University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Religious Studies Faculty Publications Religious Studies 2001 History of Western Ethics: Early Medieval G. Scott aD vis University of Richmond, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/religiousstudies-faculty- publications Part of the Ethics in Religion Commons, and the History of Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Davis, G. Scott. "History of Western Ethics: Early Medieval." In Encyclopedia of Ethics, edited by Lawrence Becker and Charlotte Becker, 709-15. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge, 2001. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religious Studies at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religious Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. history of Western ethics: 5. Early Medieval Copyright 2001 from Encyclopedia of Ethics by Lawrence Becker and Charlotte Becker. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis, LLC, a division of Informa plc. history of Western ethics: 5. Early Medieval ''Medieval" and its cognates arose as terms of op­ probrium, used by the Italian humanists to charac­ terize more a style than an age. Hence it is difficult at best to distinguish late antiquity from the early middle ages. It is equally difficult to determine the proper scope of "ethics," the philosophical schools of late antiquity having become purveyors of ways of life in the broadest sense, not clearly to be distin­ guished from the more intellectually oriented ver­ sions of their religious rivals. This article will begin with the emergence of philosophically informed re­ flection on the nature of life, its ends, and respon­ sibilities in the writings of the Latin Fathers and close with the twelfth century, prior to the systematic reintroduction and study of the Aristotelian corpus. Patristic Foundations Early medieval thought is indissolubly bound to the seminal writings of the patristic period, roughly those Christian writings produced from the second through the sixth centuries. The ethical presuppo­ sitions inherited by the early fathers reflect the broader intellectual milieu of late antiquity, with its loose amalgam of Platonism, STOICISM, and popular tradition, and it is this background which the early medieval period inherits. In the Latin context it is primarily the moral thought of CICERO ( 106-43 B.C.E.) and SENECA (c. 4 B.C.E.-C. C.E. 65) which 709 history of Western ethics: 5. Early Medieval undergoes Christian interpretation. An influential tern and the monastic ideal. As the fundamental figure in this process of reinterpretation was Am­ means for securing moral and spiritual well-being, brose of Milan (c. 340-397), whose work On the the penitential system and its attendant theology Duties of the Clergy undertook to answer Cicero's pervade the early Middle Ages. To be in a state of De officiis and expound the relations of duty and sin is to be excluded from the community of God virtue to the blessed life promised by scripture. and the neighbor. To remain in a state of sin jeop­ The most influential of the Latin fathers, how­ ardizes the very possibility of eternal HAPPINESS. ever, is AUGUSTINE of Hippo (354-430), who, in his Thus the sacrament of penance actively reflects the work On the Morals of the Catholic Church, rede­ early medieval vision of genuine human good, its re­ fined the cardinal VIRTUES as forms of loving service sponsibilities and the consequences of breaching the oriented toward God. In his Confessions Augustine proper order of society. The structure of penance merged this account of the virtues with a neo­ came to be systematized toward the end of the early Platonic telos for which earthly life is a pilgrimage Middle Ages. Traditionally, penance has three com­ toward our true heavenly home. As pilgrims we ponents. Essential for penance is contrition of the must undertake to serve God and our neighbor, tak­ heart: the person recognizes the sin and regrets it as ing scripture as our primary guide. Here again the an EVIL. Contrition must be followed by confession; primary ethical injunction is to cultivate the virtues, by the early Middle Ages, this meant primarily the which discipline the individual to the proper use of private admission of sin to a priest. Finally, restitu­ earthly things. Book 10 of the Confessions, for ex­ tion is necessary for complete reintegration of the ample, indicates the ways in which the senses must individual into the community. Failure at any point be disciplined to the service of God, and distin­ renders penance defective and its efficaciousness guishes the search for the saving knowledge of suspect, at very best. The nature and relative gravity God's will from the vice of curiosity (chapter 35). of sins at a given period can be discerned from the Augustine elaborated his political ethics in The penitential literature that begins to emerge in the City of God. Just as the individual is a pilgrim, so is sixth century. the Church, that body made up of the faithful. The Philosophically more interesting is lhe complex church "militant," making its way in the world, must MORAL PSYCHOLOGY presupposed by the penitential acknowledge that God has ordained the political or­ system. Peccatum seems to retain its broader sense der for the restraint of WICKEDNESS and the protec­ of "mistake," suggesting that it is not the DESIRE tion of the good. This social order extends to the which is evil, properly speaking, but the complex of faithful and the unfaithful alike, sustaining at least the desire, the understanding of that desire, and the the peace necessary for regular communal activity. ACTION taken. Sin creates a disorder in the soul. The Christians must be willing, and make themselves sinner who is not depraved suffers and recognizes able, to undertake this necessary political activity the wickedness of the action as well as any of its even to the extent of accepting the burdens of judge untoward consequences. Confession acknowledges and soldier. RESPONSIBILITY for the breach of order; restitution In many shorter works, such as his treatise On reflects the desire to restore that order. This account the Good of Marriage, Augustine demonstrated the of penance points up two important aspects of early POWER of his notion of LOVE directed to the service medieval ethics. There was no hard-and-fast distinc­ of God and neighbor to come to grips with matters tion between the public and the private, the ethical of practical morality. Rejecting PERFECTIONISM he and the political, or similar polarities. Further, the acknowledged the genuine goods of marriage, not complex relations between agent, community, and merely in begetting children and sacramentally le­ God make it fruitless to characterize medieval ethics gitimating sex, but in establishing a permanent fel­ as essentially teleological, deontological, or divine lowship between two people. command. Augustine became the most influential of the The complexity of the period emerges even more Latin Fathers in generating a broad moral vision, but clearly in the second pervasive institution, the mo­ some mention must be made of the emergent INSTI­ nastic order. From the sixth century to the twelfth, TUTIONS which established and sustained the moral the centers of learning· in western Europe were the world of the early Middle Ages: the penitential sys- monasteries dedicated to the Rule (Regula Mona- 710 history of Western ethics: S. Early Medieval chorum, of St. Benedict [c. 480-c. 547]). The Rule will, following Aristotle, come to call epieikeia. A proclaims itself a "school for beginners in the service famous popular example is the legend of Gregory's of the Lord." As such, it emphasizes attaining HU­ intercession for the pagan emperor Trajan, whose MILITY through the practice of obedience. Of partic­ justice to a wronged widow so moved Gregory that ular note is Benedict's concept of the "ladder of hu­ his tears were accounted the equal of baptism and mility" on which the monk ascends from fear of God served to redeem the just Roman. Without ceasing through the various subordinate virtues such as def­ to be an act of grace, God's recognition of Trajan's erence and gravity to the twelfth degree "when the "baptism by tears" recalls Abraham's intercession monk's inward humility appears outwardly in his for Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-33) and comportment" (Regula, chapter 5). From perfected the notion that the just must be treated justly, wher­ humility, the monk progresses to perfect CHARITY ever, and in whatever circumstances, they are found. and the spiritual power to confront the powers of That Gregory only tries this once, however, is a mark evil in mortal combat. Humility and charity, from the of his humility. monastic perspective, constitute primary virtues po­ The story of Gregory and Trajan points to another tentially in conflict with the virtues of classical important source for early medieval moral NORMS culture. and expectations, namely, the lives of the saints. The Benedict's Rule served to organize the monastic medieval calendar was replete with feasts dedicated life of the early Middle Ages, but it also served to to men and women whose lives were held to exem­ establish a general ideal. This ideal found elaborate plify one or more Christian virtues. From the stories expression in the writings of Gregory the Great · of Gregory's Dialogues through the later lives of lo­ (Pope Gregory I [c. 540-604; r. 590-604]). Through cal saints, those narratives associated with the vari­ his Pastoral Rule, Dialogues, and particularly the ous saints displayed for the literate and illiterate Moralia in fob, Gregory exercised a determining in­ alike the ways in which Christians were to deal with fluence on the early medieval conception of the end the MORAL DILEMMAS of daily life and the conse­ of human life and how that life should be led.