Émotions de Dieu: attributions et appropriations chrétiennes (xvie–xviiie siècle) by Chrystel Bernat et Frédéric Gabriel (review)

The history of emotions has become a worldwide research field in all periods of history, and a very active and fruitful one at that. However, the affects attributed in the Christian tradition to God per se have attracted relatively little attention, especially as far as the early modern period is concerned. The history of emotions has mostly been explored from an anthropological perspective, while the doctrinal idea of an immutable and absolute God has long come up against a reluctance to countenance any kind of anthropomorphism, even though the Scriptures themselves repeatedly attribute feelings to the ‘God of love’. This makes divine emotions a highly debated matter, and highlights the discrepancies between ‘anti-emotional’ doctrine and highly emotional religious practices and representations, and between a passive view of emotions and the active and creative idea of passion, which developed from the sixteenth century onwards. Yet it is probably no coincidence if two books on the emotions of God were published in French in 2019. While the Dominican Emmanuel Durand’s Les Émotions de Dieu, indices d’engagement (Paris: Cerf, 2019) is a monograph focusing on the biblical depiction and scriptwriting of God’s affects, Chrystel Bernat and Frédéric Gabriel’s edited volume offers an illuminating set of articles investigating the representations of divine emotions in various European sources: philosophical and theological founding texts, but also polemical writings, preaching, meditations and spiritual texts, drama, and pastoral discourses, from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century (the chronological scope being broader than the title implies), at which point rationalist criticism puts an end to anthropomorphism. Viewed as transpositions of human bonds and affective experiences into a supra-human person, divine emotions therefore appear as a field of ontological enquiry, but also as rhetorical devices and polemical instruments in confessional debates and struggles. They can thus be viewed, as the subtitle says, as both attributions and appropriations: as attributions, they aim at describing, through an anthropomorphic analogy, God and His attributes, and especially caritas; as appropriations, they can be considered as discursive and social gestures and strategies, which can be used in intra- or in inter-confessional contexts. As such, the volume not only documents the nature of the affects attributed to God in various genres and contexts, but also shows how Christians — including those belonging to ‘heterodox’ or minority groups — have constructed, modelled, and claimed those divine emotions to serve their own purposes and build, empower, or reinforce their religious identities, be it through apologetic, pastoral, or polemical discourse. It also questions the ways language and, more specifically, narrative techniques and metaphors are conceived and used in various religious genres: are divine emotions just metaphors, or rather linguistic expressions of God’s genuine participation in human affects, of the Creator’s engagement with mankind? It is difficult in a short review to do justice to a truly interdisciplinary volume containing fifteen well-informed and well-argued essays: suffice it to say that this important and insightful collection is a treasure trove for anyone working at the intersection between literature, history, philosophy, and religious studies.