‘Epicurean’, a term of opprobrium in philosophical polemics since Cicero, has triumphed over its abusers to enjoy a robust modern afterlife in the names of cooking shows and pet foods. Early modern theologians rediscovered the polemics of classical philosophical schools: the durability of Stoicism, through its assimilation to Christianity's ascetic ethos, found a counterpart in the use of Epicureanism for moral target practice and as a foil for the reformer's moral purity. This scrupulously researched book asks ‘How, and how deeply, did major figures of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation know the poem of Lucretius and the philosophy of Epicurus?’ The response ‘Lucretius is there, but invisible’ (p. 79) sums up much of his presence in Erasmus, Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin. Unexpected paradox, nuance and subtlety make P.'s book well worth reading for anyone interested in this reception, the focus of much current scholarly interest. Her discoveries lead us into the period's most fertile doctrinal disputes and ideological developments: free will, the Copernican revolution, as well as censure and press censorship. In seven chapters of widely varying length (three previously published), P., a classicist, reconstructs available sources and investigates texts with attention to their phases of composition, re-working and sequential editions. A formidable labour: much of her subject matter has not found digitally searchable modern editions.

Reformers of all persuasions had humanist educations, remarkable memories, erudition in both pagan and Christian literature and shared a cultural environment whose members recognised even their most recondite allusions. They betray a deep knowledge of Lucretius' poem (which could be vestiges of an erudition widespread in the first half of the sixteenth century). Their frequent application of Lucretian verbal echoes to Christian topics contributed to the broader conversation between pagan and Christian cultures characterised by tension, but also continuity and reconciliation (Erasmus' poetry aimed at rediscovery of classical literature through the anticipation of Christianity). The reformers' relationships with Lucretius illuminate our understanding of their differences. Even the severest critics of Epicureanism appreciated Lucretius as a stylistic model whose pure, elegant Latin and lofty style permitted De rerum natura to schoolboys (the topos of honey around the rim of the cup of medicine recurs in pedagogical contexts).

Epicurus appears mediated through his detractor Cicero (especially ND) and compiler Diogenes Laertius; consequently, P. suggests, Erasmus considered Epicurus less dangerous than Lucretius. Epicureanism receives conventional characterisation stressing materialist physics, accusations of atheism, denial of resurrection and eternal life (the latter especially subject to Luther's scorn), and libertinism. Calvin's anti-Epicurean polemics attack, in particular, chance governance of human affairs, atomic composition of the world and negation of its creation by a divinity. By the sixteenth century, the epithet ‘Epicurean’ fitted people who were not professed Christians, and Democritus and Epicurus were lumped together in connection with atheism and contempt for religion. While Luther labelled supporters of the papacy Epicureans, Calvin judged papists worse than Epicureans (the latter at least covered with scepticism their antipathy towards God).

Despite demonstrable deep familiarity, Lucretius' name is almost totally absent from Erasmus' works. However, P. convincingly refutes previous scholarly denials of traces of Lucretius in Erasmus and identification of Cicero as Erasmus' source of information on Lucretius' poem. Explicit citation of Lucretius' hymn to Venus in Praise of Folly followed by enumeration of the ecclesiastical hierarchy prompts P. to speculate (p. 27) that Erasmus, inspired by Lucretius, intended to imply the immediately following Lucretian passage on the sacrifice of Iphigenia culminating in tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. Erasmus' dialogue Epicureus boldly associates Epicurus and Christ. P. speculates that Erasmus' scant mentions of Lucretius amount to repression and indicate the shadow of censure by the church impending even in Erasmus' lifetime.

Unlike the trajectory of reception in Erasmus, Luther's interest in Epicureanism strengthened at the end of his life and extended to Lucretius; Luther was the first to posit an Epicurean background for Martial 10.47. P. summarises Maron's contribution on the role of Luther's relations with Epicureanism in the history of Christianity, which emphasised Luther's interest in Epicureanism as a phenomenon of his own times, with the spread of Epicureanism in Europe portending the imminent end of the world. Unlike his contemporaries, Luther focussed less on libertinism and materialist physics, concentrating on moral questions that impinged on theological points: seeking happiness and tranquillity contravenes God's exhortations to mortification, suffering and obligation.

In contrast to the vast bibliography on Luther, Zwingli's interests in Epicurean philosophy have received little attention. Zwingli's notes to editions of various authors include references to Epicurus and his philosophy; his correspondents' mentions of Democritus' name assume their addressee's recognition. Although in poetry Zwingli uses Lucretian clausulae merely as metrical aids, in De providentia Dei he manipulates the Epicurean motif ex nihilo nihil to argue for the existence of God.

P.'s longest chapter treats Philip Melanchthon, philologist and reconciler of classical culture, Christian thought and the study of nature (P. delineates [p. 93], however, essential differences between Melanchthon and Erasmus). Melanchthon viewed Lucretius from a literary perspective, and citations prove deep and direct familiarity from his youth. His sensitive and original insights include the centrality of Epicureanism in Virgil, Ecl. 6 (p. 101); and parallels between phrases in the Gospel of John and lines of Lucan which Melanchthon interpreted as Epicurean (p. 104). Melanchthon was one of the most important discoverers, in the first half of the European sixteenth century, of Lucretius as natural physicist. More severe in his physics than in his ethical works, Melanchthon mentions Epicurus and Lucretius in Initia Doctrinae Physicae in invective against atomist theories of creation by accident. Strong traces of contact with Epicureanism appear in the argument that the stars influence men's lives, refuting the ‘atheistic’ assertion of divine indifference to human affairs (Praefatio in Arithmeticen, p. 127).

P. attributes (p. 159) Calvin's tolerance of Greek and Latin authors to an appreciation for philosophy and rhetoric as forms of wisdom, sources of truth which derive from God despite incompatibility with Scripture. Strongly influenced by Cicero, Institutio Christianae Religionis contains his most conspicuous references to Lucretius and Epicureanism. Between its first (1536) and second (1559) editions, anti-Epicurean polemics increase in virulence, possibly due to the urgency of combatting ‘libertines’ in Geneva (p. 172). In its emphasis on the insufficiency of man's nature, Calvin's humanism appears minimalist compared with Melanchthon's.

P. next moves into the Catholic reform and the relative vacuum in scholarship on Lucretius' relationship to religious censure. She suggests (p. 177) that Lucretius and many pagan authors were no longer considered a serious threat, their danger diluted by their antiquity. The Jesuits, however, displayed ambivalent responses to Lucretius: necessary for the study of elegant Latin style, but a candidate for expurgation, their solution to troublesome texts.

P.'s seventh chapter adopts a philological viewpoint on annotations to texts of Lucretius by the French Calvinist Isaac Casaubon and the German Catholic Kaspar Schoppe. The book concludes with an art-historical appendix suggesting that Lucretius' theory of love inspired Titian's painting ‘Sacred and Profane Love’, with Andrea Navagero as mediator between Titian and Navagero's Aldine edition (1515) of Lucretius.

The bibliography is helpfully divided according to author and theme. This book successfully achieves its aim, to fill a compelling gap in scholarship on the early modern reception of Lucretius and Epicureanism, which has dwelt upon poetry and science.Footnote ¹