Theologies of Reconciliation in Thirteenth-Century England

Abstract

One of [the Pharisees], a lawyer, asked [Jesus] a question, to test Him. ‘Teacher, what is the great commandment in the Law?’ And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’Reconciliation of the relationships broken by sin, or the fall, is one of the central themes of Christianity, as this collection, of studies duly highlights. The themes of reconciliation to God and reconciliation to neighbour run throughout both the New Testament, with special emphasis in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, and the Hebrew Scriptures, for in this passage from the Gospel of Matthew Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. This text would have been well-known to Christian authors on the subject of reconciliation in Western Europe in the thirteenth century; and the passage, or at least its message, should have been familiar to most clergy and many of their people. As an item of catechesis, one of its virtues is that it is short, and thus easy to teach and to remember.