Philosophical tensions in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose

¶ … philosophical implications contained in Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. His views about God were formed when Eco attended the University of Turin to take up studies in medieval philosophy and literature. There, he wrote his thesis on Thomas Aquinas, although Eco stopped believing in God and left the Roman Catholic Church. The struggles he had in his own life echo those of William of Baskerville and his novice Adso of Melk have large issues with God and the Church. William of Baskerville is especially in this category since he has been arrest, tortured and imprisoned by the Inquisition in the past. Now, he is confronted with this same reality again and his faith is severely tried. He now again is faced with the choice between faith and knowledge, a choice he does not believe is right to make. For him, there is no contradiction between reason and faith.

Church vs. Papacy

The book reflects a conflict between the Church and the papacy where the pope guards the Church as a husband, father or mother would guard a woman's virtue. The monk Umbertino reflects upon this in Name of the Rose. He especially thinks that this is the case with the Pope Clement V who he describes as an angelic and sainted pope who preached the crusade against heretics against Dolcino . He described the Church as a whore and that obedience is due only to the Apostles of Christ represented by the spiritual successors of the first Pope Peter (Eco 228).

Greed vs. Power

The Name of the Rose touches upon such universal themes as power and greed. The monastery and the Church as a whole is based upon the suppression of human sexuality and the deviant outbursts of this sexuality and other sins such as heresy. This is especially shown in the Inquisition and the extents to which the Catholic church went to in order to secure its place as the dominant religion. In the book, "heretics" were tortured and then burned at the stake, many with viewpoints that only slightly disagreed with the official position of the church. A supporter of the church one day might find that they were a heretic the next. In the book, the Inquisition comes to abbey to burn hidden heretics who had survived the last crusade against their doctrines (ibid 234). Heretics used symbols to avoid detection and communicate with their fellow mendicants (Capozzi 11). Many of these were Millenarian and believed the second coming of Christ was at hand as born out by the symbols of his return (Murphy 48) .

Religiosity vs. Piety

The Franciscans are certainly pious. They have taken an oath of poverty and have individually given their wealth to the poor. Certainly, this true piety is contrasted with the outward religiosity of the Church officials of the inquisition who question whether Christ was poor. Only those who are rich and living in luxury would be troubled by true piety that would show their hypocrisy and lack of real religious conviction. Even now, Franciscans follow St. Francis' doctrine on this from his rule where they "zealously follow the poverty and humility of Our Lord Jesus Christ ("Franciscans")."

If Christ and the Apostles were utterly poor and owned nothing, then to see Popes and Church officials have great wealth in this world must have been a great contradiction in the eye of the general public. Certainly, the bishops assembled in the book for the inquisition's assembly would have been nervous when quietly confronted by the pious Franciscans whose only crime was their poverty. This very poverty made them a threat in the eyes of opulent leaders of the Church who would fear the day that such priests might lead the poor to take wealth from the Church and they divide it up among the poor around them.

Church vs. State

In the Name of the Rose, the Church is primary, even over kings who rule at the pleasure of God and must have fealty to the Pope, God's representative on the face of the earth. This was represented in the belief that the Pope who was the representative of Christ on earth should have ultimate authority over both the state and the crown that was its symbol. In such a case popes could depose kings or compel a king's subjects to rebel against them when their policies contradicted the decrees of the Pope and the Church. The Petrine doctrine saw earthly kings as subservient to and ruling by the hand of God as dispensed through his servant on the throne of St. Peter ("Reading Guide: Medieval Church and State") .

Laughter as Sinful

One of the key themes Eco's book is about laughter and whether or not it is sinful. He asks the question of whether or not laughter is ultimately justified in the sight of God or whether or it is a signal of the dominance of Satan. The monk Jorge argues that a person's laughter is the principle source of all evil. Jorge reflects that "The spirit is only serene only when it contemplates the truth and takes delight in good achieved, and truth and good are not to laughed at. This is why Christ did not laugh. Laughter foments doubt (Eco 132)."

Mans Evil vs. Good

For those who hold to the Church's concept of original sin, man is evil at the core and only God's intervention through the agency of the Church provides hope of his redemption. It looks upon man as totally depraved due to the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As a consequence of the Fall of Man brought about by this sin, every human born into the world is enslaved to the service of Satan and without the grace of God is unable to choose to follow the divine or to choose to accept salvation as it is offered. Only the true path of the Church offers hope to lost souls who can not find their way except by the Church and its sacraments ("Saint Aquinas").

Conclusion

In the Name of the Rose, William of Baskerville and his novice Adso of Melk have large issues with God and the Church and seek to reconcile them by using the scholastic method. William of Baskerville is especially tried in this category since he has been arrested, tortured and imprisoned by the Inquisition in the past. Now, he is confronted again with this same reality again his faith is severely tried. He now again is faced with the choice between faith and knowledge, a choice he does not believe is right to make. For him, there is no contradiction between reason and faith. By analyzing topics such as Church vs. Papacy, greed vs. power, religiosity vs. piety, Church vs. State, faith vs. science, laughter as sin and mans evil vs. good, we can appreciate the struggles that a churchman of the late Middle Ages would have had in reconciling themselves with the old classical philosophical knowledge that was being rediscovered. It was this fight between reason and faith that held knowledge back and only when the two extremes were not seen as exclusive, but rather as complimentary were life and death issues able to be explained and reconciled in the Abbey. In the end, William of Baskerville wins with his intellect, but is inspired by his faith.