Sebastian Castellio

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Sebastian Castellio

Sebastian Castellio (French Sébastien Castellion or Châteillon; * 1515 in Saint-Martin-du-Fresne in Savoy ; † December 29, 1563 in Basel ) was a French humanist scholar, philosopher and Protestant theologian. As a defender of freedom of belief and conscience against John Calvin , he developed a theory of religious and general spiritual tolerance in his writings .

Life

Castellio came from a poor family. His homeland was one of the areas to which the Waldensians , persecuted since the Middle Ages, withdrew. Hans Rudolf Guggisberg therefore suspects that Castellio could have grown up in a Waldensian tradition. Castellio himself called his father religiously illiterate and did not comment on where and when he had come into contact with Reformation ideas. In 1535 he went to Lyon , which was then a center of humanism. Even Martin Luther was there, initially unhindered by the French government and the Catholic Church, pendants. Castellio learned Latin, Greek and Hebrew at the Collège de la Trinité . In addition to his native French, he also spoke Italian and some German.

Geneva

In January 1540, the first burning of Huguenots as heretics by the Inquisition took place in Lyon . Castellio then finally turned to the Reformation , left Lyon and went to Strasbourg , where John Calvin taught and preached since his expulsion from Geneva . Before he returned to Geneva in 1541, Calvin Castellio got a job as rector of the Geneva Latin School and preacher in a suburb. The first conflicts soon arose with Calvin, who did not want to authorize a translation of parts of the Bible into French and Latin, intended as a school book. Another school book, the Dialogi sacri, a dramatic adaptation of biblical stories for Latin lessons, met with great approval.

Shortly afterwards, Castellio's application for a better paid pastor's position was rejected. Theological and personal differences with Calvin finally led to an indictment before the council in 1544 for endangering the unity of the pastorate. He had expressed criticism of pastors who had left the city during a plague epidemic instead of helping the sick. Castellio resigned before the council bowed to Calvin. On May 30, 1544, he was officially released. Calvin gave him a testimony in which he justified his actions with reference to erroneous theological views. Castellio not only denied Christ's descent into hell , but also took the view that the Song of Songs should be excluded from the biblical canon as an erotic poem . Calvin expressly confirmed Castellio's exemplary lifestyle in his extremely friendly testimony. In the letter Calvin wrote to Guillaume Farel the next day , however, he called Castellio a schismatic.

Basel

n the city of Basel, a little Castellio path leads from St. Alban-Vorstadt 85 towards the Rhine and over stairs to St. Alban's Church. On November 4, 2016, on the initiative of the Basler Bürger group, a bronze plaque with a relief image of his bust and with a gilded inscription was attached to a Castellio plaque at the red sandstone gate to the little path opposite the south side of the church, which is written in Latin, German, In French, Italian and English, his statement to kill a person does not mean to defend a doctrine, but to kill a person.
Memorial plaque for Sebastian Castellio

Castellio moved with his wife and his eldest daughter to Basel, where he could not find a job as a preacher, but was only able to support his family with difficulty with auxiliary work and occasionally as an employee of the learned printer Johannes Oporinus . On October 13, 1546 he enrolled at the University of Basel (Sebastianus Castalio, Sabaudus Burgiensis dioec. - eodem die [Octobr. 13] - 6 ß) . On August 1, 1553 he reached the degree of a Magister artium . It was not until 1553 that he became professor of ancient Greek at the artist faculty of the University of Basel . During his time in Basel he published the works of Xenophon , Homer and other Greek writers as well as the medieval edification writings Theologia deutsch and De Imitatio Christi by Thomas von Kempen .

In 1551, on the basis of his earlier preparatory work, Castellio published his elegant Latin translation of the Bible with extensive commentaries, followed by a translation into French in 1555. He dedicated the Latin translation to the young English King Edward VI. , perhaps in the hope of being appointed successor to Martin Bucer , who had begun on the royal commission to create a new Latin translation of the Bible for Protestant scholars. In this preface he made the call for religious tolerance for the first time, but without using the term. In both translations he was more concerned with the beauty of the language than with the literal rendering, because it was not the letter but the meaning that was inspired . Because he sacrificed some theological terms for this goal, he was considered a heretic by the Genevans. For example , Bèze interpreted the fact that instead of the usual ecclesiastical expression baptism for baptism the formulation lotio - ablution - more in the classical Latin of Cicero and Ovid , as evidence of his disregard for the sacrament. Castellio also received criticism from the Catholic side for his work. He felt compelled to defend his translation in another small script. Also during his time in Basel were revisions of the Latin translations by ancient Greek authors and collections of texts, such as the Sibyllina oracula, which was published by Johannes Oporinus in Basel in 1546, the Histories of Herodotus translated by the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla , the first edition of which was published in 1559 by Heinrich Petri in Basel appeared, the library of Diodor , which appeared in the same year with Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius in the appendix also by Petri, as well as the works of Homer , which appeared in the first edition in 1561 by Nicolaus Brylinger .

Confrontation with Calvin

Sebastian Castellio (1515–1563), scholar, philosopher, theologian. Memorial plaque, St. Alban's Church in Basel.
Sebastian Castellio

Most of all, his life was determined by the conflict with Calvin. The dispute escalated after the cremation of Michael Servetus as a heretic on October 27, 1553 at the gates of Geneva . Calvin justified this execution with Defensio orthodoxae fidei de sacra Trinitate ("Defense of the right faith from the Holy Trinity"). Castellio, who had not read Servet's works at all, reacted to the events in December of that year with the anonymously printed Historia de morte Serveti and in 1554 replied to Calvin's defense - presumably supported by Lelio Sozzini and Celio Secondo Curione  - with the publication of De haereticis, an sint persequendi ("Of the heretics, whether they are to be persecuted"), a collection of texts in which theologians from John Chrysostom and Augustine from Hippo to Martin Luther (From secular authorities, how far one owes their obedience), Erasmus of Rotterdam and even Calvin himself (Commentary on Senecas De Clementia of 1532) spoke out against the death penalty for heretics. In his plea for religious tolerance, he referred to Luther. He himself wrote the introduction under the pseudonym Martinus Bellius and dedicated the work to Duke Christoph von Württemberg . To the replies from Calvin and Bèze, he replied, among other things. a. with Contra Libellum Calvini . In these writings he denied the right of secular power to combat deviations from church doctrine with violence. "To kill a person does not mean to defend a doctrine, but to kill a person." Christ did not teach absolute truth, but love. The church may only use the spiritual weapons intended by Paul , namely conviction, against divergent arguments . Nor does it make a good impression on "Turks and Jews" when "those who profess the name of Christ are killed by the Christians themselves by fire, water and sword and without mercy and treated more cruelly than thieves and highwaymen". The Reformed Church was no different from the Catholic Inquisition. For his argument, Castellio relied on Jesus' parable of the weeds under the wheat . The Christians should not pre-empt the Last Judgment on their own initiative. Through his courageous intercession for Servetus and other so-called heretics, as well as his frank criticism of the Bible, Castellio Calvin was so hated that Calvin called him "an instrument of Satan ". His translation of the Bible was banned.

To kill a person is not to defend a teaching, but to kill a person. (Hominem occidere)

In his last years Castellio criticized Calvin's doctrine of predestination in particular , which he refuted in the first of his unfinished Dialogi quatuor . The growing influence of Calvinism prevented the publication of his last work De arte dubitandi (“On the Art of Doubting”), which was not fully published until 1981. In this he shows himself to be an early representative of rationalism by placing reason above dogmas and, for example, interpreting the Lord's Supper purely symbolically. The pressure became so strong that Castellio considered emigrating to Poland-Lithuania , whose religious tolerance under Sigismund II August made it a place of asylum for those religiously persecuted elsewhere. In 1563 Bèze finally turned to the Basel preachers with a letter in which he accused Castellio of a long list of various heresies and also of contact with the Anabaptist leader David Joris , who had lived undetected under a false name in Basel from 1544 to 1556. In November 1563 an indictment was brought against which Castellio defended himself with a document dated November 24, 1563. His early death preceded both a possible conviction and emigration. He was buried in Basel Minster .

Castellio left eight children from two marriages. His youngest son Friedrich, who was only a year old when he died, later became professor of rhetoric at the University of Basel.

His last work, the hermeneutics De arte dubitandi et confidendi, ignorandi et sciendi (“Of the art of doubting and confessing, not knowing and knowing”), remained unfinished. In it Castellio, based on natural reason , denied the eternal speech of God , which is recognizable through the senses and understanding, the ubiquity of Christ, the predestination and the lack of freedom of the will, and questioned the dogma of the Trinity .

Afterlife

Castellio's ideas of tolerance and religious freedom had a major impact on both Socinianism and the Early Enlightenment, and Pietism . The remonstrants of the Netherlands in the 17th century especially appealed to him. Several of his writings were reprinted during this period. In addition to the Latin translation of the Bible, the Dialogi sacri , in particular, were more widely used. They were used as school books in the 17th and 18th centuries and were reprinted several times.

The historical importance of Castellio was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century: the French civil rights activist and later Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ferdinand Buisson wrote a two-volume monograph on Castellio's life and work. The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig processed Castellio's discussion of Calvin in a novel published in 1936. It says:

“But precisely this, that Sebastian Castellio knew from the beginning that his struggle was hopeless and nevertheless undertook it, obediently against his conscience, this holy nevertheless and despite all this, for all time praises this“ unknown soldier ”in the great war of liberation of mankind as a hero; For the sake of such courage, as a single and only one, to have raised passionate protest against a world terror, Castellio's feud against Calvin should remain memorable for every spiritual person. "

- Castellio versus Calvin or A Conscience versus Violence

Honors

  • On May 30, 2015, the Vandoeuvres parish near Geneva honored Castellio in a celebration for the 500th anniversary of his birthday by placing a bust of Castellio designed by François Bonnot in the forecourt of the church. Castellio worked in that parish from 1542 to 1545 as a preacher at that village church.
  • In the city of Basel , a Castellio-Weglein leads from St. Alban-Vorstadt 85 towards the Rhine and over stairs to St. Alban's Church. At the red sandstone gate to the little path opposite the south side of the church, a bronze plaque with a relief image of his bust and with a gilded inscription was attached on November 4, 2016 on the initiative of the Basler Bürger group for a Castellio plaque , which is written in Latin , German , In French , Italian and English , his statement to kill a person does not mean to defend a doctrine, but to kill a person .

Works (selection)

  • Dialogorum sacrorum libri quatuor , Geneva 1542 (expanded to include New Testament stories, Basel 1545) etc.
  • Biblia sacra latina, Basel 1551
  • De haereticis, an sint persequendi, et omnino quomodo sit cum eis agendum, Luteri et Brentii, aliorumque multorum tum veterum tum recentiorum sententiae . Georg Rausch, Magdeburg 1554 ( digitized ; facsimile edition with an introduction by Sape van der Woude, Droz, Geneva 1954); the French version Tracté des hérétiques, a savoir, si on les doit persecuter appeared in the same year
  • Historia de morte Serveti
  • Contra Libellum Calvini in quo contendere conatur Haereticos jure gladij coercendos esse (manuscript from 1554, printed [see left] 1562 [i. E. 1612]; therein also Anonymus (i. E. Castellio?) Historia de morte Serveti )
  • La Bible translatée avec annotations, Basel 1555. Digitized
  • De arte dubitandi et confidendi, ignorandi et sciendi ( postponed , unfinished main work)
  • Dialogi quatuor (unfinished, published by Fausto Sozzini in 1578 , digitized ; reprinted Gouda 1612 and Frankfurt 1696)

Text output

  • Bruno Becker, Marius Valkhoff (eds.): Sébastien Castellion: De l'impunité des hérétiques. De haereticis non puniendis. Droz, Genéve 1971 (critical edition)
  • Wolfgang F. Stammler (Ed.): The Manifesto of Tolerance: Sebastian Castellio: From heretics and whether one should persecute them / Stefan Zweig: Castellio against Calvin . Alcorde, Essen 2013, ISBN 978-3-939973-61-4 (Review: Volker Reinhardt : A pyre for all soul salvation . In: FAZ , February 24, 2014, p. 28)
  • Wolfgang F. Stammler, Uwe Plath (ed.): Sébastien Castellion: Against Calvin. Contra libellum Calvini. Alcorde, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-939973-62-1
  • Sébastien Castellion: De arte dubitandi et confidendi, ignorandi et sciendi. In: Real Accademia d'Italia. Studi e documenti VII, Per la Storia degli Eretici Italiani del Seculo XVI in Europe. Edited by Elisabeth Feist Hirsch. 2nd, expanded edition. Brill, Leiden 1981, ISBN 90-04-06344-7

literature

Overview representations

Overall presentations and investigations

  • Ueli Greminger: Sebastian Castellio. A biography from the turmoil of the Reformation period. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2015. ISBN 978-3-280-05597-7 .
  • Hans Rudolf Guggisberg : Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563. Humanist and defender of religious tolerance in the denominational age. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1997. ISBN 3-525-55303-X (an English translation was published in 2003).
  • Hans Rudolf Guggisberg: Sebastian Castellio's “De haereticis” and the tolerance debate 1553–1555. In: Wolfgang Friedrich Stammler (Ed.): The Manifesto of Tolerance. About heretics and whether to persecute them. Alcorde, Essen 2013. ISBN 978-3-939973-61-4 . Pp. 221-309.
  • Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer: Protestant religious refugees in Switzerland (1540–1580) . In: Hartmut Laufhütte , Michael Titzmann (Ed.): Heterodoxy in the early modern times (= early modern times. Volume 117). De Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-1109-2869-3 , pp. 119-160
  • Uwe Plath: Calvin and Basel in the years 1552–1556 . In: Basler Studies on Historical and Systematic Theology 22, Basel / Zurich 1974.
  • Stefania Salvadori: Sebastian Castellio and the Holy Supper. Re-reading Zwingli in the pursuit of tolerance. In: Zwingliana 35, 2008, pp. 23-43.
  • Mirjam van Veen: The freedom of thought. Sebastian Castellio pioneer of tolerance 1515–1563. A biography. Translated from Dutch by Andreas Ecke. Alcorde, Essen 2015 (library of historical memorabilia). ISBN 978-3-939973-71-3 .
  • Manfred Edwin Welti: Brief history of the Italian Reformation (= writings of the Association for Reformation History . Volume 193). Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh 1985, ISBN 978-3-5790-1663-4 , pp. 101-134 ( digitized version )

Collection of articles

  • Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer (Ed.): Sebastian Castellio (1515–1563) - Dissidence and Tolerance. Contribution to an international conference on Monte Verità in Ascona 2015. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-525-57089-0

Web links

Commons : Sebastian Castellio  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Rudolf Guggisberg: Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563. Humanist and Defender of Religious Tolerance in the Denominational Age, pp. 11–16.
  2. ^ A b c d Marian Hillar: Sebastian Castellio and the Struggle for Freedom of Conscience . ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.socinian.org
  3. ^ Stückelberger: Calvin and Castellio, p. 95.
  4. ↑ Jean Calvin: From Castellio's heretical views on the Song of Songs and the Descent into Hell of Christ .
  5. ↑ Stückelberger: Calvin and Castellio, p. 97.
  6. ^ Wackernagel, Hans Georg: The register of the University of Basel . University library publishing house, Basel 1956, p. 44 .
  7. ^ Guggisberg: Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563. Humanist and defender of religious tolerance in the denominational age, p. 65.
  8. ↑ Stückelberger: Calvin and Castellio, p. 101.
  9. ↑ Sibylliakōn chrēsmōn logoi okto. Sibyllina oracula de Graeco in Latinum conversa, et in eadem annotationes Sebastiano Castalione interprete ,. Johannes Oporinus, Basileae 1546.
  10. ^ Herodoti Halicarnassei Historiae libri IX interprete Laurentio Valla. Eiusdem Herodoti libellus de vita Homeri, interprete Conrado Heresbachio. Utriusque translationem emendavit Sebastianus Castalio. Henricus Petri, Basileae 1559.
  11. ↑ Diodori Siculi Bibliothecae Historicae libri XV. Hoc est, "Graece extant de quadraginta, quorum quinque nunc primum Latine eduntur, de quibus in praefatione edoceberis. Adiecta his sunt ex iis libris, qui non extant, fragmenta quaedam. Henricus Petri, Basileae 1559.
  12. ↑ Homeri Opera Graecolatina, quæ quidem nunc extant, omnia: Hoc Est: Ilias, Odyssea, Batrachomyomachia, Et Hymni: Praeterea Homeri vita ex Plutarcho, cum Latina item interpretatione… In hæc operam suam contulit Sebastianus Castalio, Brylinger, Basileae 1561.
  13. ^ Wilhelm Schwendemann: Calvin, Castellio and the human rights - to kill a person does not mean to defend a doctrine, but to kill a person. In: Theo-Web. Zeitschrift für Religionspädagogik 8 (2009), no . 2, pp. 143–160, here p. 147, theo-web.de (PDF; 145 kB), accessed January 26, 2012.
  14. ↑ Cf. Uwe Plath: The Servet case and the controversy about freedom of belief and conscience. Alcorde, Essen 2014, pp. 106–115, on the edition situation, dating and author's question, ibid. Pp. 106f. with note 336f., p. 352f.
  15. ^ Heinrich Bornkamm : Tolerance. In the history of Christianity. In: The religion in past and present , 3rd edition, Volume VI, Col. 937.
  16. ↑ Contra Libellum Calvini in quo contendere conatur Haereticos jure gladij coercendos esse from 1554, like several other writings that Castellio wrote in this context, has only survived as a manuscript and was only published [s. l.] 1562 [i. e. 1612] in press.
  17. ↑ Volker Reinhardt : A pyre for all salvation . In: FAZ , February 24, 2014, p. 28.
  18. ↑ Sebastian Castellio: Contra libellum Calvini . S. Ev1 .
  19. ↑ Sebastian Castellio: Against Calvin - Contra libellum Calvini Introduced, translated from Latin and commented by Uwe Plath . In: Wolfgang F. Stammler (Ed.): Library of Historical Memories . Alcorde Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-939973-62-1 , p. 131 .
  20. ↑ Alexandre Ganoczy: Authority and Conscience in the Age of Reformation . Mainz 1991, pp. 68-75.
  21. ↑ quoted from: Guggisberg: Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563. Humanist and Defender of Religious Tolerance in the Denominational Age, pp. 97–98.
  22. ^ Salvadori: Sebastian Castellio and the Holy Supper, p. 42.
  23. ↑ History of the Reformation in Poland  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 80 kB).@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www-classic.uni-graz.at  
  24. ↑ Stückelberger: Calvin and Castellio, pp. 117–118.
  25. ^ Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer: Castellio, Sébastian .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) accessed January 31, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.bmz.unibe.ch  
  26. ^ Guggisberg: Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563. Humanist and Defender of Religious Tolerance in the Denominational Age, p. 233.
  27. ^ Guggisberg: Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563. Humanist and Defender of Religious Tolerance in the Denominational Age, p. 253.
  28. ^ Stefan Zweig: Castellio versus Calvin or A Conscience Against Violence , Fischer TB 2295, Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 12
personal data
SURNAME Castellio, Sebastian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Châtillon, Sébastien
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French humanist scholar
DATE OF BIRTH 1515
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Martin-du-Frêne in Savoy
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1563
Place of death Basel