Abstract
This chapter introduces the volume by means of defining its methodological and historical contours, the sources of medieval trinitarian thought, and the language and categories of discourse. The first section lays out the chronological parameters of the work as well as describes the various topical limitations that have been put in place to keep the material manageable. The second section treats the sources of trinitarian theology as found in the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Fathers of the Church. The final section introduces the reader to the basic language and categories of medieval trinitarian thought (emanations, relations, and persons).
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout this book I use the phrase “long medieval period” to refer to the time from roughly 1000 to 1550, and “late medieval” to refer to the period from about 1300 to 1550.
- 2.
Lambertus de Rijk, “On Boethius,” 1.
- 3.
Here the work takes issue with various narratives that attempt to explain the shift from the medieval to early modern world in terms of how God was understood.
- 4.
Luther, Smalcald Articles (WA 50, 198).
- 5.
William, Aenigma fidei (PL 80, 408).
- 6.
See William (Ibid.). As we will see in chapter 2, Peter Auriol argued that the entirety of the Gospel of John is one argument for the Trinity.
- 7.
William, Aenigma fidei (PL 80, 409–410).
- 8.
For example, pace Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, 41.
- 9.
Calvin, Institutes (1536), II (CO 1, 60).
- 10.
Gracilis, Sent. I.3 (R, fol. 21r).
- 11.
Pelikan-Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, I.162–163.
- 12.
Ibid., cf. the “Western Recension,” I.672.
- 13.
For a translation of the Liber extra, see Pelikan-Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, I.741–742.
- 14.
Liber extra 1.1.2 (CIC II.7): [Essentia divina] non est generans, neque genita, nec procedens; sed est Pater, qui generat …
- 15.
Liber extra 1.1.1 (CIC II.5): Haec sancta trinitas, secundum communem essentiam individua et secundum personales proprietates discreta.
- 16.
Cf. Jean Ribaillier’s discussion of Richard’s sources in De Trinitate (Paris 1958), 17–33.
- 17.
The literature on this topic is substantive, but the place to begin remains Michel René Barnes, “De Regnon Reconsidered.”
- 18.
Philipp W. Rosemann, The Story.
- 19.
Jacques-Guy Bougerol, “The Church Fathers,” 114–124.
- 20.
I have catalogued similar patterns in the commentaries on book I of the Sentences by Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Gregory of Rimini, though a more thorough study is needed to confirm this argument. That said, similar patterns emerge when one reads the subsequent essays by Bougerol, Leo J. Elders, and Eric Leland Saak in The Reception of the Church Fathers, 289–404.
- 21.
Anselm, Proslogion 5 (I, 104); cf. id., Monologion 15 (I, 28–29),
- 22.
Isidore, Etymologies 7.3.6 (158).
- 23.
Auriol, Scriptum I.26 (Electronic Scriptum); Scotus, Reportatio I.11.2 (Wolter-Bychkov I, 419); Thomas, ST I.28.4 (4, 325–326).
- 24.
For example, Thomas, ST I.32.3 (4, 355).
- 25.
Aristotle, Categories (1a1–2a10; Barnes 3–4).
- 26.
Augustine, De Trinitate 5.4.6 (CCSL 50, 210). Here we use Augustine’s language of “relation” and pass over the somewhat complex issue that, in Aristotle, the category is not relation per se but “things toward something” (τὰ πρός τι). Aristotle has in mind individual things that are toward something else and not relations as such (though generally a relational term is predicated of such things). Further, we leave aside the complex issue of whether or not Aristotle understood the categories to be words, concepts, or realities—we are speaking here of predicates, though for Aristotle this does not seem to limit the categories to a grammatical function.
- 27.
Augustine, De Trinitate 5.4.5 (CCSL 50, 209–210).
- 28.
See Hincmar, De una et non trina (PL 125, 473–618).
- 29.
See Thierry of Chartres, De sex dierum operibus.
- 30.
The other thing to note is that many of these theologians examined trinitarian theology in radically distinct genres. See, for example, Cédric Giraud, “The Literary Genres of ‘Theology’.” Invaluable here is Olga Weijers, A Scholar’s Paradise.
Bibliography
(CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina; CO = Calvini Opera; CR = Corpus Reformatorum; PL = Patrologia Latina; WA = D. Martin Luthers Werke, Weimarer Ausgabe)
Manuscript Sources
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London, Royal 10 A 1, fols. 1–236 [sigla R]
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Augustine. De Trinitate, in CCSL 50 and 50A.
Calvin, John. Ioannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia, 59 vols., ed. Guilielmus Baum, et al. (Brunswick 1863–1900).
Corpus Iuris Canonici [Liber extra], ed. Aemilius Friedberg, 2 vols. Graz 1959.
Hincmar of Rheims. De una et non trina deitate, in PL 125, 473–618.
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Peter Auriol. Scriptum super primum Sententiarum, at http://www.peterauriol.net/editions/electronicscriptum/contents/, accessed January 2020. NB: cited as Electronic Scriptum.
Richard of St. Victor. De Trinitate, ed. J. Ribaillier. Paris 1958.
Thierry of Chartres. De sex dierum operibus, ed. N.M. Häring in Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and His School. Toronto 1971.
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Modern Sources
Barnes, Michel René. “De Regnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies 26.2 (1995), 51–79.
Bougerol, Jacques-Guy. “The Church Fathers and the Sentences of Peter Lombard,” in The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West, ed. Irena Backus. Leiden 2001, 113–164.
Giraud, Cédric. “The Literary Genres of ‘Theology’,” in A Companion to the Twelfth-Century Schools, ed. Cédric Giraud. Leiden 2020, 250–271.
Helm, Paul. John Calvin’s Ideas. Oxford 2004.
de Rijk, Lambertus. “On Boethius’ Notion of Being. A Chapter of Boethian Semantics,” in Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann. Dordrecht 1988, 1–29.
Pelikan, Jaroslav and Valerie R. Hotchkiss, eds. Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, 4 vols. New Haven 2003.
Rosemann, Philipp W. The Story of A Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s ‘Sentences.’ Ontario 2007.
Weijers, Olga. A Scholar’s Paradise. Teaching and Debating in Medieval Paris. Turnhout 2015.
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Slotemaker, J.T. (2020). Introduction. In: Trinitarian Theology in Medieval and Reformation Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47790-5_1
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