‘A Faithful and Wise Servant’? Innocent III (1198–1216) Looks at his Household

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
Brenda Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Personal Life ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
Public Role ◽  
The Church ◽  
Rare Opportunity ◽  
Better Than

Arriving at the Lateran on 8 January 1198, officials conducted Innocent III (born Lotari dei Conti di Segni) ceremonially to his apartments within the palace, there to rest, pray and dine.’ Foremost amongst his concerns was the household, last reformed by Gregory I (590–604). Whilst Innocent clearly adopted Gregory as his model, both for the shaping of his personal life as pope and for his understanding of the papal office, the young pope’s efforts to make his household as exemplary as that of his great predecessor have not received the attention they undoubtedly deserve. Gregory’s finest Life, composed c.875 by John, a Roman deacon, uses material from the early vitae, thus avoiding the ‘scrappy and grudging’ biography of the Liber pontificalis. Instead, John draws extensively on Gregory’s letters and the crumbling but then still extant papyrus volumes of the Registrum to demonstrate how this pope transformed his household into monastery, hospice and refuge. Three centuries later, the author of the Gesta Innocentii or Deeds of Innocent III could do no better than to adapt portions of John’s Life to highlight reforms not evidenced since the sixth century Like Gregory, Innocent wished to restore the ideas of the apostolic age to the Church. And where better to begin the spiritual renewal than within a reformed household? His inaugural sermon as pope on St Matthew’s faithful and wise servant accords perfectly with John the Deacon’s view of Gregory as paterfamilias Domini, head of the Lord’s household. Innocent, therefore, regarded the household not only as a metaphor for the congregation of the faithful but also, like Gregory before him, as a model to be used by missionaries to plant and nurture the faith throughout Christendom. Whilst the ongoing conversion of Livonia would provide Innocent with a rare opportunity to inculcate the Christian household within a pagan society, in the Patrimony of St Peter he diverged from Gregory’s path by purposeful itineration with his familia, thus initiating a public role for the household.

St Symeon the New Theologian (969-1022): Byzantine spiritual renewal in search of a precedent

1997 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
John Anthony McGuckin
Keyword(s):  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
The West ◽  
Conference Theme ◽  
Autobiographical Accounts ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Church

St Symeon the New Theologian is, without question, one of the most original and intriguing writers of medieval Byzantium. Indeed, although still largely unknown in the West, he is surely one of the greatest of all Christian mystical writers; not only for the remarkable autobiographical accounts he gives of several visions of the divine light, but also for the passionate quality of his exquisite Hymns of Divine Love, the remarkable intensity of his pneumatological doctrine, and the corresponding fire he brings to his preaching of reform in the internal and external life of the Church. He was a highly controversial figure in his own day. His disciples venerated him as a saint who had returned to the roots of the Christian tradition and personified its repristinization. His opponents, who secured his deposition and exile, regarded him as a dangerously unbalanced incompetent who, by overstressing the value of personal religious fervour, had endangered the stability of that tradition. The Vita which we possess was composed in 1054, in an attempt to rehabilitate Symeon’s memory and prepare for the return of his relics to the capital from which he had been expelled when alive. This paper will investigate how he himself understood and appropriated aspects of the earlier tradition (particularly monastic spirituality), hoping to elucidate why he felt himself inspired to reformist zeal, and why many of his contemporaries (not simply his ‘worldly opponents’ as his hagiographer would have us believe) regarded him as unbalanced. It will end by attempting some reflection on what the controversy reveals on the larger front about how the Church ‘selectively looks back on itself, so to paraphrase our president’s description of the conference theme, and whether the model of tradition and its reception exemplified in this Byzantine writer can offer anything to the dialogue between history and theology which the doctrine of Tradition (Paradosis) inevitably initiates.

Remembering Pope Gregory VII: Cardinal Boso and Alexander III

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
John Doran
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Near Future ◽  
The Church

In the conclusion to his masterly biography of Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), H. E. John Cowdrey notes the paradox that the pope so lionized by modern historians, to the extent that the age of reform bears his name, was largely forgotten in the twelfth century and made little impact on Christian thought, spirituality or canon law. Cowdrey is not alone in his observation that Gregory ‘receded from memory with remarkable speed and completeness’; when he was remembered, it was as a failure and as one who brought decline upon the church. For Cowdrey, the answer to this conundrum lay in the fact that Gregory VII was in fact far closer to the ideals of the sixth century than of the twelfth; he was a Benedictine monk and shared the worldview and oudook of Gregory the Great (590–604) rather than those of the so-called lawyer popes Alexander III (1159–81) and Innocent III (1198–1216). Yet within a century of Gregory’s death he was presented by Cardinal Boso as a model pope, who had overcome a schismatic emperor and the problems which his interference had precipitated in Rome. For Boso, writing for the instruction of the officials of the papal chamber, the very policies set out by Gregory VII were to be pursued and emulated. Far from being a peripheral and contradictory figure, with more in common with the distant past than the near future, Gregory was the perfect guide to the beleaguered Pope Alexander III, who was also struggling against a hostile emperor and his antipope.

Religion

2021 ◽  
pp. 301-317
Author(s):  
Alessandro Vettori
Keyword(s):  
Original Form ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Female Role ◽  
Final Destination ◽  
Spiritual Authority ◽  
Ubertino Da Casale ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores the way in which Dante forges an original form of religiosity in his work by embracing Franciscan and apocalyptic ideas. It focuses on three aspects: the prophetic spirit that animates Dante’s critique of the Church and his call for spiritual renewal; his emphasis on the transformative power of prayer and its role in the poet’s construction of his spiritual authority; and the celebration of the female role in salvation through the figures of Lady Poverty and Beatrice. Franciscan thought on Poverty, from Joachim of Flora to radicals such as Ubertino da Casale and Peter John Olivi, informs Dante’s theological (but also political and spiritual) reflections on religion. Moreover, Dante’s personal exile becomes a metaphor for Christian peregrinations on earth, a figura of homo viator’s pilgrimage toward the final destination in the afterlife.

THE BAPTISM OF CLOVIS AS A SOCIOCULTURAL TRIGGER FOR THE MEROVINGIAN POLITICS

2021 ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
А.А. САЗОНОВА
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Century ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Marital Relations ◽  
Modus Vivendi ◽  
The Church

В статье исследуется расхождение между modus vivendi меровингских королей и нормами светских и церковных законов в области внутрисемейных и брачных отношений в VI веке в условиях подчинения идеологической сферы церковному институту. Крещение Хлодвига и христианизация франкского общества были пристрастно изображены Григорием Турским в его труде с многочисленными умолчаниями и искажениями. Выдвигается гипотеза о связи умолчания в «Истории франков» о дате крещения Хлодвига с регентским правлением Хродехильды при несовершеннолетних сыновьях. За брачными одеждами запрещенных союзов (с вдовой брата и сестрой жены, с мачехой и близкой родственницей) у Меровингов скрывались политические заговоры (дело Претекстата, обвинение Григория Турского в клевете на Фредегонду) и ожесточенная борьба за власть. Предлагаются новые интерпретации спорных исторических событий. The article examines the discrepancy between the modus vivendi of the Merovingian kings and the norms of secular and ecclesiastical laws in the field of family and marital relations in the sixth century in the conditions of subordination of the ideological sphere to the church institution. Gregory of Tours represented with prejudice the Christianization of Frankish society in his historical work with numerous eliminations and distortions. My hypothesis discloses the connection between the concealment about the date of Clovis’s baptism in the Decem Libri Historiarum and Clothild’s regency with minor sons. Behind the wedding clothes of incestuous marriages (including brother’s widow, wife’s sister, stepmother, cousin) the Merovingians were hiding political conspiracies (the trial of Bishop Praetextatus, the accusation of Gregory of Tours the spreading rumours about Fredegund) and a fierce struggle for power. New interpretations of controversial historical events are proposed.

scholarly journals The role of prophetic action in public theology – the implications for addressing corruption in a context of sustainable development

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich W. De Wet
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Public Space ◽  
South African ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Role ◽  
African Churches ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Two Kingdoms ◽  
The Church

After almost two decades of democratic rule in South Africa, patterns of withdrawal and uncertainty about the complexities involved in defining the contents, rationality and impact of the public role of the church in society seem to be prevalent. As unabated levels of corruption and its sustained threat to sustainable development point out, a long-awaited reckoning should take place – at least in the circles of South African churches from reformed origin – regarding its rich tradition of critical and transformational prophetic involvement in the public space. In this article, the author places different models for the public role of the church in the field of tension that is generated when the private and public spheres meet each other. The author anticipates different configurations that will probably form in this field of tension in the cases of respectively the Two Kingdoms Model, the Neo-Calvinist Approach and the Communicative Rationality Approach.Die rol van profetiese prediking in publieke teologie: Die implikasies vir die hantering van korrupsie in ‘n konteks van volhoubare ontwikkeling. Na bykans twee dekades van demokratiese regering in Suid-Afrika blyk dit dat patrone van onttrekking en onsekerheid oor wat die inhoud, rasionaliteit en impak van die publieke rol van die kerk in die samelewing presies behels, steeds voortduur. In ‘n situasie waaruit dit blyk dat daar geen werklike teenvoeter is vir die hoë vlakke van korrupsie asook vir die bedreiging wat dit vir volhoubare ontwikkeling inhou nie, is dit hoog tyd dat die kerk, ten minste in die geval van die Suid-Afrikaanse kerke van reformatoriese oorsprong, diep oor sy profetiese rol in die samelewing moet besin. Hierdie kerke kom uit ‘n ryke tradisie van kritiese en transformerende betrokkenheid in die publieke sfeer. In hierdie artikel plaas die outeur verskillende modelle vir die publieke rol van die kerk in die spanningsveld wat gegenereer word wanneer die private en publieke sfere mekaar ontmoet. Die outeur antisipeer verskillende konfigurasies wat waarskynlik na vore sal tree in hierdie spanningsveld in die gevalle van onderskeidelik die Twee Koninkryke Model, die Neo-Calvinistiese Benadering en die Kommunikatiewe Rasionaliteit Benadering.

Linguistic Co-existence in Constantinople: Greek and Latin (and Syriac) in the Acts of the Synod of 536 C.E.

2009 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 92-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fergus Millar
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Century ◽  
Church Councils ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This paper considers the interplay of Latin and Greek in the workings of both State and Church in sixth-century Constantinople, and the way that these two languages are represented in the written records of each. The richest source of evidence is provided by the Acts of the Church Councils and Synods, because at the end of a session, or of a multi-authored document, it was the custom for those involved to make a one-sentence statement of assent in their own handwriting. These processes also leave room for reflections of the use of Syriac (but not for items of actual Syriac text), but of no other language.

Ephraemius, Patriarch of Antioch

1938 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 364-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glanville Downey
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Government Service ◽  
Military Officer ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Church ◽  
Executive Ability

The sixth century in the Eastern Roman Empire saw the appointment to high ecclesiastical offices of several laymen chosen from the upper ranks of the army and the civil service. Apollinaris, patriarch of Alexandria from 551 to 570, had been before his appointment a high military officer, and his successor John had likewise passed the whole of his previous career in the army. It was evidently their marked executive ability which was responsible for the sudden translation of such men from the government service to the church, and in their new careers their energy and their mastery of administrative detail no doubt outweighed any previous lack of training in theological affairs.

Cultural Barriers to the Understanding of the Church and Its Public Role

1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert N. Bellah
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Cultural Barriers ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
Solitary Individual ◽  
Public Role ◽  
Individualistic Culture ◽  
Biblical Religion ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Church

The Lockean myth upon which American social life is based presents a fundamental challenge to the churches. The freedom of the solitary individual and the establishment of government by social contract have repercussions for political, economic, and religious life. Christian leadership is faced with the difficulty of communicating the deep social realism of biblical religion to an individualistic culture. This individualistic heritage, so susceptible to defining the human as relentless market maximizer, has reduced the notion of common good to that of the sum of individual goods. “Consumer Christians” may see the church as simply existing to “meet their needs,” but having no claim to their commitment and loyalty. The church's calling is to demonstrate how different its understanding of human existence is from that of the surrounding culture.1

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