Sophists in humanistic and reformation propaganda

Abstract

The article examines the topos of sophism and its content in written and visual texts of the late 15th - first half of the 16th centuries, primarily on the basis of dialogues and dramaturgical works, which occupied a special place in the urban communica-tion of the Reformation period. The first half of the article gives an overview of the general ideas about sophism, which were formed among humanists and reformers under the strong influ-ence of Platonic dialogues (Ficino, Erasmus, Luther). A positive reception of the rhetorical heritage of sophism was also present in the culture of the era, but in general, a negative perception of the sophists was typical. Sophistry was opposed to true philoso-phy and was considered in an actual, anti-scholastic key. In the second part of the article, specific embodiments of the topic of sophism in specific works of Christian humanists and reformers were considered. Among them are different dialogues and dra-mas: “Cordus” (1485) by Johann Kerkmeister, “Comedy about the good education of young men” (1501) by Heinrich Bebel, “Gallus pugnans” (1514) by Joachim Vadian, “Council of theolo-gians” (1520) by Crotus Rubian, “Eccius dedolatus” (1520) by Willibald Pirckheimer, “Karstgans” and “Pammachius” (1538) by Thomas Naogeorg. In general, the analysis showed that in humanistic satire, sophists are shown as carriers of university scholastic culture, which is opposed to the practice of Christian piety. They were ridiculed in a rather narrow academic context. In reformist propaganda, the topic loses its specific content: since the evangelical satire was addressed to a much wider audi-ence than humanistic neo-Latin texts. In these works, the theme of the university world is only nominally stated - at the level of the character's social identity. And these representatives of the university, scholastics and teachers, are ridiculed on more gen-eral grounds, ridiculed for immorality, depraved lifestyle, intel-lectual squalor.