Abstract
The arguments elaborated by scholastic theologians and thinkers in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to deal with the quaestio concerning pagan virtues and salvation are taken up and discussed with greater sophistication and cogency throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Yet the further evolution of the debate is due less to the formulation of new conceptual solutions than to the need to deal with the new contexts in which the pagan theme arises. In this respect, the early modern ‘phase’ of the debate on pagans is not so much characterized by the elaboration of new theses as by new usages of the theme of the virtues and salvation of the pagans. In other words, we are witnessing a transformation that is not internal to the discussion on the status of pagans, but which rather concerns the meaning and function that are assigned to the debate itself. The main aim of this volume is to highlight the areas, themes and argumentative strategies that define the specific character of the early modern ‘phase’ of the debate on the virtues and salvation of the pagans.
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Notes
- 1.
Augustine 1995, 124–125 (De doctrina christiana, II, 40, 60): ‘Philosophi autem qui vocantur si qua forte vera et fidei nostrae accommodata dixerunt, maxime Platonici, non solum formidanda non sunt sed ab eis etiam tamquam ab iniustis possessoribus in usum nostrum vindicanda. Sicut enim Aegyptii non tantum idola habebant et onera gravia quae populus Israel detestaretur et fugeret sed etiam vasa atque ornamenta de auro et de argento et vestem, quae ille populus exiens de Aegypto sibi potius tamquam ad usum meliorem clanculo vindicavit’ see Folliet 2002.
- 2.
Augustine 1995, 124–125 (De doctrina christiana, II, 40, 60): ‘Doctrinae omnes gentilium non solum simulata et superstitiosa figmenta gravesque sarcinas supervacanei laboris habent, quae unusquisque nostrum duce Christo de societate gentilium exiens debet abominari atque devitare, sed etiam liberales disciplinas usui veritatis aptiores et quaedam morum praecepta utilissima continent, deque ipso uno deo colendo nonnulla vera inveniuntur apud eos. Quod eorum tamquam aurum et argentum, quod non ipsi instituerunt sed de quibusdam quasi metallis divinae providentiae, quae ubique infusa est, eruerunt, et quo perverse atque iniuriose ad obsequia daemonum abutuntur, cum ab eorum misera societate sese animo separat debet ab eis auferre Christianus ad usum iustum praedicandi evangelii’.
- 3.
On the meaning of the term ‘pagans’ in the early modern period, a very good overview is provided by Antoine Furetière in his Dictionnaire universel (1690), quoted and commented by Ferreyrolles, whom we follow here (Ferreyrolles 2002, 22). We start from an initial tripartition: between the two extremes, constituted by the absence of any form of religion, i.e. the condition of the savages (‘qui sont sans habitations réglées, sans religion, sans lois et sans police’) and of true religion, i.e. Christianity, the vast space of infidelity opens up. Those who believe, but not in the true God, are therefore infidels. The category of infidels is then divided into three subcategories: the Mahometans, the Jews and the idolaters. The pagans are therefore the idolaters of antiquity. Hence the definition of Furetière under the heading ‘payen’: ‘Gentil, idolâtre, qui adore les faux dieux de l’Antiquité’. The articulation of the categories is slightly different from that advanced by Thomas Aquinas, for whom the pagani or gentiles are a subgroup of the class of infideles, together with Jews and heretics. See Summa theologiae, IIa IIae, q. 10, a. 5: ‘Cum enim peccatum infidelitatis consistat in renitendo fidei, hoc potest contingere dupliciter. Quia aut renititur fidei nondum susceptae, et talis est infidelitas Paganorum sive gentilium’. See Decosimo 2014. As J. Marenbon (Marenbon 2015, 5) points out, in medieval culture ‘the difference between pagans and Muslims was less clear cut than that between pagans and Jews or heretical Christians’. Moreover, medieval theologians, when dealing with the problem of the salvation of the pagans, usually ‘were thinking about biblical people, living before the time of the Old Law, and some non–Jews, such as Job, who lived during that period’ (Marenbon 2015, 168). On this subject, see the masterful summary by Jean Daniélou (Daniélou 1956, not quoted in Marenbon 2015). On the link between pagans and ‘savages’, see Pastine et al. 1978 and Landucci 2014.
- 4.
- 5.
Here we follow Ferreyrolles 2002.
- 6.
Ferreyrolles 2002, 32.
- 7.
- 8.
‘“Inexcusabiles”. The Debate on Salvation and the Virtues of the Pagans in the Early Modern Period (1595–1772)’, 8 April 2016, organized by A. Frigo and G. Giglioni. The papers by Guido Giglioni (‘Between St Paul and Galen: How Juan Huarte de San Juan Responded to Inquisitorial Censorship’), J. Marenbon (‘Pagan Salvation and Pagan Virtues – Collius and La Mothe Le Vayer’), Douglas Hedley (‘Cudworth and Pagan Monotheism’) and Franck Lessay (‘Hobbes’s Covenant, a Refuge for Heretics and Atheists?’) could not be included in this volume.
- 9.
See now on this subject Lennon 2019.
- 10.
Especially about the debates between the Dominicans Las Casas and Sepulveda on the status of non-Christians in ‘New Spain’. The subject will not be discussed in this volume.
- 11.
My particular thanks are due to Guido Giglioni for his friendly support and his unstinting help in getting this book finally into print. John B. Leonard read the final version of the manuscript carefully and helped me to make it more readable.
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Frigo, A. (2020). Introduction. In: Frigo, A. (eds) Inexcusabiles: Salvation and the Virtues of the Pagans in the Early Modern Period. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 229. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40017-0_1
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