Kirk Essary
The University of Western Australia, History, Faculty Member
- History of Christian Thought, Erasmus, John Calvin, History of Biblical Interpretation, Renaissance Philosophy, Reformation History, and 15 moreErasmus of Rotterdam, Philosophical Theology, Religion, History of Philosophy, Cormac McCarthy, Literature and Religion, Religion and Literature, Reformation Studies, History Of Emotions, Calvin, Early Modern Church History, Early Modern Intellectual History, Early Modern Europe, Renaissance Studies, and Early modern religious historyedit
Offering a re-reading of Erasmus's works, this book shows that emotion and affectivity were central to his writings. It argues that Erasmus's conception of emotion was highly complex and richly diverse by tracing how the Dutch humanist... more
Offering a re-reading of Erasmus's works, this book shows that emotion and affectivity were central to his writings. It argues that Erasmus's conception of emotion was highly complex and richly diverse by tracing how the Dutch humanist writes about emotion not only from different perspectives-theological, philosophical, literary, rhetorical, medical-but also in different genres. In doing so, this book suggests, Erasmus provided a distinctive, if not unique, Christian humanist emotional style.
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Research Interests: Religion, Christianity, Philosophy Of Religion, History of Religion, Historical Theology, and 17 moreHistory of Christianity, Renaissance Studies, Renaissance Humanism, Erasmus, Reformation History, Reformation Studies, Reformation Theology, History Of Emotions, History of Biblical Interpretation, John Calvin, Humanism, Apostle Paul and the Pauline Letters, Classical Reception Studies, Biblical Exegesis, Emotions, Religious Studies, and History of Reception of Biblical Texts
As we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the CHE, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion (initially focusing on Europe 1100–1800 and with the late Professor Philippa Maddern as... more
As we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the CHE, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion (initially focusing on Europe 1100–1800 and with the late Professor Philippa Maddern as its founding Director) and the fifth anniversary of the launch of the journal Emotions: History, Culture, Society (founding Editors: Katie Barclay, Andrew Lynch, Giovanni Tarantino), it is only pertinent that we look back and assess our efforts by hearing from some prominent emotions scholars who contributed in different ways and capacities to this pathbreaking intellectual journey.
Research Interests: Emotions and Excellence
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This article considers sixteenth-century interpretations of Christ's emotions, specifically of his sweating blood at the Mount of Olives (Luke 22), in an attempt to illuminate the ways in which emotions were (or were not) thought by... more
This article considers sixteenth-century interpretations of Christ's emotions, specifically of his sweating blood at the Mount of Olives (Luke 22), in an attempt to illuminate the ways in which emotions were (or were not) thought by Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, and John Calvin to be embodied phenomena. The author attempts to show that an analysis of their exegesis reveals a general de-emphasizing of the physical aspects of affectivity, and that this is a broader trend in theological-as opposed to medicaldiscourse on emotions among Reformation-era biblical humanists.
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The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the manner in which Erasmus employs examples from and the genres of classical mythology in order to explain the emotions, but also to show how he utilizes affective meanings of myths to describe... more
The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the manner in which Erasmus employs examples from and the genres of classical mythology in order to explain the emotions, but also to show how he utilizes affective meanings of myths to describe current events. Given Erasmus’ influence, and the burgeoning field of emotions history, my aim is to interject Erasmus more fully into the ongoing conversation about the ways in which emotions were understood in the past. I will do so by considering 1) his adaptation of Quintilian’s taxonomy of emotions as either tragic or comic; 2) his use of classical literature to explore and explain the emotions; and 3) his affective analysis of what he deems the “tragedy” of Martin Luther’s reform movement.
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Few figures from the Reformation-era have remained as divisive as John Calvin. Whether because of Calvin’s doctrine of predestination or his involvement in the execution of Michael Servetus in Geneva in 1553, his contemporary detractors... more
Few figures from the Reformation-era have remained as divisive as John Calvin. Whether because of Calvin’s doctrine of predestination or his involvement in the execution of Michael Servetus in Geneva in 1553, his contemporary detractors found ample reason for dissension. Regarding the former, five-odd centuries have done little to ameliorate (and perhaps much to exacerbate) the prima facie severity of Calvin’s specific brand of predestination, which maintains that God foreordained multitudes to eternal damnation before the creation of the world. Anyone who has been tasked with explaining the reformer’s thoughts on this matter to undergraduates in a Christianity 101 course (or to an innocent bystander at the local watering hole) is keenly aware of its almost universal unattractiveness. This sentiment holds a fortiori for the execution of Servetus. Two key sixteenth-century figures, Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec and Sebastian Castellio, honed in on these two issues in a barrage of anti-Calvinist writings. In doing so, they painted the first broad strokes of what would prove to be an enduring image of Calvin as a dour and intransigent figure. Moreover, they forced Calvin and Geneva into a series of defensive responses that were formative in the process of confessionalization beginning in the 1550s, a crucial period for religious identity-formation especially among Swiss Protestant churches.
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The purpose of this chapter is to chart some useful scholarly approaches to the history of medieval and early modern affective theologies. It aims to show how a focus on emotions is especially conducive to revealing meaningful... more
The purpose of this chapter is to chart some useful scholarly approaches to the history of medieval and early modern affective theologies. It aims to show how a focus on emotions is especially conducive to revealing meaningful continuities that are often obscured by rigid modes of periodization, on the one hand, and by the anti-scholastic rhetoric of early modern biblical humanists, on the other. The confluence and divergence of multiple intellectual traditions gave rise to deep complexities in the history of theological approaches across the medieval and early modern period. But lines of influence and reception were often blurred by the explicit appropriation of classical and patristic texts and ideas in the Renaissance, and humanists tended to argue that their own approach to theology (rhetorical rather than dialectical, to put it simply) was novel in its affectivity but also superior to medieval approaches insofar as it attended to the whole person (intellectus and affectus). A closer look reveals a more complicated picture, of course, and I would like to suggest the possibility that theologia rhetorica, a heuristic device originally conceived for delineating a theological tendency specific to the Italian Renaissance, can serve as a useful tool when employed alongside approaches from the new history of emotions to think about the relationship between rhetoric, emotions and theology in medieval and early modern Europe.
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An analysis of Calvin's multifaceted use of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus reveals several things of importance both for scholarship on Renaissance historical and biblical criticism generally, and for Calvin studies in particular.... more
An analysis of Calvin's multifaceted use of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus reveals several things of importance both for scholarship on Renaissance historical and biblical criticism generally, and for Calvin studies in particular. Calvin's reception of Josephus was quite extraordinary in its breadth, and complex in its employment and function. References to the historian are peppered throughout his works in a wide array of contexts, from the special authority of Moses to the length of the Sea of Galilee. Significantly, Calvin not only used Josephus as a source for raw historical data, but also employed him to philosophical, theological, and political ends as well. And while the reformer is not unequivocally positive in his judgment of the historian as a reliable source, an overwhelming majority of the instances where Calvin cites Josephus's texts are used to augment his exegetical works, and at times Josephus's authority comes close to overriding that of the literal biblical account. The purpose of this paper is to show how Calvin's engagement with Josephus in his commentaries reveals him to have been an able and discerning critic who would at times go to great lengths in order to sort out perceived discrepancies or to fill in historiographical lacunae pertinent to the biblical story, but also an opportunistic humanist who would use whatever resources he had at his disposal for clarifying the historical background of the biblical text.
Research Interests: Early Modern History, Renaissance Studies, Reformation History, Reformation Studies, Jewish History, and 9 moreIntellectual History of the Renaissance, Jewish - Christian Relations, History of Biblical Interpretation, John Calvin, History of Historiography, Classical Reception Studies, Biblical Interpretation, Josephus, and Reception of Antiquity
While the distinction between the calm and violent passions has been treated by Hume scholars from a number of perspectives relevant to the Scottish philosopher’s thought more generally, little scholarly attention has been paid to this... more
While the distinction between the calm and violent passions has been treated by Hume scholars from a number of perspectives relevant to the Scottish philosopher’s thought more generally, little scholarly attention has been paid to this distinction either in the works of Hume’s non-English contemporaries (e.g., the French Jesuit Pierre Brumoy) or in the long rhetorical and literary tradition which often categorized the emotions as either calm or violent. This article examines the long history of the distinction between calm and violent, or mild and vehement, emotions from the classical Roman rhetorical tradition through the Renaissance and into the modern period. In doing so, it provides a partial but substantial genealogy of an important heuristic taxonomy in the history of emotions, while suggesting that the philosophical import of the distinction in the eighteenth century owes something to rhetorical and poetic traditions which are often not considered by historians of philosophy.
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This paper argues that the recent trend in early modern studies occasionally referred to as the “new humoralism”, which lays heavy emphasis on the physiological and humoral significance of the emotions in seventeenth-century Renaissance... more
This paper argues that the recent trend in early modern studies occasionally referred to as the “new humoralism”, which lays heavy emphasis on the physiological and humoral significance of the emotions in seventeenth-century Renaissance literature, pays insufficient attention to the theological traditions of Christian humanism in the sixteenth century. In particular, the article traces a trajectory of the use of metaphors of clean versus muddy and calm versus turbulent water in Erasmus, John Calvin, John Donne and Edward Reynolds to illustrate the complexity of literary-theological discourse revolving around affectivity in sermons, treatises and biblical commentaries in the period, while simultaneously establishing the continuity of an exegetical tradition concerning Christ’s emotions.
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The history of emotions is notably fraught with semantic anxiety, and a great deal of ink has been spilt in attempts to clarify emotion terminology, with respect to both historical and contemporary usage. Because the 16th century is both... more
The history of emotions is notably fraught with semantic anxiety, and a great deal of ink has been spilt in attempts to clarify emotion terminology, with respect to both historical and contemporary usage. Because the 16th century is both a momentous time of linguistic change for European languages (including Latin), and often for some reason neglected by historians of emotion trying to tell a longer story about emotion terminology, this article provides an overview of how 16th-century lexicons and prominent humanist authors handle the basic Latin emotion terms affectus and passio. It suggests further that 16th-century usage confounds Thomas Dixon’s assertion that “classical Christian” usage consists of a generally firm distinction between the two terms.
Research Interests: Emotion, Latin Literature, Historical Linguistics, Early Modern History, Renaissance Studies, and 10 moreRenaissance Humanism, Erasmus, History Of Emotions, Lexicography, John Calvin, Affect/Emotion, Emotions, Historical Semantics, Linguistics. Word-formation. Morphology. Lexicology. Semantics., and Dictionaries
A key problem in the history of emotions arises from the shifting meaning of emotion terms throughout history and from the difficulty in translating emotion terms from one language to another. Erasmus’ NewTestament and Annotations offer... more
A key problem in the history of emotions arises from the shifting meaning of emotion terms throughout history and from the difficulty in translating emotion terms from one language to another. Erasmus’ NewTestament and Annotations offer scholars interested in the ‘historical semantics of emotion’ invaluable insights into sixteenth-century emotions discourse and the translation of emotion terms from Greek into Latin. This paper examines some of the more problematic cases in order to shed light on how Erasmus handles the difficulties that are attendant to translating emotion words, and also considers the influence of Erasmus’ NT and Annotations in early modern Greek-to-Latin lexicons, a feature of his reception that has not been acknowledged to date.
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This paper considers the future of Erasmus studies and scholarship on Christian humanism. It argues that two approaches will be especially useful going forward: reception history (of Erasmus’s works in particular) and the history of... more
This paper considers the future of Erasmus studies and scholarship on Christian humanism. It argues that two approaches will be especially useful going forward: reception history (of Erasmus’s works in particular) and the history of emotions. Both will aid in answering enduring questions about the relationship between the Renaissance and Reformation and the nature of Christian humanism, as well as opening up new avenues of inquiry in an area of study especially conducive to interdisciplinary research.
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The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of the emotions in the Ecclesiastes as they come to bear on Erasmus' understanding of teaching and learning in the context of the Christian sermon and the relationship between the preacher... more
The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of the emotions in the Ecclesiastes as they come to bear on Erasmus' understanding of teaching and learning in the context of the Christian sermon and the relationship between the preacher and the congregation. The emotions do not only feature in Erasmus' attempts to adjudicate the manner in which it is incumbent upon the preacher to move the congregation, but a specifically Christian sort of affectivity governs the way in which Erasmus imagines the preacher to be learned, and thus also to teach. As a result of its breadth and depth in covering an array of topics relevant to cultivating learned piety in the context of Christian preaching, the Ecclesiastes represents the most detailed treatment Erasmus offered of the importance of emotion in numerous areas of Christian thought and life. And without close attention to the affective aspects of Erasmus' ideal method of teaching and preaching, one simply cannot provide an adequate account of the humanist's theological program of learned piety.
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The christological hymn in Philippians 2, rich as it is in theological potential, has always been a fruitful locus in the history of biblical interpretation for engaging in a number of doctrinal disputes which revolve around questions of... more
The christological hymn in Philippians 2, rich as it is in theological potential, has always been a fruitful locus in the history of biblical interpretation for engaging in a number of doctrinal disputes which revolve around questions of the nature of Christ. Thus, an analysis of any chapter in the history of interpretation of the hymn (or at least parts of it) is necessary for understanding the ways in which Paul's text has informed christological discourse or, vice versa, how certain ways of thinking about Christology inform interpretations of the passage. In the sixteenth century, the hymn also serves as a jumping-off point for discussions of the authority of scripture in matters of doctrine, for whether Paul provides sufficient doctrinal fodder to ground an orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (particularly of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son) will be brought into question, in particular, by Erasmus. Erasmus’ understanding of the passage, as it appears in his Annotations, was criticised by numerous Catholics, and the ensuing debate (especially between Erasmus and Lefèvre) is fairly well known. The response Erasmus (and the surrounding debate) elicits from John Calvin, however, has scarcely been mentioned and, to my knowledge, never been examined in depth – this, despite the fact that Calvin's engagement with Erasmus on Philippians 2:6–7 departs from his usual method of perspicua brevitas in commentary writing, and constitutes a significant digression on an array of christological and hermeneutical issues. These two verses, and their reception in the sixteenth century, provide a useful lens for analysing the christologies and the hermeneutical strategies of two biblical humanists who, perhaps, are not often enough considered alongside one another. A close reading of these two exegetes’ interpretations of Philippians 2:6–7 will be followed by a consideration of the significance of their emphasis on the radical humility of Christ, which emphasis serves as a departure from the bulk of the antecedent exegetical and theological tradition.
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This special issue on Erasmus and Emotion contains articles by Reinier Leushuis, Brian Cummings, Gordon Raeburn, and Kirk Essary.
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Before Emotion: The Language of Feeling (400-1800) advances current interdisciplinary research in the history of emotions through in-depth studies of the European language of emotion from late antiquity to the modern period. Focusing... more
Before Emotion: The Language of Feeling (400-1800) advances current interdisciplinary research in the history of emotions through in-depth studies of the European language of emotion from late antiquity to the modern period. Focusing specifically on the premodern cognates of ‘affect’ or ‘affection’ (such as affectus, affectio, affecioun, etc.), an international team of scholars explores the cultural and intellectual contexts in which emotion was discussed before the term ‘emotion’ itself came into widespread use. By tracing the history of key terms and concepts associated with what we identify as ‘emotions’ today, the volume offers a first-time critical foundation for understanding pre- and early modern emotions discourse, charts continuities and changes across cultures, time periods, genres, and languages, and helps contextualize modern shifts in the understanding of emotions.
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Melancholy, hypochondria, curiosity, bibliomania, paranoia and pride are just some of the passions (or vices or pathologies) associated with the learned from the middle ages through to the early modern period. Moreover, while the early... more
Melancholy, hypochondria, curiosity, bibliomania, paranoia and pride are just some of the passions (or vices or pathologies) associated with the learned from the middle ages through to the early modern period. Moreover, while the early modern Republic of Letters was, ideally, an irenic and supra-confessional space, the rights and wrongs of learning, and of particular branches of learning, created specific anxieties for Catholic and Calvinist, Jesuit and Jew.
These anxieties of course have a longer history in patristic and scholastic religious texts. Despite his incalculable influence, neither Augustine’s denunciation of curiositas in the Confessions nor his complicated conception of concupiscentia provided the final word on these matters. University theologians and humanists fought passionately for the proprietary rights to Biblical studies in the Renaissance, each accusing the other of ‘putting their sickles into other men’s crops’. The ‘problem’ of the reception of classical learning among religious thinkers in the West was perennial and persistent and continues to provide a fruitful locus for questions in intellectual history.
What is the same and what is different in the understanding of ‘passions for learning’ across this long trajectory? Our symposium will explore and calibrate the various orientations to learning of different faiths and confessions in the medieval and early modern periods; the role that scholars of different faiths assigned to the role of the emotions in learning; and the emotional lives of scholars in the shadow of religion.
These anxieties of course have a longer history in patristic and scholastic religious texts. Despite his incalculable influence, neither Augustine’s denunciation of curiositas in the Confessions nor his complicated conception of concupiscentia provided the final word on these matters. University theologians and humanists fought passionately for the proprietary rights to Biblical studies in the Renaissance, each accusing the other of ‘putting their sickles into other men’s crops’. The ‘problem’ of the reception of classical learning among religious thinkers in the West was perennial and persistent and continues to provide a fruitful locus for questions in intellectual history.
What is the same and what is different in the understanding of ‘passions for learning’ across this long trajectory? Our symposium will explore and calibrate the various orientations to learning of different faiths and confessions in the medieval and early modern periods; the role that scholars of different faiths assigned to the role of the emotions in learning; and the emotional lives of scholars in the shadow of religion.
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The aim of this ‘Languages and Emotion’ cluster workshop is to grapple with the different terms, languages, and discourses of medieval and early modern pain and suffering and their related emotions. Five presenters: Han Baltussen... more
The aim of this ‘Languages and Emotion’ cluster workshop is to grapple with the different terms, languages, and discourses of medieval and early modern pain and suffering and their related emotions. Five presenters: Han Baltussen (Classics, Adelaide), Naama Cohen-Hanegbi (History, Tel Aviv), Anna Corrias (History, Princeton), Kirk Essary (CHE, UWA), and Sergio Starkstein (Psychiatry, UWA) will introduce and lead discussion of key texts from antiquity through to the nineteenth century.
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Abstract: While the distinction between the calm and violent passions has been treated by Hume scholars from a number of perspectives relevant to the Scottish philosopher’s thought more generally, little scholarly attention has been paid... more
Abstract: While the distinction between the calm and violent passions has been treated by Hume scholars from a number of perspectives relevant to the Scottish philosopher’s thought more generally, little scholarly attention has been paid to this distinction either in the works of Hume’s non-English contemporaries (e.g., the French Jesuit Pierre Brumoy) or in the long rhetorical and literary tradition which often categorized the emotions as either calm or violent. This article examines the long history of the distinction between calm and violent, or mild and vehement, emotions from the classical Roman rhetorical tradition through the Renaissance and into the modern period. In doing so, it provides a partial but substantial genealogy of an important heuristic taxonomy in the history of emotions, while suggesting that the philosophical import of the distinction in the eighteenth century owes something to rhetorical and poetic traditions which are often not considered by historians of philosophy.
