Athens and Wittenberg: Poetry, Philosophy, and Luther's Legacy(234 Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions)

Scholarship has tended to assume that Luther was uninterested in the Greek and Latin classics, given his promotion of the German vernacular and his polemic against the reliance upon Aristotle in theology. But as Athens and Wittenberg demonstrates, Luther was shaped by the classical education he had received and integrated it into his writings. He could quote Epicurean poetry to non-Epicurean ends; he could employ Aristotelian logic to prove the limits of philosophy’s role in theology. This volume explores how Luther and early Protestantism, especially Lutheranism, continued to draw from the classics in their quest to reform the church. In particular, it examines how early Protestantism made use of the philosophy and poetry from classical antiquity. Contributors to this volume: Joseph Herl, Jane Schatkin Hettrick, E.J. Hutchinson, Jack D. Kilcrease, E. Christian Kopf, John G. Nordling, Piergiacomo Petrioli, Eric G. Phillips, Richard J. Serina, Jr, R. Alden Smith, Carl P.E. Springer, Manfred Svensson, William P. Weaver, and Daniel Zager.

Table of Contents:
Preface List of Illustrations Abbreviations Classical Authors and Works Notes on Contributors Introduction: Martin Luther: From Classical Formation to Reformation  James Kellerman, R. Alden Smith and Carl P.E. Springer Part 1: Luther and Classical Poets and Philosophers 1 Naso erat magister? Virgil and Other Classical Poets in Luther’s Tischreden  R. Alden Smith 2 Nugatory Nonsense: Why Luther Rarely Cites Catullus  John G. Nordling 3 “Pious Mirth”: Listening to Martin Luther’s Latin Poetry  Carl P.E. Springer 4 Luther between Stoics and Epicureans  Carl P.E. Springer 5 Philtered Philosophy: Aristotle and Cicero in Luther’s Tischreden  R. Alden Smith 6 A Debatable Theology: Medieval Disputation, the Wittenberg Reformation, and Luther’s Heidelberg Theses  Richard J. Serina, Jr. 7 A Painted Record of Martin Luther in Renaissance Bologna  Piergiacomo Petrioli Part 2: The Reformation of Hymnody and Liturgy 8 What Virgil Taught Martin Luther About Poetry and Music  E. Christian Kopff 9 Collaboration over Time: Luther’s Adaptation of Ambrose’s Veni Redemptor Gentium  Eric Phillips 10 The Latin Liturgy and Juvenile Lutheran Instruction in Sixteenth-Century Germany  Joseph Herl 11 “Exulting and Adorning in Exuberant Strains”: Luther and Latin Polyphonic Music  Daniel Zager 12 Tradition and the Individual Talent: Some Verse-Paraphrases of Psalm 1  E.J. Hutchinson 13 Imitate the Lutherans: Catholic Solutions to Liturgical Problems in Late Eighteenth-Century Vienna  Jane Schatkin Hettrick Part 3: Lutheran Readings of Philosophy and Poetry 14 Melanchthon, Luther, and Indexing the Classics  William P. Weaver 15 An Intended Reformulation: Of Brad Gregory, Duns Scotus, and Early Modern Metaphysics  Jack D. Kilcrease 16 Ad normam veritatis christianae: Correcting Aristotle in Protestant Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics  Manfred Svensson 17 Influence and Inspiration: Archias and Staupitz as Didactic Models for Cicero and Luther  John G. Nordling Bibliography Index

About the Author :
James R. Kellerman teaches at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catharines, Canada. His main interests are Pauline Epistles, Synoptic Gospels, Plato, and Patristics. His publications include Ad fontes Witebergenses, co-edited with Carl P.E. Springer (2014), and Ad fontes Witebergenses, co-edited with E.J. Hutchinson and Joshua J. Hayes (2017). R. Alden Smith teaches at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. His main interest is Latin poetry of the Augustan age. His book publications include Classics from Papyrus to the Internet: An Introduction to Transmission and Reception (2017), co-authored with Jeffrey M. Hunt and Fabio Stok, Virgil, Aeneid 8: Text, Translation and Commentary (2018), co-authored with Lee Fratantuono, and a translation of The Shroud of Turin: The History and Legends of the World’s Most Famous Relic, by Andrea Nicoletti (2020). Carl P.E. Springer holds the SunTrust Chair of Excellence in the Humanities in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Tennessee. He has written extensively on the relationship between Martin Luther and the Classics, including Cicero in Heaven: The Roman Rhetor and Luther’s Reformation (2018), and Sedulius: The Paschal Song and Hymns (2013).