THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO TOWERS IN THE MUD: HONORIUS AUGUSTODUNENSIS THROUGH THE LENS OF PEDAGOGY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY DANIEL YINGST CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2017 Copyright © 2017 by Daniel Yingst All Rights Reserved Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iv Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... v Chapter I - Discipulus, Scholasticus, Presbyter, Inclusus ............................................................................. 1 Discipulus ............................................................................................................................................... 11 Scholasticus............................................................................................................................................. 23 Presbyter ................................................................................................................................................. 35 Inclusus ................................................................................................................................................... 48 Chapter II - The Three Columns ................................................................................................................. 57 Scripture .................................................................................................................................................. 61 The Doctors ............................................................................................................................................. 77 Reason ................................................................................................................................................... 103 Chapter III - The Mirror and Lens of Creation ......................................................................................... 113 Defining Creation .................................................................................................................................. 115 Creation as Revelation .......................................................................................................................... 123 The Beauty of Creation ......................................................................................................................... 136 Seeing Creation ..................................................................................................................................... 142 Chapter IV - An Authorial Cosmos .......................................................................................................... 156 The Accessus ad Auctores .................................................................................................................... 161 Rhyme ................................................................................................................................................... 170 Dialogue ................................................................................................................................................ 184 Image .................................................................................................................................................... 197 Chapter V - “Blessed is the word of your mouth, which led the Son of God to me.” .............................. 211 Appendix – Honorius’s works, descriptions and rough chronology ......................................................... 257 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 260 iii Acknowledgements The list of those to whom I owe a profound debt of gratitude far outstrips my ability to properly thank them all. Therefore, I must content myself by offering special gratitude towards the following and offering my apologies towards any whose names I have omitted. Rest assured that your help is remembered and cherished. First, to my dissertation readers, Rachel Fulton Brown, Susan Schreiner, and especially Willemien Otten, I owe a boundless debt. Your scholarship inspires me, your teaching has nurtured me, and the patience and kindness with which you guided me through this process can never be repaid. Thank you. So too do I thank the other scholars whose criticisms, encouragement, and models have driven me to become a better thinker and a better man, especially the fellows of the Martin Marty Center and the participants in the Medieval Studies Workshop. Special thanks also to Robert Porwoll, for organizing so many conference panels and allowing me to tag along, to Wanda Zemler-Cizewski, for sharing her always insightful research on Honorius, and to Jason Cather, my great friend, who never fails to help me see the world in a new way. I also must thank my parents, Jim and Pixie, whose support and love for me has never wavered. My greatest hope is that my words are worthy of that support. Finally, to my wife, Lindsay. There is not a single word in this dissertation that would have been possible without you. The only words I have to offer in return are: I love you. iv Abstract This dissertation examines the thought of Honorius Augustodunensis with special attention to his understanding of creation and to his pedagogical method. Honorius was a popularizer, a pedagogue, and a talented author notable not only for his success in appealing to a wide medieval audience, but also for his synthesis of a bewildering variety of sources into simple, easily memorized forms which were used in daily pastoral care. He represents a vital and important strand of thought, centered on creation and the liturgy, which profoundly shaped the society of the Middle Ages. As Honorius left us with virtually no biographical information, my investigation begins by drawing out his character through an examination of the few biographical tidbits that he does provide—that he was a reforming priest and schoolmaster. From there, I explore his use of sources, particularly his unique appropriation of the thought of John Scottus Eriugena. I then detail Honorius’s theology of creation and contemplation, noting that the core idea which animates his work is a vision of the cosmos as a harmonious and beautiful salvific engine that inexorably draws humanity back towards its creator. I follow with a study of Honorius’s authorial methods—his use of dialogue, rhyme, and ekphrasis—arguing that these tools are a concrete manifestation of his theology, intended to shape his readers’ memories in order to enable them to attain contemplative vision. Finally, I consider the underlying harmony and unity of his catalog, allowing a portrait of the man to emerge from his words. With this portrait, we see that Honorius is a profoundly incarnational thinker, one who understands pedagogy as the key to the salvation of the individual and of the cosmos as a whole. It is a striking vision, yet the very act of making it explicit led to the erosion of the unity that sustained it. Honorius set the stage for the intellectual transformations of the twelfth century and beyond, yet his own vision v faded away, as did his identity. A victim of his own success, but a window for us into the intellectual ferment of the twelfth century. vi Chapter I - Discipulus, Scholasticus, Presbyter, Inclusus Despite an expansive and extremely popular catalog of works, Honorius Augustodunensis remains a mystery. Even to his contemporaries, Honorius was an author defined largely by his words, rather than his life. They cite his autobiographical remarks, list his works, and move on, showing little to no awareness of the person who lay behind those works. He is defined by and obscured within the text he produced, an outcome which may be precisely what he desired, but which has undoubtedly contributed to the benign neglect that plagues the contemporary study of his works. How are we to discuss an author who resists any attempt to situate him amongst his peers or among the dominant schools and intellectual currents of his era? Certainly, the early part of his career was marked by a desire for anonymity. In the Elucidarium—the first and most popular of his works, a handbook of answers to common theological questions—he writes in the preface that “I desired my name be hidden in silence, lest consuming envy order its own to neglect a useful work through neglect.”1 There was perhaps good reason to seek refuge from the venenoso dente of the envious, as quite a few of Honorius’s positions had the potential to generate opprobrium. 2 He was a vociferous advocate of reform, railing extensively against unworthy clerics, married priests, uneducated monks and simoniac bishops. All of whom might take exception to his invective, particularly when it verged on suggesting that they were unable to perform the sacraments. He campaigned vigorously for the rights of the Church against secular authority, fanning the flames of controversy in an era plagued by the struggle between ecclesiastical and secular authority. His theological positions 1 Nomen autem meum ideo volui silentio contegi, ne invidia tabescens suis juberet utile opus contemnendo negligi, Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium, in L'Elucidarium et les Lucidaires,