Renaissance Philosophy: New Translations: Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457), Paul Cortese (1456–1510), Cajetan (1469–1534), Tiberio Baccilieri (ca. 1470–1511), Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540), Peter Ramus (1515–1572) 9783110907650, 9789027971937

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Renaissance Philosophy

Renaissance Philosophy New Translations Lorenzo Valla (140/-14;j) Paul Cortese (146J-IJIO) Cajetan (Thomas de Vio) (1469-1J34) Tiberio Baccillieri (c. 14/0-1jii) Juan Luis Vives (1492-IJ40) Peter Ramus ( i j i j - i j / 2 )

edited by

LEONARD

A.

KENNEDY

MOUTON • THE HAGUE • PARIS

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72—79999 © 1973 Mouton & Co, Herderstraat 5, The Hague, Netherlands Printed in Hungary

Preface

One who embarks on the study of philosophy in the Renaissance finds himself surrounded by a vast sea of works dating from that period, even if he limits himself to those which have been printed. But if he is English-speaking and not fluent in languages other than his own, particularly Latin, he will find his voyage restricted to a small bay on the edge of this ocean. Though some important works have been translated into English, they are few in number. There is need of more translations if non-specialists are to come into contact with the sources. This book contains six texts translated from Latin, each for the first time. The chief consideration in the choice of a text has been the importance of its subject-matter. A second consideration has been the fame of its author. And a third has been its availability (four of the texts have not been printed since the sixteenth century, and even research students have access to them only with difficulty). The translations form a useful supplement to existing brooks of translations of Renaissance philosophical thought, especially Cassirer, Kristeller, and Randall's The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (Chicago, 1948) and Fallico and Shapiro's Renaissance Philosophy (2 vols., New York, 1967, 1969). One of the characteristic features of Renaissance philosophy was the rivalry between scholastics and humanists. For centuries scholasticism had, as its name indicates, existed in the schools. The chief scholastic systems, Thomism, Scotism, Occamism, and Averroism, were still strong in the sixteenth-century universities. These medieval philosophies (three of them were theologies as well) contrasted sharply with humanism, which was primarily a literary movement, occasioned

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by the introduction into Western Europe of Greek works, for the most part unknown previously. A few of the humanists were philosophers, but the majority were not. The battle between the scholastics and the humanists did not begin as a clash of philosophies but as a clash of literary styles. It was not to rest there, however. In their Latin works the humanists used as models the new-found classical treatises. They despised the Latinity of the scholastics. And for the most part they came to despise the content of scholasticism as well as the language in which it was clothed. In the first selection here translated Lorenzo Valla shows his disdain for the whole of scholasticism by attacking its greatest representative, Thomas Aquinas, and by attacking him in a sermon on his feast-day. Among the more discriminating humanists were Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who were philosophers and who owed much to the scholastics. They were among the few who tried to bridge the gap between their literary colleagues and the scholastics. Giovanni Pico pleaded the case for scholastic philosophy in a letter to the humanist Ermolao Barbaro, who was fiercely opposed to it. 1 And, in our second selection, Paul Cortese attempts to convince scholastic philosophers (and theologians) to master the new classicism and to use it to make their writings more palatable, more worthy of the message they contain. There was a great deal of continuity between medieval philosophy and Renaissance philosophy. Generally the same problems were discussed. There was the same rivalry between the arts faculty, where 'philosophy proper' was taught, and the theological faculty. But there was a distinctive feature of early sixteenth century philosophy, that is, at the centre of debate was the question whether the human soul is naturally immortal. This question was the main battle-ground of the different philosophical groups. Treatises on the immortality of the soul abound. The best-known is that of Peter Pomponazzi.2 But one of the leading protagonists in this debate was Cardinal Cajetan. The third selection presents his arguments for holding that immortality can be demonstrated in philosophy. The philosophical problem which ranked second in importance, from the point of view of occupying attention, was possibly that of whether there is one intellect for all men. Since the thirteenth century, Christian Averroists had held that, in philosophy, one must say

Preface

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that there is only one human intellect. The number of Averroists had been fairly small, but by the end of the fifteenth century they existed in large numbers in the arts and medical faculties in northern Italy. To date no Averroist text teaching the unicity of the human intellect as a philosophical conclusion has been translated into English. The fourth selection presents such a text. It is the work of Tiberio Baccillieri. Though Tiberio is not well known, this selection is important because it reports the standard Averroist arguments for saying that all men have the same intellect. Philosophers still disagree about the value of medieval and Renaissance scholasticism, but there is one point on which they are in accord, namely, that the teaching of logic had degenerated into a sorry state by the sixteenth century. Years were wasted on argumentation removed from life and even from worth-while problems in other areas of philosophy. Students were trained to consider logic as an end in itself, a game of juggling with words. And, in this juggling, violence was done to language; medieval Latin was reduced to a barbarous state. Not only were these years wasted; they formed in the pupils stultifying habits impossible to eradicate. Humanists decried this state of affairs. Possibly the strongest attack on it was that of Juan Luis Vives, translated in the fifth selection. Vives had himself been a pupil of the men he upbraids. He regretted the vicious formation received from them at the University of Paris. Yet even in his bitterness he distinguishes between logic itself and the parody of it taught by these men. It is not logicians but 'pseudo-logicians' against whom he writes. In the late sixteenth century another type of reform in logic was advocated. Vives had criticized it from the outside; others, themselves logicans, were to criticize it from within. Francis Bacon advocated induction rather than deduction as the chief means of arriving at scientific truth. And Peter Ramus wanted to simplify logical method. Peter did not have the worst faults of the logicians Vives had attacked. He wanted logic to be related to life and to practical concerns. He considered logic a means of obtaining truth, not an end in itself. He was a humanist himself and, in his day, a master of style. What he wanted was to unify logic. In the final selection he argues that all logic should follow a single method. Though famous in his lifetime and for long after, Ramus has been nearly forgotten until the present time. The

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revival of interest in his work in the last two decades justifies this translation, the first English translation of one of his works in over three hundred years.

NOTES

1. Fallico and Shapiro, Op. cit., I, pp. 105-117. 2. Cassirer et al., Op. di., pp. 280-381.

Contents

Preface

5

PART I: PHILOSOPHY AND HUMANISM 1 . LORENZO VALLA: In,Praise of Saint Thomas Aquinas [Encomium Sancti Thomae Aquinatis — 1457 A.D.] Introduction, by M. Esther Hanley 13 Selective Bibliography 16 Text, translated by M. Esther Hanley 17 2 . PAUL CORTESE: Introduction to the First Book of the 'Sentences' [Distinctiones in IV libros Sententiarum — 1504 A.D.] Introduction 29 Selective Bibliography 31 Text, translated by William Felver 32 PART II: PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS 3 . CAJETAN (THOMAS DE VXO): On the Immortality of Minds [De immortalitate animorum — 1503 A.D.] Introduction Selective Bibliography Text, translated by James K. Sheridan

41 45 46

Whether the Human Intellect is One in Number in All Men [Lectura in tres libros de Anima — 1508 A.D.] Introduction 55 Selective Bibliography 60 Text, translated by Leonard A. Kennedy 61

4 . TIBERIO BACCILLIERI:

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PART III: THE REFORM OF LOGIC Against the Pseudo-logicians [In pseudo—dialécticos — 1519 A.D.] Introduction, by Charles Fantazzi Selective Bibliography Text, translated by Charles Fantazzi

5 . J U A N LOUIS V I V E S :

6 . PETER R A M U S :

69 76 77

That There is But One Method of 'Establishing a

Science [Quod sit unica doctrinae instituendae methodus — 1557 A. D.] Introduction 109 Selective Bibliography 113 Text, translated by Eugene J. Barber and Leonard A. Kennedy 115 General Bibliography \S1 Index of Names 159

PART I

Philosophy and Humanism

L O R E N Z O VALLA

In Praise of Saint Thomas Aquinas Introduced and translated by M. Esther Hartley

INTRODUCTION

Lorenzo Valla was a leading exponent of critical humanism, and a forthright champion of the opposition to Aristotelian philosophy and Scholasticism in the Renaissance. Born in Rome in 1407, of a family which came originally from Piacenza, he studied in Rome, growing up in a world of brilliant scholars and papal functionaries. He was fortunate in having as teachers such men as the great Hellenist, Giovanni Aurispa, and the Florentine humanist, Leonardo Bruni; he was among their most gifted students. Disappointed in his hope of gaining an appointment to the papal secretariat, he became a lecturer at the University of Pavia, where he taught rhetoric from 1429 to 1433. In 1431 his position at Pavia became a chair of rhetoric, with a stipend of fifty florins; in the same year he was ordained a priest. In 1431 at Pavia he published the treatise De Voluptate, in which he gives, in the first two parts, an exposition of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophies, and, in the third part, an explanation of the Christian view as combining elements of both of these to show that pleasure and happiness are the reward of virtue. Valla's apparent preference for Epicureanism, as being closer than Stoicism to Christianity in some aspects, led some critics, in his own time and later, to consider him something of a hedonist; but the treatise may well be more of a comparative study than a statement of personal conviction. He revised it and published it later under the title De Vero Bono. The contentiousness which was one of Valla's besetting faults

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brought an end to his career at Pavia. He relinquished his post there in 1433, after a severe brush with his jurist colleagues, and went to Milan. After a few years of moving from place to place as a teacher of rhetoric, he entered the service of King Alfonso of Aragon, perhaps in 1435; certainly he was established in the king's service in 1437. He produced some of his better known works in the next few years; the Dialecticae Disputationes, De Libero Arbitrio, and De Professione Keligiosorum all appeared about 1438-39. The treatise on the False Donation of Constantine (De Falso Credita et Emntita Constantini Donatione), written in 1440, was a scholarly application of historical and textual criticism to an early document, and it effectually challenged the papal claims to temporal power. Written to support his patron's claim to the throne of Naples, a claim which Alfonso was pressing to the point of war with the papacy, the treatise understandably put Valla out of favor with the Papal power. By his irascible temperament he further incurred the displeasure of many of the clergy and professors of law, and narrowly escaped being denounced for heresy, but was saved by his patron's help. Later, in 1444, Valla wrote a letter of apology to Pope Eugenius IV, and the state of affairs was then such that by the help of his patron the attack of the False Donation was forgiven. In 1444 Valla published a first edition of his notes and commentaries on philology, in a version corrected by Aurispa. This was his De Linguae Eatinae Elegantia, a work which gives Valla his best claim to greatness as a humanist and philologist, and which represents the finest in humanistic studies of classical language and literature. The history of King Ferdinand I of Aragon, which Valla's patron Alfonso commissioned him to write, also appeared in 1444. When Nicholas V became Pope in 1447, the supposed antipapal attack of the De Constantini Donatione was forgiven at last, and Valla finally attained the post of apostolic secretary (November 10, 1448). He opened a school of rhetoric, and in 1450 succeeded to the chair of rhetoric held by George of Trebizond. During the next few years he carried on a vigorous and acrimonious polemic against other scholars, especially Poggio. In 1455 an old friend, a former member of the household of the King of Aragon, became pope as Callixtus III. Valla's few remaining years were marked with favour and success. He died on August 1, 1457.

In Praise of Saint Thomas Aquinas

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Valla's most successful work was done in philology and rhetoric. The De Elegantia represents his best writing in this area; it remained a standard work on the Latin language until the end of the eighteenth century. He also wrote translations of Greek authors, especially Herodotus and Thucydides, and an introduction to and translation of the speech of Demosthenes for Ctesiphon. His Adnotationes in Novum Testamentum, a collation of several good New Testament manuscripts, though it achieved little at the time, set the example for the Scriptural studies of Erasmus and other humanists, and foreshadowed later work in Biblical criticism. In matters of philosophy Valla was a typical humanist. He was interested in ethical problems but disdained logic and metaphysics. He thought that the middle ages had been corrupted not only by bad Latin but also by philosophy. What the medievals would have thought their chief intellectual accomplishment, the fusion of theology and philosophy, Lorenzo considered a failure. While he himself gloried in enriching Christian thought with classical learning, he disdained the scholastics for having added pagan philosophy to their study of the Bible. This is well brought out in his sermon In Praise of Saint Thomas Aquinas, translated here. It was delivered in Rome before the Congregation of the Dominican Order, at their invitation, in the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, March 7, 1457, less than three months before Valla's death. It is amazing that Valla would use such an occasion to attack the very person he was invited to laud. Lorenzo throughout the sermon attempts to arrange saints in a hierarchy, thus indicating that at least one medieval characteristic had been inherited by him. He is willing to admit that Thomas, as a saint, surpasses some of the martyrs, is a worthy companion of the Cherubim and Seraphim, and equals St. Dominic. Lorenzo grants that Aquinas possessed subtlety of expression, that he covered a wide range of topics, that he was extremely intelligent. He admits that he was the greatest of medieval doctors. But, when it comes to Thomas' synthesis of philosophy and theology, Lorenzo feels bound to belittle it. Thomas is inferior to the Latin and Greek Fathers — to Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, and Dionysius. These men knew Greek and wrote a very good Latin;

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Thomas did not. These men did not use logic or metaphysics; Thomas did. They did not allow philosophy to be an obstacle to knowledge of things divine; Thomas did. Though a few humanists, such as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, thought highly of the medieval theologians and philosophers, most of the humanists did not. Lorenzo Valla gives an excellent example of the humanists' scorn for the thought of their medieval predecessors.

SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. 'Valla', Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (Stanford, 1964), pp. 19-36. Mesnard, Pierre. 'Une application curieuse de l'humanisme critique à la théologie: L'Eloge de saint Thomas par Laurent Valla', Revue Thomiste, 55 (1955), 159-176. Montano, R. 'Valla, Lorenzo', New Catholic Encyclopedia (Washington, 1967), XIV, 522-523. Trinkaus, Charles Edward. 'Lorenzo Valla: Dialogue on Free Will', The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (ed. E. Cassirer et al., Chicago, 1948), pp. 147-182. Vahlen, J. 'Lorenzo Valla iiber Thomas von Aquino', Vierteljahrsschrift fiir Kultur und ~Litteratur der Renaissance (Leipzig, 1886), pp. 384-396. Valla, Laurentius. 'Encomium Sancti Thomae Aquinatis', Opera Omnia (Turin, 1962), pp. 339-352. Valla, Lorenzo. Scritti filosofici e religiosi. Translated, with introduction, by Giorgio Radetti (Florence, 1953).

17 IN PRAISE OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS*

In very early times it was customary, among Latins and Greeks alike, for anyone about to make a speech on some rather important topic, either in the law courts or in the people's assembly, to begin his address with an invocation to a heavenly power. This practice, I think, was introduced by worshippers of the true God, as were sacrifices, first fruit offerings, rituals, and the other honours offered to the Divinity. Later, as were all of these, this observance was transferred from the true religion to false religions. Surely it was a most flagrant violation of proper human conduct, and almost the ultimate evil of all, that the worship due to the immortal God, the only Creator, should have been paid to mortal men and to created things. After this custom had flourished for several centuries among both Latins and Greeks, it gradually fell into disuse, and the invocation of divine powers was discontinued, not only by the pleaders of bad causes but also by the defenders of good ones. Those who were pleading bad causes abandoned it either because they believed the gods did not exist or because they were afraid to invoke them. For whoever invokes the gods does so to ask them to protect truth and justice, and this is something that evil men would not want. It was abandoned by the defenders of good causes, partly because they wanted to show they trusted in their own justice independently of the protection of the gods, partly because they thought they would appear more distinguished and more manly if they did not act like women and at the very outset resort to calling on the gods. For in those times there seemed to be something womanish, not manly, about invoking the help of divine powers; so it is that, as Sallust tells us, Cato says: 'It is not by vows and womanish supplications that the aid of the gods is procured.' 1 However that may be, those men acted impiously in doing away with this very ancient custom and dislodging it, so to speak, from the place it had rightfully occupied. At the same time, approval is due to * Valla's In Praise of Saint Thomas Aquinas was edited by J. Vahlen in 1886 and reproduced photographically in Valla's Opera Omnia in 1962. Another edition of the Latin text by G. Bertocci, published at Rome in 1888, is mentioned by Radetti (p. xxxvii and n. 1). The sermon has been translated into Italian by G. Radetti and into French by P. Mesnard.

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those who reinstated it and put it back in its proper place, not with a view to imitating the pagans — far from that •— but so that they would not appear to be inferior to the pagans. If the pagans paid such high honour to their false gods that they thought they should invoke them in the introduction to their speeches, how much more should we pay this honour to the true God? That is why it is my pleasant duty today to imitate that excellent practice of theirs, when I am about to recount the praises of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and in the customary manner to invoke the most holy ever-virgin Mother of God, greeting her in the angel's words, 'Hail, Mary, full of grace . . Although all those who die in the Lord are happy and holy, still the Church officially declares happy and holy only those who she clearly knows died for the sake of their religion, or for the truth, or for justice, or lived their whole lives in purity and integrity and were distinguished for divine signs and miracles. The Church calls the former group by the Greek term 'martyrs', the latter by the Latin term 'confessors', but the two terms are almost identical in meaning. After all, what else did the martyrs do in enduring tortures and facing death but refuse to deny Christ, and confess, in voices that rang out again and again in their torments, that they did not deny Christ but confessed that he was the Son of God? Therefore to be a martyr is the same thing as to be a confessor. Again, what else did the confessors do by their devoted lives and their pious writings, but give witness to the truth? Just so, John the Baptist, who was sent to give witness to the Light, 2 that is, to the Truth, gave this witness no less by his preaching than by his death. Therefore, in doing this, surely the confessors were martyrs [witnesses]. For martyr is translated into Latin by testis [witness], and martyrion [martyrdom] by testimonium [the testimony of a witness]. But although this is so, the Church, as I said, at least the Latin Church, has decided that only the first-mentioned ones are to be called martyrs and honoured with the privilege of that rank. Clearly they are approved by their Commander as brave and courageous soldiers, not only in the other tasks of military duty but also, and especially, in battle. The martyrs, who were soldiers of Christ, stood in battle line and poured out their blood and their life on behalf of their Commander, whereas the confessors also were soldiers of Christ, but endured only the toils of a soldier's life, heavy and prolonged as these were. They were ready even to die for God their Commander,

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but it did not fall to their lot to suffer death or to stand in the battle line. And so it seems that the martyrs should be treated with fuller honour. Yet, although this has been done rightly and deservedly, who could deny that there are some among the confessors who could be considered not only as equal to some martyrs but even as surpassing them? This is made clear even by divine proof as well, since we see that many confessors have far outshone some of the martyrs in miracles. To what purpose do I say this? So that it may be clear that, though our Thomas Aquinas is a confessor, still he is not for that reason to be relegated to a place below the martyrs; it is my opinion, without further search for examples, that he is in no way inferior either to the Peter of that rank, who was slain with a pruning hook by an angry peasant for defending the truth, 3 or to Thomas the archbishop of Canterbury, who, good shepherd that he was, died for his flock to protect his clergy from being fleeced. And here is a further argument. While both of these men had the name Thomas, yet it was bestowed on our Thomas not by man but by divine direction, since, properly interpreted, Thomas in Hebrew is translated sometimes as 'abyss', sometimes as 'twin'. 4 This is the kind of man that Thomas Aquinas was — either a veritable abyss of knowledge, or a twin doubly endowed with knowledge and virtue, both of them in a degree unique and unbelievable. He is like a sun shining most splendidly with the brilliance of his teachings and burning most brightly with the warmth of his virtues; surely he is to be ranked among the Cherubim for the splendour of his teachings and among the Seraphim for the fire of his virtues. And now I shall speak of his virtues. And yet, as I attempt to enumerate them, it seems to me that certain people run to meet me and, as it were, hold up warning hands in my way, shouting: 'What are you saying? What do you mean by all this exaggeration, which fools love and wise men abhor? Will you have no regard for the truth, for your conscience, for all these most august and exceedingly wise men who are listening to you? Are you not satisfied with having equalled Thomas Aquinas to the martyrs and having ranked him before many of them? Must you also elevate him even to the Cherubim, who support the throne of God, or put him on an equality even with the Seraphim, the very highest rank of angels ? What more will you attribute to the apostle Thomas? or to Paul, the teacher of the gentiles, who is like

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one of the Cherubim? or to John the evangelist, who is like one of the Seraphim?' To such a man let me give this reply: I am convinced that all those who are filled with the knowledge of the things of God have something in common with the Cherubim, and all those who are penetrated with the love of God are the companions of the Seraphim; and I think that I am still less justly rebuked and admonished in the case of Thomas, whose whole being was filled with knowledge and charity. For this reason I should like to beg the Brothers of his Order to pardon me if I speak with moderation rather than lavishness in describing the glorious achievements of this holy man, and recount not all but only the greatest of them; for in the presence of these illustrious fathers they should be summarized and not explained at length, so that they will not be wearisome. They are so many and so great that, if I tried to extol them in words, the Evening Star would sooner close Olympus' gates and put the day to rest, as the poet says.5 Deservedly, then, such a man (to speak of his virtues first and of his knowledge afterwards) — deservedly, I say, should he have been proclaimed to the world before he was born, his birth prophesied, his life consecrated, even his death announced. While his mother was carrying him in her womb, an anchoret, a man of God, who had come on purpose to make this announcement to her, congratulated her and said that she would give birth to a son who would be called Thomas, and that the excellence of this name would be fulfilled in him. Whenever God has planned to give some extraordinary new thing to the world, it is his way to proclaim it by signs or prophecies. There are not a few instances of this fact, but for the sake of brevity I shall be satisfied with one, and one found in your own family. In this way the greatness of blessed Dominic, the founder of your religious family, was proclaimed to his mother during her pregnancy. I shall not say which of these prophecies was the more remarkable, so that, as far as I can, I may avoid the suggestion of rivalry between father and son. Let us say that the prophecies for both are equal, that the merits of their lives are equal, that neither is to be put before the other, that (like two consuls, who are subordinate to no other magistrates) both deserve equal veneration from us, that both are distinguished for all the virtues, both for innumerable miracles. Although I have the task of praising just one of them, I shall link the two together, first of all because, if I put them on an equal level, I shall make more clearly evident the height

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of dignity and sublimity to which Thomas should be promoted, and furthermore, because it is the established custom of the Order of Preachers that the Brothers go two by two, not one by one. Dominic, then, founded the house of the Preachers, Thomas covered its pavements with marble; Dominic raised its walls, Thomas adorned them with beautiful paintings; Dominic was the crowning ideal of the Brothers, Thomas was their model; Dominic planted, Thomas watered. One shunned and rejected the distinctions and the bishoprics which were offered to him, the other fled from nobility, wealth, family, parents, as if they were the Sirens. One imitated the chastity and continency [of Paul], 6 the other the virginity of John the evangelist. Nothing was more admirable than Dominic's humility, which the Greeks call more expressively rajteivo