Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:18:01.787Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Touch No Unclean Thing”: Apocalyptic Expressions of Ascetic Spirituality in the Early Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Douglas W. Lumsden
Douglas W. Lumsden
Affiliation:
lecturer at theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, California
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The earliest Latin commentaries on the Apocalypse of John interpret this strange and powerful text as a revelation of the Christian community's drama as it fulfills the conditions leading to its glorious triumph in the final chapter of God's temporal plan. According to early Latin exegetes, one event—the opening of the seven seals, described in Apocalypse 6:1 through 8:1—represents a microcosm of the whole, revealing the entire purpose for the church's historical development. Throughout the first millennium of Christian history, biblical authorities analyzing the account of the seven seals for its underlying message concluded that God causes history to unfold and mature in order to allow the assembly of the elect to separate itself from its false brethren within the church. Processed and purified by history, the elect will exist in a state of readiness for their ascension into eternity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , June 1997 , pp. 240 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. For an overview of this tradition, see Matter, E. Ann, “The Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” in Emmerson, Richard K. and McGinn, Bernard, eds., The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992), pp. 38–50.Google Scholar

2. Haussleiter, Johannes, ed., Victorini Episcopi Petavionensis Opera, in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, vol. 49 (1916; repr. New York, 1965). Jerome's revision is entitled Recensio Hieronymi una cum posteriorum additamentis.Google Scholar

3. The best general study of Tyconius and his commentary on the Apocalypse of John is Paula Frederiksen, “Tyconius and Augustine on the Apocalypse,” in Emmerson, and McGinn, , eds., Apocalypse, pp. 20–37, esp. 24–29.Google ScholarFor a painstaking analysis of the problem of reconstructing the text of Tyconius, see Steinhauser, Kenneth B., The Apocalypse Commentary of Tyconius: A History of Its Reception and Influence (New York, 1987).Google Scholar

4. Augustine did not himself write an extended exegesis of the Apocalypse, though he did express general ideas about the book. He strongly supported the exegetical methods of Tyconius, though he opposed the latter's Donatist theology. See Augustine, De civitate Dei, book 20; Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, 3:30; and Frederiksen, pp. 29–35.Google Scholar

5. Matter, p. 41. For the commentary of Primasius, see Primasius episcopus Hadrumetinus, Commentarius in Apocalypsin (hereafter Primasius), ed. Adams, A. W., in Corpus Christianorum series Latina, vol. 94 (Turnhout, Belgium, 1985).Google Scholar

6. Primasius, 94:63–64.Google Scholar

7. Primasius, 94:66–68.Google Scholar

8. From the patristic period through the early Middle Ages, many prominent theologians, including Augustine, believed that the earth would endure six ages reflecting the six days of creation before the seventh age ushered in the Kingdom of God. For the most complete recent treatment of this subject, see Landes, Richard, “Lest the Millennium Be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western Chronography 100–800 CE,” in Verbeke, Werner, Verhelst, Daniel, and Welkenhuysen, Andries, eds., The Use and Abuse of Eschatolology in the Middle Ages (Leuven, Belgium, 1988), pp. 137–211.Google Scholar

9. Primasius, 100:216–101:225.Google Scholar

10. Primasius, 101:228–229.Google Scholar

11. Matter, pp. 47–48. His commentary is printed in Ambrosius Autpertus, Ambrosii Autperti opera: Expositio in Apocalypsin (hereafter Ambrosius), ed. Weber, Robert, in Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout, Belgium, 1975), vol. 27, 27a, 27b.Google Scholar

12. Ambrosius, 27:276.92–277.98.Google Scholar

13. Ambrosius, 27:277.115–116.Google Scholar

14. Ambrosius, 27:278.35–36.Google Scholar

15. Ambrosius, 27:279.56–58.Google Scholar

16. Ambrosius, 27:279.58–60.Google Scholar

17. A suggestio was originally a rhetorical figure in which an orator asked a question and answered it himself. Within the context of this commentary, stateram suggestionis alludes to an attempt to persuade by suggesting what seems to be an attractive bargain.Google Scholar

18. Ambrosius, 27:13–15.Google Scholar

19. Ambrosius, 27:24–28.Google Scholar

20. Ambrosius, 27:281.50–51.Google Scholar

21. Ambrosius, 27:281.5–282.21.Google Scholar

22. This quote is taken from Wisdom of Solomon (Liber Sapientiae) 2:25 in the Vulgate; Ambrosius, 27:282.25.Google Scholar

23. Ambrosius, 27:283.14–284.24.Google Scholar

24. Ambrosius, 27:290.8–11.Google Scholar

25. Ambrosius, 27:291.5–6.Google Scholar

26. Ambrosius, 27:291.6–8.Google Scholar

27. Ambrosius, 27:291.9–10.Google Scholar

28. Primasius, 103:258.Google Scholar

29. Ambrosius, 27:291.16–19.Google Scholar

30. Ambrosius, 27:292.4–5.Google Scholar

31. Ambrosius, 27:292.5–7.Google Scholar

32. Ambrosius, 27:292.7–9.Google Scholar

33. Ambrosius, 27:292.9–10.Google Scholar

34. Ambrosius, 27:292.10–11.Google Scholar

35. Ambrosius, 27:292.11–293.13.Google Scholar

36. Ambrosius, 27:293.13–18.Google Scholar

37. Haimo of Auxerre, listed (erroneously) as Haymo, bishop of Halverstadt, Expositio in Apocalypsin B. Joannis (hereafter Haimo), in Migne, J. P., ed., Patrologiae cursus completus. Series latina (Paris, 1851), 117:937–1220.Google Scholar

38. For observations about the monk's role as a warrior for Christ engaged in violent combat against the devil, see Rosenwein, Barbara H. and Little, Lester K., “The Social Meaning of Monks and Friars,” Past and Present: A Journal of Historical Studies 63 (1974): 100–153.Google ScholarAlthough this article describes monastic life beginning with the Cluniacs a century after Haimo wrote his commentary, we must remember that the reform-minded Cluniacs deliberately immersed themselves in the ideas of their more conscientious predecessors. The notion of the holy man battling Satan for the souls of humanity, of course, dates back at least as far as the desert fathers of the third century, and ultimately to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness.Google Scholar

39. Haimo, 1024:9–11.Google Scholar

40. Haimo, 1024:25–29.Google Scholar

41. Haimo, 1025:3–5.Google Scholar

42. Haimo, 1025:45–47.Google Scholar

43. Ambrosius, 278:20–21; and Haimo, 1025:32–34.Google Scholar

44. Haimo, 1025:36–43.Google Scholar

45. Haimo, 1033:39–41.Google Scholar

46. Haimo, 1033:48–51.Google Scholar

47. Haimo, 1033.51–1034:6.Google Scholar