The Humanist Idea of Christian Antiquity: Lefèvre d'Étaples and his Circle

Abstract

The major intellectual interests of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and his circle focused in the high ambition of ‘joining wisdom and piety with eloquence’. To this end the group worked to restore a ‘cleansed and purified Peripatetic philosophy’. They studied the Bible in a series of New Testament editions, commentaries, and translations. They printed the medieval mystics: the Victorines, Elizabeth of Schönau, Raymond Lull, Ruysbroeck. Finally, they devoted time, energy, and enthusiasm to the investigation of Christian antiquity and the editing of patristic texts. Lefèvre himself showed them how these separate enterprises meshed in a consistent program: ‘For knowledge of natural philosophy’, he wrote in 1506, ‘for knowledge of ethics, politics and economics, drink from the fountain of a purified Aristotle.

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