8. Medieval Theology: Anselm to Aquinas

Illicit sex. Scandalous romance. Activities not typically associated with medieval theologians. Anselm and Aquinas and John Duns Scotus do not exude sex appeal. The same cannot be said, however, for Peter Abelard, theologian and teacher. He was the Brad Pitt of his day — handsome, intelligent, confident, and the ultimate ladies’ man.

I first became acquainted with Abelard in college. I liked him for his outspoken challenging of his teachers, and I took for myself his motto: “The first key to wisdom is this constant and frequent questioning…. For by doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth.”

My regard for Abelard began to erode, however, twenty years ago when I was researching my book Daughters of the Church. Reading about his love affair with Heloise, I became convinced that it was no love affair at all but a case of sexual abuse perpetrated on a minor. Perhaps he deserved what he got, I reasoned, when he was castrated.

Several years later I did further research when I was writing an article titled “Heloise and Abelard’s Tumultuous Affair,” and as I came to know these two individuals better, my thinking shifted again. At seventeen, Heloise, though nearly half the age of Abelard, was considered an adult. She may have seduced him as much as he did her— though he did later admit to having threatened her. After the castration, he repented and moved on, while she groveled in her undying love for him. They spent the rest of their lives separately serving in monasteries.

Since writing that article, however, I have again wondered about my assessment. How much of the love affair and subsequent letters can we really trust? Is this history or legend or some of both? So compelling is the story that it has been made into a Hollywood film, Stealing Heaven. Here the sexy scholar is portrayed with his enraptured student, who is gorgeous and gifted. The thousand years of distance easily vanishes.

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.

W. H. AUDEN

When we consider theologians of the High Middle Ages, we find that history is in many respects the study of questions. The first key to wisdom, cries Abelard from the grave, is questioning. Abelard seeks answers, but what stands out in this era are the questions. Indeed, answers belong, if not to anthropology and sociology, to some discipline other than history.

Church history is often divided into theological periods. The patristic period, or study of the church fathers, extends from the apostolic age to approximately the time of the sack of Rome or as late as Pope Gregory I. In this period Augustine rises above all others. The early medieval period begins in the sixth or seventh century through the reign of Charlemagne to the eleventh or twelfth centuries. The education and thinking is associated with monastic schools. Here Boethius and Alcuin rise above others. There are then two centuries of intellectual decline. The third period — from the eleventh century to the mid-fourteenth century is labeled the High Middle Ages. Here we see the flowering of scholasticism, the system of theological speculation in the Latin West. Among the most prominent names of this era are Anselm,

Peter Abelard (and Heloise), Thomas Becket, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and William of Ockham.

The term medieval means “between times,” in this case the era between the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome and the humanism of the Renaissance. This thousand-year span portrays life in every imaginable setting and psychological nuance. Among the shifting scenes in this panoramic “Age of Faith” is the study of theology and its twin, philosophy. Medieval philosophical speculation is all about God. The period begins with Anselm of Canterbury, considered the father of scholasticism, who puts forth his ontological argument for the existence of God. The times are marked by a slow shift toward Aristotelian philosophical foundations and away from Platonism and neo-Platonism, particularly that found in the writings of Augustine of Hippo.

Prior to the year 1000 there were only a handful of great philosophical thinkers. After that year the numbers grow by leaps and bounds. There are several reasons for this change, including the decline of barbarian invasions and significant population growth The frontier was pushed back as forests were cleared, paving the way for stable communities and more food production. These factors served to enhance political stability and foster economic growth, dynamics that contributed to leisure time activities such as art, music, and scholarship — activities no longer confined to the monastery.

PARADE OF HISTORY

As the parade of Christian history moves through the Middle Ages, we see an increasing number of robed scholars taking their place in the pompous processions. We also see a continued jockeying for position as grand marshal. Whether the king or the pope (or chief cleric) will prevail is never certain. When the scholarly Thomas Becket, after several years in exile, returns in 1170 to fill his post as archbishop of Canterbury, people line the parade route, throwing their cloaks before him and hailing him as the blessed one who comes in the name of the Lord. But the king’s men quickly turn on him, making him a martyr — a martyr who calls forth an endless procession of pilgrims.

Anselm represents monastic theology (with its emphasis on spiritual experience, that of heart over mind), while Peter Abelard (who later retreats to the monastery) is a man of the world. Abelard emerges early in this period as the thinker who will push philosophy — or theology — almost to the breaking point, at least in the eyes of church officials. Like Anselm, he regards the rational mind as a friend of theology (a term introduced largely through his writing). But unlike most of his predecessors, Abelard views theology — or philosophy — as an academic discipline to be studied by specialists. He is a teacher, and his dates correspond with the widespread rise of universities, when classical works of philosophy are being translated into Latin and thus made accessible to scholars.

Abelard’s influence infiltrates the universities in the succeeding generations. Reason has now trumped tradition and religious authorities. His dialectical method (the disputation of yes and no) fosters a “negative theology” — a theology that seeks to discern God by what God is not rather that by what God is in light of God’s so-called attributes. No longer are monastic schools the primary venues of education. Cathedral schools in large population centers offer a more well-rounded education and begin to flourish in the twelfth century. By the thirteenth century, the university is proliferating, often as an outgrowth of cathedral schools. The most prestigious is the University of Paris, complete with a charter and governing board Disciplines include not only theology but also law and medicine and liberal arts Large faculties and facilities serve the growing student body and offer a wide variety courses.

SAINT AUGUSTINE’S LONG SHELF LIFE

For more than a millennium after his death, Augustine was an authority who simply had to be accommodated. He shaped medieval thought as no one else did. Moreover, his influence did not end with the Middle Ages. Throughout the Reformation, appeals to Augustine’s authority were commonplace on all sides.

Paul Vincent Spade, Five Texts on the

Medieval Problem of Universals

Education is entering the modern world but not without church limitations and prohibitions Thirteenth-century popes do not hesitate to put Aristotle on the banned-books list — at least for dissemination in university lectures As translations proliferate, however, Aristotle is cited by all great scholars of the era, especially Thomas Aquinas.

Scholasticism of this era encompasses a wide range of perspectives Indeed, there is bitter disagreement among the schoolmen Some are Realists who gravitate to Platonic “ideas” or “universals” — “perfect forms.” Others, including William of Ockham, are Nominalists (or Conceptualists) who see no reality in forms or universals Ockham argues they “are not things other than names “ A chair, for example, is a name for a piece of furniture All pieces of furniture with a similar look are called chairs There is no “universal” or “form” that is the real chair beyond the physical chair How then do we know what we know? Ockham, considered by some to be the father of modern epistemology, is an empiricist, believing that knowledge comes from the senses, not from some sort of innate understanding These issues were the stuff of debate in the High Middle Ages.

EVERYDAY LIFE

Marriage and Family in Medieval Times

During the course of the Middle Ages marriage customs and laws were inconsistent and ever changing. Throughout the period clerics preached on morals and proper behavior in courting and marital relationships, but they had little authority to back up their words. Standards varied from region to region and among social classes. Life was disorderly and wild in the vast, lawless backwoods. In some areas kidnapping a woman and having sex with her (which in most cases was nothing short of rape) constituted marriage. Common-law marriage was the standard among peasants, most often sealed with a sexual rendezvous in a hayloft or forest refuge. Family and community acceptance cemented the relationship.

How Reymont and Melusina were betrothed and by the bishop were blessed in their bed on their wedlock

Among upper classes, despite church decrees, divorce was not infrequent, though it was a highly divisive issue. Marriages were typically arranged for economic and political gain, and thus when better opportunities arose such marriages were unarranged. The justification for divorce was often the accusation of incest — the wife, for example, being a cousin within seven degrees of kinship, that being the church’s own standard. Changes came in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council: Cannon 50 prohibits marriage to the fourth degree only; Canon 51 prohibits “clandestine marriages”; and Canon 52 prohibits hearsay evidence at divorce trials. With these new regulations the church had authority to threaten excommunication, but enforcement of such laws was uneven at best.

A KISS AND A PROMISE

… beguile a woman with words;

To give her troth but lightly

For nothing but to lie by her;

With that guile thou makest her assent,

And bringest you both to comberment.

Robert Manning (1298 – 1338),

Handling Synne

The purpose of marriage in the eyes of the church was procreation. Childbirth was a celebratory time unless things went wrong, as they often did. Midwives supervised birth in both castles and crude huts. They were experienced, and the best of them had impressive records of live births. Rudimentary sanitation was practiced alongside superstitious rituals such as opening cabinet doors and drawers and removing covers from jugs and jars. The odds of bringing a healthy baby into the world varied according to economic circumstances. Keeping the mother alive was equally challenging.

Typical country life

Aware of the risk, midwives were authorized to baptize an infant when a cleric was unavailable. If the baby was healthy, baptism was typically administered at the church the following day. The mother, weakened by the ordeal and considered too unclean to be present in the sanctuary, remained confined to bed. The father, accompanied by godparents, brought the infant to the church, where the ceremony began on the porch and ended when the baby was immersed in the stone baptismal font, a shocking experience and only one hurdle on the difficult road to survival.

But this age of philosophical thinking is not to be separated from the emerging monastic orders of friars who traverse the land begging, feeding the hungry, and stamping out heresy Nor is it alienated from voices and visions, as Aquinas himself demonstrates. This other side of church life is featured in the next chapter.

Anselm of Canterbury: Scholastic Theologian

As one of the early proponents of scholasticism, Anselm (1033 – 1109) exemplifies the theological mindset of the eleventh century Even as he develops his philosophical approach, he does not challenge the given wisdom of the age. Yet he is often heralded as the most influential theologian between Augustine and Aquinas His monastic theology grows out of his spiritual underpinnings: “I believe in order to understand” was his motto, and his best-known philosophical writing — his ontological proof for God — is presented as a prayer.

Born into landed nobility in a mountainous region of northern Italy, Anselm remembers imagining God living in a palace perched high on a mountain Encouraged by his mother, he is determined to become a monk at a nearby monastery — a calling delayed until he is twenty-seven because of his father’s objections Anselm blossoms at the Benedictine abbey of Bec in Normandy, under the scholarly leadership of Lanfranc. At thirty he is selected to succeed Lanfranc, who transfers to another monastery.

Virgin Mary appearing to Anselm of Canterbury

The relationship between student and teacher often runs deep. Indeed, emotional bonds formed amid monastic living are often closer than family ties. In a letter written in his mid-forties, Anselm reveals pain comparable to that of a spouse forsaken by the other:

Brother Anselm to Dom Gilbert, brother, friend, beloved lover … sweet to me, sweetest friend, are the gifts of your sweetness, but they cannot begin to console my desolate heart for its want of your love. Even if you sent every scent of perfume, every glitter of metal, every precious gem, every texture of cloth, still it could not make up to my soul for this separation…. But you have gained from our very separation the company of someone else, whom you love no less—or even more—than me; while I have lost you, and there is no one to take your place. You are thus enjoying your consolation, while nothing is left to me but heartbreak.

A medieval teacher leads his students

Despite such pain — or perhaps because of it—Anselm focuses his attention on God and on spiritual exercises and rigorous asceticism

He effortlessly combines philosophical studies with spirituality, writing devotions and prayers and songs as a matter of course. His poetry captures visual images of God, especially as when he portrays Jesus as mother:

Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you:

You are gentle with us as a mother with her children;

Often you weep over our sins and our pride:

tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgment.

You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds: in sickness you nurse us,

and with pure milk you feed us.

For Anselm, meditation and prayer are the key that opens minds to an understanding of God. “Being continually given up to God and to spiritual exercises,” his contemporary biographer writes, “he attained such a height of divine speculation that he was able by God’s help to see into and unravel many most obscure and previously insoluble questions.”

The most difficult problem Anselm tackles is Does God exist? His ontological argument for the existence of God is still discussed today by theologians and philosophers alike. God’s non-existence is inconceivable, he argues; therefore, God exists. He begins with a terse proverb, “The fool has said in his heart: There is no God.” He insists that this is a contradiction. One cannot speak of God and then claim he does not exist. But his “proof,” according to critics, is tangled in circuitous arguments. Almost immediately another theologian writes a response entitled “A Reply on Behalf of the Fool.” Aquinas likewise rejects the argument, as do many philosophers of the Enlightenment and since. But Anselm’s proof has had an astoundingly long shelf life, and a history of philosophy textbook would not be complete without it.

ONTOLOGICAL PROOF FOR GOD

This proposition is indeed so true that its negation is inconceivable. For it is quite conceivable that there is something whose non-existence is inconceivable, and this must be greater than that whose non-existence is conceivable. Wherefore, if that thing than which no greater thing is conceivable can be conceived as non-existent; then that very thing than which a greater is inconceivable is not that than which a greater is inconceivable; which is a contradiction.

So true is that there exists something than which a greater is inconceivable, that its non-existence is inconceivable: and this thing you are, O Lord our God!

Anselm, Proslogion

In 1092 Anselm journeys to England, following the footsteps of Lanfranc, who has been appointed archbishop of Canterbury Anselm is named a bishop, and later he too is appointed archbishop of Canterbury, a position that pits him against King William Rufus in a church-state duel He is subsequently exiled and travels to Rome, pleading his case with the pope His exile allows him time to complete his writing on the atonement that is still widely referenced today. In Cur Deus Homo (Why a God-Man?), he argues that there is a rational explanation for the incarnation directly tied to Christ’s death on the cross He asks why it was necessary for God to send his son to die for sin He answers that sin robs God of his honor, and for God’s honor to be preserved there must be either satisfaction or punishment Satisfaction for sin requires far more than an individual can render. But man’s sin must be satisfied by a man. Thus, in the incarnation God-man offered satisfaction for man’s sin.

Anselm also makes interesting contrasts and references to sin and redemption as he seeks to explain Christ’s death on the cross:

For it was fitting that, just as death entered into the human race by man’s disobedience, so should life be restored by man’s obedience. And, that, just as the sin that was the cause of our damnation had its beginning from woman, so the author of our justice and salvation should be born from woman. And, that the devil conquered man through persuading him to taste from the tree, should be conquered by man through the passion he endured on the tree.

Protestant Reformers drew on Anselm in explaining the atonement, although John Calvin emphasized God’s holiness and justice over his honor. Other theories have been put forward, but the theory that drew the most attention was set forth by a young upstart more than forty years Anselm’s junior, Peter Abelard, who was coming of age just as Anselm was finalizing his atonement theory.

After the death of King Rufus, Anselm returns to his post as archbishop. But the new king creates even more problems for him. Once again he journeys to Rome and is vindicated by the pope. Considered a saintly man in his lifetime, Anselm is still honored as a saint by both Catholics and Anglicans today.

Peter Abelard: Scholar with Sex Appeal

Peter Abelard (1079 – 1142) was a freethinker by twelfth-century standards, not bound by the wisdom of archbishops or saints. He challenged philosophers and theologians, including Anselm and his theory of the atonement. Christ’s death, he insisted, revealed his infinite love more than anything else. In his commentary on Romans, he argues:

Our redemption through Christ’s suffering is that deeper affection in us which not only frees us from slavery to sin, but also wins for us the true liberty of sons of God, so that we do all things out of love rather than fear — love to him who has shown us such grace that no greater can be found…. Indeed, how cruel and wicked it seems that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent person as the price for anything, or that it should in any way please him that an innocent man should be slain — still less that God should consider the death of his Son so agreeable that by it he should be reconciled to the whole world!

ABELARD’s MORAL INFLUENCE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT

Abelard’s formulation is the classic response to the Anselmic type of theory, though later expressions of the moral-influence view might vary according to the emphasis placed on Jesus’ teaching, example, life of faith, or manifestation of God’s love in His total ministry and epitomized in His death. But the fundamental rationale is the same in them all. Christ’s death has no immediate and objective significance with reference to satisfying the offended honor or the broken law of a holy God. Rather, His life and death have an exemplary value, a moral influence, intended to awaken within man a responsive love and faith that become the immediate ground of God’s gracious forgiveness.

Stanley N. Gundry, Love Them In: The Life and Theology of D. L. Moody

Abelard’s views on the atonement are as controversial today as they were in his own day. Before Anselm’s influential writing on the topic, the position put forth by Irenaeus in the second century was the standard view: sinners are ransomed through the price paid for their sin by Christ on the cross. To whom was this ransom paid? Origen, writing soon after, argues it was paid to Satan. Such arguments are unacceptable to Abelard.

Even as Anselm had combined theology and philosophy, so also did Abelard, who turned Anselm’s motto — “I believe in order to understand” — upside-down. In his volume Sic et Non (Yes and No), he set forth his guiding principle: “The first key to wisdom is the constant and frequent questioning…. For by doubting we are led to question, and by questioning we arrive at the truth.” Abelard’s thought-provoking subject matter, his engaging teaching style, his confident and easy manner, and his good looks combined to transform him into a popular professor, at times drawing as many as a thousand students.

From his youth, Abelard had been an inquisitive student. Born into a noble French family, he enjoyed first-rate tutoring from his earliest years. When still in his teens, he became a wandering scholar, ever challenging the given wisdom of church tradition. He debated the best teachers of the day, turning academic rivalry into a sport. He is hardly modest as he recounts his brilliant jousting:

I came at length to Paris, where above all in those days the art of dialectics was most flourishing, and there did I meet William of Champeaux, my teacher, a man most distinguished in his science both by his renown and by his true merit. With him I remained for some time, at first indeed well liked of him; but later I brought him great grief, because I undertook to refute certain of his opinions, not infrequently attacking him in disputation, and now and then in these debates I was adjudged victor.

From rhetoric and debate Abelard moves on to theology. Soon he is challenging and besting his theology professor, and his reputation soars even higher. The peak of his teaching career comes in his late thirties, when he is invited to fill an academic chair at the Cathedral School of Notre Dame. His future looks to be brilliant — but for Heloise. Their story is one of romance, intrigue, violence, and repentance — all filtered through the curtain of the medieval church.

Canon Fulbert, uncle and guardian of Heloise, was Abelard’s superior at Notre Dame. He may have set aside his own better judgment when placing his sparkling teenage charge under the tutorship of the handsome middle-aged teacher. Abelard concedes that he had more than dialectical discourses in mind when he contemplated moonlighting as a tutor. “I … decided she was the one to bring to my bed, confident that I should have an easy success, for at that time I had youth and exceptional good looks as well as my great reputation to recommend me.”

Heloise banished to a convent

Taking advantage of her eagerness to learn, he lays his snare: “Knowing of the girl’s knowledge and love of letters, I thought she would be all the more ready to consent.” Heloise resists, but Abelard is not easily dissuaded. “Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love,” Abelard later confides. “Our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words.” Heloise soon discovers she is pregnant. Fulbert is outraged not only by her pregnancy but also by Abelard’s dismissive response—that of putting Heloise in a convent while he carries on with his successful academic career. There follows negotiations and an apparent effort on both sides to resolve the situation. But the anger seething beneath the surface explodes. What happens next is best described in Abelard’s own words: “Her uncle and his friends … wild with indignation … plotted against me, and one night as I slept … took cruel vengeance on me…. They cut off the parts of my body whereby I had committed the wrong of which they complained.”

Abelard recovers from his terrible wounds and is seemingly able to put the past behind him. Indeed, he later reasons, what happened was a blessing in disguise. The assault was God’s means of setting him aside as a monk. He enters the Abbey of Saint Denis. “Consider the magnanimous design of God’s mercy for us,” he writes to Heloise. God “made use of evil itself and mercifully set aside our impiety, so that by a wholly justified wound in a single part of my body he might heal two souls.” For Heloise, God’s mercy is not nearly so evident. Although Abelard pleads with her to forget about him and “have compassion on Him who suffered willingly for your redemption,” she cannot deny her love for him. He establishes her in her own convent, the Paraclete, and she goes on to become a highly acclaimed abbess. But she never fully comes to terms with her separation from Abelard.

Abelard finds the monastery “utterly worldly and in its life quite scandalous,” and thus “departed thence to a certain hut.” But try as he might, he could not live as a hermit: “such a throng of students flocked that the neighborhood could not afford shelter for them, nor the earth sufficient sustenance.” Yet he continues to teach, using philosophy as bait to interest students in theology — “true philosophy.” But his growing popularity only exacerbates the fury of his enemies. They charge him with heresy, especially in relation to his book on the Trinity, accusing him of claiming God “begat” himself. He is summoned before a council at Soissons in 1121. The meeting is stacked against him. Without specifying particular passages or allowing a defense, the council punishes him once again: “Straightway upon my summons I went to the council, and there, without further examination or debate, did they compel me with my own hand to cast that memorable book of mine into the flames.” He is incarcerated at a monastery in Soissons.

On release he retreats to a remote area and builds his own rude hermitage, but again he is inundated with students. Fearing persecution from church authorities, he flees to another monastery. But he cannot escape the clutches of critics — the most vitriolic being Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading reformer of Cistercian monasticism, enthusiastically promoting veneration of Mary Widely known for his work On Grace and Free Will, Bernard is angered by Abelard’s explanation of Christ’s atonement Writing to the pope, he insists it is not compatible with the gospel “I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam I am made just by being washed in the blood of Christ,” he argues “Such is the justice which man has obtained through the blood of the Redeemer But this ‘son of perdition’ [Abelard] disdains and scoffs at it.”

PETER LOMBARD AND THE FOUR BOOKS OF SENTENCES

The most widely read theology text of the Middle Ages was Four Books of Sentences by Peter Lombard (c. 1095 – 1160). Indeed, until the time of the Reformation it was considered the standard text, cited for its information on both theological and biblical topics. The four major divisions dealt with the nature of God, creation, Christ and redemption, and the sacraments, with a wide range of lesser topics interspersed. The sentences, or glosses, were short explanations of biblical words or verses or theological concepts referencing the writings of others. Based loosely on Abelard’s Sic et Non, it covered the fine points of theology in a systematic arrangement, offering excerpts from the Bible as well as church fathers and later scholars. The timing was right. Abelard had raised the expectations, and Lombard filled the void. Having studied under both Bernard and Abelard, he established himself as a moderating influence. Lacking Abelard’s razor-sharp wit and originality, he was primarily a compiler of theological wisdom.

Through Bernard’s persistence, the pope summons Abelard to appear at the Council of Sens in 1141, where his teachings on various matters are condemned Abelard appeals the decision, but the sentence is upheld On his way to Rome to further petition the pope, he is taken ill and dies soon afterward His body is interred on the grounds of the Paraclete abbey, where the grave is tenderly watched over by the abbess, Heloise Some two decades later she is buried beside him.

The grave is not the end of Abelard, however Although his writings had been condemned by the church, there is no going back on his “liberal” methodology — methodology that had taken hold in the cathedral schools and universities and is today taken for granted He, more than anyone else, introduced questioning and doubting of the sources — even the church fathers, who had been presumed authoritative Pointing to their inconsistencies and contradictions, he unleashed a mindset of distrust and urged a dependence on reason If the Fathers did not agree on an issue, he argued, the solution is to think through the matter and let reason prevail.

Abelard’s nemesis, Bernard of Clairvaux, desperately sought to hold the conservative line, ridiculing this new method as stultilogia (stupidology) but the current was too strong Abelard’s ideas would win the day in academia, while Bernard would go on to become a saint.

Thomas Becket: Murder in the Cathedral

Another celebrated twelfth-century cleric who does not fit neatly as a theologian or monk is Thomas Becket (1118 – 1170). An archbishop of Canterbury and the most popular saint of the High Middle Ages, he is the reason for which people make pilgrimages to Canterbury — “the holy blisful martir for to seke.” Without this saint, who from the tomb heals all varieties of diseases, the wonderfully earthy poetry of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales would not have been written. Thomas Becket, murdered in the cathedral, is loved and hated as both saint and traitor.

Through family wealth, good connections, and street smarts, Becket easily climbs the ladder of success. Reared as a gentleman, he rides and hunts and furthers his education by traveling abroad to Paris and other European cultural centers. He begins his career as an aide to the archbishop of Canterbury. Later he is appointed archdeacon of Canterbury and eventually Lord Chancellor in service of King Henry II, helping to maximize royal power over church office and land. But his tenure is not without tension. Taxing church property becomes a sore point, particularly for clerics whose incomes are diminished. As the king’s right-hand man, Becket is perceived as the archenemy of the church. Moreover, he is far more than just an aide to the king. Twelve years his senior, he is a father figure to the young Henry, who is still in his twenties.

In 1162, to secure absolute authority over the church, Henry appoints Becket archbishop of Canterbury, a brilliant strategic stroke, he imagines. Becket is ordained a priest on Saturday and an archbishop on Sunday. However, unlike previous advancements, the promotion has a dramatic effect on Becket. Henry is no longer his superior—only God is. With this seemingly sudden conversion, he becomes a servant leader. In championing the church rather than the state, he takes a page from desert asceticism. He sets aside his ornate clerical wardrobe and dons a hair shirt and rags. Turning his back on the culinary delights and comforts of the court, he takes on the diet of a beggar. He daily washes the feet of lepers, and to atone for his sins he lashes his back with spiked fronds until his flesh is raw.

The king is not impressed. But there is more at stake than an archbishop flaunting his self-denial and long hours of prayer. Devoted to God and the church, Becket now opposes the king in matters of church property taxes and challenges church authority in general. He refuses to accede to the Constitutions of Clarendon that favor royal power. The tensions escalate to the point that Becket fears for his life. He flees to France in 1164, where he is welcomed by King Louis VII. But the story is complex. His motives and activities are questioned by friend and foe alike. He is at odds with his own bishops, whom King Henry II manages to ingratiate, and his dealings with both papal and state authorities are tangled and inconsistent.

He attempts to convince the pope to excommunicate Henry and to place an interdict on England — suspending all worship services and sacraments. Accusations are hurled from both sides. But in the end, Henry seems to back down. An interdict would be the kiss of death for the king. Under this threat, Henry promises Becket safe passage to England and restoration of his post as head of the English church.

On December 1, 1170, Becket, having spent some six years in exile, returns to a Palm-Sunday style entry: people line the roads, throwing their cloaks before him and hailing him: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” But Becket’s enemies among clerics and court officials are numerous — and for good reason. He adamantly refuses to back down on his demand for independent power for the church. And more than that, he excommunicates all those who sided with the king. Henry is enraged. From his sickbed he moans a message, the exact words ever since debated. His closest aides understood him to ask: Who will rid me of that troublesome priest?

Before dawn on his fatal last day, Becket arises, officiates at the Mass, and confesses his sins. There is a sense of foreboding as he warns those close to him to flee. In the late, cold afternoon of December 29, 1170, four knights enter the cathedral during the vesper service and attack Becket as he is proceeding to the high altar. It is a grisly scene. According to an eyewitness, “The crown of his head was separated from the head in such a way that the blood, white with brain, and the brain no less red from the blood, dyed the floor of the cathedral.”

Within minutes Becket has become the greatest martyr the English church had ever known. But the story of the veneration of Becket does not end with Canterbury Tales and generations of pilgrimages that follow. Nearly four hundred years after his death, during the reign of Henry VIII, Becket is charged with treason. His tomb is plundered and pilgrimages and festivals are outlawed. But not even Henry VIII could erase the devotion in the people’s hearts. Today he is still revered as a martyred saint by both Catholics and Anglicans.

His contribution to the field of theology was most specifically in the discipline of ecclesiology. Through his influence, there was born in the English people a deep conviction that no king could ever stand between them and God.

Thomas Aquinas: Dumb Ox for the Ages

Regarded today as the greatest theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224 – 1274) was viewed with skepticism in his own day. Born of nobility in a castle situated south of Rome, he was educated at a local Benedictine school from age five. At sixteen he entered the University of Naples, planning to become a Dominican monk, much to the chagrin of his family. Becoming a respected abbot of a monastery would be acceptable, but the family is humiliated by the prospect of his joining a mendicant order, whose friars travel from town to town preaching and begging. They kidnap him, tempt him with a prostitute, and call on the archbishop of Naples for support. But after more than a year of captivity, they realize that their deprogramming efforts have failed. His mother intervenes and helps her strong-willed son to escape. Still a teenager, he joins the Dominicans.

His brilliant mind impresses his superiors, who arrange to have him study in Cologne with Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 1280), the greatest Dominican scholar of the day. During this time the hulking youth acquires the nickname, “Dumb Ox.” Albertus, however, is quick to defend him, reportedly saying: “You call him ‘a dumb ox,’ but I declare before you that he will yet bellow so loud in doctrine that his voice will resound through the whole world.” His influence on Aquinas is profound, especially in linking theology with science rather than viewing them as opposing disciplines. When Albertus transfers to Paris to study and teach, Aquinas accompanies him. After completing his studies in Paris, Aquinas returns to Cologne to teach and write.

STRUGGLING WITH THE SEVENTH SON

For it had been long apparent to Count Landulf that nothing could be done with his seventh son Thomas, except to make him an Abbot or something of that kind…. He was a large and heavy and quiet boy, and phenomenally silent, scarcely opening his mouth except to say suddenly to his schoolmaster in an explosive manner, “What is God?” … So everything was smoothly arranged for Thomas Aquinas becoming a monk, which would seem to be what he himself wanted; and sooner or later becoming Abbot of Monte Cassino. And then the curious thing happened….Thomas Aquinas walked into his father’s castle one day and calmly announced that he had become one of the Begging Friars, of the new order founded by Dominic the Spaniard….

G. K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox

Thomas Aquinas

For Aquinas, as was true in the early church, theology serves as an apologetic tool in the cause of mission outreach — in this case to Muslims and Jews. By the thirteenth century the works of Islamic and Jewish writers have been translated into Latin, and there is a lively exchange of scholarship. With this development Aquinas writes Summa Contra Gentiles (also known as Manual Against the Heathen). Depending heavily on Aristotle (“the philosopher”), he argues that the existence of God can be proved through reason and maintains that such an apologetic paves the way for the “heathen” to understand the Bible, particularly the Trinity and the incarnation.

After teaching at Cologne, Aquinas relocates to the University of Paris, where he continues to pursue his education and teaching. But he does not settle down for long. Beginning in 1260 and until his death in 1274, he travels throughout Europe, preaching and teaching and consulting. He performs service for the pope and for the Dominican Order. Amid his other duties, he writes obsessively, his works eventually filling some twenty large volumes. In addition to his apologetics manual, he turns out numerous biblical commentaries. But his magnum opus is Summa Theologica, the most comprehensive treatise on theology ever written, acclaimed more for its sheer volume and breadth than for its originality. Unlike Abelard, Aquinas is not venturing into uncharted terrain. Rather, he cites authorities and often seeks to harmonize contrasting views.

In part 1, Sacred Doctrine, for example, he deals with seven major topics (God, Trinity, creation, angels, matter, man, government). Under the topic of God, he lists several categories, including intellect and will, under which he includes predestination — a subject that merits a total of eight major questions. The first of these questions is: “Is predestination suitably attributed to God?” The third question is: “Does the reprobation of some men belong to God?” For each question he lists a series of objections and a series of replies, all referenced from sources, including Scripture, the church fathers, theologians, and philosophers.

“Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.”

Thomas Aquinas

Christian scholars would later come to cite Thomas Aquinas as “the theologian” as easily as Aquinas cited Aristotle as “the philosopher.” More than presenting merely an objective encyclopedia of theological positions, Aquinas takes a solid stance (based on the arguments of others), and his work serves as a standard for correct doctrine. His conclusions are often less than profound, as on the topic of predestination. “It is fitting that God should predestine men,” he writes. “For to destine, is to direct or send. Thus it is clear that predestination, as regards its objects, is part of providence.” On reprobation he writes: “Therefore, as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory, so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”

As knowledgeable as he was, Aquinas confessed that “the most man can know is that he does not know God.” Yet one of his claims to fame is his formulation of his famous “Five Ways,” proving the existence of God through natural theology. These “ways” are arguments drawn largely from Aristotle, summarized as follows:

1. Motion in the universe is the result of a

Prime Mover, that being God.

2. Nothing can produce itself; everything has a

Creator or Cause, that being God.

3. Things in the universe would not exist at all,

but for a Planner, that being God.

4. Standards of excellence can only come from

what is Perfection, that being God.

5. The universe is orderly, the work of an Intelligent

Designer, that being God.

At times Aquinas seems to labor too hard to harmonize Aristotle’s philosophy with the tenor of the Bible. For example, in discussing the providence of God he is dealing with two seeming opposites: Aristotle, who essentially maintains that God, the “Unmoved Mover,” is not actively involved in the world; and the biblical portrayal of God. In attempting to harmonize this, Aquinas acknowledges that God is within his very being the ultimate cause and thus knows everything, past and future, in that he exists outside of time. Thus as Unmoved Mover, God is the one who is always active in human affairs — a God made understandable in human terms through Scripture.

SUMMA THEOLOGICA

It is not possible to characterize the method of St. Thomas by one word, unless it can be called eclectic. It is Aristotelian, Platonic, and Socratic; it is inductive and deductive; it is analytic and synthetic. He chose the best that could he found in those who preceded him, carefully sifting the chaff from the wheat, approving what was true, rejecting the false. His powers of synthesis were extraordinary. No writer surpassed him in the faculty of expressing in a few well-chosen words the truth gathered from a multitude of varying and conflicting opinions.

New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

Because of his heavy dependence on Aristotle, Aquinas was strongly criticized after his death by certain other theologians, including William of Ockham and Duns Scotus, who recognized the inherent contradictions in revelation and reason In 1277 the archbishop of Paris sought to have his work condemned by the church, but the effort was stopped before a trial began.

Lofty matters of metaphysics comprise only a portion of Summa Theologica. Among down-to-earth matters included in his tome is a lengthy discussion of sex, specifically as it relates to sin Conceding that sex in marriage for procreation is not sin, he goes on to cover a wide range of related issues including:

Whether simple fornication is a mortal sin?

Whether fornication is the most grievous of sins?

Whether there can be mortal sin in touches and kisses?

Whether nocturnal pollution is a mortal sin?

Whether seduction should be reckoned a species of lust?

Whether rape is a species of lust, distinct from seduction?

Whether adultery is a determinate species of lust, distinct from other species?

Whether incest is a determinate species of lust?

Whether unnatural vice is a species of lust?

In discussing unnatural vice (masturbation, sodomy, and bestiality), Aquinas asks whether this is the greatest of such sins. His answer in the affirmative is perhaps not surprising in light of his marriage of theology and natural science. What is against nature is against God. “In every genus, worst of all is the corruption of the principle on which the rest depend,” he argues. “Therefore, since by the unnatural vices man transgresses that which has been determined by nature with regard to the use of venereal actions, it follows that in this matter this sin is gravest of all.”

AQUINAS AND THE REFORMATION

Faith is higher than reason; but reason is higher than anything else, and has supreme rights in its own domain. That is where it anticipates and answers the anti-rational cry of Luther and the rest; as a highly Pagan poet said to me: “The Reformation happened because people hadn’t the brains to understand Aquinas.”

G. K. Chesterton,

St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox

The range of topics that Aquinas addresses in his thousands of pages of writing is astounding. In fact, according to the testimony of one of his closest associates, he would sometimes dictate to as many as three or four secretaries at a time on different subjects, from memory rather than from notes or manuscripts. When stumped on a particular theological conundrum, he would pause to go into deep meditation and prayer and then return to the topic with clarity. Some of his writing is drafted in his own difficult-to-decipher handwriting but with the same logical progression that typifies his dictation.

REASON AND REVELATION STROLL HAND IN HAND

During the three weeks when I submitted myself to the discipline of inhabiting Aquinas’ thought, of seeing with his eyes and breathing through his nostrils, I came to understand how comfortable the worldview of the Church could be. “Just give your assent to a few little preliminary ideas,” the Summa whispered, “and I will take care of everything else; I will settle all your questions, even the questions you don’t know how to ask; I will order the world into a total structure, a magnificent architecture of hierarchically interconnecting ideas. Everything will be decided forever. Let me do it for you. Trust me.” I could feel the satisfaction this kind of system provided; at least, for several pages I could feel it. There I was, standing in the downtown of Christian culture, with the great emporiums of belief lining the granite boulevards. Reason and Revelation strolled arm in arm beside me on a spring afternoon, window-shopping. All the floor-managers and salespeople patiently displayed their wares and answered us in the politest newspaper Latin. Somewhere, on some top floor, the Holy Spirit occupied His revolving chairmanship, on the lookout for safe investments. In every president’s office of every building, God the Father leaned back in a leather chair, His ankles crossed on the desk, while in the room with the bare light bulb His Son added up figures for the final inventory.

Stephen Mitchell, Meetings with the Archangel

Aquinas, who proves the existence of God with “Five Ways,” finds God most real in a vision. He had experienced visions earlier in life, but a vision near the end of his life affects him so profoundly that he sets aside his writing. His closest aide pleads with him to take up his pen again. “I cannot,” he confides. “Such things have been revealed to me that what I have written seems but straw.” The vision has physical consequences as well, causing some to speculate that he may have had a stroke or a mental breakdown. Some time later he is injured while riding a donkey to a church council and dies soon after.

Recognized as a great scholar during his lifetime, Aquinas continued to be revered after his death. His works were copied and housed in monastic and university libraries throughout Europe. In 1323 he was canonized a saint by Pope John XXII. Then in 1879 Pope Leo XIII declared that his writings represent official Catholic teaching, though not so authoritative as to be above challenge.

Bonaventure: Monk of Good Fortune

Bonaventure (c. 1221 – 1274), like Aquinas, was both a philosopher and a monk. While studying at the University of Paris, he entered the Franciscan Order. Soon he became director of the Franciscan School in Paris, and at thirty-six he was named minister-general of the order.

Born John di Fidanza, son of Giovanni and Maria, he grew up in Italy near Rome. As an infant with a life-threatening illness he was taken to St. Francis and, according to legend, miraculously cured. Francis blesses him, O buona ventura, pronouncing good fortune on him.

Like Aquinas, his classmate at the University of Paris, Bonaventure is a bright scholar; but unlike Aquinas, he looks to Plato as the philosopher. His mystical spirituality blends with his philosophical and theological enterprise. Warm affection of the heart is superior to intellectual reasoning He lectures on Lombard’s Four Books of Sentences and teaches philosophy, but his primary focus is spiritual formation. The Soul’s Journey into God is written in Tuscany at the same spot where Francis had a profound visionary experience In this spiritual manual he challenges the Christian to avoid seeking God merely through reasoning or study:

THEOLOGICAL DEFENSE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

John Duns Scotus (c. 1265 – 1308), one of Ockham’s teachers, is recognized as the first Western theologian to offer theological support for the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. So influential are his arguments that he is known as the “Marian Doctor.” His devotion to Mary dates to his early childhood, when an apparent learning disability pegs him as a “pea-brained” boy. He pours out his heart to Mary, pleading for help, and is soon at the head of his class. Decades later, on Christmas night in 1299, Mary appears to him and places the baby Jesus in his arms, stirring him to concentrate his study and writing on the incarnation of Christ. But it is his focus on Mary’s sinlessness for which he is most remembered. Praying for “strength against [his] enemies,” he is assured by her that she will empower him. Convinced of her guidance, he presents his argument: Like everyone else, Mary needs to be redeemed through Christ’s atonement on the cross. But had her redemption not occurred until he was crucified, she would have committed sins. So her sins are paid for through the crucifixion in advance, and she is thus born without sin. Duns Scotus further argues: “The Perfect Redeemer must, in some case, have done the work of redemption most perfectly, which would not be, unless there is some person, at least, in whose regard, the wrath of God was anticipated and not merely appeased.”

COULD A DONKEY HAVE BECOME THE INCARNATE CHRIST?

Ockham contributed to the destruction of the scientific God … by launching a process that led to the decoupling of the Christian God from the Greek philosophical idea of First Cause…. Ockham understood God’s omnipotence to mean that God can do anything that God chooses to do. This emphasis formed a stark contrast to the implications inherent in the older metaphysic of essences, which suggested that God was governed by (and therefore, in Ockham’s estimation, limited by) the eternal ideas of essences…. [This] is evident, for example, in his declaration that God could have chosen to become incarnate as an animal such as an ox or a donkey, rather than a human being. This seemingly crass statement articulates Ockham’s conviction that the incarnation, like God’s ways in general, is the product of an arbitrary act of divine will, rather than the outworking of a rational plan…. Ockham rejected the claim implicit in Thomism that divine and human reason are so close that if we were able to gain access to God’s mind we could understand its operative logic. In Ockham’s estimation, this assumption was tantamount to transforming the living God of the Bible into a “civilized Aristotelian.”

Stanley James Grenz, The Named God and the Question of Being

First, therefore, I invite the reader to the groans of prayer through Christ crucified, through whose blood we are cleansed from the filth of vice — so that he not believe that reading is sufficient without unction, speculation without devotion, investigation without wonder, observation without joy, work without piety, knowledge without love, understanding without humility, endeavor without divine grace, reflection without divinely inspired wisdom Therefore, man of God, first exercise yourself in remorse of conscience before you raise your eyes to the rays of Wisdom reflected in its mirrors, lest perhaps from gazing upon these rays you fall into a deeper pit of darkness.

William of Ockham: The Merit of Simplicity

Born in the small town of Ockham in Surrey, England, William (c. 1288 – 1347) is perhaps best remembered for “Ockham’s Razor,” a philosophical method or principle that demands simplicity One must cut through complicated ideas by identifying the basics and then pursuing the simplest hypothesis Problem solving must not be unnecessarily complex During his lifetime and since, the counter-argument is that the simplest hypothesis is not always true — that sometimes a complex and convoluted process is required But for all students who struggle with problems that seem to be unnecessarily weighed down with complexity, Ockham is a hero However, Ockham is far more than that Deeply involved in church matters, he has been regarded by some as the first Protestant.

As a youth William joins the Franciscans and continues his schooling at Oxford, becoming a leading critic of scholasticism, a theological system he finds convoluted and often irrelevant He also criticizes the church for its ostentatious wealth. As a Franciscan, he tangles with the pope and with his own religious order over Christ’s call to poverty. Franciscan monasteries have acquired land, established educational institutions, and become rich — the rule of poverty long since abandoned. Critics, however, disparage what they deem pride in poverty. Popes living in luxury are caught up in the debate. Pope John XXII pontificates against the rule of poverty and in 1322 decrees that the Franciscans must own property. He likewise challenges the Franciscan “heresy” that Christ and the disciples lived a life of poverty, owning no property.

But Ockham’s problems with the pope involve more than the matter of poverty. His teaching at the University of Paris has a profound impact on scholars and lay people who, like him, challenge the power of the papacy — particularly in this era of Avignon popes and antipopes. With his public censure of the pope, he is summoned to Avignon in 1324. During the four years that follow, he is held under house arrest while charges of heresy are investigated. He, in turn, charges the pope with heresy, and in 1328 he escapes to Germany. Here, with the head of the Franciscan order, he finds protection under Emperor Ludwig (Louis IV), who is also challenging papal authority.

Together, monk and emperor seek to overturn the authoritarian rule of Pope John and his successors, Benedict XII and Clement VI. Ockham’s philosophical views on church and state would become foundational for Reformers and the conciliar movement, which sought to limit papal power in favor of councils. His demands are dangerously “liberal” for the late medieval church. Though hardly representative of modern democracy, his views pave the way for human rights advocacy in later centuries. Christians, right or wrong, he argues, have a right to hold and defend their opinions without threats from church or state. Other controversial stands he proposes include:

Neither the pope nor church councils are infallible.

A pope who propagates false teaching or infringes on the rights of Christians can be deposed.

Secular states are not under the authority of the church.

Secular authorities must honor the rights of citizens.

A despot may be deposed.

One of the most daring of Ockham’s proposals relates to women. In his Dialogues, he portrays the student interacting with the teacher. In one instance the disciple asks the master about women’s involvement in church councils. The master responds: “In the new man there is ‘neither male nor female ‘[Galatians 3:28]. And therefore, where the wisdom, goodness or power of a woman is necessary to the discussion of the faith (which is to be discussed especially in a general council), the woman is not to be excluded from the general council.”

Ockham lived out his life at a monastery in Munich, challenging the church from afar. His influence on late medieval reformers was profound, and many of his views paralleled those of John Wycliffe and Jan Hus. In many ways he is the most modern — and perhaps the most admirable — of the great medieval theologians.

Medieval theology is not an abstract venture created in a vacuum devoid of emotion and personality. Scholars have long recognized theology as biography—that theological propositions are significantly formed by an individual’s background and character traits. So it was in the Middle Ages.

What If …

What if Anselm had not written Cur Deus Homo (Why a God-Man?)? It is difficult to exaggerate the influence that manuscript has had on the theology of the atonement. Might Catholic and Protestant theology be different today without that slim volume?

What if Abelard had not sought out an opportunity to tutor the beautiful Heloise? Might his star power as a brilliant Christian philosopher have won the day, slanting church dogma in a very different direction?

What if Thomas Aquinas had followed his older brothers into a military career? Without his writings, the Catholic Church might have floundered in a maze of differing theological perspectives. Even early Protestant theologians would have been the poorer without his vast foundational landscape to either accept or reject and to challenge point by point.

What if William of Ockham had prevailed in his argument that in the “new man” there is neither male nor female and that women therefore should not be excluded in the highest levels of the church? Imagine how different the church might be today if women since the High Middle Ages had been welcomed in all levels of ministry and considered, as Ockham argued, “necessary to the discussion of the faith.”

8. Medieval Theology: Anselm to Aquinas

8. Medieval Theology: Anselm to Aquinas

CHAPTER 8

Medieval Theology

Anselm to Aquinas

PARADE OF HISTORY

SAINT AUGUSTINE’S LONG SHELF LIFE

EVERYDAY LIFE

A KISS AND A PROMISE

Anselm of Canterbury: Scholastic Theologian

ONTOLOGICAL PROOF FOR GOD

Peter Abelard: Scholar with Sex Appeal

ABELARD’s MORAL INFLUENCE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT

PETER LOMBARD AND THE FOUR BOOKS OF SENTENCES

Thomas Becket: Murder in the Cathedral

Thomas Aquinas: Dumb Ox for the Ages

STRUGGLING WITH THE SEVENTH SON

SUMMA THEOLOGICA

AQUINAS AND THE REFORMATION

REASON AND REVELATION STROLL HAND IN HAND

Bonaventure: Monk of Good Fortune

THEOLOGICAL DEFENSE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

COULD A DONKEY HAVE BECOME THE INCARNATE CHRIST?

William of Ockham: The Merit of Simplicity

What If …

Further Reading