{"title":"Adapting Lutheran Preaching: The Postil of Danish Reformer Hans Tausen (1539)","authors":"Rasmus H. C. Dreyer","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2045","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Danish reformer Hans Tausen has been characterized as a “Danish Luther” in both Danish and foreign-language church historiography. Recent scholarship, however, has challenged this characterization, interpreting Tausen instead as an urban, humanistic reformer who transmitted a kind of Zwinglian theology. The present article sheds light on Hans Tausen’s 1539 Postil, which has so far been neglected in international research on early modern postils. The drafting of Tausen’s Postil is closely connected with the new legislation for the Danish Lutheran Church presented in the Danish Church Ordinance of 1537–1539. Twentieth-century Danish research has indicated that the Postil was either an original work by Tausen or a precise adaptation of Luther’s own sermons. Previous research overlooked the way in which Tausen worked with several models and templates as inspiration for his postil, the most influential being the postils of Stephan Roth. The Tausen-Postil reflects Tausen’s ability to respond to the changing tides in favour of Wittenbergian theology in Denmark from the mid-1530s. As such, it serves as evidence for the transfer of contemporary Lutheranism from Germany to Scandinavia.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135371811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Papal Nuncios in Prague as Part of the Imperial Court: The Significance of Integration, Sociability, and Credibility of Papal Diplomats at the Turn of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries","authors":"Tomáš Černušák","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2048","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Papal nuncios at the imperial court in Prague were diplomats who represented their ruler – the sovereign of the Papal States and the head of the Catholic Church. Yet they became a distinctive fixture of the imperial court in the places they served. In order for their integration into the structure of the court to be fluid, their personality traits and character had to fit the universally accepted models that applied to courtiers, namely those pertaining to social background, education, conduct, and disposition. At the same time, they had to possess a sufficient degree of sociability and a capacity to earn trust both in their relationship with the sovereign and with the courtiers. Among the primary instruments of this integration process were a wide variety of social activities, some of which were identical for the entire social group, and others unique to the papal nuncios alone.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135371920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Arrow and the Ecstasy: The Rhetoric of Rapture in French Carmelite Poetry","authors":"Daniel J. Hanna","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2049","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recently discovered manuscript poems from the archives of French Carmelite convents show that seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Carmelite women recalled, celebrated, aspired to and – by their accounts – achieved religious rapture. The attainment of spiritual ecstasy and the expression of such extraordinary religious experience was not, however, a simple matter for women of this time period. In this study it will be shown that French Carmelite women used a “rhetoric of rapture” established by their spiritual mother, Teresa of Ávila, in order to lend legitimacy to their spiritual experiences and to safeguard those experiences from scrutiny.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135372057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Messianic Secret and the Significance of Preaching in Gabriele Biondo, Otto Brunfels, and Celio Secondo Curione","authors":"Vito Guida","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2050","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The “messianic secret” in the New Testament refers to instances where Christ instructed his followers to keep silent about his identity. While contemporary studies on the messianic secret have predominantly employed the historico-critical method, the Early Modern Period witnessed diverse interpretations that focused on edification and moralization. These interpretations emphasized the concealed Messiah’s identity, the act of revelation, and the duty to transmit the divine message as inseparable aspects of the Christian faith. The primary objective of this study is to explore the development of messianic secret interpretations in the first half of the sixteenth century. The study aims to address key questions such as: How were Jesus’s injunctions to silence interpreted? How did these interpretations shape biblical readings, preaching practices, and the evangelical mission? Did they impact the definition of the Church? Through a comparative analysis, this study examines the interpretations of three relatively contemporary authors – Gabriele Biondo, Otto Brunfels, and Celio Secondo Curione. It argues for the interconnectedness between biblical exegesis, preaching, the audience, theological concepts like predestination, holy remnant, and salvation, as well as the organization of the Church. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that diverse interpretations of Jesus’s actions and the messianic secret were rooted in changes in exegetical methods, the definition of the Church, and the understanding of the salvific message conveyed by Christ.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135372063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“News about Jews” in Puritan New England: Sabbatian Messianism and Judeocentric Millenarianism in Increase Mather’s <i>Mystery of Israel’s Salvation</i> (1669)","authors":"Richard W. Cogley","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2051","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The American Puritan minister Increase Mather’s first publication, The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation (London, 1669), originated in a series of lectures he delivered in Boston in 1666 and early 1667. These lectures were occasioned by reports that the twelve tribes of Israel were returning to Palestine under the inspiration of the self-styled messiah Shabbetai Tzvi (d. 1676). This essay explains why Mather and those Anglo-American Protestant contemporaries who shared his vision of the millennium were intrigued by Shabbetai even though they remained convinced that Jesus was the messiah; and why other Protestant contemporaries disliked this particular form of millennialism, which is sometimes termed Judeocentric millenarianism or Judeocentrism. Judeocentric millenarianism was controversial because it explicitly elevated the twelve tribes, upon their miraculous and massive conversion to Christianity, to a position of millennial superiority over gentile Christians. The essay also addresses an important point of chronology: the Sabbatian movement collapsed (but did not vanish entirely) following Shabbetai’s conversion to Islam in mid-1666. Mather edited his lectures for publication after he learned of the movement’s collapse. Thus his Mystery of Israel’s Salvation was not a transcript of his lectures.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135373367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-frontmatter2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-frontmatter2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135371660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Moral Status of Self-Love in Early Reformed Ethics","authors":"Andrew M. McGinnis","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2046","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Reformed moral philosophers in the period of early orthodoxy (ca. 1550–ca. 1650) continue a medieval tradition of engaging moral questions in conversation with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics , and they often address the moral status of self-love in connection with the virtue of friendship. There is broad agreement among these authors that self-love is not only not necessarily sinful, but that some kinds of self-love are morally good and that self-love is the source and rule for love of one’s neighbor. Lambert Daneau’s Ethices Christianae , however, stands in a more complex relationship to this consensus.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135372062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Spectatissimo, Eruditione & Pietate, Insigno Viro”: Abraham Rogerius, the <i>Open-Deure</i>, and the Identity of A.W. JC<sup>tus</sup>","authors":"Cornelis J. Schilt","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2047","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In 1643, a manuscript was sent from Batavia to Amsterdam. It described in vivid detail a world virtually unknown to the West, that of South-Indian Hinduism, taken from the words of local Brahmins and drawn up by VOC minister Abraham Rogerius. It was not until 1651 that De Open-Deure tot het Verborgen Heydendom appeared from the presses of the Leiden printing house of François Hackius. By then, its author had died, and circumstances regarding the actual publication are shrouded in mystery. This is also true about the life of Abraham Rogerius and the identity of the Open-Deure ’s anonymous editor, A.W. JC tus . Traditionally associated with the Polish Socinian theologian Andreas Wissowatius, A.W’s annotations added a wealth of scholarly detail to Rogerius plain narrative. In this paper, I greatly expand upon the existing biographies of Rogerius and draw lines between the various actors involved with the eventual publication of his writings. I provide a fresh insight into the editorial history and afterlife of the Open-Deure , showing that there are in fact two different editions that diverge at key points. Moreover, I demonstrate that the elusive A.W. JC tus is most certainly not Wissowatius, but instead the Leiden lawyer and politician Arnoldus Wittens.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135371815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-frontmatter1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-frontmatter1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135673713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deconstructing Memory Johannes Cochlaeus’s Life of Martin Luther between Polemics and “Invectivity”","authors":"Cora Dietl","doi":"10.1515/jemc-2023-2040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2023-2040","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Johannes Cochlaeus’s Commentaria or Historia de actis et scriptis Martini Lutheri has been described as a “polemical invective.” This essay discusses the double title and the double characterization of the work and argues that its aim is to deconstruct Luther’s memory. Its effectivity derives from the combination of a polemical commentary and an invective biography. According to the Commentaria Luther’s works disgrace the author, and according to the Historia the author disqualifies his own works.","PeriodicalId":29688,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Modern Christianity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72438615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}