Notes on "Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter" (A History of the Religiosity in the Middle Ages)

Arnold Angenendt: Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter, Darmstadt: Primus, 1997.

This book is a comprehensive handbook for the religious activities in the middle ages, written in 20 years, as the author confesses in the preface. It explains from the view point of the science of religion, and intends an objective phenomenological description. It is not a theological work.

Part VI: Grace and Sin (517-658)

1) the conscience
the conscience (Gewissen / conscientia / syneideis). The presupposition for conscience is a "split self", so Chadwick in his article in Real Lexikon für Antike und Christentum, because only such a self can reflect upon itself (Angenendt, p. 521). Somewhat Hegelian? (Homer Objectivity - Christianity / Subjectivity). Aaron Gurjewitsch observed that the Christianity met during its mission in Europe certain "conscienceless cultures" (522). Abaelard: "Non est peccatum nisi contra conscientiam". Bernhard of Clairvaux: the examination of one's conscience is the obligation of a monk (Ad clericos de conversione II, 3). The Scholastic, especially Thomas Aquinas, confirmed the function of the conscience. The conscience can be wrong, but it is not to be disobeyed ("conscientia erronea invincibilis", Thomas STh II-1, qu. 19, 5).

Very important!: The new spirituality of the 12th. century intensified the consciencesness. William of St. Thierry for example, recommanded the monk's cell to be a place for the examination of one's own conscience (Epistola aurea 107-108 SC 223, p. 228-230).


But this examination could be exaggerated, an example for it was given by Cardinal Peter of Luxemberg (14th. century) in one description quoted by Huizinga (Huizinga, Das Herbst des Mittelalters, 260).

Very interesting is also that Jean Gerson was also called "doctor consolatorius".

2) the promise made by the candidate for baptism as the foundation of ethics
During the early scholastic theologians tend to see this promise as the foundation of ethics, explained also by Klaus Berger in his Theoligiegeschichte. Representors of this positions are Caesarius of Arles and Jonas of Orléans (De institutione laicali). Also Buchard of Worms. Paralle to it is the profess of monks.

3) grace
charis: goodwill, sweetness, attractive appearance. Charis appears also in a personal interaction. To be compared with the Clementia of the Emperor. The Theologian for Grace in Christianity is Apostle Paul: Grace as the Grace of baptism. The Grace was won by Jesus Christ, and He gave us this Grace during our baptism. The famous ambrosiaster, a commentator of Paul from the 4th. century, took the grace to be the grace of baptism. The Paulus-Renaissance in the 4th. led to the Pelagianism-quarrel. Questions like "are we free to resist the grace" were asked. (against the so called synergismus). Augustinus in his later years was more convinced, that the Grace belongs solely to the sovereign actions of God. A kind of Voluntarism?

4) caritas (very important! not yet finished, to be expanded later)

Aelred of Rievaulx on the Christian friendship in his De spirituali amiritia, referring to the Nicomachean Ethics (1162b-1163a). Comparealso Phil 2, 6-11. ...

To be continued next week!