Thomas is called the classical theologian of the Roman church – and certainly he is, and has been reestablished as such again a few years ago by the Pope Bonaventura represents the spirit of Augustine and St. Francis, in his being, in his mysticism, and in his theology.
So these three names must be known by all of you.
Now what are the presuppositions of the 13th century which made it the central and high point of the Middle Ages? First I want to mention the Crusades, not because of their political and military importance but because they produced the encounter of two highly developed cultures – besides Christianity – namely, the original Jewish and the Islamic cultures. Perhaps one could say a third culture was encountered at that time, namely the old Greek, the classical culture, which through the mediation of the Arabian theologians, brought streams of ancient traditions into the medieval world.
The fact of an encounter with somebody else, if it is serious enough, always includes a kind of self-ref lection. Only if you encounter somebody else are you able to ref lect about yourselves. As long as you go ahead without a resistance, you are never forced to look back at yourselves. But if you encounter resistance, you ref lect. And that is what Christianity had to do. In a much more radical way, it ref lected about itself.
This was the first part.
The second was the appearance of the complete Aristotle, his genuine writings, and with him the appearance of a scientific philosophical system which was methodologically superior to the Augustinian tradition.
Thirdly, there was the rise of a new type of monastic orders: preaching and mendicant orders, with their intensification and popularization of the religious substance. They produced a world-wide organization through all countries, and combated with each other theologically, and since they were not nationally provincial, they could compete on a world-wide scale and produce theological systems of the highest significance, in difference and in conf lict with each other.
Since the 13th century these two orders became the bearers of the theological process. They used Aristotle, but they used him differently. They used the new knowledge of Judaism and Islam, but they used it differently.
This leads me to a description of the two types which were developed by these orders: The Franciscan and the Dominican types. They were dependent on two personalities: St. Francis of Assisi and Dominicus. Francis continues the monasticism of Augustine and, Bernard of Clairvaux. Like them he emphasizes personal experience, but he brings some very modern elements into the Franciscan tradition. He brings in the idea of the active in contrast to the contemplative life.
This was always nearer to the Western mind which from the very beginning was more half-historical than the East. But he enlarged this idea by applying it to all beings. Not only human hierarchical orders, but also sun and stars and animals and plants belong to the power of the Divine life; and he tries to produce on this basis a new relationship to nature. In order to understand him the best thing would be that you look at the pictures of Giotto. Giotto painted almost nothing else except the story of St. Francis, the new Holy Legend. So he became the father of the Renaissance. By his feeling of fraternity with all beings, he opened up nature for religion. He opened up nature with respect to its ground of being which is the same as it is in man.
