“Be You As Living Stones Built Up, a Spiritual House, a Holy Priesthood”: Cistercian Exegesis, Reform, and the Construction of Holy Architectures
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“Be You as Living Stones Built Up, a Spiritual House, a Holy Priesthood”: Cistercian Exegesis, Reform, and the Construction of Holy Architectures The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Baker, Timothy Michael. 2015. “Be You as Living Stones Built Up, a Spiritual House, a Holy Priesthood”: Cistercian Exegesis, Reform, and the Construction of Holy Architectures. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Divinity School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:22801841 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 “Be You as Living Stones Built Up, A Spiritual House, A Holy Priesthood”: Cistercian Exegesis, Reform, and the Construction of Holy Architectures A dissertation presented by Timothy Michael Baker to The Faculty of Harvard Divinity School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology in the subject of History of Christianity Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts August, 2015 © 2015 Timothy Michael Baker All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Kevin James Madigan Timothy M. Baker “Be You as Living Stones Built Up, A Spiritual House, A Holy Priesthood”: Cistercian Exegesis, Reforms, and the Construction of Holy Architectures ABSTRACT The development of the Cistercian Order in the twelfth century came as a product of a number of eleventh-century reforms. These reforms affected all strata of society, and they impacted the way in which medieval European Christians viewed themselves, their social, political, and theological structures, the world around them, and their relationship to the Christian narrative of salvation history and eschatology. The early Cistercians built their “new monastery” (novum monasterium) upon an apostolic foundation of austerity and poverty, informed by a “return” to the Rule of Benedict as the program for their daily ritual and liturgical lives. These Cistercians centered their monastic “way of life” (conversatio) around the pursuit of ascent into God, seeking to become “citizens among the saints and members of the household of God.” The language of twelfth-century Cistercian ascension theology drew from a number of scriptural motifs for its expression. For example, Bernard of Clairvaux described his monastery as the “heavenly Jerusalem” and his monks as “Jerusalemites”; Aelred of Rievaulx spoke of “living stones,” building up the Temple of Jerusalem and rising up as sacred incense; and Helinand of Froidmont exhorted his monks to climb the mountain with Christ and to raise up within themselves a Temple of “living stones,” becoming bearers of Christ like Mary, his holy mother. In the case of these and other Cistercian exegetes, the goal remained the same: by interpreting Christian scripture and tradition, Cistercian theologians sought to transform the monastery into a sacred space, bridging the gap between the human world and the realm of God, iii so that they, and their brethren, might ascend “as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.” iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Introduction: A Voice Crying Out From the Wilderness 1 Chapter I: Building a Kingdom, Old and New 37 Chapter II: Citizens Among the Saints and Members of the Household of God 109 Chapter III: Raising a Temple of “Living Stones” 179 Conclusion: Be You as Living Stones Built Up, A Spiritual House, A Holy Priesthood 251 Appendix I: Helinand of Froidmont’s Sermon on the Assumption of Mary 261 Works Cited 281 v FOR MY PARENTS Et erunt ut conplaceant eloquia oris mei et meditatio cordis mei in conspectu tuo semper Domine adiutor meus et redemptor meus vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For a project that regards monastic liminality and practices of ascension, it is entirely appropriate to begin by acknowledging those who have conducted me up the mountain of graduate school to its culmination. Students of religion might characterize them as the “teachers of the sacra,” as the instructors of those holy mysteries necessary to ascend from one state of being to another; truly, they are the guides of this particular rite of passage. Thus, I acknowledge and thank, with the highest possible praise, Kevin J. Madigan, Beverly M. Kienzle, and Jon D. Levenson. I am much indebted to their wisdom, their compassion, and their unfailing generosity. The possibility of undertaking this project required familiarity with, and interest in, the examination and interpretation of medieval manuscripts. In this, and in many other regards, I am grateful to M. Michèle Mulchahey (PIMS, University of Toronto) for accepting me into her program in manuscript studies, for instilling in me a passion for paleographical pursuits, and for remaining a valuable friend and resource as I pursue my own editorial projects in rare book collections at home and abroad. I also extend my gratitude to Patrick Latour, curator of the Bibliothèque Mazarine (Paris, France), who graciously and openly welcomed me into the library while I was examining and editing Helinand’s sermons. While researching and writing this project, I have been living away from the city streets of Cambridge, on a mountain and in the woods of Vermont near Dartmouth College, the place where I first read Jean Leclercq’s formative The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. Back in the place where my academic journey once began, I hasten to thank Christopher MacEvitt and Ehud Benor in the department of Religion, Cecilia Gaposchkin in History, and Paul Christesen in Classics. The interest that each of them has shown in my work, and the thoughtful suggestions that each has made to my endeavor, both encourages me and strengthens my scholarship. vii In addition to erudite guides on my intellectual excursion, I am most grateful and most fortunate to have had the very best of companions to share my struggles along the way. Kathryn Kunkel, who administrates the Th.D. program at Harvard, has always proven to be a valuable resource and a helping hand; my colleagues and I are fortunate to have her on our climb. Amanda Czechowski, Jonathan Dame, Jennifer Dame, and Carolyn Hooper Goetinck are most deserving of special praise and acknowledgement. Truly the very best of friends for which anyone might hope, Amanda’s steadfast kindness, Jon’s strong and grounding presence, Jenn’s playful enthusiasm, and Carolyn’s gentle and abiding wisdom makes each of them an invaluable companion and very much beloved. Their abiding friendship brightens every new path with the promise of adventure, and I owe much to each of them. Finally, I wish to thank my parents—Michael Baker, Diane and James Myers. Their constant and enduring love and support has enabled this dissertation to come to fruition. No matter where my journey leads, they are always there to keep me safe. They are surely worthy of the highest honor, and I remain ever grateful to them. I am really and truly blessed to be their son; for that reason, I dedicate this work to them. Timothy M. Baker August 15, 2015 In Assumptione Beatae Mariae viii Introduction A Voice Crying Out from the Wilderness Hear, O heavens, the words which I speak; let the earth pay heed to the words of my mouth… in a wasteland He found him, in a place of horror and of vast wilderness. He led him around, and he taught him; he cared for him as the pupil of his eye.1 Many, if not most, students of medieval history have read Jean Leclercq’s The Love of Learning and the Desire for God.2 Noteworthy both for its beauty and for its erudition, Leclercq’s “study of monastic culture” presents the reader with an image of the twelfth-century monastery transformed from an earthly cloister into a heavenly abode, a “Jerusalem in anticipation,” by the power of words and actions encoded in liturgy, song, daily rituals, lectio divina (or the practice of meditative reading on sacred texts), and the intracommunal attempt to ascend into God. This staple of undergraduate and graduate classrooms endures in relevance even among senior medievalists, who continue to agree with and to cite The Love of Learning and the Desire for God alongside Leclercq’s more advanced corpus of interpretive and editorial projects. Many classroom texts lose some of their savor as one progresses “from milk to solid food,” to borrow a metaphor from the Apostle Paul (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:2), but The Love of Learning and the Desire for God remains intellectually nourishing for scholars of all levels. 1 [All translations are mine unless noted or cited otherwise.] “Audite, caeli, quae loquor: audiat terra verba oris mei.… Invenit eum in terra deserta, in loco horroris, et vastae solitudinis: circumduxit eum, et docuit: et custodivit quasi pupillam oculi sui”; from the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:1–43, here vv. 1, 10). 2 Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans. Catherine Misrahi, 3rd ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982). 1 In his study of monastic culture during the high Middle Ages (that is, the period of time roughly from the eleventh century through the thirteenth century), Leclercq claimed that monks became fascinated with the relationship between their monasteries and the “heavenly Jerusalem” as an organizing locus for exegetical, theological, and spiritual interpretations related to the monastic conversatio, or “way of life.”3 Many agree with the work of Leclercq and of others who cite a generalized monastic preoccupation and fascination with the “Jerusalem that is up above,” (cf. Galatians 4:26); however, the reasons that directed these monks towards their special engagement with a spatial, allegorical, and exegetical topos, which had been present within the Christian tradition since the time of the New Testament, have not been discussed in sufficient depth.