completely new edition of Basil’s works based on the Greek editions of
Erasmus (1532) and on the Reginald Pole/Stefano di Sabbio edition (mainly
of Basil’s ascetic corpus not included in Erasmus’s edition) which came out in
Venice in 1535.^40 Although inclining to the Reformation, Cornarius never
took up any theological stand on confessional matters and his translation of
Basil is dedicated to the archbishop of Mainz, Albrecht. Doing so, Cornarius
was acutely aware that he was leaving himself open to accusations of meddling
in theology, a realm of learning that he knew little about. However, his
decision to translate Basil was quite deliberate and thought out. As he says
in his preface to Albrecht, he disapproves of the separation of realms of
knowledge and thinks that he is not thefirst among pagan and Christian
physicians to intervene on theological terrain. Thus intervening he wants to
show,firstly, that a medical doctor too can be a good Christian and, secondly,
he hopes to pacify confessional quarrels of his own time by appealing to Basil’s
time and the bishop of Caesarea’s stand in the church’s combat against
heresies.^41 It is evident that Cornarius also abhorred the separation of discip-
lines and thought that church fathers such as Basil did not establish a clear-cut
division between human and sacred learning and could usefully teach his
contemporaries how to combine the two. Finally, what Cornarius wanted Basil
to teach his contemporaries was a theology that was separate from clerical
hegemony and open to medical and other‘pagan’input.
Among editions of Basil’s single works that appeared independently of the
Opera omniaeditions, some homilies were used for the explicit end of Greek
and Latin teaching without particular confessional emphasis, although those
produced by Protestants hardly ever traversed the confessional divide any
more than those produced by Catholics. A good example here is the bilingual
edition of the homily‘That God is not the author of evils’(Quod Deus non sit
author malorum).^42 The academic editor of the homily was Matthaeus Dresser
(1536–1607), professor of Greek at the University of Erfurt between 1559 and
- In 1561, he was appointed dean of the Faculty of Arts despite the Roman
Catholic majority in the University Council. Other than his translation of
Basil, he published various other classical textbooks such as a handbook of
rhetoric (Rhetorica, Basel, 1567) or one of exercises in Greek (Gymnasmata
litteraturae graecae, Leipzig, 1574).
(^40) Janus Cornarius (Haynpol,c.1500–1558) was a medical doctor who published not only
translations of the fathers but also the works of Hippocrates (1538), Plato, Synesius, and Paul of
Aegina, the Byzantine physician. See Otto Clemen,‘Janus Cornarius’,Neues Archiv für sächsische
Geschichte und Altertumskunde33 (1912), 37–76, and Backus,Lectures,43–54.
(^41) Janus Cornarius (ed.),Basilii opera(Basel: Froben, 1540).
(^42) Matthaeus Dresser (ed.),Oratio Basilii Magni cui titulus est‘Quod Deus non sit auctor
malorum.’Conversa in sermonem Latinum et ita explicata ut argumentum, dispositionem et
rerum verborumque momenta studiosi intelligere possint, a Matthaeo Dressero in Academia
Erphordiensi(Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1567). Cf. Backus,Lectures,141–4 (general introduction).
48 Irena Backus