Archa Verbi 17 (2020)
Articles
Markus Enders: Zum Beitrag des früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Denkens zum christlichen Verständnis der Natur des Menschen
Medieval reflections on man take place on the one hand in confrontation with the anthropological statements of ancient and Jewish-Arab philosophy and on the other hand as an interpretation of biblical anthropology, at the center of which is the understanding of man as an image (imago) of God and a similarity (similitudo) to God (cf. Gen 1:26). Most authors of the Latin Middle Ages see man’s image of God as realized in his intellectual nature, while they see man’s likeness to God predominantly in his ability to love.
The school definition of man as an animal rationale was widespread in the Middle Ages. The determination of the relationship between the intellectual soul and the human body became a central task in the anthropology of the Middle Ages. The anthropological debates reached their climax in the 13th century, when the Aristotelian definition of the essence of the soul as the “first act of a physical, organic body” (De anima II, 1, 412 b, 5 –6) came into competition with the Augustinian-Platonic dualism between these two constituents of the human being. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas assumed a unitiy of body and soul and wholeness of the human person and determined the individual intellectual soul as the substantial form (Albert) or as the only form cause (Thomas) of the human body. In the Middle Ages, the Aristotelian determinations of the essence of man as a communicative and as a social and political being were also received; furthermore, the following traditional theorems on human nature were accepted and interpreted with approval: the understanding of the human being as a middle and as a boundary between the mortal, physical nature and the immortal, intellectual, divine nature and at the same time as a synthesis of both; and the conception of the human being as a microcosm, which, as it were, contains in miniature all the forms of being of the created world.
Keywords: Image of God/similarity to God – animal rationale – intellectual soul – synderesis, liberum arbitrium
Annemarie Pilarski: Poeta theologus – theologus poeta. Theologisch informierte Dichterrezeption bei Eugenius II. von Toledo (am Beispiel des carm. 3)
Recent scholarship on late antique Christian poetry has stressed the unique challenges faced by Christian poets of this era. One of them, according to Marc Mastrangelo, is the overall loss of significance ascribed to poetry, especially in relation to biblical and theological writings. It is to be expected that these writings – through their pervasiveness – exert at least as much influence on Christian poetry as classical and late antique poetical texts do. However, tracing their influence demands a broader intertextual methodology that not only focuses on intertextual references stricto sensu (which are of course rare since metrical and non-metrical texts differ greatly in style and structure), but also takes into account the shared cultural, theological and philosophical background constituted by and reflected in both prose writings and poetry. This methodology is applied in this paper to Eugenius of Toledo, carm. 3, which focuses on the mutability of the human mind, a topic vibrantly discussed in the theological writings of his time. A close examination of the intertextual techniques applied in this poem reveals the unique ways in which this theological background informs the carmen. It is argued that, here, the reception of theological thinking not only directly affects the presentation of arguments (and also choice of rhetorical figures) in the poem, but also interacts with and guides the reception of other kinds of writings, such as Christian poetical texts. Furthermore, examining the poem’s intertextuality provides valuable insight into the poetic characteristics of Eugenius, “a distinctly liminal figure between late antiquity and the Middle Ages” (Pucci/McGill 2016b, 15 Anm. 5).
Keywords: Eugenius of Toledo – Christian poetry – late antiquity – intertextuality
Piotr Roszak: Thomas Aquinas on Life in Paradise and Its Anthropological Significance
Although Aquinas did not write an entire commentary on the Book of Genesis, it is worth paying attention to the creation accounts in his systematic works, especially to his ideas of life in paradise. His doctrine on the original justice or the first state of man relies on the postlapsarian situation of humanity and stresses the continuities between both statuses. Life in paradise was essentially harmony and freedom. Aquinas’s description of paradise, however, must not to be misunderstood in a Platonic sense. Paradise does not indicate the ideal condition from which a man fell and to which he has to return. Instead, Aquinas emphasizes the progress of man, his journey to God as his first fundamental destination. For Thomas, death was not simply punishment, but a consequence of the natural subsequence of corruption and generation, embedded in creation. Man in paradise was immortal, not “naturally”, but on account of an extraordinary gift of God. Aquinas was anxious to describe paradise as much as possible in natural terms. Snakes in paradise were poisonous, animals included carnivores and thistles could hurt, but man possessed a certain protection against the noxious effects of these creatures. Aquinas’s creation accounts help to better understand his ideas on divine providence, grace and nature.
Keywords: evolution – original sin – Adam and Eve – nature and grace
Martina Roesner: Homo arbor inversa. Die philosophisch-theologische Ambivalenz der Metapher vom Menschen als ›umgekehrtem Baum‹ im mittelalterlichen Denken
In the domain of philosophical and theological anthropology, the question concerning human nature is usually dealt with on the basis of two classical definitions, i.e. the Aristotelian concept of man as “rational animal” and the Biblical description of man as being created “in the image and likeness of God”. The present paper intends to focus on the philosophical and theological tradition of a much less known definition that considers man as an “inverted tree” (arbor inversa). This metaphor can be traced back to Plato’s Timaios, where the human being is referred to as a “celestial plant”. Aristotle, by contrast, rejects this cosmological image and recognizes only that man is morphologically different to plants in that the latter absorb nutrients through their roots whereas the human being eats with the mouth, which is situated in the uppermost part of his body. During the Patristic era and the Middle Ages, this structural “inversion” of the human being is interpreted sometimes positively, i.e. as a sign of his “heavenly roots” – e.g. in Isaac of Stella –, sometimes negatively, i.e. as a sign of his sinful “perversion” and his overall earthly finitude – e.g. in Lothario dei Segni’s De miseria condicionis humanae and in Johannes von Tepl’s The Husbandman and Death. This last work proves to be of particular importance in that is has visibly influenced Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein̓s existential finitude and mortality in Being and Time. Instead of defining humanity through a particular quality or property (reason, imago Dei etc.), the metaphor of the “inverted tree” focuses more on a topological definition that puts the accent on the structure of the human being as a whole and on his moral and spiritual orientation within the framework of reality.
Keywords: philosophical/theological anthropology – human morphology – finitude – mortality – postmodern subjectivity
Marcel Bubert: Das Tier, das denkt: Was ist der Mensch? Zur Funktion der anima intellectiva in den Grenzziehungen zwischen Mensch und Tier im Spätmittelalter
At first glance, there are good reasons to believe that medieval distinctions of humans and animals were based on epistemological premises which left little room for debate. From an Aristotelian point of view, for instance, the assumption of an “intellective soul” (anima intellectiva) of human beings established a clear demarcation-line which could hardly be challenged. However, the question of whether there was a static boundary between human and non-human beings in medieval thinking remains highly ambiguous. After a general introduction to the theoretical background and the contemporary debates on human-animal relations, this study intends to discuss to which degree the demarcation of human and animals was subject to conflicting interpretations. Which criteria were applied to establish a taxonomy of creatures and how far were they accepted or questioned? It will be argued that specific (social) contexts and conflicts in the later Middle Ages could in fact stimulate discussions which, to a certain degree at least, anticipated modern perspectives. As will be shown, the concept of the anima intellectiva plays a crucial role in these debates.
Keywords: Human-Animal-Studies – Epistemic Orders – Philosophy of Mind – Sociology of Knowledge – Learned Conflicts
Benedikt Brunner: Tod und Vergänglichkeit bei Meister Eckhart und Johannes Tauler
Death and transience are current themes in Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler. The article shows how the two authors addressed these themes in their vernacular sermons and argues for pastoral concerns in these mystical theologians. Medieval theologians considered death and the inevitable end of life as one of the key elements of a Christian anthropology. Human contingency and the limitedness of man’s existence have grave implications for a theological anthropology, they also challenge pastoral care and formation. The mystics on the Upper Rhine included this concern in their work. In the spark of his soul, or in the ground of his soul, man is given a place »between time and eternity«. Such insight allowed the authors to characterize the mystical union with God as a consoling foretaste of eternal life.
Keywords: Meister Eckhart – Tauler – death – dying – pastoral theology
Khrystyna Fostyak: Quid est homo? Kontinuität und Diskontinuität in der christlichen Anthropologie des Mittelalters
Theological summae, sententiae commentaries, biblical commentaries, spiritual texts etc. offer us rich material for research on and evaluation of the theological anthropology of the Middle Ages, which shows a certain ambivalence between positive and negative views of humankind. Positive perceptions of man as the crown and ruler of creation, the link between God and the world, a reflection of the world and, most importantly, as the image of God are rooted the statement found in Gen 1,26 that mankind was created in image and after likeness of God. Conversely, the negative anthropological concepts were inspired by the story of the Fall. Some of the anthropological teachings enjoyed an uninterrupted reception, while other seem to have alternated between obsolescence and renaissance. The aim of the present article is therefore to provide a general overview of the central themes and questions of the theological anthropology of the Middle Ages, which, in addition to its biblical foundation, was also based upon the patristic tradition and sensitive to the philosophical movements of the time.
Keywords: imago Dei – dignity – woman – commentary on Genesis – Henry of Langenstein