Jacques Lefèvre D'Etaples and the Three Maries Debates

The Three Maries pamphlets published in Paris by the celebrated humanist scholar Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples appeared between 1517 and 1519, and are virtually his only venture into independent authorship. These four short Latin texts investigated the traditions of the Magdalen and the sisters of the Virgin, and the calculation of the triduum , or three days and nights between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Written in a spirit of profound piety, they nevertheless challenged notions of authority and powerful established devotional cults, at the very moment when Luther was mounting his own challenge to orthodoxy, and gave rise to a high-profile controversy which anticipated the response to Luther. This edition presents Lefèvre's Latin texts together with an English translation and an extensive introduction which situates the controversy in its contemporary cultural context, and thus throws new light on Lefèvre's exegesis and his distinctive Christian humanism. Latin and English text.