GoodCatholics atPrayer 379
lay author, thePiato di Gesu Cristo,the ‘‘Pleading of Jesus Christ.’’ The idea of
a court contest between Christ and the Devil over the salvation of humanity
appeared first in French sermons of the early 1200 s.^171 During the mid- 1200 s,
an unknown Italian adopted the sermonic topos and turned it into an actual
‘‘court transcript.’’ The pleading exists in a Pisan-Lucchese version, a Mi-
lanese version, and an abbreviated Latin adaption.^172 The trial begins with
the Devil’s opening argument. He claims his right over humanity by custom,
because humanity has been in his power for a very long time; by imperial
law, because they have overreached their rights; by natural law, because
they ignored their Creator; by divine law, because Adam and Eve violated a
revealed commandment; and by the law of Justinian, because they are his
slaves, since he captured them in battle. Christ answers for humanity, ar-
guing the defensede dolo;since the Devil deceived Adam and Eve, he got
possession by fraud. The two lawyers trade a series of legal jabs. The Devil
eventually claims the right to humanity by the Roman law of prescription,
that is, the principle that even an unjust possessor gets title after long posses-
sion. Jesus counters that only uncontested possession grants title. The Devil
replies that Eve sinned knowingly and willingly. Jesus counters that although
Eve knowingly and willingly sinned, the Devil cannot advance his claimin
preiudizio del marito—that is, by using a wife’s error against her husband. The
Devil counters that this would only hold if Eve had not been ‘‘emancipated,’’
which she was by God’s grant to her of free will. And so the contest goes.
Having exhausted his first round of arguments to no clear result, the Devil
uses theology against Jesus: no human being can repent without grace, and
Jesus has no right or legal entitlement to offer it. But Christ replies that he
can use the legal title of thebuono amico,the ‘‘good friend’’ of the accused.
And we are back to another round of legal arguments. Again the debate
reaches no clear conclusion, so, in the Pisan version, Christ invokes the logic
of popular devotion. Just as one good coin is worth more than any number
of bad ones, so one good work of the Blessed Virgin, who is a member of
Adam’s race, outweighs even six thousand years of sins. This was an argu-
ment than any pious Italian would have understood; Christ thinks like a
pious layperson of the commune. This is a Savior who would have been
perfectly at home in the law schools of Bologna, a Jesus that the men of the
Italian republics could understand, just as the Jesus of the Pseudo-Bonaven-
ture could speak to the needs and hopes of their wives.
- Bloomfield,Seven Deadly Sins, 92 – 93 , gives examples from Peter of Blois and Steven of Tournai.
- The Pisan version, along with works by Albertano of Brescia, appears in Florence, Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale,msII.viii. 49 , fols. 209 r– 212 v, as ‘‘Piatto ch’ebbi Dio con l’inimicho’’; the Milanese
version (early 1300 s), in Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana,ms 768, fols. 48 r– 53 r, as ‘‘Libro del piato che fece
Cristo in su la croce col diavolo’’; a Latin abbreviation (late 1300 s), in Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli
Intronati,msG.x. 17. Barbi, ‘‘D’un antico codice,’’ 277 , suggests a late-thirteenth- or early-fourteenth-
century date and a Pisan or Luccan origin for thePiato.Franz Roediger, ed.,Contrasti antichi: Cristo e
Satana,Collezione di operette edite ed inedite, 14 (Florence: Libreria Dante, 1887 ), edits the Florence
manuscript. There are probably other versions.