Philology and Theology in Petrarch

Abstract

By comparing the utterances of the fictional Augustine in the Secretum to the autobiography of the historical Augustine, the paper argues that the personage of Petrarch's text quotes Augustine's Confessiones, though incompletely. This is evidenced by the personage named Franciscus hinting at the omissions. The text thus points to the tension between theology of grace and moral theology. In conclusion, the paper discusses how it is that a text from the 14th century seemingly anticipates debates that we would rather associate with the Reformation. The Secretum may be the contingent result of a hybridization of the contemporary technique of writing poetry, based mainly on quotation and emulation, and a theological topic.