Papers by Dr. John Bequette
American Benedictine Review, Mar 1, 2019
Coll. Collationes Hex. Collationes in hexäemeron Conf. Confessiones cccm Corpus Christianorum Con... more Coll. Collationes Hex. Collationes in hexäemeron Conf. Confessiones cccm Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis ccsl Corpus Christianorum Series Latina cdh Cur Deus homo Comp. hom. De compositione hominis Dil. De diligendo Deo Dom. div. De dominio divino Gn. litt. De Genesi ad litteram Gra. De gratia et libero arbitrio Mand. div. De mandatis divinis Natura corporis De natura corporis et animae Pre. De precepto et dispensatione Sacr. De sacramentis christianae fidei Temp. ratione De temporum ratione Trin. De Trinitate Dialogus Dialogus de anima Expositio ad Romanos Expositio super Epistolam ad Romanos Mono.
BRILL eBooks, 2016
A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism explores Christian humanism in the writings of key med... more A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism explores Christian humanism in the writings of key medieval thinkers. It explores questions pertaining to human dignity, the human person’s place in the cosmos, and the educational ideals involved in shaping the human person.
Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, 2010
ABSTRACT Martin of Tours (c. 336–97) was a Roman soldier living in Gaul when Rome was abandoning ... more ABSTRACT Martin of Tours (c. 336–97) was a Roman soldier living in Gaul when Rome was abandoning paganism and embracing Christianity. Roman civic institutions were disappearing with the collapse of military security and political order in the West. Yet the intellectual legacy of Rome was continuing in the Church. By this time, many Christians had received a classical Roman education and were beginning to make their distinct contribution to the Western literary tradition. Justin Martyr (c. 100–60) was an early prominent Christian who had received a classical education. As a converted man of letters Justin directed his literary skill at the critics of the Christian faith in his Apologies and his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho. Athenagorus (c. 177), an Athenean, wrote an eloquent defense of Christianity addressed to the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Catechetical School at Alexandria yielded a corpus of learned Christian philosophical and theological writings through Clement and his pupil Origen. Cyprian of Carthage (d. a.d. 258) wrote many letters addressing various pastoral and theological questions facing the persecuted Church of his day, letters known and long revered for their content and style. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263–339) made his great literary contribution in his Ecclesiastical History, recounting the history of the Church from the time of the Apostles to the reign of Constantine the Great. All of these classically trained thinkers were responding to what historian of rhetoric James J. Murphy identified as &quot;the problem of defining the intellectual base for a culture which would permit the Church to perform its duty of leading men to salvation.&quot; This duty of leading souls to salvation required the use of the intellectual goods of Greco-Roman culture, goods that first had to be removed from their original pagan contexts before they could be placed in the service of the Church. This translatio from a pagan to a Christian context could not help but alter the signification of the various terms, concepts, and ideas, which constituted a genuine transformation of culture. To this great tradition Sulpicius Severus (363–c. 420) added his Life of Saint Martin. Like the other great thinkers of the early Church, Sulpicius received a typical Roman education consisting of rhetorical and literary studies, which included Virgil, Terence, Sallust, Cicero, Horace, and Plautus. In this area he would have had much in common with his pagan contemporaries. Clare Stancliffe writes that Sulpicius&#39;s formal education &quot;was virtually unaffected by the rise of Christianity. The teaching of Christian beliefs and morals was the affair of the family, and of the Church; it in no way replaced the standard classical education.&quot; This commonality with the pagan Roman tradition was the source of considerable tension in the minds of many Christian thinkers, creating an ambivalence experienced by individuals of such stature as Ambrose and Jerome. Ambrose claimed to prefer the simple style of the Scriptures to the polished language of orators, yet he modeled his De officiis ministrorum, a manual for training priests, on Cicero&#39;s De officiis. The well-known experience of Jerome more forcefully exemplifies this ambivalence, when Christ chides him with the words: &quot;Thou art not a Christian, but a Ciceronian.&quot; Nevertheless, later in life Jerome would recommend Cicero as an oratorical model to his students. Sulpicius, however, did not seem to share this ambivalence. Like Jerome, he was an ascetic; and yet, as Jacques Fontaine writes: &quot;The ascetic of Primuliacum did not experience the anxieties of the &#39;dream of Jerome&#39;; he intended to live &#39;as a Ciceronian and a Christian.&#39;&quot; In this he was closer to the position of Augustine, who quite deliberately blended Ciceronian rhetoric with Christian teaching in his De doctrina christiana. Like his fellow Christian thinkers, Sulpicius took his classical pagan education and transplanted it into a Christian context. Originally, he had planned to enter the legal profession, but after the early death of his wife he undertook a monastic-style life of seclusion at his estate in Primuliacum. He met Bishop Martin around the year 393. He was so taken by Martin&#39;s piety and charisma that he immediately took to writing an account of his life. He completed his Life of Saint Martin while Martin was...
The Downside review, Jul 1, 2013
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR (c. 1004-1066) was the last great Saxon king of England. He reigned at a tim... more EDWARD THE CONFESSOR (c. 1004-1066) was the last great Saxon king of England. He reigned at a time when England had been enduring sustained attacks from the Danes and when relations with the Scots to the north were tenuous at best. His reign was followed by the brief reign of the less-than-capable Harold II, who died at the Battle of Hastings and thus lost control of England to William of Normandy. Relations between the Saxons and their conquerors for the next century were defined by intense animosity, as Saxon nobles were divested of their holdings by Norman lords and Normans began to occupy all the important civil and ecclesiastical offices. It was within this difficult situation that ^lred of Rievaulx (1110-67) emerged as a prominent scholar, political advisor, and monastic. After serving for ten years at the court of King David I of Scotland, JEktd came into contact with the Cistercian monastic movement and was attracted to its manner of life.' He entered the order at the English Cistercian abbey at Rievaulx, where in 1141 he became master of novices.^ In 1147 he was elected abbot.' Even as a monastic, i^lred continued to be involved in worldly affairs. Marsha L. Dutton writes:
A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism, 2016
A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism explores Christian humanism in the writings of key med... more A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism explores Christian humanism in the writings of key medieval thinkers. It explores questions pertaining to human dignity, the human person’s place in the cosmos, and the educational ideals involved in shaping the human person.
A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism, 2016
Coll. Collationes Hex. Collationes in hexäemeron Conf. Confessiones cccm Corpus Christianorum Con... more Coll. Collationes Hex. Collationes in hexäemeron Conf. Confessiones cccm Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis ccsl Corpus Christianorum Series Latina cdh Cur Deus homo Comp. hom. De compositione hominis Dil. De diligendo Deo Dom. div. De dominio divino Gn. litt. De Genesi ad litteram Gra. De gratia et libero arbitrio Mand. div. De mandatis divinis Natura corporis De natura corporis et animae Pre. De precepto et dispensatione Sacr. De sacramentis christianae fidei Temp. ratione De temporum ratione Trin. De Trinitate Dialogus Dialogus de anima Expositio ad Romanos Expositio super Epistolam ad Romanos Mono.
Saint Francis of Assisi is perhaps the most popular saint in the Christian tradition. In particul... more Saint Francis of Assisi is perhaps the most popular saint in the Christian tradition. In particular, the poverello ("little poor man") appeals to those who demonstrate in their lives a particular solicitude for the poor in conformity with modern Roman Catholic social teaching. Indeed, Francis' contempt for wealth is well known. What is not so well known is the dynamic of conversion that led to this contempt for wealth and identification with the poor. Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of Francis, was acutely aware of both the place of poverty in the identity of Francis and the role of personal conversion in shaping this identity. In the Vita prima Sancti Francisci, Thomas articulates his own understanding of Francis' conversion and how it made Francis into the embodiment of evangelical poverty. Thomas of Celano was commissioned by Pope Gregory IX to write Vita prima Sancti Francisci in 1228 and completed it in 1229 after Francis' canonization.' Thus began a long series of lives of the poor man from Assisi, lives written by several members of the Order of Friars Minor. Thomas himself followed the Vita prima with three other vitae of Francis: the Legenda ad usum chori in 1230, the Vita secunda in 1247, and, in 1254, the Tractatus de miracu/is B. Francisci (171). Franciscan liturgist Julian of Speyer composed his own life of Francis in 1234/5, one better suited to public reading at the gatherings of the friars. 2 Henri d'Avranches, well versed in the Latin poets, composed between 1230 and 1235 his Legenda versificata, in which he related the life of Francis in verse. 3 In 1266, Bonaventure composed the soon-tobe-official Legenda maior, which resulted in all earlier vitae of Francis falling into disuse, including those written by Thomas. 4 The importance of Thomas' Vita prima Sancti Francisci lay in the fact that it "embodies and expresses the original piety saturating and promoting the cult of Francis immediately after he was enrolled in the catalogue of the saints" (Bequette 2). In Vita prima, Thomas of Celano constructs the primal image of Francis, meaning that he is "the first to coalesce the acts, events and phenomena associated with Francis into a complete narrative" at a time "when one would expect popular devotion to the new saint to be most energetic" (2).
Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, 2010
ABSTRACT Martin of Tours (c. 336–97) was a Roman soldier living in Gaul when Rome was abandoning ... more ABSTRACT Martin of Tours (c. 336–97) was a Roman soldier living in Gaul when Rome was abandoning paganism and embracing Christianity. Roman civic institutions were disappearing with the collapse of military security and political order in the West. Yet the intellectual legacy of Rome was continuing in the Church. By this time, many Christians had received a classical Roman education and were beginning to make their distinct contribution to the Western literary tradition. Justin Martyr (c. 100–60) was an early prominent Christian who had received a classical education. As a converted man of letters Justin directed his literary skill at the critics of the Christian faith in his Apologies and his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho. Athenagorus (c. 177), an Athenean, wrote an eloquent defense of Christianity addressed to the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Catechetical School at Alexandria yielded a corpus of learned Christian philosophical and theological writings through Clement and his pupil Origen. Cyprian of Carthage (d. a.d. 258) wrote many letters addressing various pastoral and theological questions facing the persecuted Church of his day, letters known and long revered for their content and style. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263–339) made his great literary contribution in his Ecclesiastical History, recounting the history of the Church from the time of the Apostles to the reign of Constantine the Great. All of these classically trained thinkers were responding to what historian of rhetoric James J. Murphy identified as &quot;the problem of defining the intellectual base for a culture which would permit the Church to perform its duty of leading men to salvation.&quot; This duty of leading souls to salvation required the use of the intellectual goods of Greco-Roman culture, goods that first had to be removed from their original pagan contexts before they could be placed in the service of the Church. This translatio from a pagan to a Christian context could not help but alter the signification of the various terms, concepts, and ideas, which constituted a genuine transformation of culture. To this great tradition Sulpicius Severus (363–c. 420) added his Life of Saint Martin. Like the other great thinkers of the early Church, Sulpicius received a typical Roman education consisting of rhetorical and literary studies, which included Virgil, Terence, Sallust, Cicero, Horace, and Plautus. In this area he would have had much in common with his pagan contemporaries. Clare Stancliffe writes that Sulpicius&#39;s formal education &quot;was virtually unaffected by the rise of Christianity. The teaching of Christian beliefs and morals was the affair of the family, and of the Church; it in no way replaced the standard classical education.&quot; This commonality with the pagan Roman tradition was the source of considerable tension in the minds of many Christian thinkers, creating an ambivalence experienced by individuals of such stature as Ambrose and Jerome. Ambrose claimed to prefer the simple style of the Scriptures to the polished language of orators, yet he modeled his De officiis ministrorum, a manual for training priests, on Cicero&#39;s De officiis. The well-known experience of Jerome more forcefully exemplifies this ambivalence, when Christ chides him with the words: &quot;Thou art not a Christian, but a Ciceronian.&quot; Nevertheless, later in life Jerome would recommend Cicero as an oratorical model to his students. Sulpicius, however, did not seem to share this ambivalence. Like Jerome, he was an ascetic; and yet, as Jacques Fontaine writes: &quot;The ascetic of Primuliacum did not experience the anxieties of the &#39;dream of Jerome&#39;; he intended to live &#39;as a Ciceronian and a Christian.&#39;&quot; In this he was closer to the position of Augustine, who quite deliberately blended Ciceronian rhetoric with Christian teaching in his De doctrina christiana. Like his fellow Christian thinkers, Sulpicius took his classical pagan education and transplanted it into a Christian context. Originally, he had planned to enter the legal profession, but after the early death of his wife he undertook a monastic-style life of seclusion at his estate in Primuliacum. He met Bishop Martin around the year 393. He was so taken by Martin&#39;s piety and charisma that he immediately took to writing an account of his life. He completed his Life of Saint Martin while Martin was...
The Eloquence of Sanctity examines the interrelation between hagiography and rhetoric in one of t... more The Eloquence of Sanctity examines the interrelation between hagiography and rhetoric in one of the most important medieval saints: Thomas of Celano's Vita Prima Sancti Francisci (The Life of St. Francis). The author contends that Thomas uses figures drawn from the Roman rhetorical tradition to construct his image of Saint Francis and to persuade his audience to seek Francis intercession and emulate his life. This book attempts to demonstrate the inherently rhetorical nature of hagiography as well as the ambiguities and limits of language when it attemts to comprehend the sacred.
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Papers by Dr. John Bequette