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Personalist Resonances in Robert Grosseteste's Christology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Robert Grosseteste articulated an unusual view of Christ's death that resonates with Karol Wojtyla's personalist conception of love as self-gift. Grosseteste argued that the cause of Christ's death was not crucifixion but the active breathing forth of his spirit as he hung on the cross. Grosseteste said that in this act Christ took all the faithful into an Aristotelian friendship in which Christ is the “other self” of each one of the redeemed. As a result, the redeemed form a single mystical person with Christ. Grosseteste's account of Christ's death seems consonant with Wojtyla's personalism in three ways. First, it makes the moment of Christ's death into an active gift of self. Second, parallel to the way an ordinary self-donation depends on self-possession and results in self-discovery, Christ's self-donation depends on his power to lay down his life and results in the realization of the mystical personhood of Christ in the Church. Third, Grosseteste treats the love between the persons of the Trinity as involving the self-donation of the Son to the Father. This article contains three sections. The first two treat Grosseteste and his resonance with Wojtyla. The third draws conclusions for contemporary Christology and anthropology.
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1 I would like to thank my anonymous reviewers, who helped me to improve the quality and relevance of this article.
2 According to Servus Gieben, the idea also appears in the Moralitates in Evangelia. Gieben, Servus, ‘Robert Grosseteste on Preaching. With the Edition of the Sermon “Ex Rerum Initiatarum” on Redemption’, Collectanea Franciscana 37 (1967), p. 132Google Scholar n.209. The manuscript location where Gieben finds Grosseteste's distinctive view in the Moralitates is Oxford, Trinity College, MS C. 50, fol. 234rb. The Moralitates in Evangelia was attributed to Grosseteste at the time when Gieben wrote, but the work is now generally considered to be spurious.
3 McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 131. While McEvoy does say that Grosseteste appears to be the only medieval thinker to hold that Christ's wounds were not sufficient to kill him, it is possible McEvoy meant to say that the whole theory, including infinite suffering at the moment of death, was unique to Grosseteste. That may be true.
4 Aquinas, Thomas, Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum, art. 5 (ed. Taurini 1954Google Scholar; electronic edition by Roberto Busa and Enrique Alarcón [Fundación Tomás de Aquino, 2019], accessed September 18, 2021: https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/csv.html): ‘Primo quantum ad causam resurrectionis, quia alii qui surrexerunt, non surrexerunt sua virtute, sed vel Christi, vel ad preces alicuius sancti; Christus vero resurrexit propria virtute, quia non solum erat homo: sed etiam Deus, et divinitas verbi nunquam separata fuit nec ab anima nec a corpore; et ideo corpus animam, et anima corpus cum voluit resumpsit. Ioan. X, 18: potestatem habeo ponendi animam meam, et potestatem habeo iterum sumendi eam. Et licet mortuus fuerit, hoc non fuit ex infirmitate nec ex necessitate, sed virtute, quia sponte: et hoc patet, quia cum emisit spiritum, clamavit voce magna: quod alii morientes nequeunt, quia ex infirmitate moriuntur. Unde centurio dixit, Matth. XXVII, 54: vere filius Dei erat iste. Et ideo sicut sua virtute posuit animam suam, ita sua virtute recepit eam: et ideo dicitur, quia resurrexit, et non quod fuerit suscitatus, quasi ab alio. Psal. III, 6: ego dormivi, et soporatus sum, et exsurrexi.’ In English (trans. mine): ‘First, concerning the cause of the resurrection, because others who have risen did not rise by their own power but either by that of Christ or owing to the prayers of some saint. Christ, however, rose again by his own power because he was not only man but also God, and the divinity of the Word was never separated from his soul or from his body. And so, the body recovered the soul, and the soul the body, when he wished. John 10:18: “I have the power to lay down my soul, and I have the power to take it up again.” And although he died, this was neither from weakness nor from necessity, but by his power. because by his will. And this is clear because when he sent forth his spirit, he cried out with a loud voice, which others who are dying cannot do because they die from weakness. Thus the centurion said, (Mt. 27:54) “Truly that man was the son of God.” And so, just as by his own power he laid down his soul, so by his own power he took it back. And so it is said that he “resurrected” and not that he was resuscitated, as if by another. Psalm 3:6: “I fell asleep, and I slumbered, and I arose.”’
5 In ST III, q.1, a.3, Aquinas seems to be aware of Grosseteste's view on the Absolute Predestination of Christ, suggesting a direct or indirect knowledge of On the Cessation of the Laws. Since Grosseteste's view of the death of Christ appears in the same work, it is possible that in Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed Aquinas is following Grosseteste directly or through a mediating source. On the Parisian discussion of Grosseteste's Christology, see Case, Brendan, ‘“More Splendid than the Sun”: Christ's Flesh among the Reasons for the Incarnation’, Modern Theology 36:4 (October, 2020), pp. 758-77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 See McEvoy, James, ‘Grosseteste on the Soul's Care for the Body: A New Text and New Sources for the Idea’, in Aspectus et Affectus: Essays and Editions in Grosseteste and Medieval Intellectual Life in Honor of Richard C. Dales, ed. Freibergs, Gunar (New York: AMS Press, 1993), p. 40Google Scholar. McEvoy, partly following Gieben (see note above), gives the following list of works that contain this idea: Tota Pulchra Es, Super Psalterium (or Commentary on Psalms 1-100), Chasteau d'Amour, Ex Rerum Initiatarum, De Cessatione Legalium, and Sermo de Triplici Hierarchia. He also notices that Grosseteste wrote a gloss on 1 Corinthians 15:55 that references the soul's care for the body apart from discussion of the death of Christ.
7 McEvoy, ‘Soul's Care for the Body’, 37-47, and McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 130-2.
8 See McEvoy, ‘Soul's Care for the Body’, 37-56, and Dales, Richard, ‘Robert Grosseteste on the Soul's Care for the Body’, in Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives on His Thought and Scholarship, ed. McEvoy, James, pp. 313-20 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995)Google Scholar.
9 Mark 15:42-45: ‘And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. And Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph.’ Unless otherwise noted, scriptural quotations in the footnotes are taken from the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. See also McEvoy, ‘Soul's Care for the Body’, 42.
10 John 19:32-33: ‘So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.’
11 Burke, D. G., ‘Cross; Crucify’, in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Bromiley, Geoffrey W., (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), p. 830Google Scholar: ‘The ultimate cause of death has been debated; generally it is considered the result of suffocation brought about by fatigue.’
12 Burke, ‘Cross’, 830: ‘The length of this agony was wholly determined by the constitution of the victim and the extent of the prior flogging, but death was rarely seen before thirty-six hours had passed.’
13 Luke 23:46, as quoted in Grosseteste, Robert, On the Cessation of the Laws 3.6.9 (trans. Hildebrand, Stephen, The Fathers of the Church Medieval Continuation 13 [Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012], p. 190CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ed. Dales, Richard C. and King, Edward B., De Cessatione Legalium, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi 7 [London: British Academy/Oxford University Press, 1986], p. 151)Google Scholar: ‘In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.’ Matthew 27:50 and Mark 15:37 both indicate that Jesus gave a loud cry right before his death.
14 John 10:17-18, quoted in note 44 below.
15 See McEvoy, ‘Soul's Care for the Body’, 44-6 and McEvoy, James, Robert Grosseteste, Great Medieval Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 132.Google Scholar
16 Robert Grosseteste, On the Cessation of the Laws 3.6.8 (trans. Hildebrand 189; ed. Dales and King, 150-1): ‘Evidentissime autem, ut mihi videtur, manifestavit se esse Deum cum moriebatur cruce; supra omnem namque potentiam creatam est a corpore et corde humano sano animam humanam dividere, cum anima naturaliter appetat coniungi suo corpori, nichilque tamen abhorreat quam a corpore suo per mortem separacionem. Unde et ipsa naturaliter inseparabilis est, dum in corde non dum defecerit calor vitalis…Divine igitur virtutis et et potentie creatricis opus proprium est animam suam a corpore suo adhuc manente sano propria voluntate deponere. Dominus itaque Ihesus cum adhuc corpore sano in cruce pendens, voluntarie proprium emisit spiritum, opus fecit divinum et divinitati soli proprium.’
17 Concerning the dating of this work, see Gieben, ‘Preaching’, 114, McEvoy, ‘Soul's Care for the Body’, 43, and McEvoy, James, ‘Robert Grosseteste's Theory of Human Nature with the Text of His Conference Ecclesia Sancta Celebrat’, Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale 47 (1980), p. 137.Google Scholar
18 Concerning the doctrine taught in the passages I treat here, see McEvoy, ‘Soul's Care for the Body’, 43.
19 See McEvoy, ‘Soul's Care for the Body’, 46-7 and McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 132. In Anselm, see Cur Deus Homo 1.21 and 2.4-6. For Anselm, the gift of Christ's life offered to God was the satisfaction of infinite value. (Cur Deus Homo 2.18) Thus, Anselm's account has no need to measure Christ's pain.
20 Robert Grosseteste, Ex Rerum Initiatarum (ed. Gieben, ‘Preaching’, 132): ‘Cum autem poena sit sensata privatio boni appetiti, maxime poena est maxime sensata privatio maxime et naturalissime appetiti. Maxime autem, et appetitu maxime naturaliter appetitur haec vita et unio animae cum corpore sano et corde abundante sanguine et calore vitali…Summa igitur poenarum est sensata privatio et separatio animae a corpore et corde adhuc sano, et superexcellens omnem poenam a pura creatura inferri possibilem.’
21 Robert Grosseteste, Ex Rerum Initiatarum (ed. Gieben, ‘Preaching’, 132): ‘Hanc igitur poenam oportet offerre voluntarie Deum-hominem Patri, et Sibi Deo, et Spiritui Sancto, uni et indivisio rei publicae universitatis gubernatori in reconciliationem generis humani, potentia et virtute suae divinitatis, in infinitum excedente omnem virtutum et potentiam creatam, faciente hanc suae animae a corpore et corde suo adhuc sano separationem.’
22 Robert Grosseteste, Ex Rerum Initiatarum (ed. Gieben, ‘Preaching’, 133): ‘Et est haec voluntaria huius poenae indebitae oblatio et sufferentia, – quia acerbitate immensae et omnem poenam exsuperantis, et maxime quia haec sufferentia est theandrica –, incomparabiliter acceptione omni magis digna quam poena totius humani generis prius debita.’
23 Robert Grosseteste, Ex Rerum Initiatarum (ed. Gieben, ‘Preaching’, 133): ‘Sic ergo absoluto homine et Ei unito – ut praedictum est – vera fide, spe et caritate, et voluntaria perseveranter prout est ei possible in huius vitae decursu imitatione, decet Ipsum ab aeternis tenebris et punitionibus hominem sic Sibi unitum, invito etiam eius iniusto detentore, eripere.’
24 Robert Grosseteste, Ex Rerum Initiatarum (ed. Gieben, ‘Preaching’, 128): ‘Per hunc modum, ut patere potest praedictis, et non per alium est inventio salutis universitatis, quia, assumpto homine in unitatem Personae divinae et existente uno et eodem numero Deo perfecto et homine perfecto, ipse unus et idem omnia potest quia Deus, et ita potest satisfactionem, cuius debitor est homo ; et cum hanc facit, homo debitor eam facit.’
25 Robert Grosseteste, Ex Rerum Initiatarum (trans. mine, influenced by McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 131; ed. Gieben, ‘Preaching’, 128-9): ‘Qui enim Ei adhaeret vera fide, firma spe et perseveranti caritate, ab Eius personalitate non est separatus sed unitus, et unus Eo Christus; ita ut non ipse unitus sit qui operatur opera fidei, spei et caritatis, sed Christus qui operatur in eo, et ut quae Christus operatur pro ipso, ipse per Christum et in Christo operetur. Si enim secundum legem amicitiae uterque amicorum per vinculum et unionem amoris, et per idem velle et idem nolle in rebus honestis, sit ipse alter qui sibi est amicus, et si filius est ipse alter qui pater: modo non multo magis Dei facti hominis filii per creationem, et filii per regenerationem… omnes erunt unum in Ipso?’
26 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IX.4 1166a30-34.
27 McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 130.
28 Grosseteste highlights the infinite worth of the act more clearly in his Sermo de triplici hierarchia, on which see McEvoy, ‘Soul's care for the Body’, 44.
29 John 15:13: ‘Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’
30 Of particular importance to my presentation here is Crosby, John F., Personalist Papers (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), pp. 243-63Google Scholar. This is his chapter, ‘Karol Wojtyla's Personalist Understanding of Man and Woman.’
31 N.C.W.C. translation, in The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II and the Instruction on the Liturgy, ed. Daughters of St. Paul (Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1967), p. 536.Google Scholar
32 On this line from Gaudium et Spes in Wojtyla's personalism, see Crosby, Personalist Papers, 246. Wojtyla, it is worth noting, was on the committee that drafted Gaudium et Spes for the Second Vatican Council and exercised great influence on the document. Weigel, George, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II. First Perennial Edition (New York: Harper, 2005), pp. 166-9.Google Scholar
33 John Paul II, Theology of the Body 10:3, 15:1-5, 17:5-6, 19:5, 32:4, 77:2, 80:6, and 81:6. The version of Theology of the Body I am using is Paul, John II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Waldstein, Michael (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006)Google Scholar.
34 See Matthew 19, esp. v. 12.
35 Crosby, Personalist Papers, 246-7.
36 I am indebted to Michael Waldstein for pointing out this point of resonance when I delivered an earlier draft of this article as a paper at a conference on personalism. I cannot remember his remarks well enough to know whether my account actually matches what he said, however.
37 See, for instance, John Paul II, Theology of the Body 95b:4.
38 John Paul II, Theology of the Body 90:6 (trans. Waldstein, 478).
39 N.C.W.C. translation, in The Sixteen Documents, 533.
40 Weigel, Witness to Hope, 169.
41 It is worth observing that the Incarnation was a central concept in Grosseteste's theology generally, and so his Christology easily lends itself to this kind of thematization. For example, he says the subject matter of theology is Christus integer—the head in union with the members (Hexaemeron 1.1.1). In On the Cessation of the Laws book 3, he argues on multiple grounds that the Incarnation would have occurred even if man had not sinned. There it becomes clear that, for Grosseteste, the God-Man is an integral part of the perfection of the universe.
42 John 1:1-18.
43 See John 11:1-44.
44 John 10:17-18: ‘For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.’
45 Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum, art. 5. See quotation in note 4 above.
46 John 19:30: ‘When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.’ (Novum Testamentum Graece, 27 revidierte Auflage, ed. Aland, et al. [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1898, 1993]Google Scholar): ‘hóte oũn élaben tò óxos [ho] Iēsoũs eĩpen• tetélestai, kaì klínas tḕn kephalḕn parédōken tò pneũma.’
47 Griffiths, Paul, Christian Flesh (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018), p. 39Google Scholar: ‘He cannot be damaged in the flesh unless he assents to that damage…’
48 Griffiths, Christian Flesh, 35-6.
49 Griffiths, Christian Flesh, 38-9.