Montaigne's Gods

According to Montaigne, \u2018we cannot condignly conceive\u2019 the nature and actions of God \u2018if we are able to conceive them at all. To imagine them condignly, we must imagine them unimaginable, unutterable, incomprehensible\u2019. These criticisms, directed at Raymond of Sebond, lead implicitly to the promotion of a radically negative theology. Yet, even if \u2018human reason goes astray [\u2026] when she concerns herself with matters divine\u2019, it is still possible to elaborate a discourse on God which speaks \u2018condignly\u2019 of His nature as beyond our power to comprehend. Moreover, it is in the literature of pagan antiquity that Montaigne finds the elements of this more \u2018religious\u2019 theology. This chapter examines Montaigne\u2019s annotations on Lilio Gregorio Giraldi\u2019s treatise, De deis gentium varia et multiplex historia (\u2018The Varied and Manifold History of the Pagan Gods\u2019, 1548), as well as the comparison between Christian and pagan theology sketched out in the Essais

‘By God’s Arse’ Genre, Humour and Religion in William Wager’s Moral Interludes

This chapter reflects on the theoretical problem raised by the depiction of reprobate protagonists and their demise in two plays that present themselves emphatically as comedies and humorous drama. Rather than taken seriously as fully fledged Christian comedies, William Wager’s Reformation interludes The Longer Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art and Enough Is as Good as a Feast have been interpreted as early tragedies or dismissed as flawed comedies because of what critics have regarded as their tragic endings and coarse humour. I argue that while the plays’ theology was informed by the new Protestant doctrine of double predestination, its humour was still firmly rooted in a late medieval appreciation of comedy as a weapon against evil and instrument of Christian hope. From this perspective, even the portrayals of the deaths of the protagonists can be perceived as comforting and fitting as genuinely comedic endings. The plays help us gain a more complex understanding of the historical correlation between humour and religion