Christians Vs Pagans, the Old Debate

Bootstraps Up
          The Humanist writers of the Renaissance were attempting to recreate what they felt was a golden age in antiquity. Their use of the classic authors differs from author to author, yet they still cite these writers from old. Through these classic authors, the Renaissance writers define their own morals, standards, and beliefs. Some use the authors to prove their own points or to bolster an argument which has already been elaborated upon by an older author. Others use it to show why the authors should not be read, while they clearly are reading it enough to cite it.  By standing upon the previously laid knowledge by these authors, they aim to reclaim the glory of the Ancient World. These differences between the use and purpose of the usage help define the time in which they lived and the attitude of its populus.
           Coluccio Salutati helped to save many classical texts which might have been lost forever. His love and admiration for the classics are ever present in his works. He expresses, in Liberal Studies, that perhaps God is merely a fiction which man has invented. Salutati goes on to quote Marcus Tullius Cicero discussing Homer. “Homer imagined these things, ascribing human qualities to the gods… I would prefer to ascribe divine qualities to ourselves” (The Packet, 90A).  This indirect citation makes it stand out as important. Salutati is trying to make the point that what Cicero says of Homer is also true of the Bible and is to be taken as equally divine. Yet Salutati did not discuss Homer doing so by his own eloquence but through that of another classical writer, Cicero. Classical texts were the model for style and form. By imitating them, the Renaissance writers could extract the fruits of thousands of years of refinement and study.
                 Poggio Bracciolini uses classical authors to argue both sides of his point in On Avarice. First, he uses Virgil to define avarice. He has an entire dialogue written upon the subject, yet he reverts to what Virgil has said where his eloquence cannot master. He says, “Before Vergil wrote down those verses, he realized that he could not render the deformity of avarice in words” (117A).  Bracciolini goes on to further define avarice in his own words, yet he relies upon the poetry of Virgil to create a visual image for his readers. He would have been capable of making the image without using Virgil by simply saying that seeing it would be akin to the terror of the Harpies. Yet he uses Virgil to convey something he cannot do as eloquently. He substantiates his claims by citing the classical author.

       After Bracciolini has suitably defined avarice, he discusses the role of money and commerce in relation to greed. To do this, he references Aristotle with, “(Money) was necessarily invented for commerce and for mutual exchange among men” (119A). Using this as a jumping off point, he asks what is so detrimental about avarice if it stems from an instinct for survival. He references Augustine, as a Latin scholar and not as a religious figure, to justify avarice as a natural thing. He argues as to whether Rome, the sublime city to which one might aspire, was gluttonous. He says, “If that city, Rome, where they say virtue made its home, was avaricious, what should we think of the cities of our own age?” (120B). In comparing his own modern city to the Rome of antiquity, Bracciolini finds his own to be wanting. He desires what he feels is a less greedy, less corrupt state. It is clear that avarice in Rome was as rampant as in Renaissance Italy as Virgil too puts it in his poetry. Pico comments upon the avarice of even the philosophers when he says, “Since their whole life is set either on profit or on ambition, they do not embrace the very discovery of truth for its own sake” (Cassirer, 238).  When later Bracciolini returns to Cicero to explain the correlation between corruption and avarice, he follows his with, “This quotation shows, Antonio, why avarice is so widespread, why it persists unpunished, and why it has assumed so much power” (125B). Then Bracciolini interprets and discusses the quotation. He does not feel his own words to be adequate and uses Cicero to lend influence and weight to words he cannot match for style and eloquence. Bracciolini is relying upon the knowledge of men before him to refine and demonstrate his point. This return to the thought and style of antiquity only aids the author to his end by strengthening his claims.  
        Francesco Petrarch wrote an entire letter to Cicero. He praised his work and mock discussed with him. Petrarch himself is considered the father of humanists.  Proof of his intense interest in classical authors is very evident. He calls Cicero the “great father of Roman eloquence” and goes onto praise with “all who bedeck themselves with the flowers of Latin speech are grateful to you” (77B). Much flowery praise follows. His use of the classics in Letters on Familiar Matters goes beyond what any other writer does with usage. He writes a letter to a long dead philosopher. Since it can be assumed that Cicero would not be able to read such a letter and on account of the fact that it is published, it can be determined that Petrarch intended his letter to be read by the public. This being the case, it is clear that Petrarch’s intent was to fuel the interest and popularity of Cicero himself. Petrarch fathered a movement which drew upon the age of antiquity in an attempt to pull itself up from its bootstraps purely on the genius of those before them. His use and evident veneration of Cicero may have inspired his followers to collect and save the remaining works of the great classical authors.
        Further in the same piece, Petrarch appears to change his mind about the classicists and devotes himself to sacred writings.  He seems to have experienced some sort of mid life crisis which has made him worry over his own salvation. He does not think it right that he should enjoy the classics more so than the Bible and thus determines to give them up. He says, “I used to read works that gave me pleasure, now I am reading works which are good for me” (79A). This suggests a distinction between what is pleasurable and what is good. What is pleasurable is not good and what is good is not pleasurable. Only when making the pleasurable into something useful can reading classic works be good. Yet even in the letter where he claims such, he references Apollo as a god and the Muses as his patrons. He cannot leave behind the works which have so inspired him. Leonardo Bruni says, “He must thoroughly understand the force of several particles whose idiom and usage he will copy from authors he reads” (104). Petrarch is doing this here, retaining the idioms and cultural practices of the texts he studied. Even as Petrarch seeks to leave behind these works, he is unable to do so because of the time he has spent already in reading Cicero.
        Petrarch writes to his once sick friend justifying his continued study of classic texts. He is unable to let go of these works, yet feels guilt over them. This is evident in his letter to Pico. He first justifies reading Cicero by stating that, “Cicero never said anything against Christ, if perchance his teaching did, that would be the only thing I would not believe” (81). As he continues, he begins to tell of a book of Cicero which repeatedly injures him until he develops a sore which eventually causes discomfort and pain. Though he does not state his moral for the story, it is clear that Petrarch is torn between what he feels are two opposite belief structures. His attempts to justify reading Cicero do not satisfy his guilt. Petrarch influenced many people and changed the world by aiding in the salvation of many texts which might have been lost. Cicero’s texts are among these. Though his religious beliefs may have interfered with his enjoyment, it is evident that Petrarch idolized the eloquences and rhetoric of Cicero and determined the worth not only in rhetorical skill, but also in the words themselves. He went so far in On His Own Ignorance as to say, “If to admire Cicero means to be a Ciceronian, I am a Ciceronian. I admire him so much that I wonder at people who do not admire him” (Cassirer, 115).
        Leonardo Bruni uses classical authors to supplement the beliefs of his own Christian writers in a curriculum for a young woman. First, Bruni defines what he will suggest which is, “to read only the best and most approved authors” (104B). One might expect his list of authors to include those approved by the Church (of which there are undoubtedly some). He recommends sacred writing first. He says of sacred writing, “Let her search much, weigh much, acquire much in this branch of study. But let her fondness be for the older authors” (106B). He is stating that contemporary writers, however sacred they might be, cannot surpass the eloquence or skill of the classical authors. He adds that she should pay little attention to these modern writers. The belief that the golden age had passed and that man was living in a declined state is evident here from Bruni’s unstated opinion.

          Bruni goes on in his text, De studiis et litteris,  to recommend classical authors like Demosthenes for oration, Zeno, Aristotle, and Epicurus for philosophy, and Caesar and Sallust for history. He sees it not at all proper for the lady to spend her time in the study of oration, though he still recommends who should be read for it.  He considers it important that a scholar read and discuss moral philosophy because “such subjects as these are beautiful and intellectually rewarding” (106B). He does not list the philosophers of his own time for the woman to read, but those of antiquity. The moral philosophers therefore are better than those who have come since Christ and whose works would be more Christian. As for history, he says, “knowledge of the past gives guidance to our councils and our practical judgment, and the consequences of similar undertakings (in the past) will encourage or deter us according to our circumstances in the present” (106B). This is built upon the idea that what has happened in the past can somehow aid the future. This returns to the idea that men can pull themselves out of the shadow they feel they are in and regain the splendor of the golden age. Bruni does not neglect the poets. He lists the largest number of these. He first discusses the classical poets who she should read and then tosses out the Christian writers who have great knowledge of poetry. He does not list Christian poets or Biblical passages.  It is clear that Bruni sets the classical authors above his contemporary ones through his use of names and references. He scatters them throughout each paragraph in overwhelming number. In order to understand his work, you must also understand or know the works he references. In this way, he ensures the reader’s interest in the classical authors. How could his student understand his letter if she did not read the works from which he cited?  Thus, he emphasizes the belief in studying classic writers which is the topic of the entire piece.

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola uses classical authors and references in an entirely different way than the humanists previously examined. His text, Oration on the Dignity of Man, contains references like those of the other Renaissance authors, yet they are more subtle. Often, instead of quoting an author directly or paraphrasing his work, he mentions them lightly and sparsely when they have said something similar to the opinion he is stating. He writes, “It is surely unbecoming and beyond measure captious to wish to set bounds to another’s effort and, as Cicero said, to desire moderation in a matter which is better as it is on a larger scale” (Cassirer, 241).  Pico attempts to determine the human place in respect to the divine through a short examination of several other cultures. He liberally quotes the Bible, more so than any other authors. Yet there is wide range of names Pico references, from Plato to Moses to Muhammad to Mercury. An extensive amount of knowledge would have to be accumulated in order to organize and interpret the vast number of texts he involves. He places Christian and Pagan beliefs side by side and attempts to integrate them into a single feasible belief system. He says:

I have read about original sin, its expiation through Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the devils, the orders of angels, purgatory, and the punishments of hell, the same things we read daily in Paul and Dionysius, in Jerome and Augustine. But in those parts which concern philosophy you really seem to hear Pythagoras and Plato, who principles are so closely related to the Christian faith. (252)

            In these two sentences Pico references six different authors. Many of his paragraphs are such as these, teeming with references to figures from different schools of thought and time periods. His goal is to make all of these schools make sense together as a whole. Without using as many philosophers, he could not accurately achieve his goal of spiritual unity. Pico’s finished piece presents endless assurances that this faith and that are the same, or close enough with a few compromises. At times his usage feels contrived and laborious as he chooses only the facets of philosophies which interlock. Pico uses classical philosophers in a nearly scientific mapping of the spiritual attitude of the time
            These Renaissance authors use classical texts to demonstrate and strengthen their own arguments. Classical works are open for interpretation and as such can be taken from their original context and placed however the author wished. Since many classical texts at this time had only a few copies, words could be retranslated to have different connotations and express whatever the author wished. Use of classical authors and references reinforces the appearance of meticulous study and scholarly thought. Humanists of this time believed that Ancient Rome was the epitome of civilization and academia. In striving to imitate this structure, they mimic what they read and use that to form further thoughts and opinions, thereby continuing the tradition of antiquity. Achieving this end could not merely be in written texts, but would have to influence and direct the spheres of home life, politics, and social structures. Their recovery of the great works of antiquity is enough to proclaim their effect on the world. Humanists may not have managed a complete reversion to the ideals they so prized, but the impact of their works carries resonance within literary and philosophical lines.