Peter of Dacien

Petrus von Dacien (also Petrus de Dacia , Petrus Daciensis , Petrus Gutensis , Petrus Gothensis ), (* around 1235, † 1289 ) was a Swedish Dominican and mystic .

Life and education data

The year of birth of Peter von Dacien is set around 1235, since he was described in 1245 as "barely grown". After joining the Dominican order in the province of Scandinavia ( Dacia ), Peter was sent to Cologne in 1266 to attend the St. Albertus Magnus directed Dominican School at the Convent of the Holy Cross to complete a general study . He stayed in Cologne until 1269, then went to Paris, where he worked with St. Thomas Aquinas studied. On his return to Sweden he was first lecturer and then prior of the first Swedish Dominican monastery St. Nicholas in Visby , Gotland. Peter died as a prior in Visby in 1289. In Sweden, Peter is considered the first writer known by name. In the history of the Dominican Order, Peter stands for the early Dominican mysticism .

From 1929 to 1990 the musical play Petrus de Dacia , composed by Friedrich Mehler based on texts by the Swedish doctor Josef Lundahl, was performed annually in the ruins of the former Dominican church of St. Nikolai zu Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland.

Seal of Peter of Dacien

plant

To this day only his work on Christina von Stommeln's ecstatic life has survived . It has been preserved in two versions: the Codex Iuliacensis , in Latin, presumably compiled from the estate of Peter, which consists of three parts on 127 parchment sheets that are still preserved today, written on both sides and in two columns. A shorter version is in Einsiedeln.

For the first and second part, Peter explicitly names himself as the author. The more interesting second part comprises fifteen minutes of Peter's visits to Stommeln, a correspondence between Peter, Christina and others comprising sixty-three letters, and a childhood story of Christina based on texts and oral reports by Stommeln pastor Johannes. The third part comes from "Magister Johannes, the chaplain of the Virgin", who presumably looked after Christina on behalf of Petrus.

Peter and the blessed Christina von Stommeln

On a confessional course in Stommeln near Cologne in 1267, Peter met the twenty-five year old begine Christina: “At last the Father of Mercy showed me a person whose sight and conversation pleased me so much that I not only remembered his presence but also the thought of him the separation. ”With deep understanding, Christina replied:“ Since my childhood I have known you, seen your face, heard your voice, loved you more than anyone else. ”In the following years, Petrus visited Christina in Stommeln sixteen times and became more spiritual to her Companion: Between 1267 and 1269 he came thirteen times from Cologne, once in 1270 after his return from Paris and twice (1279 and 1287) from Sweden himself, traveling on foot for months. Their relationship with one another is characterized by extracts from letters recorded by Peter:

" Sive ergo a vobis ego, sive a me quaeratis, an vos diligam vel a vobis diligar, certitudinaliter responderi potest ab utroque, quia:" diligo et diligor "[...] si quis ergo a me quaereret, an Christinam diligerem, tota fiducia responderem : »Diligo«. "Cum quadam vice ex tenore litterarum vestrum cognoscerem, qualiter specialiter ad me haberis affectum…, scire debetis, quod non minor sed omnino idem est ad vos mihi coram deo affectus." "Karissime, scire debetis, qod pro vobis intime solicitor." " , and, when Peter returned from Paris via Stommeln to Dacien in 1270: “Cum ergo duo iremus, pariter mesti et tristes de inminenti separacione, et plura suspiria quam colloquia conmisceremus, dixi: karissima cristina, tempus advenit ut ab invicem separamur. Vale in domino, karissima! Que hec audiens nihil respondit, sed pallio faciem operuit et super terram resedit, flens amarissime et habundantissime [...] "

"(So if I asked you or you asked me whether I loved you or would be loved by you, then each of us can answer with certainty: I love and I am loved. [...] if someone asked me if I Christina loved, I would answer with complete conviction: I love. Since I can tell, conversely, from the tone of your letters, what special affection you have for me ... you should know that it is not less but completely the same: my affection for you before God. Dearest, you should know what worries me deeply about you. [...] So when we both walked along, equally saddened and sad whether the imminent separation and more sighs than words came about, I said: Dearest Christina, the time has come that we must part. Farewell in the Lord, dearest. When she heard this, she made no answer, but covered her face with the robe, sat down on the ground and wept with tears and overflowing nd tears [...]) "

Mysticism of Peter

The love between Peter and Christina repeatedly gave rise to approval and doubts about their mystical character. On the edge of the third column of sheet 30 in the second book of the Codex, an unknown person wrote: "Note the beauty of the love between Peter and Christina!"

The Catholic Encyclopedia states: “It is difficult to decide how much literal truth exist in Christine's visions and apparitions from purgatory. But even Renan did not doubt the purity of her life (Hist. Litt. De la France, XXVII, 1-26). "

Ernest Renan , French historian of religion, comments on the correspondence that it is "one of the strangest documents on the most intimate details of mystical life in the 13th century."

Wilhelm Oehl, expert on the mystical literature of the Middle Ages, wrote about the correspondence in 1931: “Having been carried out over so many years and across so many countries, it is extremely valuable and attractive in terms of cultural history. Among the many collections of letters from the old German mysticism, not a single one rises up to the middle of the 15th century in terms of scope, versatility and content of these Christina letters. "

In the process of beatification of Christina in 1908, the Archbishop of Cologne Antonius Cardinal Fischer said: “The collection of letters between Christina and Peter does not lack a certain sentimental tenderness that we certainly cannot please, although Peter says several times, as if to apologize, she [ Christina] has nothing cheap or bad about it. ”Peter Nieveler formulates:“ It would certainly be easy to relegate such visions, such feelings and thinking in the sense of Freud to the realm of unfulfilled sexual dreams - but it would certainly also be too easy. ”

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Friedrich Ochsner: Petrus De Dacia Gothensis, Mystic of Friendship (English)
2. ^ Codes Iuliacensis , manuscript from the early 14th century, since 1973 as a deposit in the diocesan archives of Aachen
3. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia
4. ↑ E. Renan: siecle Une idyll monacale au XIIIe. In: Revue des deux mondes , 50th year, 3rd period, vol. 39, Paris 1880, p. 290 f.
5. ^ W. Oehl: German Mystic Letters of the Middle Ages 1100 - 1500. Darmstadt 1972, unchanged. Reprint of the 1931 edition
6. ↑ Beatification Acts, Rome 1908, Summarium objectionale , pp. 12–72
7. ↑ Peter Nieveler: Christina von Stommeln. Jülich 1986

literature

• Peter Nieveler: Codex Iuliacensis, Christina von Stommeln and Petrus von Dacien. Your life and afterlife in history, art and literature . Mönchen-Gladbach 1975, publications of the Episcopal Diöcesanarchiv Aachen, vol. 34.
• Monika Asztalos: Petrus de Dacia, De gratia naturam ditante sive de virtutibus Christinae Stumbelensis . Acta Universitatis Stockholmensis, Studia Latina Stockholmensis XXVIII, Stockholm 1982.
• Johannes Paulson: Petri de Dacia Vita Christinae Stumbelensis. Vol. I, Gothenburg 1896
• Theodor Wollersheim: The life of the ecstatic and stigmatic virgin Christina von Stommeln . Cologne 1859. (Readable as e-book on Google books.)
• Sebastian Sobecki:  Peter of Dacien. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 26, Bautz, Nordhausen 2006, ISBN 3-88309-354-8 , Sp. 1116-1119.

Web links

• Petrus von Dacien: Preview at Mendeley