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Dionysian Mystical Theology in the Commentaries of Thomas Gallus (D.1246)

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Dionysian Mystical Theology in the Commentaries of Thomas Gallus (D.1246) Experiencing the Word: Dionysian Mystical Theology in the Commentaries of Thomas Gallus (d.1246) The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37925651 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Experiencing the Word: Dionysian Mystical Theology in the Commentaries of Thomas Gallus (d.1246) A dissertation presented by Craig Henry Tichelkamp to The Faculty of Harvard Divinity School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology In the Subject of Theology Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts November 2017 © 2017, Craig Tichelkamp All rights reserved Dissertation Advisor: Professor Amy Hollywood Craig Henry Tichelkamp Experiencing the Word: Dionysian Mystical Theology in the Commentaries of Thomas Gallus (d.1246) Abstract The mystical theology of Thomas Gallus, “the last great Victorine,” was inseparable from his theology of sacred literature. This dissertation analyzes Gallus’s major works: his commentaries on the Song of Songs and the Corpus Dionysiacum (CD). I argue that Gallus’s mystical theology emerges from his analysis of constitutive theological tensions in the CD about God, language, and mystical perfection. That is, in navigating the CD’s conceptual apertures, Gallus is even more thoroughly Dionysian than has been previously estimated. At the same time, Gallus’s mystical theology is an original creation—distinctively Augustinian and Victorine, and informed by his complementary interpretation of the Song as depicting the union between the soul and the Word. Thus, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of both the inherent interpretive possibilities and the varieties of medieval reception of the CD. This dissertation makes a second contribution to the field by articulating how Gallus’s role as a commentator is key to understanding his mystical theology. The practice of commentary writing played a significant role in Gallus’s affective Dionysianism, which saw the contemplative soul in an unending pursuit of loving, experiential knowledge of the Word of God. In Gallus’s commentaries, we find a coherently performed, if incompletely realized theory and practice of Christian wisdom. I argue that to understand Gallus’s practice of commentary writing (beyond as a pedgagogical practicality), we should look to the account of Christian perfection articulated in the commentaries themselves. iii Finally, Gallus’s commentaries were attempts to experience (experientia) and explain (explanatio) the eternal Word of God, and this dissertation also calls attention to the rhetoric of experience within Gallus’s commentaries. In conversation with debates about religious experience within the study of mysticism, this dissertation argues that, not only is Gallus’s use of experientia central to his theological and mystical program, but understanding its use in his context can help to reconsider what conceptual reservoirs contemporary scholars of medieval mysticism are to draw from. Gallus’s rhetoric of experience is rich enough to contain a number of tensions within Christian mysticism that remain salient today (such as immanence and transcendence, talkativeness and ineffability, intellect and affect). iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………………. vi Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………… 1 Part I: Foundations and Contexts Chapter 1. The Victorines and the New Mysticism ………….………………………… 30 Chapter 2. The Corpus Dionysiacum …………………………………………………... 69 I. God ……………………………………………………………………… 73 II. Language …………….………………………………………………… 112 III. The Goal of Mystical Theology ……………………………………….. 127 Chapter 3. The Nova Translatio ………………………………………………………. 137 Part II: The Theory and Practice of Christian Wisdom ……………………………….. 157 Chapter 4. The Theory of Christian Wisdom in the CD Commentaries ……………… 160 I. God ……………………………………………………………………. 163 II. Language and Literature ……………………………………………… 179 III. The Goal of Mystical Theology ………………………………………. 215 Chapter 5. The Practice of Christian Wisdom in the Song Commentaries …………… 232 I. Literal Interpretation ………………………………………………….. 235 II. Spiritual Interpretation: Voices ……………………………………….. 241 III. Spiritual Interpretation: Speaking Effectively and Experientially ……. 260 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………….. 292 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………... 305 v Acknowledgements I offer my sincere thanks to many who helped shape and support this project. My dissertation committee deserves primary place, and I could not be happier with their counsel and support. Since taking me on as an advisee, Amy Hollywood has been a reliable guide and generous reader of my work. I cannot list the ways she has influenced me through her teaching, advising, and scholarship. As doctoral advisers go, she is simply the best. I am also thankful to Charlie Stang for his guidance, especially in the early stages of this project. It would have been greatly impoverished without his expertise on the Dionysian corpus and his willingness to take me on as a teaching fellow for his graduate seminar on Plotinus in 2013. I owe a debt of gratitude to Boyd Taylor Coolman of Boston College, who both introduced me to Thomas Gallus and then continued to engage in very helpful conversations about the last great Victorine and his enigmatic Latin commentaries. Others have helped shape this dissertation. I have been fortunate to test out ideas at conferences sponsored by Harvard Divinity School (HDS), the American Comparative Literature Association, and the North American Patristics Society. Once the audiences got past the question “Thomas who?” they offered stimulating conversation and invaluable feedback. Thanks to HDS for providing funding for conference travel. Over the last couple years, students in my Greek and Latin courses at HDS have enthusiastically joined me in reading and commenting together on both the Dionysian corpus and Gallus’s commentaries. Thank you as well to Kathryn Kunkel, Th.D. administrator at Harvard Divinity School. My friends and family have been behind me at every step. At Harvard, I relied on Filipe Maia, Mike Motia, and Michelle Sanchez for feedback and friendship. Further from Boston, my parents Gwen and John Pelzer and Neal and Cynthia Tichelkamp have been invaluable sources of love and support for me, as have Alan and Laura Lankford. I would not be at this point without my grandparents, Leon and Patricia Moon and the late Henry and Rose Tichelkamp, whose examples always guide me. Thanks to my sister, Kate Tichelkamp, for some transcription work. The few months she lived with us during the completion of this project were some of my happiest. My partner, David Lankford, deserves the most thanks. Those who have met him will recognize when I invoke his generosity, steadfastness, and good humor, but they do not know the extent of the goodness he is capable of, a knowledge I treasure immensely. vi Introduction In a series of sermon notes entitled How the Life of Prelates Should be Conformed to the Angelic Life, prepared by the Augustinian canon Thomas Gallus (d.1246), the preacher sketches out an ambitious agenda for his audience of ecclesiastics.1 Church leaders should strive to live like each of the angelic orders described by “blessed Dionysius the Areopagite.” The notes outline the nine orders of angels, and relate how prelates should take inspiration from each. At the end of the notes, Gallus comes at last to the ninth and highest order, the Seraphim. He explains the word’s etymology: [T]he translation (interpretatio) of [‘Seraphim’] is ‘burning and blazing ones,’ because there are no other angels between them and God, and therefore insofar as they cleave to him especially closely, they are inflamed by the brilliance of the divine light, boiling over beyond themselves (supra se) and into him by the motion of steadfast love, leading back into him the minds of those set below them.2 Those prelates who imitate the Seraphim, Gallus continues, will “froth and pant by a love boiling over in contemplation” and will be “fed only by the love of eternity.” In turn, they will “heat up and kindle others by speaking (loquendo) and make those whom their words touch (verba tangunt) hot and blazing in the love of God.”3 That is, the prelate is one who should actively minister through preaching and teaching, but remain in contemplation like the Seraphim. 1 Qualiter vita prelatorum conformari debet vite angelice, 334. 2 Ibid.: “Seraphyn, cuius interpretatio est incendentes vel ardentes eo quod inter eos et Deum nulli alii angeli consistant et ideo quanto vicinius ei adherent, tanto magis claritate divini luminis inflammantur, stabili amoris mocione supra se in ipsum ebullientes, suppositorum mentes in eundem reducentes.” 3 Ibid.: “Horum igitur similitudinem gerunt prelati qui superfervido amore in contemplacione accensi in solo conditoris sui desiderio estuant et anhelant, nihil in hoc mundo cupiunt, solo eternitatis amore pascuntur, quin eciam terrena queque abiciunt, ardent amando aliosque calefaciunt et accendunt loquendo et quos verba tangunt calere et ardere in Dei amore protinus faciunt.” 1 Gallus repeats the notion of contemplation characterized by fiery affection throughout his works, the majority of which
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