Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

58Nazianzus. All 3 scholars focus on similar concepts, namely, a commonhumanity, the superiority of actions over words, and charity as the highestChristian endeavour. Gregory of Nazianzus particularly highlights the importanceof philanthropic care for the disfigured as the epitome of loving action, thegreatest of all virtues. 101 The ethical concern here is that all people should livewell with each other. The sick are regarded as fellow brothers and sisters inChrist who share the same nature with us all. 102 The outsider, shunned fromhuman community, is theologically and actively connected to all humanity. 103Augustine’s teachings, while not expressive of a disability theology, have,through his assumptions on human nature, sickness, and health, proved influentialin the formulation of such theology in later centuries. For example, he challengesnotions of normality in the light of the one perfect human being, Jesus Christ. Assuch, all human beings fall short of this Christological ideal. 104 In terms of thoseborn with infirmity he affirms their fundamental resurrected identity when hestates:‘Concerning monsters [monstra] which are born and live, howeverquickly they die, neither is resurrection to be denied them, nor is itto be believed that they will rise again as they are, but rather withan amended and perfect body ... the true form of human nature.’105In terms of those who are the focus of this extended reflection it isinteresting to note that though Augustine upholds the importance of rationality tohuman identity he does not equate loss of reason with any loss of full humanstatus. As Brock explains:To be human is to be the bearer of a set of traits, includingrationality, whether they are empirically expressed or not. The101 Caspary, Almut. "The Patristic Era: Early Christian Attitudes toward the DisfiguredOutcast." In Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader, edited by Brian Brock and JohnSwinton, 24-64. Grand Rapids & Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,2012, 35.102 For example, Gregory of Nazianzus is cited by Caspary in Oration 14 as stating, “ ‘For weare all one in the Lord, whether rich or poor, whether slave or free’ [Gal.3:28], whether ingood health of body or in bad; and there is one head of all, from whom all things proceed:Christ.”ibid., 59.103 ibid., 36-37.104 Brock, Brian. "Augustine's Hierarchies of Human Wholeness and Their Healing." InDisability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader, edited by Brian Brock and John Swinton, 65-100. Grand Rapids & Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012, 68-70.105 ibid., 69. Here, the author is citing Augustine’s The Enchiridion.