Peter Lombard is best known as the author of a celebrated work entitled Book of Sentences, which for several centuries served as the standard theological textbook in the Christian West. It was the subject of more commentaries than any other work of Christian literature besides the Bible itself. The Book of Sentences is essentially a compilation of older sources, from the Scriptures and Augustine down to several of the Lombard's contemporaries, such as Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard. Its (...) importance lies in the Lombard's organisation of the theological material, his method of presentation, and the way in which he shaped doctrine in several major areas. Despite his importance, however, there is no accessible introduction to Peter Lombard's life and thought available in any modern language. This volume fills this considerable gap. Philipp W. Rosemann begins by demonstrating how the Book of Sentences grew out of a long tradition of Christian reflection-a tradition, ultimately rooted in Scripture, which by the twelfth century had become ready to transform itself into a theological system. Turning to the Sentences, Rosemann then offers a brief exposition of the Lombard's life and work. He proceeds to a book-by-book examination and interpretation of its main topics, including the nature and attributes of God, the Trinity, creation, angelology, human nature and the Fall, original sin, Christology, ethics, and the sacraments. He concludes by exploring how the Sentences helped shape the further development of the Christian tradition, from the twelfth century through the time of Martin Luther. (shrink)

Introduction to Medieval Philosophy combines and updates the scholarship of the two highly successful volumes Early Medieval Philosophy (1983) and Late Medieval Philosoph y (1986) in a single, reliable, and comprehensive text on the history of medieval philosophy. John Marenbon discusses the main philosophers and ideas within the social and intellectual contexts of the time, and the most important concepts in medieval philosophy. Straightforward in arrangement, wide in scope, and clear in style, this is the ideal starting point for students (...) beginning the subject. (shrink)

This is the second of the three volumes comprising, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Focussing on the period from c.1090-1212, the volume explores the lives, scholarly resources, and contributions of a wide sample of people who either took part in the creation of the scholastic system of thought or gave practical effect to it in public life. The second volume of a compelling, original work which will redefine our perceptions of medieval civilization, the renaissance and the evolution of (...) modern Europe. Written by a man who was widely regarded as the greatest medieval historian. (shrink)

Augustine's analysis and solution of the classical problem of free will and foreknowledge - as given in De libero arbitrio III 4-10 and De civitate Dei V 8-10 - stand out in their brevity and simplicity. His texts carry formulations which show an astonishing clarity not only in what they explicitly say, but also in what is implicitly said in them. Most recent discussions of Augustine's view, however, are unclear about this clarity, at least partly because they tend to a (...) deterministic position; they probably sense, unwillingly, that Augustine intends to rule that position out. In the discussions on the problem a dilemma seems to be unavoidable; one can only cling to one of its horns. Either God knows the future and then human volitions cannot be free , or the human will is free but then God cannot know its future volitions . In his analysis of this dilemma Augustine shows that both positions already presuppose an insight which cannot be taken for granted. The certainty of God's foreknowledge seems to entail that the object of his foreknowledge is necessary, but on close examination it does not. For it is sufficient to state: It is necessary that, if there is an object of God's foreknowledge, God knows it. Augustine's central sentences carefully formulate this kind of - implicative - necessity involved in prescience. Because of this 'necessity', he can consistently maintain that it is on the power of the will to sin or not to sin and yet, if a man will sin, God will know it, or if that man will not sin, God will know that. Thus the object of God's knowledge can be contingent, as in the case of future volitions, and still His foreknowledge can be certain. A deterministic interpretation of Augustine's analysis can be substantiated by the idea that God foreknows what the will itself will do, whereas his certainty is based on the supposition that the will is a natural cause of its volitions - just like the other causes in the cosmos. Although Augustine does not deal with this more specific aspect - he does not need to, because he showed that the certainty of God's knowledge can be guaranteed independent of the status of its object - we can conclude from his formulations that the will, as a cause of volitions, differs from a natural cause not only by producing them itself, but also by producing them in such a way that it can not-produce them. (shrink)

Beatific Enjoyment in Medieval Scholastic Debates traces the reception of Saint Augustine’s concept of beatific enjoyment in Peter Lombard’s Sentences. It identifies the main themes and problems which shaped the discussion of the concept in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century scholastic commentaries. Bringing together theological and scientific approaches to the idea of enjoyment, Severin Kitanov exposes the intricacy of the discourse and develops a new perspective for students and scholars.