The subject of passion (9)

The first hour was devoted to revisiting the question of translations. In medieval terms, we distinguished three "translations": translatio imperii (transfer of power), translatio artium (transfer of the arts), translatio studiorum (transfer of knowledge and centers of study). We then presented the three stages of translatio studiorum: "Carolinian" translation, "Ottonian" translation and "French" translation. Emphasis was placed on the latter, making the Parisian university the final stage of translatio studii: from Athens to Paris, via Rome. On this basis, we evoked three modern diagnoses of the result of the translation from East to West: Hobbes, the Hellenization of Christianity; Benedict XVI, the de-Hellenization of Christianity; Heidegger, the Romanization of philosophical Greek. We then returned to the theme of the Passion, asking three questions where Christology and anthropology are intertwined: Who suffers on the Cross? What suffers in Christ? What is the "subject" of suffering? We showed that all these questions called for an elucidation of the concept of "person", and then addressed the question of the definition of persona in the Middle Ages. Starting with the two formulas used by Boethius - "individual substance of a reasonable nature" and "individual subsistence of a reasonable nature" - we showed that, for ancient and medieval thought, the person was defined - in a word - as the individualhypostasis of a reasonable nature. On this basis, we commented on the Thomasian definition of the person: "an individual substance of a reasonable nature with mastery of its acts, which is not simply acted like others, but acts by itself, for 'actions are in singulars'" (= PSA). We concluded by positing that the task of the archaeology of the subject of passion was to bring the modern definition of the person back to the Greek patristic record founding the conception of the person professed from the Middle Ages to the Classical Age.