engleski

Animal Rights in the Middle Ages: an 'underground' animalistic Christian current

Despite Mediaeval – and also contemporary – Christian anthropocentrism, a concealed, subversive animalistic spark smouldered in Christianity during the Middle Ages, pleading the cause of animals. Members of this movement included, for example, St John of Chrysostom and St Basil of Caesaria, both in the fourth century (R. Ryder, 2000). In that process, some of them such as, for example, St Francis of Assisi, still did not manage fully to prevail over their own Christian anthropocentrism (cf. P. Singer, 1975 ; A. Linzey, 1994). Nonetheless, these were the thinkers who undermined the monolithic nature of the Church's views and the scala naturae that placed Man at the very hierarchical peak, which has been maintained right up to the present day, immortalised by the authority of St Thomas Aquinas, who re-established the Aristotelian view of human superiority over nonhuman animals and Nature, or, in his words: "According to the Divine ordinance the life of animals and plants is preserved not for themselves, but for man" ("Summa Theologica", II, Question 64. Murder, Article 1).

Middle Ages; animal rights

Sažetak je objavljen na web-stranici navedene konferencije: http://imc.leeds.ac.uk/imcapp/SessionDetails.jsp?SessionId=2456