Theological Origins of Modernity

notes to pages 78–82 315
31. Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459) was one of the fi rst to explicitly articulate the
doctrine of the dignity of man. On this point, see D’Amico, “Humanism and Pre-
Reformation Th eology,” 359.
32. Kristeller, Renaissance Th ought, 73.
33. Trinkaus, “Italian Humanism and Scholastic Th eology,” 334–36. In his On Pleasure
Valla creates a dialogue between a Stoic, an Epicurean, and a Christian hedonist
who sees beatitude as the supreme pleasure and virtue the means to obtain
it. Valla’s supposed Epicureanism thus has to be understood in the context of his
Neoplatonism, and hence as an eff ort to climb Plato’s ladder of love from sensual
pleasure to beatitude.
34. Funkenstein calls this ergetic knowledge. Th eology and the Scientifi c Imagination,
296–99.
35. Quoted in Trinkaus, “Italian Humanism and Scholastic Th eology,” 343.
36. Ibid., 344.
37. Manicheanism was originally a dualistic religious philosophy taught by the
Persian prophet Manes that combined elements of Zoroastrian, Christian, and
Gnostic thought. Like Zoroastrianism it saw the world as the battleground of
two gods or principles, one good and the other evil. In late antiquity it off ered a
powerful alternative to orthodox Christianity by explaining the perplexing question
of the origin of evil. Augustine was intitially attracted to Manicheanism but
later rejected and attacked it. It has been generally recognized by Christianity
as heretical. In modern times it has come to defi ne anyone who sees the world
in black and white terms as a fundamental and irreconcilable struggle of good
and evil.
38. On the importance of Plato and Platonism for the Renaissance see, James Hankins,
Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. (New York: Brill, 1990).
39. Since the end of the Crusades in 1291, Islam had surged onto the off ensive. In the
early fourteenth century, while still recovering from the devastation of the Black
Death, Christendom was both divided and under assault. Th e Moors continued to
fi ght against the Christians in Spain and the Turks had overrun almost all of the
Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, except for Constantinople, which fell in 1453.
Moreover, until 1453, England and France were still locked in the Hundred Years
War. Italy and Germany were also at odds throughout this period.
40. Augustine argued in Against the Academics that Plotinus’ thought was a revival of
the true Platonism that had been submerged in the skepticism of the later Academy.
Th is interpretation, which is questionable at best, was taken as a statement of
fact by almost all humanists.
41. On Ficino and the revival of Platonism, see Michael J. B. Allen, Synoptic Art: Marsilio
Ficino on the History of Platonic Interpretation (Florence: Olschki, 1998).
42. In the popular imagination, however, the idea of a secret wisdom that antedates
both the Greeks and the Jews continues to resonate widely and strongly, especially
in various forms of New Age Spirituality.
43. Kristeller, Renaissance Th ought, 152.
44. Ibid., 53, 156.