Views
Sarpi read and was influenced by both Michel de Montaigne and Pierre Charron. In the tradition of earlier Tacitists as historian and sceptical thinker, he innovated in political thought, by his emphasis that patriotism as national pride or honour could play a central role in social control.
In religion, he was certainly suspected of a lack of orthodoxy: he appeared before the Inquisition around 1575, in 1594, and in 1607. Sarpi hoped for the toleration of Protestant worship in Venice, and he had hoped for a separation from Rome and the establishment of a Venetian free church by which the decrees of the council of Trent would have been rejected. Sarpi's real beliefs and motives are discussed in the letters of Christoph von Dohna, envoy to Venice for Christian I, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg. Sarpi told Dohna that he greatly disliked saying Mass, and celebrated it as seldom as possible, but that he was compelled to do so, as he would otherwise seem to admit the validity of the papal prohibition. He was a patriot first and a religious reformer afterwards. Sarpi's maxim was that "God does not regard externals so long as the mind and heart are right before Him." Sarpi had another maxim, which he formulated to Dohna: Le falsità non dico mai mai, ma la verità non a ognuno.
Though Sarpi admired the English prayer-book, he was no Protestant. The opinion of Le Courayer, "qu'il était Catholique en gros et quelque fois Protestant en détail" (that he was Catholic overall and sometimes Protestant in detail) is partially true if approximate. At the end of his life, however, he favoured the Calvinist Contra-Remonstrants' side at the Synod of Dort, as he wrote to Daniel Heinsius. Finally, Diarmaid MacCulloch suggests, he may have moved away from dogmatic Christianity.
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Famous quotes containing the word views:
“It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.”
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“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
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