Medieval View of Order and Man's Place in Creation

By virtue of being created by God, there is an orderliness in creation; each species of things and every member of them is an essential part of the whole. But because God willed to make rational beings - viz., men and the angels - the potential for that orderliness to be turned on its head necessarily followed.

The first disruption of the 'rightness' of the creation had come with the fall of the devil and the other evil angels. As rational beings, they had received free will as a means for preserving their rightness. ... [The first disruption] happened in the disobedience of Satan. To 'restore the number that had been diminished by the fall of Satan,' the God of rightness and moral order created man. It was a long-established teaching, apparently based on the statement of the Septuagint (which was neither derived from the Hebrew nor carried over into the Latin) that 'he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the angels of God' [Dt. 32:8, LXX] that 'the number of the good angels, which was diminished after the fall of the evil angels, will be completed by the number of elect human beings, a number that is known only to God. ... [I]t was a widespread belief among theologians that God had made the human race because the rightness of the moral order required that the number of the blessed ordained by him be completed. [Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology, 140]

It's interesting that this view of things springs from a reading in the Septuagint that's attested neither by the Hebrew nor the Vulgate, considering how Greek was not known by many Latins. I infer from this a confirmation of Pelikan's remark that this was a "long-established" idea, and must have pre-dated any significant linguistic division of the Church. Interesting - to me, anyway. :-)

Surprising remark about the Middle Ages

Here's an observation about the Middle Ages that I did not expect. In his non-Petrine understanding of Mt. 16:18-19, St. Bede

was joined by biblical interpreters of his own and of later periods; for 'the most astonishing fact' is that 'in the specifically exegetical literature of the entire Middle Ages one looks in vain for the equation "petra = Peter,"' which was so prominent in the polemical and canonical literature. [Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology, p. 47; emphasis added]

Just so there's no confusion: it's not that the identification of St. Peter as the rock was absent in the Middle Ages; rather, it was apparently missing from exegetical works. It's probably worth pointing out that this doesn't (and apparently didn't) have the same dispositive force for Catholics as it does for Protestants, given (among other things) the fact that Catholics have never limited themselves to the bare literal sense of the Bible.

Nevertheless this surprises me, because it seems to me that there are at least a few considerations that weigh strongly in favor of the argument that the Lord Jesus meant to identify Peter as the rock in that passage. First off, I think the parallel with Isaiah 22:22 is too strong to ignore. In that passage is described Eliakim's appointment as steward of the house of David, and what that will mean for the authority that he will possess in the kingdom; this is far too similar to what the Lord says of St. Peter in Mt. 16:19 to ignore, in my opinion. Hence St. Peter is the steward who governs Christ's household the Church in the King's absence.

A second argument involves a certain form of expression in both Mt. 16:18 and Jn. 6:51-52. Let's start with the latter, because no one quibbles about what's in view there.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.

Now it ought to be obvious that the subject of the first sentence ("I am the living bread") is identical with the object of man's eating in the latter sentence ("If any man eat of this bread"). Christ is the bread; whoever eats this bread (namely, Christ, the bread just mentioned) shall live forever.

Compare this with Mt. 16:18:

And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

It's the same construction as in John 6:51-52: You are Peter ("the rock"), and on this rock (namely, Peter, the one just mentioned) I will build my church. Viewed this way it seems to me to be indisputable that Peter is in view. So what about the "problem" that the gender of the two nouns is different? Well, the Lord couldn't very well call Peter by a feminine name, could he? No. He couldn't and he wouldn't. Consequently the gender difference is an accommodation. It's inconsequential. Hence it seems to me that the expressions are far similar for us to ignore the likeness: I am the bread of heaven; whoever eats this bread (namely, the bread just mentioned) shall live; You are Peter (a rock), and upon this rock (namely, the rock just mentioned) I will build my church.

I just see no grounds for argument about it. And that is why it's surprising that the schoolmen seemed not to agree. Now I'm perfectly willing to concede that given a dispute between Medieval experts and me, an armchair scribbler, there's not much likelihood that I'd be right and centuries of faithful Catholic scholars would be wrong. So I do not propose my understanding of the passage to be anything other than a hypothesis that I find persuasive. In any case, my view of the literal sense of the passage may not be consistent with how it was understood in the Middle Ages, but I think that we would certainly agree that other senses of the verse substantiate the position of Peter and his successors as the earthly head under Christ of the Church.

The Continuity of Medieval Doctrine With the Church Fathers

The churchmen and theologians of the Middle Ages had a strongly conservative frame of mind with regard to the Faith of the Church. They were not given to what might be described as "creative theology," if we understand that as suggesting a willingness to question or even abandon the doctrine that they had received from the Church Fathers.

To Alcuin, as to his predecessors in the seventh and eighth centuries, this 'truth of the church' was that which had been defined by the fathers of the church. What has been called 'the self-effacement of Alcuin in relation to the fathers' was the dominant theme and method of his theology. In all questions of doctrine, he said, 'I wish to follow the footsteps of the holy fathers, neither adding to nor subtracting from their most sacred writings.' ... Therefore one would not err if one resolved to abide 'in the company of such men within the camp of the catholic faith,' for outside that camp were the enemies of the faith. [Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology, 15]

This conservative and reverent attitude toward the Faith they had received is perhaps most obvious if we take note of the single most important text of the Middle Ages (excepting the Bible): Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences. This work consists of quotations (in large part glosses on the Bible) compiled by Lombard from the Church Fathers; as the Catholic Encyclopedia article says, "scarcely more than ten lines have been found to be original" to Lombard himself. Lombard's work was the standard theology text for four centuries.

Now whatever else one might say about it, an age in which an appeal to authority was fundamental to the pursuit of the truth can hardly be said to be innovative. So it seems, even if we were inclined to ignore the weight of Mt. 16:18 ("the gates of hell shall not prevail against" the Church), that the likelihood of the Church going astray and losing or abandoning or rejecting the truth of the Faith ought to be viewed as vanishingly small. But when we take into account God's promise in Mt. 16:18 that the Church will never be overcome by Hell, we see that the Medieval attitude towards the Fathers really seems to be a providential outworking of that promise.

But there is more to what the Medievals did than simply appealing to the Fathers. If they did only this, they would really be doing little more than observing the later method of the Protestants' sola scriptura. But they did not do this. Instead, they anticipated the rule set down in CCC §113 (and repeated here frequently): "Read the Scripture within the living tradition of the whole Church." We must read the Church Fathers the same way, and this is what theologians of the Middle Ages did.

Ambrose Autpert said, 'one should not be prejudiced by the period in which he wrote, but should seek to discern only whether what he wrote is true and catholic or false and heretical.' ... Bede's spiritual descendant, Alcuin of York, proudly identified himself as 'a catholic, born and reared in the catholic church,' and he was convinced that apart from the 'truth of the church' there could be no salvation. [Pelikan, op. cit., 14-15]

It wasn't (and isn't) enough merely to say that such-and-such Father taught this; on the contrary, what the Fathers say must be measured by the standards of the Tradition of the Faith as taught by the Church. Consequently they complain baselessly who grumble that Catholics do not identify Sacred Tradition with the writings of any Father. They either misunderstand what we believe, or they are arguing against a straw man.

Why were the schoolmen so violently opposed to theological novelty?

The apostolic anathema pronounced against anyone, even 'an angel from heaven,' who preached 'a gospel contrary to that which you have received' by tradition was, as in the East so also in the West, a prohibition of any kind of theological novelty. ... One who denied the consensus of such catholic doctors on [for example] the doctrine of Mary was dismissed as 'the fabricator of a new error.' [Pelikan, op. cit., p. 17]

Questions come to mind at this point. If (as some critics allege) the Catholic Church has "lost" certain critical parts of the Gospel, and has accumulated a raft of theological novelties for itself (as they claim) - if these things are so, in spite of God's promise in Mt. 16:18, and in spite of the demonstrated zeal of the theologians of the Middle Ages for preserving and adhering to the truth of the Gospel - then why should we believe that others (usually the critics themselves) have discovered these missing truths and have faithfully preserved them? What zeal for the truth have they got that was lacking among Catholics? Or how is it that the Holy Spirit abandoned the Catholic Church but (as is usually alleged) has blessed the rediscoverers of Truth? Their claims simply don't work, it seems to me.

From the Reading List - How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

I just finished reading Woods' fine book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. At fewer than 250 pages it's obviously no more than an overview of this very broad subject, but I think it's a superb one. I commend it to you wholeheartedly.

Indeed, this book is a breath of fresh air after reading Southern's book The Church and Western Society in the Middle Ages. I'm not entirely certain that Southern was deliberately and self-consciously hostile to the Church, but his portait of her is not exactly one that encourages affection for her either. For example, I don't remember any significant discussion of the role played by the Church's charitable works during the Middle Ages, nor of the consequences of (for example) Henry VIII's confiscation of monastic property in Britain. Woods' work is a fine remedy for Southern and a host of other historiographic ailments.

Shorter Cambridge Medieval History - A Mixed Bag

I finished reading it yesterday, and the best I can say is that it is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I think it's a decent overview of the Middle Ages...but on the other hand, it's only a decent overview of a specific aspect of the time. The author focuses almost exclusively on the political world, barely spending any time on other facets of medieval history.

Another thing: his writing style is incredibly tedious. At times the subject matter was fairly compelling, but rarely was his presentation. This may be because the work is a condensation of a much larger one (The Cambridge Medieval History, which is 10 or 11 volumes); it may be a reflection of the fact that P-O died before completing it, and consequently the text may only represent an early draft of his intentions. If this is so, then the editor must share at least some of the blame for not cleaning it up. The syntax is pointlessly muddled quite often.

If you can stand to wade through it, it's a decent survey of the politics of the Middle Ages. But if your interest is more in the way of the arts, or culture generally, then you may as well skip this book. You won't find much here to compensate the effort spent in reading it.

That Took A While (But it Was Worth It)

I just finished volume I of Previté-Orton. It was at times tedious, but often very instructive - which, admittedly, wasn't too hard to achieve given my near-total ignorance of the subject matter.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book was the overview of the Byzantine Empire, and particularly its remarkable stand for a century against Muslim invaders at a time when it was subject to attack literally from all sides. But the material relating to the period from 1000-1200 in Europe was also good.

One of the difficulties for me - as a total neophyte on the topic - is judging whether the author is a partisan. On balance, I guess I'd have to say that I'm inclined to say that P-O made a good effort to be fair to his subject matter, an opinion I hold on the basis of his coverage of things about which I knew at least something.

It seemed at times that the focus of the book was almost entirely upon military and political stuff, but an author has to make choices (particularly when the book is really a distillation of an eight-volume work on the same subject!). And to be fair, he did invest more space on other topics later in the book.

On the whole I'd say that this seems to be a good introduction to medieval history, and I commend it to you if you're looking for one.

Medieval History - The Church Saved Civilization

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the civilization built by Rome might have been expected to collapse as well. But it was saved by the Church:

Civilization, damaged and degraded as it might be, was preserved in the Dark Ages by the Latin Church, and the medieval civilization that was to arise was inspired and directed by that community and that inheritance (Previté-Orton, The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, I:127).

Note on Medieval Astronomy

This post is primarily a note for myself, not something I'd expect to be of general interest.

St. Thomas demonstrates that the (apparently) prevailing scientific judgment of his day was that the earth was round, not flat (of course, that doesn't mean that the Ptolemaic system was generally correct, obviously):

Sciences are differentiated according to the various means through which knowledge is obtained. For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself (ST Q1 A1 ad 2).

And also:

Those who say that paradise was on the equinoctial line are of opinion that such a situation is most temperate, on account of the unvarying equality of day and night; that it is never too cold there, because the sun is never too far off; and never too hot, because, although the sun passes over the heads of the inhabitants, it does not remain long in that position. However, Aristotle distinctly says (Meteor. ii, 5) that such a region is uninhabitable on account of the heat. This seems to be more probable; because, even those regions where the sun does not pass vertically overhead, are extremely hot on account of the mere proximity of the sun. But whatever be the truth of the matter, we must hold that paradise was situated in a most temperate situation, whether on the equator or elsewhere (ST Q102 A2 ad 4).

Minor Point of Historical Clarification

This may not be all that important a thing to point out, but it's still interesting to me. It has been common to suppose that the expert opinion of the Middle Ages held that the earth was flat. Well, here's St. Thomas, reporting a conclusion of science in the 13th century:

For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself (ST I Q1 A1 ad 2).

Yes, I know that they didn't have things straight about the earth's position relative to the sun, the galaxy, and so forth. Their science was flawed, but not quite as badly as many folks erroneously assume. On the one hand, they can certainly be excused: science is a cumulative enterprise, and it's unfair to criticize prior generations for failing to have grasped everything that we know today. On the other hand, it's worth noting that modern scientific knowledge is beholden to the experts of the past. "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants," said Isaac Newton. And does it need to be said that even our modern understanding of creation is both flawed and partial, however much we have corrected the errors of the past?