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N Nicodemism philo-Reformed milieus of mid-sixteenth- century Europe. Modern historiographical dis- Sara Miglietti course, however, has often stretched the term The Warburg Institute, University of London, Nicodemism well beyond its context of origin, London, UK in ways that have not failed to raise debate and that ultimately reflect underlying disagree- Abstract ments about the meaning and essence of Nicodemism can be generally defined as Nicodemism itself. the practice of religious (dis)simulation in contexts of more or less open persecution. “Nicodemite” was the name that the Heritage and Rupture with the Tradition sixteenth-century French reformer John Calvin gave to Protestants living in Catholic countries The term “Nicodemism” derives from the word who chose to conceal their faith out of a “Nicodemite,” one of several labels used in concern for personal safety. In the 1540s and sixteenth-century Europe to designate religious 1550s, the legitimacy of such a behavior was at dissemblers, particularly Protestants who lived in the center of a heated controversy stretching Catholic countries and chose to keep their faith from Calvinist Geneva to nearby countries secret in order to escape persecution. The earliest such as Italy, Germany, Holland, and France. documented instance of the term “Nicodemite” is While supporters of religious dissimulation found in a 1544 tract by the French reformer John invoked a range of scriptural and rational argu- Calvin, Excuse à Messieurs les Nicodemites, ments in their own defense – including the which was later translated into Latin by Calvin illustrious precedent of the Roman Nicodemus, himself (Excusatio ad pseudo nicodemos,in who believed in Christ but visited him only by Calvin 1549) and into Italian by Lodovico night out of fear – prominent reformers such Domenichi (Escusazione a’ Nicodemiti, in Calvin as Calvin denounced Nicodemism as morally 1550) (on these translations, see Garavelli 2004; inexcusable and strategically ruinous for the Zuliani 2015). long-term development of Reformed churches. In the Excuse, as in other writings from around Historically, the emergence of Nicodemism as the same period, Calvin censured the behavior of a particular form of religious dissimulation all those “lukewarm” Christians who would rather buttressed by scriptural and rational arguments bury their faith deep in their hearts than put their is inextricably tied to the specific circum- life, freedom, or fortune in danger. What was even stances of religious life in the Reformed and worse in Calvin’s eyes was the fact that such © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 M. Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_435-1 2 Nicodemism disingenuous “crypto-Reformed” sought to jus- dissimulation much in the same vein as Calvin’s tify their position on the level of principle, by anti-Nicodemite writings did (Ginzburg 1970). invoking a range of scriptural and rational arguments in defense of religious dissimulation – including the illustrious precedent of the Roman Innovative and Original Aspects Nicodemus, who believed in Christ but visited him only by night out of fear (John 3:1–15). It One aspect that has come to the fore thanks to was indeed their appropriation of Nicodemus’s the aforementioned studies is the Europe-wide example that earned them Calvin’s scornful significance that Calvin’s anti-Nicodemite writ- (and not entirely unproblematic) nickname of ings were intended to have – and did in fact “Nicodemites” (Zuliani 2015). have. Looking at the Nicodemite controversy In a series of writings later collected under from a transnational perspective sheds some the title of De vitandis superstitionibus (“On helpful light on the long-debated question of Avoiding Superstitions”, 1549), Calvin debunked Nicodemism’s origins, a question that has tradi- the Nicodemites’ arguments for religious dissim- tionally been addressed from a national (not to say ulation one by one. To their adiaphoristic spiritu- nationalistic) perspective. For the Italian scholar alism, which played down the importance of Delio Cantimori, whose groundbreaking studies outward ceremonies and doctrinal complexities contributed to creating Nicodemism as an object in favor of a simplified form of inner faith, Calvin of study in the mid-twentieth century (Cantimori opposed a powerful “either with us or against us” 1959a, b, 1992), Nicodemism was an essentially narrative that ruled out the possibility of any Italian phenomenon, tied to the particular condi- compromise between Roman idolatry and the tions of religious life in the peninsula during true faith of the “people of God.” Strongly and after the Council of Trent (1545–1563). condemning dissimulation as duplicitous behav- While Cantimori’s position was subsequently ior unworthy of a true Christian, Calvin called on adopted and developed by a number of scholars all persecuted Protestants to either take the route (Rotondò 1967; Caponetto 1974; Simoncelli of exile or steadfastly embrace a martyr’s death 1979), it did not encounter unanimous consensus. (Eire 1986; Shepardson 2007). Alternative views included Albert Autin’s franco- While the exact polemical targets of Calvin are centric narrative (1910), also followed by Eugénie difficult to identify with any certainty, the work of Droz (1970–1976) and Maurice Causse (1986) several generations of scholars has revealed that and Carlo Ginzburg’s ingenious thesis of they may have included a range of heterogenous a German birth of Nicodemism, expounded in groups rooted in different geographical contexts a field-changing monograph of 1970. Here and animated by different motives: French evan- Ginzburg argued that something very close to gelicals and moyenneurs (Turchetti 1984; Causse the theoretically justified dissembling behavior 1986; Wanegffelen 1995, 1997); Italian heretics denounced by Calvin in the 1540s had already (Caponetto 1974; Simoncelli 1979; Firpo 1984; taken shape among the German Anabaptists in Turchetti 1987; Cantimori 1992; Garavelli 2004; the aftermath of their crushing defeat in the Peas- Firpo 2007); Dutch spirituals (Eire 1986); and ants’ War of 1524–1525. According to Ginzburg, also (though to a lesser extent) German Protes- at the origins of the Nicodemite movement was a tants (Eire 1986). In Germany, Calvin’s work German botanist of heretical inclinations named intersected with that of homegrown Protestant Otto Brunfels. Brunfels’s writings contain refer- leaders such as Wolfgang Musculus, whose 1549 ences to the same scriptural passages on which the polemical dialogue Proscaerus – written in the later generation of Nicodemites targeted by aftermath of the Augsburg Interim of 1548 and Calvin allegedly based its defense of religious rapidly translated into French (Le temporiseur, dissimulation – including the notorious episode 1550) and English (The Temporisour, 1555) – of Nicodemus in John 3:1–15, as well as various addressed issues of compromise and passages from the Old Testament and from Paul’s Epistles. Nicodemism 3 Ginzburg’s approach was to some extent (Biondi 1974; Bietenholz 1990; Cavaillé 2012b; a continuation of that of Cantimori, in that Wanegffelen 2013). As a result of these new it similarly implied the rejection of Calvin’s research trends, the last few decades have seen identification of the Nicodemites with the a deep transformation of the scholarly debate on crypto-Reformed and replaced it with a counter- Nicodemism. In the last 20 to 30 years, scholars genealogy that emphasized the heretical matrix have stretched the term Nicodemism well beyond of Nicodemism. Like Cantimori, Ginzburg its context of origin, in ways that ultimately reflect portrayed Nicodemism as a conduct typically underlying disagreements about the meaning adopted by nonconformist groups pursuing het- and essence of Nicodemism itself. Nicodemite erodox forms of religious spirituality that made attitudes have been ascribed to a number of indi- them unwelcome to the established churches on viduals and groups active in different historical both sides – the Roman Catholic as well as the contexts, such as Catholics in Elizabethan Protestant in its many forms. By shifting the focus England (Pettegree 1996; Tutino 2006), Marranos from Italy to Germany, however, Ginzburg was and Moriscos in early modern Spain (Firpo 1994; not simply replacing one national narrative with Schwartz 2008), and religiously heterodox another, as previous scholars had generally done; thinkers such as Jean Bodin and Isaac Newton he was also moving past it, highlighting the exis- (Quaglioni 1984; Snobelen 1999). In some tence of deeper commonalities between Italian cases, the very notion of Nicodemite has been and German heretical movements tied to the his- thoroughly reconceptualized so as to include not tory of religious dissimulation (1970: 159–181), only strategic dissemblers waiting for more favor- as well as suggesting possible links with the able circumstances to declare their true faith but French side of the story (1970: 182–205). also a wide range of non-aligned religious groups Ginzburg’s thesis has since been criticized permanently resisting confessional polarization on many levels (Biondi 1974; Eire 1979, 1986). in the so-called age of confessionalization. One particularly penetrating critique (Bietenholz Following up on earlier work by Carlo Ginzburg 1990) has taken issue with Ginzburg’s adoption of (1970) and Mario Turchetti (1984), both of whom selected elements from Calvin’s portrait of the identified connections

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