Girolamo Savonarola: Dialogue On Truth of Prophecy: ii, prelude

Meeting foreign pilgrims [advenae peregre],

"Deambulanti in secessu... secumque divina meditanti..."

...'walking in a hidden place... and thinking with himself things of divinity', the newcomers ask Savonarola if he can help them find Girolamo of Ferrara. After awhile he admits to being the one they sought and agrees to answer their questions. The dialogue that follows, across many books, Savonarola wrote through 1497 as a kind of defense in allegory for the charges against him of false prophecy. What the author says in the text that they are doing from the outset is asking to dispute. This was an accepted, formal discussion of a topic, in a method polished over centuries by scholastics. Savonarola states in his premise statement (what he calls argumentum) that the topic of this dialogue is the truth of prophecy, which refers to things foretold by himself, Girolamo. The result was an explanation for a certain audience. This text may have been completed by November 1497, but, rather than quickly being published, it was shelved until later.

After an introduction to his themes in book one, Savonarola turns to dispute with Uriah, the first of these seven 'pilgrims' in book two. First determining that the color of a lily is white despite what anyone else might say, Savonarola next asks, 'Unde hoc?', or 'where does this come from?' This pilgrim, Uriah, then answers that the notion of whiteness of the lily comes 'a forma', from its form. This discussion then sprouts into a lengthy one about the nature of sight, regarding proximity, clarity of judgement and the necessary presence of light, which fills the intervening space between object and viewer. The light which allows for the focus by the eye, is then expounded upon as a substantial, concrete analog to the transmission of spiritual, or supernatural, or even invisible matters of faith.

Several times the pilgrim asks Savonarola about the point of discussing light and images as related to form. A reader in his time familiar with basic scholastic inquiry would recognize these as accepted understandings of the nature of sight, form, light, and its judgement, based on their working knowledge of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. So, for an audience, like Uriah and the others it would seem superficially to be treading already proven ground, and, it's worth noting, as basic notions in optics and discernment, these were the accepted norms of the educated late-Medieval or Renaissance European. Aristotle's separate notions of matter and form are clear here, as well as Aquinas on form and sight.

Further, Savonarola develops a keen Socratic method in his disputation. A question is followed by an answer which is followed by more questions, leading to specific conclusions which reveal potentially different understandings. These are all solidly found as basic notional underpinnings in the classic western civilization self-conception. As a dialogue undergoing disputation, Savonarola has himself describe himself as explaining these, in order to show himself as well within the status quo, culturally, intellectually, spiritually and scholastically speaking, for his audience, the prospective reader. There is a lot going on here. For example:

Girolamo:... if perception really proceeded from the form and nature of vision, then one would be able to see at all times. For what is natural is always in operation. But we cannot see in the dark, even though we have the capacity for sight.

Uriah: It is not the nature of vision that one sees in the shadows but in the light, by whose action the medium is made transparent; the species of the object is carried through the medium to the eye, and transmits its form to it, and thus "informed," the eye sees. ii,3 

Again:

Girolamo: The visual sense is informed by the power of light, then, so that it may distinguish colors.

Uriah: Just so. For who may see without light?

Girolamo: And you do not think that vision can be deceived in any way?

Uriah: Regarding its proper object, if the object lies at the right distance... [it] can, however, be mistaken when drawing conclusions about an object from characteristics it shares in common with other objects, and when drawing conclusions about an object from its accidental attributes. 

Here, Savonarola is quick to point out how we do make mistakes by comparing proper, common and accidental objects. These are constructions of Aquinas in his description of sight and perception. Savonarola's examples are immediate, found in life. Near sees better than far, variations in size, number, quality grow mistakes: 'the sun looks small, birds high aflight seem round, stars twinkle or the heavens look constant.' Again, 'Flavor does not follow from color.' ii,4

But, again, following Aquinas, Savonarola reminds that the proper objects of sight are like the proper objects of the intellect.

Girolamo: Just as the proper object of vision stands in relation to vision itself, so, too, the proper object of the intellect stands in relation to the intellect: neither can be deceived regarding its proper object. ii,6

Uriah agrees. Even the philosophers can agree quod quid est,  'that which is' remains among first principles. And so it is. All of this is important to understand where Savonarola is going. With this maintained, Savonarola breaks out asking, in what ways is the intellect deceived if not in first principles? Here, Uriah gives a staggered response: those farther away from the senses - since everything is known thru sense perception - are prone to mistaken conclusions. Math is a subject where the intellect can only rarely be deceived. But, Uriah says, in the natural sciences many conclusions are false, and, in divine matters, very little is understood at all. ii,7

Savonarola accepts all this and also says that the study of supernatural things is prone to mistakes as are accidental objects. He means here spiritual things are prone to misapprehension, misunderstanding, on the sideline laying dormant without real study, as if only on the periphery. Unfortunately, not proper objects. All this is groundwork. For here it is that Savonarola next takes his turn and presents the basic arguments underlying the controversial gist of his singular preaching of the preceding several years.
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It's worth mentioning again here the physical context which this Dominican friar found himself. Savonarola had been named as excommunicated from the Church by the Pope earlier, the very year that he began writing this. For years previously, he had gained a great deal of power in the dynamic City of Florence through his preaching and his dramatic stunts. Here he was, in the convent of San Marco, defending his right to prophesize( if that was what God willed) and, regardless of what the pope, or anyone else might say: preaching only sometimes, writing, working over the arguments, and their presentations. In a letter sent mid-November, 1497 to the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d'Este, Savonarola boasted all was well and that there might even be a reprieve or reconsideration from Rome. But, in the City and all 'round published pamphlets mocked him, people in the streets hurled passing insults at his followers, and the youth brawled in the public spaces. 

In quick bursts, Girolamo has come to his central points. If Christians do not believe him when he says there are both Christians in fact and, also in name, then they also may lack faith. He asks his Uriah if he is a Christian in name [nomen] only, or in fact [re ipsa]. In a surprised response Uriah retorts that, it was often heard, Savonarola had dared to call those who would not believe him to not truly be Christian. Savonarola denies it, asserting that only 'those who contradicted him with unheeding closed minds did he accuse of not being true Christians'. [... qui protervo et obstinato animo contradicunt, dixi non esse vere Christianos.] ii,9

When asked why, Girolamo says no one of closed minds can dismiss that which is divinely revealed unless they have 'lost the light of supernatural light'. Worth quoting as there is much packed into spare latin as our editor and translator points out.

Girolamo: Quia nemo divinis revelationibus obstinato potest animo contradicere, nisi supernaturale fidei lumen amiserit. [ii,10]

Though we don't have to believe everything God reveals, he says, we should test all things and, like scripture says, 'hold to what is good' [I Thess. 5:20-21]. Quickly, the friar says he has said nothing against natural reason, or scripture, nothing contrary to the Church. In fact all he has said was within the bounds of reason, scripture, and crucially, that all things are possible by God. Doesn't the lack of belief in these things then show lack of faith in those who fight against them?

Carefully, Savonarola has turned the tables and made his attackers (but not his current written audience) the ones who lack faith, the ones who are Christian in name only. They are the ones who ignore natural reason, sacred scripture, and the power of God. The friar has just begun here but, since he believes that if what he says can be shown by natural reason, is borne up by scripture, and all things are possible by God, then, he asks, why would anyone want to refute them? He will continue with his Uriah and the other six interlocutors.

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Savornarola, Girolamo: Apologetic Writings; ed. and trans. in english , by M. Michele Mulchahey, for The I Tatti Renaissance Library (ITRI); by The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2015