Homer in Wittenberg tackles the question of how the ancient Greek epic poet was read and used in a Reformation context, most notably by Martin Luther’s right-hand man, Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560)—variously called (Master) Philip, Melanchthon, and the Preceptor (of Germany) throughout the book—and scholars working in his sphere of influence, Vitus Winshemius (1501–1570) in particular. The book’s main argument is that Melanchthonian readings and teachings of Homer revolved primarily around eloquence, for the reformed scholar the basis of prudence, in keeping with widespread humanist ideas. The Homeric exemplum of eloquence and prudence, and in particular as instantiated in prayers, is argued to have influenced Melanchthon’s own theological practice, particularly after 1543.
The main hypothesis is presented in the Introduction, together with a summary of the book’s six chapters and its Epilogue. As one of the crucial Melanchthonian ideas for Homeric eloquence Weaver singles out his conception of a unitary “Homeric poem” (poema Homericum). With a term from present-day pedagogy, Weaver labels Melanchthon’s eloquence a “threshold concept” (p. 3), proposed as an alternative challenging then common allegorical readings. Eloquence enabled the student to appreciate Homeric speech and the interrelationships of individual utterances, an approach Weaver relates to Melanchthon’s practical theology, voiced in, among other writings, his theological textbook on commonplaces.
Chapter 1 deals with the central place of Homer in Melanchthon’s youthful grammar and related writings, showing that the poet as teacher of divine inspiration had a preeminent place in the reformed humanist’s program from early on. For this image of Homer, Melanchthon drew on several classical authors, including Quintilian, Pseudo-Plutarch, and Strabo. Chapter 2 presents Melanchthon’s early Homer image through the lens of his 1518 lectures on the Iliad, in dialogue with his coeval textbook on rhetoric and his lectures on Paul’s Epistle to Titus. Homer is said to champion teaching oratory—a speech genre newly described by Melanchthon—for instance with regard to the description of characters. Homer shares this virtue with Paul. Chapter 3 moves five years ahead in time to deal with Homer lectures Melanchthon held in 1523, which reveal that the German humanist aimed to form prudent citizens by training their moral judgment through rhetoric. Notably, Weaver uses, among other sources, Achilles Pirmin Gasser’s notes taken during Melanchthon’s 1523 Homer lectures, the sources of which are discussed throughout the chapter, principally Erasmus’ Adagia and Macrobius’ Saturnalia.
In Chapter 4, Weaver makes his case for Melanchthon’s unitary conception of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, resulting from the reformer’s rhetorical reading of the poems in parallel to the bipartite Bible, with its Old and New Testament parts. The key source here is a 1538 oration by Melanchthon. His classical precedents are critically evaluated, including Greek scholarship and Virgil’s synthesis of the Iliad and Odyssey, in dialogue with reformed thought. Chapter 5 takes another neglected source, annotations from the context of Vitus Winshemius’ classes in the 1550s (but Weaver considers Melanchthon their ultimate author), to paint a picture of mature Homer scholarship in Wittenberg after a period of chaos and war in the city. The chapter demonstrates in detail the attention to Homeric eloquence, while crucially relying on ancient concepts like the principle of οἰκονομία (oeconomia): the suitably structured disposition of speech units. Extensive attention is paid to Homeric comparisons and prayer. The latter paves the way for Chapter 6, where the rhetorical reading of Homer is linked in detail to reformed theology. Discerning speech units helps Christian students to distinguish correctly between two speech types in the Bible: law (commands) and gospel (promises). Comparing Homer with the Bible also helps the students realize what is typical of their religion’s prayers, a practice Weaver exemplifies by means of Melanchthon’s notes on the Batrachomyomachia. More broadly, taking a view of both pagan and Christian theological commonplaces leads students to assess what is suitable in their own thought and practice with respect to God.
The Epilogue dwells on Homer’s inspiration, which Melanchthon is argued to have regarded as a gift of the Christian God. Melanchthon’s rhetorical reading of Homer is tentatively linked to George Herbert’s (1593–1633) poems on Scripture, written in a Cambridge context. The author concludes by drawing a number of similarly tentative parallels between Homeric and Melanchthonian prayer, even suggesting that the audience of Melanchthon’s declamations, which frequently contain prayers after 1543, would have been reminded of Homeric praying. The back matter includes a rich Bibliography with primary sources and secondary literature (mostly in English and German), as well as a convenient, if somewhat brief, Index, including at the back key Greek words (excepting some like παρρησία).
Reading Homer in Wittenberg has left me with mixed feelings, hovering between interest and amazement, on the one hand, and disappointment and frustration, on the other. The main argument about Melanchthon’s rhetorical reading of Homer is surely convincing, presented in a style that is generally agreeable and traces developments from young Master Philip to a mature Melanchthon. Weaver moreover deservedly draws attention to interesting source materials (singled out in the summary above), many of which are studied in this book for the first time in depth, typically accompanied by insightful remarks that go beyond simply describing the sources. That is an important realization in and of itself, since many sources of this type still lie unstudied in archives and libraries, even for prominent scholars like Melanchthon.
The author’s persistent comparison of Melanchthonian ideas with modern scholarship makes the work a valuable read for classicists interested in Homeric interpretations across different eras (antiquity, Renaissance, modernity) and their interactions and overlaps. On this front, and to a large extent also with respect to research into note-taking, Weaver shows his wide reading and familiarity with the state of the art. By formulating a rather daring hypothesis claiming Homeric influence on the crucial Christian practice of prayer, the author stimulates further research. For instance, the language barrier between Homer’s Greek and the dominant Latin language deserves closer reflection: how should one imagine a work in a foreign language, distant in time, space, and religion from Melanchthon, to exert such a profound influence on Christian religious practice?
Inevitably, given the rather long genesis of the book, seemingly going back to at least 2010 (cf. p. v), recent developments in certain fields are not taken into account as fully as they might have been, for instance in the flourishing field of research into student notes.[1] Yet some oversights cannot be attributed to a protracted writing process. For instance, Weaver claims as a “major discovery in my research” (p. 14) that Melanchthon read Homer following ancient examples, but scholars like Filippomaria Pontani have already drawn attention to this.[2]
Whereas the discovery claim may simply be an unfortunate formulation, the absence of any reference to linguistic historiography is more problematic, since Chapter 1 revolves around Melanchthon’s Greek grammar. Engagement with literature on early modern (Greek) grammar and earlier scholarship on Melanchthon’s grammar might have helped the author discuss etymologia on better terms.[3] Rather than an emphatically language-philosophical term, etymologia was a standard way to refer to morphology in grammars of the time.[4] This mistaken assumption probably relates to the author’s background as a literary scholar (just like the fact that an obvious connection with speech act theory is nowhere made). It was of course no mean task that Weaver set himself, handling a complex topic at the crossroads of different disciplines, but the lack of engagement with linguistic historiography is regrettable.
Further, the oeconomia of Weaver’s argumentation seems deficient in several ways. To begin with, the idiosyncrasy and innovativeness of Melanchthon’s conception of a unitary poema Homericum is simply taken for granted and not suitably demonstrated, for instance by citing literature on Homeric scholarship in the Renaissance. Admittedly, the author does not want “to trace a genealogy of this view” (p. 120), but given the weight attached to the argument throughout the book, at least Melanchthon’s alleged originality with respect to his humanist colleagues should have been proved rather than assumed. More generally, the reformed humanist is considered innovative almost by default, and he is repeatedly described with a reverential overtone unsuited for modern academic discourse (e.g. on p. 11, p. 51).
Weaver moreover does not problematize the fact that some of his key source materials are of a fragmentary nature, as the notes are incomplete remnants of reading, studying or teaching experiences. Instead, he sometimes reads modern insights into the fragmentary sixteenth-century sources, as when he projects Richard Martin’s analysis of Homeric speech as μῦθος versus ἔπος onto Melanchthonian notes (pp. 168–170).[5] It strikes me as anachronistic and teleological to attribute modern ideas to Melanchthon, and it contributes to his excessive sanctification as an innovative Homer scholar. The ways in which Melanchthonian insights are connected to quotes from Shakespeare and Herbert are likewise tendentious, without much regard for historical context. Finally, the author has dealt with Latin and Greek rather carelessly in various ways.[6]
In conclusion, Weaver offers an engaging but problematic account of Homer in early Reformation Wittenberg, which may enthuse classicists by virtue of its extensive dialogue with ancient and modern scholarship on Homer. The author contributes to claiming Melanchthon’s rightful place in the history of classical scholarship, where early modern achievements are often poorly explored, in particular for the Greek heritage. Tellingly, to date there is no entry for Homer in the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum. Early modernists, on the other hand, will have to balance their feelings of appreciation for the main argument on Homeric eloquence, based on numerous untapped sources, with frustrations about the argumentation and the handling of the source texts.
Notes
[1] I miss an important work like Bénévent, Christine, and Xavier Bisaro, eds. 2019. Cahiers d’écoliers de la Renaissance. Collection « Renaissance ». Tours: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, which includes a chapter by Luigi Silvano on teaching Greek (including Homer).
[2] Pontani, Filippomaria. 2007. “From Budé to Zenodotus: Homeric Readings in the European Renaissance.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 14 (3/4): 375–430, not cited by Weaver.
[3] Federica Ciccolella’s recent paper on this textbook might have been published too late to be meaningfully integrated into Weaver’s account. Ciccolella, Federica. 2021. “The Making and Remaking of Philipp Melanchthon’s Greek Grammar.” In When Greece Flew across the Alps: The Study of Greek in Early Modern Europe, edited by Federica Ciccolella, 182–223. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 336. Leiden & Boston: Brill. But see Ciccolella’s chapter for earlier relevant scholarship: e.g., p. 189, n. 27.
[4] Ciccolella, p. 189.
[5] Martin, Richard. 1989. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.
[6] Typos in Latin quotes are not infrequent, which is annoying when crucial words like poema are at stake (p. 133, n. 70). Translations can be imprecise (e.g. p. 33 “divine science” for “veri scientia”). One paraphrase (“ardentes vota,” p. 210) of a collocation used by Melanchthon (“ardentibus votis,” p. 208, n. 7) is awkward. While the book contains much less Greek, somewhat unexpected given its topic, forms like μύθος (p. 16), παρασκεύε, and τό πρέπον (both p. 228) also leave one pondering, as does the fact that an obvious pun on Theodore Gaza’s name is not recognized (pp. 21–22), while this might have steered the interpretation in a different direction. Original sources are moreover not quoted systematically, forcing one to rely on the author’s own translations.