A writing project for History 117, Western Civilization II, Winter 2012.
Out
of the Flames: Too Entertaining to Be Educational
Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World, by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. First published © 2002 by Broadway Books of Random House, Incorporated. 368 pages, with bibliographical references. EBook formatted edition, with Jackie Aher and Donna Sinisgalli, version 3.0, published © 2008 by Crown Publishing Group, ISBN-13: 9780307489241: available through Barnes and Noble booksellers.
Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World, by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. First published © 2002 by Broadway Books of Random House, Incorporated. 368 pages, with bibliographical references. EBook formatted edition, with Jackie Aher and Donna Sinisgalli, version 3.0, published © 2008 by Crown Publishing Group, ISBN-13: 9780307489241: available through Barnes and Noble booksellers.
Historian Lawrence Goldstone holds a
PhD in American Constitutional Studies, and is a prolific writer of novels and
non-fiction works, articles and papers pertaining to history, politics and rare
books. Nancy Gladstone studied History
at Cornell before earning a Master’s degree at the Columbia University School
of International Affairs, and worked by chance as an international options
trader for a Wall Street bank before writing her first book.
The two have co-authored several books in connection with their passion for collecting rare and out-of-print books, with Out of the Flames being their fourth collaboration. They cover a lot of ground in this tale: from political and religious goings-on in France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland a hundred years before the time of the Reformation and the rise of Jean Calvin, all the way to the development of western medicine at Johns Hopkins University. They produce convincing explanations of the political motivations of monarchs and religious agents, as well as marvelous points of minutia. If you’ve ever wondered what the connection is between the Unitarian Church and the telegraph, or why the heir to the French crown is called the Dauphin you will find the answers in this book. The authors continually delight and entertain the reader by aligning coordinates across centuries and cultures; the reader is engaged by their way of sharing potentially dry material in a matter of fact and engaging manner. Their love of old books and history appear to be the driving force behind the telling of this story, and this enthusiasm is delightfully infectious.
It makes sense, then, that Out of the Flames is more a history about a book, Christianismi Restitutio (Christianity Restored), than a history about people. It begins a hundred years before the book was written, continues on with the life and death of its author Servetus, and continues on for centuries after. All the interwoven elements are there: the creators of the Gütenberg printing press, the philosophers of the early Reformation, and the makers of laws and wars and many unpredicted effects. Servetus’ inflammatory work’s journey continues as it becomes his ultimate downfall, and all known copies are destroyed. It is then rediscovered, protected, lost and discovered again, influencing new Christian movements and internal medicine of the Enlightenment in Germany, Transylvania and the British colonies in the Americas along the way.
Christianismi was not Servetus’ first book, but it was his most notorious. The early life of Servetus (née Miguel Serveto, AKA Michel Villeneuve and several variations) was not that remarkable for the son of a minor Spanish noble, but his thirst for knowledge and aptitude for language certainly were. He excelled at his studies, and by the age of 13 he was a master of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. His scholarship led him to read the original scriptures as well as the Vulgate version of the Bible, and he kept track of the discrepancies he found. By age seventeen he had added Arabic to his repertoire so that he could study the Koran as well. As a teenager, he was tutored by Juan de Quintana, an enthusiastic follower of Erasmus who was a contemporary of the Protestant reformers Luther and Zwingli. For a time he was the houseguest of Oecolampadius, another biblical scholar, until he made himself unwelcome by hounding his host with incessant religious debate.
The story follows the young man through many exploits: several heretical writings and translations of texts, an unofficial stint at medical school both as a star pupil and educator, a job as the personal physician to an archbishop and a governor; life on the run under several aliases, mostly due to ruffled feathers among other doctors, educators and religious theorists, and still more heretical writing, all before the age of 30. Ultimately, his unfortunate combination of rare intellect and social naïveté proved to be his downfall.
Today Servetus would probably be diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Asperger’s Syndrome, and medicated into mediocrity. He was passionately focused on scripture and history, but it appears his passion was more academic than emotional. When he pointed out the errors, disinformation and outright falsehoods he found while translating texts, he seemed genuinely surprised that he was condemned rather that lauded for his discoveries. For all of his brilliance, he was a bit simple when it came to understanding the workings of the human heart and mind as well as the scheming of man, especially a man as ambitious as Jean Calvin. Like the fellow who must repeat the punch-line of a joke until it loses all its humor, or the party-goer who has one drink too many, Servetus continually pushed the limits of patience and tolerance. His greatest crime, aside from his lack of social graces or continually confounding his supporters and adversaries, was the notion that he could somehow “win” by convincing others to see things his way while acknowledging their lesser intellect. He believed that if he could point out their mistakes clearly enough, eventually he would convince them to happily admit that they were ignorant of the truth and thank him for the clarification.
It’s no surprise, knowing Servetus’ “right-makes-might” style, that he made it a personal mission to convince Calvin that his doctrine was flawed. He initiated a correspondence with the man, and continually hounded him with letters meant to embarrass and harass him into accepting Servetus’ position. He even sent Calvin a copy of his own book with corrections and arguments scribbled in every margin. In the end, Servetus’ underestimation of the power of the very personal hatred Calvin developed for him proved a fatal mistake.
Fortunately, Calvin also underestimated the difficulty of suppressing mass media and this proved vital for the survival of Servetus’ work. Calvin’s obsessive attempts to obliterate Servetus’ heretic writings failed, and three known copies survived. The writings in Christianismi Restitutio not only helped to shape what would become the Unitarian Church, and introduced the biggest leaps in understanding the cardiopulmonary system since the writings of Galen in the 2nd century CE.
Out of the Flames includes a short annotated bibliography as well as an extensive citations list. When I reached the end of the story, I continued to read the epilogue and bibliography because I didn´t want the story to end. The Goldstone’s are great storytellers, and would probably make interesting dinner guests. Anyone interested in European history of the Reformation, western medicine - from medieval methods and field surgery in the American Civil War to the creation of the modern medical university - or the influence of religion on the design of the United States government, and just plain old anyone who loves trivia or a well-told tale would enjoy this book.
The two have co-authored several books in connection with their passion for collecting rare and out-of-print books, with Out of the Flames being their fourth collaboration. They cover a lot of ground in this tale: from political and religious goings-on in France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland a hundred years before the time of the Reformation and the rise of Jean Calvin, all the way to the development of western medicine at Johns Hopkins University. They produce convincing explanations of the political motivations of monarchs and religious agents, as well as marvelous points of minutia. If you’ve ever wondered what the connection is between the Unitarian Church and the telegraph, or why the heir to the French crown is called the Dauphin you will find the answers in this book. The authors continually delight and entertain the reader by aligning coordinates across centuries and cultures; the reader is engaged by their way of sharing potentially dry material in a matter of fact and engaging manner. Their love of old books and history appear to be the driving force behind the telling of this story, and this enthusiasm is delightfully infectious.
It makes sense, then, that Out of the Flames is more a history about a book, Christianismi Restitutio (Christianity Restored), than a history about people. It begins a hundred years before the book was written, continues on with the life and death of its author Servetus, and continues on for centuries after. All the interwoven elements are there: the creators of the Gütenberg printing press, the philosophers of the early Reformation, and the makers of laws and wars and many unpredicted effects. Servetus’ inflammatory work’s journey continues as it becomes his ultimate downfall, and all known copies are destroyed. It is then rediscovered, protected, lost and discovered again, influencing new Christian movements and internal medicine of the Enlightenment in Germany, Transylvania and the British colonies in the Americas along the way.
Christianismi was not Servetus’ first book, but it was his most notorious. The early life of Servetus (née Miguel Serveto, AKA Michel Villeneuve and several variations) was not that remarkable for the son of a minor Spanish noble, but his thirst for knowledge and aptitude for language certainly were. He excelled at his studies, and by the age of 13 he was a master of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. His scholarship led him to read the original scriptures as well as the Vulgate version of the Bible, and he kept track of the discrepancies he found. By age seventeen he had added Arabic to his repertoire so that he could study the Koran as well. As a teenager, he was tutored by Juan de Quintana, an enthusiastic follower of Erasmus who was a contemporary of the Protestant reformers Luther and Zwingli. For a time he was the houseguest of Oecolampadius, another biblical scholar, until he made himself unwelcome by hounding his host with incessant religious debate.
The story follows the young man through many exploits: several heretical writings and translations of texts, an unofficial stint at medical school both as a star pupil and educator, a job as the personal physician to an archbishop and a governor; life on the run under several aliases, mostly due to ruffled feathers among other doctors, educators and religious theorists, and still more heretical writing, all before the age of 30. Ultimately, his unfortunate combination of rare intellect and social naïveté proved to be his downfall.
Today Servetus would probably be diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Asperger’s Syndrome, and medicated into mediocrity. He was passionately focused on scripture and history, but it appears his passion was more academic than emotional. When he pointed out the errors, disinformation and outright falsehoods he found while translating texts, he seemed genuinely surprised that he was condemned rather that lauded for his discoveries. For all of his brilliance, he was a bit simple when it came to understanding the workings of the human heart and mind as well as the scheming of man, especially a man as ambitious as Jean Calvin. Like the fellow who must repeat the punch-line of a joke until it loses all its humor, or the party-goer who has one drink too many, Servetus continually pushed the limits of patience and tolerance. His greatest crime, aside from his lack of social graces or continually confounding his supporters and adversaries, was the notion that he could somehow “win” by convincing others to see things his way while acknowledging their lesser intellect. He believed that if he could point out their mistakes clearly enough, eventually he would convince them to happily admit that they were ignorant of the truth and thank him for the clarification.
It’s no surprise, knowing Servetus’ “right-makes-might” style, that he made it a personal mission to convince Calvin that his doctrine was flawed. He initiated a correspondence with the man, and continually hounded him with letters meant to embarrass and harass him into accepting Servetus’ position. He even sent Calvin a copy of his own book with corrections and arguments scribbled in every margin. In the end, Servetus’ underestimation of the power of the very personal hatred Calvin developed for him proved a fatal mistake.
Fortunately, Calvin also underestimated the difficulty of suppressing mass media and this proved vital for the survival of Servetus’ work. Calvin’s obsessive attempts to obliterate Servetus’ heretic writings failed, and three known copies survived. The writings in Christianismi Restitutio not only helped to shape what would become the Unitarian Church, and introduced the biggest leaps in understanding the cardiopulmonary system since the writings of Galen in the 2nd century CE.
Out of the Flames includes a short annotated bibliography as well as an extensive citations list. When I reached the end of the story, I continued to read the epilogue and bibliography because I didn´t want the story to end. The Goldstone’s are great storytellers, and would probably make interesting dinner guests. Anyone interested in European history of the Reformation, western medicine - from medieval methods and field surgery in the American Civil War to the creation of the modern medical university - or the influence of religion on the design of the United States government, and just plain old anyone who loves trivia or a well-told tale would enjoy this book.
Works Referenced
Goldstone, Lawrence and Nancy
Goldstone. Out of the Flames: The
Remarkable Story of a
Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World. 2008, Crown
Publishing Group, eBook edition, v. 3.0.
Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World. 2008, Crown
Publishing Group, eBook edition, v. 3.0.
High Middle Ages, the Official Nancy
Goldstone website. Biography webpage. Unknown date.
< http://nancygoldstone.com/bio.html>
< http://nancygoldstone.com/bio.html>
Smiley, Tavis - PBS interview with
Lawrence Goldstone on Lawrence’s book Inherently
Unequal.
Video and transcript. February 8, 2011.
<http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/historian-lawrence-goldstone/>
Video and transcript. February 8, 2011.
<http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/historian-lawrence-goldstone/>
No comments:
Post a Comment