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works of the Church fathers and classical philosophers. 457 After studying theology at the
university in Paris, Clichtove carried out this work under the patronage of several
powerful clerics convinced of the necessity of ecclesiastical and monastic reform. 458
Because he openly advocated ecclesiastical reform, Clichtove was censured by the
faculty of theology in Paris, and, once Luther’s own reform movement gained speed after
1515, he had to defend himself against charges of Lutheranism in his earlier writings. 459
Although he did continue to believe that the Church needed to be improved, Clichtove
ultimately moved away from his reforming colleagues and instead turned his efforts to
the defence of the Roman Church against Luther after about 1520; his AntiLutherus is
only one of the polemical texts he produced between 1520 and his death some twenty
years later. 460
Clichtove had been a reader of Dionysius from the beginning of his career. His
mentor Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples edited one of the earliest printed editions of Dionysius
in 1498; Clichtove furnished Lefèvre d’Étaples’ edition with a preface when it was
reissued in 1515, and so was presumably very familiar with the entire Dionysian corpus,
457 Peter Fabisch, Jodocus Clichtoveus (1472-1543), Vol. 2, in Katholische Theologen der Reformationszeit,
82-91 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1985), 83. In collaboration with his mentor and teacher Jacques Lefèvre
d’Étaples (1455-1536), Clichtove published editions and commentaries on Aristotle and Dionysius, the
sermons of St. Cesarius, John Damascene, Boethius, and Cyril of Alexandria.
458 These patrons include Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, whom we will meet again later in this chapter as a
fellow Dionysius reader, and several powerful families with members well-placed in the Church, the
d’Amboises and the Briçonnets. In addition, Clichtove also cultivated close relations with the faculty of
theology at the university of Paris, a body that saw itself as gate-keeper of orthodoxy in France, even
though it had no means of enforcing its judgements and condemnations. Farge describes the faculty of
theology as the “bête-noire of humanists,” declaring that theology had “no need for pretty words.” James K.
Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France: The Faculty of Theology of Paris 1500-1543
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985).
459 Fabisch, 84.
460 J.P. Massaut, "Thèmes ecclésiologiques dans les controverses antiluthériennes de Josse Clichtove: ordre,
pouvoir, hiérarchie," in Les Réformes: enracinement socio-culturel, 327-335 (Paris: Éditions de la Maisnie,
1985), 327.
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