medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Elena,
I second your opinion wholeheartedly, the second interpretation is a
mere banality. I take the sentence to mean, "By Baptism one becomes a
[full-fledged] person within the Church', that is to say, without Baptism
one is also a full-fledged person, but outside the Church - which sounds
reasonable to me.
I think, however, that we should read the sentence you cite with the
definition of 'persona' which Boethius gave, and I quote from memory:
"Persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia", a definition basic to
medieval thinking. "A person is an individual being with a rational nature."
Reason makes us human, in or out of the Church; however, according to
Catholic doctrine, by Baptism a person also participates in God's divinity,
which is supernatural by definition. So, a person in Ecclesia is a
full-fledged human person with a share in God's own nature; need I say,
ecclesia need not be a building, but rather the union of those who share in
God's life, see Matthew 28, "Where two or three are gathered in my name,
there I am." Cheers, Luciana
Luciana Cuppo Csaki
[log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9891
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elena Lemeneva" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 8:23 AM
Subject: [M-R] Translation query
> Dear learned ones,
>
> I'm posting this query partly on behalf of my supervisor, Aaron Gurevich,
who
> is, unfortunately, rather limited in communicating and doing research due
to his
> blindness.
>
> Since twenty years there has been a heated on-going discussion between two
> Russian maitres, A. Gurevich and M. Batkin, of the question whether or not
one
> can speak of the "medieval personality." One of the points here is the
quotation
> that was interpreted differently by two sides:
>
> Baptismate homo constituitur in ecclesia persona.
>
> One side translates it as: "By/after the baptism one is established in the
> Church as a person." Thus the argument is that the baptism makes human
being a
> full-fledged person/personality in the eyes of the Church.
>
> Another opinion: "The baptism makes one a person belonging to the Church,"
that
> is, by baptism man becomes Christian, with no idea of personality
involved.
>
> I personally believe that the first interpretation has more sense both
> gramatically and from the common-sense viewpoint, since the second
statement
> sounds as a mere banality. However, I would like to ask your learned
opinion
> about the translation. I also need your help in establishing the context
for
> this sentence. I failed to find it either in the Cetedoc or in the PL.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Elena Lemeneva
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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