Un testo programmatico di Erik Peterson: la prima lezione di storia del monachesimo (1922)

In 1922, Erik Peterson, Privatdozent at the University of Göttingen, ventured to lecture on monasticism and asceticism. These lessons, still unpublished, are contained in 79 manuscript sheets (about 440,000 characters). Although this work is still largely ignored, it may be read as a manifesto for theological studies. The aim of this essay is to analyse this document and its symbolic revolution in the field of theology. The investigation, opened by a brief palaeographic description of the manuscript (2), continues with the correct relationship between theology and history, according to Peterson (3), because only after having found the right synthesis between them is it possible to investigate Jesus’ activity with profit, thus discovering that it is essentially ascetic (4). This ascetic nature is due to two peculiar characteristics that make Jesus totally incompatible with the world and its morality: eschatology and extraordinary nature (5).