Reading the Church: William Durandus and a New Approach to the History of Ecclesiology
Stephen Mark Holmes
Abstract In the study of ecclesiology it is often said that first treatises on Church were written during controversies around bull Unam sanctam (1302) Pope Boniface VIII. These works and their successors provide a political institutional determined by author's attitude to papal claims. Before bull, however, friend Boniface, William Durandus Mende, wrote commentary liturgy summarised very different which has its roots in New Testament Fathers. The book his Rationale divinorum officiorum draws previous tradition uses methods spiritual exegesis Bible balanced from 'reading' church-building. wide circulation late medieval early modern Western Europe ensured this traditional was quietly handed on, but writers have ignored it. A Durandus's interpretation church enables us retrieve suggests new narrative for history ecclesiology.
Ecclesiology