Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples

Few major figures of the Renaissance are as difficult to capture in the round as Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (Jacobus Faber Stapulensis, b. c. 1455–d. 1536): he does not easily fit into the dichotomies historians have used to understand the period, of humanist or scholastic, medieval or Renaissance, philosopher or theologian, Catholic or Protestant. He began his career teaching at the University of Paris in the 1490s; he traveled to Italy at least three times, and in 1492 met the generation of Italian humanists including Marsilio Ficino, Ermolao Barbaro, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Back in Paris, he set about digesting the medieval philosophy curriculum in new handbooks and commentaries, including all of Aristotle alongside the main branches of mathematics—while also writing privately on natural magic, motivated by an attraction to the more Hermetic teachings of Ficino. From 1499, with a growing circle of students around him, Lefèvre turned his attention increasingly to Church Fathers and medieval mystics, searching out manuscripts by traveling to monasteries and drawing on his expanding network of former students and scholarly friends; this bore fruit in new editions of thinkers such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Richard of St Victor, Hildegard of Bingen, Jan van Ruysbroeck, and Nicholas of Cusa. In 1507 he retired from university teaching to the Paris cloister of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where he increasingly concentrated his energies on the Bible, commenting on the text with new attention to Greek and Hebrew, where his skills allowed. In the 1510s his commentaries led to clashes with somewhat younger humanists like Desiderius Erasmus, who faulted his Greek, as well as members of the Paris Faculty of Theology, who faulted his theological authority. A theorist of harmony attracted to the grand metaphysical visions of Pseudo-Dionysius and Nicholas of Cusa, Lefèvre avoided conflict where he could, more interested in teaching and commentary than in developing his own systematic statements. He was nevertheless committed to devotional reform, and his patron asked him to lead a reform of preaching in the diocese of Meaux, near Paris; this led to growing worries that his theological affiliation was in fact Lutheran. An elder statesman of the republic of letters amid a generation of younger firebrands—including Guillaume Farel, the Genevan reformer who would spot John Calvin’s potential—Lefèvre’s approach to these tensions has proved an irresistible puzzle for historians. Forced to flee Meaux for safety in Strassburg, he was recalled to the court of the king’s sister, Marguerite de Navarre, where he tutored young royals and lived in relative peace until his death in 1536.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy

This chapter develops what the author calls a divine intimacy theodicy in response to the problem of evil. It highlights reflections of this theodicy in the thinking of several historical and contemporary philosophers, theologians, and religious practitioners, including some medieval mystics. The central idea is that some occasions of suffering may qualify as religious experiences that serve to promote closeness with God. Despite its value as a strategy a religious person might use for coping with suffering, the author argues that ultimately the divine intimacy view does not succeed in answering the concerns of the non-theist who poses arguments from evil against the existence of God. The chapter closes by discussing prospects for a hybrid theodicy.

The Role of Intuition in the Middle Age

The article is devoted to follow to the essential characteristics of intuition think­ing. Intuition thinking is the way of understanding and extract of meanings. In this issue are analyzed such notions as sense, understanding and symbol. In this issue a symbol is a key figure in the way of thinking of the Middle age. Ancient Greek’s way of thinking and Middle age’s way of thinking are com­pered. The border of epochs is a main location of the turn from sensation to feel­ing and from revealed to hidden. In this article the evolution of notion of intu­ition, its semantic metamorphosis and its changing cognitive status are shown. According Socrates intuition has a form of daimonion, impersonal force helping him become a person and make decisions according to ethical standards. The fig­ure of Augustine impersonates the metanoia on two levels, subjective and level of epoch. The notion of “Self” ceases to be an entity autonomous from the nature of God, because only in the process of cognition, merge with God a person emerges. This is the fundamental difference in the way of being acient Greek and medieval cultures. Therefore, two epistemological paradigms, determining the cognitive status of intuition, are faced. On the base of mystics’ experience in the Middle age and Neoplatonism intuition is defined. For medieval mystics, con­templation, the direct vision of the truth in God, played an important role. From this phenomenon then comes the Cartesian clarity and distinctness of truth. Well known the intuition is the highest cognitive ability for rationalists

“Nota de Clamore”

This chapter recounts how a fifteenth-century annotator has added “nota de clamor[e]” in the margin at the moment of Margery Kempe's “fyrst cry pat euyr sche cryed in any contemplacyon.” It mentions Hope Emily Allen, one of the earliest editors of Kempe's book, who observes that the marginal comment recalls Richard Rolle's description of his own tumultuous expression of divine love: “clamor iste canor est.” It also examines Allen's view that misunderstands Rolle and reads in Margery Kempe's tears and wails the possibility that Rolle's clamor is literal and physical. The chapter explores how Allen sets Kempe's spiritual understanding against other medieval mystics, such as the author of the late fourteenth-century treatise The Cloud of Unknowing. It shows how the Cloud-author advances a familiar distinction between bodily and spiritual sensation, which aligns the misunderstanding of the novice contemplative or would-be mystic with a desperate excess of labor.

Mistyka relacyjna i metafizyczna w Księdze św. Anieli z Foligno

The article discusses the coexistence of two forms of Christian mysticism – metaphysical and relational – in The Book of Angela of Foligno. The metaphysical type, associated with the Neoplatonic philosophy, is probably inspired by The Soul’s Journey Into God by Saint Bonaventure who describes the experience of God as viewing existence or being (esse). The relational type is focused on the human and personal aspect of Jesus and the experience of love in the I-You relationship. While in many medieval mystics there is only one type of mysticism (e.g. metaphysical in Eckhart, relational in Bernard of Clairvaux), in Angela there is an interesting coexistence of both these types of experience of God.

Medieval Mystics on Persons

The thirteenth to fifteenth centuries were witness to lively and broad-ranging debates about the nature of persons. In logical and grammatical discussions, “person” indicated individuality. In the legal-political realm, “person” separated subjects from objects. In theological contexts, “person” appears most often in Trinitarian and Christological debates: God was three persons in one Being, and Christ was one person with two natures (human and divine). This chapter looks at how these uses of “person” overlap in the works of contemplatives in the Latin West such as Hadewijch, Marguerite Porete, Meister Eckhart, and Catherine of Siena. I argue that the key concepts of individuality, dignity, and rationality combine with the contemplative use of first and second person perspectives, personification, and introspection to yield a concept of “person” that both prefigures Locke’s classic seventeenth-century definition and deeply influences the development of personalism.

In the Honour of Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.: On the Sources of the Narrative Self

Modern philosophy is based on the presupposition of the certainty of the ego’s experience. Both Descartes and Kant assume this certitude as the basis for certain knowledge. Here the argument is developed that this ego has its sources not only in Scholastic philosophy, but also in the narrative of the emotional self as developed by both the troubadours and the medieval mystics. This narrative self has three moments: salvation, self-irony, and nostalgia. While salvation is rooted in the Christian tradition, self-irony and nostalgia are first addressed in twelfth-century troubadour poetry in Occitania. Their integration into a narrative self was developed in late medieval mysticism, and reached its fullest articulation in St. Teresa of Avila, whom Descartes read.

O NADA EM SARTRE E ECKHART

Resumo: Estudos atuais relacionam o nada (neant) em Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) com o dos místicos medievais, entre os quais figura Mestre Eckhart (1260-1328). Um de seus sermões está citado textualmente por Sartre em Saint Genet – ator e mártir. Contudo, o filósofo francês não revela textualmente a fonte consultada. Em um primeiro momento, investigaremos a possibilidade de Sartre ter lido diretamente o místico alemão ou mediante a interpretação de Heidegger; ou ainda a do medievalista francês Etienne Gilson. Ao que parece, Sartre leu diretamente a obra do místico. No entanto, isso só nos leva a ter de mostrar, em outro momento, que a compreensão do nada (nicht) eckhartiano por Sartre resulta da leitura da obra do medievalista francês. É isso que, ao final, determinará a diferenciação entre um nada cognitivo e ideal, atribuído por Sartre a Eckhart, e um nada ontológico e existencial, resultante de seu existencialismo.Abstract: Current studies relate nothingness (neant) in Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) with that of the medieval mystics, among which figures Master Eckhart (1260-1328). One of his sermons is textually cited by Sartre in Saint Genet — actor and martyr. However, Sartre doesn’t textually reveal the referred source. At first, we will investigate whether a direct reading of the German mystic occurred, or if its reception took place by means of Heidegger’s interpretation or that of French medievalist Etienne Gilson. As it seems, Sartre read directly from the mystic’s work. However, secondly, we will show that the understanding of nothingness (nicht) in Eckhart results from the French medievalist’s interpretation. That is what will, ultimately, determine the differentiation between the cognitive and ideal nothingness in Eckhart and the ontological and existentialist nothingness in Sartre.