Two approaches currently dominate our understanding of medieval Christian humanism: the first envisages medieval humanism as consisting of a combination of Christian and classical elements focused on defining the natural man and his powers independent of divine grace. The second, best formulated by Richard Southern, requires integration of the supernatural with the natural in order to understand the potentiality for human knowledge and activity. Southern, however, recognizes the contribution of ancient pagan culture to the development of Christian humanism. These essays offer a third conception of humanism rooted solely in Christian theology, essentially in Christ's double nature as divine and human.
The one exception is Nancy Enright's “Dante and the Human Identity: A Transformation from Grace to Grace,” wherein the primary issue is the role of classical culture in the salvation of the human soul. Her study of Dante's Divine comedy traces Dante's allusions to parallel images and concepts taken from ancient writings and art that are the best that unregenerate human nature can do in understanding the Divine. While recognizing the value of ancient education and wisdom, Dante stresses their limitation when not joined to God's grace.
The first essay of the collection, David P. Fleischacker's “Augustine: Foundations of Christian Humanism” prepares for the other essays through its description of Augustine's analysis of the human soul as the sensorium of transcendence. Fleischacker describes how Augustine's conversion by divine grace led to a life-long exploration of his interior life and to his increasing awareness of distinct human faculties and their capacities. With that awareness came a growing appreciation of the abundance of divine grace showered on human nature and of God's working through history toward the triumph of His kingdom.
Among the remaining essays, of special interest to me is J. Stephen Russell's “Conceiving the Soul: Aelred of Rievaulx and the Sanctifying Labor of the Mind,” an examination of Aelred of Rievaulx's search for the origins of the human soul. The author first analyzes Augustine's approach to the question and then compares it with that of Aelred. Through a detailed exposition of the relevant texts, Professor Russell demonstrates the shared rhetorical language of the two writers, urging faithful labor and sincere intention in pursuit of an answer that both confess they are unable to give. In Aelred's case, while he seemed to favor baptism and the belief that the soul of the baby was created by the parents, he insisted that the labor of seeking an answer was, in itself, sanctifying and enriches the soul.
In “The Humanism of William of Saint-Thierry,” Aage Rydstrom-Poulsen examines the radical humanism of the Christian mystic William of Saint-Thierry. For William, at the core of the human being lay a loving soul, divinely inspired by Christ. Indeed, God himself was the indwelling divine gift of love within the soul. Consequently, just as the Holy Spirit created the unity of the Father and Son, so it united the human being with God. Without divine grace, the whole of creation deserved damnation, but through God's action, we have experienced the human-divine unity. Because the human being was, at the same time, a divine and human reality, no greater dignity or honor could be attributed to it.
John T. Slotemaker's “Peter Lombard and the imago Trinitatis” argues that Lombard's Sentences was more than a summary of knowledge in the field, but established the author's own conception of theological anthropology. He did so by returning to Augustine's conception of the human mind as composed of memory, intellect, and will, and identification of the same triadic relationship between members of the Trinity. The human mind, the imago Trinitatis, contemplating the creator God, can consequently, by analogy, use similar language to speak of both the human and divine triad. It is puzzling that the word intelligentia appears throughout the essay as intellegentia.
Christopher Levy's study of Wyclif, “John Wyclif and Christian Humanism,” centers on the fourteenth-century scholastic's belief that understanding of ourselves will increase our understanding of Christ in his human, incarnate aspect and furnish us with a model of conduct, allowing us to realize our deepest nature. Committed to the theory that the human intellect depends on divine illumination, he denied that human beings can know anything for certain unless illuminated by the light of divine grace. Although unified in the person, he also held to the Franciscan thesis that a soul corresponds to each part of the human body so that, against Aquinas, he argued that Christ's nutritive souls remained uncorrupted during the Triduum and that Christ had no need of a new substantial form. Employing Anselm's argument from the Proslogion, he maintained that, because a God who would beatify His creation would be greater than one who did not, He has beatified the rational creature in the image by which he was created (311–312).
Unfortunately, space limitations do not allow me to discuss the remaining nine articles in the volume. Although difficult, because of the highly diverse choice of authors, a chapter summarizing the concept of Christian humanism in the light of the articles would have been useful.
