The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology by Paul Cefalu

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology by Paul Cefalu Russell M. Hillier Paul Cefalu, The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. x + 352 pp. $81.00 cloth. Paul Cefalu's magisterial and potentially revolutionizing study invites a fresh perspective on our understanding, not only of early modern literature, but also of post-Reformation theology and devotion. The book's revisionist approach asserts that the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle of John were, in various ways, of greater significance to early modern religious literature and theology than the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and shared with the Pauline writings a no less consequential role in the development of post-Reformed religious thought in England. Throughout, Cefalu's comprehensive grasp of the tradition of commentary and exegesis surrounding the Johannine material from patristic through to early modern and contemporary scholarship only helps to enhance and render more credible his argument for the momentousness of Johannine influence. In the introductory chapter, Cefalu explores the contours of this hitherto submerged "Johannine Renaissance" and charts at least five principal aspects of Johannine theology that helped to shape devotional poetry. First of all, where the Synoptic narratives emphasize Jesus's humble beginnings and humiliating death, the Gospel of John is couched in a high Christology stressing the Johannine Word's divine nature and the intimacy of his relationship with God, such that Donne could profess that the "Gospel of Saint John contains all Divinity" (p. 2). Second, the Johannine doctrine of salvation underlines the revelatory nature of Jesus's presence and saving role rather than dwelling, in more forensic Pauline fashion, on objective atonement, penal or substitutionary sacrifice, and expiation for sin. Third, a [End Page 90] distinctive Johannine pneumatology, or doctrine of the Holy Spirit, complements this revelatory model of salvation, where the Holy Spirit affirms God's power through the Son's presence and, in the office of Paraclete or "Comforter," provides assurance and consolation, as does, in a related sense, Johannine eschatology, which declares a realized state of things where the experience of eternal life is already present and achieved through Christ's witness. Finally, the style and rhetoric of the Fourth Gospel show a marked tendency to employ modes of distancing dramatic irony and discipleship misunderstanding that are readily adaptable to devotional poetics. The Fourth Gospel's characters who, in a manner hardly commensurate with the Synoptic accounts, must labor to clarify Jesus's enigmatic and elliptical messages or who must overcome their own interpretive acts of gross literalism to see the light are exemplary for those speakers of early modern devotional lyrics whose own often dim and obtuse views advance by stages toward enlightenment. In the course of this far-ranging study, Cefalu ably demonstrates how these Johannine features underlie the devotional verse of a broad swath of Renaissance poets, including Nicholas Breton, Robert Southwell, Gervase Markham, John Donne, Richard Crashaw, Anna Trapnel, Thomas Traherne, John Milton, Henry Vaughan, Edward Taylor, and, of course, George Herbert. For the benefit of readers of this journal, in much of what remains I shall chiefly level my aim at those chapters that pertain directly to Herbert, although it should be acknowledged that the chapters I am not discussing also have considerable merit in contributing to a complete picture of the Johannine Renaissance Cefalu is bringing to light. Notably, an illuminating second chapter examines the early modern reception of Jesus's words noli me tangere, or "Do not touch me," to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. So, too, chapter three demonstrates how the Gospel of John's privileging of the Holy Spirit as Paraclete or Comforter informs Donne's definition of the third person of the Trinity in his sermons and Holy Sonnets. Donne's more restrained treatment of the Spirit's Trinitarian function in the holy sonnets "Wilt thou love God" and "Father, part of his double interest" appears positively prim when juxtaposed with "Batter my heart," in which, as Cefalu underscores with recourse to Phineas Fletcher and Edmund Calamy, it is not unusual for the Spirit's agency in providing [End Page 91] comfort...