from public view. It was only during the period following his resignation as lord chancellor in 1532 and his imprisonment thereafter that he had the leisure to give himself openly and unreservedly to the monastic devotion to which he had been drawon early in life. In the writing of the Tower period, the mystical strain in his thought and personality surfaced in his reflection on his own death in the light of the suffering humanity of Christ. Still, even at theis period of personal trial, More did not lose his humor or that special balance that was so much a part of his charm. Even as he mounted the scaffold More was capable of one last jest. "See me safe up," he counseled the lieutenant, "and for my coming down let me shift for myself." Utopia: When More invented his imaginary island and named it Utopia, punning on the Greek words for "happy place" and "nowhere," he spawned a whole new literary genre that was to include Francis Bacon´s "New Atlantis", Jonathan Swift´s "Gulliver´s Travels". Samuel Butler´s "Erewhon", William Morris´s "News from Nowhere", and Edward Bellamy´s "Looking Backward". This unexpected frut of More´s holiday diversion at Antwerp where book 2 was written was no small literary achievement, yet the weight to be given this little Renaisssance masterpiece has been much debated. / Many of More´s contemporaries and some modern scholars have thought it to be only a literary diversion, the jeu d´esprit of a literary humanist; others discover in it earnest proposals for social, political, and economic reform. What has not been questioned, however, was the seriousness of More´s identification with the international circle of Christian humanists or his hope that "Utopia" would win their approval. And, when he sent its manuscript to Erasmus in September of 1516, he had cause to hope that his position in that circle would be secure. Not only was his Latin style elegant and his capacity for imaginative invention apparent; he had created an effective instrument for expressing Christian humanism´s ideal and spirit./ Using a mixture of dialogue and narrative to create his fiction, More described how his friend Peter Giles introduced him to Raphael Hythloday and how the traveling philosopher drew him into a conversation on the usefulness of counseling kings. The topic was an important one for the humanists of the Renaissance. Many of them earned their keep as advisers to magistrates and princes, and most of them subscribed to the view that the best life was one of civic service. The question of state service may also have been very much on More´s own mind at this time, for in a year after the completion and publication of "Utopia" he joined the king´s council as a royal adviser. Whatever More´s personal reason for agreeing to service in Henry´s court, More as a character in "Utopia" exhibits the humanist´s optimism about politics, arguing that philosophers must become kings and kings must turn to philosophy if the common good is to be best served. A Platonic truism to which More may or may not have personally subscribed, this opinion nevertheless gives to "Utopia" an old-fashioned feel next to a contemporary work like "The Prince" (1513) by Machiavelli./ Though the question of counseling kings is a prominent element in book 1, the transition to book 2 of "Utopia" makes it clear that More´s real concern was not political theory in any narrow sense of the word. With an objective more like that of Erasmus in "The Praise of Folly" than like Machiavelli´s, he was committed to giving form to humanist values in the interest of social reformation and religious renewal. Making use of his inventive powers, More thus has his fictive Hythloday narrate the story of an imaginary island and tis republic of virtuous pagans who live in a state of nature and have the advantage of reason alone to guide their affairs. Yet, as More´s contemporaries surely recognized, these pagans without the aid of revelation have views on religion, ethics, education, work, the family, the state, and warfare that are in many ways superior to those of Christian Europe. Without the benefit of revelation, the Utopians believe in a supreme God who providentially guides human affairs and rewards or punishes virtue and wickedness in a future life. And, against the skepticism of a Renaissance philosopher like Pomponazzi, More´s Utopians find in reason cause to affirm the soul´s immortality./ Perhaps even more striking was the fact that reason seems to have guided the Utopians to a philosophy of economic communism, a philosophy that has caused More to be heralded in this century as a sixteenth-century socialist far ahead of his time. The likelihood of discovering the spirit of "Utopia´s" communism in the present, however, is less probable than if we look for its source in his reading of ancient Christian writers. From the Greek and Latin church fathers, for example, he would have learned that private property is a principal cause of human vice. And from his letter to a monk (1519) we learn that More believed that God instituted all things in common, that Christ sought to recall humans to this divine institution, and that private property exists because of the corruption of human nature. What he also believed, and what differentiated his attitude from the Anabaptists whom he later opposed, was that Christ summoned only the few to the perfection of communal poverty./ Hythloday´s advocacy of communism provided More´s contemporaries with a wonderful mirror of Christian perfection, but we need to remember that the Utopians were not Christians. The acceptance of the principle of common property was based on their conviction that nature taught that pleasure is the highest human good. In a philosophy very similar to that of the Roman philosopher Epicurus, the Utopians argued that all pleasures are good, consistent with nature and reason, and are desirable in promoting human happiness, though not all pleasures are equally good. The Utopians hold that pleasures are to be avoided if they are the cause of pain, or if they are won at the sacrifice of a greater pleasure, or if they result in social harm. And Utopian society was carefully planned to prevent such false or spurious pleasures from arising. As a hedge against spurious pleasures, the Utopians, like Calvin´s Genevans, tolerated "no wine shops, no alehouses, no brothels anywhere, no opportunity for corruption, no lurking hole, no secret meeting place." And, as an antidote to pride, that greatest of sins according to Augustine, the Utopians adopted a monasticlike style of life and discipline for the discouragement of the false pleasure citizens might take in personal possessions or position. Within the world of Hythloday´s narrative, false and spurious pleasures are forbidden because of the Utopians´ belief that the greatest social pleasure is the happiness of all citizens, and the greatest spiritual pleasure is the contemplation of the truth and the hope of eternal life./ Dialogue Concerning Heresies: The major themes of More´s polemical writing were already evident in his "Response to Luther" (1520). Writing against Luther in this work, More affirmed the unity and peramanence of the church. He argued, as he would repeatedly in his books against heresy, that the Catholic church is a divine foundation resting on the authority of Christ and secure in its faith, teaching, and practices because of the living presence of the Spirit. Of More´s most remembered controversial writings, however, none compares with his "Dialogue Concerning Heresies", a book written in obedience to Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall´s commission to refute Heresy in English so that the "simple and unlearned" might be fortified in their faith./ C.S. Lewis regarded the "Dialogue" as the best example in English of the Platonic dialogue, and another of More´s modern interpreters believes that it is spiritual heir to Chaucer. There is no doubt that More enlivened his fiction with vivid characterization, good humor, carefully placed irony, and the folk exempla calculated to amuse and divert when the theological discourse became too dense and wearisome. His seriousnessof purpose, however, is never in question. Right from the opening scene in which persona More engages his young sparring partner, the issues central to the Protestant attacks on the Catholic church are before the reader. The student, it should be emphasized, is not a Protestant but is only one who inclines to the Protestant heresy./ The young man objects to the veneration of saints, images, and miracles and remarks that these attitudes of popular piety are not found in Scripture. More´s answer is always lively and amiable but also unbending in his defense o traditional Catholic piety and practice. Not only does he maintain, as he had in earlier writing, that the Church cannot permanently err but also in a vein that is strikingly modern, he holds that the Church is prior to Scripture. Against the Protestant elevation of Scripture and individual conscience, More trusts rather in consensus and community and in living voice of tradition./ Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation: Written in the Tower and under the cloud of his own impending death, the "Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation" is a devotional work that takes the form of an imaginary conversation between the Hungarians who are faced with the prospect of persecution and even maryrdom as the armies of Suleiman threaten conquest of their city. The "Dialogue" is divided into three books and turns on the question of consolation in the face of tribulation and temptation, a question very much on More´s own mind at the time of his writing this meditation. On the nature of tribulation, Anthony, the older of the two and More´s persona, tells his nephew that suffering need not be an evil before which one flees. For Christians it can be a good to be welcomed as a thing prompting spiritual health and well-being. The suffering that accompanies tribulation, Anthony maintains, can be spiritually "medicinal" if it is payment for past sins or the means of preventing sins that might otherwise have been. And, if unrelated to sin, tribulation ca be "more than medicinal," contributing to the Christian´s merit and to the Christian hope of future glory./ More once again revived the themes central to his plemical writings, and he cast Anthony as a defender of the Catholic faith which, like the Budapest of Anthony and his young nephew, is besieged on all sides. In particular, he is keen to refute the Protestant belief that salvation is by faith without works. He has Anthony say that he would that the Lutheran teachings were true, but the truth resides in the inspired tradition of the Church, whose authority must be embraced if the Christian is to enjoy the consloation that Christ promised his disciples. And, with this familiar defense, More reaffirms those Catholic doctrines, practices, and sacraments to which the Protestants objected and toward which his king appeared to be drifting. Yet the "Dialogue" revolves on suffering and the thought of death, and its mood is devotional and meditative and not polemical. It is for this reason too that theological controversy is not so much the issue as is the larger, more directly personal preoccupation with persecution and martyrdom. The comfort and remedy for these greatest of temptations, More believes, is Christ´s own exemplary Passion and death. In a vein reminiscent of the early Christian literature of martyrdom, More holds that this last and greatest temptation is overcome through the mystical identification of the Christian´s suffering with Christ´s own.// MARTIN LUTHER: Born: 1483, Eisleben, Saxony. Died: 1546, Eisleben, Saxony. Major Works: "Lectures on Romans" (1515-16), "The Ninety-five Theses" (1517), "An Address to the Nobility of the German Nation" (1520), The Babylonian Captivity of the Church" (1520); "On the Liberty of a Christian Man" (1520), "On Good Works" (1520) , "On the Bondage of the Will" (1525) Major Ideas: ~Human nature is corrupt, weak, self-centered, and in a state of rebellion from God; the fruit of the fall from grace is death. ~God´s laws show sinners their distance from God and arouse a desire for redemption. ~Although God in his justice could condemn humanity, he chooses out of love to redeem sinners; this love is most fully manifest on the cross. ~In the process of redemption one can do nothing but have faith, an absolute trust and response to God´s words; human merit and good works are rejected. ~The foremost vehicle of God´s saving word is the Bible, which presents the whole of the good news for human salvation. ~The Catholic priesthood, monasticism, and canon law are rejected as human institutions that make the false claim to control the spirit of God. ~The sacraments are signs that communicate god´s saving word./ Martin Luther was at the center of the storm that named the sixteenth century the period of Reformation. His views changes Western Christianity to such an extent that by the end of his life there existed competing conceptions as to how a person ought to respond to the divine. Scenes from his life such as the nailing of ninety-five theses on the door of the castle church at Wittenburg on the eve of All Saints, 1517, or his dramatic affirmation of Scripture and conscience before the emperor and the assembled nobility of Germany at the Diet of Worms, 1521, have become the stuff of Western historical memory. Very few in history ahve been the object of more intense condemnation ad praise. To the Catholics of the day he was, in the words of the papal bull of excommunication, "Domine Exsurge" (1520), the "wold boar" that had invaded the vineyards of the Lord. By publicly burning that papl document at Wittenburg. Luther affirmed that he was, as one Protestant cartoon of the day potrayed him, "the German Hercules," the great leader of national and religious liberation. Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560) in his funeral sermon preached on the death of Luther called him "the very instrument of God por the propaganda of the Gospel"; while Pope Gregory XV in 1622 wrote in a bull canonizing Ignatius Loyola (c. 1495-1556), the founder of the Jesuits, that Luther was "the foulest of monsters." Polemic workds from both sides have appeared over the past 400 years as have recent psychoanalytic and Marxist interrpretations of the reformer. However, in all of the discussions on Luther what remains basic is the way he conceptualized Christianity as the personal response of sinful humanity to a loving God known through the Bible by faith./ Sinful Humanity and Death: The Reformation has its origin in the question recorded in the New Testament, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25). Martin Luther´s writings present us with the portrait of a person in a state of profound struggle with exactly that issue; a struggle between two worlds: goodness and evil, the divine and the demonic, light and darkness. At the core of Luther´s passionate and melancholy personality was an intense anxiety about his own salvation. He grew up in the piety of the late Middle Ages, which often emphasized an image of God as an awesome judge whose all-knowing frown struck and terror in the hearts of sinners./ In the midst of a violent thunderstorm in 1505 when he thought he saw the very wrath of God in the bolts of lightning. Luther vowed that if spared he would enter the monastery of the Augustinian Hermits at Erfurt . Luther experenced the same terror in another context when he said his first Mass in 1507. At the event he was completely humbled at the thought that with his words the bread became the very body of Christ and the wine Christ´s own blood. He said that he felt himself to be nothing but sinful dust and ashies daring to address the eternal God./ Luther would write of God´s majesty in a later work. "On the Bondage of the Will", as an all-consuming devouring fire, a God who is beyond all control and manipulation by human will and reason. Nevertheless, humanity, in his view, is always trying by multiple pious, moral, and religious acts to earn its own salvation. These acts, often referred to a good works, were seen by many in his day as guaranteed to merit God´s favor. For the reformer all this was nothing but the essence of sin, for tis root was in the desire to make the self, not God, the center of the universe./ Adam´s fall left humanity in a permanent rebellion from God, a state of enduring wickedness. Humanity, Luther writes in his "Commnentary on Genesis", is "utterly leprous and unclean." Original Sin is humankind´s permanent state of weakness and self-absorption. The result of this sinful condition is death, as Paul teaches in his Epistle to the Romans (chapters 5-7) / The laws in the Bible reveal the Lawgiver´s desire to be God alone and to have no strange gods before him (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5). This first and greatest of commandments not only makes a command but also condemns. It condemns the sinner by pointing out a person´s self-absorption, and false gods. Thus, atheism is at the core an idolatry, a sinful egotism that refuses to love God alone./ Justification by Faith: As Luther studied Scripture in preparation for his lectures at the University of Wittenburg , his conception of God gradually changed. The more his thoughts turned to the life and sacrifice of Christ, especially as it was revealed on the cross, the more he saw not only the awesome God but also the all-merciful One qho gave his son for human salvation. The inscrutable God who shows himself through the foolishness of the cross reveals that the measure of his mercy is that it is mercy without measure. This compassion for sinners can neither be captured by reason nor manipulated by human actions. This love brings humanity into a right relationship with God. This standing before God (Coram Deo) is known as justification. This "Coram" relationship implies that God turns his presence toward the sinner and thus the sinnera has a place before God. All this was for Luther fully understood by Paul in his epistle to the Romans: ...God shoed His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were sinners we were reconciled to God by the death of His son, much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life. (Romans 5:8-10) / Toward the end of his life Luther would recall that as he struggled in the tower of the monastery at Wittenburg to grasp the meaning of the Bible, he came tu understand the words of Paul, "the just live by faith" (Romans 1:17). This famous Tower Experience (Turmerlebnis) was a decisive moment in his life; human faith´s response to God´s grace is a faithfulness to God whereby one puts one´s whole trust in God alone./ Faith is seen by Luther no as a human power or attribute but, rather, as that which is received from God. He took seriously the words of Jesus from the Gospel of John "...apart from me you can do nothing" (15:5). Contrary to the view of Desiderius Erasmus (1446-1536), Luther affirmed that the human will contributed nothing to the salvation dynamic. Faith is a gift repudiates all forms of merit, for humanity remains, although justified, in sin. Faith as an obedient reception of God´s word repudiates all forms of reason. With reason we place what is known under our own control. Again, the reformer was profoundly influenced by the words of Paul: "What have you that you did not receive? If then you receive it, why do yu boast as if it were not a gift?" (1 Corinthians 4:7) / The Christian remains simultaneously a sinner and a righteous person. Righteousness comes from God while human corruption remains. Tjhis idea is referred to as "imputed righteousness," whereby God no longer looks upon the believer as deserving damnation but as one whose sins are cloaked over by the merits of Christ. As Luthier put it in his "Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians: "It pleases one to call this righteousness (Justitiam) of faith or Christian righteousness passive righteousness." / In all this we see Luther´s Augustinian reaction against Pelagius (d. 418), William of Ockham ( d.c. 1347), and Gabriel Biel (d. 1495), all of whom affirm in various ways the nobility and capacity of the human will to do good. The last mentioned authors are often linked with a philosophical tendency influential in Luther´s education, nominalism. This tendency rejects attempts to ground faith on reason while emphasizing the sovereignty of God´s will to predestine whomever he chooses./ The Catholic view defended at the Council of Trent (1545-63) would understand grace to be that which heals and elevates human nature. In this tradition, the person is justified not by the extrinsic imputation of Christ´s merits but through the actions of the Holy Spirit within the human soul according to God´s good pleasure and each person´s free cooperation. This divine indwelling offers to the individual the three supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Here the soul has a supernatural gift, a habit (habitus), which is actualized by good works and, as such, God´s free gifts become human merit./ Luther, on the other hand, saw divine grace as that which alters the person´s situation in respect to his or her standing before God, not in his or her inner essence. He rejects the substance language of Aristotle and the ordered universe of the Neoplatonists. For Luther the only good work is faith, which away from the idolatry of self-absorption and gives a person freedom to love. In this sense, faith is the source of love, the good tree that produces the good fruit, to use Luther´s favorite image. here is the meaning of the reformer´s well-known line: "A bond servant to none. A Christian is a dutiful servant in every respect, owing a duty to everyone." ("On the Liberty of a Christian Man)./ The Word of God: For some thirty-five years, Martin Luther understood his vocation to be that of a professor of sacred Scripture. His greatest literary achievement was the translation of the Bible into German. This effort established the national language and would have the same prestige and effect in Germany as did the King James Bible in England (the "Authorized Version" of 1611). In his own lifetime it sold over 100,000 copies. His goal, to offer the living word of God to every person, would be the driving passion behind all his writings, lectures, sermons, and hymns. If the new Protestant movement could be summed up in an image, it would be that of Luther in the tower struggling with, and finding confort in, the bibblical text./ The Roman Church of Luther´s day repudiated this claim of sola scriptura, for the complexity of Scripture demanded an infallible interpreter. Luther, however, argued that the text interpreted itself and that a humble Christian in contact with the word of God was closer to God than any pope without a Bible. The pope and the Councils could and did err, Luther believed, for the only norm for religion was the canonical Scriptures. The problems of interpretation do remain, It was the job of the exegete armed with a knowledge of the biblical languages and the whole of Scripture to dig out the kernel hidden in the shell, to find the baby in the straw of the manger. When a passage proved difficult it was to be interpreted in light of an easier one (Scriptura Scriptura Interpretatur) Also, Luther´s own hermeneutics would be that of many before him, Christocentric, seeing the New Testament hidden in the Old. For him the psalms spoke of the gospel./ He also stood in the common piety of the age with his attention to the imaginative encounter with the text. The events of the Bible were experienced as if they were happening now. Luther encouraged in his preaching an emotional response of joy or sorrow as occasioned by the scene. By fully encountering the Word with intellect, will, and emotions, time and distance were eradicated. It is no wonder that Luther writes that Christ commanded the apostles to preach. The Protestant Movement: The Protestant movement, which began as a protest against the selling of indulgences, was, in essence, a systematic reformulation of the ways in which a person can achieve and sustain a relationship with God. Luther´s basic principles of sola fide, sola gratia, and sola scriptura would repudiate the medieval idea of the Church institution as the exclusive vehicle for the divine-human encounter. His attention to a personal decision and his religion of conscience would have far-reaching implications for the emerging modern world. For Luther, each person stands alone in the personal encounter with God./ Although he spent fifteen years as a priest and a monk, Luther rejected the ordained priesthood and the special status accorded to monastic life. Both institutions were seen as laying a claim to control the Holy Spirit of God. Even worse, he thought they served to prevent the Spirit from acting. So to think that true poverty was the unique call of the monastic orders was to ignore the tre poverty of spirit as a demand placed on everyone. Luther also noted that greatly lacking in all monastic education was the study of the biblical and classical languages essential for a proper exegesis of Scripture. He argued in his treatise "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church" that especially onerous was the oppression of the laity by the clergy, who substituted juridical authority for ministry to the people of God./ All baptized Christians are by virtue of their baptism priests, Luther maintained. This "priesthood of all believers" means that every Christian has the obligation not only to accept God´s word in faith, but also to minister to the neighbor. The "keys to the kingdom" (Matthew 16:19) belong not to the Roman pontiff but to the whole community of believers. It is true that some, chosen by the whole community, would minister, that is, offer the word of God. This is the essential core of the church for, as jesus put it, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the motuh of God" (Matthew 4:4). Thus the head of a family could maintain a church in the home by means of the Bible and baptism. After all, noted Luther, Jesus promised that where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He would be in their midst (Matthew 18:19-20)./ The Roman Catholic church had built its legal and juridical structures on the commands of Jesus to Peter to bind and to loose on earth (Matthew 16:19). This gave rise to an extensive system of canon law and human traditions. To many in the sixteenth century, this establishment of ecclesiastical ordinance above the commands of God resulted in oppression and tyranny, which destroyed the liberty of the Christian believer. Luther constantly drew attention to this by making a sharp division between the command of God and the command invented by men. By doing so he undercut the Catholic idea of human tradition which sought to probe and understand. Scripture through centuries of councils, theologians, and saints. Divine law was not, however, to be repudiated, for it remained as a stimulus to penance, humility, and obedience, as well as providing an opportunity to deepen one´s longing for the gospel. Human traditions also had a value in preserving human tranquility and social order. However, for Luther, both had no place in the redemptive process if placed over and above the Bible, grace, and faith./ Sacraments were essential to medieval Catholicism as the vehicle by which God continued His work throughout all of history. In this view the actions of Christ as mediated through a hierarchical-sacramental impartation of grace would produce the power to do good works, acquire merit, and achieve sanctity. Luther, by denying the evolution of tradition as a legitimate expression of divine will, saw the sacramental system as a human invention created by the Roman Church to enhance clerical power. For him the only sacrament was the word of God. This word of command and promise is, however, communicated through three signs: baptism, peanance, and the Eucharist, which call for a response of faith. Thus, the Lutheran focus is on the sermon, prayers, and hymns in public worship. Later Protestants would divide over the value of penance, the necessity of infant baptism, and the nature of eucharistic bread. For Luther, all that mattered was that Jesus came preaching the gospel of God. In this way the true Christian congregation would be the priesthood of all believers who profess the gospel with hands and mouth, by action, and by the proclamation of their faith./ JOHN CALVIN: Born: 1509, Noyon , France. Died: 1564, Geneva , Switzerland. Major Work: "Institutes of the Christian Religion" (1536, 1539) Major Ideas: ~Though God´s essential nature is incomprehensible, partial knowledge of God is available through God´s self-revelation. ~The Bible is the sole source of this adapted revelation. ~The Bible reveals God as the triune creator of everything, actively and universally ruling all aspects of the continuing creation. ~The Bible reveals humanity as having fallen into sin through Adam, thereby losing all free will and ability to restore itself to right relationship with God and creation. ~Nonetheless, By God´s mysterious eternal decree, some are predestined to election to salvation through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God´s self-revelation as redeemer; others are predestined to condemnation. ~Individuals are united to Christ through membership in the true church, which is marked by the Word rightly proclaimed and the sacraments correctly administered. / John Calvin´s system of ideas became widely accepted by Protestants as the essential means for understanding the Bible. this ability to direct the acceptable interpretaion of the source of Protestant authority had social, political, and religious applications. Through the wide success of these applications, Calvin became one of the makers of the modern mind./ John Calvin (from the latinized form of Jean Cauvin) was born in the episcopal town of Noyon , France, to Jeanne and Gérard Cauvin. (A second-generation reformer, Calvin was eight years old when Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the Wittenberg door.) Calvin´s father held several important offices at the cathedral in Noyon and saw to it that his son had the advantages of cultured society, including a benefice to subsidize his studies./ In 1523, Calvin went to study in Paris, where he attended both the Colege de la Marche and the College Mantaigu. In the first he learned Latin under Mathurin Cordier, a future Protestant educator, and in the second he was exposed to the finest in scholastic dialectic and debate. He received the Master of Arts in 1528. At his father´s urging, Calvin switched from theology to law and continued his education at the Univeristy of Orleans. He transferred to the University of Bourgues in 1529, where law studies were pursued through humanist methods. During this time, he studied Greek aunder the German scholar Melchior Wolmar. He received his law degree in 1531, the year his father died. Soon after Gérard´s death, Calvin left the practice of law and returned to Paris and the pursuit of classical literature, continuing his studies in Greek and Hebrew. His first publishted work, "Commentary on Seneca´s Treatise on Clemency" (1532), was a scholarly piece of Erasmian humanism. It reveals little interest in or commitment to religious matters on the part of Calvin./ By 1534, religion loomed large in Calvin´s life; he was on the run from French authorities because of his evangelical views. The time and nature of his conversion is much debated. In October of 1533, the humanist Nicolas Cop, longtime friend of Calvin and rector of the University of Paris , gave an address sympathetic to Lutheran views. Calvin´s connection to the address is unclear; some believe he helped write it. However that may be, reaction to it caused him to flee the city. By spring of 1534, Calvin resigned his clerical income, having come over to the Reformation side of the religious question by a "sudden conversion to docility." when the Affair of the Placards made France unsafe, Calvin left for Switzerland./ Taking refuge in Basel, Calvin finished the first edition of the "Institutes of the Christian Religion", publishing it in 1536. Although diverse works including letters, commentaries, sermons, and other books must be taken into account for a full assessment of John Calvin, the "Institutes" is the best sincle source for his mature thought. The "Institutes" was constantly revised by Calvin and the final edition was not released until 1559. The first edition was one book with six chapters; the final form was five times larger, with four books containing eighty chapters total./ The context for the constant revising of the "Institutes" was Calvin´s struggle to implement the Reformation in the city of Geneva . In 1536, Calvin was convinced by Guillaume Farel to take on the task of transforming Geneva into a Protestant city. His attempts met initial failure and in 1538 Calvin was exiled to Strasbourg . Ther he was pastor of a French refugee church for about three years. In 1541, he returned to Geneva and started over again. Opposition remained strong; Calvin was not granted citizenship until eighteen years later. His influence was great in the city of Geneva but depended mainly upon the force of his arguments and their application. He delivered these with confidence that they were not his alone but those of the Bible and the God behind the Bible. From 1559 until his death in 1664, John Calvin was the uncontested leader of Geneva , the center of international Reform movement with profound influence on various cultures from Switzerland to England , Scotland to the Americas. / Institutes of the Christian Religion: The "Institutes" were conceived as a teaching tool and born as a political defense. John Calvin began writing in order to set out in an orderly manner the elementary principles of Christian belief as a catechetical tool for his community of believers. The force of historical circumstance in the form of Francis I´s persecution of French Protestants turned the first edition toward an apologetic design. The second edition produced in 1539 was enlarged and revised for the purpose of teaching how to rightly read and understand the Bible. The Book was continuously modified with this aim in mind until Calvin pronounced it satisfactory in the 1559 edition./ Calvin understood his life´s work as the exposition of the revelation of God that was found solely in the Bible. The "Institutes" is not a systematic theology but an organization of biblical themes to aid the reader of Scripture in understanding the text. Calvin drew heavily on the Christian tradition of Luther and especially Augustine. He also showed skill in Scholastic dialectic and humanist analysis and rhetoric, but his greatness lay in his ability to organize and clarify the Bible´s varied writings into a coherent scheme compatible with Protestant insights./ Book 1 of the 1559 "Institutes" treats the knowledge of God as creator and world sovereign. Calvin began with the assumption that neither religious experience nor philosphical reasoning apart from biblical revelation is helpful in obtaining knowledge of God. Though God reveals God´s self in nature, universal human sinfulness blinds us from perceiving God as God truly is. Not denying that the deity has left a kind of general revelation in nature, Calvin nonetheless said its only consequence is to remove all excuse befor God. Through the Bible alone has God given a source for revelation that is trustworthy. The Scriptures in both Old an New Testaments are inspired for the revealing of God to those to whom the divine chooses to be known. This revelation is accomodated to the comprehension of human beings -God´s essence remains unknown- and is unveiled only to that portion of humanity that God elects to receive it./ The God revealed in the Bible is shown to be the triune God who creates all things and is constantly actively ruling every level of the continuing creation through divine will. This divine will is displayed in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. Though they differ in presentation, when property understood they both present a unified witness to the one unchanging will of God. For Calvin, the old covenant of law and the new covenant of grace are equal sources for standards of Christian behavior to be enforced upon everyone in Christian society. Calvin´s legalism is tempered by distinguishing between the moral law, which must be kept in all places at all times from the temporary civil or ceremonial types, but the application of God´s will through biblical revelation to the affairs of society is firmly established. By a commentary on the doctrine of Providence , Calvin pointed out that these laws are not only established by God but that God is actively carrying their deepest purposes out in the world. The fact that we cannot penetrate or understand these deepest purposes in no way undermines the fact of God´s complete and working sovereignty./ The second book deals with God´s revelation of God´s self as redeemer in Jesus Christ. Redemption is necessary, for the human predicament is revealed in the Bible as one of fallenness. Through Adam all have been infected by Original sin to the extent that free will and any ability to restore oneself to right relationship with God and God´s ongoing creation have been completely lost. Humanity has no power within to help itself. The good news is that God has not abandoned humankind. The Law of the Old Testament has revealed our plight, and the person and atoning work of Jesus Christ provides redemption. Through Christ´s ministry as prophet, king, and priest he has provided the sole and essential means for reconciliation with God. In Christ, God was reconciling to God´s self those who were elected to be redeemed./ The third book addresses how humanity participates in the grace provided in Jesus Christ, the benefits derived, and the effects that follow. Salvation is gained by believers´ communion with Christ, which established by faith alone. This faith is bot a matter of trust in God´s action and an "assured knowldge of God´s good will." This faith itself is a gift of grace given according to God´s sovereign choice without regard for the condition of the recipient. In this way Christ enters the believer, and the benefits of regeneration, justification, and sanctification follow. Regeneration is the beginning of a new life in which the believer and believer´s works are justified by faith alone in the sense that the righteousness of Jesus Christ covers one´s fomer sinfulness before God./ In this context, Calvin presents the doctrine of predestination. Salvation is totally dependent upon God´s initiative. Through Christ God chooses some for salvation. This relation to Christ which brings salvation is determined by God, not the sinner. god´s will is eternal and unchanging and thus the willing of salvation is eternal and unchanging. Some are predestined, then, to be elected to salvation for the glory of God./ Calvin´s doctrine of predestination was not novel. Both Augustine and Luther had already exhibited this line of thought. Calvin went futher than they, however, in taking the idea to its logical conclusion. Not all are saved. If the destiny of all is in God´s soveregin hands, then those who are damned are damned according to God´s decree -and this apart from reference to any aspect of their individual condition, since all deserved damnation, Double predestination is the logical consequence of the priniple that sovereign God and sinful humanity are separated by a gap that only God in Christ can cross. Calvin wrote: "We call predestination God´s eternal decree, by which he determind with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others." (III, xxi, 5) / Calvin saw the difficulties involved in holding this position. He ruled out of bounds questions about why a loving God would hold fallen humanity responsible for sin that they could not be expected to conquer. To ask why of the incomprehensible God behind the accomodatin revelation of the Bible is useless and impudent. Humanity can only discover answers as to whether God acted in such and such a way, not why. Only God from the unknown depths of mystery can answer why; what we know is what God has revealed to be so in Scripture, not why it might or might not be ordained. To the elect, this is the best of news; to the nonelect, this revelation has the "smell of death." / As to the damnation of the non-elect, Calvin was unmoved by arguments of earthly conscience or human reason; he stood his ground on the revelation of Scripture. In his understanding, which he held as obviously correct, the Bible said it, he interpreted it plainly, and that settled it./ Book 4 of the 1559 "Institutes" deals with ecclesiology. Calvin held orthodox Protestant views of the church as the invisible assembly of the elect and the visible community of professed believers. This communion of believers has as its true marks the Word proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered./ The sacraments are two in number, baptism and the Lord´s supper. Calvin advocated infant baptism. Concerning the Supper he was more original, holding a middle ground between the material ubiquity of the lutherans and the memorial signification of Ulrich Zwingli./ In conformity with his biblical perspective, Calvin´s view of the organization of the visible church was specific. He advocated a fourfold hierarchy of offices: pastor, elder, deacon, and teacher. He did not believe that church and state were separate, but he did hold that they had separate responsibilities and jusridictions. Only the church can rule on matters of a spiritual nature and on what is acceptable in terms of morals for society. The state´s connection to the church consists in the state´s responsibility to enforce the universal moral laws promulgated by the church. The church should not rule the state, church officials are not above magistrates. Rebellion against immoral magistrates is forbidden, change is up to God. Church and state should exist as two powers with separate jurisdiction within the same society, but the state is obligated to protect both the church and true faith. Through membership in the church, humanity is unified with Christ and society is given a code for Christian behavior.// SAINT TERESA OF ÁVILA: Born: 1515, Ávila , Spain Died: 1582, Alba de Tormes , Spain Major Works: "The Life of Teresa of Jesus" (1565), "Way of Perfection" (1565-79), "Book of the Foundations" (1573-82), " Interior Castle " (1577) Major Ideas: ~God dwells within the soul. ~The soul travels within herself to unite with God. ~One image for the soul is an interior castle with many mansions. ~By practicing mental prayer, the soul enters the interior castle. ~The first three mansions correspond to the purgative way, where the beginner works to cultivate virtues and imitate Jesus Christ. ~The first manifestation of supernatural prayer, which is called passive recollection, marks the transition from the purgative way to the illuminative way of the fourth and fifth mansions. ~With the increased quieting of the senses and faculties in the fourth mansions, the soul experiences the Prayer of Quiet. ~As the soul becomes more passive with respect to God in the fifth mansions, her prayer is called the Sleep of the Faculties. ~The sixth mansions, which is the Spiritual Betrothal, is the transition to the unitive way. ~The soul experiences the plenitude of unitive love in the Spiritual Marriage of the seventh mansions./ The iconographic depiction of Saint Teresa of Ávila with pen in han indicates her stature as a woman of learning within the Christian tradition. Although she was canonized a mere forty years after her death in 1582 and proclaimed a doctor of the Roman Catholic church in this century, there is little evidence from Teresa´s upbringing and early years in the convent or in the prevailing cultural attitudes toward women in her itme to propose her as a candidate for the highest honors that the Church bestows. On the contrary, Teresa´s spiritual inclinations were anything but compelling proof of love for God until after the famed conversion that took place around her fortieth year, while the antifeminism of sixteenth-century Spain militated against elevating women to positions of authority within the Church./ In spirte of the disadvantages of her sex and meagre education, Teresa emerged as a powerful leader in the reform of the Carmelite order, the author of masterpieces of mystical literature, and spiritual counselor to princes of state and Church as well as to ordinary folk and the nuns under her jurisdiction./ A lively and intelligent young woman, Teresa was sent to the Augustinian convent of Saint Mary of Grace at the age of sixteen by a father who feared that his motherless daughter was falling prey to frivolity and scandal. During her eighteen-month stay with the Augustinians, Teresa was prompted by the example of one particularly devout nun to consider a religious vocation. Not until a life-threatening illness set her thinking about her immortal soul did she settle on the religious life rather than marriage. She entered the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation in 1536 and professed in November of the following year. Thus began a twenty -year ordeal in which Teresa suffered not only grave phsyical illnesses and the emotional loss of her father but also the spiritual agony of feeling herself hyporcritical./ After reqading Francisco de Osuna´s "Third Spiritual Alphabet" while she was visiting her uncle in 1538, Teresa began to practice and teach the form of mental prayer that she found described by the Franciscan priest. In the eyes of her Carmelite sisters, for whom prayer was a matter of reciting formulaic words in rote fashion. Teresa was almost saintly with her practice or prayer that required the concentration of one´s mental and physical energies in order to think about the significance of the words that were bieng uttered or said silently. She confesses in her autobiography that while others praised her for her piety, she went for long periods of time without praying at all. As the years passed and Teresa realized that there was more to the religious life than adhering to rules of the convent and Church and assisting at devotions and liturgies, she became increasingly dissatisfied with herself and with life in the noisy, crowded convent where over 100 women, most of whom, like Teresa, had chosen the religious life for want of a better opiton, gave more attention to gossip than to prayer./ An unmistakable Augustinian note of anguish resonates in the pages of her autobiography as Teresa describes the months of spiritual conflict when on the one hand she heard God calling her and on the other, the call of the world. The crisis erupted around 1556, after which she, like Augustine, felt herself irrevocably and joyously committed to God. During the years until her death in 1582, she toiled unceasingly in the vineyard of her Lord, harvesting a reform of the order that resulted in the foundation of seventeen convents and two monasteries for men and a bounty of mystical literature./ The Mystical Way : In her autobiography and in the "Way of Perfection" are chapters and passages that treat the mystical way. In the "Life", for example, she develops water imagery to express the life of prayer, making the valuable distinction between watering the garden of the soul by one´s own effort, which is mental prayer or meditation, and having the garden watered by the Holy Spirit, which is contemplation. Chapters 10 to 21, wherein Teresa describes the stages of prayer in terms of watering the garden of the soul, constitute a mini-mystical treatise. The fullest treatment of the inner life is the " Interior Castle ", (1577), written when Teresa herself had experienced the higher reaches of the mystical life. In the " Interior Castle ", Teresa offers a map of the mysitical way as she herself knew it, one cleared of the Scholastic terminology that cluttered many contemporary treatises by learned men. Although Teresa was uncomfortably aware of her deficiencies as a woman of little education, her writing is all the more appealing because she does not labor under the burden of the erudition that she admired in male theologians but which proved inaccessible to the average person, secular or religious, whose desire to nourish the interior life needed the necouragement and wisdom of a guide whose foremost qualification was experience./ Having suffered from want of adequate spiritual direction, Teresa was sensitive to the needs of men and women in their quest for God. Hence she writes in a language that is understandable and, by dint of her charmingly familiar images, appealing as well. Hers is an endearing style, in large part because she did not employ theological terms; she has proved to be helpful to spiritual aspirants precisely because she remained true to herself, in her experience and in her manner of expressing herself. Although she does not admit in the " Interior Castle " that the experiences she relates are her own, it is evident that such references as the one to "a woman I know" are to herself./ The Interior Castle : The unifiying image of the " Interior Castle " is the soul as an inner castle, which, she confides, came to her as an inspiration when she implored God´s assistance in complying with her superior´s directive to write for the spiritual edification of others. The interior castle of the soul contains seven mansions each of which in turn is constituted of an indeterminate number of mansions. In the innermost mansions, which is the center of the soul, dwells God. Hence in the mystical journey the soul moves ever more deeply within herself, to see the One who has resided there always but whom she has been unable to see because of the imperfections that cloud her sight./ Just as Teresa´s journey in writing the "Interior Castle" begins with the gift of an image, so does the soul embark on her journey when she is made aware of the primordial desire in her life, which is to love God intimately, intensely, and immediately. The gift of desire is a reminder, also, that mystical union is a union of wills wherein the soul is transformed by God´s love so that her will is brought into conformity with the will of God. Thus mystical union is called the transforming union, being differentiated from the soul´s essential union with God whereby she exists. The latter union makes possible the soul´s physical existence, while mystical union is a gift that floods the soul with spiritual life. Mystical union has been termed the union of likeness in recognition of the understanding that by love the soul becomes like God, although she never loses her personality in God in a pantheistic sense./ The journey to mystical union can be long and arduous, requiring, according to Teresa´s map, entering into the seven mansions of the soul. First, however, the soul must gain entrance into the castle itself, which is done through pracyer and meditation. Instructed by her own practice of mental prayer, Teresa realized that no progress could be made until the soul ceased to rely on vocal prayer, which is the rote recitation of words, and began to think about the words she said to herself or aloud. In advocating mental prayer, Teresa, as a woman, was taking the risk of running afoul of the Inquisition, which had been particularly suspicious of women who practiced and taught mental prayer since the Edict of Toledo had been directed against the "alumbrados" in 1525. Among the "alumbrados", who were pronounced heretical by the Edict, were several charimatic women. Whereas the Inquisition considered mental prayer, dangerous for women because their need for the Church as a mediator between them and God might lessen, thus threatening ecclesiastical authority, in Teresa´s eyes the greater danger was that for want of using their minds women would be thwarted in their quest for God. Hence she is adamant in her counsel about mental prayer, asserting without reservation that the soul cannot begin the journey inward unless she prays in this fashion./ The general plan of the "Interior Castle" is that the first three mansions represent the active part of the journey, wherein the soul is primarily aware of what she is doing to become pleasing to God, while mansions four through seven are the passive stage characterized by the soul´s consciousness of God´s acting upon her. With respect to the traditional tripart division of the mystical way, mansions one to three correspong to the purgative way, four and five to the illuminative way, and six and seven to the unitive way./ Mental prayer, devotional reading, edifying conversation, and good works are the means by which the soul purges imperfections and cultivates virtues in the first three mansions. The soul discerns progress in the purgative way by the degree to which she is humble and charitable and the senses and faculties are quieted in prayer. The fivve exterior senses and the interior senses of imagination and fancy reside in the lower part of the soul while the faculties of memory, understanding, and will are in the higher part. Spiritual sweetness, which is the good feelings that come during devotion, prayer, reading, conversation, and doing good works nourish the soul´s desire for perfection in the first two mansions, but toward the end of the third mansions, such spiritual sweetness dries up so that the soul does not understand what is happening and fears that she is backsliding. These times of aridity, however, indicate progress, in that God relates to the soul in ways that are too delicate to be discerned by the senses and emotions./ In the third chapter of the fourth mansions, Teresa describes the Prayer of Recollection, which marks the transition from the purgative way to the illumiative way. The Prayer of Recollection is the first form of supernatural prayer that Teresa herself experienced; by supernatural she means that the soul is aware not of what she does but of what is being done to her. Specifically, the soul closes her eyes without willing it and feels a temple of solitude being built up about her. Teresa compares the recollected soul to a hedgehog, for the senses and faculties are gathered together and quieted so as not to disturb the soul. Unlike the hedgehog, the soul cannot recollect herself at will; she is passive, and recollection is a gift, an infused loving./ In the other chaptters of the fourth mansions, Teresa describes the Prayer of Quiet, in which recollection of the senses and faculties is deepened. With no effort on her part, the soul is watered abundantly, and she feels peace, quiet, and humility. The faculties are absorbed and amazed at what happens to the soul. Realizing that people may try to force supernatural prayer, Teresa emphasizes toward the end of the fourth mansions that God alone can bestow the Prayer of Quiet and its accompanying consolations. The soul is not to desire consolations but rather to accept God´s will in imitation of his Son./ Teresa names the prayer that characterizes the fifth mansions "the Sleep of the Faculties" for the reason that the faculties and senses are so deeply recollected they cannot discern when God enters the soul. Teresa amploys the image of the silkworm transformed into a butterfly to express the changes the soul undergoes. Intensely affected by the esperience of being quieted in prayer, the soul yearns to suffer and even to die for God. Realizing, however, that her will is not yet conformed to God´s and aware of the dangers of overconfidence, she is reminded to improve in charity. From her own experience and that of others, Teresa recognized the perils of self-delusion, pride, and zealousness. Thus in mansions four and five, as the soul is receiving gifts of infused prayer and love, she warns the traveler of the inner way not to trust in herself but rather to rely on God and to grow in charity./ The Spiritual Betrothal: The Spiritual Betrothal of the sixth mansions is the transition from the illuminative way to the unitive way. This stage is the most dangerous of the journey, for the soul easily can fall victim to her own pride and self-delusion. Clearly referring to her own experiences. Teresa describes the extraordinary phenomena that characterize the sixth mansions. Wounds of love, rapture, flights of the spirit, and jubilation, with their often attendant visions and locutions, not only are not necessary to spiritual perfection but can be obstacles for the soul whose pride tempts her to boast of her gifts and consider herself superior to others on their account. Like her friend and director, Saint John of the Cross, Teresa cautions her readers not to depend on extraordinary phenomena./ In describing and explaining the understanding that may come to the soul during a rapture, for example, or a jubilation, Teresa refers to the categories of corporeal, imaginary, and intellectual/spiritual to define the kinds of visions and locutions that she knew from experience. In response to the pressing question about how to discern if the understandings have their source in God or the soul, which speaks to their being genuine or not, Teresa offers two criteria. If the vision or locution occurs unexpectedly and if the effects are positive in the sense that the soul is at peace, joyous, and humble, they are from God./ In the middle chapter of the sixth mansions, Teresa sounds a note of caution: She stressses the need to continue to meditate on the Sacred Humanity. Her counsel reflects the debate in theological circles as to whether the contemplative needed to meditate on the life and work of Jesus Christ and strive to emulate him. Although the soul has progressed far along the mystic way when she enjoys the sixth mansions, her life is not without suffering. A major theme of these chapters is suffering, reflective perhaps of the fact that Teresa herself suffered when other people derided her or pronounced her saintly, when inept confessors misled her, when illness afflicted her, or when earthly consolations lost their appeal and spiritual ones dried up. So intense can be the suffering in these mansions that Teresa sees the soul as suspended between heaven and earth. Her ultimate advice, as in previous mansions, is to do works of charity and trust in God./ Teresa marks entry into the Spiritual Marriage of the seventh mansions with a spiritual vision of the Trinity. In Spiritual Marriage, the inner restlessness and longing are transformed into the peaceful certaitnty that she rests habitually in God´s presence. The highs of rapture and lows of aridity that made the soul restless in the sixth mansions vanish, giving way to the harmony of the active Martha and contemplative Mary. Her will conformed with the will of God, the soul enjoys the favors of unitive love. Prayer, which Teresa says elsewhere is simply talking with God, has been transformed from an event in time to an interrupted conversation with God, whom she now calls her Beloved Companion. Thus the soul enters into the deepest part of herself, drawn there by the transforming love of God.// MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE: Born: 1533, at the château de Montaigne near Bordeaux, Died: 1592, on the same family estate. Major Work: "Essays", 1588 (comprising variants from previous editions as well as numerous marginal additions to the 1588 edition). (His "Travel Journal" [1580-81], written as a private diary, was published some two centuries later.) Major Ideas: ~An acceptance of the duality of the human condition (man´s spiritual aspirations counterbalanced by the physical limitations of the body) enables man to pursue the masterpiece of living well. ~A life committed to moderation is superiorto one that has allowed excesses and extremes. ~The senses through which man knows the world are imperfect and limit his ability to claim knowledge of anything (God alone is omniscient). ~Man inability to say definitively either "I know" or "I do not know" leads to an interrogative formula, What do I know? ("Que sais-je?") to reflect the cautious suspension of judgment man must consider. ~All living things, including human beings, are in a state of constant flux; being consists of movement and action. ~Study of the self is man´s primary duty and responsibility./ Montaigne´s fame derives not from any rigorous philosophical system but rather from an extremely appealing analysis and commentary on nearly all philosophical currents dating back to antiquity. The thousands of references to classical poets, writers, and philosophers form the backdrop for a comparison with his own experience and reflection. The great texts of the ages have survived because they tell us something of value. The "Essays" of Montaigne, the philosopher, juxtapose insights from the past with contemporary thoughts and ideas to create a timeless metaphor situated at the creative point of tension between the two worlds. His goal is nothing short of writing a primer on how to live life, and the "Essays" proceed in a fashion that encourages the reader to explorer the text of his or her own life./ Michel de Montaigne was born on his family´s estate near Bordeaux and was the first to carry the recently acquired noble name that came with the property. In the "Essays", however, he notes a discomfiture with titles that set men apart from each other. Wet-nursed by peasants according to his father´s desire that the child feel close to common people, the boy learned Latin at an early age and entered school speaking not a word of French. His fluency in Latin intimidated the faculty at the Collège de Guyenne, where Latin and Greek were studied. The essay "Of the Education of Children" records Montaigne´s unenthusiastic appreciation of schooling in the sixteenth century. He continued in philosophy at the University of Bordeaux until political turmoil there led to his transfer to Toulouse and the pursuit of law./ Although much is known about Montaigne´s personal life, some mystery remains concerning his influence and political involvement in court intrigues and political maneuverings during the turbulent events of the sixteenth century. It is generally conceded that Montaigne was a far more important player than he himself acknowledged. As mayor of Bordeaux for two terms, his was a steady voice of tolerance during the religious upheaval so characteristic of the period. His own siblings reflected the split between Catholicism and Protestantism, a schism that led to violence in France after 1545 (the Council of Trent) and the decision of Francois I to punish heretics and unrepentant theologians./ The essayist´s public career began in 1554 with a regional appointment in Perigueux; shortly thereafter, in 1557, Montaigne was named to the Parliament of Bordeaux, where he met his great friend, the poet Étienne de la Boétie. Thus began a passionate friendship described by La Boétie as a "marriage of souls" and by Montaigne in these terms: "Our souls mingle (d) and blend (ed) with each other so completely that they efface (d) the seam that joined them." / La Boétie died in 1563 at the age of thirty-three, whereupon his frined witn into mourning. Two years later, Montaigne married Francoise de la Chassaigne, the daughter of a colleague in the Bordeaux Parliament. This union produced six children, of whom only one daughter survived early childhood. Montaigne speaks relatively little of women in his writings reserving the most fervent pages on love and friendship for male relationships. Women, it seems, stir the physical passions and tempt man to stray from the desired confines of moderation. For whatever reason, women simply do not occupy a central role in Montaigne´s writing./ Before reaching the age of forty, Montaigne chose to retire from public life (1571) and begin writing his "Essays". This decision scarcely changed his public involvements; indeed, the major political posts and numerous intrigues lay ahead of him. The renunciation of public life coincided with the decision to undertake an investigation of his private univerrse, now severely shaken by the untimely death of La Boétie. The "Essays" can be viewed as a desire for dialogue and intronspection at a time when Montaigne was ill at ease in a world adrift on a sea of religious intolerance. Political leadership had proven ineffective in restoring civil order. With the public sphere approaching chaos, the philosopher turned inward./ As the writing of the first two books of the "Essays" progressed, Montaigne became increasingly involved in political affairs and was named to the court of Henry of Navarre in 1577. His first attack of kidney stones occurred the following year, at which time the pain and suffering led to reflections on man´s mortality, the topic most frequently raised in his work. A trip to Italy in search of relief from bouts with gout, the kidney stones, and rheumatism led to the title of Roman citizen being bestowed on Montaigne shortly before his return to Bordeaux as mayor. The first edition of the "Essays" (the A text) appeared in 1580 and was followed in 1582, 1587, and 1588 (the B version) by appreciably augmented and corrected editions. During the last years before his death in 1592, Montaigne wrote numerous additions in th margins of the fourth (1588) edition. After his death, the 1588 text along with the marginal additions and other variants became the final (C) edition known as the Bordeaux text. Essays: Much energy has been expended attempting to codify the "Essays" into neatly fitting philosophical clusters beyond the author´s obvious tripartite organization. One scheme popular among exegetes divided the work into the Stoical, skeptical, and Epicurean periods, that is to say, material produced at various stages of his life: the early 1570s, the mid-1570s, and from 1578-1592, respectively. Today, we tend to look at the "Essays" from a more holistic point of view, agreeing with Montaigne that the text reveals an organic process from beginning to end and that the author through the writing of the "Essays" becomes consubstantial with the text: "I have no more made my book than my book has made me." / Because of the vast erudition, inexhaustible curiosity, and thirst for knowledge one finds in the "Essays", Montaigne complements another great sixteenth-century French writer, Francois Rabelais, who died when Montaigne was twenty. Rabelais´s hyperbolic characters with their gargantuan appetites embody a philosophy calling for a well-filled head ("une tête bien pleine") in contrast to Montaigne´s appeal for a well-made mind ("une tête bien faite"). Modern pedagogues would surely term Montaigne an advocate for interactive, student-centered learning./ The very furst essay, "By Diverse Means We Arrive at the Same End," reveals a mind free of dogmatism and open to creative methods of approaching ideas and problems. As the title indicates, it may initially appear that subjects discussed earler have little or no bearing on the matter at hand. Some essays do not follow this pattern, however, as if Montaigne were checking his reader´s attentiveness, but many, such as the essay "On Some Verses of Virgil" can truly disconcert the reader who sees little if any conncedtedness with the announced title. Montaigne´s method of achieving the same result, while employing an unorthodox modes operandi in the process, reflects a rich aan appealing style sometimes described as sensual. Each essay is a kind of palimpsest that invites the reader to come on board first at this level, then at that one. Paradox and ambiguity are cornerstones of the composition, too, since they illustrate man´s inability to know definitively and thus remind him of his limitations and his human condition. / "Que Sais-je?" The "Apology for Raymond Sebond," the longest of the essays, is scarcely a defense of Sebond´s "Natural Theology", which posits the notion that god is revealed to man through His creation, the world. Indeed, very little of the lengthy essay deals with Sebond at all. Montaigne´s strategy is to examine Sebond´s theology in order to present his own view that man can claim to know very little. "What do I know?" - "Que sais-je?" - Montaigne´s celebrated motto, appears well into the Sebond essay and allows the author to elaborate his view that man´s finite condition renders him incapble of saying either "I know" or " I do not know." Rather , the "Que sais-je?" goes unanswered; Montaigne suspends judgment and undertakes an investigation and self-portrait of the only subject man can know something about: himself. The moral becomes: "The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives." / The final essay, "Of Experience," contains perhaps the most celebrated maxims, as Montaigne concludes his monumental project with an eloquent plea for mankind to accept the human condition, the duality of body and soul, and the notion that happiness, wisdom, and goodness coexist necessarily with pain and suffering./ The "Essays" are a preparation for Montigne´s death; complete detachment from this world is made bearable once man has fully embraced all that life has to offer, both for good and for ill, since only that which has been fully possessed can be let go without regret: "I unbind myself on all sides; my farewells are already half made to everyone except myself. Never did a man prepare to leave the world more utterly and completely, nor detach himself from it more universally, than I prepare to do." "There is nothing so beautiful and legitimate as to play the man well and properly," he writes in "Of experience." / Montaigne concludes with this humble admonition that certainly influenced the final page of Proust´s "Time Recaptured": "There is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk on our own legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still only sitting on our own rump." /
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