The Passions of Christ in High-Medieval Thought: An Essay on Christological Development by Kevin Madigan (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 497 as a preparation for the study of theology made it more and more insignificant what kind of philosophy professors were teaching. This would explain why the neo-Thomistic paradigm silently disappeared. As the author himself admits in the preface of the book, the years after finishing the dissertation in 1999 give reason for drawing a more hopeful picture of the current status of Thomism. However, it seems to me that at least in Europe the exclusively historical approach is still predominating and that, while one can witness a renewed interest in Aquinas's theology, this renewal is not matched by a renewed interest in his philosophy; a situation which, from a Thomistic viewpoint, can only be a contradictio in terminis. Although the references to Kuhn's model could be criticized as being somewhat too artificial, those interested in the history of Thomism and especially the Dominican Order are in the author's debt for writing a detailed and intriguing story on the Order's commitment to Aquinas and the way this commitment has been applied in the case of Fribourg. Theological-Philosophical Institute St. Willibrord Vogelenzang, The Netherlands J6RGEN VIJGEN The Passions of Christ in High-Medieval Thought: An Essay on Christological Development. By KEVIN MADIGAN. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. 158. $65 (paper). ISBN 978-0-19-532274-3. Beauty is proportion. According to Aristotle's standard, Kevin Madigan's study is an achievement, due to its remarkable proportions: concise in length, sharp in thinking, well-contained in its scholarship, and as clear-cut in its statements. The argument is made in a manner as meticulous as straight. There are two arguments, as the specific topic the author sets forth turns out to be a fallibility test for a more general theological principle. In the author's words: "Most historians of medieval thought have perceived profound continuity between scholastic theological and exegetical thought and the patristic authorities with which such thought characteristically began. I argue here that high-medieval thinkers on the passible aspects of Christ's human nature-fear, sorrow, apparent ignorance and so forth-more often rupture such putative conceptual links and erase much or all dogmatic continuity with the very figures whose thought they seem to want to preserve or, in many cases, to rehabilitate. This argument has implications for the much larger theme of continuity and discontinuity in the history of Christian thought" (3). One would immediately spare a thought for Cardinal Newman and his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, which is exactly what Madigan has in mind. Newman indeed 498 BOOK REVIEWS asserted that, between the earliest expression of a dogma and its developed form, there exists a prima facie dissimilitude which conceals the deeper fact of development (cf. 91). As a balance, Madigan intends to prove that, at least in one case, the rule fails: "the history of relations between ancient and medieval thought on the passions of Christ is a history of correction and improvement. It is therefore, remorselessly, a history of fissure and discontinuity" (92). The body of evidence provided by Madigan is sifted step-by-step, convincingly , from chapter 2 to chapter 7. Chapter 2 sets the scenery by bringing us back to the fourth century's Christological controversies. At that time, Arians were in the forefront; they were setting terms and questions. And since one of their first concerns was the rejection of Christ's divinity and equality with the Father, it is not surprising that they turned their attention to all the defects of Christ acknowledged in the Gospels, defects at odds with divine nature. Thanks to recent scholarship, summarized by Madigan, we are now more aware of the fact that this main tenet had a soteriological counterpart: being a creature, Christ was able to suffer and die in order to obtain redemption for humankind. In the Arians' view, it was specifically because Christ was neither real God nor real man that he carried out a task unfit for both God and man. Orthodox theologians, in their answer, had to prioritize. Trinitarian faith was at stake. They therefore concentrated their efforts on setting the boundary straight between God and creatures, and, in...