Pain and Suffering in Medieval Theology: Academic Debates at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century (review)

This is a discussion of some texts on human pain and suffering by Parisian masters of theology from 1230 to 1300. It consists of six chapters, the first three of which present texts on topics concerning the present life: (1) human pain and the suffering of Christ, (2) contrasts between female and male suffering, and (3) voluntary suffering and satisfaction for sin. The other three chapters present texts on topics concerning the afterlife: (4) unbaptized children and the doctrine of limbo, (5) the suffering of separated souls in purgatory and hell, and (6) the bodily suffering of the damned after resurrection. The author's goal is historico-linguistic: "to show how the masters developed a technical language and ideas for understanding pain and suffering" (p. 162). He regularly pauses to note instances of such development, for example in Aquinas's distinction between the genus of pain (dolor), and its two species, bodily pain (also called dolor) and spiritual sadness (tristitia or dolor interior) (p. 23).

The masters consider questions such as the following: Can the human soul suffer through its body? Was Christ's suffering more intense in the sensitive or the rational part of his soul? How are the respective punishments of Adam and Eve mentioned in Genesis 3:16-18 to be interpreted? What is pain of contrition? How do certain painful actions make reparation for sin? How should we take St. Augustine's remark that children unbaptized at death suffer only the mildest punishment (poena mitissima)? How is a human soul separated by death from its body able to suffer? How are the sufferings of hell to be understood with respect to the worm (thought to symbolize remorse) and the fire mentioned in Isaiah 66:24?

The author's standard procedure, used to good effect, is to take comparative "soundings," at roughly the same place in the order of topics established by Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences (1145-51), of responses to the same question by several masters, often Ss. Albert, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas, in their commentaries on the Sentences. This is supplemented by presentation of arguments from summae and disputed questions, and arguments by other masters. The author paraphrases passages that he then reproduces in footnotes, giving the reader a convenient, textually grounded overview of the relevant figures, issues, and positions.

Some minor points can be questioned. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu is not "Aristotle's phrase" (p. 15n13); virtutes should not be translated as "virtues" where it means "powers" (pp. 107n14; cf. p. 134n13); consultation of the Leonine editions of Aquinas's Quaestiones de anima and quodlibetal questions would provide access to not only superior critical texts but also potentially valuable historical information (p. 168). In general, however, this is a useful survey of the terrain that puts the reader in position to make further investigation.

Unsurprisingly, Augustine looms large among the auctoritates. Augustine's developments of the theme of pain are influenced by his Christianity and perhaps by Stoic sources. Plato and Aristotle devote much more attention to pleasure than to pain. Aquinas seems to make Augustine's authority on the subject of pain the counterpart of Aristotle's on the subject of pleasure (Summa theologiae I-II, qq. 31-39). In any case, it is hard to improve on two of Augustine's remarks that Bonaventure brings together (p. 114): that pain is a sensus divisionis vel corruptionis inpatiens (De libero arbitrio 3.23), and that sadness is a dissensio ab his rebus, quae nobis nolentibus acciderunt (De civitate Dei 14.15).Augustine thus suggests that pain is a reluctant awareness of being divided or destroyed and that sadness is a dissent from—that is, a protesting awareness of—something that has happened against our wishes.