On Fri, 26 Jul 1996, Richard Landes wrote:
>
> > > i don't follow you here. are they [the sacraments] valid or not acc to
> Humbert?
>
> > No they are not.
>
> then that is a donatist argument.
It is a Donatist argument only if we assume that simony is not a heresy--
Humbert believed it was. His was a minority opinion.
> >
> > No. Donatists objected to the validity of the orders and sacraments of
> > those who had sinned by giving into the religious demands of the Roman
> > state. Heresy, in contrast, involves an intellectual error-- a mistaken
> > belief.
>
> which makes the argument that simony was a heresy a very dicey
> proposition.
>
See above. Only Humbert insisted that simony was heretical; G VII, et al.
argued that it was a breach of church discipline (i.e. a sin). Gilchrist
in his article on the subject (ref. in a previous note) , p. 219 says:
"Michael asserted that other writers followed Humbert, among them Gregory
VII. This cannot be accepted. Numerous examples prove that in practice
simony was treated as a grave delict (i.e. sin), punishable by
ecclesiastical penalties."
> > The orders and sacraments of the "arians", for example, were
> > invalid and noone, Augustine included, had any problem with this.
>
> only the very stretched definition of simony as heresy obscures the fact
> that both simoniacs and traditors are sinners by moral laxity not by
> doctrine, and that the analogy with arians does not work except by the
> reformers own self-definitions (which i do not think we historians shd be
> bound to accept).
Again, see above-- applies only to Humbert. For the rest of the reformers,
simoiacal orders were valid and so too were their sacraments. This is
decidedly un-Donatist. The pope's denial of their right to exercise their
offices, while perhaps harsh discipline, is not a denial of the validity
of their orders or of their sacraments and noone, outside Humbert, argued
that those clerics who ignored papal orders to cease in the exercise of
their office had invalid orders or administered invalid sacraments.
>
> > Simony has been the subject of repeated efforts at eradication since the
> > beginning of the church.. And, I doubt your assertion thaat noone in A's
> > time found it objectionable-- their definition of simony, however, was, no
> > doubt, far narrower than the 11th cent. one.
>
> my point precisely. there is a sensitivity to simoniacs in the 11th and
> 12th cns that can only be compared to the sensitivity to traditors in the
> 4th and 5th. simony as the medieval reformers defined it in order to
> carry out their ecclesiastical reforms wd strike Augustine as demanding a
> level of moral perfection from clergy that defied the doctrine of
> original sin (and given the failure of the church to get rid of it...
> Augustine was apparently right).
I seriously doubt this and will insist that you offer detailed evidence
for this position before I wd even begin to entertain it. Augustine did
not argue that those who had lapsed during the persecutions shd be
accepted back into the church as if nothing had happened-- penance was
demanded and required. Precisely what the 11th cent. reformers argued.
>
> > > > But to return to the mainstream reformist view,
> > > > simoniacs violate the laws governing the clergy in the church (and,
> > > > moreover, threaten its unity)
> > >
> > > this is a good donatist argument. from the perspective of the simoniacs,
> > > it is these new-fangled and radical reformers who threaten the unity of the
> > > church.
> >
> > This is emphatically not a "Donatist" arguement. Even in A's day
> > "scismatics" were viewed in the harshest of terms ansd contumacious
> > scismatics were considered heretics.
>
> you are committing the classic ex post facto fallacy of history as the
> propaganda of the victors.
Sheer balony!
> as Bauer pointed out long ago, orthodoxy is
> the victorious heresy. in Augustine's day the antidonatist camp won: the
> schismatics were those who refused to accept traditores as legitimate
> priests and bishops. in Gregory's the (modified or functionally) donatist
> position won (at least temporarily), and therefore the schismatics (eg
> imperial bishops) are those who champion a position Augustine laid out
> quite explicitly: the church is a corpus permixtum, and you cannot weed it
> out before the eschaton... and certainly not at the cost of scandal and
> social upheaval.
Scism has always been treated as a serious sin and contoumacious heresy as
a heresy. Your assertion of modified Donatism simply doesn't hold water.
Yes there were winners and losers in the 11th cent. reform, but noit the
ones on which you speculate. In G VII's day the ecclesiology of papal
monism (not even conceivable in A's time) won over an ecclessiology of
imperial monism and over the traditional alternative to both--
conciliarism. Now this is a topic (i.e. how one defines the pwr structure
and one's place in it) that to me at least is far more fruitful than
chasing after chimeras of neo-Donatism in the 11th cent.
>
> > > > and so they cannot be allowed to exercise
> > > > their offices until they are restored penitentially into the good graces
> > > > of the church.
> > >
> > > the donatist demand.
> >
> > Again, you are quite simply wrong.
>
> ?
>
> > > how one interprets the evidence has alot to do with what evidence you base
> > > it on. if you restrict your evidence to the most strictly ecclesiastical
> > > material and refuse to speculate about the (far less ample, but far more
> > > suggestive) evidence concerning the interface btw popular and elite
> > > culture, you have defined as useless anything that does not conform to a
> > > highly formalized public transcript. there is more to medieval religious
> > > culture than that.
I never doubted it, but I am highly skeptical of those who take precious
little evidence and inflate it into an ediface it just won't support.
> >
> > Speculation has no place in history-- the rest is a canard.
>
> more ex cathedra. i guess i'll just keep quacking.
If it walks, talks, smells, feels, tastes and acts like a duck, then I
guess we have a duck. If you want speculation, try metaphysics; if you
want to do history be true to the sources. Post-mo cannot become an excuse
for avoiding the hard task of evaluating the evidence under the guise that
noone knows the truth. If you believe that, write fiction instead.
>
> > > > I have no prob. w/exploring the social roots/responsess to the reform;
> > > > but be true to the sources!
> > >
> > > i try. i just look at a different range of sources in both time and in
> > > social milieu. and i find often that what appears on the public record is
> > > contradicted by what a closer examination indicates is going on (eg Ademar
> > > winning his debate with Bernard of Chiusa; or Charlemagne's coronation in
> > > 6000 Annus mundi -- dated AD by all the "sources", but known and
> > > followed by clergy and laity once one examines the ms marginalia
> > > and the patterns of dating).
>
> > Now your talking about evidence!-- the stuff of which history is made.
>
> i am suggesting that a closer look at the material we are discussing will
> reveal the same or similar documentary disjunctures.
Maybe, maybe not. I would suggest you learn something about what the
reformers really thought before you start speculating on how others
reacted to it. If you need biblio., I'll be happy to supply it.
MFH
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