On certain philosophical-scholastic aspects of the doctrine of the Eucharist in the anonymous treatise on the Mass (manuscript München, BSB, Cgm 89)

Abstract

The existing representation of juxtaposition of the religious literature of the late Middle Ages and contemporary to it university philosophy requires clarification. It is particularly difficult to draw this boundary in texts of the tradition of the so-called "German mysticism". This question is discussed on the basis of the German-language work “The Mystical Treatise on the Mass and Its Effects in the Loving Soul” (Mystischer Traktat über die Messe und ihre Wirkungen in der minnenden Seele). The treatise has survived in several manuscripts of the late Middle Ages, the earliest of which is the manuscript Cgm 89 (BSB, München, near 1375). The conducted historical-philosophical analysis of the selected passages of the anonymous treatise on the Mass indicates the presence of complex combination of stylistically diverse fragments consisting of rearrangement of topoi that belong to both scholastic and religious literature of the late Middle Ages. In enunciation of the doctrine of the Eucharist, the author of the treatise resorts to metaphorical language, description of personal experience of the church sacrament. At the same time, the text identifies the references to Aristotle's treatise "On the Soul" used by the author as the philosophical foundation to describe the process of connecting the soul to God. The conclusion is made that the anonymous treatise on the Mass testifies inappropriateness of rigid juxtaposition of the traditions of religious literature and scholastic philosophy, which still can be encountered in the overall description of the Medieval intellectual culture.