Negli anni di passaggio dal XII al XIII secolo, il cisterciense Garnerio di Rochefort si dedica alla composizione di un breve trattato, il _De contrarietatibus in Sacra Scriptura_. L’opera, tuttora inedita, fa ricorso all’uso delle arti sermocinali per risolvere le ambiguità scritturali. Nel prologo del _De contrarietatibus_ emerge un peculiare interesse del cisterciense verso la disciplina della retorica e, in particolare, verso l’impiego delle figure tropiche nella comprensione dei contenuti della Rivelazione. A ben vedere, tuttavia, la scelta garneriana di ricorrere (...) all’affinamento degli strumenti della retorica per illuminare il significato della Scrittura trova una piena giustificazione solo alla luce della sua concezione della _natura_ e della _Scriptura_ come teofanie e/o simboli. Ora in quest’orizzonte simbolico, di impianto neoplatonico-dionisiano, è sempre all’opera nelle _res_, così come nel linguaggio, un meccanismo di traslazione, un’estensione della parola, oltre il suo contenuto ordinario, a un significato altro, di natura spirituale. Dunque la fattura retorica delle espressioni bibliche assume un valore conoscitivo, e non semplicemente ornamentale, perché capace di palesare, attraverso un dialettico gioco di corrispondenze e/o di rotture, una proporzionalità analogica tra il visibile e l’invisibile. _In the intervening years between the XII and XIII centuries, Cistercian Garnerius of Rochefort devoted himself to the composition of a short treatise,_ De contrarietatibus in Sacra Scriptura._ The work, still unpublished, makes use of the sermocinal arts to resolve scriptural ambiguities. The prologue to _De contrarietatibus _reveals a peculiar interest of the Cistercian in the discipline of rhetoric and, in particular, in the use of tropes in understanding the contents of Revelation. On closer inspection, however, garnerian’s choice to resort to the refinement of the tools of rhetoric to illuminate the meaning of Scripture finds full justification only in light of his conception of_ natura _and_ Scriptura_ as theophanies and/or symbols. Now in this symbolic horizon, of Neo-Platonic-Dionysian framework, there is always at work in _res_, as well as in language, a mechanism of translation, an extension of the word, beyond its ordinary content, to another meaning of a spiritual nature. So the rhetorical workmanship of biblical expressions assumes a cognitive, and not merely ornamental, value because it is capable of manifesting, through a dialectical interplay of correspondences and/or ruptures, an analogical proportionality between the visible and the invisible. _. (shrink)

In the work of the Cistercian Garnerio de Rochefort, active in the second half of the 12th century, we find the formulation of a psychological doctrine based on the interweaving of the Augustinian model of videre and the Neoplatonic principle of a scalar order of the faculties of the soul. The idea of a visual‑cognitive ascent of the soul is used in the direction of an overtly mystical approach, typical of monastic spiritual theology. For Garnerio, the process of man’s inner (...) refinement towards ecstatic‑cognitive assimilation to the divine coincides with a movement of psycho‑gnoseological progression from sense to intelligence, from the external sight of the sensible world to the spiritual one. The culmination is a direct intuition of the gaze with which God sees and understands all things, reachable only by intelligence. Of course, this vision will only be fully realised in the state of future bliss. However, during their earthly life, some men have been made capable, by divine gift, of approaching this summit of knowledge in an episodic and always imperfect way. For Garnerio, man’s turning to God is therefore conceivable only through the joint concurrence of grace and a perfective movement of the soul requiring an entry into himself in order to go supra se, to a place where he will be with God and in God. (shrink)