Guillaume de Saint-Thierry: Expose sur l'epitre aux Romans. Tome I. Livres I-III. Text by PAUL VERDEYEN, SJ.

Abstract

This is the first volume of an intended complete Sources chrétiennes French translation, facing the Latin, based on the Corpus Christianorum edition of William of St Thierry’s Commentary on Romans. It includes a short biography of the author and extensive reflections on the method of exegesis William adopts, with discussion of his sources, manuscripts, and previous translations. As one of the Pauline epistles, Romans was frequently commented on in the schools in this period, but William seems to have been the only one of the first generation of Cistercians to write a commentary. He explains in his preface that he has not tried to say anything new, but merely to assemble for the student the authoritative views of the Fathers (magnorum doctorum … auctoritas) to help with the unravelling of the many puzzles the text presents. He has been prompted in this endeavour by the joy of contemplating God, which he wants others to share. His interests lay in spiritual matters rather than in the theological analysis which attracted members of the proto-academic community. (Peter Abelard famously tried to demolish the arguments of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo in his own Commentary on Romans.) The present editor positions the commentary primarily in the context of William’s own spirituality and his theories about contemplation, as William would evidently have wished. There are additional ‘complementary’ notes on some key themes and topics arising in the text. All in all this is a most welcome translation and it is to be hoped the rest will speedily appear.