VERBUM MENTIS – VOX CLAMANTIS: THE NOTION OF THE MENTAL WORD IN TWELFTH-CENTURY THEOLOGY * LUISA VALENTE In studies on mental language in the Middle Ages, 1 scholars usually insist on the association of the patristic and medieval notion of interior language with the mystery of the eternal generation of the Son, on the one hand, and with the incarnation of Christ, on the other. 2 The fathers of the Church * I wish to express my gratitude to Claude Panaccio, Alfono Maierù and Irène Rosier- Catach for their valuable comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Frosty Loechel and Charles Burnett, who patiently revised and corrected the English of this arti- cle. 1 The literature about mental language in the Middle Ages is very extensive. We men- tion only some important studies, whose bibliographies offer further information: C. PANACCIO, Les mots, les concepts et les choses. La sémantique de Guillaume d’Ockham et le nominalisme contemporain, Montréal-Paris 1992 (Here Panaccio suggests a comparison between Ockham’s theory of mental language and some contemporary theories, such as Jerry Fodor’s “language of thoughts”); IDEM, Le discours intérieur. De Platon à Guillaume d’Ockham, Paris 1999 (discussed, commented and integrated in Laval Théologique et phi- losophique 57); A. MAIERÙ, “Il linguaggio mentale tra logica e grammatica nel medioevo: il contesto di Ockham”, in Momenti di storia della logica e storia della filosofia. Atti del convegno Roma, 9-11 novembre 1994 (Società Filosofica Italiana), Roma 1996, 69-94; IDEM, “Signum negli scritti filosofici e teologici fra XIII e XV secolo”, in Signum. IX Col- loquio internazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo, Roma, 8-10 gennaio 1998, a cura di L. BIANCHI, Firenze 1999, 119-41; IDEM, “Linguaggio mentale e sincategoremi nel se- colo XIV”, in Chemins de la pensée médiévale. Études offerts à Zénon Kaluza, éd. P.J.J.M. BAKKER, Turnhout 2002, 1-23; see also F. BOTTIN, Filosofia medievale della mente (Subsidia Patavina 7), Padova 2005. On the notions of signum and verbum in Augustine, see C.P. MAYER, Die antimanichäische Epoche, in Die Zeichen in der geistigen Entwicklung und in der Theologie Augustins 2 (Cassiciacum 34.2), Würzburg 1974; H. ARENS, “Verbum cordis. Zur Sprachphilosophie des Mittelalters”, in Historiographia Lin- guistica 7 (1980), 13-27 (this also includes the medieval tradition); S. VECCHIO, Le parole come segni. Introduzione alla linguistica agostiniana, Palermo 1994; M. SIRRIDGE, “Au- gustin’s two Theories of Language”, in Documenti e Studi sulla tradizione filosofica me- dievale 11 (2000), 35-57. 2 As the human inner word is “begotten” within the human heart and does not leave the heart, nor does the heart diminish when it begets the inner word, the Son of God, called verbum in the Latin translation of the Gospel of St. John, is “begotten” by the Father and stays permanently “by” him though being God himself. As the human inner word, in order to be communicated to other men, needs the “vehicle” of the voice, so the divine Word, in