Justus Lipsius: "On Constancy" by John Stradling; John SellarsReview by: Simon McKeownThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Winter, 2008), pp. 1141-1143Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20479162 .

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Book Reviews 1141

tional differences within even this relatively small sample group (30ff.). Perhaps one aspect of this study that is invaluable to social history is the consideration of individual personali ties within the Roman Catholic hierarchy, mainly in the actions (or lack of action) of spe cific bishops. In the four major case studies, Comerford includes numerous strata of comparative aspects including, for example, the use of catechism, minimum age require ments and educational prerequisites for entry into seminary, average amount of time spent in the seminary, "general attributes" of students (61), subjects studied while in seminary, and official Church investigations as to the effectiveness of local seminaries.

Comerford also examines, through the generous use of tables and graphs, such data as the number of students entering seminary in a given year, average number of months stu dents spent in seminary, evaluation results given to seminarians (ranging from male to optime), and the geographical point of origin for seminarians in relation to their seminary.

Though she comes to some far-ranging conclusions, Comerford's extensive research supports a convincing argument. She stresses the significance of contextual examination because while the aforementioned comparative strata offer many interpretive possibilities, the plausibility of unambiguous conclusions remains limited. For example, Comerford examines the "guiding principles" behind the reforms after the Council of Trent (132).

While these principles are comparable on some scale, the conclusion that "the surviving documentation demonstrates a variety of interpretations of these principles" does not enable Comerford to make exhaustive conclusions in regard to even the most generalized standards of the Catholic Reformation (132). However, such enigmatic documentation allows her, paradoxically, to conclude that seminary education "was not always systematic" (135).

One of the more provocative conclusions, that "[p]oor or small dioceses had no more chance of success in implementing the seminary reform of the Council of Trent than rich or large archdioceses," is reached only in light of careful examination of various areas in "dif ferent social, economic, and religious contexts" (131). Comerford reaches this conclusion after documenting various-sized dioceses with various levels of financial security in a one hundred-year time frame. Though Comerford is careful to limit her conclusions to the sur veyed literature, the general implications of her conclusions may be too condensed for the scope of her project.

To her credit, Comerford goes to great pains to document the use of both primary and secondary literature (see 36-37 for a discussion of source material). Footnotes and source citation include the use of original languages; this is a tremendous resource to the specialist. The predominant conclusion to her thesis, that "[t]he process of reforming priests and pas tors in Tuscany was, at least in the first century after the Council of Trent, less than success ful," is well supported by her findings and penultimate conclusions. Although the scope of this text is well defined and perhaps most valuable to the specialist, it is compiled effectively and written lucidly.

Justus Lipsius: "On Constancy." Trans. Sir John Stradling. Ed. John Sellars. Exeter: Bris tol Phoenix Press, 2006. 168 pp. ?18.99. ISBN 978-1-904675-15-0.

REVIEWED BY: Simon McKeown, King's College School, London

Although not promoted as such, this edition of a late Elizabethan translation of De Constantia coincides with the 400th anniversary of the death of Justus Lipsius, the noted Flemish moral philosopher and classical philologist. Lipsius (1547-1606) sat at the center of

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1142 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXIX/4 (2008)

a group of influential humanists in the Spanish Southern Netherlands that included the Rubens brothers, Levinus Torrentius, and Christopher Plantin. Lipsius's contemporary rep utation depended in part upon his scholarly editions of the opera of Tacitus (1574) and Sen eca (1605). Nonetheless, his greater legacy was his synthesis of ancient Stoic moral thinking with the tenets of Christianity. In so fusing the ethical codes of Athens and the Apostles, Lipsius effected a hybridization of the twin pillars of Renaissance culture, a feat widely esteemed throughout early modern Europe. Lipsius's doctrine, later known as Neostoicism, promoted Christianized expressions of resignation tinctured with Stoic apatheia. We meet with Lipsius's ideas in Montaigne, Shakespeare, Marvell, and Browne, and in Rosa and Rembrandt; they reverberate through Roman Catholic and Protestant confessional writing, and frame the early modern ideal of retirement from worldly affairs. It is not an exaggera tion to claim that Lipsius's influence reached from Portugal to Poland, and from Sicily to Sweden.

Scholars will be attracted to this affordable edition of Lipsius's most accessible work, De constantia libri duo, qui alloquium pracipue continent in publicis malis. Published in 1584, Lipsius presents De Constantia as a Socratic dialogue between Lipsius and Charles Langius, bishop of Liege. In it, Lipsius portrays Langius as his philosophical mentor, an inversion that embodies the generous humanistic ideal of amicitia. The editor of this vol ume, John Sellars, is a philosopher by training, and his focus in the introduction is quite legitimately upon the importance of Lipsius's work as a contribution to the tradition of Stoic thinking in the postclassical age. One can appreciate the logic behind Sellars's decision to present Lipsius's work in the translation of Sir John Stradling since it was published within Lipsius's lifetime. But we have to query the deceptive claim on the cover that Stradling's translation is "a long out-of-print classic." This is a nonsense when we consider Stradling's translation was confined to a sole edition before the scholarly reprint by Rudolf Kirk (Two Bookes of Constancie Written in Latine by Iustus Lipsius, Englished by Sir John Stradling [New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1939]).

The editor also appears to be rather nervous of Stradling's text. In the preface we read how Sellars has prepared a "lightly revised edition" of Stradling's translation, "reworded phrases," and "not hesitated... .to change 'be thou not' to 'do not be, 'think ye' to 'do you not think' and 'quoth he' to 'he said."' It is difficult to pinpoint who among modern readers of Lipsius would need such trivial amendments. Greater offense is likely to be caused to schol ars deprived of the pleasure of reading uncorrupted and easily negotiable 1590s prose. This misguided editorial handling only betrays Sellars's discomfort with early modern English, something borne out in several places, when, for example, he offers the term "retchlessness" (78) or "marchandise" (124) within an avowedly modernized text, or makes an ill-advised guess at an unfamiliar sixteenth-century phrase, as with his rendering of "champion coun try" (95). Because it cannot truly be called an edition, Sellars's version of Stradling lies between a faltering paraphrase and a benign bowdlerization. Readers would have been bet ter served by an altogether new translation of Lipsius from the Latin, or by a redacted reprint of Kirk's scholarly edition of Stradling.

Sellars's introduction sets out some essential points about Lipsius's life without appar ently referring to Lipsius's own Vitae Descriptio which Lipsius included in a letter to Johannes Woverius in 1600. He is on surer ground contextualizing the philosophical char acter of De Constantia, and the bibliography is likely to prove useful to those interested in pursuing Lipsius further. Sellars identifies the political turmoil of the Low Countries as a factor that informed Lipsius's intellectual development. It is difficult to enlarge upon such points within the constraints of a textual introduction, but it might have been worthwhile

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Book Reviews 1143

in this instance to emphasize that De Constantia appeared in 1584 amid an intense phase of the Dutch Revolt. It seems to me that the accommodating irenicist tone of Lipsius's work and the shallow commitment he gave to any creed may be seen as evidence of developed syncretistic tendencies. Lipsius's interest in the ethical thinking of the ancients may in part have arisen from a concern to find a moral path that transcended the narrow belligerence of the two halves of Christendom warring across his native land. It could be argued that De Constantia amounts to more than an expression of Stoic moral philosophy: the contrasts it establishes between the retired life of contemplation and the mayhem of the public realm articulate a politicized critique of fanaticism and factionalism in the Low Countries of the late sixteenth century.

Calvin and the Bible. Ed. Donald K. McKim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 296 pp. $29.99. ISBN 978-0-521-54712-3.

REVIEWED BY: David L. Foxgrover, Calvin Studies Society

Donald McKim writes in the preface that although it is "axiomatic" to recognize the importance of Calvin's biblical exegesis, there is no scholarly resource which describes how Calvin actually functioned as an interpreter of major segments of the Bible. McKim has suc ceeded admirably in providing this resource.

These essays go beyond summarizing the authors' past works and offer new insights, engage other points of view, and raise important questions for further research. A delightful touch is a concluding chapter by David Steinmetz, the doyen of scholars working on Calvin's biblical exegesis. After acknowledging his indebtedness to the studies in the present vol ume, Steinmetz provides an overview of Calvin's interpretation of scripture by discussing approaches that Calvin did not use and then outlining Calvin's "alternative proposal."

The authors deal with fundamental questions: What biblical texts was Calvin using? Where does Calvin stand in terms of the major commentators of the early and medieval Church? What sixteenth-century commentators was he reading? Did Calvin read primary sources or was he relying on compendia? What are the prominent humanist influences?

What are the dominant theological themes of Calvin's expositions? To what extent did the controversies that Calvin engaged in affect his exposition?

R. Zachman demonstrates Calvin's profound awareness of the distance between himself and the historical and linguistic circumstances of Genesis; but he also suggests that Calvin's own experience of exile allowed him to relate to the experiences of the lead ing figures of Genesis.

R. Blacketer notes that Calvin's Mosaic Harmony was an innovative work of the mature Calvin and proposes that Calvin was influenced by Melanchthon's commentary on Prov erbs as he organized the biblical material around the Ten Commandments to help pastors navigate difficult textual waters and arrive at the text's genuine meaning.

Susan Schreiner offers perceptive insights into Calvin's interpretation of Job. She argues that Job was especially challenging for Calvin, for rarely did an isolated passage teach a "central doctrine" Instead, Calvin had to interpret Job as a whole, struggling to help listen ers recall what happened before and stressing the importance of what lay ahead in the Joban drama. Calvin made the distinction between nature and history the key to interpreting Job.

W de Greef provides a detailed analysis of what books Calvin used while writing the Psalms commentary, and he also shows how Calvin interpreted the Psalms in the context of

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