Homo Interior and Vita Socialis
Patristic Patterns and Twelfth-Century Reflections
By (author) Ineke van't Spijker
Just as apparently universal ideas of inwardness are different over time, so the idea of the self in relation to others is subject to historical change and dependent on different contexts. Against a shared background of late antique and early medieval Christianity the thinkers who are the subject of this book develop their thoughts of a relational self within their wider concerns. Augustine is the thinker of interiority, but also of the social life. For Augustine, the opacity of others, even of oneself, and how to overcome it, is a main concern. Cassian writes about the ideal of solitude, yet neither the abbas who are the subject of his Conversations, nor his readers can avoid the company of others. For Cassian, human fellowship is instrumental in reaching the desired virtues of detachment, which then enables love for others. Gregory the Great searches for the right balance of the contemplative and the active life, but even the contemplative is not a separate individual. Gregory’s instruction of the leaders of the Church emphasises the need to widen in compassion, against the constant danger for the preachers of hypocrisy and the swollenness of pride and arrogance. These three authors were among the most influential sources in later ages. Their echoes resonated in the twelfth century, when a renewed interest in interiority raises the question how the twelfth-century ‘inner man’ relates to others. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Abelard, and Heloise, are among the writers in whose thoughts we see patristic thought reflected and changed in various ways.
- By (author) Ineke van’t Spijker
Other Titles in this Series
Cyril of Alexandria’s Christological Exegesis
Explorations of Partitive Exegesis in the Dialogues on the Trinity
Volume 70
The Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Its Manuscripts, Texts, and Tables
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Science of Computus, Galway, 18-20 July, 2008
Volume 10
My God, my God why have you abandoned me
The experience of God's withdrawal in late antique exegesis, Christology and ascetic literature
Volume 43
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Volume 2: Self-catholicization, Meta-narcissism, and Christian Theology
Volume 57
Seeking the Face of God
The Reception of Augustine in the Mystical Thought of Bernard of Clairvaux and William of St Thierry
Volume 11
The ‘Universal Prayer’ in the Ancient Latin Liturgies. Patristic Evidence and Liturgical Texts
Volume 56
Friendship as Ecclesial Binding
A Reading of St. Augustine's Theology of Friendship from his In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus
Volume 48
Inventio meditativa
The Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Meditation in Hugh of Saint-Victor, Guigo II, and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio
Volume 58
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Beyond Spirituality and Mysticism in the Patristic Era
Volume 28
‘The Letter Killeth’
Redeeming Time in Augustine's Understanding of the Authority of Scripture
Volume 51
The Christian Topography of Early Islamic Jerusalem
The Evidence of Willibald of Eichstatt (700-787 CE)
Volume 2
Through the Bone and Marrow
Re-examining Theological Encounters with Dance in Medieval Europe
Volume 45
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