{"title":"An Introduction from the Editor of Medieval Mystical Theology","authors":"Duane D. Williams","doi":"10.1080/20465726.2021.1997183","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Welcome to volume 30, issue 2 of Medieval Mystical Theology. Our essays in this issue concern very different topics within the field of mystical theology, and yet each deliberately draws from classic works in a manner that highlights the ways they each continue to influence. In this respect, the essays are not merely orientated historically, but have a hermeneutic focus designed to reveal sustained truths that are relevant now. The first essay by Valentin Gerlier is titled, ‘Nature Conversing: John Scotus Eriugena’s Contemplative Ontological Poetics’. Inspired by Willemien Otten, the essay considers the importance of nature understood as conversation in John Scotus Eriugena’s master-work, Periphyseon, and how this might provide a significantly different approach in response to our current ecological crisis. Gerlier discusses how this all-encompassing take on nature is contemplative and creative and leads to a cosmic practice where the natural and human world encounter one another, in a wider context that leads to the well-being and flourishing of all things in God. The second essay by Maria L. Highton is titled, ‘If we cannot know it all, why know at all? Exploring, through Thomas Aquinas and Nicholas of Cusa, the reason why God cannot be named’. Here Highton draws from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae and Cusa’s On Learned Ignorance, with a view to exploring how it is we might approach a knowledge of God akin to the knowledge He has of Himself without naming Him. Consequently, we learn how simplicity and analogy can bring us to such divine perfection. Our third essay by Bernard McGinn is titled, ‘Niht Enwil Und Niht Enweiz Und Niht Enhât: Eckhart’s Triple Negation and its History’. This is the second part of a two-part essay that began in our previous issue. This is a special essay to celebrate what was in 2020 the tenth anniversary of the journal in its new form as, Medieval Mystical Theology. Based on Meister Eckhart’s famous German Sermon 52, it looks at his formula consisting of the three negations: not willing, not knowing, and not having. Where the first part of this essay offered a comparison of Marguerite Porete and Eckhart on this formula, this second part follows the formula through German, Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish mystical traditions. Our final essay is by Tatyana Solomonik-Pankrashova and is titled, ‘The “Ventriloquism” of Logoi in the Old English Prose Psalms and “Boethius”’. This essay focuses on the Old English Boethius, a translation/adaption of the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Solomonik-Pankrashova analyses the significance of the many voices in interpretation which, in terms of creativity, makes the work more than mere imitation. Accordingly, she elicits rich philosophical and theological meanings in the Old English Boethius.","PeriodicalId":40432,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Mystical Theology","volume":"30 1","pages":"67 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Medieval Mystical Theology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20465726.2021.1997183","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Welcome to volume 30, issue 2 of Medieval Mystical Theology. Our essays in this issue concern very different topics within the field of mystical theology, and yet each deliberately draws from classic works in a manner that highlights the ways they each continue to influence. In this respect, the essays are not merely orientated historically, but have a hermeneutic focus designed to reveal sustained truths that are relevant now. The first essay by Valentin Gerlier is titled, ‘Nature Conversing: John Scotus Eriugena’s Contemplative Ontological Poetics’. Inspired by Willemien Otten, the essay considers the importance of nature understood as conversation in John Scotus Eriugena’s master-work, Periphyseon, and how this might provide a significantly different approach in response to our current ecological crisis. Gerlier discusses how this all-encompassing take on nature is contemplative and creative and leads to a cosmic practice where the natural and human world encounter one another, in a wider context that leads to the well-being and flourishing of all things in God. The second essay by Maria L. Highton is titled, ‘If we cannot know it all, why know at all? Exploring, through Thomas Aquinas and Nicholas of Cusa, the reason why God cannot be named’. Here Highton draws from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae and Cusa’s On Learned Ignorance, with a view to exploring how it is we might approach a knowledge of God akin to the knowledge He has of Himself without naming Him. Consequently, we learn how simplicity and analogy can bring us to such divine perfection. Our third essay by Bernard McGinn is titled, ‘Niht Enwil Und Niht Enweiz Und Niht Enhât: Eckhart’s Triple Negation and its History’. This is the second part of a two-part essay that began in our previous issue. This is a special essay to celebrate what was in 2020 the tenth anniversary of the journal in its new form as, Medieval Mystical Theology. Based on Meister Eckhart’s famous German Sermon 52, it looks at his formula consisting of the three negations: not willing, not knowing, and not having. Where the first part of this essay offered a comparison of Marguerite Porete and Eckhart on this formula, this second part follows the formula through German, Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish mystical traditions. Our final essay is by Tatyana Solomonik-Pankrashova and is titled, ‘The “Ventriloquism” of Logoi in the Old English Prose Psalms and “Boethius”’. This essay focuses on the Old English Boethius, a translation/adaption of the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Solomonik-Pankrashova analyses the significance of the many voices in interpretation which, in terms of creativity, makes the work more than mere imitation. Accordingly, she elicits rich philosophical and theological meanings in the Old English Boethius.