Christian Thought Elguja

Towards Rustaveli’s Place In Medieval European 285 TOWARDS RUSTAVELI’S PLACE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN- CHRISTIAN THOUGHT Elguja Khintibidze The present article summarizes my view of Rustaveli’s place in the European-Christian thought process of the Middle Ages. It is based on an analysis of the most important and literary images of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, its philosophical-theological, ethical, scholastic, and legal concepts, and its plot structure and world view.1 This view takes into account the advances of philological and philosophical scholarship, fore- most among which is the work of Shalva Nutsubidze, the Georgian phi- losopher, student of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, and translator of the poem into Russian, whose philosophical and historiographical conceptions offered European scholarship of the middle of the 20th century two cardi- nal theories dealing with Kartvelological issues: that of the Oriental Renaissance2 and the authorship of the Corpus Areopagiticum.3 I believe it is necessary to begin the presentation of my own conception by discussing how it was formed through the interpretation of previous points of view. Along these lines, the long-standing research into Rustaveli’s philosophical outlook is notable, as is the study of the Neo-Platonic stream in the Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shalva Nutsubidze and his pupils, and the study of Rustaveli’s work in relation to the study of the person and ideas of the Areopagite; Mose Gogiberidze’s hint at Aristotle as the source of 1 ე. ხინთიბიძე, მსოფლმხედველობითი პრობლემები ”ვეფხისტყაოსანში” [e. xint’ibije, msop’lmxedvelobit’i problemebi “vep’xistqaosanši” (E. Khintibidze, Worldview Problems in “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”)] (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, 1975); ე. ხინთიბიძე, შუასაუკუნეობრივი და რენესანსული ”ვეფხისტყაოსანში” [e. xint’ibije, šuasaukuneobrivi da renesansuli “vep’xistqaosanši” (E. Khintibidze, Medieval and Renaissance Trends in Rustaveli’s “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”)] (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, 1993); ე. ხინთიბიძე, ”ვეფხისტყაოსნის” იდეურ-მსოფლ- მხედველობითი სამყარო [e. xint’ibije, “vep’xistqaosnis” ideur-msop’lmxedvelobit’i samqaro (E. Khintibidze, The Worldview of Rustaveli’s “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” )] (Tbilisi: Kartvelologi, 2009). 2 Ш. Нуцубидзе, Руставели и Восточный Ренессанс [Sh. Nutsubidze, Rustaveli i Vostočnyj Renessans (Rustaveli and the Oriental Renaissance)] (Tbilisi: Zarya Vostoka, 1947). 3 Ш. Нуцубидзе, Тайна Псевдо-Дионисия Ареопагита [Sh. Nutsubidze, Tajna Psevdo- Dionisija Areopagita (The Mystery of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite)] (Tbilisi: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, 1942). 286 Elguja Khintibidze Rustaveli’s philosophical views is also relevant. On the other hand, my point of departure was the research carried out by Georgian philologists, especially Korneli Kekelidze, into Rustaveli’s religious outlook based on Christian theology as the only official ideology of medieval Georgia. Ultimately, the conclusions I drew from this research presented ideas that differ significantly from the two most common approaches to Rustaveli’s world view. These two approaches are: a) proclaiming Rustaveli’s thinking as representing the Oriental Renaissance and believing Neoplatonism to be his philosophical world view; and b) limiting Rustaveli’s philosophical outlook to Orthodox Christianity. 1) Let us begin with the latter. Quite a few opinions have been advanced concerning Rustaveli’s religious outlook. Critiques of these views (Islam, Manicheanism, etc.) were justly based on the correct thesis that Rustaveli, as a poet and ideologist of the 12th-century Christian Georgian state, must have been a Christian. Conducting research into Rustaveli’s outlook as related to the Christian religion, Georgian scholarship arrived at a signifi- cant conclusion: the source of Rustaveli’s basic world view was the Bible and, in general, Christian writings. But research into this question was taken to an extreme by some scholars: the source of the poet’s thought and his own world view were confused, and the entire philosophical-theological outlook was reduced to Orthodox Christianity. This point of view fails properly to distinguish the sphere of a citizen’s official creed from the philosophy and world view without which a great medieval thinker of the late Middle Ages is inconceivable. In my opinion it is a mistake to conceptualize Rustaveli’s thinking solely in Orthodox- Christian notions. In the first place, such an approach is not compatible with Rustaveli’s outlook. Second, such a conception fails to see the development of thought in old Georgian Christian literature—the path along which the medieval world view arrived at the Renaissance. Furthermore, this theory fails to bear in mind that, as in Europe at this time, in 12th- century Georgia, too, the highly developed political and social system created a peculiar basis for the development of Christian thought under secular primacy, opening out new paths of development. At the same time, the significance of Arabic Aristotelianism, Byzantine scholasticism, and Persian literature in the development of 12th-century Georgian thought is overlooked. Finally, the quality of the new Christian thought of the late Middle Ages is not taken into consideration. This new thought emerged in European Christianity of the same period, and introduced the idea of dis-.

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