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37 - Monastic Theologies, c. 1050–1200

from Part III - The Long Twelfth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2020

By
Constant J. Mews
Edited by
Alison I. Beach  and
Isabelle Cochelin
Alison I. Beach
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Isabelle Cochelin
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

The goal of monastic life is first of all to identify with Christ, through separating oneself from the world. In the Latin West, monks tended to avoid the abstract term theologia to describe their teaching. When Peter Abelard (d. 1142) first used Theologia as the title of a monograph explaining why God could be described as a Trinity of persons, Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) was shocked by his use of the term, mockingly referring to it as his Stultilogia (“Stupidology”). He followed Augustine’s (d. 430) understanding of the term as pagan discourse about the gods or divinity. Only in the thirteenth century did theologia come to be more widely used (or, in the eyes of purists, misused) to embrace teaching about Christ, the Church, and ethics, as well as about God. Yet Bernard himself formulated a monastic perspective on Christian teaching that both rivalled and complemented what was being taught in non-monastic schools. Monastic teaching tended to be hermeneutic rather than systematic in character.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West , pp. 697 - 709
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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