The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages - Mary Dzon The Middle Ages Series

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De Jesu puero duodenni. Although Aelred inserts some realistic details, much of what he adds to the Temple episode does not apparently derive from his exercise of poetic license or from oral or apocryphal traditions but from the Bible in some way (including the novel idea about Jesus’ conference with his Father, which builds upon Christ’s assertion that he had to be “about [his] father’s business” [Lk. 2:49]).

      In the De Jesu puero duodenni, Aelred has not relied on any apocryphal infancy texts, as he does, admittedly in only one instance, in the De institutione inclusarum (discussed below), yet in both cases he evinces a fairly open-minded attitude toward material that is not strictly rooted in Scripture, in which, as we have seen, he is wonderfully immersed. He briefly addresses this issue in the De Jesu puero duodenni, when, in the course of speculating about who might have cared for the Child in his parents’ absence, he remarks, “It is attractive (libet) to form opinions or conjectures or surmises on all these matters, but it is wrong to make any rash assertions.”69 The apocryphal infancy legends explored in the following chapter have, as I have already noted, a quasi-dogmatic bent in their presentation of Christ’s childhood, in the sense that their narrators do not pause to offer alternatives or state that things might have happened differently. In an essay in which she concentrates on medieval French redactions of Christ’s apocryphal childhood, and contrasts them with the Franciscan Meditationes vitae Christi (which I discuss in the latter part of this chapter), Evelyn Birge Vitz draws an astute parallel between these two genres of texts (namely, apocryphal and meditative). It is helpful to consider her observation here since the Meditationes and the two aforementioned treatises by Aelred all encourage reflection on and visualization of the life of Christ, which, while guided, still leaves readers a good deal of freedom and, most importantly, invites them to see the biblical scenes and characters with their own inner eyes: “when one reads the Gospels, or any part of the Bible, as soon as one wishes to go beyond the schematic narrative and the theological formulations and tries to reconstruct in the mind’s eye a scene—tries to see Jesus in action—one automatically produces apocryphal, non-canonical details. Meditation is, thus, by its very nature, what I would term ‘apocryphogenic.’ ”70 While it is true that meditational texts and apocryphal narratives, broadly speaking, engage the reader’s imagination by going beyond the bare narrative of the biblical text, it is important to reiterate that the authorial narrators of the apocrypha do not invite their readers to speculate about Jesus’ boyhood or in any way suggest that he himself may enlighten them about his life or about other issues or concerns. As I have already stated, such narrators pretend to offer historical accounts and do not foster much creative visualization of the child Jesus himself or of homely details about his childhood (such as what his sleeping conditions were like),71 beyond the reader’s envisioning of the scenes that form the backdrop of certain incidents—the remarkable episodes deemed worthy of recollection. Yet, as the observation by Vitz suggests, the authors of these genres all participate in and foster an imaginative freedom that allows them and their readers, to varying degrees, to explore the life of Christ in concrete though hypothetical ways.

      The visual orientation of Aelred’s De Jesu puero duodenni and his De institutione inclusarum (discussed in the following section) is clearly central to the abbot’s experiential approach to monastic spirituality. Speaking of Jesus as the bridegroom desired by the soul, both texts emphasize the Boy’s extraordinary beauty and encourage the reader to imagine his physical appearance and, even more so, to yearn to see him. At the very beginning of the De Jesu puero duodenni, Ivo is reminded of how he is accustomed to gaze at the Boy’s “most beautiful face.”72 Later, Aelred surmises that on the trip up to Jerusalem “the grace of heaven shone (refulsisse) from that most beautiful face (speciossimus vultus) with such charm as to make everyone look at it.”73 In describing Jesus as beautiful, Aelred and other medieval writers undoubtedly took their cue from Psalm 44:3, which speaks of one who is “beautiful above the sons of men.” William of St. Thierry, for example, cites this verse in Bernard of Clairvaux’s vita, when he recounts the pious boy’s vision of the Christ Child that occurred before Mass one Christmas Eve: “It was as if Bernard saw re-enacted the birth of the infant Word, more beautiful than all the sons of men…. And this made young Bernard’s heart overflow with a love and longing unheard of in a mere boy.”74 Like Bernard, Aelred regards Jesus’ beauty as having a powerful influence on the beholder. His beauty is not simply skin-deep, but divinely radiant and deeply affecting. As we shall see, the Christ Child’s face is similarly described as powerfully radiant in the De institutione inclusarum.

      By encouraging his reader to look at Christ’s face without, it should be noted, actually providing a detailed description of it, Aelred increases his reader’s desire for the beatific vision, which was thought to transcend human experience (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12). At the end of his treatise on Jesus’ childhood, Aelred claims that when the soul has reached its twelfth year, so to speak, it will be able to gaze on the bridegroom, who is more comely than the sons of men (Ps. 44:3); in return the Lord will look back through the lattices (Sg. 2:9). Such language reinforces the Christian reader’s conviction that, although Jesus is hidden, he desires to make contact with and even be united with the human soul.75 Aelred concludes his treatise by encouraging Ivo to extend the gaze of his mind’s eye “into heaven’s secret places” (oculus mentis in ipsa caeli secreta radium porrexit).76 Like an eagle,77 the monk is to look up at the radiant sun, seeking to be more profoundly imbued with Christ’s mysteries as he continues to make spiritual progress. Rather than offer hidden knowledge about Christ’s childhood, along the lines of the purveyors of apocryphal lore, Aelred urges his reader to gain an experiential sort of knowledge of Christ through personal prayer and to proceed from there to a more contemplative level of spirituality. Although he modestly refrains from claiming that the book stems from the inner workings of his own interior life, his biographer Walter Daniel asserted that Aelred’s De Jesu puero duodenni came “out of the library of his heart.”78 Thus, in this treatise Aelred presumably shared his own experience in approaching divine mysteries. In short, in addressing the desire of his addressee Ivo for deeper knowledge about the Christ Child, Aelred does not disseminate secrets he gleaned from reading esoteric books, such as those containing apocryphal childhood narratives, which had such an allure for medieval audiences. Instead, Aelred offers imaginative and rhetorical prompts that will propel his reader along the course toward a greater intimacy with Christ through prayer and meditation.

      The Christ Child in Aelred’s De institutione inclusarum

      In the 1160s, Aelred wrote the De institutione inclusarum, at the request of his sister, a recluse, in order to provide her, and other women drawn to the anchoritic way of life, with appropriate guidance and inspiration.79 Significantly, only a relatively small proportion of this epistolary treatise deals with the Christ Child: a passage on Jesus’ infancy that occurs within the section of the text that focuses retrospectively on the life of Christ. The majority of Aelred’s letter is aimed at explaining why one should be a recluse and, more importantly, how to be a good one. Aelred’s underlying premise, with which he assumes his reader agrees, is that a female recluse, as a bride of Christ, exists in a state of expectation; having died to the world, she preserves her virginity in this life for her bridegroom, with whom she will finally be united in heaven. At the beginning of the treatise, Aelred tells his sister that one of the main reasons that people in the past have chosen the solitary life is so that they might “enjoy greater freedom in expressing … ardent longing for Christ’s embrace.”80 Like other women, she has prudently enclosed herself in a cell, having little contact with other human beings. Yet she has not simply assumed a defensive posture; her goal of union with Christ is lofty. At different points in the treatise, Aelred invites the recluse to embrace Christ in her imagination and thus experience a foretaste of heavenly bliss.

      Besides seeking to inspire and encourage his reader, Aelred recommends ways for her to avoid spiritual dangers. To fortify herself against the devil’s attack, the recluse should “never cease to ponder for whose bridal chamber she is being embellished, for whose embraces she is being prepared.” The sensuality of such imagery is presumably not at odds with the communal nature of heaven, for Aelred also tells the recluse to envision Mary leading the dance of

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