CHAPTER FIVE

PADUAN AVERROISM RECONSIDERED1

Lecture

On March 30, 1867, Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg, first Baron and eighth Baronet of Acton, published a two and one-half page arti- cle in The Chronicle of London on Fra Paolo Sarpi, best known for his History of the Council of Trent, and spoke as follows of the subject of his inquiry: “It is now certain he despised the doctrines which he taught, and scoffed at the mysteries which it was his office to celebrate.” Paolo Sarpi marks the end of the [pre-enlightenment period],2 and there is little doubt that he was one of the most outspoken historians, scientists, and political philosophers of his or any other century. Even so, Lord Acton could say of him that the “exact nature of his religious opinions are still open to controversy . . .” Our uncertainty, such as it is, about Sarpi, is no doubt due at least in some measure to his relative obscurity. Sarpi’s thought and teach- ings were eclipsed by those of the preeminent Italian historian and philosopher of the sixteenth century, whose fame or infamy has caused us to overlook Sarpi’s more startling doctrines, probably because Machiavelli’s teachings present themselves against the backdrop of a city and society notorious for religious indifference and for a refined immorality. Both Sarpi and his illustrious predecessor, Machiavelli, stand astride that chasm in the history of thought, that radical shift of direction which marks the beginning of what we call modernity. It is the con- tention of this paper that the thought of the notorious Florentine and his successors which forms the basis of what we refer to as the modern

1 [ The title for this lecture is probably a response to an essay on Eliah del Medigo by H. Randall, entitled “Paduan Aristotelianism Reconsidered,” in Philosophy and Humanism: Renaissance essays in honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. E. Mahoney (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 275–82. While it appears that the lecture was given at a conference, I have not been able to ascertain when or where the conference took place or even what the topic of the conference was.—ed.] 2 [ It is not clear from the manuscripts which period is referred to here.—ed.] 64 chapter five enterprise would have been impossible without the preparatory clear- ing of the underbrush made by the Italian Averroists and Alexandrists, whose center of activity was in Padua. Of these, I would like again to call attention to Elia del Medigo, in whose Critique of Religion we can see delineated just about every motif of that school of thought which considered Ibn Rushd its guiding light. Although del Medigo’s own work is only recently getting the attention it deserves and although I view del Medigo as the connecting link between Averroism and the Florentine milieu which sparked the mod- ern project, many of the propositions regarding the import of Averroes and his school were put forth by intellectual historians and historians of philosophy such as Renan , Mandonnet , Charbonnel , Gauthier , Gilson, Lagarde, Nardi, Dethier, and others. These have been chal- lenged in more recent years by Van Steenberghen , Kristeller , Randall , and MacClintock , among others. I believe a reexamination of Renaissance Averroism is now called for, and I further believe that an unprejudiced re-reading of both Latin and Jewish Averroists, published and unpublished, will not only support Renan, Mardonnet, et al., but will bring to light the roots of modernity and of the enlightenment. In what follows I would like to highlight the distinguishing charac- teristics of Averroism, medieval and renaissance. The necessary con- clusions, it seems to me, stare us in the face. The major enterprise of medieval philosophy, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian, was the attempt to find a safe niche for philosophy in a world which held philosophy as such with varying degrees of suspi- cion, mistrust, and contempt. In order to assure the success of this philosophic politics, Moslem, Jewish, and Christian philosophers alike engaged in painstaking constructions of complex theologico-political edifices whose primary purpose was to make it possible for Greek phi- losophy to reach some sort of accommodation with the three monothe- isms, to peacefully coexist with the great orthodoxies. For most Jews, Moslems, and Christians, philosophy was stamped with the indelible imprint of paganism, and was thus anathema to them. Among the Jews the best known practitioner of this reconstruction- ing was of course Maimonides. His purpose was two-fold, as was his method. On the one hand Maimonides held the view that a restate- ment or a reworking of the religious law was absolutely needful. On the other hand, those who are serious in their quest for enlightenment, i.e., potential philosophers, must be encouraged in every possible way.