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A Forced March Towards Beatitude: Christian Trottmann’s Histoire of the Beatific Vision

KENT EMERY, JR.

Christian Trottmann, La vision béatifique des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII École Française de Rome, Rome 1995 899 pp. with 3 plates (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athénes et de Rome 289). The medieval discussion of the beatific vision involves fundamental questions about the metaphysical and psychological structure of intelligent creatures in relation to God; it tests noetic theories at their outer limits; it disputes the ultimate ethical ends of human life; it entails logical para- doxes that require sophisticated treatment; it likewise involves crucial hermeneutical questions about the interpretation of “divine” and human writings. In his abridged(!) doctoral thesis, from the topical vantage point of the beatific vision (than which only one can be higher), Christian Trottmann surveys the universal progress of medieval theories of knowl- edge, focusing on the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries until Benedict XII’s dogmatic Constitution, Benedictus Deus (1336), but casting his sight backwards to the early Church fathers and glancing forward to the theological discussions of our own day. Trottmann’s book is an encyclopedia and will be the standard reference- work concerning the beatific vision for years to come. For this reason it merits a long review. His study, moreover, suggests countless topics for further research; he himself promises several critical editions (pp. 1-2), a complete study of the process against Durand of Saint-Pourçain (p. 592 n. 12), and monographs on the noetic status of theology and on syndere- sis, which will offer “une critique de la raison pure et une critique de la raison pratique au Moyen Age” (p. 818 n. 1). Trottmann means further to exemplify a proper, corrective method for interpreting medieval intellectual history. Alluding to a recent book on medieval theories of vision, which excludes from its purview the theological topic of the beatific vision (p. 9), he states:

L’histoire de la pensée médiévale a trop souffert d’une lecture positiviste qui prenait au pied de la lettre l’adage: “Philosophia ancilla theologiae” et considérait que la philoso-

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phie du Moyen Age était étouffée par la théologie. Les rapports entre science, philoso- phie et théologie n’étaient-ils pas réciproques et dialectiques, en ce siècle, comme en d’autres? (p. 10; nota bene: Trottmann frequently expresses his conclusions in the form of rhetorical questions). Trottmann’s demonstrations will persuade readers that movements in medieval theology and philosophy were reciprocal and inextricably related, and that questions concerning the beatific vision were central to the major intellectual disputes of the thirteenth century. Nevertheless, he formally excludes from his own treatment “specifically theological” questions con- cerning the beatific vision of Christ’s human soul, the beatified and natural knowledge of angels (see the reference to S.D. Dumont, p. 10), and the glorified condition of the resurrected body (p. 8 n. 1). Likewise, only in passing does he mention the special problems concerning the soul’s knowl- edge of the Trinity (e.g., pp. 364-65), the highest object of Christian con- templation in this world and presumably in the next. No one, I think, would wish Trottmann’s book to be any longer. To address all of these related topics in the thought of any author would probably require an independent monograph; moreover, to introduce them would obscure the conceptual clarity of Trottmann’s undeviating narrative line. The book is divided into three parts. As a prelude, the first chapter surveys “the heritage of ten centuries of theological reflection,” from the early fathers to Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Lombard. Naturally enough, Trottmann pays most attention to those authors (e.g., Augustine, pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, Bernard) whose texts were contested in the later Scholastic disputes. Otherwise, he strives to establish a dialectic rela- tion between Greek doctrines of the unknowability of God and Augustine’s doctrine of the immediate vision of the divine essence, and between intel- lectualist and affective conceptions of beatitude. Thereafter, Trottmann divides his book into two major parts, according to an order of questions, Quid? et Quomodo? on the one hand, and Quando? on the other. For Trottmann, this division is more than rhetorically con- venient, for the order of questions, he argues, follows an inner logic that corresponds to the emphases in the chronological sequence of debates. The first division “What?” and “How?” embraces the Scholastic philosoph- ical and theological discussions of the thirteenth century. It is subdivided according to doxographical categories and historical phases established more or less securely by modern historians (see below). The last division of the book “When?” comprises the dramatic “reaction” of John XXII and the subsequent disputes, concluding with the dogmatic Constitution of Benedict XII. In this section, Trottmann offers a paraphrase-commentary