A colleague sends me this question, and, though I have views of my own, I'd
be delighted (on his behalf and my own!) to know what fellow list-members
think.
In one of his political treatises Erasmus laments that rival princes allow
treaties, which are supposed to be tools of peace, to become the pretexts
for conflict. To correct the situation he offers the following advice: If
one party to a treaty doesn't seem to be obeying every detail, the other
should ignore it, since one should not take everything "ad vivum." In this
way one preserves the integrity of the Christian community. The Toronto
translation gives "ad vivum" as "literally," saying "one should not take
every detail literally." Erasmus elsewhere (in the Adagia) refers to it as
involving "going to the quick, or to the essence of things." That,
presumably, is its proper meaning.
My interest in this problem stems from the fact that this urging to leave
behind the "letter" or the "essence" of the treaty in order to preserve the
"spirit" of the treaty seems to mimic the Pauline movement away from "the
letter" of Scripture to concentrate on the spirit. However, for Scriptural
notions of "literalness" Erasmus would presumably use "ad litteram." Is
"ad vivum" ever evoked in that Scriptural sense? Or, is it a kind of
secular analogue of "ad litteram"? Does there exist a concordance of the
Vulgate? Am I being led astray from having looked too closely at the
"letter" of the Toronto translation?
Steven Botterill
Associate Professor & Chair
Italian Studies
3335 Dwinelle Hall #2620
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2620
(510) 642-6246/642-9884 (FAX)
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