449 - The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300)

The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300)
By Jaroslav Pelikan
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1978. 333 pp. $17.50.

This is the third volume of five in Professor Pelikan's monumental and impressive series, The Christian Tradition, A History of the Development of Doctrine.

Several characteristics distinguish it from previously large-scale histories of doctrine. It is not a history of Christian thought, nor a history of religious and philosophical thought. Rather, it is a history of "what the church believed, taught and confessed on the basis of the word of God" (p. vii). Further, its chief concern is the ongoing tradition of Christian thought and conviction, and is "shaped by the evolution of the doctrines and only secondarily by the controversies or the speculations of the doctors" (p. viii). Other histories of medieval doctrine have been as attracted by the heretics as by the orthodox theologians, if not more so. They have treated individual theologians as more significant than the consensus of the church, or they have devoted disproportionate attention to the philosophical presuppositions of theology, which must have been a particularly strong temptation in the medieval period.

A second and allied feature of this book is that doctrine is correlated with the worship of the church because this is where the obedience of faith is learned. Considerable use is made of the Roman ordines, the Gelasian Sacramentary, hymnody, and prayers.

There is, however, a rather unfair dismissal of the Spanish Mozarabic rites, which disseminated a type of adoptionist Christology characterized by "idiosyncracies" without recognizing its rich varieties of prayers for many different occasions, many of which were not provided for in the Roman liturgy. In a work of extraordinary clarity, I

450 - The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300)

found only one other obscurity. Pelikan observes that medieval theologians in paraphrasing the apostolic formula of faith, love, and hope, opened their treatises with the statement, "The sum of human salvation consists of three things: faith, love, and the sacraments." No explanation is given why the sacraments should correspond with hope rather than with faith or love.

The author also looks to medieval poetry for the illustration of doctrine, as in the cases of The Dream of the Rood and, of course, Dante's Divine Comedy. One can be grateful for historians of theology turning to liturgy and poetry for the confirmation of the doctrines taught in a given period. One would be even more thankful if they also turned to iconography for a similar purpose.

The outstanding quality of this work is to be found in the margins. Here the references to theological works are abundant and exact, and they attest to Pelikan's encyclopedic knowledge of the fathers in the East and West. The marginal references also indicate his familiarity with their modern editors and interpreters. He cites perhaps a single sentence or sometimes merely a phrase from the moderns, which is often a judicious summary of their viewpoints. One is astonished by his objectivity and comprehensiveness.

Once again we see the dominating influence of Augustine in the West. The major doctrines are discussed in his terms even by those dissenting from him. Here we find the great central Christian doctrines: the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, providence and predestination, eschatology, the nature of the presence of Christ in the sacraments, and the communion of saints. This in itself is a valuable insight into the Christian faith, especially since the arguments and the objections are lucidly and objectively considered.

For this reader the most exciting part of the entire volume was the fifth chapter, entitled "The One True Faith." It deals with the problem of patristic consensus, then with schism, sect, and heresy. There follows an issue rarely dealt with: the encounter with other faiths, and finally, the central concern of faith in search of understanding.

This is a book for the specialist and nonspecialist alike. It is written with a profound empathy for the mainline Christian tradition based on Scripture, it translates all Latin citations into English, and its coruscating clarity widens its availability. But it is not reading for the beach or the bed. It is most decidedly a book to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."

Horton Davies
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey