(Puccamp) Preparing her book on the Emperor Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar found in a letter by Flaubert this phrase: «When the gods had ceased to exist and Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, in that the man was left alone». The pagan gods never ceased to exist, even with the Christian triumph, and Rome was not the world, but in the brief moment of solitude caught by Flaubert, Western man found himself free of metaphysics – and he didn’t like it, of course. Who wants to be alone in a world that does not dominate and barely understands, without the support and consolation of a theology, any theology? (Luiz Fernando Veríssimo. Banquet with the gods)
Understanding the world through religion is a disposition that translates medieval thought, whose assumption is
a) anthropocentrism: the appreciation of man as the center of the Universe and the belief in the divine character of human nature.
b) scholasticism: the search for salvation through knowledge of classical philosophy and the assimilation of paganism.
c) pantheism: the defense of the harmonious coexistence of faith and reason, since the infinite Universe is part of the divine substance.
d) positivism: man’s submission to dogmas instituted by the Church and not questioning divine laws.
e) theocentrism: predominant conception in medieval intellectual and artistic production, which considers God the center of the Universe.