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Document Details : Title: 'Sober Theology' Subtitle: An Enigmatic Expression in Gregory of Tatev and its Background Author(s): GORNANDT, Ruth Journal: Le Muséon Volume: 136 Issue: 3-4 Date: 2023 Pages: 477-491 DOI: 10.2143/MUS.136.3.3292531 Abstract : Gregory of Tatev was an Armenian theologian and polymath of the late Middle Ages. At the outset of his doctrine of God, he talks of ‘sober theology’. The expression is far from clear and needs to be linked to the broad range of traditions from which medieval Armenian theology draws. This article first explains the immediate and the wider context of the expression in Gregory’s Book of Questions. It then shows that its roots stretch back as far as Philo of Alexandria, the Greek Fathers, Plato, Greek literary circles, and Neoplatonist philosophy. Against this backdrop, it becomes clear that the expression is not just one among many ideas but precisely describes what Gregory of Tatev aims to expound in the following: a philosophically engaged discussion leading to a cataphatic theology of what human reason can understand about God. |
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