Theological Origins of Modernity

petrarch and the invention of individuality 65
quite critical of Epicurus but believes that there is much the two have in
common. 152 Petrarch sees the summum bonum as honestas in contrast to
Epicurus’s view that it is voluptas, but if virtue is always idiosyncratic to
an individual’s own being, then it does not diff er from one doing whatever
gives one pleasure, or to put it in other terms, honestas is indistinguishable
in practice from voluptas. 153 Petrarch, of course, wants to deny
such a conclusion, but it is clear that this possibility is present in Petrarch’s
thought. 154 Whitfi eld quite plausibly suggests that modernity has subsequently
never been wholly able to deny Epicurus his place. Whitfi eld admits
that this turn to hedonism looks like a turn away from Petrarch, but
he suggests it is rather a rejection of the negative elements in Petrarch’s
thought in the context of a broader affi rmation of Petrarch’s essentially
Epicurean position. 155
In contradistinction to the charge that Petrarch betrays man’s humanity
by denying his nature as the rational animal and the imago dei, critics
have accused him of vastly exaggerating human potentialities by attributing
a superhuman power to the human will. Petrarch’s notion of individuality
seems particularly open to such a charge. He argues in the Remedies
that God has demonstrated man’s superiority over all other creatures. 156
Indeed, in refl ecting on Christ, he asserts that “so being made a man He
might make man a god. . . . Does not this alone seem to ennoble somewhat
the condition of man and to relieve a little of its misery? What more, pray,
could man, I do not say hope for, but aim at, and think of, than to be God? .
. . He did not assume any other body and soul than that of a man (although
He could have done so).” 157 In this way Petrarch seems to magnify the capacities
of the individual beyond human limits.
While it is certainly the case that both of these charges can be plausibly
leveled against Petrarch, I do not believe that either of them fi nally strikes
to the core of his thought. Petrarch does not seek either to confi ne human
being to the fi nite realm of mere matter in motion or to promote a striving
to challenge God but pursues instead a middle course between Epicurus
and Prometheus. He has a deep appreciation of the need for a sense of the
infi nite (and eternal) in human life and is equally sure that man himself
cannot supply or even ultimately comprehend it. Plotinus, according to
Petrarch, recognized four kinds of virtue: political, purgatorial, purifi ed,
and godly virtue. 158 Th e fi rst are the virtues of a Caesar or a Scipio. Th e second
are the virtues of those private men who become followers of philosophy
and successfully eradicate the passions that are only moderated in the
case of the former. Petrarch puts himself in this group. Th e third are the
virtues of the (Stoic) sage. As admirable as these may be, Petrarch doubts