Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West (MART: The Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching)

"'Renaissance' is not reducible to impassioned imitation of the literary, artistic, scientific, or philosophical masterpieces of Greco-Roman antiquity--to imitation which sees archeological reconstruction as the furthest bound of its ambition. It literally involves new birth...."Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P. (1895-1990), a Dominican and theological historian was one of the primary exponents of the application of historical analysis to theology, specifically the development and procession of theological ideas as a focus of historiography. This perspective was not entirely well-received in his lifetime - his work was placed on the Church's proscribed list under Pope Pius XII - but by the time of the Second Vatican Council his influence was unquestionable. He wrote extensively on the influence of contemporaneous scholarship on theology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, and establishment by those scholars of the foundations of historiography."Nature, Man and Society" is an English translation of articles previously collected in La théologie au douzième siècle (1957), which themselves had appeared in French-language journals. The general subject is historical theology, and the arguments and examples presented are compelling as a reexamination of the Twelfth Century Renaissance.The opening article, "Nature and Man--The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century," begins with a terse examination of the meaning of "renaissance" as used by modern scholars. Fr. Chenu admits himself dissatisfied with the notion of an enlightened antiquity, separated from a period of rediscovery of ancient philosophies by a "'Middle Ages'...lexically suggesting little more than a dead center." The assertion of a dead space encompassing an entire millennium is a problem. And so, Fr. Chenu observes, within this supposed dormant period historians later discovered unexpected topography in the flat plain, a "Carolingian renaissance," a "Twelfth Century renaissance," a "Trecento period" in Italy that may have had a heavy influence from earlier France, and extended well into the Renaissance proper. Aside from questions of chronology, there arise doubts as to the extent of that which was reborn (see the quotation in the opening paragraph). Fr. Chenu maintains that Twelfth Century scholars went beyond the thought of the ancient philosophers who were their inspiration, and discovered a place for man in a well-ordered universe of which he is a microcosm. "The moral life of men is a particular instance of life as found in the universe; the universe of human liberty presupposes the universe of Nature."In "The Old Testament in Twelfth-Century Theology," Fr. Chenu reminds that the concept of the Sacra Pagina - ancient scripture as the basis of theology - is familiar in the writings of later centuries, but the pure exegesis uncluttered by "reading and commentary by the master" is found in the writings of the Twelfth Century theologians. Historical reconstruction of theological progression enables recapturing "the spirit of the time." The Old Testament was influential not only in the theology of the period but in canon law and church administration. Old Testament events and stories were referenced as often as those of the New, and many parallels between Old and New were drawn from exegesis rather than verbatim reading. For instance, the anonymous author of De diversis ordinibus from the first half of the century insisted that orders of worship in the Old Testament - prophets and Levites, for example - had parallels in the contemporary era as monks and canons. Ecclesia was commonly compared with Synagoga. Priestly vestments were consciously modeled on Old Testament descriptions and baptism was (rather awkwardly) equated with circumcision as a symbol of covenant."Theology and the New Awareness of History" argues "history as an expression of the temporal order of salvation." Plato's dialectic Timaeus inspired the drawing of connections between man and nature. Alan of Lille (c.1128-1202) wrote of Nature-with-a-capital-N, a manifestation of God, as insensitive as God to the passage of time. But "certain men...were following a wholly different line of thought." Scripture could be read as a procession of events, truths were revealed and expanded in course of time, and the whole could be read as history. The contemporary church was a successor to the worship of God in the time before Christ. The history of church was in reality the history of man's salvation. Time does not concern God, but was given to the world and to the men living in it. It should be viewed as an essential part of the human condition, and history places the events of time in order and helps reveal the divine plan. "In the twelfth century there was not yet a `secular' history" but theologians discovered historiographic tools that would lead inevitably to it.This concept is expanded in "Tradition and Progress." Renaissance is marked by veneration of tradition and especially the founders of tradition. However, the Twelfth Century renaissance included many writers who spent less time writing of their adoration, and more time criticizing and extending the work of the ancients. A rather warm debate broke out between those who would "presume to go beyond their venerable predecessors" and those who chastised "they [who] are anxious to teach new and bizarre things." The overt willingness to break from tradition rather than perpetuating it without scruple, Fr. Chenu maintains, encompassed the age, and many centuries-old religious and secular traditions were set free to be questioned thereby.

A truly outstanding book on many aspects of the twelfth century.