Theological attempts to the study of suffering and evil in Late Antique and Early Medieval Spain

Abstract

This paper is a meditation on the experience of suffering and evil, exploring its dimensions and depth, as a theological preamble to its historical study as it emerges in the voices of Late Antique and Early Medieval Spain. We describe the experience of suffering and evil as a path with three paschal moments —paschal in a purely etymological sense: moments that the sufferer suffers (páskhō in Greek and patior in Latin) and through which he passes (pasáj in Hebrew)—: the cross on Friday (passio, homo patiens), the search for meaning through descending into the depths of evil and suffering in the long Saturday of history (quaestio, homo quaerens) and the eventual Sunday resurrection to a world of meaning (significatio, homo significans).