PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/147469 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-10-07 and may be subject to change. Psychology in the Age of Confessionalisation Psychology in the Age of Confessionalisation A Case Study on the Interaction Between Psychology and Theology c. 1517 – c. 1640 Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. Th.L.M. Engelen, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 20 november 2015 om 12.30 uur precies door Davide Cellamare geboren op 20 juni 1985 te Modugno (Italië) Promotoren: Prof.dr. P.J.J.M. Bakker Dr. C.H. Leijenhorst Manuscriptcommissie: Prof.dr. C.H. Lüthy Dr. L. Spruit (Università degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza) Dr. M. Edwards (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom) © 2015, D. Cellamare Printed by Koninklijke Wöhrmann, Zutphen Typesetting by TAT Zetwerk, Utrecht Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction 1 1.0 Subject of this Thesis 1 1.1 Melanchthon and Some of His Contemporaries 8 1.1.1 Philip Melanchthon 9 1.1.2 Wittenberg Authors: Caspar Peucer, Bruno Seidel, and Gregor Horst 13 1.1.3 Beyond Wittenberg: Otto Casmann and Rudolph Snel van Roijen 18 1.1.4 On the Catholic Front: Franciscus Vallès and Veit Amerbach 26 1.1.5 On the Lutheran Front: Jacob Schegk and Johann Ludwig Hawenreuter 29 1.2 Status Quaestionis on Renaissance Psychology and Confessionalisation 35 1.2.1 Psychology in the Renaissance 35 1.2.2 Psychology and Confessions in the Sixteenth Century 54 1.3 Confessionalisation, Confession, and Confessionalism 66 1.4 Lutheran Theology: A Conceptual Toolkit 70 1.4.1 Flesh and Spirit: the Subject of Grace 72 1.4.2 Law, Gospel, and the Boundaries of Human Reason 76 1.4.3 Justification and the Soul 88 1.4.4 Christology and Man’s Soul and Body 92 1.5 Overview of the Chapters of This Thesis 98 2 ‘Whether the Soul is ἐντελέχεια or ἐνδελέχεια’. Humanist Psychology at Renaissance Universities in Germany and the Low Countries 103 2.0 Introduction 103 2.1 The Humanist Dispute and Philip Melanchthon’s Commentarius De anima 105 2.2 The Reception of Melanchthon’s View in Renaissance Northern Europe 120 2.3 Conclusions 126 vi contents 3 Too Many Meanings for One Word. The Notion of ‘Spiritus’ in the Work of Philip Melanchthon 129 3.0 Introduction 129 3.1 A World Full of Spirits 130 3.2 The Human Soul: the Intelligent Spirit and the Bodily Spirits 133 3.3 Bodily Spirits Between God, the Evil Spirits, and the Stars 137 3.4 Conclusions 149 4 Franciscus Vallesius and Otto Casmann on Animal and Human Souls 153 4.0 Introduction 153 4.1 Franciscus Vallesius: Animal Reason and ‘Reason’ as an Analogical Term 155 4.2 Otto Casmann and the Christologising of Psychology 163 4.3 Conclusions 173 5 Anatomy and the Body in Renaissance Protestant Psychology 175 5.0 Introduction 175 5.1 Melanchthon’s Use of Anatomy and His Conception of the Body 176 5.2 Rudolph Snell van Royen 185 5.3 Conclusion 193 6 The Origin of the Soul in Sixteenth-Century Lutheran Psychology 197 6.0 Introduction 197 6.1 The Problem of the Origin of the Human Soul in Sixteenth-Century Psychology 198 6.2 Philip Melanchthon and the Wittenberg Message on the Soul 201 6.3 Caspar Peucer and Gregor Horst: a Mysterious Form of Traducianism 205 6.4 Bruno Seidel: a Lutheran in Defence of Creationism 211 6.5 Jacob Schegk and Johann Ludwig Hawenreuter: the Origin of the Soul in Lutheran Aristotelianism 215 6.6 Conclusions 220 contents vii 7 Final Conclusions 223 7.0 Summary of the Research Conducted in this Thesis 223 7.1 ἐνδελέχεια and the Attempt to Embody the Vegetative and Sensitive Souls 224 7.2 Spirits and the Spiritualising of the Human Soul 226 7.3 The Christologising of the Human Soul 227 7.4 The Human Nature as the Subject Matter of the De anima and the Anatomical Knowledge of the Body. A New Project and its Unintended Consequences 228 7.5 The Soul and its Controversial Origin 231 7.6 Psychology and Confessionalisation: a Conclusion 233 Bibliography 237 Samenvatting 253 Summary 259 Biography 265 Acknowledgments During the last five years I have been blessed with the opportunity of working at the Center for the History of Philosophy and Science, an ideal place to write my PhD thesis. The Center had all I needed for my work, and more importantly a group of great scholars and colleagues to whom I am most grateful. I owe my biggest thanks to my supervisors, Paul Bakker and Cees Leijenhorst, without whose guidance this thesis could not have been possible. Since the first day of my job as a doctoral candidate, they have followed my work with great enthusi- asm. They have always encouraged me to think that big ideas and projects could and shouldbepursued.Theytaughtmedosowiththerightdoseofpragmatism.IfIhave made some progress as a scholar during these years, much of this is thanks to them. I cannot say how much I have benefited from the help of Hans Thijssen, Chris- toph Lüthy, Carla Rita Palmerino, Frederik Bakker, and Leen Spruit. Their comments on what I have written, as well as on my presentations during the seminars at the Center, brought my thesis to a much higher level. Their constant support and faith in my work were indispensable in the completion of my thesis. I would like to mention the names of all the other colleagues whom I had the privilege to meet during the last five years: Delphine Bellis, Femke Kok, Sander de Boer, Doina Cristina Rusu, Bill Duba, Erik Dücker, Hiro Hirai, Kuni Sakamoto, Elisabeth Moreau, Adam Takahashi, Carli Coenen, Chiara Beneduce, Lyke de Vries, Elena Nicoli, and Sanne Stuur. Your daily companionship and suggestions helped me work in a wonderful environment. I would like to thank the past and present members of the Center who shared their office with me and kindly endured my presence: Sander, Doina, and Delphine. Seeing you working so hard right next to my desk really set an example for me. I would also like to thank all the other friends and colleagues who were so kind as to read parts of my thesis. At the very least, I would like to mention Marco Lamanna and Kuni Sakamoto. Marco, your comments on some of my papers and our long phone calls on psychology and confessionalisation truly helped me a lot. Kuni, your straightforward comments and questions on my work were so precious, and it was just beautiful to chat with someone like you who also likes my obscure sixteenth- century authors. This thesis could not have been possible without the financial support of the interdisciplinary research programme of Radboud University, Nijmegen, entitled ‘Culture, Religion and Memory’. x acknowledgments Whilst writing my thesis, I was so fortunate as to always feel the love of my friends, both those living near me and those who are scattered across the globe. Some of them I have always known and some of them I had the privilege to meet more recently. There are so many of you that it is just impossible to thank you all individually. But to all of you, thank you for being there. Finally, I would like to thank my mother and my father. I could never have achieved so much without your example and unconditional support. chapter 1 Introduction 1.0. Subject of This Thesis Aristotle, at the very onset of his book De anima (On the Soul), introduces psychology as a discipline of the highest rank, both because of the dignity and wonderfulness of its subjects and because of its exactness. But whilst he assigns such prominence to psychology, Aristotle is more careful about its epistemological status: «to attain any knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world».1 The medieval tradition of commentaries on Aristotle’s De anima measured itself with such ambivalence between the exactness and nobility of psychology on the one hand and the actual difficulty of knowing the soul on the other.2 As a matter of fact, knowing the soul became even more difficult over the centuries and especially after Aristotle’s teaching came in contact and had to be harmonised with Christianity. Yet, it was probably because of the very efforts to determine an orthodox Chris- tian view about the nature and destiny of the soul that two things about it became clear. First, when the acts of the Council of Vienne (1311–1312) established that the intellective soul of man was truly and per se the form of the human body.3 Sec- 1 Aristotle, De anima, in Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation (Princeton 1984), i.1, 402a10. 2 On medieval discussions about the epistemic status of the science of the soil, see: Sander W. de Boer, The Science of the Soul. The Commentary Tradition on Aristotle’s De anima, c. 1260–c. 1360 (Leuven 2013), 92–122. 3 The acts of the Council of Vienne, which were published by John xxii, condemned as heretic any- one who denies that the intellective soul is truly and per se the form of the human body. The Latin text of the condemnation reads as follows: «Porro doctrinam omnem seu positionem, temere asserentem aut vertentem in dubium, quod substantia animae rationalis seu intellectivae vere ac per se humani corporis non sit forma, velut erroneam ac veritatis catholicae fidei inimicam prae- dictosacroapprobanteconcilioreprobamus,definientes,utcunctisnotasitfideisinceraeveritas,ac praecludatur universis erroribus aditus, ne subintrent, quod quisquis deinceps asserere, defendere seu tenere pertinaciter praesumpserit, quod anima rationalis seu intellectiva non sit forma cor- poris humani per se et essentialiter, tanquam haereticus sit censendus» (Aemelius Ludwig Richter and Emil Albert Friedberg, eds., Corpus iuris canonici (Graz 1959), 1134).