1. Chapter 2 The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, c.500-1500
Alister E. McGrath
Historical Theology:
An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought

2. On defining the “Middle Ages”
Specific to western Europe
Earlier renewals
Expansion of Islam
By the 11th century, three centers:
Byzantium (Constantinople)
Western Europe (Rome, Paris)
The Caliphate (eastern and southern Mediterranean)
Split between the eastern and western church (1054)
Medieval theology
Byzantine theology

3. Medieval theological landmarks in western Europe
The Carolingian renaissance
Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor ( )
Alcuin ( )
The rise of monastic and cathedral schools of theology
The “Rule of Benedict”
The cathedral of Chartres
Women writers
Hildegard of Bingen ( )
Catherine of Siena ( )
Julian of Norwich (c.1342-c.1415)
Mechthild of Magdeburg (c.1210?-c.1282)

4. The religious orders and their “schools of theology”
The Cistercians (founded 1097)
The Franciscans (Francis of Assisi, c )
The Dominicans (Dominic de Guzman, )
The Augustinians
The founding of the universities
Collège de la Sorbonne, University of Paris
Peter Lombard’s Four Books of the Sentences
Quotations from Augustine

5. The rise of scholasticism
“cathedral of the mind” (Etienne Gilson)
rational justification and systematic presentation of Christian beliefs
The Italian Renaissance (14th and 15th century)
Intellectual vacuum
Visible reminders of antiquity
Fall of Constantinople
The rise of humanism
Ad fontes (back to the sources)

6. Medieval theological landmarks in Eastern Europe
The emergence of Byzantine theology
Theology as the mind of the saints (Athanasius)
The iconoclastic controversy ( )
Emperor Leo III (717-42)
John of Damascus
The hesychastic controversy
Hesychasm
Gregory Palamas (c )
The fall of Constantinople (1453)

7. Key theologians John of Damascus (c.675-c.749)
The Fountain of Wisdom
Simeon the New Theologian ( )
Abbot of St. Mamas in Constantinople
Anselm of Canterbury (c )
Proslogion
Cur Deus homo (“Why God became man”)
Thomas Aquinas (c )
Summa contra Gentiles
Summa Theologiae
Duns Scotus (c )
Voluntarism
Immaculate conception of Mary
William of Ockham (c )
Ockham’s razor
Erasmus of Rotterdam (c )
Enchiridion

8. Key theological developments
The consolidation of the patristic heritage
The exploration of the role of reason in theology
Anselm of Canterbury: faith seeking understanding
Rediscovery of Aristotle
The development of theological systems
The development of sacramental theology
The development of the theology of grace
The role of Mary in the scheme of salvation

9. Returning directly to the sources of Christian theology
The critique of the Vulgate translation of Scripture
First printed Greek New Testament – Erasmus, 1516
Translation errors in the Latin Vulgate
Marriage: a sacrament or a mystery
Matthew 4:17: do penance or repent
Mary: “full of grace” or “favored one”

10. Case study 2.1 Arguments for the existence of God
Anselm of Canterbury’s “ontological argument”
God as “that than which no greater thing can be thought”
If the idea of God exists in the human mind, the reality must also exist
Gaunilo, “A Reply on Behalf of the Fool”
The “Five Ways” of Thomas Aquinas
God as the first cause of all change/motion
God as the original cause of all effects
God as the cause of contingent beings
God as the cause of human values and ideas about truth and goodness
The teleological argument: God as the cause of natural ordering and design

11. Case study 2.2 Understandings of the atonement
Christus Victor (“Christ the victor”)
Christ’s death as a random paid to the devil
Gregory the Great: the baited hook
The “harrowing of hell”
Anselm of Canterbury
The righteousness of God
The “God-man” (Jesus Christ)
Thomas Aquinas
Christ’s satisfaction on the cross > the offense committed by humanity
Peter Abelard
Christ’s incarnation and death as demonstrations of the love of God

12. Case study 2.3 The theology of the sacraments
Augustine
A sacrament is a sign which bears relation to the thing signified
Hugh of St. Victor (d.1142)
Physical or material element
A “kind of likeness”
Institution/authorization
Efficacy
Peter Lombard
A “sign of the grace of God and a form of invisible grace”
Baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, ordination, marriage

13. Case study 2.4 The interpretation of the Bible
Philo of Alexandria (c.30 bc-c.ad 45)
Origen
the allegorical method
Antiochene school
historical context
Quadriga (fourfold sense of Scripture)
Literal
Allegorical
Tropological (moral)
Anagogical

14. Case study 2.5 Renaissance humanism and the Bible
The Latin Vulgate
Humanist contribution to the study of Scripture
The priority of Scripture over its commentators
The original languages (Hebrew and Greek) & tools for study
Establishing the best text of Scripture
Experience mediated by the text
A biblically literate laity
Translation errors in the Vulgate:
Matthew 4:17 “do penance” or “repent”
Luke 1:28 “full of grace” or “one who has found favor”

15. Case study 2.6 Augustinianism and Pelagianism in late medieval theology
Nominalism  via moderna
Covenant between God and humanity
Justification and “doing your best”
Pelagianism?
The king and the small lead coin
Schola Augustiniana moderna (modern Augustinian school)
Gregory of Rimini
Salvation initiated and completed by God
John Calvin ( ) and voluntarism
“apart from God’s good pleasure, Christ could not merit anything”