“你的名如同倒出来的香膏”——圣贝尔纳的爱情观与世界观

Love and Human Dignity in the World of St.Bernard of Clairvaux

启蒙运动以来,西方修道传统遭受过一系列的批评。中文对修道精神(asceticism)一语的翻译为"禁欲主义",凸现了现代文化对它的误解和贬斥。中世纪的修道传统饱含着对人和世界的热爱,修道人士对爱情和婚姻的看法尽管有着灵修化的色彩,但是他们对尘世的感情并非没有见解,这些见解往往能够超越封建社会经济和政治利益的约束。对贝尔纳以及他的同时代人来说,不仅人与神之间的爱,必须借助人与人之间的爱情话语来表达,而且人与人之间的爱也必须依赖人与神的爱来升华和强化,方能够变成无私的、能够突破种种社会偏见和成见障碍的大爱。因为如此,中世纪修道院的爱情文学往往具备现代人道主义的色彩,与托马斯·默顿和让·勒克莱尔的境界息息相通。

The western monasticism has been criticized and even sneered at since the Enlighten ment. Chinese translation of the term ＂asceticism＂ usually means a suppression of human na ture and implies a negative view of monastic way of life. In the Middle Ages, monks loved fel low men and they cared very much for the society outside their monasteries. They looked at love and marriage with their particular point of view and very often refused to subject human feelings to economic and political interests of feudal society. In their opinion, love of God to ward man could only be understood through the language of human love, and love between man and woman had to be placed in the context of love between God and man. Love literature in medieval monasteries expressed thereby a profound understanding of humanism that has been inherited and refined by such modern monks as Thomas Merton and Jean Leclercq.