Compendium of the Study of Theology
Roger Bacon's Compendium Studii Theologiae represents the aging Franciscan friar's final systematic attempt to reform theological education in the late thirteenth century. Written around 1292 near the end of his controversial career, this treatise emerged from Bacon's decades-long frustration with what he saw as the corrupt state of theological study at the universities, particularly Paris and Oxford. Having spent years advocating for experimental science and educational reform, often earning suspicion from ecclesiastical authorities, Bacon crafted this work as both diagnosis and cure for theology's intellectual ailments.
The Compendium advances a sweeping critique of contemporary theological method while proposing Bacon's characteristic integration of multiple disciplines. He argues that authentic theological study requires mastery of languages, particularly Hebrew and Greek, to properly understand Scripture in its original contexts. Mathematics and natural philosophy, far from being peripheral to theological inquiry, serve as essential tools for comprehending divine truth embedded in creation. Bacon contends that the prevailing scholastic methods, with their heavy reliance on dialectical reasoning divorced from linguistic precision and empirical observation, produce theologians ignorant of the very sources they claim to interpret. The work systematically demonstrates how grammatical knowledge, historical understanding, and what Bacon calls "experimental science" must undergird serious theological reflection.
Though never achieving the influence of Bacon's more famous Opus Majus, the Compendium preserves his mature vision of theological education as necessarily interdisciplinary and empirically grounded. Medieval universities largely ignored its prescriptions, but modern scholars recognize it as anticipating later Renaissance humanist concerns with returning to original sources and integrating secular learning with sacred study.
Who should read this: Historians of medieval education and theology will find essential insights into thirteenth-century intellectual debates, while those interested in the relationship between faith and empirical inquiry will discover a surprisingly modern voice. This is not recommended for readers seeking devotional material or systematic doctrinal instruction.