not have varied substantially from that of the monks. Leclercq observes, however, that the uses made of patristic sources, and consequently the parts of works given most attention, differed significantly between the two milieux.110
Finally, in addition to complete works by particular authors, by about 1130, medieval churchmen had also at their disposal the massive biblical Glossa Ordinaria, a six-volume digest of patristic commentary on the Scriptures, organized into an elaborate series of interlinear and marginal glosses, superimposed on the biblical text itself. Of this “tremendous work” Beryl Smalley notes that “the range of authors quoted in the Gloss is wide. The better known of the Latin Fathers down to Bede, Origen and Hesychius in translation, Raban, Strabo, Paschasius, John the Scot, Haimo, Lanfranc, Berengar have all been laid under contribution.”111
Pagan
The humanist renaissance that swept across Europe in the twelfth century entailed a renewed interest in the classics of antiquity, especially in the monasteries. Within this variegated body of literature, the Roman rhetorical tradition undoubtedly had pride of place. Thus, alongside their reading in the Church Fathers, the monks became well acquainted with Virgil, Horace, Terence, Statius, Lucan, and above all others, Cicero. However paradoxical in its superficial aspect, there was at bottom nothing revolutionary about the cloister’s integration of these pagan works into their own living literary tradition: Cicero’s moral, aesthetic and rhetorical concerns the monks easily recognized as profoundly congruent, if not always perfectly identical, with their own. It was rather in the schools that pagan literature provoked a real and lasting revolution, as Latin translations of the entirety of Aristotle’s work became available in the West, the better part of it for the first time. How truly seismic the change was can be glimpsed in R. W. Southern’s juxtaposing of the pattern of citation in Peter Lombard’s Sentences, written in the mid-twelfth century, with that of Aquinas’s ST, a century later. The former work contains “thousands of quotations from the Church Fathers, . . . only three from secular philosophy, and all these were borrowed from St. Ambrose or St. Augustine.” In contrast, “the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas contains about 3500 quotations from Aristotle, of which 1500 come from the Nichomachean Ethics and 800 from the Meteorology or Metaphysics, works wholly unknown a century earlier.”112 Moreover,
by 1250 virtually the whole corpus of Greek science was accessible to the western world, and scholars groaned under its weight as they strove to master it all. The days had gone when two large volumes could hold all that was essential for the study of the liberal arts. There was no time for artistic presentation and literary eloquence. This was a grave loss, but the achievement was there all the same. The main ideas of the earlier masters—the dignity of man, the intelligibility of the universe, the nobility of nature—not only remained intact, but were fundamental concepts in the intellectual structures of the thirteenth century.113
Yet the Bible refused to go away, or even to be ignored. In Southern’s words, “medieval thought became a dialogue between Aristotle and the Bible.”114 Elaborating on this lapidary formulation, he continues: “here lay the main tension which transformed the thought of Europe in the two centuries after 1150. Paradoxical though it may seem, it was the Bible that did most for humanism in its medieval form simply because it provided the most difficult problems.”115 Recalling the monastic prejudice against Aristotle, we may note that Southern’s comments here pertain first and foremost to the schools, though the “transformation of thought” taking place there could not help but spill over eventually into the cloister. In further explanation of his insight, Southern maintains that “Men learn after all by being puzzled and excited, not by being told.” Thus:
Aristotle standing alone had no power to excite thought: at best, like alcohol, he first stimulated and then stupefied. What he said was so complete, so incontrovertible, so far beyond the range of conflicting authorities, that he hammered reason into submission. Curiously enough, therefore, the paradoxes of the Bible did more for rational argument by stimulating discussion than all the reasons of Aristotle which were swallowed whole.116
In the end, then, Southern’s observations regarding the scholastic engagement with Aristotle have brought us back to the fundamental significance of Scripture for the medieval scholar, a significance of which the medieval monasteries never lost sight.
Aelred of Rievaulx and Thomas Aquinas
In this preparatory chapter, there remains only the task of saying something briefly about the choice of Aelred and Thomas as representatives of their respective milieux, in a comparison between theological accounts of friendship. Why them? Why their accounts of friendship? Finally, why their accounts of friendship? Of the many theological topoi taken up by monks and schoolmen alike, why focus on a subject seemingly far removed from such central dogmatic issues as the Trinity, Christology, or ecclesiology?
Why Them? (Why Their Accounts of Friendship?)
Aelred: How Typical; How Outstanding
Aelred of Rievaulx is ideally suited to represent the monastic theological enterprise, as an outstanding example, but one nonetheless typical, of monastic life and thought throughout the ages. Thus, Amédée Hallier speaks in general terms of the “penetrating originality of Aelred’s theology.”117 In a more specific delineation of Aelred’s theological contribution, Charles Dumont observes that it was Aelred who took Bernard’s synthesis of “the spiritual doctrine of the school of charity” and gave its principles “a new attractiveness by a pedagogical and even systematic application, particularly in the practice of meditation on the Gospels.”118 Commenting on Aelred’s longest and most significant work, SC, Aelred Squire asserts that Aelred arrived through his reflections “at a valuable, original insight. At least there appears to be no other patristic or medieval writer who explores these matters quite in Aelred’s way.”119 Furthermore, referring to the same work, Dumont contends that “Aelred’s scriptural argumentation is remarkable enough to be considered unique, both in its scope and in its precision.”120
On the other hand, Dumont also reminds us that Aelred “had never attended the schools and so received his formation in both theology and monastic life at the same time within the monastic tradition.”121 Aelred differed, then, from Lanfranc and St. Bruno, both of whom turned aside from established academic careers in favor of monachism. Rather, Aelred’s entire spiritual and intellectual formation was thoroughly monastic. Consequently, while many of his writings are of exceptional quality, they are in kind precisely the sorts of works to be found ubiquitously in the medieval monastic milieu: histories, hagiographies, prayers, a De Anima, a Speculum, liturgical sermons. So, too, his skill as a biblical exegete should not divert us from recognizing the sources for his basic principles of interpretation.122 These are, first, the patristic tradition, and second, the virtually ceaseless practice of lectio divina: both integral elements of the common patrimony of European monasticism. In short, Aelred of Rievaulx is a true monk, and while the quality of his thought in its own right justifies scholarly attention, that thought always possesses a genuinely monastic character. So, too, Aelred’s thinking and writing about friendship, for all their universal worth and application, are stamped indelibly with the spirit of the cloister.123
Thomas: How Typical; How Outstanding
To some extent attempts to justify the choice of Thomas Aquinas as our representative scholastic theologian risk degenerating into embarrassing commonplaces: widely accepted as the most complete synthesis of Christian theology ever executed, his work must in the same fora be recognized a fortiori as the high-water mark of medieval scholastic theology. In terms more specific and relevant to our own purposes, R. W. Southern writes:
The work of Thomas Aquinas is full of illustrations of the supremacy of reason and nature. . . . He reversed the ancient opinion that the body is the ruined habitation of the soul, and held with Aristotle that it is the basis of the soul’s being. Everywhere he points to the natural perfection of man, his natural rights, and the power of his natural reason. The dignity of human nature is
