8 Moral Treatment of Immoral Texts from Classical Antiquity: Conrad Gessner’s Martial-Edition of 1544

The discovery of aesthetic and stylistic ideals based on classical Greek and Roman literature and art formed the very foundation of the Renaissance, even though Christian medieval scholars’ encounter with pagan antiquity had all along led to episodes of tension, especially in relation to eroticism, nakedness and literary obscenity. The Alsatian humanist Jakob Wimpfeling was one of many humanists to condemn erotic lyric poetry. Erasmus of Rotterdam similarly distanced himself from obscene Roman poets from Catullus to Ovid.² Martial, Catullus, and Tibullus were, in his view, not to be read until a young man’s character was already firmly developed. ‘I agree that Martial, Catullus, Tibullus, and suchlike, should not be read before the character has been formed; nevertheless the teacher ought to be well versed in them all for the elegance and grace of their language and the knowledge they can give of antiquity. The Book of Psalms may be more holy than the Odes of Horace, but for all that Horace is the better to learn Latin from’.³

Unlike Martin Luther,⁴ Erasmus did not altogether reject the reading of such texts, but rather argued for the possibility of handling them responsibly. In some ways closer to the Wittenberger, the Zurich reformer Heinrich Bullinger composed a pedagogical introduction in 1527 that lacked any positive words for students’ use of Ovid’s love lyrics or of the shameless poetry of Tibullus, Catullus or Propertius. Bullinger’s remarks on Martial are merely marginal, presumably since he had not actually read the Epigrams.⁵ Furthermore, he suggested that students might sooner read Prudentius than Horace – a recommendation that also appeared in a 1569 Bavarian school ordinance.⁶ Bullinger continued in his later years to address questions of proper reading, as indicated by his personal copy of Juan Luis Vives’ 1531 publication, De disciplinis libri XX.⁷ In a section of this work on the topic De tradendis disciplinis, the Jewish Spanish humanist describes the reader of profane literature as a wanderer, ‘who traverses a field full of poisonous plants. Ovid promotes luxuria, Martial superbia, Lucretius impietas, Cicero diverts toward self-praise and boasting, etc. In light of such dangers, it is good to keep on hand the antidote of pietas’.⁸

There were many other scholars besides Bullinger in the city on the Limmat who similarly strove to supply new generations with the best possible literary education. The concern bulked large in texts coming off the Zurich presses, where 13 per cent of sixteenth-century publications were pedagogical materials. The discussion focused on several related questions. Who are the important authors, and what is the essential reading material? Which ancient classics most efficiently help students to master the esteemed Latin and Greek languages? And how ought one to reckon with stylistically superb, if also morally ambiguous, authors? In 1544 Conrad Gessner, the Zurich physician, polymath and professor at the Schola Tigurina, published a censored edition of Martial’s Epigrams. Despite the fact that the Roman poet had a reputation for stylistic brilliance, the lascivious content of his writings excluded them from use in schools. Gessner did not, however, entirely condemn the use of Martial; he offered an Erasmian argument for handling such literature in a responsible manner. With a text now cleansed of all obscenities,⁹ he supplied a model edition of an erstwhile pedagogically problematic classic.¹⁰ In 1545 at age 29, Gessner published his Bibliotheca universalis,¹¹ in which he characterized the Martial-edition as his second-most useful publication, trailing only his 1543 translation of Stobaeus.¹²

Already by the end of the 1400s, concerns had arisen about exposing readers to all the lewdness within the complete works of Martial. For this reason, a first anthology appeared in 1488. In 1514 the Paris professor of rhetoric, François Dubois, announced an expurgated edition which, however, never actually appeared in print. Gessner was therefore the first to produce an unobjectionable edition for youth. Then in 1558 the Jesuits André Frusius und Edmond Auger produced their own purged edition of Martial,¹⁶ followed in 1599 by that of Matthäus Rader SJ, an edition that went through at least 22 printings up to 1660.¹⁷

Beyond the dramatis personae, there are also similarities of content. The main theme of Adelphoe involves the question of whether a strictly disciplined education is ideal for a young man, or whether instead the young man might flourish better when allowed ample freedom and autonomy. For Gessner, the main topic of discussion between Demea and Mitio is whether or not young men ought to be confronted with obscene literature. Demea is strictly opposed to the idea, whereas Mitio considers it unproblematic. In both dramas, Demea stands for the strict authoritarian perspective and Mitio for the liberal one. In Terence’s comedy, neither pedagogical method leads to the desired result; the reader is left to consider an ideal middle way between the two extremes. Similarly, Gessner concludes his Dialogi with the understanding that it would be equally improper both to ban Martial from schools altogether and to permit unrestrained access to his works; the needs of schools are best approached via the middle way, wherein students encounter a responsibly expurgated edition.

Every sixteenth-century student and teacher who picked up Gessner’s Dialogi would have instantly recognized the similarity to Terence. This experience likely elicited some amused smiles, and it certainly would have aroused curiosity as to which of the potential conclusions Gessner himself was going to pursue. Terence’s comedies were entirely too familiar in early modern curricula for anyone to fail to grasp Gessner’s recourse to such classic material.²⁰ The Zurich school ordinance of October 1532, for example, prescribed the reading of Terence for the third class of the Latin school.²¹ In order to meet this pedagogical demand, editions of his comedies appeared in Zurich in 1547, 1552, around 1555, 1561 and in 1570.

In the second and shortest dialogue, Demea precedes dinner by unleashing fury at his brother for having arranged for such a curriculum, while Mitio for his part attempts to defend his choice of Martial.²³ Demea can scarcely calm himself. He accuses his brother of breach of trust and threatens him with court proceedings.

The third dialogue is the main section of the entire work.²⁴ Demea summons Mitio before the judge, Radamanthus, who patiently listens to both sides. Demea speaks at great length, recounting all his arguments against the reading of Martial and concluding that such literature ought to be banned. Mitio then gives a shorter speech defending Martial. Radamanthus, of course, has the last word. Using medical imagery, he orders the production of a purged edition of Martial.²⁵

Demea’s speech²⁶ is approximately four times as long as Mitio’s.²⁷ Gessner thereby gives comparatively more space to the development of arguments against, rather than in support of, the reading of Martial.

The two antagonists support their positions with almost countless classical quotations and references. In the process, Gessner incidentally demonstrates his mastery of ancient classical literature. Demea’s arguments appear replete with ideas drawn from Plato’s Politeia III and IV, Nomoi I, II, and VII, as well as Aristotle’s Politica VII and VIII, Rhetoric, Poetics and Nicomachean Ethics. Demea additionally counters Mitio at two points with direct passages from the Bible, whereas Mitio prefers to support his arguments more strictly in reliance on Aristotle and Plato. In a broader sense, one may perceive in Mitio the profile of the humanist as an antiquity enthusiast and in Demea the profile of the well-educated Christian dedicated to community and state.

The Martial controversy, in Demea’s view, is not a private matter, but rather a causa reipulicae;²⁸ questions about youth and their upbringing pertain to parents but also to the state in its capacity as administrator of schools. Aristotle himself had emphasized the notion that it is an urgent, pressing business of any state to tend to the education of youth, since they are the foundation of future society.²⁹

At the outset of his speech, Demea reminds the reader that education is an almost sacred and very demanding task. It can be a source of good or of evil, in light of the fact that youthful dispositions are like wax tablets receiving the imprint of the writings with which they come into contact. Educators must therefore exercise extreme caution. Pedagogy requires equal measures of earnestness and prudence. Youths ought not to be exposed to anything shameful that could have a corrupting influence; they should be directed only to constructive and exemplary material. Demea supports this first thesis with appeals to the church Father Jerome as well as to the philosophers Zeno, Epicurus, Diogenes Laertius and Plato. He draws special attention to a passage from Book III of Plato’s Politeia, wherein Plato calls for the expurgation of Homer at those points where the ancient poet represents certain gods and heroes as depraved and weak and thus as unworthy of imitation.³⁰ For that matter, the state should also exercise moral censorship over similar passages involving wine, women, song and greed. Demea opposes the assertion that words alone cannot harm the youth. He demonstrates his own plausible position that words always stand in service of some particular thing, and so words have as much harmful potential as the thing itself to which they are directly connected. He concludes with the rhetorical question: why would we punish liars if, indeed, words per se were not found to convey evil?

The problem does not consist only in the capacity of words to convey evil, but also in the proclivity to such things on the part of the evil human heart. Contact between corrupt hearts and corrupt speech or reading provokes people – especially young people – to try out for themselves those things that they have just heard or read. Demea formulates a pithy anthropological statement for this context: satis superque natura nostra malorum nos docet.³¹ Even older and more experienced persons can scarcely be expected to be able to determine for themselves what is good and what is bad for them to hear or read. Demea concludes that censorship and oversight by the state are therefore practically compulsory for the moral wellbeing of that state. Plato developed this very idea in Book IV of his Politeia and in Book VII of Nomoi.

Demea’s motto might be, ‘no shameful words for children’s ears, and no wicked readings in the schools’. To undergird his case, he has the bailiff Teleboas read from Book VII of Aristotle’s Politica, where the Stagirite warns against exposing boys to the influence of indecent speeches or of immoral actors and slaves.³² Demea continues in this Aristotelian vein by noting that inappropriate statues and pictures must be removed from the sight of youths. Moreover, since poetry amounts to spoken pictures, obscene lyric poetry must consequently be subject to the same warning.³³

Demea comes to a third thesis. Not only are the words of carmina potentially harmful, but so too are their beguiling, provocative or murmuring melodies. As evidence for the unaccountable power of melody, Demea points to David’s harp-playing that soothed the rage of King Saul, the singing of Circe that transformed the companions of Odysseus into animals and the song of Pythagorus that calmed the boisterousness of drunkards. At the centre of this argument is a passage from Book IV of Plato’s Politeia, featuring this sequence: music affects morals, morals affect thinking and thinking affects the state and law itself.³⁴ Corrupt music (or, carmina) would therefore be responsible for hastening social destruction.

Carrying his argument a step further, Demea makes use of certain images to illustrate his point. He begins by likening reading to eating.³⁵ Just as food feeds the stomach and sustains the body, so too does reading nourish the understanding and influence thought. Although the stomach can, under certain circumstances, become accustomed to poor sustenance, the understanding can never do that. In the latter case, poor habits of consumption lead fatefully to one thing; evil deeds necessarily follow from corrupt thoughts in a way that cannot be said of a spoiled stomach. Demea points to so-called mental infectious diseases which are less well known than physical ones, but which unhealthy reading may similarly contribute to spreading.

Demea’s subsequent exposition concerning the character and maturity or, rather, immaturity of young people draws entirely from Aristotle’s Rhetorica.³⁶ Aristotle points to mutability, inconstancy and hot-headedness of the youthful disposition, adding that such attributes require the steadying influence of a strong hand. Demea picks up and emphasizes these ideas. In his view, the critical window in the life of a young man is between age 14 and 21, during which time internal and external factors especially contribute to definitive character formation. For this reason, all dissolute, morally ambiguous literature ought to be barred from pubescent youths. As he concludes this line of thinking, Demea spends a moment reflecting on how even adults in some respects resemble pubescent youths. Contact with sinful and suggestive material can inwardly inflame and corrupt many adults as much as it corrupts the youth. Demea further bemoans the fact that people today no longer seem to have any real shame in talking openly about shameful things. Even animals behave more decorously than people who often, openly and with audacious offensiveness talk and joke about sexual body parts and related acts. God has placed in animals and people alike a natural shame and timidity in revealing sexual body parts to others. In Demea’s estimation, Ovid³⁷ and Martial blaspheme against God’s majesty. Here he proposes a question of conscience: would Mitio himself be able to read the complete works of Martial before the present court without becoming red-faced with shame?

Demea draws supporting evidence against the reading of Martial from rational grounds and from classical citations, and at the middle and again at the conclusion of his remarks, he points to specific Bible passages. Demea recalls Jesus’ exhortation to be innocent like doves (Matthew 10:17) or like children (Matthew 18:3), and he also points to Paul’s appeal for people to be unskilled in matters of evil (Romans 16:19; 1Corinthians 14:20). On the topic of speech and speech-making, Demea reminds his audience that someday everyone will have to give account to God for every vain word they uttered. Many New Testament passages in this vein warn against rash words. Demea points to Jas 3:2, Ephesians 4:29, Philippians 4:8–9, Ephesians 5:3–4, Matthew 15:11, Matthew 15:17–20, Colossians 3:17, and 2Timothy 1:13.³⁸

Demea also refers to the Old Testament story of the curse of Ham. Ham was the son of Noah who had spread shameful stories after having seen his father naked (Genesis 9:21ff.). Against the objection that the Old Testament itself occasionally includes offensive material, Demea replies that the Bible appropriately addresses sin because, on the one hand, the spiritual remedy is always also offered, and, on the other hand, exposing the wretchedness of the curse serves to clarify divine grace. Moreover, the Bible indicates just how much God hates sin, and how it can be avoided, and what recompense it deserves. Demea nevertheless insists that the Holy Scriptures nowhere contain obscenities per se. The Bible speaks frankly of sin in order to present the reality of redemption and of punishment; it never attempts to satisfy lascivious appetites. In view of the erotic passages of the Song of Solomon, Demea explains that this involves the mystery of the Bride of Christ, and that, in any event, Christians ought to follow Jewish tradition and the recommendation of ancient church Fathers in prohibiting boys under 20 years old from reading this book. One must nevertheless admit that the Bible as a whole involves exceedingly respectable vocabulary and that it typically speaks with great modesty in matters of marriage and sexual relations. Martial’s manner of speaking and his vocabulary are entirely at odds with Biblical forms of expression. Demea compares the Roman poet to an open sewer that ought to be done away with.³⁹

Demea’s skillful use of classics, church Fathers and the Bible, and his well-structured and well-thought out speech create quite a convincing impression. It would appear initially difficult to marshal counter-arguments in defense of Martial. Nevertheless, the following, largely Aristotle-inspired speech of Mitio does not lack for its own quality and convincing power.⁴⁰

Mitio opens his defense of Martial with the argument that Demea’s assault against the joke and the wit of epigrams would further implicate the essence and legitimation of this entire genre. It is, after all, wit and satire that animate the epigram; they constitute scilicet epigrammata lex.⁴¹ Moreover, one should keep in mind that Martial writes with stylistic brilliance and that no other author provides such a wealth of sayings and subjects. Cicero, Pliny the Younger and even the church Father Jerome all avowed great pleasure in reading Martial.

Mitio attempts to prove that Martial by no means only made suggestive material the subject of his Epigrams. In four such books there is nothing objectionable whatsoever, and he himself characterizes these epigrams as the best ones with which to encourage virtuous behaviour. Martial never wrote out of sheer delight in dissolution and lasciviousness. Rather, by means of obscene mockery aimed at real events, he sought to reveal vice and to hold it up to ridicule and to censure it. His purpose was not to praise and encourage individuals in their shamefulness, but rather to name names and to report misdeeds so as to prompt crisis of conscience and disrepute. As Demea himself has noted, poetry is a type of picture and the poet, according to Aristotle, is an imitator who does his job best when most closely imitating reality.⁴² The poet must therefore represent shameful things as shameful and admirable things as admirable, so that children may learn the art of imitatio, and so that they may recognize what is evil, naming and condemning it as such. Mitio is further of the opinion that a person who is capable of corruption by poetry is really corrupt already. There is, therefore, in Mitio’s estimation no known reason to censor the works of Martial. If Martial were banned on account of a few offensive passages, then most other ancient poets would also have to be subject to that same sentence. Censorship is no solution. Youths must be granted their own judicious and personally responsible encounter with poets and poetry. In conclusion, Mitio refers to Aristotle’s observation in Politica that poetry and music sweeten life, bring variety to the day-to-day and to the classroom, and they also permit certain things more easily to make impressions in the lives of youths. Mitio nevertheless parenthetically admits at the very end of his speech that there may be some passages of Martial that young boys really ought not to read.

Demea appeals to the responsibility of the state, Mitio to that of the individual. Demea argues for censorship, Mitio for a reasonable, direct encounter with the text. Radamanthus – the judge who has meanwhile listened patiently to both sides – makes a ruling that seeks to do justice to both perspectives. Martial’s works should be ‘castrated’, with the effect of cutting away the harmful parts.⁴³ All that remains should be consolidated into a new body of literature. Anyone who would have the audacity to contradict this judgment should himself be castrated.⁴⁴