On the Nature and Dignity of Love |
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| Author:
| Saint Thierry, William |
| Prepared for Publication by:
| Hermenegild, Borhter |
| ISBN: | 978-1-4935-2900-1 |
| Publication Date: | Oct 2013 |
| Publisher: | CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $7.95 |
Book Description:
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WILLIAM OF SAINT THIERRY, the little known but very great contemporary and friend of Saint Bernard, wrote his treatise On the nature and dignity of love a little after his first work, On contemplating God. He was at the time abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Thierry near Rheims, but one already notices how heavy he found the abbatial charge. Eventually he found it impossible to carry on any longer, and in I 135 he resigned his office and took the Cistercian habit in the new...
More DescriptionWILLIAM OF SAINT THIERRY, the little known but very great contemporary and friend of Saint Bernard, wrote his treatise On the nature and dignity of love a little after his first work, On contemplating God. He was at the time abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Thierry near Rheims, but one already notices how heavy he found the abbatial charge. Eventually he found it impossible to carry on any longer, and in I 135 he resigned his office and took the Cistercian habit in the new foundation at Signy. Most of William' s work was produced when he was abbot of Saint Thierry, and his treatise On the nature and dignity of love lnight conceivably be based on sermons delivered at the morning chapter to his monks at Saint Thierry.As Saint Aelred took Cicero's doctrine as the basis for his work on spiritual friendship, so the author of The nature and dignity of love took Ovid's Art of Loving as the starting point of his work. But whereas Aelred developed Cicero's thought in a Christian context, William used Ovid only in order to contradict his all too popular doctrine of profane love, as he says quite clearly in his first chapter: ' ... by unruly rules he [Ovid] instructed the natural faculties in licentiousness ... instead of turning towards God in the due order of nature, men were brought low by the allurements of the flesh.' One can legitimately suppose that William found many of the novices as saturated with Ovid as he found them in later years at Signy reeking with the 'errors' of Abelard.William visualized the monastery as a school of love. In chapter nine we read that the monastery is charity's own school. Here the study of love is pursued. Here love's disputations are held and love's questions answered.' But it is important to note how, in the same chapter, William traces the descent of the monastic comnumity from that fellowship of the Holy Spirit which the Apostles were the first to enjoy. On the nature and dignity of love is not just a monastic idyll, but a passage which most interest every Christian, for all are bowld to seek after the perfection of love.