Authority and Innovation in Bernard of Clairvaux ’s De gratia et libero arbitrio

Twelfth-century scholastics are renowned for their willingness to reassess and to criticize patristic authorities, with monastic authors typically understood as far more conservative in this regard. Bernard’s treatise revises that view. It reflects Bernard’s willingness to depart sharply from the late Augustine on grace and free will and to invoke a patristic-age monastic authority, John Cassian, in so doing. Bernard’s own position, accenting the liberty of our postlapsarian free will and its full collaboration with divine grace, displays both his uses of, and departures from, these two authorities.

A Phenomenology of Discernment: Applying Scheler’s ‘Religious Acts’ to Cassian’s Four Steps

This article argues that Max Scheler’s conception of “religious acts” and his criticisms of types of “difference” help rethink the relevance of discernment and decision making, especially today, in an age in which we are faced with an unprecedented range of "options" in nearly every area of social lives. After elucidating Scheler’s engagements with religion in On the Eternal in Man, his work is then applied to rethinking more deeply the four steps of Christian discernment developed by the 5th century Mystic, John Cassian. Since Scheler’s work offers detailed and passionate depictions of the religious relevance of "values", it is an untapped resource for expanding upon Cassian’s still relevant work on discernment; an expansion that is necessary in order to demonstrate the often overlooked importance of discernment. This article concludes by employing the work of these two thinkers to show how discernment can help “sort-out,” like good "money changers", the differences between 1) finite values and supreme values, 2) an authentic and inauthentic doctrine of God 3) true differences and superficial differences (which cultivates indifference), and 4) the social imaginaries of theomorphism and anthropomorphism.

Le fonti e le tematiche teologiche della Regula di Eugippio

The article demonstrates and discusses the following sources of Eugippius’ Rule: St. Augustine of Hippo (Ordo monasterii and Praeceptum); Rules: Regula quattuor Patrum and Regula Magistri; St. Basil the Great (Regula [a Rufino latine versa]); St. Pachomius the Great (Regula); Novatus Catholicus (Sententia de humilitate et oboedientia et de calcanda superbia); St. John Cassian (Conlationes Patrum and the De institutis coenobiorum); St. Jerome (Epistula 125, 9). In its second part, the article discusses the theological subject matter of the Regula of Eugippius, also pointing out the relevance of its message to both his times and our own.

Apgitir chrábaid in the context of an intertextual approach

This article is dedicated to methodological problems of intertextual relations studies which appear during the research of primary sources. The subject matter stands at the joint between several branches of knowledge: Religious studies, Cultural studies, Philology and Celtic studies. In this article, we make an attempt to find the most adequate methodological approach for the detection and description of intertextual relations. The source for our experiment would be an Irish primary source — Apgitir chrábaid, the earliest surviving Christian prose tract written in Old Irish. Moreover, the article contains a brief analysis of existing hypotheses which attempt to explain what exact Christian texts, written in Latin, influenced the structure and content of this treatise in particular: P.P. Ó Néill — John Cassian; T.O. Clancy and G. Márkus John Cassian and Basil the Great; A.A. Korolev — Isidore of Seville and John Cassian. Then we make critical remarks about the methodology of identification of said influences on Apgitir chrábaid chosen by those researchers and on the language of scientific description used by them. It is proposed to use methods developed within the theory of intertextuality as a more correct approach for marking and description of intertextual relations. The use of the intertextual description in working with primary sources is shown by the example of the analysis of the fragment from Apgitir chrábaid (§ 8). The result of the analysis is the hypothesis that the source of influence, the intertext, for the indicated fragment in addition to the text of the Holy Scripture, is the work «Homilies on Ezekiel» by Pope Gregory I the Great. As an additional argument in favor of this hypothesis, a brief review of the veneration of Pope Gregory I, recorded in Irish church literature, is given.

Imaginative immersion in the Cistercian Cloister

This article uses analytical concepts from cognitive science to explore and deepen our understanding of how medieval monastics imagined themselves as characters within biblical narratives. It argues that Cistercian monks - and in particular Bernard of Clairvaux - used techniques of imaginative immersion to enter and blend themselves into biblical viewpoints and events, thereby engaging the monks in epistemically and personally transformative experiences. The article concludes that this served to build community and to enculture monks and converts. Specifically, the article offers a close reading of two of Bernard's liturgical sermons, Sermon Two for Palm Sunday and Sermon Two on the Resurrection, to show how his sermons 1) traverse time and space and 2) blend viewpoints. Examples are also taken from texts by John Cassian, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and William of St. Thierry. Keywords: Bernard of Clairvaux, blended viewpoint, deictic displacement, lectio divina, liturgical time and space. On cover:Monks singing the Office and decorated initial A[sperges me.]. Gradual Olivetan Master (Use of the Olivetan Benedictines), illuminated manuscript on parchment ca. 1430-1439. Italy, Monastero di Santa Maria di Baggio near Milan, Ca 1400-1775.Beinecke Ms1184: The olivetan Gradual. Gradual. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Sfântul Benedict de Nursia. Impactul vieții și regulilor sale asupra civilizației europene de astăzi

St. Benedict of Nursia was organizer of Western monasticism, born in 480 in Nursia – Ombria, Italy today and passed away in 547, at Monte – Casino near Rome. Influenced by the monastic rules of St. Basil the Great and spiritual conversations of St. John Cassian, St. Benedict organized Western monasticism, requiring a specific discipline and ascetic life. Rule monks, such work is called St. Benedict of Nursia is more a treatise on life than a regulation or rule. Ninth century Benedict of Aniane reformulating Rule monks of Western monasticism shifted to the sacred, to the detriment of practice or work and founded the Benedictine order. The fruit of this way of life was the birth monastery Cluny monastery, which was to play an important role in Western monastic life and papal history. Numerous Benedictine monasteries scattered around the world have played and still play an important role in the history and culture of the Church and beyond.