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The bluegrass country of Petersburg, Kentucky, with its Creation Museum may be a fitting place to begin these remarks on
the conflict of interpretations about the opening chapters of Genesis. Founded by the evangelical Ken Ham and his organization
Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum website opens with
the words Welcome and Prepare to Believe. It continues with
the following : The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum
brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and
animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings.
Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and
dinosaurs roam near Edens rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in
the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I apologize that the
resources of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago do
Proceedings of the International Conference on Eriugenian Studies in honor of E. Jeauneau, ed. by W. Otten, M. I. Allen, IPM, 68 (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 463-499.
DOI 10.1484/M.IPM-EB.1.102071
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the boldest of the mariners who sought to navigate the first three
chapters of Genesis was Eriugena himself. A second was the fourteenth-century Dominican Meister Eckhart. I shall consider these
two master mariners both in light of the tradition of philosophical
readings of Genesis and in terms of the inner dynamics of their
interpretative models. 3
The issue raised by the Bible Museum and its supporters, who
insist on a historically-literal reading of the first three chapters of
Genesis, highlights the problem of the meaning of literal interpretation.4 We all know what physical letters are, but the literal
sense is a far more ambiguous and contested notion. This is especially the case with sacred texts, writings which are accepted as
in some way normative by particular faith communities. We can
take the literal sense as (1) the letters and words on the page and
their significance in the context of forming meaningful phrases
and sentences. We can also expand the literal sense to include (2)
the narrative structure and coherence of whole passages (the medieval series narrationum), and we can go even further and see the
literal sense as (3) the claim to the historical facticity of a narrative, such as the account of the temptation of Adam and Eve in
Genesis 3. The creators of the Bible Museum insist that all three
levels of the literal sense are necessary. Early Christian exegetes
of Genesis held that the first two levels of literalness are foundational for interpretation and therefore they insisted that much
of their exegesis of Genesis was literal, even when it was of a
edition. This passage is Book 4 (743D-44A ; CCCM 164 :5). I will generally
use the translation of I. P. Sheldon-Williams and John J. OMeara, Eriugena. Periphyseon (The Division of Nature) (Montral-Washington : BellarminDumbarton Oaks, 1987), but have sometimes altered it for greater literalness
(this passage is on 383).
3 A great deal has been written about the history of the interpretation of
Genesis, but there are few general surveys. Still useful for the older period,
is Frank Eggleston Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature. A Study of Greek and
Latin Commentaries on Genesis (Chicago : University of Chicago Ph.D., 1912).
There are also useful essays in In Principio. Interprtations des premiers versets
de la Gense (Paris : tudes Augustiniennes, 1973).
4 On the problematic of the literal sense in modern biblical hermeneutics,
Hans W. Frei, The Literal Reading of the Biblical Narrative in Christian
Tradition : Does It Stretch or Will It Break ?, in Frank McConnell, ed., The
Bible and the Narrative Tradition (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1986), 36-77.
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of the game are too many to be surveyed here. One of the most
important, however, was the practice of intertextuality. Given the
conviction of the ancient and medieval interpreters that the whole
Bible is Gods word, any passage could be used to illuminate the
meaning of any other passage. Christian conviction that the Old
Testament reached its fulfillment in the New meant that the use
of New Testament texts to illuminate the correct meaning of difficult Old Testament passages was a formal feature of Christian
exegesis. This is especially true of the use of Paul and John to
help understand the Genesis account of creation and fall.
Background
The first-century Alexandrian Jew Philo was the ancestor of
Christian philosophical readings of Genesis. This Jewish philosopher insisted that it was not Greek philosophy that controlled the
interpretation of scripture, but rather that the philosophical truths
written down by Moseswho had attained the very summit of
philosophy, expressed the fullness of truth that the philosophers
had arrived at only partially. In his exegetical treatise On Creation
(De opificio mundi), Philo claims that Moses the Lawgiver avoided
the extremes of setting out a naked law code or of expressing true
laws under the guise of mythic fictions by showing the harmony
between his laws and the order of the world in his exordium to the
Pentateuch, that is, the Genesis creation account. Two fundamental principles govern Philos reading of Genesis 1-3. The first is the
distinction between the active cause, that is, the perfectly pure
and unsullied Mind of the universe (God), and the passive part,
set in motion and shaped and quickened by Mind and changed
into the most perfect masterpiece, this world.6 We might think
of this distinction between the immaterial and material worlds as
Platonic, but Philo found it in Genesis in the difference between
the invisible creation described in Gen. 1 :1-5 and the material
from Augustines De doctrina Christiana 3.10, but they are found, explicitly
and implicitly, in many patristic and medieval exegetes.
6 Philo, De opificio mundi II.8-9, in the translation of F. H. Colson and
G. H. Whitaker, Philo I (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1971.
Loeb Classical Library), 11.
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accepting some elements of historicity, but, like Philo, often mixing the philosophically-literal with spiritual/allegorical readings of
some passages, particularly with regard to the account of Paradise
and the Fall. A brief overview will give some sense of the variety.
Basil of Caesareas nine Homilies on Genesis (Homiliae in Genesim) composed probably in Lent of 366 C.E. are an example
of a more literal view.17 Basil does not set out his own theory of
exegesis directly. He is primarily interested in refuting the errors
of Greek cosmology and the Manichaeans on the basis of Genesis,
which he, like Philo, takes as the best philosophical account of
how God produced the world. (This does not prevent him from
making use of Greek philosophy when it suits his argument.) In
Homily 9 he makes clear his literalist intent when he says that he
knows the laws of allegory, but is pursuing the common meaning of the Scriptures and will avoid the idle speculations of the
philosophers.18 But Basil also recognizes that some passages have
deeper meanings. In commenting on the plural in Genesis 1 :26
(Let us make man in our image), for example, he condemns the
Jews for not recognizing that the Second Person was being indicated mystically, but not yet clearly revealed19 Basil seems to
be saying that while the nature of the Son was still hidden before
the Incarnation, the Jews should at least have been troubled by
the use of the plural in this passage. In this same homily Basil
promised to say more about what it means for humans to be created in Gods image and likeness, a promise he did not fulfill, but
which served as the excuse for his brother Gregory of Nyssa to
write his exegetical treatise On the Making of Man (De hominis
opificio) of ca. 380.20
17 Basils nine Homiliae in Genesim were translated into Latin by Eustathius about 440 and were well known in the Latin West. For an edition,
Basile de Csare. Homlies sur lHexamron, ed. Stanislas Giet (Paris : ditions du Cerf, 1949. SC 16). There is a translation by Agnes Clark Way, Saint
Basil. Exegetic Homilies (Washington, DC : Catholic University, 1963).
18 Basil, Homiliae in Genesim 9.1 (ed. Giet, SC 16 : 478-80 ; trans., 35-36).
For another attack on useless allegories, see Hom. 3.9.
19 Basil, Homilia 9.6 (SC 16 : 514-16 ; trans., 147). Basil also uses a number
of moral, or tropological, readings of details of the Genesis narrative ; e.g.,
Hom. 5.6 and 8, and Hom. 7.3 and 5.
20 The best current edition of Gregory of Nyssas De hominis opificio is still
that found in PG 44 :123-256. There is an English version by H. A. Wilson,
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On the Making of Man, in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., A Select Library
of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series. Volume V (Grand Rapids :
Eerdmans, 1976), 387-427. On the sources and teaching of the work, Jean
Laplace, Introduction, in Grgoire de Nysse. La creation de lhomme (Paris :
ditions du Cerf, 2002. 2nd ed.), 5-77.
21 Basil does mention the condition older than the birth of the world and
proper to the supermundane powers, one beyond time, in Hom. 1.5 (SC 16 :
104 ; trans., 9), but passes rapidly over it.
22 Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, Prol. (PG 44 :128B). The translation of Eriugena was edited by M. Cappuyns, Le De imagine de Grgoire
de Nysse traduit per Jean Scot rigne, Recherches de thologie ancienne et
mdivale 32 (1965) : 205-62, where this passage is found on 210). De hom.
opif. 30.33 (PG 44 :256B) speaks of Mosess mystical account of mans origin (mustikn tou Muses anthrpogonian epigenensthai). For an overview
of Gregorys exegesis, Manlio Simonetti, Exegesis, in Lucas Francisco
Mateo-Seco and Giulio Maspero, eds., The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa
(Leiden : Brill, 2010), 331-38.
23 De hom. opif. 8.4 (PG 44 :144D).
24 De hom. opif. 16.5-10 (PG 44 :181A-85D). Time, as Gregory argues in
chap. 22.4-8 (PG 44 :205B-07B), is the measure created by God to allow for
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Manichaeos, ca. 388-89) is mostly literal in the first book and figurative in the second, such as in its view (like Gregory of Nyssa)
that sexual differentiation was the result of the fall. About 393
Augustine tried to write a literal commentary, but failed. The
treatment of Genesis in Books 11-13 of the Confessions (ca. 400),
however, marked a breakthrough. Here the bishop begins with a
doctrinal consideration of the meaning of creation (Bk. 11) as an
introduction to a literal-philosophical reading of Genesis 1 :1 in
Book 12, followed by an anagogical reading of Genesis 1 :1-3 in
Book 13.1-14, concluding with a treatment of Genesis 1 :3-2 :2 as a
prophetic figura of the role of the church in salvation in 13.15-38.
This remarkable interpretation helped the bishop to undertake his
great Literal Commentary on Genesis (De genesi ad litteram), composed between 401 and 415, which can be considered the supreme
example of patristic literal-philosophical readings of the first
three chapters.28 In it Augustine sets out a careful discrimination
between the philosophically-literal and the figurative readings.29
This long commentary formed the basis for the reading of the
Genesis story in Books 11-14 of the bishops City of God (De civitate
Dei) written about 417-18.
A modern reader of Augustines Literal Commentary might ask,
What is literal about a treatment that finds the Trinity, the
ideal world, the nature of time, the inner constituents of beings,
and so much more in the narrative of Genesis 1-3 ? The answer
is that Augustines literal sense is like Philos, concentrating on
the philosophical truth revealed in the words of the narrative.
This does not mean that Augustine did not accept the historicity of the narrative, even with regard to the account of Paradise.
In City of God 13.21 he says : Some people refer to intelligible
matters the whole of the Paradise account in which the first peo81, argues that the late treatise (ca. 419-21) Contra adversarium legis et philosophorum constitutes a sixth commentary on Genesis.
28 The De genesi ad litteram appears in PL 34 :245-486, but the best modern edition is that of Joseph Zycha, Aurelii Augustini Opera. De Genesi ad
litteram (Vienna : Tempsky, 1894 ; CSEL 28.1), 1-435. There is a translation
with extensive notes and bibliography in John Hammond Taylor, St. Augustine. The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 2 vols. (New York : Newman Press, 1982).
29 For example, Augustine accepts both a literal and a figurative reading
of Genesis 1-3, as he notes in De gen. ad litt. 1.1.1. and 1.17.24. He also lays
down principles for a competent literal reading in 1.19-21.
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ple, the parents of the human race, are said to have existed by
the truth of the holy scripture. He, however, does not take this
path. 30 Rather, he considers the account as both historical and as
prophetic indications foreshadowing things to come (prophetica
indicia praecedentia futurorum). After providing a number of spiritual readings, Augustine concludes his discussion with the axiom :
These interpretations and whatever others can be conveniently
expressed about understanding Paradise in a spiritual way may
be put forth without anyone prohibiting them, as long as the most
firm truth of their history as confirmed by the story of the events
done is believed.31 Augustine, therefore, insisted on the historical
reality of Paradise and the story of the Fall.
Augustines insistence on both literal-historical and figurative
readings of Genesis 1-3 remained basic in the early Middle Ages.32
Many of the details of his readings were also formative for medieval exegetes, but there was a tendency towards a growing historical literalism regarding Genesis 1-3, as can be seen in the case of
Bedes popular In principium Genesis (On the Beginning of Genesis)
written about 720. 33 Bede breaks with Augustine, and indeed, the
tradition going back to Philo, by taking the six days of Genesis
1 as real periods of twenty-four hours, as well as, for example,
interpreting the heaven of Genesis 1 :1 (In principio creavit Deus
caelum et terram) as a place, not the heaven we see, but the higher
heaven where the angels dwell. 34 Such a literalizing tendency is
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44
On consensum machinari, see Giulio dOnofrio, The Concordia of Augustine and Dionysius : Toward a Hermeneutic of the Disagreement of Patristic
Sources in John the Scots Periphyseon, in Willemien Otten and Bernard
McGinn, eds., Eriugena East and West (Notre Dame : University of Notre
Dame, 1994), 115-40.
45 Rom. 14 :5 is cited three times in defense of exegetical liberty : 814A,
816D, and 1022C. See also 860A : Sed eligat quis quod sequatur. At the outset
of the hexaemeral commentary Eriugena notes that he does not want to judge
between conflicting patristic authorities (548D-49A ; CCCM 162 :32).
46 Many texts, especially in Book 4, display Eriugenas willingness to
allow a literal reading even when the spiritual is judged superior : for example, 775B, 781CD, 813D-14A, 818A, 829AB, 833A, 841BC, 844A, 856C-57A,
and 859B-60C.
47 Periphyseon 5 (862A ; CCCM 165 :4) : et ad spirituales intellectus, quos
ueritas edocet, promptus accedat, qua una et sola uia mysticarum litterarum
penetrantur adyta (see also 863A).
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beginning of our reasoning from the divine oracles [i.e., the scriptures], and the faithful Alumnus responds, Nothing would be
more proper. For it is necessary that every inquiry of truth should
take its beginning from them.48 At least two things seem to be at
work here. First, Eriugenas abiding confidence that true philosophy and true religion are at heart one and the same ;49 and second,
his sense that a universal account embracing cosmology/physics,
anthropology, and theology could not be complete and convincing
unless it was based on scripture, especially Genesis 1-3 read in the
light of the entire Bible. In other words, exegesis is metaphysics
and metaphysics must be biblically based.
This conviction is founded on the essential principles of Eriugenas interpretive theory, both the general principles found throughout his works, as well as those specifically invoked during his navigation of Genesis. The conformity between natura and scriptura is
evident in the discussion of the isomorphism of the four elements
of the created world and the four senses of scripture in Chapter 14
of the Homily on John (Omilia in Iohannem), in which historia is
like earth in the middle, ethica is the surrounding waters, physica
is the air, and theologia is the aether and fiery heat of the empyreum of heaven.50 This is Eriugenas version of the ancient theme,
mediated to him by Maximus the Confessor, of the two books that
reveal Godthe book of nature and the book of scripture. In his
Homily on John he follows tradition in emphasizing that the need
for the book of scripture is a consequence of the Fall that prevented humanity from properly reading the book of nature,51 but
it is interesting that in other appeals to the reciprocity of nature
and scripture this note falls away as he stresses natura and scriptura as equal manifestations of the incarnate Christhis two feet,
48 Periphyseon 2 (545B ; CCCM 162 :27). Eriugena had already made the
same point in Periphyseon 1 (509A ; CCCM 161 :92) : Sanctae siquidem scripturae in omnibus sequenda est auctoritas
49 The relation of recta ratio and auctoritas is one of the constant themes of
Periphyseon, and, indeed, of all Eriugenas writings. For some passages, see
511BC, 513BC, 723A-24B, 749C, 772B, 781CD, 846A, 890B, 924A, etc.
50 Homila in Iohannem 14, in Jean Scot. Homlie sur le Prologue de Jean, ed.
douard Jeauneau (Paris : Cerf, 1969 ; SC 151), 270-72.
51 Homilia in Iohannem 11 (SC 151, 254-56).
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his double footwear, his two vestments, as one text puts it.52 The
same message is expressed towards the end of the Periphyseon
where he speaks of the man Christ filled with the sevenfold
grace of the Holy Spirit and thickened into flesh by the full-bodiedness of the letter [of scripture] and of visible nature (homo
Christus septena sancti spiritus gratia plenus, uel certe pinguedine
litterae uisibilisque naturae incrassatus). He goes on : For in these
two, in the letter and the visible nature, the corporeality of Christ
is manifest, since it is in them and through them that he is perceived, insofar as he is perceived.53 The reditus, or return, that is,
the realization of human destiny, is achieved by recta ratio investigating both the created universe and the scriptures. In this sense,
exegesis does not so much teach about the return, as effect it.54 The
practice of exegesis, therefore, is philosophical in the etymological
sense of the worda true love of wisdom. It is what makes possible the transitus from the world of the third species of natura to
the fourth, the unknown God.
Eriugena was no enemy of the literal sense, that is, the letter,
[or] what the history says was done.55 The letter is not some
kind of obstacle to be overcome. Like all Christian exegetes, he
holds that much of what the Bible says is historical fact, though
the events described also have deeper spiritual meanings.56 In his
long discussion of the last things in Periphyseon 5, the Irishman
says that the biblical history does not lie and he blames interpreters who do violence to the littera.57 In commenting on the sec52 On natura and scriptura as calceamentum, habitus, and pedes, see the Commentarius in Evangelium Iohannis 1.29, in Jean Scot. Commentaire sur lvangile
de Jean, ed. douard Jeauneau (Paris : Cerf, 1972. SC 180), 154-56 ; see also
Exposit. in Ier. Coel. 1 (CCCM 31, 15). On this theme, Willemien Otten, The
Parallelism of Nature and Scripture : Reflections on Eriugenas Incarnational
Exegesis, in Iohannes Scottus Eriugena. The Bible and Hermeneutics, 81-102.
53 Periphyseon 5 (1005B ; CCCM 165 :203) : His enim duobus, littera uidelicet et uisibili creatura, ueluti quaedam corpulentia Christi apparet, quoniam
in eis et per eas intelligitur, quantum intelligi potest.
54 See Willemien Otten, The Dialectic of the Return in Eriugenas Periphyseon, Harvard Theological Review 84 (1991) : 399-421, especially 420.
55 Comm. in Io. 3.5 (SC 180, 228) : littera est quod sancta narrat historia.
56 Periphyseon 4 (818AC ; CCCM 164 :109)
57 On scripture not lying (935D ; CCCM 165 :106), and for attacks on those
who do violence to the letter regarding the Judgment (996B ; CCCM 165 :189).
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in the categories of space and time.75 As Ren Roques once put it,
what distinguishes Eriugenas interpretation of Genesis 1 :1-3 (and,
I believe, the rest of his exposition of the first three chapters) is
its eternist perspective.76 From this viewpoint, verbs expressing
particular times must become fluid, just as nouns ascribing positive attributes to God must be reversed, or upended. In the case of
nouns and adjectives, Eriugena provides examples in Periphyseon
1, where he shows how we begin with calling God good, only to
realize that God is better spoken of as not-good from the perspective our limited understanding. Therefore, we eventually realize
the supremacy of eminent terms, such as hyperagathos (over-good),
as the most adequate form of predicationwords that are positive
in form, but negative in content.
A similar procedure obtains with regard to verbs, what the Irishman calls a mystica mutatio (810BC), that is, the transmutation of
verbs engineered by recta ratio functioning as the negative horizon
of God-talk. Words describing past, present, and future actions
found in the Bible must always come under scrutiny by the skilled
exegete. As Eriugena advises towards the end of Book 4 :
You ought to study thoroughly (pulchre) the text of the divine
words, which, because of our sluggishness and the carnal senses
that in the corruption of original sin subject us to space and time,
have set forth in a wonderful order very full of mystical understandings matters that were done at one and the same time without temporal intervals as if they happened in space and time
(ueluti locis temporibusque peracta).77
This strategy of verbal transitus, which also involves the transmutation of the exegete to a higher state, as already set out in
75 On time and eternity in Eriugena, see especially Periphyseon 4 (779D81D, 807D-08B, and 848B).
76 Roques, Gense 1, 1-3 chez Jean Scot rigne, 210 : une importante divergence entre Jean-Scot et la plupart de ses devanciers, en ce sens
quil propose une interpretation essentiellement terniste de Gense I, 1-3 (et
meme de Gense I, 1-5, et de lensemble du rcit des six jours).
77 Periphyseon 4 (848AB ; CCCM 164 :151) : Ubi pulchre diuinorum uerborum textum animaduertere debemus. Ea siquidem, quae simul facta sunt
absque temporalium morulorum interstitiis, propter nostrum tarditatem carnalesque sensus, quibus originali peccato corrupti locis temporibusque succumbimus, ordine quodam mirabili, mysticorum sensuum plenissimo, ueluti
locis temporibusque peracta contexuit.
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eternal activity (creatio aeterna).91 As a passage from his Exposition on Wisdom puts it : according to the text of Genesis 1, In
the beginning God created heaven and earth. He says created
in the past tense, in the beginning in relation to becoming. The
created thing always possesses existence and receives existence.92
To think of a time before creation is as much an error as thinking
of God resting after he had finished creating.
Underlying these transpositions of the tenses of verbs dealing
with the biblical account of creation is an important agreement
between Eriugena and Eckhart : the temporal nature of creation
is true, but only from our own limited perspective. Later in the
Exposition on Genesis, discussing Genesis 2 :2 (God rested from
all the work he had done), he says : The fact that it says had
done is not a problem. With God at one and the same time the
same thing and everything past and future both is present and
is becoming and being done, according to John 5 :17, My Father
works until now and I work.93 For Eckhart, creation properly
understood reveals the intersection of time and eternity, a situation which reaches fulfillment in the Incarnation and in our own
realization of what Eckhart, following Paul (Gal. 4 :4), called the
fullness of time (plenitudo temporis).94
91 Creatio continua et eterna was also the teaching of Erigena, as shown in
multiple passages ; e.g., 556B-57A, 639BC, 669A-70D, 674AB, 675BC, 807B,
etc. On the eternity of the world in Eriugena, Roques, Gense 1, 1-3 chez
Jean Scot, 182-87.
92 Expos. Sap. n. 292 (LW 2 :627). secundum illud Gen. 1 : in principio
creavit deus caelum et terram. Creavit inquit in praeterito, in principio
quantum ad fieri. Semper enim creatum et esse habet et esse accipit,.
93 Expos. Gen. n. 150 (LW 1 :301) : Nec obstat quod dicitur pataret. Apud
ipsum enim simul et id ipsum et praesens est et in fieri et operari omne praeteritum et futurum, secundum illud Ioh. 5 : pater meus usque modo operator,
et ego operor. The critical edition here notes the parallel to Periphyseon 3
(699D ; CCCM 163 :116) ; see also 808A. This point is important for Eckhart,
as we can see from almost identical formulation, also quoting Jn. 5 :17, in the
Prol. gen. in Op. Trip. n. 21 (LW 1 :165).
94 Eckharts views of the relation of time and eternity cannot be pursued here, especially his seminal notion of the plenitudo temporis, on which
see Alois M. Haas, Meister Eckharts Auffassung von Zeit und Ewigkeit,
Freiburger Zeitschrift fr Philosophie und Theologie 27 (1980) : 325-55 ; and
Nicholas Largier, Zeit, Zeitlichkeit, Ewigkeit. Ein Aufriss des Zeitproblems bei
Meister Eckhart und Dietrich von Freiburg (Bern : Peter Lang, 1989) ; and
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At a subsequent date, probably around 1313, Eckhart composed a second commentary on Genesis, roughly the same length
as the former.101 In this work the parabolical reading comes to the
fore, as the title the Book of the Parables of Genesis (Liber parabolorum Genesis) indicates. This work was not intended to be a part
of the Opus tripartitum and may have been the start of a second
incomplete series of commentaries under the general title, Liber
parabolurum rerum naturalium. In the prologue Eckhart sets out
his hermeneutical theory. The Dominican did not employ the
standard medieval four senses of scripture (littera-allegoria-moralis-anagogica), though he used the term allegoria occasionally. He
begins the Prologue to this second Genesis commentary by stating that after expounding the more evident sense of the Book
of Genesis in his first commentary, he now wishes to bring to
light the more hidden sense of some things contained in them in
parabolical fashion, to illuminate the theological, natural, and
moral truths hidden beneath the form and letter of the literal
sense.102 The goal, then, is to dig out some mystical understanding from what is read. None of this is unusual, but what follows
is. Eckhart subverts the traditional distinction between the literal sense and the deeper meaning when he says : Since the literal
sense is that which the author of a writing intends, and God is
the author of every holy scripture, as has been said, then every
in n. 228 (LW 1 :372-73) ; (3) Gen. 16 on Hagar and Sara in nn. 229-33 (LW
1 :374-78) ; (4) Gen. 17 :1ff. containing seven points on Abraham and circumcision and again making use of Maimonides in nn. 234-50 (LW 1 :379-93) ; and
(5) Gen. 28 :12-13 on Jacobs ladder in n. 288 (LW 1 :423), explicitly citing
Maimonides. The Liber parabolorum Genesis (Par. Gen.) n. 178 (LW 1 :648) notes
that the readings of Gen. 15, 16, and 17 of Expos. Gen. are all parabolical.
101 The commentary on Gen. 1-3 in the Expos. Gen. takes up 175 pages in
LW 1, while that in Par. Gen. is 157 pages. The Tabula auctoritatum of the Par.
Gen. lists 28 auctoritates of which 14 deal with Gen. 1-3.
102 The prologus to the Par. Gen. is found in nn. 1-7 (LW 1 :447-56). This
passage is Par. Gen. n. 1 (LW 1 :447) : Expeditis in prima editione quae dicenda
videbantur quantum ad sensum apertiorem libri Genesis intentio nostra est
in hac editione parabolorum transcurrendo aliqua loca tam huius libri quam
aliorum sacri canonis elicere quaedam sub cortice litterae parabolice contenta quantum ad sensum latentiorem.[M]eliora et uberius inquirant quantum ad divina, naturalia et moralia, latentia sub figura et superficie sensus
litteralis. I use the translation in Meister Eckhart. The Essential Sermons.,
92-95.
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103 Par. Gen. n. 2 (LW 1 :449) : Cum ergo sit sensus etiam litteralis, quem
auctor scripturae intendit, deus autem sit auctor sacrae scripturae, ut dictum
est, omnis sensus qui verus est sensus litteralis est.
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104 The more systematic perspective of the Par. Gen. is evident, for example, from Eckharts synopsis of the essential points taught in Gen. 1-3 in Par.
Gen. nn. 160-65 (LW 1 :630-36). These are : (1) quod creare sive facere dei,
de quibus fit mentio primo capitulo, item dicere ipsius, de quo fit mentio
primo et tertio capitulo, id ipsum sunt et significant, item praecipere dei,
de quo fit mentio secundo capitulo. (n. 160). (2) Patet etiam consequenter
quod tria his respondentia in creaturis, scilicet fieri sive creari, aut produci,
a deo id ipsum sunt (n. 160). (3) Because these locutiones, responsiones, obedientiae sive audientiae creaturis suavissima sunt (n. 161), Eckhart concludes,
Universaliter enim intemporale semper est, et incorporale sive immateriale ubique
(n. 162). (4) From this he draws a number of conclusions (nn. 163-65) concerning (a) how evil can never totally corrupt the good ; (b) how synderesis
remains even in the damned ; (c) how God does not properly command an
external act ; (d) how an external act is not properly good ; (e) how the external act is onerous but not the internal act ; and (f) how the internal act always
directly addresses God. One may wonder if this more systematic approach to
internal questions might have been influenced by Thomas Aquinass exegesis
in which each book and chapter is divided into a series of issues or questions.
105 Par. Gen. nn. 8-40 (LW 1 :479-507). There is a translation in Meister
Eckhart. The Essential Sermons, 96-107.
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is, the difference between the One as absolute unity and creation
as a fall from the One into duality. The commentary then turns
to a long analysis of coelum et terram interpreted parabolically as
the extrinsic principles of the universe (i.e., the active and passive
principles) and the internal principles (i.e., form and matter).106
Eckhart had already presented the germ of this reading in Exposition n. 24, though the detail given here is new and has important
additions. The Dominican then closes off his comment on Genesis
1 :1 by giving five more natural readings of the parabola of coelum
et terram (nn. 34-36), before providing ten brief moral interpretations (nn. 37-40).
In some cases the Book of Parables goes well beyond the Exposition. Perhaps the most striking is the treatment of Paradise and
the Fall. In the Exposition Eckhart treated these chapters atomistically with the exception of his long consideration of Gods rest
(Gen. 2 :2). In the Book of Parables, however, both chapters come
in for extensive commentary of considerable originality.107 This is
especially true of the unified treatment of Genesis 3 in the Book of
Parables (nn. 135-59), where Eckhart presents a treatise on theological anthropology based on his new understanding of the literal sense worked out in the Prologue. Like Eriugena, he adopts a
laissez-faire attitude to defend his reading. Noting that the saints
and doctors generally read Chapter 3 in a parabolic way, he says,
It seems that without prejudice to other interpretations, both historical and tropological, of the saints and doctors, it is perhaps
probably correct to say that the tropological sense of the serpent,
the woman, and the man is the same as the historical or literal.108
106
Par. Gen. nn. 21-26 for the extrinsic principles, and nn. 28-33 for the
intrinsic. Between these two treatments in n. 27 (LW 1 :497) Eckhart inserts
a brief moral interpretation of coelum et terram as the good and divine man
versus the vicious evil man (see Expos. Gen. n. 16 [LW 1 :199]).
107 The different lengths of the comments are revealing. Expos. Gen. treats
Gen. 2 in nn. 142-200 (LW 1 :296-347, but half of this deals with Gen. 2 :2),
while Par. Gen. treats Gen. 2 in nn. 76-134 (LW 1 :541-600) and does not consider Gen. 2 :2 at all. Expos. Gen. has a brief treatment of Gen. 3 in nn. 201-14
(LW 1 :348-60), while Par. Gen. treats Gen. 3 in nn. 135-59 (LW 1 :601-30).
108 Par. Gen. n. 136 (LW 1 :602) : His praemissis videtur quod salvis aliis
expositionibus sanctorum et doctorum tam historice quam tropologice posset
dici probabiliter fortassis quod sensus tropologicus serpentis, mulieris et viri
ipse est, qui et historicus et litteralis est,. The qualifications in this passage
are significant for Eckharts awareness of the radical nature of his exegesis.
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