Abstract
Aquinas’s introduction of the notion of revelatio in the Summa theologiæ begins to edge out Augustine’s idea of illuminatio. By the late fourteenth century “reuelacion” has entered English. Only beginning with Vatican I is there mention of revelatio, however, and Vatican II offers a different sense of the concept: it is Christ manifesting himself, not the content of Scripture. In effect, theological epistemology has become phenomenology. Jesus’s self-manifestation does not occur within the horizon of the world; rather, it takes place within the horizon of the Kingdom. What is revealed in Jesus’s preaching is the coming of the Kingdom in our exercise, as second nature, of ἀγάπη. This coming is unlike that of stable phenomena: the Kingdom is multi-stable, here yet to come, within yet without, weak yet strong, and so on. Revelation, properly understood after Vatican II, is the uncovering of the Kingdom in all its various facets.
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- 1.
See Augustine, Letters 100–155, trans. Roland Teske, The Works of Saint Augustine, ed. Boniface Ramsey (New York: New City Press, 2003), II/2, letter 120, 10. It should be pointed out, however, that Augustine also held that reason can attain to knowledge given by divine authority, if it is sought within the context of belief. See his On Free Choice of the Will, trans., intro. and notes Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1993), II. 2.
- 2.
See Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, The Works of Saint Bonaventure, IV, ed. Zachary Hayes (Saint Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1992), q. 4.
- 3.
See Hugh of St Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. Roy J. Deffarrari (1951 rpt. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2007), I. 10. 2, and Robert Grosseteste, On Light, trans. and intro. Clare C. Riedl (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1942).
- 4.
See Augustine, The Trinity, trans., intro. and notes Edmund Hill, The Works of Saint Augustine, I/5 (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991), 15.10.
- 5.
Augustine discusses the lower and higher functions of reason in the first paragraphs of the twelfth book of The Trinity. What he calls “the loftier reason” [sublimior ratio] is, for him, the imago dei, and it is properly directed to the contemplation of God, The Trinity, XII.2. In the middle ages, the distinction is rephrased as ratio inferior and ratio superior. See Marie-Dominique Chenu, “Ratio superior et inferior: Un cas de philosophie chrétienne,” Laval théologique et philosophique, I: 1 (1945), 119–23.
- 6.
See Édith Brayer et Anne-Françoise Leurquin-Labie, ed., La Somme le roi par Frère Laurent (Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français, 2008), and Two Middle English Translation of Friar Laurent’s “Somme le roi”: Critical Edition, ed., Emmanuelle Roux (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010).
- 7.
See Leonard E. Boyle, “The Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology,” The Popular Literature of Medieval England, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1985), 39.
- 8.
Wycliffe also uses “reuelacion” in his translation of Gal. 1: 12.
- 9.
See Wycliffe, The English Bible, Rom. 16: 25, Gower Confessio amantis, 8: 49, and Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, 5. 366. Many further references may be found in the Middle English Dictionary.
- 10.
Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, 1a. q. 1, responsio.
- 11.
Aquinas begins the Summa theologiæ 1a q. 1 with an extensive use of the word revelatio but not mention of illuminatio. It is only later in the prima pars that he turns to illumination. See Summa theologiæ, Ia q. 85 art. 6 ad. 1.
- 12.
See Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, II-II, q. 1 art. 9, ob. 1.
- 13.
See Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, II, q. 172 art 2 responsio.
- 14.
See Walter Pater, “Style,” Appreciations: With an Essay on Style (London: Macmillan, 1895), 13.
- 15.
See Aquinas, Summa theologiæ, II-I, q. 110 art. 2.
- 16.
Dei Filius, ch. 2.
- 17.
The title “Son of God” is found in both testaments with respect to angels, kings, and other persons favored by God, and does not imply divinity. That the Son is equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit is stated only with the integration of Christology and Trinitarian Theology, and appears in Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 and the Quicunque Vult, which is no earlier than the late fifth century.
- 18.
See Karl Rahner, “Experience of the Holy Spirit,” Theological Investigations, 18: God and Revelation, trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 189–210.
- 19.
I allude to Jean-Luc Marion’s theory of “saturated phenomena.” See my edition of his work, The Essential Writings (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013).
- 20.
See Edmund Husserl, Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosopy: First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2014), § 30.
- 21.
See Bruce D. Chilton, ed., The Isaiah Targum, vol. 11 of The Aramaic Bible (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1987), 49, 62, 77, 102.
- 22.
See C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), 16, and N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 966.
- 23.
See Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Digswell Place: James Nisbet and Co., 1968), II, 174.
- 24.
See Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. with intro. and notes Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson, with an essay by John R. Silber (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), III. vii – IV. Part i.
- 25.
See Origen, Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei, 14.7.10 and 14.7.17, and Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 49.
- 26.
See Albrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation: The Positive Development of the Doctrine, trans. Hugh Ross Mackintosh (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1900), § 48.
- 27.
See Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, n. trans. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), § 7. Jeremias distances himself from the claim that in using the intimate word Abba Jesus is adopting a little child’s relationship to his father on p. 67.
- 28.
See Mark 14: 36, Rom. 8: 15, and Gal. 4: 6.
- 29.
See Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, II. 89.
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Hart, K. (2020). Revelation and Kingdom. In: Marion, JL., Jacobs-Vandegeer, C. (eds) The Enigma of Divine Revelation. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28132-8_5
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