De Consideratione ad Eugenium Papam. A program for a spiritual renewal of the papacy

Abstract

This paper aims to present the portrait drawn by Bernard of Clairvaux´s De Consideratione ad Eugenium Papam as a counterexample of the idea of the pope as a Typus Moysi. In De Consideratione, Bernard is much more worried with presenting an idea of the papacy based in self-knowledge and the practice of virtue (thus continuing the platonic-augustinian tradition) than with defending the pope´s authority over the secular powers. The virtue of consideration is proposed by Bernard to conceive an exercise of power as a service rendered to others. If we analyze Bernard´s text, we discover that even though it shares the medieval theory of the two swords, such theory is to be understood in a new way. The spiritual content of the papacy is highlighted, and the secular is set aside. The theory of the two swords, which a good example of the changes suffered by political Augustinism during the Middle Ages, finds then a better interpretative context and is presented as an alternative to the pretenses of Eugenius IV in his 1439 bule.