''Ad fontes'' is a Latin expression which means " ackto the sources" (lit. "to the sources"). The phrase epitomizes the renewed study of Greek and

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

classics in Renaissance humanism, subsequently extended to Biblical texts. The idea in both cases was that sound knowledge depends on the earliest and most fundamental sources.

History

The phrase ''ad fontes'' occurs in Psalm 42 of the

Latin Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Roman Church. Later, of his own initia ...

: The phrase in the humanist sense is associated with the poet

Petrarch Francis Petrarch (; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; ; modern ), born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanism, humanists. Petrarch's redis ...

, whose poems '' Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta'' (c. 1350) use the deer imagery of the Psalm. Erasmus of Rotterdam used the phrase in his ''De ratione studii ac legendi interpretandique auctores'':"On the method of study and reading and interpreting authors." Erasmus von Rotterdam: De ratione studii ac legendi interpretandique auctores, Paris 1511, in: Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia, ed. J. H. Waszink u. a., Amsterdam 1971, Vol. I 2, 79–151. For Erasmus, ''ad fontes'' meant that to understand Christ in the Gospels in an educated way involved reading good translations of the New Testament, and the Greek and Roman philosophers and

Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical peri ...

in the five hundred years surrounding Christ, over the earlier

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

and later Scholastics. The most extreme version of ''ad fontes'' was the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

, which called for renewed attention to the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

as the primary source of

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

faith, to the extent of denying extra-biblical apostolic teaching authority: '' sola scriptura''. This need to select a core that could reject unattractive Catholic doctrines lead to the Protestant rejection of the Deutero-canonical scriptures and queries, e.g. by Luther, on the canonicity or value of the Epistle of James. Sylvia Wynter is quoted as suggesting that ''ad fontes'' heralded a power grab in which the formerly taken-for-granted authority of theology was replaced by "the authority of the lay activity of textual and philological scrutiny." The phrase is related to '' ab initio'', which means "from the beginning". Whereas ''ab initio'' implies a flow of thought from

first principles In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. First principles in philosophy are from first cause attitudes and taught by Aristotelians, and nuan ...

to the situation at hand, ''ad fontes'' is a retrogression, a movement back towards an origin, which ideally would be clearer or purer than the present situation.

Counter views

''Ad fontes'' may be contrasted with various views of the development of doctrine: * The softest being of

Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

, whose views according to G. K. Chesterton were that doctrine developed the way a puppy develops into a dog: not changing and compromising into a cat but "becoming more doggy not less." * The view of John Henry Newman "It is indeed sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full." * The most strident, representing perhaps a less extreme version of the Joachimite heresy, was the "Manual tradition": the Scholastic tendency to use

Sentences The ''Sentences'' (. ) is a compendium of Christian theology written by Peter Lombard around 1150. It was the most important religious textbook of the Middle Ages. Background The sentence genre emerged from works like Prosper of Aquitaine's ...

(Excerpts), Catena (commentaries), Summa (exhaustive theologies) and the subset of Scriptures used in the daily office and

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

rather than primary material in context: the other material, not being in the standard available manuscripts, was in effect jettisoned and little-known to theologians or to the public. Representative of a linear view of history, the medieval selections (which favoured

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

over other Church Fathers) and interpretations were deemed so excellent that they superseded the primitive primary material, rendering the philology concerns of the humanists extraneous. Louvain theologian Jacques Masson, who conducted the attempts to convert

William Tyndale William Tyndale (; sometimes spelled ''Tynsdale'', ''Tindall'', ''Tindill'', ''Tyndall''; – October 1536) was an English Biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestantism, Protestant Reformation in the year ...

in prison, wrote that "the genuine sense of scripture is found in its purest form in the expositions and commentaries" of the scholastic doctors. * The view of a number of bishops at the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent (), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most ...

that the Vulgate was better than even the Greek originals ''because'' "it" had 1500 years of improvements, as guided by the Holy Spirit. It may be noted that promoters of ''ad fontes'' did not necessarily deny the validity of the developments of dogma: notably

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

, who saw clarifications of doctrine (by Church Councils and the Pope) as a necessary part of their peace-keeping and uniting roleHe suggested that the Disciples' understanding of the Trinity was relatively undeveloped: "We dare name the Holy Spirit true God, proceeding from the Father and the Son, something the ancients did not dare." that did not negate the wisdom of ''ad fontes''.

History

Counter views

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links