Parables : Bernard of Clairvaux's mapping of spiritual topography / by Mette B. Bruun.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Bruun, Mette Birkedal.

Series:

Brill's studies in intellectual history 0920-8607 ; v. 148.

Brill's studies in intellectual history, 0920-8607 ; v. 148

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bernard, of Clairvaux, Saint, 1090 or 1091-1153.

Bernard.

Spiritual life--Catholic Church.

Spiritual life.

Genre:

Academic theses.

Physical Description:

xiv, 344 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2007.

Summary:

This volume is a study of spatial structures in Bernard of Clairvaux's parables. It lays out a spiritual topography which is linked to the rumination of the Bible. The topography ranges across such locations as Paradise, Babylon, the bridegroom's chamber and the celestial Jerusalem, and man navigates it in the character of peregrinus and viator. The first part of the study addresses the spiritual topography and the hermeneutics of its mapping. The second and larger part examines each of Bernard's eight parables and the ways in which he reformulates issues central to monastic tradition - militia Christi, for example, God's image and likeness in man, contemptus mundi, the quest for beatitude - as voyages within spiritual landscapes.

Contents:

1 Bernard of Clairvaux revisited 1

2 Topic and structure 4

3 Position in the scholarly landscape 5

4 Topography in Bernard research 7

5 Theoretical considerations 12

Part I Semantic Frame of Resonance

Chapter 1 Mappings 19

I Mapping: Prolegomena 19

1 The hermeneutics of cartography 19

2 Man in space 22

3 Mappings of biblical topography 24

a Mapping biblical topography: Egeria's itinerary 24

b Mapping biblical topography: Jerome's etymologies 26

c Mapping biblical topography: Augustine's typologies 28

II Bernardine mapping 29

1 Bernard and the Bible 30

2 Intermezzo: Cassian and the four-fold exegesis 33

3 Bernardine exegeses 37

4 Text: SC 23 and the mapping of interpretation 39

Chapter 2 Topographies 45

I Textual topographies: Prolegomena 45

1 "Lokal" and "Raum" 46

a Lokal and Raum in Fontane and Goethe 47

II Textual topographies in Bernard 50

1 Lokal and Raum in Bernard 50

2 Fortified cities 52

a Fortified cities in Intravit sermons 53

b Fortified cities in the sermons In dedicatione ecclesiae 58

3 Jerusalem and Babylon 63

a Jerusalem and Babylon: Augustinian prologue 64

b Bernardine representations of Jerusalem and Babylon 66

4 Wildernesses 70

a Wildernesses: Biblical prologue 71

b Bernardine wildernesses 72

5 Pars pro toto 80

6 Text: Ep 2 and the topographical charge 82

Chapter 3 Topographical Anthropology 87

I Topographical anthropology: Prolegomena 87

1 New Testament bases 88

II The Bernardine peregrinus 90

1 Alienation from God 90

2 Alienation from alienation 91

3 The locales of the peregrinus 92

a Tents or cities 93

b Ways and stables 94

c Excursus: The ways of the viator 97

4 Text I: Ep 64 and the monastic Jerusalem 103

5 Text II: Quad 6 and the stages of alienation 107

Chapter 4 Memory 111

I Memory: Augustinian prolegomena 111

II Bernardine memories 112

1 Plana memoriae 112

2 Memory and the soul's capacity for God 113

3 The indigestion of the book of memory 115

4 Storage in memory 118

5 Recoding of memory 120

6 Oblivion 121

7 In search of the bridegroom 123

8 Text: SC 23 and the realms of memory 126

Chapter 5 Conclusion and transition 129

Part II Bernard of Clairvaux's Parables

1 The parables and their investigators 135

2 Sitz-im-Leben 138

II Genre 140

1 Designations and collections 141

a Parabola: Definitions and implications 145

b Medieval parabolae 147

c Parabolae as a means of shrouding and revealing 149

d Bernardine employments of parabola 151

e The hermeneutics of the parabolic form 152

f Prudentius's Psychomachia 154

g Anselm of Canterbury's similitudes 157

h Galand of Reigny's Parabolarium 160

i Conclusion as to parabolic form 162

3 Subject-matter 163

Chapter 2 Par I, De filio regis 167

1 Paradise 169

2 Cumulative nature 171

3 The vice of wandering 174

4 The old robber 179

5 The ship 181

6 In regio dissimilitudinis 182

a Excursus: Regio dissimilitudinis 184

7 Leaving regio dissimilitudinis 196

8 The castle of Wisdom 198

9 Egypt: The topos of sin that comes back 199

10 The heavenly palace: Reformatio in melius 202

11 Topographical plot 204

Chapter 3 Par II, De conflictu duorum regum 207

2 Babylon and Jerusalem 210

3 Soldiers of Christ 213

4 The castle of Justice 215

5 The new Jerusalem 217

6 The breach in the wall: Topographical borderlines 221

7 Topographical plot 226

Chapter 4 Par III, De filio regis sedente super equum 229

2 Nebuchadnezzar and David 231

3 The novice 234

4 Returns 238

5 The return of the novice 241

6 Mount Abarim 242

a Excursus on mountains: A question of point of view 245

7 Topographical plot 247

Chapter 5 Par IV, De ecclesia quae captiva erat in Aegypto 251

1 The home of the king and his son 254

2 Egypt 254

3 The cubiculum 256

4 Departures 258

5 Babylon and Egypt 259

6 Ecclesia peregrinans 261

7 Topographical plot 265

Chapter 6 Par V, De tribus filiabus regis 267

1 The civitas of the human soul 269

2 Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus 269

3 Topographical plot 270

Chapter 7 Par VI, De Aethiopissa quam filius regis duxit uxorem 271

Parable 271

2 The Aethiopissa 275

3 The thalamus of Mary 277

4 Christological topographies 278

5 The five windows of contemplation 285

6 The Church in Jerusalem 289

7 Topographical plot 290

Chapter 8 Par VII, De octo beatitudinibus 291

1 The two plots of the parable 294

2 The monastic plot: Christ and the wayfarer 295

a The meeting in the road 296

b Doing business 297

3 The lapsarian plot 300

a Expulsion from Paradise 300

b Returning to Paradise 303

c Paradisus claustralis 304

d Memoria 307

4 Anthropology 308

5 Topographical plot 309

Chapter 9 Par VIII, De rege et servo quem dilexit 311

Other 327.

Notes:

Originated as thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Aarhus, 1996.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [315]-327) and indexes.

ISBN:

9004155031

9789004155039

OCLC:

71126896

Publisher Number:

9789004155039