Méthode et théologie: Lambert Daneau et les débuts de la scolastique réformée (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 355 M~thode et th~ologie: Lambert Daneau et les d~buts de la scolastique r~form~e. By Olivier Fatio. (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1976. Pp. xiii + 417) This volume is the first general study of Lambert Daneau since Paul de Felice, Lambert Daneau, pasteur et prof esseur de philosophie, 1530--1595: Sa vie, ses ou vrages, ses lettres in~dites (Paris, 1882), and expands upon Fatio's earlier Nihilpulchrius ordine: Contribution ~ l'~tude de l'~tablissement de la discipline eccl~siastique aux Pays-bas ou Lambert Daneau aux Pays-Bas (1581-1583) (Leiden, 1971). Coming a generation or so after Calvin, Daneau was a representative of the intellectual strand of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries now usually called "Calvinist Scholasticism." Daneau himself was a product of a very thorough humanistic education in law, philosophy, and theology, numbering among his teachers Adrien Turn6be, Oronce Fine, and Francois Hotman. His rather voluminous writings encompass a wide range of subjects, both in Latin and French. He translated works of Hesiod, Tertullian and Cyprian; edited and commented on several works of Augustine; and composed a number of polemical and interpretative theological and scriptural works, including a commentary on the first book of Peter Lombard's Sentences. The latter was done from a Protestant point of view, was published at Geneva, and shows the author ambivalent in his attitude toward medieval scholastic theology. His more specific philosophical works include Physica Christiana (Lyon, 1576, with five later editions and an English translation), Ethice Christiana (Geneva, 1577, and six later editions), and Politicorum aphorismorum silva (Antwerp, 1583, and eight later editions). Along with Th6odore B6ze, Peter Martyr, and Girolamo Zanchi he ranks as one of the important Calvinist Scholastics of the sixteenth century. Olivier Fatio has prepared an important and valuable book. He supplements the earlier findings of de Felice by publishing several new documents (in addition to those already published in his 1971book) and by providing a very detailed bibliography of all of Daneau's writings. For this reason it must remain the foundation stone for future works on Daneau. In addition Fatio gives us a useful and balanced account of Daneau's intellectual formation and a careful analysis of some of his more important writings. This study shows once again the continued importance of Aristotle during the Renaissance, even within the various reformed movements. The whole framework of Daneau's philosophical endeavor was that typical of a humanistic Aristotelianism being grafted onto Calvinist theology. It is noteworthy that Daneau's philosophical works are more on moral philosophy (this is true to some degree even of the Physica Christiana) than on logic, natural philosophy, or metaphysics. He is in the direct tradition of not only Turn6be and Lambin but more remotely of Leonardo Bruni and Ermolao Barbaro. Thus he can be contrasted with other Protestant scholastics, includingMelanchthon and Schegk who covered a much wider range of the Aristotelian corpus in their expository works. Though Daneau had a detailed knowledge of medievals such as Thomas Aquinas and Durandus, he shared only certain of their attitudes and rejected others. We find, in short, a cautious and only partial acceptance of medieval scholasticism, neither the outright rejection of a Luther nor the enthusiastic espousal of a Hooker. Daneau's overall approach and his historical significance mark him as a staging post on the way to the full-blownProtestant Scholasticism of the next century, culminatingin figures such as Burgersdijk, Keckerman, and Timpler. Fatio's study provides an excellent starting point for further work in this field. His central focus has rightly been the theological and religious aspects of Daneau's works. There is still room, however, for more research on the philosophical aspects of early modern Protestant Scholasticism . There are many major figures of that movement who have not yet been so well studied as has Daneau and who still await a careful bibliographer and historian to restore them to their rightful place in European intellectual history. CHARLES B. SCHMITT The Warburg Institute ...