A Turn of the Mind
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A TURN OF THE MIND Frameworks for Religious Conversion in Seventeenth-Century Intellectual Discourse by Andrew Vincent Sanchez A thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 10 March 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Epistolary Sources ..................................................................................................... 6 Chapter Overviews..................................................................................................... 8 A Broader View of Early Modern Controversy ....................................................... 11 1. Neoplatonism: A Syncretic Antidote ............................................................................ 14 The Origins of Neoplatonic Thought ....................................................................... 19 Towards a Christian Platonism ................................................................................ 24 Platonism in the Italian Renaissance........................................................................ 29 Lucas Holstenius and Seventeenth-Century Neoplatonism ..................................... 30 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 36 2. The English Converts: Historicity and the True Church .............................................. 37 The Problem of English Catholicism ....................................................................... 38 Kenelm Digby: A Story of Reconversion ................................................................ 40 1635: The Year of “Society” Conversions............................................................... 45 The Historicity Argument ........................................................................................ 53 A Philosophical Turn in English Controversy ......................................................... 58 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 60 3. From Convert to Broker: Conversion Agents and Women’s Empowerment ............... 61 An Act Best Done Abroad ....................................................................................... 62 Jesuit Agents as Conversion Brokers ....................................................................... 67 Brokers of the New Faith ......................................................................................... 71 Women and Conversion ........................................................................................... 77 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 79 Epilogue ............................................................................................................................ 81 Appendix I ........................................................................................................................ 86 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 95 Primary Sources ....................................................................................................... 95 Secondary Sources ................................................................................................... 97 INTRODUCTION The seventeenth century was a period of religious disintegration. Under the banner of reformed confessions, Arminians, Puritans, Anabaptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians all offered accounts of the one true church on earth. And the Church of Rome, the once unquestioned seat of western Christendom, began to reform as it confronted the shifting tides of Protestant ideologies. Across Europe, the splintering of Christianity manifested itself in violent unrest as sacred and secular leaders each vied for spiritual and temporal authority. Given the abundance of conflict in the seventeenth century, the historiography on this period has largely emphasized the political and governmental implications of religious disputes. The emphasis on religion and politics, however, has overlooked the fundamental building block of early modern religion: personal faith. In this study, I will shift our focus to the individual experience of belief to better understand how philosophy, controversy, and geography informed early modern religious identity. If religion is fundamentally rooted in individual belief, what does it mean to turn away from one's faith? What does it mean for the early modern intellectual to convert? Throughout this work, I will argue that conversion was an outgrowth of scholarly endeavor. To understand this form of conversion, I will examine the experiences of three early modern men of letters, Lucas Holstenius (1596-1661), Kenelm Digby (1603-1665), and Walter Montagu (1603-1677). For all three, conversion was a rational process grounded in the authority of biblical and patristic texts. But each had unique experiences and drew from different philosophical traditions. Philosophy too was in disarray. Through - 1 - the recovery and diffusion of ancient texts, Renaissance scholars had challenged the long dominant position of Aristotelianism in Christian theology. By the seventeenth century, a broad spectrum of classical philosophies, from Plato to the Stoics, Epicureans, and even the Pre-Socratics permeated academic discourse. Along with religious options, early modern scholars had philosophical ones. For Holstenius, the study of Neoplatonism motivated his change of confession. Digby and Montagu, on the other hand, relied on Aristotelian and historical frameworks to validate their conversions. Although all three converted to the Church of Rome, the philosophical and historical claims behind their conversions differed significantly. This difference calls attention to the complexity of seventeenth-century controversy, and in this study, I will examine how scholars drew from divergent philosophical schools to justify Catholic conversion. In a period of religious and philosophical disintegration, the conversions of Holstenius, Digby, and Montagu represented an attempt to unify different controversial frameworks. In their writings, they carried forward the Renaissance impulse to unite ostensibly opposing philosophical schools as they built on the works of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. By the seventeenth century, the effects of Renaissance philosophy lent a new dimension to controversial disputes leading Christia Mercer to describe the period as one of “intellectual fecundity and confusion.”1 When Holstenius, Digby, and Montagu began to explore religious controversy, they entered a world where Aristotelian and Platonic notions came into conversation with 1 Christia Mercer, “Platonism and Philosophical Humanism on the Continent,” in A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Steven Nadler (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2002), 42. - 2 - contemporary Protestant claims.2 As they participated in this discussion, all three attempted to transcend confessional infighting by appealing to ancient authorities. The use of classical sources not only reveals their indebtedness to Renaissance scholarship, but also exposes a tendency to portray conversion in intellectual rather than spiritual terms. Since their conversions developed through intellectual endeavor, each figure became embedded in a scholarly network that ranged from Italy to England. Thus, our study of these converts offers a wide view onto religious discourse across early modern Europe. Although all three travelled extensively in Europe, they all converted in Paris. This fact suggests that each figure required geographical separation from home in order to convert. Further, it reveals that Paris’ intellectual climate was congenial to Catholic conversion. In this environment, all three came under the instruction of proselytizing Jesuits who guided them in spiritual and scholarly inquiry. On this point, I will argue that religious brokers played a crucial role in the conversion process as they mediated the change of faith through discussion and spiritual counsel. Thus, conversion required both intellectual conviction and a location conducive to religious transformation. In the past twenty years, early modern religion has received extensive scholarly attention. In the 1990s, historians emphasized the political dimensions of religious change and concentrated on the implications of high-profile conversions.3 This focus called attention to the intimate connection between religion and politics, but did not explore the 2 For an overview of seventeenth-century philosophy, see Stephen Menn, “The Intellectual Setting,” in The Cambridge History of seventeenth-century philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber, Michael Ayers, Roger Ariew, and Alan Gabbey, Cambridge Histories Online 1998. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/007520374/catalog. 3 Michael Wolfe, The Conversion of Henri IV. Politics, Power, and Religious Belief in Early Modern France (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1993); Michael Questier, Conversion, Politics, and Religion in England, 1580-1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996); Keith P. Luria, Sacred boundaries: religious coexistence and conflict in early-modern France (Washington: Catholic Univ. Press, 2005). - 3 - intellectual or