Читать книгу Mediation - Alain Lempereur - Страница 16

Historical texts enlighten us on the ancient use of mediation practices. Research (Cardinet 1997) shows that the written history of mediation started around 500 BCE. Notably, the word mesites written on papyrus refers to Mitra, half‐god and half‐man, thus creating a link between humanity and the divine. Further, in his Constitution for Athens, Aristotle notes that Solon is a reconciler between two camps. In the second century CE, mesites was translated into Latin as “mediator.” Human beings, as individuals or belonging to groups of varying social organizations, needed to determine who would “intermediate” among them, and between them, God, and the universe.

This is how Christian theology offers one of the first uses of the term, with Jesus as “mediator between God and mankind” (I Timothy 2:5). In 1265, the word mediateur first appears in French in Jean de Meung's Le Roman de la Rose. In 1382, borrowed from the Latin word immediatus, appears the word immédiat meaning “direct and without intermediary”; in 1478, the word médiat, from the Latin mediatus, is used to refer to an indirect action. With the meaning of “intermediary intended to reconcile persons or parties,” the French use of the word mediateur dates to the sixteenth century. The word mediation recalls Old English midd for “middle.” In 1540, it meant “divide in two equal parts.” By the middle of the seventeenth century, the meaning was “occupy a middle place or position.” The “act as a mediator, intervene for the purpose of reconciliation” likely hails from 1610, while “settle by mediation, harmonize, reconcile” is probably from the mid‐1500s (Online Etymology Dictionary 2020). In 1694, the term mediation appears in the dictionary of the French Academy. It is then used widely, even in literature such as in La Fontaine's fable “Vultures and Pigeons”: “They tried their hand at mediation / To reconcile the foes, or part” (La Fontaine 1668, Fable VIII, 7th book).