In 1575, Dresser left Erfurt for Meissen where he took over as school rector.
In 1581, he was appointed professor of Greek and Latin at the University of
Leipzig at the very time when that university was torn apart by quarrels
opposing strict Lutherans and the disciples of Melanchthon as well by disputes
between Aristotelians and Ramists. Himself a Lutheran, Dresser took no part
in the theological disagreements, but he did enter into polemic with the
disciples of Peter Ramus against whom he wroteTwo Discourses on Philipp
Melanchthon’s Dialectic (Orationes duae de dialectica Ph. Melanchtonis,
Frankfurt an der Oder, 1588). His translation of Basil dates from his time at
Erfurt and its aim is summed up in its title:The Discourse of Basil the Great
‘that God is not the author of evils’translated into Latin and explained so that
students can understand the argument, the structure and the exact import of
subject matter and the words, by Matthaeus Dresser at the Erfurt Academy. The
preface shows that what turns out to be a veritable bilingual students’edition,
carefully explained and annotated, is done with no confessional presupposi-
tions butfirst and foremost with the intention of performing a service to the
state. He thinks that those who produce good textbooks and give students easy
access to famous authors show themselves to be deserving citizens, despite the
numerous criticisms of those whofind the task to be trivial and contemptible.
In the view of a teacher of Greek and Latin such as Dresser, Basil is simply a
great and famous author, with whose works students should get acquainted
just as they become acquainted with the works of Cicero, Virgil, or Homer.
This summary examination of the relationship between a father such as
Basil and the teaching of humanities shows that Basil fulfilled a dual role for
many. On the one hand, he was one of the church fathers who inAd iuvenes
taught Christians how to make the best use of pagan letters. On the other
hand, some Christian scholars in the Renaissance and Reformation thought
that Basil’s texts could be used to learn ancient Greek if they were correctly
explained and commented. At the same time, a scholar such as Cornarius saw
Basil’s works as a means of making theology available to non-theological
readers well versed in another subject such as medicine.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIAI shall now briefly turn to Clement of Alexandria’s^43 reception in the Renais-
sance and the Reformation, particularly with a view to examining his role as(^43) For a full account of Clement’s reception see also Irena Backus,‘Lay and Theological
Reception of Clement of Alexandria in the Reformation: From Gentien Hervet to Fénélon’,in
Ulrike Hascher-Burger et al. (eds),Between Lay Piety and Academic Theology(Leiden: Brill,
2010), 353–72.
The Church Fathers and the Humanities 49