Religious Philosophy

In his magnum opus De Trinitate the twelfth-century canon Richard of St. Victor offers sustained reflection on core dogmatic claims from the Athanasian creed. At the heart of the treatise is Richard’s argument for exactly three divine persons. Starting with the necessity of a single maximally perfect divine substance Richard reasons along four steps: (i) God must have maximal charity or other-love; (ii) to be perfectly good delightful and glorious God’s other-love must be shared among at least two and (iii) among at least three divine persons; (iv) the metaphysics of divine processions and love each ensure the impossibility of four divine persons. For Richard Scripture and trustworthy church authorities already provide certainty in these truths of faith. Even so as an act of ardent love Richard contemplates the Trinity as reflected in creation. From this epistemic point of departure he supports his conclusions from common human experience alone.

Recently philosophers of religion have employed Richard’s trinitarian reflection as a springboard for constructive work in apologetics and ramified natural theology. His unique and meticulous approach to the Trinity has garnered attention from scholars of medieval and Victorine studies recognizing the novelty and rigour of his philosophical theology.

This volume presents the first focused exploration of Richard’s central thesis in De Trinitate combining historical context with philosophical scrutiny. It confronts the most challenging aspects of his argument presenting Richard’s insights as not merely intriguing but also profoundly compelling. His thesis if validated promises to significantly enrich modern dialogues on the philosophical and theological dimensions of the Trinity.

This volume concludes that there is such a thing as a unified Senequian theology which forms a system despite the necessary duality of its philosophical and literary approaches. This quest for a definition of the Stoic god is achieved through multiple literary forms which provide as many perspectives on the divine. Seneca's religious views offer the individual growing in wisdom to develop a knowledge of the god which is inductive rather than deductive experimental and not only theoretical sensitive and not purely rational – all within the context of a pagan and philosophical monotheism. Thus all the originality of Seneca’s theological undertaking lies paradoxically in a refocusing on Man who must be freed from his existential fears and led to the heroic acceptance of the divine plan. Indeed Seneca’s carefully thought out theodicy goes beyond the Stoic’s traditional optimism – which considers the rational god to be inherently provident – and positively confronts the question of the existence of Evil which culminates in tragedies. Ultimately the center of gravity of Seneca’s religion which is based on an exaltation of human interiority shifts from the god to the sage a true hero who has managed to overcome the vicissitudes of life and whose glorification constitutes the supreme degree of piety.

Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine active between the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth is the Christian author who has handed down to us in the form of quotations the greatest number of Greek philosophical texts. Yet his precise relationship to philosophy has never been the subject of a comprehensive study.

This book which brings together contributions by leading specialists aims to provide an initial overview. The analyses covering most of Eusebius’ works starting with the Preparation for the Gospel show the importance of philosophy in his thought. Beyond the use he makes of philosophers sometimes to criticise them sometimes to appropriate their ideas Eusebius stands out for his fairly good knowledge of philosophy especially Platonic philosophy the issues of which he seems to understand well. Although he takes up from his Christian predecessors the idea that Christianity is as such a “philosophy” this claim sometimes implies a technicality that is revealed not only in the way he quotes and comments on the philosophers but also in the presence in his work less visible at first sight of concepts and methods of exposition that bear witness to a real philosophical culture. At the end of these studies Eusebius of Caesarea too often reduced to a “court theologian” or to the status of “Father of Ecclesiastical History” emerges more as the scholar he was both Greek and Christian whose work and thought are inseparable from the philosophical context in which they were born.

Opuscula theologica et polemica is a collection of minor works of Maximus the Confessor that has not received much scholarly attention so far. Nevertheless it offers a unique insight in the Christological and personological universe of the Christian thinker. The present volume is the first attempt to bring together scholars of different traditions and to apply different approaches - theological philosophical philological and historical - to this seminal work.

This volume discusses cosmological issues in Greek Patristic and Byzantine question-and-answer literature. By adopting this focus it yields novel insights into both the (theological / philosophical) content and the (literary) form of the texts under scrutiny. How did Greek Patristic and Byzantine authors understand the cosmos of which they were a part and the world in which they lived? And what literary forms did they use to express their questions and answers on these issues? This collection of studies shows that in order to bring out the important intellectual contribution of the authors under discussion both ‘cosmology’ and ‘question-and-answer literature’ should be defined more broadly than expected. Several papers deal with the crucial corpora by Pseudo-Justin and Maximus the Confessor. Other authors under discussion include Philoponus Pseudo-Caesarius Michael Psellus Severian of Gabala and Nilus Doxopatres. Attention also goes to the critical edition of question-and-answer literature as well as to the Greek Patristic and Byzantine reception of cosmological questions and answers from Antiquity (i.c. Aristotle Philo of Alexandria Plutarch and Iamblichus).

Bernard de Clairvaux philosophe? Une école cistercienne au XIIe siècle? Telles sont les deux questions affrontées dans chacune des parties de ce livre.

Une historiographie contemporaine oppose souvent à un Abélard renouvelant la philosophie par l’accueil de la logica nova et de la dialectique un Bernard dogmatique dernier des Pères de l’Église. Prenant le contrepied de cette caricature la première partie affronte la première question et présente un Bernard de Clairvaux philosophe fleuron du socratisme chrétien. Reconnu comme tel depuis Pierre Courcelle Bernard donne toutefois à cette philosophie socratique une inflexion marquant le primat de l’humilité (Ch. I) le détour nécessaire par la charité (Ch. II) en vue de parvenir à la contemplation (Ch. IV). Entre ces deux points d’inflexion un chapitre développe le rôle central pour lui du libre arbitre et celui de la conscience (Ch. III).

Il est de coutume d’opposer le cloître et l’école au XIIe siècle. Toutefois si nous entendons par là non un lieu d’enseignement où l’on noterait les présents et les absents mais un réseau d’influence intellectuelle voire spirituelle il devient possible de parler d’une école cistercienne. La deuxième partie recherche la présence ou non des caractéristiques humanistes mises en évidence dans la première chez divers auteurs cisterciens de ce temps. Ils sont pris d’abord parmi les plus proches de Bernard: Aelred de Rievaulx Guerric d’Igny Geoffroy d’Auxerre (Ch. I). Puis (Ch. II) sont examinés trois auteurs cisterciens parmi les plus philosophes du XIIe siècle: Isaac de l’Étoile Garnier de Rochefort et Hélinand de Froidmont. Enfin (Ch. III) on en vient à trois auteurs qualifiés de «satellites» dont le rapport à l’Ordre Cistercien est plus complexe: Guillaume de Saint-Thierry Alain de Lille et Joachim de Flore.

Par quels mécanismes notre volonté nos désirs nos affects influencent-ils nos croyances ? Sommes-nous libres de croire ce que nous voulons même ce dont nous n'avons aucune preuve ? Et si nous le sommes comment garantir que nous ne croyions pas au hasard au gré de notre fantaisie ? Y a-t-il des raisons morales objectives de croire ce que nous ne pouvons savoir ? Le présent ouvrage a pour ambition de trouver réponse à ces questions dans les œuvres académiques notamment les commentaires des Sentences de certains des penseurs les plus importants de l'âge d'or de la scolastique médiévale : Alexandre de Halès Bonaventure Thomas d'Aquin Henri de Gand Godefroid de Fontaines Pierre de Jean Olivi et Jean Duns Scot. Si les questions posées ne sont pas toujours celles que les médiévaux ont affrontées leur traitement de la notion de foi et des problèmes philosophiques et théologiques qui lui sont associés leur donne l'occasion d'y apporter des éléments de réponse significatifs pour l'histoire de la pensée occidentale. C'est à la mise au jour de ces éléments que ce livre est consacré. Il démontre l'existence de deux grands mouvements de pensée qui convergent vers un volontarisme doxastique de plus en plus marqué accompagné d'un retrait croissant des ressorts surnaturels dans l'explication des croyances humaines.

Ce livre a été distingué par la mention honorable du Prix international Thomas Ricklin. Il constitue une version enrichie et approfondie de la thèse de doctorat de l'auteur qui a été récompensée par le prix solennel Aguirre-Basualdo de la Chancellerie des Universités de Paris.

The present book studies prayer as a category of Platonic religious thought from Plato to Late Antiquity. Following a chronological framework (Plato the pseudo-Platonic Second Alcibiades Maximus of Tyre Plotinus Porphyry Iamblichus Proclus) the book examines the relationship between philosophical reflection on prayer and a series of themes and related topics: the criticism and the interpretation of traditional cults the conceptualization of religious emotions the philosophical explanation of how astrology and magic work the theories of the soul and the theological description of reality in Late Neoplatonism.

The book aims to contribute to shed new light on the relationship between religion and philosophy in Antiquity and in particular on the forms of “scientific” religion that appear and develop in the philosophical schools in Late Antiquity. Special attention is paid to the relationship between philosophy religion and rhetoric. The rhetorical dimension of prayer is explored in relation to the role of persuasion and emotion in prayer and to the idea that exegetical commentary represents a hymn in prose addressed to the gods.

By “barbarian names” we denote names or words used principally within a ritual context in ancient religions the efficacy of which depends upon a semantic opacity a strangeness or even an unintelligibility. In order to determine the distance that constitutes the ‘barbarous’ character of these names this book offers a series of studies on various examples – a majority concerning Middle- or Neo-Platonic texts – which will allow the reader to appreciate the theories through which Antiquity viewed the relationships particularly the interchange between the various beings that inhabit the world – mortals demons and gods – each group having its own language mode of expression its manner of being situated within the hierarchical order of reality and being related to others.

One of the most important texts in the history of medieval philosophy the Book of Causes was composed in Baghdad in the 9th century mainly from the Arabic translations of Proclus’ Elements of Theology. In the 12th century it was translated from Arabic into Latin but its importance in the Latin tradition was not properly studied until now because only 6 commentaries on it were known. Our exceptional discovery of over 70 unpublished Latin commentaries mainly on the Book of Causes but also on the Elements of Theology prove for the first time that the two texts where widely disseminated and commented on throughout many European universities (Paris Oxford Erfurt Krakow Prague) from the 13th to the 16th century. These two volumes provide 14 editions (partial or complete) of the newly-discovered commentaries and yields through historical and philosophical analyses new and essential insights into the influence of Greek and Islamic Neoplatonism in the Latin philosophical traditions.