Ad fontes is aLatin expression which means "[back] to the sources" (lit. "to the sources").[1] The phrase epitomizes the renewed study ofGreek andLatin classics inRenaissance humanism,[2] subsequently extended to Biblical texts. The idea in both cases was that sound knowledge depends on the earliest and most fundamental sources.
Quemadmodum desiderat cervus (orSicut cervus desiderat)ad fontes aquarum ita desiderat anima mea ad te Deus.[4] (As a hart longs for the flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God.)
The phrase in the humanist sense is associated with the poetPetrarch, whose poemsRerum Vulgarium Fragmenta (c.1350) use the deer imagery of the Psalm.[1]
Erasmus of Rotterdam used the phrase in hisDe ratione studii ac legendi interpretandique auctores:[5]
Sed in primis ad fontes ipsos properandum, id est graecos et antiquos.(Above all, one must hasten to the sources themselves, that is, to the Greeks and ancients.)
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 andChurch Fathers in the five hundred years surrounding Christ, over the earlierOld Testament and laterScholastics.[5]
The most extreme version ofad fontes was theProtestant Reformation called for renewed attention to theBible as the primary source ofChristian faith, to the extent of denying extra-biblicalapostolic teaching authority:sola scriptura.[6]: 8 This need to select a core that could reject unattractive Catholic doctrines lead to the Protestant rejection of theDeutero-canonical scriptures and queries, e.g. by Luther, on the canonicity or value of the Epistle of James.[7]
Sylvia Wynter is quoted as suggesting thatad 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.”[8]: 111
The phrase is related toab initio, which means "from the beginning". Whereasab initio implies a flow of thought fromfirst principles 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.
The softest being ofAquinas, whose views according toG. 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."[9]
The view ofJohn 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."[10]: 40
The most strident, representing perhaps a less extreme version of theJoachimite heresy, was the "Manual tradition": the Scholastic tendency to useSentences (Excerpts),Catena (commentaries),Summa (exhaustive theologies) and the subset of Scriptures used in thedaily office andMass 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 alinear view of history, the medieval selections (which favouredAugustine 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 theologianJacques Masson, who conducted the attempts to convertWilliam Tyndale in prison, wrote that "the genuine sense of scripture is found in its purest form in the expositions and commentaries" of the scholastic doctors.[11]
The view of a number of bishops at theCouncil of Trent that the Vulgate was better than even the Greek originalsbecause "it" had 1500 years of improvements, as guided by the Holy Spirit.
It may be noted that promoters ofad fontes did not necessarily deny the validity of the developments of dogma: notablyErasmus, who saw clarifications of doctrine (by Church Councils and the Pope) as a necessary part of their peace-keeping and uniting role[note 1] that did not negate the wisdom ofad fontes.
^He 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."
^"The fundamental feature of Renaissance Humanism is summed up in the concept of ad fontes. It was believed that by studying the original texts whether, classical or Biblical, that there could be an actualization of the events described.""The differences between Erasmus and Luther in their aprroach to reform".Justification by faith. Archived fromthe original on 2007-02-07. Retrieved2007-02-13.
^According toHans-Georg Gadamer (Truth and Method, p.502 of the 1989 revised English translation) there is evidence provided by E. Lledo that Spanish humanists drew the expression from this source.
^ab"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.
J.D. Tracy,Ad Fontes: The Humanist Understanding of Scripture as Nourishment for the Soul, inChristian Spirituality II: High Middle Ages and Reformation, (1987), editor Jill Raitt
