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Gregory Nazianzen in the Service of Humanist Social Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Natalie Zemon Davis
Natalie Zemon Davis*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

In 1539 Sébastien Gryphius, noted humanist printer of Lyon, published a French translation of Sermon Fourteen of Gregory Nazianzen, περί ϕιƛοπτωχίαs or De amore pauperum. It was entitled De la cure, et nourrissement des Pauvres, Sermon du Benoist sainct Gregoire Nazanzene, surnommé par excellence Theologien and it was the first of Gregory's works to be printed in French. Though the edition is included in Baudrier's Bibliographie lyonnaise, it has so far escaped the notice of specialists working on Gregory Nazianzen. What is important about the edition, however, is not that it is a bibhographical ‘first,’ but that it reveals some new dimensions of humanist interest in the early Fathers of the Church.

Of the three known copies of La cure et nourrissement des Pauvres, one is in the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève, where it is bound with another work printed by Gryphius in 1539, La Police de l’aulmosne de Lyon; a second belonged to Baudrier and was also bound with La Police de Vaulmosne; and the third is at the Archives de la Charité et de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , Winter 1967 , pp. 455 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1967

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References

1 H. and Baudrier, J., Bibliographie lyonnaise (Lyon, 1895-1921), vrii, 125 Google Scholar. The edition is not mentioned by Migne, J. P., Patrologiae Graecae (Paris, 1886), xxv, 11–18 Google Scholar, or by Meehan, D., ‘Editions of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus,’ Irish Theological Quarterly, xviii (1951), 205–219.Google Scholar It is not mentioned by Sajdak, I., Historia Critica Scholiastarum et commentatorum Gregorii Nazianzeni (Cracow, 1914)Google Scholar or by Sinko, T., De traditione orationum Gregorii Nazianzeni (Cracow, 1917)Google Scholar; neither of these works is concerned, however, with printed editions. The useful bibliography of Paul Gallay in Les manuscrits des lettres de saint Gregoire de Nazianze (Paris, 1957), pp. 105-111 is concerned only with the Epistles. I have corresponded with Sister Agnes Clare Way, who has compiled a census of the Latin translations of Gregory's works; with Monseigneur Paul Gallay, Dom Meehan, and Mile M. L. Guillaumin. They have informed me that to their knowledge the edition has not yet been used by students of Gregory.

2 ‘Poor Relief, Humanism and Heresy—The Case of Lyon,’ to appear in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, v (1968). The reader is referred to it for full documentation on welfare arrangements at Lyon as well as for bibliography on Jean de Vauzelles and Santo Pagnini.

3 [Jean de, Vauzelles], Police subsidaire a celle quasi infinie multitude des povres survenus a Lyon Ian Mil cinq cens trente Ung …, Lyon: Claude Nourry, dit le Prince, n.d. [1531]Google Scholar, fol. Biiiv. Erasmus, Cf., A Book Called in Latin Enchiridion Militis Christiani… (London, 1905), chap, XIII, esp. pp. 171–172.Google Scholar

4 Inventaire-sommaire des archives hospitalieres anterieures a 1790. Ville de Lyon. Ed. A. Steyert and F. Rolle (Lyon, 1874), E6. The theatre had been used in another way to encourage charitable giving: ‘A este promis a Jehan Monet et ses compagnons jouer le vendredy sainct prouchain a lhospital du pont du Rosne [the Hotel-Dieu] quelque mistere sur la passion notre Seigneur pour esmouvoir le peuple a devotion envers lesd. Hospital,’ Archives communales de Lyon, BB37, fol. I57T, March 25, 1517/18.

5 Henri de, Boissieu, ‘L'Aumone-Generale de 1534-1562,’ Revue d'histoire de Lyon, III (1909), 267.Google Scholar The two printings are evident from the slight differences in print and woodcut on the title pages of two different editions at the Bibliotheque municipale de Lyon. Gryphius’ privilege was dated Jan. 11, 1538/39; one printing may have occurred before the strike in the summer of 1539, which affected Gryphius’ shop, a second later in the year.

On the contrast between the ‘ancient’ or homiletic style of the sermon (which interested the humanists as did Ciceronian disposition) and the ‘modern’ style, developed especially by the Franciscans in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Blench, J. W., Preaching in England in the late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1964), pp. 71–85.Google Scholar

6 See Hanna H. Gray, ‘Valla's “Encomium of St. Thomas Aquinas” and the Humanist Conception of Christian Antiquity,’ in Essays in History and Literature presented … to Stanley Pargellis, ed. H. Bluhm (Chicago, 1965), pp. 37-51.

7 Rice, Eugene R. Jr., ‘The Humanist Idea of Christian Antiquity: Lefevre d'Etaples and his Circle,’ Studies in the Renaissance, ix (1962), 126–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A sermon and two letters of Gregory Nazianzen were included in an edition of Gregory of Nyssa, edited by Beatus Rhenanus in 1512 (p. 149).

8 Gregorii Nazanzeni Theologi Orationes Lectissimae XVI. Venice: Aldus, April 1516. Migne, xxxv, 13. Sister Agnes Clare Way is correcting Migne's reference to an Augsburg, 1508 edition; it should be Augsburg, 1519.

9 Sister Agnes Clare Way has kindly described for me the contents of the Augsburg editions of 1519 and 1521 and the Paris, 1532 edition. The Pirckheimer edition can be found at the Union Theological Seminary (copy owned by Hugh Latimer) and at Houghton: D. Gregorii Nazianzeni Orationes XXX; Bilibaldo Pirckheimero interprete, nunc primum editae, quarum catalogum, cum aliis quibusdam, post epistulam Des. Erasmi Roter. videbis. Basel: Froben, Sept. 1531. Gregorii Nazanzeni Theologi Orationes novem elegantissimae. Gregorii Nysseni liber de homine, Quae omnia nunc primum, emendatissima, in locem produnt. Venice: Aldus, 1536.

10 Lewis W., Spitz, The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. 167–168.Google Scholar

11 Migne, xxxv, 855-856. Winckelmann, O., ‘Die Armenordnungen von Niirnberg (1522) …’ Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte, x (1912-13), 243–246 Google Scholar; Gerald, Strauss, Nuremberg in the 16th Century (N. Y., 1966), pp. 195–199.Google Scholar

12 Paul, Gallay, La vie de Saint Gregoire de Nazianze (Lyon, 1943), pp. 86–87.Google Scholar

13 Police subsidaire, fols. Bii, Biiiiv, cii.

14 Edgar, Wind, ‘Charity. The Case History of a Pattern,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, xi (1948), 68–86 Google Scholar; ‘Sante Pagnini and Michelangelo,’ Gazette des Beaux Arts (xxvi, 1944), 211-235; Graham, V. G., ‘The Pelican as Image and Symbol,’ Revue de Utterature comparee, 36 (1962), 235–243 Google Scholar; Emile, Male, L'art religieux de lafin du Moyen Age en France (Paris, 1925), pp. 317–322.Google Scholar I have reproduced the emblem of the Aumone- Generale in my article ‘Poor Relief, Humanism and Heresy.'

15 Santis Pagnini Lucensis praedicatorii ordinis Isagogae ad sacras literas, Liber unicus. Eiusdem Isagogae ad mysticos sacrae scripturae sensus, Libri xuiii … Lyon: Francois Juste for Hugues de La Porte, 1536/37.

16 Police subsidaire, fol. Biiiiv.

17 Les Simulachres et Historiees Faces de la Mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes que artijiciellement imaginees. Lyon: Gaspard and Melchior Trechsel for Jean and Francois Frellon, 1538. See Davis, N. Z., ‘Holbein's “Pictures of Death” and the Reformation at Lyons, Studies in the Renaissance, III (1956), 104–118.Google Scholar

18 Hystoire, evangelique des quatre evangelistes en ungfidelement abregee .. . redigee au soulaigement de la memoire de tous Chrestiens. Lyon: Gilbert de Villiers, 1526. In his dedication to Marguerite, then Duchess of Alencon, Vauzelles explains that Jerome respected Ammonius as ‘a great and Catholic philosopher.'

19 Cf. Police subsidaire, fol. cii with La cure, et nourrissement, p. 60, and with Migne, xxxv, 910. Vauzelles’ sermon was given at the end of May 1531 and printed later that year. The Pirckheimer-Erasmus edition had arrived in Froben's atelier by mid-May 1531 (Erasmus’ dedication is dated the Ides of May 1531) and was published in September. Thus if the paraphrase of Gregory appeared in Vauzelles’ sermon when he gave it, he must have read the sermon first in Oecolampadius’ translation or had access to the Pirckheimer manuscript early in 1531 (which is possible, for Vauzelles had contacts with Basel).

20 As part of the next volume of Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum, Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries.

21 Cartier, A., Bibliographic des editions des de Tournes, imprimeurs lyonnais (Paris, n.d.), pp. 184–185.Google Scholar Mile Guillaumin has informed me that some authorities have attributed this translation to the Lyon physician and humanist Pierre Tolet. He was physician to the Hotel-Dieu and was active translating Galen and Paulus Aegineta into French. Cartier gives convincing proof, however, that the 1544 translation is by Chrestien: it includes the anagram of Chrestien's name, ‘L'heur m'en gist au ciel,’ which appears elsewhere in Chrestien's works.

22 Police sabsidaire, fol. Biiiiv