At 15:42 05.02.99 PST, you wrote:
>My apologies for breathing into a dying string (I've been computerless
>for the week and can't help myself), but the subject seems important enough
>and I've been interested in it--for several reasons--for donkies' years.
>
>My understanding (easily wrong, as usual) is that
>three-fold/four-fold/*-fold ways of looking at scripture (and, by extension,
>everything else) were not just *a* way of approaching things, but *the* way,
>universally accepted and permeating all aspects of the medieval "mindset"
>(sorry).
Dear Christopher,
Hermeneutic theory and exegetic praxis were not exactly the same.
Distinctions of the three or four (or five or six or seven) senses were
rather a matter of theory than of praxis. They had a mnemotic function and
could serve as rough guidelines to orient the praxis, but they do not yet
describe the praxis as it actually was. It is true, there are commentaries
-- especially commentaries on the Psalms and (later) on Canticles -- which
expose the three or four senses in a relatively systematic way. But a great
number -- in my opinion by far the greater number -- of biblical
commentaries did not observe any such system strictly: commentators used
what served their purposes, omitting one level of sense or the other, or
contaminating various levels in one and the same explanation, sometimes
also giving allegorical explanations not foreseen by hermeneutic theory.
Not to forget those commentaries which confined their explanations more or
less strictly to the literal sense. Thus I would not say that threefold or
fourfold exegesis was *the* approach of biblical exegesis, at least not an
approach which was usually applied systematically.
>Including, for example, literature (cf. the discussion in Robertson's
_Preface
>to Chaucer_, based [?] on Augustine's _On Christian Doctrine_, which slipped
>by Otfried [!???]).
I did not include _De doctrina christiana_, because this work does not
attempt to distinguish and systemize different levels of allegorical sense.
But yes, you are right, the interpretation of multiple
allegorical/spiritual senses was not confined to biblical texts, but was
extended to the book of nature (e.g. the Physiologus tradition), to
liturgy, to works of art and architecture, and to some works of
non-biblical literature. We have discussed this latter issue earlier on
this list, and it is controversial. There are relatively few commentaries
or autocommentaries which apply this approach (i.e. the approach of
expounding various levels of allegorical sense) to non-biblical texts, or
which claim that it can be applied to them. There are also some medieval
works not necessarily accompanied by such commentaries but which can be
proven to have been written for such an exegesis. But allegorical exegesis
in general, and especially an exegesis expounding multiple allegorical
senses, required a mental disposition and erudite training which only few
readers (and even fewer hearers) possessed. The masses received it
passively, in doses judged appropriate to their capacities, but they did
not practice it actively by themselves. Thus I would not say that it
"permeated all aspects of the medieval mindset."
>
>Although the _Glossa Ordinaria_ (partly the life's work of Abelard's smokey
>nemesis, Anselm of Laon and available in two vols. of the PL), and St.
Thomas'
>_Caetana Aurea_ (based on the _G.O._) provide an exhaustive view of the whole
>Bible seen through the lens of this this way of "looking", it is the
>wonderfully subtle liturgical sermons of Guerric of Igny (Latin/French ed. in
>_Sources Chretiennes_; English trans. in the Cistercian Fathers series) which
>are my personal favorite "practical" application of this "method" of
exegesis.
The _Glossa Ordinaria_ (which should rather not be consulted in the
lacunary text of PL 113-114, but in Karl Froehlich and M. T. Gibson's
reprint of the editio princeps of 1480/81) can indeed provide a very good
overview over patristic and medieval exegesis. But you will not find much
strict application of three- or forfould systems there. The same is true
for the _Catena aurea_ of the Gospels, although Thomas did have the
possibility to organize his source materials more systematically and
coherently. I am not familiar with Guerric of Igny, I only know his two
Sermons on Pentecost (PL 185,157-163), which are rich in metaphorical use
of biblical language but offer no exegesis in the strict sense.
Yours,
Otfried
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