The neurotic and the penitent
Peter Godman
The instruments of ethical analysis with which thinkers the twelfth century probed fictio were bequeathed to them by their Christian heritage. Although sharpened and polished over centuries, they appear blunt sensibilities refined elegance Greek religion. Their distaste for what is taken be smut medieval superstition can projected backwards forwards, without regard time or place, onto almost any work. One delightful De superstitione that ‘Greek gentleman’, Plutarch, wrote probably between AD 95 115. A Middle Platonist prepared concede validity faith in supernatural truth, he drew line at certain forms credulity. That ruled out a case ‘neurosis’ whom some call penitent others describe, ‘very roughly’, as ‘medieval man’.
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