An Infinity of Relics: Erasmus and the Copious Rhetoric of John Calvin's Traité des reliques. (2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Weinreich, Spencer J.
• Is Part Of: Renaissance Quarterly. Volume 74:Number 1(2021)
• Page Start: 137
• Page End: 180
• Publication Date: 2021
• Subjects: European literature -- Renaissance, 1450-1600 -- Periodicals; Renaissance -- Periodicals; 809.31
• DOI: 10.1017/rqx.2020.316
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0034-4338

Abstract

Abstract : John Calvin's "Traité des reliques" (1543) inventories early modern Europe's fraudulent relics. Yet, theologically speaking, authenticity is irrelevant: all relics are idols to the evangelical Protestant, while for Catholics prayer's intention, not its conduit, was paramount. This article locates a solution in Calvin's humanist formation: chiefly, his debt to Desiderius Erasmus—not to Erasmus's satirical or devotional works, but to his rhetorical theory of copia . The "Traité" amasses a copia, an abundance, of fakes, burying the cult of relics in its own contradictions. Fusing rhetoric and proof, this mass juxtaposition subjects sacred presence to noncontradiction, patrolling vital confessional borders in Reformation theology.