Humanist Polemics, Christian Morals: A Hypothesis on Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron and the Problem of Self Love

This article examines how the idea of reciprocal love functions in early Christian humanist critiques of ecclesiastical abuse stemming from self-love. It argues that Lefevre, Brionnet and Erasmus used the idea of reciprocal love as an argument against abusive church practices based on motives associated with pleasure, profit, and honor. It then argues that Marguerite de Navarre also used the idea of reciprocal love, as mediated through Ficino, to explore the psychology of self-love. It is proposed that the Heptameron recuperates the opposition of reciprocal and self-love that her humanist predecessors had instated.