a Christian orator who is a poor rhetorician should borrow from better
writers.^20
The titles of theflorilegium’s extracts, drawn fromDoctr.chr.4.1.1–4.27. 61,
show the specificity of Murner’s understanding of Christian humanist rhet-
oric. Although Murner’s summaries of Augustine are accurate, the titles he
gives to a few of the chapters suggest a deviation from the original intention
and show Murner to be more critical of profane rhetoric than the church
father. In short, Murner, although no doubt imbued with the spirit ofAd
iuvenes, uses Jerome, and more particularly Augustine, against both Cicero-
nianism and scholastic pedantry. To put it more specifically, Murner uses the
example of Jerome’s Dream against those who pay too much attention to
pagan letters, while he shows Augustine to be the orator who combines the
best of the sacred with the best of the profane rhetoric. To give just a few
examples of passages with their titles: the title‘it is possible to become
eloquent by studying biblical passages and not just the canonical ones, while
one ignores or spurns profane poets’^21 introducesDoctr. chr.4.3.4, where
Augustine emphasizes the self-sufficiency of sacred eloquence but says noth-
ing about ignoring or spurning pagan poets.Reformatio2, ch. 23 bears the title
‘there are two types of eloquence, profane and ecclesiastical (canonica), but it
is holy eloquence which is the most perfect’, whereas the extract (Doctr.chr.
4.6.9) talks about the necessity of combining wisdom and eloquence in
sacred rhetoric but says nothing about the perfection of the latter. Moreover,
Augustine never calls Christian eloquencecanonica, preferring divinaor
divinitus inspirata.
At the same time in his use of Augustine, Murner goes some way beyond
Basil’s pronouncements inAd iuvenesin that he actually shows the bishop of
Hippo to be the perfect incarnation of the Christian orator who uses pagan
rhetoric wisely. Murner thus reverses Basil’s recommendation of pagan writers
such as Hesiod or Homer as those who recommended the learning of pagan
letters from early childhood onwards. For a Christian of Murner’s era, it is
sufficient to read Augustine.
To return to the reformers, there is no doubt that Luther’s colleague Philipp
Melanchthon enjoys the reputation of the most humanistically minded of
them. This is not surprising in the case of one who began his academic career
with a collected edition of the comedies of Terence.^22 However, Melanchthon,
although strongly in favour of classical literature in the study of theology, was
finally no more radical than Bullinger in his commendation of antique learning.
(^20) Theflorilegium keeps to the order ofDoctr.chr.in the passages it cites. Murner’s and/or
Glogoviensis’s only addition to the text is the imposition of chapter numbers and headings. The
florilegium constitutes chapters 15–41 of the second part of theReformatio.
(^21) Murner,Reformatio, II.17.
(^22) Published in 1518 by Thomas Anshelm in Wittenberg.
The Church Fathers and the Humanities 41