Abstract
So far I have argued that the two central tenets in Damian’s social theology were eschatology and witness. His theology of work flowed naturally from the basic principles contained in each and developed as a response to the inherent obligations of those principles. Both eschatology and witness demand that humans continually shape the world into its ideal form as intended at creation. Eschatology mandates that one builds a future that resembles the eschaton, and witness serves as a guide for all to accomplish this. Both require physical or mental effort: work. Justification for work is rooted in humanity’s creation as imago Dei. When God made humans imago Dei, he, as creator, made them co-creators. They participate in creation by completing the work of creation for the eschaton and eliminating all present imperfections—“re-forming” the world—bearing perfect witness to God’s original intent. This means that all human activity, be it intellectual, spiritual, or physical, that readies the world for end time is worthy of being called work. Consequently, Damian has an abiding respect for all work and all workers. Furthermore, Damian holds that work is not the sole domain of one class, but an obligation of every human. The specific task of each individual varies, but not its intrinsic value, for it is only when the work of each person is united with the work of every other person that creation is complete.
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Notes
Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 4.
For positive appraisals, see J. C. Dickenson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and Their Introduction into England (London: SPCK, 1950), p. 34; Little. “Personal Development of Peter Damian,” p. 317;
and Reginald Biron, St. Pierre Damien (Paris: J. Gabalda Ciè, 1908), p. 203.
Conrad Greenia, “The Laybrother Vocation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Cistercian Studies 15(1980): 39.
See James Donnelly, The Decline of the Medieval Cistercian Laybrotherhood (New York: Fordham University Press, 1949); Greenia, “Laybrother,” 38–45; Kassius Hallinger, “Woher Kommen Die Laienbrüder?” Analecta S. O. Cisterciana (1956): 26–42;
and Irven Resnick, “Odo of Tournai and Peter Damian,” Revue bénédictine 98 (1988): 114–40.
Phipps, Colin, “Romuald-Model Hermit: Eremitical Theory in Saint Peter Damian’s Vita Beati Romualdi,” in Monks Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition, ed. W. J. Sheils (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985): 64, p. 105.
Some argue that laybrotherhoods arose from monks’ needs and not from laity’s desires; see Constable, Reformation, p. 80. See Jacques Dubois, “The Laybrothers’ Life in the Twelfth Century: A Form of Lay Monasticism” Cistercian Studies 7 (1972): 161–213: “The institute of the lay monks called converse was the realization of an ideal, not a palliative for decadence” (213). See Cistercian Lay Brothers: Twelfth-Century Usuages with Related Texts, ed. Chrysogonus Waddell (Brecht: Cîteaux vonmerntarii cistercienses, 2000) for Cistercian brotherhood. Either motive, or both, is consistent with my conclusions here. Work was a means to a future good, for which humble labor was a viable instrument.
See Giles Constable, “The Orders of Society,” in Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Society Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 251–360.
Pierre Mandonnet, St. Dominic and His Work, trans. Mary Larkin (St. Louis, MN: B. Herder Book Company, 1944), p. 265.
Ranft , “Rule of St. Augustine in Medieval Monasticism,” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 11 (1986): 143–150.
Translated in Evans , Monastic Life at Cluny, 910–1157 (London: Oxford University Press, 1931), pp. 4–6.
Cowdrey , Pope Gregory VII, 1073–85 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 45–46.
Chenu , Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1968), pp. 214–215.
Constance Berman, The Cistercian Evolution (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. xiv.
See Owen J. Blum, “The Monitor of the Popes: St. Peter Damian,” Studia Gregoriani 2 (1947): 459–476.
Blum , St. Peter Damian: His Teaching on the Spiritual Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947), p. 15; see L 82, 86, 90, 91, 95, 106, 119, 126, and 160.
Lester K. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 107.
Jules Piquet, Les Templiers (Paris: Hachette, 1939).
Cited in Lester Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 107.
See references in Carolyn Walker Bynum, Docere Verbo et Exemplo, (Mussoula, MT: Scholors Press, 1979), pp. 77, 93.
PL 176, 897–898; trans. in Carolyn Walker Bynum, Docere Verbo et Exemplo (Missoulae, MT: Scholors Press, 1979), p. 42.
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© 2006 Patricia Ranft
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Ranft, P. (2006). Damian’s Apostolate: Theology of Work in Action. In: The Theology of Work. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-12145-5_5
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