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The Symbolic Mentality of the Twelfth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2024

Marie-Madeleine Davy
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The Middle Ages, and in particular the twelfth century, with its monks who were philosophers, theologians, and mystics, hung upon biblical thought and through it did its thinking, its loving, and its acting. The Old and the New Testaments were studied and meditated upon together, though the Old Testament was more often commented upon than was the New. Both offered two successive stages, represented by the law and by grace. For the men of the twelfth century Holy Scripture was the basis of their symbolic mentality. Through Scripture they could distinguish a duality of meanings which can be stated precisely under the terms “letter” and “spirit.” This double terminology was comprehended on two different levels and depended on the degree of the individual's evolution. Saint Bernard understood it very well when he alluded to the ordinary mode of seeing and to the spiritual mode. The heart's vision sees in the mind (Sermon XLV, 5, on the Song of Songs. Just as that hearing which is not of the body but which belongs to the heart understands what the ears could not hear, there are, according to Saint Bernard, three kinds of language to which three modes of understanding correspond: the mode of the hireling, that of the son, and that of the wife (Sermon VII, 2, on the Song of Songs) ? The first stays on the threshold to knowledge, the second crosses it, but only the wife penetrates into true knowledge which designates a knowledge acquired more by intuition than by learning and which Saint Jerome called “scientia secretorum.” This stimulates another way of thinking and of loving and coincides with a new dimension of being. In regard to the comprehension of symbolic content, three steps or successive stages are involved here.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Diogenes , Volume 8 , Issue 32 , December 1960 , pp. 94 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © 1960 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1. Patrologie latine I83. I00I. For this and other references to the commentary on the Song of Songs see Cantica Canticorum: Eighty-six Sermons on the Song of Solomon, trans. S. J. Eales (London: Stock, I895); and Saint Bernard on the Song of Songs, trans lated by a Religious of C.S.M.V. (London: Mowbray, I952).

2. Patrologie latine I83. 807. This same theme was set forth at length by Cassian, Collatio XI, vii, in Patrologie latine 39. 853. For an English translation of Cassian see A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2d ser., XI (New York: Christian Literature Co., I894), 4I7-I8.

3. Patrologie latine I83. 945.

4. Cf. E. Faral, Recherches sur les sources latines des contes et romans courtois du Moyen Age (Paris, I9I3).

5. Alphandéry, "L'Ephémérisme et le début de l'histoire des religions au Moyen Age," Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, CIX (I934), 23.

6. Serm. II, I, De diversis, in Patrologie latine I83. 542.

7. Sermon de diversis XL, 2, in Patrologie latine I83. 648.

8. Guillaume de Conches, Glossa in Timaeum. Cf. J.-M. Parent, La Doctrine de la créa tion dans l'école de Chartres (Paris, I938), p. I46: "mundus ordinata collectio creaturarum."

9. Cf. the writer's Essai sur la symbolique romane (Paris, I955), pp. I5-I6.

10. Images et symboles (Paris, I952), p. 229.

11. Cf. A. Chouraqui, Les Psaumes (Paris, I956), p. 2.

12. See M. Lot-Borodine, "Les grands secrets du Saint-Graal dans la queste du pesudo map," in "Lumière du Graal," Les Cahiers du sud (Paris, I95I), p. I57.

13. Sacramentarium, Patrologie latine I72. 74I.

14. Cf. Saint Bernard, De conversione ad clericos, VII, I2, Patrologie latine I82. 84I.

15. On this question see M. D. Chenu, La Théologie au XIIe siècle (Paris, I957), pp. I9I ff.

16. Quaestiones in vetus Testamentum, praefatio, Patrologie latine 83. 207B.

17. Translated from the French of Métamorphoses de l'âme et ses symboles (Geneva, I953), p. I55.

18. L'Amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu (Paris, I957), p. I47.

19. Ibid., p. 24I.

20. Fierabras, ed. A. Kroeber and G. Servois (Paris, I860), p. I07.

21. Albert d'Aix, Liber christianae expeditionis, I, I, Hist. occid., IV, 295.

22. Raoul Glaber, Historiae, ed. Prou (Paris, I886), I, v, c. 3 ff. See the article by L. Musset, "Raoul Glaber et la baleine," Revue du Moyen Age latin, IV (I948), No. 2, I67 ff.

23. See Paul Rousset, "Le Sens du merveilleux à l'époque féodale," Moyen Age, I956, Nos. I-2, pp. 24-37.

24. See Albert d'Aix, Liber christianae expeditionis, in Recueil des Croisades, IV., 378 ff.

25. See the excellent article by Paul Rousset, "Justice immanente à l'époque féodale," Moyen Age, I948, Nos. 3-4, pp. 225-48.

26. Evagre le Pontique, Cant., IV, 5I, ed. W. Frankenberg, Evagrius Ponticus (Berlin, I9I3), p. 355, quoted by Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, Lettre aux frères du Mont-Dieu, ed. M. M. Davy (Paris, I940), No. I08.