Chrétiens et Sociétés (Dec 2023)
Le discours de la méthode dans l’œuvre controversiste de Jean Gontery
Abstract
Along with Pierre Coton, Jean Gontery (1562-1616) belongs to a new generation of controversialists that succeeded the earlier polemists (Feuardent, Raemond, Richeome). Born in Turin in 1562 and admitted to the Society of Jesus in 1584, he made his talent for controversy known from the 1590s onwards. The importance attached to disputatio in the Ratio studiorum must have played a role in the subsequent development of Gontery’s method. After becoming one of Henry IV’s preachers in 1604, he continued his work as a controversialist in a number of « heresy-ridden towns », including Dieppe (by order of the King), in the lands of the Marquis of Baden (sent by the Count of Vaudemont) and in Bordeaux (called by Cardinal de Sourdis). Compared with the controversialists of whom he was a contemporary, Gontery stands out for the importance he attaches to the idea of method, to which several texts are devoted in their own right, and, by the same token, for a practice of disputation that appears less personal than that of the great earlier controversialists. This article looks at the reasons that led Gontery to develop a method for his controversial practice, the nature of this method and its consequences for the way controversy works. In opposition to the two counter-models of the theologian (who is unsuited to debate) and the preacher (who inflames it without resolving it), Gontery constructs a singular figure of the controversialist who is defined by a dual quality of rigour and clarity, in other words by his possession of an effective method. Gontery’s method consists quite simply, in contrast to dialectical speculation and rhetorical ramblings, in comparing the Reformed articles with the biblical text and contesting the epistemological and theological validity of the consequences. The sceptical refutation of the consequences leads to the obligation to stick to the letter of the text or to accept the interpretations of the ecclesiastical authorities (who escape the sceptical aporia by being the custodians of the transmission of the faith).
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