Teresa of Avila's Cathedral of the Soul: York Minster, Saturday 21st March 2015

I am just preparing my talks for this Saturday's Teresafest in York. I have never visited York so am very much looking forward to meeting the folk there and wandering around the glorious Minster. The talks begin at 2.30pm at St Wilfrid's RC church and after a short tea break we shall repair to the Minster to celebrate evensong in memory of St Teresa's 500th anniversary in the Minster itself. All are welcome so I hope to see some you there. In preparation for my talk I have taken some material from the recent refurbishment of the stained glass of York Minster's great East Window (illustrated) to make the links between Teresa's understanding of the soul and prayer and the medieval Gothic tradition of theologia mystica. Below is an extract from the talk.

All good wishes

Peter

The Mystical Theology

Recent research has begun to recover the significance and nature of mystical theology as a distinctive branch of theology in the middle to late Medieval period. Much of this interest seems to be associated with the ‘postmodern turn’ that has overcome theology (for which of course Wittgenstein is partly responsible) and, I would suggest, an attempt to recover answers to the post-modern world in the pre-modern. We can now establish that from the twelfth/thirteenth centuries onwards we see in Europe the rise of a type of discourse that centres around the recovery and translation of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite – the patristic master of apophasis.[1] Central to this movement was the group of theologians that arose around the Abbey of Saint-Denis near the schools of Paris (see Haskins 1957, Morris 1972, Knowles 1962). [2] This group of writers and commentators took particular interest in the Dionysian corpus which was in the process of being re-translated by theologians such as Sarracenus and our own English Robert Grosseteste in a manner which replaced the deficiencies of the older translations by Hilduin and Eriugena.[3] The abbey grew with the schools of Paris and was open to the new theological developments of the university and from its inception it was concerned with questions on the relationship between the intellectus and affectus, which we can loosely translate as ‘intellect’ and ‘affect’. Within the texts of Dionysius the ‘Victorines’, as they became known, discovered a form of writing that allowed scholars to combine the intellect with the affect. This will go on to form the basis of much of the later Medieval tradition of the theologia mystica/mystical theology. A good example of this discourse can be seen in the work of Jean Gerson (1363 – 1429), sometime Chancellor of the University of Paris.

In his writing Gerson informs us that there are two types of theology open to study.[4] The first of these is the ‘speculative theology’ - the theologia speculativa – which is the theology of the intellect concerned with sharpening our understanding of the logos of Christian life. This would largely correspond to the type of theology taught in most universities today. However, in addition to this mode of theology he describes another, drawing upon Dionysius and the Victorines. This is the ‘mystical theology’/theologia mystica which as the theology of the affectus is concerned with the pathos of Christian life - what we would often today refer to as ‘Christian Spirituality’ (See Tyler 2012).

            Thus, in the Tractatus Primus Speculativus of Gerson’s De Mystica Theologia, the Chancellor begins by asking: ‘whether it is better to have knowledge of God through penitent affectus or investigative intellectus?’ (GMT: 1.Prol.1).[5] After much discussion Gerson makes it quite clear which approach he will preference:

 

Thus we see that it is correct to say that as contemplatio is in the cognitive power of the intelligence, the mistica theologia dwells in the corresponding affective power. (GMT: 1.27.7)[6]

 

Therefore ‘knowledge of God through mystical theology is better acquired through a penitent affectus than an investigative intellectus’ (GMT: 1.28.1). For Gerson, this theologia speculativa resides in the potentia intellective – the intellectual potential - whilst the theologia mystica resides in the potentia affectiva – the affective potential. Thus, speculative theology uses ‘reasoning in conformity with philosophical disciplines’ (GMT: 1.30.2). Theologia mystica, on the other hand, needs no such ‘school of the intellect’ (scola intellectus). It is aquired through the ‘school of the affect’ (scola affectus). ‘The mystical theology’, he says, ‘is irrational and beyond mind and foolish wisdom, exceeding all praise’ and as he later says in GMT: 1.43.2, ‘as ‘the blessed Dionysius states’, the mystical theology ‘takes place through ecstatic love’.

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[1] See, for example, Rorem 1993:214–219 and McGinn 1998.

[2] The Abbey was founded by William of Champeaux, a master of the schools of Paris and described by Abelard as ‘the first dialectician of his age’, founding the abbey after retiring from the schools in 1108. He set up a small community at the site of an old hermitage on the left bank of the Seine just beyond the walls of Paris. Almost, it seems, by accident a community grew up around William who departed in 1113 to be made Bishop of Chalons. His disciple, Gilduin, was elected first Abbot of the community in the same year and under his leadership the abbey grew and flourished. Following the Rule of St Augustine, the community was at the forefront of clerical renewal through prayer, study and liturgy.

[3] Although circulating in the West from the eighth century onwards, the collection of writings attributed to ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’ (See Acts 17:34) had only received limited attention and irregular translation until the advent of the twelfth century Parisian schools. Sarracenus produced his version of the corpus in 1166-7, the first full translation since Eriugena, some three hundred years earlier. As Dondaine points out (1953:64), Sarracenus used the glosses of Anastasius and Hugh of St Victor to perfect and advance his own translation. Generally Sarracenus in his translation  smoothes out some of the inconsistencies and hard edges in Eriugena to present a more flowing Latin text. In particular, he avoided the strange Greek-Latin hybrid words that Eriugena often produced from his straightforward transliterations of Greek terms. Thus he renders θεοσοφίας in Dionysius’s De Theologia Mystica (hereafter MT) as divina sapientia (lit: divine wisdom) rather than Eriugena’s theosophia ( lit: theosophy). However, he does retain the super- terms introduced by Hilduin and Eriugena (ύπέρθεε changes gender from superdeus to superdea in MT presumably in reference to the holy Sapientia, however the text remains ambiguous with the reference to trinitas.

[4] Gerson wrote two treatises on the theologia mystica which both started as lectures to his Paris students: the first Speculative Treatise (Theologia Mystica Speculativa) presented in autumn 1402 and the second Practical Treatise (Theologia Mystica Practica) given five years later in 1407

[5] My translation: an cognitio Dei melius per penitentem affectum quam per intellectum investigantem habeatur.From Hereon I will abbreviate Gerson’s Theologia Mystica to GMT.

[6] Et cognoscamus quoniam, appropriate loquendo, sicut contemplatio est in vi cognitive intelligentie, sic in vi affective correspondente reponitur mistica theologia.