Origen, Plato, and Conscience (<i>Synderesis</i>) in Jerome's Ezekiel Commentary

Abstract

Due especially to the pioneering work of Lottin, philosophers and theologians interested in the medieval discussion of the human conscience are today well aware that the Scholastic debate was framed principally in relation to two words, conscientia and synderesis. In the now classic formulation of the distinction between those two terms by Thomas Aquinas, synderesis is understood as the special habitus of the practical intellect whereby human beings know the basic principles of morality, whereas conscientia is the act whereby the practical reasoning powers of a human being apply the fundamental principles to the particular matter at hand. It is also generally acknowledged by scholars today that the argument about the relationship between conscientia and synderesis began many years prior to Thomas's work, that the medieval debate was originally spurred by the introduction of the strange term synderesis into the conversation, and that the term entered the discussion by means of an enigmatic passage in Jerome's Commentary on Ezekiel. Finally, most scholars acknowledge that the appearance of synderesis in the medieval manuscripts of Jerome's commentary is in all likelihood a corruption of the Greek word syneidēsis, which is the standard correlate in Greek Patristic literature for the Latin conscientia.