Ad fontes is a Latin expression which means "[back] to the sources" (lit. "to the sources"). [1] The phrase epitomizes the renewed study of Greek and Latin classics in Renaissance humanism, [2] subsequently extended to Biblical texts. The idea in both cases was that sound knowledge depends on the earliest and most fundamental sources.
The phrase ad fontes occurs in Psalm 42 of the Latin Vulgate: [3]
Quemadmodum desiderat cervus (or Sicut cervus desiderat) ad fontes aquarum ita desiderat anima mea ad te Deus. [4] (As a hart longs for the flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God.)
The phrase in the humanist sense is associated with the poet Petrarch, whose poems Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta (c.1350) use the deer imagery of the Psalm.
Erasmus of Rotterdam used the phrase in his De ratione studii ac legendi interpretandique auctores: [5]
Sed in primis ad fontes ipsos properandum, id est graecos et antiquos. (Above all, one must hasten to the sources themselves, that is, to the Greeks and ancients.)
For Erasmus, ad fontes meant that to understand Christ in the Gospels in an educated way involved reading good translations of the New Testament, and the Greek and Roman philosophers and Church Fathers in the five hundred years surrounding Christ, over the earlier Old Testament and later Scholastics. [5]
The most extreme version of ad fontes was the Protestant Reformation called for renewed attention to the Bible as the primary source of Christian faith, to the extent of denying extra-biblical apostolic teaching authority: sola scriptura . [6] : 8 This need to select a core that could reject unattractive Catholic doctrines lead to the Protestant rejection of the Deutero-canonical scriptures and queries, e.g. by Luther, on the canonicity or value of the Epistle of James. [7]
Sylvia Wynter is quoted as suggesting that ad fontes heralded a power grab in which the formerly taken-for-granted authority of theology was replaced by “the authority of the lay activity of textual and philological scrutiny.” [8] : 111
The phrase is related to ab initio , which means "from the beginning". Whereas ab initio implies a flow of thought from first principles to the situation at hand, ad fontes is a retrogression, a movement back towards an origin, which ideally would be clearer or purer than the present situation.
Ad fontes may be contrasted with various views of the development of doctrine:
It may be noted that promoters of ad fontes did not necessarily deny the validity of the developments of dogma: notably Erasmus, who saw clarifications of doctrine (by Church Councils and the Pope) as a necessary part of their peace-keeping and uniting role [note 1] that did not negate the wisdom of ad fontes.
Apocrypha are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of Scripture. While some might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity, in Christianity, the word apocryphal (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were to be read privately rather than in the public context of church services. Apocrypha were edifying Christian works that were not considered canonical Scripture. It was not until well after the Protestant Reformation that the word apocrypha was used by some ecclesiastics to mean "false," "spurious," "bad," or "heretical."
The deuterocanonical books are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and/or the Assyrian Church of the East to be canonical books of the Old Testament, but which Jews and Protestants regard as apocrypha. They date from 300 BC to 100 AD, before the separation of the Christian church from Judaism. While the New Testament never directly quotes from or names these books, the apostles quoted the Septuagint, which includes them. Some say there is a correspondence of thought, and others see texts from these books being paraphrased, referred, or alluded to many times in the New Testament, depending in large measure on what is counted as a reference.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic theologian, educationalist, satirist and philosopher. Through his vast number of translations, books, essays, prayers and letters, he is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the Northern Renaissance and one of the major figures of Dutch and Western culture.
Sola scriptura is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. The Catholic Church considers it heterodox and generally the Orthodox churches consider it to be contrary to the phronema of the Church.
Renaissance humanism was a worldview centered on the nature and importance of humanity, that emerged from the study of Classical antiquity. This first began in Italy and then spread across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term humanist referred to teachers and students of the humanities, known as the studia humanitatis, which included the study of Latin and Ancient Greek literatures, grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy. It was not until the 19th century that this began to be called humanism instead of the original humanities, and later by the retronym Renaissance humanism to distinguish it from later humanist developments. During the Renaissance period most humanists were Christians, so their concern was to "purify and renew Christianity", not to do away with it. Their vision was to return ad fontes to the simplicity of the Gospels and of the New Testament, bypassing the complexities of medieval Christian theology.
The Johannine Comma is an allegedly interpolated phrase (comma) in verses 5:7–8 of the First Epistle of John.
Christian humanism regards humanist principles like universal human dignity, individual freedom, and the importance of happiness as essential and principal or even exclusive components of the teachings of Jesus. Proponents of the term trace the concept to the Renaissance or patristic period, linking their beliefs to the scholarly movement also called 'humanism'.
The Collegium Trilingue, often also called Collegium trium linguarum, or, after its creator Collegium Buslidianum, is a university that was founded in 1517 under the patronage of the humanist, Hieronymus van Busleyden. The three languages taught were Latin, Greek and Hebrew. It was the model for the Collège de France founded in 1530. It is located in Leuven, Belgium.
(Divine) Accommodation is the theological principle that God, while being in His nature unknowable and unreachable, has nevertheless communicated with humanity in a way that humans can understand and to which they can respond, pre-eminently by the incarnation of Christ and similarly, for example, in the Bible.
On the Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther argued that people can achieve salvation or redemption only through God, and could not choose between good and evil through their own willpower. It was published in December 1525. It was his reply to Desiderius Erasmus' De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio or On Free Will, which had appeared in September 1524 as Erasmus' first public attack on some of Luther's ideas.
Humanism in France found its way from Italy, but did not become a distinct movement until the 16th century was well on its way.
Renaissance humanism came much later to Germany and Northern Europe in general than to Italy, and when it did, it encountered some resistance from the scholastic theology which reigned at the universities. Humanism may be dated from the invention of the printing press about 1450. Its flourishing period began at the close of the 15th century and lasted only until about 1520, when it was absorbed by the more popular and powerful religious movement, the Reformation, as Italian humanism was superseded by the papal counter-Reformation.
Ecclesiastes: On the Art of Preaching was a 1535 book by Desiderius Erasmus. One of the last major works he produced, Ecclesiastes focuses on the subject of effective preaching. Previously, Erasmus had written treatises on the Christian layperson, Christian prince, and Christian educator. Friends and admirers, including Bishop John Fisher suggested that Erasmus write on the office of the Christian priesthood. He began writing the text in 1523, finally completing and printing Ecclesiastes in 1535.
Lutheran orthodoxy was an era in the history of Lutheranism, which began in 1580 from the writing of the Book of Concord and ended at the Age of Enlightenment. Lutheran orthodoxy was paralleled by similar eras in Calvinism and tridentine Roman Catholicism after the Counter-Reformation.
The Tyndale Bible (TYN) generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made c. 1522–1535. Tyndale's Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, although it relied heavily upon the Latin Vulgate. Furthermore, it was the first English biblical translation that was mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing.
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Novum Instrumentum Omne, later called Novum Testamentum Omne, was a bilingual Latin-Greek New Testament with substantial scholarly annotations, and the first printed New Testament of the Greek to be published. It was prepared by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) and printed by Johann Froben (1460–1527) of Basel.
A biblical canon is a set of texts which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible.
Diego López de Zúñiga, Latin: Jacobus Lopis Stunica was a Spanish humanist and biblical scholar noted for his controversies with Erasmus and Lefèvre d'Etaples and leadership of the team of editors for the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. He was born around 1470 in Extremadura, to an aristocratic family; his brother Juan de Zúñiga was a diplomat for Charles V of Spain.
Sicut cervus is a motet for four voices by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It sets the beginning of Psalm 42, Psalmus XLI in the Latin version of the Psalterium Romanum rather than the Vulgate Bible. The incipit is "Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes" followed by a second part "Sitivit anima mea". It was published in 1604 in Motecta festorum, Liber 2, and has become one of Palestrina's most popular motets, regarded as a model of Renaissance polyphony, expressing spiritual yearning.