Читать книгу Neomedievalism. Reflections on the Post-Enlightenment Era онлайн

39 страница из 45

Protestantism, as the word itself says, is—was—a disobedient response to an established power. One of its particularities was the radicalization of written culture over oral culture, the independence of the reader instead of the obedient listener. Not only was the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the sacred texts, questioned; the authority of the sermon moved to the direct, or almost direct, reading of the sacred text that had been translated into vulgar languages, the languages of the people. The use of a dead language like Latin confirmed the hermetic elitism of religion (philosophy and science would abandon this usage long before). From this moment on, the oral tradition of Catholicism will continually lose strength and authority. It will have, nevertheless, several rebirths, especially in Franco’s Spain. Professor of ethics José Luis Aranguren, for example, who made a number of progressive historical observations, was not free from the strong tradition that surrounded him. In Catolicismo y protestantismo como formas de existencia (Catholicism and Protestantism as Forms of Existence) he was explicit: “Christianity should not be a ‘reader’ but a ‘listener’ of the Word, and ‘hearing it’ is as much as ‘living it.’” (1952)