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Bernard O'Kelly and Catherine A.L. Jarrott. John Colet's Commentary on First Corinthians. A New Edition of the Latin Text, with Introduction, Translation, and Annotations. Binghamton, New York : Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Vol. 21, 1985. 350 pages including General & Scriptural Indexes.
JOHN Colet (1466-1519), oldest son of a prominent London upperclass family, eventually became Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral (1504) and founder of St. Paul's School (1509). For a while he was spiritual director of the young Thomas More. After taking a master's degree from Oxford in 1490, he devoted some time to the study of classical philosophy, especially Plato & Plotinus. During a trip to France and Italy beginning in 1493, he became attracted to certain church fathers, notably Origen and Augustine. Returning to England, he delivered lectures at Oxford on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (1496-97). With his « historical approach » to Scripture, his quoting of Florentine Platonists, and his denunciation of clerical corruption, he attracted large and enthusiastic audiences. The lectures on Romans were followed by a series on First Corinthians.
The work here under review is an outgrowth of the modest renaissance which Colet enjoyed during the twenty years following World War 11. The period 1945-65 saw at least ten substantial articles published on the Dean of St. Paul's, including Carl Meyer's « The Significance of John Colet for the English Reformation, » Concordia Theological Monthly, XXXI V (July 1964). At least five major papers on Colet were read, chiefly at national or international meetings. The Oxford Circle leader was the subject of an extensive bibliography and of a least three lengthy doctoral dissertations, one of which - John Gleason's Studies in the Thought of John Colet (Chicago, 1957) - investigated the possible influence on the Dean of the Devotio Moderna. In the realm of biography, Lupton's still definitive Life of Colet, originally published in 1887 and long out of print, was issued in a modern edition (1961) by the Shoe String Press of Hamden, Connecticut. During this same post-war period, John Gordon Rowe of Western Ontario Univershy produced (1948) [he first English translation (unpublished) of Colet's De sacrament is treatise ; and the Colet-Lilly Accidence appeared in a new Scholars Facsimile reprint (1945). This growing...