Holy Spirit: Medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions

M. Burgess Stanley

Description

The Holy Spirit: Medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions (Sixth-Sixteenth Centuries) is the third in a series of three volumes devoted to the history of Christian pneumatology.In the first volume, The Holy Spirit: Ancient Christian Traditions (formerly titled The Spirit and the Church: Antiquity), Stanley M. Burgess detailed Christian efforts from the end of the first century to the end of the fifth century A.D. to understand the divine Third Person. Volume 1 explored the tensions between the developing institutional order and various prophetic elements in the Church.The second volume, The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions, brought together a wealth of material on the Spirit from Eastern Christian traditions, a rich heritage often overlooked in Western Christianity. By exploring the various ways in which Eastern theologians understood the Third Person of the Trinity, volume 2 showed how modern Christians can gain a wider vision and fuller understanding of the workings of the Holy Spirit in history and in our own generation.This concluding volume examines medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation attitudes toward the Holy Spirit beginning with the writings of medieval Catholic theologians from Gregory the Great and Bede to Aquinas and Bonaventure. Subsequent sections describe the contributions of influential women such Hildegard of Bingen, Birgitta of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena; "fringe" figures such as Joachim of Fiore and the Cathars; the magisterial reformers Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin; leading Catholic reformers such as Ignatius of Loyola; and the "radical reformers" Thomas Muntzer and Menno Simons.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• History of religions

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 mai 1994
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441242365
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 1997 by Stanley M. Burgess Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com Ebook edition created 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. ISBN 978-1-4412-4236-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

The Spirit filled a boy who played upon a harp and made him a psalmist (1 Sam 16:18), a shepherd and herdsman who pruned sycamore trees and made him a prophet (Amos 7:14–15), a boy given to abstinence (Dan 1:8) and made him a judge of mature men, a fisherman and made him a preacher (Matt 4:19), a persecutor and made him the teacher of Gentiles (Acts 9:1–20), a tax collector and made him an evangelist (Luke 5:27–28). What a skillful workman this Spirit is! The Spirit’s very touch is teaching. It changes a human mind in a moment to enlighten it; suddenly what it was it no longer is, suddenly it is what it was not.

Holy Spirit, making life alive, moving in all things, root of all creative being, cleansing the cosmos of every impurity, effacing guilt, anointing wounds. You are lustrous and praiseworthy life, you waken and re-awaken everything that is.

Holy Spirit, through you clouds billow, breezes blow, stones drip with trickling streams, streams that are the source of earth’s lush greening. Likewise you are the source of human understanding, you bless with the breath of wisdom. Thus all of our praise is yours, you who are the melody itself of praise, the joy of life, the mighty honor, the hope of those to whom you give the gifts of the light.

Gregory the Great

Hildegard of Bingen

The Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

Martin Luther

Cover Title Page Copyright Page Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Catholic Church in the Early Middle Ages 1. Gregory the Great 2. The Venerable Bede

Part 2: Catholic Scholastics in the High Middle Ages 3. Anselm of Canterbury 4. Rupert of Deutz 5. Peter Abelard 6. Bernard of Clairvaux 7. Richard of St. Victor 8. Bonaventure 9. Thomas Aquinas

Part 3: Catholic Women in the High Middle Ages 10. Hildegard of Bingen 11. Gertrude of Helfta 12. Birgitta of Sweden 13. Catherine of Siena 14. Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe

Part 4: The Heretic Fringe: Millenarians and Radical Dualists 15. Joachim of Fiore 16. The Cathars

Part 5: Magisterial Reformers 17. Martin Luther 18. Ulrich Zwingli 19. John Calvin

Part 6: Catholic Reformers 20. Ignatius of Loyola 21. John of Avila 22. John of the Cross

Part 7: Radical Reformers 23. Thomas Müntzer 24. Menno Simons

Notes Glossary Bibliography Index of Names and Subjects Index of Biblical Citations

AASS CCCM

CCSL CWS FC

LCC PL

SC

Abbreviations

Acta sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur.Paris: V. Palme, 1863–1940. Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio mediaevalis. Turnhout, Brepols, 1969–. Corpus Christianorum: Series latina. Turnhout, Brepols, 1953–. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1978–. The Fathers of the Church. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1947–. The Library of Christian Classics. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953–. Patrologiae cursus completus: Series latina. Jacques Paul Migne, ed. Paris, J. P. Migne, 1844–1904. Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943–.

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my appreciation to Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, Missouri, for support in providing summer faculty fellowships, reduced teaching loads, and a 1993 sabbatical leave. I also am indebted to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for funds to study in the Vatican Film Library at the Pius XII Memorial Library, Saint Louis University. Again, I highly value the time spent at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, studying manuscripts housed in the Hill Manuscript Library. I am appreciative to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts, for providing housing while I was working in the libraries of the Boston Theological Institute. Special thanks to the many friends and professional colleagues who have encouraged and assisted me in preparing this work. I am especially grateful to my wife, Ruth, for her patience and spirit of enthusiasm, which inspired me to complete this trilogy.

Introduction

Completion of a Trilogy

This is the final volume in a trilogy on the concept of the Holy Spirit in the history of Christianity. Volume one treats the ancient church, volume two Eastern Christian traditions. This third volume is devoted exclusively to Western Christianity from the beginning of the Middle Ages in the sixth century through the sixteenth-century Reformation. Because this work covers eleven centuries, it has been necessary to be highly selective rather than comprehensive. Those Christian thinkers or groups which have been included represent theological emphases of their times, although most of them also helped to shape those times and a few, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ignatius Loyola, were dominant forces. Naturally, all of them had something significant to say about the divine Third Person. In the process, I have excluded such prominent individuals as Albert the Great, Alcuin, Angela of Foligno, Balthasar Hubmaier, Robert Bellarmine, Benedict of Nursia, Boethius, Dionysius (Denis) the Carthusian, Dorothy of Montau, Hans Denk, Hugh of St. Victor, Kaspar von Schwenckfeld, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, Jan van Ruysbroeck, Heinrich Suso, John Tauler, Teresa of Avila, and John Wycliffe—each of whom spoke or wrote about the Holy Spirit. From one perspective, it can be argued that the Holy Spirit was a central concern for each of the individuals featured in this work. For one thing, all were concerned with issues relating to the Trinity, and, as a consequence, the Holy Spirit was featured in many of their writings. On the other hand, it would be dishonest to suggest that the divine Third Person was as important an issue as the Second Person. Western Christians usually were strongly Christocentric. Those who did treat the Holy Spirit as their primary theme often came from two groups. The first were those who argued the Roman Catholic case for theFilioque against Eastern Christians, insisting that the Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son. The second included a variety of fringe elements, each of whom believed that the Holy Spirit in some ways intervened in human affairs, superseding established Roman practices and beliefs. Among the most interesting were the dispensationalists, who predicted a coming age of the Spirit in which all would be perfected. Especially troubling to the Roman church were the radical dualists who viewed the Holy Spirit as an active agent among true Christians, representing forces of good in their cosmic struggle with evil. Finally, certain of the spiritualists and mystics claimed that the Holy Spirit spoke directly to them, revealing the divine will. Our study opens with Pope Gregory the Great (540?–604), who bridges the ancient and medieval periods in church history. While theologically orthodox, he also reminds us that many Western Christians in his troubled time had a deep belief in the intervention of the Holy Spirit in everyday life. The Venerable Bede (ca. 673– 735), an English historian writing a century later, is also a witness to the faith of his age and the strong belief of his contemporaries in the supernatural. Three and a half centuries later, another Englishman, Anselm of Canterbury (ca. 1033–1109), emerges as the most important early scholastic in Western Europe. Because of his dependence on Aristotelian logic, his concerns are different than those of earlier writers, such as Augustine or Gregory the Great, who place a stronger emphasis on faith. Anselm is interested in the problem of essence and person in the Godhead, and of how God’s triunity can be demonstrated by reason.

One of the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages, Rupert of Deutz (ca. 1075– 1129) represents an emerging new piety which singles out the Spirit’s work in Christian life. He identifies an “Age of the Spirit” during which the seven spiritual gifts (Isa 11:2) are poured out on the faithful, each gift dominating a different age of church history. Peter Abelard (1079–1142) attempts to use human reason to explore unity and diversity in the Christian Trinity. He discusses the names, the origination, and the operation of each divine person, as well as their common essence. He argues that Trinitarian faith was already implicit in the Greek philosophers, especially Plato. In contrast to Abelard, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), the great medieval theologian, teaches that God cannot be known by rationalism or apocalyptic speculation, but can be approached only through mysticism, prayer, and ascetic practices. He, too, testifies to the active work of the Holy Spirit in his time, in certain saints such as Malachy the Irishman. Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) finds a middle ground between the rationalist, Abelard, and the mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux. He finds in human love an explanation for the triunity of God; and in the triunity of God, illumination of the nature of human personality. To Richard, the Holy Spirit is the overflowing of the love of Father and Son, making the Trinity a community of love. Two of the most profound Western thinkers belong to the thirteenth century. Bonaventure (ca. 1217–1274) provides what may be the most important spiritual synthesis of the Middle Ages. Like Bernard of Clairvaux, he attempts to portray the journey of the inner person upward into the mystery of the triune God. Bonaventure was helping to shape the spirituality of the newly formed Franciscan order, and was devoted to its charismatic founder, Francis of Assisi. Bonaventure’s contemporary, Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274), is the “prince of the scholastics,” and probably the greatest medieval Christian rationalist. Aquinas delves into the interrelationship of persons within the Godhead, although he recognizes that human reason can never comprehend the mystery of the triunity of God. Here we have the most comprehensive treatment of the virtues, gifts, fruits, beatitudes, and charismatic graces of the Holy Spirit. No study of medieval Western spirituality would be balanced without the inclusion of such prominent and influential women as Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), Gertrude of Helfta (1256–1301/2), Birgitta of Sweden (1302/3–1373), Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342–after 1413) and Margery Kempe (ca. 1373–after 1433). Their understandings of the Holy Spirit rank among the most dynamic and personal of all those held by medieval Christians. Equally dynamic, but considered by contemporaries as far less orthodox, were the teachings of the prophetic figure Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1130–1202). Joachim predicted a new “Age of the Holy Spirit” which would be utopian, replacing existing Christian institutions and practices. While Joachim’s message was upsetting to Rome, it was not nearly as threatening as that of the medieval Western radical dualists, the Cathars. These unorthodox Christians taught that the decisive moment in one’s life was theconsolamentum, when one was baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire, thereby entering the ranks of the “perfect ones.” This volume concludes by examining pneumatology within three branches of the sixteenth-century Reformation—the Protestant mainline (magisterial or teaching) Reformers, the Catholic Reformers, and the radical or “left wing” Reformers. The three most famous magisterial Protestant Reformers were Martin Luther (1483– 1546), Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), and John Calvin (1509–1564). Luther’s understanding of the Holy Spirit serves as an integrating center for other basic tenets of his faith, such as justification by faith, law and grace, and the cross. Both Zwingli and Calvin have been called “theologians of the Holy Spirit.” Because Zwingli distinguishes between the Holy Spirit and the Word (the outward word of preaching), and because he appears to stress the work of the Spirit above the Word, he also is called a “spiritualist” by certain detractors, including Luther. For Calvin, the word of God is made alive by the secret testimony of the Spirit. The Spirit testifies to and cannot contradict the Bible. Calvin also teaches that true Christians—the “elect”—are called by the Spirit and demonstrate their election by