Suspicious Moderate

Anne Ashley Davenport

Description

The historiography of English Catholicism has grown enormously in the last generation, led by scholars such as Peter Lake, Michael Questier, Stefania Tutino, and others. In Suspicious Moderate, Anne Ashley Davenport makes a significant contribution to that literature by presenting a long overdue intellectual biography of the influential English Catholic theologian Francis à Sancta Clara (1598–1680). Born into a Protestant family in Coventry at the end of the sixteenth century, Sancta Clara joined the Franciscan order in 1617. He played key roles in reviving the English Franciscan province and in the efforts that were sponsored by Charles I to reunite the Church of England with Rome. In his voluminous Latin writings, he defended moderate Anglican doctrines, championed the separation of church and state, and called for state protection of freedom of conscience.

Suspicious Moderate offers the first detailed analysis of Sancta Clara's works. In addition to his notorious Deus, natura, gratia (1634), Sancta Clara wrote a comprehensive defense of episcopacy (1640), a monumental treatise on ecumenical councils (1649), and a treatise on natural philosophy and miracles (1662). By carefully examining the context of Sancta Clara's ideas, Davenport argues that he aimed at educating English Roman Catholics into a depoliticized and capacious Catholicism suited to personal moral reasoning in a pluralistic world. In the course of her research, Davenport also discovered that "Philip Scot," the author of the earliest English discussions of Hobbes (a treatise published in 1650), was none other than Sancta Clara. Davenport demonstrates how Sancta Clara joined the effort to fight Hobbes's Erastianism by carefully reflecting on Hobbes's pioneering ideas and by attempting to find common ground with him, no matter how slight.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• 17th Century
• Modern
• HISTORY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Michael Questier
• Christopher Davenport
• Natura
• Modern history
• Franciscan
• Catholic
• Christianity
• Peter Lake
• Gratia
• Deus
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268101008
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Suspicious Moderate
Suspicious Moderate

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF FRANCIS SANCTA CLARA (1598-1680)
ANNE ASHLEY DAVENPORT
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Copyright 2017 by the University of Notre Dame
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Davenport, Anne Ashley, author.
Title: Suspicious moderate : the life and writings of Francis a Sancta Clara (1598-1680) / Anne Ashley Davenport.
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2016058496 (print) | LCCN 2017013688 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268100995 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268101008 (epub) | ISBN 9780268100971 (hardcover : alkaline paper) | ISBN 0268100977 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Franciscus a Sancta Clara, 1598-1680. | Franciscus a Sancta Clara, 1598-1680-Political and social views. | Catholic Church-Clergy-Biography. | Franciscans-England-Biography. | Theologians-England-Biography. | England-Church history-17th century. | Catholic Church-England-History-17th century. | Catholic Church-History of doctrines-17th century. | BISAC: RELIGION / Christianity / Catholic. | HISTORY / Modern / 17th Century.
Classification: LCC BX4705. F7318 (ebook) | LCC BX4705. F7318 D38 2017 (print) | DDC 282.092 [B]-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058496
ISBN 9780268101008
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper ).
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
A Voice
You who are said to drink of this almost absent water:
Remember that it escapes us, speak to us.
Is it what has deluded us, now finally grasped,
Not water of a mortal taste-and has its word, obscure,
That you have drunk at this ever-living spring,
Illumined you? Or is the water
Merely shadow, where your face
But mirrors back its finitude?
-I do not know, I am no more. Time ends
Like the flood-tide of a dream, with its gods
Still unrevealed; and like water, too, your voice
Fades away in this clear language that consumed me.
Yes, here I can live. The angel that is the earth
Will appear in every bush, and will burn.
I am this empty altar, and these arches, and this abyss-
And yourself, perhaps-and doubt: but the dawn
And the radiance of unsealed stones.
-Yves Bonnefoy (translated by Hoyt Rogers)
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
ONE
Anti-Catholicism and the Sanctity of Conscience
TWO
In the Clink
THREE
A Youth from Coventry
FOUR
Franciscan Probabilism and the Gift of Conscience
FIVE
Problematicall Supererogation
SIX
Deus, natura, gratia
SEVEN
A Detailed Look
EIGHT
A Conspiracy (English Suite)
NINE
Apologia episcoporum
TEN
Spars of a Shipwreck
ELEVEN
Debate over Infallibility
TWELVE
Systema fidei
THIRTEEN
Hobbes Modestly Accosted
FOURTEEN
The Piety and Equity of Soul-Freedom
FIFTEEN
Enchyridion of Faith
SIXTEEN
Religio philosophi
SEVENTEEN
Self-Censorship without Self-Suppression
Epilogue
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
In the summer of 1644, after three years in the Tower of London on charges of high treason, the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was brought to trial before Parliament. The charges against him included the claim that he had conspired to advance Popery in England and reconcile the English Church by degrees to Rome. The evidence that was cited to prove Laud s guilt was largely circumstantial, except for a vividly hard fact. Laud, it was alleged, had wittingly and willingly held conferences with a Roman Catholic priest- one called Sancta Clara, alias Damport , a Dangerous Person and Franciscan Friar. Who was this Franciscan, known to many of his contemporaries simply as Sancta Clara, and why would pinning Sancta Clara to Laud help to secure a conviction?
Because he was embroiled in powerful historic trends shaping early modern Europe, Sancta Clara s life and writings deserve special attention for three chief reasons. The first is that Sancta Clara made the strange choice of joining a loathed, feared, and persecuted papist minority. Born into a Protestant family of Coventry, he attended Oxford from 1613 to 1615, then converted to Roman Catholicism, ran off to the English College of Douay, and joined the Franciscan Order in 1617. Why would a simple Midlands youth from a middling Protestant family embrace Roman superstition, vow to live in voluntary poverty, and devote himself to restoring Franciscan life in England? The question is all the more perplexing given that Sancta Clara s half brother, John Davenport, founder of New Haven in the American colonies, made a diametrically opposite choice and became a leading pioneer of New England Congregationalism. By examining Sancta Clara s trajectory, Suspicious Moderate seeks to shed light on a dynamic English generation for whom religious self-invention opened up new existential pathways.
What motivated Franciscus Sancta Clara to become an author? A second reason to study Sancta Clara s life and writings is that he matured into an exceptionally good theologian. In his written work, he sought to reframe Catholic theology so as to show that (1) Catholicism is compatible with freedom of conscience, (2) Catholicism is compatible with civil government, and (3) Catholicism is compatible with experimental science. Suspicious Moderate examines Sancta Clara s theological works in careful detail in order to bring his method and doctrines to light.
Contemporary accounts speak of Sancta Clara s personal charm and graceful manner. A third reason to study his life and writings is that they provide a window into obscure and colorful aspects of seventeenth-century England. Who were Sancta Clara s allies and why? He was elected provincial of his order three times, serving from 1637 to 1640 (during the reign of Charles I), from 1650 to 1653 (during the Commonwealth), and from 1665 to 1668 (during the reign of Charles II). Appointed chaplain to Queen Henriette-Marie and theologian to Queen Catherine of Braganza, Sancta Clara sought out a wide variety of interlocutors, from statesmen to scientists. He forged ties of friendship with theologians on both sides of the Channel. He conferred with the Irish Franciscan Luke Wadding and with the Flemish chemist Van Helmont, befriended the Caroline divines Augustine Lindsell and Jeremy Taylor, and interacted with Lord Baltimore s right-hand man in Maryland, John Lewgar, and with Francis Windebank. Most importantly, he enjoyed a lifelong friendship with the controversial philosopher-priest Thomas Blackloe White and through him came into contact with the circle of Kenelm Digby.
In the process of researching this book, I made the lucky discovery that the mysterious Philip Scot who published one of the earliest English discussions of Hobbes in 1650 was none other than Sancta Clara (first announced in Hobbes Studies in 2014). I now explore some of the ramifications of my discovery. As we will see, Sancta Clara joined the effort to fight Hobbes s Erastianism by carefully reflecting on Hobbes s pioneering ideas and by attempting, in characteristic fashion, to find common ground with him, no matter how slight. During the Commonwealth, Sancta Clara petitioned Cromwell for religious freedom in the name of civil peace and formed a friendship with the Oxford librarian and Hobbes admirer Thomas Barlow. After the publication of Leviathan (1651), Sancta Clara attempted to refute Hobbes s demonization of Roman Catholicism. Six years after Sancta Clara s death, Pierre Bayle praised Sancta Clara by name in his landmark treatise on religious toleration, the Commentaire philosophique . In the nineteenth century, Sancta Clara s vision of a less hectoring and more inclusive Catholic Church would help to shape the Boston mission of Bishop Cheverus and the apologetics of tienne Badin, missionary to Kentucky and donor of the land that became the site of the University of Notre Dame. John Henry Newman s famous Tractate 90 , in turn, owed a close debt to Sancta Clara s defense of the English articles of religion, which the Anglican reunionist canon F. G. Lee translated and published in 1865. Finally, attesting to a sort of enduring haunting of the English imagination, Joseph Shorthouse published a best seller in 1881, John Inglesant , in which Sancta Clara is prominently featured.
As Sancta Clara s life was largely lived underground and in the secretive wings of the Stuart court, his written works, mostly in Latin, constitute our chief record of his journey as a Franciscan priest grappling with the legacy of English odium. Only two book-length biographies of Sancta Clara have been written to date, both by Franciscans: one in German by Ermin Klaus (1938) and one in English by John Berkermans Dockery (1960). Neither examines Sancta Clara s theology in detail or provides sufficient context to interpret it. Sancta Clara s hallmark irenicism, however, has long attracted attention. In an influential monograph published in 1951, the French scholar Maurice N doncelle praised Sancta Clara s subtle arguments and enthusiastically described him as an intrepid archangel for trying to win tolerance for Roman Catholics from Cromwell. George Tavard, in turn, described Sancta Clara as a fine and little known theologian. Most recently, Sancta Clara found a champion in Bruno Neveu, who emphasized the innovative character of Sancta Clara s chief theological work, Systema fidei , in an article published posthumously in 2004. Leading scholars of the history of religion in Stuart England, such as Caroline Hibbard, Anthony Milton, Michael Questier, Brian Tyacke, Bev