Abstract
An old adage has it that sometimes you have to go backward in order to move forward. The present work seeks a way forward for analytic philosophical theology in the Christian tradition by returning to a primary text of the Scholastic canon that includes the writings of St. Augustine, Boethius, St. Anselm, Peter Abelard, Hugh of St. Victor, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, and numerous others. Texts by any one of these authors might be fruitfully approached from an analytic perspective. However, since our project is to utilize the methods of analytic philosophy in order to develop a systematic Christian theology, there are compelling reasons for choosing a specific text by one of these authors in particular as the object of our study.
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Notes
St. Bonaventure, On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, trans. O. F. M. Zachary Hayes (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1996), 45.
Translated by Roy J. Deferrari as On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1951). All references are to this edition, with uppercase Roman numerals, Arabic numerals, and lowercase Roman numerals respectively designating the relevant Book, Part, and section, followed by the page numbers in Deferrari’s translation.
For further discussion see Steven P. Marrone, “Medieval Philosophy in Context,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. S. McGrade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 10–50 (especially 32–36).
There are complexities in coming to terms with the place of Aristotle’s philosophy in even a single medieval author like Aquinas; see Joseph Owens, C. Ss. R., “Aristotle and Aquinas,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, ed. Norman Kretzmann and Eleanor Stump (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 38–59.
A heroic neo-Aristotelian effort is James F. Ross’s Thought and World: The Hidden Necessities (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).
See also Peter S. Dillard, A Way into Scholasticism: A Companion to St. Bonaventure’s The Soul’s Journey into God (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2011).
Works from both periods are collated in St. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will and Retractions, trans. Anna S. Benjamin and L. H. Hackstaff (New York: Macmillan, 1964).
Dermot Moran explores Eriugena’s radical appropriation of Greek Neoplatonism in The Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena: A Study of Idealism in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
For the contrast between the calm, cloistered setting in which Anselm pursued his reflections and the raucous academic world of the schools see Gareth Evans, “Anselm’s Life, Works, and Immediate Influence,” in The Cambridge Companion to Anselm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 5–31.
Paul Rorem provides a helpful overview of St. Victor and its Parisian milieu during Hugh’s day in Hugh of Saint Victor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3–11.
See Joan Caddon, “Science and Rhetoric in the Middles Ages: The Natural Philosophy of William of Conches,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 56 (January 1995): 1–24.
Jerome Taylor discusses the Chartres school in connection with Hugh’s philosophical outlook in his introduction to The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor, trans. Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 3–39.
An informative account placing the debate between Abelard and Bernard in the context of the conflict between Benedictine and Cistercian monastic ideals is given in Edwin Mullin, Cluny: In Search of God’s Lost Empire (New York: Blue Bridge, 2006), 167–205.
For a Christocentric reading of Hugh’s exemplarism see Boyd Taylor Coolman, The Theology of Hugh of St. Victor: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 33–46.
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© 2014 Peter S. Dillard
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Dillard, P.S. (2014). Introduction. In: Foundation and Restoration in Hugh of St. Victor’s De Sacramentis. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377463_1
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