1 THE SAPIENTIAL DIMENSION OF MONASTIC THEOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE II VATICAN COUNCIL Luigi Gioia O.S.B. Fr. Luigi Gioia (DPhil Oxford University) is a Benedictine monk and teaches Systematic Theology and Spirituality at the Pontifical University of S. Anselmo, Rome. A shorter version of this paper was delivered for the Annual Theology Day at the New Norcia Institute for Benedictine Studies (Australia) in August 2015. The monastic approach to theology has often been called ‘sapiential’ to indicate the search not only for an understanding but, above all, for an experience of the realities of faith. Thus, on the basis of the etymology of the term ‘wisdom’ from the Latin sapere, ‘to taste’, it could be said that when a monk reads scripture he is attempting not only to understand it but also to be nourished by it and to taste it. Yet this is trying to explain a metaphor (‘sapiential’) by reference to another metaphor (‘experiential’, ‘tasting’) without really making any clarification. Hence the reticence of many theologians with regards to this attribute which, however suggestive, is not easy to handle. To renew and clarify the theological meaning of this attribute we shall resort to the Old Testament literary genre also called ‘sapiential’ (‘wisdom literature’) or, rather, to the sapiential streak that runs through Scripture as a whole. Biblical Sapiential Literature In his well-known prayer imploring God for the gift of wisdom, Solomon asks for “a heart which knows how to listen and discern”: 1 What [Solomon], the paradigm of the wise man, wished for himself was not the authoritative reason which reigns supreme over dead natural matter, the reason of modern consciousness, but an ‘understanding’ reason, a feeling for the truth which emanates from the world and addresses man. He was totally receptive to that truth, but this was not passivity, but an intense activity, the object of which was response, prudent articulation. The discovery of truth on the basis of the modern concept of reason, on the other hand, is, rather, an experience of power. It produces an ability to control in which, basically, everyone can participate. Our reason is technically 1 1 Kings 3.9.