Twelfth-Century Concepts of Time: Three Reinterpretations of Augustine's Doctrine of Creation Simul

Twelfth-Century Concepts of Time: Three Reinterpretations of Augustine's Doctrine of Creation Simul CHARLOTTE GROSS IN CHRISTIANTHEOLOGY,creation is a unique moment of causal connection in which an external and immutable Being confers existence upon the temporaFand mutable. When medieval thinkers investigated the nature of creation they inevitably confronted the issue of time. According to classic Augustinian doctrine, matter and form were simultaneously co-created in an atemporal ictus; moreover, all the works of the six days were produced simultaneously and atemporally, time itself coming into being simultaneously with all mutabilia. ~Originally adopted to safeguard divine immutability , eliminate the notion of pre-existing formless matter, and distinguish sharply and irrevocably between eternity and time, the doctrine of creation simul led Augustine to develop his theory of rationes seminales, according to which some things were created causally and potentially rather than actually, and to argue that the "days" of Genesis literally signify differentiations in angelic apprehension of creation? In the twelfth century, the Augustinian ' On the co-creation of matter and form, see Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram t. 15.29 and Confessiones 12.29. On the simultaneity of the six days, see De Gen. 4.33.51 and De Civitate Dei 11.9. For Augustine's doctrine that the world and time began together, see De Gen. 5-5.12 and Civ. Dei 11.6. 2 On Augustine's theory of seminal reasons, see De Trinitate 3.9. t 6 and De Gen. 4.33.5 l, 5.5.14, 5-7.2o, 6.6.1o. For the spiritual creature or angel identified with "day," see Civ. Dei I 1-7 and De Gen. 4.35.56; on differentiations in angelic apprehension of creation, see De Gen. 4.22.39, 4.24-41 ; that this apprehension occurs simul, see De Gen. 4.26.43, 4.28.45, 4.29.46, 4.33.51. [325] 396 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 93:3 JULY i985 thesis that the six days of creation lack duration and temporal status is rejected both by the Chartrian masters Guillaume de Conches (ft. 1190--54 ) and Thierry of Chartres (ft. 1191--55 ) and by Hugh of St. Victor (ft. 11184 ~); the Victorine thinker indeed questions whether matter and form were created simul, a radical step which neither Chartrian finds metaphysically defensible.a Each of these three thinkers reinterprets the Augustinian doctrine for quite distinct reasons which reflect the characteristic purposes, methods, and mentalities of the Chartrians and Victorines; all three reinterpretations suggest the emergence in the twelfth century of new concepts and a new awareness of time. 4 Chartrian accounts of creation and time are influenced equally by the school's Platonism and interest in the natural sciences. Guillaume de Conches' Glosae Super Platonem, 5an attempt to reconcile Genesis and the Timaeus, offers a model of the universe dependent upon causal relations between Creator and creature permanently established during cosmogenesis; in producing like from like, Nature ensures the continuance of cosmic organization ad perpetuitatem (Glosae 37). Although Guillaume notes the soul's loss of perfect knowledge in the Fall, he otherwise ignores any notion of Christian history (Glosae 190). The temporal unfolding of Providence proceeds according to the natura rerum rather than according to a sequence of events effected in time 3 The dates of these three thinkers cannot be ascertained with precision. On Guillaume de Conches, see Edouard Jeauneau, ed., GuiUaume de Conches: Glosae Super Platonem in Timaeum (Paris: 1965), lo; on Thierry of Chartres, see J. M. Parent, La Doctrine de la creation dam l'~colede Chartres: ~tude et textes (Paris: 1938), 14-15; on Hugh of St. Victor, see Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (1952; rpt. Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 85. 4 On the cathedral school of Chartres (ft. I lOO-5O), for an overview with special attention to cosmogony, see Parent, La Doctrine; for studies in Chartrian Platonism and naturalism, see M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1968), 1-98. (Despite Southern's argument that the term "Chartrian" ought to be...