A spiritual use of Lat. mens in Gregory the Great’s ‘Homilies on Gospels’

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This paper shows that passages from Gregory the Great’s Homilies on Gospels indicate that mens is related to ‘heart’ and its place and role within the human soul rather than to ‘mind’, ‘intellect’ and ‘reason’, as perceived today. The alternating use of mens and cor within expressions containing the same verb with reference to exactly the same idea show that these two are, to a certain extent, interchangeable. There are interesting passages in Gregory’s Homilies that indicate a similarity to Greek philocalic vocabulary, which is probably due to a spiritual connexion between Eastern and Western Christian communities long after the split of the Roman Empire. The roots of such a spirituality must be of Judaic origin, as shown by biblical texts. There is also enough evidence to believe that the semantics around mens have been altered by the modern conception of ‘mind’, thought to be closer to the intellectual faculties of man.