Colet, John

COLET, JOHN. - English theologian, humanist and educator, b. in 1467 (?), d. in 1519. The desire to escape from the Middle Ages drove him, not yet thirty years old, to a journey on the continent, during which he had contacts with Erasmus of Rotterdam, with Guillaume Budé and, in Florence, with Savonarola. From this derived a greater firmness of religious convictions and a breadth of cultural horizons, of which he gave proof, immediately after his ordination to the priesthood in 1496, in a series of public lectures on the Pauline Epistles, held at Oxford according to exegetical criteria informed by the new orientations of New Testament studies.

He was later dean of the London Cathedral and founder of St. Paul's School, in which he adopted educational methods admired, for their originality, by Erasmus himself. Convinced of the necessity of a reform, he nevertheless shrank from the idea of a break with the Church of Rome, to which he always remained faithful; a denunciation for heresy, brought against him by certain malicious persons, was not taken up by the archbishop of Canterbury, who knew Colet's perfectly orthodox intentions. His writings were first published collectively in London by J. H. Lupton (1867-76). His historical importance consists above all in his having initiated, together with John Fisher, Thomas More and other scholars, the humanistic movement in England.

Enzo Navarra